Tibidox

It seemed to Tanya that this evening Pipa would never lie down. She walked along the room and pensively kicked the toys, occasionally throwing dissatisfied glances at the balcony. On Pipa’s head was a stupid pink plastic cap with flowers, which she wore without taking off since that well-known time. When Tanya finally lost patience and was already pondering whether to fling at Pipa a drowsy spell or simply anything heavy, Pipa settled herself down and soon, turning to the wall, started to wheeze through both holes.

The night crept little by little to the city. The windows went out like candles shot by a keen marksman at a shooting-range and late dog-catchers disappeared in the entrances. And here, when everything already quieted down and the city was under a black veil of gloom, Tanya heard some rustling outside. Throwing open the window, she saw how on the lawn under the balcony two red pieces of coal suddenly caught fire, and in several seconds quickly even six of them. The pieces of coal flared up one after another. Obscure muttering, puffing, wheezing was heard. Something rustled, something barely distinguished moved rapidly along the flower-bed. When Tanya’s eyes got used to the darkness, she understood that many creatures of the most varied sizes were swarming below. Some were quite small, others large, about the size of a dog. The dark spots appeared from everywhere, climbed from all slots, from all hatchways. Red malicious pieces of coal lit up in the most unpredictable places. Their placements were so far chaotic, but with each minute everything became more sensible. They were definitely moving to the balcony. Soon the entire lawn had already become a dark swarming carpet.

Tanya started to feel uneasy. She was almost certain that these unknown beings appeared here with a well-defined purpose, somehow connected with her. And, judging by the look of them, there was clearly no need to wait for anything good from them.

“If they start to climb — I’ll still have time to jump on the double bass, ” she calmed herself.

Suddenly the door creaked. Aunt Ninel entered the room, fixed the blanket on Pipa, and then, glancing at the balcony, suspiciously asked:

“Who are you spying on there? ”

At a loss, Tanya muttered something. But Aunt Ninel obviously posed the question without any desire to receive an answer. She clearly did not intend to look out the window. Instead she stared attentively at the sweater which Tanya had time to put on already, getting ready for the night flight.

“You’re cold, perhaps? ” As if deciding on something, she asked. “Okay, let’s take the blanket and march into the living room! ”

It hit the back of Tanya’s head like a thunderbolt. And Aunt Ninel managed to show generosity precisely now when she already almost flew away to Tibidox! Still one night on the balcony! But there was no changing the mind of Aunt Ninel — she pressed like a bulldozer. Grabbing Tanya by the hand, Aunt Ninel dragged her into the living room, where, by the enormous television set occupying a third of the wall, stood a tiny sofa under which the dachshund usually slept.

“And don’t take it upon yourself to return to the balcony! Now you’ll sleep here till the bo... For the time being Uncle Herman and I have not decided what to do with you yet, ” Aunt Ninel corrected herself, probably remembering the boot camp for children with criminal inclinations.

Aunt Ninel left. A key clicked in the door of Pipa’s room. Obviously Pipa, woken up by the bass of her mama, decided to be ensured and now on no account would open it. Tanya understood that she was fated to spend the night in the living room. The flying double bass and the book of spells remained on the balcony. And Bab-Yagun would soon come flying there. Tanya jumped from the sofa in order to run up to the window and, when he appeared, to draw his attention, but the dachshund One-And-A-Half Kilometres began to roar blindly from under the sofa.

“What are you doing there? And lie down quickly! Remember, I’ll not sleep tonight! I’ll be placing compresses on Uncle Herman’s forehead! Tomorrow he has an important interview on TV, and he has to get rid of all the gibberish from his head! ” Aunt Ninel shouted sternly from behind the door. Her bedroom was right beside and she could hear any rustle.

Tanya sat down on the sofa. Her heart was pounding in her. How would she be able to get up when under the sofa she had a sensitive dachshund and behind the wall an evil aunt? What could be worse than her present situation when freedom was beside her but unattainable?

