Stealer of Souls

Stealer of Souls
Diana Wynne Jones

The long-awaited, completely new story, first published by HarperCollins in Mixed Magics (2000), is now available as a short story in its own right at a special World Book Day price.Cat Chant has nine lives and is destined to be the next Chrestomanci. He is not best pleased when young Tonino Montana, a magically-gifted Italian, is invited to live at Chrestomanci Castle. What is so special about Tonino’s powers?When Cat and Tonino return to Chrestomanci Castle after visiting Gabriel de Wit, Cat is forced to put aside his animosity towards Tonino when they are abducted by a particularly evil enchanter, Master Spiderman. Master Spiderman is a ‘collector’ and it will take all the magic power Cat and Tonino can muster to overcome his plan to become the most powerful enchanter in the world.Related titles: Cat Chant first appears in Charmed Life. Antonio (known as Tonino) Montana first appears in The Magicians of Caprona. Christopher Chant, Gabriel de Wit, Mordecai Roberts and Miss Rosalie first appear in The Lives of Christopher Chant. Christopher Chant as Chrestomanci also appears in Witch Week and Mixed Magics.

Copyright (#ulink_8931907c-4730-5bf2-86e7-e21b14bdbec4)

CollinsVoyager An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

Stealer of Souls was first published in Mixed Magics, Collins 2000

This edition published for World Book Day by CollinsVoyager 2002

Stealer of Souls © Diana Wynne Jones 2000

Illustrations by Tim Stevens 2000

The author and illustrator assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007137589

Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2013 ISBN: 9780007564781

Version: 2016-12-01

Contents

Cover (#ud959627b-806b-5ef1-9a8e-44e84a5212d1)

Title Page (#u27677b32-dc62-5b6f-86b1-71a92dbd8f73)

Copyright (#ulink_ca2c9bff-d3e5-567b-b508-ea7d45559439)

Stealer of Souls (#ulink_bd9a40ba-2dd2-53a2-a250-ea3dbed8656b)

Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

There are thousands of worlds, all different from ours. Chrestomanci’s world is the one next door to us, and the difference here is that magic is as common as music is with us. It is full of people working magic – warlocks, witches, thaumaturges, sorcerers, fakirs, conjurors, hexers, magicians, mages, shamans, diviners and many more – from the lowest Certified Witch right up to the most powerful of enchanters. Enchanters are strange as well as powerful. Their magic is different and stronger and many of them have more than one life.

Now, if someone did not control all these busy magic-users, ordinary people would have a horrible time and probably end up as slaves. So the government appoints the very strongest enchanter there is to make sure no one misuses magic. This enchanter has nine lives and is known as ‘the Chrestomanci’. You pronounce it KREST-OH-MAN-SEE. He has to have a strong personality as well as strong magic.

Diana Wynne Jones

Chapter 1 (#ulink_87a34f42-98e0-583a-904b-6830c62bd11f)

Cat Chant was not altogether happy, either with himself or with other people. The reason was the Italian boy that Chrestomanci had unexpectedly brought back to Chrestomanci Castle after his trip to Italy.

“Cat,” said Chrestomanci, who was looking rather tired after his travels, “this is Antonio Montana. You’ll find he has some very interesting magic.”

Cat looked at the Italian boy, and the Italian boy held out his hand and said, “How do you do. Please call me Tonino,” in excellent English, but with a slight halt at the end of each word, as if he was used to words that mostly ended in ‘o’. Cat knew at that instant that he was going to count the days until someone took Tonino back to Italy again. And he hoped someone would do it soon.

It was not just the beautiful English and the good manners. Tonino had fair hair – that almost greyish fair hair people usually call ash blond – which Cat had never imagined an Italian could have. It looked very sophisticated and it made Cat’s hair look a crude straw colour by comparison. As if this was not enough, Tonino had trusting brown eyes and a nervous expression, and he was evidently younger than Cat. He looked so sweet that Cat shook hands as quickly as he could without being rude, knowing at once that everyone would expect him to look after Tonino.

