House of Many Doors

by Ian Richards

  At the other end of the shop Sir Roderick was becoming just as frustrated. ‘This is pointless, Tony’ he yelled. He had been examining the insides of a wardrobe and his voice echoed loudly from within. ‘All I can see is junk. Toy chests, old chairs, wardrobes. There’s nothing magical about any of this stuff.’

  It felt hopeless. Tony tried not to despair, but he could sense how futile it was. How were they supposed to find one magical antique in a shop filled with so many ordinary ones? It wasn’t as if the antique in question would be obvious. Martell had hidden it amongst the others precisely because it wouldn’t stand out.

  ‘We need a bloody magic spell just to find it,’ Sir Roderick barked.

  A magic spell. Of course. He thought back to what Ebenezer had taught him about different mental states. Concentration. Focus. Discipline. Instinctively he knew what he had to do. All his lessons in The Gnarled Wand had been about heightening his senses and becoming more aware of the world around him. Concentration. Focus. Discipline.

  He stood very still and slowed the pace of his breathing.

  Look around you. Think. What doesn’t fit? What doesn’t belong?

  He moved his head from side to side, taking in the length of the store. Antiques surrounded him, a breaking wave of history, a rush of centuries past. He saw sentry-like grandfather clocks, cabinets crammed full of ornaments, model airplanes hanging from the ceiling on pieces of string, African tribal masks, bamboo canes, chairs, jigsaw puzzles.

  Remember your breathing. Steady breaths, that’s what Ebenezer said. Lower your heart rate. Open your mind.

  It was working. He could feel himself becoming more relaxed and paradoxically more alert at the same time. He thought back to Vanessa’s lecture on the history of magic. Magic is all around you. You just have to look for it. And he did, he let his conscious mind roll away and his subconscious take over. There was no rationality now, no anxiety, no thinking too much. He relied only on instinct. His years of training. His keen eyes passing back and forth across the antiques lined up in front of him.

  Think. Look. Evaluate.

  It came on like a wave, a tsunami of associations, historical knowledge, things Martell had told him, pieces of information he had read in books.

  There was a Maplewood French dresser (no), a Belgian cuckoo clock (no), hand-carved bookends (no), an Edwardian vase (no).

  On it went, faster and faster. He surrendered himself to the process. A great energy seemed to be inside him now, a focus of concentration unlike anything he had achieved before. He felt godlike, as if he had plugged himself into the history of the world, as if he had become one with the antiques. He felt them. He knew each one individually, knew more about them than he could believe.

  A painting of Rainham marshes, artist unknown, close to eighty years old—(no)

  A display of medals from the First World War, poor condition, British and Canadian, ribbons the color of the rainbow—(no)

  An old Bible (no), a box of table legs (no), a stamp collection (no), an antique fireplace (no), a—

  Eventually—he couldn’t say for sure how long—time had ceased to matter—it hit him, announcing itself like a sudden slap in the face. He inhaled sharply, momentarily giddy with the force of the discovery. How had he never noticed it before, this strange antique ever-so-slightly out of sync with everything else in the shop? It ticked all the boxes. Too large for Martell to have hidden under the floorboards, kept in plain sight, obviously magical in retrospect.

  As soon as he had seen it he knew.

  The intricate patterns—the lack of dust—the relative cleanliness. Golden tassels hanging from its edges, vaguely Arabic in design, Persian perhaps, not a million miles away from the kind of place that might have produced the genie’s lamp.

  ‘That,’ he said, pointing to the carpet, ‘is going to take me to Marshwood.’

  To which Sir Roderick replied bluntly: ‘What? No, it’s bloody not. Don’t be daft.’

  Tony shot him a look.

  ‘You mean it’s going to take us to Marshwood. Do you really think I’d miss out on an adventure like this? Come on, Tony Lott, we have to get ready. We’ve got a long ride ahead of us and there’s no time to lose.’

