The Wizard in the Tree by Llyod Alexander

  "Have you ever built a boat?" asked Mallory.

  "No," said Arbican. "Nor have I ever stood on my ear, or caught eels in a sieve. Given the situation, I shall know how to deal with it."

  CHAPTER 5

  Swallowing the last morsels of food, Arbican climbed to his feet and brushed the crumbs from his beard. His cheeks, Mallory was glad to see, had turned a healthy pink and his eyes had brightened. She followed as the enchanter stepped briskly out of the cave and made his way back to the fallen oak.

  "Are you going to build the boat now?" asked Mallory, as Arbican critically eyed the tree. "Just like that? Shouldn't you have a magic wand? Or draw a magic circle, and bum roots and herbs?"

  "Certainly not," Arbican snorted. "For some strange reason, you humans have always had the notion that anything important must be accompanied by a great show of nonsense. In my day, there were those who wouldn't believe the simplest weather prophecy unless we made a to-do over it. Somehow, it reassured them. Inessential, nevertheless. The magic is inside, not outside. Now, you mentioned a river. Which way?"

  Mallory pointed the direction. Arbican then fixed his gaze on the tree trunk, stretched out his hands, and began murmuring under his breath.

  "Wait-please," Mallory suddenly burst out. "I must ask you-"

  "Will you be quiet!" ordered the enchanter, frowning in exasperation. "My power had just started working. Very well, what is it now?"

  "Please-" urged Mallory. "Take me with you. To Vale Innis-"

  "What?" cried Arbican, staring at her as if he could hardly believe his ears. "You? A mortal? Great heavens, girl, that's impossible."

  "For an enchanter? It can't be impossible," Mallory insisted. "Surely you could do it if you wanted? It's bad enough drudging for the Parsels, but if Scrupnor has his way, it's going to be worse; for the whole village, too."

  "So you, for one, prefer to run off? While the others make the best of a bad bargain? You humans haven't changed at all since my day, have you?"

  "I didn't mean it that way," Mallory protested.

  "However you meant it," said Arbican, "it's out of the question. No, I could not take you with me even if I wanted to. Absolutely not. So put that idea out of your head, once and for all."

  Mallory lowered her eyes; more than disappointed, she now felt foolish at having made such a plea. Worse, Arbican had judged her selfish, and she wondered if he had been right. Arbican, meanwhile, seemed to bend under some heavy but invisible burden. The tree remained as it was and after several moments Mallory ventured to whisper:

  "What's wrong? It isn't turning into a boat."

  "Of course it isn't," snapped Arbican. "Only an idiot would build a boat in the middle of the woods. I shall raise this tree and have it fly to the river. Now, if holding your tongue is too difficult for you, kindly go and wait somewhere else."

  He turned again to his task. His arms tensed and trembled while droplets trickled down his forehead into his beard. The tree rocked back and forth, slowly rose a hand's breadth above the turf, only to fall heavily to the ground.

  Arbican grunted and puffed out his cheeks. He seemed, suddenly, to have grown taller than Mallory. Then she realized the enchanter, not the oak, was rising steadily into the air.

  "Catch hold!" shouted Arbican, waving his arms and kicking his heels. "The spell's gone wrong! Pull me down! Can't you see I'm floating away?"

  Mallory sprang forward, leaped as high as she could, and snatched at Arbican's feet, already beyond her grasp. Sputtering and flapping his cloak, the enchanter continued his flight.

  Then, even as she watched helplessly, the enchanter's waving arms blurred and shimmered. Mallory rubbed her eyes. Within the instant, so quickly that one shape seemed to flicker into the other, Arbican was gone and in his place, awkwardly flapping its wings, was a large gray goose.

  The bird stretched its neck and beat its wings, as if finding some difficulty in staying aloft. It hung briefly poised in the air before plunging to the ground, where it landed in a burst of feathers.

  "Now this is intolerable," came a voice from the goose's bill, which clacked open and shut irritably. "I haven't flown for ages. Am I expected to do it at a moment's notice?"

  "You turned yourself into a goose," Mallory gasped, still unable to believe her eyes.

  "Most assuredly I did not," replied Arbican. "I had nothing to do with it. Do you think I deliberately chose this shape? My powers are all topsyturvy. I can't manage them. All I wanted to do was float back to earth and you see the consequences."

