He frowned at this, but did not answer.
It was mid-afternoon before we ran into danger. The first thing my master knew about it was my throwing myself upon him and bundling us into a shallow ditch beside the road. I pressed him low against the earth, a little harder than necessary.
He had a mouthful of mud. “Whop you doing?”
“Keep your voice down. A patrol’s flying up ahead. North-south.”
I indicated a gap in the hedge. A small flock of starlings could be seen drifting far off across the clouds.
He spat his mouth empty. “I can’t make them out.”
“On planes five onward they’re foliots.7 Trust me. We have to go carefully from now on.”
The starlings vanished to the south. Cautiously, I got to my feet and scanned the horizon. A little way ahead a straggling band of trees marked the beginning of an area of woodland. “We’d better get off the road,” I said. “It’s too exposed here. After nightfall we can get closer to the house.” With infinite caution, we squeezed through a gap in the hedge and, after rounding the perimeter of the field beyond, gained the relative safety of the trees. Nothing threatened on any plane.
The wood was negotiated without incident; soon afterward, we crouched on its far fringes, surveying the land ahead. Before us, the ground fell away slightly, and we had a clear view over the autumn fields, heavily plowed and purple-brown. About a mile distant, the fields ran themselves out against an old brick boundary wall, much weathered and tumbledown. This, and a low, dark bunching of pine trees behind it, marked the edge of the Heddleham estate. A red dome was visible (on the fifth plane) soaring up from the pines. As I watched, it disappeared; a moment later another, bluish, dome materialized on the sixth plane, somewhat farther off.
Hunched within the trees was the suggestion of a tall arch—perhaps the official entrance to the manor’s grounds. From this arch a road extended, straight as a javelin thrust between the fields, until it reached a crossroads next to a clump of oak trees, half a mile from where we stood. The lane that we had recently been following also terminated at this crossroads. Two other routes led away from it elsewhere.
The sun had not quite disappeared behind the trees and the boy squinted against its glare. “Is that a sentry?” He pointed to a distant stump halfway to the crossroads. Something unclear rested upon it: perhaps a motionless, black figure.
“Yes,” I said. “Another’s just materialized at the edge of that triangular field.”
“Oh! The first one’s gone.”
“I told you—they’re randomly materializing. We can’t predict where they’ll appear. Do you see that dome?”
“No.”
“Your lenses are worse than useless.”
The boy cursed. “What do you expect? I don’t have your sight, demon. Where is it?”
“Coarse language will get you nowhere. I’m not telling.”
“Don’t be ridiculous! I need to know.”
“This demon’s not saying.”
“Where is it?”
“Careful where you stamp your feet. You’ve trodden in something.”
“Just tell me!”
“I’ve been meaning to mention this for some time. I don’t like being called a demon. Got that?”
He took a deep breath. “Fine.”
“Just so you know.”
“All right.”
“I’m a djinni.”
“Yes, all right. Where’s the dome?”
“It’s in the wood. On the sixth plane now, but it’ll shift position soon.”
“They’ve made it difficult for us.”
“Yes. That’s what defenses do.”
His face was gray with weariness, but still set and determined. “Well, the objective’s clear. The gateway is bound to mark the official entrance to the estate—the only hole in the protective domes. That’s where they’ll check people’s identities and passes. If we can get beyond it, we’ll have got inside.”
“Ready to be trussed up and killed,” I said. “Hurrah.”
“The question,” he continued, “is how we get in….”
He sat for a long time, shading his eyes with his hand, watching as the sun sank behind the trees and the fields were swathed in cold green shadow. At irregular intervals, sentries came and went without trace (we were too far away to smell the sulfur).
