by R. L. Stine
I shrugged. “Probably Carly. She has a rotten sense of humor.”
Mr. Spellman crept over to the door of the conservatory. He peeked inside. “It sounds as if it’s coming from in here. What do you say? Should we investigate?”
I swallowed hard. My tongue felt thick. My mouth felt dry.
“But, Mr. Spellman,” I began, “what if—”
Mr. Spellman didn’t let me finish. He gave me a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, Mike. We’ll be really careful. I believe you about the haunted armor. I’m not going to take any chances. Not with a ghost as evil as Sir Thomas. Nothing will happen to you. I promise.”
I’m not a chicken. But I know one thing. I never would have had the nerve to check out that noise without Mr. Spellman. I followed him into the conservatory.
The second we set foot inside the door, the thumping noise stopped.
Mr. Spellman made sure I stayed in back of him. He led us over to the exhibit.
I spotted Sir Thomas up on his horse. His head facing forward. His lance held high.
Nothing looked out of place.
“Well, I guess we’re both wrong this time.” Mr. Spellman didn’t whisper anymore. He looked as relieved as I felt. “It wasn’t the ghost after all.”
Mr. Spellman turned around to leave the room. I did, too.
I took one step. Then something whizzed by my head. Close enough to skim my hair.
I saw Mr. Spellman’s face turn white.
Then I heard something explode.
A long, thick arrow had slammed into one of Dad’s flowerpots not ten feet away. The arrow stuck up from a pile of dirt and the jagged remains of the pot. I knew right away what kind of arrow it was.
It was an arrow from a crossbow.
A knight’s crossbow.
Mr. Spellman and I turned around at the same moment.
Just in time to see Sir Thomas charge.
12
“Run for it!” I yelled at Mr. Spellman as I took off at top speed.
I headed for the door. I heard the horse’s hooves pounding behind me. Getting louder. Coming closer. Closing the gap between us.
I darted to my right and the knight followed. I veered off to the left. He pulled hard on the horse’s reins and stayed right behind me.
I glanced over my shoulder.
Mr. Spellman was beside me. And behind him was the knight.
The red fire behind Sir Thomas’ visor was blinding. He held his lance high. I saw the sharp tip. Aimed right at me.
Up ahead the door seemed an impossible distance away.
I pushed myself harder. My lungs burned. I reached out desperately. The door still looked miles away.
Another second and the lance would be right through my back.
I heard a noise. A whooshing sound. Like rushing wind.
I braced myself for the blow.
Nothing happened.
I spun around. So scared that I grabbed Mr. Spellman’s hand.
All the lances from Dad’s exhibit came whizzing off the wall and over my head. Aimed right at the knight.
Some of the lances hit the floor right in front of Sir Thomas and stuck there. Some of them stuck in the floor in back of him. Lances stuck up from the floor to the knight’s right. They stuck up to his left.
A cage of lances surrounded him. The knight was trapped. His horse snorted. It stomped the ground.
Sir Thomas let out a deafening roar. He waved his arms over his head. The red flames behind his visor shimmered.
“Wow!” I was flabbergasted. And relieved. I let go of Mr. Spellman. I took a chance and went over to the lances to check them out.
How did this happen? I couldn’t figure it out.
That’s when I noticed my pendant.
The blue smoke inside the marble swirled and bubbled. Glimmering with a weird blue light. Brighter than Sir Thomas’ spooky eyes.
“Wow!” I know, I should have been able to come up with something better to say, but “Wow” seemed to cover all the bases.
It had to be the pendant. It was magic!
Now it had saved me for a second time.
What else could make a papier-mâché rock destroy a suit of armor? What else could make a row of lances fly through the air?
“That’s it! That’s it, Mr. Spellman. Don’t you get it?” I held the pendant up to the moonlight. “You were right! The first time you saw it you knew. The pendant! It is magic!”
Still holding the pendant up, I stepped closer to the knight.
