to deal with the person when he does know. That’s quite as important. How about he uses Granek’s Equation?”
“Too complicated,” said Mr Goodwin. “Try him with Beaulieu’s Spell.”
“I’d prefer a straight Whitewick,” Mr Loder the butcher said.
After that they all began suggesting things, all of which meant nothing to me, and each of them got quite heated in favour of his own suggestion. Before long, the tall, land-owning one was banging his wineglass on the little table beside his chair and shouting, “You’ve got to have him eliminate this person for good, quickly and simply! The only answer is a Persholt!”
“Please remember,” my uncle said anxiously, “that Con’s only a boy and he doesn’t know any magic at all.”
This caused a silence. “Ah,” Mayor Seuly said at length. “Yes. Of course. Well then, I think the best plan is to enable him to summon a Walker.”
At this, all the others broke into rumbles of “Exactly! Of course! A Walker. Why didn’t we think of that before?”
Mayor Seuly looked round the circle of them and said, “Agreed? Good. Now what can we give him to use? It ought to be something quite plain and ordinary that no one will suspect…Ah. Yes. A cork from one of those bottles will do nicely.”
He held out his hand with a handsome gold ring shining on it and Mr Loder passed him the purple stained cork from the bottle he had just emptied into a decanter. Mr Seuly took it and clasped it in both hands for a moment. Then he nodded and passed it on to Mr Johnson, who did the same. The cork slowly travelled round the entire circle, including Uncle Alfred and Mr Loder standing by the table, who passed it back to the Mayor.
Mayor Seuly held the cork up in his finger and thumb and beckoned me over to him. I still couldn’t speak. I stood there, looking down on his wealthily clipped hair, that almost hid the thin place on top, and wondering at how rounded and rich he looked. I breathed in smells of nutty, fruity wine, smooth good cloth and a tang of aftershave, and nodded at everything he said.
“All you have to do,” he said, “is first to have your moment of recognition and then to fetch out this cork. You hold it up like I’m doing, and you say, ‘I summon a Walker to bring me what I need’ Have you got that?” I nodded. It sounded quite easy to remember. “You may have to wait a while for the Walker,” Mayor Seuly went on, “and you mustn’t be frightened when you see the Walker coming. It may turn out bigger than you expect. When it reaches you, the Walker will give you something. I don’t know what. Walkers are designed to give you exactly the tool for the job. But take my word for it, the object you get will do just what you need it to do. And you must give the Walker this cork in exchange. Walkers never give something for nothing. Have you got all that?” he asked. I nodded again. “Then take this cork and keep it with you all the time,” he said, “but don’t let anyone else see it. And I hope that when we next meet you’ll carry no karma at all.”
As I took the cork – which felt like an ordinary cork to me – Mr Johnson said, “Right. That’s done. Send him off, Alfred, and let’s start the meeting.”
I didn’t really need Uncle Alfred to jerk his head at me to go. I got out as quickly as I could and rushed upstairs to the kitchen for a drink of water. But by the time I got there, my mouth was hardly dry at all. That was odd, but it was such a relief that I hardly wondered about it. I wasn’t even very scared any more, and that was odd too, but I didn’t think of it at the time.
I got much more nervous as the week marched on. The worst part was the end of term assembly, when I had to sit on the left side with the school leavers, while all my friends sat across the gangway because they were going to Upper Schools. I felt really left out. And while I sat there, I realised that even when I’d found the karma person and got rid of him, I’d still be a year behind my friends at Stall High. And on my side of the gangway, the boy next to me had got a job at Mayor Seuly’s ironworks and the girl on the other side was going to train as a maid in Mr Goodwin’s house. I still had to get my job.
Then it suddenly hit me that I was going off on my own to a strange place where I wouldn’t know what to do or how to behave – and that was bad enough, without having to find the person causing my evil Fate as well. I tried saying It’s him or me to myself, but that was no help at all. When I got home, I looked out of my window, up at Stallery, and that was terrifying. I realised that I didn’t know the first thing about the place, except that it was full of powerful wizardry and that someone up there was thoroughly wicked. When Uncle Alfred came and took me to his workroom to put the spell on me that would make this Mr Amos give me the job at Stallery, I went very slowly. My legs shook.
The workroom was back to its usual state. There was no sign of the comfortable chairs, or the port wine. Uncle Alfred chalked a circle on the floor and had me stand inside it. Otherwise, the magics were just like ordinary life. I didn’t feel anything particularly, or notice much except a very small buzzing, right at the end. But Uncle Alfred was beaming when he had finished.
“There!” he said. “I defy anyone to refuse to employ you now, Con! It’s tight as a diving suit.”
I went away, shaking with nerves. I was so full of doubts and ignorance that I went and interrupted Mum. She was sitting at her creaky table reading great long sheets of paper, making marks in the margins as she read. “Say whatever it is quickly,” she said, “or I’ll lose my place in these blessed galleys.”
Out of all the things I wanted to know, all I could think of was, “Do I need to take any clothes with me to Stallery tomorrow?”
“Ask your uncle,” Mum said. “You arranged the whole caper with him. And remember to have a bath and wash your hair tonight.”
So I went downstairs, where Uncle Alfred was now unpacking guidebooks out in the back, and I asked him the same question. “And can I take my camera?” I said.
He pulled his lip and thought about it. “To be frank with you, by rights you shouldn’t take anything,” he said. “It’s only supposed to be an interview tomorrow. But of course, if the spell works and you do get the job, you’ll probably start work there straight away. I know they provide the uniforms. But I don’t know about underclothes. Yes, perhaps you ought to take underclothes along. Only don’t make it obvious you expect to be staying. They won’t like that.”
This made me more nervous than ever. I thought the spell had fixed it. After that, I had a short, blissful moment when I thought that if I was dreadfully rude to them in Stallery, they’d throw me out and not give me the job. Then I could go to Stall High next term. But of course that wouldn’t work, because of my evil Fate. I sighed and went to pack.
The tram that went up past Stallery left from the market square at midday. Uncle Alfred walked down there with me. I was in my best clothes and carrying a plastic bag that looked like my lunch. I’d arranged a packet of sandwiches and a bottle of juice artfully on top. Underneath were all my socks and pants wrapped round my camera and the latest Peter Jenkins book – I thought Uncle Alfred could spare me one book from the shop.
The tram was filling up with people when we got to the square.
“You’d
