Tim's Final Adventure

-1-

               Tim was in deep dung this time, that was for certain. Or he soon would be and quite literally too.

               He was suspended by his heels on a fraying rope over a huge vat of steaming cow excrement bound hand and foot in very serious chains. Not for the last time, he asked himself how he thought he could ever get away with trying to filch Oswald the Horrid's magic candelabra. It was all Miranda's fault, he thought bitterly. She said that it would be easy: that Oswald was sure to be asleep, that the magic elixir would disable the Dreadful Ogre, that it would be a walk in the park, a veritable lark! He should have listened to that still, quiet voice in him that warned him that it wouldn't be that easy. Miranda had turned her green and hazel eyes on him and he had been as incapable of making a rational decision as a ventriloquist's dummy.

               She was trouble from the word go.

               He had met her at a garden party put on by the Duchess of Lingondorf last Tuesday. He went as a representative of the Magician's Guild because he was the most junior member and all the other magicians thought that the Duchess was the most tedious woman in the land and her parties were about as exciting as hearing a stutterer recite pi to seventy places.

               Tim paced about trying to look mysterious and forbidding so the old biddies who made up ninety percent of the guest list would not collar him in conversation. "A magician, did ye say? Eh? Know some good tricks, do ye? Pull a rabbit out your hat, can ye?" He was sipping a tiny cup of black tea and suddenly his jaw dropped which caused him to spill tea on his ornate black robes. As he gaped, in walked the most stunning woman he had ever seen. He quickly wiped his robe with a napkin and tried to think of something brilliant to say.

               She gave him a quick once over and favoured him with a knee-melting smile.

               "Are you a magician?" She asked in melodious tones, her russet hair shimmering in the sun.

               "Grmph," gulped Tim. "Yes, I am," he said persuading his larynx to play along.

               "I have a proposition for you," she laughed.

               Tim spilled even more tea on himself.

-------------

               They sat together by a laughing fountain and she outlined an audacious plan. She told him about the Troubles of the Clan MacInnit. They were strong, wealthy and happy in a Gatsby sort of way. That is until Gregor, her father, inherited the castle just to the east of the most vile and pestilent wizard ever known, the aforementioned Oswald the Horrid.

               It was a castle that Oswald, himself, had desired for a couple of decades and he had offered the Clan MacInnit a bag of gold for it. Gregor had been unwisely brisk in his refusal and had earned Oswald's wrath. From that moment, unpleasant but untraceable bad luck had descended on the MacInnits. Cows had exploded (maiming several), a tower was struck by lightning (killing six), and worst of all, the King's tax collectors descended like a plague of locusts. Miranda was the only one of the MacInnits who still inhabited the castle; all the other MacInnits had already hightailed it for their summer home in the south of France. You see, Miranda was as stubborn as she was beautiful. And she had a plan.

               The source of Oswald's power was a magic candelabra locked away in a magic chest, which was sealed in a magic chamber and guarded by the Dreadful Ogre. Perhaps calling an Ogre "dreadful" is redundant, but this was a particularly repulsive specimen, with fangs of heart-stopping size and claws that rend and tear. (Also a painful lisp but nobody's perfect.)

               Her plan ran as follows: she would sit down with Oswald for a little tete a tete, giving him the hope that she was on the cusp of selling him the castle. While they were talking, she would slip a powerful sleeping potion into his wine. As he slept, she would let Tim into the castle and together they would disable the Dreadful Ogre with a powerful spell of Tom's choosing. They would break into the magic chamber using a Miracle key for which Miranda had paid big doubloons. Once they had the chest nothing would be easier that cancelling Oswald's spell with any number of incantations of which Tim was doubtless cognisant. Tim would have liked to explain that he was a very junior member of the Magician's Guild but he lost his nerve in view of her heart-stopping loveliness.

               The plan started extremely well. Miranda had managed to put Oswald into a deep slumber and she'd gotten Tim safely into the castle. The plan unraveled when Tim was faced with the Dreadful Ogre.

               "Thstop right there, vile varlet," boomed the D.O.

               "Allaka zoom!" incanted Tim, waving his outstretched fingers at him.

               "Allaka thzoom?" said the lisping creature, his fangs dripping drool and sarcasm. "Is that thsuposed to be thsome thsort of thspell?"

               "It is indeed," said Tim, almost sure that's how the sleeping spell was cast.