Still, twice Tanya attempted to sneak to the window, but each time the dachshund began to growl maliciously and Aunt Ninel hailed her sternly from behind the wall. Likely she actually did not sleep: from time to time was heard the sound of gauze being wround out for a compress. The rustling became quite discernible. Now the source of the sound was not only beyond the window but also everywhere. Something was scraping behind the wall, scratching behind the cabinet. Even the pipes in the bathroom were humming unusually somehow, as if someone was making his way up in them. It seemed to Tanya that thousands of hardly audible voices in various ways were repeating one and the same phrase: “Grotter’s daughter! Grotter’s daughter! Death to her! ”

Strange that Aunt Ninel with her sensitive hearing heard nothing.

“Why are you playing there? Well, lie down quietly! Uncle Herman cannot fall asleep! ” She bellowed from behind the wall. In her voice was definite malicious joy. Really she knew? Although no, she could not know. Tanya found herself in a trap. All took up arms against her.

Unexpectedly, somewhere beyond the window, from the side of the balcony, a familiar semi-cough was heard. Tanya shuddered. Someone weakly but distinctly knocked on the frame. Really Bab-Yagun? But, what if, not finding her on the balcony, he decided that Tanya thought it over or, on the contrary, already flew away? The girl wanted to dash to the window, but she remembered suddenly that the dachshund would give her away before she could jump up, and Aunt Ninel would immediately appear from the adjacent room.

The pipes began to drone and suddenly they stopped. Almost immediately the door in the hallway from the direction of the bathroom began to shake lightly as if someone pushed and scratched it from below. The dachshund began to growl. It also heard. So, it did not just seem to her, and it was all true.

“Again you’re tossing and turning? And what is this? Thankless trash... What, you want to sleep on the staircase? ” Aunt Ninel snarled from the bedroom.

Tanya felt — another second, and she would put her hands up to her ears and begin to scream: “A-a-a-a! ” Her nerves were already at the breaking point. Suddenly something cool slid down from her finger. The ring! All this time she had on the magic ring! Tanya began hurriedly to feel the fold of the blanket, searching for it. The door shook slightly, someone wheezed behind it. The dachshund maliciously seethed from under the bed. But here her fingers groped something... The ring... Tanya in a hurry put it on and began to recall the drowsy spell which Bab-Yagun used. And why did she not repeat it? “Harpus? Wheezus? Dotus snorus? Pillowis sleepus? ” Not that! Again not that!

“Disgrace! I literally redden! I was never in the possession of such a blockhead before! ” The ring said loudly. “Really not possible to memorize two of the simplest words? Pointus harpoonus! ”

“Hey! I’m coming out! You hear? Who allowed you to turn on the TV! ” Aunt Ninel began to roar from the bedroom. Her rock heels began to thud furiously along the carpet, making their way to the door.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Tanya hurriedly waved her hand and, directing the finger with the ring in the direction from where the steps were approaching, she whispered: “ Pointus harpoonus! ” A green spark slid to the keyhole. Behind the door the dull sound of a falling body was heard.

Simultaneously the rustling in the hallway seemingly quieted down. The footfall of many small feet running away was heard. “It seems they’re afraid of magic. They understood that I have a ring, ” thought Tanya.

Boldly throwing open the door into the bedroom, she saw that Aunt Ninel, childishly smacking her lips as if in search of nipples, deafeningly snoring directly on the floor, and on the bed with a compress on his forehead Uncle Herman was tracing high roulades. The loud barking of the dachshund already could not wake them. Catching the dachshund, Tanya decisively shoved the dog that had completely lost its head into the wardrobe of Aunt Ninel and, taking a lipstick from the dresser, wrote in large-scale on the mirror:

Stay happy! My old tights and jeans you can give to whom you like! Regards to Lisper the Rabbit! P.S. Dachshund is in the wardrobe.

