Endless Knot, Chapter 3

[minutia_r]

Sorry this took so long to update, everyone! I don't think it'll happen again.

Endless Knot

Chapter 3: Henrietta

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 | Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7

Fandom: The Chronicles of Chrestomanci

Pairings: Henrietta/Bernard, Conrad/Christopher

Rating: PG-13

Word count: 3400

Summary: "Isn't there a single one of you capable of thinking for himself?" Gabriel interrupted softly. "One day, I am going to find you all on some arctic plain, the frost giants pouring down from the mountains, and the gods marching forth to meet them. And in the moment before the battle is joined that will destroy the world, I will ask you why you thought it was a good idea to feed the moon to the Fenris Wolf. And you'll tell me, 'Christopher said—'"

Christopher and the young enchanters go to the circus. Conrad and Flavian go for a walk in the forest. Things go very wrong.

Thanks to: morganna_le. You would not be reading this chapter without him. If you ever meet him, buy him a drink! (Do not buy him an alcoholic drink, unless it is the future where you are.)

"Christopher!" said Elizabeth, and "Bloody hell!" said Jason, and Bernard said, "This can't be good."

No one said, "Henrietta, you thundering great fool, what did you do?" I was thinking it, though, and I'd bet the others were, too.

But I didn't have time to think it for long. The human circus performers were beginning to come out of their dazes, and the audience was muttering angrily, and the four of us were awfully exposed in the center of the ring.

Elizabeth went invisible. "Come on," she said.

"But—" said Jason.

"Can you think of anything we can do for Christopher right now?" said Elizabeth.

"No," said Bernard, "but I can think of someone who might."

That settled it. The rest of us followed Elizabeth, slipping invisibly through the seats. She didn't try to lead us through the press at the entrance, which was for the best, but the exit she tore for us in the wall of the tent was just about opposite the stake I'd taken out. I was wasting my worry on that when Bernard had to drag me out of the way of a horse for the second time that day.

"Haven't they rounded those things up yet?" I hissed, feeling flustered and stupid.

"They're a little short-handed," Elizabeth pointed out. "Half the circus is missing."

More than that was missing, we found when we got to Meg's tent—or when we should have got to Meg's tent. There wasn't even a square of flattened grass or the holes of tent pegs to show where it had been. We looked at Jason, in case Elizabeth had got turned around and led us to the wrong place.

"It was here," he said. And if Jason said it had been there, it had been there. "Maybe . . . maybe she left because her job was done, and she didn't realize . . ."

"Or maybe she set us up," I said.

"Not us," said Bernard. "Christopher."

Maybe. Christopher was the one who'd owed her a favor. She'd asked him to steal the endless knot—and he was gone, while the rest of us were here, whole, and unhurt. But I'd held the phur ba and said the words that had sent him God-knows-where. I took it personally.

"There she is!" someone shouted, and I took that personally too, because he was pointing at me. I looked down at myself. I was still invisible. How could I have known that the fried-foods vendor had witch-sight? "Thief! Vandal! Hooligan!"

He was running up to me, and he'd managed to find help. Circus people who weren't demons, or concerned citizens—either way, they were big and looked unfriendly. I could have run, or fought, but why? There wasn't anything more to do here. It was time to leave.

The others seemed to have decided the same thing. And were finding it just as hard to do. "Who's put a bleeding translocation block around the bleeding circus now?" groaned Jason.

"I did," said a familiar voice. We all turned around guiltily.

"Sir," Elizabeth said, "I can explain—!"

"No doubt. However, I'm currently interested in hearing Henrietta's explanation. This man accuses you of wantonly destroying his property," said Gabriel. The fried-foods vendor didn't look nearly as pleased to have found me as he had a moment ago. Too bad for him, but worse for me. "Did you?"

"Yes," I said. It's nearly impossible to lie to Gabriel. I've heard Mordecai did it for a whole day, but I've also heard that he was missing his soul at the time. I wished my soul was safely elsewhere. I'm sure I could have come up with something believable. Instead I said, "Otherwise the circus people would have caught—me." Not that there was going to be any keeping Bernard out of it, but I had to try.

"And why were the circus people chasing you?" said Gabriel.

"I spooked their horses," I said. There.

"Deliberately?" said Gabriel.

Damn. "Yes," I said.

"Why?" said Gabriel.

Well, I'd done my best. "Christopher wanted a distraction," I said, "so he could steal something from the master of the show."

