The Wizard's Map (7 page)

Molly didn't say a word, which was unlike her, and Jennifer guessed that some magic was keeping her mouth shut. But though she couldn't speak, Molly blinked twice and a single tear fell from her right eye.

“We've got the map,” Peter was saying, “if you'll trade.”

Michael Scot smiled like a snake, all lips and no teeth. “Then gi'e it me.”

Peter turned to Jennifer and held out his hand. “Jen?”

“No,” Jennifer said. “I don't think so. Because once he's got the map, he's got us as well.”

Michael Scot's smile slowly disappeared. “It doesna pay to think too long, lass. Time is all on my side.”

“Time, maybe,” said Jennifer, “but not right.”

Michael Scot threw his head back and laughed quite heartily at that. The fire crackled as well.

“There is no right but power maks it so,” he said. Then he made a strange pass with his hand and everything—fire, cat, bed, wicker cages, summer hoose, and all—disappeared.

Jennifer found herself standing on the gravel path by the great holm oak with the ironwork seat.

Alone.

I will not cry,
Jennifer thought.
Michael Scot is nothing more them a school bully.
She'd learned all about bullies in sixth grade, when Horace Lanoose used to taunt Peter and her about being twins. As long as Peter knuckled under to Horace, and as long as she cried, he'd kept on: two weeks of name calling and pushing and shoving. But once Peter fought back and she refused to weep anymore, Horace had left them alone. True, he looked for the smaller fifth graders, easier to bully. But she and Peter taught what they'd learned so painfully to the younger kids, and after a while, Horace had no one left to bully at all.

“I will not cry,” she said aloud, and sat down on the iron bench.

“Nor sob, neither,” came a voice from somewhere nearby, a rumbly sort of a voice.

“Nor blirt,” came another, this one higher pitched.

“She shall not weep, nor shall she cry,

Lest sunburst blind her reddened eye,
" came a third, very feminine voice that had a kind of strange steel core.

“Who's there?” Jennifer whispered hoarsely, for she couldn't see anyone around.

“Who's here, you mean,” said the rumbly voice.

“Who's snagging,” said the high voice.

“We three as one the band do make;

The pleasure and the pain we'll take,”
said the womanly voice.

“Show me who you are!” cried Jennifer. Only the cracking of her own voice betrayed her fear.

“Show us your magic first, child, and then we will show you ours,” said the rumbly voice.

“I...” Jennifer began. “I have no magic. I'm an American.”

The three voices chuckled together.

“You would not hear us at all, had you no magic,” grumbled the first voice.

“Or need,” said the high voice.

“Where need is great, what spans the gap,

Love, fortune, power in...”

“The map!” whispered Jennifer hoarsely.

“The map!” agreed all three voices.

“Show it,” added the grambly voice.

“I will not give it to you,” Jennifer said, more loudly than she meant to. “You cannot take it from me without my permission.” She hoped Gran was right about that.

“We do not want to take it,” said the rumbly voice.

“Just look at it, ye doited lass,” said the high voice.

“Is this a trick?” Jennifer asked.

“A cantrip? Nae,” said the high voice again. “Show us the bloody thing and be done wi' it.”

The voices were argumentative and a bit silly, but she heard no real threat in them. She took a deep breath.
And what more could happen to me than has already happened?
So thinking, she reached into her pocket, drew out the map, and placed it on the iron seat next to her, smoothing it open with her hand. To her surprise, it was no longer the map of Fairburn. Gone were the streets with the odd names, gone were Molly's circles, gone was the ruined castle. Below Michael Scot's name now was a map of Gran's garden, each herb and flower bed carefully drawn in. And in the center of the woods was a dark blotch where the summer hoose should have been. A black spot over-inked, as if someone had angrily tried to blot it out.

“Well!” said the rumbly voice. “I surely hadn't expected to set eyes on that again! Himself must be in a swivet for sure.”

