Conrad's Fate Page 23

  “No, no!” Uncle Alfred cried out.

  The Walker’s long dark eyes turned to Uncle Alfred again. It held out to him the small crimson-stained wine cork labeled Illary Wines 1893.

  “Don’t point that at me!” Uncle Alfred shrieked, pulling away backward. “Point it at Con! It’s got a really strong death spell on it!”

  The Walker’s white face nodded at him. Once. Both its arms swept out. It picked Uncle Alfred up bodily and pattered on past me, carrying Uncle Alfred as easily as if he had been a baby. The last I saw of him were his striped pajama legs kicking frantically as he was carried away beside my right shoulder. As the Walker itself passed me, there was a jerk at my neck, and the corkscrew key flew out of my hands and vanished. The feeling of wind and the horizon of eternity vanished at the same instant.

  Millie and Christopher became visible then, staggering away sideways, both looking extremely shaken. Christopher said, in an unusually small, sober voice, “I don’t think I like either of your uncles, Grant.”

  “That,” said a deep, dry voice from behind me, “must be the first sensible notion you have had for months, Christopher.”

  Gabriel de Witt was standing there, gray and severe, and looking tall as the Walker in his black frock coat. He was not alone. All the staff who had come with him into the Grand Saloon were there, too, crowded up against bookcases and standing in the space where the Walker had been. Mr. Prendergast was with them, and the King’s solicitor, and one of the Sorceresses Royal—Madame Dupont, it was—and the dreadful Mrs. Havelok-Harting as well. My mother and Anthea were standing beside Gabriel de Witt, both very weary and tearstained. But I was interested to see, looking around, that every single person there seemed as shaken as I was by the passing of the Walker. Even Gabriel de Witt was a little grayer than he had been in Stallery.

  At the sight of him, and of all the other people, Christopher looked as dumbfounded as I had ever seen him. His face went as white as the Walker’s. He gulped a bit and tried to straighten the tie he wasn’t wearing. “I can explain everything,” he said.

  “Me, too,” Millie whispered. She looked downright ill.

  “I shall speak to the two of you later,” Gabriel de Witt said. It sounded very ominous. “For now,” he said, “I want to talk to Conrad Tesdinic.”

  This sounded even more ominous. “I can explain everything, too,” I said. I was scared stiff. I thought I’d rather talk to Uncle Alfred, any day. “I come of a criminal family, you see,” I said. “Both my uncles—and I’m sure I do have an Evil Fate, whatever Christopher says.”

  For some reason, this made Anthea give a weepy little laugh. My mother sighed.

  “I need to ask you some questions,” Gabriel de Witt said, just as if I had not said anything. He pulled a packet out of an inside pocket of his ink black respectable frock coat and passed it to me. It seemed to be a packet of postcards. “Please look through these pictures and explain to me what you see there.”

  Though I could not for the life of me see why Gabriel de Witt should be interested in picture postcards, I opened the packet and pulled them out. “Oh,” I said. They were prints of the photographs I had taken of the double spiral staircase where we saw Millie. There was one of just the staircase, then two of Millie on the same staircase, shouting across at Christopher, and then one of the same staircase, looking up toward the dirty glass of the tower. But something had gone wrong with all of them. Behind each one, misty but quite distinct, were the insides of other buildings, dozens of them. I could see fuzzy hallways, other stairways, domed rooms in many different styles, ruined stone arches, and, several times, what looked like a giant greenhouse. They were all on top of one another, in layers. “I think I must have loaded a film that someone else had used first,” I said.

  Gabriel de Witt simply said, “Continue looking, please.”

  I went on down the pile. Here was the hall the double stairway had led down to, but the other person seemed to have photographed a marble place with a sort of swimming pool in it and somewhere dark, with statues, behind that. The next was the room with the harp, but this had literally dozens of rooms mistily behind it, blurred vistas of ballrooms and dining rooms and huge saloons, and a place with billiard tables on top of what looked like several libraries. The next two photographs showed the kitchens—with dim further kitchens behind them—including the knitting on the chair and the table with the strange magazine on it. The next …

  I gave a sharp yelp. I couldn’t help it. The witch had been even nearer than I’d thought. Her face had come out flat and round and blank, the way faces do when you push a camera right up to them. Her mouth was open in a black and furious crescent, and her eyes glared flatly. She looked like an angry pancake.

