The Chrestomanci Series

by Jones, Diana Wynne

  He tried to work out why he had said nothing. One good reason was that Joss Callow was obviously some kind of spy, and telling Chrestomanci would give Joss away. Cat liked Joss. He did not want to get Joss into trouble – and it would be very bad trouble, Cat knew. But the real reason was because Mr Farleigh had said these things while Cat was sitting there on Syracuse, hearing every word. It was as if Mr Farleigh had no need to worry. If he was powerful enough to lock Chrestomanci himself away behind a barrier of chicken wire, then he had enough sour, gnarled power to get rid of everyone in the Castle if he wanted to. He had more or less said so.

  Let’s face it, Cat thought. It’s because I’m scared stiff of him.

  It was then that Cat began to hear a muffled tapping.

  At first he thought it was coming from the window again, but when he sat up and listened, he knew the noise was coming from inside his room. He snapped the light on. Sure enough, the big mauve-speckled egg was rocking gently in its nest of winter scarf. The tapping from inside it was getting faster and faster, as if whatever was in there was in a panic to get out. Then it stopped, and there was an exhausted silence.

  Oh help! Cat thought. He jumped out of bed and quickly took off the safety spell and then the warm sand spell, hoping this would make things easier for the creature. He bent anxiously over the egg. “Oh, don’t be dead!” he said to it. “Please!” But he knew the thing must have been for years in a cold attic. It was surely at the end of its strength by now.

  To his huge relief, the tapping started again, slower now, but quite strong and persistent. Cat could tell that the creature inside was concentrating on one part of the egg in order to make a hole. He wondered whether to help it by making the hole for it, from outside. But he was somehow sure this was a bad idea. He could hurt it, or it could die of shock. The only thing he could do was to hang helplessly over the egg and listen.

  Tap, tap, TAP, it went.

  And a hair-fine crack appeared, near the top of the egg. After that, there was another exhausted silence. “Come on!” Cat whispered. “You can do it!”

  But it couldn’t. The tapping started again, weaker now, but the crack did not grow any bigger. After a while, the tapping was going so fast that it was almost a whirring, but still nothing happened. Cat could feel the creature’s growing panic. He began to panic too. He didn’t know what to do, or what would help.

  There was only one person in the Castle that Cat knew could help. He rushed to his door, opened it wide, and then rushed back to the egg. He picked it up, scarf and all, and raced away down his winding stair to find Millie. He could feel the egg vibrating with terror as he ran. “It’s all right!” he panted to it. “Don’t panic! It’ll be all right!”

  Millie had her own sitting room on the next floor. She and Irene were sitting there, chatting quietly over mugs of cocoa before bed. Millie’s big grey cat Mopsa was on her knee, filling most of it, and Irene had two more of the Castle cats, Coy and Potts, wedged into her chair on either side. All three cats sprang up and whirled to safe, high places when Cat slammed the door open and rushed in.

  “Cat!” Millie exclaimed. “What’s wrong?”

  “It won’t break! It can’t get out!” Cat panted. He was almost crying by then.

  Millie did not waste time asking questions. “Give it to me, here on the floor. Gently,” she said, and knelt quickly on the furry hearthrug. Cat, shaking, panting and sniffing, passed her the egg at once. Millie put it carefully down on the rug and carefully unwrapped the scarf from it. “I see,” she said, running her finger lightly along the thin, almost invisible crack. “Poor thing.” She put both hands around the egg, as far as they would reach. “It’s all right now,” she murmured. “We’re going to help you.”

  Cat could feel calmness spreading into the egg, along with hope and strength. He always forgot that Millie, apart from Chrestomanci and himself, was the strongest enchanter in the country. People said she had been a goddess once.

  Irene came to kneel on the hearthrug too. “The shell seems awfully thick,” she said.

  “I don’t think that’s the problem – quite,” Millie murmured. Her hands moved to either side of the crack and began gently, gently trying to spread it wider. Mopsa edged in under Millie’s elbow and stared as if she were trying to help. She probably was, Cat realised. All the Castle cats descended from Asheth temple cats and had magic of their own. Coy and Potts, on the mantlepiece, were staring eagerly too. “Ah!” Millie said.