Jennifer felt a hot breath on her hand and looked up. There above her was a great black dragon, the color of the painted iron, standing on the gravel path. His neck was crooked like the top part of a question mark as he read the map over her shoulder. By his side was a long, slim dog, like a greyhound, only long haired and totally black. Next to the dog was a black unicorn, her horn a twist of ebony.

“Who are you?” Jennifer asked. “What are you?”

“
Bound in cold iron, and not set free,

Till maid and master in one shall be,”
said the unicorn, and with a quick litde turn on her hind legs, she did a strange prancing dance.

“Oh,” Jennifer said, suddenly remembering the three twisted legs on the iron seat—shaped like a dragon, a dog, and a unicorn. She glanced down and saw that those iron legs were now straight and blank.

“So you must be that maid and that master, though it seems unlikely,” said the dragon. His neck was still crooked, but now, instead of looking at the map, he was staring into Jennifer's eyes.

The unremitting black-eyed stare made Jennifer horribly uncomfortable, as if the dragon were sizing her up for dinner. She looked away.

“This is a coil, a tangle, a very fank,” said the dog, sniffing. “She wears pants. Perhaps that makes her a master, though she be no master of mine.”

“I don't like dogs much, either,” Jennifer replied. “I prefer cats.” The dog managed to look appalled and offended at the same time. “But everyone—boys and girls—wears pants these days. Or jeans.”

“Jeans?” The dog tried that word in his mouth, as if it were a new kind of bone. “Jeans. Janes. Joans. She's a jute, she is.”

“Don't mind him,” said the dragon. “He's Scots to the core and cannot forget it. Doesn't like much else.”

“Well,” Jennifer said, getting a little peeved with the three of them, but especially the dog, “if men can wear skirts here in Scotland, why can't girls wear pants?”

“Skirts? I'll skirt ye, lassie,” growled the dog. “Those be kilts, nae skirts.” He showed his teeth.

Remembering Horace the bully, Jennifer showed her teeth right back at the dog, and he quieted at once, looking up at her with a new kind of respect.

“Maid and master,”
the unicorn reminded them.
“Two as one,

Else this magic be not done.”

“Oh,” said Jennifer, “I get it now.”

The animals looked at her blankly.

“You see—I'm a twin.”

The dog growled again and shook his head. “More coils and conundrums. How can one be a twin?”

“No, I mean I am part of a set of twins.”

“Maid and master,”
repeated the unicorn.

“My twin is a boy,” Jennifer said.

The dog gave a short, sharp laugh, an uncomfortable sound, as if he was not used to laughing.

“Himself will nae be pleased at that. Oh no. Twins be nae easily unpossessed.”

“But it explains everything,” the dragon said in his rumbly way.

“Nae at all, nae at all,” whined the dog. “My poor head. My poor dowp.” He lay down on the ground and looked miserable.

“It explains,” the dragon said patiently to the dog, “why we are still the very color and feel of iron, though free of it. We must find the boy as well, I fear, before we can go from this bounden place as we once were.” Turning his great head to the sky, he remarked, “What time is it, child? Neither night nor day, by the looks of it.”

“Actually afternoon, I think,” said Jennifer. “Or it should be.” She looked up at the grey sky, which indeed gave no hint of time.

“In the world of magic there be all time and no time,” said the dog. “Michael Scot maks it so.”

“
Time was and is and will be more,

Ere we walk free out of this door,”
the unicorn added mysteriously.

“Does she always do that?” asked Jennifer.

“Do what?” rumbled the dragon.

“Talk in rhyme.”

The dragon smiled, which showed an enormous number of teeth. “All unicorns rhyme. It's in the blood.” A small breath of smoke escaped between two of his bottom teeth.

“Ne'er mind the time. That boy—be he sprack or toustie—we need him,” the dog said, standing.

“Will ye tak us to him?”

That was when Jennifer finally burst into those long-held-back tears.

There, there,” said the dragon to Jennifer. He was trying to be comforting, but that grumble of a voice allowed for little comfort. “There, there.” Jennifer kept on crying.

“I hate it when humans do that!” exclaimed the dog, lying down again. He put his paws over his ears. “Greetin' and carrying on. Canna ye stop her?”

