Диана Джонс - Wizard's Castle - Omnibus

Sophie turned to Howl with the almost-dead black lump, feeling doubtful in spite of her hurry. She had to get this right, and she was not sure how you did. “Well, here goes,” she said. Kneeling down beside Howl, she carefully put the black lump on his chest in the leftish sort of place she had felt hers in when it troubled her, and pushed. “Go in,” she told it. “Get in there and work!” And she pushed and pushed. The heart began to sink in, and to beat more strongly as it went. Sophie tried to ignore the flames and scuffles by the door and to keep up a steady, firm pressure. Her hair kept getting in her way. It fell across her face in reddish fair hanks, but she tried to ignore that too. She pushed.

The heart went in. As soon as it had disappeared, Howl stirred about. He gave a loud groan and rolled over onto his face, “Hell’s teeth!” he said. “I’ve got a hangover!”

“No, you hit your head on the floor,” Sophie said.

Howl rose up on his hands and knees with a scramble. “I can’t stay,” he said. “I’ve got to rescue that fool Sophie.”

“I’m here!” Sophie said, shaking his shoulder. “But so is Miss Angorian! Get up and do something about her! Quickly!”

The stick was entirely flames by now. Martha’s hair was frizzling. And it had dawned on Miss Angorian that the scarecrow would burn. She was maneuvering to get the hovering stick into the doorway. As usual, Sophie thought, I didn’t think it through!

Howl only needed to take one look. He stood up in a hurry. He held out one hand and spoke a sentence of those words that lost themselves in claps of thunder. Plaster fell from the ceiling. Everything trembled. But the stick vanished and Howl stepped back with a small, hard, black thing in his hand. It could have been a lump of cinder, except that it was the same shape as the thing Sophie had just pushed into Howl’s chest. Miss Angorian whined like a wet fire and held out her arms imploringly.

“I’m afraid not,” Howl said. “You’ve had your time. By the look of this, you were trying to get a new heart too. You were going to take my heart and let Calcifer die, weren’t you?” He held the black thing between both palms and pushed his hands together. The Witch’s old heart crumbled into black sand, and soot, and nothing. Miss Angorian faded away as it crumbled. As Howl opened his hands empty, the doorway was empty of Miss Angorian too.

Another thing happened as well. The moment Miss Angorian was gone, the scarecrow was no longer there either. If Sophie had cared to look, she would have seen two tall men standing in the doorway, smiling at one another. The one with the craggy face had ginger hair. The one with a green uniform had vaguer features and a lace shawl draped round the shoulders of his uniform. But Howl turned to Sophie just then. “Gray doesn’t really suit you,” he said. “I thought that when I first saw you.”

“Calcifer’s gone,” Sophie said. “I had to break your contract.”

Howl looked a little sad, but he said, “We were both hoping you would. Neither of us wanted to end up like the Witch and Miss Angorian. Would you call your hair ginger?”

“Red gold,” Sophie said. Not much had changed about Howl that she could see, now he had his heart back, except maybe that his eyes seemed a deeper color—more like eyes and less like glass marbles. “Unlike some people’s,” she said, “it’s natural.”

“I’ve never seen why people put such value on things being natural,” Howl said, and Sophie knew then that he was scarcely changed at all.

If Sophie had had any attention to spare, she would have seen Prince Justin and Wizard Suliman shaking hands and clapping one another delightedly on the back. “I’d better get back to my royal brother,” Prince Justin said. He walked up to Fanny, as the most likely person, and made her a deep, courtly bow. “Am I addressing the lady of this house?”

“Er—not really,” Fanny said, trying to hide her broom behind her back. “The lady of the house is Sophie.”

“Or will be shortly,” Mrs. Fairfax said, beaming benevolently.

Howl said to Sophie, “I’ve been wondering all along if you would turn out to be that lovely girl I met on May Day. Why were you so scared then?”

If Sophie had been attending, she would have seen Wizard Suliman go up to Lettie. Now he was himself, it was clear that Wizard Suliman was at least as strong-minded as Lettie was. Lettie looked quite nervous as Suliman loomed craggily over her. “It seemed to be the Prince’s memory I had of you and not my own at all,” he said.

“That’s quite all right,” Lettie said bravely. “It was a mistake.”

“But it wasn’t!” protested Wizard Suliman. “Would you let me take you on as a pupil at least?” Lettie went fiery red at this and did not seem to know what to say.

That seemed to Sophie to be Lettie’s problem. She had her own. Howl said, “I think we ought to live happily ever after,” and she thought he meant it. Sophie knew that living happily ever after with Howl would be a good deal more eventful than any story made it sound, though she was determined to try. “It should be hair-raising,” added Howl.

“And you’ll exploit me,” Sophie said.

“And then you’ll cut up all my suits to teach me,” said Howl.

If Sophie or Howl had had any attention to spare, they might have noticed that Prince Justin, Wizard Suliman, and Mrs. Fairfax were all trying to speak to Howl, and that Fanny, Martha, and Lettie were plucking at Sophie’s sleeves, while Michael was dragging at Howl’s jacket.

“That was the neatest use of words of power I ever saw from anyone,” Mrs. Fairfax said. “I wouldn’t have known what to do with that creature. As I often say…”

“Sophie,” said Lettie, “I need your advice.”

“Wizard Howl,” said Wizard Suliman, “I must apologize for trying to bite you so often. In the normal way, I wouldn’t dream of setting teeth in a fellow countryman.”

“Sophie, I think this gentleman is a prince,” said Fanny.

“Sir,” said Prince Justin, “I believe I must thank you for rescuing me from the Witch.”

“Sophie,” said Martha, “the spell’s off you! Did you hear?”

But Sophie and Howl were holding one another’s hands and smiling and smiling, quite unable to stop. “Don’t bother me now,” said Howl. “I only did it for the money.”

“Liar!” said Sophie.

“I said,” Michael shouted, “that Calcifer’s come back !”

That did get Howl’s attention, and Sophie’s too. They looked at the grate, where, sure enough, the familiar blue face was flickering among the logs.

“You didn’t need to do that,” Howl said.

“I don’t mind, as long as I can come and go,” Calcifer said. “Besides, it’s raining out there in Market Chipping.”

Far to the south of the land of Ingary , in the Sultanates of Rashpuht, a young carpet merchant called Abdullah lived in the city of Zanzib. As merchants go, he was not rich. His father had been disappointed in him, and when he died, he had only left Abdullah just enough money to buy and stock a modest booth in the northwest corner of the Bazaar. The rest of his father’s money, and the large carpet emporium in the center of the Bazaar, had all gone to the relatives of his father’s first wife.

Abdullah had never been told why his father was disappointed in him. A prophecy made at Abdullah’s birth had something to do with it. But Abdullah had never bothered to find out more. Instead, from a very early age, he had simply made up daydreams about it. In his daydreams, he was really the long-lost son of a great prince, which meant, of course, that his father was not really his father. It was a complete castle in the air, and Abdullah knew it was. Everyone told him he inherited his father’s looks. When he looked in a mirror, he saw a decidedly handsome young man, in a thin, hawk-faced way, and knew he looked very like the portrait of his father as a young man, always allowing for the fact that his father wore a flourishing mustache, whereas Abdullah was still scraping together the six hairs on his upper lip and hoping they would multiply soon.