Wild Magic (12 page)
Jakob left town in the early evening. By dusk he was on Hamelin Hill, searching for any sign of a door. The light was fading but that didn't matter. The Piper had been an elf, Jakob was sure of that, and elves came out after dark. That's what his mother had told him. She said they danced in the moonlight and feasted on raspberry pudding and honey cakes.
The moon started to rise. Nocturnal creatures appeared from their hiding places and began the nightly search for food. Jakob saw a badger, a weasel, and a flurry of batsâbut no elves.
Jakob waited on the hillside. He waited while the moon journeyed across the sky and he was still waiting when the sun peeped sleepily over the eastern horizon. Nothing had happened. The door into Hamelin Hill had remained firmly closed.
Bitterly disappointed, Jakob started for home.
He reached his house just as his father was starting work.
“Where've you been?”
Moller was in a good mood, as he often was in the morning. Jakob found it strange, but Moller never remembered the wretchedness of the night before. Never remembered what he had said or done, no matter how awful it had been.
“To the hill.”
“Why?” Moller seemed interested. Jakob was surprised.
“I was trying to get in.”
“Why?”
Jakob shrugged. “I wanted to find Marianna. Paradise. The Piper.”
His father smiled wryly. “Forget it, lad. You won't get in there, not if you sit on that hillside for the rest of your life. And you want to forget about Paradise. It ain't for the likes of you and me. Hereâtake these.”
He thrust a pair of shoes under Jakob's arm.
“They're for George Wulf. West Street. Be quick now! He needs them this morning.”
Jakob went back out into the street. His father's words were echoing in his head. He closed his eyes and tried to make sense of them. Eventually he sighed, opened his eyes again, and looked up. There was a strip of sky between the overhanging roofs of the houses, blue as a bird's egg. It was going to be a glorious day.
“You're right, Papa,” Jakob said to himself. “Paradise isn't for the likes of you. But it is for the likes of me, and you'll never make me think otherwise. I will sit on that hillside for
years
if I have to, until I find a way in. One night a door will open, I know it, and I'll be there when it does.”
Jakob was right. One night a door
did
open and he was there to see it. And it happened much sooner than he was expecting.
Hamelin Hill, four nights later.
Jakob shifted uncomfortably. He had been sitting on the hillside for three hours and his muscles were starting to go to sleep.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a garlic sausage, and began to eat. He gazed at the stars and started to pick out the constellations. The Great Bear, . . . the Eagle, . . . the Swan, . . . But then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw what he had been waiting for.
The blue light!
He spun around.
It wasn't where he expected it to be. He was sitting where the Piper's door had been but this door was farther over. Twenty, maybe thirty, steps to his left. The blue light was cutting through the earth. Soon it would open.
Jakob reached for his crutch and hauled himself up. He started to cross the stony ground. Closer . . . closer . . . he was going to make it. The door began to open.
Shadows!
Two tall figures were emerging from the hill.
Jakob threw himself facedown on the ground and hoped the elves hadn't seen him. He heard a few whispered words and caught a new scent in the air. The scent of a forest. Damp earth. Pine needles.
How long before they're gone?
he wondered. He decided to wait another minute.
Then he realized he didn't
have
another minute. The door would be closing and he was still some distance away. He pulled himself up in a panic, not caring if the elves saw him. He was rightâthe door was starting to close, slowly swinging on its silent hinges. The fan of blue light was getting slimmer and slimmer as the outside world was shut out, banished, excluded from the world within the hill.
“No!” cried Jakob. “Not this time!” He rushed forward and threw himself through the gap.
Doof !
He landed like a sack of turnipsâso hard he nearly knocked his teeth out. But he didn't care. He had done it. He was inside Hamelin Hill.
He looked around. There were three carved stone arches in front of him with black tunnels beyond. But he didn't have time to study them. He turned to see the great door closing behind him, cutting him off from the only world he knew. The last thing he saw outside was a single star, shining bright. Then it was gone. Darkness descended. Jakob was alone.
Jakob couldn't believe anywhere could be so dark. The tunnel was completely and utterly black. He waited awhile, hoping his eyes would grow accustomed to it, but they didn't. He would have to rely on his other senses to find a way forward.
He listened carefully. Nothing. He sniffed the air. It smelled fresh rather than stale, but other than thatânothing. He would have to rely on touch.
He was sitting in a puddle, that was obvious. The whole place was damp. Bone-bitingly cold. There was a faint breeze blowing in from somewhere.
The
tunnels!
Jakob felt for his crutch, found it, and ran his fingers over its length. He had fallen so heavily, he was worried it had snapped under him. Luckily it was still in one piece.
He stood up and moved forward a few steps, then paused and stretched out his hand. He could feel one of the three stone arches, smooth beneath his fingers. His hand explored a little farther. The walls beyond were wet and rough.
