The Thief of Mirrors: 4 (Enchanted Emporium)

by Pierdomenico Baccalario

  I raised an eyebrow and said nothing.

  “Do you know what a topos is?” he asked.

  “Nope,” I said flatly.

  He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. The little man hooked his thumbs on the straps of his overalls. “It so happens that one of these roads leads to Right Village and the other to Wrong Village. Now it’s well known that everyone who lives in Right Village likes to say things as they really are, while all those who live in Wrong Village do exactly the opposite.”

  “And which of those two villages did you come from?” I asked.

  “Right Village, of course,” Tommy responded.

  I examined him closely. “Which is true if it’s true, but it’s false if … it’s false?”

  “Impeccable reasoning, my boy,” he said. “Truly impeccable. But returning to your original question, to go where you want to go, it’s very likely that you should first go to Right Village. Otherwise you’ll never get anywhere.”

  I scratched my head thoughtfully. Perhaps this all made sense to him, but it certainly didn’t to me. “Does the name Sunken Castle mean anything to you?” I asked.

  “Yes, absolutely,” he replied.

  Which could also mean “no” if he’s from Wrong Village, I realized.

  “And could you tell me which way it is?” I asked.

  “I already told you! Head to Right Village and sooner or later you’ll get there,” he said.

  “Which means what exactly?” I asked.

  “That at this intersection you must take the right road,” the little man replied smugly.

  I hate riddles, I thought. But at least this time a stone giant wasn’t going to stomp on me if I got the answer wrong.

  “Just listen, Mr. Tommy,” I begged him. “The truth is that I came here to save some friends who are prisoners in the castle and —”

  “Yes, yes, I’ve heard it all before,” the man huffed. “It’s always the same story. Your good friends have been kidnapped by the evil beings. And surely one of your friends is a maiden.”

  “A maiden?” I said. “You mean … a girl?”

  Tommy nodded. His eyes narrowed mischievously. “And she’s usually very beautiful,” he added.

  “It’s like you’re psychic, Mr. Tommy,” I said.

  He held up a finger. “Not at all! It’s just that heroes have never been known for rescuing maidens with big pimples on their noses or receding hair lines,” he pronounced. “Just as heroes never know exactly what to do when they first get in trouble. Overcoming a trial is a vital part of the hero’s journey, you see.”

  “The hero’s journey?” I asked.

  “That’s what you’re doing right now, my boy,” he said. “Allow me to enlighten you about the details of this classic tale. For one, I’m practically positive that until a short while ago, you were a very angry boy. And when they asked you to go on your journey, you didn’t want to know about it. Clearly, you would’ve rather stayed home.”

  “Exactly,” I said.

  “But you went anyway, because you had to,” he said. “And you have to go because you’re a hero.”

  “You lost me there,” I admitted. “I’m no hero.”

  “Don’t be modest,” he said. “Just look back on your past. Something phenomenal had to happen …”

  “Actually, I just took a weird bus here,” I said.

  “And now you’re here, at a crossroads, and you don’t know which road to choose,” he said.

  Before I could respond, Mr. Tommy added with a know-it-all air, “In order to make the right choice, you have only two possibilities, just as there are two paths at this intersection.”

  “I guess,” I said.

  “The first possibility is to avail yourself of a magical object, like those that you probably have brought with you in that suitcase,” Mr. Tommy said.

  “I see what you’re trying to say!” I interrupted. “To take me to the castle, you want one of my magical objects in exchange!” I knelt and opened the suitcase, grabbed the screaming Angelica puppet, and handed her to him.

  Angelica flailed in my grip. “Pig! Swine! Ogre! Not fine!” she screamed.

  “She’s a much better gift than she seems at first, I assure you!” I said.

  “Save your hero gear, my boy, and let me finish,” he said, wiping his sweaty head. “The second possibility you have for overcoming this difficulty is to rely on a coadjutor.”

  I flung Angelica back into the suitcase. “A what?” I asked.

