Notes from Small Planets

by Nate Crowley

Don’t try to free the Bogberts

  Dressed in rags and stooped from constant labour, the Bogberts horrify many travellers, and I’ve lost track of the number of times well-meaning backpackers have tried to start slave revolts on their behalf. It never works, however. The Bogberts were enchanted with a spell so that they simply need to toil on others’ behalf, and are in fact happiest in Crickledale, where the Dark Wizardes make no pretence of offering them civility or decent living conditions.[41]

  Don’t make Deathwish/Miller jokes

  Wizardes love to make jokes drawing on the former enmity between supporters of the Girl Who Did Not Die and the acolytes of Baron Deathwish. This once-deadly feud lost its meaning during the war against the Mundanes, and even became a source of jovial competitiveness. Indeed, it all seems a big laugh until you, a tourist, decide to chip in. Then, no matter how good your punchline, the room will fall silent and you’ll find ranks of scar-riven faces staring at you with eyes that have watched comrades burn alive. You wouldn’t know: you weren’t there.

  4. SUGGESTED ITINERARIES

  1. BEST OF BOTH WORLDS:

  (6 DAYS)

  Lundowne to Pranslemead

  If you’ve got limited time but want to see the full contrast of Mundania’s dual worlds, this tour is for you, showing kids and adults alike there’s still plenty of fun and wonder to be had.

  DAY 1

  After arrival in Lundowne, check into the Queen’s Arse, a midrange hotel with poky rooms smelling faintly of cigarette smoke. Dinner is a heaving plate of grey curry with overboiled rice, after which you will collapse into a heavy sleep.

  DAY 2

  After a dismal fried breakfast, stop by the Department of Magic to admire its whimsical, multicoloured facade. The Forgettening altered the Mundanes’ brains to make them unable to fully perceive it, so you’ll be free to chortle at their baffled, uneasy expressions while you take plenty of snaps. When you’re done, head to what used to be the Ape and Statue pub at the head of Dead Toad Road to begin your transfer to Whimsicalia.

  WHY WON’T MY MINIBAR OPEN?

  Those in the Mundane government spared the Forgettening are constantly paranoid about the possibility of Wizarde terrorism, and have passed regulations to ensure that cupboards, chimneys and other spaces commonly used as portals by Wizardes remain boobytrapped and bound by chains. So if your fridge won’t open, it’s for your own safety.

  DTR

  For centuries before the secret, magical ‘Platform Zero’ was built at Empire Cross Station, the cobbled medieval alleyway known as Dead Toad Road was the main permanent portal between Mundane Lundowne and its Wizarde quarter. Accessed through two pub back rooms – one at the Mundania end and one at the Whimsicalia end – it was a place where Wizardes went to shop and dally in the atmosphere of the city, and where many of Lundowne’s magically gifted youngsters would get their first taste of the astonishing world awaiting them. Now, however, Dead Toad Road has a markedly different atmosphere. The pubs have been built up into a pair of heavily fortified, opposing checkpoints, and the alley’s shops now ply their trade under the watchful eyes of armed guards, temporarily freed from the Forgettening in order to keep the peace. For tourists, travelling legally from one world to the other means traversing the checkpoints at DTR.

  You’ll need to have plenty of documents with you, which you should arrange via your travel agent at least a month prior to departure. If everything checks out, the customs process – including security interviews, random searches and intimidation by dogs – can be over in as little as an hour. It will take a while for the customs Warlocks at the former Broom & Bogbert to process your entry application, so take your time to enjoy some shopping for magical goodies.[42] Once entry is granted, head to your lodgings – a spare room in the mansion of a quirky magical academic, complete with a talking suit of armour and some kind of lovable ghost.

  DAY 3

  Today is all about shopping and as much sightseeing as you can fit in. Lundowne’s Wizarde quarter is fairly pokey, but there’s still more than you can see in a day: the bunworks on Spunsugar Street, the trinket market in Abnorm Alley, and the statue of Miller and Deathwish in Cracklebrak Plaza are all must-visits, though. When dusk falls, you’ll travel out to the suburbs to have dinner with the Bozzlebees, a family of ordinary Wizardes. They’re a large and light-heartedly rambunctious clan, so expect plenty of tomfoolery and levitating cutlery during the meal – just don’t crush the mood by remarking on any of the empty chairs and untouched meals.