  "But you can't stay that way," said Mallory. Her first shock had passed and she was growing a little more used to conversing with a goose; though she had to remind herself continually that it was no bird at all, but the enchanter merely in a different guise. "What are you going to do? Wait, I know," she hurried on, brightening. "When the princess kissed the frog, he turned back into a prince. Do you think if I-"

  "No, I do not," returned Arbican, with a honking kind of snort. "That's more of your fairy tales; it has no bearing whatever on the facts of the matter."

  "I only thought it might help," answered Mallory, wounded. "But if that's the way you feel about it-"

  "Feelings have nothing to do with the case," said Arbican. "It will take more than a kiss to get me out of this bundle of feathers. If I can't control my power, I may be stuck here as badly as I was in my tree. Though I must say between the two I'd rather be a bird than a vegetable."

  "If you can't change yourself back," asked Mallory, "then do you think you could fly to Vale Innis? You wouldn't need the boat at all."

  The goose unfolded a wing and cocked a thoughtful eye at it. "Perhaps you're right. I should hate admitting to my colleagues that I couldn't handle the most elementary transformation; I'd never hear the end of it. Still, that's better than staying in your world.

  "Yes, I'm sure I can," the enchanter went on, stretching his wings and rising on his webbed feet as if to take flight then and there. "These geese are strong creatures, you know. Good thing I didn't end up as a chicken. Yes, I believe this will do perfectly. So, I shall be on my way. Goodby, I wish you well. Wish that's a hope, you understand, not a promise."

  Mallory, more unsettled by the enchanter's abrupt leave-taking than by his transformation, could only stammer a confused farewell, adding, "Watch out for hawks-"

  "The hawks," Arbican assured her, "had better watch out for me."

  With that, he beat his wings vigorously, launched himself into the air, and began climbing steadily upward. Forlorn, Mallory watched his flight. However, at the level of the tree tops, the goose veered sharply, seeming to struggle against the wind. Instead of gaining height, the bird labored mightily to keep aloft. Mallory cried out in dismay as it plummeted earthward. For it was no longer a goose, but Arbican, once again in his own shape, frantically waving his arms and kicking his legs.

  An instant later, the enchanter went crashing heavily through the upper limbs of a high elm and vanished into the foliage. Mallory raced to the tree. Caught among the branches like a fly in a web, Arbican dangled head downward, one leg flung over a jutting limb, his beard ensnared by twigs. The enchanter's face was crimson, a result of both his posture and his indignation.

  "Don't move!" ordered Mallory, scrambling up the trunk. "Stay right as you are."

  "Can I do anything else?" flung back the enchanter. "Except fall and break my neck?"

  By this time, Mallory had succeeded in climbing close enough to disentangle Arbican's beard. To do more, she realized, would be difficult; for Arbican was so ensnared that a false move on his part might send him tumbling head first to the ground. The enchanter's predicament had done nothing to improve his temper; while Mallory tried to study the best way to get him down, Arbican sputtered and fumed, until at last Mallory lost her own patience:

  "Will you be quiet?" she burst out. "The way you're carrying on, you'll only make things worse. Now, move very slowly and do exactly as I tell you. Or you will break your neck, and mine too."<
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  Cautiously, she hoisted herself to the branch nearest the enchanter, who still grumbled under his breath. From there, she was able to unhook his leg while Arbican, obediently following her directions, took a firm grasp on the limb just below him. As Mallory ordered, he swung down until he was able to clamp his knees against the trunk. Inch by inch, as she pointed out each handhold, Arbican climbed gingerly to the ground. Out of breath, trembling from his exertions, he collapsed in a heap, while Mallory clambered after him. The enchanter, for once too exhausted even to complain, held his head in his hands. The branches had torn his cloak and pulled away bits of his beard; and the only reminder of his hopeful flight was a ragged feather clinging to his disheveled hair.

  "Whatever happened?" asked Mallory, once sure the enchanter had been wounded only in his dignity. "You were doing so well."

  "I told you I'm not master of my powers," Arbican replied. "They come and go as they please. I can't get hold of them. Fly to Vale Innis? I doubt I'll ever get there at all."