Dropping the lipstick, Tanya ran up to the window and threw it open. Exactly, someone was waiting in the air in her balcony, but was it Bab-Yagun? The cast disappeared, the bandages disappeared, the clumsy bed disappeared. On a merrily purring orange vacuum, clutching in his hands a bright pipe with a wide brush usually used for cleaning carpets, sat a stocky boy of about twelve, dressed in leather overalls. His short bright hair stuck out like a disobedient hedgehog, cheeks beamed with a bloom, and the nose outlined like a potato was so upturned that it seemed its holes were looking in the same direction as the eyes. The moon, emerging from under the neighbouring roof, was shining through his protruding ears, ruby, like bits of glass in a stained-glass panel.

Where did the boy come from and why did he come flying instead of Bab-Yagun? Or... or is this him? Tanya suddenly thought that while the face was hidden under the bandages, she had not the slightest idea about the true age of Bab-Yagun. But then why did Sardanapal send a boy almost her contemporary for her?

Noticing Tanya, the boy, clearly showing off, deftly moved the pipe from one hand to the other and directed it downward. Immediately the vacuum darted away from the place so swiftly that it was hardly possible to keep track of it. An instant — and here he was already hanging in the air directly opposite the window. In the same second something small and malicious with a shrill chirp flew over the windowsill. A leathery wing flickered. Something prompted Tanya that this was not a bat. Bab-Yagun followed with lightning from the ring, but the essence deftly dodged and answered with a short jet of luminous lilac liquid. Several drops fell on the windowsill and it began to smoke.

“Oh, my granny mama! I thought they had already devoured you! ” Bab-Yagun exclaimed with relief, nodding to the lawn, where dark shadows and silhouettes were still swarming constantly. Now there were so many of them that it seemed as if an enormous anthill piled up under the balcony. Figures were crawling over, wheezing, pushing, stepping on one another’s head. Their pupils flared up like red coals.

“What are they? ” Tanya asked with horror.

“Yes, the evil spirits, ” Bab-Yagun dropped carelessly. “Someone put an attraction spell on the hatchways here in the neighbourhood. I immediately understood this when I saw how many are browsing here. And now the evil spirits from all over the city are gathering here! Now they are simply crowding, but when there will be even more, it will be possible to expect something interesting... I already summoned Slander Slanderych and his guys. Soon they will clear everything here.”

“How will they clear? ”

“Without ceremony. They’ll lift the spell and round up Devour or Blue Uncle. For support. The evil spirits, hardly seeing them, will immediately scatter. By the way, we also better fly away. Not sure that you’ll be happy if you catch sight of Devour or Blue Uncle. Took me about three months to get used to them. And even now and then meeting them somewhere, especially at night... Brr! ”

“And what, they’re so? ” Tanya started.

“Exactly. They’re so. Just that my granny says in reality Devour and Blue Uncle are still nothing, but here it’s actually better not to be involved with Eyeless Horror. Only that Horror, he’s on the side of the ‘dark’ magicians, so that they don’t normally take him with them, ” Bab-Yagun broke off decisively and, catching Tanya, transferred her to the balcony. “Well, how’re things? Learnt the spells? ” He asked indulgently, watching as Tanya got the double bass and got up on its case. “And what will you fly on? Certainly, Pilotus kamikazis! Well, it’s correct. Girls rarely venture on anything faster, especially in the beginning. A woman in the air is like a cow on ice. Fly at my tail and, the most important thing, don’t look down. If it’s quite terrible, I can also take you in tow. I have some oho-ho vacuum! A beast! ”

Bab-Yagun lovingly slapped his hand on the pipe. It seems he was crazy about his new flying mechanism.

Tanya squinted slightly. So, to fly in the tail, on top of that, also, on Pilotus kamikazis? She’s this cow on ice? Without answering, the girl checked whether the case was well shut, earlier she even placed the Reference Book of White Magician in it.

“And don’t forget to be insured...” Puffed up with responsibility, Bab-Yagun laid down the law.

“ Speedus envenomus, ” whispered Tanya, tapping the bow and with light movement twirling it between her fingers.

The ring shot out a green spark. The double bass, exactly like a fast comet, darted away from the place. The wind howled and began to whistle in her ears. In the blink of an eye the dormant instrument gained altitude. The outlines of houses blurred, only the illuminated highway looped below like a golden snake.

