//------------------------------// // Chapter 24: A Gift from Ehrich Weiss. // Story: Harry Houdini: The Great and Powerful // by CrackedInkWell //------------------------------// Later that evening, ponies gathered around the House of Wonder Theater for the last time. The bright building on Fifth Street illuminated the nighttime air. Bouquets were brought and foals tried to push their way through to get an autograph from the Great Harry Houdini. A few of Harry’s assistants were standing outside of the theater’s doors while Discord dangled his feet over the enormous sign that bared the magician’s face. Trixie, in the meantime, emerged from the shadows. As she passed by, she took notice of the Spirit of Randomness. He was wearing a top hat and an oversized cape and was currently busy drawing away on the sign’s face. She walked through the human’s admirers and around the foals until she finally approached Harry. “Next.” Mr. Houdini, as she found him, was kneeling down with a pencil in his hand, signing his name in books, or on newspapers bearing his image. Trixie saw an earth pony colt come up to him with a notebook in his mouth. “One for you?” he asked the young colt who nodded back. “What’s your name?” “Abra.” Harry raised an eyebrow. “Abra? As in abracadabra?” The colt looked up in surprise. “How did you know?” “Lucky guess.” The human opened up the colt’s notebook. “So what do you wanna be when you grow up?” “Actually, I wanted to thank you.” Harry looked up, questioning what the colt meant. “I mean, I wanted to thank you for showing that even a pony without a horn can do magic, too.” “Ah, so you wanna be a magician?” The colt nodded. “Okay, I got it.” Harry started writing in the book. “To… little Abra… Remember to always practice… the greatest magic tricks… become real… through a little… hard work… and determination.” With that, he signed his name and gave it back to the kid. Abra thanked him before running off. Trixie took this opportunity to approach Harry. “Good evening.” “Ah, Madame Lulamoon,” Harry smiled. “Come to wish me farewell?” “In a way, yes,” she nodded. “But also, Trixie wishes to give you a gift.” The blue magician levitated her hat off of her head before turning it over and showing him the inside. Currently, there was nothing, but with a wave of her hoof and a puff of blue smoke, she produced a card with a golden back. She held it up, showing that it was the Queen of Hearts, only she was blue and held Trixie’s face instead of her own. Harry took the card. “Well, thanks.” “No, thank you,” she complimented. “From your last show, I’ve realized something important as an illusionist.” “What’s that?” “If there’s anything you’re good at, apart from all the escapes and card tricks, it’s your talent to inspire, to make magic an art form. The very ponies that need to be impressed are foals that look at this art with curiosity, and you gave them a good reason to be curious. Now that you’ve made your mark, it looks like every magician in the city - perhaps even beyond - has their work cut out for them, including me. While your performance has opened up something new, I, meanwhile, have much to do to adapt.” “Why, thank you,” Harry nodded, reaching into his coat pocket and pulling out a pack of cards. “As a final trick,” he clarified before spreading the cards before her. “Pick a card.” Trixie’s horn lit up as she selected her card, turning it over to reveal the Three of Clubs. After Harry got a good look at it, she placed it back in the deck. Oddly, Mr. Houdini placed it back in his coat pocket before he and his assistants walked back into the theater. “Hey, wait a minute,” she called out. “What was the point of that?” “You’ll see,” Harry said before turning and shouting at Discord. “Alright, it’s your turn now!” “Finally!” The Spirit of Chaos hovered over the sign on the edge of monotony. “Now for my trick. Everypony!” he called out as he took off his oversized cloak. “For Mr. H’s last trick, I will assist in making him, and everyone in the theater, disappear!” The dark cloak stretched over the face of the theater. Ponies stepped out of the way as the fabric was draped over it. The bright light bulbs that shone like ships in a black sea were put out as the fabric slowly covered the entirety of the theater. Discord finished his trick by landing by the entrance, before taking a piece of the cloak and starting to stuff it into his hat. “Hey Copperfield, can you do this?” Discord commented as he kept pulling more and more of the fabric, causing the theater to look like it was collapsing. When the cloak had all been pulled into his hat, all that was left was an empty lot, just like it was several weeks ago. _*_ Trixie unlocked the door to her apartment. With Houdini gone, it seemed that she was back on top of the magic business again. But now, ever since that night that his theater appeared, the possibilities had changed. She, along with the city of Manehattan, saw this human perform impossible tricks without the assistance of magic, showing that even those without magic could be great magicians. However, now that he, his wife, and all of their assistants disappeared, likely forever, it seemed that every one of his tricks and secret methods was gone with him. Back to the place he called New York. Since it was late, Trixie decided it was time for her to go to bed. As she passed by the kitchen, she noticed something off. Looking back into the room, she spotted a cheap notebook lying on her tiny dining table. In the middle of the pages, there