‘Me.’
‘Oh dear.’
He paced for a moment as he thought. I remember him doing this when he was back at the Towers, and I think it was then that I missed him more than ever. I wanted him to be back. To take the decisions, to be the one in charge, to sometimes make the wrong decisions, and ignore the criticism.
‘You must be vigilant,’ he said at last. ‘The job of Shandar’s agent has been filled by the D’Argento family for four centuries. They report to him when he comes out of granite for a minute every month. He’ll leave the donkey work up to them and only appear himself for the seriously big spelling stuff, so you should know what to be wary of. His agent will be well spoken, well dressed, ride around in a midnight-black top-of-the-line Rolls-Royce, and have an anagrammatic name. A bit corny, I know, but it’s traditional, apparently.’
I covered my face with my hands. The young lady in the Phantom Twelve. I was a fool not to have realised.
‘Someone named “Ann Shard”?’ I asked.
‘Yes, exactly like that. You must remain—’
He stopped talking as he saw my look of consternation.
‘You’ve met her?’
‘Two days ago. She wanted us to find a gold ring. She had some story about her client’s mother or something. I didn’t give her the ring because it didn’t want to be found and was sticky with negative emotional energy. I didn’t want anyone to get hurt.’
He frowned and paced some more.
‘I don’t get it. A ring? No ring ever had any power, least of all a curse. It’s just one of those dumb stories that get around, like pointy hats and wands and broomsticks and stuff. Hang on a minute. Yes, I’ve got it. If Shandar was going to get rid of me then he must have been worried about—’
He didn’t get to finish his sentence. Zambini’s six minutes were up; he had melted into non-existence until the next time – if there was a next time.
I sniffed the air and noticed that there was smoke coming up through the hatch from ‘C’ Deck. The Trolls were trying to smoke me out. Without wasting any time I ran up the stairs that led to the command deck at the top of the landship. I didn’t stop here, and instead pulled the lever to blow the emergency roof-access hatch. The door vanished with a explosive concussion and I climbed out on to the riveted top of the landship. The Trolls were nowhere in sight, so I took the Fireball from my pocket and threw it on to the steel plates. There was a sharp crack and in an instant the marker flare burst high above my head.
‘Ha, smoked you out!’ came a rumbling voice from behind me, and I found myself staring into the small green eyes of one of the Trolls, who had climbed up the outside of the landship. I picked up a branch to defend myself, and rather than waiting for the Troll to make the first move, I ran towards him and swung the branch as hard as I could at his head. It was a futile gesture, of course. The Troll merely smiled cruelly and thrust out a hand to grab me. He would have done so, too, had the emergency hatch I had blown out not returned to earth at that precise moment and landed right on the Troll’s head. He yelled in pain, lost his footing and fell off the landship.
I looked over the edge to where he was being helped by his comrade.
‘What happened?’ asked the second Troll.
‘That one may look small,’ said the first, rubbing his head tenderly, ‘but she can sure pack a punch.’
‘Jenny!’
It was the Prince. He had come in for my EVAC as promised. I needed no second bidding, jumped on the carpet and we were soon flying back across the Troll Wall to safety.
‘That was cutting it a bit fine,’ said Nasil as he expertly held the carpet together on the short journey to Stirling railway station. ‘Did you see him?’
‘And how.’
Back at Zambini Towers
We took the train back to the Kingdom of Hereford. After the afternoon’s action, the carpet was in no fit state to be used for anything – not even as a carpet. The Prince had no money, so swapped two first-class travel permits for a minor dukedom back in his home kingdom of Portland, and we caught the first train out of Stirling station. As a foundling I was not permitted to sit anywhere but third class, but when the ticket inspector questioned my presence in first, the Prince said that I was his personal organ donor, and travelled everywhere with him, just in case. The inspector congratulated the Prince on such a novel usage for a foundling and told me I was lucky to have such a kind benefactor.
