Diana Wynne Jones - Chrestomanci 5 by Conrad's Fate

Author:Conrad's Fate
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-09-08T19:54:11+00:00

Page 64

“That’s odd,” said Christopher. “I didn’t feel it change, did you?

What do you say, Grant? Do we risk looking inside?”

“It looks more like a house than the wooden place,” I said, “and we’re stuck here if we don’t do something

.”

“True,” said Christopher. “Let’s go.”

We got up and lugged the dog over to the empty square doorway.

The place smelled horrible inside, and it was absolutely empty in there. Light came in through enough small windows—just gaps between slabs of slate, really—to show us that the stairs were now indoors. They went zigzagging up one of the walls, and they were simply steps, with nothing to stop a person falling off the outside edge. They were made of slate like all the rest, but they were so old that they sort of drooped outward toward the empty middle of the place. And the trouble was, this building was as high as ever the wooden tower had been.

I told myself that it was no worse than Stall Crag. Christopher swallowed, rather. “One slip,” he said, “one stumble, and we’ll be dogmeat for Champ here. But I think

I can keep us stuck to them by magic if we stay close together.”

The dog refused to go inside at first. I knew it was the smell combined with the sight of those stairs, but Christopher explained cheerfully that poor Champ lived out-of-doors and was probably forbidden to go inside a house. It could have been true. Anyway, he towed the resisting beast to the bottom of the stairs. There Champ braced all four gigantic paws and would not budge. We tried climbing up a short way and calling beguilingly, but he simply went out into the middle of the dark, smelly floor and began to howl again.

Christopher said, “This is hopeless!” and he went down and tied his neckcloth into Champ’s collar for a lead. He hauled. The neckcloth stretched. Champ stopped howling, but he shook all over

and still refused to move.

“Do you think he knows something we don’t?” I suggested. I was resting a hand on a step two stairs up, and it was slimy. It would be nice to have an excuse not to climb the things.

“He knows exactly what we know. He’s a coward, that’s all,”

Christopher said. “Champ, I refuse to put a compulsion spell on a mere dog. Come on

. It’s getting late. Supper, Champ. Supper!”

That did the trick. Champ came up the steps in a rush. I was barged into the slate wall, first by the dog and then by Christopher as Christopher was towed upward, and I had to scramble like a maniac to keep up with them. We took the first three zigzags at a mad run, but after that, when the hollow building was like a deep, smelly well around us, Champ seemed to realize he might need to save his breath, and he slowed down.

It was worse like that. I climbed sliding my back up the rough wall and hoped hard that Christopher’s spell was a good strong one.

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