Darren Craske - The Eleventh Plague

As the rabble broke ranks and rushed to shake Quaint's hand and hug Madame Destine, the fortune-teller felt a great twinge inside her heart. The conjuror had made a vow that he would come back home to their family. She only hoped it would not become a vow that he was forced to break.

A short time later, Quaint was alone in his office onboard the circus locomotive, packing a large canvas bag. There was a gentle tapping against his door, almost too faint to be heard. The door opened slowly, Butter's wizened faced poking gingerly around it.

'Am I not intruding?' he asked.

Quaint smiled. If ever there were something to lift his spirits, it was Butter's cheerful demeanour. Although the cloud hanging over his head could not be ignored indefinitely, perhaps Butter might succeed in pushing it aside for a while.

'No, Butter,' replied Quaint, a trifle confused. 'I mean, yes, Butter. That is to say: no, you are not intruding. Come on in.'

Butter entered, seating himself upon the edge of Quaint's bunk. He pulled down the hood of his sealskin parka and fixed his dark eyes onto the conjuror's like a hound awaiting a scrap at his master's table.

'Something on your mind, Butter?' enquired Quaint.

'I wish to speak prior to your departure. Is that agreeable to you?' Butter asked, in his usual childlike fashion.

'My Inuit friend, it is most agreeable to me,' said Quaint, 'as long as you don't mind my continuing to pack as you talk. The Madame and I leave for Dover within the hour.'

'Indeed, and it is of your journey far that I wish to speak,' said Butter, toying with the fur trim of his sealskin parka, stoking his courage. 'You say I now take care of circus whilst you are gone away, yes? I wish to know how long please?'

'As long it takes,' replied Quaint gruffly. 'That poison could be halfway to Egypt by now, and my best bet is to try to stop it at the source. The Hades Consortium is a crafty pack of buggers, they'll have covered their tracks. Thankfully, I know the country well. I spent a lot of my time there back when I was with…' Quaint's eyes dimmed as an old reminiscence passed through his mind. 'Well…I mean, when I was a younger man.'

'And what am I to do whilst you are gone, boss?' the diminutive Inuit asked.

'You carry on as normal, of course. You're my deputy, Butter. I'm relying on you to hold the troops together in my absence.'

'But…what if I cannot live up to your example, boss?' asked Butter.

'I wouldn't expect you to,' smiled Quaint, with a pat on the Inuit's head. 'But you'll be perfectly fine. You won't be on your own. Ruby and Prometheus will be about if you need them, and there's always Yin, Yang and Kipo too. And then of course if you get really desperate you can always rely on the clowns…although for the life of me I can't imagine for what.'

Butter cocked his head. 'But why must Madame Destine go also?'

'To keep me from making a fool of myself, keep me on the right track, and to stop me from getting myself killed,' Quaint said, with a grin. 'Although, not necessarily in that order.'

Butter rose from the bunk and threw his arms around the conjuror, his stature bringing him just past Quaint's waist. The tall man looked down in surprise at such an unexpected display of affection.

'I think that I will miss you much, boss,' Butter sniffed.

'As I will you, my Inuit friend,' replied Quaint softly. 'As I will you all.'

'You will promise me something, yes?' Butter asked, looking up at Quaint eagerly.

'Anything!'

Butter gripped his fists tight together. 'Numbers one, you come back alive.'

'And number two?' asked Quaint.

'Numbers two, you punish the Hades Consortium for their bad plot.'

'You have my word, Butter,' said Cornelius Quaint, 'on both counts.'

The Terminal Introduction

THE DECEMBER WEATHER pulled no punches as Madame Destine and Cornelius Quaint stepped out of the horse-drawn carriage onto the crowded concourse that ran parallel to Dover's docks. The chill wind whipped in from the English Channel and scratched at Destine's cheeks, forcing the Frenchwoman to tighten her white headscarf.

