The Chosen Ones

by Scarlett Thomas

  And Blessed Bartolo’s never, ever lost at anything.

  ‘Well?’ said Coach Bruce.

  A murmur developed.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Blessed Bartolo’s,’ someone managed to say, in a sort of whisper, the same kind of whisper you might use to say the name of the worst thing in your religion or the biggest baddie in the scariest book you have ever read.

  ‘Exactly. And how are we going to beat them?’

  ‘Cheat?’ suggested someone.

  ‘We will call it strategy,’ said Coach Bruce. ‘We don’t cheat here. We employ strategy. There are books on the subject. Trusted Tennis Tactics. Winning Ugly. That sort of thing.’

  Coach Bruce went to the tennis cupboard, a vast dark space full of fluorescent yellow ball fluff and miniature orange traffic cones, and emerged with a whiteboard on wheels. From deep within his tracksuit he took out several whiteboard markers in different colours. None of the children quite followed him as he drew various diagrams explaining things like the value of the deep lob and why you should never serve first.

  ‘Why is Blessed Bartolo’s in Division Three anyway?’ someone whispered. It was quite a good question.

  ‘Isn’t it like their fifth team, though?’ someone else whispered back.

  It was true. All the other Blessed Bartolo teams were in the Premier Division. In fact, the Northern Associated Schools Tennis Youth League Premier Division (unfortunately but accurately known as the NASTY LPD) was only made up of Blessed Bartolo teams, which meant that all NASTY league home and away fixtures currently took place in their purpose-built sports centre, which was in a massive black dome on the end of a rocky peninsula that jutted somewhat dangerously into the harbour.

  Someone with an older sibling – these are always the most well-informed members of any school – suddenly remembered something.

  ‘Wasn’t there that thing last year? Didn’t one of the Blessed Bartolo’s teams actually kill someone?’

  ‘No, he didn’t die. But he was in a coma for two weeks.’

  ‘What happened exactly?’

  ‘No one knows. But it was in a NASTY league tennis match. Anyway, their penalty was going down two divisions. It must have been the fifth team.’

  ‘And now we have to play them?’

  Coach Bruce was still wrapped up in his diagrams. He was also planning to go to Dr Cloudburst later and get some caffeine powder to put in the children’s sports drinks. What else could he do? Dress Euphemia Truelove up as a boy and have her play with Wolf in the boys’ doubles? No. Someone would find out. But she could certainly wear that ring she always insisted on taking off for matches. That would give her a psychological advantage, surely? Not that she was likely to lose anything anyway. No one had ever beaten Effie Truelove in a league tennis match.

  10

  Meister Lupoldus was unusually quiet. He allowed his cloak to be taken by a servant without even a murmur. He seemed to be silently enjoying his surroundings, which were the most overwhelming Maximilian had ever encountered. The entrance hall on its own made the opera house look like a garden shed.

  Its polished wooden floor stretched away into the distance like an exercise in perspective. Opulent velvet chairs sat vacant on either side of the long passageway. The ornate chandeliers produced a steady light that was brighter than any Maximilian had ever seen. The walls of the passageway were impressively hung with huge oil paintings of men on horseback and women in very long dresses.

  Soon a man in a bright red tunic appeared in the distance.

  ‘Greetings, Meister,’ he said. ‘The princess is very keen to meet you, and the other learned men. She is longing to see what you can achieve. Most of the other members of the gathering have already arrived. However, you will be required to undertake a reading before you are permitted to enter.’

  Lupoldus nodded.

  ‘A reading?’ said Franz, looking worried.

  ‘A triple reading of herbs, cards and sticks,’ confirmed the guide.

  ‘I trust my master’s nephew will be permitted to attend, along with me?’ said Franz.

  ‘Indeed, it is required. Please follow me.’

  Maximilian was intrigued. He followed the guide, Franz and his uncle down the long passageway and into a cloistered garden surrounded by Grecian columns, with white marble statues silvery in the moonlight. He could hear music. Maximilian thought it might be coming from the statues. One of them, a woman in flowing robes, was carrying a small stringed instrument. On the other side of the cloisters was a statue of a man in similar robes standing by a harp.

