The Merlin Conspiracy Read online

  Worse, I looked back the way we’d come as I steadied her. It was hard not to. And the line of luminous islands stretched back into the distance that way, too. There was no way to tell which one was Blest. There was no way to tell which direction to go in. If it hadn’t been for the goat, we would have been completely lost out there. The Izzys were making little squeaks about it. Toby’s teeth were chattering. I think we were all shaking. But the goat dashed off as soon as Nick stopped hauling on her chain and leaped to the next, slightly nearer island, and we had to go, too.

  We took the next few islands at a fairly swift pace, leaving a line of them bucking and twirling behind us and trying not to think about falling off. And Nick and the goat suddenly went down inside the next one. Oh, good! I thought. We’ve arrived! In the greatest possible relief, I went hurrying down another tunnel on Grundo’s heels.

  “Hell!” Nick said from in front of me. “This is wrong. Wrong, Helga!” We were in a library, the lot of us, surrounded by the smell of wood and books. I could have cried. The thought of having to come out of here and jump across islands again was almost more than I could take.

  It was a dark, low-beamed place, full of dark books, so I didn’t see straightaway that there were people in it. Then someone beside us said, “Who on earth are you? How did you get here?”

  We all whirled round to find a lamplit table in an alcove just beside us. There were open books and pages of notes spread on the table. Four boys of about Nick’s age were sitting there with pens in their hands and looks of slightly condescending amazement on their faces. Nick has the same superior look; it must go with that age group, I think. These boys were wearing suits of fairly new-looking pale suede, which had blotches of ink and dinner and chemicals down the fronts, quite disgustingly, and the blotches were as new-looking as the suede.

  “Mistake,” Nick said to them. “We’re just leaving.”

  “But why the goat?” asked one of the boys. “Do tell.”

  “You probably need a goat and a pair of twins for a transport spell, where they come from,” another said.

  “Did you say spell or smell?” asked the third.

  The fourth boy, who was rather spotty and looked even more superior than the other three, stared at Nick with his eyes narrowed. “You know,” he said, “it’s that false novice who tried to get near the Prince in Marseilles. I recognize the psychic profile. Fear not,” he said to Nick. “I shan’t give you away as long as you tell us how you got in among security like that.”

  “That was a mistake, too,” Nick said, jangling at Helga’s chain to get her to move. But she was interested in the papers on the table and would not budge. “Get that paper out of her reach,” Nick said. “She eats anything she can get near.”

  “What, books, too?” asked the boy in the outside seat.

  “Feed her Fusek’s Panmagicon, then,” suggested the boy beyond him. “I’ve had a bellyful of it. Give the goat a turn.”

  He was leaning over and wagging a big, leather-covered book in the goat’s face when a door at the end of the room clashed open and a big, fat man with a beard strode in. He was wearing a suede suit, too, but his was dark and shiny with age and extremely tight across the front. Over it, he wore a flowing black robe. You could see at a glance he was a teacher. From the smug look on the spotty boy’s face, I could tell that he had somehow fetched this man.

  “What is going on here?” the teacher demanded, in a big, rumbling voice.

  Nick shot me a desperate look. I looked back in equal desperation. Toby and Grundo seemed stunned. We all stood there, wordlessly.

  To my surprise and gratitude, the Izzys summed up the situation and took a hand. “Oh!” Isadora cried. “I just love tight, fat tummies!”

  “But not with a beard!” trilled Ilsabil. “Get him to shave that beard!”

  Both twins twinkled up to the teacher and flung their arms round him. Ilsabil put up a hand to stroke his beard and cried out, “Yuk! Bristles, my dear!” while Isadora nestled her face against his tight suede-clad stomach, murmuring, “Ooh! Fatness!” I could feel both of them fairly pumping out glamour spells.

  The teacher, who had been starting on some kind of spell of his own, was entirely disconcerted. He stepped back a pace and gave an uncertain laugh. This gave the rest of us the moment we needed to pull ourselves together and start urging the goat to leave. Leave! I thought. Leave here!

  “Come on, Helga!” Nick said. “Romanov!”

