Tanya Grotter and the Throne of the Ancient One

“Calm down, Damien! Pin the rap on someone else,” Bab-Yagun said merrily. “What are you busy with here? Let me guess! You’ve set up a society of bruised noses? Holding an organizational meeting?” Goryanov started to seethe. He screwed up his eyes, advanced his head forward, and, like a bull, rushed at Yagun. Yagun quickly stepped to the side and substituted a foot. “Recently you observed the attempt at a ram, undertaken by Damien Goryanov, number two. The wretch completely forgot that he had sent his vacuum Storm-100U off for repairs and achieved a ram by auxiliary means. You can contemplate the consequences of this inconsiderate act on the floor!” he commented.

The enraged Goryanov jumped and again wanted to rush at him, but Seven-Stump-Holes decisively caught him by the collar and moved him aside. “Welcome, whites! Outstanding! You’ll fall in love with us darks, hee-hee, as a friend of my Grandpa Vii said… Don’t you want to participate in our nice magic fun?” he asked.

“Nice fun – jumping on a wacky bench?” Vanka Valyalkin asked,

“It’s called RABID BLACK MAGIC RODEO! Heard about it?” Seven-Stump-Holes pushed the bench with a foot. It did not move. It required a next injection of magic for the awakening.

Vanka and Bab-Yagun exchanged glances. Rabid rodeo was an ancient entertainment of the black magicians of Tibidox. It was forbidden but not forgotten all the same. Berserk benches, animated by black invocations, frequently mutilated unlucky riders. Rabid rodeo was even more dangerous than dragonball. Dragons rarely tore up players, more often swallowed them whole and kept them inside till the end of the match. The braking incantations and vampire bile saved dragonball players from serious injuries and burns. There was not any kind of insurance in rabid rodeo. A violent spirit, installing itself into the furniture, forced it to skip around the room and, after unseating the rider, pitilessly trampled him. Whoever managed to stay on the longest was considered the winner. Or at least who managed not to have to go to magic station.

Seven-Stump-Holes, squinting, searchingly stared at Vanka and Yagun. “Well, Yagun, will you take a risk? Or you, Valyalkin! Don’t want to have fun? Climb on the bench, and I’ll say Wildus chamberus!”

“That won’t wash!” Vanka decisively said.

“Why’s that?”

“Wildus chamberus is a forbidden spell. Even your Professor Stinktopp doesn’t use it.”

“What are you saying? Again a wise guy! Shurasik hasn’t stung you by any chance? Or not, indeed…” Stump squinted maliciously. “Yes, he’s simply afraid! Only look at this little white wizard! He’s shaking with horror!”

“Stop, Stump! He’s not afraid!” Tanya stepped in for Vanka. “No one is afraid. However, if The Ancient One introduced a spell into the list, it means he had a reason.”

“Everyone knows that The Ancient One was overcautious. He placed all reviving spells in this list. Probably did not even examine each individually. What can be dangerous in Wildus chamberus! So, a bench jumps and calms down,” Zhora Zhikin said and contemptuously shrugged his shoulders. His nose was already bruised, so now nothing prevented him from taking Seven-Stump-Holes’ side.

“Well done, dandy! I’m proud of you! If The Ancient One actually wanted these spells not to be used, he would on no account make up this list!” Stump stated.

Tanya involuntarily thought that he was right. The list of a hundred forbidden spells, ciphered with special student code, not allowing them to disappear, had long ago already passed from one Tibidox student to another. And everyone secretly, almost under the blanket, learned them by heart, although this was most strictly forbidden. The Ancient One, in spite of all his brilliance, was a bad psychologist. If he did not actually want the forbidden spells to be known, he would have included them in the school program and made them strictly compulsory.

“I so thought that the whites are afraid! The whites, they’re nothing but whites… Only for them to walk arm-in-arm with Tararakh and glance at Sardanapal’s mouth at what clever thing he will say, eh, Vanka? Do I speak right or not?” Seven-Stump-Holes was maliciously interested. Vanka turned pale. He silently pushed him in the chest and made his way to the bench.

“And you’re not afraid that it’ll bruise your pretty little nose? Ah yes, no one is waiting to go on a date with you – then it’s another matter. Who will go on a date with you at all? I would like to see the girl who needs this scarecrow in a soccer shirt! Harpies and such mistake you as one in the garden!” Stump continued to mock.

Vanka silently sat down on the bench and threw a leg over it. Even without this, the sharp features of his thin face got even sharper. “Begin, Stinktopper! I’m ready!” he said.

“Don’t do this! They especially egg you on!” Tanya shouted, rushing to Vanka. She looked at Gunya Glomov so decisively that the healthy fellow moving towards Valyalkin recalled how a spark once scorched his tongue and stepped back.

Meanwhile Yagun was already standing across from Zhora Zhikin. “Intervene or I’ll touch up your nose on the other side!” he warned.

“Is that so! Very scary!” Zhora dodged, but for some reason did not begin to interfere.

“Get down! Don’t be silly!” Tanya was still trying to drag Vanka from the bench, but already understood that this was useless. At times, the calm Vanka became more obstinate than a donkey. And this was precisely such a moment. Seven-Stump-Holes had clearly succeeded in inciting Tanya’s friend.

“Move away! Stump, cast your spell! I don’t want to soil my ring with it!” not looking at Tanya, Valyalkin said.

“Don’t want to soil it, then don’t! But we’re not such moralists! Wildus chamberus!” jumping to the side, Zhora Zhikin and Seven-Stump-Holes shouted in a chorus. The dual red sparks blinded Tanya. The ring of Theophilus Grotter became red-hot and burned her finger. “How many forbidden spells are possible? I’ll have thermal shock!” it squeaked with the voice of Theophilus Grotter.

