Conrad's Fate Read online

  A second later there was the most terrible noise in the distance. Champ burst out barking, a deep, chesty baying, like thunder. Another dog joined in, this one high and ear-piercing, and yapped and yapped and yapped, making even more noise than Champ. A horse started whinnying, over and over, madly. Mixed in with the animal sounds were human voices shouting, some high, some low and angry. We had no idea what was going on until another human voice shouted ringingly. “Shut up, the lot of you!”

  There was instant silence. This was followed by the same voice saying, “Yes, Champ, I love you, too. Just take your paws off my shoulders, please.”

  Millie shouted, “Christopher!” and ran toward the voice.

  When I caught her up, she was hanging on to Christopher’s hands with both hers, and I think she was crying. Christopher was saying, “It’s all right, Millie. I only had a little bother with the changes. Nothing else was wrong. It’s all right!”

  Behind them, looming against the dark sky, was a Traveler’s caravan drawn by an irritated-looking white horse. Beyond its twitching ears and flicking tail I could just see a man on the driving seat. His skin was so dark that I never saw him clearly. All I saw were his eyes, looking from me to Millie. The small white dog sitting beside him was much easier to see. Last of all I picked out the faces of a woman and two children looking at us over the man’s shoulders.

  Here the small white dog decided I was an intruder and started yapping again. Champ, on the ground beside me, took this as a mortal insult and replied. The two yelled abuse at each other, fit to wake the dead.

  “Do shut them up!” I bawled across the din. “The mansion’s full of lawyers and police!”

  “And Gabriel’s here!” Millie yelled. She seemed to be having some kind of reaction to our narrow escapes. Anyway, she was shivering all over.

  Christopher said to the dogs, “Shut up!” and they did. “I know he’s here,” he said to us. “Gabriel and his merry men were all over the towers and empty castles yesterday, having a good look at the changes. I had an awful job keeping out of sight.”

  “We have to get away,” Millie said.

  Christopher said, “I know,” and looked up at the Traveler driving the caravan. “Is there any chance you can take us all a bit farther?” he asked.

  The man gave a sort of mutter and turned to talk with the woman. They spoke quickly together in a language I had never heard before. When the man turned back, he said, “We can take you down to the town, but no farther. We have a rendezvous to make just after dawn.”

  “I suppose we can get a train there,” Christopher said. “Fine. Thank you.”

  The woman said, “Climb in at the back, then.”

  So we all scrambled into the caravan, leaving Champ as a melancholy dark hump in the middle of the parkland, and the Traveler clicked to his horse and we drove away.

  Twenty

  It was strange inside the caravan. I never saw it properly because it was so dark in there, but it seemed much bigger than I would have expected it to be. It was warm—at least it was warm to me, but Millie kept shivering—and full of warm smells of cloth and onions and spiciness, with a sort of tinny, metallic smell behind that. Things I couldn’t see kept up a tinkling and chiming from somewhere in the walls. There were what seemed like bunks to sit on, where Christopher and I sat with Millie between us to keep her warm, looking across to the two children, who had hurried inside to stare at us through the dimness as if we were the strangest things on earth. But they wouldn’t speak to us whatever we said.

  “They’ve gone shy again. Take no notice,” Christopher said. “Why are you fleeing Stallery, Grant?”

  “I’m a murderer,” I said, and told him about the ghost and the camera.

  Christopher said, “Oh,” very soberly. After a while, he said, “I could really almost believe you do have bad karma, Grant, although I know you don’t. You certainly have vilely bad luck. Maybe it was the magic—Did you know you were absolutely covered in spells when I first met you? One of them may have been a death spell. But I thought I took them all off you while we were walking through the park.”

  It was my turn to say, “Oh.” I explained, rather angrily, “One of those spells was supposed to make Mr. Amos give me a job.”

  “I know,” Christopher said. “That’s why I took them off you. I wanted the job. What was Gabriel doing in Stallery—besides looking for me and Millie, that is?”

  “Arresting Mr. Amos,” I said. “Did you know he was my uncle?”

