The guardians were themselves as we knew them, but, at the same time, they were mightier versions of themselves. They darkened the courtyard with their great shapes as they danced and wove above us, then moved together with one deafening roar of joy. Long after they had gone, we could hear the sound of that cry flying and fading northwards and east and away to the south and west. Then there was complete quiet.
My father and Riannan began to sing. I don’t remember what, but I remember the peace it brought to everyone there. I don’t really remember much more in detail. I remember everyone hugging each other, and the king hurrying out of the palace in his dressing gown to the cheers of the crowd, and the humble way Ogo went down on one knee to him, and I remember the glow inside me when Aunt Beck said she was proud enough of me to burst.
The statues pieced themselves together – robes, bodices and earlobes, chips and splinters reassembled – and they trundled away. One or two cast wistful looks back, as if they’d like to join in the celebrations that were starting, and which lasted for days.
I remember hugging Ogo and him hugging me, and him saying, “Isn’t it a coincidence, Aileen? We Logran kings have the same custom as the Wise Women of Skarr.”
“Indeed,” I said, knowing by the grin he was wearing from ear to ear that he was lying.
“Oh yes,” he lied. “You Wise Women aren’t the only ones. Just like you choose a husband early on,” he smiled at me, “we kings can choose a queen too.”
“Is that a fact?” I said, smiling back, wide enough to split my face with happiness. I remember Finn coming up, with tears in his beard, and saying it certainly was a fact, and my father laughing. He kissed the top of my head, which made me feel like a crowned queen already, and said that yes, it most definitely was a fact.
And I remember, as I’m writing this, walking over the moor, weeks later, in the first of the early Skarr frosts. The moon was rising and I was hurrying through the dusk on my way to collect my things. Aunt Beck and I were to move to Dromray to join Prince Alasdair and his father, the High King Farlane. What a reunion that had been! My father and Lucella were already there. Ogo was to come later and train to be a king, though I didn’t think he was in need of much training.
As I passed the Place, I stopped dead. From where I was standing, I could just see my cousin Kenig’s castle down on the foreshore. It was Ivar’s now, and empty, because he was at the Pandy with Riannan. But in the vision that I’d had during my initiation the castle hadn’t been there at all. I believe my vision had been telling me that its ugly magic would soon be wiped out forever. Much later, I realised that our cabin had appeared dark because I was to be the Wise Woman, not just of Skarr, but of all the Islands of Chaldea – and of Logra too, when Ogo and I were crowned. We islanders would share our wisdom from now on.
And, when all that had come into being, I sometimes get the urge on me to take a little sailing boat out on my own. I sail and search in my mind’s eye until I find the Land of Lone. I come ashore, climb the small cliff, cross the space of scuttling, speeding little creatures and walk through the ruined temple. I hear his cry from above me, and the Lone Cat, the ugliest cat I ever beheld, bounds gladly from pillar to pillar towards me. We stay a while with each other, then part.
AFTERWORD
When I first read this lovely, searching, last novel by my sister, Diana Wynne Jones, it stopped short where she became too ill to continue. It was a shock: it was like being woken from sleepwalking or nearly running off the edge of a cliff. It had elements of a much happier time in our childhood, too.
Diana wrote her first full-length novel when she was fourteen years old. It filled a series of exercise books, and she would read the newest section to us, her two younger sisters, in bed at night. When she suddenly stopped reading, we would wail, “Go on, go on. What happens next?” and she’d say, “Don’t you understand? I haven’t written any more yet.” And we would go to sleep, agog for the next section. It always duly turned up the next night, which is where the present day diverged so unhappily from our childhood past. This time, the next section couldn’t turn up. Her book had ended without an ending.
Diana Wynne Jones was such a masterly storyteller that it was impossible to imagine where she planned to take it. She left no notes: she never ever made any. Her books always came straight out of her extraordinary mind on to the page, and she never discussed her work while it was in progress. There was not so much as a hint of what she was up to, and it seemed The Islands of Chaldea was lost to its readers.
