Year of the Griffin

by Diana Wynne Jones

  Those of the Emir’s unfortunate soldiers who were not halfway through a roof hastily threw themselves flat. When, after a minute or so, they saw that the griffins were not attacking them, most of them climbed down the outside walls and streamed off indecisively to guard Healers Hall instead. This was a great relief to Titus’s small squad of unmounted cavalry. They had thought they were going to have to fight to protect their Emperor, knowing they would lose.

  “This,” said Wizard Policant to Querida, “is where I step in, I think. Roofs are easy to mend, but it is very much harder to stop a battle. I am so glad we were not called upon to do that.”

  Querida, rather hoping she was dreaming, looked up and found that the stone of the statue was splitting into irregular shapes, like dry mud cracking. The same thing seemed to be happening to the plinth she was clutching, revealing a yellow, buttery shine under her fingers. Upon the statue, like dry mud, each piece of stone shrank, curled up at the corners and fell away. Inside it there seemed to be a live person in wizard’s robes, as elderly as she was but very much a living one.

  Wizard Policant shook himself, and the last dry piece fell off him into powder. “The enchantment was tied to the wards of the University,” he explained. “When they go down, I return to take up my post as Head here. There was a prophecy made that this was only to happen in the Year of the Griffin. Unkind persons held that this meant never, griffins in my time being thought to be mythical creatures, but I see that the prophecy was quite correct. I do hope you yourself will not mind stepping aside to work with me as Chancellor?”

  “Not at all,” Querida said a trifle faintly. “It’ll be a great relief.” Of all the enchantments she had seen in her long life, this one astounded her most. But she was recovering rapidly. “You do realize,” she said, in quite her usual manner, “that two-thirds of the teaching staff here will have to be fired?”

  “Of course,” said Policant. “I have been here on the spot for years after all. Will you be so kind as to summon every wizard on this continent here tomorrow? Except Corkoran, of course. We shall choose new staff from among them.”

  “They may not want to come,” Querida warned him.

  “No, but they will come. That is part of the enchantment, too,” Policant told her. “Now I wish to say a word to everyone present here.”

  There was a sharp rapping noise, rather like a stick rapping a lectern, only much louder. Everyone, human and griffin, turned to where Wizard Policant stood on his pedestal, high above them. Everyone could somehow see him, even those who happened to have a griffin in the way.

  “May I have your attention, please?” Wizard Policant’s amplified voice said. “I am Policant, once Head of this University, now Head of it again. We shall of course in future run this place both as a means of educating wizards of true power and as the center for magical research it was designed to be. Meanwhile the power vested in me gives me the right to perform all ceremonies, civil, magical, and religious. It is therefore my pleasure to officiate at the marriage of Isodel, Princess of Luteria, and Titus Antoninus, Emperor of the South. If these young people will step forward, I shall be happy to pronounce them man and wife.”

  Everyone cheered. They had all expected a long and pompous speech. During the noise Wizard Policant asked, much more quietly, “Will somebody fetch me something to step down upon, please?” He bent down and passed Querida a clod of red earth. ‘Take great care of this. It is a person from another planet who wishes to see this one. I judge that she, he, or it will see more of the world with you than by staying here with me.”

  As a student dashed into the buttery bar and seized the nearest stool, which happened to be Wermacht, for Policant to step on, and the griffins crowded aside to let Isodel and Titus walk toward the pedestal of the statue, the barkeeper looked up to find Flury looming over him.

  “Set up every barrel you’ve got,” Flury said, “and I’ll conjure you more wine. There’s going to be rather a big party. Griffins drink a great deal.”

  “Oh?” said the barkeeper, out of long knowledge of students. “And who’s going to pay?”

  “The University,” said Flury. “The pedestal of that statue is solid gold.”

  At about this time the forgemasters on their ponies were riding into the ravine that led to the Central Peaks fastness. All of them, ponies included, were relieved to see they would be there before nightfall.

  “Am I glad to be home!” said Genno. “Feet up by a nice fire and an artisan girl bringing me supper!”

