“Aha, you insult yourself, orphan!” Sardanapal hummed and hawed. The academician pretended that he wanted to bring a finger to the mouth of the kikimora, and her sharp triangular teeth clicked right away, exactly like a trap. If Sardanapal did not jerk back his hand, he would have one finger less.
“She’ll not tell anything. I know this kind. And it’s clear that she didn’t roam here going about her own business. Maybe we’ll preserve her in alcohol for the museum so that no one would make a slip of the tongue?” the instructor of studies of evil spirits proposed, energetically shaking the kikimora by the ear.
“A-a-a-a-a! Don’t wantga be in alcoholga! Will keepga quietga! Will be the quietest hushga!” the kikimora began to bawl shrilly.
“Not worth it, Medusa. It’s completely not necessary to put her in a jar. I’ll make it so that she’ll forget everything.” With a dexterity difficult to expect from a clumsy phlegmatic person with a round belly, Sardanapal seized the kikimora by a flipper and, blowing into her ear, uttered in an undertone, “Scleroticus marasmoticus! Fillissimo moronissimo!”
After this, he cold-bloodedly unclenched his fingers, dropping the spy onto the grass. For a while, the green lady crazily shook her head, clearly in great confusion. She looked at Sardanapal and Medusa dully and without curiosity. Making several staggering steps on the lawn, the kikimora gathered her senses slightly, snorted contemptuously and, having reached the hatch in a waddle, jumped in there like a toy soldier. From the hatch a small fountain of water splashed out, several bad words were heard, and everything quieted down.
“She swam away,” said Sardanapal, indicating the direction with his green moustache.
“All these evil spirits are terribly boring. It’s about time to put a spell on them so that they wouldn’t butt in on the moronoids. One day they’ll upset the balance of power and then it’ll be bad for us all.” Medusa anxiously clicked her tongue.
Sardanapal dismissed it lightly, “Nonsense, Medusa. You exaggerate, as always. The evil spirits are a confused force, sprung from chaos and partially preserved from the times of paganism. Yes, there are many evil spirits, dozens of times more than us magicians – white and black, but they were never in a state of agreement among themselves. How often I remember, the evil spirits were always defying bans, playing dirty tricks on the moronoids, and upsetting the balance. But as long as the Hair of The Ancient One is whole and the Gates are standing, our world is in danger from nothing. Even from the direction of the black magicians, whom we’ll in no way smoke out of Tibidox.”
“And what about She-Who-Is-No-More?”
“I agree, she was unique, who knew how to organize the evil spirits and to set them on us. Moreover, she almost managed to force us magicians to hand over our positions to her. If not for Leopold Grotter and his newborn daughter…”
“Not only Grotter. You never feared her, Professor! Even when she was in power!”
Sardanapal bashfully turned pink, “Oh, certainly! I’m always ready to utter in everybody’s hearing her true name – Plague-del-Cake! You see? Plague-del-Cake! And nothing terrible happens!”
The loud voice of the academician did not yet have time to stand still in the shifting labyrinth of high-rises when the glass of the terrace on the third floor spurted out splinters and a gleaming iron, whipping with the cord, flew out from there. Cutting the air with a whistle, it rushed along precisely to Sardanapal’s head. Picking up the hems of his robe, the academician quickly jumped aside and muttered something. In that same moment the iron turned into vapour.
“Did you see that? She-Who-Is-No-More wanted to kill you!” Medusa exclaimed fearfully.
“Nonsense. There is already no Auntie Plague… Simply one of the old spells snapping into action. She scattered thousands of them everywhere.” Sardanapal smiled and stepped on the escaped plug trying to coil around his leg with its cord.
Medusa flinched from loathing. In her thin hand by some mysterious means appeared a lorgnette, with which she examine parts of the destroyed iron.
“What an abomination! The next nasty invention of the moronoids… We’re leaving! There’s nothing more for us to do here.”
Chernomorov shook his head, “And here’s where you’re mistaken. The time has come to carry out the most unpleasant and difficult part of our mission. I started to talk about this but we were interrupted. We must… however painful this is for us… leave Tanya to the man whom you just saw.”
Medusa Gorgonova recoiled. Her copper-red hair, even without being tousled, rose suddenly on end and started to hiss. A casual person not knowing what Medusa was connected with long ago in her past would swear that he just saw a ball of entwined snakes.
“WHAT?! Did I hear right? You want to give the daughter of Leopold Grotter to this pitiful moronoid? The girl who, in some unknown manner, survived a struggle with She-Who-Is-No-More? The girl, after a meeting with whom She-Who-Is-No-More vanished?”
Detecting the angry notes in Medusa’s voice, the academician hurriedly turned away in order not to look her in the eyes by accident. To remove ancient magic is possible, but it has side effects.
