When a magician (second class) chooses to do Christmas duty in the City of London, it's because he's hoping for a nice, quiet, seasonal time, not for ancient magic to break loose and the enchanted city to be filled with ghosts, monsters, wonder and danger. Not on his watch. Not when he's going to have to deal with it all on his own. That would be an all too magical Christmas.
An All Too Magical Christmas is a seasonal adventure story of magic, mayhem and mystery told in 24 instalments. It is written by Tobias Sturt and read aloud by Jon Millington.
Incident report YUL-XX/12
Section Nine
I realise that part of my brief for this report is to explain things, but I don’t think I shall ever be able to explain pantomime.
I mean, I can explain it: the Renaissance Harlequinade, the Georgian Music Hall, clowns and fairy tales, I can explain that. What I can’t explain is anyone likes it. Why anyone would want to celebrate Christmas by sitting in a baying mob while a bunch of lurid ninnies bellowed low quality jokes at them.
I have to admit, of course, that I’m not talking from experience. My only exposure to pantomime is spending two hours hiding under a seat among the sticky remnants of liquorice and childish vomit, sobbing hysterically because the whole thing was too loud, too chaotic and the two men in the horse costume were terrifying.
Every time someone bangs on about a traditional Christmas, I think of pantomime and decide that I am going to sign up for the December shift at work again.
You might imagine, then, that I was less than thrilled to find myself in one. To find myself standing on the deck of a medieval galleon with plucky Dick Whittington, the poor boy destined to become Lord Mayor of London, and his resourceful right-hand quadruped, Puss in Boots.
“Aren’t those two different pantomimes?” I said, “Dick Whittington and Puss in Boots? Are you both supposed to be here?”
“Why, where would Dick be without his faithful Pussy?” cried Whittington, slapping his stockinged thigh. To my immense credit I did not hit him.
This was all certainly as crazed and incomprehensible enough to be a pantomime. On the ship alongside, ten Lords a-leaping were arguing with the nine Ladies dancing about who should lead, while the geese and chickens and pigeons and blackbirds all flapped around the rigging, squawking at each other.
On the other side lay the smoking ruins of the ship that has been commandeered by the Mouse King, whose army of mice were even now invading the Tower of London.
With the London Stone gone, wild magic was pouring out into London and fairy tales and magical creatures were pouring out with it and things were rapidly getting out of control.
Next time I was taking Christmas off. Still not going to a pantomime, though.
And then the Ravens fled the Tower.
There was the sound of croaking and squeaking from the battlements, followed by a high-pitched cheer as two of them came flapping heavily away, over the riverside, before settling grumpily on the shoulders of the one-eyed ship’s Captain.
He didn’t seem particularly suprised by this, but stood, smiling softly and picking bits out of his beard to feed to them.
“What are you doing here?” I said, starting to lose my grip, “You can’t be here! You can’t leave! London falls if the Ravens leave the Tower! Get back there immediately.”
“Do you realise,” said a raven, “That that gaff’s overrun with rodents?”
“Ravens eat mice,” I said, “Don’t they? Go and eat some.”
“There’s an army,” said the other raven, “I’m on a diet.”
“They’ve made a trebuchet out of matchsticks,” said the first, “It’s only tiny, but it hurts.”
“This is not good,” I said, “Not good at all, especially now, with all this magic loose. These stories matter. You’ve got to get those mice out.”
“You get those mice out,” said a raven, “If you’re so worried about it.”
“We know a way to deal with mice, don’t we Puss?” said Whittington.
“With mice I speak,” said the Cat, “The only language we share: the language of death!”
“That’s right!” I said, finally remembering, “That’s the story, isn’t it? You go to a place that has a plague of mice but no cats. Your cat kills all the mice and you get rewarded and that’s how you make your fortune.”
“You should have seen the Sultan!” said Dick, slapping his thigh again, “Up on his throne, his skirts hitched up, while all the mice ran back and forth on the palace floor.”
“Which soon ran red with their blood!” said the Cat.
“And how he rewarded me!” said Dick, “Ships full of gifts,” he gestured at where the drummers and pipers had started their infernal banging and tooting once more, “and grain, although admittedly that one’s sunk now. Still,” he brightened, “The mice had probably eaten it all anyway.”
“Mice eat anything,” said the Cat, “The only taste they cannot abide is the taste of cold steel!”
“I get it,” I said, “You like killing mice. Although you seem to forget that your sword is currently in the Mouse King, in the Thames.”
“What need have I for sword?” said the Cat, holding up a paw, “When I have four daggers on every paw?” And he extended his claws, white and gleaming.
“They’ve pulled up the drawbridge,” said one of the ravens, looking up from where he was poking his beak in the Captain’s ear.
“And barricaded the portcullis,” said the other, “There’s no way in.”
“What about,” I said, “A little air support?”
It took some persuasion. Cats and birds, it turns out, have some history between them. Who knew? And then there was an even longer discussion of how much the Cat weighed and carrying capacity of the European raven. But finally the ravens took off, beating against the air, the cat dangling between them, laughing maniacally.
“Onward with your burden of revenge!” he cried, “Onward, for Dick, London and St George!”
They dipped, then struggled upwards again, up, over the rim of the battlements and into the Tower as, with a yowling ululation, the Cat dropped out of sight and the screaming began.
There was the blowing of small bugles and the twang of something that might have been a mouse-scale seige engine. There were cries of “Zounds!” and “Have at you!”. There were cries and curses and the clash of battle. And then finally there was the rattle and bang of a drawbridge coming down and a flood of mice came pouring out of the Tower, spread across the plaza without, tourists screaming before them and in a grey, heaving river spilled down the stairs into the Tube Station.
The ravens, who had been watching everything from the air, dropped back down out of sight behind the walls.
“He did it!” said Dick, doing the slapping thing again, “I knew he could, my brave Puss. I owe everything to that cat!”
“You owe everything on that cat,” I said, “Customs duty, remember?”
Dick’s face fell.
“But we saved London,” he said, plaintively.
“Not yet you didn’t,” I said, making for the gangplank, “That’s my job. And no one, but no one, gets off this boat, understood?”
And I scrambled down to the pier and made my way across the now deserted riverside to the gate of the Tower.
The cat was just sauntering out, licking his crimson paws clean, as I came up.
“Enjoyed yourself, have you?” I said.
“The Tower is free, sir, and the enemy routed,” he said, cheerily, a little blood dribbling down his chin, “But honour demands I pursue.”
“Excellent, because a mounting sense of panic demands I do the same,” I said, horribly aware that a magical mouse army was now loose in London. At least they were mice right now. Who knew what might happen if the Stone wasn’t restored soon?
And to do that, I needed to triangulate. Stick to the plan.
“I need to get to Smithfield,” I said, “But between me and it are several hundred mice. Armed and vengeful mice. Can you help?”
“Smithfield,” said the Cat, licking his chops, “The meat market. The place of butchery. How… delicious. Lead on, fearful wizard, and step proudly, for a cat walks with you.”
And we went, back into the shadowy canyons of the newly enchanted City.
An All Too Magical Christmas #9