by Mike Ashley
“Who—” Cory said, alarmed.
“Grown-ups,” Rocko grunted. “Those builders of boundaries. They heard all the screaming, probably. Let’s finish this before they get here.”
They worked faster, and when they finished, the bicycle was just bits of junk glittering in the stream.
“So much for the micro-ecology,” Heather said. “The water will probably be poisoned forever.”
A woman came into the clearing, followed by another woman and a man. “Heather!” the first woman shouted. “What—” She saw the witch’s body. “Oh my God!” she cried, covering her mouth with both hands.
“I killed her,” Rocko said, stepping forward. He looked over his shoulder at Cory, then favored Heather with a smile. He turned back to the grown-ups. “I killed her because she was a witch.”
The adults looked at one another.
Heather grasped Cory’s hand, hard. He squeezed hers just as tightly. This was going to be a long afternoon, and long days ahead . . . but maybe, on the other side of it, he would still be able to hold Heather’s hand.
THE SAGE OF THEARE
Diana Wynne Jones
I often think, why should children get all the best books. I’m not sure that many adults are adventurous enough to see what children are reading. Maybe the Harry Potter books are changing that, but I think adults need to check out the children’s section in the bookshop a little more often. They will then discover the brilliance of Diana Wynne Jones (1934-2011), because her books deal with adult themes and will be enjoyed by all ages. Her first book appeared in 1973, Wilkins’ Tooth, followed rapidly by the brilliantly funny The Ogre Downstairs (1974), Eight Days of Luke (1975) and Cart & Cwidder (1975), the first book of hers that I discovered and the first of her series set in the world of Dalemark. With Charmed Life (1977) she began her other popular series featuring Chrestomanci. Imagine if magic worked, someone would have to regulate it to make sure it does not get out of hand. In many countries that means bureaucracy. That’s the fun of the Chrestomanci series. Chrestomanci (pronounced Krest-oh-Man-See) is the most powerful of all enchanters set in place by the government to control the use of magic. But, of course, it’s never that simple.
THERE WAS A WORLD called Theare in which Heaven was very well organised. Everything was so precisely worked out that every god knew his or her exact duties, correct prayers, right times for business, utterly exact character and unmistakable place above or below the gods.
This was the case from Great Zond, the King of the Gods, through every god, godlet, deity, minor deity and numen, down to the most immaterial nymph. Even the invisible dragons that lived in the rivers had their invisible lines of demarcation. The universe ran like clockwork. Mankind was not always so regular, but the gods were there to set him right. It had been like this for centuries.
So it was a breach in the very nature of things when, in the middle of the yearly Festival of Water, at which only watery deities were entitled to be present, Great Zond looked up to see Imperion, god of the sun, storming towards him down the halls of Heaven.
“Go away!” cried Zond, aghast.
But Imperion swept on, causing the watery deities gathered there to steam and hiss, and arrived in a wave of heat and warm water at the foot of Zond’s high throne.
“Father!” Imperion cried urgently.
A high god like Imperion was entitled to call Zond Father. Zond did not recall whether or not he was actually Imperion’s father. The origins of the gods were not quite so orderly at their present existence. But Zond knew that, son of his or not, Imperion had breached all the rules. “Abase yourself,” Zond said sternly.
Imperion ignored this command too. Perhaps this was just as well, since the floor of Heaven was awash already, and steaming. Imperion kept his flaming gaze on Zond. “Father! The Sage of Dissolution has been born!”
Zond shuddered in the clouds of hot vapour and tried to feel resigned. “It is written,” he said, “a Sage shall be born who shall question everything. His questions shall bring down the exquisite order of heaven and cast all the gods into disorder. It is also written—”
Here Zond realised that Imperion had made him break the rules too. The correct procedure was for Zond to summon the god of prophecy and have that god consult the Book of Heaven. Then he realised that Imperion was the god of prophecy. It was one of his precisely allocated duties. Zond rounded on Imperion. “What do you mean coming and telling me? You’re god of prophecy! Go and look in the Book of Heaven!”
