The Magic Kingdom of Landover , Volume 1 (99 page)

“Your old world, yes …”

“My world! The bottle was in my world! You said … ! That means … !” Ben was beside himself. He took a quick breath. “Your errant magic worked an exchange, didn’t it? That was what you said, wasn’t it? And if the magic brought the bottle
here
, it must have sent Abernathy
there!
What in the hell have you done, Questor? You’ve sent Abernathy to my world! Worse, you’ve sent him to this nut Michel, haven’t you?”

Questor nodded dismally.

“Along with my medallion, damnit, so that now I can’t even get back into my world to help him!”

Questor cringed. “Yes, High Lord.”

Ben sat back without a word, glanced at Willow, then glanced at the kobolds. No one said anything. The room was still, the sounds of the night distant
whispers. Ben wondered why these things always seemed to happen to him.

“We have to get the bottle back,” he said finally. He looked at Questor. “And when we do, you had better find a way to exchange it back again for Abernathy!”

The wizard’s face screwed into a knot. “I will do my best, High Lord.”

Ben shook his head hopelessly. “Whatever.” He stood up. “Well, we can’t do much until sunrise. It’s too dark out there to try to track down those confounded gnomes now. Even Bunion would have trouble. Hardly any light at all—clouded over, no moon. Damn the luck!” He strode to the windows and back again. “At least Fillip and Sot don’t know what they’ve taken. They think of the bottle as a pretty possession. Maybe they won’t open it before we find them. Maybe they’ll just sit there and look at it.”

“Perhaps.” Questor looked doubtful.

“But perhaps not?” Ben finished.

“There is a problem.”

“Another problem, Questor?”

“Yes, High Lord, I am afraid so.” The wizard swallowed. “The Darkling is a very unpredictable creature.”

“Meaning?”

“Sometimes it comes out of the bottle on its own.”

N
ot a dozen miles from where Ben Holiday was staring in horror at Questor Thews, Fillip and Sot lay huddled together in the concealing blackness of the night. They had scooped out an abandoned badger den and backed their way in, two chubby, furry bodies disappearing inch by inch into the earth until nothing remained but pointed snouts and glittering eyes. They crouched within their makeshift warren, listening to the sounds that rose about them, as still as the leaves hanging limp from the surrounding trees in the windless, peaceful air.

“Shall we take it out one more time?” asked Sot finally.

“I think we should keep it hidden,” replied Fillip.

“But we need only take it out for a moment,” argued Sot.

“That might be one moment too long,” insisted Fillip.

“But there is no light,” persisted Sot.

“Some need no light,” declared Fillip.

Then they were quiet again, eyes blinking, noses sniffing. Somewhere distant, a bird cried out sharply.

“Do you think the High Lord will miss it?” asked Sot.

“He said he wished he had never seen it,” answered Fillip. “He said he wished it would disappear.”

“But he still might miss it,” said Sot.

“He has many other bottles and vases and pretty things,” said Fillip.

“I think we should take it out one more time.”

“I think we should leave it where it is.”

“Just to look at the dancing clowns.”

“Just to give someone else a chance to steal it.”

Sot hunched down irritably, squirming in a way that would leave no doubt in his brother’s mind as to how he felt about the matter. Fillip ignored him. Sot squirmed some more, then sighed and stared out again into the night. He was thinking of the tasty meal and the warm bed he had left behind at the castle.

“We should have stayed with the High Lord until morning,” he said.

“It was necessary that we leave at once with the bottle,” replied Fillip, a tad weary now of the other’s talk. His nose wrinkled. “The High Lord was disturbed by the presence of the bottle. It gave him great pain even to look upon it. It reminded him of the dog. The dog was his friend—although I admit I will never understand how anyone can be friends with a dog. Dogs are good to eat, but have no other purpose.”

“We should have told him we were taking the bottle,” argued Sot.

“That would only have caused him more pain,” rebutted Fillip.

“He will be angry with us.”

“He will be pleased.”

“I think we should look at the bottle again.”

“Will you stop … ?”

