Diana Wynne Jones - Mixed Magics

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Mixed Magics
by Diana Wynne Jones
There are thousands of worlds, all different from ours. Chrestomanci's world
is the one next door to us, and the difference here is that magic is as
common as music is with us. It is full of people working magic—warlocks,
witches, thaumaturges, sorcerers, fakirs, conjurers, hexers, magicians,
mages, shamans, diviners, and many more—from the lowest Certified witch
right up to the most powerful of enchanters. Enchanters are strange as well
as powerful. Their magic is different and stronger, and many of them have
more than one life.
Now, if someone did not control all these busy magic users, ordinary people
would have a horrible time and probably end up as slaves. So the
government appoints the very strongest enchanter there is to make sure no
one misuses magic. This enchanter has nine lives and is known as the
Chrestomanci. You pronounce it KREST-OH-MAN-SEE. He has to have a
strong personality as well as strong magic. —Diana Wynne Jones
CONTENTS:
WARLOCK AT THE WHEEL
STEALER OF SOULS
CAROL ONEIR'S HUNDREDTH DREAM
THE SAGE OF THEARE
* * * * * * *
Warlock at the Wheel
The Willing Warlock was a born loser. He lost his magic when Chrestomanci
took it away, and that meant he lost his usual way of making a living. So
he decided to take up a life of crime instead by stealing a motorcar,
because he loved motorcars, and sell-ing it. He found a beautiful car in
Wolvercote High Street, but he lost his head when a policeman saw him
trying to pick the lock and cycled up to know what he was doing. He ran.
The policeman pedaled after him, blowing his whistle, and the Willing
Warlock climbed over the nearest wall and ran again, with the whistle still
sounding, until he arrived in the backyard of a one-time Accredited Witch
who was a friend of his. "What shall I do?" he panted.
"How should I know?" said the Accredited Witch. "I'm not used to doing
without magic any more than you are. The only soul I know who's still in
business is a French wizard in Shepherd's Bush."
"Tell me his address," said the Willing Warlock.
The Accredited Witch told him. "But it won't do you a scrap of good," she
said unhelpfully. "Jean-Pierre always charges the earth. Now I'll thank you
to get out of here before you bring the police down on me, too."
The Willing Warlock went out of the witch's front door into Coven Street
and blenched at the sound of police whistles still shrilling in the distance.
Since it seemed to him that he had no time to waste, he hurried to the
nearest toyshop and parted with his last half crown for a toy pistol. Armed
with this, he walked into the first post office he came to.
"Your money or your life," he said to the postmistress. The Will-ing Warlock
was a bulky young man who always looked as if he needed to shave, and
the Postmistress was sure he was a desperate character. She let him clear
out her safe.
The Willing Warlock put the money and the pistol in his pocket and hailed a
taxi in which he drove all the way to Shepherd's Bush, feeling this was the
next best thing to having a car of his own. It cost a lot, but he arrived at
the French wizard's office still with £273 6s 4d in his pocket.
The French wizard shrugged in a very French way. "What is it you expect me
to do for you, my friend? Me, I try not to offend the police. If you wish me
to help, it will cost you."
"A hundred pounds," said the Willing Warlock. "Hide me some-how."
Jean-Pierre did another shrug. "For that money," he said, "I could hide you
two ways. I could turn you into a small round stone—"
"No, thanks," said the Willing Warlock.
"—and keep you in a drawer," said Jean-Pierre. "Or I could send you to
another world entirely. I could even send you to a world where you would
have your magic again—"
"Have my magic?" exclaimed the Willing Warlock.
"—but that would cost you twice as much," said Jean-Pierre. "Yes, naturally
you could have your magic again, if you went somewhere where
Chrestomanci has no power. The man is not all-powerful."
"Then I'll go to one of those places," said the Willing Warlock.
"Very well." In a bored sort of way, Jean-Pierre picked up a pack of cards
and fanned them out. "Choose a card. This decides which world you will
grace with your blue chin."
