The Magician's Tower (14 page)

T
he bell over the door tinkled as Oona stepped into the front room of the Dark Street Veterinarian's Office. Deacon's talons tightened on Oona's shoulder, and she could tell he was nervous about entering the animal doctor's office.

The room smelled of dog breath and cat dander. Several owners sat in chairs along the wall, their ailing pets either lying in their laps or resting at their heels. Upon seeing Deacon, a fat orange-and-white tabby cat let out a low growl, but was too weak to do more than rear its head from its owner's lap, a middle-aged woman with cat fur clinging to the front of her dress.

The office was more of an apartment than any office
Oona had ever been in, and several seconds after she'd entered the front room, a man with a drooping mustache and a reflector strapped to his forehead poked his face through the doorway leading to the kitchen area. Below the reflector, several long needlelike objects stuck straight out of the man's creased forehead. Several more needles poked out of his chin like long, extremely rigid whiskers. The needles looked very painful, and Oona had no idea what to make of them.

“Do you have an appointment?” the man shouted hurriedly.

When Oona hesitated, he stuck out his left hand, plucked several needles from his palm, and then snapped his fingers impatiently. “Come, come! Plenty of sick pets here, and I have nine house calls scheduled for this afternoon.”

“Oh, yes,” said Oona. “I mean, no. I haven't an appointment. Are you the veterinarian?”

“Of course I'm the veterinarian!” the man shouted. He stepped fully into the doorway, displaying his long white doctor's jacket. He held up his right hand, which was also stuck with dozens of the strange needles. “Why else would I be performing massage therapy on porcupines?”

“I … can't imagine,” Oona replied.

“Highly anxious creatures, porcupines,” said the veterinarian. “Carry all of their stress in their backs.”

A hound let out a low whimper, and its owner, a boy of ten or eleven, patted the dog sympathetically on the head. Oona suddenly wished to be far away.

“Indeed,” she said. “Well, I don't want to waste your valuable time. I've come for the
‘rope in cup.' ”

“The what?” shouted the veterinarian.

Oona ran the anagram over in her mind:
Ask for the PRICE ON UP
. “The … ah … ‘rope in cup'?” she asked, questioningly.

The veterinarian plucked one of the porcupine needles from his chin, pointing it at her. “I haven't any idea what you are talking about. There is no rope in cup here, and if you insist on blabbering nonsense, then I will have to ask you to leave. These porcupines aren't going to massage themselves.”

Oona shook her head. She had not been a hundred percent sure of her attempt to decipher the anagram, but it had been the only solution she could come up with for PRICE ON UP.

She glanced quickly around the room. According to the clue, she was supposed to come here and ask for something, but what? What was another anagram for PRICE ON UP? Seeing the sad-eyed puppy in the lap of a sleeping elderly gentleman—both the puppy and the man had drool running down their mouths—Oona quickly said: “Pup on rice!”

The veterinarian looked as if he were about to throw the porcupine barb at Oona. “I'm sure I have no idea what you are speaking of!” he shouted. “Now, unless you are here to take one of these anxiety-ridden porcupines off my hands, then please find your way to the door.”

“Wait!” Oona shouted back at him. “Porcupine!”

“Yes, that's what I said,” the veterinarian said. “No doubt their anxiety is from all that show business the owner's got them involved in. Highly stressful work for an animal.”

“That's it!” Oona exclaimed, seeing the letters in PRICE ON UP rearrange themselves in her head to form the word: “Porcupine! I've come to take a porcupine to the Master of Ten Thousand Faces at the Dark Street Theater.”

“That's what that other girl asked for straightaway,” said the woman with the orange tabby cat on her lap.

“Isadora Iree?” Oona asked.

The woman only shrugged, but Oona was sure it was Isadora whom the woman was referring to: Isadora, who somehow had figured everything out well ahead of Oona, and was most likely at the Dark Street Theater at that very minute, handing her porcupine to Albert Pancake.

“Good riddance!” shouted the veterinarian. He handed a box containing one of the porcupines to Oona. As she turned to leave, Roderick Rutherford opened the
door and stepped into the front room. The first thing Oona noticed was the bruise below his left eye.

“Ah, Miss Crate,” he said. “One step ahead of me, as usual.”

“Only barely, it seems,” she replied. “And Isadora is ahead of us both.”

Roderick nodded, then pointed at the box in her hands. “That must be your porcupine.”

Oona shook her head. “Am I the only one who had such trouble figuring that one out?”

Roderick smirked, then winced at the pain in his cheek. Oona opened her mouth to ask Roderick what had happened to his face, when she suddenly realized that not only was he about to get his own porcupine, but Isadora had quite a large lead already. She decided to save the question for another time.

“Good luck, Mr. Rutherford,” she said. “But I really must run.”

Oona flung open the carriage door and made a dash for the Dark Street Theater box office window, the box containing the porcupine clasped beneath her arm. She skidded to a halt and Deacon flew to her shoulder.

“I'm here to see the Master of Ten Thousand Faces,”
she said, peering through the glass. “I have a porcupine to deliver.”

The woman behind the glass did not bother to look up from her newspaper, but pointed to the front doors.

“Thank you,” Oona said.

A carriage clattered to a stop behind her on the street, and Oona saw that Roderick was right behind her, carrying the box containing his own porcupine. She pushed open the front door, and Roderick followed her in. Pausing for a moment to let her eyes adjust to the darkened theater lobby, Oona took in her surroundings. Roderick did the same.

A lush red-and-gold carpet spread out beneath their feet, running from wall to wall and continuing up the twin staircases that curved up to the mezzanine on the second floor. A line of marble columns supported the mezzanine from below, each column carved to resemble enormous twisted tree trunks. It was like finding oneself in a marble forest. The high ceiling supported no less than five brilliant crystal chandeliers that glimmered and sparkled like diamonds in the sky.