“Just to be certain that it is still all right.”

“… asking that same … ?”

“Just to be sure.”

Fillip sighed a deep, wheezy sigh that sent dust flying from their burrow entrance. Sot sneezed. Fillip glanced at him and blinked. Sot blinked back.

“Perhaps just for a very, very brief moment,” said Fillip finally.

“Yes, just for a moment,” agreed Sot.

Their wrinkled, grimy fingers pawed at the cluster of sticks and leaves that concealed a narrow hole they had dug in the earth directly before them. When the clutter was pushed aside, they reached in together and gingerly extracted a cloth-bound bundle. Holding it close, they loosened the wrappings and pulled out the bottle.

Carefully, they set it on the ground in front of their noses, its painted white surface gleaming faintly, its red harlequins at their dance. Two pairs of gnome eyes glittered with excitement.

“Such a pretty thing,” whispered Fillip.

“Such a beautiful treasure,” echoed Sot.

They stared at it some more. The allotted moment stretched into several and then into many. Still they stared, transfixed.

“I wonder if there is anything inside,” mused Fillip.

“I wonder,” mused Sot.

Fillip reached out and shook the bottle gently. The harlequins seemed to dance faster. “It seems empty,” he said.

Sot shook it as well. “It does,” he agreed.

“But it is difficult to tell without looking,” said Fillip.

“Yes, difficult,” said Sot.

“We might be mistaken,” said Fillip.

“We might,” said Sot.

They sniffed it and pawed it and studied it in silence for long moments, turning it this way and that, moving it about, trying to learn something more of its contents. Finally Sot began poking at the stopper. Fillip moved the bottle quickly away.

“We agreed to open it later,” he pointed out.

“Later is too long,” countered Sot.

“We agreed to open it when we were safely home.”

“Home is too far away. Besides, we are quite safe right here.”

“We agreed.”

“We could re-agree.”

Fillip felt his resolve begin to slip. He was as anxious as Sot to discover what, if anything, was concealed within their precious bottle. They could open it—just for a moment—then close it again. They could look down its neck, take just a quick peek …

But what if whatever was within the bottle spilled out in the dark and was lost?

“No,” said Fillip firmly. “We agreed. We will open the bottle when we are home again and not before.”

Sot glowered at him, then sighed his defeat. “When we are home and not before,” he echoed with measurable dejection.

They lay without talking for a time, staring at the bottle. They blinked their eyes weakly, trying to keep it in focus, their sight so poor that they could barely do so. G’home Gnomes relied almost entirely on their other senses to tell them what was happening about them. Their eyes were practically useless.

The bottle sat there, a vaguely luminescent oval against the dark. When the stopper wiggled experimentally in its seating, they missed it completely.

“I suppose we should put it away,” said Fillip finally.

“I suppose,” sighed Sot.

They reached for the bottle.

“Hsssstt!”

Fillip looked at Sot. Sot looked at Fillip. Neither had spoken.

“Hsssstt!”

It was the bottle. The hissing sound was coming from the bottle.

“Hsssstt! Set me free, masters!”

Fillip and Sot froze, ferretlike faces twisted into masks of terror. The bottle was talking!

“Masters, open the bottle! Let me come out!”

Fillip and Sot jerked their extended hands back as one and scrunched down into their burrow until nothing showed but the tips of their noses. Had they been able to get further down into the earth, they would have done so gladly.

The voice from the bottle began to whine. “Please, please, masters, let me out? I won’t hurt you. I am your friend. I can show you things, masters. Set me free. I can show you wonderful things.”

“What sort of wonderful things?” ventured Fillip from his refuge, a disembodied voice in the black. Sot didn’t say a word.

“Things of bright magic!” the bottle said. There was a long moment of silence. “I won’t hurt you,” the bottle repeated.

“What are you?” asked Fillip.

“Why can you talk?” asked Sot.

“Bottles don’t talk.”

“Bottles
never
talk.”

The bottle said, “It isn’t the bottle speaking to you, masters. It is I!”

