The Prayermaster’s face went stony. “Moderate your language before me,” he said. “Cleanse your mouth. I did no such filth. That which I did was wholly lawful, and this I freely admit to. It is my custom, as it has been for years, to raise up correct prayers daily for one to come to me who could lead me to the place where Romanov hides. Yesterday my prayers were answered when you came. And having found you, I then set Joel here”—he laid a fatherly hand on the elder boy’s head—“to watch for your escape and lay bonds upon you to lead to us this place. But this was all done in purity and in the proper form.” He closed his mouth into a straight line and gave me a hard stare.
“In other words,” I said, “you did do something, but spell is a dirty word.”
He glared at me. The two boys flickered glances at one another. They were loving this.
Mini blew a sigh through her trunk. “I don’t understand.”
“Never mind,” I thought at her. “They’re nutters.” I was interested that none of those three seemed to know Mini had said anything. It seemed as if she was on some wavelength that they weren’t picking up. “Then I’m sorry to sound offensive,” I said, “but I think it was a dirty trick whatever you call it. You got me arrested for no reason at all. And what’s Romanov done to harm you?”
Both boys spoke up at this. Little Ratty said, “He’s vile, strong vile, and he hides away here where we can’t get at him.”
Joel said, “Shut up, Japheth! Romanov doesn’t pray properly, and he’s got at the workers with his antiprayers so that they keep asking for more money. Isn’t that right?” he asked, turning his face up sweetly to Daddy Prayermaster.
The Prayermaster nodded and patted Joel’s head again. Ratty Japheth muttered, “Know-it-all. Pet-boy!” but the Prayermaster pretended not to hear.
“Well, so they should ask for more money!” I said. “They’re the ones who have to sit out in the radiation sewing these pretty flowers you lot wear all over your clothes.”
The Prayermaster did me his look of sorrow and pity. “You have no true understanding,” he said sadly. “When we have done with Romanov, it will be my pleasure to have you in our Prayer House for proper instruction.”
The boys flickered another glance at each other at this, full of glee. I could tell it would be their pleasure, too. With steel toecaps probably.
“Just try it!” I said. “I’m bigger than either of you. You’ll be lucky to come away with the right number of fingers.”
Joel sniggered. Ratty Japheth said, “Ah, but you’ll be under the prayer. We won’t.”
The Prayermaster just stood there as if it was no concern of his. I said to him, “Little sweethearts, your sons, aren’t they? And I don’t think much of you as a father either!”
He ignored this. “Move your animals,” he said, “and stand aside from that door.”
I said, “Well, I suppose I could, only I don’t see what good it would do you. Romanov’s not here. Didn’t I say? I came all the way here for nothing, just like you lot did.”
The Prayermaster took no notice of that either. He put his hands up by his shoulders, palms out toward me, and said, “Let the prayer be answered that opens all portals!”
There was a fair
ly strong feeling of pushing. The goat swayed with it. I found it quite hard not to take a step backward into Mini. Mini swayed, too, but this turned out to be because she had spotted another egg in the flower bed. Her trunk shot out straight, fixed on the egg, and curled up holding it. Very politely and gently, she put it in my basket with the other eggs. “One you missed!” she told me proudly.
To say the Prayermaster was put out would be putting it mildly. He took his hands down and goggled. The boys gawped. I don’t think they have elephants much in Loggia City. But I think that what really got to the Prayermaster was the way Mini seemed immune to his kind of magic. He could see he was up against a mountain of passive resistance here. He went thoughtful.
But he was not the kind to give in. He stepped back, humming and intoning things under his breath that I couldn’t quite hear, and his hands came out and made a careful shape in the air. I tried not to think about that shape, but I was fairly sure that it was the outline of me, basket and all. He gave me a stern but kindly look as he finished. “You do not seem to understand,” he said, “that the longer you deny me entrance here, the worse it will be for you. You are now under the prayer, Nick Mallory. Remorse and despair grip you—and will grip you harder the longer you abide. I propose to take a turn round this abomination of an island. When I come back, I believe you will have thought better of your intransigence. Come, boys.”
He cupped one of his large, well-kept hands round each boy’s head and pushed them in front of him toward the other end of the house. But he let go after a few steps and strode on in front, up the slope in the direction of the trees. He was one of those who always has to stride in front. The boys turned back toward me.
“He’s not our father!” Joel said. “Thank all the Powers! We’re just his two best prayerboys. So!”
“And we don’t like you,” Japheth added. I could tell I had really annoyed them by thinking they were the Prayermaster’s sons.
I was going to say something about the way they all deserved one another, related or not. I had my mouth open ready to say it when Japheth trod on another egg that I’d missed. His embroidered legs shot out from under him. He landed on his behind with an eggy smish.
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. It was wonderful. Poetic.
Japheth’s reaction was anything but poetic. His mauvish little face went a sort of gray-purple, and he stared, glared—worse than glared—at me as he got up. It was nearly a mad look, the sort of look you’d imagine a murderer giving his victim just before he brought the ax down. It almost frightened me for a moment.
“Now I really hate you,” he told me, in a soft little voice that sent quite a shiver down my spine. “You just wait.”
“I’ll do that,” I said. I was nearly twice his size after all. “You’ll still look an idiot.”
He didn’t answer. He just turned round, with his backside all yellow, and stalked away after the other two.