The Song of the Quarkbeast: Last Dragonslayer: Book Two (15 page)

‘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’ll 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.’

We sat in silence in the empty lobby, the only sounds the clock, the rustling of oak leaves and the occasional ‘pop’ as the Transient Moose moved in and out.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said at last.

‘What for?’

‘For agreeing to this contest.’

‘You didn’t have any option,’ said Moobin, placing his hand on my arm. ‘A challenge is a challenge. The real fault lies with Blix. How long do you think it will be before they arrest the next one of us?’

‘Any minute now, I should imagine.’

Just as I spoke Detective Norton and Sergeant Villiers walked into the lobby. If there was work to be done of a dubious nature that needed a veneer of legality, these two would be doing it.

‘Miss Strange,’ said Detective Norton. ‘How delightful to meet you again.’

I didn’t have time for this.

‘Where are the Prices?’ I demanded.

Norton and Villiers gave me their well-practised triumphant grins.

‘Under lock and key until the hearing on Monday,’ said Sergeant Villiers, who was the physical opposite of Norton – heavily built in body and face compared to Villiers’ almost painful thinness. We often joked that they were the ‘Before and After’ in a weight-gain advert. I’d crossed swords with them in the past, and didn’t like them.

‘Monday? Conveniently two days
after
the bridge gig?’

‘These are serious charges, Miss Strange. But we’re not here for idle chit-chat.’

‘No?’

I thought they had come about my refusing to help hunt the Quarkbeast, but they hadn’t. Maybe the colonel wanted to keep me sweet for the Tarquin option.

‘Wizard Gareth Archibald Moobin?’ asked Norton in that way police do when they already know the answer is ‘yes’.

‘You know I am.’

‘You’re under arrest for committing an illegal act of magic; for failing to declare said act of magic; for not submitting the relevant paperwork; for plotting to hide said act of magic from the authorities.’

I noticed Villiers take Moobin’s arm. They knew he could teleport and weren’t going to risk losing him.

‘And what act was this?’ I asked, knowing full well that in the four years I had been at Kazam not a single act of sorcery had gone unrecorded.

‘It’s about a bunch of roses produced “from thin air” as a gift for a certain Miss Bancroft,’ said Villiers, ‘on or around 23 October 1988.’

‘Jessica,’ said Moobin in a quiet voice.

‘Yes,’ said Norton, ‘Jessica.’

He looked at me and shrugged while they slipped on the lead-lined index finger cuffs to stop him spelling.

‘Bet you regret trying to impress her now, eh?’ sneered Norton.

‘Oddly, no,’ he admitted with a fond smile. ‘She was quite something. What we call a “refuzic” – possessed of magical powers, but convinced she had none. Get this: she could lick a man’s bald head and tell what he had for breakfast. Don’t tell me that’s not magic. What’s she doing these days?’

‘She’s Mrs Norton,’ said Norton, ‘and if you go spreading the bald head thing about it won’t be just the King and Blix playing “jail the wizard”.’

‘Hey, plod,’ said Tiger, who had just walked in, ‘I can make a bacon roll vanish – and then make it reappear the following morning in a completely different form. You going to arrest me for illegal wizardry too?’

Norton and Villiers glared at Tiger, appalled at his gross impertinence. If they’d not been busy they would have arrested him too.

‘Bloody foundlings,’ said Norton, ‘a waste of space the lot of you. One more thing: if you’re looking for Patrick of Ludlow, don’t. We just picked him up, too – on charges relating to marzipan abuse. So long, Jenny.’

And a moment later the doors were swinging shut behind them.

‘This is all my fault,’ I said, sitting down and putting my face in my hands. It was now Perkins up against the powers of Blix and his cronies. One of ours against three of theirs.

‘It’s not your fault and it could be worse,’ said Tiger in a soothing voice.

‘How could it possibly be worse?’

‘It could be Friday. It isn’t. It’s only Thursday morning. Lots can happen. So we’re down to only one sorcerer. Big deal. There must be others we can use.’

‘No one else has a licence.’

‘What about sorcerers who had licences from the old days? Ones who never had them taken away?’

‘If they were sane enough to work, they would be.’

Tiger nodded his head towards the front door.

‘I wasn’t thinking of in here. I was thinking of . . . out there.’

I sat up. Hope had not yet fully departed.

‘You’re right. There are two I could try. I’ll start with Mother Zenobia.’

‘Would she help us?’

‘Almost certainly not – but it’s worth a shot. And listen, if Blix wants to play dirty, so should we.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning we should find out something about him. Something we can use against him. Past misdemeanours, dirt, unpaid parking tickets – I don’t know. You do some snooping, and I’ll try and rustle up some sorcerers.’