  “I didn’t mean to kill her,” I said.

  “Oh, you didn’t kill her,” Gabriel de Witt, to my astonishment, replied. “You merely trapped her soul. We found her body in a coma in one of those kitchens, while we were exploring the alternate buildings, and we returned it to Seven D, where I am pleased to say they promptly put it in prison. She was wanted in that world for killing several enchanters in order to obtain their magical powers.”

  Millie gave a small gasp at this.

  One of Gabriel de Witt’s tufty eyebrows twitched toward Millie, but he continued without interrupting himself, “We have of course returned the woman’s soul to Seven D now, so that she may stand trial in the proper way. Tell me what else you see in those pictures.”

  I leafed through the pile again. “These two of Millie on the stairs would be quite good,” I said, “if it wasn’t for all the buildings that have come out behind her.”

  “They were not there when you took the photographs?” Gabriel de Witt asked me.

  “Of course not,” I said. “I’ve never seen them before.”

  “Ah, but we have,” said one of Gabriel de Witt’s people, a youngish man with a lot of light, curly hair and a brown skin. He came forward and handed me a packet of differently shaped photographs. “I took these while we were searching the probabilities for Millie and Christopher,” he said. “What do you think?”

  These were photographs of two ruined castles, some marble stairs leading up from a pool, a ballroom, a huge greenhouse, and the double spiral staircase again, and the last one was of the rickety wooden tower where Christopher and I found Champ. All of them, to my shame, were clear and single and precise.

  “They’re much better than mine,” I said.

  “Yes, but just look,” said the man. He took my first photograph of Millie on the stairway and held it beside four of his. “Look in the background of yours,” he said. “You’ve got both these ruined castles in it and the glass house, and I think that blurred thing behind them is the wooden tower. And if you take yours with the harp, you can see my ballroom at the back of it quite clearly. See?”

  The Sorceress Royal said, “In our opinion—and Mrs. Havelok-Harting agrees with me—it’s a remarkable talent, Conrad, to be able to photograph alternate probabilities that you can’t even see. Isn’t this so, Monsignor?” she asked Gabriel de Witt.

  Mr. Prendergast added, “Hear, hear.”

  Gabriel de Witt took my photographs back from me and stood frowning down at them. “Yes, indeed,” he said at last. “Master Tesdinic here has an extraordinary degree of untrained magical talent. I would like”—he turned his frown on my mother—“to take the lad back with me to Series Twelve and make sure that he is properly taught.”

  “Oh no!” Anthea said.

  “I believe I must,” Gabriel de Witt said. He was still frowning at my mother. “I cannot think what you were doing, madam, neglecting to provide your son with proper tuition.”

  My mother’s hair was down all over the place, like an unstuffed mattress. I could see she had no answer to Gabriel de Witt. So she said tragically, “Now all my family is to be taken from me!”

  Gabriel de Witt straightened himself, looking grim and dour even for him. “That, madam,” he said, “is what t
ends to happen when one neglects people.” And before my mother could think what to say to this, he added, “The same thing can be said to myself, if this is any consolation.” He turned his grim face to Millie. “You were quite right about that Swiss school, my dear,” he said to her. “I went and inspected it before I came on here. I should have done that before I sent you to it. It’s a terrible place. We shall see about a better school as soon as we get home.”

  Millie’s face became one jubilant, shivering smile.

  Christopher said, “What did I tell you?”

  It was clear that Christopher was still in bad trouble. Gabriel de Witt said to him, “I said I would speak to you later, Christopher,” and then turned to Mrs. Havelok-Harting. “May I leave all outstanding matters in your capable hands, Prosecutor? It is more than time that I returned to my own world. Please present my compliments to His Majesty and my thanks to him for allowing me the freedom to investigate here.”

  “I shall do that,” the formidable lady said. “We would have been quite at a stand without you, Monsignor. But,” she added rather more doubtfully, “did your magics last night definitely stop those dreadful probability changes?”