  *

  Later that same night, much later, as a full moon loomed menacingly over the misty grounds of Marshwood, Thomas Silvertongue left the cell where he had been in deep discussion with the prisoner and crept silently back upstairs. To his relief, there was no sign of Firefox in the hallway. He hurried silently to the master’s bedroom and pressed his ear against the door. From inside came the mournful cry of a violin.

  He was practicing.

  Good.

  Without wasting any time, for he knew better than most just how changeable Firefox’s moods could be, he scurried along the corridor and slipped into Vanessa’s room. The girl was asleep, wrapped up in dreams and darkness.

  Silvertongue paused. He glanced back into the corridor.

  Still the sound of the violin played, soft and faraway. Weeping like a lonely child.

  He swallowed hard and made his move. He was at her side in seconds.

  ‘Miss Kouris,’ he whispered, shaking her gently by the shoulder. ‘It’s me, Silvertongue. Wake up.’

  ‘Mm? What time is it?’

  ‘Don’t worry about that. Listen, I’ve been talking with Martell. We’re getting out of here. All of us.’

  ‘We’re escaping?’ She jolted upright so suddenly that he stumbled back in surprise. They both looked towards the door, as if expecting Firefox to storm in at any moment.

  A moment’s silence—a dreadful, terrifying silence. Then the violin resumed its distant wailing.

  ‘Shhh,’ Silvertongue implored. ‘You must keep your voice down. Martell has a plan. He’s been working on it for a while now. Here—’ He opened his hand; a small vial containing an ocean-blue liquid rested on his palm. ‘Drink this,’ he said. ‘It will restore your powers—for a short while at least. There’s a note, too. It will explain everything. But I must go. If the master catches me here all is lost.’ Forcing her hand closed around the vial he set a piece of paper on the desk beside her. ‘Once you’ve read this,’ he said, ‘burn it.’

  Then he was gone, disappeared back into the corridor as suddenly as he had arrived.

  It took Vanessa a moment to process what had just happened. Her mind still felt foggy with sleep. She could have almost believed the whole thing to have been a dream.

  But the vial was real, and so was the note.

  She read it through twice, absorbing its contents carefully.

  Vanessa,

  This potion should temporarily restore your powers. Silvertongue and I had the servants brew it up unknowingly. The ingredients are an old fairy recipe and the effects should last for no more than an hour.

  Use your time wisely.

  I await the fireworks.

  Love,

  Martell

  Following Silvertongue’s instructions, Vanessa burned the letter using the candle beside her bed. It turned to ash and fell to the floor as a series of tiny black snowflakes.

  She smiled.

  ‘Finally,’ she said. ‘Let’s see how tough you are now, shall we, dear husband?’

  Unscrewing the lid of the vial she sniffed the contents—they smelt vaguely minty: fresh and cool, almost like toothpaste—then downed them in a single gulp.

  As Vanessa pulled on her clothes she thought to herself that if Martell wanted fireworks, it would be a shame to disappoint him.

  34 - The Magic Carpet

  They shot through the night like a comet, whooping with excitement as the wind whistled past their faces, tussling their hair and knocking their bodies roughly from side to side. It felt like they were sailors navigating the roughest of seas. Every few seconds another gust of wind would hit, sending them veering off to the side or dipping downwards so suddenly that their stomachs lurched into their mouths.

  Beneath them the Earth sparkled prettily in the d
arkness. Arterial roads streamed with the lights of speeding cars. Distant towns shone like beacons—tiny, faraway things, as inconsequential as ash tapped from a cigarette. Despite the cold—and it was freezing up there, the icy chill of December combining horribly with the swirling winds—Tony felt more alive than he had in weeks. The bumpiness of the flight only intensified the feeling. It was like riding the greatest fairground ride ever invented. Nothing could compare to the sudden dips, the terrifying turns, the sheer speed of it all.

  The carpet was larger than it had looked back in Martell’s Antiques. There it had been wrapped up in a tidy roll and held in place by a loop of string. But here, gliding over the invisible contours of the atmosphere—hitting the bumps, zipping through clouds—it was a thing of beauty. Large enough for both Tony and Sir Roderick to sit on, delicately embroidered, stitched together from the finest silk.

