TWO

I stayed down for quite a while. Here I was, I thought, once again sitting in a state of terror and paranoia, only this time was worse. Add to that the way my knee hurt from ramming the cliff and the fact that my rear felt as if I was sitting in a puddle, and you have the recipe for true misery. And it was dark.

There wasn’t any way that I could see of getting home to Dad. I seemed to have a choice of going back to the wood and giving myself up to the ghostly shapes of Chick and Pierre, or going on along this path, or choosing another. There didn’t seem to be any future in any of those choices.

I felt vile. And guilty. Let’s face it, I had deceived a whole security team. I hadn’t exactly meant to, but I had been so set on the idea that this was all a dream that I was having that I hadn’t even tried to say, “Excuse me. I’m not your novice.” Maybe this was because, underneath, I might have had a small sense of self-preservation which told me that if I did, I was likely to be arrested and interrogated anyway. But I knew why I hadn’t said anything, really. It was because I had actually—really and truly—got to another world on my own, just as I’d been longing to do. And it was too good to spoil.

Now I was in a real mess. And so were the mages I’d deceived. It was no wonder that Arnold and Dave had been tracking me hard in Marseilles and that Chick and Pierre were in a trance searching the wood. They were in bad trouble. If they didn’t find me, they’d almost certainly be arrested themselves.

I was not surprised someone had hired Romanov to terminate me. I was getting to be a real menace. It was for something I was going to do later, he said. Romanov must have known I was going to go from bad to worse—and all only because I’d set my heart on being a Magid. Magids were strong magicians. They guided the flow of magic from world to world. They were troubleshooters, too. Most of them were dealing with problems—really exciting problems—in several worlds at once, using all sorts of different magical skills to do it. I wanted to do that. I wanted it more than I’d ever wanted anything. But the people who ran the Magids—the Upper Room—wouldn’t let me. They wouldn’t let me have any training. So it was no wonder I was blundering ignorantly around, getting into this sort of mess. Romanov had been right to despise me.

This set me thinking of Romanov again. I still had the idea he was more powerful than any Magid. Romanov, I thought. That’s the name of the old Czars of Russia. And he probably was a Czar, a magics supremo, the magics Czar, the way we have drugs Czars in England. I wished I could talk to him about the mess I was in. I knew he could tell me how to get back to my own world.

This was where the odd thing happened.

It’s hard to describe. It wasn’t smelling or feeling, but it was like both things. It was also like there was a tiny breeze blowing from the path ahead, as if thinking of Romanov set it off. But there was no breeze. The air was perfectly still and wet. All the same I could suddenly smell-feel that Romanov had gone along this very path on his way back to wherever his home was.

“He said come to him if anyone else came after me,” I said out loud. “Okay. I will.”

I got up and began feeling my way along the path.

For I don’t know how long, it was quite awful. It was so dark. I could see sky up above, between the rock walls, but it was almost as dark as the path. There were no stars in it—nothing—and it didn’t help me to see at all. I could just pick out my hands, the right one trailing along the wet, lumpy rocks and the left one stretched out in front in a shaky sort of way, in case I hit a spur or a corner of cliff. I didn’t want to think what else I might hit. There were noises, squelchy sounds that made me sure my fingers were going to plunge into something big and slimy any second, and creaking noises, and dry flappings that were worst of all. Every time the flapping happened, the hairs on my neck came up and dragged on my collar as if it were Velcro.

The ground was uneven, too. My feet kicked stones I couldn’t see, or staggered and slipped on slopes of rock. Several times I stubbed my toe really hard, but I never knew what I’d hit. I sloshed into puddles and crunched through muddy pebbles until my feet were soaked and sore and frozen, and I never knew what was coming next.

Then it began to rain. “That’s all I need!” I moaned. It was cold, drenching rain that had me wet through in seconds, with water chasing down my face and bringing my hair down in sharp points into my eyes. My teeth started chattering, it was so cold. But believe it or not, that rain was actually an improvement. The noises stopped, as if the creatures making them didn’t like the rain any more than I did, and before long all I could hear was the rain drilling down, splashing in puddles and trickling off the rocks. And the fact that the rocks were so wet meant that they sort of picked up a glisten from the sky and the puddles glinted a bit, so I could see a bit of what was coming next. I pushed my hair out of my eyes and got on faster.

