The Chosen Ones

by Scarlett Thomas

  Maximilian and Effie followed Raven into the folly through the tack-room and the boot room and into the kitchen. And there, in a dark red dress with an apron over the top, was Skylurian Midzhar.

  ‘What time do you call this?’ said Skylurian to Raven. ‘I’ve been worried sick. I see you’ve brought friends home for tea. You could have told me! Still, I’m sure there’s enough smoked game pie for everyone. Hello, dear children. I don’t believe we’ve met . . .’

  ‘I think we have,’ said Effie under her breath. The last time she had seen Skylurian Midzhar was when Effie had been battling the evil mage who had killed her grandfather. Leonard Levar had called on Skylurian Midzhar for help, and she had appeared, but had not in fact helped. It had been clear that she was a Diberi, though – part of a secret society of Book Eaters who planned to do something terrible to the universe – but on that night all she had done was ask Effie to join them. Effie and her friends knew that Skylurian Midzhar was up to no good, but had not yet had the chance to prove it.

  ‘Where’s my mum?’ asked Raven.

  ‘Book tour,’ said Skylurian breezily. ‘A sudden, unexpected, whirlwind book tour.’

  ‘A book tour of where?’

  ‘Oh, um . . .’ Skylurian seemed to need to think about this. ‘Bavaria, perhaps? Scandinavia? Somewhere with a “v” in it anyway.’

  ‘When’s she coming back?’

  ‘Next week, I think. Maybe the week after. Still, I’ve agreed to babysit you in the meantime. What fun we shall have!’

  Effie and Maximilian looked at each other. A chill went through the dark folly. It was the kind of place that could feel cosy one minute and horribly frightening the next. There were lots of stone passageways and strange paintings and things that made creaking sounds in the middle of the night. They couldn’t leave their friend alone here with a Diberi. They would have to . . . Maximilian silently sent a message to both Effie and Raven with his mind.

  ‘My friends are staying the night,’ said Raven shakily. ‘Can you please page their parents to let them know?’

  ‘But of course, darling,’ said Skylurian. ‘And in that case I’ll just whip up a blood orange soufflé for pudding. And then maybe a jolly game of Hangman in front of the fire?’

  ‘We’ve got homework,’ said Maximilian.

  It was true. They did have homework. They were supposed to be writing about travelling to other worlds to hand in to Mrs Beathag Hide first thing tomorrow. But Maximilian and Effie didn’t even know that yet. And they had many more urgent things to talk about, like where exactly Maximilian had been.

  Lexy crept up the stairs by the light of the moon that came in through a small window. If she was caught she’d just say she’d come up to see if they wanted . . . what? A cup of tea? But Dr Green had been carrying a bottle of wine. Grown-ups didn’t drink tea in the evening anyway. They always complained that it made them want to pee all night and kept them awake. Um, maybe a potion? But why would they want a potion? A love potion, perhaps? Lexy blushed at her own thoughts. She didn’t like to think of Dr Green being in love with her Aunt Octavia. Of course, if he was, that meant she’d see more of him. But something about it seemed strange and embarrassing.

  From inside the small flat, Lexy could hear the bright clinks of glassware and crockery. It sounded as if someone was laying the table.

  ‘That’s right, luvvie,’ Octavia was saying. ‘You sit yourself down. No, don’t bother with that. I can finish laying up. I’ve invited you for dinner and so you’re the guest. Let me give you a nice big glass of this lovely wine you’ve brought.’ There was a dull popping noise, and then a glugluglug sound. ‘There you are, my sweet. Cheers!’ There was a crackle, and then some romantic music began playing quietly.

  ‘Here’s to us,’ said Dr Green.

  Lexy settled in for a long night of eavesdropping.

  13

  ‘Ahelicopter?’ said Raven. ‘In the school field? Really?’

  ‘OK,’ said Maximilian. ‘We’re not going to get very far if you say “a helicopter” like that every time one appears. Although, to be honest, there aren’t any more actual helicopters, but there is a boat and a carriage and a castle and . . .’

  ‘A castle?’

  ‘Raven,’ said Maximilian. ‘I’m warning you. This is going to take all night if you keep interrupting me.’