  DAY 4

  After a long lie in on day four, your hosts will conjure a one-use portal to Chumbleton, where you’ll check in to one of the guestrooms at the Talking Hat. Take the afternoon to explore the town and its environs – but do hire a local guide.[43]

  In the evening you’ll board a chartered flying bathtub, headed to the Bolderbiff Trust Magical Nature Reservation in Albionus’ northern highlands. At the reservation you’ll be hosted by the titanic gamekeeper Bagfists, who looks after the park from a dilapidated cottage that he shares with his Nine Tame Alligators.[44] He’ll lead you on a magical night safari, and you’ll be able to experience the reservation from a trailer affixed to the back of his Majestic Flying Tricycle.[45] If you’re lucky you’ll see Taszrak and other exciting hybrids, while you’re almost guaranteed to spot a Blunderback and endless herds of shitty Gurbos. When the trip’s over Bagfists will serve you steaming bowls of his famous spider-claw stew, and regale you with fireside tales until you get sleepy and/or too worried about the alligators.

  (DON’T) FAKE IT TILL YOU SNAKE IT: STAYING SAFE IN CRICKLEDALE

  Despite the ceasefire, Dark Wizardes won’t fraternise with Mundanes and are deeply suspicious of tourists. No matter how tempting it is, however, do not in any way pretend to be a Wizarde in order to be accepted here. There was a horrible incident a while back, where a famous offworld illusionist put on a heavily publicised gig in Crickledale, claiming he could bamboozle the Dark Wizardes with his mind-blowing close-up magic. He was fed to a large grey snake.

  DAY 5

  It’s time to say bye to Bagfists on day five, after he tricycles you over the mountains to Crickledale. The territory of the Dark Wizardes was never previously open to tourists, and even now its denizens are frosty to off-worlders. Still, in deference to the growing number of visitors, a guest house called the Strangled Stoat has been set up, where you can soak up the gloomy ambience of Crickledale and even share a Dark Repast with the naughty Wizardes themselves. You’ll probably be glad to leave in the morning, but you’ll be glad to have seen it.

  DAY 6

  Your trip comes to an end in the blissful Wizarde town of Pranslemead, where you can experience the heights of Wizardely culture. The local theatres are sure to have some incarnation of the Miller Cycle on stage, and these performances are superb fun for families who enjoy audience participation,[46] while the local Grunche stadium is home to the current league champions, the Grozzlers. Before taking your homeward portal to Lundowne at the end of your holiday, do make sure to attend a game – the terrace atmosphere is unbelievable, and you’ll find the fans’ enthusiasm stays with you all the way home.

  2. YOU’RE A WIZARDE:

  (57 DAYS, OR LESS IF YOU’RE RUBBISH)

  The Full Greeblewhoz

  This once-in-a-lifetime experience is extremely expensive, but worth every penny you can scrape together if you truly want to live the Wizardely life.

  — TESTIMONIALS —

  … and another thing, that stoat place was a bloody rip off. Dark Repast?? We queued for two hours just to sit and watch some git in a cape look miserable while drinking soup. Waste of time. Pranslemead was a bit better, but still pricey. Grinning sods saw us coming, I reckon. Five large-farthings for a cup of tea and a sandwich? Unbelievable. And I swear that talking salt shaker gave my change in gilly-farthings, too. And don’t talk to me about those fucking alligators. That bloke wants locking up. As for the Grunche, it’s a disgrace to call that a family spor
t, to be frank. Some of the language in the stands was shocking, and I had to cover my youngest’s eyes and ears when their lead drangle got done by the Hammer. And all the time the fans were just braying and chucking sweets at each other, as if there weren’t people starving in the real world. Honestly, I can see why everyone on the M-side can’t stand this lot.