Mr. Spellman stood behind me. This time the swords Dad had hung on the wall for display clattered against each other. Battle-axes streaked by in the air.
Awesome!
I could hardly believe it. I tested some more. Waving the pendant, I moved toward the knight.
Sir Thomas winced. He held one metal hand up in front of his face. The red fire behind the visor flickered and faded out.
“Hear me, wicked knight. I am a wizard!” I tried to make my voice low and booming. The way I thought a wizard would sound.
Loud. Important. Powerful.
“I command you to stop attacking us!”
I jabbed the pendant in Sir Thomas’ direction.
The swords crashed and smashed over the knight’s head. He waved his arms at them. They kept crashing and smashing.
I lifted the pendant up. The round glass orb caught the moonlight. It sparkled. Then it shot a dazzling beam of blue light at Sir Thomas.
As the light struck him, Sir Thomas sat bolt upright.
His armor shimmied and rattled for a second. And then…
Boom!
13
His helmet exploded off his shoulders and flew straight up to the ceiling.
A gust of red fire shot up out of the armor.
And then the whole thing fell apart.
Sir Thomas’ breastplate clattered to the floor.
His shield fell out of his hands.
And then his arms fell off.
The knight’s metal leg guards tottered, then hit the ground.
An awful smell, like burning rubber, hung in the air.
The knight had turned into a pile of scrap metal.
A spooky cloud of red smoke floated above the whole mess.
I held my nose and took a step closer. I heard a soft hissing. Soft, like air leaking out of a tire. I looked down at the pile of armor.
He was gone all right. Gone for good this time.
“I did it! I did it! Way to go, Conway!” I had never been so excited in my whole, entire life. I did a little dance through the last wisps of smoke.
“I really am a wizard!”
Then I heard another voice. A strange and chilling one.
“You witless newt! You did nothing. Nothing! I did it all!”
I froze in my tracks. This voice really did sound like a wizard. It boomed through the conservatory. The windows rattled all around me. The floor shook under my feet. The whole place filled with a swirling icy wind that made me shiver.
I spun around, looking for the source of that frightening voice.
“Fool! Do you really believe you possess magic powers?” The voice was coming from Mr. Spellman? Could it be?
He laughed and frosty fingers raced up my spine.
He smiled at me in a way I’d never seen him smile before. A way I didn’t like.
His teeth looked pointy and sharp. His skin pulled tight across his face. Like a skull.
Something about his creepy smile made me feel as if I’d been kicked right in the stomach. I couldn’t believe it. I stepped closer to my friend. “Mr. Spellman?”
Mr. Spellman waved his hands. The motion made the air ripple all around me. My skin suddenly felt clammy. I broke out in a cold sweat.
“Do not call me by that ridiculous name, boy!” Mr. Spellman roared. “I am Mardren, the greatest wizard of all time! And now, little bug, I am finished with you!”
Slowly Mr. Spellman raised both his hands. They were covered with golden rings sha
ped like snakes. The snakes had glowing red and purple jewel eyes that winked in the moonlight. He pointed right at me.
The snake rings came alive. They slithered around his fingers. The snakes grew bigger and bigger. They crawled around his wrists, hissing. Ugly black tongues flickered at me.
A snake head darted out at me. I saw its jaws stretch open and long curved fangs poised to strike.
I leaped back.
Mr. Spellman waved his hands again. The hissing golden snakes transformed into lightning bolts, flashing from his fingertips. The lightning crackled in the air all around me. So close, I felt the lightning’s heat as it zipped by my head.
I ducked down. Almost too late.
I smelled burning hair and touched my head. A few strands on top felt hot and singed.
I couldn’t believe it. Mr. Spellman. My friend. All this time he tricked me. He tricked everyone!
Crouched down in a corner, I watched as his body transformed.
His eyes glowed. Not red like the knight’s. White. Cold. Icy. Hard.
The skin on his face shimmered, like a bowl of Jell-O. Then it turned a sickly yellow-green color that looked dry and leathery. The lines around his eyes and mouth grew deeper and his nose stretched out, long and beak-shaped.