As the Willing Warlock stretched out his hand to take a card, Jean-Pierre
moved them out of reach. "Whatever world it is," he said, "the money there
will be quite different from your pounds, shillings, and pence. You might as
well give me all you have."
So the Willing Warlock handed over all his £273 6s 4d. Then he was
allowed to pick a card. It was the ten of clubs. Not a bad card, the Willing
Warlock thought. He was no fortune-teller, of course, but he knew the ten
of clubs meant that someone would bully somebody. He decided that he
would be the one doing the bullying, and handed back the card. Jean-Pierre
tossed all the cards carelessly down on a table. The Willing Warlock just
had time to see that every single one was the ten of clubs, before he found
himself still in Shepherd's Bush but in another world entirely.
He was standing in what seemed to be a car park beside a big road. On
that road, more cars than he had ever seen in his life were rushing past,
together with lorries and the occasional big red bus. There were cars
standing all around him. This was a good world indeed!
The Willing Warlock sniffed the delicious smell of petrol and turned to the
nearest parked car to see how it worked. It looked rather different from the
one he had tried to steal in Wolvercote. Experi-mentally he made a magic
pass over its bonnet. To his delight, the bonnet promptly sprang open an
inch or so. The French wizard had not lied. He had his magic back.
The Willing Warlock was just about to heave up the bonnet and plunge into
the mysteries beneath when he saw a large lady in uni-form, with a yellow
band around her cap, tramping meaningfully toward him. She must be a
policewoman. Now he had his magic back, the Willing Warlock did not
panic. He simply let go of the bonnet and sauntered casually away. Rather
to his surprise, the policewoman did not follow him. She just gave him a
look of deep contempt and tucked a message of some kind behind the
wiper of the car.
All the same, the Willing Warlock felt it prudent to go on walk-ing. he
walked to another street, looking at cars all the time, until something made
him look up. In front of him was a grand marble building. CITY BANK, it
said, in rich gold letters. Now here, thought the Willing Warlock, was a
better way to get a car than simply steal-ing it. If he robbed this bank, he
could buy a car of his very own. He took the toy pistol out of his pocket and
went in through the grand door.
Inside, it was very hushed and polite and calm. Though there were quite a
lot of people there, waiting in front of the cashiers or walking about in the
background, nobody seemed to notice the Will-ing Warlock standing
uncertainly waving his pistol. He was forced to go and push the nearest
queue of people aside and point the pistol at the lady behind the glass
there.
"Money or your life," he said.
They seemed to notice him then. Somebody screamed. The lady behind the
glass went white and put her thumb on a button near her cash drawer.
"How—how much money, sir?" she faltered.
"All of it," said the Willing Warlock. "Quickly." Maybe, he thought afterward,
that was a bit greedy. But it seemed so easy.
Everyone, on both sides of the glassed-in counter, was standing frozen,
staring at him, afraid of the pistol. And the lady readily opened her cash
drawer and began counting out wads of five-pound notes, fumbling with
haste and eagerness.
While she was doing it, the door of the bank opened and some-one came
in. The Willing Warlock glanced over his shoulder and saw it was only a
small man in a pin-striped suit, who seemed to be star-ing like everybody
else. The lady was actually passing the Willing Warlock the first bundle of
money when the small man shouted out in a very big voice, "Don't be a
fool! He's only joking. That's a toy pistol!"
At once everyone near turned on the Willing Warlock. Three men tried to
grab him. An old lady swung her handbag and clouted him around the head.
"Take that, you thief!" A bell began to ring loudly. And, worse still, an
unholy howling started somewhere outside, coming closer and closer.
"That's the police coming!" screamed the old lady, and she went for the
Willing Warlock again.
The Willing Warlock turned and ran, with everyone trying to stop him and
getting in his way. The last person who got in his way was the small man
in the pin-striped suit. He took hold of the Willing Warlock's sleeve and
said, "Wait a minute—"
The Willing Warlock was so desperate by then that he fired the toy pistol
at him. A stream of water came out of it and caught the small man in one
eye, drenching his smart suit. The small man ducked and let go. The Willing
Warlock burst out through the door of the bank.