“I already have, Father,” said Imperion. “I find I prophesied the coming of the Sage of Dissolution when the gods first began. It is written that the Sage shall be born and that I shall not know.”
“Then,” said Zond, scoring a point, “how is it you’re here telling me he has been born?”
“The mere fact,” Imperion said, “that I can come here and interrupt the Water Festival, shows that the Sage has been born. Our Dissolution has obviously begun.”
There was a splash of consternation among the watery gods. They were gathered down the hall as far as they could get from Imperion, but they had all heard. Zond tried to gather his wits. What with the steam raised by Imperion and the spume of dismay thrown out by the rest, the halls of Heaven were in a state nearer chaos than he had known for millennia. Any more of this, and there would be no need for the Sage to ask questions.
“Leave us,” Zond said to the watery gods. “Events even beyond my control cause this Festival to be stopped. You will be informed later of any decision I make.” To Zond’s dismay, the watery ones hesitated – further evidence of Dissolution. “I promise,” he said.
The watery ones made up their minds. They left in waves, all except one. This one was Ock, god of all oceans. Ock was equal in status to Imperion and heat did not threaten him. He stayed where he was.
Zond was not pleased. Ock, it always seemed to him, was the least orderly of the gods. He did not know his place. He was as restless and unfathomable as mankind. But, with Dissolution already begun, what could Zond do?
“You have our permission to stay,” he said graciously to Ock, and to Imperion: “Well, how did you know the Sage was born?”
“I was consulting the Book of Heaven on another matter,” said Imperion, “and the page opened at my prophecy concerning the Sage of Dissolution. Since it said that I would not know the day and hour when the Sage was born, it followed that he has already been born, or I would not have known. The rest of the prophecy was commendably precise, however. Twenty years from now, he will start questioning Heaven. What shall we do to stop him?”
“I don’t see what we can do,” Zond said hopelessly. “A prophecy is a prophecy.”
“But we must do something!” blazed Imperion. “I insist! I am a god of order, even more than you are. Think what would happen if the sun went inaccurate! This means more to me than anyone. I want the Sage of Dissolution found and killed before he can ask questions.”
Zond was shocked. “I can’t do that! If the prophecy says he has to ask questions, then he has to ask them.”
Here Ock approached. “Every prophecy has a loophole,” he said.
“Of course,” snapped Imperion. “I can see the loophole as well as you. I’m taking advantage of the disorder caused by the birth of the Sage to ask Great Zond to kill him and overthrow the prophecy. Thus restoring order.”
“Logic-chopping is not what I meant,” said Ock.
The two gods faced one another. Steam from Ock suffused Imperion and then rained back on Ock, as regularly as breathing. “What did you mean, then?” said Imperion.
“The prophecy,” said Ock, “does not appear to say which world the Sage will ask his questions in. There are many other worlds. Mankind calls them if-worlds, meaning that they were once the same world as Theare, but split off and went their own ways after each doubtful event in history. Each if-world has its own Heaven. There must be one world in which the gods are not as orderly as we are here. Let the Sage be put in that world.
Let him ask his predestined questions there.”
“Good idea!” Zond clapped his hands in relief, causing untoward tempests in all Theare. “Agreed, Imperion?”
“Yes,” said Imperion. He flamed with relief. And, being unguarded, he at once became prophetic. “But I must warn you,” he said, “that strange things happen when destiny is tampered with.”
“Strange things maybe, but never disorderly,” Zond asserted. He called the water gods back and, with them, every god in Theare. He told them that an infant had just been born who was destined to spread Dissolution, and he ordered each one of them to search the ends of the earth for this child.
(“The ends of the earth” was a legal formula. Zond did not believe that Theare was flat. But the expression had been unchanged for centuries, just like the rest of Heaven. It meant “Look everywhere.”)
