Deep Secret (Magids 1) - Page 31

“Thank you,” said Case. “I am rather proud of it.”

The numbers on the doors we passed now said 523, 524, 525. “It can’t be much further, surely?” Nick said.

“You may be wrong,” said Case. “This is a very peculiar hotel. I think it is straight out of Escher. Escher was a Dutch artist, you know, who drew things so that they look as if they go up when they go down, but when you look closely they do both and you cannot tell.”

“Er… yes,” said Nick. The numbers on the doors were in the forties now. And believe it or not, we turned left again and I really think that was five angles by then. Nick said uncertainly, “We’ll be back at the lift again at this rate, won’t we?”

“I think not,” said Case. “Yes, in most hotels. But here you can turn five corners and still not make a square.”

And, you know, he was right! Nick muttered things about this building must be built in a sort of Greek key-pattern and it wasn’t possible, but I’m here to say it was. We turned left yet again and had to walk most of the way down a long corridor lined with red carpet before we came to room 534. I felt it was quite lucky that room 535 was next to it. At that rate, it could have been anywhere. All the same, we were both quite sure that Case had taken us the long way round and that the lifts must be just round the next mirrored corner. We suspected another Dutch joke, and we each decided, quite independently, to go that way when we went to look for this Opening Ceremony.

Meanwhile, Nick tried to get even with Case. Case announced that, well, he would love us and leave us now, Nick held the door of his room propped open on one foot and leant backwards out of it. “I hope you don’t mind me asking,” he says, very serious and polite, “but what does your T-shirt say?”

Case looked smugly down at his narrow chest. “It says,” he said, “I AM A HOBBIT”. He bowed and walked away. “In Elvish,” he added as he left.

That round was Case’s, hands down.

We didn’t stay long in our rooms, just long enough for me to look in the placcy bag I’d been given. It had a smiley face and “PhantasmaCon” on the outside, and a mass of bumf on the inside, one item of which was a whole glossy magazine with a story by Uncle Ted in it; but there were appeals for AIDS victims and ads for things called Swords N’Attire and… anyway, I found the badge with my name on it and threw the rest away. In this I was less than clever. Master Nick had had the sense to notice that the scruffiest bit of paper was in fact the programme to this madhouse. It was all organised in columns labelled “Parallel Universe One”, “Mallory World”, “Home Universe”, and so on, and it made not more sense to me than the hotel corridors. But Nick had it worked out. He said. He said the Opening Ceremony was in Home Universe and that was the first floor in the big function room. So we tried to go there.

We went the other way, expecting to get to the lifts any moment. And we didn’t. I lost count of the corners we turned, but I remember Nick saying they were all right-angles, which meant that by now we had walked round two and a half squares at least, and it didn’t make sense. I said we ought to have met ourselves, or walked into a new dimension or something, but all we did was get to the lifts, in the end.

Downstairs it ought to have been simple. There were even notices with arrows, saying HOME UNIVERSE, but I suppose the trouble was that we didn’t know what we were looking for. And everyone seemed to have gone by then, so we couldn’t ask. Anyway, we wandered for a bit, until we came to an official-looking door, and we opened the door and looked round it.

We found a small, rather dark room, where a dozen or so people were clustered round a blackboard. Every single one of them wore a long robe with a cowl to it – like mad monks. You couldn’t see any of the faces at all, not even the face of the one who was writing on the board and turning to explain to the others. He was writing symbols that made my stomach feel queer after only one glance. Really queer. At the moment we looked in, he was saying, “For the strongest effect, you should visualise all these written in fire on a background of flames.”

Nick and I, with one accord, backed out and closed the door very gently. After that I let fly a giant burp, because of the funny way my stomach was feeling. “Which universe do you think they were in?” I whispered.

“Somewhere very alien,” Nick said decidedly.

We continued our search by going along to the next door and opening that. I was saying, “If Uncle Ted was wanting to punish us, I think he’s succeeding,” and Nick was agreeing, “But not quite in the way he—” when we found we were in a vast hall full of faces all turning to look at us. We were there. It was like a bad dream, but it was the Opening Ceremony right enough. We slid into the back row of seats with hot faces.

It was just starting. There was Uncle Ted in the act of taking a seat on the far-off platform, along with ten or so other people we didn’t know, and Janine being shown to a seat in the front row. As we sat down, a glossy-faced youngish man in a T-shirt, with a great deal of wriggly blond hair, sprang up and began welcoming everyone to PhantasmaCon. But he’d only got as far as “…pleasure it is to have with us as Guest of Honour…” when the door that end burst open and a high tenor voice cried out, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I know you’re just starting and I haven’t come to stay!” and Mervin Thurless rushed in and rushed up on to the platform. “I just wanted to tell you it’s a disgrace,” he said. “I’m a guest of this convention and you’ve put me in the Station Hotel!”

