The Evil Wizard Smallbone (29 page)

Hell Cat looked determined. “We’ll just have to rescue you, then.” She picked up a mallet and a pair of rusty pincers. “I bet I can get the locks open with these.”

Smallbone shook his head. “You’re forgetting the Rules. Evil wizards work alone. They don’t have help and they don’t get rescued. Ain’t nobody never read you a fairy tale, Hell Cat?”

“My mama couldn’t read,” Hell Cat said. “Besides, that ain’t even true. Fidelou has lots of help. What about the Howling Coyotes?”

“Minions don’t duel. This is between him and me, and may the best villain win.”

Smallbone’s voice said the topic was closed, but Nick wasn’t so sure. Maybe the Rules couldn’t be broken, but they could be gotten around. The beginnings of a plan came into his head.

“Hell Cat,” he said slowly, “can you come over here a second?”

“What’re you up to, Foxkin?” Smallbone asked sharply.

“Nothing,” Nick said.

“Uh-huh.”

Nick beckoned to Hell Cat and whispered to her through the bars.

Hell Cat gave him a slit-eyed glare. “You’re nuts.”

“I know,” Nick said. “Will you do it?”

Suddenly, Hell Cat grinned. “Sure.”

Nick couldn’t quite manage to grin back, so he pulled Smallbone’s pipe out of his pocket. “Use this to find us. Just hold it up and let it swing. The stem will —”

“I know, I know,” Hell Cat said. “Good luck!” She ran back to the clothesline, tugged it twice, and hung on as it jerked up into the ceiling. When she was gone, the dungeon seemed darker and danker than ever.

“Foxkin,” Smallbone said, “you going to tell me about this plan of yours?”

“What plan?” Nick said.

“The one you was telling Hell Cat just now. Unless all that whispering was about how you’ve been sweet on her all this time and was afraid to say.”

This struck Nick as funny. “That’s right,” he said. “I asked her for a date. Now can I get some sleep? It’s been a long day.”

Nick had no intention of actually sleeping, but when he woke up with a jerk, the dungeon was pitch black. The torches had gone out. Time had passed; he didn’t know how much. At least it was still night — at least he hoped it was. In any case, if he was going to go through with his plan, he’d have to do it now.

He pulled himself stiffly to his feet.

Smallbone’s voice came out of the blackness. “Whatcha doing?”

“You’ll see.”

“Is it a fool piece of nonsense?”

“Probably.” Nick felt sick. “Well. Here goes. Hey!” he shouted, banging his cage against the wall. “What’s-your-face! Hiram! Come down here! I want to talk to the Boss!”

A few minutes later, Nick was back on the dirty red carpet in front of Fidelou’s throne. The stink of evil was making his stomach churn, and Hiram’s grip on his arm was like a steel band, but he was on his feet and he had a plan. It depended on a whole bunch of things going right that were more likely to go wrong, but still, it was a plan.

Fidelou was lounging against his wolf pelt with his feet on Smallbone’s coat. “You wished to speak to me?” he asked. “Speak, then.”

Nick took a deep breath of carrion-scented air. “I want to be a coyote,” he said.

Fidelou appeared to find this amusing. “You will excuse me if I decline to believe you.”

“Why? You told me to think it over, and I did.” Nick looked the wolf wizard straight in the fierce yellow eyes. “I want to join your pack.”

“Do you deny that you hate me, apprentice of Smallbone?”

“No. But I hate Smallbone worse.”

“My enemy’s enemy is my friend, eh?” Fidelou yawned, giving Nick an excellent view of a jawful of pointed teeth. “Well, I too have thought, and I think it would be foolish to trust my enemy’s enemy when he is himself a wizard.”

Nick’s face tingled with fear. “Who me? I can’t do magic!”

His voice was shrill with panic.

Fidelou frowned. “You are Smallbone’s apprentice, are you not?”

“He
said
I was. But so far, all I’ve done is cook and wash dishes and milk goats. He never said nothing about teaching me magic.”

He was babbling. A good liar never babbles.

But Fidelou only shook his head. “He is a fool. Magic rises from you like heat from a fire. A mortal fire,
bien sûr
, and not to be compared to my own, but great. Perhaps that is why he has not taught you. He is afraid you would destroy him. But me, I am afraid of nothing. Five hundred years I have lived, in the Old World and the New, and never once have I been afraid.” He leaned forward on his throne.

“Fear is a mortal failing. You, for example, fear me to the point of madness.”

