Oscar and the Magi: Stuffed Crocodiles
“Here we are, here we are, make yourselves comfortable, sit here, Oscar,” Maggs was bustling about, plainly overjoyed to find them here with her.
Alberecht appeared in the doorway again and coughed to get their attention.
“If I may, m’lady,” he began, “You won’t… I mean you might not… you probably don’t recall, you taught me a speech for guests and…” he pulled at his beard in embarrassment, “…I never really got to say it…”
“Well, then,” Maggs was obviously delighted, “Now seems a perfect chance, doesn’t it? I’d love to hear it and I’m the others would, too, wouldn’t you?”
Alberecht stalked into the centre of the room, straightened his waistcoat, and then started in quite a different, although just as self-important, voice:
“Welcome, gentle folk, to our tower. Never since the Giant Siward himself laid down his heavy bones has this house had more anticipated or more honoured guests. Welcome one and all to our house, to your house, to Siward’s Howe.” He coughed again and looked down at his boots, suddenly abashed.
Behind them on the mantelpiece Erik clapped enthusiastically and stamped his foot until Alberecht flapped a hand at him to shut him up.
“Thank you, very much,” started Ridley, but Alberecht nodded at her curtly.
“That’s alright. Just wanted to say it, that’s all. Tea’s on its way.” Then he turned his back on them and stumped out of the room.
“Aren’t they delightful?” Maggs gazed after the small figure with a proud look, “He was terribly brave, you know, in the fight with the Erl King, they all were, bless them, quite heroic.”
“So the Erl King brought you here?” Oscar asked.
“Oh yes, although I’m not sure how,” Maggs’ brow furrowed, “He had me in some castle, I think, but I didn’t recognise it - Darklings came in the middle of the night and swept me up and the next thing I saw was this tower, although I didn’t recognise it then, of course.”
“So you weren’t with him in… in the house?” Ridley was anxious and Maggs’ face fell.
“No, but the gnomes told me about it - they have their spies… I… the terrible thing, Ridley, is that I don’t know those people, I’m not sure even sure if I ever knew them - I just can’t remember - they might have been my family, that must have been what he thought, but I just don’t know…” she stared at the fire, blankly, “Poor things…”
“I’m sorry Maggs, if we’d just been more careful with him…”
“With who?”
“Of course, you don’t know!” Ridley glanced at Oscar and he nodded at her to go on, “Skelton, Maggs, Skelton was… is the Erl King…”
“Skelton… the Lord…” Maggs was amazed.
“He attacked the Temple after he snatched you and we caught him, Oscar and I, but he escaped and tried attacking the Prime Minister of all things, before… well, before all this…”
“Skelton,” there was steel in Maggs’ voice, but she caught sight of Oscar watching her and she stopped.
“He’s mad,” Ridley nodded to herself, “He must be quite mad.”
“Just bad,” said Maggs, grimly, adding, “Sorry, Oscar, but there it is.”
Oscar didn’t know quite what to say, but before he could think of anything there was the clatter of crockery and a group of gnomes entered, carrying between them a huge tray, swaying with tea things, cake stands and toast racks. One of the gnomes was Erik, who waved to them cheerfully, causing the tray to tilt alarmingly. Karl was following behind shouting orders.
“Maintain your position there, Korporal; tray stability is of the utmost importance. Now, squad, advance to the coffee table,” the tray rattled over to a low table and the gnomes, standing on tiptoe, slid it onto the top.
“Excellent work, men,” said Karl, turning to Oscar and Ridley, “Now, Mistress and Master, what can we get you? Crumpet? Tea cake?”
“Fondant Fancy?” suggested Erik
“Muffin, scone, pikelet or scotch pancake? Toast?”
“Jam tart? Fairy cake? Gnome cake? Goblin cake? Rock cake? Coffee cake? Fruit cake?”
“Please, please,” Maggs held up her hands in mock horror, “I think we need some tea first of all…”
“Assam?” began Karl, “Darjeeling, Oolong, English Breakfast…”
“Why don’t you choose?” interjected Ridley.
“Nothing else?” Erik sounded dismayed. He gestured towards the tray: “I got some biscuits out.”