  “Very definitely,” Gabriel de Witt said. “Some foolish person appeared to have jammed the shift key to on, that was all.” I saw Christopher wince at this. Luckily Gabriel de Witt did not notice. He went on, “If you have any further trouble, please send a competent wizard to fetch me back. Now, is everyone ready? We must leave.”

  Anthea rushed at me and flung her arms around me. “Come back, Conrad, please!”

  “Of course he will,” Gabriel de Witt said, rather impatiently. “No one can leave his own world forever. Conrad will return to act as my permanent representative in Series Seven.”

  I have just come back to Series Seven to be Agent for the Chrestomanci here.

  Before this I spent six blissfully happy years at Chrestomanci Castle, learning magic I never dreamed existed and making friends with all the other young enchanters being educated there—Elizabeth, Jason, Bernard, Henrietta, and the rest—although the first week or so was a little difficult. Christopher was in such bad trouble—and so annoyed about it—that the castle seemed to be inside a thunderstorm until Gabriel de Witt forgave him. And Millie turned out to have caught flu. This was why she had been feeling so cold. She was so ill with it that she did not go to her new school until after Christmas.

  At the end of the six years, when I was eighteen, Gabriel de Witt called me into his study and explained that I must go home to Series Seven now or I would start to fade, not being in my own world. He suggested that the way to get used to my own world again was to attend Ludwich University. He also said he was sorry to lose me, because I seemed to be the only person who could make Christopher see sense. I am not sure anyone can do that, but Christopher seems to think so, too. He has asked me to come back next year to be best man at his wedding. He and Millie are using the gold ring with Christopher’s life in it as a wedding ring, which seems a good way to keep it safe.

  Anyway, I have enrolled as a student in Ludwich, and I am staying with Mr. Prendergast in his flat opposite the Variety Theater. Though Mr. Prendergast isn’t really an actor, he never can stay away from theaters. Anthea wanted me to stay with her. She keeps ringing me up from New Rome to say I must live with her and Robert as soon as she gets back. She is in New Rome supervising her latest fashion show—she has become quite a famous dress designer. And Robert is away, too, filming in Africa. He took up acting as soon as the police let him go. Mrs. Havelok-Harting decided that as Robert only discovered Mr. Amos’s fraud when his father died and then refused to be part of it, he could not be said to be guilty. Hugo had a harder time, but they released him, too, in the end. Now—and I could hardly believe this when Mr. Prendergast told me—Hugo and Felice are running the bookshop in Stallchester. My mother is still writing books in their attic. We are driving up to see them next weekend.

  Mr. Amos is still in jail. They transferred him to St. Helena Prison Island last year. And the Countess is living in style in Buda-Parich, not wanting to show herself in this country. And—Mr. Prendergast is not sure, but he thinks this is so—Mr. Seuly went there to join her when he got out of prison. Anyway, Stallchester has a new mayor now.

  No one has seen or heard of my Uncle Alfred since the Walker took him away. Now I have learned about such things, I am not surprised. The Walkers are messengers of the Lords of Karma, and Uncle Alfred tried to use the Lords of Karma in his schemes.

  And Stallery is falling into ruin, Mr. Prendergast told me sadly, and becoming just like all the other deserted probability mansions. I remembered Mrs. Baldock and Miss Semple coming weeping out of the lift and wondered what had become of all the Staff who had lost their jobs there.

  “Oh, the King stepped in there,” Mr. Prendergast told me cheerfully. “He’s always on the lookout for well-trained domestics to man the royal residences. They’ve all got royal jobs. Except Manfred,” Mr. Prendergast added. “He had to give up acting after he fell through the wall in a dungeon scene. I think he’s a schoolteacher now.”

  The King wants to see me tomorrow. I feel very nervous. But Fay Marley has promised to go with me at least as far as the door and hold my hand. She knows the King well, and she says she thinks he may want to make me a Special Investigator like Mr. Prendergast. “You notice things other people don’t see, darling,” she says. “Don’t worry so much. It’ll be all right, you’ll see.”

  Read on for an excerpt from The Pinhoe Egg

  One

  At the beginning of the Summer holidays, while Chrestomanci and his family were still in the south of France, Marianne Pinhoe and her brother, Joe, walked reluctantly up the steep main street of Ulverscote. They had been summoned by Gammer Pinhoe. Gammer was head of Pinhoe witchcraft in Ulverscote and wherever Pinhoes were, from Bowbridge to Hopton, and from Uphelm to Helm St. Mary. You did not disobey Gammer’s commands.