“Medusa, we don’t have another way out,” he said softly. “We simply cannot act otherwise. I swear by the Hair of The Ancient One, I would sooner let my moustaches be shaved off and my beard be cut than to give the daughter of Grotter to this moronoid, but… we must, we are simply obligated to do this for the good of the entire Tibidox.”
“But why?” Medusa exclaimed. “Why?”
The greatest of the magicians sunk down to the pile of leaves and stretched out his legs, which were in faded old-fashioned stockings. The last time he was in the human world was during the time of Catherine II and now, trying to dress fashionably, he missed the minor details.
“I’ll describe to you how everything was that night. You remember three days ago when everything happened, a terrible thunderstorm broke out…”
“…clearly of magical origin. We don’t even know exactly who sent it,” added Medusa.
“Precisely. On that night through the window of the main tower of Tibidox, where, as you know, my alchemic laboratory is, a wet trembling little cupid in red suspenders flew directly to me…” reported Sardanapal.
His moustaches immediately formed into two hearts. They liked to slightly spite their host. Hiding a smile, the associate professor Gorgonova licked her lips.
“A cupid? To you? But indeed a cupid is amour, and amour…”
The moustaches rose up in offence. The right one even attempted to smack Medusa on the nose but could not reach her.
“I don’t need to explain who these cupids are,” Sardanapal pronounced dryly. “I’ll not confuse them with harpies or house spirits or members of the dragonball team of Tibidox. And it’ll be known to you, the purpose of his visit was far from romantic. In our dull century, they more often declare their love by telephone. The arrows of amour already break through to no one anymore – the skin has become painfully thick, now the wretched cupids have to be occupied with mail delivery. And shouldn’t they earn nectar and ambrosia for themselves somehow? So here, the little cupid squeezed his wet suspenders off and handed me a letter from Leopold Grotter.”
“The last letter of Grotter!” Medusa exclaimed. Her irony instantly evaporated. “But you never told anyone…”
The moustaches of Sardanapal swept with the speed of windshield wipers, showing that this was top secret.
“Certainly no one. And you’ll soon understand why. Only those I absolutely trust should know the truth. I sent the little cupid to warm up in a Russian bath – I confess, I’m even glad that the cyclopes built it in our basement (although sometimes the steam undoubtedly starts with a jerk), and I immediately began to read the letter. It was very laconic: Grotter informed that after many failures he had succeeded in finally obtaining the Talisman of Four Elements.”
Medusa’s pupils narrowed. She looked uneasily around the hatch, checking whether a curious bumpy face climbed out of it.
“Most likely I’ve lost my mind,” she muttered dizzily. “The Talisman of Four Elements, comprising the forces of fire, air, earth, and water! A Talisman giving enormous power to whoever wears it… Perhaps, the one who wields the Talisman could defy the very… She-Who…”
“Yes, Plague-del-Cake,” Sardanapal courageously specified, involuntarily glancing upward: whether an iron would yet whistle. “Grotter wrote: in order to get the Talisman, he used one hundred forty-seven different components, among which, as I assume, carnelian and mouse tears absolutely had to be present… Well, but the secret of all the rest he took with himself to the grave…”
“And his Talisman? You have it?” Medusa asked excitedly.
“The Talisman had vanished. It disappeared in the most improbable way. But you have not listened to the end… Hardly waiting for the end of the thunderstorm, I sat on the jet sofa and flew to Leopold Grotter.”
“You flew on the jet sofa?”
Chernomorov was embarrassed. Nevertheless, one can hardly say very.
“Yes, I understand what you want to say: someone among the students, especially from the “black,” could see and make a laughing stock of me. I’ll say: academician, laureate of the award of Magic Suspenders, head of the legendary Tibidox flying on a tattered sofa with plucked chicken wings… A sofa, from which copper springs stick out… It was already late, and no one saw me… And how? Would someone really look out the window, having heard nothing but a little rumble… Mm… I even almost ran into the stained-glass panel of the Hall of Two Elements, but if the glass also crumbled, then through the course of time… Nevertheless it was seven hundred years old…”
“A nightmare! And I thought that the stained-glass panel was fractured by lightning!” Medusa thought.
“At first I wanted to use a flying carpet, but to set out on a carpet in this dampness would be a waste: moth would damage it. Besides, the jet sofa is almost one-and-a-half times faster… Well, and I don’t speak of boot-runners at all. Since, as they were hexed, their accuracy of landing is almost twenty versts… Oh, of course, I could take a mop with propeller or a flying vacuum, but you know full well that they are uncomfortable. One’s back becomes numb during long flights on them, and the absence of baggage carrier interferes with taking even the smallest load with you.”