The howling outside was hideous. It was coming from a white car labeled
police, with a blue flashing light on top, which was rac-ing down the street
toward him. There was rather a nice car parked by the curb, facing toward
the police car. A big, shiny, expensive car. Even in his panic, and as he
wondered how the police had been fetched so quickly, that car caught the
Willing Warlock's eye. As the police car screamed to a stop and policemen
started to jump out of it, the Willing Warlock tore open the door of the nice
car, jumped into the seat behind the steering wheel, and set it going in a
burst of des-perate magic.
Behind him, the policemen jumped back into their car, which then did a
screaming U-turn and came after him. The Willing War-lock saw them
coming in a little mirror somebody had thoughtfully fixed to the windscreen.
He flung the nice car around a corner out of sight. But the police car
followed. The Willing Warlock screamed around another corner, and
another. But the police car stuck to him like a leech.
The Willing Warlock realized that he had better spare a little magic from
making the car go in order to make the car look differ-ent. So as he
screamed around yet another corner into the main road he had first seen,
he put out his last ounce of magic and turned the car bright pink. To his
relief, the police car went past him and roared away into the distance.
The Willing Warlock relaxed a little. He had a nice car of his own now and
he seemed to be safe for the moment. But he still had to learn how to
make the thing go properly, instead of by magic, and as he soon
discovered, there seemed to be all sorts of other rules to driving that he
had never even imagined.
For one thing, all the cars kept to the left-hand side, and motorists seemed
to get very annoyed when they found a large pink car coming toward them
on the other side of the road. Then there were some streets where all the
cars seemed to be coming toward the pink car, and the people in those cars
shook their fists and pointed and hooted at the Willing Warlock. Then
again, sometimes there were lights at crossroads, and people did not seem
to like you going past them when they were red.
The Willing Warlock was not very clever, but he did realize quite soon that
cars were not often pink. A pink car that broke all these rules was bound to
be noticed. So while he drove on and on, looking for some quiet street
where he could learn how the car really worked, he sought about for some
other way to disguise the car. He saw that all cars had a plate in front and
behind, with letters and numbers on. That made it easy.
He changed the front number plate to WW100 and the back one to XYZ123
and let the car return to its nice shiny gray color and drove soberly on till
he found some back streets lined with quiet houses. By this time he was
quite tired. He had never had much magic, and he was out of practice
anyway. He was glad to stop and look for the knob that made the engine
go.
There were rows of knobs, but none of them seemed to be the one he
wanted. One knob squirted water all over the front window. Another opened
the side windows and brought wet, windy air sigh-ing in. Another flashed
lights. Yet another made a loud hooting, which made the Willing Warlock
jump. People would notice!
He became panicky and found his neck going hot and cold in gusts, with a
specially cold, panicky spot in the middle, at the back, just above his collar.
He tried another knob. That played music. The next knob made voices
speak. "Over and out ... Yes. Pink. I don't know how he got a respray that
quick, but it's definitely him..."
The Willing Warlock, in even more of a panic, realized he was listening to
the police by magic, and that they were still hunting him. In his panic he
pressed another knob, which made wipers start furi-ously waving across the
windscreen, wiping off the water the first knob had squirted.
"Doh!" said the Willing Warlock, and put up his hand irritably to rub that
panicky cold spot at the back of his neck. The cold place was connected to
a long, warm, hairy muzzle. Whatever owned the muzzle objected to being
wiped away. It let out a deep bass growl and a blast of warm, smelly air.
The Willing Warlock snatched his hand away. In his terror, he pressed
another button, which caused the seat he was in to collapse gently
backward until he was lying on his back. He found himself staring up into
the face of the largest dog he had ever seen. It was a great pepper-colored
brute, with white fangs to match the size of the rest of it. Evidently he had
stolen a dog as well as a car.
