Дмитрий Емец – Tanya Grotter And The Magic Double Bass (страница 3)
“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
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…”