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The Late Great Wizard Page 15


  A couple of midday joggers passed us, as did one screaming-fast messenger bike, taking a shortcut across town, his satchel banging against his side as his legs pumped the bicycle to new speeds. I pulled Brian out of the way, our hair blown to one side from the draft.

  Brian murmured something I didn’t catch as we centered ourselves on the path again. “New York,” I explained.

  His head bobbed in the affirmative. Unintelligible remarks made me think of the attack the day before. “What did M shout at you, by the way? Was that Latin or what?”

  He stumbled a half step. “I don’t recall.”

  “Maybe you don’t, boy wonder, but how about you give the professor a nudge.”

  He made a quiet humph noise.

  “Well?”

  “Neither of us caught it.”

  “Nor,” said Morty as he flanked us, “did I.”

  “It seemed important at the time.”

  Brian glanced at me. “So did staying alive.”

  “All I’m pointing out is that he’s likely to yell that at us again sometime in the future so it might be helpful to know what kind of doom he’s hurling at us. Maybe it could be blocked or nulled?”

  “It could. However, it’s just as likely he was calling on some ancient god to curse us.”

  I peered over at Morty. “Seriously? Old and forgotten gods? He has that much mojo?”

  “The being in question has tons of mojo when he wishes.”

  “Again, I’d like to point out that he isn’t emperor of Europe or Asia.”

  “Not that we know of.”

  “I stand by my assessment.”

  That brought a short guffaw from Morty. “Be sure to tell him when next we meet. It might put him off his game.”

  “Or so anger him that none of us will have a chance of surviving,” Brian muttered. “He does have an ego.”

  We rounded a last corner and broke out into the open, taking a moment to stand and admire the structure. Nearby magnolia trees flowered, their branches laden with the early May blossoms, petals fallen brown about the benches. The Needle had been cleaned not too long ago and the hieroglyphs and runes on the whitish stone stood out after being nearly obscured by decades of New York grit and pollution. The obelisk stood nearly seventy feet high, not nearly as impressive as the Washington Monument, but then, it was a few thousand years older, too, and I gave it credit for that. It had been installed on not one but two platforms, which gave it quite a boost before the obelisk itself rose upward, but the ancient majesty reigned, circled by wrought-iron fencing and curving benches. While the Needle impressed me, the cane seemed entirely unaffected by it.

  Morty sat down on the long bench. “Well?”

  Brian and I looked up at the two stone platforms holding the obelisk, one on top of the other. A bronze crab perched in the crack between them, its weathering not nearly as old, its claws outstretched as if to protect the bases. I couldn’t tell whether it had just been sculpted to fit into an odd crack or separation between the bases or if it had been designed to be there intentionally, like some turtle holding the world on its back. Peering at it didn’t clarify the structure.

  “That’s freaky.”

  “It is, isn’t it?” Brian shaded his eyes. “It wasn’t stolen, by the way. It was a gift after the building of the Suez Canal, because the U.S. stayed neutral in the canal politics. It took a decade or so to get here, but it eventually made it. ”

  “Politics.”

  “Undoubtedly.” He reached for the cane and removed it from my tight grip. With a look around to see if anybody watched, he stepped over the protective railing, holding the cane with outstretched arm at its greatest length, and tapped it gently about the bottom of the actual obelisk. Nothing.

  Morty leaned back, folding his arms over his barrel chest, looking like he might slip back into tranquility.

  I paced the perimeter of the object. Crabapple trees had finished blossoming and their faded flowers littered the ground as they turned into dust of their own. The hieroglyphs looked amazing, and I remembered, when I was little, wanting to be an archaeologist who could read things like that, thanks to reruns of Indiana Jones, Lara Croft, and my mother’s own historical bent. I had even learned a few but didn’t recognize any now. Except the eye. That seemed rather obvious. I ran into Brian on the other side.

  “What do you suppose all this was about?”

  “You didn’t read up on it last night?”

  “Not really. I decided to sleep instead.”

  “It regales one of the pharaohs, Ramses II. Hails him as the son of the sun and so forth.”

  “So you did Google it.” I peered at his eyes, unable to tell who spoke to me just now. I hated that, frankly, because I wanted to get to know and understand Brian, but it felt odd to be getting close to the professor. I mean, he was not only old enough to be my grandfather, but he was dead. Or supposed to be. Or soon to be. Or maybe this whole reincarnation thing only meant that he would regress and start over. Who knew? A thought occurred.

  “Hey. Maybe we’re supposed to be at the London one.”

  “I scattered my things about, but not so far as to be unreachable in a crisis.”

  “Oh.” Disappointed, I stopped in my tracks. That bronze crab. Kind of reminded me of the professor in his finer days. “Give me that.” I reached for the cane.

  He stretched it back over the railing.

  I took it as I climbed over and took the three steps of the first base, getting close enough to put my nose to the stone. “Keep watch.” No way did I intend to be arrested in the city for vandalism or whatever it would be called. A huge block of stone stood between the crab and me. I didn’t think I could scale it, not without some tools and a fuss. But, if I stood on tippy-toe and stretched the cane up as far as I could . . .

