Part 31 (1/2)

Christopher was interested, in spite of wis.h.i.+ng the maid would go. ”You know Mordecai Roberts then?”

”Know him!” said the maid. ”When he was working at the Castle, I reckon we were all a bit sweet on him.” Here Christopher noticed that his supper tray was beginning to jiggle. He slammed his hand down on it. ”You must admit,” the maid said, luckily not looking at the tray, ”Mr. Roberts is that good-looking-and so pleasant with it. I'll name no names, but there were quite a few girls who went out of their way to b.u.mp into Mr. Roberts in corridors. Silly things! Everyone knew he only had eyes for Miss Rosalie.” ”Miss Rosalie!” Christopher exclaimed, more interested than ever, and he held the tray down with all his strength. The G.o.ddess clearly thought she had got something wrong and was summoning it mightily.

”Oh yes. It was Mr. Roberts taught Miss Rosalie to play cricket,” said the maid. ”But somehow they never could agree. It was said that it was because of her that Mr. Roberts got himself sent off on that job in London. She did him a bad turn, did Miss Rosalie.” Then, to Christopher's relief, she added, ”But I ought to get along and let you eat your supper before it's cold.”

”Yes,” Christopher said thankfully, leaning on the tray for all he was worth and desperately trying not to seem rude at the same time. ”Er-if you do get to see Tac-Mr. Roberts, give him my regards. I met him in London once.”

”Will do,” the maid said cheerfully and left at last. Christopher's arms were weak by then. The tray exploded out from under his hands and vanished. A good deal of the table vanished with it. Christopher pelted back to the tower.

”You silly fool!” he began as he opened the door.

The G.o.ddess just pointed to two-thirds of the schoolroom table perched on a workbench. Both of them screamed with laughter.

This was wonderfully jolly, Christopher thought, when he had recovered enough to share his supper with the G.o.ddess and Throgmorten. It was thoroughly companionable knowing a person who had the same sort of magic. He had a feeling that this was the real reason why he had kept visiting the Temple of Asheth. All the same, now that the maid had put Tacroy into his head again, Christopher could not get him out of it. While he talked and laughed with the G.o.ddess, he could actually feel Tacroy, downstairs somewhere, at the other end of the Castle, and the spells which held him, which were obviously uncomfortable. He could feel that Tacroy had no hope at all.

”Would you help me do something?” he asked the G.o.ddess. ”I know I didn't help you-”

”But you did!” said the G.o.ddess. ”You're helping me now, without even grumbling about the nuisance.”

”There's a friend of mine who's a prisoner downstairs,” Christopher said. ”I think it's going to take two of us to break the spells and get him away safely.”

”Of course,” said the G.o.ddess. She said it so readily that Christopher realized he would have to tell her why Tacroy was there. If he let her help without telling her what she was in for, he would be as bad as Uncle Ralph.

”Wait,” he said. ”I'm as bad as he is.” And he told her about the Wraith and Uncle Ralph's experiments and even about the mermaids-all of it.

”Gos.h.!.+” said the G.o.ddess. It was a word she must have picked up from her Millie books. ”You are in a mess! Did Throgmorten really scratch your uncle? Good cat!”

She was all for going to rescue Tacroy at once. Christopher had to hang on to the back of the Norfolk jacket to stop her. ”No, listen!” he said.

”They're all going to round up the rest of the Wraith gang tomorrow. We can set Tacroy free while they're gone. And if they catch my uncle, Gariel might be so pleased that he won't mind finding Tacroy gone.”

The G.o.ddess consented to wait till morning. Christopher conjured her a pair of his pajamas and left herfinis.h.i.+ng the salmon sandwiches as a bedtime snack. But, remembering her treachery over the portent, he took care to seal the door behind him with the strongest spell he knew.

He was woken up next morning by a churn of milk landing beside his bed. This was followed by the remains of the schoolroom table. Christopher sent both back to the right places and rushed to the tower, dressing as he went. It looked as if the G.o.ddess was getting impatient.

He found her standing helplessly over a hamper of loaves and a huge ham. ”I've forgotten the right way to send things back,” she confessed. ”And I boiled that packet of tea in the kettle, but it doesn't taste nice.

What did I do wrong?”

Christopher sorted her out as well as he could and chased off to the schoolroom for his own breakfast.

The maid was already there, holding the tray, looking quizzical. Christopher smiled at her nervously. She grinned and nodded towards the table. It had all four legs at one end, two of them sticking up into the air.

”Oh,” he said. ”I-er-”

”Come clean,” she said. ”It was you disappeared the antique cups in the dining room, wasn't it? I told the butler I'd tax you with it.”

”Well, yes,” said Christopher, knowing the G.o.ddess was drinking freshly made tea out of one at the moment. ”I'll put them back. They're not broken.”

”They'd better not be,” said the maid. ”They're worth a fortune, those cups. Now do you mind putting this table to rights so that I can put this tray down before I drop it?” While Christopher was turning the table to its proper shape, she remarked, ”Feeling your gifts all of a sudden, aren't you? Things keep popping in and out all over the Castle this morning. If you'll take my advice, you'll have everything back in its proper place before ten o'clock. After Monsignor de Witt and the others leave to catch those thieves, the butler's going to go around checking the whole Castle.”