His mustache grew out, too. Long and wild-looking. And his cheeks sprouted a beard. A white beard, all tangled and knotted, that flowed down to his waist.
He waved one hand above his head, and suddenly a long silver stick appeared in his hand.
Then he twirled around, swinging the stick around over his head.
One. Two. Three times.
He spun at top speed, spinning into a complete blur. A purple blur.
I blinked.
He stopped and stood before me. A long purple robe flowed around his body. Purple boots covered his feet and a tall, pointed purple hat balanced on his head.
Symbols that glowed with strange light covered his robe and hat. Silver moons. Golden stars. Strange shapes I’d never seen before.
I saw a big blue circle, too. With swirling blue lights inside.
“My pendant!” I stared at the symbol on Mr. Spellman’s robe. I looked down at my pendant.
It softly glowed.
“Mike, Mike, Mike.” Mr. Spellman… er, Mardren laughed. I felt a creepy, pins-and-needles tingle all over my body. “You really thought you did it all, didn’t you?” Mardren shook his head. He smiled a scary smile. “You ridiculous worm! You have no magic power. The power is all mine. I merely used you to destroy my most deadly foe.”
Mardren pointed his long silver stick. Right at the pile of armor. With the toe of one purple boot he kicked aside Sir Thomas’ helmet. It rolled into the corner.
Mardren chuckled. “Once every hundred years, Sir Thomas and I must fight each other,” he explained. “If I defeat him, his ghost is doomed. He must stay a prisoner inside his armor for another hundred years. If he defeats me…” Mardren shrugged.
“Well, that is not going to happen, is it? At least not for another hundred years. You took care of that for me.”
A memory flashed through my head. I thought about what the knight told me. About fighting the wizard as a dragon. And as a wall of fire.
“You are correct!” Mardren could read my mind! He said out loud everything I was thinking. “Sir Thomas thought you were me. He thought I had taken on the shape of a small, weak boy. It is not what I had planned. Not exactly. But it worked. Why do you think a wizard of my skill and power would hang around in this shabby place?”
The wizard looked around the conservatory. His face puckered up. His nostrils flared.
“With my powers I knew Sir Thomas would arrive here sooner or later. I knew it even before your uncle Basil found the armor in Dreadbury Castle and sent it here. I had to wait for Sir Thomas. I had to fight him.”
Mardren stared hungrily at my pendant. His tongue flickered over his cracked lips. He smiled.
A shiver crawled up my back.
“You snatched the pendant before I could, bothersome boy,” Mardren said. “That day the armor was delivered you reached first for the magic orb. You touched it first and put it on. There is a spell that gives the pendant its power. After you touched it, I could not take it away from you. No one could. Not until Sir Thomas was destroyed. Now…”
A slow smile inched up the edges of Mardren’s mustache. He looked down at the pieces of Sir Thomas scattered on the floor. His eyes glittered.
“You took care of that for me. And I never faced any danger. If anyone had to get killed…” Mardren shook out his robe. The moons and stars on it flashed at me. “You see what I mean? Everything is perfect now….”
Mardren swung around. He pointed his staff toward me. A single bolt of lightning flashed from the end of it. It shot right at my chest.
The pendant flashed, as if it answered the call of Mardren’s magic. It rose right up off my chest. It jerked toward Mardren. It tugged me closer to the wizard.
“You have something that belongs to me, toad.” Mardren touched the golden chain with the tip of his staff. The chain snapped. When Mardren lifted his staff, the blue marble globe stuck to the top of it.
“Now I have the magic pendant,” Mardren said. “And Sir Thomas can no longer stop me from using it. This magic orb will make me even more powerful.” He glanced at the marble. His face lit up with an evil smile.
Mardren looked down at me. “I am afraid I must get rid of you. I cannot allow you to give away my little secret. Hmmm. What should I do?”
Mardren sucked on his shriveled lower lip, thinking. Thinking about getting rid of me.