The whole of Heaven looked high and low. Nymphs and godlets scanned mountains, caves and woods. Household gods peered into cradles. Watery gods searched beaches, banks and margins. The goddess of love went deeply into her records, to find who the Sage’s parents might be. The invisible dragons swam to look inside barges and houseboats. Since there was a god for everything in Theare, nowhere was missed, nothing was omitted. Imperion searched harder than any, blazing into every nook and crevice on one side of the world, and exhorting the moon goddess to do the same on the other side.
And nobody found the Sage. There were one or two false alarms, such as when a household goddess reported an infant that never stopped crying. This baby, she said, was driving her up the wall and, if this was not Dissolution, she would like to know what was. There were also several reports of infants born with teeth, or six fingers, or suchlike strangeness. But, in each case, Zond was able to prove that the child had nothing to do with Dissolution. After a month, it became clear that the infant Sage was not going to be found.
Imperion was in despair, for, as he had told Zond, order meant more to him than to any other god. He became so worried that he was actually causing the sun to lose heat. At length, the goddess of love advised him to go off and relax with a mortal woman before he brought about Dissolution himself.
Imperion saw she was right. He went down to visit the human woman he had loved for some years. It was established custom for gods to love mortals. Some visited their loves in all sorts of fanciful shapes, and some had many loves at once. But Imperion was both honest and faithful. He never visited Nestara as anything but a handsome man, and he loved her devotedly. Three years ago, she had borne him a son, whom Imperion loved almost as much as he loved Nestara. Before the Sage was born to trouble him, Imperion had been trying to bend the rules of Heaven a little, to get his son approved as a god too.
The child’s name was Thasper. As Imperion descended to earth, he could see Thasper digging in some sand outside Nestara’s house – a beautiful child, fair-haired and blue-eyed. Imperion wondered fondly if Thasper was talking properly yet. Nestara had been worried about how slow he was learning to speak.
Imperion alighted beside his son. “Hello, Thasper. What are you digging so busily?”
Instead of answering, Thasper raised his golden head and shouted. “Mum!” he yelled. “Why does it go so bright when Dad comes?”
All Imperion’s pleasure vanished. Of course no one could ask questions until he had learned to speak. But it would be too cruel if his own son turned out to be the Sage of Dissolution. “Why shouldn’t it go bright?” he asked defensively.
Thasper scowled up at him. “I want to know. Why does it?”
“Perhaps because you feel happy to see me,” Imperion suggested.
“I’m not happy,” Thasper said. His lower lip came out. Tears filled his big blue eyes. “Why does it go bright? I want to know. Mum! I’m not happy!”
Nestara came racing out of the house, almost too concerned to smile at Imperion. “Thasper love, what’s the matter?”
“I want to know!” wailed Thasper.
“What do you want to know? I’ve never known such an enquiring mind,” Nestara said proudly to Imperion, as she picked Thasper up. “That’s why he was so slow talking. He wouldn’t speak until he’d found out how to ask questions. And if you don’t give him an exact answer, he’ll cry for hours.”
“When did he first start asking questions?” Imperion inquired tensely.
“About a month ago,” said Nestara.
This made Imperion truly miserable, but he concealed it. It was clear to him that Thasper was indeed the Sage of Dissolution and he was going to have to take him away to another world. He smiled and said, “My love, I have wonderful news for you. Thasper has been accepted as a god. Great Zond himself will have him as cupbearer.”
“Oh not now!” cried Nestara. “He’s so little!”
She made numerous other objections too. But, in the end, she let Imperion take Thasper. After all, what better future could there be for a child? She put Thasper into Imperion’s arms with all sorts of anxious advice about what he ate and when he went to bed. Imperion kissed her goodbye, heavy-hearted. He was not a god of deception. He knew he dared not see her again for fear he told her the truth.
Then, with Thasper in his arms, Imperion went up to the middle-regions below Heaven, to look for another world.
Thasper looked down with interest at the great blue curve of the world. “Why—?” he began.