We made Hereford by 10.30 that evening and we walked to Kazam by a back route to avoid being seen. Tiger and Perkins were waiting at a window on the ground floor just next to the rubbish bins to let us in, as the ‘infinite thinness’ spell was still very much in force. We dropped in to the Palm Court, where Mawgon and Monty Vanguard were much as I had seen them last – stone.
‘No change here, then.’
‘None at all.’
‘Moobin and the others?’
‘Still in jail,’ replied Perkins as we walked across the lobby. ‘I tried to contact Judge Bunty Patel to overturn the King’s illegal edict and got as far as the judge’s secretary’s secretary’s secretary. She laughed and asked if I was insane, then hung up. How did it go up north?’
We sat on the sofa in the Kazam offices next to the sleeping form of Kevin Zipp and I related pretty much everything that Zambini had told me – from the so-called ‘Ann Shard’ being the Mighty Shandar’s agent, to the worthlessness of rings as a conduit of power, to Blix being one of the few people able to work in RUNIX, to Once Magnificent Boo’s disfigurement.
‘Ouch,’ said Perkins, looking at his own fingers.
I then told them that Zambini thought magic might have an intelligence and would ‘find a way’ to let us win if it had a mind to.
‘That’s like saying electricity has free will,’ said Perkins, ‘or gravity.’
‘Gravy has free will?’ said Tiger, who hadn’t been listening properly. ‘That explains a lot. I knew it didn’t like me.’
‘Not gravy, gravity.’
‘I’m not sure I buy that.’
‘Me neither,’ I replied, ‘but he’s the Great Zambini, so we can’t reject the idea totally out of hand. He wasn’t out of ideas about his own predicament, either. Here.’
I handed him the old envelope covered in Zambini’s handwritten notes.
‘He thinks these observations may help us crack the spell.’
‘And he said the Mighty Shandar cast it?’
I nodded.
‘Not good,’ said Perkins after studying the notes for a while. ‘It seems Zambini is locked into a spell with a passthought on auto-evolve: one that changes randomly every two minutes. One moment it’s all about swans on a lake at sunset, the next about spoonbills in the Orinoco delta, and the very act of entering the passthought changes the passthought. We can’t crack Mawgon’s and it’s static, so what hope with one that changes?’
We were all silent for a while.
‘Did you see any Trolls?’ asked Tiger.
‘Two of them. They think we’re vermin.’
‘We don’t like them much, either.’
‘No, they really think we’re vermin – a pest that needs eradicating. They’re entirely indifferent to humans. We’re to them as rabbits are to us – only more destructive and less cuddly.’
‘Oh,’ said Tiger, who, being a Troll War orphan, had an interest in Trolls. ‘Then the invasions are even more of a waste of life, cash, time and resources then we had suspected?’
‘It looks that way.’
I took a deep breath and looked at my watch. It was quarter past eleven. Blix’s concession offer ran out at midnight.
‘Did you talk to the residents about taking Blix’s offer?’
Perkins reached into his top pocket and pulled out a notebook.
‘They may be a bit odd, but they’re quite forthright in their views.’
He consulted his notes.
‘I could only speak to twenty-eight of them. Monty Vanguard is stone, Mysterious X
and the Funny Smell in Room 632 are nebulous at best, the Thing in 346 made a nasty noise when I knocked on the door, and the Lizard Wizard just stared at me and ate insects.’
‘He does that,’ I said.
‘I’m not totally convinced the Thing in Room 346 is a sorcerer at all,’ remarked Tiger, ‘nor the Funny Smell.’
‘Who’s going to go and find out? You?’
‘On reflection,’ mused Tiger, ‘let’s just assume they are, for argument’s sake.’
‘So anyway,’ continued Perkins, ‘the residents have without exception poured scorn on Blix’s offer and announced they would sooner descend into confused old age and die in their beds while subsisting on a diet of rotten cabbage, weak custard and dripping.’
‘Isn’t that what they’re doing already?’ asked Tiger.
‘Which shows their commitment to things continuing as they are,’ I said.
‘Right,’ agreed Perkins, ‘but nearly all of them said they would also trust in the judgement of Kazam’s manager.’
‘That’s not good,’ I said, ‘Zambini is still missing.’