  “Gabriel can’t be your uncle,” said Christopher. “He comes from Series Twelve.”

  “No, stupid—Mr. Amos,” I said. “My mother said she was married to Mr. Amos’s brother.”

  “That usually does make a person your uncle,” Christopher agreed.

  “And Mr. Amos is really Count of Stallery,” I told him. “Not Count Robert. His father was an actor called Mr. Brown. The Countess is really plain Mrs. Brown.”

  Christopher was delighted. “Tell me all, Grant,” he said. So I did.

  Millie said, with her teeth chattering, “Did they arrest that witch, too—Lady Mary?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said, “but they may have been going to arrest Mr. Seuly.”

  “What a pity,” Millie said. “Lady Mary ought to be arrested. She uses magic in the vilest way. But—No, shut up, Christopher. Stop making clever remarks, and tell me what happened to you now. How did you end up with the Travelers?”

  “By using my brain,” Christopher said, “at last. Before it rotted and fell out of my head. I confess that I got really stuck, out in all those empty towers and mansions. Every time there was a change—and there were plenty of those—I seemed to get farther and farther off from Stallery, and half the time there didn’t seem to be a way to get anywhere, even when I went outside. I got really tired and hungry and confused. I was in a giant building made entirely of glass, when the whole scene suddenly filled with Gabriel’s people. Have you ever tried to hide in a glass house? Don’t. It can’t be done. And they were between me and the way to the roof, so I couldn’t go up there to wait for another change. So I panicked. And then I thought, There must be another way! Then I thought of Champ. Champ was never allowed into the house—”

  “Just like Mr. Avenloch and Smedley!” I said. “The changes happen out in the park, too!”

  “They do, Grant,” Christopher said. “The probability fault has two ends, but one is out in the middle of nowhere, and nobody notices it. As soon as I realized that, I dodged out of the beastly greenhouse and went chasing out into the moors to look for the other end. But I don’t think I’d ever have found it if the Travelers hadn’t come through more or less as I got there. They gave me some food, and I asked them to get me to Stallery—I hoped you were there by then, Millie—and they didn’t want to do that at first. They said they would come out in the middle of the park. But I said I’d get them out through the gatehouse, so they agreed to take me.”

  “How do we get out through the gate?” I asked.

  The words were hardly out of my mouth when the regular clop of the horse’s shoes stopped. The Traveler leaned back from the driver’s seat and said, “Here is the gatehouse.”

  “Right.” Christopher got up and scrambled to the front of the caravan.

  I don’t know what he did. The horse started walking again, and after a moment the inside of the caravan went so dark that the kids opposite me gave out little twitters of alarm. The next thing I knew, I was looking out of the back of the van at the tunnel of the gateway, with its gates wide open, and the horse was turning out into the road. I heard its hooves bang and slide on the tramlines as Christopher came crawling back, and then it must have found the space between the rails, because its feet settled into a regular clopping again.

  “How did you do that?” Millie asked. It was a professional, enchantress sort of question, even though her teeth were still chattering.

  “The gatekeeper wasn’t there,” Christopher said, “so it was easy to
short out the defenses. They must have arrested him, too.”

  It was a long way down to Stallchester, and the horse went nothing like so fast as the tram. The slow clopping of its feet was so regular and the inside of the caravan so cozy that I fell asleep and dreamed slow cloves-and-metal-scented dreams. From time to time I woke up, usually on the steep bits, where the horse went slower than ever and the Traveler put on the brake with a long, slurring noise and called out to the horse in his foreign language. Then I went to sleep again.

  I woke up finally when white morning light was coming through both ends of the caravan. The clopping hooves seemed louder, with a lot of echo to them. I sat up and saw Stallchester Cathedral going past, very slowly, at the back of the caravan.

  A moment later, the Traveler leaned backward to say, “This is where we must put you down.”

  Christopher jumped awake in a flurry, to say, “Oh. Right. Thanks.” I don’t think Millie woke up until we were down in the street, watching the caravan swiftly rumbling away from us, jingling and tinkling all over, with the horse now at a smart trot.