The rain slacked off to a drizzle at last, and I began to think there was a bit more light. I could actually see the way winding ahead like a sort of cleft in the rocks, with all the edges just faintly traced in silvery blue. Then I began to hear noises ahead. Not the noises I’d heard before. This was a sort of booming and yelling.

I began going very slowly and cautiously, sliding my feet one behind the other and keeping one shoulder against the right-hand wall so that I could look round each bend as I came to it. There was something big and alive along there, yelling its head off.

After about three bends I could hear words in the yelling. “We plow the fields and scatter the dynamite on the land!” I heard. And then, after another bend: “Good King Wencis last looked out—when did he first look out, then?—on the feast of Stephen!”

I almost laughed, but I still went very cautiously, and the light kept getting stronger and the yelling went on. You couldn’t call it singing. It was too out of tune. And finally I edged round another bend and saw the person making the din.

He was a skinny, white-haired old drunk, and he was leaning against a bulge of rock, singing his head off. When I peeped round the bend at him, he was yelling about “Rock of Ages, cleft for meeee!” and holding up a little blue flame in both shaky old hands. The flame lit his clothes shiny and blazed off the wet rocks and his wrinkled, yelling face. He held the flame higher up as I peeped at him and shouted, “Come on, come on, both of you! Or am I just seeing double? Come out where I can see all the pair of you! Don’t lurk!”

I came round in front of him. There didn’t seem any harm in him. I’d never seen anyone so drunk, not even my friends after they’d drunk all Dad’s whiskey. He couldn’t have hurt anyone in that state. He had trouble just seeing me. He wavered about, holding the little flame out toward me, and blinked and peered. I’d been thinking this flame was some kind of outdoor candle, or a torch like Arnold and Co. had used, but it wasn’t. It was a little curl of blue light standing on his hands, blazing away out of nothing.

“I’m drunk,” he said to me. “Night as a tute. Can’t ever come this way unless I get drunk first. Too scared. Tell me, are you scared?”

“Yes,” I said. I couldn’t take my eyes off that little flame. It was one of the most extraordinary things I’d ever seen. “Doesn’t that burn you?”

“Not at all, notatall, notatall,” he shouted. He was too drunk to talk quietly. “Being of one substance with my flesh, you know, it can’t hurt. Litchwight, I mean witchlight, they call it. Not even hot, dear lad. Not even warm. So, well then, out with it, out with it!”

“Out with what?” I said.

“Whatever you need or want, of course. You have to meet three folk in need in this place and give them what help you can before you can get where you’re going. You’re my third,” he shouted, waving his little flame backward and forward more or less under my nose, “so I’m naturally anxious to get you done and dealt with and get on. So out with it. What do you want?”

I should have asked him how to find Romanov. I see that now. A lot of things would have been different if I had. But I was so amazed by that little blue flame that I leaned backward to get its light out of my eyes and pointed to it. “Can I do that? Can you show me how to do it?”

He wavered forward from his rock, peering at me, and nearly fell down. “Amazing,” he said, hastily getting his back to the rock again. “Amazing. You’re here, but you can’t do a simple thing like raising light, or do I mean lazing right? Whichever. You can’t. Why not?”

“No one ever showed me how,” I said.

He swayed about, looking solemn. “I quote,” he said. “I’m very well read in the literature of several worlds, you know, and I quote. ‘What do they teach them in these schools?’ Know where that comes from?”

“One of the Narnia books,” I said. “The one where Narnia begins. Can you show me how to make a light like that?”

“Tell you,” he corrected me, looking even more solemn. “I can’t show you because it comes from inside yourself, see. What you do is find your center—can you do that?”

“My navel, you mean?” I said.

