loosened up. After that we were both going like a train when people began honking and hooting horns at us.
“Take no notice,” I panted. Flick, flick, flick. “Luck, luck, luck,” we chanted. “Break that dream. Luck, luck, luck!”
The horns seemed to get louder, but I had a strong feeling the Witchy Dance was really working – Nick says he had too – so we simply went on dancing. Next thing I knew, the man in the car behind me had climbed out and marched round to the pavement in front of me.
“Go and hold your Sabbath somewhere else!” he shouted. Oh he was angry. I looked at him. I looked at his great silver car and then back at him. He was a total prat. He had a long head with smooth, smooth hair, gold-rimmed glasses, a white strappy mac and a suit, for heaven’s sake! And instead of a tie he had one of those fancy silk cravat things. Businessman, I thought. We’ve made him half a minute late for an appointment. I took a glance at Nick to see what he thought. But Nick can be a real rat. He was busy injecting acute embarrassment into every pore of himself. He stood there and he cringed, the rat! It wasn’t me, sir! She made me do it, Officer! The woman tempted me and I did eat, Lord! I could have smacked him.
So I fought my own battle as usual by pushing my glasses up my nose with one finger in order to point a truly dirty look at the prat.
Unfortunately he was a tougher nut than he looked. He held his left lens up against his left eye and gave me the dirty look right back. In spades. I was about to resort to speech then, but the prat got in first. “I am Rupert Venables,” he snaps. “I’ve been looking for you all afternoon to give you this.” And he fetches out a hundred quid and counts it into my hand.
I was too gobsmacked even to get round to asking how he knew it was me. For that, blame the other motorists. There seemed to be several hundred cars lined up going both ways by then, and they were all gooping. When they saw the money, they began to cheer. I don’t think they thought the prat was paying me to move my car, either. Oh I was FURIOUS. And Nick was overwhelmed with genuine embarrassment as soon as he heard the name and saw the money, and he was no help at all. We simply got into Dad’s car and I drove us away. Rather jerkily.
After a while I said – between my teeth – “I hope for both our sakes I never meet that prat again. Murder will be done.”
Nick said, “But the Witchy Dance has worked.”
That inflamed my wrath further. “What do you mean, you rat?”
“You got a hundred pounds with no strings attached,” he pointed out.
“They’re probably forged notes,” I said.
“What are you going to buy with them?” Nick asked.
“Oh don’t ask – I need almost everything you can name,” I said. I suppose I was mollified. I know I haven’t felt nearly so depressed since.
Rupert Venables for the
Iforion archive
Once the various fatelines were moving the right way, I could keep them in hand without too much trouble. I took the blocks off my communications. Instantly the phone rang. The answering-machine flashed furiously. Two computers put up MESSAGES INCOMING and the fax machine put out paper after paper.
“Well it’s nice to be needed,” I said to Stan.
About half the stuff waiting was requests or enquiries from the software and games companies I work for. Two recorded calls were from Magids elsewhere in the world wanting to know why I had let the beef crisis get so much out of hand. I swore. I hadn’t realised it had. And it was too late to do anything by then. The current phone call was a girl I know in Cambridge who wanted to know why I hadn’t been seen or heard of since Christmas. I told her an old friend had died and left me a lot of unfinished business.
“That’s right. Blame me,” growled the voice of that same old friend from behind me.
One of the computers was full of regular e-mail. I let it wait and turned to the other. It was my channel for Magid business and wouldn’t wait. Months can pass without Magid communicating with Magid, but when they do communicate there is an urgent need-to-know.
The first message was from my brother Will. WHAT’S HAPPENING? THULE IS SWAMPED WITH REFUGEES FROM KORYFONIC WORLDS.
The next was from a Magid called Zinka on the other side of the Empire from Will. DID YOU KNOW KORYFONIC 10 & 12 – I.E. ERATH AND TELTH – HAVE DECLARED INDEPENDENCE AND ARE MAKING WARLIKE NOISES AT MY LOT? The third message said much the same, only about Koryfonic 9 and 7. The fourth was from my brother Simon: RUMOURS HERE THAT THE KORYFONIC EMPIRE IS BREAKING UP. IS THIS INTENDED? IF NOT, DO YOU NEED HELP? INTENDED OR NOT, IT SEEMS HARD ON THE PEOPLE THERE.
I said to Stan, “Well? Is it intended?”
“Probably,” he replied.
Gloomily, I went through the faxes. Two-thirds of them were from General Dakros. Typically, he said nothing about war, or worlds seceding from the Empire. To him, this was military business and nothing to do with a Magid. The first few faxes were jubilant. He thought he was on the track of Knarros; he had found him; through Knarros he now had a line on the Babylon heirs. By the sixth fax, he had found two more people claiming to be Knarros and the number of putative heirs had trebled. After that it was exponential. Lost Emperors had poured in on him while I was otherwise engaged – hundreds of them, and several score Knarroses. The latest fax said,
I’ve weeded it down to eight men who may possibly be Knarros.
The Empire would appreciate your help in this.
“What do you think I should do?” I said to Stan.
“Lad, I’m supposed to be advising you about sponsoring a new Magid, not about this,” he answered. “What do you think?”
“I… think…” I said slowly, trying to get at the right gut feeling on this, “that the Empire is breaking up as was intended all along – and this is why they always put the newest Magid on to it. He or she will make mistakes. I’ve made mistakes. I could have saved that poor sod Timotheo – OK, OK, Stan. It’s done. I won’t beat my breast about it any longer. But to judge from the history of this world, when a big Empire breaks up, there’s usually one or two last rulers at the head of it who are either very weak or very young, to, to…”
“Sort of guide it down the drain?” Stan said.
“Exactly,” I said. “So I imagine it’s my job to go and pick a Knarros – any old Knarros – to provide Koryfos with a weak ruler. Stan, this is the part of being a Magid that’s not pleasant.”
“I know,” he said. “I’ve done some dirty things too.”
I got through to Dakros, sighing rather, and was directed to meet him in a distant suburb of Iforion. Just arrive in the road, he said. Someone would be looking out for me.
They were.
I stepped out into a chilly, rubble-covered street between two rows of small houses, and something went whee past my head