  Maximilian’s soft leather-soled boots made no sound as he followed the other men out of the cloisters and into another long hallway with a black-and-white tiled floor and more paintings, chairs and polished wooden tables and cabinets. Around a corner and into another passageway and then through a large, black wooden door and up a compact spiral staircase. The guide knocked on the door and waited for the occupant’s reply. Then he gestured for the Meister, Franz and Maximilian to enter.

  ‘Oh,’ said Lupoldus, once the door had been closed behind them. He sounded surprised. ‘It’s you, Elspeth.’

  The room was of medium size and smelled of the smoke you might get if you were to burn all the oldest and most interesting things you owned. There were no paintings on any of the walls, which were of a deep midnight blue. In the centre of the room was a large mauve velvet chair, and on this sat a slight, elderly woman with long grey hair and sparkling, jewel-like azure eyes.

  ‘Approach, please,’ said Elspeth.

  ‘I did not know that you had joined the court,’ said Lupoldus, walking towards the mauve chair.

  ‘My skills are of great interest to the princess,’ said Elspeth.

  ‘As are MINE,’ said Lupoldus. ‘The princess desires to attract great mages to the castle – which is the reason for her holding our gathering here this evening. But why would she be interested in a common tea-leaf reader? A back-street scryer?’

  ‘You yourself have been interested enough in my arts to come to me for consultations in the past, Meister.’

  ‘And you confirmed me as a great mage. What is left to say?’

  ‘The princess wishes all mages to be scrutinised before the gathering. She has heard a prophecy that there is one among you who does not hold the true power of the magus, who is in fact using diabolical means to gain magical energy.’

  ‘Prophecies are not necessarily TRUE,’ said Meister Lupoldus.

  ‘Perhaps you would like to inform the princess of that?’

  Meister Lupoldus said nothing.

  ‘Now, kneel before me,’ said Elspeth.

  Lupoldus adopted an expression of extreme distaste, but did what she asked. Elspeth began crumbling leaves, buds and dried flowers into a small copper bowl on the table in front of her. She then lit a small taper and set fire to the contents of the bowl. The room filled with a smoky perfume. Elspeth then cut a lock of the Meister’s hair and added it to the bowl. She shook out the burnt mixture onto a piece of white parchment on a small table beside her.

  ‘Interesting,’ she murmured.

  She then took a pack of cards from a drawer in the table in front of her. She shuffled these and started placing them on the table, as if she were setting up a very complex game of patience. Maximilian tried to step forwards to see what the cards were like, but Franz yanked him backwards and elbowed him in the ribs.

  ‘The hanged-man,’ said Elspeth. ‘Well.’

  And so the reading continued. The cards were examined and then put away. Then Elspeth closed her eyes for several minutes before throwing a set of sticks onto the table. She leant down to examine their precise patterns.

  ‘Fascinating,’ she murmured. She then clicked her fingers and a small boy came into the room. He was younger even than Maximilian. He scurried over to the bookshelves and, after climbing a small ladder, selected a volume bound in cream leather with what appeared to be Chinese characters on its spine. He took this to Els
peth and then exited the room. Elspeth browsed the book for several minutes.

  ‘An imposter, hmm?’ said Elspeth, seemingly to the sticks.

  ‘Get ON with it, woman,’ said Meister Lupoldus. ‘I desire some drinking, merriment and debauchery before the serious business of the evening commences.’

  ‘Silence,’ said Elspeth.

  Lupoldus rolled his eyes and then stared at the ceiling while Elspeth concluded her reading.

  ‘This room contains two great mages and an imposter,’ declared Elspeth, her blue eyes flashing around the room.

  ‘And the imposter is YOU, witch?’ said Lupoldus, laughing.

  Maximilian thought his uncle was not doing a very good job of getting this woman to do what he must surely have wanted – to declare him a great mage as quickly as possible so that they could be on their way to this gathering, whatever that was. For the first time, Maximilian realised that his uncle really was quite stupid.

