The Man Who Was Magic (2 page)

“Well, I did,” said Adam.

The porter now regarded him doubtfully. “Hm, if you say you did . . . What’s that thing you’ve got with you?”

“It’s my talking dog, Mopsy,” said Adam.

“That’s silly,” said the old man querulously. “First of all that bunch of hair doesn’t look like a dog. And secondly, everybody knows that dogs can’t talk.”

“Huh!” cried Mopsy, “ ‘thing’ and ‘bunch of hair,’ is it? What about your chin whiskers, like an old billy goat?”

“Mopsy, do be quiet! He’ll never let us in.”

“What’s all that going on between you two down there?” asked the porter.

Adam replied, “My dog was just remarking, ‘What a very good-looking old gentleman.’ ”

“Was he, now! A most observing little animal.” And then with sudden suspicion, “But I didn’t hear him say it.”

Adam smiled, “Well, I did.”

“Pfui!” said Mopsy. “You told a fib.”

“It’s what you ought to have said,” Adam replied quickly.

“Did he say something again?” asked the Gatekeeper.

“He wished you good health and long life.”

“Hmm,” mused the old man. “Anyone who manages to get over the Mountains of Straen and has a dog who can talk must be some kind of magician. Well, you’ll need to be a good one, too. Do you know how many pass the judges in the first test? One in ten, maybe. A single slip and you’re out. Novelty is what they’re looking for and originality rather than something complicated.”

“I’ll try my best,” Adam said.

“Eight successful candidates go to the finals,” the Gatekeeper continued, “and you know how many are selected out of those? Three! Chosen by acclamation. The others get the hook.” He peered down at Adam once more. “By the way,” he said, “I thought there was something missing. Where’s your assistant?”

“I haven’t one, except Mopsy, here.”

“The same, at your service,” put in Mopsy with a slight smirk.

“Ho!” scoffed the Gatekeeper. “Whoever heard of a dog as a magician’s assistant? You’ll never get by with that here, in Mageia. It’s one of the rules that every candidate must be accompanied by a female assistant. And don’t think the judges haven’t got an eye for a pretty face and a good pair of legs, too.”

“Would it be possible to find one inside your fair city?” Adam asked.

“You might,” said the porter, “but I doubt it. There won’t be many about who aren’t either taken up or spoken for, what with all the new applicants. Still, I suppose there’s no harm in letting you have a try. You’ll have to register with the Town Clerk.” He glanced at his watch. “Entries close sharp at ten. You’ve got about an hour. Very well, then, mind! You’re standing a bit close.”

Adam had to leap backwards as the double gates opened silently and the porter came down the steps from his office to greet them. His figure was bent and his tail, coat old-fashioned and rusty. But his watery blue eyes were kindly as he said, “Welcome to Mageia.” And then, as if suddenly smitten once more by doubt, he added, “Are you sure you’re a magician? You see, only professional and bona fide ones are allowed in here, I wouldn’t want to get into any trouble.”

“I think so,” Adam replied.

“Well, that’s all right then, and I wish you luck,” the old man said.

Mopsy was edging close towards his feet and Adam heard him mutter, “‘Bunch of hair’ and ‘thing’, eh?” and was just in time to stop him with, “Mopsy, don’t you dare!”

“What? What?” said the Gatekeeper. And then, looking down, “He’s really a cute little fellow, isn’t he? I didn’t mean to be rude to him. Can he sit up?”

“Can you sit up, Mopsy?” Adam asked.

Mopsy replied, “I can, but I shan’t. What if I asked him to get down on all fours?”

“He says he can, but he’d rather not,” Adam explained, “He says it isn’t dignified.”

“Quite so, quite so,” agreed the porter. “How very extraordinary—a genuine talking dog!” For by now he was no longer sure whether it was Mopsy or Adam he had heard say things. “Well, come in, come in!”

Adam and Mopsy passed through into the city. They were at the end of their long journey.

Immediately they found themselves in such surroundings as they had never seen before. For once within the high wall that encircled the place, the streets of Mageia were as merry, gay, gaudy and sprightly as the most glittering circus parade.

II

T
HE
C
ITY OF THE
M
AGICIANS

M
ageia, the magical city of the magicians of the world, stood on the crown of a hill overlooking pleasant, rolling country of wooded patches, fair meadows, silvery streams and busy farms.

The view from the walls over the land was boundless to the horizons where earth and sky meet to blend into a shimmering mist, except far to the west where towered the dark, forbidding line of the Mountains of Straen.

And Mageia itself was unlike any place that Adam had ever seen before, for here it was that all the magicians, conjurers, prestidigitators, illusionists, sleight-of-handsters, escape artists, mind readers and practitioners of legerdemain lived together with their wives and children, when they were not off touring somewhere in the world, giving entertainments in theaters, concert halls, auditoriums, clubs or at private parties.

The hill on which it stood could be located somewhere west of East and just to the south of North and only a mile or so over the boundary of time, so that there was very little difference between yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Since stage magicians who specialize in such amazing things as producing lighted cigarettes from their mouths, or silk handkerchiefs in a profusion of colors, or snatching live pigeons seemingly out of the air had to pretend that they had astonishing and supernatural powers in order to excite and confound people, they kept very much to themselves. No one was permitted to enter the city who was not an illusionist, or connected in some way with the world of professional magic.

For the conjurers of Mageia guarded their secrets jealously, since these were their most precious stock in trade and many of them had been handed down from grandfather to father and father to son, through generations. It might do for a person in the audience to
think
of a way by which a live rabbit could have got into the opera hat which surely was empty a moment before, or even suspect the means by which the pretty lady in the silk tights and spangled skirt, standing in a cabinet, disappeared in a flash before his very eyes, but it would never do for him actually to
know.