When Tanya finally looked around, the house of Uncle Herman and Aunt Ninel was already barely visible. From this point of view it resembled a low night table pressed to the ground. She would always remember it as such.

On the madly roaring vacuum a reddened Bab-Yagun overtook Tanya.

“You... what are you thinking? ” He shouted, observing, as Tanya went out to a steep turn with a half-roll. “You... you either went nuts or... What spell did you say? It was said to you in Russian: keep to the tail. Or shall I tweak you ears? ”

“You? Me? First you have to catch me! ” Tanya proposed.

Bab-Yagun stared at her with the look of a boxer to whom a three-year-old girl approached with the question: “Unk, you want it in the nose? ”

“You don’t know whom you’re dealing with, ” he said haughtily with clenched teeth. “Really you think to pass me on this ancient couch? On this puffed up overgrown violin? ”

“According to me, better an overgrown violin than a flying broom, ” Tanya retorted.

Growing red from the insult to his vacuum, Bab-Yagun hissed: “A flying broom? Is that so? ” And, firmly pressing the hose with his feet, he let out a green spark from the ring. The blizzard shot out from the pipe flung the double bass together with Tanya far away to the side and Bab-Yagun himself almost immediately became a tiny, almost indistinguishable speck.

“Well let’s! Prove that you’re not an overgrown violin! ” Tanya said to the double bass and, aiming the bow after Bab-Yagun, she rushed to catch up. The head wind strove to pluck her from the instrument. The strings hummed lowly, but she, bending down to the double bass, persistently raced right after. For a while it seemed to her that she lost Bab-Yagun, but then the distance gradually began to shorten. Five minutes of the mad race had not even passed when she already came up to him.

He turned his head and, seeing that Tanya was beside him, from amazement ran through a sharp side gust. The double bass, which also fell into it, was blown upon and twice turned on the spot, but Tanya knew how to hold it with the help of the bow. Then Bab-Yagun, who was not ready for this, had the last elbow with the brush, where basic magic was apparently also concentrated, tore away from his pipe. The vacuum, losing control, rushed down with the roar of a bomber being hit.

Bab-Yagun, doing somersaults, fell together with it, attempting in flight to mutter the safety spell, which he was too lazy or simply did not consider it necessary to utter before. But in the drop his ring for some reason did not operate as it should, and red instead of green sparks poured from the ring. From these red “dark magic” sparks the spell was distorted and led to the most unpredictable results. First the bulb on the vacuum exploded, and instead of them the ears of the same Bab-Yagun began to twinkle in the darkness, then from somewhere poured thick and fast frog feet with cigars clutched in them and jaws with dentures.

Tanya, speeding up to Bab-Yagun, wanted him to grab hold of her double bass, but the stocky boy, having escaped, bellowed out something.

“My seven-hundredth series vacuum! I saved up for three years! Catch the pipe! ” Tanya tried to make out and, directing the bow downward, gave chase to the falling pipe elbow. The wind beat her in the face, blinded her, her eyes watered, darkness interfered with correctly estimating the distance to the ground, and the double bass sped up so that it could no longer get out from the dive at all.

Overtaking the elbow, Tanya caught it in the second attempt — more precisely, the elbow, turning, first dealt her a blow on the forehead, and then jumped by itself into her hand — and, with difficulty straightening the instrument, sent it upward like a candle. Gripping Bab-Yagun’s shoulder, Tanya slowed down his fall, until finally some dozen metres from the ground he was able to repair the pipe. Starting to drone, the vacuum shot upward into the sky.

Both of them could not recover their breath for a long time. Finally Bab-Yagun glanced at her already without any disdain and shouted rapturously:

“I was sure: not one girl is capable of the like! Hey, admit it, indeed you could do this earlier? ”

Tanya shyly shrugged her shoulders. She herself plainly did not know this. Although she sat down on the double bass for the first time five days ago, now and then it seemed to her that she had flown long ago, very long ago. From somewhere it was known her what needed to be done.