  Franz had his eyes closed and seemed to be concentrating very hard on something.

  Meister Lupoldus sighed extravagantly.

  ‘You have identified TWO great mages because my servant here has been showing the signs. I have been DEVELOPING him. The imposter you sense is not an imposter at all. He is merely a boy that I will be taking as my Apprentice. He is, of course, not yet a great mage but aspires to be one day. I thought that you were only reading me. I am the one who has been invited, after all.’

  ‘It is often impossible to remove the interference in the room. As I’m sure you realise.’

  ‘I don’t go in for SCRYING myself. Your art seems both laborious and amateur. Its results are imprecise and insignificant.’

  ‘That is not what the princess believes.’

  ‘Then the princess is an IDIOT.’

  An incredible silence came over the room. Maximilian half expected the princess herself to emerge from a dark corner of the room and say, ‘Oh, I am, am I?’ and then execute his ridiculous uncle. But this was not what happened.

  ‘Lock them up,’ said Elspeth. ‘The princess will complete the testing process herself, and then the imposter will be dealt with.’

  Maximilian was taken with his uncle and Franz to the dungeons. This involved a long, dizzying walk down a very deep stone spiral staircase. Franz kept miming something at Maximilian, but Maximilian couldn’t work out what he was trying to say. He seemed to be pointing to himself, and then to the Meister, and then to Maximilian. He also kept tapping his head. If only Maximilian could talk to him somehow. But they were being escorted down the stairs by two very burly guards who had made it clear that the prisoners should remain silent.

  If only . . . Maximilian suddenly remembered again that he could read minds. This usually seemed like quite an impolite thing to do, like reading someone’s diary, or listening in on a phone call. He wouldn’t normally have dreamed of trying to do it to Franz. But perhaps that was what Franz was trying to tell him. So he concentrated. It was more difficult when walking, particularly when walking round and round and down and down. But Maximilian gave it a go.

  ‘At last,’ said Franz back to him, silently, as their minds connected.

  The guards then took Maximilian in one direction and Franz in another. They were not going to be imprisoned together. But somehow, by concentrating very hard, Maximilian managed to keep the connection going until he had been securely manacled in his dungeon. ‘Manacled’ means handcuffed, although the guards didn’t stop at Maximilian’s hands. They secured his legs as well with large iron rings, and clamped something around his middle that was like a strange metal doughnut.

  ‘Are we talking telepathically?’ said Maximilian to Franz, with his mind. Although the word ‘telepathically’ was not invented until the late nineteenth century (1882, to be precise) the idea has existed since the beginning of time. When two minds meet and talk, words are not necessary, only concepts. So Franz quite understood what Maximilian was saying.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Franz. ‘We have to hurry.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I am in the next dungeon along from yours. Lupoldus is on the other side of me.’

  ‘What should I do?’

  ‘First you must take what I have. I have opened as much as possible to you. Hurry. Once you have the knowledge we will rescue your uncle and escape.’

  Maximilian suddenly understood that while he was inside Franz’s mind he had access to all Franz’s knowledge and memories. Well, at least the ones that Franz had ‘opened’ to him. Maximilian realised that Franz was giving him a great gift. He filed away for now this idea that it was possible to open and close parts of your mind, and continued, as quickly as he could, deeper into Franz’s memories. He had to be fast. Franz had said so. But everything here was so interesting. He could see, hear and smell things from completely outside his own experience. There, on a wooden table from long ago, was a sticky dark cake that must have been Franz’s favourite. There was a girl, his playmate, called Anna. There was hide-and-seek in the forest. Camping trips. Handmade bows and arrows. A larder full of homemade jams, biscuits, spices, preserved fruits and cured meats.

  Then came great darkness. Two cloaked men arrived at the cottage on horseback with some kind of official-looking parchment, and then Franz’s parents were taken away in a sort of wooden cage, while Franz hid in the attic. Maximilian had trouble finding any more details about what had happened to Franz’s parents. This part of the memory was sealed off, although he sensed this was not deliberate. Perhaps it was just too painful.