‘They didn’t mean Zambini,’ said Perkins, ‘and even though half of them don’t know your name and refer to you as “the sensible-looking girl with the ponytail” they’re all behind you.’
There were over two thousand years of combined experience in the building, and that wealth of knowledge had approved of what I did. All of a sudden, I felt stronger and more confident thanks to their trust. But it didn’t solve our immediate problems.
‘What about you?’ I said to Perkins. ‘Are you going to take the two million moolah?’
Perkins looked at me with a frown.
‘And miss all this craziness? Not for anything. I’m astonished you even had to ask.’
‘Thank you.’
We said nothing for several moments.
‘We found out where the “infinite thinness” enchantment was coming from,’ said Tiger, ‘though not who might have cast it.’
He rose and went across to my desk and passed a pocket Shandarmeter across the small terracotta pot. The needle on the gauge showed a peak reading of two thousand Shandars. We didn’t know how the enchantment that protected the old building worked nor who was casting it, but this was the source.
I picked the ring out of the pot. It was utterly plain and unremarkable – just large. I had a thought and picked up the phone.
‘Are you calling Blix?’ asked Perkins.
‘No – the Mighty Shandar’s agent. We need to find out more.’
I dialled the number the so-called ‘Ann Shard’ had given me, and after two rings it was answered.
‘Miss D’Argento?’ I said. ‘It’s Jennifer Strange.’
‘I can see my impertinent yet wholly necessary subterfuge took a modicum of cerebral activity to divine,’ she announced in her odd Longspeak, ‘but in this pursuit you were proved correct.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘It took you a few days to figure out I wasn’t Ann Shard.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Yes.’
There was a pause before she carried on.
‘Is this communication to impart knowledge about the geographical whereabouts regarding my client’s mother’s ring?’
‘We haven’t got it, if that’s what you mean, but yes, it is about the ring: what’s so special about it and why did the Mighty Shandar want it found?’
‘There is nothing special about it,’ she said simply, ‘you have my word on that.’
‘And Shandar’s reason for wanting it found?’
‘We have many clients,’ said Miss D’Argento in a mildly annoyed tone, ‘and we never betray their confidence.’
Zambini was right; it had been Shandar. If there wasn’t at least some truth in it, she would have simply laughed or dismissed it out of hand.
‘Is there anything else?’ asked Shandar’s agent. ‘Miss D’Argento is really most frightfully busy.’
She was talking about herself again.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘The next time Shandar wakes from granite, tell him that we’ll be after him once Zambini is freed – and he will be, mark my words.’
‘Goodbye, Miss Strange. We’ll meet again, I’m sure.’
And the phone went dead. I relayed what she had said to the others, but none of it seemed to help much, except to perhaps confirm what we suspected – that the Mighty Shandar was keeping a watchful eye on events here in the Kingdom of Snodd, and that if Shandar was behind Zambini’s disappearance, then it was going to be trebly tough getting Zambini back.
‘Hullo, Jennifer,’ said a voice from the sofa, ‘did my vision work out?’
‘It did, thank you, Kevin.’
It was Zipp, our precog. He looked tired and drawn. He usually did when trying extra specially hard to see more clearly into the foggy murk of the yet-to-be.
‘Do I get a ten?’
‘On both counts.’
Tiger dutifully fetched the Visions Book so I could rate Kevin’s powers. I turned to the correct page, and noted that his last vision, the one by which we found Zambini, was coded RAD105. I gave him a ten for this, countersigned it and then gave him ten also for RAD095. It took his Correct Vision Strike Average up to 76 per cent – just out of ‘Remarkable’ and into ‘Exceptional’, but not yet beyond the 90 per cent mark and the highest accolade of all, ‘Blistering’.
‘Jenny?’ said Tiger, who had been staring at the entries in the Visions Book. ‘What does that look like to you?’
‘RAD105?’
‘No, I mean, what if the 5 was an S? What would you think then?’
‘RADIOS?’
I stared at Tiger and he stared back. The kid was a genius.
