Stiltskin (Andrew Buckley) (30 page)

There was a knock at the door, which caused the wizard to jump, knocking over one of his favorite tea sets.

Niggle made it halfway to the door and then turned back to the Gnomes. “It’s not a Dwarf, is it?”

“No.”

“Or an Agent?”

“One of them isn’t.”

Not really the answer he was hoping for. He twitched violently, opened the door and Lily pushed past him into the apartment. Robert smiled kindly and offered his hand to the wizard, who was so agitated that his pointy hat began to droop at an awkward angle. The wizard extended a shaky hand, realized he didn’t know the gentleman in front of him and retracted it again quickly.

“P-please, come in.”

“Greatly appreciated,” said Robert and stepped into the wizard’s home.

Lily had taken a seat by the fire, Robert stood by the window with the Gnomes, and Niggle stayed by the door, thinking that he should apply to move his chamber into a different tower.

“My name is Lillian Redcloak and I’m an Agent.” To prove the point she pulled up her shirtsleeve to show the dragon tattoo. “My associate, Robert Darkly, is an Othasider assisting in the pursuit of the Dwarf Rumpelstiltskin who has escaped… yes, Robert?”

Robert had raised his hand.

“Haven’t we already established that I’m originally from here? Or at least, my father is?”

“I don’t see the point.”

“Well, you keep introducing me as an Othasider but obviously I’m not. What?” asked Robert, apparently of no one. “Yes, I’ll tell her that, too. Not to mention that I think I’ve earned the right to be here.”

Niggle looked from the Othasider, or whoever he was, to the Agent. Obviously, this Darkly character was unhinged. Unhinged people were dangerous. Niggle began to mentally locate any sharp objects in his apartment and tried to map whether this Darkly character was anywhere near any of them.

“All right,” agreed the Agent, “Robert is indeed from Thiside but has grown up in Othaside. He’s now assisting us to track down the Dwarf Rumpelstiltskin who escaped from the Tower two nights ago. The Gnomes are here to protect us. We’d like to know if you’ve seen Rumpelstiltskin in the last twenty-four hours?”

“Yes,” replied Niggle quickly.

“Well, that was easy,” said Robert.

“L-l-look, I’ll tell you everything you w-w-want to know if you’ll just promise to leave right away. And have th-th-that Gnome put away the sharp th-thing.”

“I agree to your terms,” said the female Agent. “Now, tell us everything.”

The voice in Robert’s head had agreed it was a good point to make going forward. There seemed little doubt that he fit nicely into the world of Thiside. Better than he ever had in Othaside. And from the whispered conversation he’d heard, he knew his father was here somewhere, as they’d been talking about him in the present tense. A million other questions bounced around in his head. Why did he have a voice in his head? How did he heal from the attack by Lily’s werewolf? How did he survive the night of door jumping? Who was the head of the Agency? Where was Jack? Where was Rumpelstiltskin? What happened to the cat he’d found back at the halfway house?

“All very good questions,” said the voice, “but you should pay attention.”

Niggle was recounting what he knew as quickly as possible to get the visitors out of his room. “The d-Dwarf was here yesterday afternoon and he a-a-a-a-asked me to perform a finder spell for the same girl he was looking for almost f-fifty years ago.”

“Elise Bastinda?” asked Lily.

“Y-y-y-yes, how did you know that?”

“Doesn’t matter. Why did you help him all that time ago and again yesterday?”

“I w-was indebted to him for s-s-s-saving my life and I was very young. Now I’m just t-terrified of him.”

“So you performed the spell for him successfully?”

“Y-yes. I’ll be happy t-t-to tell you the location, the same way I did to your other Agent.”

“What other Agent?” said Lily.

“Jack. The G-G-Giant Killer.”

“He’s Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk?” said Robert, impressed.

Lily gave him a stern look.

“Sorry,” said Robert.

“Jack was already here?” Lily asked Niggle.

“Y-yesterday afternoon, a c-c-c-couple of hours after the d-Dwarf left.”

“Why does Rumpelstiltskin need the last Bastinda?”

Niggle looked down at his feet, apparently in the fond hope that he could spontaneously combust.

“Come on, Niggle,” said Lily, “what’s he doing? Why does he need the witch? She must be almost sixty years old.”

The wizard sighed and looked at Lily with sad eyes. For a moment, he looked very old. “When he s-s-saved my life, the payment wasn’t the finder spell. He w-wanted access to the Council archives.”

“And you gave it to him.”

“I was y-y-young and scared. He j-j-just wanted a few minutes in there and I didn’t see the danger from j-j-just a few minutes. It wasn’t until years later that the Council learned of the m-m-missing pages.”

“Pages from what?”

“One of the archival spell b-books. Volume s-s-s-sixty-s-s-s-six. It chronicles the research into the doors and how the b-blood of the White Rabbit was incorporated into the system so it became regulated.”

“And the missing pages?”

The wizard swallowed. “Th-they d-detailed how to remove those regulations.”

“So Rumpelstiltskin has the knowledge to remove the need for passports. Anyone would be able to pass through the doors on either side.”

“Yes.”

Robert finally clued in. “To do this, he’d need something like a shopping list of items? Maybe working toward a ceremony?”

“N-n-not a ceremony, a s-spell. An extremely p-powerful spell. And yes, he’d n-n-need items.”

“This is important, Niggle,” said Lily, “do you know where he’ll perform the spell once he has all the pieces?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere with a strong magical field. The magic here isn’t as s-strong as it used to be but there are s-s-still powerful pockets. It’ll have to be in Thiside. This is where the original s-spell was created. To undo it, he’ll have t-t-t-to return to Thiside.”