  ‘You’re a genius, Tony’ Sir Roderick laughed, opening his arms to embrace the rush of the wind. ‘How the devil did you know it could fly?’

  He could only shrug his shoulders in response. ‘I don’t know. It made sense. I just sort of noticed it.’

  ‘Ha ha! You take after your uncle, my boy. He could see things no-one else could, too. It’s how he got to be so good.’ A sudden gust of wind hurled them downwards, only for the carpet to right their course and shoot back up again. Though his heart pounded, Tony couldn’t help but laugh triumphantly. After weeks of inaction the world had ripped itself open again. He felt the same buzz as when Martell had first mentioned the midnight auction. A rush of excitement that left fear and doubt trailing far back in the distance.

  They seemed to be travelling even faster now. It was becoming difficult to look ahead. The wind jabbed icy fingers at their eyes and threatened to tip them over completely. How they were able to stay on the carpet in such conditions remained a mystery. They seemed connected to it—free to move around as they wished, but never in danger of falling. That the carpet knew where to take them also defied explanation. Tony had told it where to go when they were back in the shop. He had unrolled it onto the floor, positioned himself and Sir Roderick at its centre, and shouted ‘Marshwood’ in the manner of an impatient tourist commanding a taxi driver. But that a carpet—a lifeless rug—could not only understand him, but navigate its way through the sky so skillfully ... He knew he should have stopped being astonished by things by now, but he couldn’t help himself. This was amazing. A thrill unlike any other.

  They travelled for close to an hour, shooting through the darkness at a breakneck speed. The lights of London were far behind them now. A glance down offered only a characterless sprawl of black, punctuated occasionally by villages or far-off farmhouses. Tony noticed they were turning more frequently now. The carpet appeared to be following an invisible trail through the sky, as if it were a bloodhound chasing a scent.

  ‘Ley-lines,’ Sir Roderick shouted. ‘Won’t be long now, Tony, lad. We’ll be breaking through any second.’

  Sure enough, the ride began to get rougher now. The drops more sudden, the speed more intense. To Tony, who found his nerves beginning to return, it seemed that the carpet was drawing something in the air—some enormous, abstract shape that he couldn’t begin to conceive of such was the speed with which they were moving. Suddenly, without warning, the sky seemed to explode. There was a deafening sound—whoomp—as reality jerked itself aside and stars began raining down around them. The quality of the air changed in an instant. It became thinner—saltier. Looking down Tony saw that the ground beneath them had been replaced by an enormous black ocean, wave tips shining silver in the moonlight, the reflections of the falling stars shooting across the water like tiny fireworks—

  Whoomp. It happened again, almost straight after the last one. This time the ocean gave way to a land of rocky forests, an enormous castle atop the tallest hill, the smell of bonfires and roasted meat. To his shock, to his delight, Tony saw a dragon coiled around the castle walls. As a spray of arrows shot down from the battlements the creature lifted its head and roared to the sky, an explosion of fire that lit up the night with its intensity and brilliance—

  Whoomp, whoomp, again and again the shocks came, as if they were punching their way through different realities like the fist of God Himself. It felt exhilarating, frightening, astonishing.

  The final shock was the strongest—WHOOMP—the whole universe seemed to shake as it hit.

  This time they emerged above a seemingly endless stretch of woodland. As the carpet began to slow, lowering its altitude gently, like a foot being eased off an accelerator, Tony and Sir Roderick lay on their backs and stared up at the sparkling night sky.

  ‘We’re here,’ Sir Roderick panted. ‘This must be it.’

  Tony nodded. They were through the worst of it now. At least he hoped they were.

  As the carpet dipped ever lower, now skimming over the tops of the trees, he rolled onto his belly to get a better look at their surroundings. If this was Marshwood, it was a dreary, unpleasant place. Most of the trees were dead, twisted things: more like cruel sculptures than the life-giving sentinels he associated with most forests. In the bright moonlight he saw thatches of thorny brambles, stagnant ponds, a persistent mist ghosting across the ground. He didn’t like it. It was too silent—too eerie. The word that came to mind was lifeless and that carried with it all sorts of connotations he didn’t wish to think about.

