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Stealer of Souls

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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, conjurors, 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

Chapter 1

Cat Chant was not altogether happy, either with himself or with other people. The reason was the Italian boy that Chrestomanci had unexpectedly brought back to Chrestomanci Castle after his trip to Italy.

“Cat,” said Chrestomanci, who was looking rather tired after his travels, “this is Antonio Montana. You’ll find he has some very interesting magic.”

Cat looked at the Italian boy, and the Italian boy held out his hand and said, “How do you do. Please call me Tonino,” in excellent English, but with a slight halt at the end of each word, as if he was used to words that mostly ended in ‘o’. Cat knew at that instant that he was going to count the days until someone took Tonino back to Italy again. And he hoped someone would do it soon.

It was not just the beautiful English and the good manners. Tonino had fair hair – that almost greyish fair hair people usually call ash blond – which Cat had never imagined an Italian could have. It looked very sophisticated and it made Cat’s hair look a crude straw colour by comparison. As if this was not enough, Tonino had trusting brown eyes and a nervous expression, and he was evidently younger than Cat. He looked so sweet that Cat shook hands as quickly as he could without being rude, knowing at once that everyone would expect him to look after Tonino.

“Pleased to meet you,” he lied.

Sure enough, Chrestomanci said, “Cat, I’m sure I can trust you to show Tonino the ropes here and keep an eye on him until he finds his feet in England.”

Cat sighed. He knew he was going to be very bored.

But it was worse than that. The other children in the castle thought Tonino was lovely. They all did their best to be friends with him. Chrestomanci’s daughter Julia patiently taught Tonino all the games you played in England, including cricket. Chrestomanci’s son Roger joined in the cricket lessons and then spent hours gravely comparing spells with Tonino. Chrestomanci’s ward Janet spent further hours enthusiastically asking Tonino about Italy. Janet came from another world where Italy was quite different, and she was interested in the differences.

And yet, despite all this attention, Tonino went around with a lost, lonely look which made Cat avoid him. He could tell Tonino was acutely homesick. In fact, Cat was fairly sure Tonino was feeling just like Cat had felt himself when he first came to Chrestomanci Castle, and Cat could not get over the annoyance of having someone have feelings that were his. He knew this was stupid – this was partly why he was not happy with himself – but he was not happy with Julia, Roger and Janet either. He considered that they were making a stupid fuss over Tonino. The fact was that Julia and Roger normally looked after Cat. He had grown used to being the youngest and unhappiest person in the castle, until Tonino had come along and stolen his thunder. Cat knew all this perfectly well, but it did not make the slightest difference to the way he felt.

To make things worse, Chrestomanci himself was extremely interested in Tonino’s magic. He spent large parts of the next few days with Tonino doing experiments to discover just what the extent of Tonino’s powers was, while Cat, who was used to being the one with the interesting magic, was left to wrestle with problems of Magic Theory by himself in Chrestomanci’s study.

“Tonino,” Chrestomanci said, by way of explanation, “can, it seems, not only reinforce other people’s spells, but also make use of any magic other people do. If it’s true, it’s a highly unusual ability. And by the way,” he added, turning round in the doorway, looking tall enough to brush the ceiling, “you don’t seem to have shown Tonino round the castle yet. How come?”

“I was busy – I forgot,” Cat muttered sulkily.

“Fit it into your crowded schedule soon, please,” Chrestomanci said, “or I may find myself becoming seriously irritated.”

Cat sighed, but nodded. No one disobeyed Chrestomanci when he got like this. But now he had to face the fact that Chrestomanci knew exactly how Cat was feeling and had absolutely no patience with it. Cat sighed again as he got down to his problems.

Magic Theory left him completely bewildered. His trouble was that he could, instinctively, do magic that used very advanced Magic Theory indeed, and he had no idea how he did it. Sometimes he did not even know he was doing magic. Chrestomanci said Cat must learn Theory or he might one day do something quite terrible by mistake. As far as Cat was concerned, the one thing he wanted magic to do was to solve Theory problems, and that seemed to be the one thing you couldn’t use it for.

He got six answers he knew were nonsense. Then, feeling very neglected and put-upon, he took Tonino on a tour of the castle. It was not a success. Tonino looked white and tired and timid almost the whole time, and shivered in the long cold passages and on all the dark chilly staircases. Cat could not think of anything to say except utterly obvious things like, “This is called the Small Drawing Room,” or, “This is the schoolroom – we have lessons here with Michael Saunders, but he’s away in Greenland just now,” or, “Here’s the front hall – it’s made of marble.”

