The Merlin Conspiracy Read online

  Even if I hadn’t been watching, I could have told when the hoists stopped at the level where I was. The crowd in the arcade suddenly doubled. I swung round to watch as it went in seconds from just busy to packed and hectic. People pushed past me both ways, treading on my feet and banging me with shopping bags. There was a roar of voices that made my head go round.

  And I saw Romanov go past, only a foot away.

  I leaped after him at once. I elbowed and pushed and barged and shouted, “Hey!” and, “Excuse me!” and, “Could you wait a moment, please?” whenever I thought he might hear me. He was quite easy to keep in sight because his jacket was white, with red and blue floral embroidery. Very few other people wore white. I kept him in sight for about a hundred yards, but I didn’t catch up until we were level with one of the bridges. He had to slow down to turn out across it because he had two kids with him for some reason, and he wanted to make sure they kept with him. While he was stretching out to catch hold of the younger boy, I got near enough to tap him on the back of his embroidery. “Excuse me!” I panted.

  He turned round, and he wasn’t Romanov. He wasn’t even very like Romanov. His hair wasn’t particularly dark, and he wore glasses. Behind the glasses, his eyes were washy blue, and around the glasses his face was pale and haughty and thin without being jagged. He didn’t even stand like Romanov. Romanov had had a sort of eager curve to him. This man was stiff and upright. And he was staring at me in utter outrage. I could feel my face flooding red as I stared back and wondered how on earth I’d managed to make such a mistake.

  Then it got worse than embarrassing. The two kids grabbed my arms, and they both began yelling. The big one had a voice that squawked, and the small one went off like a train whistle. This made all the other people around start yelling, too. That smaller kid was an utter brat. He kept pinching me, and twisting the pinches, until I’d had enough and I kicked him. At that, he screamed harder than ever, and half the people near promptly grabbed me as well. In no time I was sort of bent over under a heap of people and jerking about desperately to try to throw them off me.

  Like that, I looked across and saw two pairs of yellow, curly yeti boots. I felt sick and dizzy, and I knew I was in real trouble then. “Look, it was a mistake!” I said.

  Nobody listened to me. They all shouted at the policemen. Most of them seemed to be accusing me of picking the false Romanov’s pocket, but there were other things they shouted that I didn’t understand then. The brat kid went on screaming. The older kid squawked that I’d assaulted his brother. The false Romanov just stood there, looking outraged, as if simply touching him had been a crime. And there was an elderly blond woman wearing pink and lilac embroidery which clashed horribly with the police uniforms, who grabbed a policeman by the arm and kept stabbing her finger at me, accusing me of nameless crimes.

  Two more policemen arrived. They each took one of my arms and marched off with me, whatever I said. It wasn’t far, just round the bend of the arcade, opposite the next hoist. They kicked open a door there and hauled me through. It was a police station. I could smell it was. There was a fellow with a mustache sitting behind a desk, looking very senior and important in lots more official yellow embroidery. He gave me a sarcastic glance and pointed with his thumb. The two policemen nodded and hustled me off into the depths of the place, where it was all carved out of the rock of the cliff. They kicked open another door there and threw me inside. While I was stumbling forward into the cell beyond, I saw the outside door burst open and all the rest of them come pouring through—false Romanov, both kids, pink lady, and crowds more—all shouting accusations still.

  Then the cell door shut with a bang, and I couldn’t hear them anymore. There was a bunk thing, and I sat on it. There was a hole bored into the rock in the corner for a loo. Otherwise there was nothing but walls that had been hacked out of rock and then whitewashed rather a long time ago. The only light came from a grille in the door, and it was beastly cold.

  I sat there trying to be angry for a while. But what I mostly felt was tired. I’d been having peculiar adventures now for more than a day and a night, and I suddenly found I’d had enough. I knew I was in bad trouble, but that didn’t matter as much as the fact that I was exhausted. I lay down and went to sleep.

