Magician's Fire (11 page)

“Harry! What were you doing on the roof—
Ow
!
” Arthur tumbled down the fire escape. “I was watching you.”

“You were?” Tangled up with his friend, Harry tumbled too.

“Yes! I saw you. With Boris Zell!
Ouch
!
”

“I was talking to him—”

“I know you were talking! But what about? I couldn't hear—
Look
ou
t
!”

They were gathering speed. Harry watched Arthur's face speed past and snatched at the railings, but he was traveling too fast. He tumbled onward and made out a familiar voice and some footsteps clanging up the steps.

“So I got out easy, Harry. No fancy tightrope-walking needed by me! The Princess Moldo trick, that's all. I just walked out through the lobby, cool as a cucumber, nobody asking me a single question. Not that you care about that—
Ooo
f!
”

They slammed right into her. Billie must have seen them coming, but their speed had clearly taken her by surprise, and she was part of their tangle now, tumbling downward. The silk dress ripped, the bonnet crumpled, the peacock feathers flew through the air, and Harry's flailing arm tore the Princess Moldo glasses right off Billie's face. They had snagged on his jacket's sleeve. He tried to pull them off, hoping to give them back to her, but they were too firmly lodged, one of the wire arms twisted through the lining.

“Don't look so surprised, Harry. You've wrecked the plan—why not wreck the costume as well?”

“I didn't mean to wreck… I was just trying to…
Ow
!
”

They had toppled down onto one of the fire escape landings, Harry slamming his head hard against its rails. He sprawled there and wondered if he was still falling, because his head was spinning so fast. He stumbled up and immediately fell down again. His head throbbed and his vision blurred, but he just about managed to make out his friends, still tangled up with him.

“You should have left it to me and Artie!” Billie sat up first, grabbing her bonnet from under Arthur's foot and jamming it on her head again. “If you hadn't blundered in and set off that explosion of smoke, I'd probably still be up there. Spying on Boris from under the bed. I'd have found out all kinds of things. Instead we've all of us found out nothing. Diddly-squat!”

“You're wrong about that, Billie. Harry may have found out quite a bit!” Arthur tugged at a peacock feather in his hair. “He's been up on the hotel roof for nearly ten minutes talking with Zell. I saw them.”

“Really?” Billie sputtered.

“Not that he's told me much about it, mind.” Arthur frowned. “Have you, Harry?”

“I'm sorry…” Harry gasped, still struggling to get up. “I—”

“So tell us now, Harry.” Billie grabbed Harry's sleeve. “It's the least you owe us after what you've done—especially to Artie!”

“It's true.” Arthur hesitated and folded his arms. “I'm sorry I got angry before, Harry—but I meant what I said. My whole life, I've been treated like I'm nothing important. Meeting you and Billie—well, it's the first time I've felt I'm actually somebody…”

“True of all of us!” Billie gripped Harry's sleeve tighter. “What would I be without the two of you to help? A scruffy New Orleans street girl, doing crummy jobs and struggling to get by, that's all. As for you, Harry, where would you be if me and Artie hadn't noticed your tricks? So tell us!
Tell
us
what
happened
!
”

“I'll try… It's not easy… I don't understand most of it myself yet…” At last, Harry managed to stumble up. He tried to make out his friends more clearly, but his vision was too blurred. And he tried to take in everything they had said, but his head was still spinning. “I'm sorry, Artie. Of course I think you're important… I…”
Get
to
the
theater
. His head spun even faster as he stumbled down the fire escape toward the street below. “I'll try to explain… Boris Zell… He's different from what I thought…”

“Different how?” Billie clanged after him, and Arthur wasn't far behind.

“Well, he's Herbie's friend…” Waves of dizziness swept over him.

“Friend? Why did he kidnap him, then?”

“He didn't…”
Get
to
the
theater
.

“Who did, then?”

“I don't know… Not yet…”

“What exactly did Boris say? You've got to tell us, Harry!”

