The Merlin Conspiracy. Diana Wynne Jones

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СКАЧАТЬ to be in a trance back at the stadium. Then I thought, I keep having to do what this man tells me. In a minute, he’s going to say Go on, die. And I shall do that wherever I am.

      I said, “So he – she’s not a totem.”

      “I didn’t say that,” the man said. “She wouldn’t have come to you if she wasn’t. I simply meant that she’s as much flesh and blood as Slatch is.” He reached out and rubbed the head of the spotted cat. His hand was thin and all sinews, the sort of strong, squarish hand I’d always wished I had, full of power. The cat gazed at me from under it sarcastically. See? it seemed to say.

      I knew it was only seconds before he was going to tell me to die and I started to play for time like anything. “And this wood,” I said. “Is this wood real then?”

      His thin black eyebrows went up, irritably. “All the paths and places beyond the worlds have substance,” he said.

      “Even…” I made a careful gesture towards the turquoise oval, making it slow in order not to annoy that spotted cat. “Even if you can see that from here? They can’t both be real.”

      “Why not?” he more or less snapped. “You have a very limited notion of what’s real, don’t you? Will it make you any happier to be somewhere you regard as real?”

      “I don’t kn—” I began to say. Then I choked it off because we were suddenly back in the concrete passage under the seats of the stadium and a little patter of applause was coming from overhead. I was standing in front of this man and his killer cat, exactly as I had been under the tree, but the black panther wasn’t there. She must be relieved! I thought, and I took a quick look round for my body, which I was sure had to be sitting against the wall in a trance.

      It wasn’t there. I could see the place where it had been by the scuff marks that my heels had made on the floor. But I was the only one of me there. The time seemed to be much later. The light coming in from the grids slanted the other way and looked more golden. I could feel that the patter of clapping was faint and tired overhead, at the end of a long day.

      This is only a dream! I told myself in a panic. Someone can’t have made off with my body! Can they?

      “You were in the wood in your body too,” the man told me, as if I was almost too stupid for him to bother with. In here, he seemed even more powerful. He wasn’t much taller than me, and a lot skinnier, but he was like a nuclear bomb standing in that passage, ready to go off and destroy everything for miles. His cat was pure semtex. It stared up at me and despised me, and its eyes were deep and glassy in the orange light.

      “If you’re going to kill me,” I said, “you might as well tell me who you are and who hired you. And why. You owe me that.”

      “I owe you nothing,” he said. “I was interested to know why someone thought you worth eliminating, that’s all. And I don’t think you are. You’re too ignorant to be a danger to anyone. I shall tell them that when I refuse the commission. That should make them lose interest in you – but if they send anyone else after you, you’d better come to me. I’ll teach you enough to protect yourself. We can settle the fee when you arrive.”

      He sort of settled his weight a different way. I could tell he was ready to leave. I was all set to burst with relief – but the spotted cat was not pleased at all. Its tail swished grittily against the floor and I just hoped the man could control it. It was a big creature. Its head came almost up to my chest and its muscles were out in lumps on its neck. I knew it was longing to tear my throat out.

      Then the man settled his weight towards me again. I was so terrified I felt as if I was melting. His eyes were so yellow and cutting. “One other thing,” he said. “What are you doing here in a world that has nothing to do with you, masquerading as a mage?”

      “I don’t know,” I said. “This is a dream really.”

      One of his eyebrows went up. He had been pretty contemptuous of me all along. Now he really despised me. “It is?” he said and shrugged his leather-covered shoulders. “People’s capacity to deceive themselves always amazes me. If you want to live past the age of twenty, you’d be well advised to learn to see the truth at all times. I’ll tell you that for nothing,” he said. Then he did turn and go. He swung round and he walked away as if he couldn’t bear the sight of me any longer. The cat rose up on its musclebound tiptoes and walked after him, swinging its tail rudely.

      “Wait a moment!” I called after him. “Who are you, for heaven’s sake?”

      I’d expected him just to go on walking away, but he stopped and looked over his shoulder, giving me the benefit of his lightning-strike profile again. “Since you put it like that,” he said, “I’m generally known as Romanov. Ask your little mages about me if you like.”

      Then he turned his head away and went on walking, and the cat after him, round the curve of the corridor and out of sight. In spite of the way he’d made me feel, I nearly laughed. He and that cat – they both walked the same way.

      I hoped they’d run into the soldier on guard round there, but I knew they wouldn’t. The soldier would have come off worst anyway.

       3 Roddy

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      Grandad must have done the trick. Though there was a coldness between England and Scotland after this – and there still is – both armies moved back from the border and nobody talked about the Scottish King much or even mentioned the poor old Merlin. Instead, the Court and the media began worrying about the Meeting of Kings that was due to happen on the Welsh border soon. Will Logres and the Pendragon meet in peace? That sort of thing. In between, they went back to being angry about Flemish trading practices, just as usual.

      Nobody seemed to be suspecting Dad any more. Grandad only stayed with the Court until the King had spared a moment to have a friendly chat with Dad, and then he left, saying he had a book to finish. The new Merlin left too. Part of his duties at the start of his tenure was to visit every place of power in the country, and a few in Wales too, and attune himself to them. I think he was hoping that Grandad would go with him and advise him. He looked wistful when Grandad left. This Merlin was one of those who get what they want by looking wistful, but that never works with Grandad, so he was on his own. He climbed wistfully into the little brown car Grandad had helped him buy and chugged away.

      We went back to normal. That is to say, we were rumbling along in buses most of the time, with rumours flying about where we were going next – although nobody ever knows that until a few hours before we get to wherever-it-is. The King likes to keep the Court and the country on its toes.

      The unusual thing was the exceptionally fine weather. When I asked Dad about it, he said the King had asked him to keep it that way until the Meeting of Kings at the edge of Wales. So at least we were warm.

      We spent three unexpected days in Leeds. I think the King wanted to inspect some factories there, but after the usual flustered greeting by the City Council it was blissful. We stayed in houses. Mam squeezed some money out of Sybil and took me and Grundo shopping. We got new clothes. There was time. We had СКАЧАТЬ