Contents

• Warlock at the Wheel
• The Plague of Peacocks
• The Fluffy Pink Toadstool
• Auntie Bea's Day Out
• Carruthers
• No One
• Dragon Reserve, Home Eight
• The Sage of Theare

A Chrestomanci story set after Charmed Life, when most of the magic users lost their power. The Willing Warlock is unable to cope with his loss of magic and robs a bank.  Using his proceeds he pays a French wizard to send him to another world where he will have his powers back again. 

Unfortunately, he is out of his depth in this new world, he is on the run from the police in a stolen car when he discovers that there is a small child in the back with a rather large dog. 

This story is priceless.  How the Willing Warlock is turned into a miserable shade of himself by Jemima Jane and Towser is something that you won't want to miss. Also published in:

• Mixed Magics

The Plague of Peacocks

The Platts move to Chipping Hanbury and begin to look after the village and its startled inhabitants. They look after it so well that very soon people are wishing they would go and find another village to look after. The only thing that keeps them going is the thought that soon the Platts will decide to look after Daniel Emanuel. Luckily, Daniel Emanuel is not very impressed with the Platt's efforts to tidy his life. Also published in:

• Puffin Post Vol 13 No 4, 1979

The Fluffy Pink Toadstool

Description from Book
"Mother was always having crazes.  Since she was a strong-minded lady, this meant that the rest of the family had the crazes too - until, that is, Father put his foot down." 

Mother decided to go through a hand-made phaze which involved her family making a lot of sacrifices.  This leads on to a natural food craze and she insisted that the family pick their own. Whilst out in the woods Tim, the youngest, is given a bright pink toadstool by "a funny man... with trousers like Father's." The consequences result in Father putting his foot down. Also published in:

• The Catflap and The Apple Pie, W H Allen 1979

Auntie Bea's Day Out

Aunt Bea drags Nancy, Debbie and Simon on a day trip to the seaside - with a large bundle of "necessary items" all neatly labelled in case of loss. She insists on picnicking on Island Island, ignoring all the warning signs.

The island shudders and all of a sudden they aren't at the beach any more - they are in the middle of a gun-range. Then they are on an iceberg. The island shudders again...

• The Young Winter's Tales 8, Macmillan, 1978

Carruthers

Elizabeth's father is cleaning out Granny's attic and comes across a walking stick. Elizabeth feeds it chocolate and rice pudding and talks to it, and Carruthers stays with her for several years, finally leaving in a spectacular fashion.

No One

Poor old No One was quite out of his depth.  His programming didn't cover the highly mechanised house that he was required to look after.  The coffee machine spat coffee beans over the floor at every opportunity, the oven was on strike and the dishwasher seemed to be on a continual drying setting.  To top it all off, there seemed to be a ghost in the house.  Edward helps No One with the machines and when Edward is kidnapped, No One must organise the machinery against the kidnappers. Also published in:

• Everard's Ride

Dragon Reserve, Home Eight

A satisfying story which verges on the eerie and scary. A young girl faces execution for something she cannot help, which turns out to be the very thing needed to help save her world from the evil slavers. Also published in:

• Minor Arcana
• Everard's Ride
• Dragons and Warrior Daughters, ed Jessica Yates, Collins 1989

The Sage of Theare

Extract
"It's a long climb to Heaven," Chrestomanci observed.  "Is there anything you'd like to know on the way?" 

"Yes," said Thasper.  "Did you say the gods are trying to kill me?" 

"They are trying to eliminate the Sage of Dissolution, which they may not realise is the same thing.  You see, you are the Sage." 

"But I'm not!" Thasper insisted.  "The Sage is a lot older than me, and he asks questions I never even though of until I heard of him." 

"Ah, yes," said Chrestomanci.  "I'm afraid there is an awful circularity to this.  It's the fault of whoever tried to put you away as a small child.  As far as I can work out, you stayed three years old for seven years - until you were making such a disturbance in our world that we had to find you and let you out.  But in this world of Theare, highly organised and fixed as it is, the prophecy stated that you would begin preaching Dissolution at the age of twenty-three, or at least in this very year."

What Diana Wynne Jones says
"The Sage of Theare" started because I remembered, or thought I remembered, a story by Borges being read on the radio, in which a scholar arduously tracked down a learned man but never quite found him.  I started having dreams about it - strange circular dreams in a strange city where gods took a hand - and the dream person never found the wise man he was looking for.  In order to exorcise the dreams, I wrote the story. (From Minor Arcana)

Also published in:

• Minor Arcana
• Mixed Magics
• Hecate's Cauldron, edited by Susan Schwartz, DAW Books, 1982

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