“If Nightingale doesn’t take you into the team, it means, he indeed plays up to the ‘dark’ as he has been accused of. You’re simply born for dragonball... If, of course, at the sight of a dragon your knees don’t begin to shake. Such happens with some, especially when they will be swallowed several times, ” Bab-Yagun reasoned. Then he again thoughtfully looked sideways at Tanya and, fighting with the wind, shouted: “And here’s what... From now on, I’ll be your friend forever, if you, of course, want me. If someone there in Tibidox dares to call your double bass ‘an overgrown violin’ or insult you in general, I’ll force him to chew up all the servicing rubbish from his vacuum! ”

And Bab-Yagun stretched a hand out to her.

“No, it’s not Genka Bulonov! And not Pipa’s mysterious G.P.! ” Tanya thought and she stretched hers out to him — the one which was holding the neck. At the same time a gust of wind almost knocked her from the double bass, but Tanya did not pay this any special attention. True friendship, like true love, always demands sacrifice.

Soon the double bass and the jet vacuum rose high into the sky and, merging with a dense high-speed airflow, were carried to the southwest. There were already no conversations now — the slow and regular ceaseless rumble solidly blocked up the ears. It was necessary to fly almost on her stomach, clutching the double bass with her hands because the wind was such that, it seemed, if her head was sufficiently carelessly raised and torn off by the wind, it would be carried away, the ears sadly flapping.

Tanya did not grasp at what moment the ocean showed itself below. Its lead surface, flickering in the breaks between the bluish-violet clouds, resembled fragments of a geographical map cut out by scissors. And they were flying and flying all the time, and, it seemed there would be no end to this. It was already dawn when Bab-Yagun suddenly shot a green spark from the ring and directed the vacuum downward, leaving the airflow.

“Tibidox there below, but you’ll not get there without the spell of passage. You haven’t forgotten it? ” Bab-Yagun shouted when they slowed down so that it was easy to distinguish the separate swells boiling up on the agitated body of the ocean.

Tanya recalled the lines of the Reference Book: The spell of passage with its entire simplicity is a spell of the highest magic. With the utterance of the spell it is necessary to be absolutely confident that the passage comes to be by full right. Otherwise the consciousness and the body can separate: the body will be transferred, the consciousness will remain in the previous world. In the language of the moronoids this state is usually called death.

“Well, indeed it’ll really be the end for me! ” Tanya thought. Her skin was covered with goose bumps from fear. If she continued to slow down, then it was only for the reason that she did not want to return to Uncle Herman for anything in the world.

“Ready? Time! ” Suddenly Bab-Yagun screamed out, and, not allowing herself to be frightened even more, Tanya quickly raised her hand with the ring and exclaimed: “Grail Gardarika! ”

She was shaken, had started turning, was pricked by millions of small sparks. She was smashed into pieces and gathered again. For a moment it seemed to Tanya that she was galloping through the endlessly narrow middle of an hourglass.

And then below in the rays of the ascending sun a large island appeared from oceanic foam painted with pink arrows. A swamp occupied a fourth of the island, another third — a forest. Along the narrow sand spit towered split cliffs, against which, likely, broke not than a thousand gale swells.

“Holy, I’m alive! It’s, of course, by mistake. But there’s no Uncle Herman here, it’s true, ” Tanya decided.

In the middle of the island, extraordinarily squat and flat, something like an inverted greyish basin with towers, galleries, and passages stuck in the most unexpected places, surrounded by a ditch with boiling lava, spanned the largest fortress of all those which Tanya sometimes had the occasion to see even in movies. Even the Moscow Kremlin was clearly smaller. Here before them stretched an entire city under one roof.

Along the wall with a gloomy look strolled a three-metre cyclops, red fur grew on the chest and even the back. In the middle of the forehead the cyclops had an enormous golden eye turning in orbit, and a wart the size of a soup plate decorated the nose. He gloomily yawned and occasionally, in order to not fall asleep, he tapped on the ground with the pole of a serrated poleaxe.

A fiery inscription vividly burnt above the main gates of the fortress:

TIBIDOX — SCHOOL OF MAGIC FOR DIFFICULT-TO-RAISE YOUNG MAGICIANS. WHITE AND BLACK DEPARTMENTS.

