The Song of the Quarkbeast

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?’[36]

‘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 pizzas[37] and camel’s ears in a bun,[38] 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.

‘They’ve got a replacement,’ said someone close by. ‘Jimmy Nuttjob will be setting himself on fire and then be fired high above the rooftops from an air cannon while yelling “God Save the King”.’

‘Probably hoping for a knighthood,’ said his friend.

‘Definitely – but there must be easier ways to do it,’ replied the first man.

We worked our way to the front, where the barriers had been erected to keep the crowds from any passive spelling, and Tiger and I showed our IDs to the police on duty. We were permitted to pass, and moved towards a small gaggle of people standing right on the edge of the bridge’s north abutment, close to where the royal observation box had been built.

‘Ah!’ said Blix. ‘The defenders approach.’

He was standing with the rest of iMagic’s staff: a weaselly character in ill-fitting clothes named Tchango Muttney, the well-dressed Dame Corby, who wore far more jewellery than was good for her, and Samantha Flynt, who was fantastically pretty, but not that bright. I knew this because she had put her pretty floral dress on back to front. Perkins, I noticed, was not with them, but Colonel Bloch-Draine was, and he nodded a gruff greeting in my direction.

‘No sorcerers to help you?’ asked Blix sarcastically.

‘Won’t be much of a contest, will it?’ I said.

‘On the contrary,’ replied Lord Tenbury, who was hovering close at hand, ‘the best contest requires only a winner – not necessarily any competition.’

‘And how do you think the crowd will react when they find that the potential winner has no opposition?’

‘The people will not riot,’ said Tenbury confidently. ‘After all, a one-sided contest should be cosily familiar to any resident who has ever voted in a Kingdom of Snodd election.’[39]

We stopped talking because a colourful parade was approaching from down the street. There was a shiny brass band, several horsemen, and a retinue of hangers-on before the Royal Family arrived in a gilded open-top carriage. Everyone, including me, knelt before our monarch as the carriage stopped and a handy duke offered himself to be used as a step. The King and Queen were accompanied by the two Spoilt Royal Children, His Royal Petulantness the Crown Prince Steve, who was twelve, and Her Royal Odiousness Princess Shazza, who was fifteen. As their accolades suggested, they were horribly spoiled and spent much of their time stamping their feet and wanting things. No governess ever lasted longer than twenty-six and three-quarter minutes.

As soon as they had descended from the carriage, a deafening alarum sounded from thirty buglers all dressed traditionally as badgers, and the royal family walked slowly up to where we stood, waving at the citizenry while one of their footmen tossed coin vouchers into the crowd. They used to throw coins until the King discovered that his ungrateful subjects were spending the cash in non-Snodd-owned shops. The ‘Alms Vouchers’ are redeemable only in Snoddco’s, the well-known and wholly substandard superstore.

‘Ah!’ said the King. ‘Lord Tenbury and our Court Mystician. Good to see you both. I trust we are to see some sport this morning, hmm? Brave of you to turn up, Miss Strange.’

Since we had been spoken to, protocol dictated we could now stand. I couldn’t help noticing that Queen Mimosa was looking around for something. I took a deep breath.

‘I would be failing in my duty,’ I said nervously, ‘if I did not lodge a formal complaint over the fairness of this contest.’

‘Your displeasure is noted, Miss Strange,’ said the King. ‘We will glance at your complaint some time next year. Shall we proceed?’

‘Not yet,’ said the Queen, staring at me. ‘Are you Jennifer Strange?’

‘A foundling, my dear,’ said the King in an unsubtle aside, ‘unsuitable for a queen’s conversation.’

‘Shut up, Frank. Miss Strange, where is the Kazam team?’

There was a deathly hush.

‘Let us take our seats, my dear,’ said the King, ‘I feel the—’

‘Your team, Miss Strange?’

‘In prison, Your Majesty,’ I said, curtsying, ‘awaiting a hearing on Monday.’

‘I see.’

Queen Mimosa glared at the King, who seemed to shrink under her withering look.

‘Are you meaning to tell me that you have imprisoned the entire Kazam team in order to guarantee a victory?’

‘Not at all,’ said the King, ‘it was entirely coincidental. They were all brigands and villains and scallywags and lawbreakers. Is that not so, Court Mystician?’