  “And rich. Rich beyond the dreams of average!” Dobrey answered. He flourished the Book of Truth, which had never left his hand for the entire journey.

  Arrows ripped down around them from the heights. One of the ponies reared.

  “Stop right there!” shouted a female voice from the left-hand cliffs.

  Dobrey looked around to see that they were inside a small hedge of arrows, each one sticking upright in the ground. “Nice shooting,” he remarked to Genno. “Who is that up there?”

  “Rooska, by the voice. That’s Ruskin’s cousin—or sister, I forget,” Genno said. “She’s got half her clan up there with her. The other half’s up on the other side.”

  “Come down off there, Rooska!” Dobrey shouted upward. “What are you playing at?”

  “Not playing at all, forgemaster.” Rooska’s voice rang back. “We artisans have taken over the fastness. We’re all equals here now. The ones who wouldn’t be equal are dead. Where’s Ruskin?”

  “Sold him for the biggest treasure on earth,” Dobrey boomed, waving the book again. “Come on, Rooska. Stop this nonsense. We’re all tired.”

  “Ruskin’s alive then?” someone else shouted from the opposite cliff. “Swear?”

  “Swear it!” all the forgemasters chorused.

  Genno added a further shout. “Sold to the Crown Prince of Luteria, if you must know. Now come on down and open the fastness for us!”

  “You don’t understand!” Rooska bawled. “There’s been a revolution. You’re not in charge any longer. Because Ruskin’s alive, we’ll let you live, but you’ve got to leave. Go on. Go away!”

  The forgemasters exchanged looks of true dismay. It began to dawn on them that the home comforts they had been looking forward to might not be available.

  “We can settle this quietly!” Dobrey yelled. “You need us! You need the spells against the demons of the deep!”

  “No one’s seen a demon in six hundred years!” someone yelled back. “It’s all a big fraud!”

  That voice was followed by massed yells from both sides of the ravine. “Frauds! Get out!” and this merged into a chant, “GET OUT NOW, GET OUT NOW, GET OUT NOW!” The chanting was backed up by more arrows, all of which fell inside the first ones, uncomfortably close to the forgemasters. And Rooska screamed a descant to the chant: “We’ll kill you if you’re still here tomorrow!”

  Dobrey looked drearily from the other forgemasters to the book in his hand. “They don’t care. They didn’t listen when I waved the greatest treasure on earth at them. If there were any demons, they deserve to be infested with them.” He sighed deeply. “Come, fellow forgemasters. If we hurry, we can get to Deeping fastness by midnight. They’ll take us in there if we give them the Book of Truth.” He sighed even more deeply. “The most expensive lodgings in the world.”

  Followed by the chant and by yells and hoots and catcalls, the forgemasters turned their ponies around and plodded off again.

  Sometime later, when the party in the University was in full swing, Blade fetched Flury another glass tankard of wine with a fresh straw in it, and sat down on the refectory steps, level with Flury’s head, to drink his own.

  “Flury, if you don’t mind my asking, what are you doing here?”

  Flury rested his feathered elbow on Wermacht, who was still a bar stool, and sipped at the wine. “I thought you knew my government sent me with Jessak,” he said. “He was the prime minister’s son, you know. I’m sorry I had to send to you for hel
p.”

  “Oh, it was you, was it? I thought it was Elda. But I know that innocent tone, too,” said Blade. “I mean, why did you stay here, at the University?”

  “I quite like teaching—and everyone was being so badly taught,” Flury replied, and put his head on one side to gaze across the courtyard.