  “What?” Cat asked anxiously.

  “There’s a stasis spell all round the inside of the shell,” Millie said. “I suppose whoever put it there was trying to preserve the egg, but it’s making things really difficult. Let’s see. Cat, you and Irene put your hands where mine are, while I try to get rid of the spell. Hold the split as wide as you can, but very gently, not to crack it further.”

  They knelt with their heads touching, Cat and Irene – Irene rather timidly – pulling at the crack, while Millie picked at the tiny space they made. After a moment, Millie made an annoyed noise and grew the nails on her thumb and forefinger an inch longer. Then she picked again with her new long nails, until she succeeded in pulling a tiny whitish piece of something through.

  “Ah!” they all said.

  Millie went on pulling, slowly, steadily, gently, and the filmy white something came out further and further, and finally came out entirely, with a faint whistling sound. As soon as it was free, it vanished. Millie said, “Bother! I’d like to have known whose spell it was. But never mind.” She leant down to the egg. “Now you can get to work, my love.”

  The creature inside did its best. It tapped and hammered away, but so feebly by then that Cat could scarcely bear to listen.

  Irene whispered, “It’s very weak. Couldn’t we just break the shell for it?”

  Millie shook her head, tangling her hair into Irene’s and Cat’s. “No. Much better to feed it strength. Put your hands on mine, both of you.” She took hold of the egg, with her fingernails normal length again. Cat laid his hands over Millie’s and Irene doubtfully did the same. Cat could tell that Irene had no notion of how to give strength to someone else, so he did it for her and pushed Irene’s strength inside the egg along with his own and Millie’s.

  The creature inside now hammered away with a will. Tap, tap, taptaptap, taptaptap, BANG.

  CRACK. And a thing that might have been a beak – anyhow it was yellowish and blunt – came out through the mauve shell. There it stopped, seeming to gasp. It looked so tender and soft that Cat’s nose and mouth felt sore in sympathy. Fancy having to break this thick shell with that! he thought. Next second, the beak had been joined by a small thin paw with long pink nails. Then a second paw struggled out, tiny and weak like the first.

  The cats were all on the alert now. Mopsa’s nose was almost on the widening dark crack.

  “Is it a dragon?” Irene asked.

  “I’m – not sure,” Millie said.

  As she spoke, the weak claws found the edges of the crack, scrabbled and then shoved. The egg split into two white-lined halves and the creature rolled loose. It was much bigger than Cat expected, twice the size of Mopsa at least, and it was desperately thin and scrawny and slightly wet, and covered with pale, draggled fluff. It opened two round yellow eyes above its beak and looked at Cat imploringly. “Weep, weep, weep!” it went.

  Cat did what it seemed to want and gathered it up into his arms. It snugged down against him with an exhausted sigh, beak and front paws draped over his right arm, and hind claws quite painfully hooked on his left pyjama sleeve. It had a tail like a piece of string that hung down on his knee. “Weep,” it said.

  It was much lighter for its size than Cat thought it should be. He was just about to ask Millie what on earth kind of creature it was, when the door of Millie’s sitting room opened and Chrestomanci hurried in, looking anxious, with Jason behind him. “Is there some kind of crisis?” Chrestomanci asked.

  “Not exactly,” Millie said, pointing
to the creature in Cat’s arms.

  Chrestomanci looked from the two broken eggshell halves on the hearthrug to the creature Cat was holding. He said, “Bless my soul!” and came over to look. He ran a finger down the creature’s back, from soft beak to stringy tail, and picked up the tail to look at the tuft on its end. Then he went to the other end of it and examined the long pink front claws. Finally, he spread out one of the two funny little triangular things that grew from the creature’s shoulders. “Bless my soul!” he said again. “It really is a griffin. These are its wings. Look.”

  They did not look much like wings to Cat. They had no feathers and were covered with the same pale fluff as the rest of it, but he supposed that Chrestomanci knew. “What do they eat?” he asked.

  “Blowed if I know,” Chrestomanci said and looked at Jason, who said, “Me neither.”