Harry's head spun faster. His stomach throbbed, deep inside, and he thought he was going to throw up. The iron struts of the fire escape were a blurred jumble. The words in his head were a jumble too. He had to get away from his friends' questions, however much he wanted to answer them, because each one was only making him dizzier.

Even if he managed to stutter something out, that would only lead them to ask more questions, needing more answers, taking longer and longer…and how would that help Herbie?
Get
to
the
theater
, he thought.
That's the only thing that matters
. He stumbled down onto the fire escape's next landing.

“I'll tell you as soon as I can… It's too complicated… There isn't time… Herbie, he's in trouble… I've got to go… I…”

He saw the Number 47 streetcar rattling along the street toward him three stories below.

“Harry!”

“Come back!”

He was throwing himself off the fire escape. With a life of its own, his fist was gripping the iron rail. His arm straightened, his body swung, and he was tumbling toward the rattling streetcar's roof twenty feet below. He thudded onto the roof, just inches away from the deadly overhead cables, and sprawled there as the streetcar rattled away, sparks showering around him. Still dizzy, he sat up and looked back.

“I'm sorry…”

The words were snatched by the wind. His friends back on the fire escape clearly hadn't heard them at all. Billie pounded about on the landing; Arthur tore the peacock feather out of his hair and threw it to the ground. All around them lay the wreckage of their carefully put together costume—the squashed bonnet, the torn dress.

Remembering the Princess Moldo spectacles, genuinely made in Lima itself, Harry fumbled with his jacket and managed to untangle them at last. Both lenses were smashed, and the wire frames were bent out of shape. He tried to bend them back, but fragments of glass just fell out of the frames.

How
can
it
have
ended
up
like
this?
he thought as he looked back up at the two shapes on the fire escape, his friends. But they were too far away to make out properly now. He slid the broken glasses into his pocket. He would give them back to them later.
Perhaps
that'll make things better
, he told himself.

Although, as he rattled off across Manhattan to the Wesley Jones Theater, he thought it probably wouldn't.

The streetcar clattered past the Wesley Jones Theater, and Harry jumped off. He touched his head and felt a swelling bruise, but the dizziness was nearly gone. It kept fading as he slid into the laughing, chattering crowd that was pouring out from the theater's afternoon show. No shoeshine plan was necessary to get backstage this time—just a simple break-in. He weaved through the crowd until he was in the foyer and glanced about, searching for a way. Seeing a door, he ducked across, checked that no one was looking, and pushed the handle up. Not even locked. He slid through and closed the door behind him.

He was in a dimly lit corridor. He climbed a rickety staircase. More corridors, more staircases flashed by, and pipes, hundreds of them, throbbed and wobbled around him. Harry stared at them because almost everything Wesley had said seemed suspicious now, and the stuff about the plumbing improvements was no exception. Finding another staircase, he recognized it as the one he had climbed with Wesley Jones that morning and swiftly scrambled to the door at the top, placed an ear against it, and, checking no one was inside, crept in.

“He has worked happily at this theater for no less than ten years…”

Harry stood in the middle of Wesley Jones's office. He saw the plush rug and the cupboard containing the twenty pairs of shoes. The theater owner's words echoed back to him—words which Harry now knew were not entirely true. Why had Wesley lied? Why had he exaggerated the length of time Herbie had worked here? Could it be that he wished to make the old magician's happiness with his job at the theater as convincing as possible? If so, why?

The coldness Harry had felt on the roof crept into him again, and he started pacing the room, partly to keep warm, partly to help himself think. Five times, he circled the office, and then he dropped into Wesley Jones's leather chair, positioning himself just as the theater owner had earlier that day, sliding into the curved hollow left by that plump figure—unpleasant but worth it, if it helped him see things from Wesley's point of view.

The mantelpiece. There in front in Harry, as he sat in Wesley's chair, was that carved marble bulk, with its framed photographs of the performers running along the top. All through his weeping, Wesley had been staring right at those photographs, but why? Harry was out of the chair, inspecting the mantelpiece and lifting each frame. His brain still couldn't piece together this business, but for the moment his fingers were doing the thinking. They scurried about, checking the frames and exploring the edge of the mantelpiece. From its frame, Herbie's face peered out, as mysterious and wrinkled as ever…

Harry's fingers brushed against something.