               "Why isn't it working?" said Miranda. "I thought you were supposed to be a powerful magician!"

               In a thrice, the D.O. was on poor Tim. Within seconds, he found himself bound in chains and cast into a dark cell. What had happened to Miranda, Tim did not know, nor did he much care. He pondered his fate and determined that this was absolutely the  worst pickle he ever been in. That is until the next morning, when Oswald strung him up over a vat of bubbling turds. It certainly didn't help when Oswald informed Tim that the rope suspending him would melt in a short hour allowing gravity to do her job in plunging the chained not-quite-magician into the boiling excrement.

               Tim wriggled in his chains, almost fainting from the overly ripe smell that surrounded him. Now what was that spell for weightlessness? The rope was showing signs of thinning and fraying.

               "Light as a feather/light as a cloud/solid to gas/chango-presto/lift me up now!" Tim could feel an effervescent tingling starting at the roots of his hair and travelling down his spine until he could feel his whole body relax. To Tim's intense interest, his feet started to melt and then form into a cloud. The process continued through his torso: a melting and then an evaporation. The chains, having nothing but vapour to grip, fell right into the bubbling excrement. Meanwhile, Tim the Cloud, rose high above the cauldron, gathering in a corner of the ceiling and confusing a spider who'd just finished her web.  

                The door burst open and Oswald noted with pleasure the frayed rope and madly bubbling cauldron. He laughed a nefarious laugh and gave himself a good pat on his back for the wizard was as flexible as he was vile.

               "Now to crush that upstart MacInnit girl ," he snarled and ran out the door.

               Tim shivered with relief. Time to change himself back into substantial flesh and head for the hills. Miranda would have to figure out how to deal with Oswald on her own without his help, that was for sure.

               He opened his mouth, which is to say that the water vapor where his mouth used to be shifted a little and Tim tried to speak a counter spell. Of course, he was far too insubstantial to form any real words. He no longer had a voice box or vocal chords. Was he doomed to be a cloud forever? He would have wept but the room wasn't cold enough to cause him to condense.

               Just then, a familiar voice cried out: "Magician, are you there?" It was Miranda! How had she gotten past Oswald? Tim drifted down to her and he attempted in his gaseous form to communicate with her.

               Miranda peered at the cloud floating in front of her. Where had it come from? Where was her wonder-worker? She wrinkled her lovely nose. What was that hideous smell? Obviously, the smell came from the bubbling cauldron. She peeked over the edge and saw the chains that formerly bound Tim. Her eyes filled with tears.

               Tim didn't gape, because clouds have no mouths (as we've already established) but he was amazed. Could it be that she was weeping over his demise? He floated around her attempting a gaseous embrace but all she did was try to brush away the vapour.

               Suddenly, she stopped stock still as an interesting thought struck her. "Is this you, Magician?" she asked putting her hand in the middle of the cloud. Tim could say nothing (literally).

               "If this is you, float up to the ceiling!" she commanded. Tim did so.

               "Aha! So it is you," she said. "Come back down and we will get you fixed." Tim floated down. She held out a bottle and unstoppered it . "Slide yourself in here and I'll find someone from your Guild to change you back into a boy."

               A boy, groaned Tim the Cloud, internally. That's how she saw him? He slid into the bottle feeling both juvenile and wretched.

 

-2-

              

               "What now, Magician?" asked Miranda.

               "Well, one thing for sure, I won't be going back to Lingondorf again!" snorted Tim. "They'll be telling the story of the magician who enchanted himself into a corner for the next hundred years!"

               "Unless, of course, you settle Oswald's hash for good," said Miranda, arching her lovely eyebrows. Then the Guild would probably make you their Wizard of the Year."

               "And how am I supposed to do that?"

               "I am formulating another plan," she smiled.

               "I was afraid of that," he said glumly.

               "Oh, don't worry. This plan will depend on cunning, not magic."

               "Then why do you need a magician?"

               "I need a friend," she said, which shut Tim up. A friend?

---

               Oswald was pottering around in his garden, deadheading the tulips and weeding gently around his lavenders. He may have been an evil genius but he did love his garden, which just goes to show you something or other.

               "More manure, thsir?" asked the D.O., who Oswald had dragooned into helping him.

               "Just a bit around the boxwoods, there's a good fellow," said Oswald.

               "Thstrange," said the D.O.