  Helga raised her head at that name, kicked up her heels, and galloped back the way she had come. Nick was jerked after her. I grabbed Nick, Grundo and Toby snatched a twin’s arm each, and Grundo twined his hand painfully into my hair. We rushed in a bunch into a dark tunnel. Next second we had popped out on top of this world, where Helga was already jumping to another island.

  “Thanks, you Izzys!” Nick panted as the island dipped and swung.

  Somehow that void was worse the second time. I suppose it was because I knew what I was in for. The bright islands seemed so tiny, and they pitched and joggled so. I tried to ignore them and keep my eyes on the goat’s white rear, unerringly skipping across the gaps ahead of me. Goats are a strange shape behind, almost as if they have coat hangers just above their tails. But it made me dizzy every time Helga’s hooves hung in mid-void in front of me. I tried staring down at the vague landscapes inside the islands instead, and this was worse. The more closely I looked, the more the landscape seemed to pull me in. I found my knees sinking into the glassy surface and the hand I was resting on plunging downward onto a green-brown continent.

  “This is awful!” I said.

  Nick, ahead of me, having to use both hands on the stake and being towed like a water-skier from island to island, ought to have been hating it even more, but he said, “Oh, come on, Roddy. It’s a unique experience.”

  I could hardly believe it when there was a grunt of agreement from Grundo and another from Toby. One of the Izzys said, “We may be the first humans ever to do this.”

  It was a shock to find them all braver than me. After that I tried to stand up and look straight ahead, and I really did not know which was worse—crossing the slippery, dipping islands or the awful moments when I had to jump, into nothing and over nothing, onto the next island—though the very worst moment was when I almost didn’t land on one and nearly took the others with me. The journey seemed to go on for eternity.

  Then it was suddenly over. The goat gave out a goatish yell, kicked up her white heels, and went down headfirst like a duck into an island no different from any of the others. We all galloped down a green-lit tunnel behind her, past a wood, where a huge spotted cat sat staring contemptuously out at us, and then we were there.

  TWO NICK

  I knew we were there when I saw Romanov’s spotted cat. The way she twitched just the end of her tail at us was positively jeering, but I was too relieved to care. I just felt a moment of great regret that I couldn’t have my black panther waiting about outside my home world in the same way, and then we were on Romanov’s island. I’d never been so glad of anything in my life. Those islands were amazing, but they were also scary. Roddy looked awful, ready to faint. She knew better than the kids what a horrible, risky thing we had just done.

  The Izzys kept squawking about why were the sea and the sky in stripes. I bent down and undid the chain from Helga’s neck. “Oh, do shut up,” I said as the goat went trotting away over the hilltop. “This place is made of a lot of different places, that’s all.”

  “You ought to be nice to us,” one of them said. “We saved you from the fat man.”

  I didn’t answer. It had suddenly occurred to me—almost like an inspiration—why that goat had taken us to that library in the Plantagenate world. Maxwell Hyde had been there, that was why! And that goat thought the sun shone out of Maxwell Hyde’s fundament (as my dad would say), so she had gone there to look for him.

  “Answer me!” snapped one Izzy. “Speak to us, Nick!” cooed the other one.

&n
bsp; “Fleas,” Roddy said, loudly and violently.

  The twins gave a gasp of terror. It may have been because of this strange thing Roddy said, but I think it was more because Mini came trampling over the top of the hill just then, with her ears spread and her trunk eagerly stretched out. I’d forgotten how big she was. In fact she seemed huger than I remembered, and gnarlier, and more positive somehow. The Izzys screamed and ran away in two directions. Roddy sat down as if her legs had given way, and Grundo and Toby sort of dodged in behind her. But Mini took no notice. She lumbered straight up to me and stopped, with her legs trampling excitedly and her trunk sort of feeling at me, this way and that, over my face and my front and my sides, like an eager gray snake.

  “Nick!” she said. “It really is you! I’ve missed you so much!”

  I got in under her trunk and between her tusks—they had smart new golden bands round them that looked magical in some way—and hugged as much of her face as I could reach. “I’ve missed you, too, Mini,” I said out loud. “Like being homesick for you.”