“Pleased to meet you,” he lied.

Sure enough, Chrestomanci said, “Cat, I’m sure I can trust you to show Tonino the ropes here and keep an eye on him until he finds his feet in England.”

Cat sighed. He knew he was going to be very bored.

But it was worse than that. The other children in the castle thought Tonino was lovely. They all did their best to be friends with him. Chrestomanci’s daughter Julia patiently taught Tonino all the games you played in England, including cricket. Chrestomanci’s son Roger joined in the cricket lessons and then spent hours gravely comparing spells with Tonino. Chrestomanci’s ward Janet spent further hours enthusiastically asking Tonino about Italy. Janet came from another world where Italy was quite different, and she was interested in the differences.

And yet, despite all this attention, Tonino went around with a lost, lonely look which made Cat avoid him. He could tell Tonino was acutely homesick. In fact, Cat was fairly sure Tonino was feeling just like Cat had felt himself when he first came to Chrestomanci Castle, and Cat could not get over the annoyance of having someone have feelings that were his. He knew this was stupid – this was partly why he was not happy with himself – but he was not happy with Julia, Roger and Janet either. He considered that they were making a stupid fuss over Tonino. The fact was that Julia and Roger normally looked after Cat. He had grown used to being the youngest and unhappiest person in the castle, until Tonino had come along and stolen his thunder. Cat knew all this perfectly well, but it did not make the slightest difference to the way he felt.

To make things worse, Chrestomanci himself was extremely interested in Tonino’s magic. He spent large parts of the next few days with Tonino doing experiments to discover just what the extent of Tonino’s powers was, while Cat, who was used to being the one with the interesting magic, was left to wrestle with problems of Magic Theory by himself in Chrestomanci’s study.

“Tonino,” Chrestomanci said, by way of explanation, “can, it seems, not only reinforce other people’s spells, but also make use of any magic other people do. If it’s true, it’s a highly unusual ability. And by the way,” he added, turning round in the doorway, looking tall enough to brush the ceiling, “you don’t seem to have shown Tonino round the castle yet. How come?”

“I was busy – I forgot,” Cat muttered sulkily.

“Fit it into your crowded schedule soon, please,” Chrestomanci said, “or I may find myself becoming seriously irritated.”

Cat sighed, but nodded. No one disobeyed Chrestomanci when he got like this. But now he had to face the fact that Chrestomanci knew exactly how Cat was feeling and had absolutely no patience with it. Cat sighed again as he got down to his problems.

Magic Theory left him completely bewildered. His trouble was that he could, instinctively, do magic that used very advanced Magic Theory indeed, and he had no idea how he did it. Sometimes he did not even know he was doing magic. Chrestomanci said Cat must learn Theory or he might one day do something quite terrible by mistake. As far as Cat was concerned, the one thing he wanted magic to do was to solve Theory problems, and that seemed to be the one thing you couldn’t use it for.

He got six answers he knew were nonsense. Then, feeling very neglected and put-upon, he took Tonino on a tour of the castle. It was not a success. Tonino looked white and tired and timid almost the whole time, and shivered in the long cold passages and on all the dark chilly staircases. Cat could not think of anything to say except utterly obvious things like, “This is called the Small Drawing Room,” or, “This is the schoolroom – we have lessons here with Michael Saunders, but he’s away in Greenland just now,” or, “Here’s the front hall – it’s made of marble.”

The only time Tonino showed the slightest interest was when they came to the big windows that overlooked the velvety green lawn and the great cedars of the gardens. He actually hooked a knee on the windowsill to look down at it.

“My mother has told me of this,” he said, “but I never thought it would be so wet and green.”

“How does your mother know about the gardens?” Cat asked.

“She is English. She was brought up here in this castle when Gabriel de Witt, who was Chrestomanci before this one, collected many children with magic talents to be trained here,” Tonino replied.

Cat felt annoyed and somehow cheated that Tonino had a connection with the castle anyway. “Then you’re English too,” he said. It came out as if he were accusing Tonino of a crime.