               "What?"

               "Thith manure thseems short of bonesth!"

               "Ridiculous," said Osward. "You just haven't scraped the bottom of the caudron yet!"

               "Yeth, I have!" protested the D.O. "Thsee for yourthself!"

               "You're right," murmured Oswald, after he'd done some intensive scraping. "The little weasel must have escaped. You know what this means?"

               "Um..." The D.O. was not a great thinker.

               "It means we can expect another visit. Miranda MacInnit and her accomplice will not give up so easily!"

               "I would have ththought the cauldron of thshit would have dithscouraged her," said the Ogre.

               "She's a redhead," said Oswald.

               "Thsay no more," nodded the D.O.

               "I think that we'd better take extra precautions with the Magic Candelabra," said Oswald. "Summon the Magic Monkeys!"

               "Are you thsure? I'm not the evil geniuth, but..."

               "That's right! I'm the evil genius here and I say get the Monkeys!"

               "If you inthsist," muttered the D.O. He hated the Monkeys.

               He stomped over to the Monkey Wing and stood fully erect in front of the cage.

               "Attention, Monkeysth!" he bellowed. "Othwald hath need of your thervices!"

               "That bozo! Why should we help him!" sneered one plucky simian.

               "Yeah, what's he ever done for us?" snarled another.

               "He ith your liege!" said the D.O., with a rapidly sinking heart. "You owe him your obedianth!"

               "What's in it for us?" came the monkey chorus.

               "I'll get you more bananath," said the D.O.

               All of the monkeys whooped for joy. There was nothing they wouldn't do for bananas.

------------------

               It was a dark and stormy night (or it would have been if the wind hadn't blown all the storm clouds over the Grimm Mountains). As it was, the night was full of stars and Tim's heart was full of hope. Which just goes to show that you should never pin your sense of well-being on the vagrancies of the weather. He and Miranda were scoping out Oswald's perimeter and putting her well-honed plan to the test. She had an elegant spyglass.

               "Looks good," she said. "Hmmm..."

               "What 'hmmm'?" said Tim.

               "Magic monkeys on the wall; looks like old Ozzie is stepping up his defences." And then she said a word that any really ladylike girl should not use.

               "That screws up your plan," he said.

               "No, it just modifies it a bit," she frowned. "Are you good with animals?"

               "I had a white rat once," said Tim.

               "Try pleading with them," she urged.

               "Ok, I'm sure monkeys can be reasoned with," he said. At times, Tim could be painfully naive.

               "Psst! Hey monkeys" hissed Tim once he arrived at the stone wall.

               "What do you want, punk kid?" yelled one of the monkeys.

               "I need your help!"

               "Get lost!"

               "Please!"

               "Get stuffed!"

               "Pretty please with sugar on top!"

               "Get bent!"

               There was no reasoning or pleading with the Monkeys. Tim racked his brain which caused a few neurons to quiver.

               "Why not?" he hissed.

               "Ogre has promised bananath!" lisped one, which caused all the monkeys to giggle at the Ogre's expense.

               "Bananas? I'll give you twice as many as he will!" bargained Tim.

               The Monkeys huddled on the wall to discuss their potential treason.

               "Twice as many bananas, brothers!" said one.

               "Done deal," nodded all the others.

               "Okay, we'll let you in as soon as you show us the bananas!" called the monkeys down to Tim.

               "I'll be right back," said Tim.

               After a quick run to the neighbourhood fruit peddler, Tim and Miranda came back with a huge bunch of bananas. Soon, they were in the castle, with the monkeys messily hooting over their fruit back in the courtyard.

               "So those were Magic Monkeys?" said Miranda.

               "Yup, you can tell by the golden capes," said Tim, who once wrote a research paper on magic animals for extra credit in Wizard Correspondence School.

               "If they're magic, why didn't they just use magic to make their own bananas?" asked Miranda.

               "They're magic monkeys, not rocket scientists," said Tim.

               "Hush, here's the magic chamber," whispered Miranda. "Are you ready?"

               "Bring it on!" said Tim, capable of a bit of bravado every now and then.

               She opened the door with her Miracle Key and surprised the D.O. in mid-nose-pick.

               "The red-headed damthel!" he cried, finger still wedged nostrilward. "Prepare for thome therious rending!"

               "I very much doubt it," said Miranda confidently.