“What biscuits?” Oscar couldn’t resist the question, but Ridley cut Erik off before he could get started.
“But why?” She leant across to Maggs, “Why did he bring you here?”
“I was wondering that - he obviously thought there was something here that he needed me to understand…”
“He was trying to get into her ladyship’s study when we caught up with him,” offered Erik, pouring the tea.
“Then the study it is,” said Ridley.
The word ’study’ had conjured up for Oscar the image of a room lined with bookshelves, dimly lit with desks and teetering stacks of paper, but Maggs’ study was a quite different sort of place. It was a huge, long, high room, with white painted walls and wooden floor boards stained and burned from countless experiments and spells. Both walls were lined with long benches covered with all manner of equipment and tools, scientific, occult and downright nonsensical. Distillation flasks stood next to astrolabes, Van der Graaf generators next to crystal balls. There were magic circles drawn on the floor and posters showing the atomic elements on the wall. On one side were shelves full of magical books that whispered and creaked in their sleep, on the other a cabinet full of chemicals in brown glass bottles. At the far end of the room was a large desk on a dais in front of a blackboard. Above it, hanging from the rafters, was a stuffed crocodile.
Oscar wandered down the room, gazing in wonder at the extraordinary things arrayed around him: a pickled two headed lamb, crystals that had grown into a miniature city, tiny quartz towers full of strange, shifting lights, a vivarium in which, as he watched, a group of tiny people crept nervously from under some foliage, only to dart back under cover, angrily shaking spears like needles, when they saw his giant head looming down over them, a crucible on a retort stand under which a small dragon lay curled up and sleeping, smoke drifting lazily from its nose. Eventually, however, he reached the desk at the end, only to discover on it half a sandwich and an untouched cup of tea.
Erik squirmed a little, “You did say not to touch anything, before you left, I mean,” he said to Maggs in a pleading manner: “We dusted it every day, though…” Maggs just stared at him, “I’ll get rid of it, then, shall I?”
“Cowper,” said Ridley, thoughtfully, “The Black Chamber.”
Oscar looked round to see what she was talking about. She was staring over his head at the blackboard. The board was cluttered with words and notes, long chemical formulae and incomprehensible diagrams, but several words in large capitals sat together down the left hand side, each outlined and joined up with arrows.
“The Red Dragon,” read Ridley, “The King’s Binding.”
“What does that mean?” asked Oscar.
“I’m not sure,” said Maggs, shaking her head, “But it must have been the last thing I wrote up there before I left…”
“Researches into the Erl King, do you think?” asked Ridley, “Well, let’s see, we start with Cowper, there at the top…”
“Adam Cowper?” suggested Oscar, “The face from the museum?”
“Adam Cowper, 1789 to date unknown,” it was Erik. He had climbed up on a bookcase and had a book propped up in front of him. He was laboriously following the words with his finger, “Magi, second class, Libertarian and Pantisocrat. Argued that the Royal Order should open its doors to all applicants and that everyone should be taught the practice of magic. Chiefly remembered now for his later argument that the Great Work of the Royal Order was a ’slavery of spirits and a wound upon the breast of our nation’…”
“That’s him,” interrupted Ridley, “Tried to free the spirits and to blow up the Temple.”
“…was accused of a conspiracy of violence against the Royal Order and of communing with Dark Spirits…”
“Dark Spirits?” Oscar was having difficulty following all this history, “Are those the same as Darklings?”
“Dark Spirits,” repeated Erik, flicking through the pages of the book, “Dark Spirits, Dark Spirits… this only goes up to Cunning Fiends…”
“Yes, thank you,” Ridley cut him off, “They are Darklings, Oscar, spirits that aren’t governed by the Great Work, which follow the Red Dragon instead of the White, you might say, which would explain point three on the blackboard.”
“Because they’re not part of the Great Work,” interrupted Maggs, “They’re a lot more tricksery to control, you see, you have to make deals and pacts and it’s a dangerously business.”