It was necessary for Tanya to re-read this inscription three times before the meaning reached her. Well, she did it!

“Oh, Pipa would be glad! I got precisely to where she wanted. Only with a small difference, ” she said to herself. But there was already no turning back nevertheless, and she decided not to rush with conclusions.

Bab-Yagun touched her hand and by a gesture showed that they should fly around Tibidox from the other side, not catching the eyes (more precisely, eye) of the cyclops. They noiselessly slid in the air along the embrasures and dived for the turn of the wall.

“Ooh, slipped through! ” Bab-Yagun let out a breath. “We call him Dumpling Maker. Good that he did not see us... It’s that same one Odysseus blinded.”

“But he sees! ”

“Uh-huh! Sardanapal put on him an eye from a witch who was so full of them she even did not know what to do with them, and placed him here to guard. Only the eye turned out to be bad. If he blinks so, the colour will change and around him everything will turn, then that’s it — a curse has been placed, and such that immediately you put on white slippers. Even my granny also cannot remove it. Dumpling Maker even has Coffin Lid, like a hanky for him, but for us downright a whole sheet... As it will sneak off, it starts to fly along the fortress. Also a nasty piece to stumble across. It’ll go for the head and smother.”

“And how will we get inside if not through the gates? Perhaps through an embrasure? ” Tanya proposed.

“Two black magic spells have been put on the embrasures. They work better than white. Slander Slanderych did it himself. Also on the garrets. So that it’s useless to butt in — even a fly cannot slip in. It would be, of course, through the gates, they for sure warned Dumpling Maker, and indeed I don’t painfully love him. And he cannot stand me after an incident — he’ll still drop quick glances and give the evil eye, ” Bab-Yagun said cautiously.

“So what do we do? ” Tanya asked, pondering what the incident was.

Bab-Yagun started to wheeze with the most mysterious look. His protruding ears began to shine victoriously.

“Yes, so... There is one ancient hole... My granny showed it to me secretly when Dumpling Maker was going for me. Only let’s agree quickly — not a word to Slander! Or to Sardanapal, and generally to no one, or they’ll shield it, you swear? ”

“I swear, ” said Tanya.

“Well, look... You swore, and it’s not a joke with magic oaths! Or then it can be oho-ho! ” Bab-Yagun said mysteriously.

The enormous wall along which they were flying was built of crumbled, colossal size boulders, it was even terrifying to look at them. It all produced an oppressive impression on Tanya. Bab-Yagun flew up to a place in the wall where it closed in on a massive black tower, and, finding a small, hardly perceptible crack, he whispered into it:

“ Openus! ”

The huge boulder twitched with a light haze. It became dark-blue, then brown, and finally pale yellow. And at this moment Bab-Yagun decisively flew on the vacuum straight through the stone, turning up on the other side. Tanya was going to poke in immediately, but the boulder already darkened again, and she only bumped her forehead painfully against it. Biding her time for a bit and making sure that the stone did not intend to let her past, she recalled the magic word and whispered: “Openus! ” The stone again began to turn blue, and here it was already pale yellow. Hurrying before it faded, Tanya, with her eyes closed, again directed the double bass toward it. She expected a blow, but, as also with the passage earlier, only tiny sparks like the wind pricked her — and here she was already standing in a dark passage next to Bab-Yagun.

“Why so long? ” Bab-Yagun was interested, taking away her double bass. “You’ll not fly in Tibidox. Here all flight spells are blocked, and also even some others. For the time being I’ll hide this piece, and you go up and look for the office of Sardanapal. He’s waiting for you. I would go with you, but someone will see our instruments and will ponder how we got here. Now they must sooner be stored out of sight.”

“And I’ll find the office? ” Tanya was at a loss.

“You’ll find it... And here’s another thing — don’t be afraid of ghosts. Full of them here — indeed you’re in their tower, ” Bab-Yagun said mysteriously and darted downward along the stairs, bent under the weight of the vacuum and the case with the double bass.