  “A coadjutor,” he repeated. “The word’s a bit difficult, like topos, but we scholars like difficult words. If anything, the more difficult a word is to say, the more our fingers itch to write it. Have your fingers ever felt that itch?”

  “You could say I’m feeling an itch right now …” I muttered. An itch to unsheathe my sword and point it at you until you tell me where that cursed castle is, I thought.

  “A coadjutor is a magical person often borrowed from another story,” Mr. Tommy said. “The coadjutor helps the hero overcome a trial and continue in his endeavor. He’s a character of fundamental importance to maintaining balance in the story. The coadjutor is at least as important as the hero himself — but sometimes even more so. Quite often, the coadjutor is also much more sympathetic than the hero, despite the fact that it’s a difficult role to maintain in the few pages that are generally available for secondary and tertiary characters.”

  “Do you hear something, Mr. Tommy?” I interrupted, hoping to distract him. I had a hunch he’d go on talking all night if I let him. “I think something’s out there. Maybe you could take me to your home where it’s safe and explain everything to me better?”

  Mr. Tommy’s eyes went wide. He stared at me with an expression between admiration and terror.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked.

  He grabbed my hand and whispered to me in a surprisingly soft voice, “Then that means you’re the third type of hero …”

  “Excuse me?” I asked.

  “You need neither a magical object nor a coadjutor,” he said. “You can do everything yourself — instinctively.” Mr. Tommy let go of my hand and turned around. “Come with me, boy, and I’ll take you to Right Village.”

  I shrugged. Patches and I followed him. Mr. Tommy had led us halfway through the woods when I realized I’d accidentally overcome the first trial. By asking Mr. Tommy to take me to his home, I had solved the puzzle: if Mr. Tommy was an inhabitant of Right Village, he would take me there. And if he were an inhabitant of Wrong Village, he would have taken me to Right Village anyway since he was obligated to do the opposite.

  I think I got lucky, I admitted to myself.

  Eventually we reached Right Village. Everyone still seemed to be asleep, but Mr. Tommy didn’t hesitate. He escorted me to a building with a sign on it that read:

  LAST-STOP STABLES

  WE PUSH HARD

  TO ALL DESTINATIONS

  OR NONE

  He put on his little glasses one last time and held out his hand. “It’s been a pleasure,” he said to me. “In all my years of study, I’ve never met a hero of the third type.”

  “Me neither,” I replied, returning his handshake vigorously. Since he didn’t seem to want to leave yet, I added, “And it was a real honor to meet a coadjutor like you.”

  A magnificent smile spread across Mr. Tommy’s round face. “Remember me if you find yourself in trouble again,” he whispered to me. Then he disappeared among the little houses in the village.

  Not knowing what to expect, I knocked on the door to the stables. A deep voice invited me to come in.

  Upon entering, I saw nothing and no one inside. Patches moved forward a few steps ahead, intrigued by the scent of manure. At least Patches was still predictable.

  As soon as my eyes adjusted to the dark, I saw two ho
rse stalls ahead. As I approached, various horse-related smells flooded my nostrils. A TV showing a black-and-white movie droned in the background. In front of the TV was a ratty old mattress. Atop it was an obese man with a triple chin. His beady eyes stared at me.

  “So you’re the hero?” he asked as soon as I saw him.

  “That’s what Mr. Tommy says,” I replied, gesturing vaguely beyond the stable door. It closed with a thud.

  The man cleared his throat and spat into a copper pot. It tinkled disgustingly. “My brother never understood any of these things. He reads, reads, reads … and doesn’t do anything else. Life is about much more than reading, don’t you think?”

  I nodded uncertainly. “Sure?”

  “Life’s not that, and neither is death,” the big man said. “They’re both something in the middle, I say.”

  I didn’t reveal that I disagreed. “In any case,” I said, “I don’t know if you can help me, but I’m trying to get to a place called the Sunken Castle.”

