The Song of the Quarkbeast

  I drove back to Zambini Towers deep in thought, mostly about the Quarkbeast. I had lied when I told the colonel I didn’t know what we’d just witnessed. The beast had escaped in a short burst of wizidrical energy that had caused randomised passive spelling, hence the caramelised steel, clothing manipulation and my mirroring. Quite why it might suddenly do this I had no idea.

  Quarkbeasts were weird, but up until then I had no idea how weird.

  The King’s address

  * * *

  I wandered into the Palm Court as soon as I got home to see whether anyone had managed to unravel Lady Mawgon or unlock the passthought, but they hadn’t. Full Price was there among a pile of old books attempting to figure out a solution, and just to add more frustration to the mix, the Dibble Storage Coils were now at 60 per cent capacity and still rising. They’d vent crackle when they were full, and start to make cloud shapes1 over Zambini Towers.

  ‘Any idea what caused the surge?’ said Full Price.

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘It had gone by the time we got there.’

  ‘You look different.’

  ‘I got blown back to front by a sudden burst of wizidrical power.’

  ‘From what?’

  ‘A Quarkbeast escaping in a panic. Did you know they could do that?’

  ‘No – but then there’s much we don’t know about them,’ said Full, returning to his work.

  ‘Is it dangerous?’ I asked

  ‘Is what dangerous?’ he asked, without looking up.

  ‘Being reversed.’

  ‘Not at all. We could try and change you back, but as with all complex procedures, there are risks. Unless you’re unhappy, I’d stay as you are.’

  I told Full Price I’d see how it felt being right handed and let him know, then went to the Kazam offices, where I found Kevin Zipp staring into space.

  ‘Anything?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ replied Kevin. ‘A possible winner at the three twenty at Haydock Park, something about a friend hidden behind a green door and that warning about Vision Boss again.’

  ‘But nothing about the Great Zambini?’

  He shook his head so I jotted what he’d seen in the Visions Book under codes RAD097 to RAD099.

  I was doing paperwork and dealing with messages when Tiger reappeared.

  ‘How did the Mysterious X like the zoo?’ I asked.

  ‘So-so,’ he replied, ‘but then it seemed to be saying that the cinema might also help clear its mind, so I took it to see Rupert the Foundling Conquers the Universe.’

  ‘Hmm,’ I mused, wondering whether perhaps Mysterious X was simply milking the situation to get a day out, or had decided to take Tiger out on the sort of day he wanted. Unsurprisingly, the Mysterious X often worked in mysterious ways.

  ‘Is X any closer to helping us?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘It was worth a try. You’d better put it back in its room.’

  ‘Okay, then,’ said Tiger, and walked off, inflated bin-liner in hand. Perkins and Patrick wandered in a little later, and presented their B1-7G forms to be processed. All spells had to be logged, listed and presented to the Minister for Infernal Affairs. It was as boring as dusting, but like dusting, necessary.

  ‘Your first form,’ I said to Perkins, stamping and countersigning the B1-7G, ‘congratulations. You can get your mother to stick it on the fridge.’

  Supper was always early, and once the jam roly-poly had been left uneaten for the sixty-eighth consecutive day – a new record – Moobin had all those involved in the bridge gig convene in the Palm Court. Both Full and Half were there, Patrick, Perkins, myself and Tiger – oh, and Lady Mawgon and Monty Vanguard, but strictly in a non-speaking capacity. We were there partly to have a meeting, and partly to watch a repeat of the King’s early evening Television Address to the People.

  He usually used the address to tell citizens to consume less water, buy more shares in Snodd Industries or simply to announce another tedious milestone in Princess Shazza’s very public upbringing. Today’s big news, however, was that Conrad Blix was Court Mystician. Blix was there on the telly next to him, trying to appear dignified and stately but actually looking smug and odious.

  ‘It was to be expected,’ I said, reviewing the footage sadly. ‘The King likes to publicise almost everything he does.’

  ‘I know,’ said Moobin, ‘but look carefully in the background.’