  ‘All right. Sorry. Go on.’

  The three friends had finished their smoked game pie and blood-orange soufflé as quickly as they could and come upstairs to do their homework. Maximilian was going to be sleeping on a camp-bed in the keep because Skylurian had taken over the guest wing. Effie was going to top-and-tail with Raven. But for now they were all sitting on Raven’s bed and Maximilian was telling his story.

  It took quite a long time to get to the part where Maximilian and Franz were in the dungeon. And then it was quite complicated explaining how Maximilian had gone inside Franz’s mind and learned some of the things he knew how to do, including that strange thing with music.

  ‘Who was the man at the piano, do you think?’ Raven asked.

  ‘Was it a famous composer?’ asked Effie.

  ‘Probably,’ said Maximilian. ‘I’ll do some research when I get home. Anyway, just after that I heard the guards coming and made myself disappear, just as I’d learned in Franz’s mind.’

  ‘Can you do it now?’ asked Raven.

  ‘No!’ said Maximilian. ‘I’m not wasting M-currency on a party trick. I’ll do it next time we’re in danger.’

  ‘Maybe if Skylurian comes to murder you in the night?’

  ‘Yes, if Skylurian comes to murder me in the night I’ll call you and you can watch me disappear. Anyway, I became invisible and then slipped through this strange sort of corridor between the worlds until I came to where Franz was being held.’

  ‘Is it the same thing?’ Effie mused. ‘Disappearing, and becoming invisible?’

  ‘No,’ said Maximilian. ‘But it doesn’t matter for the purposes of my story. Anyway, Franz and I were able to slip off to my uncle’s cell but we were too late, because he had gone and—’

  Raven gasped.

  ‘What?’ said Maximilian.

  ‘Where had he gone?’

  ‘I’m about to tell you that!’

  Maximilian’s story continued in the same fashion, with Raven interrupting him, and then him telling her off but, Effie thought, also rather enjoying being the centre of attention. Effie had borrowed one of Raven’s nightdresses and felt a little like she was about to attend a glitzy party. All Raven’s nightdresses were black and shiny and looked like long, expensive gowns. Maximilian was wearing a pair of old pyjamas that Raven said she thought may once have belonged to a poet and were covered in pink flamingos and red wine stains.

  Maximilian told the girls about how he and Franz had crept through the castle, completely hidden in the space between the dimensions, until they’d found themselves in a room with two stylishly-dressed young men. Something about the conversation these men were having had made Franz stop and put his fingers to his lips.

  ‘What were they saying?’ asked Raven.

  ‘They were spies,’ said Maximilian. ‘They’d been sent to find corrupt mages and bring them to the castle. The princess was a patron of the city’s various magi – which means she was funding their gatherings. There had been this prophecy about a corrupt mage . . .’

  ‘Lupoldus!’ said Raven.

  ‘Yes, exactly,’ said Maximilian. ‘It turned out that a few weeks before, Lupoldus had chosen the wrong person to drain. Someone he’d thought was just a random poor person had in fact been a cousin of Elspeth’s – the fortune teller from before. Unfortunately, he’d killed her. One of the spies said he thought Elspeth had probably cooked up the prophecy herself to get revenge on Lupoldus on behalf of her cousin. But in any case, no one wanted a corrupt mage around ruining everything. The princess was planning a magical attack on Napoleon’s forces, and didn’t want a weak link among her army of magi.
And it turned out that Lupoldus wasn’t even a real mage.’

  ‘What do you think he actually was?’ said Effie.

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Maximilian.

  ‘Well, his kharakter. If he wasn’t a mage.’

  ‘We’ll get to that,’ he said, mysteriously.

  ‘So what happened next?’ asked Raven.

  Maximilian described how he and Franz had carried on moving completely invisibly through the castle until they had come to the princess’s drawing room.

  ‘I wish you could have seen this room,’ he said to the girls. ‘It was amazing. It was painted a very, very dark sort of maroon colour – almost black. And the walls were covered in symbols and charts. There were globes and crystal balls and the rarest books you could imagine. Incense was burning and it was quite smoky. In the corner of the room there was a pianist playing quietly.’

