The Crown of Dalemark (The Dalemark Quartet 4)

2. The name of the yacht in which Mitt and his friends escaped north.

Wine, made all over South Dalemark. The best vintages, red and white, are from Canderack, and the worst from Holand, and there are one or two superb reds from Andmark. The Holy Islands make a strange sparkling white and a brandy so good only earls can afford it. Apart from this, everywhere north of Markind tends to make cider instead and distill from it the spirits called gley. The main drink of the North is beer, except in Dropwater, where they make a sort of plum brandy.

Winthrough, Lawschool slang for a scholarship student.

Wittess, one of the Holy Islands, low and green.

Words, a term used by Tanaqui and Kankredin for the clusters of woven signs in the spellcoats which only the learned or the initiated could read in the cloth. These signs not only formed words in the normal sense but were also potent ingredients of a mageweaver’s spell.

Wren, the headman of an unknown village in prehistoric Dalemark who led his people northward, fleeing from Kankredin. He was the first man to swear allegiance to King Hern.

Yeddersay, one of the outer ring of the Holy Islands.

Ynen, son of Navis Haddsson, who became Amil the Great’s admiral in chief. Ynen not only experimented with steamships but built the conventional navy up to the extent that Dalemark quickly became an important sea power.

Ynynen, the lesser of the Earth Shaker’s two Great Names. Readers are strongly advised not to say this name beside the sea or in a boat.

Young One, the red clay image of a smiling young man which the family of Closti the Clam kept in one of their fireside niches reserved for the Undying.

Zara, the sister of Closti the Clam, who was to have married Zwitt, the headman of Shelling, if Closti had not jilted Zwitt’s sister. Zara was then forced to marry Kestrel or remain a spinster. Zara never forgave Closti or his family for this, though she seems to have retained a strong fondness for Zwitt.

Zwitt, the headman of Shelling beside the great River of prehistoric Dalemark. When Zwitt was young, he was betrothed to Closti the Clam’s sister Zara, while Closti was betrothed to Zwitt’s sister. Closti, however, fell in love with Anoreth and married her instead. Zwitt, in revenge, refused to marry Zara. This caused continuing bad blood between Zwitt and Closti’s family.

Excerpt from Conrad’s Fate

DIANA WYNNE JONES’s most beloved character, Chrestomanci, returns in a new tale: Conrad’s Fate. Read on for a preview of his latest adventure!

When I was small, I always thought Stallery Mansion was some kind of fairy-tale castle. I could see it from my bedroom window, high in the mountains above Stallchester, flashing with glass and gold when the sun struck it. When I got to the place at last, it wasn’t exactly like a fairy tale.

Stallchester, where we had our shop, is quite high in the mountains, too. There are a lot of mountains here in Series Seven, and Stallchester is in the English Alps. Most people thought this was the reason why you could only receive television at one end of the town, but my uncle told me it was Stallery doing it.

“It’s the protections they put round the place to stop anyone investigating them,” he said. “The magic blanks out the signal.”

My Uncle Alfred was a magician in his spare time, so he knew this sort of thing. Most of the time he made a living for us all by keeping the bookshop at the cathedral end of town. He was a skinny, worrity little man with a bald patch under his curls, and he was my mother’s half brother. It always seemed a great burden to him, having to look after me and my mother and my sister, Anthea. He rushed about muttering, “And how do I find the money, Conrad, with the book trade so slow!”

The bookshop was in our name, too—it said GRANT AND TESDINIC in faded gold letters over the bow windows and the dark green door—but Uncle Alfred explained that it belonged to him now. He and my father had started the shop together. Then, just after I was born and a little before he died, my father had needed a lot of money suddenly, Uncle Alfred told me, and he sold his half of the bookshop to Uncle Alfred. Then my father died, and Uncle Alfred had to support us.

“And so he should do,” my mother said in her vague way. “We’re the only family he’s got.”

My sister, Anthea, said she wanted to know what my father had needed the money for, but she never could find out. Uncle Alfred said he didn’t know. “And you never get any sense out of Mother,” Anthea said to me. “She just says things like ‘Life is always a lottery’ and ‘Your father was usually hard up,’ so all I can think is that it must have been gambling debts. The casino’s only just up the road after all.”

I rather liked the idea of my father gambling half a bookshop away. I used to like taking risks myself. When I was eight, I borrowed some skis and went down all the steepest and iciest ski runs, and in the summer I went rock climbing. I felt I was really following in my father’s footsteps. Unfortunately, someone saw me halfway up Stall Crag and told my uncle.

“Ah, no, Conrad,” he said, wagging a worried, wrinkled finger at me. “I can’t have you taking these risks.”

“My dad did,” I said, “betting all that money.”

“He lost it,” said my uncle, “and that’s a different matter. I never knew much about his affairs, but I have an idea—a very shrewd idea—that he was robbed by those crooked aristocrats up at Stallery.”

“What?” I said. “You mean Count Rudolf came with a gun and held him up?”

My uncle laughed and rubbed my head. “Nothing so dramatic, Con. They do things quietly and mannerly up at Stallery. They pull the possibilities like gentlemen.”

“How do you mean?” I said.

“I’ll explain when you’re old enough to understand the magic of high finance,” my uncle replied. “Meanwhile…” His face went all withered and serious. “Meanwhile, you can’t afford to go risking your neck on Stall Crag, you really can’t, Con, not with the bad karma you carry.”

“What’s karma?” I asked.