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 wasnât 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.
âItâs the protections they put round the place to stop anyone investigating them,â he said. âThe magic blanks out the signal.â
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 motherâs 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, âAnd how do I find the money, Conrad, with the book trade so slow!â
The bookshop was in our name too â it said GRANT AND TESDINIC in faded gold letters over the bow windows and the dark green door â 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.
âAnd so he should do,â my mother said in her vague way. âWeâre the only family heâs got.â
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 didnât know. âAnd you never get any sense out of Mother,â Anthea said to me. âShe just says things like âLife is always a lotteryâ and âYour father was usually hard upâ â so all I can think is that it must have been gambling debts. The casinoâs only just up the road after all.â
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 fatherâs footsteps. Unfortunately, someone saw me halfway up Stall Crag and told my uncle.
âAh, no, Conrad,â he said, wagging a worried, wrinkled finger at me. âI canât have you taking these risks.â
âMy dad did,â I said, âbetting all that money.â
âHe lost it,â said my uncle, âand thatâs a different matter. I never knew much about his affairs, but I have an idea â a very shrewd idea â that he was robbed by those crooked aristocrats up at Stallery.â
âWhat?â I said. âYou mean Count Rudolf came with a gun and held him up?â
My uncle laughed and rubbed my head. âNothing so dramatic, Con. They do things quietly and mannerly up at Stallery. They pull the possibilities like gentlemen.â
âHow do you mean?â I said.
âIâll explain when youâre old enough to understand the magic of high finance,â my uncle replied. âMeanwhileâ¦â His face went all withered and serious. âMeanwhile, you canât afford to go risking your neck on Stall Crag, you really canât, Con, not with the bad karma you carry.â