A distant sound drew our attention back to the roads. Along the one that led to the horizon, something that from a mile away looked like a black matchbox came roaring: a magician’s car, speeding between the hedges, honking its horn imperiously at every corner. It reached the crossroads, slowed to a halt and—safely assured that nothing was coming—turned right along the road to Heddleham. As it neared the gateway, two of the sentries bounded toward it at great speed across the darkened fields, robes fluttering behind them like tattered rags. Once they reached the hedges bordering the road they went no further, but kept pace beside the car, which presently drew close to the gateway in the trees. The shadows here were very thick, and it was hard to glimpse what happened. The car pulled up in front of the gate. Something approached it. The sentries hung back at the lip of the trees. Presently, the car proceeded on its way, through the arch and out of sight. Its drone faded on the evening air. The sentries flitted back into the fields.
The boy sat back and stretched his arms. “Well,” he said, “that tells us what we need to do.”
35
The crossroads was the place for the ambush. Any vehicles approaching it had to slow down for fear of accident, and it was concealed from the distant Heddleham gateway by a thick clump of oaks and laurel. This also promised good cover for lurking.
Accordingly, we made our way there that night. The boy crawled along the base of the hedges beside the road. I flitted in front of him in the guise of a bat.
No sentries materialized beside us. No watchers flew overhead. The boy reached the crossroads and burrowed into the undergrowth below the biggest oak tree. I hung from a bough, keeping watch.
My master slept, or tried to. I observed the rhythms of the night: the fleeting movements of owl and rodent, the scruffles of foraging hedgehogs, the prowling of the restive djinn. In the hours before dawn, the cloud cover drifted away and the stars shone down. I wondered whether Lovelace was reading their import from the roof of the hall, and what they told him. The night grew chill. Frost sparkled across the fields.
All at once, it struck me that my master would be suffering greatly from the cold.
A pleasant hour passed. Then another thought struck me. He might actually freeze to death in his hiding place. That would be no good: I’d never escape the tin. Reluctantly, I spiraled down into the bushes and went in search of him.
To my grudging relief, he was still alive, if somewhat blue in the face. He was huddled in his coat under a pile of leaves, which rustled perpetually with his shivering.
“Want some heat?” I whispered.
His head moved a little. It was hard to tell whether it was a shiver or a shake.
“No?”
“No.”
“Why?”
His jaw was clamped so tight it could barely unlock. “It might draw them to us.”
“Sure it isn’t pride? Not wanting help from a nasty demon? You’d better be careful with all this frost about—bits might drop off. I’ve seen it happen."1
“L-leave me.”
“Suit yourself.” I returned to my tree. Some while later, as the eastern sky began to lighten, I heard him sneeze, but otherwise he remained stubbornly silent, locked into his self-appointed discomfort.
With the arrival of dawn, hanging about as a bat became a less convincing occupation. I took myself off under the bushes and changed into a field mouse. The boy was where I had left him, stiff as a board and rather dribbly about the nose. I perched on a twig nearby.
“How about a handkerchief, O my master?” I said.
With some difficulty, he raised an arm and wiped his nose on his sleeve. He sniffe
d. “Has anything happened yet?”
“Still a bit under your left nostril. Otherwise clean.”
“I meant on the road.”
“No. Too early. If you’ve got any food left, you should eat it now. We need to be all set when the first car comes by.”
As it transpired, we needn’t have hurried. All four roads remained still and silent. The boy ate the last of his food, then crouched in the soaking grass under a bush, watching one of the lanes. He appeared to have caught a slight chill, and shivered uncontrollably inside his coat. I scurried back and forth, keeping an eye out for trouble, but finally returned to his side.
“Remember,” I said, “the car mustn’t be seen to stop more than a few seconds, or one of the sentries might smell a rat. We’ve got to get on board as soon as it reaches the crossroads.You’ll have to move fast.”
“I’ll be ready.”
“I mean really fast.”
“I’ll be ready, I said.”
“Yes, well. I’ve seen slugs cover ground more quickly than you. And you’ve made yourself ill by refusing my help last night.”
“I’m not ill.”
“Sorry, didn’t catch that. Your teeth were chattering too loudly.”
“I’ll be fine. Now leave me alone.”