"I thought Christopher would enter into it somewhere," said Gabriel. "And why—apart from old habits dying hard—was Christopher stealing things from the master of the show?"

"There was a Gypsy fortune-teller working here." Here was someone I didn't mind throwing to the wolves! "At least, she billed herself as a Gypsy fortune-teller, but Christopher said she was a sister in the Order of St Ahasuerus, and—"

It's scary, when Gabriel goes white like that. He whispers. Trust me, you don't want to see it. "You ought to have told me that right away," he whispered. Then, louder, "Mordecai, I need you!" Mordecai came elbowing past some bystanders and raised his eyebrows sympathetically at us before turning to Gabriel. He was one adult in the castle who wouldn't assume the worst of us in a situation like this—not that that helped much now.

Mordecai doesn't come when he's called as a rule—only Gabriel does that—so he must have been close by already. Why had Gabriel come, really, and how much did he know? I didn't believe all this was a fuss over a bit of spilt oil.

Mordecai hurried off. If he was looking for Meg I wished him luck. Gabriel's secretary Miss Rosalie appeared from somewhere and took down the name and address of the fried-foods vendor, promised him he'd be compensated for his damages, and let him flee, lucky man. And there went my pocket-money until Christmas at least.

Then Gabriel got the whole story out of us from the beginning. Jason told him how Christopher had met Meg, and how he'd helped Christopher steal the endless knot. Bernard described how I'd created the distraction, and our frantic run through the circus afterwards, though he managed to leave out how I'd nearly kissed him at the end of it. The admiring way he told it would have made me feel better if there'd been any chance Gabriel would share his admiration.

Elizabeth told Gabriel how we'd worked out how Master Dodd was using the endless knots, and how we'd managed to find them and get them away from the kids who'd been caught by them, only to fall under their enchantment ourselves. And I had to tell how I'd banished the demons, and Christopher as well. I felt small and sick and shamed. We all did.

"I see," said Gabriel at the end. He was whispering again, and his frown might have been chiseled into his face. "And at no point during the course of these events did it occur to you to call me?"

Elizabeth, Bernard and I looked at our feet and didn't answer, but Jason is irrepressible. "Christopher said—" he started.

"Isn't there a single one of you capable of thinking for himself?" Gabriel interrupted softly. "One day, I am going to find you all on some arctic plain, the frost giants pouring down from the mountains, and the gods marching forth to meet them. And in the moment before the battle is joined that will destroy the world, I will ask you why you thought it was a good idea to feed the moon to the Fenris Wolf. And you'll tell me, 'Christopher said—'"

This repressed even Jason. Gabriel sighed long-sufferingly. "Very well," he said. "What did Christopher say?"

"He—he said that you and the Order don't get on," Jason stammered.

"No," said Gabriel. "We don't. Are you beginning to understand why?"

Jason hung his head. "Yes, sir."

"The employees of my department answer to me, and I answer to the Government. But a sister of the Order of St Ahasuerus doesn't answer to anybody. At least," Gabriel added, "she believes she doesn't. We shall see."

Mordecai came back then, empty-handed. "No trace," he said.

"There wouldn't be," Gabriel said grimly. "Of all the idiotic things that boy has done, getting himself indebted to the Travelers is surely one of the most brainless. You'll have to continue your search from the castle, in trance."

Mordecai nodded. "Shall I ask Rosalie to play for me?"

"I can't spare Rosalie," said Gabriel. His eye fell on us again. "Take Elizabeth."

"All right," said Mordecai. He'd known he wasn't getting Rosalie, but he always has to try. And Elizabeth played piano for the Royal Children's Orchestra before she came to the castle, and—this is what counts, for a spirit medium—she can play for hours without stopping.

Elizabeth tried not to look too cheerful as she winked out with Mordecai. I can't say as she succeeded. Not that I blamed her—she was getting away from Gabriel and being allowed to do something actually useful to help Christopher at the same time. The rest of us trudged glumly after Gabriel. He spoke to Miss Rosalie, who was questioning confused circus people and angry spectators, and Frederick Parkinson, who was trying to hold up the big tent for long enough to get everyone out of it. Then we translocated with him back to the castle, where he promptly sent us all to our rooms, as if we were five years old.

I had a set of geometry proofs due Monday, and a history essay to finish, and a divination I should have been practicing. The clever thing to do would have been to get those out of the way, because as soon as Gabriel had any attention to spare for me, I was sure to have lines to write as well. Instead, I lay back on my bed and stared at the ceiling and thought about Bernard.