On the underside of the mantelpiece, just beneath Herbie's photograph, was a bump, a metal tip. Harry's fingers explored and managed to grip its edge. He pulled, and an inch-long stub of metal slid out, a hinge at its base.
Some
sort
of
switch
. He flicked it and toppled back as the whole mantelpiece swung out from the wall, its heavy marble bulk moving smoothly and silently, supported on huge iron hinges that glistened with oil. Harry sprawled on the plush rug, staring at the dark doorway that had been revealed, before scrambling up and springing into the gloom.

A spiral staircase. Harry clattered down it, his hand clutching the rail. Light from Wesley's office spilled down from above, revealing crumbling walls, rotten timbers, and yet more throbbing pipes. Harry heard the roar of the water inside them and wondered again about the plumbing work Wesley had mentioned and whether it was really just to improve the running water in the dressing rooms.

He plunged deeper into the gloom. The only light came from an iron lamp, dangling from a chain, with a candle flickering inside. The stairs led to a windowless room that seemed to be full of water: black, rippling, the candlelight glimmering on its surface. Harry bent down and dipped his hand in the water. Icy cold. Harry flinched and flinched again as, right in the middle of the water-filled gloom, he made out a cage.

It was large, rectangular, and made of iron. Across the front of it, Harry noticed some letters. Candlelight flickered weakly off them, but he couldn't quite make them out.

He stared at a figure inside the cage, knee-deep in water. Knotted ropes crisscrossed his body and a gag distorted his face, but Harry recognized him immediately.

It was Herbie.

Bicycling over Spikes. The
Flying Knives, Spider up Sleeve. Harry remembered all his old friend's tricks and how they had fascinated him. But none of them had ever made him feel as astonished and horrified as he felt now, seeing Herbie in the cage. Harry stood at the bottom of the stairs, the black water lapping at his boots, for some time before he realized that the old man was jiggling in his chair, staring at him with bulging eyes, and trying to say something.

“Mmmmmmph!”

Harry splashed into the water. It reached halfway up his legs, but he waded to the cage and gripped its bars. Herbie's mouth was struggling to shape words around the cloth gag, and Harry wondered if he could somehow read those struggling lips. He tried to do that, only to realize that the frail magician was jerking his head back toward the dangling iron lamp. Harry splashed over and found, just next to the candle, a key. Twisting it in the lock, he slid the door across and waded into the cage. He tried to undo the old man's gag, but the knot securing it was tight. He tugged at it, pried it, and finally pulled it loose, only to collapse back into the water with a splash, knocked off balance by the force of the old man's cry.

“Harry! What are you doing here? You are in danger! Don't you realize?”

Harry sprawled in the water. Soaked, he struggled back up. Herbie's cry still echoed, but the power of it seemed to have exhausted the old man, and he was slumped in his chair. Harry's fingers probed the ropes that held the old man, their knots even tighter than the gag's. He worked them and tried to answer Herbie's questions.

“I'm here to rescue you, Herbie. I watched the window of your dressing room—saw what happened before you disappeared. I thought Boris Zell was behind it but…”

“Boris?” The old man's face lifted, his eyes shimmering. All that was left of his voice was a feeble gasp. “Why would Boris do such a thing? He is my oldest friend—”

“I know that now.” Harry kept working at the knots. “You trained him. You met each other all over Europe. You saw each other at theaters, in city squares—”

“If only I had stayed in Europe,” wailed Herbie. “If only I had never come to New York…if only I had never set eyes on the Cruel Theater of Wesley Jones!”

Tears traveled down the complicated pathways of the old man's wrinkled face. His lips trembled and went still, a sorry sight. Harry hoped that Herbie would gather enough strength to continue with his tale soon. Clever though it had been to discover the mantelpiece trick, he still had no idea what was going on, and so far his elderly friend's gasps had just confused things further.