  ‘Where was Lupoldus?’

  ‘On his knees in front of the princess, begging for his life.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ said Raven.

  ‘What was the princess like?’ asked Effie.

  Maximilian tried his best to describe the imposing young woman he’d found holding a dagger to his uncle’s throat, but he found it was impossible to do her justice. She’d been wearing a loose silk dress in midnight blue, over which was thrown a dark grey cloak with a repeating pattern of what Maximilian first thought were jellyfish, but then realised were probably flowers. The cloak was tied with a silk ribbon around her neck. Her dark curls fell to her shoulders.

  As the memories replayed in Maximilian’s head, he translated them as best he could for Effie and Raven.

  ‘Napoleon is coming,’ the princess was saying, in Maximilian’s memory. ‘And you have betrayed us all. You told him where he could find the city’s mages and their patron, didn’t you?’

  ‘I, uh . . .’

  Then Franz stepped forward out of his intra-dimensional hiding place, and became visible again.

  ‘Is this true?’ he asked Lupoldus.

  ‘Of course not! Where have you been? I command you to release me from the clutches of this evil—’

  ‘You!’ said the princess, when she saw Franz.

  ‘Anna?’ said Franz. ‘But . . . I thought the princess had come from, from . . . Paris.’

  ‘You did not know I had gone to Paris? I tried my best to send word. No matter. Hush and tell me how you know this scoundrel,’ said the princess.

  ‘But you . . . How did you . . .?’ said Franz.

  ‘Please answer me first,’ said the princess. ‘We may not have much more time.’

  ‘Lupoldus is my master,’ said Franz. ‘After you left, I couldn’t go on in the place that so reminded me of you, so—’

  ‘And is there any particular reason I should not execute him?’ said the princess.

  Franz seemed to think very hard. He screwed up his face this way and then that way, tipping it sideways like animals do when they are trying very hard to hear something. It was as if Franz was trying very hard to hear a voice in the ether that might remind him of any of Lupoldus’s redeeming features. The voice was clearly not forthcoming. The princess drew back the dagger, ready to plunge it into . . .

  As Maximilian described the look of fear in Lupoldus’s eyes, Raven gulped.

  ‘I don’t like the violent bits,’ she said. ‘Get it over with.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Maximilian. ‘I saved him.’

  ‘You? Why?’

  ‘Because he was my uncle. Or I thought he was.’

  ‘Wasn’t he?’ said Effie. ‘Oh, I see what you mean. He was only your uncle in the story. That’s a shame. Well, sort of.’

  ‘What story?’ said Raven. ‘Anyway, how did you rescue him?’

  ‘I used mind control on the princess. I sort of stimulated the parts of her brain that believed in kindness and goodness and in the end she couldn’t bring herself to kill Lupoldus.’

  ‘But wasn’t she way too strong for that?’ said Effie. ‘She sounded much stronger even than Franz. I mean, surely she would have blocked off her mind?’

  ‘I only managed it for a second,’ said Maximilian. ‘Just long enough for her to put down the dagger and remember how much she loved Franz. While the two of them embraced I grabbed my uncle and took him into the hidden realm. We made a run for it, although he wasn’t really used to exertion, and he soon used up the energy he’d taken from the poor. He was sort of heaving and puffing all over the place, and I almost wished I hadn’t rescued him, but it was too late.’

  ‘I suppose you probably had to rescue him for the story to work,’ mused Effie.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ said Raven. ‘Why do you keep talking about “the story” like that?’

  ‘Because it is a story,’ said Effie.

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Raven, looking truly baffled.

  ‘Do you think Maximilian’s really been to actual Napoleonic Europe?’ said Effie, laughing. ‘He’s been in a book, silly. He was obviously its Last Reader. Like when I read Dragon’s Green.’

  ‘How was I supposed to know that?’ said Raven. ‘And anyway, the helicopter really came this morning – I heard it. And how did Maximilian get to the moors?’

  ‘The book must have thrown him out near a portal. That must have been what you saw on the moors, as well. What did you call it? Shimmering and mysterious? That sounds a lot like a portal to me.’

  ‘I thought portals had to be in coffee shops and stuff?’

