Conrad's Fate (13 page)

Back in our room, Christopher put on his smart linen jacket and wrapped himself in his bedclothes. “That's better,” he said. “Why does it get so cold at night? Because this place is up in the mountains? How high
is
Stallery, Grant?”

“Three thousand feet, and you're trying to distract me again,” I said.

Christopher sighed. “All right. I was just wondering where to start, really. I suppose I'd better begin by admitting that I don't come from this world of yours. I come from another one, a different universe entirely, that we call Series Twelve. This one, where
you
live, we call Series Seven. Do you have trouble believing that yours is not the only world in the world, Grant?”

“Not really,” I said. “Uncle Alfred told me there might be other ones. He says it's all to do with possibilities.”

“Right. Good,” said Christopher. “One hurdle cleared. The next thing you should know is that I was born a nine-lifed enchanter—and that, believe me, Grant, is a
great
deal more than just being a magician—and although I only have a few lives left now, that doesn't make any difference to the kind of powers I have. And it means that, at home in my own world, I'm being trained to take over as what we call the Chrestomanci. The Chrestomanci is an enchanter appointed by the government to control the use of magic. Are you with me so far?”

“Yes,” I said. “And what happens if you don't want the job?”

“Shrewd point,” said Christopher. “I take off to Series Seven, I suppose.” He laughed in a way that was not quite happy. “To be truthful,” he said, “I was almost looking forward to being the Chrestomanci until I had a bad disagreement with my guardian, who happens to be the present Chrestomanci. He's a very serious and correct person, my guardian—one of those who
knows
he's always right, if you follow me, Grant.”

“Then can't he train up someone else that he gets on with better?” I asked.

Across the dark room I could just see Christopher shaking his head. “No. As far as we know,” he said, “there
is
no one else he can train up. Gabriel de Witt and I seem to be the only nine-lifed enchanters in all the known worlds. So we're stuck with each other. He disapproves of me, and I think he's boring. But the disagreement wasn't really about that. He's guardian to a lot of people my age—most of us live with him in Chrestomanci Castle—but one of us, an enchantress from Series Ten who likes to be called Millie, is a sort of special case. She only lives with us in the holidays because the people she came from insisted on her going to boarding school. Her latest school's in Switzerland—”

“Where's that?” I asked.

“You don't have it in Seven,” Christopher said. “It's in the Alps, squashed in among France, Germany, and Italy—”

“I don't know of a Germany either,” I said.

“The Teutonic States, then?” Christopher guessed.

“Oh, you mean the
Slavo
-Teutonic States!” I said. “I know about those. Mum says the Tesdi—my father's ancestors—came from there during the Conquest.”

“You don't have to tell me history and geography are different here,” Christopher said. “I
have
been educated. Do you want to hear the rest or not?”

“Go on,” I said.

“Well,” Christopher said, “Millie was really unhappy at this Swiss school. She said the girls and the teachers were horrible and she didn't
learn
anything and they were always punishing her just for being different, and she didn't want to go back last term. But of course our guardian sent her back because it was
right
. She cried. She's not one who usually cries, so I knew she was having a really horrible time. I tried to tell our guardian she was, but he wouldn't listen, and we had our first row. So then Millie got desperate, and she ran away from this school. Being an enchantress, she did it very cleverly, in a way that made the school and my guardian think she was hiding somewhere in Series Twelve. But I knew, right from the start, that she was in a different Series. I told my guardian, but he told me he wasn't going to listen to juvenile maunderings. That was our second row.”

There was a short silence here. I could feel Christopher brooding. I knew it had been a very bad row. At length Christopher sighed and went on.

“Anyway, soon after that, I began to be sure that wherever Millie was hiding, she was in some kind of trouble. I even got worried enough to go to my guardian again. He more or less told me to shut up and go away.” There was another short, brooding silence here. “That made our third row,” Christopher said. “
He
said they were doing all they could to find Millie and I was to stop wasting his time, and
I
said, no, they weren't because he wouldn't
listen
to me. Honestly, Grant, if he hadn't been a nine-lifed enchanter, too, I'd have turned him into a
slug
, I was so angry!”

“So you came to look for her yourself,” I said.

“That,” said Christopher, “makes it sound much easier than it was. It's taken me
weeks
just to get this far. Finding out—secretly, of course—where Millie had gone was hard enough, and I now see that was the
simple
part. I got her pinned down in this part of Series Seven in a couple of days, and I worked out what
I
had to do to stop them coming after me in a matter of
hours
. My guardian thinks I'm hiding in Twelve B, but that's just cover for the way I cadged a lift from the Travelers. That's what started the delays. Travelers, you see, are some of the few people who are always moving from world to world—”

“You mean those two—three—five—caravans and that horse go to other worlds!” I said.

“All the time, Grant,” Christopher said, “and there are tribes more of them and much better organized than they let you see. They go in a sort of spiral around the worlds—that was something I didn't know either, and I nearly went mad while they did. And they're more important than anyone thinks. You wouldn't believe the delays and disasters there were, while they coped with crises in Series One and so on, and I chewed my nails. It's been over a month before we even got into smelling distance of Series Seven. Then we had to get here. Luckily they always go to Stallery. There's something about Stallery that they need to keep contained, they tell me. The only good thing is that my guardian is probably as confused as I am about where I've been.”

“You'll be in awful trouble with him, won't you?” I said.