Jakob suspected this was the middle arch. He shuffled to his right and found the second, then shuffled back past the middle and found the third. They all felt exactly the same.
“I don't know which one to choose,” he said to himself. “I don't know if they go up or down or what.” He shook his head, as if that would help him decide. It didn't. “Oh, bother!” he said at last. “Middle!”
He started down the tunnel, his crutch thudding on the rock floor.
I hope the roof stays where it is
, he thought.
If it suddenly gets lower, I'll knock my head off !
But as it turned out, the height of the tunnel wasn't the real danger ahead. There was something much more dangerous: a steep flight of steps that descended into the bowels of Hamelin Hill.
Jakob stood no chance of seeing it.
Whoa!
Down he went, tumbling over and over and over again into the inky blackness. His head was safeâhe instinctively curled up as soon as he fellâ but he banged his knees and bumped his elbows and bounced down the stairs like a ballâ
bedoying,
bedoying, bedoying!
âwhile his crutch clattered down beside him.
Oooof !
He finally hit the bottom and lay there groaning. His eyes stayed shut, trapping him inside his own little world of pain. But when he eventually opened them, he found brightness. Something was illuminating the tunnel with a soft green light. And when Jakob looked for the source, he was amazed to find it was his crutch. It was shining with a strange phosphorescent glow. And he couldn't be sure, because the crutch was lying a fair distance away, but it looked fancier somehow. Smooth and polished.
Jakob started to crawl toward it. He could feel tender bruises on his knees, but other than that, his legs seemed fine. No, they were
more
than fine. They were working. He wasn't pulling with his arms like he usually did, drawing his legs up behind. He was crawling on all fours. His legs were bearing his weight.
Jakob stopped and sat up. Now he was kneeling, with his legs beneath him and his hands resting on his knees. He had
never
been able to kneel before.
Suddenly he felt cold all over. Was he . . . ? No, he couldn't be. And yet . . . Could he? Really . . . walk?
There was only one way to find out. Jakob leaned forward and placed his hands on the ground. Took a deep breath. Pulled one of his legs up from under him, then the other. Now he was crouching. He took another deep breath and started to raise himself up.
Up he went, to his usual heightâand beyond. His back was straightening. His shoulders were leveling. His legs were firm and strong, rooting him to the ground. He was standing tall for the first time in his life, and it felt fantastic.
Jakob looked down at his new body. His britches were too short now, but who cared about that? He could walk! He could probably run and jump too. He wanted to try, there and then, but the ceiling was too low. Later! He would do it later, once he was out of the tunnel.
Suddenly he remembered the crutch. He walked over and picked it up. He was right. It
was
smoother. All the rough edges had gone. The wood was clean and polished. And as he held the crutch in his hand, Jakob felt a strange vibration begin. A pulse, deep inside the wood. Something was moving, changing. The crutch started to stretch and lengthen. For a terrible moment, Jakob thought it was turning into a snake, but it wasn't. It was simply straightening itself, just as Jakob's legs had done. When it had finished, it was a beautiful staff, with a round wooden globe at its end. A globe that shone with a pearly green light to illuminate the way.
Jakob gazed at it, mesmerized. Just holding it in his hand, he started to feel different. Bold, strong, and proud, like a wizard in one of Marianna's tales. A spell-spinning, troll-tricking, dragon-slaying sorcerer who knew all things and feared no foe.
It was a wonderful feeling. Staff in hand, he marched boldly on down the tunnel.
The tunnel twisted and turned, taking Jakob deeper into Hamelin Hill. He passed through cavern after cavern and each was more beautiful than the last. Stalactites hung from the ceiling, stalagmites rose from the floor, and where the two met they formed exquisite columns, smooth as skin. Sometimes the deposits fell in huge, frozen waterfalls, tinted with minerals: green, red, gold. And wherever he went, there was the sound of dripping water and the same cool breeze playing across his face.
There were other tunnels leading away from the main one, but Jakob ignored them, trusting his to be the easiest. Then, to his horror, he heard voices and saw flickering lights coming toward him. His new confidence vanished. He leaped into a side tunnel and stuffed the globe under his shirt, hoping its light hadn't been seen already.
He flattened himself back against the wall and tried not to breathe. Cursed his terrified heart for thumping so loudly. “Why am I so scared?” he asked himself. “Elves are friendly, aren't they?” Suddenly he had no desire to find out. He waited, while the voices grew louder. Two, maybe three, voices, speaking a language he didn't understand.
In a flash of green velvet, the speakers swept by. They were definitely elves: tall, handsome people, just like the Piper, with long flowing hair, bright eyes, and a stealthy, catlike grace to their movements. Luckily for Jakob, the elves were so lost in conversation, they didn't notice anything unusual. They strolled on.