“No, no!” he howled. “You’re not a woman! Or are you? Confess I can’t see you too well, but your voice sounds like teenage male to me. Is that what you are?”

“Yes,” I said.

“And a plumb ignorant one, too,” he grumbled. “Fancy not knowing—Well, your center is here!”

He plunged toward me and took me completely by surprise by jabbing me hard just under my breastbone. What with that, and the blast of alcohol that came with the jab, I went staggering backward into the rocks on the other side of the path. He overbalanced. He snatched at my knees as he went down, missed, and ended in a heap by my feet. The blue light seemed to splash all over the ground. Then it climbed one of his arms and settled on his shiny wet shoulder.

“Polar sexus,” he said sadly. “That’s where it is, polar sexus.”

“Are you hurt?” I asked.

He raised his soaking gray head. “There is,” he said, “a special angel appointed to watch over those under the inkerfluence of eight over the one. That, young man, is why I had to imbibe before coming here. It all hangs together. Now do you understand how to summon light?”

“No,” I said frankly.

“Don’t you even know where your solar plexus is?” he demanded.

“I thought you said polar sexus,” I said.

He went up on to his hands and knees and shook his head sadly. Water flew off as if he was a wet dog. “Now you’re making fun of me. But I shall be forbearing,” he said, “though mostly for the reason that I shan’t get out of this place if I’m not. And I may add, young man, that your attitude toward the elderly is less than respectful. Polar sexus indeed!” He started fumbling around on the ground in front of my feet. “Where is it? Where did I put my damn light?”

“It’s on your shoulder,” I said.

He turned his face and saw it. He more or less put his nose in it. “Now you’re having a joke on me,” he said. “I shall be freezingly polite and ignore it, or we’ll be here all night. Pick me up.”

He smelled so disgustingly of booze that I really didn’t want to touch him, but I did want to know how you made light, so I bent down and grabbed him by his sopping jacket. He didn’t like that. He said, “Unhand me at once!” and crawled away backward.

“You asked me to,” I said. I was getting fed up.

“No, I didn’t,” he retorted. “I was merely seeking a way out of our dilemma by asking you to pick up my witchlight. If you can keep it alight when you have it, you will in fact be making it for yourself. Come on. Take it. It won’t hurt you, and I can easily make more.”

Well, I wondered if he did mean this, but I went gently up to him and tried cupping the little flame in my hands. It didn’t feel of anything very much. A bit warm perhaps, but that was all. I stood up holding it, really delighted. Then it began to sink and fizzle.

“No, no! Ignore it,” he cried out. “Think of something else quickly!” He scrambled himself up the rockface and somehow managed to stand up. Then he snapped his fingers and held out another blue flame, balanced on the palm of his withered old hand. “See? Now change the subject.”

“Er,” I said, trying not to look at the blue spark I was holding, “you said we had to meet three folks in need. Are you my first?”

“Of course not!” he said. “I don’t need anything. I just want out of here, and you’re my third, so I can go now.”

“Who else did you meet,” I asked, “before me?”

“A goat,” he said. “I kid you not! Joke, joke, ha-ha! Lost its way, you know, and then there was an obnoxious child who said she was hiding from her sin twister—twin sister—and she only wanted me to promise not to give her away.”

“What did you do about the goat?” I asked.

“What can one do for a goat? Turned it round and gave it a push on the rump, I think,” he said. “That’s a bit hazy, to tell the truth, but I know neither of them was half the trouble you’ve been. Do you think you’ve got it now?”

I dared to look down at my hands. There was a cautious little flicker there, about the size of a match flame. I tried willing it larger, but nothing happened. “Sort of,” I said.