“Wait a minute,” said Robert, “he was collecting these items years ago, before he was caught. Where are the other items? Maybe he doesn’t have all of them yet?”

“We can’t assume that,” said Lily. “We need to move if we’re going to stop the Dwarf before he comes back to Thiside. Hopefully, Jack’s already caught up to him, but we can’t assume that, either. But we have to try, we have to stop him before he removes the regulators and opens up the two worlds. Niggle, we need to know where to find Elise Bastinda in Othaside.”

“Of c-c-course.”

“I imagine you’re tired of being scared of the Dwarf, and if you help us, this will ensure that he’s put away forever and you’ll never have to worry about him again. There’s one other favor I need to ask. It’s a big one.”

Niggle twitched slightly and then pulled himself together. The thought of being rid of Rumpelstiltskin was a comforting one. For the first time in a long time, the wizard stopped shaking.

“What do you need me to do?”

Niggle stumbled into the empty hall and dropped a couple of the items he had been carrying. Robert and Lily entered after him, followed by the Gnomes.

The Great Hall in the Wizards’ Council building was completely empty. Large tapestries adorned the walls, and the floor was polished to the sort of gleam that an old lady would find suitable. The lamps had been extinguished to allow the early sunlight to enter the hall through the large floor-to-ceiling windows at the front of the building.

“Yes, this’ll do,” said Niggle and began drawing a large chalk circle on the ground.

“Do you do this sort of thing a lot?” asked Robert.

“Of course he does, he’s a wizard,” said Gnick.

“Actually I t-try and stay away from m-m-magic; nasty stuff.”

“But you’re a wizard,” said Robert.

“D-doesn’t mean I have to like it,” said Niggle, who seemed to be feeling a lot less nervous now that he had a purpose in life.

Robert suspected that the prospect of removing Rumpelstiltskin from the wizard’s life was a great motivator.

“The magical c-concentration,” said the wizard, “is strongest here in the hall. If you listen carefully, you can hear the em-em-emerald stone humming.”

Robert listened but heard nothing. He turned his attention to the Gnomes. “How are you two going to blend in once we’re in Othaside?”

“We aren’t stepping a beard’s hair through that door,” said General Gnarly.

“Not a chance!” agreed Gnick.

“Why not?” asked Robert.

“Gnomes aren’t made to travel through doors to Othaside,” explained Gnarly. “We turn to ceramic.”

“Really?” said Robert. “What? And then people decorate their gardens with you?” Robert began to smile at his own joke and then stopped. “Bloody hell, is that where garden Gnomes come from?”

“Sadly, yes,” said the General. “It’s said we were once the largest group of creatures to exist in Thiside, before the passports were introduced and the regulators were installed into the doors. Before such limitations, Gnomes passed through doors all the time. Our numbers were greatly diminished.”

Robert couldn’t help but think of his adoptive parents, who’d kept a whole collection of garden Gnomes. He’d thrown a rock at one once and smashed it! That could have been Gnick’s distant relative. Robert decided it’d be better if he kept the story to himself.

“Speaking of which,” said Lily, “I don’t know where we’ll be coming back through to Thiside. I suggest you stay on the outskirts of the city near the Eastern gate; we’ll send Veszico to find you as soon as we are back. She’s small but can carry a human if necessary. She knocked Robert out with a frying pan once.” Gnick stifled a laugh. “She’ll have no problem carrying the two of you. If we fail to stop the Dwarf in Othaside, we may need you quickly.”

The General nodded and Gnick bowed.

“I think I’m r-ready,” said Niggle.

“Good luck, moron,” said Gnick.

“You too, shorty,” said Robert. The room went silent. Robert looked at Gnick; Gnick looked at Robert. And then they both laughed. Robert felt a kinship with the little men, one he assumed was mutual, which was why he risked being stabbed repeatedly with very short knives. He was relieved to find that it didn’t happen.

“Risky,” said the voice in Robert’s head.

“Well, you’ve got to laugh, haven’t you?” said Robert.

Robert and Lily walked over to where Niggle was standing in front of the circle he’d drawn. He’d also drawn some intricate symbols within the circle, and just for good measure, he’d lit some candles. The plan, as Robert understood it, was for Niggle to produce a door for them, which he would do his best to direct at the location they were aiming for in Othaside. This would save them firstly, having to find a door in Thiside and secondly, ending up in the nether regions of Scotland or elsewhere in Europe. The creation of doors was severely frowned upon by the Wizards’ Council and most wizards didn’t have the knowhow or the power. Having played with magic as little as possible, Niggle wasn’t aware of the limitation that other wizards had when producing doors. He just assumed he would be able to do it. Not knowing one was the most powerful wizard in existence had its advantages.

“So what do we do now?” asked Robert.

“The door,” explained the wizard, “will appear in the middle of the circle, but it’ll be b-brief. You’ll have only a short time and I’ll do my b-best to direct it toward your d-d-destination, but I’ll admit I’ve never done this before.”

“Not totally reassuring,” said the voice in Robert’s head.

“Make sure your necklace is exposed,” said Lily as she rolled up her shirt sleeves. Robert removed the vial from within his shirt.

“Are we ready?” asked Niggle.

“Yes,” said Lily.

“I suppose,” said Robert. “So what happens now, you whisper some sacred chants or say some magic words?”

“Nothing as e-elaborate as that, I’m afraid,” said Niggle. He raised his right hand, concentrated, and snapped his fingers. A white spark flashed from his fingertips, and then blue flames shot up from within the circle all the way to the ceiling. Rushing wind filled the hall like a hurricane and the tapestries flapped and thrashed against the green stone walls.