The Song of the Quarkbeast

by Jasper Fforde

  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,’1 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.

  * * *

  1 Visions were not allocated code numbers until late 1973, something that had been long overdue. The main reason was to enable precogs to calculate an official strike rating, and thus a logical scale of payment.

  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.’

  ‘No,’ said Tiger, ‘neither was I.’

  I went downstairs after my bath and wandered into the office. I made myself a cup of tea and sat down, deep in thought.

  ‘You seem sad,’ came a low voice with a sing-song Scandinavian lilt to it, ‘is everything okay?’

  I turned to find the Transient Moose staring at me.

  ‘You can talk?’

  ‘Three languages,’ replied the Moose, ‘Swedish, English and a smattering of Persian.’

  ‘Why haven’t you spoken before?’

  The Moose gave a toss of its antlers that I took to be a moosian shrug.

  ‘No one here really shares any of my interests, so there’s not much to say.’

  ‘What are your interests?’

  ‘Snow . . . female moose . . . grazing . . . getting enough sodium and potassium in my diet . . . snow . . . avoiding being run over . . . snow . . . female moose . . . snow.’

  ‘You’re not likely to be run over in here,’ I said, ‘or find snow or a female moose – and you don’t need sodium, since you’re a spell.’

  ‘As I said,’ said the Moose, ‘not much to talk about. Did you like my thinness enchantment?’

  ‘That was you?’ I asked, with some surprise.

  ‘I didn’t like the way they kept on taking the sorcerers away,’ he said simply, ‘so I used that thing that didn’t want to be found to increase my power.’

  He nodded towards where the terracotta pot and ring were located in my desk, and I took them out and stared at them. It still didn’t make any sense.

  ‘How is this working?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ replied the Moose. ‘It’s suffused with emotional power. Loss, hatred, betrayal – you name it. I can almost hear the screams.’

  ‘Negative emotional energy? A curse?’

  The Moose gave another toss of its antlers.

  ‘Sort of. But good or bad, I can tap into it and draw as much power as I want. It’s like having a sorcerer, sitting right there in that pot.’

  I had an idea. It was a long shot, admittedly.

  ‘What are you like at building bridges?’

  ‘Well,’ said the Moose after some reflection, ‘we weren’t talking to the Siberian elk for a while after the whole cash-for-wolves scandal, and I was instrumental in bringing them to the negotiating table. I was alive then, of course, and real.’

  ‘I didn’t mean building bridges as in “making people talk to one another”, I meant building bridges as in “actually building bridges”.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the Moose, ‘you meant literally, rather than metaphorically.’

  I nodded, and the Moose gave out a short whinnying noise.

  ‘What a suggestion,’ it said. ‘A moose, building a bridge?’

  It paused for a moment, then asked why I wanted it to build a bridge, so I told it all about the contest and it said that it thought something odd was going on, but wasn’t sure, and I said that it could be sure that something was, and asked it if it thought it might be able to help.

  ‘There’s a lot of power coming out of that terracotta pot,’ said the Moose thoughtfully, ‘probably enough to build a bridge.’

  I stood up. Perhaps all was not lost.

  ‘You need to come and see the remains of the bridge. The contest starts in half an hour.’

  ‘Leave the building?’ said the Moose in a horrified tone. ‘Out of the question. I haven’t been outside since it first opened as the Majestic Hotel in 1815.’

  ‘Have you tried?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘No. And that’s not the point,’ said the Moose in the manner of a moose that had realised it was very much the point. ‘I’m not leaving the hotel and that’s final.’

  ‘Agoraphobic?’1

  ‘No thanks, I’ve already eaten.’

  ‘I heard,’ I began slowly, ‘that there is some snow outside – and a female moose. Not to mention some sodium. And most of the town centre is pedestrianised so you won’t have to worry about being run over by a car.’

  ‘I’m only a spell,’ said the Moose wistfully, ‘I only think those things are important. It’s the Mandrake Sentience Protocols. I know I’m not real, but I think I am. In any event, I’m not going outside.’

  ‘Final?’

  ‘Final.’

  And it vanished.

  I sighed. It was worth a try, but we were back to square one again. No sorcerers to do the contest. Not one.

  ‘So let’s talk about something else,’ continued the Moose, reappearing as suddenly as it had left. ‘Are you going to go out on a date with the young wizard with the tufty hair?’

  ‘How do you know about me and Perkins?’

  ‘It’s all they talk about,’ he said, looking upwards, presumably at the retired ex-sorcerers in the building. This was news to me, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to be the subject of bored sorcerer tittle-tattle.

  ‘It’s complicated.’

  ‘Love always is,’ said the Moose, sighing forlornly. ‘I’m only a
vague facsimile of a moose once living, but I share some of his emotions. Ach, how I miss Liesl and the calves.’

  ‘Who are you talking to?’ asked Tiger, who had just appeared at the door.

  ‘The Moose.’

  I pointed at the Moose, who simply stared at me, then at Tiger.

  ‘You were saying . . .?’ I said to the Moose, but it just looked at me blankly, and then slowly faded from view.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Tiger asked.

  ‘I’ve been better. Come on, let’s go and show some dignity before we get trashed. How do I look?’

  I had put on my best dress for the event, and Tiger was wearing a tie and had combed his hair. We would at least make an appearance at the start for good form’s sake.

  We stepped out of the building after making quite sure that Margaret ‘The Fib’ O’Leary was looking after the front door to enable us to get back in. Margaret was one of our ‘hardly mad at all’ sorcerers, and also one of the least powerful – she could tell the most whopping great lies and, by skilled distortion of facts and appearances, make you believe them wholeheartedly. As a party trick she would convince guests that down was in fact up, then laugh as everyone started fretting that they might fall on to the ceiling.

  Many people had taken a day off work to come and view the contest, and the road leading towards the medieval bridge now resembled something more akin to a fairground. There were barbecues selling roadkill pizzas2 and camel’s ears in a bun,3 and traders selling merchandise such as hats, King Snodd action figures that threatened to execute you when you pulled a string, and T-shirts with unfunny slogans like: ‘My dad went to a magic contest and all I got in our damp hovel was bronchitis’. There were tents with Travelling Knee Replacement Surgeons, sideshows where you could gawk at ‘Gordon, the amazing two-headed boy’ and other ‘Quirks of Nature’. There was also a tent where you could pay half a moolah to view parts of a Troll pickled in a large jar.

  ‘Do you have a half-moolah coin?’ asked Tiger.

  ‘Don’t even think about it.’

  As we moved closer to the bridge we could already see the flag-wavers, jugglers, tumblers and ventriloquists performing to entertain the crowds until the warm-up act started, and we overheard in passing that the half-time bear-debating event was cancelled as the bear had come over all mellow and wasn’t up for an argument.