Diana Wynne Jones - The Merlin Conspiracy

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The Merlin Conspiracy

The Merlin ConspiracyThe Merlin Conspiracy

The Merlin Conspiracy

Diana Wynne Jones

2003

A 3S digital back-up edition 1.0

click for scan notes and proofing history

Contents

•1- Roddy

1 | 2

•2- Nick

1 | 2

•3- Roddy

1 | 2

•4- Nick

1 | 2

•5- Roddy

1 | 2 | 3 | 4

•6- Nick

1 | 2 | 3

•7- Nick continued

1 | 2 | 3

•8- Roddy

1 | 2 | 3 | 4

•9- Nick

1 | 2 | 3 | 4

•10- Roddy and Nick

1 Roddy | 2 Nick | 3 Roddy | 4 Nick

•11- Roddy and Nick

1 Roddy | 2 Nick | 3 Roddy | 4 Nick

| 5 Roddy | 6 Nick

•12- Roddy and Nick

3 Roddy

4 Nick

I saw a dark space open in front of me and

someone came stumbling from around a corner

towards me. The first thing I noticed about this

person was that he had a little blue flame sitting

on his forehead. “0h good,” I said. “You’re a

wizard.”

I knew he could see and hear me. But he didn’t

seem any too certain that he was a wizard. My

heart sank rather.

Roddy Hyde lives in a world of magic,

pageantry and ritual. The daughter of two court

wizards, she travels with the King’s Progress,

ready to take part in whatever ceremony is

required, as it occurs. Presiding over all is the

Merlin, who is entrusted with the magical health

of the Isles of Blest.

Nick Mallory’s world seems quite ordinary in

comparison – which isn’t surprising because it’s

plain old Earth. So when he finds himself

suddenly elsewhere, it is a dream come true,

literally.

In Roddy’s world, the current Merlin expires

and a new one takes his place. Yet something is

wrong – the rituals have been upset and nothing

is going the way it should. Roddy needs help, and

certain powers indicate that Nick is the answer to

her problems. And Nick is cool about helping her

– in theory – but it’s a bit worrying that she

seems to mistake him for a magic-user.

As their stories unfold side by side, the Merlin

Conspiracy deepens…

Other titles by Diana Wynne Jones

Chrestomanci Series

Charmed Life*

The Magicians of Caprona*

Witch Week*

The Lives of Christopher Chant*

Mixed Magics*

Black Maria*

A Tale of Time City

Howl’s Moving Castle*

Castle in the Air*

The Homeward Bounders

Archer’s Goon*

Eight Days of Luke

Dogsbody

Power of Three

Wilkins’ Tooth

Stopping for a Spell

For older readers Fire and Hemlock

Hexwood The Time of the Ghost

For younger readers

Wild Robert *Also available on tape

Collins

8 An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

To Rowan Dalglish

First published in hardback in Great Britain by

Collins 2003

Collins is an imprint of

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

77-8S Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith,

London W6 8JB

The HarperCollins website address is: www.

fireandwater. com

135798642

Text © Diana Wynne Jones 2003

ISBN 0 00 7151411

Diana Wynne Jones asserts the moral right to

be identified as the author of the work.

Printed and bound in England by Clays Ltd, St

Ives plc

Conditions of Sale

This book is sold subject to the condition that it

shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,

re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without

the publisher’s prior written consent in any form,

binding or cover other than that in which it is

published and without a similar condition

including this condition being imposed on the

subsequent purchaser.

Roddy

^ »

have been with the Court all my life, travelling with the

King’s Progress.

I didn’t know how to go on. I sat and stared at this

sentence, until Grundo said, “If you can’t do it, I will.” If

you didn’t know Grundo, you’d think this was a generous

offer, but it was a threat really. Grundo is dyslexic. Unless

he thinks hard, he writes inside out and backwards. He was

threatening me with half a page of crooked writing with

words like “inside” turning up as “sindie” and “story” as

“otsyr.”

Anything but that! I thought. So I decided to start with

Grundo – and me. I am Arianrhod Hyde, only I prefer

people to call me Roddy, and I’ve looked after Grundo for

years now, ever since Grundo was a small, pale, freckled boy

in rompers, sitting completely silently in the back of the

children’s bus. He was so miserable that he had wet himself.

I was only about five myself at the time, but I somehow

realised that he was too miserable even to cry. I got up and

staggered through the bumping, rushing bus to the clothes

lockers. I found some clean rompers and persuaded Grundo

to get into them.

This wasn’t easy, because Grundo has always been very

proud. While I was working at it, Grundo’s sister Alicia

turned round from where she was sitting with the big ones.

“What are you bothering with Cesspit for?” she said, tipping

up her long, freckled nose. “There’s no point. He’s useless”

She was eight at the time, but she still looks just the same:

straight fair hair, thick body, and an air of being the person,

the one everyone else has to look up to. “And he’s ugly, ” she

said. “He’s got a long nose.”

