The Song of the Quarkbeast tld-2

by Jasper Fforde

  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’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,’[30] 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 th
at 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 ‘int
erview’ 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.

  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.’