Hilda - The Challenge (37 page)

"We'll go back soon," he promised. "Now come
with me, I need your help. Just nod and look the smart person you
are, okay?"

Hilda sighed. "There is nothing you can do
without me, is there? I'll come, and I'll hold your hand if I need
to."

William grinned and then together they walked
into the restaurant. William followed his nose to the kitchen.
Apparently it was a normal thing to do here, since nobody asked
them where they were going. In a dark corner he stopped walking,
quickly flipped up his wand and changed a few pebbles he had picked
up somewhere into pieces of paper.

"Just hold that," he said to Hilda, handing
her a piece of paper.

"Now what is this..." She sounded tired of
this game.

"I have no time to explain it all, but it is
a prop in the play called bluff," he said. Then he put his hand at
the small of her back and gently pulled her along as he entered the
kitchen.

There were four people working in the
kitchen. Three were busy cutting up fruit, vegetables, meat and
fish. The fourth, sporting a mocking look and a wand, sat on a
table, directing the movements of pots, pans and spoons on a giant
stove with at least 12 burners.

All four looked at the door where the two
strangers had just entered.

"Good day," said William, holding up his
piece of paper. Hilda saw it and followed his move. "We are Smith
and Jones, Health and Safety department. I assume you were notified
we were coming?"

All four people in the kitchen stopped their
work. The flunked sorcerer almost dropped the spoons he was holding
afloat. "Uhm, no?"

William faked a heavy sigh. "Not? That is the
third today that they failed to inform. I am very sorry, folks.
Bureaucracy is against us, as always."

Hilda stared at William and was dumbstruck by
the way he went about and was talking. Their names were not Smith
or Jones, and she had never heard of a thing called 'Health and
Safety department'. She saw how he walked into the kitchen as if he
owned the place, stunning the cooks and- then she saw the light.
The play called bluff. Finally the pieces fell together and a smile
appeared on the witch's face. She understood bluff.

Hilda marched into the kitchen also, circling
the large stove and approaching the man who was chopping up
vegetables. She shoved her paper in the face of the man, stating:
"Health. And safety." She looked over the worktop. "How do you
clean this?"

The man put down the knife and was about to
open a storage closet under the sink, when she pointed at the
stove. "How safe it that? Looks dangerous to me."

"Oh, it is very-", the man started, aborting
his dive to the small door.

"Do you have rats here?", Hilda asked, not
letting him finish what he started to say.

"No, miss, we don't serve rats."

As Hilda was tormenting the cook's assistant
in charge of the veggies, William walked through the kitchen also,
ignoring the sorcerer-gone-cook and asked one the fish-cleaner if
there was a proper way to leave the kitchen in case of a fire.

"There's door," the man pointed.

"Indeed," William nodded, "there is a door.
But does the door open?"

The fish-cutter looked at the cook, who
frowned and was lost over this strange invasion also. The fish-man
walked to the door and pushed it. It opened. He turned to William.
"Yes. It opens."

William walked out the door. He found himself
in a small courtyard where a few chickens ran around. There was a
pen with some pigs, a goat was tied to a pole near a water well.
Most of the yard was fenced in, but there was one opening that led
out of the yard, and presumably into a street.

"Does that lead to a street?", he asked the
fish-man, pointing at the opening.

"Yes, sir. I walk through there every day
when I come to work. Can I go back to my fish now, sir?"

"Yes, you go to you fish, and be careful with
your hands. The knife looks pretty sharp to me." William was
entirely in his role and suppressed his grins as he heard how Hilda
was making life miserable for the three men in the kitchen. He
almost felt sorry for them.

Upon returning into the kitchen, he saw how
Hilda was using a questioning tactic on the man in charge of the
meat that would have made a KGB officer proud.

"So you say you use this knife to cut pork
AND beef?" Hilda had a big knife in her hand, the tip floating
precariously close to one of the man's eyes. "Don't you think you
should at least wipe it off before you start using it on another
kind of meat?"