“Who’s I?” asked Fillip.

“Yes, who?” echoed Sot.

There was a moment’s hesitation from the bottle. “I don’t have a name,” was the answer.

Fillip inched out of the burrow. “Everyone has a name,” he said.

Sot inched out with him. “Yes, everyone,” he agreed.

“Not I,” the bottle said mournfully. Then it became brighter. “But perhaps you can give me a name. Yes, a name you find fitting for me. Why don’t you let me out so you can name me?”

Fillip and Sot hesitated, but their fear was already giving way to curiosity. Their marvelous treasure was not just a pretty thing; it was a talking thing as well!

“If we let you out, will you be good?” asked Fillip.

“Will you promise not to hurt us?” asked Sot.

“Hurt you? Oh, no!” The bottle was shocked. “You are the masters! I must never hurt the masters of the bottle. I must do as they bid me. I must do as I am told.”

Fillip and Sot hesitated further. Then Fillip reached out his hand tentatively and touched the bottle. It felt warm. Sot did the same. They looked at each other and blinked.

“I can show you wonderful things,” the bottle promised. “I can show you things of bright magic!”

Fillip looked at Sot. “Should we open the bottle?” he asked in a whisper.

Sot looked back at him. “I don’t know,” he replied.

“I can give you pretty things,” the bottle promised. “I can give you treasures!”

That was good enough for the G’home Gnomes. Fillip and Sot reached for the bottle as one, fastened their hands about its neck, and pulled the stopper free. There was a puff of reddish smoke that glittered with bits of green light, then a popping sound, and something small, black, and hairy crawled out of the bottle. Fillip and Sot jerked their hands back at once. The thing crawling from the bottle looked like an oversized spider.

“Ahhhh!” The thing on the lip of the bottle sighed contentedly. It perched there and looked down at them. It was barely a foot tall. Red eyes blinked like those of a cat. It looked less like a spider now. It had four limbs, all seemingly the same, a rat’s tail that switched and jerked, an arched back with a spine of bristling black hair, whitish hands and fingers like those of a sickly child, and a face that was thick with hair and blunted—as if it had been pushed in once and never came back again to its original shape. Pointed ears pricked up and listened to the night sounds. A mouth crooked with teeth and wrinkled skin smiled in something close to a grimace.

“Masters!” the creature soothed. The fingers of one limb picked at its body as if there were something irritating hidden in all that black hair.

“What are you?” asked Fillip in a whisper. Sot just stared.

“I am what I am!” the creature said. The grimace broadened. “A wondrous child of magic and wizardry! A being far better than those who gave me life!”

“A demon!” whispered Sot suddenly in terror.

The creature winced. “A Darkling, masters—a poor unfortunate made prisoner to this repulsive body by … chance. But keeper of the bottle, too, masters—keeper of all its wonders and delights!”

Fillip and Sot were barely allowing themselves to breathe. “What … what wonders do you keep in the bottle?” Fillip ventured finally, unable nevertheless to keep his voice from shaking.

“Ahhhh!” the Darkling breathed.

“Why … are they kept there?” asked Sot. “Why not in your pocket?”

“Ahhhh!” the Darkling said again.

“Why do you live in the bottle?” asked Fillip.

“Yes, why?” echoed Sot.

The spiderlike body arched and turned on the lip of the bottle like some feeding insect. “Because … I am bound!” The Darkling’s voice was an excited hiss. “Because it is my need! Would you like it to be yours, too, perhaps? Would you like to feel its touch? Little masters, would you dare? Would you dare to see how it shapes and molds and reworks life?”

Fillip and Sot were inching further back down into their burrow with every word, trying to make themselves disappear altogether. They were wishing they had kept the bottle closed as they had agreed they would. They were wishing they had never opened it up.

“Ohhhhh! Are you frightened?” the Darkling asked suddenly, whining the words, teasing with them. “Are you frightened of me? Oh, no, you mustn’t be frightened. You are the masters; I am but your servant. Command me, masters! Ask for something and let me show you what I can do!”