The Great Troll War

Dinner

The restaurant in the Queens Hotel was offering a reduced-service buffet owing to circumstances, but had to keep their waiting staff on hand to assist the princesses, who didn’t know what a buffet was and, even when it was explained to them very, very slowly and in great detail, could not really get their royal heads around the concept of ‘waiting in a line and serving yourself’. After half an hour of fruitless explanations, the staff went and got their food for them, and everyone was happy.

The weather had worsened while I had been walking in town, and a small water spout had descended from the storm clouds a few hundred yards offshore. It moved in rapidly, picked up some salty old sea dogs who had been mending nets on the beach, and then blew them in tight orbits around the promenade outside the hotel. The gnarled men of the sea seemed entirely unfazed and presented us with a medley of sea shanties as they were blown past the dining-room windows. After five minutes of this, the clouds lifted, the water spout collapsed, the fishermen went back to their nets and it was a bright summer’s day again.

I selected some food and sat down at the table that had been reserved for the UnUnited Kingdoms government-in-exile. One of the other princesses tried to join us but was beaten to the last place by Once Magnificent Boo, who could move quite fast when she wanted to.

‘I found a female Troll hiding in a Mini,’ I said, and when I’d answered ‘no’ to the ‘did you put her to death without hesitation?’ question and ‘I don’t know’ to the ‘why was she in a Mini?’ question, I explained about the message from the Great Zambini on the back of her hand and added that I thought it needed further investigation.

‘If Trolls have a Hive Memory,’ cautioned the Princess, ‘anything she witnesses here could be useful intelligence to every other Troll.’

I told them I would take precautions.

‘It might be a trick,’ said Lady Mawgon.

‘I’m not sure Trolls do tricks,’ said Monty. ‘They’re more of a “go on a rampage and kill everything in sight” sort of creature.’

Everyone nodded in agreement. The Troll had little need or use for sneaky subterfuge; in fact, they positively hated it. When you met a Troll, there were few, if any, surprises. A meeting invariably went like this: capture, death, snack. The only real variation was the time interval between the three.

‘This Troll seems different,’ I said, ‘but I’ll be careful.’

‘Sorry I’m late,’ said Colin, padding up to the table on his hind legs and laying some photographs on the table. ‘Feldspar got a fix on where the Mighty Shandar was holed up, so I went on a photographic reconnaissance trip to have a look.’

He placed the pictures on the table and we pored over them.

‘Isn’t that … the Chrysler Building?’ I asked, staring at where the Art Deco New York skyscraper was now sprouting out of a cow field in Devon.

‘A full-size replica,’ he said. ‘I called the New York Tourist Information bureau and they said they weren’t missing one, although I did get them to go and check, just to be sure.’

‘The building is just north of Exeter,’ said Feldspar, ‘presumably for convenient access to the M5 inter-Kingdoms motorway.’

I stared at the pictures. Although incongruous, the seventy-seven storey Art Deco skyscraper was peculiarly lovely, with tasteful decoration in stone, glass and steel. If I had vast amounts of power and money and was an overly flamboyant character with a penchant for conspicuousness, I might have created something similar.

‘I flew lower for some oblique views too,’ added Colin, ‘but they’re a bit blurred as I was travelling quite fast.’

The skyscraper had steel shutters on the lower windows and main entrance, and what looked like a heavily guarded service entrance that gave handy access direct from the motorway.

‘How do we attack it?’ asked Tiger.

‘Right now I’m not sure we can,’ I said. ‘Shandar would detect a thermowizidrical device – even a small one – long before it got close enough to do any damage.’

‘And,’ said Lady Mawgon, ‘we don’t have enough crackle to levitate a chair, let alone build a TWD.’

‘What are the defences like?’ I asked.

‘Anti-aircraft fire opened up as soon as I was within a thousand yards,’ said Colin, taking a large handful of food and tipping it down his throat. ‘And look, you see these white dots scattered around outside the building?’

We looked at the picture closely. Although the image was blurred, I knew what they were.

‘Hollow Men,’ said the Princess, who had lost her right hand to one. ‘I hate Hollow Men.’

We’d battled Hollow Men before in the Cambrian Empire. They were basically dark suits and white shirts, a hat and a pair of gloves given life by the Mighty Shandar. When not in use they were simply a folded parcel of clothes with a hat on top, but would spring into life in a moment ready to do Shandar’s bidding.

‘Can we defeat them the same way we did last time?’ asked the Princess.

‘Without any magic we’re not doing much of anything,’ said Full Price. ‘The HENRY is sucking up the wizidrical energy as a sponge absorbs water. I tried mining my own life-force to see if I could utilise that in the same manner as Moobin,’ he said, ‘but I have nothing left on tap.’