  — Extract from testimonial by Jez Blither, father of three[47]

  DAY 1

  It all starts with a bat sent to your boarding house in Lundowne, inviting you to Greeblewhoz through a one-way, single-use portal. When the time comes, just climb into whichever fridge, washing machine or cupboard is emitting an ethereal blue glow, and take the jump. You’ll arrive just outside the grounds where, as well as tourists like you, the annual intake of kids will be assembling. This can be a bit awkward if you’re in your forties, so find the other ‘mature students’ (i.e. other tourists) as quickly as you can and begin the process of becoming an inseparable band of chums. Don’t get too attached yet, though: at the gates you’ll be tested for your magical potential, and if you’re found to be a dud, you’ll have to say an early goodbye.[48] This can be a bummer, especially as you will have paid the non-refundable tuition fees up front, but it is what it is. Presuming you do pass the test, you’ll be invited into Greeblewhoz’s main hall to enjoy a lavish welcome feast, during which Mr Grinnywithers will determine your house by giving you a horrid bony handshake.

  DAYS 2–56

  The next eight weeks of education will be some of the most challenging of your life, but also some of the most rewarding. You and your new chums will experience discouraging monologues from haunted paintings, fiascos involving the misuse of devastatingly powerful artefacts, and ritualistic persecution at the hands of the official School Bullies. But you’ll also befriend members of staff, to the extent that they’ll break the law repeatedly to help you out of a tight spot – so it all balances out. Late in term you’ll probably get your first chance to use magic in anger, as the Academy’s grounds will no doubt suffer an incursion from some kind of disgruntled monster. Once upon a time these incidents would have been real crises, instigated by malevolent agents of Baron Deathwish. These days they are largely drills with paid monsters, but they’re still thrilling to take part in. You’ll also probably get the chance to go on a field trip to the Mundane world: these tend to involve intense observation of military installations from a distance, without being seen by anyone.

  Floyd’s Tip

  It’s worth noting that the war changed more than just the curriculum at Greeblewhoz. The once-jovial ghosts that walked the halls were weaponised into hunter-killer apparitions to guard against Mundane commandos, and still patrol the grounds in shrieking, loping packs. Meanwhile, the castle’s main keep remains scarred from blast damage, and the quadrangles are filled with sombre statues of fallen students. Nevertheless, the Greeblewhoz spirit remains undaunted: each night, the students and staff gather for feasts in the Great Hall, which inevitably descend into heated political rallies where magically created food is destroyed in defiant rituals.

  DAY 57

  At the end of term, as the snow begins, it will be time for the Great Midwinter Banquet, with fun, feasting and brutally uncompromising performance reviews for all students. For many tourist students, this is where the fun has to come to an end. Be warned: if you haven’t shown during your first term that you’re either a potential Chosen One or at least an exceptionally powerful potential paramilitary asset, you’ll be quietly asked to leave the premises by one of the larger members of the faculty.[49] If you’re deemed worthy, however, you get to stay and enjoy the party – during which you will probably want to have a long hard think about whether you’re ready to abandon your former life and become a Wizarde.

  3. THE SECRET WAR:

  An Elephant in the Room Safari

  This tour is forbidden by the Mundane authorities, so be warned: if something goes wrong, you’ll be arrested, and no earthly government will be able to help. For the bold, though, it’s an eye-opener.

  DAY 1

  After arrival in Lundowne, transfer by coach to the melancholy northern market town of Skagsbury, where you should head to a defeated-looking pub called the Totally Normal Horse[50] and start asking around for Spooky Joe. Joe is an ageing ex-Greeblewhoz staffer and Whizzbang Lane survivor who went AWOL after the war, unwilling to rejoin Wizardely society but unable to defect to the Mundanes. Now he lives here, in deep cover as a homeless man, on a mission that perhaps only he truly understands. His stories are a good laugh – until you realise he’s deadly serious about every word he mutters through his roll-up.[51] If you can win Joe’s trust, he’ll take you out of town on his decrepit flying bicycle to the nearby Grimblestead War Cemetery.[52] There, at an empty grave, Joe will throw you a shovel and command you to dig while he paces around smoking and ranting.