  I must have slept for several hours. It seemed to be early evening when they came and woke me up. I suppose they’d meant to leave me there for long enough for me to get thoroughly intimidated, but if that was their idea, it misfired. You see, I am a total zombie just after I wake up. It takes me half an hour even to get my eyes open. Ask anyone who knows me. I can’t see; I can’t talk properly; I can’t do anything without help. The only thing I can do properly is think. And I know how to exploit my condition. I’ve had years of practice.

  Anyway, the policeman fetching me shook me and shouted at me. If he did anything else, I didn’t see because I couldn’t get my eyes open. Eventually he hauled on my arm and then poked my back. I stood up and walked into a wall. He pulled me straight and shoved me onward, I wish I could have seen my progress to the front of the police station after that. I must have gone in zigzags. I kept hitting things and being pulled straight and then hitting something else. Two people kept shouting at me.

  At length they stood me still, and I felt and smelled someone breathing into my face. “No, he’s not blind. He’s got his damned eyes shut,” this man said. And he roared, “Open your eyes, Alph take you!”

  I tried to explain. I meant to say, “I’m afraid I can’t yet,” but it came out as “Frayed auntie.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” the policeman howled. “Is it some drug?”

  “No, it’s sleeping on an empty stomach,” I said—except that it came out as “Nah, nah, empsa.”

  “He must be foreign,” decided the second policeman.

  “Yeh, yeh, yeh,” I said, because that was true. “I’ve been a foreigner three times since yesterday,” I added—or rather, “I’m before threems stay.”

  The second policeman, who was clearly the important one—he smelled importantly of some vile aftershave, like peaches boiled in burned plastic—said fretfully, “I’ve never heard of this place Threems. Have you?”

  “No,” said the other one. “Do I write it down?”

  “Name first,” said Important. And he shouted at me, “Name!”

  For some reason, I can always say my name. I said, “Nick Mallory,” and it only came out a little slurred.

  “Enter that, and then search him,” said Important. “Enter any ID or stolen property.” I heard heavy footsteps and a creaking as Important paced away and sat down somewhere in front of me, and a pen scratching as the other policeman wrote. Then I felt him dig in my pockets. There were chinkings and exasperated noises. As far as I could tell, they’d found fifty-six p, my two tenners, and my door key. I hoped they’d give the key back because Dad is always losing his.

  “Foreign money,” said the ordinary policeman, “and this flat metal thing. Could be a key.”

  “Keep it for analysis,” said Important. “It might be a talisman.”

  “Wommy key,” I said.

  “But he can’t have stolen this money here,” Important went on, ignoring me, “because the revered Prayermaster was only carrying normal Loggia City currency.”

  “These notes are written in Loggian, though,” the other policeman said, puzzled.

  “He probably stole them in some other world. Not a problem,” Important said. “We’ll deal with the serious charge here now. You!” he bawled at me. “Open your eyes!”

  “Car do tha yeh,” I explained.

  “Write down obstructing the law,” Important said. “And you, listen carefully.” Because he thought I was foreign, he spoke very loudly to me and got louder and louder as he went on. “You have been accused of raising witchlight in a public place …”

  So that’s what the angry pink lady was on about! I thought.

  “… and this is a very serious crime,” Important boomed. �
��If proved, it means prison for life without option. The prison here is down under the railway lines. You won’t enjoy it. So think very carefully before you answer my questions and tell me the exact truth. Are you a witch?”

  “No,” I said.

  “But you know how to raise witchlight, don’t you?” he yelled cunningly. “And that—”

  “No, I don’t,” I said.

  “—automatically makes you a witch. What did you say?” he howled.

  “Don’t. Can’t. Never knew how,” I said. By this time I was trying with all my might to speak properly. “Silly wom’n. Eyes bad. No glasses.”

  There was a bit of a silence at that. The ordinary policeman said, “This is the fourth charge of witchcraft Mizz Jocelyn has laid this year. None of the others—”

  “I know, I know,” Important said irritably, “but the Prayermasters are after us to make our quota. What am I supposed to do?”

  “Arress Mizz Jocelyn,” I suggested.

  “Shut up!” they both howled at me.