“The Cruel Theater of Wesley Jones? What do you mean?”

“I signed Wesley's contract in desperate times…” The gasps could only just be heard. “I had fallen ill on the journey across the Atlantic, and for nearly a month after arriving in this hard city, I could not work—I was penniless! So when I met Wesley, I signed. I agreed to perform at his grubby theater for a grubby wage, show after show, night after night. But no one gets out of Wesley's contracts. I know that now…”

“How come?”

“Because Wesley Jones never lets go of a talented performer! Once he has you in his grip, he never relents. All of us at this theater are forced to perform endlessly for a pittance, but no one dares leave. Some he has tricked into debt, and if they dare defy him, he will have not only them but anyone they hold dear thrown out on the street, penniless. Others he controls thanks to harboring little secrets from their past, petty crimes or shameful doings, proof of which he keeps filed away in a hidden safe. Again, if they defy him, he will destroy them utterly. What power he has!”

The old man clutched his throat, every word causing him pain. “And then there are those, such as myself, whom he controls by sheer menace alone. Desperate, we wish to leave this dreadful place. And yet we dare not, for fear of what would happen if we tried. A terrible threat hangs over us…”

“What?” Harry was trying to take it all in.

“What? Who, you mean. Why, Arnold, of course! Stage manager…and notorious failed trapeze artist.”

Harry's fingers tore at the knots. Each one was more intricate than the last, but he was prying them loose, and the terrible business of Herbie's disappearance also was unraveling. Harry remembered his conversations with the theater's performers and how mournful they had been about Herbie. Perhaps they were sad for other reasons too. As for Arnold, the gangly stage manager with his weakened leg seemed an unlikely threat, but Harry also remembered that moment when Arnold had shown him out of the theater and had gripped his shoulder with surprising strength.

“Failed trapeze artist? But Wesley Jones said he was a successful one who injured himself years ago.”

“He injured himself trying to outdo all other performers.” Herbie glanced fearfully around the gloom. “Fell from the trapeze and damaged his left leg beyond repair—but that doesn't mean the rest of him isn't strong and fit. Every one of Arnold's limbs, apart from that left leg, harbors a trapeze artist's strength—a strength gone wild from frustration at his thwarted performer's ambition.” The voice kept going, a tangle of whimpers and sobs.

“Unable to thrill audiences any longer, he nurses a profound hatred of anyone who can. If any of us dares step out of line, Wesley sends Arnold to their dressing room, and they quickly regret it. As for any of us who dares to go near another theater to discuss possible work—why, Arnold finds out and the regrets are more pitiful still! The sorry offender is dragged down to this terrible place…with its terrible words…”

“Words? What do you mean?”

“Why, the motto Wesley snarls at us, his enslaved performers, every day.”

A terrified finger pointed up. Harry looked up at the iron letters on the cage. They gleamed in the candlelight, and now he could make them out quite clearly.
“What's yours is mine and always shall be.”
Harry stared and remembered hearing those words trembling through Herbie's dressing room window as the mysterious intruder grappled with the spindly old man. His fingers tore at the intricate knots with even greater speed.

“Wesley's control is total. Like a gangster, his menaces hold us in line. I tried to shield you from it, Harry. Why else do you think I never let you backstage? Or met you after a show at the stage door? Were you to have accidentally discovered Wesley's secret…why, who knows to what lengths Wesley would go to protect himself? I would never have even befriended you were it not for the memories you, a budding young trickster, brought back to me of happier times…” Herbie's words gasped on.

“For years I suffered this grim existence. I wasted my talents on Wesley's brutal stage. A couple times, I tried to find other work in New York but Arnold found me, and my punishment was swift—four days down here the first time, a week the second. Once, I even tried to flee the city, but both times Arnold snared me before I even reached the train station, and I was down here for another week. After that, I resigned myself to working at Wesley Jones's cruel theater forevermore.” His head sank, gray hair trailing. “That was until late yesterday afternoon when…”

“Your old friend Boris Zell left you a letter.” Just one knot left.

