The Evil Wizard Smallbone Read online

  The Howling Coyotes shifted uncomfortably.

  “I am a loup-garou,” Fidelou went on. “I am magic, me, to the marrow of my bones. As long as there remains a spark of power in any of the Sentries, I may not pass. Yet many of you have crossed the Stone Bridge across the Stream and taken meat from under Smallbone’s very nose. It follows then that human hands may complete the destruction my wolf magic has begun.”

  He grinned — an unsettling and inhuman grin. “Let those who have not yet earned their pelts come forth. Rejoice, pups! Your time has come!”

  He hadn’t even finished before Jerry was elbowing his way forward, grinning as ferociously as he knew how. This was his chance to prove that he was good coyote material, to earn his pelt and join the pack for real. His father might think he was a pain in the neck and a waste of space, but Fidelou needed him.

  Night falls early in February. It had been dark for hours when the aspiring pack members hit the road to Smallbone Cove. Because of the hard winter and the slim pickings, there were only two: Jerry and a big guy with a bad attitude named Pete. Jerry didn’t want to count his dad.

  The light of a full moon filtered through the clouds, turning the sky a milky gray that matched the pelt of the great white wolf loping easily beside the road. Jerry rode on his old Yamaha, following the taillights of Pete’s Harley, with his dad’s pickup behind him. A light snowfall glittered in his headlights and stung his cheeks. For the moment, he was perfectly happy.

  Fidelou led them to a field east of Smallbone Cove, where Gabe pulled a heavy duffel full of tools from the back of the pickup. It held, among other things, a big camping lantern that lit the way through the trees to what looked like a perfectly ordinary stone wall, covered with patches of lichen and moss and almost low enough to step over.

  “Don’t look like magic to me,” said Pete.

  Gabe snorted. “Really? Then how do you explain how come it ain’t covered with snow?”

  It was true. Not only was the Wall clear of snow, but so was the ground for a couple of feet in front of it. Jerry watched as big fluffy flakes fell through the camping lantern’s beam and ran down the gleaming rocks to the soggy mess of leaves at the foot. He shivered, and not from the cold.

  The Boss, on two legs now, pointed a long finger at the Wall. “Destroy it!”

  There was a pause, and then Pete hefted a sledgehammer, stepped forward, and slammed it down with all his weight behind it. The sledgehammer hit the rocks with a resounding CLANG! Pete dropped the hammer, thrust his hands into his armpits, and swore. The Stone Wall was undisturbed. The sledgehammer, on the other hand, was cracked right up the middle of its iron head.

  Gabe laughed. “I told you that wouldn’t work. Step aside, boy, and let the old guy show you how it’s done.” He thrust the lantern into Jerry’s hand and took a screwdriver out of the duffel. Then he knelt by the Wall and swore. “Can’t see,” he complained. “Bring that dang light closer.”

  If the Boss hadn’t been there, Jerry might have told his dad what he could do with the lantern. But he wanted that pelt and he knew he wouldn’t get it by acting out. He held the cone of light steady as Gabe scratched at the packed dirt and moss and rotten leaves that had built up between the top stones.

  “This,” he said as he worked, “is a dry stone wall. There’s nothing holding it together but gravity and habit and some old moss.” He gave one last dig and stood up. “That oughta do it. Pete, you want to give me a hand?”

  It was obvious from the look on Pete’s face that he didn’t want to do anything but run home. The Boss growled. Pete got a crowbar and inserted the end under a capstone. Gabe positioned his own crowbar.

  “On the count of three,” he said. “Give it all you got.”

  Pete nodded. Jeff clutched the lantern.

  “One. Two. Three.”

  The two big men leaned into their crowbars, straining. By rights, that stone should have popped off the wall like a rotten tooth. But all it did was shift and slide back a bit.

  Cursing, Gabe put his hand on it and pushed.

  With a wrenching grind, the rock slid toward him.

  Pete jumped back. Gabe dragged in a hissing breath, then screamed once, hoarsely.