  There was another silence. I could hear the pen scratching again and Important tapping away irritably on something. I supposed he was drumming his fingers while he thought how to prove I was a witch. By this time my eyes were beginning to unstick. A very strong sense of self-preservation caused me to force my eyelids apart just a crack. I could see Important as a blur of yellow, lit sideways by distant sunlight. “Bellving field normal,” he was murmuring. “Telepathic field up a bit—not much on its own. Power almost zero …”

  My eyes shot halfway open without my having to try. The sun glinted off a set of brass and glass instruments, all little cogs and swiveling shiny rods, arranged in front of Important and all pointed at me. He was not drumming his fingers. He was tapping away at brass knobs and reading things off dials.

  I knew I should be really alarmed, but I was still too sleepy. I simply sank back into my zombie state and concentrated on being only half awake. If his instruments were registering the way I am when I’ve just woken up, I wasn’t going to interfere. Important’s irritable face was coming clearer to me now. He was the one with the mustache. It was a huge, bushy one.

  “Recent ritual barely shows,” Important said. “This is completely inconclusive, damn it!”

  “So we go with the vagrancy charge for now?” the other policeman asked.

  “Seems like it,” said Important. He started booming at me again. “You! Stand straight while I talk to you!” I did my best. I sort of reslouched. “Better,” he said, “but not much. Public Works will soon teach you proper behavior. You’ve been lucky, very lucky. The honored Prayermaster you attacked said he wouldn’t prefer charges and your witch readings are only high enough to be suspicious. One notch more and you’d be above the legal limit. You’d be on your way to jail by now. As it is, I’m only detaining you on a charge of vagrancy. This is what happens to anyone we pick up who’s not carrying a Loggia entry permit or Loggia currency. You’re under curfew from this moment, understand? Are you listening?”

  I nodded.

  “Curfew,” he said. “That means you must report to the Clerk of Public Works on Level Fourteen before sunset. Their office will assign you work in the cloth factories and give you somewhere to sleep. If you’re found wandering any time after that, you get an automatic prison sentence. Understand?”

  I nodded again.

  “Right,” he said. “I’m legally obliged to hand you this token. Here it is. Come on. Take it.”

  I put out my hand, and he passed me a big round disk of some kind. I didn’t look at it. I was staring at him and wondering if he ever breathed that mustache of his in. It was so big and fluffy, he could suffocate in his sleep. I wondered if I hoped he did. He was only doing his job, I supposed.

  “This token entitles you to one free meal and one free night’s sleep,” he said. “After that you’ll have to work for a living like the rest of us do. Take him to the steps, Wright, and send him on his way.”

  “Don’t I get my money and my key back?” I said.

  “No,” he said. “All vagrant property is forfeit to the city. Get going. You’ve only got an hour before sunset.”

  And I love you, too! I thought as the other policeman grabbed my arm and pulled me away to the outer door.

  Outside, under the arches, the low sun glared in my eyes quite painfully from just above the opposite cliff. There seemed to be far fewer people around. Those who were around all looked fastidiously away as the policeman hauled me the few yards to the corner, where the massive tower was with the stairs and the lifts in it. The light was dim enough under it for me to be able to focus on the big fancy notices on its walls. LEVEL ELEVEN, one said. HAVE PASSES READY AT ALL TIMES, said the next. And the rest had arrows pointing to Lifts, Stairs, Main Shopping Arcade, Cloth Fair.

  “Can I use the lift?” I asked the policeman.

  “Lifts cost money,” he said, and pushed me toward Stairs. “Get climbing. All the eateries on Fourteen will take your token, but you’ll only have time to eat if you hurry. When the sun sets, you’ll hear a hooter. If you haven’t got to the PW office by then, you’ll be liable to arrest.”

  A train came in down in the depths while he was talking, with a rush and a rumble and a wave of warm, smelly air. I thought how it must feel to be in a prison cell under those trains. I started climbing.

  They were wide, elegant, cleanly cut stone steps, lit by fancy lamps overhead. I went up and up until I was sure that my feet would be out of sight of the policeman—if he bothered to wait and watch, that was—and then I stopped under a light and looked at the token. It was a big white enamel circle with blue enamel lettering on it. On one side it said “Loggia City Public Works,” and when I turned it over, it said “1 standard meal, sleep 1.”

