Anyway, as we went on into the vegetable plot, where wire runs held about a hundred rabbits, I told Will how I hoped to be a vet and he told me that he had almost trained as one too. He said they lived off the land here as far as possible. Then Nick and I both told him about the nightmare way we had followed Rupert here.
“I thought you both looked pretty upset,” Will said. “Transit from world to world can be unsettling, even if you know what you’re doing. And Rupert wouldn’t have been able to hear you shouting – or see you, unless he was deliberately looking. He was a universe ahead of you the whole time, you see.”
“You mean,” Nick said challengingly, “that there really are other worlds?”
“Infinite numbers,” Will said cheerfully. “This may look like England here, but it isn’t. It’s a country called Albion, on a world – well, they call it The World, the people who live here, but we Magids call it Thule.”
“What,” I said, “are Magids?”
“So Rupert hasn’t mentioned it to you?” Will asked, unhitching a gate to a hillside paddock. “I’m surprised. Or perhaps not. Earth is far enough Naywards that you have to be fairly cautious who you tell. The ones who don’t believe you try to lock you up, and the ones who do try to exploit you financially. But I should have thought he could have told you two. My brother’s a bit of a stickler sometimes.”
The paddock contained a family of donkeys and several horses. We held the rest of the conversation walking in among big grey and brown bodies, pulling stiff ears, smacking necks or stroking large pulpy noses, and pausing from time to time to comfort Petra, who was convinced she was far more interesting than a mere horse. At least, I did all this. Nick found the horses too big and the donkeys highly unpredictable and contented himself with petting Petra.
“Right, Magids,” said Will. “I am a Magid, Rupert is a Magid and so is our brother Simon. It’s actually fairly unusual, having in three in the same family like this, but we all had the correct abilities and Stan, our sponsor, said he wasn’t going to let it worry him when three vacancies came up, one after the other. There are always a fixed number of Magids, you see.”
“How many?” Nick wanted to know.
“Good question,” Will said, digging in the pockets of his old green coat for sugar. “Old beliefs put the number at thirty-six or thirty-eight, but that was before it was confirmed that the number of worlds really is infinite. We think there may be as many Magids as there are worlds. But I only know forty or so. But then Rupert probably knows a slightly different forty. Simon will know another very different forty. That’s because he’s in a world a good long way off from here.”
“So there’s one of you on every different world, is there?” I asked, wondering whether to point out that the fawn-coloured donkey was lame.
“No, she’s not lame, she’s just faking it for sugar, aren’t you, Milesia?” Will said. He and the fawn donkey went forehead to forehead, possibly thrashing the matter out telepathically. It seems certain to me that one Magid ability at least is a measure of telepathy. But Will was talking to us at the same time. “No,” he said. “We live where we like, as long as we can conveniently get to the places where we’re needed. Some worlds have ten Magids. Earth does, because it’s comfortable. Thule only has me. Then there’s the Koryfonic Empire. That has none – everyone hates the place, all eleven worlds of it.”
“But what do you do exactly?” Nick said.
“Not easy to put into words,” Will said, posting a second lump of sugar into Milesia. “No, that’s your lot, girl. Basically we’re people who can control the currents that run through the worlds. Time currents, space currents. We can push history the way it needs to go, or people, or things, if necessary, and you can see that means we have to have pretty strict rules to—”
“Are you talking about politics?” Nick said, suspicious and sceptical. “Or some kind of magic?”
“Both,” Will said, after thinking about it. “But I don’t think any of us are politicians. It’s too hard to stay honest. And we have to be honest. No, we mostly work with magic. There are so many different kinds of magic, though, that half the time I’m not sure what I’m using to work with. It’s quite unusual for one of us to stand up and summon a thunderstorm, you know. We’d only do that if there was nothing else we could do. Mostly we do quiet things. You’d probably find it quite disappointing if you saw me at it.”
“We saw one of you go from world to world,” Nick said. “That was fairly striking.”