  Blade followed his gaze, across crowds of laughing human heads, some in helmets and some bare, over bottles and tankards being passed among bobbing griffin beaks and swaying wings, across dancing griffins and singing humans, all under a few flecks of rain, bright in the lights of the courtyard, which even Wizard Policant seemed unable to hold back, and found that Flury’s gaze ended at Wizard Policant’s golden pedestal. Olga and Claudia were sitting on the pedestal, back to back, with Elda pressed against them on one side and Lukin crowded in on the other. Ruskin and Felim were sitting leaning on the pedestal at their feet. All six of them were singing, five of them very badly. Blade could hear Claudia’s sweet, strong notes coming out over the din. For a moment he lost himself in thoughts of her thin, greenish face with its smile that creased into a dimple, her bright, intelligent eyes, her strangely coiling hair, and the way she laughed at things in spite of having had the sort of life that should make her severe and solemn. She was laughing now as she sang. Then a particularly discordant squawk from Elda made him wince. Elda never could hold a tune, Blade thought. And at this he understood Flury. Elda, of course.

  “She’s pretty young still,” he told Flury.

  “She can always see me,” Flury said. “I tell myself that’s a good sign until I realize how much she despises me.”

  “She doesn’t like you being humble. She told me,” Blade said.

  “Oh.” Flury was surprised. “I thought that was proper courting behavior. But she’s used to Kit, I suppose. Blade, she’s so beautiful that I ache.”

  “I know the feeling,” Blade said.

  Flury shot him a bright-eyed look. “I believe,” he said slowly, “that both our ladies have some growing and adjusting to do. Yours, if that terrifying Querida is any guide, has breeding that leads to some fairly powerful magic. That takes growing into.”

  Blade stared fuzzily at Flury. In all the years he had known Querida and that green skin color of hers, he had never realized that Querida had Marshfolk blood. Well, well. That accounted for a lot. “And Elda’s young for her age,” he said. “We shall just have to keep visiting and hoping. Do you want me to find you work over here that your government will agree to, so that you can stay here and wait?”

  Flury’s eyes twinkled, almost luminously. “Yes, please.”

  They solemnly clinked glasses.

  Read on for an excerpt from Howl’s Moving Castle

  Chapter One

  IN WHICH SOPHIE TALKS TO HATS

  In the land of Ingary, where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of three. Everyone knows you are the one who will fail first, and worst, if the three of you set out to seek your fortunes.

  Sophie Hatter was the eldest of three sisters. She was not even the child of a poor woodcutter, which might have given her some chance of success! Her parents were well to do and kept a ladies’ hat shop in the prosperous town of Market Chipping. True, her own mother died when Sophie was two years old and her sister Lettie was one year old, and their father married his youngest shop assistant, a pretty blonde girl called Fanny. Fanny shortly gave birth to the third sister, Martha. This ought to have made Sophie and Lettie into Ugly Sisters, but in fact all three girls grew up very pretty indeed, though Lettie was the one everyone said was most beautiful. Fanny treated all three girls with the same kindness and did not favor Martha in the least.

  Mr. Hatter was proud of his three daughters and sent them all to the best school in town. Sophie was the most studious. She read a great deal, and very soon realized how little chance she had of an interesting future. It was a disappointment to her, but she was still happy enough, looking after her sisters and grooming Martha to seek her fortune when the time came. Since Fanny was always busy in the shop, Sophie was the one who looked after the younger two. There was a certain amount of screaming and hair-pulling between those younger two. Lettie was by no means resigned to being the one who, next to Sophie, was bound to be the least successful.

  “It’s not fair!” Lettie would shout. “Why should Martha have the best of it just because she was born the youngest? I shall marry a prince, so there!”

  To which Martha always retorted that she would end up disgustingly rich without having to marry anybody.

  Then Sophie would have to drag them apart and mend their clothes. She was very deft with her needle. As time went on, she made clothes for her sisters too. There was one deep rose outfit she made for Lettie, the May Day before this story really starts, which Fanny said looked as if it had come from the most expensive shop in Kingsbury.

  About this time everyone began talking of the Witch of the Waste again. It was said the Witch had threatened the life of the King’s daughter and that the King had commanded his personal magician, Wizard Suliman, to go into the Waste and deal with the Witch. And it seemed that Wizard Suliman had not only failed to deal with the Witch: he had got himself killed by her.