Quaint paid the cab driver and looked up at the ice-white SS Silver Swan moored to the wharf, one of the first passenger steamships in existence. The tickets had cost Quaint an arm and a leg, but he would have paid the price twice over if it secured a swift passage to Egypt. A sailing vessel would have taken far too long for his needs, whereas the Silver Swan boasted that she could do the trip in half the time. It was a proud boast, but one that Quaint was willing to place his faith in. After all, time was a commodity in very short supply. With the mention of Al Fekesh, Egypt's most notorious port, it meant that intercepting the poison was an even greater priority. Little did the conjuror know that at that very moment, the poison was nowhere near Al Fekesh, or even anywhere near Egypt. In fact, it was as far away from Egypt as Quaint was.

Almost exactly to the yard, as it goes.

Heinrich Nadir pushed roughly past Quaint, jogging his elbow intentionally, as he bustled into the terminal dragging a large wooden trunk on a trolley.

Quaint gave him a scathing look. 'Excuse me!' he snapped, feeling Madame Destine's grip tighten on his arm.

Nadir spun around and his beady eyes flicked up and down, measuring his broad-shouldered mark. 'So sorry, sir! My trolley has a life of its own. You are sailing today onboard the Silver Swan I take it?'

'Oui, that is so,' Madame Destine confirmed.

'Ausgezeichnet!' said Nadir, rubbing his hands. 'Then I shall at least be guaranteed scintillating company upon the long voyage.'

'She gets that from me, thanks all the same,' said Quaint, taking an instant dislike to the German – and rightly so.

Madame Destine, on the other hand, prided herself on her propriety, and duly curtseyed by way of an apology. 'Please ignore my companion's lack of manners, monsieur. We have had a long and uncomfortable journey from London, and his temper is most fraught.'

'Ah! Well, I am certain that the journey will calm your temperament, sir,' said Nadir to Quaint. 'If there is one thing guaranteed to relax a body, it is sailing across the ocean. I wonder, Fraulein, perhaps we can meet for evening drinks after dinner? You and your fraught-tempered companion, of course.'

'We should be simply delighted, monsieur,' Destine replied, nudging the conjuror's ribs with her elbow. 'Would we not, my sweet?'

'Oh, yes…simply delighted,' cooed Quaint.

'My name is Heinrich Nadir,' said the German, removing his hat.

'Destine,' Madame said, offering the back of her hand.

Nadir accepted, planting his lips upon it. 'Enchante, Madame Destine! Until tonight then.' He picked up his trolley and idled away towards the check-in desk.

'What a polite man,' said Destine. 'Most sweet.'

'Yes, in that he's liable to rot your teeth,' Quaint said.

'Cornelius, shame on you,' scolded the Frenchwoman. 'He was being charming, a concept that it would not kill you to acquaint yourself with once in a while.'

'Oh, come on, Destine, don't tell me that he took your fancy. The man was obsequious! Not to mention the fact that you're old enough to be his-'

Madame Destine brandished her finger accusingly. 'I may not be able to see the future any more, Cornelius, but if you complete that sentence I can accurately predict that you will be in a considerable amount of pain in your nether regions!'

Quaint held up his hands. 'I was going to say…slightly older sister.'

'And for the record, he did not take my fancy! I was merely commenting on how polite he was. Companioning you, good manners are a rare commodity.'

Quaint lifted their luggage, and they breezed on towards the administration desk inside the terminal building. Standing in the queue, the French fortune-teller struck up a conversation with an elderly couple and, in a heartbeat, they were discussing wine, the weather and whist. Madame Destine was soon thriving on sociality and conversation, happily chatting to anyone within earshot without the slightest thought. As her companion, Quaint was reluctantly dragged into the conversation, and he glanced to the heavens as a doddery old lady offered him a sticky boiled sweet. Something told him that surviving the trip with his sanity intact was going to be a far bigger challenge than defeating the Hades Consortium…