  The big man shook himself. The mattress springs groaned as if they’d been condemned to die. “Everyone’s trying to get to the Sunken Castle at this point, little fella,” he said. “But it’s not so easy.”

  “So I’ve heard,” I grumbled. One of the horses in the stalls whinnied, making me shrink back. I saw the nervous steam of its breath billowing in the dark. “But I can assure you, I’m ready for anything.”

  I opened the suitcase. Immediately Angelica began to shriek. “What smells so old? The horror — it’s mold!”

  I thrust the doll toward the big man. “Do you want this screaming puppet?” I asked. “It’s yours, if you tell me where the Sunken Castle is.”

  The man stared at me with a blank expression on his face. I shoved Angelica back into the suitcase. With a confidence and voice that didn’t seem like mine, I tried again. “How about a pair of Night Spectacles? Or a Transmogri-thingie-what’s-it? I’ll give you either of the two so long as you don’t give me a puzzle to solve, ask me to overcome a trial, give me riddles, or task me with recovering eighteen pieces of a special object that have been scattered everywhere. And since we’re talking about deeds, listen up: I don’t bring dragons back to life, I don’t want to save the world, and I’m not an orphan. I’m not even an only son! No one has made an incomprehensible prophecy about me, so I certainly cannot be a hero. I’m virtually certain I’ve never been immersed upside-down in a magical pool up to one heel, and I didn’t strangle two snakes to death when I was a baby. I don’t see ghosts, I don’t control the four elements — nor anything else for that matter. I’m a normal Scottish boy who just wants to be asleep in his bed right now, but instead I’m stuck here in this stinky stable — no offense — because I have to rescue my best friend from a meeting that I wasn’t invited to in a castle I don’t know the location of.” I took a deep breath, then exhaled. “With all that said … can you tell me where I need to go, or not?”

  A considerable silence followed my rant. I felt like I’d exposed this theater of the absurd for what it was, and the man didn’t exactly know what role to play anymore.

  The man stood, smoothed his grubby undershirt over his big belly, picked up a coachman’s outfit from a nearby hook, arranged it haphazardly across his big body, and approached me with a fierce look in his eyes.

  Patches heroically retreated to the door while I slipped a hand into the suitcase in the event that I had to draw my sword. Angelica bit my thumb repeatedly while I waited to see what the big man would do.

  When we were face to face, the big man cleared his throat, hawked into his spittoon, and said to me, “Now we’re talking, little fella. Enough of this tomfoolery.” He held out his hand.

  I shook it, glad to be done with the charade. His hand was black and greasy like a piston in an old car. “My name’s Jim,” he said.

  “And I’m Finley McPhee — Finley with an ‘F,’” I said. “And as I told you, I have to get to the Sunken Castle.”

  “And I’m here to take you,” Jim said.

  “Great,” I said, hoping he’d let go of my hand soon.

  “Usually, in order to be certain about the strength of a person’s Voice of Magic, I ask them a question,” Jim said. “If they answer correctly, I take them on their journey. If not, I kill them.”

  “That’s … a little extreme, don’t you think?” I said. Jim said nothing. “No riddles please,” I added.

  Jim shrugged. “That’s how it has to be,” Jim said.

  “Please no,” I begged.

  “I have two riddles ready, just for you,” Jim said.

  “Jim, it’s the dead of night,” I said. “I’m exhausted and angry and I have no idea what’s going to happen.”

  “Look, I sympathize with your situation,” he said. “But we magical creatures are crazy for riddles!”

  I sighed. Definitely crazy, at least, I thought.

  Jim spat a third time. He still hadn’t let go of my hand. “So listen up,” he said. “I have to kill you —”

  “What?!” I interrupted. “You said you were going to ask me a riddle first!”

  Jim finally released my hand. “I’m trying to, fella,” he said. “‘I have to kill you’ is the start of the riddle.”

  “Oh,” I said faintly.

  “So, yes, I have to kill you, but you can choose how you’ll die,” he said. He pointed to the first horse stall. “I can take you to a place where you’ll be crushed by a five-ton boulder.”