  Her trunk curled round my shoulders. It was like a hug. “Me, too!” she told me. “I waited and waited, all these ten years!”

  “Ten years?” I said.

  “It is,” she said. “I counted. Last time I saw you was when I’d eaten all those apples. After you went, Romanov had to use some of his magic to make me better. And that was ten years ago now.”

  I could still hardly believe it. “You really had ten years here? It’s only been about three weeks for me.” This explained why Mini seemed so much bigger. When I first met her, she must have been quite a young elephant, and she was full grown now.

  Behind me, Toby and Grundo were discussing us. “That elephant’s really talking to him,” Toby observed.

  “Yes,” Grundo answered. “She’s got a voice like a plummy old aunt, but I can’t quite hear the words. Can you?”

  “Who are those sober, intellectual boys?” Mini asked me.

  This made me giggle. There were times when Toby and Grundo were like two old men. I turned round and introduced everyone. “This is Mini,” I said, “my favorite elephant. Mini, that’s Toby, this is Grundo, and Roddy’s the girl on the grass. The twins over there are Isadora and Ilsabil, but don’t ask me which is which.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Mini said, politely swinging her trunk.

  This made the Izzys start backward dramatically, but Roddy got up and said, “Pleased to meet you, Mini.” So all the girls could understand Mini. Interesting.

  “Is Romanov here?” I asked.

  “Yes, he’s just got back from somewhere,” Mini said. “He’s in the house.”

  We all went over the hill together and down toward the house. It looked splendidly well kept now, made of pale wood and crisp blue stonework, with wide windows. The goat was outside the smart white front door, in a huddle of hens, bleating fit to burst. As we arrived, Romanov came out, wiping his face on a towel, to see what was the matter. We all stopped, and Roddy murmured, “I see what you meant now.” It was the effect Romanov had. He was at full power. He fair sizzled with it. Otherwise he looked just the same, a lean and energetic dark zigzag, and not at all as if ten years had passed.

  “You again,” he said to me. It was flat and unwelcoming. “I dreamed ten years ago that you came back with a crowd of children.”

  “When you were ill,” I said. “That may have colored your dreams. We need help—”

  The goat was butting at Romanov and stamping and bleating. “Just a moment,” he said. He put both hands to Helga’s head. After a second he moved them along her sides. “Oh, you are in trouble,” he said to her, “but it’s all right now.” He took her by one horn and started to lead her away along the house.

  “What’s the matter with her?” I said.

  “She’s in labor,” Romanov said over his shoulder. “Going to have her kids any moment. You feed the hens for me, will you, while I get her bedded down in the shed. The rest of you go indoors and help yourselves to a drink in the kitchen.”

  The Izzys clasped their hands and looked ecstatic. “Baby goats!” said one. “We’re coming to watch!” said the other.

  Romanov looked back at them out of one eye in his zigzag profile. “No,” he said.

  That was all. But it shut the Izzys up completely. They turned and followed Roddy into the house, as good as gold.

  I went along to the shed, and Mini sauntered companionably beside me. Then she stood watching while I gave the hens their corn. One of her back legs began to rub up the other. I took the hint and made the shed provide elephant food, too. Really, I might never have been away, I felt so much at home here. I could hear Romanov in the next shed, heaving straw about and talking soothingly to Helga. I felt the fizz of him setting some kind of magic on her, too, probably to ease the birth for her. This is the life! I thought. But Romanov was obviously going to be quite a time with Helga, so I went back to the house.

  The kitchen was all airy and wide and up-to-date this time. About the only thing in it that I remembered was the big wooden table. When I got there, Toby and Grundo were busily finding interesting food and drink in the refrigerator, and Roddy was going on at the Izzys.

  “If either of you little beasts says one more thing to upset Grundo,” she was saying, “I shall do something so bad that you won’t know what’s hit you!”

  Grundo didn’t seem upset to me. He was putting armfuls of potted puddings on the table, and the expression on his face was one of greedy joy. Nor did the Izzys look to be upsetting him. They were seizing puddings as they arrived and stacking them in two heaps, one for the kind they knew they liked, and the other for the kind they’d never seen before but hoped to get to like shortly. Behaving like normal girls for once, I thought. But that was Roddy for you. She’d just had a bad experience, and her reaction to any sort of upset was to fuss about Grundo.