‘Kevin,’ I said excitedly, ‘are you still getting the “Vision Boss” prediction?’
‘I had it again just now. Why?’
‘It could mean ‘Vision BO55’. You may have just had a vision . . . about a vision.’
‘That’s a first,’ said Kevin, unfazed by it all, as usual.
Tiger dashed off to the library to fetch the relevant volume of the Precognitives’ Gazetteer of Visions.
‘It must have been made some time in the mid-seventies to be numbered so low,’[35] observed Perkins.
‘We’ll soon find out.’
Tiger returned with a dusty volume and laid it down in front of me. I soon found the entry.
‘Vision BO55, 10 October 1974,’ I read, ‘was seen by Sister Yolanda of Kilpeck.’
‘Yolanda? Cool. What was it about?’
‘Doesn’t say. It was a private consultation – contents undisclosed.’
‘If it was Sister Yolanda it probably will or did come true,’ said Kevin. ‘She didn’t make many, but her strike rate was always good. Who was the recipient?’
I read the name and suddenly felt cold all over.
‘Mr Conrad Blix of Blix Grange, Blix Street, Hereford.’
We all looked at one another. Blix was involved in a strong prophecy from Sister Yolanda, and Kevin had been hinting at it all week, just without knowing it. We’d be fools not to pick up on a lead like this.
‘I think we need to find the contents of that vision – and quickly,’ said Tiger.
‘Easier said than done,’ I replied. ‘It was a private consultation. Only Blix would have the details.’
‘We need someone at iMagic,’ observed Tiger, ‘someone on the inside.’
‘Who?’ asked Perkins. ‘Corby, Muttney and Samantha are all loyal to a fault.’
I thought for a moment.
‘Perkins,’ I said, ‘you’ve just betrayed us.’
‘I have?’
‘Like the worst kind of leaving-the-sinking-ship rat. I want you to accept Blix’s offer for two million moolah, get into Blix Grange, go to where Blix keeps his records and find out what Vision BO55 relates to.’
‘How am I going to do that?’
‘I don’t know. Guile and ingenuity?’
But Perkins was still
reluctant.
‘Blix will never believe me. He’ll think it’s a trick of some sort.’
‘You’re right,’ I said, ‘he’ll need convincing.’
Reader, I punched him. Right in the eye, a real corker – a punch such as I’d never inflicted on anyone, except that time back at the orphanage when Tamara Glickstein was bullying the smaller kids.
‘YOW!’ yelled Perkins. ‘What was that for?’
‘He’ll believe you now. Tell him I went apeshit when you betrayed us. Tell him I’ve gone a bit loopy.’
‘No need to lie, then,’ remarked Perkins grumpily, nursing his eye, which was already beginning to go purple.
‘Better get going,’ I said, glancing at the clock and then giving him my warmest hug. I even kissed him on the cheek as an apology for the punch. Tiger offered to hug and kiss him too, but Perkins said ‘no thanks’ and went off to make the phone call. It was three minutes to midnight, and Perkins was gone by five past. Gone too with midnight was Kazam’s chance to cut a deal with Blix. The die was cast. The contest would go ahead.
And as likely as not, we’d lose.
Before the contest
I lay in bed staring at the water-stained ceiling of my room on the second floor of Zambini Towers, a room I had chosen for the fact that it faced east, and the sun woke me every morning. The sun didn’t wake me this morning as I had yet to get to sleep. Magic contests rarely ended happily, and through the years had resulted in recrimination and despair, bruised egos and lifelong feuds. There were always winners and losers, but this was the first time in wizidrical contest history that the defending team were unable to field a single sorcerer of any sort.
I had tried to fool myself that Zambini’s ‘trust in providence’ approach was actually sensible and worthwhile, but could not. We were, without a shadow of a doubt, stuffed.
‘What are you thinking about?’ asked Tiger, who occasionally slept on my floor as he was not yet used to sleeping on his own, and missed the cosy dormitory companionship of eighty other foundlings, all coughing, grunting and crying.
‘I was thinking about how everything would be fine.’
‘Me too.’
‘Actually I wasn’t.’
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