  Millie started to shiver again. I was not surprised. Her striped Stallery uniform was not at all warm—neither was mine, for that matter. We looked very out of place, in the middle of the wet, slightly foggy street. Christopher’s clothes must have been caught in one of the changes. He was wearing wide, baggy garments that could have been made of sackcloth, and he looked even odder than Millie and I did.

  “Are you all right?” he said to Millie.

  “Just freezing,” she said.

  “She lived most of her life in a hot country,” Christopher explained to me. He looked anxiously around at the touristy boutiques on either side of the street. “It’s too early for these shops to be open. I suppose I could conjure you a coat …”

  Coat, I thought, sweaters, woolen shirts—I know where to find all these things. “Our bookshop is just down the end of this street,” I said. “I bet my winter clothes are still there in my room. Let’s sneak in and get some sweaters.”

  “Good idea,” Christopher said, looking worriedly at Millie. “And then show us the way to the train station.”

  I led them down the street and into the alley at the back of our shop. Our yard gate opened in the usual way, with me climbing to the top of it, leaning over to slide the bolt back, and then jumping down and lifting the latch. Inside the yard, the key to the back door was hanging behind the drainpipe, just as usual. I might never have been away, I thought, as we tiptoed through the office. In the shop it was not quite as usual. The cash desk and most of the big bookcases were in different places. I couldn’t tell whether this was from one of Uncle Alfred’s reorganizations or because of all the changes up at Stallery. The place smelled the same, anyway, of book and floor polish and just a whiff of chemicals from Uncle Alfred’s workroom.

  “You two stay here,” I whispered to Christopher and Millie. “I’ll creep up and fetch the clothes.”

  “Will anyone hear?” Millie asked. She settled into the chair behind the cash desk with a weary shiver.

  As far as I knew, my mother was still up at Stallery. She had missed the last tram by the time she came into the Grand Saloon, and the first tram in the morning didn’t get down to Stallchester until eight-thirty. Uncle Alfred needed two large alarm clocks with double bells the size of teacups in order to wake up in the mornings. “No,” I said, and ran up the stairs as lightly as I could.

  It was strange. Our stairs seemed small and shabby after Stallery. The fizz of old magics coming from Uncle Alfred’s workroom felt small and shabby, too, after the magic I had felt from Christopher and from Stallery itself. And I had forgotten that the private part of our house smelled so dusty. I hurried through the strangeness up to the very top, to my room.

  And I could scarcely believe it when I got there. My mother had taken my room to write in. It was full of her usual piles of papers and copies of her books, and there by the window was her splintery old table with her typewriter on it. For a moment I thought it just might be one of the changes from Stallery, but when I looked closely, I saw the marks where my bed and my chest of drawers had been.

  Still scarcely able to believe it, I shot down half a floor to Mum’s old writing room. My bed was in there, upside down, and rammed in beside it was my chest of drawers with all its drawers open, empty. All my clothes were gone, and my model aircraft, and my books. They had truly not expected me to come back. I felt—well, hurt is the only word for it. Very, dreadfully hurt. But just in case, I went on down and looked into Anthea’s room.

  That was worse. When I left, there had still been Anthea’s furniture in there, along with Mum’s papers. Now that was all cleared away. Uncle Alfred had made it into a store for his magical supplies. There were new shelves full of bottles and packets on three of the walls and a stack of glassware in the middle. I stood and stared at it for a moment, thinking about Anthea. How did she feel at this moment, now they had arrested her new husband for fraud?

  I felt quite as bad.

  I pulled myself together and tiptoed across the landing to my mother’s room. This was better. This room looked and smelled the same as always—though perhaps dustier—and her unmade bed was piled with heaps of her dusty, moth-eaten clothes. There were more clothes puddled in heaps on the floor. Mum had obviously thrown everything out of her cupboards when she hunted out that awful yellow dress to wear at Stallery. I picked up one of her usual mustard-colored sweaters and put it on. It smelled of Mum, which somehow made me feel more hurt than ever. The sweater looked awful over my green and cream uniform, but at least it was warm. I picked up another, thicker sweater for Millie and a jacket for Christopher and hurried away downstairs.