"But I do wash-"

"Silence! I am here for the health and the
safety, so I will tell you what to do!" Hilda was enjoying this.
"You will wipe off the knife before you use it on different meat.
Is that clear?"

"Yes, miss." The poor man was bending over
backwards to avoid contact with the knife. He knew how sharp it
was.

"Good." Hilda clapped the knife on the table.
"And remember that." She looked over to where William was, hoping
that he would appreciate how well she was doing.

"Miss Jones, can you step over here?", said
William, looking at her.

"Sure, miss Smith," she replied, realising
her mistake and shrugging it away.

William as well as the sorcerer he was
standing next to frowned. Hilda joined them.

"Now to you, sir. Can you please step outside
with us for a moment?", said William, pointing to the open door
that led out to the yard.

"But I have the food to attend to!", the
magical cook said, "I can't leave here."

Hilda waved her paper in the man's face.
"Health and safety come first, do you hear me? What kind of cook
are you if you can't even keep a few spoons going without looking
at them? Come on, man, listen to miss Smith." She had decided that
persisting would work best. "Hey, folks, you keep an eye on the
spoons, okay? Safety is important."

Hilda took the sorcerer by the arm and with
her usual absence of diplomacy dragged the surprised man from the
table and out the door. William, more than only a bit surprised,
followed the two out into the yard.

Hilda held on to the cook. "And now what?",
she asked William.

"Do you know boxing?", miss Smith asked the
sorcerer.

"No. What is boxing?"

"Good." William nodded, made a fist and
aimed. A few seconds later the cook and also the spoons fell down.
Only the cook was caught and carried off into the narrow corridor
that would lead to the street. Halfway through it, William lay down
the knocked-out cook and used magic to change some of the man's
clothes into ropes to tie him up. As he was working on that, he
said to Hilda: "Can you get our brooms here?"

"Yes, but do you want to fly out of
here?"

William hoisted the cook on his shoulder.
"Come, move, these guys in the kitchen won't wonder forever why the
cook is not coming back." As they went on and reached the luckily
very silent street, he continued: "If this man can use magic
without raising attention, I assume we can do that too. And on
broomstick it is much faster to get away than on foot."

"Yes, smart man, and what will you do with
your... cargo?"

"Well, I had hoped that you would come with a
marvelous plan, resident witch."

"Oh. Thank you, but this is not my residence,
so..."

William slowly saw the back-end of his plan
fall to bits and crumble into nothingness. If there was no way out
then the whole thing would go pear-shaped.

Hilda took pity on William. "Just you keep
the cargo quiet," she said, patting him on the arm. "I'll think of
something. Quickly too."

William hoped it was a good thing she would
think of.

Hilda walked ahead a few steps and saw a
side-street. "In here," she ordered.

As they walked down that street, William
asked if Hilda couldn't just shrink the cargo, the way she had done
with his luggage.

"Nope, sorry, that only works with things,"
Hilda shattered his hope. "But I have the next best solution
here."

William stared at her. She stood next to a
horse that was waiting in front of a cart. "So we'll just..."

"...borrow it," the wicked witch completed
his words. "Now throw that guy in the back, keep him quiet and
let's go."

William unloaded the man into the cart and
climbed in the back also, while Hilda got up on the front and took
the reins.

"Do you know how to handle that?", William
asked as he watched Hilda go about all that.

"Just you mind the cook and hold on. I'll
take care of this." She sounded very confident, and that was
worrying William. But it was the best option.

Hilda slapped the horse with the reins and it
started pulling the cart. They moved out of the street. Hilda
seemed in full control of the horse as well as their location,
because without hesitation or faltering she maneuvered the horse
and the cart through the city, also through the more busy
parts.

It took almost an hour, but finally they left
the city and the crowds. Still relaxed, Hilda let the horse go
along, making sure they would get to the spot where they had left
the brooms.

The sun was getting into setting as they
arrived where they wanted to go. William unloaded the man who was
still unconscious. He worried a bit about that, because he was sure
that his punch had not been a hard one, but Hilda reassured
him.