  "You can still try to sail," Mallory reminded him. "Build a boat? The way my spells are going, it would turn out to be a wheelbarrow."

  "Suppose you built it the ordinary way? Mr. Parsel keeps a box of tools in the shed. I could bring them here. The oak has all the wood we need. For a sail, we can use a bedsheet; or one of Mrs. Parsel's petticoats, they're certainly big enough."

  "A fine figure I'd cut," said Arbican, "sailing to Vale Innis, propelled by bed linen and underclothing. However, this is no time to be picky about details. Very well. First, how do you propose to get this tree to the river?"

  "We'll have to saw off the branches, to begin with," answered Mallory. "That should make it easier to handle. Between the two of us, we can drag it with ropes."

  "Delightful," grumbled Arbican. "You mortals may be used to that kind of work; I'm not. All I see coming out of your scheme is a sprained back and blistered fingers."

  "Well, I'm sorry," returned Mallory, "I want to help you, but if a few blisters are going to bother you, there's nothing to be done."

  "I'm afraid that may be the case," said Arbican, looking gloomier than ever. "It also occurs to me it will take too long. I need a seaworthy ship, not a raft. We could spend weeks, even longer. I doubt I have that much time left to me."

  "Even so, we could still try," Mallory urged. "Meanwhile, your powers might come back again, just as they used to be."

  "And if they don't?"

  "You'd be no worse off than you are now. We have to do something, don't we? There's no use going round in circles. Now, the first thing is to get some rope-"

  "Stop, stop," said Arbican. "I'm trying to think. What was it you said?"

  "Rope. We can tie it around the trunk-"

  "No, not that. Wait, I have it. Circles." He stopped short for a moment, frowned and rubbed his brow. "It's in the back of my mind. I'd forgotten. Living in a tree makes the memory rather wooden." Suddenly his face brightened. "Yes, yes, of course! The circle of gold!"

  CHAPTER 6

  Arbican jumped to his feet, more excited than Mallory had ever seen him. "That's it! The simplest thing in the world!"

  "A circle of gold?" said Mallory. "I don't understand-"

  "The spell, the incantation, the recipe, whatever you want to call it. Every apprentice learns it in case of emergency. To think it had slipped my mind! No matter, I have it now: To gain all power lost of old, a maid must give a circle of gold."

  "I still don't understand what it means."

  "It means," answered Arbican, "exactly what it says. What a relief. That clears up things considerably. Now, once I find a maid-"

  "Why not me?" asked Mallory. "I'm a maid, aren't I? If you tell me what I have to do-"

  "A maid," said Arbican, "is not, in these terms, associated with kitchens. Thank you, nonetheless, for your offer."

  "Whatever sort of maid you're thinking of," said Mallory, "I'm sure I must be one."

  Arbican said nothing for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, you might do very well for that part of it. That leaves only the circle of gold to be accounted for."

  "What kind of circle?"

  "What difference does it make? A circle is a circle, isn't it? The spell says no more than that. You should have no trouble finding something appropriate. I shan't keep it. You'll get it back, after it serves its purpose."

  "It must have been easier in your day," said Mallory. "There's no gold to speak of in the village. I surely haven't any. My mother's wedding ring Mrs. Parsel sold it long ago. Mrs. Parsel? She wears a ring. Whether it's really gold, I don't know. Besides, she never takes it off; her finger's grown too thick."

  "Do you mean to tell me," said Arbican, "for lack of a mere trinket, my spell is ruined? Unthinkable!"

  "Scrupnor might have something we could use," Mallory went on. "But how to find it?" She gave a cry of dismay. "Scrupnor! The gloves!"

  "We're talking about gold," said Arbican, "not gloves."

  "They're Scrupnor's. He left them at the shop. I forgot. I was to take them to the Holdings."

  "He can get along without them," said Arbican. "Don't waste time on pointless errands."

  "I must," Mallory insisted. "It's bad enough you ate all the food Mrs. Parsel meant for him. If she knows I didn't even bring his gloves to him, she'll lock me up for days. I'll never get away to help you."

  "In that case, deliver the wretched things and have done with it."

  "It's too late. She only gave me an hour, and that wasn't enough to begin with. I was in trouble when I left, now I'll be in worse."