She stayed and ate some of his toast and marmalade. As she remarked, she had had her breakfast two hours ago. Her name turned out to be Erica and she was a valuable source of information as well as being nice. But Christopher knew he should not have taught the G.o.ddess to conjure. He would never keep her a secret at this rate. Then, when Erica had gone and he was free to consider his problems, it dawned on Christopher that he could solve two of them at one go. All he had to do was to ask Tacroy to take the G.o.ddess with him when he escaped. That made it more urgent than ever to get Tacroy free.

18.

Gabriel de Witt and his a.s.sistants left promptly at ten. Everyone gathered in the hall around the five-pointed star, some of them carrying leather cases, some simply in outdoor clothes. Most of the footmen and two of the stable-hands were going, too. Everyone looked sober and determined and Flavian, for one, looked outright nervous. He kept running his finger around his high starched collar.

Christopher could see him sweating even from the top of the stairs.

Christopher and the G.o.ddess watched from behind the marble bal.u.s.trade near the black door of Gabriel's study. They were inside a very carefully constructed cloud of invisibility, which blotted out the two of them completely but not Throgmorten trotting at their heels. Throgmorten had refused to come near enough to be blotted out too, but nothing would stop him following them.

”Leave him,” the G.o.ddess said. ”He knows what I'd do to him if he gives us away.” As the silver-voiced clock over the library struck ten, Gabriel came out of his study and stalked down the staircase, wearing a hat even taller and s.h.i.+nier than Papa's. Throgmorten, to Christopher's relief, ignored him. But he felt a strong wrench of worry about Mama. She was certainly going to be arrested, and all she had done was to believe the lies Uncle Ralph had told her.

Gabriel reached the hall and took a look around to see that all his troops were ready. When he saw they were, he pulled on a pair of black gloves and paced into the center of the five-pointed star, where he went on pacing, growing smaller and smaller and further away as he walked. Miss Rosalie and Dr.

Simonson followed and began to diminish, too. The others went after them two by two. When there was only a tiny, distant black line of them, Christopher said, ”I think we can go now.”

They began to creep downstairs, still in the cloud of invisibility. The distant line of Gabriel's troops disappeared before they were three stairs down. They went faster. But they were still only halfway down when things began to go wrong.

Flames burst out all over the surface of the star. They were malignant-looking green-purple flames which filled the hall with vile-smelling green smoke. ”What is it?” the G.o.ddess coughed.

”They're using dragons' blood,” Christopher said. He meant to sound soothing, but he found he was staring uneasily at those flames.

All at once, the pentacle thundered up into a tall five-pointed fire, ten feet, twenty feet high. The G.o.ddess's invisible hair frizzled. Before they could back up the stairs out of range, the flames had parted, leaning majestically to left and right. Out of the gap Miss Rosalie stumbled, pulling Flavian by one arm.

Following them came Dr. Simonson dragging a screaming sorceress-Beryl, Christopher thought her name was. By this time, he was standing stock still, staring at the utter rout of Gabriel's troops. Singed and wretched and staggering, all the people who had just set off came pouring back through the gap in the flames and backed away to the sides of the hall with their arms up in front of their faces, coughing in the green smoke.

Christopher looked and looked, but he could not see Gabriel de Witt anywhere among them.

As soon as Frederick Parkinson and the last footman had staggered out into the hall, the flames dipped and died, leaving the pink marble and the dome stained green. The pentagram s.h.i.+mmered into little blades of fire burning over blackness. Uncle Ralph came carefully stepping out among the flames. He had a long gun under one arm and what seemed to be a bag in his hand. Christopher was reminded of nothing so much as one of his Chant uncles going shooting over a stubble field. Probably it was Uncle Ralph's freckled tweeds which put that into his mind. Rather sadly, he wished he had known more about people when he first met Uncle Ralph. He had a foxy, shoddy look. Christopher knew he would never admire someone like Uncle Ralph now.

”Would you like me to throw a marble wash-stand at him?” whispered the G.o.ddess.

”Wait-I think he's an enchanter too,” Christopher whispered back.

”CHRISTOPHER!” shouted Uncle Ralph. The greened dome rang with it. ”Christopher, where are you hiding? I can feel you near. Come out, or you'll regret it!”

Reluctantly, Christopher parted the invisibility around himself and stepped to the middle of the staircase.

”What happened to Gabriel de Witt?” he said.

Uncle Ralph laughed. ”This.” He threw the bag he was carrying so that it spread and skidded to a stop at the foot of the stairs. Christopher stared down-rather as he had stared down at Tacroy- at a long,limp, transparent shape that was unquestionably Gabriel de Witt's. ”That's his eighth life there,” said Uncle Ralph. ”I did that with those weapons you brought me from Series One, Christopher. This one works a treat.” He patted the gun under his arm. ”I spread the rest of his lives out all over the Related Worlds. He won't trouble us again. And the other weapons you brought me work even better.” He gave his mustache a sly tweak and grinned up at Christopher. ”I had them all set up to meet de Witt's folk and took the magic out of them in a twinkling. None of them can cast a spell to save their lives now. So there's nothing to stop us working together just like the old days. You are still working for me, aren't you, Christopher?”

”No,” said Christopher, and stood there expecting to have his remaining lives blasted in all directions next second.

Uncle Ralph only laughed. ”Yes, you are, stupid boy. You're unmasked. All these people standing here know you were my main carrier now. You have to work with me or go to prison-and I'm moving into this Castle with you to make sure of you.”