"These people can't take much. Too much of
the soft life, you know. Pretty convenient also, it is nice and
quiet that way. So, sweet man, have you thought of a way to take
our man along yet?"

William had, and he thought the idea was
pretty spiffy too. "Yes, I'm afraid we'll need some boards from the
cart though..."

He started to work on his plan, as Hilda
watched what he was putting together. First he lay the two brooms
next to each other. At the front and back he attached two boards,
so the brooms and boards made a square. Then he attached one board
in the middle, in the length of the brooms, so the whole
construction looked somewhat like acatamaran.

"Now, if we put our man on the centre board,
and tie him to it, with ropes under his arms and over his legs, we
should be able to airlift him out of here."

Hilda stared at the contraption. Walked
around it, pulling and jarring it. "You know... this might actually
work. Provided our passenger remains calm."

William smiled. "If we inform him that he
will be offloaded immediately once he starts making trouble, I am
sure he will cooperate. Unless these people who are trained by
Lamador know how to fly without a broom."

Hilda shook her head. "Without a broom they
only fly straight down." She stood with William and put her arms
around him. Looking up to his face she smiled. "You know, I never
doubted that your plan would work."

William pulled her close. "You, miss Jones,
are a terrible liar."

"And you, miss Smith, are the best friend I
have ever had."

Although it was late already, they decided it
was best to tie up their prisoner and fly off as far as they could,
away from Heraldion. It was a bit tricky to lift off, but once they
were in the air it went quite well. They found that they had an
advantage as they had been flying along together so much.

As they were going along, the cook woke up.
"Where am I? And who are you?"

"At the moment you are with us, about one
hundred yards over the ground, so you'd better lie still," Hilda
informed him. "As to who we are: we are the people who are taking
you away."

"But you can't take me away!", the cook
yelled, trying to get loose by yanking the ropes.

"Hey, friend," said William, "did you hear
what the witch said? We are high up. One hundred yards is far down,
and you might regret the touching down part of the fall, so you
will just lie still. And you are mistaken: we -can- take you away.
The fact that we are doing it right now should be proof
enough."

"I learnt my magic from the Great Lamador,"
the cook tried. "I can take you on, both."

"Yeah, sure, that is why you work in a
kitchen, spinning spoons," said Hilda. "Go ahead and try if you
want. Two against one. I like odds like that."

The cook understood that he was massively
outnumbered. "I object to this treatment. If Lamador hears of
this-"

"But that is just the plan," William
interrupted the man, "he has to know about this."

"You people are insane," said the cook.

"He is," Hilda confirmed, "I'm local."

The cook, whose name was Bilgar, remained
calm as long as they were in the air. Plain common sense told him
that he would remain more alive that way. William had offered to
loosen the ropes, at the same time tilting the strange flying
contraption slightly. The demonstration convinced Bilgar that the
ropes weren't such a bad idea after all.

It became too dark to fly on with a good
feeling, so Hilda took charge and landed the broomaran. They had
flown quite far and had touched down on a desolate mountain meadow
in Ringeholm. It took a bit of thinking how to keepBilgar safe, as
it was obvious he would try to run off during the night with both
Hilda and William asleep. Taking turns in sleeping was not the way
to handle this, as they would have to be very awake the next day,
flying their construction over the land that had arrows the size of
trees flying at them.

William was making a small fire and fixing
some food, while Hilda disarmed the cook by making him hand over
his wand.

"William, look at this thing," she giggled as
she held up the exaggerated big stickI'd almost think he is trying
to make up for something."

Bilgar blushed, which was not visible in the
dark, but still it made him feel vulnerable.

"Now, Bilgar," said William as a kind of stew
was simmering in a black pot that floated over the fire. "Are you
going to try and escape? It is a hell of a long walk back to
Heraldion, you know that. Lots of nasty animals on the prowl also,
out here, which would not invite me if I were a cook. I'd be using
them for a meal, not becoming theirs."