  The flashlight beam wavered as Jerry leaned over his father’s hand. The stone was back where it started, with Gabe’s little finger caught in what had been a gap and wasn’t anymore. It didn’t look good. There was a lot of blood, and his father was bug-eyed and whimpering.

  The Boss shoved Jerry aside, his black hair electric with fury. “Imbecile!” he snarled, and seizing Gabe’s arm, murmured furiously under his breath. Gabe’s arm grew long and thin and oddly jointed, then started sprouting black feathers.

  The Boss gripped the wing by what looked like the elbow and pulled. Gabe screamed again and cradled the wing across his chest. The Wall was unchanged, except for a long black feather caught in a seam between two stones.

  “The Wall holds,” the Boss growled. He sounded more disgusted than angry. “Yet,” he said, brightening, “it is weakened, I think. The feather may weaken it further. We will try again another night.”

  Nick spent the next week doggedly working his way through 101 Steps to the Animal You. He discovered that, along with being stubborn and quick-tempered, he was passionate, bold, and active; that he was a good liar because he was smart; that he had an attitude because he hated being told what to do; that he liked animals better than people; that he liked spicy, salty flavors better than sweet, milky ones; that his favorite colors were red and dark brown. None of the steps seemed to have anything to do with magic. He stuck with it, though, until finally, finally, he turned the page and read:

  Step 98: Turning Yourself into an Animal

  We have arrived at the moment you’ve been waiting for. Below is the spell that will turn you into your totem animal. Repeat it, think it, make up a tune and sing it until you know it as well as your own name. Don’t be afraid to say it out loud. It’s like practicing layups. You can do them until the cows come home, but it’s not the same thing as doing one in the middle of a real game.

  The spell was short, but oddly slippery. It took a whole day of practice before 101 Steps was satisfied that he knew it. Step 99 took even longer, mostly because Nick really needed to be sure that he had it down cold.

  Now he was sitting on a hay bale and leaning against Groucho’s pen, listening to the wind chase the snow around the corners of the barn and the goats chewing their cud. Animal You was open to Step 100.

  It was very short:

  Cast the Transformation.

  “No,” Nick said.

  Text appeared under the spell, bolded and underlined. Animal You was annoyed.

  What do you mean, No? That’s what you want, and you can’t say you don’t, because I know you. You’re scared.

  “I’m not scared,” Nick said. “I just don’t want to. I wanted to learn how to turn myself back if Smallbone transformed me again, and I did. I’m good.”

  How do you know it’ll work if you don’t try it out?

  “Because I have Confidence,” Nick said, and put the book back under the straw.

  That night, he pulled the mysterious chart out from under his shirts and studied it. He still couldn’t make sense of it, but there was something about it — the way it made his fingers tingle, the way the numbers almost spoke to him — that made his brain itch to understand it. He was sure it was elemental magic.

  He was an elemental wizard. 101 Steps had said so.

  The next day, when Smallbone was safely shut in his tower, Nick went to the bookshop.

  “I’ve finished the book you gave me,” he said. “It was really useful, but I’m not really a shape-shifter. I want to learn to read that chart you gave me. I want a book on Elemental Magic. Please,” he added, because he was learning that it never hurt to be polite to magical things.

  He got his reward when a volume bound in red flapped heavily out of the darkness and landed next to the wooden duck on t
he table. Stamped in black on the cover were the words The Elements of Elemental Magic.

  “Thank you!” Nick shouted, and took it out to the barn to read without even putting on his snow boots.

  I am earth. My pages are made from trees, my ink from carbon. Though I am dry, I was born of water, and water clings to my fires. Fire and air were used in my making, and are bound into each word on my pages. One of these elements will speak more clearly to you than the others, but all must be kept in balance.

  Do you understand?

  Nick opened his mouth to say yes, remembered that wizards shouldn’t lie, and said, “Not really.”

  Good. Not understanding must come before understanding. You will learn.

  The Elements of Elemental Magic was different from Animal You. It never lectured him, and it never scolded. It gave him diagrams that it said were pictures of energy and told him stories about river gods and molten rocks and birds that rode the paths of the winds. And it gave him exercises, lots of exercises, that turned out to be spells.