  So when, a few months after that, a tall black castle suddenly appeared on the hills above Market Chipping, blowing clouds of black smoke from its four tall, thin turrets, everybody was fairly sure that the Witch had moved out of the Waste again and was about to terrorize the country the way she used to fifty years ago. People got very scared indeed. Nobody went out alone, particularly at night. What made it all the scarier was that the castle did not stay in the same place. Sometimes it was a tall black smudge on the moors to the northwest, sometimes it reared above the rocks to the east, and sometimes it came right downhill to sit in the heather only just beyond the last farm to the north. You could see it actually moving sometimes, with smoke pouring out from the turrets in dirty gray gusts. For a while everyone was certain that the castle would come right down into the valley before long, and the Mayor talked of sending to the King for help.

  But the castle stayed roving about the hills, and it was learned that it did not belong to the Witch but to Wizard Howl. Wizard Howl was bad enough. Though he did not seem to want to leave the hills, he was known to amuse himself by collecting young girls and sucking the souls from them. Or some people said he ate their hearts. He was an utterly cold-blooded and heartless wizard and no young girl was safe from him if he caught her on her own. Sophie, Lettie, and Martha, along with all the other girls in Market Chipping, were warned never to go out alone, which was a great annoyance to them. They wondered what use Wizard Howl found for all the souls he collected.

  They had other things on their minds before long, however, for Mr. Hatter died suddenly just as Sophie was old enough to leave school for good. It then appeared that Mr. Hatter had been altogether too proud of his daughters. The school fees he had been paying had left the shop with quite heavy debts. When the funeral was over, Fanny sat down in the parlor in the house next door to the shop and explained the situation.

  “You’ll all have to leave that school, I’m afraid,” she said. “I’ve been doing sums back and front and sideways, and the only way I can see to keep the business going and take care of the three of you is to see you all settled in a promising apprenticeship somewhere. It isn’t practical to have you all in the shop. I can’t afford it. So this is what I’ve decided. Lettie first—”

  Lettie looked up, glowing with health and beauty which even sorrow and black clothes could not hide. “I want to go on learning,” she said.

  “So you shall, love,” said Fanny. “I’ve arranged for you to be apprenticed to Cesari’s, the pastry cook in Market Square. They’ve a name for treating their learners like kings and queens, and you should be very happy there, as well as learning a useful trade. Mrs. Cesari’s a good customer and a good friend, and she’s agreed to squeeze you in as
a favor.”

  Lettie laughed in the way that showed she was not at all pleased. “Well, thank you,” she said. “Isn’t it lucky that I like cooking?”

  Fanny looked relieved. Lettie could be awkwardly strong-minded at times. “Now Martha,” she said. “I know you’re full young to go out to work, so I’ve thought round for something that would give you a long, quiet apprenticeship and go on being useful to you whatever you decide to do after that. You know my old school friend Annabel Fairfax?”

  Martha, who was slender and fair, fixed her big gray eyes on Fanny almost as strong-mindedly as Lettie. “You mean the one who talks such a lot,” she said. “Isn’t she a witch?”

  “Yes, with a lovely house and clients all over the Folding Valley,” Fanny said eagerly. “She’s a good woman, Martha. She’ll teach you all she knows and very likely introduce you to grand people she knows in Kingsbury. You’ll be all set up in life when she’s done with you.”

  “She’s a nice lady,” Martha conceded. “All right.”

  Sophie, listening, felt that Fanny had worked everything out just as it should be. Lettie, as the second daughter, was never likely to come to much, so Fanny had put her where she might meet a handsome young apprentice and live happily ever after. Martha, who was bound to strike out and make her fortune, would have witchcraft and rich friends to help her. As for Sophie herself, Sophie had no doubt what was coming. It did not surprise her when Fanny said, “Now, Sophie dear, it seems only right and just that you should inherit the hat shop when I retire, being the eldest as you are. So I’ve decided to take you on as apprentice myself, to give you a chance to learn the trade. How do you feel about that?”

  Sophie could hardly say that she simply felt resigned to the hat trade. She thanked Fanny gratefully.

  “So that’s settled then!” Fanny said.