“This cold of yours could let us down big time if we get in the house. Lovelace might follow the trail of sn—Listen!”
“What?”
“A car! Coming from behind us. Perfect. It’ll slow right here. Wait for my order.”
I scampered through the long grasses to the other side of the copse and waited behind a large stone on the dirt bank above the road. The noise of the oncoming vehicle grew loud. I scanned the sky—no watchers could be seen, and the trees hid the road from the direction of the house. I readied myself to spring….
Then hunched down behind the stone. No good. A black and shiny limousine: a magician’s car. Too risky to try. It flashed past in a welter of dust and pebbles; all skirling brakes and shining bonnet. I caught a glimpse of its occupant: a man I did not know, broad-lipped, pasty, with slicked-back hair. There was no sign of an imp or other guardian, but that meant nothing. There was no point in ambushing a magician.
I returned to the boy, still motionless under the bush. “No go,” I said. “Magician.”
“I’ve got eyes.” He sniffed messily. “I know him, too. That’s Lime, one of Lovelace’s cronies. Don’t know why he’s in on the plot; he’s not very powerful. I once stung him with some mites. He swelled up like a balloon.”
“Did you?” I confess I was impressed. “What happened?”
He shrugged. “They beat me. Is that someone coming?”
A bicycle had appeared around the bend in front of us. Upon it was a short, fat man, his legs whirring round like helicopter blades. Above the bicycle’s front wheel was an enormous basket, covered with a weighted white cloth. “Butcher,” I said.
The boy shrugged. “Maybe. Do we get him?”
“Could you wear his clothes?”
“No.”
“Then we let him pass.There’ll be other options.”
Red-faced and perspiring freely, the cyclist arrived at the crossroads, skidded to a halt, wiped his brow and proceeded on toward the Hall. We watched him go, the boy’s eyes mainly on the basket.
“We should have taken him out,” he said, wistfully. “I’m starving.”
Time passed and the bicycling butcher returned. He whistled as he pedaled, making light of his journey. His basket was now empty, but no doubt his wallet had been nicely filled. Beyond the hedge, one of the sentries trailed in his wake with great loping bounds, its body and tattered robes almost translucent in the sunlight.
The butcher freewheeled into the distance. The boy suppressed a sneeze. The sentry drifted away. I scuttled up a thorn stem that ran through the bush and peered out at the top. The skies were clear; the winter sun bathed the fields with unseasonal warmth. The roads were empty.
Twice more during the next hour, vehicles approached the crossroads. The first was a florist’s van, driven by a slatternly woman smoking a cigarette. I was about to pounce on her, when out of the corner of my mouse’s eye I spied a trio of blackbird sentries sailing lazily over the copse at low altitude. Their beady eyes flicked hither and thither. No chance: they would have seen everything. I hid and let the woman drive on her way.
The blackbirds flew off, but the next passerby served me no better: a magician’s convertible with the top down, this time coming from the direction of the Hall. The driver’s face was mostly obscured under a cap and a pair of driving goggles: I only caught a flash of reddish beard, short and clipped, as he shot by.
“Who’s that?” I asked. “Another accomplice?”
“Never seen him before. Maybe he was the one who drove in last night.”
“He’s not sticking around, whoever he is.”
The boy’s frustration was getting to him. He beat a fist against the grass. “If we don’t get in soon, all the other guests will start arriving. We need time in there to find out what’s going on. Ahh! If I only had more power!”
“The eternal cry of all magicians,” I said wearily. “Have patience.”
He looked up at me savagely. “You need time to have patience,” he snarled. “We have no time.”
But in fact it was only twenty minutes later that we got our chance.