  As if it had understood, the baby griffin promptly discovered that it was starving. Its beak opened like a fledgling bird’s, all pink and orange inside. “Weep!” it said. “Weep, weep, weep, weep! Weep. WEEP, WEEP, WEEP!” It struggled about in Cat’s arms so painfully that he was forced to put it down on the hearthrug, where it lay spread-eagled and weeping miserably. Mopsa rushed up to it and began washing it. The baby griffin seemed to like that. It hunched itself towards Mopsa, but it did not stop its shrill, miserable “Weep, weep, weep!”

  Millie stood up and did some quick conjuring. When she knelt down again, she was holding a jug of warm milk and a large medecine dropper. “Here,” she said. “Most babies like milk, in my experience.” She filled the dropper with milk and gently squirted some into the corner of the gaping beak.

  The baby griffin choked and most of the milk came out on to the hearthrug. Cat did not think it liked milk. But when he said so, Millie said, “Yes, but it’s got to have something or it’ll die. Let’s get some milk into it for now – it can’t do any harm – and in the morning we’ll rush it down to the vet – Mr Vastion – and see what he can suggest.”

  “Weep, weep, weep,” went the griffin, and choked again when Millie squeezed some more milk into it.

  There followed three hours of hard work, during which they all five tried to feed the baby griffin and only partly succeeded. Irene was best at it. As Jason said, Irene had a knack with animals. Cat was next best, but he thought that by the time his turn came, the baby griffin had got the hang of being fed from a dropper. Cat got most of a jugful into it, but that seemed to do very little good. He had barely laid it down looking contented, when it raised its beak and went “Weep, weep, weep!” again. And it was the same for the other four. Eventually, Cat was so exhausted that he only stayed awake because he was so desperately sorry for the baby griffin. It needed a parent.

  Chrestomanci yawned until his jaw gave out a sort of clop. “Cat, if you don’t mind my asking, how did you come by this insatiable beast?”

  “It hatched,” Cat explained, “from the egg in Jason’s attic. A girl called Marianne Pinhoe said I could have it. The house belonged to her father.”

  “Ah,” Chrestomanci said. “Pinhoe. Hm.”

  “It was under a stasis spell,” Millie said. “It must have been in that house for years.”

  “But Cat somehow succeeded in hatching it. I see,” Chrestomanci said, sighing. It was his turn to feed the baby griffin. He sat on the hearthrug, a very strange sight in a frilly apron that Millie had conjured for him, over his dark crimson velvet evening dress, and aimed the dropper at the griffin’s open beak. The griffin choked again and most of the milk dribbled out. Chrestomanci looked resigned. “I think,” he said, “that the only way to deal with this poor creature is to cast a four hour sleep spell over it and get it to the vet as soon as it wakes up.”

  Everyone wearily agreed. “I’ll conjure a dog basket for it,” Millie said.

  “No,” Cat said. “I’ll have it in bed with me. It needs a parent.”

  He set off back to his room with the sleep-bespelled griffin draped on his arms. Millie went with him to make sure they got there safely, and Mopsa followed them. Mopsa seemed to have decided to be the griffin’s mother. No bad thing, as Millie said. Cat fell asleep with the baby griffin snuggled against him, snoring slightly, and Mopsa snuggled against the griffin. Between them, they had nearly pushed Cat out of the bed by the morning.

  He woke to find that the griffin had wet his bed. That was scarcely surprising after all that milk, Cat supposed. And here the poor thing was, going “Weep, weep” again.

  Millie arrived on the third “Weep!” as anxious as Cat was. “At least it’s still alive, poor little soul,” she said. “I’ve telephoned Mr Vastion and he says he can only see it this morning if we bring it down to his surgery now. He’s got to go and see to a very sick cow after that. You get dressed, Cat, and I’ll see if it will drink some more milk.”

  Cat climbed over the griffin and Mopsa and got out of his somewhat smelly pyjamas, while Millie once more aimed the dropper at the griffin’s desperate beak. It spat the milk out. “Oh well,” Millie said. “They’re going to have to change your bedding anyway. I’ve told Miss Bessemer. It’s lucky I thought to bring it a clean blanket. Are you ready yet?”

