The Underground City(59)
He stopped on the stairs on the way up to the bar and spent quite a while in the Gents, tidying himself up. The shelving had given him a whacking bump but his hair covered most of it and if anyone asked he could always say he’d been in a fight, couldn’t he? Not a lot of people ever argued with Wullie, him being over six-feet tall and broad with it, so he wasn’t too worried at being asked anything, really. He even stopped to have a quick pint before setting off up the road to his own wee flat on the High Street, well content with his night’s work.
The High Street, needless to say, was stiff with police and although they stopped many late-night revellers, checked identities and patted people over for concealed weapons, none of them stopped Wullie.
And it wasn’t because he was six-feet tall and broad with it either; it was because the MacArthur and Lord Rothlan reckoned that Wullie deserved to get back to his flat unhindered and, just to make sure, cast a wee spell that quite successfully protected him all the way home!
27. An Uninvited Guest
Lewis couldn’t wait to get home. He’d been on tenterhooks ever since Casimir and the Sultan had vanished. Not only Casimir but Prince Kalman and Neil and Clara as well!
Casimir had told him when they’d got home from the ice-rink that Neil and Clara had magic in them but he hadn’t really believed it until he’d seen them stand up to the goblins on stage. There was no doubt about it. They’d known who and what the goblins were, all right! He’d expected his parents to make some remark about them at the interval but, like the rest of the audience, they seemed not to have noticed anything amiss. Everything, as far as they were concerned, was totally normal. Magic again, he thought!
After the show, they’d gone backstage and although he’d smiled and chatted with Matt Lafferty and been polite to his father’s friend, Sir James, his mind had been elsewhere. He’d liked Sir James, although the understanding twinkle in his eye when he’d said he hoped living in Edinburgh wasn’t proving too dull, had been a bit unnerving; almost as if he’d known that he was the Shadow! All he could think of was Casimir and he’d been glad when his parents had eventually said their final goodbyes.
“Well,” said his father, putting the car into gear and pulling out into the traffic. “That was quite an evening!”
“It was a super pantomime!” Lewis agreed. “Matt Lafferty was marvellous as the Grand Vizier!”
“Yes,” murmured his mother, with a yawn, “the theatre is really quite magical. It takes you into quite a different world, doesn’t it?”
“I guess so,” Lewis nodded, quite determined to get into the “other world” that very evening! For he still had Casimir’s carpet and he was going to use it!
Once in his bedroom, he quickly changed into warmer clothes and as he zipped up his anorak, he looked at the carpet, propped in a corner, against the wall.
Clapping his hands together sharply, he said “carpet,” the way Casimir had done. Nothing, however, happened.
“Now listen, carpet,” he said seriously as he bent to pick it up, “I know you can hear me, so don’t pretend you can’t!” He spread the carpet over his bed and looked at it thoughtfully. “Lots of things have happened tonight,” he explained, “and I’ve just got to see Casimir! He might be in Arthur’s Seat or he might have gone to Ardray but I have got to see him. He found his son tonight, that Prince Kalman, and his son didn’t want to know him! Would you believe it? After all the time he’s spent searching for him?”
The magic carpet wriggled uneasily. “I’m only supposed to carry Prince Casimir,” it said.
“Come on, carpet,” pleaded Lewis. “Didn’t I make you beautiful again when I had my magic wishes?”
“Yes,” the carpet breathed, thinking back to the perfectly awful time when it had been threadbare, shabby and full of holes.
“And you’ll be taking me to Casimir,” added Lewis persuasively. “It’s not as if I’m going anywhere on my own. And Casimir might call you, you know, and you’d never get out of here with the window shut!”
The carpet thought about it and then lifted gently into the air. Lewis pulled a blanket off the bed and folding it up, spread it over the carpet, for the snow still lay deep over Edinburgh. He ran to the window and opened it wide so that he and the carpet could get through and a few minutes later they were soaring over the city towards Arthur’s Seat.
So he had been right, he thought, as the hill loomed nearer. Casimir had gone to the friends he had told him about; the MacArthurs, the magic people that lived inside Arthur’s Seat. The air was frosty and cold and Arthur’s Seat was deep in snow as the carpet sailed towards it and he wondered apprehensively how on earth he was going to get in. He needn’t have worried, however, as the carpet had been there many times before. The tunnel entrance was cunningly hidden but it knew its way and slid deftly with the ease of long practice, into the hill.