  We craned closer as he ran the six-minute address again. As was usual, the address was filmed wherever the King happened to be, and he was surrounded by whoever he happened to be with. On this occasion he was naming a new landship and there, standing suspiciously close at hand, was the King’s Useless Brother, Lord Tenbury – and Mr Trimble.

  ‘Looks like BellShout Communications are covering all bases,’ murmured Half Price.

  Mr Trimble had been sounding me out earlier for Kazam’s feelings on reactivating the mobile phone network, and I had foolishly given him a straight answer: that attempting to apply such a fundamental force would be like trying to tax gravity or own the stars. It confirmed what we all suspected – the King was attempting to control the administration of magic for financial ends, and with the help of Blix and Lord Tenbury. They could name their own price to Mr Trimble and BellShout Communications. And that would just be the beginning. Magic for sale to the highest bidder.

  ‘We really need to win the contest on Friday, don’t we?’ said Perkins.

  ‘Definitely,’ replied Moobin as he switched off the TV. ‘There’s a lot riding on it. It’s not just about the ownership of Kazam, but of magic itself.’

  We fell silent then, thinking about what the magic industry would be like run by the King and Blix. It wasn’t a happy scenario, no matter how upbeat you tried to be. Quite the opposite, in fact – it would be a disaster.

  ‘We’ll win easily so long as we keep our heads,’ said Moobin breezily, pointing at two pictures of the bridge. One as it should look, all nice and neat, and another of how it looked now – several hundred tons of damp slippery rubble.

  ‘It’ll be a standard lift and fix, with two teams working in pairs. One to raise the stones from the river bed, and the other to hold them in position while the first speed-sets the mortar. I suggest Perkins and Full in one team and Half and Patrick in the other. I’ll be on hand to offer assistance wherever it is needed and to direct the operation. We shouldn’t have any problems, but we should all practise tomorrow, and try to get Mawgon back – despite being a monumental pain in the backside, she is actually a first-class sorcerer. Jennifer has some ideas on this. Jenny?’

  I stood up and cleared my throat.

  ‘Kevin Zipp has prophesied that the Great Zambini will return tomorrow at 16.03 for a few minutes. I’ve got the Prince shadowing Zipp, and as soon as we have a location for his reappearance, I’ll get straight over there. My primary job will be to find a way of unlocking Lady Mawgon and the Dibble Storage Coils, and after that, to try and help Zambini.’

  ‘Good,’ said Moobin, ‘any questions?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Tiger, ‘why do “inflammable” and “flammable” mean the same thing?’

  ‘Sorry, I should rephrase that: any questions relating to the job in hand?’

  There weren’t.

  ‘Well,’ said Moobin with finality, ‘there it is, then. Rest well.’

  * * *

  1 Unusual and realistic cloud shapes were the usual method by which bursts of wizidrical energy could be detected. The cloud shape above the experimental forty-megaton wizidrical detonations in the Cambrian Empire was a staggeringly realistic rendition of an Amanita phalloides, coincidentally one of the major ingredients of the potion that built the device.

  The perfidy begins

  * * *

  Sleep was difficult and both fitful and restless, and I was reduced to staring at the fireflies that flickered about the window, feeding off the gentle buzz of wizidrical energy that leaked out of the building.

  Onc
e a reasonable hour had arrived, I had a bath and came downstairs. I found the Youthful Perkins and Patrick of Ludlow in the lobby, busily at practice building an arch out of some cobbles. It was a tricky act, and one that required not only good co-ordination, but teamwork. The trick was to hold them all in a semicircle until the final cobble – the keystone – was placed at the apex, at which point they could both relax and the arch would stay up on its own.

  Trouble was, it didn’t seem to want to. On the few occasions they managed to get a complete arch made, it tumbled down as soon as they relaxed.

  ‘It will be easier with bigger stones and the abutments to take the outward forces,’ said Perkins, and Patrick grunted an agreement.