“Now, this Cowper thought that all Spirits ought to be free,” continued Ridley, “That the Great Work was a horrible torture to them and that it ought to be stopped, so he tried to do deals with Dark Spirits to try and destroy it. They caught him, of course, and locked him up… only…” Ridley’s voice tailed off - she was staring at the blackboard again.
“Only what?” demanded Oscar.
“Of course!” Ridley jumped down off the workbench and started pacing up and down, “That explains it!”
“Explains what?”
“If Cowper was dealing with Darklings, the White Tower wouldn’t be enough - it relies on the White Dragon for its power - it wouldn’t hold him…”
“Of course,” Maggs was nodding.
“The Black Chamber!” Ridley pointed at the blackboard dramatically, “I never really believed in it, myself, but it would make perfect sense.”
“Don’t say that name!” There was a flurry and a thud as Erik stamped his foot in fury and the book slid off the shelf and tumbled to the ground, “It’s bad luck!”
“Oh for goodness’ sake,” snapped Ridley, “It’s been written up on this blackboard for years…”
“And look what happened!” shrieked Erik. Oscar suddenly realised that the little gnome was close to tears, “Look what’s happened to you, ladyship!”
“Alright, alright,” Maggs made shushing movements with her hands, “Calm down, please…”
“But what is… you know… it?” Oscar didn’t want to upset the little man any further.
“The… it’s… look, if you thought the White Tower was a scary place, then its nothing to the… to this place. It’s supposed to be the most fearful fate that can befall a Magi - an eddy in the flow of magic that no spirits can enter or leave… it’s hard to explain to anyone who has never worked a spell, but the power of magic flows all around us, all around everything - sometimes faintly, sometimes, like in a place like this, in an almost overwhelming flood. It’s like a great wind, carrying a multitude of voices, all singing and chanting, fascinating, incredible songs…
“But the… this place we’re talking about - its supposed to be a gap in the flow of magic, caused by the Great Work, a kind of whirlpool that no spirit can enter or escape from. If a Magi were caught up in it, they would be completely cut off from magic, from any kind of power or spell, completely alone… Imagine… imagine never hearing the voice of your mother again, of your friends, imagine never hearing music, or the sea, or wind in the trees… imagine there being nothing but silence and loneliness and fear: that’s what it would be like…”
Ridley fell silent and Oscar suddenly realised that that silence wasn’t silent at all - it was full of small, inconsequential noises: their breathing, Erik snuffling slightly, a tap somewhere, dripping, a clock ticking, the snoring of the little dragon, the distant sounds of the Tower, Gnomes going about their business. He tried to imagine absolute, lonely silence, but he couldn’t. It must be awful. He began to see why Erik was so afraid.
“Of course, it’s pretty much thought of as a legend,” Ridley shook her head, “If you believe the rumour only the Lord Protector knows where it is.”
“No he doesn’t,” said Oscar.
“I must have known something about it, though,” said Maggs, “Anything in that book, Erik?”
“…condemned by the Three Wise Lords and incarcerated in the White Tower…” he read.
“Then he wasn’t put in the Bl… in that other place then?” asked Oscar.
“They wouldn’t dare put that in,” said Erik, “No one would buy the book.”
“But what if,” said Oscar, “The other place was inside the White Tower?”
“A hidden dungeon, you mean?” Ridley paused in her pacing, “Yes… No, wait, that can’t be right: Erik, when was Cowper put away?”
“…um… 1817…”
“But,” Oscar was confused, “The White Tower is a skyscraper - it’s not that old is it?”
“No, it isn’t, that’s what I’m getting at, it can’t be in that White Tower,” Ridley started pacing again.
“So there was a different White Tower in the old days?”
“Of course!” Ridley stopped and snapped her fingers, “Oscar, you’re a genius. There must have been! Maggs?”
“The original White Tower? The Tower of London, even I know that.”
“The Tower of London?”
“Yes! The White Tower is the name of the main Keep of the Tower of London - it was a jail in historical times, and not just for ordinary prisoners, either, but for magical ones, too - that’s why the White Tower is called that, after the original prison…”
“Then that’s where the Chamber must be: in the Tower of London!”
Ridley clapped her hands.
“Now, gnome, we need the fastest transport you have in the house!”