"Grrrrr," repeated the dog. It bent its great head until the noise vibrated
the Willing Warlock's skull like a road drill, and sniffed his face loudly.
"Get off," said the Willing Warlock tremulously.
Worse followed. Something surged in the backseat beside the huge dog. A
small, shrill voice, sounding very sleepy, said, "Why have we stopped for,
Daddy?"
"Oh, my gawdl" said the Willing Warlock. He turned his eyes gently
sideways under the great dog's face. Sure enough, there was a child on the
backseat beside the dog, a rather small child with red-dish hair and a
slobbery, sleepy face.
"You're not my daddy," this child said accusingly.
The Willing Warlock rather liked children on the whole, but he knew he
would have to get rid of this one somehow. To steal a car and a dog and a
child would probably put him in prison for life. Peo-ple really did not like
you stealing children.
Frantically he reached forward and pushed knobs. Lights lit, wipers swatted
and unswatted, voices spoke, a hooter sounded, but at last he pushed the
right one, and the seat rose gracefully upright again. He used his magic on
the rear door, and it sprang open.
"Out," he said. "Both of you. Get out and wait, and your daddy will find
you."
Dog and child turned and stared at the open door. Their faces, puzzled and
slightly indignant, turned back to the Willing Warlock. It was their car, after
all.
The Willing Warlock tried a bit of coaxing. "Get out. Nice dog. Good boy."
"Grrrr," said the dog, and the child said, "I'm not a boy."
"I meant the dog," the Willing Warlock said hastily. The dog's growl
enlarged to a rumble that shook the car. Perhaps the dog was not a boy
either. The Willing Warlock knew when he was beaten. It was a pity, when
it was such a nice car, but this world was full of cars. Provided he made
sure the next one was empty, he could steal one anytime he liked. He
slammed the rear door shut and started to open his own.
The dog was too quick for him. Before he had reached the han-dle, its great
teeth were fastened into the shoulder of his jacket, right through the cloth.
He could feel them digging into his skin under-neath. And it growled harder
than ever. "Let go," the Willing War-lock said, without hope, and sat very
still.
"Go on driving," commanded the child.
"Why?" said the Willing Warlock.
"Because I like driving in cars," said the child. "Towser will let you go when
you drive."
"I don't know how to make the car go," the Willing Warlock said sullenly.
"Stupid," said the child. "Daddy uses those keys there, and he pushes on
the pedals with his feet."
Towser backed this up with another growl and dug his teeth in a little.
Towser clearly knew his job, and his job seemed to be to back up anything
the child said. The Willing Warlock sighed, thinking of years in prison, but
he found the keys and located the pedals. He turned the keys. He pushed
on the pedals. The engine started with a roar.
Then another voice spoke. "You have forgotten to fasten your seat belt," it
said. "I cannot proceed until you do so."
It was here that the Willing Warlock realized that his troubles had only just
begun. The car was bullying him now. He had no idea where the seat belt
was, but it is amazing what you can do if a mouthful of white fangs are
fastened into your shoulder. The Willing Warlock found the seat belt. He
did it up. He found a lever that said "forward" and pushed it. He pressed on
pedals. The engine roared, but nothing else happened.
"You are wasting petrol," the car told him acidly. "Release the hand brake. I
cannot pro—"
The Willing Warlock found a sort of stick in the floor and moved it. It
snapped like a crocodile, and the car jerked. "You are wasting petrol," the
car said, boringly. "Release the foot brake. I cannot pro-ceed—"
Luckily, since Towser was growling even louder than the car, the Willing
Warlock took his left foot off a pedal first. They shot off down the road.
"You are wasting petrol," the car told him.
"Oh, shut up," the Willing Warlock said. But nothing shut the car up, he
discovered, except not pressing so hard on the right-hand pedal.
Towser, on the other hand, seemed satisfied as soon as the car moved. He
let go of the Willing Warlock and loomed behind him on the backseat, while
the child sat and chanted, "Go on, go on, go on driving."