were some markings that looked like a playing card. A Three of Clubs. “What?” Trixie levitated the book over to herself and opened it up to the first page. ’The Secrets of Magic’ by Ehrich Weiss She blinked. ‘Who the hay is Herr-rich Wezz?’ she thought, flipping to the next page. Dear Trixie, Since you saved my life on the bridge and considering that I might be going home soon, I thought that this would be the best token of my appreciation and a symbol of our friendship. If you happen to find this book, I have probably returned home. This world has no one like me, and I have no child to pass my secrets down to, so I want to assure that at least someone out there knows how my secrets so they can continue to perform and amaze audiences. In this little notebook, I’ve gone through the trouble of not only explaining every trick I’ve done during my time in Equestria but even sketched out how they were done the best I could. The blue mare’s eyes widened. All I ask is that if this book inspires some future stunt from you, Trixie, that you do something different from what I’ve been doing. Remember, escapes don’t shrink; they have to get larger and larger to get the crowd’s attention. Consider this a guidebook in performing magic, without your horn. This isn’t a way for you to steal from me. Rather, this book is a gift, a way for you to learn from me. Oh, and you might be wondering about the name. Truthfully, my name isn’t really Harry Houdini. That name is as much a phony illusion as the tricks in this book. My real name is Ehrich Weiss. Trixie started to flip through the pages of the notebook. It looked like a crude instruction manual with foalish drawings and hurried writing. Yet, the sketches illustrated things that explained what went on behind the scenes, like trap doors, or methods of concealing keys and picks, and even how he made the elephant disappear. _*_ “...and now, for her last trick,” Trixie declared to her audience. “As a tribute to the late Harry Houdini, I will now perform his famous straitjacket escape… with my own twist.” Her audience whispered amongst themselves, a good number of them having seen the trick done by the human himself. They wondered what the unicorn magician could bring that they hadn’t already seen. “For this, I will need four things,” the blue mare said as her twin assistants came on stage. Peppers Ghost pushed a coffin, an apple, a bundle of swords, while Miss Direction carried a straitjacket and a ring. “In honor of Houdini,” Trixie took off her hat and cape, “I will do this entire trick without the aid of my horn.” This got the audience’s attention. She continued as Direction slid the ring over her horn. “Keep in mind, these are the same rings used by the police on unicorn criminals. This will make it next to impossible for me to unbuckle the straitjacket, or teleport out of the coffin.” Next, the jacket coiled around her and latched on to her body. Once this was done, she was helped into the stand-up box. “Once this coffin is closed, my assistant will proceed to stick razor-sharp swords through me. Please note that these are indeed real.” Peppers took one of the swords in her hoof and tossed an apple into the air, quickly slicing it in half like paper. “Just as real as this straitjacket I’m wearing, which is used on patients in the mental hospital on Saddle Island. Now then, let’s see some magic, shall we?” As her assistants closed the door of the coffin and secured it in place with a padlock, Miss Direction pushed a hidden lever with her hind hoof, causing the floor of the coffin to open up and let Trixie fall through a trap door. As the twins were sticking in and hammering the swords above, below stage Trixie was struggling on a mattress, racing to undo the lunatic’s jacket. Remembering Harry’s notebook, she first forced her forelegs upwards, twisting it back and forth until the fabric looped and reached her neck. Then, she tilted her head to one side and used her leg to pull the sleeve over her head, feeling as if she was taking part of her face and mane with it before it finally slid off. After taking a moment to breathe, she flipped over and slid one of her legs out of the sleeve until she could feel her back. Once she did, she took a breath as she felt her neck tighten around the collar, her hoof reaching to unbuckle the first strap. She quickly succeeded before moving her hoof down to her tail was the other key strap laid. She felt for the buckle and undid it. Finally, she used both forelegs to get the constricting jacket off of her, pulling it over her head until she was freed. Once the jacket came off, she went down underneath the audience, galloping until she reached the particular trap door where the very back seats were. She waited and listened for a few moments. “That’s the last one,” she heard her assistants say. “And now, let’s open up and see if the Great and Powerful Trixie is still in there.” She waited until she heard confusion from the audience, which was her cue to pull the lever causing her to fly upward through smoke bombs and flashing lights. Now back on the surface, the spotlights swung over to her as she held the straitjacket above her in triumph while the ring stayed around her horn. “The wonders never cease!” she cried as the audience erupted into a roar of approval. Trixie grinned. Yes, there was nothing like the applause of spectators cheering your name. “Trixie! Trixie! Trixie!” It was at this moment that, much like the end of all of her shows, she dropped the jacket and took a bow.