I’m dead
, Nick thought. He’d thought that before, when Uncle Gabe was on a tear, but now he knew he’d never believed it. His uncle wouldn’t kill him — not on purpose, anyway. Fidelou would, without thinking twice. He’d enjoy it.

Nick sagged in Hiram’s grip. Concentration. It was all about Concentration and Will. Let Fidelou think he was a wimp and an idiot. What Fidelou thought couldn’t change who Nick really was.

Neither could his stinking magic pelt, not if Nick could help it.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “I’m scared. That’s why I want to join you — so I don’t have to be scared anymore.”

Fidelou sat back against his pelt, the picture of satisfaction.

“I accept your offer. It will amuse me to take Smallbone’s pup for my own. Release him,” he told Hiram. “He is too smart to run. And bring to me a pelt — the white pelt, I think.” He grinned at Nick. “It is very special, that pelt. I give it only to those whose natures are truly wild.”

Hiram released Nick, and he collapsed onto the red rug. He was shaking and felt sick to his stomach.
Okay, I’m scared
, he thought.
But I have a plan
.

“It is time,” Fidelou announced dramatically.

Nick raised his head. The wolf wizard was standing on the platform, a pelt stretched between his hands. It was silvery white from head to tail, and its legs dangled in a spooky, almost lifelike dance.

“It is nearly dawn,” Fidelou went on. “Kneel before me, apprentice of Smallbone. Soon you shall see your enemy defeated.”

This was it. There was nowhere to run, no way to fight, no clever trick or lie to tell, just Nick the stubborn kid with the bad attitude against Fidelou’s special magic pelt. At least he’d stopped shaking. He looked up at the pelt dangling over his head. The lolling head stared at him with empty eyes. Nick stared back.

It’s just a transformation
, he told himself.
You’ve gone through this before. You know how to turn yourself back. You’re Nick Reynaud of Beaton, Maine, and no full-of-himself, big-mouth wolf is going to get the best of you
.

Fidelou released the pelt and it settled over Nick like a furry blanket, stinking of bad magic and mothballs.

Suddenly, Nick felt fine. In fact, he felt wonderful. He was a good dog, and good dogs don’t have to be afraid. Good dogs obey their master and their master keeps them safe.

Except you’re not a good dog
, said the voice of his human self.
You’re a magic coyote. And coyotes are tricksters, just like foxes. You have this, Nick
.

The coyote part of him whined. It knew coyotes couldn’t kill wolves.

Who said anything about fighting? Fidelou’s not all that smart. Think of it this way: if he’s all that big and bad, why’s he holed up in a drafty castle in the poorest, rockiest hardscrabble stretch of woodland in the entire state of Maine?

The coyote became aware that the mad yellow eyes were staring at him.
He wants to know if you’re in his power
, the back of his mind informed him.
And you’re not, are you? So you’ll need to pretend
.

The coyote crouched submissively.

A shadow fell over him and sharp nails sank painfully through the thick fur of his ruff. “Apprentice of Smallbone”— the harsh voice was affectionate —“you make me a fine dog, eh?”

The coyote whined and waved his tail, but inside his head, Nick was saying,
I’m not a dog! And you’re not the boss of me!

The loup-garou straightened. “Bring up the hedge wizard,” he said.

Hiram disappeared.

Fidelou grabbed his pelt from the back of his throne and swirled it around him. Nick lay down and rested his muzzle on his crossed paws. He didn’t know what was going to happen next, and he was scared again, but he was in control of himself, and that was the important thing.

That, and Hell Cat’s sneaking abilities.

Clanking and scuffling sounded from the dungeon stairs. Nick sat up and pricked his ears. Hiram led Smallbone forward by a chain bound around his hands. With his shirt and his red suspenders and his plump face all stubbly and streaked with dirt from the dungeon, he looked more like a farmer than an evil wizard.

He still didn’t have his glasses.

“My old friend Smallbone!” Fidelou said. “Have you slept well? Victory is not so sweet when it is too easily won.”

Smallbone munched his jaws. Without the bushy beard, it looked like he was grinding his teeth. “If it’s a fair fight you’re after, you’ll have to give me back my coat.”

Fidelou shook back his mane of black hair and laughed. “Fair is for heroes and little children. Evil wizards take what advantage they may.” He gestured at Nick. “See, here is your apprentice. Does he not make a pretty pet?”

Smallbone squinted at Nick.

Deliberately, Nick put back his ears and growled.