He pushed off from the rocks and came staggering across to see. I swear the drink on his breath made the flame twice the size for an instant. “Yes, yes, you’ve got it now all right,” he said. “No need for me to linger. Farewell, for I must leave thee, don’t hang yourself on a weeping willow tree!” By then he was singing again, bawling out a tuneless tune and swaying himself round as he bawled. I thought he was going to walk straight into the rockface opposite us, but there turned out to be an opening there that I hadn’t seen before. He plunged into it, turning it all blue-silver with the flame in his hand, singing his head off. “In his master’s steps he trod,” I heard, booming out of the rocky cleft. “Heat was in that very naughty word which the saint had printed! Print and be damned, I say …”

I giggled a bit and took another look at my flame. It seemed to have settled down quite snugly by this time, enough that it didn’t seem to mind being moved across to my left hand so that I had my right hand free. I waited a bit to make absolutely sure it was going to go on burning; then I set off down the path again.

That part wasn’t nearly so bad. It was such a help to be able to see. I got on quite fast. And when the drizzle stopped and the noises started again, I held the flame up toward where I’d heard them from, and its blue light showed me that there was nothing there. It was all done to frighten people. So I began to stride on and even whistle a bit—and I was a bit more in tune than the old drunk, too—and my flame seemed to like the whistling. It grew bigger. After that I got a lot less nervous of it and began to play about with it, sliding it up my arm and then up past my ear to the top of my head. It burned a lot brighter on my head. I had an idea that I could probably slide it off into the air and have it floating in front of me, but I didn’t quite dare do that in case I lost it. I kept it on my head and had both hands free. I even put my hands in my pockets to try to warm them and really strode out, whistling.

I strode round a corner and met my first person.

She was standing facing me in the path, but she wasn’t really in the path at all. She was in a pale patch of light with scenery in it. The patch was just sort of there. It didn’t light up any of the rocks around or the ground in front of it. She was my age, or perhaps a bit younger, and … well, you know how you have an idea of your ideal girl in your mind. She was mine. She had dark, curly hair that was blowing about in a wind I couldn’t feel and really big blue-gray eyes with nice eyelashes round them. Her face was thin, and so was the rest of her. I remember noticing she was wearing an old-looking gray knitted sweater and leggings that went tight below her knees, but mostly I noticed she was much better-looking than I’d expected my ideal girl to be. But the chief thing about her was that she was one of those girls who look as if they’ve just grown, as naturally as … as a tree or … a hollyhock or something … as if she’d just happened somehow. I always fancy girls like that, even if they’re older than me. It’s my type.

I slowed right down and came up to her step by step. When I was near enough, I saw she was holding a scruffy bunch of flowers in one hand. They were not flowers picked for their looks. I don’t know what most of them were, but I did see that one was a tall thing with blobby yellow flowers in steps down its stalk, and furry leaves. I noticed because a caterpillar dropped off it as I walked up.

By then I was near enough to see that inside the patch of light she was standing somewhere quite high on a hillside. There was low blue distance behind her. And nearer than that, but still behind her, just on the edge of the slope, I could see a much younger kid—a boy—sitting sort of hunched over so that all I could see was his back. He didn’t move, or speak, or even seem to know that I was there.

She knew I was there, though. She watched me walking up to her. Her eyes went to the flame sitting on my head.

“Oh, good,” she said. “You’re a wizard. I asked for a wizard particularly.”

“I’m not really,” I said. It was all so strange that I didn’t feel shy or awkward, the way I would if I’d met her anywhere else. “I’m only just beginning to learn.”

“Well, that may be all right,” she said. “I asked for someone who could help in this situation, so you must be able to do what’s needed. What’s your name?”

“Nichothodes,” I said. It seemed important to tell her my real name. “Nick, usually.”

“I’m Arianrhod,” she said. “A mouthful, just like your name. But I prefer people to call me Roddy.”

I wanted to say that Arianrhod sounded much nicer than Roddy, but that seemed—I don’t know—likely to annoy her, or—now I think back on it—more as if the conversation had to go another way. I went with the way it had to go and said, “What kind of help do you want?”