I swallowed hard. I quietly slid back a step. Run for it, I urged myself.
“Not so fast, toad!” he boomed at me. Mardren’s look froze me on the spot. His eyes lit up. “That’s it! I know exactly what to do. I will turn you into a mouse. Just be careful! Don’t get too close to the cat!”
I caught my breath. It burned my lungs. My hands trembled at my sides.
Mardren saw me shake. Chuckling, he waved his hands over my head. “Keep still, pesky boy! The words of power must be spoken three times.” He cleared his throat. His voice rang through the room.
“With the moon over the house, change this boy into a mouse. With the moon over the house, change this boy into a mouse. With the moon over the house, change this boy—”
“Stop!” another voice shouted.
Mardren gasped in surprise.
The voice sounded from the deep shadows on the other side of the conservatory. A deep hollow voice. It echoed. It rumbled.
My heart thumping, I watched a shape materialize out of the shadows. Slowly it clomped forward. With each step I could see more of it.
Metal shoes.
A broad breastplate.
A helmet with an empty space behind the visor. The knight raised one metal glove. He pointed right at Mardren. His voice boomed. “Wizard! You will not win!”
14
Sir Thomas. Back again!
The knight lumbered out of the shadows. He took one shaky step forward. Then another.
I stared at the knight—and gasped.
It wasn’t Sir Thomas.
One of dad’s fake suits of armor had come alive!
“Wh-what’s going on here?” I stuttered. Was the ghost of Sir Thomas in there now?
I stepped back as the knight clattered forward—his sights set on Mardren this time.
I shot a glance at Mardren. Then the knight. Which one should I run from? Which one?
Before I could move, the wizard’s eyes flashed. He shook his shoulders. He spread his arms. He started the words of another spell.
The knight stomped closer. He swung out at the wizard with his long metal arm.
He missed Mardren by a mile. But one of his heavy metal gloves smacked the pendant on top of Mardren’s staff.
The big blue marble wobbled. It teetered. It tumbled from the top of the staff.
Mardren lunged for it, grabbing for
the beautiful blue marble as it fell through the air.
The tips of his long, gnarled fingers brushed it.
It slipped past his fingers.
And crashed to the floor.
The glass shattered, and a deafening boom echoed through the room. Louder than a clap of thunder.
A brilliant blue light flashed—flashed so bright I had to cover my eyes.
Then I heard a strange fizzing sound.
The pendant had burst into a zillion pieces. And now some of the shards of glass zipped through the air. Zipped through the air like tiny shooting stars!
Then a cloud of blue smoke swirled up from the floor. Up from the center of the jagged bits of glass that remained there.
It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen.
The blue mist floated over the floor like the fog that sometimes hovers over the Fear Street Cemetery. It curled around my legs. Everywhere it touched me I felt cold to the bone.
Then it gathered in a cloud around Mardren. It slowly rose up, up, up over his flowing robe.
“No! No!” Mardren screamed. He waved his arms frantically. Trying to wave away the smoke. But the smoke continued to billow.
He puffed up his cheeks and blew at it.
Then he kicked at it with his purple boots.
The blue smoke thinned—and Mardren fell to his knees. Searching. Searching the floor for something.
What? What is he looking for? I wondered, staring hard through the mist.
And that’s when I saw it.
A tiny golden sword—glittering in the moonlight.
I blinked in amazement. It must have been hidden in the marble the whole time. Hidden by the swirling smoke.
Mardren grabbed for the sword at the same time I did.
I reached it first.
“Slow as a snail!” I cried.
I snatched up the sword. The moment my fingertips touched it, a jolt of electricity shot through my hand. Raced up my arm. Hit me square in the chest, hard. I staggered back.
My fingers tingled—as if hundreds of pins and needles were piercing them. I didn’t care. I held the tiny sword tight in my fist.
Another jolt shot through my hand.
Sparks flew from my fist.
I gaped at my hand—as the tiny sword began to grow, right in the center of my palm.