“I see,” Smallbone said. “You’re welcome to him. Useless as shoes on a cat.”

One of the squinting eyes closed briefly. It could have been a twitch or it could have been a signal. Nick decided to believe it was a signal.

The tiny windows at the top of the Great Hall had begun to grow pale with the approach of day.

Fidelou sniffed the air and scowled. “The sun rises. It is time!” He snapped his fingers, Nick came to his heel, and the two wizards and their attendants marched out of the hall and into the pearly mist.

The ground Fidelou chose for his long-desired wizards’ duel was a scraggly meadow dotted with rocks and weeds and a few scruffy pines. The sun cast spears of light through the trees as Fidelou’s pack trotted out of the woods. Some went on two legs and some on four, but all were coyotes and all were his, from the gnarliest veteran to the young white male trotting at his heel.

The pack followed Fidelou to the tallest of the pines and stood in a semicircle behind it like an audience at a play. Fidelou pulled Smallbone up onto a boulder and unchained his hands.

Smallbone rubbed his wrists and pulled up his suspenders. Without his horror-movie coat and hat, he looked half dressed and exposed, a snail without a shell.

Fidelou, on the other hand, looked just like an evil wizard ought to look: tall and wild and strong and sinister, and completely in control of the situation.

“I challenge you, Zachariah Smallbone,” he howled. “By sky and stone, by sea and flame, I challenge you. By your name and your nature, by your magic and your skill, I challenge you. By the Rules and Rituals of Battle and Story, I challenge you.” His voice dropped to a gentle growl. “Do you accept?”

“I expect I got to, seeing as how you won’t give me a moment’s peace until I do.”

Fidelou growled. “I ask you again. Do you accept of your own will and desire?”

Smallbone sighed. “I, the Wizard Smallbone of Smallbone Cove, accept the challenge of Fidelou the Loup-Garou. You happy now?”

Fidelou began to lift his hands.

“Hold your horses,” Smallbone said. “I got the right to set the terms. I call a Standard Western European Wizards’ Duel. Shape-shifting only, no taking the same shape twice, no returning to your original form until the other one is dead.”

“Done.” Fidelou stretched his mouth in a wide inhuman grin. “I hope you are prepared to die.”

“I ain’t worried,” Smallbone said. “Unless maybe you aim to jaw me to death.”

At that, Fidelou snarled and lunged, beginning as a man and ending as a wolf, jaws wide, aiming for Smallbone’s throat.

Nick went rigid with fear, then breathed again when he saw a gray fox streak up the pine like a scalded cat. The duel had begun.

The wolf turned into a giant eagle and rose from the ground in a thunder of wings. It circled the pine, gaining height, then folded its wings and stooped.

The fox disappeared.

The eagle turned into a red-crowned woodpecker and drilled his powerful beak into the pine.

A big striped tomcat erupted from the tree trunk and swiped at the woodpecker with extended claws. The woodpecker became a tawny bobcat with tufted ears and wicked teeth. It sprang at the tom, then screamed in pain as a yellowjacket buzzed up between its paws and stung it on the nose.

Nick whined uneasily. Smallbone was holding his own so far without the help of the coat, but sooner or later he’d run out of magic and Fidelou would get him. Where were Hell Cat and Mutt?

A giant snake attacked a knight with a gleaming sword. The sword became a roaring flame and the snake a black cloud streaming rain and thunder.

Nick looked around him. Every one of the two- and four-legged coyotes had its eyes riveted on the field. He slipped away into the shelter of the trees, lifted his nose, and sniffed. Coyote, of course — lots of magic coyote — and the burned-metal smell of magic. But he could also make out, if he concentrated, rotting leaves and pine and mud and — very faintly — scents that he recognized: Mutt and Hell Cat, nervous as the first day of school . . . and a familiar mixture of tobacco and old man.

Moving like a pale mist through the brush, Nick followed his nose to where the former dog and cat crouched behind a bayberry bush with an untidy bundle between them, arguing in whispers.

“
Smallbone’s
the pond, Mutt. I was keeping track.”

“That would mean Fidelou’s the basketball now, and I don’t see him turning himself into a basketball, do you?”

Nick nudged Mutt’s shoulder with his nose. Mutt yelped and Hell Cat punched his arm. “That’s Nick, stupid.” Her eyes gleamed — she was enjoying herself. “What do you want us to do?”

Nick whined.

“Stop kidding around,” Hell Cat said.

He concentrated, opened his mouth, and barked. It was no use. The pelt wouldn’t let him speak.