Her eyebrows came together anxiously. When I think back, I can see she was massively anxious the whole time. “That’s the problem,” she said. “I don’t know how you can help. It almost seems hopeless. Our whole country is probably in horrible danger, and nobody seems to know except me. And …” Her hand went back to point at the younger kid. “Grundoon, of course. Sir James seems to have the Merlin completely under his thumb somehow. Or else the Merlin’s turned bad. Sybil’s in it, too. I mean, I know the Merlin’s quite new, and young, and a bit weak—”

“Hang on,” I said. “Merlin is from King Arthur’s time. An old man with a long white beard. He got locked away by a girl called Nem—Nemesis or something—”

“I daresay one was,” she interrupted me. “A lot of the Merlins have had long white beards. But this one’s young. He’s only just been appointed.”

“No, Nemuë,” I said. “That was her name. You mean to tell me there’s more than the one Merlin?”

“Yes, of course. It’s an official post,” she said impatiently. “The Merlin rules magics the way the King rules the country, except that it looks as if the Merlin’s trying to rule the country, too, now. Or Sir James is, and he’s got hold of the Merlin somehow. Sir James is a really vile man, but the King never seems to notice, and he’s got the King and the Prince doing what he says now.”

“Okay,” I said. I couldn’t really follow all that. “You want me to come and help sort your country out for you.” I heard myself say this, sounding quite cool and efficient, and I thought, Who are you kidding, Nick? You are going to end up with this Merlin and this Sir Someone jumping up and down on your face! But what I thought didn’t make any difference. The old drunk had told me the rules. I had to help Roddy in order to get out of this place. So I put out my hand and sort of pushed at the patch of light around the girl. And somehow it didn’t surprise me that I seemed to hit solid rock just about the place where her odd bunch of flowers was. I was quite relieved actually. “No luck,” I said.

Roddy sighed. “I was afraid of that,” she said. “When will you get here?”

“Um,” I said. “Where are you?”

She looked surprised that I didn’t know. “I’m in the Islands of Blest, of course. How long do you think you’ll be, getting here? It’s urgent.”

“I have to help two more people first,” I said. “Then I’ll ask Romanov what to do and be right along. That’s all I can promise.”

She wasn’t very pleased, but there didn’t seem to be much either of us could do about that. “I’ll see you soon, then,” she said.

“See you soon,” I agreed.

I turned sideways and squeezed past her patch of light. It was odd. The thing was like a flat disk with her inside it. When I was level with her, side on, all I could see was a curved line of daylight. When I was past that line, it was all gone. I looked back, and there was nothing. I even went back to where I had been standing, but there was nothing there now, just black rocks.

“Oh, well,” I said. I still don’t know whether I was more disappointed or more relieved. It would have been wonderful to meet Roddy properly, in the flesh. But if I did, it would seem to mean having to deal with magic and politics in a place I knew nothing about, and I didn’t feel up to doing that. So I went on, not knowing if I should chalk up one failure and try to help three more people, or if I really had agreed to help Roddy. And if so, did that count toward getting out of here? Perhaps, I thought hopefully, it was the thing I was going to do in the future that Romanov had been sent to stop me doing. Perhaps I could wait until I was grown up and then go to these Islands of Blest and sort them out then. Roddy would be grown up, too, then, and that struck me as a very good thing. I sort of smiled to myself and decided that I probably had promised to help her, and it probably did count toward getting out of here, and I only had to put it off a few years and everything would be fine.

I think this made me careless. I was thinking so hard about it all that I almost walked straight past the place where the path forked.

Two steps further on, I replayed what I’d just seen: the light on my head glistening off a high promontory of rock with a dark path winding away on either side of it. I stopped. I backed up the two steps, and there, sure enough, was the promontory and the two paths. I’d simply gone off down the left-hand fork without thinking about it. It had seemed to me that Romanov had gone that way. But when I stood in front of the promontory, I sort of knew he’d gone down both paths, both quite recently.

Since I didn’t think even Romanov could be in two places at once, I reckoned he must have been along one of the paths first, then the other, and it was the one he’d used last that I needed. But I couldn’t really tell which it was. I stood and dithered. And in the end I decided that I must have gone into the left-hand path because I’d known unconsciously which was the right one. So I went that way.

This turned out to be a truly colossal mistake.