  Cat was just tying his boots. He had dressed all anyhow, in his old suit trousers and the red sweater he wore to ride in. Millie had done much the same. She was in a threadbare tweed skirt and an expensive lace blouse, and too worried about the griffin to notice. She spread out the fluffy white blanket she had brought and Cat tenderly lifted the griffin on to it. It was shivering. And it continued shivering even when it was wrapped in the blanket.

  They left Mopsa finishing the milk Millie had brought and hurried down to the main door of the Castle. Millie had not bothered to wake the Castle chauffeur. She had brought the long black car round to the front of the Castle before she came to wake Cat. The griffin was still shivering when Cat got into the passenger seat with it, and it went on shivering while Millie drove the short distance down into Helm St Mary and along to the vet’s surgery on the outskirts of the village.

  Cat liked Mr Vastion at once. He wore glasses like little half moons well down on his nose and looked humorously at Cat and Millie over them. “Now what have we here?” he said. His voice was a gloomy kind of moan, with a bit of a grunt to it. “Bring it in, bring it in,” he told them, waving them through to his consulting room, “and put it down here,” he said, pointing with a thick finger at a high, shiny examining table. When Cat carefully dumped the bundle of blanket on the table, Mr Vastion unwrapped it in a resigned way, moaning, “What a parcel. Is this necessary? What have we in here?”

  To Cat’s surprise, the griffin seemed to like Mr Vastion too. It stopped shivering and looked up at him with its great golden eyes. “Weep?”

  “And weep to you too,” Mr Vastion grunted back at it, unwrapping. “You shouldn’t coddle them, you know. Not good for any animal. Now – Oh, yes. You have a fine boy griffin here. Small still, but they grow quite quickly, you know. Does he have a name yet?”

  “I don’t think so,” Cat said.

  “Quite right,” Mr Vastion moaned. “They always name themselves. Fact. I read up about griffins before you got here. Just in case this wasn’t a complete hoax. Very rare things in this world, griffins. First one I’ve ever seen, actually. Just a moment.”

  He paused, holding the griffin down with one expertly spread hand, while, with the other hand, he picked up a frog which had somehow appeared on the table and threw it out of the window.

  “Damn nuisance, these frogs,” he moaned, while he turned the griffin this way and that, feeling its stomach and its ribs and its legs and examining both sets of claws. “They’ve got a plague of frogs here,” he explained. “Came to me and asked me to get rid of them. I asked them what I was supposed to do – poison the duck pond? Told them to get rid of the things themselves. They’re Farleighs. Should know how. But there’s no doubt too many frogs are a pest. They get in everywhere. And they strike me as half unreal anyway. Some magician’s idea of a
joke, I’d say.” He held the griffin’s beak open and looked down its throat. “Fine voice in there, by the look of it. Now let’s have you over, old son.”

  Mr Vastion set the griffin on its feet and unfolded the little triangular stubs of its wings. He felt round the bottom of them. “Plenty of good flight muscles here,” he grunted. “Just need a bit of growing and fledging. The feathers will come, along with the proper coat at the back end. You’ll find this fluff will drop out as he grows. Just what were you worrying about?”

  “We don’t know what to give him to eat,” Cat explained. “He doesn’t like milk.”

  “Well, he wouldn’t, would he?” Mr Vastion moaned. “The front half of him’s bird. Look.”

  He turned the griffin deftly over on its side, where it lay peacefully. Cat could see that it liked this firm handling. Mr Vastion slid his hand over the creature’s beak, and then upwards, so that its small tufty ears were flattened.

  “Now you’ve got the contours,” he grunted. “Reminds me of nothing so much as an osprey. Or a sea eagle, even more. Magnificent birds. Huge wingspan. Take that as your guide, but chop the food up small or he’ll choke. Sea eagles do take fish, but they take rabbits even more. Easier to catch. I expect this fellow will be quite happy with minced beef. But he’ll want raw vegetables chopped into it too, to keep him healthy. I’d better show you. Hold him for me a minute, Lady Chant.”

  Millie put both hands on the peacefully lying griffin. “He’s so thin and weak!”