“And it was meant to be secret,” I said. “Why? And who controls you, or do you just do things?”
“Earth is what we call Naywards,” Will explained, “which means sceptical – like Nick here – and averse to being pushed about, and very antipathetic to anything that can be called magic. Magids do tend to be secretive on Earth, though a lot of us come from Earth, because you have to be damn strong to work magic there. If we weren’t secret there, we’d disable half the things we try to do. As to what we do, well, we have a fairly wide brief to keep things running on the right lines, and we work largely on our own initiative, but we are directed. Each group of worlds has a Senior Magid to keep the rest of us in order, and they hand down what are called Intentions. From Up There.” He pointed to the pale blue Spring sky above us, and then began to trudge back to the paddock gate, avoiding Nick’s disbelieving stare – and maybe mine too.
I kept up with Will and so did the horses, hoping for sugar again. “Look,” I said, squeezing between the bay and the grey, “do you seriously mean that? Is what they do Up There a good thing? My dad has cancer. From out of the blue. From up there. If they do exist, they either don’t care, or they’re pretty vile.”
Will stopped by the gate, waiting for Nick to nerve himself up to come through the horses after us. “Cancer’s on our level,” he said, “the human or animal level. Part of the conditions of existence, like you tearing your nice jacket or stepping on a mouse. Even they can’t do much about that sort of thing, though you can ask, and they will try. They mostly deal in larger units. And their aims are right and good in the long term. Promise.”
“How do you know?” I demanded.
“They explain it to you when you get sponsored as a Magid,” Will said, “and again from time to time. It’s part of the wisdom you take on when you take the job. You swear to work for the good of the worlds, and you get told things in return.”
“What things?” Nick asked. He had come sidling up along the hedge.
Will laughed at that. “What we call the deep secrets,” he said.
“So you can’t tell us?” I said. I felt scornful and disappointed.
“Not,” said Will, “in so many words. But some of them are things you more or less know anyway. If I were to tell you some, you might laugh – I know I did – because a lot of the secrets are half there in well-known or childish things, like nursery rhymes or fairy stories. I kid you not! One of our jobs is to put those things around and make sure they’re well enough known for people to put them together in the right way when the time comes. Or again,” he said, swinging the gate open, “some of the secrets are only in parts. These are the dangerous secrets. I’ve got the memorised parts of at least seventy of them. If another Magid has need of my piece of a secret, he or she can come and ask me, and if the need is real enough, then I put my part together with his or hers. It acts as a check. We only do that in an emergency.”
“Is that why your brother’s here? To ask you a piece of a secret?” I asked.
Will laughed again. “More likely he needs a favour. I’ll find out after the girls have had their go at him. Let’s go in. I want my tea.”
I suppose Rupert did get to speak to Will at some time during that crowded and noisy meal. I wouldn’t know. I was busy helping Carina put at least one egg in front of each child and then holding six conversations at once while I shared out bread and tomatoes. My fingernails caused much comment. Lion-headed Venetia wanted to know why they were so long. Smooth-haired
Vanessa demanded to be told why they grew so yellow. Fair-head Vanda speculated that I must hurt myself when I scratched, and her carrot-haired twin Viola wondered why her own nails always broke before they were anything like as long as mine. (Yes, they were all V. Venables. Nice idea now, but there’ll be problems when they’re teenagers and getting letters from boys.) Little-lionhead Valentina was the one who kept shrilling to be told what use my nails were.
“Endlessly useful,” I told her. “I’ll show you.” And I caused much amazement by nipping the top off her egg by digging my nails through its shell. Then of course I had to do the same for five more eggs. In addition, I acquired a kitten on each knee every time I sat down. My good jeans are all pecked and pulled on the thighs now.
We all sat round a crowded table in a room with a low ceiling and sunset light coming in through a window lined with geraniums in pots. I enjoyed it, but poor Nick was not happy. “Free-range livestock,” he said to me feelingly. “Free-range cats, free-range kids! I wish I was in a cage.” Well, I know how I felt in my aunt’s house, so I shouldn’t blame him.
