LITMIR.BIZ

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nor Eyeless Horror will trespass. And the empty Wheelchair and the flying Coffin Lid – they are indeed a trifle altogether. They are only capable of causing harm to a novice not knowing the rebuff spell…” Medusa said with contempt.

      “And a newborn girl, in your opinion, is capable of uttering it?”

      “No, she isn’t capable. But, Sardanapal, we can, after all, bathe her in the Deflecting Bath, and then…”

      The academician of white magic interrupted her:

      “Yes, I agree. We can. Coffin Lid – it’s nothing. Wheelchair – also nothing. Freezing Traps and Statue-Crushers also, perhaps, nonsense. But Nameless Cellar? And is the Vanishing Floor also a trifle? We, up to now, still don’t know what became of those two bums who managed to make their way there. And in conclusion, what will you say about the Sinister Gates?”

      Medusa shuddered.

      “You’re right, Sardanapal,” she said, crushed. “I forgot about Nameless Cellar and Sinister Gates… But she’s the daughter of Grotter! A girl who managed to survive a meeting with She-Who-Is-No-More and to endure…”

      The academician interrupted her, “We don’t know how she managed it, but we know what this cost Leopold and Sophia. And to subject the girl to danger again… Besides this…” here Sardanapal made a long pause, “there is still one more reason… Extremely important, for which Tanya in no way can be found in Tibidox. In any case, she must not appear there for as long as possible…”

      “What reason?!” Medusa exclaimed hotly. Sardanapal looked at her reproachfully.

      “For the time being I cannot tell you, although I trust you more than anybody. It’s that same reason why Grotter didn’t remain to live in Tibidox, but took Sophia and the child away into such wilderness, where, besides swamp brownies, werewolves, and evil spirits, you’ll meet no one else. And it’s Grotter – with his capital education, excellent manners, and habit of making music daily. Understand, Medusa?”

      The associate professor Gorgonova nodded despondently, realizing that the reason that drove Grotter into the wilderness and forced him to forsake Tibidox in the bloom of his career had to be very weighty.

      “So, it’s decided… Tonight we’ll return here with the child and abandon her to Herman Durnev and his wife. The sight of a poor orphan cannot but touch their hearts… Let them bring her up together with their own daughter. Girls of the same age will be merrier together. We’re going, Medusa. It’s time! A-a-a-a-choo!” The academician suddenly sneezed so deafeningly that all the constellations were blown off his hanky at once, and the phone booth standing by the house tumbled with a crash to one side.

      “I said you’d catch a cold!” Medusa said reproachfully.

      “Nonsense!” Sardanapal was angry. “Stop keeping an eye on my health! He who had his head chopped off three times cannot be afraid of a common head cold… Choo!”

      The academician of white magic wrapped himself tighter in his orange robe and, decisively treading on his beard, made his way past the houses to the small square. His restless moustaches were making a signal in time to the steps: one-two, one-two. Medusa picked her way after him.

      Many passers-by filling the street in that hour and hurrying on their own affairs paid them very little attention. And what should even draw their curiosity when they only saw a shaggy mongrel and barely at a distance a thin elegant borzoi with a long snout? For the experienced magicians it constituted no difficulty to cook up a couple of deflecting spells.

      Having taken about thirty steps, the academician Sardanapal awkwardly jumped up, clicked his knees in the air and, growling out a spell, dissolved in the air. Medusa in contrast to her teacher did not possess the ability of instantaneous disappearances from the human world. She reached the square and extracted from the bushes a kid’s rocking horse painted with Khokhloma designs. Having checked that all twelve talismans, without which the rocking horse simply would not take off, were in place, she clambered up onto it with difficulty and, soaring up steeply, disappeared among the clouds.

      It was curious that even on the ridiculous kiddie rocker the associate professor Gorgonova contrived to appear majestic and to look ahead like a hawk. Somewhere along the way she ran into Lifeless Griffin; the wretch would have to pay. However, it was already dead, so there was nothing for it to lose.

      The sun started to yawn lazily and climbed up from the roof. The unusual day continued.

* * *

      Herman Durnev had one hundred and seventeen bad moods. If it is possible to describe the first mood as slightly bad, then the last, the hundred-and-seventeenth, amounted to a good force-eight storm. The head of the firm Second-Hand Socks returned home that day precisely in this hundred-and-seventeenth bad mood. On the road it constantly seemed to him that other cars were moving too slowly, and he began to hit the horn continually with his palm.

      At the same time it twice seemed to him that the sound of the horn was too quiet, and then, sticking his head out the window of the car, he roared, “Hey, what are you dragging? Move it, move! You want me to come out and beat you up? You want to give a sick person a stroke?”

      Durnev, it goes without saying, considered himself the sick person.

      The basic reason Herman Nikitich’s mood was so abruptly spoilt was the sensation that some strange and mysterious forces were pursuing him and making fun of him. Everything began from that same morning when he just set off for work. Even along the way something started to rumble violently in the baggage carrier of the car, rumbling so that the car even jumped, but when he went out to look, it turned out there was nothing in there. When Durnev got back behind the wheel, he discovered that his own portrait from a magazine was stuck to the windshield of the automobile. Moreover, it appeared as if the wind dropped onto the glass a page soaked in a puddle…

      The director was so anxious that when he ripped off his picture, his fingers were shaking and he accidentally tore part of his head, together with the ear, from the photograph. Seeing in this a bad omen for himself, Herman Nikitich immediately swallowed thirty Relief tablets and washed them down with a bottle of valerian tincture.

      When he nevertheless got to the office, he discovered that the wastebasket in his office was turned upside down, and all the garbage from it was unceremoniously shaken out onto the carpet. And not simply shaken out but also steeped in something stinky. The furious Durnev immediately fired the cleaning woman, though she swore that she did not even drop into his office.

      Having opened the safe in order to get the press, he beheld there a pale fungus on a thin leg, which, when Herman Nikitich stretched out his hand to it, spread on the papers a sticky slime that could not be wiped off. After this incident, Durnev collapsed into the armchair and sat in it for a long time, sweating and counting off small fractions with his teeth.

      “Twenty five… twenty six… I’m not nervous at all… Why are you staring at me? Get back to work! Really, didn’t I ask you to get for me the price on old toothbrushes?” he began to yell at an employee timidly looking in.

      The unlucky employee slid into his own tiny little office, which smelled of moth-eaten sweaters and worn jeans, and, collapsing onto the chair, nearly died of fright.

      No need to explain that toward the evening Durnev had had quite a drop too much.

      “Pour me anything to drink… Now you’ll see, soon something bad will happen!” he groaned as soon as he found himself at home.

      In contrast to the office literally choked up from floor to ceiling with cut-price junk and worn out things, everything was completely new in Durnev’s home.

      Herman Nikitich’s wife – Ninel – was as fat as her husband was thin. When she slept, her wrinkled cheeks spread all over the pillow, and her body, covered with a blanket, resembled a snowy mountain from which it was possible to ski down.

      “Ah, Hermanchik, you imagine all sorts of things! Don’t be so upset! You’re completely green like the fir on New Year! Let me kiss you on the cheek!” Ninel cooed with a juicy bass, reassuringly patting her husband on the frail back with a hand adorned with rings.

      “Phew!

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