               "What?" said the confused Ogre. "And why not, if I may be tho bold?"

               "Because we're on to you, Ogre. We know your guilty secret and if you don't let us in we'll tell everybody!"

               "But if you do, I'll be laughed out of the Monthster's Society!" wept the dread Ogre.

               "Then you'd better let us in!" crowed Miranda.

               "Oh very well," pouted the Ogre.

               Once they were inside the chamber, Tim gave Miranda a huge hug; the kind that you never forget.

               "How did you know it had a guilty secret?" he asked.

               "Everyone does, you know," she said, tapping the side of her nose with an index finger in a Gallic gesture of worldly wisdom.

               "What's yours?" he asked.

               "I wax my upper lip," she said. "What's yours?"

               "I like to do macramé," he grinned.

                Together, they searched the room for the magic chest.

               "What makes it magic anyway?" asked Tim who had never covered magic chests in his previous apprenticeships.

               "It blows up if you're not its owner," she said.

               "So if we try to steal it, it blows up?"

               "Most assuredly," she nodded.

               "But that would destroy the source of Oswald's power!" he protested.

               "Oswald figures that nobody would be stupid enough to get blown up just to destroy his power."

               "No doubt," he said. "So how are you going to open it without it blowing up?"

               "I'm not."

               "Pardon?"

               "I'm going to blow myself up to avenge my family. Without the candelabra, Oswald will be powerless and my father can deal with him in a way that Oswald is sure to find unpleasant," she said.

               "But, that's crazy!" said Tim.

               "Is it? Good, another tidbit for my therapist," she said.

               "But seriously," said Tim.

               "You think I'd joke about this?"

               "There must be a way to get the candelabra and defeat Oswald that way!" Tim was desperate; he couldn't lose Miranda.

                "Well, we can rule out your magic, I guess," she said. That hurt.

               "What if we stole the chest and hid it away?" said Tim.

               "As long as the candelabra is intact, so is Oswald's power." Her face was grim.

               "What if we stole it and threw a boulder at it to crack it open. It would blow up then, wouldn't it?"

               "It only responds to a key that isn't Oswald's key being inserted in the keyhole. The chest itself is indestructible."

               "Rats," said Tim.

               "I know," said Miranda. "You'd better leave. Why should we both die?"

               "I don't want to lose you!" cried Tim. "There must be something we can do!"

               "I can't think of anything. Not unless you have Oswald's key."

               "I'll get it!" cried Tim feeling brave and resourceful. "Where is it?"

               "On a chain around Oswald's neck."

               "Why didn't you steal it when you gave him the sleeping potion?"

               "As long as his candelabra is intact, the key cannot be removed."

               "A perfect magic loop," muttered Tim. "That Oswald is a pretty cagy bird."

               "So you see, blowing up the chest is my only option," said Miranda.

               Tim swallowed hard and racked his brain. His eyes opened wide as the only solution occurred to him.

               "Oswald has to open the chest and give us the candelabra," he said.

               "That's so very obvious," she remarked with a considerably sarcastic edge to her voice. "I'm amazed that I didn't think of it."

               "Now how do we accomplish that?" mused Tim, pacing to and fro with his left hand massaging the back of his neck.

               "You tell me," said Miranda.

               "What do we know about Oswald?" Tim was brainstorming so hard that little lightning bolts were leaping from his prefrontal lobe.

               "He's a paragon of evil," she said.

               "Dig a little deeper," urged Tim.

               "He loves gardening."

               "Good."

               "He's an egomaniac."

               "Check."

               "He owns a pair of ruby slippers."

               "Hmmm."

               "Are you coming up with anything?" she said.

               "What could cause Oswald to open the magic chest?"

               "He would only open it if he wanted to check up on it...but..."

               "And why would he do that?" interrupted Tim.

               "Maybe if he thought something was wrong with it?" Miranda's brain was percolating like a Yellowstone mud pot.

               "And what could cause him to think that?" asked Tim.

               "Who does Oswald trust?"

               "Nobody! He's evil! Evil people don't trust, it's one thing that makes them evil."

               "Doesn't he have a fairy godmother?"

               "Oh yeah. Of course he does."

               "All we have to do is find her and pay her off to tell Oswald that she's had a vision or something and he's in great danger because the candelabra is breaking down. Something like that could work!"

               "It sounds a bit thin," said Miranda, perhaps a bit ticked that she didn't think of the idea.