I walked out of the front entrance, suddenly remembered I’d forgotten my keys, pushed open the door to Zambini Towers, stepped inside – only to find myself stepping out of the back entrance of the hotel. I held the door wide open and, impossibly,
the front entrance led straight to the back
. It was as if the old hotel wasn’t there at all. I closed the door again and pressed the doorbell.

The door was answered by Perkins, and, oddly, he was in the hotel – behind him I could see the lobby.

‘Forget your keys?’

‘Look at this.’

He stepped out and I closed the door, then told him to reopen it. He did so, and stared not at the lobby, but at the alleyway on the far side of the building.

‘Where’s the hotel gone?’

‘I was hoping you’d tell me.’

‘You think I did this? No way. I have trouble making dogs bark at a distance.’

‘Then who?’

He shrugged.

‘I don’t know. Listen, you must have a word with Tiger. He was trying to fool me into thinking that Patrick, Moobin and the Prices have all been arrested, and he really shouldn’t joke about such things.’

I raised an eyebrow and stared at him.

‘Crumbs. You mean he wasn’t kidding?’

‘I wish he was.’

I pressed the doorbell again and a few minutes later Tiger answered. I explained what had happened, and after checking the other entrances and the windows – but with one of us keeping the door open so we could get back in – we found that all access points led to an instant exit on the other side of the building. We couldn’t agree who might have done it, but did agree that it was an excellent defence – something that was tested twenty minutes later when Norton and Villiers returned to ‘interview’ Lady Mawgon. I shouted through the door that she would be surrendering herself to the authorities on Monday, and after a brief exchange of discourtesies, they left.

‘Right,’ I said once I’d found my car keys, ‘I’m off to get help.’

‘What can I do?’ asked Perkins.

‘Help Tiger find out what you can about Blix. There must be something we can use to our advantage. Oh, and congratulations. You’re doing the bridge gig on your own tomorrow.’

He stared at me with a look of horror.

‘If I’m going to fail I guess I should do it in a spectacular fashion.’

I told him it wasn’t over until it was over, picked up my car and was soon heading out of town.

¹
Despite the grand title, the mid-Wales-located Cambrian Empire is a ramshackle collection of warlords nominally controlled by the Cambrian potentate Tharv the Bountiful. The empire has almost no economy or government, but despite its lawless nature, visitors are shockingly well-treated, and the crime figures of the nation are the lowest in the unUK.

Mother Zenobia

As I drove to Clifford to see Mother Zenobia, I wasn’t very hopeful that I would have much luck recruiting her to our cause. She was old, tired and for almost 75 per cent of the day a form of limestone. What wizidrical powers she had available to her were most likely limited, and I knew for a fact that she hadn’t been out of the convent for years. But I wasn’t the only person who wanted to see Mother Zenobia that afternoon, and their presence was neither welcome, nor, as I considered it later, surprising.

It was none other than Conrad Blix, and I met him walking out of the Sisterhood of the Blessed Lady of the Lobster as I was walking in.

‘Jennifer!’ he said with a mockingly pleasant demeanour. ‘How is the team bearing up?’

‘You know well enough,’ I replied coldly. ‘What are you doing here?’

He leaned closer.

‘Dealing with a few flies in this particular ointment, Miss Strange. This morning Norton and Villiers were merely assuring our victory. Just now I was guaranteeing it.’

I didn’t like the sound of this.

‘What have you done to her?’

He smiled.

‘I will get so much satisfaction watching you work for me as a parlourmaid for the next two years. And for your complete and utter humiliation, I will
insist
you wear the uniform.’

‘You’re a coward to use such underhand means to win the most noble of contests, Blix.’

He narrowed his eyes.

‘And you’re very impertinent considering you’re nothing but a foundling who lucked out in your work allocation.’

‘On the contrary,’ I replied evenly, ‘foundlings are
always
impertinent – it’s because we’ve nothing to lose. I’m actually one of the politer ones.’

‘You’ll regret your words, Jennifer.’

‘And you your actions,’ I replied, ‘and even if you do win, none of us will ever work for you.’

‘I wouldn’t expect you to,’ he said. ‘All I need is control of Kazam and with it a monopoly on magic – surely that’s obvious?’

‘To reanimate the mobile phone network?’

He grinned.

‘That’s just for starters. You have no idea how much a wise investor can make by exploiting the crackle. The licensing deals on electromagical devices will make a fortune – millions alone for something as simple as a pocket calculator. And all that work you’re doing to reanimate medical scanners for
free
– deluded. How much do you think people will
pay
to detect an early tumour?’

I clenched and unclenched my fists.

‘Magic is not for the one,’ I said through gritted teeth, ‘it’s for the many.’

‘I agree wholeheartedly. But in this particular instance, “many” means only myself, Lord Tenbury, the King and his Useless Brother. Oh, and good move with Zambini Towers and the “infinite thinness” enchantment. Lady Mawgon, was it?’