Since magic was essentially based on emotional spirit, using one’s own remaining life-force was always a ready solution if you needed a lot of crackle in a short amount of time. It would, unfortunately, take years off your life – literally. My good friend Perkins had sacrificed himself in this manner during our adventure to find the Eye of Zoltar only a few weeks before. Wizard Moobin had done the same to construct the Button Trench. But I also knew what Full Price meant when he said he had ‘nothing left on tap’. His life would probably end soon – he was like a battery that was almost flat.

‘Firstly,’ I said, ‘no one is using up their own life to do magic. I’ve seen too much of that. Secondly, I’m sorry to hear you have nothing left on tap, Mr Price – how long do you have left?’

‘Not sure but not much,’ he said. ‘For any sorcery you’re going to have to rely on Lady Mawgon or the Mysterious X – that is, if he exists at all.’

We all looked at the Mysterious X, who wasn’t eating, obviously, but was just sitting on the table in his Kilner jar, the charged electrons glowing like glow-worms and moving languidly in orbit around one another. X’s existence was as nebulous now as it had ever been, but even with twenty sorcerers a lot more solid than X, they’d all be useless without any wizidrical energy.

‘I managed to salvage a couple of Dibble Jars35 from Zambini Towers after it was destroyed,’ said Tiger. ‘Any use?’

‘You are close to redeeming your worthlessness,’ said Lady Mawgon, which was about the closest thing to a compliment Tiger was ever likely to get. ‘They’ll hold about 720 KiloShandars of wizidrical energy each and are self-filling – all we need do is take them to the source of the HENRY.’

‘Good idea,’ I said. ‘We’ll leave at first light tomorrow for Dartmoor, and we’ll go by Dragon.’

Colin snorted two jets of milk out of his nostrils when I said this.

‘Wait, what?’ he said.

‘You and Feldspar can take us. You fly us in, we fill the jars and then you fly us back.’

‘Oh, so we’re just the same as carpets now, are we?’ said Colin.

‘Or little better than a horse?’ added Feldspar. ‘What do you want to put on us? Saddles? You might as well feed us with a nosebag.’

I looked at Tiger, who shrugged. Stupidly, we’d assumed that we could ride on them. Colin picked up on this immediately.

‘Oh, I get it,’ he said. ‘You think we’re being unreasonable? Well, it’s just that Dragons fit into so many humancentric stereotypes. When we’re not guarding princesses or turning knights to charcoal, we’re wise and thoughtful and ponderous – and then all meek and compliant, allowing ourselves to be flown. Is that how you see us?’

‘You do actually do all those things,’ said Tiger.

‘Maybe we do,’ said Colin, ‘but it’s not necessarily because we’re Dragons.’

‘Go and ask at Penzance International Airport,’ said Colin. ‘They’ve been flying refugees in all day. I heard there were so many light aircraft they’re pushing them into the sea to make room for new arrivals.’

‘Planes are too noisy,’ I said, ‘and we need to be able to land on a ha’penny.’

But the Dragons weren’t really listening.

‘Besides,’ said Feldspar, ‘how do you know you won’t fall off? All that “diving down to rescue you” stuff is only in the movies. If I try to pull steeply out of a dive the G-force would snap my wings like Twiglets, and all I’d be is a very large hole in the ground.’

‘What’s a Twiglet?’ said the Princess.

‘Honestly,’ said Once Magnificent Boo, ‘you two are such a bunch of fusspots.’

‘You try being the last of your kind,’ said Colin. ‘I didn’t ask to be a Dragon. I’d rather be a house painter, making people’s homes bright and cheery.’

‘And I want to run a restaurant,’ said Feldspar, ‘and say things like: “Good evening, madam, dinner or the bar?”’

And they then stared at the tablecloth in a sulky mood.

‘If we leave now in your car,’ said Tiger, ‘we could be in Dartmoor by—’

‘Oh, so now you don’t want us?’ said Colin. ‘Well, that’s really, really nice. A hazardous mission that could have far-reaching consequences and we get to sit on the sidelines?’

‘I thought you didn’t want to do it?’

‘We do want to do it,’ said Feldspar. ‘It’s just we don’t want to be expected to do it.’

And they both got up and went off, grumbling as they went.

‘What was that massive hissy fit all about?’ said the Princess.

‘They’re still young,’ I said. ‘Dragons can live over eight hundred years, so they’re toddlers for at least three decades. They’ll fly us to the HENRY, and risk themselves to do so.’

‘Good,’ said the Princess. ‘Let’s go and talk to that Troll of yours.’