This was the reason why no outsider ever managed to get into Mageia, or for that matter, even knew where it was. Adam, of course, had heard of it because he had been slightly magic ever since he could remember.

If the town loomed up behind its walls as mysterious-looking and exciting as an old-time castle, within it was even more so. The houses themselves remained as they were in the ancient days, when alchemists, necromancers and sorcerers had lived there, crooked and gabled, leaning towards one another across narrow, cobbled streets, all built on the slant of the hill. At the center was an imposing Square with a fine Town Hall topped by a clock tower on one side and on the other their proud, brand new theater, the Mageia Municipal Auditorium, where the magicians often gave entertainments for one another, showed off their newest tricks and held their annual trials for admission to the Guild of Master Magicians.

For while any genuine conjurer could live in the city, only the greatest were admitted to the exclusive Master’s Guild. These were the elite of the town and only three each year were accepted, winnowed down from more than a hundred candidates. Naturally, any entertainer who could advertise that he was a Member of the Guild was more in demand than a lesser performer and this was why this annual event brought Mageia to a state of great excitement and anticipation.

The shops in the Square dealt only in magical apparatus of one kind or another; costumes, properties, cabinets and books with directions for producing tricks of every variety.

But it was the inhabitants by whom Adam and Mopsy now found themselves surrounded who gave life, color and dash to this fascinating place. The majority of them were handsomely dressed in black tail coats, white ties and silk top hats, while from their shoulders hung opera capes lined with red or cream satin. Many of them sported little black pointed beards that gave them a slightly sinister air, as one would expect of a magician, or had spiky mustaches waxed to a point, or both. Some had imposing ebony walking sticks with gold heads; others carried ivory-tipped wands in their white-gloved hands.

But there were also wizards even more excitingly costumed, the Oriental types purporting to come from the mysterious East. These marched about in gorgeous fabrics of every hue. The Chinese wore brocaded mandarin gowns with wide sleeves, black pillbox silk caps and their hair in long pigtails. There were Indian magicians in snow-white suits woven with gold thread, their heads wound about with red, green, blue or black turbans; Arab necromancers in cream-colored, woolen cloaks and flowing headdresses; Turkish adepts in their baggy trousers and red fezzes with black tassels and Japanese conjurers in gay, embroidered kimonos.

The women and children were as gaily and pleasingly clad as the men. The boys were dressed in miniature like their fathers, and the women and girls in the garb of magician’s assistants. Those who worked for the Eastern magicians were robed in bright, oriental garb; the Indians in saris, the Chinese in embroidered satin trousers and cheongsams, the Arabians in loose gauze pajamas fastened at the ankles and close-fitting jackets stitched in gold and silver thread.

The basic costume of the assistants from the Western world consisted of full-length tights with short, ruffled skirts and spangled or embroidered bodices, but these came in every color and combination of the rainbow and were set off by short capes that swung from their shoulders.

This was the scene that greeted Adam and Mopsy as the gates closed noiselessly behind them. Adam stared and, for once, even Mopsy was speechless and could only shake some of the hair out of his eyes so that he might see better.

“Surprised you, eh?” said the Gatekeeper.

“Oh yes indeed. How do I get to the Town Hall, please?” Adam asked.

The ancient porter gave him instructions but they were very long and confused, consisting of, “First turning up the hill, then left at the pump, you’ll see a magic shop on the right-hand side, go two streets left and three right, beyond the house with the five gables,” and so forth and so on.

Adam and Mopsy moved off trying to follow the directions and soon were a part of the throng filled with holiday spirit. The city, gay with flags and bunting, hummed, bustled and seethed with magic. Everyone was not only thinking and talking magic, but doing it as well. It seemed impossible for two prestidigitators to encounter one another upon the street without producing some kind of a trick, or a bit of sleight of hand.

Adam saw a pair meet, doff their silk toppers and bow to one another with old-world courtesy. One dipped into his hat and pulled out a live white rabbit which he gave to his friend, who immediately reciprocated by reaching into his own for a fine-looking chicken in exchange. They then stowed the creatures somewhere about their persons where they seemed to disappear, chatted for a moment and passed on.

“Jolly good,” commented Adam.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Mopsy. “You can do better than that.”

Another pair paused for a moment. “Care for a smoke?” one asked the other.

“Don’t mind if I do.”

“Cigar? Cigarette? Pipe?”

“Anything that’s going.”

Whereupon the first magician made a swift pass with his hand, faster than any eye could follow, and there, between his fingers, was a lighted cigarette which he proffered to his friend. “Your brand, I believe.”

“Quite so. How very kind.”

Little knots at corners were being invited by this or that magician to pick a card. No passer-by was able to do something as simple as reaching into his pocket for a handkerchief with which to blow his nose. Instead he would produce dozens of them, in every color.

Even the youngest children on the street instead of carrying dolls or teddy bears, or towing toys on wheels behind them, played and practiced interminably with nests of boxes, pieces of rope, flags, coins, paper sacks, or bits of silk and filled the air with their cries of, “Look! Watch me! See what I can do!” or, “Here, have you seen this one?” and, “Let me show you.”

Thus both bewildered and fascinated by the novelty of the environment and the inhabitants, Adam completely forgot the Gatekeeper’s instructions and he and Mopsy shortly found themselves in a maze of narrow, side alleys and crooked houses, thoroughly lost. Nor did there seem to be anyone whom they could ask for the part of the town where they now found themselves appeared to be empty and deserted.

When they came to the next corner, Adam simply did not know which way to go. In his mind he flipped a coin which came down heads and so, turning left, he passed by an open window where, sitting upon the floor inside, he saw a little girl with brown hair but he did not notice that she was dissolved in tears.