The instructor of studies of evil spirits sighed very quietly. For a long time, those in Tibidox were already used to Academician Sardanapal’s eccentricities. He could very well, mixing up the epochs, appear at work in a Roman toga or set someone’s ear wax on fire by mistake, after confusing it with a grey chemical. And what about that case with the guest from Bald Mountain, when the academician sent him on a three-month sleep, having accidentally read to him the hibernation spell for gophers instead of the salutatory speech? But whatever you may say, nevertheless he was the greatest magician since The Ancient One.
“Are you listening to me, Medusa? In my opinion you were distracted!” The academician reproachfully glanced at his companion, and she, worrying, understood too late that she forgot to protect her thoughts with a guard spell.
When you deal with a powerful magician, never overlook any small detail.
“So, I flew to Leopold,” continued Sardanapal. “The wind was favourable, so that I was on the road for no more than three hours. Before reaching the place, I detected a great number of evil spirits swarming around his house. They were behaving very strangely – muttering something, panting, walking in circles, and were generally somewhat dejected. Noticing me, the evil spirits dispersed in countable minutes. You know these essences: first many of them, then suddenly, at one go, none…”
“And no one even attempted an attack?” Medusa was astonished.
“Absolutely not. I did not believe my own eyes. Only Plague-del-Cake could assemble so many evil spirits in one place, and she would indeed not miss a chance to settle a score with me. Here’s the riddle – only very recently the evil spirits were ready to tear us into shreds, but now it’s as if we don’t exist for them… Busy with their own little squabbles.”
“And then you surmised that She-Who-Is-No-More vanished?”
“Well, I haven’t quite surmised yet, but I’m already pondering. I approached the house of Leopold, knocked – no sound in answer. Then I pushed the door, and it opened. It didn’t even open but simply fell from a single touch. In the house everything was turned upside down. Internal walls had collapsed, handrails were charred, only chips left from the furniture. Likely someone endowed with immense magical power uttered a spell of total annihilation. I rushed into the laboratory. It suffered most of all. Even the granite boulder that served Leopold as a table for experiments crumbled into powder, I hardly touched it…” the voice of Sardanapal trembled. “Grotter and his wife Sophia… there was already no help for them. Even I could not help, although, as you know, Medusa, I slightly understand magic. But here’s a miracle – in the middle of the laboratory, on the floor dented by the spell, among the crumbled plaster lay a case for a double bass, and in it – a tiny little girl, their daughter… We knew the Grotters well, Medusa, they were people of skill, magicians of superior material. Magic and music were what they lived for. They didn’t even have a baby carriage for the child, managed entirely with a case for the double bass. Afraid that the girl was also dead, I leaned over the case, and – oh, a miracle! – she was sleeping serenely, and gripped in her palm was a silver scorpion of Plague-del-Cake…”
Medusa straightened abruptly. Her copper-red hair again hissed like snakes.
“How? That same scorpion-killer which She-Who-Is-No-More sent to sting her victims when she wanted to take pleasure in their tortures?”
“Yes. But it couldn’t injure the girl, although on the tip of her nose I noticed two red spots. Likely, the scorpion stung her directly on the birthmark. Even a light bite was usually sufficient to kill an adult magician… But she, this baby, simply crushed it. A year-old girl, not even awake, dealt with the silver scorpion.”
“However, it’s incredible that she survived. But if the scorpion got rid of its venom? Or was it used earlier?” Gorgonova asked with distrust.
“No, there was enough venom. And Plague-del-Cake didn’t keep old scorpions. But even if we forget about the scorpion, another thing remains: the spell of complete annihilation – this terrible white flash which burns out everything all around – also couldn’t harm Tanya. Indeed this form of magic is not among those directed selectively. It destroys everyone and everything that happened to be close by, with the exception of the one who cast it.”
Tears rolled down Medusa’s cheeks and fell onto the pile of maple leaves. The leaves began to smoke. The first unknown folk narrator calling female tears hot was likely acquainted with a sorceress.
“The unlucky Grotters! But what about the Talisman of Four Elements?” Medusa sobbed.
“I was never able to find it,” said Sardanapal. “It was not near Leopold nor his wife Sophia nor the child… It was nowhere in the house. Most likely, it was destroyed by the spell together with all the rest of Grotter’s inventions. True, at first I suspected that Plague-del-Cake took it, but, if this were so, we would already have known about it. No, it actually disappeared, and the strange behaviour of the evil spirits – a better confirmation of that. I don’t know what happened in the house of the Grotters, but this tiny little girl did what no single magician could… She stopped She-Who-Is-No-More…”
Only now detecting the burning leaves under her feet, Medusa uttered a short spell accompanied by a sign, which her magic ring traced directly in the air. The fire went out. For a little while, the sign traced by Medusa hung in the air, weakly wavering. Gorgonova angrily wiped it off with her palm.