  This is all it takes to make you an official vagrant, I thought. I put the disk in my pocket and went on climbing to the next level. Fairly naturally, I expected it to be Level Twelve.

  Not a bit of it. The next notice I came to said LEVEL ELEVEN A → Residences 69–10042, pointing to even grander stairs on the right, and the one farther up after that pointed off to the left, saying ← LEVEL ELEVEN B House of Prayer for Holy Jazepta, College of High Prayermaster. The steps to this bit were brightly whitewashed, while the ordinary steps climbed on, straight ahead. It looked as if the levels were staggered up the cliff, not in straight rows as I’d thought. Level Twelve was quite a long climb farther up and nothing like so exclusive. The stairs had hollows from people climbing them, and the notice there just said ← Shops →.

  My legs ached by then—you know how they do when you’re short on sleep—so I wandered out on Twelve to take a rest. It was all small shops as far as I could see, spilled out like stalls into the arcade, very well lit and cheerful and busy. I could see jewelry and veg, books and clothes, toys and bread. After that the pillars got in the way. It was so cheerful there that I stood staring until I began to shiver. My clothes were still quite damp, and I noticed the chill when I wasn’t moving. I thought of dungeons under the railway and went back to the stairs.

  I think Twelve A and Twelve B just said Houses and numbers, and Thirteen the same, though I was in a blur of climbing by then and didn’t pay much attention, except to notice that the steps were much more worn and dirty by then and the lights on the ceiling weaker. But I snapped to attention at Thirteen B. The notices there said ← Sex and Drugs →.

  “That’s frank, at least!” I panted. I wanted to stop and take a look, both ways, but I seemed to have been climbing for ages by then, and I was starving hungry. With the luck I’d been having in this place, I knew someone was just going to have served me up my One Standard Meal when the sunset hooter would go and I wouldn’t have time to eat it. So I put on speed, up really grotty steps that were cracked and crooked and filthy, with rubbish piled in the corners, and got up to Level Fourteen at last.

  The first thing I saw there was a red-and-white enamel notice over the stairs to the next level. CAUTION, it said, HIGH
LEVELS OF RADIATION BEYOND THIS POINT.

  “Oh, fun!” I said, and I was glad I didn’t have to go up there. The notices pointing each way along Level Fourteen said a whole list of factories, and the one pointing to the right added at the bottom, PUBLIC WORKS OFFICE, OPEN SUNRISE–SUNSET. “Right,” I said, and went that way. I could smell food along there, too.

  The arcade there was much lower and narrower, and it was held up by big square pillars that I could see were just meant to support radioactive Level Fifteen and the rest and nothing to do with being pretty. The floor was black and sort of tarry. But the first thing I came to was a whole row of little caffs, crammed in together under the pillars, and those were all I could attend to by then. It was hours since those scarmbled eggs. I went along the row, looking.

  That policeman had lied to me. Some of the caffs had menus in the windows saying FRESH SCOPPINS, 3 TOKES or 5 BINDALS, 4 TOKES and several had stacks of colored stickers showing you which factory they took tokens from, but only one had a notice saying PW TOKES TAKEN HERE. So I had to go into that one.

  It was a really depressing greasy spoon, one of those places where the windows are running with sweat from the cooking and lighted with raw greenish strips that don’t give any light. People were queueing for food at a glassed-in counter at the far end, where a dreary, fat woman in an apron was slapping food on plates and calling out things like “You need another toke for bindals,” and “Peslow’s run out now.” When they’d got their plates, the people sat wearily down at worn plastic tables to eat it. The only thing that seemed to be free was the drink people kept fetching from a spigot in the wall. It looked yellowish and a little fizzy.

  I stood for a moment to get the hang of things. Everyone wore embroidery here, too, only it was all shabby, with threads hanging out or pieces from other patterns darned in. Even the fat woman’s apron was old embroidery.

  She glared at me and jerked her chin. I held out my token. “This gets you nipling and colly or klaptico. That’s all,” she said, tapping the food troughs with her big wooden spatula. “Which is it? Hurry up.”