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Great Writing - Home > For Kids > Maggie no magic part 3
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For Children
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| Maggie no magic part 3 | |
| By John_O | ||
| 27 May 2008 | ||
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Bet you wouldn't want the less than savoury contents of Henry
Gravestands battered old red case......even he isn't that happy with
his homunculus. Henry sat slumped in the chair for a good five minutes brooding upon this latest set back, the boy had been such an outstanding case of magical inactivity that he had been working up a long report to submit to the Committee on Non Magical Activity Notification, CoNMAN for short, as the first Imagick. It would have been a tremendous coup for him, and to be told that the boy was just an idle wretch! He felt like casting a permanent hexcrement on the lazy youth. His old red case gave a little shudder as a small hard fist thumped at it insides. “Oh bugger.” He muttered, he forgotten about Bindlestiff. He got wearily to his feet and picked up the case to set it down on top of the unstable piles of paper covering his desk and snapped open the locks to lift up the lid and incur the angry glare of his Homunculus, Bindlestiff. “Tryin’ to kill us?” It rasped at him in a scratchy falsetto that set his nerves on edge. “The traffic was bad.” Henry retorted. “Oh aye.” It ‘agreed’ with wide bulging eyes. Homunculii are perhaps the strangest of all magically invoked creatures. Standing less than a foot high, roughly the shape of a human they have overlarge heads, hands and feet, are invariably pale, bald, wrinkly skinned, rank smelling and always short tempered. So why were so many of these bad tempered shrivelled little pixies invoked by the early mages you may ask? Simple, they have senses that we do not. So much for the pluses, unfortunately the minuses do not end with their temperament and their appearance. Homunculii are monogamous, which means once you get one you are stuck with the little blighter, and they are very long lived, ages in excess of two centuries are not uncommon. This means that long after their original creator has happily shuffled off, his unhappy creation still persists to harass and harangue his descendants and heirs. “Trrraffics bad, so leave Bindlestiff locked up in yon case.” It whined in its annoyingly nasal tones. “Report or case.” Henry said with icy calm, his craggy eyebrows drawn down together as he out-glared the Homunculus. Bindlestiff took a moment to consider the deal, it wasn’t brilliant but it could sense that Henry would just close the lid on it given just one more bit of lip. “Verra well. Yon lassie wassneh makin’ a ha’porth o’ difference.” Henry sat back in his chair to consider this quite startling news. He had felt fairly sure that Maggie Butler simply was yet another nervous magician who needed a bit of confidence to work a spell, her delivery had just lacked it. “No response at all?” “Not as ud turn a midges haid.” Henry continued to glare at the Homunculus, silently demanding a fuller explanation than it seemed unwilling to deliver. It folded its baggy little arms across its wrinkly little chest and glared back. “Well?” Henry demanded after a terse minute. “Wha’s to tell? She’s no magic.” Bindlestiff replied grumpily. The mage leant back in his chair to consider the pronouncement; it was just the news he wanted but he had been ‘burned’ before, he wanted, no, demanded stronger proof than just the word of an objectionable little dwarf. “Ochh! Ye’re all the same.” Bindlestiff spat out as it turned away with a careless fling of one crabby hand. “Demand the worrrld an’ doan believe a trrruer worrrd.” Henry raised his own hand to cast a scorching curse at the wrinkly backside that was now being presented to him as Bindlestiff climbed laboriously out of the case, but then clenched it shut in frustration. Not only was the detestable creature correct about his reaction, but on top of that it was immune to ordinary magic. Bindlestiff was now perching on the edge of the desk, idly dandling its overlarge crinkly feet and thrusting an exploratory digit up its abnormally large left nostril in search of …. well better not to get into such detail. All the while it was softly muttering to itself, half remembered wrongs, almost forgotten curses, the sorry sum of its long, highly persistent, existence. It half turned its horrible head towards the mage, looking like a bleached prune on a hoary twig of a body, and a crafty smile wrinkled its already over-wrinkled parchment of a face. “Ye’ll be thinkin’ noo,” it said, one finger still wriggling like a nasty maggot up its nostril, “yon lassies Imagick.” Henry’s stare into the middle distance suddenly telescoped down onto the little figure, it had indeed seen into his thoughts for that was his singular mission, to find and report the Imagick. “Heh!” It gave a coughing laugh and withdrew its finger to roll whatever it had excavated between finger and knobbly thumb. “Ah seen loadsa mages thought they had foun’ the Imagick, too quick, too impatient.” It paused to place the rolled bogey in between its nasty lips with great relish and chew on it. Henry didn’t rise to the bait by showing the revulsion he felt. That would be to hand Bindlestiff a victory that he could not afford. He had to swallow back the crawling sensation and focus on what the creature said, in those taunts were the little snippets of fact that he needed. “Didnae find one heh? Didnae do the tests. Didnae listen tay Bindlestiff.” It continued when its victim remained silent. The tests. Henry recalled the battery of tests that successive generations of mages had proposed to positively identify