  They travelled on like this for several miles. The landscape seemed unchanging, as if it were running on an endless loop.

  ‘What is this place?’ Tony asked.

  ‘Some sort of forest, I imagine,’ Sir Roderick answered. ‘It doesn’t look very inviting, does it?’

  ‘I’ll say. But if this is Marshwood then where are Martell and Vanessa? Are they down there somewhere, do you think? Hidden amongst the trees?’

  ‘No. I’d say there’s a much better chance that they’re over there. Look.’

  Tony followed the direction of Sir Roderick’s finger. It pointed at something in the distance—a tiny light—a house perhaps. At once his pulse began to quicken. Marshwood. It had to be. The carpet was taking them straight there.

  ‘That’s it, Sir Roderick. We’re almost there.’ He guessed it would be a matter of minutes until they arrived. That meant they didn’t have long to work out a plan of attack. Shielding his eyes from the driving wind, he turned to his companion and shouted, ‘What should we do when we get there?’

  Sir Roderick cupped his ear. ‘What was that?’

  ‘I said what should we do when we—?’

  But he never got to finish his sentence. At that moment a bolt of green lightning shot up from the ground below, missing them by inches. Others followed. In an instant the sky had transformed into a battleground. Balls of crackling green light roared up on stalks of smoke before detonating loudly, each one missing the speeding carpet only narrowly. Tony cried out in alarm as the explosions buffered and batted their ride, forcing the speeding carpet to duck and weave desperately through the smoky air. The sky seemed alive now. Flashes of undersea green flickered across the clouds, the sound of thunderous explosions forced him to clap his hands over his ears.

  Then one of the lightning bolts caught the carpet flush through the middle.

  It happened so quickly that Tony almost didn’t realize what was happening. He saw the lightning blast through, a sudden geyser of electricity that tore a hole in the centre of the carpet and instantly knocked them off course. He caught sight of more explosions, more firework flowers blooming around them. As the air reverberated with the whizz and whistle of near misses they began to descend, the carpet flapping loosely in the wind now, their speed beginning to increase as the ground rushed up to meet them.

  They hit the treetops, crashed, and tumbled to the earth below, pawed at on the way down by branches and brambles. Landing hard on the sodden ground—whoomp—it was like breaking through into another world again, only this time more painful—Tony looked up and found himself surroun
ded by evil-faced women in dark robes. Their bodies were thin and skeletal, their faces wizened with wrinkles and malevolence. He recognized them at once. The Thalaki. Dozens of them. He could smell the mud in their hair. Their fingernails glistened with dirt and dried blood.

  ‘You miserable old crones,’ Sir Roderick yelled, picking dried leaves and pieces of twig from his hair. ‘What’s the big idea shooting down our carpet?’

  ‘Sssilence …’ The nearest witch pressed the tip of her thumb to her forefinger, and at once Sir Roderick’s mouth clamped shut. ‘Travellersss,’ she hissed. ‘You have the sstink of the mortal world on you … You have been sssearching for other landsss …and inssstead you found Marssshhwood …’

  Tony didn’t move to contradict her. ‘What do you want?’ he said. ‘What are you doing here? I thought you were from Bulgaria.’

  Bul-gare-ee-aa. The witches exchanged snarling grins. Strings of saliva hung from their gnarled, toothless mouths. ‘Not for many yearsss now, boy … The forest of Marssshhwood is our home now … We are itssss protectors … We guard the land from troublemakerssss like you …’

  So they worked for Firefox. They roamed the woods as his personal attack dogs. Tony racked his brains, trying to think of a way out of this mess, but none came to mind. Already the witches were swarming around them, tying his hands behind his back with tightly-drawn rope, rubbing mud onto his face, screeching with delight. A couple of witches began poking through Tony’s pockets. Though he tried to stop them they soon had the genie’s lamp in their claws. A battered crone with bloodshot eyes held it aloft like a trophy.