House of Many Ways (Howl's Moving Castle 3)

The elf bowed, very slightly. “These,” he said, “are the three lubbock eggs that we have removed from the wizard William Norland. It was a very difficult operation, but we have performed it successfully.”

“Lubbock eggs!” Peter and Charmain exclaimed, almost together. Charmain felt her face draining white and very much wished she had not eaten that pasty. All Peter’s freckles showed up brown in his white face. Waif, who had been begging for lunch under the table, set up a frantic whining.

“Why…why have you brought the eggs here?” Charmain managed to say.

The elf said calmly, “Because we have found it impossible to destroy them. They defeat all our efforts, magical and physical. We have finally concluded that only a fire demon is capable of destroying them. Wizard Norland informs us that Miss Charming will, by now, have contact with a fire demon.”

“Wizard Norland’s alive? He’s talking to you??

? Peter said eagerly.

“Indeed,” said the elf. “He is recovering well and should be ready to return here in three or four days at the most.”

“Oh, I’m so glad!” Charmain said. “So it was lubbock eggs making him ill?”

“That is so,” the elf agreed. “It seems that the wizard encountered a lubbock some months ago while walking in a mountain meadow. The fact that he is a wizard has caused the eggs to absorb his magic and become nearly impossible to destroy. You are warned not to touch the eggs or attempt to open this box that they are in. They are extremely dangerous. You are advised to obtain the services of the fire demon as soon as possible.”

While Peter and Charmain gulped and stared at those three white eggs in their box, the elf gave another small bow and stalked away through the inner door. Peter pulled himself together and ran after him, shouting to know more. But he arrived in the living room to see the front door slamming shut. When he, followed by Charmain, followed by Waif, rushed out into the front garden, there was no sign of the elf at all. Charmain caught sight of Rollo, peering slyly round the stalks of a hydrangea, but the elf was gone completely.

She picked up Waif and planted her in Peter’s arms. “Peter,” she said, “keep Waif here. I’ll go and get Calcifer at once.” And she set off at a run down the garden path.

“Be quick!” Peter shouted after her. “Be very quick!”

Charmain did not need Peter to tell her that. She ran, followed by Waif’s despairing and squeaky howls, and ran, and went on running, until she had rounded the great cliff and could see the town ahead. There she had to drop to a hasty walk and clutch at the stitch in her side, but she kept on as fast as she could. The thought of those round white eggs sitting on the kitchen table was enough to make her break into a trot as soon as her breath came back. Suppose the eggs hatched before she had found Calcifer. Suppose Peter did something stupid, like trying to put a spell on them. Suppose—She tried to take her mind off all the other awful possibilities by panting to herself, “I am so stupid! I could have asked that elf what the Elfgift was! But I clean forgot. I should have remembered. I’m stupid!” But her heart was not really in it. All she could see in her mind was Peter mumbling spells over the glass box. It would be just like him to try.

It came on to pour with rain as she entered the town. Charmain was pleased. That should take Peter’s mind off the lubbock eggs. He would have to rush outside and bring the washing in before it got soaked again. Just so long as he hadn’t done something stupid before that!

She arrived at the Royal Mansion soaked through and almost out of breath entirely, where she clattered at the knocker and rang the bell even more frantically than she had when Twinkle was on the roof. It seemed an age before Sim opened the door.

“Oh, Sim,” she gasped. “I need to see Calcifer at once! Can you tell me where he is?”

“Certainly, miss,” Sim replied, not in the least put out by Charmain’s soaking hair and dripping clothes. “Sir Calcifer is presently in the Grand Lounge. Allow me to show you the way.”

He shut the door and shuffled off, and Charmain dripped her way after him, down the long damp hallway, past the stone staircase, to a grand doorway somewhere near the back of the Mansion, where Charmain had never been before.

“In here, miss,” he said, throwing the grand but shabby door open.

Charmain went in, to a roar of voices and a crowd of finely dressed people, who all seemed to be shouting at one another while they walked about eating cake off elegant little plates. The cake was the first thing she recognized. It stood grandly on a special table in the middle of the room. Although only half of it was there by now, it was definitely the same cake that her father’s cooks had been working on yesterday evening. It was like seeing an old friend among all these finely dressed strangers. The nearest man, who was dressed in midnight blue velvet and dark blue brocade, turned and stared haughtily at Charmain and then exchanged disgusted looks with the lady beside him. This lady was wearing—not exactly a ball dress, not at teatime! Charmain thought—silks and satins so sumptuous that she would have made Aunt Sempronia look shabby, had Aunt Sempronia been there. Aunt Sempronia was not there, but the Lord Mayor was, and so was his lady, and so were all the most important people in town.

“Sim,” asked the man in midnight blue, “just who is this wet little commoner?”

“Lady Charming,” Sim replied, “is the new assistant to His Majesty, Your Highness.” He turned to Charmain. “Allow me to present you to His Highness, Crown Prince Ludovic, my lady.” He stepped backward and shut himself outside the room.

Charmain felt that the floor would be doing her a favor if it opened under her soaking wet feet and dropped her into the cellars. She had clean forgotten the visit of Crown Prince Ludovic. Princess Hilda had obviously invited all the Best People of High Norland to meet the prince. And she, ordinary Charmain Baker, had gate-crashed the tea party.

“Pleased to meet you, Your Highness,” she tried to say. It came out as frightened whisper.

Prince Ludovic probably did not hear. He laughed and said, “Is Lady Charming some kind of nickname the King calls you, little girl?” He pointed with his cake fork at the lady in not-quite-evening-dress. “I call my assistant Lady Moneybags. She costs me a fortune, you see.”

Charmain opened her mouth to explain what her name really was, but the lady in not-quite-evening-dress got in first. “You’d no call to say that!” she said angrily. “You spiteful thing, you!”

Prince Ludovic laughed and turned away to talk to the colorless gentleman, who was approaching in a colorless gray silk outfit. Charmain would have tiptoed away at once to find Calcifer, except that, as the prince turned, the light from the big chandelier overhead caught him in side face. The eye she could see glowed deep purple.

Charmain stood like a cold statue of horror. Prince Ludovic was a lubbockin. For a moment she could not move, knowing she was showing her horror, knowing that people would see how horrified she was and wonder why. The colorless gentleman was already looking at her, with curiosity in his mild mauve eyes. Oh, heavens! He was a lubbockin too. That was what had worried her before, when she met him near the kitchens.

Fortunately, the Lord Mayor moved away from beside the cake table just then, to bow deeply to the King, and gave Charmain a glimpse of a rocking horse—no, there were many rocking horses, Charmain saw. It quite distracted her from her horror. For some reason, rocking horses were lined up all round the walls of the grand room. Twinkle was sitting on the one nearest to the large marble fireplace, staring at her earnestly. Charmain could tell he knew she had had a shock of some kind and wanted her to tell him what had caused it.

She began edging her way across to the fireplace. This gave her a sight of Morgan, sitting by the marble fender playing with a box of bricks. Sophie was standing over him. In spite of Sophie’s peacock blue dress and her air of being part of the tea party, Charmain had a moment when she saw Sophie as a very large lioness with its teeth bared, standing guard on its small lion cub.