"Again? You are thorough."
Another good rinsing made him look as good as new. I propped him up in the shadows of a concrete embankment and dried his clothes out with discreet use of a Flame. Oddly, his temper had not improved with his smell, but you can't have everything.
With this matter resolved, we set off and arrived at the railway station in time to catch the first train of the morning south. I stole two tickets from the kiosk, and while sundry attendants were busy combing the platforms for a red—faced clergywoman with a plausible manner, settled back into my seat just as the train got underway. Nathaniel sat in a different part of the carriage—rather pointedly, I thought. His improvised makeover still seemed to rankle with him.
The first part of the journey out of the city was thus the quietest and least troublesome half—hour I had enjoyed since first being summoned. The train pottered along at an arthritic pace through the never—ending outskirts of London, a dispiriting jumbled wilderness of brick that looked like moraine left by a giant glacier. We passed a succession of rundown factories and concrete lots run to waste; beyond them stretched narrow terraced streets, with chimney smoke rising here and there. Once, high up against the bright, colorless cloud that hid the sun, I saw a troop of djinn heading west. Even at that distance, it was possible to pick out the light glinting on their breastplates.
Few people got on or off the train. I relaxed. Djinn don't doze, but I did the equivalent, drifting back through the centuries and contemplating some of my happier moments—magicians' errors, my choice acts of revenge…
This reverie was finally shattered by the boy throwing himself down on the seat opposite me. "I suppose we'd better plan something," he said sulkily. "How can we get through the defenses?"
"With randomly shifting domes and sentries in place," I said, "there's no way we can break in unmolested. We'll need some kind of Trojan horse." He looked blank. "You know—something which seems to be innocent, which they allow in past the gates. In which we're hiding. Honestly—what do they teach you magicians nowadays?"[87]
"So, we need to conceal ourselves in something," he grunted. "Any ideas?"
"Nope."
Scowling, he mulled it over. You could almost hear the fleshy innards of his brain straining. "The guests will arrive tomorrow," he mused. "They have to let them in, so there's bound to be a steady stream of traffic getting through the gates. Perhaps we can hitch a ride in someone's car."
"Perhaps," I said. "But all the magicians will be cloaked to the eyeballs with protective Shields and bug—eyed imps. We'd be hard pushed to sneak anywhere near them without being spotted."
"What about servants?" he said. "They must get in somehow."
Give him credit—he'd had an idea. "Most of them will be on site already," I said, "but you're right—some may arrive on the day. Also there are bound to be deliveries of fresh food; and maybe entertainers will come, musicians or jugglers—"
He looked scornful. "Jugglers?"
"Who's got more experience of magicians—you or me? There are always jugglers.[88] But the point is that there will be some nonmagical outsiders entering the manor. So if we get ourselves into position early enough, we might well get a chance to sneak a ride with someone. It's worth a try. Now… in the meantime, you should sleep. There's a long walk ahead of us when we get to the station."
His eyelids looked as if they were made of lead. For once he didn't argue.
I've seen glaciers cover ground more quickly than that train, so in the end he got a pretty decent kip. But finally we arrived at the station closest to Heddleham Hall. I shook my master awake and we tumbled out of the carriage onto a platform that was being speedily reclaimed by the forces of nature. Several varieties of grass grew up through the concrete, while an enterprising bindweed had colonized the walls and roof of the ramshackle waiting room. Birds nested under the rusty lamps. There was no ticket office and no sign of human life.
The train limped off as if it were going to die under a hedge. Across the track a white gate led straight onto an unpaved road. Fields stretched away on all sides. I perked up: it felt good to be free of the city's malignant clutches and surrounded by the natural contours of the trees and crops.[89]
"We follow the road," I said. "The hall is at least nine miles away, so we don't have to be on our guard yet. I—what's the matter now?"
The boy was looking quite pale and unsettled. "It's nothing. Just… I'm not used to so much… space. I can't see any houses."
"No houses is good. It means no people. No magicians."
"It makes me feel strange. It's so quiet."
Made sense. He'd never been out of the city before now. Never even been in a big park, most likely. The emptiness terrified him.
I crossed the track and opened the gate. "There's a village beyond those trees. You can get food there and cuddle up to some buildings."
It took my master some time to lose his jitters. It was almost as if he expected the empty fields or winter bushes to rise like enemies and fall on him, and his head turned constantly against surprise attack. He quaked at every bird call.
Conversely, I stayed relaxed for this first part of the journey, precisely because the countryside seemed wholly deserted. There was no magical activity of any description, even in the distant skies.
When we reached the village, we raided its solitary grocery store and pinched sufficient supplies to keep the boy's stomach happy for the rest of the day. It was a smallish place, a few cottages clustered around a ruined church, not nearly large enough to have its own resident magician. The few humans we saw ambled around quietly without so much as an imp in tow. My master was very dismissive of them.
"Don't they realize how vulnerable they are?" he sniffed, as we passed the final cottage. "They've got no defenses. Any magical attack and they'd be helpless."
"Perhaps that's not high on their list of priorities," I suggested. "There are other things to worry about: making a living, for example. Not that you'll have been taught anything about that."[90]
"Oh no?" he said. "To be a magician is the greatest calling. Our skills and sacrifices hold the country together, and those fools should be grateful we're there."
"Grateful for people like Lovelace, you mean?"
He frowned at this, but did not answer.
It was mid—afternoon before we ran into danger. The first thing my master knew about it was my throwing myself upon him and bundling us into a shallow ditch beside the road. I pressed him low against the earth, a little harder than necessary.
He had a mouthful of mud. "Whop you doing?"
"Keep your voice down. A patrol's flying up ahead. North—south."
I indicated a gap in the hedge. A small flock of starlings could be seen drifting far off across the clouds.
He spat his mouth empty. "I can't make them out."
"On planes five onward they're foliots.[91] Trust me. We have to go carefully from now on."
The starlings vanished to the south. Cautiously, I got to my feet and scanned the horizon. A little way ahead a straggling band of trees marked the beginning of an area of woodland. "We'd better get off the road," I said. "It's too exposed here. After nightfall we can get closer to the house." With infinite caution, we squeezed through a gap in the hedge and, after rounding the perimeter of the field beyond, gained the relative safety of the trees. Nothing threatened on any plane.
87
Obviously not classical history. This ignorance would have upset Faquarl, as it happens, who often boasted how he'd given Odysseus the idea for the wooden horse in the first place. I'm sure he was lying, but I can't prove it because I wasn't at Troy: I was in Egypt at the time.
88
They've got the worst taste in the world, magicians. Always have done. Oh, they keep themselves all suave and sober in public, but give them a chance to relax and do they listen to chamber orchestras? No. They'd rather have a dwarf on stilts or a belly—dancing bearded lady any day. A little—known fact about Solomon the Wise: he was entertained between judgements by an enthusiastic troupe of Lebanese clowns.
89
Even though they have been scraped and shaped by human will, fields do not have magicians' stench about them. Throughout history, magicians have been resolutely urban creatures: they flourish in cities, multiplying like plague rats, running along thickly spun threads of gossip and intrigue like fat—bellied spiders. The nearest that nonurban societies get to magicians are the shamans of North America and the Asian steppe But they operate so differently that they almost deserve not to be called magicians at all. But their time is past.
90
How true this was. Magicians are essentially parasitic. In societies where they are dominant, they live well off the strivings of others In those times and places when they lose power and have to earn their own bread, they are generally reduced to a sorry state, performing small conjurations for jeering ale—house crowds in return for a few brass coins.
91
A variety with five eyes, two on the head, one on either flank, and one—well, let's just say it would be hard to creep up on him unawares while he was touching his toes.