I was going to have to make my mind up about Bernard. On the whole, I liked him. He was brilliant at maths and puzzles, he didn't give a damn what anyone thought of him, and he was only too ready to say what he thought of everyone else. He wasn't smooth and handsome like Christopher, or friendly like Jason, and I liked him better for it. I liked the downright, blunt shapes of his nose and chin, and the way his hair never quite sat the way it should. He was bigger than me—and I don't like feeling small—but he was solid, and comfortable, and posh. Did I mention posh?

He's out for what he can get, my girl, said a voice in my head that sounded like my mother, then he'll turn around and marry Lady Prissy Something-or-Other. That was fine with me. I didn't want to get married, but I was becoming curious to find out what I could get. So why did the idea of Lady Prissy make me feel like I'd sooner hit Bernard than kiss him?

I didn't want to think about it. But the only other thing to think about was Christopher, and I didn't want to think about him, either. It's not that I was worried—I mean, he had three lives left, and stronger magic than Gabriel, and besides, he's Christopher. But I felt responsible. And those demons hadn't looked friendly. And I knew he wasn't back yet, because as much as I grumble about Gabriel, if Christopher was back Gabriel would have told us.

I sat up suddenly, as I realized what had been bothering me since Gabriel had caught up with us at the circus. He should have asked where Christopher was first thing, but he hadn't. He hadn't gone looking for us at the circus and found Christopher missing—he'd gone looking for us at the circus because he knew Christopher was missing. And the only way he could have known that—now he couldn't track Christopher by his life anymore—he knew where Christopher was. And he hadn't told!

That thought was hot. The next one was chilling. Gabriel knew where Christopher was—and he hadn't dragged him home by the ear. And here I was sitting uselessly in my room. I had to talk to Elizabeth.

I went to my desk and got out a sheet of paper, then changed it to sheet-music paper. That was so I would know where the margins were—I didn't want to accidentally write on Elizabeth's notes while she was playing and maybe lose Mordecai too. I thought of Elizabeth's sheet music on the piano down in the conservatory, and then I thought of empty sheets of paper on Bernard's and Jason's desks as well. Elizabeth had invented this method of passing notes during lessons, and it had worked quite well for a few weeks until Flavian caught on.

Does Gabriel know where Christopher is? I wrote.

Elizabeth's reply came more slowly. She had to write it in her head, and play at the same time. I held my pen over the paper, itching with impatience, and finally it began to move. Not exactly. A long pause. When we find him I will kill him. Another pause. Conrad and Flavian are missing too.

My heart sank at the same time that my pen began moving furiously. It was Jason's chicken-scratch writing, which I could barely read. What? How? Are you sure it's connected?

Elizabeth's elegant hand again, painfully slow. Gabriel saw all three together, but couldn't get through. He doesn't know where. That's why we need Meg.

Conrad and Flavian were not Christopher. Now I was worried. Any luck with that? I wrote.

Elizabeth's next response was not so long in coming. It was only two letters, and a stop. No.

Meg? The writing was weak and wobbly, and two years in one of the best schools in Switzerland hadn't quite got rid of its odd slant. I hadn't thought to include Millie in the spell, but she must have been so starved for news and company that she'd felt it as soon as we started. She'd been in bed with flu, and forbidden visitors, since she'd come back from Seven—if she was well enough to write, we were lucky she hadn't blown up the castle out of boredom by now.

Bernard, Jason and I all began writing explanations at once. I don't see how Millie managed to understand half of it. But she must have, because what she wrote back was to the point.

The Travelers move in a spiral, Christopher says. I was in one of their wagons once. It was—here the pen hesitated for a moment—odd. Travelling the worlds the way I learned it is like walking to the village, or sailing to Atlantis. But I got the impression they see it quite differently.

Look around yourself. It was Bernard's neat, square writing. What do you see, that you can't see past?

What was the use of bringing that up now? A tent, I wrote, if you're in a tent.

The world, wrote Bernard.

I blinked. I'm lousy at riddles, but I really should have got that one. If there's one thing the priests and lamas of Tibet agree on, it's that the world is an illusion. So . . . if here is an illusion and there is an illusion, what difference does it make if you're here, and where you want to be is over there?

A tent? wrote Millie.

What are you talking about? wrote Jason.