Half the people on the platform sprang up. Rick Corrie sprang up too, out of the audience. He bounded to the platform, seized Thurless by one arm and hurried him aside, where he talked to him in urgent whispers. Thurless was not placated. In the end, Rick hurried him outside and the door banged on Thurless shouting, “I don’t care! I insist on a taxi!”

“That was Mervin Thurless,” said the blond, glossy man gravely.

The audience, to my surprise, clapped and cheered. A lot of people laughed. They were like that, the people at this convention – surprisingly good-humoured and in a holiday mood: as if they had come to enjoy themselves as much as listen to writers talk about books. I spent the rest of the very boring Ceremony looking around at them.

My first thought was that the police would be in trouble here, if there had been a crime and they needed descriptions of the man on the scene. About nine-tenths of the men had beards and wore glasses. Otherwise there were people of all ages, from the eccentric-looking old man with the hearing-aid to the long-haired people’s baby (which had to be carried outside crying around then) and quite a number of children. There was also more than a fair share of achingly glamorous young females. But there were also more than usual numbers of Wendy-shaped fat ones. There was a whole row of them, male and female, just along from Nick and me, and I stared fascinated at their huge tightly stretched T-shirts, each with something clever or weird written on it. T

hey made me feel pleasantly slender for a change. The men were none of them my types, fat or thin. I don’t go for beards and glasses. But I thought I could quite fancy one or two of the willowy types in paramilitary gear, or the dark one in black leather and mirror shades sitting beside Uncle Ted on the platform. But I know what really struck me: the hall was full of people I’d like to get to know. An unusual feeling for sulky, solitary me, that. This feeling extended particularly to the large sprinkling of shy-looking middle-aged ladies (much to my surprise). I found myself looking at the skinny greying one nearest – she was in a bright patchwork jacket – and thinking that whatever she did for a job, it bored her, and she didn’t get on with her workmates, so she clearly lived a passionate life among books instead. And I would have liked to talk to her about some of the things we’d both read.

By the end of the Ceremony, I was thinking that the punishment was not really a punishment at all. Ha, ha. That was before Janine swept down on Nick with “Come along, darling. We’re going to eat with the other guests,” and whisked him away.

I was left on my own for the rest of the evening.

It was a bit like your first day at school or college. I didn’t know anyone and I had no idea what to do, and everyone was charging and bustling around me, knowing exactly where they were going and who they were going with. So I pushed my specs up my nose, squared my shoulders and went to my car to bring my most valued things up to my room. I did the first load unhindered – or unhindered by anything except the weird effect of those mirrors on the corners of the corridors. And there were five right-angle corners. I counted. There and back, going to the lifts both ways. And I was standing waiting for the lift to go down for the next load when I happened to look back at the nearest corner. And I saw the MOST FABULOUS MAN I’d ever seen in my life. Tall and Nordic and slim, deep-set eyes, no beard, no glasses – just staggering. To die for, as Robbie’s bint Davina would say.

He was just at the junction, reflected in all the mirrors, so I could see he was fabulous from every angle, and at first I thought he was coming towards me, to the lifts. My knees felt weak at the thought of actually sharing the lift with him. But he was really going the other way. The four images of him I could see wheeled to the right – I think it was to the right – and walked off the mirrors. I was smitten enough by the sight of him to run back to that corner to get another look at him as he walked away – he had the sexiest walk – but he must have gone into one of the nearest rooms, because by the time I had tottered over there the cross-corridor was empty. All I saw were multiple versions of myself, looking small and lost.

Then the lift came and I sprinted back and got in it. Further mirror, showing Maree looking glum and frustrated. Still, I’m bound to see him again. And I ask myself what has become of my feelings for Robbie, that I could be so knocked sideways by a total stranger. But it was all right. As soon as I looked inside me, I was as raw as ever in the place where Robbie was torn away. Yet I still feel weak thinking of that fabulous man. I must be very odd.

I was coming back through the foyer with another load, watching the image of myself in the ceiling dangling bags and clutching my VDU to my tummy, when I was accosted by the Dutch Case. “Let Case take your case – this is what I am here for!” he cries, and whips my vet’s bag out of my straining fingers. “Where to?” And he set off for the lift anyway.

I went after him at a panting trot. Dad proudly gave me that bag – and it’s never been any real use, bless him! – and I didn’t trust Case with it one bit. When we got to the lift, he tried to wrestle the VDU out of my grip too, but I hung on to it and he only got the carrier bag with the flexes in.

“Let me take it all. I am an excellent beast of burden,” he said.

Tags: Diana Wynne Jones Magids Fantasy
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