The Song of the Quarkbeast

Bridge building

‘So which two do you want released?’ asked Lord Tenbury as soon as we had arrived outside the city jail, a large stone building to the north of the city which was known ironically as the ‘Hereford Hilton’, much to the annoyance of the real Hereford Hilton, which coincidentally was only two doors down, something that worked to the advantage of the prisoners when pizza deliveries were misdirected.

‘I was under the impression His Majesty specifically requested all were to be released,’ I pointed out.

‘Then you understand little of the role of Lord Chief Adviser. My duty is to serve my King the best way I can and interpret his orders as I see fit. Two sorcerers. Choose now.’

I could see it was the best deal I was going to get, and every second spent arguing was a second wasted.

‘The Wizard Moobin,’ I said without hesitation, ‘and . . . Patrick of Ludlow.’

Lord Tenbury relayed the orders to the jailer, told us we could make our way back to the bridge and was gone. After waiting half an hour, in which I had serious doubts that Tenbury would keep his word, the pair of them emerged blinking into the daylight. They had their lead finger-cuffs removed and within a few seconds we were in a taxi heading back towards the bridge.

‘Well done,’ said Moobin, brushing the dirt, earwigs and other prison detritus from his jacket.

‘Don’t thank me,’ I said, annoyed with myself that I had done so little, ‘thank Queen Mimosa.’

‘She’s an ex-sorcerer herself,’ he said. ‘I think she has a soft spot for us. Who else do we have on the team?’

‘You two are it.’

Team Kazam were going be severely underpowered. I told them what had happened since they had been imprisoned. That Mawgon was still stone, her passthought unbroken; that Perkins had been captured during an attempt to uncover a missing vision; that the Moose had turned out to be semi-self-aware and was the agent behind the ‘infinite thinness’ spell, and that Zambini hadn’t really been much help – although it had been good to see him.

‘The Moose drawing power from a ring?’ said Moobin incredulously. ‘From a band of gold, the single most boringly non-reactive metal on the planet?’

‘Zambini was surprised too.’

‘Well, it’s not important right now,’ he said as the taxi dropped us as close as it could to the south bridge abutment. ‘We’re going to have to wing it a bit and break a few rules. The future of Kazam is in the balance and we have to work together if we’re to have any chance of survival. Now listen carefully . . .’

As Tiger took the cab back to Zambini Towers to put the plan in motion, Moobin, myself and Patrick surveyed the wreckage of what had once been a stone bridge with five arches supported by four piers. iMagic had already had an hour’s start, and the bridge piers on their side were already cleared of old rubble and three feet above the level of the river. The stones were moving about the site steadily, to many ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ from the onlookers. It took a moment for us to be seen by the audience, but when they did there was a sudden hush and then a cheer. Blix’s past history of hasty, substandard wizidrical building work had spread about the town, and severely dented his popularity. As the cheer echoed around the area, Patrick lifted ten pieces of cut stone from the river bed simultaneously, then moved them in a long procession to be stacked for later insertion in the bridge.

The crowd went wild at this, and the scoreboard, which was offering up-to-the-second live betting odds, had us up from ‘1000: 1’ against to ‘500:1’ against. Not great, but an improvement. I saw Patrick hold on to a crowd barrier for support after his exertions. He would not have attempted such a feat without Moobin requesting it – the purpose was to make the iMagic team nervous. It worked. Two stones that were about to be placed dropped with a heavy splash into the river as the iMagic team momentarily lost concentration.

‘Patrick will need continuous food if he does most of the heavy lifting,’ said Moobin, exercising each of his index fingers in readiness, ‘and check to see how Tiger is getting on.’

I needed no second bidding. I called a street urchin out of the crowd and deputised him on to the Kazam team in order to keep Patrick and Moobin supplied with constant water and food, and told him to find a seamstress to repair their clothes ‘on the fly’ as continuous heavy spelling unravels stitching.[40]

‘To battle,’ said Moobin as he walked across the scaffolding footbridge that ran parallel to the stone bridge. He lifted stones from the rubble with a relaxed movement of his hands, and sorted them into categories of dressed, rubble and ornate, ready to be put back into the bridge. It was mostly bravado. As with Patrick, it took a lot more power then he made out. If they tried to keep it up like this they’d be exhausted long before our half of the bridge was finished.

‘Surprised to see me, Blix?’ said Moobin as they met in the middle.

‘It won’t make any difference,’ Blix sneered back, ‘the team are on a roll.’

It certainly appeared that way. iMagic were now starting on their first arch.

‘We’ll see.’

They parted to continue their work while I hurried off to see how Tiger was doing.

Zambini Towers is located in the tight network of streets near the cathedral, and was no more than a three-minute jog from the bridge. By the time I got there Tiger was already organising the retired sorcerers, wizards and enchanters into teams to transfer the wizidrical power from the housebound Transient Moose all the way down to the bridge.

To accomplish this we placed two sorcerers at each street corner from the Towers to the bridge. One index finger of a sorcerer would pick up the crackle, and the other would send it on to the next. It was what was known as a daisy-chain, and the residents were all fully aware of how it worked – and were in teams of two only so that they could relieve one another when they got tired, and have someone to remind them what they were meant to be doing.

‘How’s it going?’ I asked.