Millie hadn't been at the circus that morning, but Jason should have caught Bernard's reference. Unless—had he seen it, or had Bernard meant it just for me? Or had he been scribbling to himself, and I happened to catch it? He surely didn't mean to share the mathematical squiggles my pen copied down next with anyone else—he had to know we wouldn't understand them. Not even Flavian understands Bernard's squiggles. He teaches the rest of us maths, but he gets Bernard the books he wants and gets out of the way.

And then I was drawing something that wasn't a Greek letter, or a Hebrew letter. It was a cross, with two diagonal lines joining each angle. An endless knot—it was a cage, and a house. Could it also be a path? I drew the last line, and felt about the same as I had when I'd banished Christopher and the demons. Something was missing.

Bernard? I wrote. No answer. But he might have been distracted, in a mathematical trance, there was no reason to think—Jason's room was next to Bernard's. He'd have felt it, if Bernard had suddenly gone. Jason? Is Bernard still there?

No. What's going on? It took me a few seconds to puzzle out. Jason's handwriting doesn't get better when he's in a panic.

My handwriting wouldn't have earned me any gold stars, either. I scribbled with my right hand as I fished around in my coat pocket for the endless knot with my left. Cover for us, all right?

Whatever he might have written back, I didn't catch it. I set down my pen, and held the endless knot in both hands. I hadn't prayed for years, not really, but here I was doing priest's work. Praying seemed like a good idea. "I take refuge in the Dharma, I take refuge in the Buddhas, I take refuge in the three thousand Gods of the sky and the earth," I whispered. "Show me the way." Then I looked at the endless knot, and let myself fall in. Bernard's trail burned red as fire.

Typically of me, I only realized later that I'd made my mind up about Bernard. He'd gone after me. I would go after him.

Then I was standing next to Bernard, and both of us were somewhere. He might have known where; he'd done the calculations. Wherever it was, there were trees, and a clearing, and a shore of some body of water in the distance.

"You know," I said as we started walking down the hill we'd found ourselves on, "for someone raised in the Church of England, you make a pretty good Buddhist."

"Religion." Bernard shrugged. "It's all more or less nonsense, isn't it?"

"That's what the Buddha Klu Sgrub said," I agreed.

Spread out in the valley below was a camp, the biggest and strangest I'd ever seen—not that I'd seen many camps. There must have been a hundred Gypsy wagons, parked next to tents of black cloth and tents of brown hide, a cluster of yurts, and stranger things—I saw a couple of naked children with soft, speckled feathers climbing out of what looked like a giant puffball fungus. There were camels, and mules hung with strings of bells, and drawn up on the shore were a dozen two-keeled boats. Someone was playing a fiddle, and several other people were playing drums. It stank like a camp of a thousand people, but there was a stronger smell of good things cooking; meaty, spicy and rich. Magic hung over everything, thicker than the smoke of campfires.

A cluster of children ran up to the edge of the camp and stared at us as we came down. One—so draped in robes and veils that I couldn't tell anything about it except that it was smaller than me—said something in a quick and chirping language that I couldn't follow.

"We're looking for Meg Reilly," said Bernard.

The veiled child said something to a centaur foal standing next to her. The centaur said something to a dark-skinned girl, dressed Gypsy-style, and she ran off into the camp. As she ran, I saw her touch the cloud of magic, and draw down what she needed.

"Did you see that?" I whispered. This camp was the opposite of an orderly monastery carved changelessly into a mountainside, but they didn't call themselves the Order for nothing. "They hold their magic in common."

I was still turning this over in my mind when the Gypsy girl came back with a shaggy blond boy in a patchwork jacket and trousers. The magic of a thousand people—and I could tell this was only a small part of all the brothers and sisters of St Ahasuerus in all the worlds—and any of them could use it at any time. And Gabriel meant to fight these people?

"What d'you want with our Meg?" the blond boy asked.

"Tell her," said Bernard, "that I owe her a favor."

Comments

[crimsoncorundum.livejournal.com]

Wonderful. :) I love this as I love all your stories. Especially the references to Tibetan culture. Great work!

[minutia-r.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying it, and I think I can promise a lot more Tibetan stuff in chapter 5.

[ragingfirefall.livejournal.com]

The awesome continues to continue! I've already gushed about why I love this fic--great story (I find the use of Tibetan culture and mythology particularly intriguing), interesting characters, lovely writing style, nice mix of canon and original inventions--so I'll just say, once again, thanks for posting. I look forward to the next chapter.

[minutia-r.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you're continuing to enjoy it! I hope to have the next chapter for you soon.