one who is truly Imagick, most relied on the lack of ability to cast a spell, but a few…. He stroked his chin gently, feeling the stubble tease his fingertip. A few tests stood the whole process on its head, they sought proof that magic could not affect the putative Imagick; they were all deeply unpleasant spells to both cast and receive, especially if one was just a magically challenged person as opposed to the Imagick. “The tests.” He murmured and a truly vile grin creased Bindlestiff’s prune of a face. That was when the grim smile growing on Henry’s craggy features cut through Bindlestiff’s unpleasant delight and it realised that it had said a little too much to the mage. “Yes, I will need to practise those tests.” He said silkily as the Homunculus began to edge away from him. “I must make sure I can cast them perfectly.” His hand swished out before the shrivelled little figure could jump off the desk and he swept it up with a viciously triumphant grin. “And you are the perfect subject upon which to practice Bindlestiff.” He chuckled nastily as he held the squirming little beast before his face. “After all, you can only be affected by primeval magic, yes you are perfect.” The howl of hatred and anguish that the Homunculus let out penetrated to the very rafters of the ancient building, but only the porter and two other mages were witness to it and none of them were going to step into help such a detested creature. Henry Gravestand’s echoing footsteps faded away into the vast quiet of Friday night as he carried Bindlestiff down into the deepest vaults where the practice ranges were. The clang of the solid gold door cut off the last pathetic mewlings of the Homunculus and not one whisper of the screams was heard thereafter. All the following week the students were unexpectedly dutiful in their studies and kept their pranks and general trickery for the free time after lectures were over; the word was out, old ‘Gravestone’ was on fire. Yet when Maggie looked up at the tall figure that entered the classroom on the Friday afternoon it was to see a genuine smile on his craggy features. “Hello Maggie, ready for a spot of magic?” “Oh yes!” She beamed. Henry set his battered red case down on the teacher’s desk at the front of the class and clicked open the locks before raising the lid to briefly scan its contents. In one corner the even more shrivelled and wrinkly little body of Bindlestiff cringed and cowered as the mages hand descended and grasped hold of a sheaf of papers. He riffled through them and selected the sheet to hand to the expectant Maggie. “Now this week I want you try speaking these lines.” Maggie’s face dropped a bit. No spells. Henry’s face remained resolutely cheerful. “Let me explain the way this exercise works Maggie.” He said genially. “Some of these lines are real spells.” She sat up more at the news, real magic spells. “But I’m not going to tell you which ones they are, nor in fact if they work.” Her face screwed up a bit as she tried to make sense of the mages explanation. “It is all about confidence building Maggie,” he said as he returned to the teacher’s desk, “When a spell doesn’t work for you how do you feel?” “Rotten.” She admitted. “Precisely.” He made the point with his long finger. “So if you don’t know when you are invoking a spell and you don’t know if the spell hasn’t worked then you can’t be disappointed, can you?” “I s’pose, but what if I get it right? Wouldn’t it be better for me to know?” Henry looked back at her steadily and nodded. “Yes that’s true Maggie but right now your confidence is a fragile thing and on balance not knowing of your failures is more beneficial than knowing your successes.” Maggie drew in a breath as she digested the rationale; she did get very upset by her constant failure. “Okay.” She agreed. “Good. Now I will be recording your score so I can better tutor you in future sessions but…” She cocked her head, but what? “I can keep a poker face Maggie, you won’t learn anything from sneaking peaks at me, just concentrate on the lines, and really emote.” He continued with a wry smile. “Okay.” Maggie bent over her first line and mentally rehearsed it before launching forth while Henry sat at the desk and watched the Homunculus as it sat wide eyed and miserable in his open case, waiting for the spells to hit it. There was no doubt in his mind that Maggie could make a living on the stage. But at the end of their hour together Bindlestiff was looking almost happy; it had not suffered from a single incident incantation. It seemed very unlikely that she would ever be employed for her spell work. He closed his case sharply on the little creature and snapped the locks shut. “Well that’s all for tonight.” He said brightly and watched as a cautious smile crept across Maggie’s trusting face. “We’ll pick it up again next Friday. I’ll see you then Maggie.” As he walked down towards his waiting carriage a grim rictus of a smile was settling on Henry Gravestand’s lips, next week he would try the easiest spells in the book and if she couldn’t work those, well he would practise the other spells himself this weekend. Maggie skipped out of the school gates and down the road as he watched her in his rear view mirror, to think that innocent little girl might be the long sought after Imagick, what a prize! As he set the carriage in motion he began to map out his plan of campaign, first there must be surveillance, his apprentice would need to switch priorities, second he would conduct a deep search on her family to ascertain whether there was a trait of low magical attainment and third. His eyes dipped down to the battered red case on the seat beside him, he must practise the primeval spells. The case quivered.
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