“So have you got a long nose, ” I said, “Lady Sneeze. ” I

always called her “Lady Sneeze” when I wanted to annoy

her. if you say “Alicia” quickly it sounds just like a

well-behaved sneeze – just like Alicia, in fact. I wanted to

annoy her for calling Grundo Cesspit. She only said it

because Sybil, her mother, called Grundo that. It was

typical of the way they both treated him. Grundo’s father left

Sybil before Grundo was born. Ever since I could remember,

Sybil and Alicia had been thick as thieves together. Poor

Grundo was nowhere.

It got worse when Grundo started lessons with us and

turned out to be dyslexic. Sybil went around sighing, “He’s

so stupid!” And Alicia chanted at him, “Stupid, stupid,

stupid!” Alicia, of course, did everything well, whether it was

maths, magic or horse-riding. She got chosen as a Court

page when she was ten.

Our teachers knew Grundo was not stupid, but his inside

out way of going on baffled them. They sighed too and

called Grundo “Our young eccentric” and I was the one who

taught Grundo to read and write. I think that was when I

started calling him Grundo. I can’t quite remember why,

except that it suited him better than his real name, which is

Ambrose of all things! Before long, the entire Court called

him Grundo. And while I was teaching him, I discovered

that he had an unexpected amount of inside out magical

talent.

“This book is boring, ” he complained in his deep, solemn

voice. “Why should I care if Jack and Jill go shopping? Or if

Rover chases the ball?” While I was explaining to him that

all reading books were like this, Grundo somehow turned

the book into a comic book, all pictures and no words. It

started at the back and finished at the front, and in the

pictures the ball chased Rover and Jack and Jill were

bought by the groceries. Only Grundo would think of two

people being bought by a huge chunk of cheese.

He refused to turn the book back. He said it was more fun

that way, and I couldn’t turn it back into a reading book

whatever I tried. It’s probably still where I hid it, down

inside the cover of the old teaching bus seat. Grundo is

obstinate as well as proud.

You might say I adopted Grundo as my brother. We were

both on our own. I am an only child and all the other Court

wizards’ children were the same age as Alicia or older still.

The other children our own age were sons and daughters of

Court officials, who had no gift for magic. They were

perfectly friendly – don’t get me wrong – but they just had a

more normal outlook.

There were only about thirty of us young ones who

travelled in the King’s Progress all the time. The rest only

joined us for Christmas or for the other big religious

ceremonies. Grundo and I always used to envy them. They

didn’t have to wear neat clothes and remember Court

manners all the time. They knew where they were going to

be, instead of travelling through the nights and finding

themselves suddenly in a flat field in Norfolk, or a remote

Derbyshire valley, or a busy port somewhere next morning.

They didn’t have to ride in buses in a heatwave. Above all,

they could go for walks and explore places. We were never

really in one place long enough to do any exploring. The

most we got to do was look round the various castles and

great houses where the King decided to stay.

We envied the princesses and the younger princes

particularly. They were allowed to stay in Windsor most of

the year. Court gossip said that the Queen, being foreign,

had threatened to go back to Denmark unless she was

allowed to stay in one place. Everyone pitied the Queen

rather for not understanding that the King had to travel

about in order to keep the realm healthy. Some said that the

whole magic of the Islands of Blest – or maybe the entire

world of Blest – depended on the King constantly moving

about and visiting every acre of England.

I asked my Grandfather Hyde about this. He is a Magid

and knows about the magics of countries and worlds and so

on. And he said that there might be something in this, but

he thought people were overstating the case. The magic of

Blest was very important for all sorts of reasons, he said, but

it was the Merlin who was really entrusted with keeping it

healthy

My mother did quite often talk of sending me to live with

this grandfather in London. But this would have meant

leaving Grundo to the mercies of Sybil and Alicia, so,

whenever she suggested it, I told her I was proud to be a

member of Court – which was quite true – and that I was

getting the best possible education – which was partly quite

true – and then I sort of went heavy at her and hoped she’d

forget the idea, if she got really anxious and went on about

this being no sort of life for a growing girl, I went on about

the way Grandad grows dahlias. I really do hate dahlias as

a way of life.

Mam had her latest worry session in Northumbria, in the

rain. We were all camped in a steep, heathery valley waiting

for the Scottish King to pay our King a formal visit. It was

so bare that there was not even a house for the King. The

canvas of the royal tent was turning a wet, dismal yellow

just downhill from us, and we were slithering in shiny, wet

sheep droppings while I went on about the way Grandad

grows dahlias.

“Besides, it’s such a stupid thing for a powerful magician

to do!” I said.

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TheMerlinConspiracyTheMerlinConspiracyTheMerlinConspiracyTheMerlinConspiracyDianaWynneJones2003A3Sdigitalback-upedition1.0clickforscannotesandproofinghistoryContents·1-Roddy1|2·2-Nick1|2·3-Roddy1|2·4-Nick1|2·5-Roddy1|2|3|4·6-Nick1|2|3·7-Nickcontinued1|2|3·8-Roddy1|2|3|4·9-Nick1|2|3|4·10-RoddyandNick...

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