The Willing Warlock kept on driving. There is nothing else you can do if a
child, a dog the size of Towser, and a car all combine to make you. At least
the car was easy to drive. All the Willing Warlock had to do was sit there
not pressing the pedal too much and keep turning into the emptiest
streets. He had time to think. He knew the dog's name. If he could find out
the child's name, then he could work a spell on them both to make them let
him go.
"What's your name?" he asked, turning into a wide straight road with room
for three cars abreast in it.
"Jemima Jane," said the child. "Go on, go on, go on driving."
The Willing Warlock drove, muttering a spell. While he did, Towser made a
flowing sort of jump and landed in the passenger seat beside him, where
he sat in a royal way, staring out at the road. The Willing Warlock cowered
away from him and finished the spell in a gabble. The beast was as big as
a lion!
"You are wasting petrol," remarked the car.
Perhaps these things caused the Willing Warlock to muddle the spell. All
that happened was that Towser turned invisible.
There was an instant shriek from the backseat. "Where's Towser?"
The invisible space on the front passenger seat growled horri-bly. The
Willing Warlock did not know where its teeth were. He hurriedly revoked the
spell. Towser loomed beside him, looking reproachful.
"You're not to do that again!" said Jemima Jane.
"I won't if we all get out and walk," the Willing Warlock said cunningly.
A silence met this suggestion, with an undercurrent of snarl to it. The
Willing Warlock gave up for the moment and kept on driving. There were no
houses by the road anymore, only trees, grass, and a few cows, and the
road stretched into the distance, endlessly. The nice gray car, labeled
"WW100" in front and "XYZ123" behind, zoomed gently onward for nearly
an hour. The sun began setting in gory clouds, behind some low green hills.
"I want my supper," announced Jemima Jane. At the word sup-per, Towser
yawned and started to dribble. He turned to look thoughtfully at the Willing
Warlock, obviously wondering which bits of him tasted best. "Towser's
hungry, too," said Jemima Jane.
The Willing Warlock turned his eyes sideways to look at Towser's great pink
tongue draped over Towser's large white fangs. "I'll stop at the first place
we see," he said obligingly. He began turn-ing over schemes for giving both
of them—not to speak of the car—the slip the moment they allowed him to
stop. If he made himself invisible, so that the dog could not find him—
He seemed to be in luck. Just then a large blue notice that said HADBURY
SERVICES came into view, with a picture of a knife and fork underneath. The
Willing Warlock turned into it with a squeal of tires. "You are wasting
petrol," the car protested.
The Willing Warlock took no notice. He stopped with a jolt among a lot of
other cars, turned himself invisible, and tried to jump out. But he had
forgotten the seat belt. It held him in place long enough for Towser to fix
his fangs in the sleeve of his coat, and that seemed to be enough to make
Towser turn invisible, too. "You have forgotten to set the hand brake," said
the car.
"Doh!" snarled the Willing Warlock miserably, and put the hand brake on. It
was not easy, with Towser's invisible fangs grating his arm.
"You're to fetch me lots and lots," Jemima Jane said. It did not seem to
trouble her that both of them had vanished. "Towser, make sure he brings
me an ice cream."
The Willing Warlock climbed out of the car, lugging the invisible Towser. He
tried some more cunning. "Come with me and show me which ice cream you
want," he called back. Several people in the car park looked around to see
where the invisible voice was coming from.
"I want to stay in the car. I'm tired," whined Jemima Jane.
The invisible teeth fastened in the Willing Warlock's sleeve rum-bled a
little. Invisible dribble ran on his hand. "Oh, all right," he said, and set off
for the restaurant, accompanied by four invisible heavy paws.
Maybe it was a good thing they were both invisible. There was a big sign on
the door: no dogs. And the Willing Warlock still had no money. He went to
the long counter and picked up pies and scones with the hand Towser left
him free. He stuffed them into his pocket so that they would become
invisible, too.
