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shakers, and Arnold fetched out five things that looked like lighted candles but were really electric torches. Neat things. They must have had strange batteries, because they flickered and flared just like real candles as we raced around to East once more with our feet booming echoes out of the concrete corridor. This time when Dave said, “East,” Chick slammed his candle torch down on the floor and stood gabbling. I nearly got left behind there because I was staring at Chick drawing what looked like a belt knife and pulling it out as if it were toffee or something so that it was like a sword, which he stood holding point upward in front of his face. I had to sprint to catch the others up, and I only reached them as Dave was singing out, “South!” They shed Pierre and his candle there, and as we pelted off, Pierre was pulling a knife out into a sword, too.
    At West it was Dave’s turn to stand pulling a knife into a sword and gabbling. Arnold and I rushed on together to North. Luckily, Arnold was so big he was not much of a runner, and I could keep up. I’d no breath left by then. When we got round to Arnold’s bag again, he plonked down his candle and remarked, “I hold North because I’m the strongest. It’s the most dangerous ward of all.” Then, instead of drawing his belt knife, he took my candle torch away and passed me a gigantic salt shaker.
    I stared at it.
    â€œAll round again with this,” Arnold said. “Make sure it’s a continuous line and that you keep outside the line.”
    It’s one of those dreams, I thought. I sighed. I grabbed the salt and set off the other way to make a change.
    â€œNo, no !” he howled. “Not widdershins, you fool! Deosil! And run. You’ve got to get round before the Prince lands!”
    â€œMaking my third four-minute mile,” I said.
    â€œPretty well,” he agreed. “Go!”
    So off I went, pouring salt and stumbling over my own feet as I tried to see where I was pouring it, past Chick, standing with his sword like a statue, past soldiers I was almost too busy to notice, who were on guard about every fifty feet, and on round to Pierre, also standing like a statue. When I got to him, I could hear the nearby blatting of a flier and cheering in the distance. Pierre shot me an angry, urgent look. Obviously, this Prince had more or less landed by then. I sped on, frantically sprinkling salt, getting better at it now. Even so, it seemed an age before I got round to Dave and another age before I got back to Arnold again. The cheering overhead was like thunder by then.
    â€œ Just about made it,” Arnold said. He had a sword by now and was standing like the others, looking sort of remote, behind his candle-thing. “Make sure the line of salt joins up behind me, then put the shaker back in the bag and get on guard.”
    â€œEr …” I said, “I’m not sure—”
    He more or less roared at me. “Didn’t they teach you anything at the academy? I shall lodge a complaint.” Then he seemed to pull himself together and sort of recited at me, the way you might tell a total idiot how to dial 999 in an emergency, “Choose your spot, go into a light trance, enter the otherwhere, pick up your totem beast, and go on patrol with it. If you see anything out of the ordinary— anything at all —come and tell me. Now go and get on with it!”
    â€œRight,” I said. “Thanks.” I threw the salt shaker into the bag and wandered away. Now what? I thought. It was fairly clear to me that what we had been doing in such a hurry was casting a circle of magic protection around this French cricket stadium, but it struck me as pretty boring, mass-produced sort of magic. I couldn’t see how it could possibly work, but I supposed it kept them happy, them and this Prince of theirs. The stupid thing was that I had been dying to learn magic. Part of the way I