The Cockatrice Boys (25 page)

The colonel said to her, “My dear Miss Sauna, now that you have had a good night's sleep, and are feeling, I hope, rather more the thing, I would be much obliged if you could raise a radio connection with London; without you we found it almost impossible to do so.”

“Of course, sir. Right away.”

It was plain that the air waves were still much disturbed after the battle. But at her fifth try Sauna managed to make contact with Leicester Square. Dakin, beside her, carefully held the colonel's dress sabre propped up at an angle of thirty-eight degrees.

“Gladiolus, Gladiolus: are you there, Leicester Square? We appear to have won a decisive victory at Dollar and—so far as can be ascertained—subdued the northern monsters.”

“Delighted to hear it,” said Leicester Square. “But, Lord Ealing wants to know, what about the book? Michael Scott's treatise? Has it been located yet? Over.”

“No, it has not been found. Our experts, Dr. Wren and Major Scanty, are here to tell you that it has almost certainly been destroyed in an avalanche. The cave where it was lodged has been swept down the side of Ben Cleuch into the Burn of Sorrow. I will give you map references.” The colonel did so. “No agency, either human or diabolical, can possibly recover the book now. It has been destroyed. Or such is the opinion of Dr. Wren and Major Scanty. And, it seems also, of the Principalities and Powers of Dark who have been ranged against us, for they all seem to have packed up and left. Most of the monsters have been destroyed, and no new ones are arriving. Over.”

“Then why are you loitering about in Dollar?” asked Leicester Square peevishly. “Pray make all possible speed back to London. There is still plenty of clearing-up work to be done in the south. Over.”

“We have to stop in Manchester, sir, on the way. Over.”

“Whatever for?”

“To—er—to replace a square of turf in the centre of the football pitch. Over and out,” said Colonel Clipspeak, looking fondly at Mrs. Churt's completed cross-stitch, which hung in majestic folds over his grand piano.

 

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This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

THE COCKATRICE BOYS

Copyright © 1993, 1996 by Joan Aiken Enterprises, Ltd.

All rights reserved.

Interior illustrations by Gris Grimly

A Starscape Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10010

www.starscapebooks.com

ISBN: 0-765-34231-6

Originally published in hardcover by Tor Books, 1996

First Starscape edition: March 2002

eISBN 9781466865099

First eBook edition: January 2014