The only time Tonino showed the slightest interest was when they came to the big windows that overlooked the velvety green lawn and the great cedars of the gardens. He actually hooked a knee on the windowsill to look down at it.

“My mother has told me of this,” he said, “but I never thought it would be so wet and green.”

“How does your mother know about the gardens?” Cat asked.

“She is English. She was brought up here in this castle when Gabriel de Witt, who was Chrestomanci before this one, collected many children with magic talents to be trained here,” Tonino replied.

Cat felt annoyed and somehow cheated that Tonino had a connection with the castle anyway. “Then you’re English too,” he said. It came out as if he were accusing Tonino of a crime.

“No, I am Italian,” Tonino said firmly. He added, with great pride, “I belong to the foremost spell-house in Italy.”

There did not seem to be any reply to this. Cat did think of saying, “And I’m going to be the next Chrestomanci – I’ve got nine lives, you know,” but he knew this would be silly and boastful. Tonino had not been boasting really. He had been trying to say why he did not belong in the castle. So Cat simply took Tonino back to the playroom, where Julia was only too ready to teach him card games, and mooched away, feeling he had done his duty. He tried to avoid Tonino after that. He did not like being made to feel the way Tonino made him feel.

Unfortunately, Julia went down with measles the next day, and Roger the day after that. Cat had had measles long before he came to the castle, and so had Tonino. Janet could not remember whether she had had them or not, although she assured them that there was measles in the world she came from, because you could be injected against it. “Maybe I’ve been injected,” she suggested hopefully.

Chrestomanci’s wife Millie gave Janet a worried look. “I think you’d better stay away from Roger and Julia all the same,” she said.

“But you’re an enchantress,” Janet said. “You could stop me getting them.”

“Magic has almost no effect on measles,” Millie told her. “I wish it did, but it doesn’t. Cat can see Roger and Julia if he wants, but you keep away.”

Cat went to Roger’s bedroom and then Julia’s and was shocked at how ill they both were. He could see it was going to be weeks before they were well enough to look after Tonino. He found himself, quite urgently and cold-bloodedly (and in spite of what Millie had said) putting a spell on Janet to make sure she did not go down with measles too. He knew as he did it that it was probably the most selfish thing he had ever done, but he simply could not bear to be the only one left to look after Tonino. By the time he got back to the schoolroom, he was in a very bad mood.

“How are they?” Janet asked him anxiously.

“Awful,” Cat said out of his bad mood. “Roger’s sort of purple and Julia’s uglier than ever.”

“Do you think Julia’s ugly then?” Janet said. “I mean, in the normal way.”

“Yes,” said Cat. “Plump and pudgy, like you said.”

“I was angry when I told you that and being unfair,” said Janet. “You shouldn’t believe me when I’m angry, Cat. I’ll take a bet with you, if you like, that Julia grows up a raving beauty, as good-looking as her father. She’s got his bones to her face. And, you must admit, Chrestomanci is taller and darker and handsomer than any man has any right to be!”

She kept giving little dry coughs as she spoke. Cat examined her with concern. Janet’s extremely pretty face showed no sign of any spots, but her golden hair was hanging in lifeless hanks and her big blue eyes were slightly red about the rims. He suspected that he had been too late with his spell. “And Roger?” he asked. “Is he going to grow up ravingly beautiful too?”

Janet looked dubious. “He takes after Millie. But,” she added, coughing again, “he’ll be very nice.”

“Not like me then,” Cat said sadly. “I’m nastier than everyone. I think I’m growing into an evil enchanter. And I think you’ve got measles too.”

“I have not!” Janet exclaimed indignantly.

But she had. By that evening she was in bed too, freckled purple all over and looking uglier than Julia. The maids once again ran up and down stairs with possets to bring down fever, while Millie used the new telephone at the top of the marble stairs to ask the doctor to call again.

“I shall go mad,” she told Cat. “Janet’s really ill, worse than the other two. Go and make sure Tonino’s not feeling too neglected, there’s a good boy.”

I knew it! Cat thought and went very slowly back to the playroom.

Behind him, the telephone rang again. He heard Millie answer it. He had gone three slow steps when he heard the telephone go back on its rest. Millie uttered a great groan and Chrestomanci at once came out of the office to see what was wrong. Cat prudently made himself invisible.

“Oh lord!” Millie said. “That was Mordecai Roberts. Why does everything happen at once? Gabriel de Witt wants to see Tonino tomorrow.”