  The first one Nick tried sent a wind roaring through the barn, much to the consternation of the animals, who panicked as their bedding swirled and danced around them. It took Nick forever to calm them, particularly the goats. But they got used to it after a while. They’d stand in the corner and watch the soiled bedding sail out of their pen and the fresh straw sail in and scatter itself across the boards with weary patience.

  He still had to do Ollie’s pen with a manure fork. Pigs don’t like change.

  Next he built a snowman using only water magic. It took him a lot longer than it would have just to pile up the snow and shape it, and the final result looked less like a snowman than an icy cone with strange lumps sticking out of it, one of which was decorated with stones and looked sort of like a face if you squinted hard. He melted it down with a fire spell, after which he felt sick and a little weak at the knees.

  The next snowman was a lot better.

  After about a week of this, Nick woke one morning to the dazzle of sun on new snow. He’d stayed up late, as usual, puzzling over the chart, and he must have overslept. Smallbone would be furious.

  Heart pounding, he ran downstairs. Smallbone was hunched over the stove like an angry raven, his white hair bristling and the skirts of his coat flapping in no wind Nick could feel. Hell Cat, perched above the stove on her favorite shelf, turned sapphire eyes on Nick and hissed.

  “If it’s staying up all night you like,” Smallbone said nastily, “I can turn you into something nocturnal. An opossum, maybe. Put you over the Wall for Fidelou’s coyotes to play with.”

  The familiar red rage coursed through Nick’s veins. “I’d like to —” he began, and stopped. Take a deep breath, his Animal You–trained brain told him. Do you want to test that shape-shifting spell right now?

  “What?” Smallbone snarled. “You’d like to what?”

  “Say I’m sorry,” Nick finished. “I won’t do it again.”

  There was a tense pause, then Smallbone’s coat settled like a hen’s feathers. “You better not.” He left the stove and sat down with his pipe. “Now you’re here, you can make the coffee. I got work to do.”

  When Nick got out to the barn, the animals were watered and fed, with fresh hay in their stalls. He brushed the loose hair from Groucho’s hide and played fetch with Ollie, then climbed up into the hayloft and got out Elements of Elemental Magic. He had a feeling it would have something to say, and it did.

  You really should know by now that magical energy is not endless. Your spirit is the battery that drives the magic. When it runs low, you become weak and tired. When you drain it, it may or may not return. You cannot become a master in a week, or even a month. You must be patient.

  But Nick didn’t want to be patient. The chart was beginning to make sense. It no longer looked to him like spilled spaghetti, sprinkled with numbers instead of meatballs. It looked like a complicated pattern. He couldn’t tell what it meant, yet, but he felt like he was getting close.

  I plant the seeds of magic, send water to nourish them, bring the sun to warm them and the wind to cool their first leaves. The chart you speak of is the plant full grown. I cannot help you.

  Warily, in case Smallbone was still around, Nick returned to the bookshop, hoping to beg for or find a more advanced book on Elemental Magic. The shop was willing. The books on the shelves were magic books. But the NATURE section, where the books on Elemental Magic were to be found, was bare of even dust and cobwebs. There wasn’t a book to be found.

  Smallbone had taken them all.

  Even in Maine, winter doesn’t last forever, although in March it can feel that way. “The March Hill,” they call it. Bitter windstorms are followed by thaws; snow squalls are followed by rain that turns everything into muddy, icy slush. People come down with colds and cabin fever. Anybody who can get through March without breaking a glass, a friendship, a secret, a promise, or somebody’s nose is either a saint or on vacation in Florida.

  Nick wasn’t anybody’s idea of a saint.

  One morning, Smallbone put on his muffler. “Should be home by suppertime,” he said. “Don’t get up to no shenanigans.”

  Nick’s heart rose, but he kept his eyes firmly on the sink, full of greasy dishes and soap bubbles. “No shenanigans,” he said. “Check.”

  “Hmph,” said Smallbone, and went out the door.

  Nick counted to ten, then ran for the stairs, accompanied by the dogs, who leaped up ahead of him, almost as if they were leading him.

