Free Mixed Magics: Four Tales of Chrestomanci by Diana Wynne Jones Page A

to balance themselves upright in the air, they were going even faster, with the wind of speed in their eyes and whipping at their hair. They could see the small green cluster of souls fleeing ahead of them above a ragged field with donkeys in it and then above a wood. There was a big half-moon that Cat had not noticed before, lying on its back among clouds, which served to show the souls up even more bright and green.
    “Faster!” Master Spiderman snapped, as they all hurtled across the wood, too.
    “Go as fast as he does, go as fast as he does,” Cat heard Tonino whisper.
    This was exactly what seemed to happen. Master Spiderman snapped, “Faster!” several times, once when the moon vanished and there were suddenly a thousand more roofs and chimneys whirling beneath them, again when it came on to rain briefly, and yet again when there was a full moon shining down on some kind of park below. Yet the small green cluster of souls speeding ahead stayed precisely the same distance in front of them. The dark landscape underneath changed again, but they were still no nearer, and no farther away either.
    “Curses!” panted Master Spiderman. “They’re traveling into the future. This is a hundred and fifty years now. Boys, give me your strength. I command it!”
    Cat felt energy draining strongly out of him through the invisible cobwebs that were towing him after Master Spiderman. Although this was not a pleasant feeling, it seemed to lift some of the fuzzy blankness in his mind. Cat found dim memories flitting through his head as they sped on, of faces and places mostly—a castle, a handsome dark-haired man saying something sarcastic, a lady in mittens, a very old man lying in bed. And a smell. Around the very old man in bed there had hung the same musty, sick smell that came strongly, in gusts, off Master Spiderman as he whirled along in front. But Cat could not put these memories together to make sense. It was easier to notice that the chimney pots beneath now seemed to be growing out into the countryside, in lines along the sides of fields, and to listen to Tonino, who was still whispering, “Go as fast as we do, go as fast as we do!” over and over.
    “Are you using his spell or something?” Cat whispered.
    “I think so,” Tonino whispered back. “I seem to remember doing this before.”
    Cat seemed to remember Tonino could do this sort of thing, too, but before he could discover how he knew, the landscape below jerked into another different shape. There were handsome gas streetlights down there now, trees lining wide roads and houses that stood apart from one another in gardens. Ahead, the small glowing group of souls hurtled across a village green and then over a dimly gleaming railway line.
    “I know this place!” Cat said. “I think we were here this morning.”
    Almost at the same time, Master Spiderman was making confused noises. “I thought he was taking them to his home,” he said, “but we have passed it. Where are they going then?”
    In front of them, the souls streamed above some tall trees and almost instantly dived down beyond, toward a tall building with rows of lighted windows. Still making puzzled noises and grunting with the effort, Master Spiderman dragged himself and Cat and Tonino across the treetops after them.
    They were in time to see the souls, in a luminous line with the big one still leading, go streaming sedately in through the big arched door in the middle of the building. At the sight, Master Spiderman yelled with rage and plunged them all downward so quickly that Cat had to shut his eyes. It was even quicker than falling.
    They landed with a fairly violent bump on what was luckily a soft lawn. Tonino and Cat got up quickly, but Master Spiderman was winded and staggered about gasping, looking so thin and bent and hollow-faced that he might almost have been a real monkey. They could see him clearly, propping himself on his butterfly net and puffing, because there was a large