  The wood trembled in my hands. Or maybe I was shaking. I knocked on a crab claw tentatively, and said “Avaunt!”

  That saying about letting sleeping dogs lie is undoubtedly one of the wisest things ever said in the history of mankind. The crab shot to life, grabbed the cane, jerked it out of my hand and scuttled away to disappear in the crack between the base and obelisk, leaving wood burns that stung like crazy on my palm.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  BRIAN AND I both let out shocked squeaks, awakening Morty. He threw his head back with a “What? What?” to glare at us.

  “It . . . it . . .” I pointed at the Needle. “It ate Brian’s cane!” I scrubbed my sore palm carefully, trying to get the sting out.

  “It what? What it?”

  “There was a bronze crab, a sculpture, where the obelisk came to rest on its base.” Brian explained to Morty without taking his eyes off the crevice where the giant beast and his perdition rod had gone from sight. “It tore the cane out of her hold and vanished.” Ominous scraping sounds came from inside the shadowy nook.

  “I’ll find out why she was holding it instead of you later. Is it altogether gone or just hiding inside the stone?”

  And could the frail, hollow-seeming cane survive anything that bronze crab might do to it? Like crunching it to bits? Raking noises continued. “The racket suggests it’s still there.” I swung on Morty, after hopping down the stone steps. “Get it back.”

  “Don’t know if I can.”

  “This is your element, right?”

  “Indeed, however . . .”

  “However what?”

  “Tessa, there is magic and then there is elemental magic. I can’t do what the professor could do, not by a long shot. If I could, they would never have taken my Goldie.”

  I wanted to heed the sorrow in his eyes, but didn’t. “But can’t you make it spit the cane out?”

  “Maybe.” Morty put his hands on his knees and stood. “It might destroy the work altogether.” He eyed it. “It spent hundreds of years in the dry Egyp
tian climate, and a hundred or so here, with rain and cold, wind and snow, eating at it. It was made to survive one but not necessarily the other. They’ve cleaned it up and tried to seal it against the pollution, but their efforts are not altogether successful. Stone is native to the earth where it is quarried.”

  “Oh.”

  Brian said, “Boost me up.”

  We both faced him.

  He made a thumbs-up sign. “Boost me up, I’m getting my cane back.”

  “If it’s not fallen into pixie dust by now. Or splinters. Or whatever old crabby has done to it.”

  “Just do it!”

  I hopped out of Morty’s way and let the big guy hoist Brian up onto his shoulder, after he first climbed the narrow steps and positioned himself. The gymnastics put Brian chest high at the crack where the crab sculpture had been, with Morty braced as the base of the human pyramid.

  Stretching both arms out, Brian called for his cane. At least, I think that’s what he did. As usual, I didn’t know the language but I could feel the emotion behind it, and it had to have been the professor speaking. Let it go. Give me what is mine, as I respect and need it, and it needs me. The words died away, like a forgotten echo, and we all waited in silence. Faraway, the whoosh of traffic on streets could be heard, along with the occasional blaring horn. Closer, voices and footfalls as people walked, jogged, and pushed prams along the inner pathways. Even closer, the squawk of a bird or two and the answer of an outraged squirrel.

  And then I heard it, the faintest of clicks, a whisper of stone on stone, as if the sculpture had suddenly become a shy creature and moved to peek out at us cautiously. If crustaceans could peek. Who knew? I didn’t think they ate wooden canes either, and look what happened. I held my breath so that I could listen better.

  Another furtive series of noises.

  Brian repeated what he’d said before and put his right hand out authoritatively. The gold ring found at the Washington Monument glimmered at the base of his right thumb. I bit my lip, seeing in my mind’s eyes the crab seizing his hand and making off with it, attached or not, sending an ewww of a thought.

  I was at risk of turning purple from lack of air when the sculpture bolted out of the crevice and thrust the cane into Brian’s hand before returning to its original position and freezing back into carved immortality. Brian hopped down from Morty’s shoulder, and we all jumped the railings and tried to look innocent while I took several long breaths.

  I watched as Brian turned the cane about in his hands. He handled it as though some weight had come back to it, and the burnished wood gleamed as it used to. It appeared to have gone through a rejuvenation of its own. He looked the length up and down, running his hands over the carved shaft, missing entirely what had happened to the curved handle.

  I pointed. “What’s that?”

  “That?” He looked where I pointed. “Oh . . . ahhhhh.” And a big smile spread across his face. “That is a gazing stone. Small but extremely powerful.” He moved the cane upright and cradled the handle, rubbing his thumb over the crystal marble. “Once mine and now returned.”

  More than marble-sized, but far smaller than a traditional crystal ball, it winked in the bright sunlight, and Morty made a noise of satisfaction deep in his throat.

  “Now that,” he told us, “is a quality piece.”

  It looked as if it had always been embedded in the handle, but we all knew better, or at least I knew it hadn’t been there the last week or so. Brian rubbed it again, and a glint of starry fire seemed to rise from it. A faint, chiming hum sounded, rather like the noise from a crystal wineglass.