  “I wonder what the old bat wants this time,” Joe said gloomily as they passed the church. “Some new stupid thing, I bet.”

  “Hush,” said Marianne. Uphill from the church, the Reverend Pinhoe was in the vicarage garden spraying his roses. She could smell the acid odor of the spell and hear the hoosh of the vicar’s spray. It was true that Gammer’s commands had lately become more and more exacting and peculiar, but no adult Pinhoe liked to hear you say so.

  Joe bent his head and put on his most sulky look. “But it doesn’t make sense,” he grumbled as they passed the vicarage gate. “Why does she want me too?”

  Marianne grinned. Joe was considered “a disappointment” by the Pinhoes. Only Marianne knew how hard Joe worked at being disappointing—though she thought Mum suspected it. Joe’s heart was in machines. He had no patience with the traditional sort of witchcraft or the way magic was done by the Pinhoes—or the Farleighs over in Helm St. Mary, or for that matter the Cleeves in Underhelm, on the other side of Ulverscote. As far as that kind of magic went, Joe wanted to be a failure. They left him in peace then.

  “It makes sense she wants you,” Joe continued as they climbed the last stretch of hill up to Woods House, where Gammer lived. “You being the next Gammer and all.”

  Marianne sighed and made a face. The fact was that no girls except Marianne had been born to Gammer’s branch of the Pinhoes for two generations now. Everyone knew that Marianne would have to follow in Gammer’s footsteps. Marianne had two great-uncles and six uncles, ten boy cousins, and weekly instructions from Gammer on the witchcraft that was expected of her. It weighed on her rather. “I’ll live,” she said. “I expect we both will.” They turned up the weedy drive of Woods House. The gates had been broken ever since Old Gaffer died when Marianne was quite small. Their father, Harry Pinhoe, was Gaffer now, being Gammer’s eldest son. But it said something about their father’s personality, Marianne always thought, that everyone called him Dad, and never Gaffer.

  They took two steps up the drive and sniffed. There was a pow
erful smell of wild animal there.

  “Fox?” Joe said doubtfully. “Tom cat?” Marianne shook her head. The smell was strong, but it was much pleasanter than either of those. A powdery, herby scent, a bit like Mum’s famous foot powder.

  Joe laughed. “It’s not Nutcase anyway. He’s been done.”

  They went up the three worn steps and pushed on the peeling front door. There was no one to open it to them. Gammer insisted on living quite alone in the huge old house, with only old Miss Callow to come and clean for her twice a week. And Miss Callow didn’t do much of a job, Marianne thought as they came into the wide entrance hall. Sunlight from the window halfway up the dusty oak staircase made slices of light filled thick with dust motes and shone murkily off the glass cases of stuffed animals that stood on tables round the walls. Marianne hated these. The animals had all been stuffed with savage snarls on their faces. Even through the dust, you saw red open mouths, sharp white teeth, and glaring glass eyes. She tried not to look at them as she and Joe crossed the hall over the wall-to-wall spread of grubby coconut matting and knocked on the door of the front room.

  “Oh, come in, do,” Gammer said. “I’ve been waiting half the morning for you.”

  “No, you haven’t,” Joe muttered. Marianne hoped this was too quiet for Gammer to hear, true though it was. She and Joe had set off the moment Aunt Joy brought the message down from the post office.

  Gammer was sitting in her tattered armchair, wearing the layers of black clothing she always wore, with her black cat, Nutcase, on her bony knees and her stick propped up by the chair. She did not seem to have heard Joe. “It’s holidays now, isn’t it?” she said. “How long have you got? Six weeks?”

  “Nearly seven,” Marianne admitted. She looked down into the ruins of Gammer’s big, square, handsome face and wondered if she would look like this when she was this old herself. Everyone said that Gammer had once had thick chestnutty hair, like Marianne had, and Gammer’s eyes were the same wide brown ones that Marianne saw in the mirror when she stared at herself and worried about her looks. The only square thing about Marianne was her unusually broad forehead. This was always a great relief to Marianne.