Someone pointed to the Danish pastry he picked up next and screamed,
"Look! A ghost!" Then there were screams further down the counter. The
Willing Warlock looked. A very large chocolate gateau, with a snout-shaped
piece missing from it, was trotting at chest level across the dining area.
Towser was helping himself, too. People backed away, yelling. The gateau
broke into a gallop and barged out through the glass doors with a splat. At
the same moment, someone grabbed the Danish pastry from the Willing
Warlock's hand.
It was the girl behind the cash desk, who was not afraid of ghosts. "You're
the Invisible Man or something," she said. "Give that back."
The Willing Warlock panicked again and ran after the gateau. He meant to
go on running, as fast as he could, in the opposite direction from the nice
car. But as soon as he barged through the door, he found the gateau
waiting for him, lying on the ground. A warning growl and hot breath on his
hand suggested that he pick the gateau up and come along. Teeth in his
trouser leg backed up this sugges-tion. Dismally, the Willing Warlock
obeyed.
"Where's my ice cream?" Jemima Jane asked ungratefully.
"There wasn't any," said the Willing Warlock as Towser herded him into the
car. He threw the gateau, the scones, and a pork pie onto the backseat.
"Be thankful for what you've got."
"Why?" asked Jemima Jane.
The Willing Warlock gave up. He turned himself visible again and sat in the
driving seat to eat the other pork pie. He could feel Towser snuffing him
from time to time make sure he stayed there. In between, he could hear
Towser eating. Towser made such a noise that the Willing Warlock was
glad he was invisible. He looked to make sure. And there was Towser,
visible again in all his hugeness, sitting in the backseat licking his vast
chops. As for Jemima Jane, the Willing Warlock had to look away quickly.
She was chocolate all over. There was a river of chocolate down her front
and more plas-tered into her red curls like mud.
"Why aren't you going on driving for?" Jemima Jane demanded. Towser at
once surged to his huge feet to back up the demand.
"I am, I am!" the Willing Warlock said, hastily starting the engine.
"You have forgotten to fasten your seat belt," the car reminded him
priggishly. And as the car moved forward, it added, "It is now lighting-up
time. You require headlights."
The Willing Warlock started the wipers, rolled down the win-dows, played
music, and finally managed to turn on the lights. He drove back onto the
big road, hating all three of them. And drove. Jemima Jane stood up on the
backseat behind him. The gateau had made her distressingly lively. She
wanted to talk. She grabbed one of the Willing Warlock's ears in a sticky
chocolate hand for balance and breathed gateau fumes and questions into
his other ear.
"Why did you take our car for? What are all those prickles on your chin for?
Why don't you like me holding your nose for? Why don't you smell nice?
Where are we going to? Shall we drive in the car all night?" and many more
such questions.
The Willing Warlock was forced to answer all these questions in the right
way. If he did not answer, Jemima Jane dragged at his hair, or twisted his
ear, or took hold of his nose. If the answer he gave did not please Jemima
Jane, Towser rose up growling, and the Willing Warlock had quickly to think
of a better answer. It was not long before he was as plastered with
chocolate as Jemima Jane was. He thought that it was not possible for a
person to be more unhappy.
He was wrong. Towser suddenly stood up and staggered about the
backseat, making odd noises.
"Towser's going to go sick," Jemima Jane said.
The Willing Warlock squealed to a halt on the hard shoulder and threw all
four doors open wide. Towser would have to get out, he thought. Then he
could drive straight off again and leave Towser by the roadside.
摘要：

MixedMagicsbyDianaWynneJonesTherearethousandsofworlds,alldifferentfromours.Chrestomanci'sworldistheonenextdoortous,andthedifferencehereisthatmagicisascommonasmusiciswithus.Itisfullofpeopleworkingmagic—warlocks,witches,thaumaturges,sorcerers,fakirs,conjurers,hexers,magicians,mages,shamans,diviners,an...

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