And just so that I wouldn’t think Carina and Will were living in any sort of a super-human idyll, they contrived to have a short loud spat halfway through tea. I don’t know how it started, but Carina suddenly screamed, “Oh don’t be so damned superior, Will! Stop looking so smug! Rupert’s quite right!”
To which Will roared, “Bloody hell, Carey! He’s my brother!”
I could see Rupert at the far end of the table trying to look as if this had nothing to do with him. Nick looked alarmed. His parents never shout. But the six kids went on chatting at the tops of their voices. I could see they were quite used to it. Venetia grinned at me and yelled in my ear, “You should see them when they throw eggs! It’s really funny. We get under the table then.”
The row passed. Rupert eventually stood up and said we’d got to get back to the hotel. I made some comment that it would be polite to help with the washing-up. Rupert gave me one of his stony glares. So did Nick. Dishwashers were invented for people like Nick, but I could see Carina and Will didn’t have one. Will said, in his most expansive, benevolent way, that the dishes were his chore – and then contrived to look gentle and tragic so that I knew he was being saintly.
Will, and Carina too, were both covering up for the way Rupert was still so obviously furious with us. Carina said she’d really enjoyed meeting us. So we were all three able to go up the garden, where the various fowls were all in or under bushes, roosting for the night, and out through the gate, seeming as if we’d taken part in a normal social visit. But nothing really disguised the fact that Rupert was utterly pissed off with the pair of us.
Out in the road the last of the daylight seemed to reflect up from the white surface. Rupert glowered at us in the gloaming. He said, in his clipped, stone-chipping, furious voice, “Don’t expect to be able to babble about this jaunt to everyone at the convention.”
“We wouldn’t dream of it!” I said.
He turned his white-reflecting spectacles on me. It was worse than seeing his eyes. “You’re right,” he said. “You won’t be able even to dream of it. Now, in order to make sure you get back less stupidly dangerously than you came, you’d better hang on to each other and to me.” He held out his hand to Nick. Somehow he made it plain that he could bear to touch Nick – just about – but not me.
We meekly took hold. I think we both felt he was justified. After all, we had intruded on his private, family life, even if we hadn’t meant to. He towed us up the bank opposite – not in exactly the same place as we arrived: I saw a luminous-looking clump of primroses that I had not seen when we came – and out on to the hillside with the fuzzy places. It was incredibly hard work, climbing the grassy banks in between the fuzz. Nick and I were both puffing and scrambling and using my free hand to help us up, though Rupert marched on ahead, dragging the pair of us as if there was nothing to it. And it was somehow nothing like as alarming as when we came. The sliding misty spaces between bank and bank were hardly there: we could step over easily from one slope to the next. I couldn’t help seeing that there was something Nick and I had not done quite right on the way out, and I tried as I clambered to work out what Rupert was doing that we hadn’t. I think I see.
It wasn’t straight climbing, just as it wasn’t straight rushing downhill when we came. We had been doing something, Nick and I, that moved us from world to world, and though I couldn’t possibly describe it, I would know how to do it again. It’s like the way you never forget how to whistle or ride a bicycle once you learn how it should feel. And I’m afraid I’m determined to do it again. Nick hasn’t said anything to me, but I know he’s just as determined, in spite of what Rupert said. It’s like being hooked.
Quite soon and quite suddenly, we came off the hillside into the corridor of dim mirrors. I nearly stopped as a realisation struck me. “Oh!” I said. “The Thornlady wasn’t here this time. What a relief!”
“Don’t stop! Don’t let go!” Rupert snapped. “You’re still somewhere quite different. At the very least, you’d be stranded for life. You don’t seem to realise what a stupid, dangerous thing you went and did!”
“But we got here,” Nick panted. He hates being told off.
“Because you were following me,” Rupert retorted. “It was rank idiocy. Don’t dare do it again!”