  Franz himself seemed to be directing Maximilian to one particular part of this memory. And indeed, it was easily the most interesting thing Maximilian had ever found in someone’s mind. At the moment when the cloaked men had burst into the attic room where he was hiding, Franz had made himself disappear. One moment he was there in the room. The next, he was gone.

  Everyone knows that invisibility is a skill that comes most naturally to witches. With practice, they can make themselves blend into the background wherever they are. But a few very skilled mages are able to actually disappear, to fade their bodies into the little dimensional pockets – like the sections in a quilt – that exist between this world and the Underworld.

  It takes a special kind of concentration to disappear. Usually only Adept mages would even attempt it. But Franz, twelve years old, terrified and helpless, found that it also could happen to young, inexperienced mages in extreme situations. As with swimming or riding a bike, after you have disappeared once, you find you can always do it. And since Maximilian had experienced Franz’s memory, he could now do it too. He knew how to disappear! He felt completely changed, deep inside. Maximilian sensed that Franz understood that this piece of learning was now complete. It was almost as if an invisible box had been ticked.

  Maximilian knew he had to hurry, but Franz’s mind was so full of exciting stories. Not long after the disappearance of Franz’s parents, the cloaked men on horseback came back, this time to visit Anna’s house. The third time they came, Franz and Anna were ready for them. Franz constructed an ambush in the forest and created such confusion that the men shot each other at the same time.

  Then Franz and Anna stole their horses and rode away into the depths of the countryside, surviving by eating rabbits, wild plums and field mushrooms. Anna was good at gathering herbs and very good at singing. When she sang . . . But many of those memories were locked away. The two teenagers made their way to the city, where they found their way into domestic service together.

  Servants in those days (and often today) were kept in terrible conditions and never had days off. But Franz knew how to accomplish things quickly and then move around unseen. Soon he learned to disappear for longer and longer into the strange patchwork quilt between the dimensions and move short distances without being observed. He had read the contents of his master’s library by the time he was fourteen and was eager to move to a new position with a better library. Most of all, he wanted to visit the Underworld, the dark
and complex land he sensed whenever he disappeared. But he needed knowledge in order to do this.

  However much he searched, he could not find what he wanted to know. Three hundred years before there had been many more mages in the land. But most magical societies had been wiped out by cruel leaders almost two hundred years before, and then after that many mages had simply disappeared.

  There was a lot of the history of magic in Franz’s head, a sort of timeline from ancient shamans and wise women, through Hermes Trismegistus, the English witches, Paracelsus, Rudolph II, John Dee, the Rosicrucians . . . But Franz steered Maximilian out of these areas of his mind and back into his memories of those first few years he spent in service.

  A wealthy visitor to the house had heard Anna sing and became completely obsessed with her. The man was cruel, but Anna did not care. She left to pursue a life on the stage under the management of this man, singing the new operas. This period was another dark, forbidden area of Franz’s mind. Maximilian caught brief glimpses of the man with the pointed cane who came to take Anna away, bringing with him furs and exquisite perfumes, and the blind rage Franz felt. The loneliness afterwards . . . Then lots of securely locked memories.

  Franz seemed to be deliberately guiding Maximilian through the many corridors and passageways of his mind. He seemed to want him to experience some particular memories of visits to the opera with his new master, Lupoldus, and to a series of concerts given by a new composer with wild hair. Lupoldus liked the opera because it was flashy, but Franz preferred hearing the intense music played by the man with the hair on the pianoforte – quite a new instrument.

  Maximilian did not understand why he kept being guided to these memories. With so much of interest in this mind, who wanted to sit through long, boring concerts? Especially now he was learning about his uncle. Maximilian searched Franz’s mind for references to his uncle’s brother – his father – but there were none. ‘Hurry,’ said Franz telepathically. ‘There is no time for this . . . Concentrate . . . Listen to the music.’