  He’d given a lot of thought, in the past weeks, to what the inside of Smallbone’s tower looked like. From watching old movies like The Sword in the Stone and Harry Potter and The Time Bandits with his mom, he imagined Smallbone’s workshop as a dark room full of bones, mouse nests, and stuffed alligators, with maybe a caged demon in one corner. Long tables would hold glass alembics full of fluorescent green liquid bubbling over magic flames and iron crucibles for brewing potions. There would be a wand, black and knobby, with a claw at the end, several magic talismans, and at least one black-bladed knife for ritual purposes. The air would be thick and smoky and would smell of magic and, probably, blood.

  He couldn’t wait to see it.

  It had been some time since Nick had been in the stone corridor that led to Smallbone’s tower. He wasn’t at all sure he could get in now. But he had found a lock-picking spell in E-Z Spelz, of all places, and he knew a way of turning lightning away that might get him past Smallbone’s protection spell.

  In any case, he intended to try.

  The door to the workshop was just as intimidating as he remembered. He took a deep breath, concentrated, and muttered the lock-picking spell under his breath.

  There was a small click.

  His hand hovered over the latch. He could sense the lightning spell in it, waiting to sting him again. The latch was iron. Maybe if he called up magnetic energy out of the earth . . .

  He concentrated. The thumb lever sank. He gave the door a kick, and it creaked open.

  The dogs rushed past him and disappeared into the blackness. From the sound of it, they were climbing stairs, wooden ones. Nick squared his shoulders and went after them.

  The steps were steep and high, almost ladder-like; the walls nearly brushed his shoulders. Heart racing, Nick groped his way upward, half expecting the door to slam shut behind him or the steps to disappear. At the top, he stumbled on a step that wasn’t there and fell into a choking, smothering mass of fabric. As he flailed at it, it parted on a blaze of sun and the smell of turpentine and dust. He stepped forward, blinking.

  He’d been right about the books.

  There were books stuffed into rickety brick-and-board shelves and books stacked within reaching distance of an old leather recliner. Books spilled across the floor and teetered in piles on the long trestle table under the far window, along with an old lantern, a pile of fur, a plate with half a sandwich on it, and a Bunsen burner. The books were bound in leather and metal, and they looke
d very old, but they were just books. The room, though admittedly cluttered, was just a room. There were no bones, no disgusting things in jars, not even a stuffed alligator hanging from a rafter. No rafters. The only real sign of magical activity was the silver pentagram inlaid in the floor, half obscured by Jeff’s furry butt and tail.

  Nick turned around. Under one of the four round windows, Mutt was stretched beside a low bench laid out with planes and chisels and a half-finished carving of a duck just like the one that had come floating down the steps in the bookshop flood. Behind it, more carvings crowded a long, curving shelf.

  Nick moved closer. Smallbone’s carvings were actually pretty good. They were all animals: cats, dogs, ravens, a bear, a family of gray harbor seals, an osprey, and, of course, ducks.

  The cats looked like Smallbone’s cats, down to Tom’s fluffy tail and Hell Cat’s suspicious expression.

  Nick put down the little wooden Tom and turned back toward the books. “I’m Nick,” he said. “You know, Smallbone’s apprentice. I need some books on Elemental Magic.”

  Nothing moved except Jeff’s tail, sweeping the silver pentagram free of dust.

  “Please?” Nick added experimentally.

  Nothing.

  Nick swore softly, then picked up the nearest book. It was Water and Earth: Elements of Growth. Bingo!

  Mutt trotted over to the curtain, whuffed softly, then barked.

  Nick knew that bark. It was Mutt’s happy-to-see-you-glad-you’re-home bark. Smallbone must be back.

  He looked around for somewhere to hide. Under the table was too open; behind the chair was too far away. And it was too late now anyway, because Smallbone was standing in the door, glasses blazing, beard bristling, coat skirts quivering with fury.

  “What in Sam Hill do you think you’re doing in my tower, boy?”

  There was no good answer to this question. Nick clutched Water and Earth to his chest, feeling oddly calm. “Looking around,” he said. “You left the door unlocked.”