The bench revived. The red spark gave it improbable quickness. If it skipped like a bull in a rodeo earlier, now it was as if a rabid dog bit it. It managed to be immediately everywhere, bending and bucking with either the front or the hind legs. Vanka clung exactly like a tick. In contrast to the dark magicians, he did not flop with his stomach on the bench but sat up like an equestrian. He held on to a piece of wood with the left hand and balanced with the right, retaining equilibrium. The bench, as if deranged, jumped around the entire room. Furniture crashed and fell. Escaping from its wooden legs, Goryanov, Seven-Stump-Holes, and Zhora Zhikin evacuated under the bed and only rarely decided to put their noses out from under it. Even Tanya and Yagun were forced to step back to the door, ready to slip into the corridor if the bench attacked them.

“What’s going on there? He hasn’t fallen yet?” Stump continually asked with hope.

“Ne-a, still holding on!” Gunya Glomov answered with a hoarse bass. Not knowing by what means he had turned up on top of the cabinet and from there, as if from a captain’s bridge, he viewed the room.

“Yee-haw! Scatter, wet noses! Here it is, your rabid rodeo!” Vanka shouted, flashing by at a gallop around the room.

“My granny mama! What brilliant technique! Respected spectators! Get your moist palms ready for a stormy applause!!! Without a saddle, the born rider Ivan Valyalkin is staying on the prancing bench, adapting to all its intricate movements! The bench throws out all new tricks, but everything is useless! Valyalkin holds onto it as if glued, to the disgrace of the entire dark department of Tibidox and of Professor Stinktopp personally – the head of these confused pranksters!” Yagun started to rattle. It was evident that he missed commentating.

“Would you shut up, Yagun! You were dark probably for more than a year!” Damien Goryanov answered from under the bed.

“I was, but not anymore!” Yagun retorted coolly. “Why the emotion? I’ll be darned! Look at Vanka! Strange that with this talent he, until now, is not in the dragonball team! Yes, it’s possible to replace Zhikin and Goryanov easily together with one Vanka!”

In a couple of minutes, when everyone understood that Vanka was not going to fall, Seven-Stump-Holes and Zhikin disconcertedly came out from under the bed, ascertaining beforehand that the bench was not close by.

“That’s it, enough! He has stayed on three times longer than any of you! Stop your crippled stump, Holes! It’s already clear that he beat you!” Tanya ordered Seven-Stump-Holes. She was the first to feel that Vanka was beginning to tire. Although so far he had managed the jumps of the rabid furniture, Tanya surmised from the tension on his face what it had cost him.

“Solidus realismus!” Stump unwillingly barked. But, in spite of a flashed spark, the bench continued to skip. Seven-Stump-Holes repeated the incantation three more times, but with the same result. On the contrary, from the sparks the bench began to jump with doubled fury. A lamp broke. Gunya Glomov fell down from the cabinet like an overripe pear. “It’s useless. It doesn’t work!” Seven-Stump-Holes said gloomily, lowering his hand.

“Why?”

“Don’t you know?” he snapped. “Solidus realismus is only effective with one red spark, but Zhikin and I plastered it with two! Who asked him to release a spark together with me? This dandy is only good for crashing from the mop and going to very important dates!”

“Don’t you blame it on me, Stump! And generally magic will run low in the course of time, and it’ll be exhausted!” Zhora Zhikin said with hope.

“It’ll get tired, uh-huh! This is not a horse for you, one that gets tired. What, don’t you know that this is reviving incantation from the banned list? We have sunk so much magic into this bench – enough for a thousand years…” Seven-Stump-Holes appeared disheartened. To leave Vanka on the berserk bench was not part of his plan. He indeed only wanted to break the nose of a moralist from the white department. Nothing more.

Tanya did not tear her eyes from Vanka Valyalkin, not knowing how to help him. Likely, from the constant jerks and hammerings Vanka began to feel giddy. His right hand, by which he retained equilibrium, no longer waved so decisively. Several times, he fell first to one then the other side and only miraculously held his ground on the smooth wooden board. It was impossible to jump off now and Vanka understood this. With such galloping, this was almost equivalent to immediately wringing one’s own neck. Moreover, a second later the berserk bench would turn up on the spot where he landed.

“Hang on, friend! Try Bangus parachutis forte! And then immediately a safeguard!” Bab-Yagun shouted. Possibly, Vanka would have had time to follow his advice, but here the bench bucked and galloped sharply to the side. Vanka had time neither to swerve nor even to shout Oyoyoys smackis thumpis. He hit his head against the wall and, stunned, was thrown off the piece of wood squirming with spite. Vanka had not yet dropped down and Tanya was already rushing to him.

“Tanya, the bench!” Bab-Yagun yelled. He tried to knock down the bench with a fight spark but missed.

Tanya threw up a hand, already understanding that she would not be able to swerve from the bench, pouncing on Vanka and her. The cold hand of horror affectionately took her by the throat. Confused thoughts knocked around like bowling balls in her head, “Now it’ll collapse, now, now…”

Moments went by, and all the time the bench hung in the air. Seconds stretched into eternity. Tanya tried to jump, to grasp Vanka, to drag him away to the side, but could not even move from the spot. Time, resounding in her consciousness, remained the same unyielding for her body, grown in the magic double bass case on Aunt Ninel’s balcony. And then it seemed to Tanya that beyond the window a red glow flared up, with feelers of light pulling Tibidox into its shaky pinkish circle. As if an invisible giant released a red spark from a huge ring the size of the sun.

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