“A miracle! Normally, Arnold checks all letters, but Boris, purely by chance, had tucked the letter inside a parcel containing a jar of his Magician's Fire, a gift to me. Arnold tore open a bit of the wrapping, assumed it was merely equipment, and let me have it. And indeed, a jar of Magician's Fire was a most welcome gift, but it was the letter, and the offer in it, which caused me most delight.” Feebly, Herbie looked up.

“The thought of returning to the freedom of a life on the road again with my dear, old friend Boris by my side…why, it awakened hopes and desires that I simply could not contain. Despite Wesley, despite that tyrannical trapeze artist, I foolishly decided to risk it all one final time…”

“You decided to escape after the performance last night!” Two fingernails gripped the last loop of knot. “Was that why you looked so strange when we saw you before the show? You must have just received Boris's note! You were trembling and pale and…”

“Of course I was! I was terrified! But I was also determined, fool that I am. I packed my bags. I didn't say a word to a soul. I cleared my room of all props and equipment I might need to take with me. My feeble hope was to sneak out through the front of the theater while Arnold was distracted at the stage door. He always liked to show off there with Wesley after a performance—”

“But Wesley sent him up to find you! So…” Just a couple strands remained, but they were stubbornly intertwined. “But I was watching your dressing room. I saw what happened! And the man I saw with you was big, Herbie. Not thin like Arnold.”

“The slant of the light, boy.” Herbie shook his head. “Any decent magician would tell you that a shadow cast upon a window is far larger than its source. No, it was Arnold all right. He burst in just as I was about to leave—the trapeze artist's grip had me once again!” More tears trickled along the wrinkles. “I was forced to the ground, and I heard him scream his master's words…”

“What's yours is mine and always shall be! You remember that, Herbie Lemster!”
Harry repeated the words as his fingernails worked the final strands.

“He forced me to the floor! Desperate, I thought of all I would miss, of a life with my dear friend Boris. The sheer misery gave me the strength to fight back the only way I could. With—”

“Boris's jar of Magician's Fire! You threw it at Arnold. It exploded and—”

“Smoke everywhere! The window shattered! Arnold was thrown to the ground and knocked his head, and for a few seconds, I thought I might be free. What madness!” The tears overflowed the wrinkles, seeping across Herbie's face. “But even through the purple mist, he found me. Out of my dressing room I was bundled—”

“And the other performers saw you. Of course they did!” The final strand broke loose, and the ropes slithered away. “But they were too terrified to say anything. They knew the same thing would happen to them.”

“Along the corridor, into Wesley's office…” The last remnants of strength faded from Herbie's voice. “Down, down, down here…”

It all made sense. Harry hurled the ropes away. No magical disappearance—just the brutal bundling of a feeble old man down a corridor. Bruno the Strongman and all the others had sworn they hadn't seen a thing, but only because they were as terrified as Herbie. As for everyone who had searched the theater—who would have thought to look beneath the mantelpiece in Wesley Jones's office or have had fingers nimble enough to detect that hidden switch? Weak from being tied so long, Herbie slithered off the chair into the water. Harry grabbed the old man's arm, pulled him up, and together they stumbled out of the cage.

“Don't worry, Herbie. I'll rescue you!”

“But how? How will you do that…”

“I'll get you out of here for a start!”

“All on your own? But…what about young Billie? And Arthur? They are waiting to help, perhaps?”

“Not really…” Harry realized that, for some time now, he hadn't had the slightest thought of his friends.

“But why? You are always together, the three of you!” The old man's voice sounded strangely hysterical. “You don't mean to say you came here alone?”

“Well, yes…”

“At least tell me they know where you are. You told them, didn't you?”

“I don't think so…”

“Stop right there, shoeshine boy!” said a familiar voice.

Harry looked up even as Herbie slithered out of his grasp and dropped back into the water. There, standing at the bottom of the stairway, were Wesley Jones and Arnold.