Imperion hastily enclosed him in a sphere of forgetfulness. He could not afford to let Thasper ask things here. Questions that spread Dissolution on earth would have an even more powerful effect in the middle-region. The sphere was a silver globe, neither transparent nor opaque. In it, Thasper would stay seemingly asleep, not moving and not growing, until the sphere was opened. With the child thus safe, Imperion hung the sphere from one shoulder and stepped into the next-door world.
He went from world to world. He was pleased to find there were an almost infinite number of them, for the choice proved supremely difficult. Some worlds were so disorderly that he shrank from leaving Thasper in them. In some, the gods resented Imperion’s intrusion and shouted at him to be off. In others, it was mankind that was resentful. One world he came to was so rational that, to his horror, he found the gods were dead. There were many others he thought might do, until he let the spirit of prophecy blow through him, and in each case this told him that harm would come to Thasper here.
But at last he found a good world. It seemed calm and elegant. The few gods there seemed civilised but casual. Indeed, Imperion was a little puzzled to find that these gods seemed to share quite a lot of their power with mankind. But mankind did not seem to abuse this power, and the spirit of prophecy assured him that, if he left Thasper here inside his sphere of forgetfulness, it would be opened by someone who would treat the boy well.
Imperion put the sphere down in a wood and sped back to Theare, heartily relieved. There, he reported what he had done to Zond, and all Heaven rejoiced. Imperion made sure that Nestara married a very rich man who gave her not only wealth and happiness but plenty of children to replace Thasper. Then, a little sadly, he went back to the ordered life of Heaven. The exquisite organisation of Theare went on untroubled by Dissolution.
Seven years passed.
All that while, Thasper knew nothing and remained three years old. Then one day, the sphere of forgetfulness fell in two halves and he blinked in sunlight somewhat less golden than he had known.
“So that’s what was causing all the disturbance,” a tall man murmured.
“Poor little soul,” said a lady.
There was a wood around Thasper, and people standing in it looking at him, but, as far as Thasper knew, nothing had happened since he soared to the middle-region with his father. He went on with the question he had been in the middle of asking. “Why is the world round?” he said.
“Interesting question,” said the tall man. “The answer usually given is because the corners wore off spinning around the sun. But it could be designed to make us end where we began.”
�
��Sir, you’ll muddle him, talking like that,” said another lady. “He’s only little.”
“No, he’s interested,” said another man. “Look at him.”
Thasper was indeed interested. He approved of the tall man. He was a little puzzled about where he had come from but he supposed the tall man must have been put there because he answered questions better than Imperion. He wondered where Imperion had got to. “Why aren’t you my Dad?” he asked the tall man.
“Another most penetrating question,” said the tall man. “Because, as far as we can find out, your father lives in another world. Tell me your name.”
This was another point in the tall man’s favour. Thasper never answered questions: he only asked them. But this was a command. The tall man understood Thasper.
“Thasper,” Thasper answered obediently.
“He’s sweet!” said the first lady. “I want to adopt him.” To which the other ladies gathered around most heartily agreed.
“Impossible,” said the tall man. His tone was mild as milk and rock firm. The ladies were reduced to begging to be able to look after Thasper for a day, then. An hour. “No,” the tall man said mildly. “He must go back at once.” At which all the ladies cried out that Thasper might be in great danger in his own home. The tall man said, “I shall take care of that, of course.” Then he stretched out a hand and pulled Thasper up. “Come along, Thasper.”
As soon as Thasper was out of it, the two halves of the sphere vanished. One of the ladies took his other hand and he was led away, first on a jiggly ride, which he much enjoyed, and then into a huge house, where there was a very perplexing room. In this room, Thasper sat in a five-pointed star and pictures kept appearing around him. People kept shaking their heads. “No, not that world either.” The tall man answered all Thasper’s questions, and Thasper was too interested even to be annoyed when they would not allow him anything to eat.
