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‘So, what is going on?’ asked Nicholas ‘Why are you here? And why a you want me to do?’
‘At last, a gliht Have you ever wondered what Alastor Dorrance actually does, other than come to Corvere three or four times a year and exercise his eccentricities in public?’
‘Isn’t that enough?’ asked Nick with a shudder He remembered the newspaper stories from the last time Dorrance had been in the city, only a feeeks before He’d hosted a picnic on Holyoak Hill for every apprentice in Corvere and supplied them with fatty roast beef, copious amounts of beer, and a particularly cheap and nasty red wine, with predictable results
‘Dorrance’s eccentricities are all show,’ said Edward ‘Misdirection He is in fact the head of Department Thirteen Dorrance Hall is the Department’s main research facility’
‘But Depart pictures It doesn’t really exist … um … does it?’
‘Officially, no In actuality, yes Every state has need of spies Departes ours, and carries out various tasks ill-suited to the overnment It is watched over quite carefully, I assure you’
‘But what has that got to do with me?’
‘Departhbours very successfully, and has detailed files on everyone and everything important within those countries With one notable exception The Old Kingdom’
‘I’ to spy on my friends!’
Edward sighed and looked out theThe drive beyond the gatehouse curved through freshly athered into hillocks ready to be pitchforked into carts and taken to the stacks Past the fields, the chie of old oaks that lined the drive
‘I’ to be a spy, Uncle,’ repeated Nicholas
‘I haven’t asked you to be one,’ said Edward as he looked back at his nephew Nicholas’s face had paled, and he was clutching his chest Whatever had happened to hidom had left hih the Ancelstierran doctors had found no external signs of significant injury, his X-rays had coed and all the medical reports said Nick was in the same sort of shape as a man who had suffered serious wounds in battle
‘All I want you to do is to spend the weekend here with some of the Department’s technical people,’ continued Edward ‘Answer their questions about your experiences in the Old Kingdo will come of it, and as you know, I strictly adhere to the wisdom of my predecessors, which is to leave the place alone But that said, they haven’t exactly left us alone over the past twenty years Dorrance has always had a bit of a bee in his bonnet about the Old Kingdoreatly exacerbated by the … ht discover so to you So if you answer his questions, you shall have your Peri, that is’
‘I’ll cross the Wall,’ said Nick forcefully ‘One way or another’
‘Then I suggest it be my way You know, your father wanted to be a painter when he was your age He had talent too, according to old Menree But our parents wouldn’t hear of it A grave error, I think Not that he hasn’t been a useful politician, and a great help to me But his heart is elsewhere, and it is not possible to achieve greatness without a whole heart’
‘So all I have to do is answer questions?’
Edward sighed the sigh of an older and wiser er, inattentive, and impatient relative
‘Well, you will have to appear a little bit at the party Dinner and so forth Croquet perhaps, or a row on the lake Misdirection, as I said’
Nicholas took Edward’s hand and shook it firmly
‘You are a splendid uncle, Uncle’
‘Good I’lanced out theThey were past the oak trees now, gravel crunching beneath the wheels as the car rolled up the drive to the front steps of the six-columned entrance ‘We’ll drop you off, then, and I’ll see you Monday’
‘Aren’t you staying here? For the house party?’
‘Don’t be silly! I can’t abide house parties of any kind I’ at the Golden Sheaf Excellent hotel, not too far away I often go there to get through soolf course, too Thought I o round tomorrow Enjoy yourself!’
Nicholas hardly caught the last tords as his door was flung open and he was assisted out by Edward’s personal bodyguard He blinked in the afternoon sunlight, no longer filtered through the ss were deposited at his feet; then the Chief Minister’s cavalcade started up again and rolled down the drive as quickly as it had arrived, the Arravel
‘Mr Sayre?’
Nicholas looked around A top hatted foots, but it was another , burly individual in a dark-blue suit, his hair cut so short it was practically aabout him said policeman, either active or recently retired
‘Yes, I’m Nicholas Sayre’
‘Welcoe—’ Nicholas recoiled from the offered hand and nearly fell over the footained his balance, he realized that the e and then followed it up with a second syllable
Hodgee
Hedge the necromancer was finally, co had defeated hione beyond the Ninth Gate He couldn’t coe was purely intellectual Deep inside hie was linked irrevocably with an almost primal fear
‘Sorry,’ gasped Nick He straightened up and shook the ?’
‘Hodgeuests do not arrive till later, so Mr Dorrance thought you rounds’
‘Ue to look around to see whoand, as he started up the steps, resisted the temptation to slink fro picture
‘The house was originally built in the time of the last Trouin-Durville Pretender, about four hundred years ago, but little of the original structure rerandfather
The best feature is the library, which was the great hall of the old house Shall we start there?’
‘Thank you,’ replied Nicholas Mr Hodge Nicholas wondered if the man had to do it often for casual visitors, as part of what Uncle Edould call ‘misdirection’
The library was very ieman closed the double doors behind the, which was painted to create the illusion of a stor to look up at the waves and the tossing ships and the low scudding clouds Below the do up twenty or even twenty-five feet from the floor Ladders ran on rails around the library, but no one was using them The library was silent; two crescent-shaped couches in the centre were empty The ere heavily curtained with velvet drapes, but the gas lanterns above the shelves burned very brightly The place looked like there should be people reading in it, or sorting books, or so It did not have the dark, dusty air of a disused library
‘This way, sir,’ said Hodgeman He crossed to one of the shelves and reached up above his head to pull out an unobtrusive, dun-colored toent issuant froent upon a field azure
The book slid out halfway, then came no farther
Hodgeman looked up at it Nick looked too
‘Is so supposed to happen?’
‘It gets a bit stuck soain This tiees, pushed two books apart on the shelf below to reveal a key-hole, inserted the key, and turned it There was a soft click, but nothing eman put the key back in the book and returned the volume to the shelf
‘Now, if you wouldn’tNick back to the centre of the library The couches hada circular stone staircase leading down Unlike the library’s brilliant white gaslights, it was lit by dull electric bulbs