  "And so will I," said Arbican, tugging angrily at his beard. "Thanks to some fool and his gloves. Very well, I'll try to carry you to what's his name, Scrupnor, and bring you back to this Parse creature as fast as I can."

  "Carry me?" returned Mallory. "You'd never get half way."

  "Not on my back," snapped Arbican. "Do you take me for a pack mule? No, I'll try my power again. If it works, we'll be there in a wink. If it doesn't, we might not move from this spot, or we might end up who knows where. There's a risk, I warn you."

  "I'm not afraid," Mallory declared in spite of the sudden trembling of her knees. However, the prospect of being separated from Arbican brought back much of her courage. "Tell me what I have to do."

  "You'll guide me," said Arbican, taking one of her hands firmly in his own. "Think where you want to go. See it behind your eyes and inside your head. Can you do that?"

  "I don't know. I'll try. I haven't been often to the Holdings."

  "Do your best, then."

  Mallory shut her eyes tightly, remembering as clearly as she could the last time she had ridden there with Mr. Parsel in the horse cart. She pictured to herself the high wall of gray stone, the iron gate, the gravel pathway curving in front of the mansion; the tall chimneys, the gables, the casements. However, no sooner did these come to mind than a dozen other recollections flooded over them. The more she tried to fix the Holdings in her imagination, the more her thoughts flew else where: to Scrupnor, the broken wine bottle, to Arbican caught in the tree. She heard the enchanter's voice:

  "Ready?"

  "It makes my head spin," cried Mallory. "I'm trying as hard as I can, but everything's mixed up."

  "You're trying too hard. Hold your thoughts gently, don't squeeze the life out of them." Mallory's vision of the Holdings reappeared, but along with it came Mrs. Parsel threatening to lock her in the cellar; and she saw herself beating vainly against a bolted door.

  "Now!" commanded Arbican.

  "Wait-not yet!" Mallory's heart pounded, her ears rang as the turf gave way beneath her feet. Clutching the hamper, she felt herself go blindly lurching and spinning through sudden blackness. Arbican still held her hand; but now, to keep from falling, she clung to the latch of a heavy, iron-studded portal. Beside her, the enchanter peered curiously around the windowless room at the shelves loaded with stacks of papers and boxes tied with cord. In one corner stood a writing desk and a high stool. At a table, hedged w
ith account books, a large metal cashbox by his elbow, sat Scrupnor. The squire at that moment glanced up from the ledger in which he had been writing a column of figures.

  He reached out to dip his quill into the ink pot; but at sight of Mallory and Arbican he stopped his hand in midair. His eyes bulged, his cheeks twitched with a life of their own, and he sprang to his feet, overturning the cash box and sending the ink pot flying.

  Her head still whirling, startled no less than Scrupnor to find herself in the squire's counting room, Mallory blurted out the first words that came to her lips:

  "You-you forgot your gloves."

  Scrupnor had flung out his arms as though to ward off what he supposed could only be some fiendish assault on his person and possessions; but the sound of Mallory's voice seemed to assure him that he had to deal with beings of flesh and blood. His fear turned to fury as he roared at her:

  "How did you come here? What are you up to, spying on me?"

  "It's cakes-and a pork pie," stammered Mallory.

  "They've been eaten. I'm sorry. Your gloves-"

  "Pork pie? Gloves be damned! What have you seen, you little slut? Answer me that!" Instead of calming, the squire's rage flamed higher; he seized Mallory and would have thrown her to the floor had Arbican not stepped forward and commanded him to stop. The enchanter raised an arm and pointed a skinny finger at the furious Scrupnor.

  Arbican's stern tone was enough to make Scrupnor snatch his hands away and Mallory stumbled back against the wall. She had hoped the enchanter might whisk the two of them out of the counting room as quickly as he had whisked them into it; but if Arbican had meant to cast a spell, his power once more had gone astray. In defending her, he had only drawn Scrupnor's anger upon himself.

  "Who the devil are you?" shouted Scrupnor, now giving full attention to Mallory's companion. Without waiting for a reply, he began yelling for Bolt; and at the same time snatched up a pistol from the table and ordered the intruders to stand as they were. A moment later, the gamekeeper flung open the door.