‘Up to a point, Majesty, yes, I think we are agreed on that.’

‘One of their number attacked the castle last night,’ added Lord Tenbury, ‘and caused considerable damage to the palace.’

‘Poppycock,’ said Queen Mimosa. ‘I saw the whole thing. A single unarmed carpet rescued someone from the High North Tower. Any damage was done by your own gunners.’

‘And they will be roundly punished, along with the sorcerers we have in custody. I think I have shown considerable restraint – I could have put them all to death, but instead I showed mercy – like you tell me to, pumpkin.’

‘The charges are quite serious, my Queen,’ said Tenbury, but Queen Mimosa raised a finger and he stopped. I noticed, too, that all the courtiers and hangers-on had taken a pace backwards and were finding something else to do. Queen Mimosa moved closer to her husband and lowered her voice.

‘Listen here, you inbred, pompous little twit,’ she said. ‘I didn’t arrange with Mother Zenobia to have the bridge rebuilt in aid of the Troll War Widows’ Fund to have you hijack it for your own money-grabbing agenda. Release the Kazam sorcerers immediately, or I will make life so unpleasant that you will wish to have been born a foundling.’

‘We will discuss this later, my dear.’

‘We are discussing it now,’ she said with a look of thunder that would have impressed Lady Mawgon, ‘and do you doubt for even one second that I would not do as I say?’

The King took a deep breath and puffed out his cheeks. He looked around at the ten thousand or so subjects who were eagerly awaiting the start of the contest. It looked to me as though the King knew only too well that Queen Mimosa could make his life very unpleasant indeed.

‘Lord Tenbury,’ said the King, ‘I think we owe it to the citizenry of Snodd to put on a good show. They have come to see a magical contest, and they shall. Release the wizards. I command it.’

Blix and Tenbury looked shocked at the turn of events, and exchanged desperate glances. There was a very good reason why they had nobbled Kazam. iMagic were rubbish and did not have a hope of winning. In a panic, Lord Tenbury did the first thing he could think of – he started patting his pockets in an absent-minded way.

‘If you are going to claim you’ve lost the keys to the city jail, Lord Chief Adviser,’ snarled the King in a low voice while smiling and waving to the crowd, ‘I will put your head on a spike and have dogs gnaw at your corpse.’

‘Here they are,’ said Lord Tenbury, suddenly finding the keys. ‘I will see to your instructions this moment.’

‘Happy now, pumpkin?’ said the King to Queen Mimosa.

‘I love it when you do the right thing, bunny-wunny,’ she said, tweaking his royal ear affectionately.

Queen Mimosa took her leave with the bickering Spoilt Royal Children while the King hung back for a moment.

‘If Kazam win,’ he said to both Blix and Tenbury, ‘I will have you both stuffed with sawdust while still alive and then use you for bayonet practice. Do you understand?’

He didn’t wait for a reply, and turned to me with such a hateful glare that I took an involuntary step backwards. But he made no comment, and turned to join his family, who were all present to view the contest – even his Useless Brother, the royal hanger-on cousins and his odd-looking mother, the Duck-faced Dowager Duchess of Dinmore.

The King stepped up to the royal microphone and gave a long rambling speech that made reference to how proud he was that the hard toil of a blindly trustful citizenry kept him and his family in the lap of luxury while war widows begged on the street, and how he thanked providence that he had been blessed to rule over a nation whose inexplicable tolerance towards corrupt despots was second to none.

The speech was well received and some citizens were even moved to tears. Once done, he ordered that the contest begin.

‘We’ll still thrash you,’ said Blix to me, ‘and if you’re worried about your darling boyfriend, he’s quite safe for the moment.’

My heart suddenly fell. Perkins had been rumbled.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘No? Here.’

And he passed me the left-handed conch that we’d given Perkins.

‘If any harm comes to him,’ I said between gritted teeth, ‘I will hold you personally responsible.’

‘Oh, oh, I’m so frightened,’ replied Blix sarcastically. ‘Now piss off. Haven’t you got some wizards to spring from jail?’

‘I’ll be back with help,’ I said. ‘You’ll be thrashed. And just for the record, he’s not my boyfriend.’

Blix laughed and had his first two stones fitted even before Lord Tenbury’s car arrived to take us to fetch Moobin and the others.