  DAY 2

  Somewhere in the early hours, you’ll eventually find a limited-use doorkey scroll beneath the soil, and Joe will race you to a stretch of desolate pebble beach a few miles away. There, you’ll wait, probably wondering what the hell you’ve gotten yourself into, before a light eventually twinkles on the black ocean. There will be some shouting, some business with rough characters in black hoods bundling you aboard a dinghy, and then a rapid, extremely bumpy ride across the frigid sea. And while it’s possibly unwise to make any direct claims about what might happen next on your journey, it’s worth considering how you might feel about – say – breaking silently into Blacklox Prison on a tiny boat in the dead of night, with your only promise of safety coming from a tramp you just met in a pub. Or how you might react if you found yourself face to face with the two most dangerous Wizardes in the world, as the aforementioned tramp shows them photos of an atrocity and they nod gravely. If that sounds like a good way to spend your holiday, this is probably the trip for you.[53]

  DAY 3?

  COPY NOT SUBMITTED BY FLOYD[54]

  ‘Who’s this?’ hissed Deathwish, as I sidled into the cramped room behind Spooky Joe. It seemed to be some kind of laundry area converted into a makeshift parlour complete with armchairs and a small candelabra.

  ‘Just an associate,’ said Joe.

  ‘He’s clear,’ added a gruff voice from the corridor, and the Baron nodded, fangs glinting in the shadow of his prison-issue cowl.

  With a clink of silver on ceramic, the figure in the corner finished brewing the tea, and came forward – it was Beatrix Miller herself, unmistakable despite the orange jumpsuit.

  ‘But you’re not in separate cells!’ I blurted as I looked between the Wizardes, unable to contain my surprise. Miller laughed, sounding every bit the sixteen-year-old Girl Wizarde ever-present in Greeblewhoz archive footage.

  ‘Of course we are, silly! Officially, at least,’ she chided, before nodding over our heads at the guards outside. ‘Right, boys?’ The guards gave a chuckle at this, and even Deathwish joined in with an amused murmur.

  ‘Besides,’ he drawled in a cultured baritone when the mirth had subsided. ‘We get along rather well, it turns out.’

  I looked to Miller, aghast. ‘But he drained your power to carry out the Drungsleydale massacre – you begged him not to!’

  ‘Oh, come on, everyone knows it was my idea. Brian here—’

  ‘Don’t call me that in front of guests!’ barked Deathwish, or rather Brian.

  ‘… was all talk and no trousers, wasn’t he? Came to rescue me but didn’t realise I was planning a blast from the gallows anyway. Said he wouldn’t lend his strength at first – said it was all a bit much. But you realised it was the only option, didn’t you?’

  Brian muttered in assent.

  ‘But … it was a bit much, wasn’t it?’ I offered. ‘You know, wiping an entire city off the map.’

  ‘You didn’t see the experiments they were conducting in that base they held me in,’ snapped Miller, face hardening to make her look twice her age. ‘Everything they do – everything they’ve done, since magic was re
vealed to them, demonstrates exactly why we kept it from them in the first place. And if we don’t fight them as hard as we can now – while they’re still weak – it’ll be worse later.’ Miller paced under the room’s sole lightbulb, making the shadows dance. ‘They’re quick learners, and their advanced physicists were starting to figure out magic on their own, even before the Revelation War. It was always going to come to this. In a way, I’m almost glad that idiot Floyd blundered in and started things early.’

  ‘I think he was quite well meaning,’ I added, breaking out in a sweat, ‘but go on.’ Then Spooky Joe piped up.

  ‘You want to see what the Mundanes are willing to do to get their hands on magic?’ he said, gesturing at me with his roll-up. ‘Take a look at these photos I took for the masters here.’

  At that, Joe shuffled forward with a grimy sheaf of papers, which Brian inspected grimly, before passing them to me with his pale, claw-nailed hand.

  The first photo was of the Drungsleydale Memorial Power Facility, viewed from behind security fencing on a rainy night. Several points on the photo were annotated with scribbles. The next shot was blurred, as if taken on the move, but clearly showed the inside of the compound, with a long corridor and a pair of blast doors at its end labelled:

  W.A.N.D.

  Wizarde-Augmented Nuclear Dynamo

  The next photo was presumably taken in the space within those doors, and it took me a moment to parse what I was seeing. It was Wizardes. Dozens of them – prisoners of war, presumably – suspended in glowing fields of green energy, along the length of a cavernous industrial space. Streamers of raw magic were being drawn out of them through funnel-like devices, and channelled into a massive bank of turbines at the hall’s end. The forms of the Wizardes were blurred, as if they had been thrashing when the picture was taken.