Then the family suggested that I might complete it. I was nervous. Diana was my big sister, and big sisters notoriously don’t like kid sisters messing with their stuff. Particularly when the big sister in question is very good at her stuff. Nevertheless, her family and friends had a meeting to pool their ideas on how the story might continue. We were all steeped in her work. We’d all known her well. Everyone was sure that, by the end of the afternoon, we would have come up with something. We didn’t: she had us all stumped. Eventually, Diana’s son closed the session with, “Well, Ursula, you’ll just have to make it up.”
It took months. I scoured the text for those clues that Diana always dropped for her readers as to where the narrative was headed, and which I’d always unfailingly overlooked until I’d read the final page. I hadn’t changed. I found nothing.
Initially, I was working at the National Theatre in London, too (I’m an actress when I’m wearing my other hat) and the play I was in was full of eerie happenings and second sight. I would catch the bus home across the river after the show and dream weird and often frightening dreams as I tried to break into my sister’s thinking. I believe I got even closer to her at this point than I was during her lifetime. But although I hunted and pondered, nothing came to me. Then, just as I was beginning to feel like a sous chef, endlessly producing flat soufflés under the slightly disapproving gaze of the Chef, I found one of her clues. I found it early on in her manuscript. And we were off!
When I started to write, it came easily. It was almost as if Diana were at my elbow, prompting, prodding, turning sentences around, working alongside – and then it was finished, and she was gone again. That was a terrible wrench. But her book was there – complete.
So far, no one who has come to The Islands of Chaldea freshly has spotted exactly where Diana Wynne Jones left off and I begin. Perhaps you will be able to, perhaps you won’t. It doesn’t really matter. It is intrinsically and utterly her book, and I hope you and all its readers love it as much as I do.
Ursula Jones, Itzac. November 2013
Also by Diana Wynne Jones
Chrestomanci Series
Charmed Life
The Magicians of
Caprona
Witch Week
The Lives of
Christopher Chant
Mixed Magics
Conrad’s Fate
The Pinhoe Egg
Howl Series
Howl’s Moving Castle
Castle in the Air
House of Many Ways
Archer’s Goon
Black Maria
Dogsbody
Eight Days of Luke
Enchanted Glass
The Homeward Bounders
The Merlin Conspiracy
Deep Secret
The Dark Lord of Derkholm
Year of the Griffin
The Ogre Downstairs
Power of Three
A Tale of Time City
Wilkin’s Tooth
The Game
For older readers
Fire and Hemlock
Hexwood
The Time of the
Ghost
For younger readers
Wild Robert
Earwig and the Witch
Vile Visitors
Freaky Families
For information on other titles by
Ursula Jones, visit www.ursulajones.co.uk
The Chrestomanci series
In this award-winning
classic, we meet Chrestomanci – the greatest Enchanter in all the worlds, charged with making sure no one misuses their magic.
But when he takes a gifted young witch and her brother in, anything could happen …
The Chrestomanci series
In the ancient city of Caprona, two Magical families rule – and hate each other. And now that all the spells are going wrong, surely one of them is to blame …
Can Chrestomanci find the truth, in the second compelling adventure in the series?
The Chrestomanci series
When a note appears up in school accusing one of the students of being a witch, teacher Mr Crossley is very upset. Witchcraft is illegal in this world, and the last thing he wants is an inquisitor turning up to investigate.
If only Chrestomanci could come and sort it all out.
The Chrestomanci series
Follow Chrestomanci through the magical worlds and read the whole series!
Copyright
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2014
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers
77–85 Fulham Palace Road,
Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
www.harpercollins.co.uk
Text copyright © Diana Wynne Jones and Ursula Jones 2014
Map copyright © Sally Taylor 2014
Cover art © 2014 by Zdenko Basic.
Cover design HarperCollins Publishers 2014
The authors and illustrator assert the moral right to be identified as the authors and illustrator of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007542239
Ebook Edition © 2014 ISBN: 9780007549191
Version: 2014-02-05
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Diana Wynne Jones, The Islands of Chaldea
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