  “No, thanks,” I said.

  “Or I can take you to a place where you’ll be thrown into a den of lions who haven’t eaten in three months.”

  “I’d prefer the Sunken Castle, actually,” I suggested.

  “You can be boiled in oil for seven days and seven nights,” Jim continued, “or poisoned by the bites of five scorpions, ten tarantulas, and twelve venomous snakes. I can also have you beheaded at the first full moon, or you can be eaten alive by crazed cannibals.” Jim dropped his hands to his sides — and waited.

  “So what’s the riddle?” I asked.

  He smiled radiantly. “Which of these deaths would you like me to take you to?” he asked.

  Having said that, he turned his back, walked over to the horse stalls, and began fiddling with the lock.

  I looked around, perplexed. The stables didn’t seem to have any exits besides the horse stalls and the front door I had just come in through.

  “Well?” he asked. “Was it a nice riddle?”

  I nodded and gulped.

  “And don’t you want to try to solve it?” Jim asked.

  “Not at all,” I admitted.

  “Oh,” he said. “Maybe your dog wants to solve it.”

  I looked at Patches. “What do you think?” I asked.

  He barked twice.

  “The second thing you said,” I said. “I pick that one.”

  Jim stopped fiddling and his eyes rolled up and to the left. Apparently he was trying to remember which death was the second one.”

  “The lions’ den?” he asked. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” I lied.

  He gave me a huge grin and threw the lock onto the ground, making one of his horses skitter away in fright. “See? I could tell you were a clever one right off the bat!” Jim said. “We just had to do things properly.” Jim spat again. “I mean, if the lions haven’t eaten in three months, then they’re nice and dead, right?” he said. “I mean, nobody can survive for three months without eating!”

  I let out a sigh. “So can we go now?” I asked him.

  He leaned against the stall. “Don’t you want to hear the other riddle?” he asked.

  “No way,” I said curtly.

  Jim shrugged. He pushed open the door, revealing a brand-new motorcycle and sidecar.

  “Wow!” I exclaimed. “I thought we’d go by carriage.”


  Jim tossed me a helmet. “You’re a bit behind the times, aren’t you?” he said. He sat astride the motorcycle, which sagged under his weight, and turned the key. “What is something that those who make it sell it, those who buy it don’t use it, and those who use it fear it?”

  I wedged the suitcase between my legs and struggled to get into the sidecar along with Patches. It was like trying to climb into a coffin with another person.

  “That’s it!” I said, figuring out the riddle. “A coffin.”

  Jim nodded slowly. “You’re a clever customer, Finley McPhee,” he said, and we sped into the darkness.

  Unsurprisingly, the Sunken Castle really was sunken.In the oppressive dark of that starless night, the castle itself was barely visible. I could just make out the tallest tower and the pitched roof of the keep rising from the black, oblong lake. The water reminded me of the flooded valleys we Scottish people call lochs. I wondered if this lake had a Nessie of its own.

  Jim dropped me off and waved to me. “I’ve never seen anyone get out of here alive!” he said, encouraging me with a pat on the back. Then he zoomed away along the dirt path and disappeared in a cloud of dust.

  I took the Night Spectacles out of my suitcase and put them on. My vision improved enough to see the landscape clearly.

  Who could have been crazy enough to build a castle in the middle of a lake? I wondered.

  I had no idea where I was or how to get inside. Nor did I know why, out of all the places they could’ve chosen, the shopkeepers picked this place to have their meeting.

  I weighed my options. The lake water was ice-cold, so swimming wasn’t an option. Neither sound nor light came from the menacing castle. Aiby’s diary stated that once the magic shopkeepers had gathered inside, Askell appeared and imprisoned them, but after that part only a few words hadn’t been crossed out. All I could read was “The Hall of Mirrors” and something about books in the library.

  I heard something move in the water. Thanks to my Night Spectacles, I saw a massive black outline emerge from the water for an instant and then sink back down. Water rippled across the surface.