  ‘Only the ones the Guild controls,’ said Effie. ‘The one I use to come back from the Otherworld is just like you describe.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Raven. ‘So . . .’

  ‘Does no one at all care even the slightest bit about how the story ends?’ said Maximilian, huffily.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Effie. ‘Of course we care.’

  ‘I’m desperate to know!’ said Raven. ‘Go on, please.’

  ‘After we’d been moving through the hidden realm for a while, my uncle begged me to leave him behind. “You go on, boy,” he said to me. “Leave me. My time is up. All the mages will now know that I am an imposter. At best a joke and at worst a traitor. They’ll kill me.”’

  ‘Poor Lupoldus,’ said Raven.

  ‘Have you forgotten about him draining the weak?’ said Effie.

  ‘People can change,’ said Raven.

  Maximilian cleared his throat dramatically, waited for the girls to shut up and then went on with the end of the story. There was quite a good bit coming up next in which Lupoldus was going to apologise to Maximilian for being such a disappointment.

  ‘I was born a lowly trickster,’ Lupoldus was saying, in Maximilian’s memory. ‘But I longed to be a mage, with a mage’s power. Tricksters can use the power of others, so as long as I had a powerful mage in my employ, then . . .’

  Just then there had been a loud bang, and the hidden realm had seemed to disappear. Maximilian had tried to slip back into it, but it was no good. He and his uncle were now exposed. They were still in the castle grounds, but outside in a very elaborate garden, with more of the singing statues and several complex mazes and labyrinths. Maximilian and Lupoldus were standing by the entrance to one of the mazes.

  Then came the sound of explosions and horses and men’s cries.

  ‘Napoleon,’ said Lupoldus. ‘They were right. I did tip him off.’

  ‘But why?’ said Maximilian.

  ‘If all the mages in the city were wiped out, then perhaps I wouldn’t have to be ashamed any more.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe I haven’t got a reason. Tricksters don’t always have them. We’re unpredictable, you see.’

  ‘OK. Well . . .’

  ‘You need to go back to Franz. He’ll save you. Leave me here to wander the maze. No one will bother entering a maze to get rid of one man. I’ll probably endure. Evil tends to.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re evil,’ said Maximilian. ‘Maybe you just had a bad childhood, or . . . Which reminds me. I really wanted to
ask you something important. Do you know who my father is? Is he still alive?’

  But Lupoldus had already gone. Maximilian couldn’t follow him into the maze, not if he truly wanted to save himself. It was too much of a risk. He had to get back to Franz, and the princess. There was another explosion. Maximilian fell to the ground. The maze was now on fire. Would that be the end of Lupoldus? Perhaps not. He’d probably find some way to get out of it. Maximilian coughed. He wasn’t sure he could get up. Maybe this was the end. Maybe . . .

  ‘I can’t bear it,’ said Raven. ‘Tell us what happened!’

  ‘I’m trying,’ he protested.

  Maximilian went on with his story. The next thing he knew he was being helped up by a surprisingly strong child whom he half-recognised. It was the boy who had assisted Elspeth, the fortune teller, before. And suddenly there was Elspeth, too, beckoning Maximilian to follow her.

  ‘Greetings, great mage,’ she said to him. ‘Come. We must hurry.’

  Maximilian followed the fortune teller and the boy down a short flight of stairs. He worried for a moment that he was simply being taken back to the dungeons. But instead they ended up in a secret passage that led back to the room next to the princess’s drawing room. Maximilian could hear voices and then a sudden hush. What was happening? There was music coming from somewhere.

  Maximilian entered the drawing room and was greeted with an extremely peculiar sight. While explosions raged outside, with Napoleon obviously getting closer, and his army probably entering the castle, a room full of mages stood still, listening to the pianist as he played. Franz noticed Maximilian come into the room and winked at him. Maximilian recognised the melody the pianist was playing. And suddenly he realised what they were all going to do.

  Some of the mages were clearly better at it than others. One by one they simply disappeared into the music. It was like a room full of bubbles that had started to burst. Maximilian still didn’t quite know how he should do it. He remembered the running jump that Franz had taken, but didn’t know how, or when or . . .