he said. “Be assured of that. We’re sick of you imposing restraints on us, you see. Why shouldn’t we go out and conquer other worlds? Why shouldn’t we use dragon’s blood? Why shouldn’t we be as wicked as we want? Answer me that, sir!”
“You might find the answer for yourself, if you thought,” Chrestomanci suggested. But his voice was drowned in the yelling from the assembled witches and necromancers. While they shouted, Janet began edging quietly towards the tree. She supposed Cat dared not move with Henry Nostrum’s hand on his shoulder, and she felt someone ought to do something.
“Oh, yes,” said Henry Nostrum, cock-a-hoop with pleasure. “We are taking the arts of magic into our own hands today. This world will be ours by this evening. Come Hallowe’en, dear sir, we shall be going out to conquer every other world we know. We are going to destroy you, my dear fellow, and your power. But before we do that, of course, we shall have to destroy this garden.”
Chrestomanci looked thoughtfully down at his hands, hanging limply in the silver handcuffs. “I shouldn’t advise that,” he said. “This garden has things in it from the dawn of all the worlds. It’s a good deal stronger than I am. You’d be striking at the roots of witchcraft – and you’d find it shockingly hard to destroy.”
“Ah,” said Henry Nostrum. “But we know we can’t destroy you unless we destroy the garden, my wily sir. And don’t think we don’t know how to destroy the garden.” He lifted his free hand and clapped Cat on the other shoulder with it. “The means are here.”
Janet, at that moment, stumbled over the block of stone that lay in the grass near the apple tree. “Dratitude!” she said and fell heavily across it. The audience pointed and screamed with laughter, which annoyed her very much. She glared round the circle of Sunday bonnets and hats.
“Up you get, dear Gwendolen,” Henry Nostrum said gleefully. “It’s young Cat who has to go on there.” He put an arm round the helpless Cat, plucked him off the ground and carried him towards the block of stone. William Nostrum bustled up beaming and uncoiling his rope. The Willing Warlock bounced up willingly to help too.
Cat was so terrified that he managed somehow to break the spell. He twisted out of Henry Nostrum’s arms and ran for all he was worth towards the two pillars, trying to fetch out his dragon’s blood as he ran. It was only a few steps to run. But naturally every witch, warlock, necromancer and wizard there instantly cast a spell. The thick smell of magic coiled around the meadow. Cat’s legs felt like two lead posts. His heart hammered. He felt himself running in slow-motion, slower and slower, like a clockwork toy running down. He heard Janet scream at him to run, but he could not move any longer. He stuck just in front of the ruined archway, and he was stiff as a board. It was all he could do to breathe.
The Nostrum brothers and the Willing Warlock collected him from there, and wound the rope round his stiff body. Janet did her best to prevent them.
“Oh please stop! What are you doing?”
“Now, now, Gwendolen,” Henry Nostrum said, rather perplexed. “You know perfectly well. I explained to you most carefully that the garden has to be disenchanted by cutting the throat of an innocent child on that slab of stone there. You agreed it must be so.”
“I didn’t! It wasn’t me!” said Janet.
“Be quiet!” Chrestomanci said, from the tree. “Do you want to be put in Cat’s place?”
Janet stared at him, and went on staring as all the implications struck her. While she stared, Cat, stiff as a mummy and wound in rope, was carried by the Willing Warlock and dumped rather painfully down on the block of stone. Cat stared resentfully at the Willing Warlock. He had always seemed so friendly. Apart from that, Cat was not as frightened as he might have been. Of course Gwendolen had known he had lives to spare. But he hoped his throat would heal after they cut it. He was bound to be very uncomfortable until it did. He turned his eyes up to Janet, meaning to give her a reassuring look.
To his astonishment, Janet was snatched away backwards into nothingness. The only thing which remained of her was a yell of surprise. And the same yell rumbled round the meadow. Everyone there was quite as astonished as Cat.
“Oh good!” Gwendolen said, from the other side of the stone. “I got here in time.”
Everyone stared at her. Gwendolen came from between the pillars, dusting off the dragon’s blood from her fingers with one of Cat’s school essays. Cat could see his signature at the top: Eric Emelius Chant, 26 Coven St, Wolvercote, England, Europe, The World, The Universe – it was his all right. Gwendolen still had her hair up in that strange headdress, but she had taken off the massive golden robes. She had on what must have amounted to underclothes in her new world. They were more magnificent than any of Chrestomanci’s dressing-gowns.
“Gwendolen!” exclaimed Henry Nostrum. He pointed to the space Janet had vanished from. “What – who—?”
“Just a replacement,” Gwendolen explained, in her airiest way. “I saw her and Cat here just now, so I knew—” She noticed Chrestomanci limply tied to the apple tree. “Oh good! You caught him! Just a moment.” She marched over to Chrestomanci and held up her golden underclothes in order to kick him hard on both shins. “Take that! And that!”
Chrestomanci did not try to pretend the kicks did not hurt. He doubled up. The toes of Gwendolen’s shoes were as pointed as nails.
“Now, where was I?” Gwendolen said, turning back to the Nostrum brothers. “Oh, yes. I thought I’d better come back because I wanted to see the fun, and I remembered I’d forgotten to tell you Cat has nine lives. You’ll have to kill him several times, I’m afraid.”
“Nine lives!” shouted Henry Nostrum. “You foolish girl!”
After that, there was such a shouting and outcry from every witch and warlock in the meadow, that no one could have heard anything else. From where Cat lay, he could see William Nostrum leaning towards Gwendolen, red in the face, both eyes whirling, bawling furiously at her, and Gwendolen leaning forward to shout back. As the noise died down a little, he heard William Nostrum booming, “Nine lives! If he has nine lives, you stupid girl, that means he’s an enchanter in his own right!”
“I’m not stupid!” Gwendolen yelled back. “I know that as well as you do! I’ve been using his magic ever since he was a baby. But I couldn’t go on using it if you were going to kill him, could I? That’s why I had to go away. I think it was nice of me to come back and tell you. So there!”
“How can you have used his magic?” demanded Henry Nostrum, even more put out than his brother.
“I just did,” said Gwendolen. “He never minds.”
“I do mind, rather,” Cat said from his uncomfortable slab. “I am here, you know.”
Gwendolen looked down at him as if she was rather surprised that he was. But before she could say anything to Cat, William Nostrum was loudly shushing for silence. He was very agitated. He took a long shiny thing out of his pocket and nervously bent it about.
“Silence!” he said. “We’ve gone too far to draw back now. We’ll just have to discover the boy’s weak point. We certainly can’t kill him unless we find it. He must have one. All enchanters do.” So saying, William Nostrum rounded on Cat and pointed the shiny thing at him. Cat was appalled to see that it was a long silver knife. The knife pointed at his face, even though William Nostrum’s eyes did not. “What is your weak point, boy? Out with it.”
Cat was not saying. It seemed the only chance he had of keeping any of his lives.
“I know,” said Gwendolen. “I did it. I put all his lives into a book of matches. They were easier to use like that. It’s in my room in the Castle. Shall I get it?”
Everyone Cat could see from his uncomfortable position looked relieved to hear this. “That’s all right then,” said Henry Nostrum. “Can he be killed without burning a match?”
“Oh