Jasper Fforde - The Song of the Quarkbeast

It was the Amazing Conrad Blix, chief wizard and managing director of iMagic.

We looked at one another coldly. The disdain wasn’t just mine, it was universal. Blix thought it was because his grandfather had been the much-hated Blix the Hideously Barbarous and we were being needlessly prejudiced over his power-mad descendant, but the truth was more prosaic: he just wasn’t very likeable.

‘Have trouble with a spell this morning?’ he asked.

I hoped my consternation didn’t show.

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Several blips on the Shandargraph that were centred on Zambini Towers,’ he said, ‘One large dip at eleven fifteen that you kindly warned me about, several more ten minutes later, a pause and then a massive drain that almost flatlined the trace. It looked suspiciously like somebody got into trouble, and another tried to reverse it. They failed and then everyone tried together. Yes?’

He was entirely correct.

‘Not at all,’ I replied, ‘we were simply limbering up for the bridge gig on Friday. There’ll be some heavy lifting to do, and Patrick of Ludlow can’t be expected to shoulder all the work on his own.’

I could see Blix didn’t believe me, but I had other things on my mind. Not least, why was Blix buddying up with Lord Tenbury? I smelled a rat, and suspected it would not be long in making an appearance.

‘We haven’t met,’ said Blix to Perkins, so I apologised and introduced them.

‘I humble myself in your presence, sire,’ said Perkins politely, for irrespective of how you viewed him, Blix was still a skilled practitioner. ‘I saw you a few years back levijuggling [23] A mixture of levitation and juggling. Although not of any huge practical use, it is a measure of a practitioner’s skill. To levitate one or ten objects is easy; to make them all do different things when in the air takes considerable power and concentration. The Mighty Shandar could reputedly also do Blix’s trick but with bison. Remarkable to behold, but what the bison thought about it was not recorded. Owing to constraints within the ARAMAIC-128 notation required in the enchantment, thirty-two objects is the maximum anyone can work with. thirty-two billiard balls. Each in entirely separate orbits and speeds. It was quite something.’

‘Too kind,’ replied Blix with a bow.

‘That’s enough preamble,’ said Lord Tenbury, ‘and with His Eminence Ruprecht Sawduzt Snodd’s approval, we should look at Mr Perkins’ application.’

‘Who?’ asked Blix and I, almost at the same time, and Tenbury pointed at the King’s Useless Brother, who was doodling absently on the blotter.

‘Oh,’ we said, not considering that he even had a name.

Lord Tenbury pressed a button on the intercom and asked for Miss Smith to be sent in. I saw Blix stiffen when Tenbury mentioned her name, and I felt my pulse quicken, too. The door opened and an upright woman in early middle age with a shock of white hair walked in. Her eyes were so dark they seemed empty, and an undefinable damp silence of the sort you get in caves moved in with her.

‘Thank you – um – for joining us, Miss Smith,’ said Tenbury, shivering as he spoke.

‘Right,’ she replied, glaring at Blix with her dark eyes so savagely I saw the colour drain from his cheeks.

This was Miss Boolean Smith, once known as ‘the Magnificent Boo’ and a powerful independent sorceress of considerable talents until kidnapped by anti-magic extremists. She had never practised again following her release, nor revealed why. The only time she did anything related to magic was in her usual job as Beastmaster, and at times like this: she was Infernal Affairs’ nominated adjudicator, and would ensure that no trickery influenced Perkins’ practical demonstrations. It would be simplicity itself to have another wizard outside doing spells on Perkins’ account, or even a disgruntled wizard attempting to thwart Perkins with a jam, and Boo was there to detect any chicanery.

‘It is with much pleasure that I meet you again,’ I said, since we had spoken occasionally on the subject of Quarkbeasts, on which she was an expert. ‘May I present Cadet Perkins?’

The Once Magnificent Boo glared at Cadet Perkins but did not shake his outstretched hand. She never did – not with anyone.

‘I am much honoured,’ said Perkins, trying to avoid her jet-black eyes.

‘Then you honour too easily,’ she replied before turning to Blix. ‘Still drowning puppies, Conrad?’

‘That was never proved,’ replied Blix as the temperature in the room lowered another two degrees.

‘Pleasantries are over,’ said Tenbury nervously, ‘The paperwork, if you please, Miss Strange.’

I presented the paperwork to Ruprecht, who stared at it absently for a few seconds before Tenbury checked it and then passed it to Once Magnificent Boo, who grunted her approval.

‘You may proceed,’ said Tenbury.

‘This is my chosen spell from Group “A”,’ announced Perkins, as the Useless Brother and the chair he was sitting in elevated several feet, rotated once slowly, and then settled back down again.

‘Gosh,’ said the Useless Brother.

‘Accepted,’ said Boo.

Over the next twenty minutes, Perkins undertook several other acts of enchantment, which by their variety and scope demonstrated his understanding of the arts. He changed the colour of water in a jug to blue, made a light bulb glow without wires, and took off his own T-shirt without removing his shirt, which, while sounding easy, is actually one of the hardest to do in Group ‘C’. In fact, he managed all of the tasks without a problem and to Boo’s approval, and after several more assorted enchantments we were ready to hear any arguments opposing his application. This is where I expected Blix to drum up some technicality and block us, perhaps in retaliation for our observation that iMagic’s Samantha Flynt was less than perfect when doing her magic feats, and conducting the test in a swimsuit was pointless and demeaning to the profession and women in general. He could have tried to block us, but he didn’t.

‘We have no objections to Mr Perkins’ application.’

This was suspicious – mostly because that’s what any reasonable person might have said, and Blix was rarely, if ever, reasonable.

Perkins was now ready to undertake his last act of sorcery, which was to be a Class Six enchantment of one’s own invention that ‘was to show originality, flair, and must be between one and three thousand Shandars’.

‘For my final enchantment,’ declared Perkins, ‘I will set distant dogs barking.’

‘What?’ said the Useless Brother. ‘That’s it? This is most unsatisfactory. I was hoping for a shower of mice or conjuring up a marshmallow the size of my head or something.’

‘It does sound a bit . . easy,’ added Lord Tenbury.

‘I concur that it sounds lame,’ said Perkins, ‘but making distant dogs bark is a spell of considerable subtlety that combines distance, canine mind control and pinpoint selectivity.’

‘Cadet Perkins is correct,’ said Once Magnificent Boo quietly, ‘the test is valid.’

‘Very well,’ said Lord Tenbury. ‘Proceed.’

‘Yes,’ said the Useless Brother. ‘Proceed.’

We stepped out on to the ramparts outside the Ministry of Infernal Affairs office, a section of flat lead roof on the high outer wall of the castle. Eight storeys below us was the inner courtyard, and from our lofty perch we could see the Dragonlands, a vast tract of unspoiled land, untrod by humans for over four centuries and now home to the only two Dragons on the planet, Feldspar Axiom Firebreath IV, and Colin. [24] Colin is the smaller of the two if you ever meet. At the time of the events surrounding the bridge gig they were spending a fortnight in Washington, DC, reading the entire literary output of mankind at the Library of Congress, in order to better understand the species. They thought it ‘in general a charming read, but tending towards monotony’. This is the principal reason they do not feature in this story.