But all of this opulence and grandeur failed to catch Oona's interest. It was the dragon that stood in the center of the room that took hold of her attention and refused to let go.

Oona's heart lurched. She took a step back as the beast
first reared its head, and then turned to face her. Deacon let out a sharp shriek before launching himself into the air and taking refuge on one of the chandeliers high overhead. Roderick leapt behind Oona, as if to use her as a shield, and Oona thought:
He wouldn't know what chivalry was if it hit him over the head
.

The Dragon stepped forward. Oona froze, afraid to move. The beast stood on hind legs, no more than six feet tall, with great green wings that matched the rest of its scaly body. But it was the monster's face that proved the most frightening feature. Eyes as black as tar peered at her from within deep reptilian sockets. The creature grinned, displaying a set of saberlike teeth, all set menacingly in slimy black gums.

Oona licked at her lips, which were suddenly very dry, and yet that was as much as she could move. It was like a bad dream, not at all what she would have expected to find on Dark Street, let alone the theater lobby.

What surprised Oona even more was when the hideous-looking beast actually spoke. The dragon reared back its head, no doubt preparing to run at her and strike. It roared, flapping its wings and beating at its chest. And then it stopped, as if the show were suddenly over. It cocked its head to one side, and then in a highly refined voice asked: “Have you a porcupine for me?”

Oona was forced to clear her throat in order to speak,
and when she did it came out in a high squeak. “Um … yes.”

“Oh, you dear girl,” the dragon said concernedly, and then used its front claws to open its large mouth, from which emerged a man's head. “Sorry about that,” he said. “Didn't mean to frighten you. And you, too, dear fellow. It's only a costume, you know.”

Oona swallowed, feelings of shock and amazement and anger rushing through her in quick succession. She squinted, still attempting to understand precisely what she was looking at. After a while she could see very clearly that this thing was no real dragon at all—which Oona knew from her history lessons no longer existed outside the Land of Faerie—but it was, in fact, a highly elaborate costume. A very good one, she had to admit, which only served to fuel her anger.

“Didn't mean to frighten us?” she said sharply. “If that were the truth, then why dress up in a dragon costume?”

The man lowered his head, sweeping his arm out in front of him as if taking a bow.

“All part of the show!” he exclaimed, and then disappeared behind one of the marble columns. Several seconds later he appeared on the other side of the column dressed in Roman armor with a laurel wreath crown on his head: the spitting image of Julius Caesar. The dragon costume was nowhere to be seen.

Roderick moved out from behind Oona, and the two of them shared a surprised look.

“Et tu, Brute?” asked Julius Caesar.

“I beg your pardon?” Oona asked.

Instead of answering, the man once again disappeared behind the column, only to reappear on the other side dressed in a long red dress and comely black wig. The transformation was startling, from Roman war general to medieval countess in the blink of an eye. The woman peered at Oona, her eyes encircled with thick black eye makeup, and spoke in a perfect feminine timbre. “Is this the porcupine I see before me?”

Deacon circled down from the ceiling to Oona's shoulder.

“Why, it's Lady Macbeth,” he said. “Very convincing.”

“This chap's mad as a hatter,” said Roderick.

Lady Macbeth slipped quickly behind the column, only to emerge from the other side as none other than Oswald the Great. With long black hair and wand in hand, he pointed at the box containing the porcupine.

“Bring the animals to me, please,” he said.

Oona, who was shaking her head at the sudden appearance and disappearance of all these characters, could think of nothing to do but comply with Oswald's orders.

Pancake's orders
, she reminded herself.
This is not Oswald. It's Albert Pancake, the Master of Ten Thousand Faces
.

She set the box at his feet and opened it. Roderick did the same. Inside, glaring up at them, were the two porcupines, looking highly anxious. Oona only hoped that she would not be required to give hers a massage.

Oswald deftly plucked one sharp barb from each of the porcupines, and then handed one to Oona and the other to Roderick. The man nodded at her before snapping his fingers and leaping behind the column. He was gone no more than three seconds this time when he reappeared, draped in a deep blue robe, taking on the full likeness of her uncle, the Wizard. “And good luck,” he said, the voice surprisingly similar to that of her uncle.

Oona gasped. It was nothing short of astounding. Down to the wrinkled nose, the man had embodied the Wizard to near perfection. Though
“near”
was the optimal word. It was the eyes that gave him away. Oona would know her uncle's eyes anywhere: wise, caring, penetrating, even mischievous—like a little boy's eyes that had seen many things. And those were not the eyes that looked at her now. That was something that could not be imitated.

“Take the porcupine barb to the tower,” said the Master of Ten Thousand Faces in a remarkable imitation of the Wizard. “It is your ticket to the second part of today's challenge.”

A
click
sounded behind Oona as Adler Iree came rushing through the front entrance, a box tucked under
his arm. He glanced ruefully at her, giving her a grin as he paused to catch his breath, and Oona could feel her cheeks grow very warm.

When she turned back to Mr. Pancake to thank him, she saw that he no longer resembled her uncle, but now appeared to be a tutu-wearing ballerina with long golden braids, doing pirouettes.

“Get me out of this loony bin,” Roderick said, and made a dash for the door.

Oona followed suit, taking only the briefest of moments to stop at Adler's side and touch his shoulder.

“Good luck,” she said, and just had time to see the boy's tattooed face flush red before she rushed through the doors and back out into the daylight, feeling ecstatically alive. It had been quite bold of her to touch his shoulder in such a familiar way, and she suddenly wondered what had come over her. Whatever it was, she certainly did not have time to consider it for long.