‘Almost done,’ replied Tiger, ‘but you need to speak to the Moose yourself – he just stares blankly at me.’

I found the Moose in the lobby, gazing at the spreading boughs of the oak tree that was growing there.

‘Was this here yesterday?’ he asked.

‘It’s been there for almost twenty years,’ I replied.

‘Well I never. What can I do for you?’

The thinness enchantment was no longer required as the contest had begun, and it didn’t take long to convince the Moose to channel the power from the small terracotta pot towards the bridge – or to be more precise, to Edgar Znorpp at the front entrance, who would then pass it across to Roger Limpet waiting on the street outside – and from him to Julian Shedmaker on the corner.

‘Just say when,’ replied the Moose with a carefree toss of its antlers, ‘and Moobin and Patrick will be able to draw as much power as I can extract from that pot.’

‘Will you be all right?’ I asked.

‘Never better,’ he replied, ‘and thanks for asking.’

I told Tiger to stand by for my signal, then visited all our retired sorcerers on the way to the bridge to check they were set and ready. It would take only a minor lapse in concentration on the part of one to break the chain. Margaret O’Leary was last in line, and chosen specifically because she was the least bonkers and the best liar in case anyone asked what she was up to.

‘Don’t let it flow to the iMagic team by accident,’ I said, and she assured me she would not. I signalled to Moobin and Patrick, who were watching me, then spoke to Tiger through the conch to instruct the Moose to start channelling.

I saw Margaret stiffen slightly as the power started to flow through her. Her plait unravelled, and both earrings fell from her ears. She didn’t even notice.

‘Wow,’ she said with a smile, ‘that’s good crackle. Can I pinch some to deal with a few grey hairs?’

‘At the end, if all goes well.’

I watched Moobin and Patrick as the power flowed through to them, and the effect was almost instantaneous. Moobin lifted two stones from one of the piles in unison and clicked them into place on the far side of the bridge as easily as if it were Lego. There was a gasp from the crowd, a resounding cheer and our odds on the scoreboard rose from 500:1 to 50:1 against. I breathed a small sigh of relief. At least we were now actually in the game, even if far behind. The iMagic team completed their first arch within half an hour and then moved on to the next.

I spent the next hour moving up and down the daisy-chain to ensure all was well and that the areas between the sorcerers remained relatively clear and no one lingered too long within the streams – passive spelling was a very real risk, and it sapped power. There was a minor hiccup when a van parked in the way and we had to interrupt the stream while we moved the sorcerers across to the other side of the road, but it all worked, and within that hour we accelerated to being only one arch behind iMagic.

‘Impressive,’ said Blix as I walked past him with some chocolate for Patrick, ‘but you can’t keep up that rate of sustained spelling for ever.’

‘We’ll see.’

Tiger and I spent our time making sure that the sorcerers were kept cool by drinking gallons – and I mean gallons – of iced water, as simply being a conduit for wizidrical energy without actually using it made one grow hot, as a wire does with an electrical current passing through. We also had to ensure that the changeovers went smoothly when, predictably enough, they needed a visit to the bathroom. And all this subtly, without alerting Blix as to what we were up to. Within another twenty minutes we had drawn level with iMagic, and half an hour after that we had passed them. We were now in the lead, something reflected by the odds on the leader board and much to the delight of the crowd, but not the King, who sat in the royal box, tapping his fingers impatiently on his second-best throne.

Blix paused for a moment and walked over. He looked at us both in turn, then gave a rare smile.

‘Where are you getting all this power?’

‘Skill, hard work and efficient use of resources,’ replied Moobin. ‘You should try it some day.’

‘Very funny.’

He thought for a moment, then abruptly changed his manner.

‘Okay, here it is, with me eating humble pie: congratulations. You’ve bested me.’

Moobin and I looked at one another.

‘A trick of some sort, Blix?’ asked Moobin, not pausing for one second in placing a carved piece of stone in place. ‘We’re barely half an arch ahead.’

‘We’re almost worn out,’ Blix replied. ‘Corby and Muttney have been . . . disappointing. Perhaps we can negotiate my defeat so I am not utterly humiliated?’

It seemed an astonishing request, given his own deceitful conduct. In answer, Moobin was firm, but clear.

‘We will give you the same courtesy and kindness you gave us, Blix.’

‘How unpleasant of you,’ Blix said after a pause. ‘What happened to all the “brother wizard” stuff?’

‘It evaporated when you had us all thrown into jail.’

‘Really?’ Blix asked, as though it had only just occurred to him that we might be annoyed. ‘Yes, I suppose it might have. Never mind. I will go and draft a letter conceding my position. But irrespective, we should finish the bridge, yes? A good show for the King and the citizenry?’

‘I agree,’ said Wizard Moobin suspiciously.

Blix gave us another smile and moved off to speak to the colonel, who had been hovering close at hand.

‘I strongly suggest that we don’t relax for a moment,’ I said as soon as Blix and the colonel had departed, seemingly in some haste. ‘I smell a very large Blix-shaped rat that is up to something.’

‘I agree,’ said Moobin. ‘But what?’

I didn’t answer, and left them to carry on while the iMagic team, now without their leader, began to fall farther and farther behind. By the time we had the second arch more or less finished, the odds on the scoreboard made us the clear favourites and iMagic merely washed up old has-beens. But just as we were about to start on our final arch, something happened.