Once again the sound of a car; once again I crossed to the other side of the copse and took a look from the top of the bank. As soon as I did so, I knew the time had come. It was a dark–green grocer’s van, tall and squared, with smart black mudguards and a newly washed look. On its side, in proud black lettering, were painted the words SQUALLS AND SON, GROCERS OF CROYDON, TASTY COMESTIBLES FOR SOCIETY—and to my great delight, it appeared as if Squalls and Son themselves were sitting in the cab. An elderly man with a bald head was at the wheel. At his side sat a chipper youth wearing a green cap. Both looked eager and well spruced up for their big day; the old man’s head seemed to have been buffed until it shone.
The field mouse flexed its muscles behind its ambush stone.
The van drew closer, its engine rattling and growling under the bonnet. I checked the skies—no blackbirds or other dangers. All clear.
The van drew abreast of the copse, out of sight of the distant Heddleham gateway.
Both Squalls and Son had wound down their windows to catch the pleasant air. Son was humming a happy tune.
Midway past the copse, Son caught a slight rustling noise from outside the cab. He glanced to his right.
And saw a field mouse whistling through the air in a karate attack position, claws out, hind legs foremost—right at him.
The mouse plopped straight through the open window. Neither Squalls nor Son had time to react. There was a whirl of inexplicable movements from within the cab; it rocked violently to and fro. The van swerved gently and ran up against the dirt bank at the side of the road, where its wheel skidded and slipped. The engine petered and cut out.
A moment’s silence. The passenger door opened. A man who looked very like Squalls hopped out, reached back in and drew out the unconscious bodies of Squalls and Son. Son had lost the majority of his clothes.
It was the matter of a moment to drag the pair across the road, up the bank and into the depths of the copse. I hid them there under a bramble thicket and returned to the van.2
This was the worst bit for me. Djinn and vehicles just don’t mix; it’s an alien sensation to be trapped in a tin shroud, surrounded by the smells of petrol, oil, and artificial leather, by the stench of people and their creations. It reminds you how weak and shoddy it must feel to be a human, requiring such decrepit devices to travel far.
Besides, I didn’t really know how to drive.3
Nevertheless, I got the engine started again and managed to reverse away from the bank into the middle of the road. Then onward to the crossroads. All this had taken scarcely a minute, but I admit I was anxious: a sharp-eyed sentry
might well wonder why the van was taking so long to clear the trees. At the crossroads I slowed, took a hasty look around, and leaned toward the passenger window.
“Quick! Get in!”
A nearby bush rustled frantically, there was a wrenching at the cab door and the boy was inside, breathing like a bull elephant. The door slammed shut; an instant later, we were on our way, turning right along the Heddleham road.
“It’s you, is it?” he panted, staring at me.
“Of course. Now get changed, quick as you can. The sentries will be on us in moments.”
He scrabbled around on the seat, ripping off his coat and reaching for Son’s discarded shirt, green jacket, and trousers. How smart this outfit had been five minutes before; now it was all crumpled.
“Hurry up! They’re coming.”
Across the fields from both sides, the sentries approached, hopping and bounding, black rags flapping. The boy pawed at his shirt.
“The buttons are so tight! I can’t undo them!”
“Pull it over your head!”
The sentry to my left was approaching fastest. I could see its eyes—two black ovals with pinpricks of light at their cores. I tried to accelerate, pressed the wrong pedal; the van shuddered and nearly stopped. The boy’s head was halfway through the shirt collar at the time. He fell forward against the dashboard.
“Ow! You did that on purpose!”
I pressed the correct pedal. We speeded up once more. “Get that jacket on, or we’re done. And the cap.”
“What about the trousers?”
“Forget them. No time.”
The boy had the jacket on and was just jamming the cap down on his tousled head when the two sentries drew along-side. They remained on the other side of the hedges, surveying us with their shining eyes.
“Remember—we shouldn’t be able to see them,” I said. “Keep looking straight ahead.”
“I am.” A thought struck him. “Won’t they realize what you are?”
“They’re not powerful enough.” I devoutly hoped that this was true. I thought they were ghuls,4 but you can never be sure these days.5
For a time, we drove along the road toward the bank of trees. Both of us looked straight ahead. The sentries kept pace beside the van.