  “And don’t eat all the good kinds,” Roddy scolded. “Grundo’s entitled to eat a sweet he enjoys, too. And Toby,” she added as an afterthought.

  “Roddy,” I said, “aren’t you entitled to something you like yourself? Or is it all for Grundo?”

  A mistake. Her face flooded pink-red, her eyes flashed like dark stars, and she whirled round on me. I’d have been in trouble then if Romanov hadn’t come quietly up behind me. “One moment,” he said. “Something’s wrong here.”

  We all jumped, because we hadn’t heard him come in, and stared nervously at him. He looked, very intently and keenly, from one to another of us. Toby said, scared but brave, “Is the goat all right?”

  “Yes,” Romanov said. “She wants to be left to do it by herself.” And he continued looking from face to face—except that by this time he was darting his look between Roddy and Grundo. Roddy seemed plain puzzled. But Grundo, the fourth or fifth time that look stabbed at him, shifted from foot to foot and began to color up, in blotches between his freckles, until he almost seemed as if he had measles. “Are you going to tell us what you’re doing or shall I?” Romanov asked him, in a cutting, conversational way.

  Grundo’s lips seemed to stick together for a moment. He worked them loose and said in a gluey sort of grunt, “I—I will.”

  “Go on, then,” Romanov said, flat and unfriendly.

  “I—I—” Grundo went.

  “He’s not doing anything,” Roddy interrupted. “Don’t pick on him.”

  Grundo shot her a wretched look. “Yes, I am,” he admitted. “I’ve done it ever since I was three years old. I—I put a glamour on you to make you—you love me and—and look after me above everyone else.”

  “But that was just because you were little and lonely then,” Roddy protested quickly.

  Grundo shook his head. “Not now. I do it all the time now, because—well, it’s easier. You can read for me and help me with lessons and do magic for me that isn’t back to front. And then I don’t have to try.”

  “Laziness, in fact,” Romanov said flatly.

  Grundo nodded, looking so
dismal that I swear even his nose drooped. “I’d better take it off now, hadn’t I?” he grunted. Groaned, really.

  “Yes,” said Romanov. “If it’s any comfort to you, I had back-to-front problems, too, as a boy. It only takes a month or so of real effort to learn to work with it. After that you find you can do things rather better than most other people because they haven’t had to try and you have.”

  Roddy by this time was so pale that she was sort of dough-colored. “No!” she more or less screamed. “This isn’t true! You’re taking away the foundation of my life!”

  Romanov shrugged. Grundo stuck his bottom lip out and said, “It is true. Sorry.”

  At this Roddy shouted out a great yell of despair and went rushing out of the kitchen and out of the house. As the front door banged, Romanov gave me a curt nod and jerked his head at the door, meaning go after her. I stared at him for a second. It seemed to me that when someone’s just discovered they’ve been living a lie, the last thing they want is me on top of it. But Romanov gave me an even fiercer jerk of the head, and I went.

  Roddy was standing with her back to me, halfway up the slope to the garden. Mini was beyond her, beside the garden wall, with her trunk drifting wistfully toward the fruit trees inside. She was doing her embarrassed leg rubbing. “This girl seems awfully unhappy,” she said to me.

  “She is,” I said.

  Roddy spun round and saw me. “Go away!”

  “In a bit,” I said. “Tell me about it first.”

  “I can’t!” Roddy stood with her face up. Her hands were clenched, and her eyes were shut and oozing tears. Then she told me anyway. She obviously just had to tell someone. “Most of the time I’ve been alive,” she said, “it’s been a—an established fact that I cared for Grundo and looked after him … and defended him from his awful mother and sister as well. That made me better than Sybil and Alicia, you see. I’ve always thought of myself as a nice, loving, kind person. But now it turns out that Grundo was making me care for him, this means I’m not like that at all. I don’t know what I’m like. I could be as vile and selfish as everyone else at Court for all I know! Don’t you see? It’s as if the world I thought I knew has suddenly turned out to be make-believe. Nothing seems to be valuable anymore!”