“Why was it idiocy?” Nick said.
“Because you could have thrown several worlds out of kilter, as well as getting yourselves killed,” Rupert snapped. “If you’d happened to have stopped between world and world, you would have fallen in two halves. If you’d got the transit wrong, you could have weakened the wall between universes. All sorts of things. And I’m not telling you any more. Just take my word.”
“Mysteries. Secrets,” Nick muttered disgustedly.
We suddenly popped into the hotel corridor, as he muttered it. Rupert let go of him and rounded on him. “Be thankful there are mysteries!” he said. “They keep you safe in your silly ignorant little life!”
That got me mad. I could feel my finger pushing at my glasses. I said, “Oh yes? And who keeps everyone ignorant? Rupert Venables, the secret ruler of the world!”
I think it was the unforgivable thing to say – well, I knew it might be, or I wouldn’t have said it. Rupert sort of drew himself up. He didn’t even pin me with his lens. He just stood. Icily. “I don’t know exactly what Will said to you,” he said, “but you couldn’t have misunderstood it more!” Then he swung round and went stalking away down the corridor.
The heavy, scented indoors air of the hotel seemed to close round me as if it was trying to drown me. I stared after his angrily marching back, wishing I hadn’t said that. I wish it even more now.
Heigh-ho. I think the only thing I really mind about is my little fat dad having cancer. I don’t even mind about Robbie any more. I just wish I wasn’t me. That’s all.
Rupert Venables, for the
Iforion archive
Looking back on things, I see I was more concerned about what those two had managed to do, almost unaided and wholly untaught, than I was about the failure of my attempt to find a new Magid. Even when I think about it now, months later, my scalp rises. They broke all the rules for mobile workings, they used no safeguards, they had no idea what they were doing, they simply went. And to make it worse, I had a strong feeling, both coming and going, that somebody had set traps out round the power-node for them. But they seem simply to have avoided those.
I hoped I had said enough, savagely enough, to stop them trying again. But in my heart of hearts, I suspected I had overdone it. The trouble with pretending outrage and anger is that your body responds to the gestures you make and your fake emotions start becoming real. I was quite angry even before we waded in among Will’s chickens. When, during tea, Will told me – looking his smuggest – that he had seen no reason not to tell them all about Magids, I almost hit the beams in his ceiling. Thule is not Earth. I was glad Carina agreed w
ith me. I was so furious with Will that I wished I had not already arranged for him to take over from me at the hotel while I went to see Knarros. I would have asked someone else. Gladly.
What I should have done is to have sat carefully down and let my precognition work on why I was so furious and alarmed. But I was quivering all over and angry with Will too, and I confused those feelings with my exasperation about Fisk and Thurless. Possibly I confused Stan too. But his precognition was never as acute as mine.
I didn’t get to talk to Stan, anyway, until the Saturday morning. Every time I looked out into the staff car park, there seemed to be at least four of the hotel employees out there, wandering from car to car. They appeared to be looking for something. Since I had no wish to draw attention to my illegally parked car, I went indoors again. But Saturday morning, when I tried once more, there must have been a good twenty people out there, including the hotel manager.
I heard him say, “No, I don’t know where the devil it’s coming from either, but I know it’s Scarlatti.”
Oops! I thought and dived indoors again.
It took me twenty minutes, sitting unobtrusively on an old tubular chair outside the kitchens, to persuade them to stop their search for the source of the music and go back to work. They were convinced the staff car park was haunted. And, being natives of Naywards old Earth, they were not going to leave until they had found a rational explanation instead. I put the explanation before them. I dandled it. I waved it enticingly. And they still rightly suspected a ghost.
Finally I got to work on the manager himself and persuaded him to give up in disgust and send the rest about their business. One of the chefs went in past me, saying, “Well, all I can say is that if it is a car radio, why is it always the same music?”
The waiter with him agreed. “Thirty-six hours, it’s been going. Any car would have a flat battery by this time.”