“
A tale can melt the hardest heart,

And make the softest feel the part,”
sang the unicorn.

“The only tale I have,” the dragon said, “is about being bound by the iron. And to tell it would only remind the child of what she does not want to hear.”

Jennifer shoved the map into her pocket and wiped away the tears with the back of her hand. “No—tell me,” she said, then snuffled. “I won't cry anymore. But tell me everything. Then maybe I'll know what to do. There's only me now, you see, to rescue them all from the wizard. Peter and Molly. And Mom and Pop. And Gran and Da.” The list was so long, it ended up being a kind of plaintive wail that caused the dog to put his paws even tighter over his ears.

“Ah, child,” said the dragon, “none of us knows what to do about that. We could not even rescue ourselves without your help. But if past is prologue, then you shall have it.” He sat on his great black haunches, closed his eyes, and threw his head back. “I was born on a fine morning in—”

“Not
that
far past,” growled the dog, taking his paws off his ears and sitting up. “Or the wizard will have her family dead and buried before we get to yer first teeth.”

“I was born with all my teeth,” said the dragon.

“Och—gae on with yer tronie, then, for all I care,” growled the dog. “I was only trying to help, mind.”

“I will get to the meat of the matter, then,” said the dragon. “I was a red dragon, the color of flame. Born at the beginning of this world's turning.”

"
History always makes its start

Inside the storyteller's heart,”
the unicorn said in an aside to Jennifer.

“Please, Dragon,” Jennifer said. “The dog is right. Get to the important part. Quickly. I haven't all that much time.”

The black dog wriggled his rear with the compliment, his long, slim tail beating against the ground.

“IwasareddragonthecolorofflameandMichael Scotboundmeincoldiron,” said the dragon, in an offended tone.

“Not quite that quickly,” said Jennifer, unable to keep the exasperation out of her own voice.

“I'll tell it plain. We were all bounden by the wizard,” said the dog, standing and walking slowly to where Jennifer sat. He put his long muzzle in her lap. His liquid eyes stared up at her, as if memorizing her face. “I for disobedience, the unicorn for treachery, and the dragon”—he picked his head up and stared over at the dragon—“and the dragon for being bloody boring.”

“Arrrrrrrrrrgh!” the dragon said, which was both a sound and a flame, black and hot. The flame licked at the dog's ears and he scooted around the back of the oak to hide there.

“Don't,” said Jennifer, standing and shaking her finger at the dragon. “Don't be a bully. I can't stand bullies.”

“It will take more than a finger shake to best Michael Scot,” said the dragon.

“And more than a blaze of fire,” replied Jennifer, “or you'd have done it before.”

“He
did
do it before,” said the dog, sidling out from behind the tree to stand next to Jennifer. “And that's why he was bounden. He's nae got an ounce of control. If the fire had seared the wizard instead of the wall, we had all been the better for it.”

“Fire and water and wild”
sang the unicorn,

“And the pearly heart of a child.”

“I suppose,” Jennifer said, turning to the unicorn, “that you mean the fire is the dragon and”—she guessed—“you are the water?”

“A unicorn's horn maks all water pure,” explained the dog.

Without thinking, Jennifer's hand went down to the dog's head and rested there. “Then you are the wild?” she asked.

“Only when I am wi'out a master,” said the dog, pushing his head up against her hand.

“And that makes me the child.” Jennifer nodded. “I'm not so sure about that pearly heart, though.”

“Just unicorn-talk for an innocent, a pure one,” the dog said. “Don't tak a bit of notice. It's just blether. Nonsense.”

“So what comes next?” Jennifer turned her gaze from one animal to the next.

“What way is next the map shall show,

As underground we all must go.
” The unicorn pranced on her little hooves and spun around.

“Underground? You mean like in caves?” Jennifer shuddered. “I hate that sort of thing.”

“You
must
go,” explained the dragon, “because a hero always goes underground in his journey.” He looked at Jennifer. “Or
her
journey.”