  I had some breakfast and went to the office to check on Kevin Zipp. He was still asleep. Owen of Rhayder was standing by on Kevin-watch for a few hours while Prince Nasil ran some errands. Owen was our second carpeteer and, through no fault of his own, the lesser of the two. Whereas the Prince’s carpet was a frayed and moth-bitten artefact that would make the inside of a skip look untidy, Owen’s was eight times worse. A carpet’s design life was twenty thousand hours or three centuries before remanufacture, and Owen’s was well beyond both.

  ‘Did Kevin say anything in his sleep?’ I asked.

  ‘Not much,’ replied Owen, ‘just mumblings about index fingers, the Tralfamosaur, important people being blown to bits and how ice cream will be on the menu more than once a month from this time next year.’

  ‘I like the sound of that,’ said Tiger, who had just wandered in.

  ‘I hope you’re referring to the ice cream and not the blowing to bits. Put the visions in the book, will you? I think we’re at RAD099. I’m going to have a look at the contest preparations.’

  I stepped out of the hotel into Snodd Lane and walked to where it widened out into Snodd Street before turning left into Snodd Boulevard. I picked up a copy of the Hereford Daily Eyestrain from the seller on the corner and noted without much surprise that the competition was headline news.

  TWO HOUSES BATTLE FOR TOP WIZ SLOT

  The article was more or less correct, but heavily skewed in favour of Blix, who the state-controlled paper described as ‘Newly appointed Court Mystician,’ and also repeated the incorrect ‘All Powerful’ accolade. Farther down they referred to him as ‘a very distant relative of Blix the Hideously Barbarous’ and then quoted him as saying that ‘the forces of good must be properly managed for the benefit of the people’. I went and gave the newspaper back to the seller and skilfully negotiated a partial refund, and then made my way to the wrecked bridge.

  There had been many attempts to shame King Snodd into footing the bill for repairs following the bridge’s collapse. The most persuasive argument was that without the bridge there was nowhere to dangle the corpses of the recently executed, as local city health ordinances forbade it within the city precincts. To be honest, no one had been executed for almost two decades as it was considered unfashionable these days, and it was for perhaps this reason that the King hadn’t ordered a rebuild.

  I stood at the abutment on the north end and looked at the large heap of rubble that stretched all the way to the opposite bank. There had been four piers, and although they still projected about a yard above the waterline, most of the stone was now on the river bed. Working in water was always difficult as it was a poor conductor of wizidrical energy. Moving a block of masonry a yard in water would take as much energy as moving one fifty yards out of it.

  Snoddscaffolding, Inc. had already constructed a footbridge across the river to enable the sorcerers to better survey the rubble, and were now hastily erecting the tiered seating and royal box. I went and found the Minister for Glee, who was dicussing with his staff how best to accommodate the maximum number of people, how much they could charge them for seats, popcorn and hot dogs, and what concessions to give to the unwashed and destitute – if any.

  After introductions I explained that owing to health and safety considerations all observers would have to be at least fifty yards away to guard against secondary enchantments that split off the main weave.

  ‘Fifty yards?’ repeated the minister. ‘That’s not really a close-up view of anything. The King himself insisted that he had a ringside seat to watch the action at close quarters.’

  ‘It’s your call,’ I said, ‘but I’m not going to be the one who has to explain why His Gracious Majesty and his family will be spending the next two weeks with donkey’s heads.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Donkey’s heads?’

  ‘Or two noses. Perhaps worse.’

  ‘Fifty yards, you say?’

  ‘Fifty yards.’

  There was little to be gained from hanging around here so I walked back to Kazam, stopping on the way to buy some liquorice for no other reason than I liked liquorice. The sweetie shop was next to Vision Boss and, mindful of Kevin’s prediction, I went into the shop and looked around. It was a popular chain of opticians with a huge array of frames to choose from. Everything seemed normal enough, and after digging out my Shandarmeter and testing for any wizidrical hot spots and finding none, I wandered out again. That was the problem with precogs. You rarely knew the meaning of their visions until it was too late. Sometimes it was better not to know at all.