  “This,” he said, “should make a great deal of difference.”

  “Well now. Ain’t that just a bit of all right.” A dapper figure unfolded himself from under a nearby crabapple tree, dusted off, and came to join us. “Progress. Soon the old chap will be himself again, instead of here an’ there.”

  Steptoe shaded me.

  “Speaking of which, how did you get here?”

  Steptoe picked a bit of twig off his sleeve, ignoring Morty’s belligerence. “Same way as you lot did. Sam drove me up last night and dropped me off to wait because it didn’t seem as I’d get a proper invite, otherwise. Sam’s a good man, ’e is, although I doubt ’e has many years left for chauffeuring after dark.”

  No wonder Sam’s eyes had gone so baggy. He’d spent most of the night driving. I told myself he’d done it for the money, but I wouldn’t have put it by Steptoe to have possibly threatened a bit. Or maybe the pay was honey enough to leave the family at home and drive all night, grab a few hours of sleep and do it all over again. I understood what it was to have a pile of bills on the kitchen table and not enough to pay them all off. I wouldn’t blame Sam at all.

  I edged over a bit, just in case someone thought of charging at someone else and causing harm in one way or another. I really didn’t know what to expect from anyone anymore, but caution seemed to be the word of the day.

  Steptoe eyed the cane. “Well done. Did you know it was there?”

  “No.”

  Steptoe paused just a moment in case Brian wished to add anything, and then flashed a grin at me as it became obvious that Brian would not. “Did the pebbles help any, ducks?”

  “Tremendously, thank you.”

  “Good. I’ve prepared a few more, but we’d have to arrange a trade.”

  I looked into his smiling face. “We’re not giving you the cane or the crystal or the cane with the crystal.”

  “Course not! Wouldn’t think of asking for it. There might be a little bit of something, help or whatnot, I could ask for though.”

  He had already helped us by finding a decent shuttle vehicle and Sam, although I could almost point out that it was in his self-interest too, but I could sense a debt there. I started to ask what he wanted when Morty thrust his arm across the front of me. I stopped talking in surprise.

  “Make no deals.”

  “I wasn’t. I just wanted to know what he had in mind.”

  “Bad bargains have come from few words. Our folk are tricksy, and sometimes have less than honorable intentions.” Morty took a step closer and I, for one, couldn’t miss it as his right hand curled into a fist.

  Steptoe put his hand over his heart. “I ’ave been nothing but helpful. Haven’t I? Like we was proper mates.” He turned to me.

  “When dealing one on one with me, yes, but I’ve overheard conversations with you and your minions that weren’t so nice.”

  His hand over his heart doubled up as if reflecting an inner pain. “Now that ’urts, it does. I thought I explained all that.”

  “You never explained why the three of you thought you had to break in on the professor in the first place.”

  “Ah. That.” He fell silent for a long moment, closing his eyes. Thinking, was he? When he opened them, however, he merely said, “Saw my minions, did you?”

  “I did. I even saw your shit fit when you disintegrated one of them.”

  “Now, love, that wasn’t a disintegration. Unpleasant yes, but the man deserved to be tweaked, didn’t he, for not following orders and for being so damnably stupid about things. I sent him to limbo for a little rest.” Steptoe interrupted himself with a shiver. “Much less unpleasant and permanent than punishments doled out by others. Definitely not permanent.”

  “Nice pivot. I still need an answer as to why you broke in on the professor.”

  “Needed his ’elp, didn’t we? He wouldn’t give it, and I thought that might be the case, so I sent my lads in with an order to be a bit forceful about getting what we needed. The professor panicked, unfortunately, and that’s when my last order, to get his ’ead if he went up in smoke, should have been followed. I know I told you ’bout that, that someone could revive ’im all nice and proper even if all we ’ad was his head. But we didn’t get it, and he panicked. It wasn’t t
aken, so now we’re all ’ere in this little dust-up.”

  “Self-protection!” Brian burst out, before clenching his jaw shut.

  “Aye, it was, you thought, but need not ’ave been if you’d just listened to my lads before assuming the worst of their intentions. Now you have t’start all over again and construct your old rites, and nothing I can do but watch.” Steptoe dropped his hand from his heart. “I know I ain’t always been on the right side of matters, but we went in with the best of hopes, but ’e wouldn’t listen. Prejudged and all that. I am on your side. Truly.”

  Morty snorted. I stood, pondering what someone it was who could have revived the professor from just his head and if we’d have to resort to finding them, after all, when Steptoe interrupted my thoughts.

  “Now see? That’s what I mean. Prejudged.”

  Our Iron Dwarf stomped a foot. “Judged based on past actions, and rightfully so.”

  “It’s not wrong t’ say we’ve been opposites before and likely will be again, but not now. Now we’re all in the boat together, it’s full of leaks and we’re all likely to sink lessen we help one another.”

  “So we can just trust you now? And in what way would we have to be knowing that?” Morty ended with a harrumph of dissatisfaction.

  “Because I’m ’ere, in broad daylight, and not skulkin’ about in the shadows.” Steptoe straightened his coat jacket. “I have my values, you know.”