----------------

3

               Glissenda was pottering around in her cottage, organizing her magic crystals according to colour, clarity and power. She picked up a blue amethyst that she'd collected while in the jungles near Rangoon and smiled. A perfect gem for concocting a love potion. She put it in the top drawer and made a notation on her hand held device. (She might be thousands of years old, but at heart she was a modern fairy and moved with the times.)

               She heard a rapping at her door and frowned. She hated being disturbed while organizing or cleaning. If it was one of those pesky door to door peddlers, she'd turn him into something unpleasant. She ignored the door and went back to her cataloging. Another rapping. She stifled an oath and flung the door open.

               "Right! What are you selling?" she snarled suspiciously.

               Tim and Miranda smiled broadly at her.

               "Madame, how would you like to make some serious coin?" said Tim.

               "How would you like to become a centipede?" said Glissenda, figuring them for scam artists.

               Miranda held out a bag of gold coins.

               "Well, well," said the fairy, her eyes glinting with avarice . "Why don't you come in and tell me more?"

               Over cups of some sort of herbal tea, they told her what they needed.

               The fairy peered over her cup as they looked expectantly at her. "So you'll give me a bag of gold, if I send word to Oswald that somehow I found out that his candelabra is breaking down and that he needs to bring it back to me for servicing?"

               They nodded.

               "I'll do it," she said. The gold would enable her to finally purchase those pink diamonds that she'd had her eyes on for ages. It was the only thing she'd lacked for a really top drawer elixir of youth.

--------------

               Oswald was back in his garden when his magic cell phone chimed. (Of course evil wizards have the latest in technology; they might even be to blame for some of its excesses.)

               "What do you mean, disturbing me when I'm in my gar...Oh, it's you! Sorry Auntie. No, no...I'm always delighted to hear from you. What? My candelabra? Are you serious? But..." He listened in growing horror as his fairy godmother spun her tale.

               "I'll be right there! Just give me two shakes to get my magic carpet!" Oswald tore into his castle (almost knocking over a couple of magic monkeys who were trying to hide half-eaten bananas behind their backs) and into his magic chamber. He grabbed his magic chest and in no time was on his carpet headed for Glissenda's cottage.

---------

               "He's coming!" hissed Glissenda, who was monitoring the skies with the aid of her GPS. Tim and Miranda headed for their hiding places.

               "It's me!" shouted Oswald, thrusting himself through the cottage door.

               "Sit by the fire," suggested the fairy.

               "How can I sit when my glorious power is being threatened?" howled the agonized wizard.

               "Oh, stop being a drama queen," snarled Glissenda. "Didn't I tell you I could adjust it?"

               Oswald reluctantly sat, the magic chest perched on his lap.

               "Open it," ordered the fairy. Oswald took his key and opened the chest. Glissenda reached in and carefully pulled out a glittering silver candelabra.

               "It doesn't look broken," muttered Oswald, reaching for it.

               "Discernment was never one of your strengths, Ozzie," said Glissenda primly, holding tightly to it. "Leave it with me, I will give it the necessary adjustments and get it back to you by next Tuesday." She put the candelabra on her work bench.

               "Next Tuesday, but that's almost a week! What exactly do you have to do to my candelabra?"

               "Crystal therapy," she said. "You can't rush magic, Ozzie."

               "Oh, very well," said the vile magician. "I'll see you Tuesday, bright and early."

               "Come after tea; I hate having a rushed morning," she said.

               He snorted and flew out the door. Tim and Miranda rushed from their hiding places.

               "I can't believe he fell for that!" said Tim.

               "He didn't," said Miranda slowly, holding up the glittering object. "This isn't his magic candelabra!"

               "What? Let me see that!" cried Glissenda, grabbing it out of her hands.

               "Look!" said Miranda, point to the script on the bottom. "Made in Hong Kong."

               "That untrusting bastard!" said Glissenda, who was really not a very good fairy godmother.

               "I think it's ticking," said Tim.

               "Clear out!" yelled the fairy. "It's a bomb!"

               --------------

               "Thso, that's the end of them!" said the Dread Ogre looking at the satisfying explosion through a pair of binoculars.

               "It would appear so," said Oswald, looking through his own binoculars.

               "I love happy endingths," beamed the Ogre.

               "They're the best," agreed Oswald.