“That’s awkward,” Chrestomanci said. “Tomorrow I’ve got to be in Series One for the Conclave of Mages.”

“But I really must stay here with the other children,” Millie said. “Janet’s going to need all magic can do for her, particularly for her eyes. Can we put Gabriel off?”

“I don’t think so,” Chrestomanci replied, unusually seriously. “Tomorrow could be Gabriel’s last chance to see anyone. His lives are leaving him steadily now. And he was thrilled when I told him about Tonino. He’s always hoped we’d find someone with back-up magic one day. I know what, though. We can send Cat with Tonino. Gabriel’s almost equally interested in Cat, and the responsibility will do Cat good.”

No it won’t! Cat thought. I hate responsibility! As he fled invisibly back to the playroom, he thought Why me? Why can’t they send one of the wizards on the staff, or Miss Bessemer, or someone? But of course everyone was going to be busy, with Chrestomanci away and Millie looking after Janet.

In the playroom, Tonino was curled up on one of the shabby sofas deep in one of Julia’s favourite books. He barely looked up as the door seemed to open by itself and Cat shook himself visible again.

Tonino, Cat realised, was an avid reader. He knew the signs from Janet and Julia. That was a relief. Cat went quietly away to his own room and collected all the books there that Janet had been trying to make him read and that Cat had somehow not got round to – how could Janet expect him to read books called Millie Goes to School anyway? – and brought the whole armful back to the playroom.

“Here,” he said, dumping them on the floor beside Tonino. “Janet says these are good.”

And he thought, as he curled up on the other battered sofa, that this was exactly how a person got to be an evil enchanter, by doing a whole lot of good things for bad reasons. He tried to think of ways to get out of looking after Tonino tomorrow.

Cat always dreaded going to visit Gabriel de Witt anyway. He was so old-fashioned and sharp and so obviously an enchanter, and you had to remember to behave in an old-fashioned polite way all the time you were there. But these days it was worse than that. As Chrestomanci had said, old Gabriel’s nine lives were leaving him one by one. Every time Cat was taken to see him, Gabriel de Witt looked iller and older and more gaunt, and Cat’s secret dread was that one day he would be there, making polite conversation, and actually see one of Gabriel’s lives as it went away. If he did, he knew he would scream.

The dread of this happening so haunted Cat that he could scarcely speak to Gabriel for watching and waiting for a life to leave. Gabriel de Witt told Chrestomanci that Cat was a strange, reserved boy. To which Chrestomanci answered “Really?” in his most sarcastic way.

People, Cat thought, should be looking after him, and not breaking his spirit by forcing him to take Italian boys to see elderly enchanters. But he could think of no way to get out of it that Millie or Chrestomanci would not see through at once. Chrestomanci seemed to know when Cat was being dishonest even before Cat knew it himself. Cat sighed and went to bed hoping that Chrestomanci would have changed his mind in the morning and decided to send someone else with Tonino.

This was not to be. At breakfast, Chrestomanci appeared (in a sea-green dressing gown with a design of waves breaking on it) to tell Cat and Tonino that they were catching the ten thirty train to Dulwich to visit Gabriel de Witt. Then he went away and Millie – who looked very tired from having sat up half the night with Janet – rustled in to give them their train fare.

Tonino frowned. “I do not understand. Was not Monsignor de Witt the former Chrestomanci, Lady Chant?”

“Call me Millie, please,” said Millie. “Yes, that’s right. Gabriel stayed in the post until he felt Christopher was ready to take over and then he retired – Oh, I see! You thought he was dead! Oh no, far from it. Gabriel’s as lively and sharp as ever he was, you’ll see.”

There was a time when Cat had thought that the last Chrestomanci was dead too. He had thought that the present Chrestomanci had to die before the next one took over, and he used to watch this Chrestomanci rather anxiously in case Chrestomanci showed signs of losing his last two lives and thrusting Cat into all the huge responsibility of looking after the magic in this world. He had been quite relieved to find it was more normal than that.

“There’s nothing to worry about,” Millie said. “Mordecai Roberts is going to meet you at the station and then he’ll take you back there in a cab after lunch. And Tom is going to drive you to the station here in the car and meet you off the three nineteen when you get back. Here’s the money, Cat, and an extra five shillings in case you need a snack on the way back – because efficient as I know Miss Rosalie is, she doesn’t have any idea how much boys need to eat. She never did have and she hasn’t changed. And I want to hear all about it when you get home.”