  As I went, I thought I heard the shop door open, with its usual muffled tinkle. Oh no! I thought. Christopher is doing something cleverly stupid again! I put on speed and fairly charged out into the shop.

  It was empty. I stood in the polished space beside the cash desk and stared around miserably. Christopher and Millie must have left without me.

  I was just about to charge on out into the street, waving the clothes, when I heard the flop, flop of slippers hurrying down the stairs behind me. Uncle Alfred bustled out into the shop, tying his dressing gown over his striped pajamas.

  “Someone in the shop,” he was saying as he came. “I can’t turn my back for a moment—never a wink of sleep—” Then he saw me and stopped dead. “What are you doing here?” he said. He pushed his spectacles up his nose to make sure it was me. When he was certain, he ran his hands through his tousled hair and seemed quite bewildered. “You’re supposed to be up at Stallery, Con,” he said. “Did your mother send you back here? Does that mean you’ve killed your Uncle Amos already?”

  “No,” I said. “I haven’t.” I wanted to tell him that Mr. Amos had been arrested. So there! But I also wanted to tell Uncle Alfred just what I thought of him for putting spells on me and pretending I had an Evil Fate, and I couldn’t decide which I wanted to say first. I hesitated, and after that I had lost my chance. Uncle Alfred more or less screamed at me.

  “You haven’t killed him!” he shrieked. “But I sent you up there with death spells all over you, boy! I sent you to summon a Walker! I sent you with spells to make you know it was Amos Tesdinic you had to kill! And you let me down!” He advanced on me in dreadful flopping of slippers and his hands sort of clutching like claws. “You’ll pay for this!” he shouted. His face was wild, with strange blotches all over it, and his eyes glared at me through his glasses like big yellow marbles. “I might have had Stallery in my hands—these hands—but for you!” he screamed. “With you hanged and Amos dead, they’d give the place to your mother, and I can manage her.”

  “No, you’re wrong,” I said, backing away. “There’s Hugo, you see. And Anthea.”

  He didn’t listen to me. He almost never did, of course, unless I forced him to by going on strike about something. “I could have been pulling the possibilities this moment!” he
howled. “Just let me get my hands on you!”

  I could feel the fizz of his magic rising around me. I wanted to turn and run, but I didn’t seem to be able to. I didn’t know what to do.

  “Summon the Walker again!” Christopher’s voice whispered urgently in my ear. I could feel Christopher’s breath tickling the side of my face and the invisible warmth of him beside me. I don’t think I have ever been so glad to feel anything. “Summon it now, Grant!” The corkscrew key hung around my neck was tugged by invisible fingers and flipped out over Mum’s mustard-colored sweater.

  I dropped the jacket and the sweater for Millie and grabbed the corkscrew key gratefully. I held it up. The string it was hanging on lengthened helpfully so that I could more or less wave the thing in Uncle Alfred’s glaring face. “I hereby summon a Walker!” I screamed. “Come to me and give me what I need!”

  The cold, and the feeling of vast open distances, began at once. I could see the immense curving horizon beyond Uncle Alfred’s untidy hair, glowing from the light that was out of sight below it. Uncle Alfred whipped around and saw it, too. His mouth opened. He started to back away toward the cash desk, but he did not seem to be able to. I could see dents on the sleeves of his dressing gown where two pairs of hands were hanging on to each of his arms. As the figure of the Walker crossed the huge horizon with its hurried, pattering steps, I could feel Christopher on one side of Uncle Alfred and Millie on the other, both holding on to Uncle Alfred like grappling irons.

  Uncle Alfred shouted, “No, no! Let go!” and plunged and pulled to get free. His arms heaved as if there were lead weights on him as Christopher and Millie hung on.

  The Walker approached with surprising speed, its hair and clothing blown sideways without moving, in the unfelt frozen wind it brought with it. In no time at all, it was towering into the shop and looming among the bookcases, filling the space with its icy smell. Then it was standing over us. Its intent white face and long dark eyes turned from Uncle Alfred to me.