“Grant, you are putting that too mildly,” Christopher replied. “
Trouble
is not the word for what will happen if he catches up with me. You see …” Christopher paused, and this time he seemed to be seething with bottled-up misery, rather than brooding. “You see, Grant, when I was younger, I kept losing my lives. And my guardian, in his usual high-handed way, tried to stop me losing any more of them by taking one of my lives away and locking it in his safe under nine high-power charms that only he was allowed to break. As long as he had that life, I knew he could trace me wherever I went. Anyway, I felt I had a right to my own life. So, before I left with the Travelers, I broke the charms, opened the safe, and took my life away with me. He's not going to forgive me for that, Grant.”

That gold ring! I thought. I bet that's his life. This guardian of his sounded to be a total monster. “So what are you going to do,” I asked, “when you find Millie?”

“I don't
know
! That's just the problem, Grant. I
can't
find her!” There were pounding noises across the room, where I could dimly see Christopher's fist rising and falling, beating at his knees. “I can
feel
her,” he said. “She's
here
, I
know
she is! I felt her when we were coming here across the park, and I
keep
feeling her inside this house. When I get to that queer part beyond that line of paint, it almost feels as if I'm
treading
on her! But she's not
there
! I don't understand it, Grant, and it's driving me
mad
!”

He was pounding away at his knees in a frenzy by then. I was surprised because Christopher always seemed so cool. “Take it easy,” I said. “Does she seem unhappy—as if she was a prisoner or something?”

“No, not really.” Christopher calmed down, enough to stop beating his knees and think about this. “No, I don't think she's a prisoner—exactly. But she's not happy. It's—it's more as if she was stuck somehow, in a way she didn't expect to be—in a maze, or somewhere like that—and can't work out the turnings to find the exit. I think she panics quite often. My first idea was that she was working as a maid here and had signed a fifty-year contract or something, but I've seen all the girls who work here now, and none of them is Millie, not even in disguise.”

“And the only place you
haven't
looked is the wine cellar?” I said.

“Yes, but I couldn't feel her at all when I stood outside the cellar door,” Christopher said. “Though—come to think of it—that cellar door
is
right in the center of the strange bit of the house....”

“We'd better get inside it, then,” I said. “We could get round Mr. Maxim to take us in there for a wine tasting. And have you looked out-of-doors yet? There could be a maze in the gardens where she's stuck. Don't forget it's our free afternoon tomorrow. Let's go out and search the grounds then.”

“Grant, you are a genius,” Christopher said. “It
feels
like a maze, where she is—although she would have been inside it for months. There must be magic in it, or she would have starved to death by now.”

“There
is
lots of magic in Stallery,” I said. “Everyone in Stallchester complains about it. We can't receive television because of it.”

“Oh, I know there's lots of magic here all right,” Christopher agreed. “It's all over the place, but I haven't a clue what most of it's doing. Some of it's to keep trespassers out, so that the
rest
of the magic won't be interrupted, but—”

I think I fell asleep at this point. I don't remember anything else Christopher said, and the next thing I knew, beastly Gregor was battering on our door, shouting that we were lazy lumps and to get out and get those shoes collected or he'd tell Mr. Amos.

“I hate Gregor,” I said while we were going down in the lift with the shoe basket. “You couldn't do some magic to make him fall face first into the sandwiches at Tea, could you?”

Christopher was pale and tired and thoughtful that morning. “It's tempting,” he said. But I could tell that his mind was on this Millie he was looking for. If it was me, I'd have been worrying more about that dreadful guardian of his, but I could see that Christopher was just angry, really, and hardly scared of his guardian at all.

Oh well, I thought, and got on with the day.

At breakfast, Lady Felice looked more cheerful
than usual, even though she did nothing but scrunch her bread all over the table and make a mess that Gregor made me clear up before the Countess arrived.

It was spotting with rain that morning. Lady Felice looked at it and said she would do her riding later on, when the rain had stopped. Andrew had to run all the way to the stables to stop them getting her horse ready. I wished she had sent Gregor. Andrew came back red in the face and quite wet.

We were supposed to go to Mr. Maxim straight after the Countess had finished breakfast, but Mrs. Baldock sent for us first.

“Have you looked in the stables?” I asked Christopher on our way to the Housekeeper's Room.

“Not really,” he said. “Just felt about there. I don't get on with horses. But you're right, Grant. We'd better investigate there, too, this afternoon.”

It was about our afternoon off that Mrs. Baldock wanted to see us. “You'll have time to go up to Stallstead,” she said, “and if you want to do that, I'll advance you some pay. But remember—you have to be back here at six o'clock promptly.”

I was relieved. I was afraid she was going to tell us off for being up half the night. Christopher said, with great courtly politeness, “No, thank you, ma'am. We hoped to look round the gardens and perhaps take a tour of the stables, if that's all right.”

“Oh, well, in that case,” Mrs. Baldock said, and she smiled at Christopher. He was a real favorite with her by then. “There's no problem about the stables. Just ask one of the grooms. But the gardens and the park are another matter. Staff are not allowed to be seen there by the Family. In the gardens you must take care not to go where you can be seen from the windows, and if you see any member of the Family in the gardens or the park, you must get out of sight at once. If I get a complaint about that from the Family, there's nothing I can do but give you notice on the spot, and you wouldn't want that, would you?”

“No, indeed, ma'am,” Christopher said, very seriously. “We'll be extremely careful.” As we went back along the stone passage to find Mr. Maxim, he said, “You know, Grant, I was just getting really angry about the Family hogging all these acres of gardens, when I realized that I've never once seen a footman or a housemaid in the gardens at home. I think they must have the same rule there. Oh, and Grant, don't forget we're trying to persuade Mr. Maxim to take us into the wine cellar. That's urgent.”