  ‘Ah!’ said a familiar voice as soon as I had stepped outside. ‘Good to see you again, girlie.’ It was Colonel Bloch-Draine. He was dressed for hunting this time, and was carrying his dart gun.

  ‘You’re very patronising,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Very clever of you to notice, girlie. Have a look at this.’

  He produced an official-looking certificate that told me he had been engaged by Court Mystician Blix as a ‘licensed agent’ to personally oversee the capture of any ‘rogue’ or ‘feral’ magicozoological beasts that were ‘terrorising’ the city or causing ‘public unease’.

  ‘So you and Blix aim to start Quarkbeast hunting tours?’ I asked, putting two and two together.

  ‘The tourism sector is an underexploited resource in this Kingdom,’ he said. ‘The Cambrian Empire earns over eight million moolah in Tralfamosaur hunts alone.’

  ‘And those same hunters get eaten on a regular basis, I’ve heard.’

  ‘We will insist on payment in advance,’ replied the Colonel, who was clearly of a practical, if callous, frame of mind. ‘Now, where would I find a Quarkbeast?’

  ‘I can’t help you, Colonel.’

  ‘You can help me,’ he replied, ‘and will. Failure to assist a royal agent in the execution of their lawful duties is an offence punishable by two years in prison with hard labour.’

  I stared at him for a moment and decided to call his bluff.

  ‘Then you will have to have me arrested, Colonel.’

  He looked at me and a faint smile crossed his lined features.

  ‘You have spirit,’ he said at last, ‘and I respect that. Are you yet lined up for a husband? My third son is still without a wife.’

  It wasn’t an unusual question; in the Kingdom of Snodd 95 per cent of marriages were by arrangement. The only benefit of being a orphan was that you were entitled to arrange your own.

  ‘Three possibles with five in reserve,’ I said, lying through my teeth. I’d had offers, of course, but nothing serious.

  ‘Can I put my son down as sixth reserve?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘He has six acres and a steady job in waste disposal – and all his own teeth.’

  ‘How tempting,’ I replied, ‘but still no.’

  ‘Tarquin will be disappointed.’

  ‘I dare say I can live with that.’

  The colonel thought for a moment.

  ‘Are you sure you won’t help me find the Quarkbeast?’

  ‘I would sooner sunbathe in the Tralfamosaur enclosure draped in bacon.’

  ‘I don’t need your help anyway,’ he said at last. ‘I have what information I need from the All Powerful Blix. Good day, Miss Strange. You’l
l regret not considering Tarquin.’

  And he hurried off in the direction of the bridge.

  ‘It’s “the Amazing Blix”,’ I called out after him, but to no avail. I shrugged, and turned for home.

  As soon as I stepped into Zambini Towers I knew something was wrong. Wizard Moobin was sitting on a chair in the lobby looking worried.

  ‘Problems?’ I asked.

  ‘Full and Half Price have been arrested pending extradition to face charges in the Cambrian Empire,’1 replied Moobin sadly. ‘It is alleged they were key figures in Cambria’s illegal thermowizidrical explosive device programme in the eighties, as banned by the Genevieve Convention of 1922.’

  ‘Is that serious?’

  ‘It’s a Crime against Harmony – the worst sort. It carries a double death with added death penalty.’

  ‘That’s insane,’ I replied. ‘The Prices wouldn’t hurt a fly. This is all totally trumped up, right?’

  Moobin didn’t say anything. He just stood there and bit his lip.

  ‘Blast,’ I said under my breath, knowing from his look that this was precisely what the Prices had been fleeing when they arrived here twenty years before. The Great Zambini gave shelter to all those versed in the Mystical Arts, irrespective of past histories. I shuddered as I tried to think who else we might have in the building, and what they might have done.

  ‘We can still win the contest,’ said Moobin. ‘Me, Patrick and Perkins against Blix, Corby and Tchango. Look at it this way: three against three is a fair fight.’

  ‘With the greatest of respect,’ I replied, ‘Blix is not after a fair fight. He won’t stop until it’s his three against our one – or less.’