Jasper Fforde - The Last Dragonslayer

‘And the Mighty Shandar is where we get the base measurement of wizidrical power—the Shandar?’

‘That’s about the tune of it.’

‘But there are others, surely? Out there, doing normal jobs, who have this power?’

‘Several hundred, I imagine,’ I replied, ‘but without a licence to practise they’d have to be either very stupid or very desperate to start chucking spells around. The relationship between sorcerers and citizenry has always been strained, and only the food industry has more regulations. To perform magic of any kind you have to have a Certificate of Conformity—a licence to say that you are of sound mind and not possessed of a soul that could be turned to using Arts for evil. Once that particular hurdle has been crossed you have to be accredited to a licensed “House of Enchantment”. There are only two at present—Kazam and Industrial Magic over in Stroud. After that, each spell has to be logged on a form B2-5C for anything below a thousand Shandars, a B1-7G form for spells not exceeding ten thousand Shandars, and a form P4-7D for those in excess of ten thousand Shandars.’

‘That would be a seriously big spell,’ said Tiger.

‘Bigger than you and I will ever see. The last P4-7D job was signed off in 1947, when they built the Thames Tidal Barrage. There was a lot more power about in those days, but even so it took a consortium of twenty-six sorcerers, and the wizidrical power peaked at 1.6 MegaShandars. It was said metal grew too hot to touch within a twenty-mile radius, and children’s sandpits turned to glass. They evacuated the local area for a job that size, naturally.’

Tiger blinked at me in wonder. Magic wasn’t generally talked about. Despite the obvious advantages, it was still regarded with suspicion by most people. Re-inventing sorcery as a useful commodity akin to electricity or even the fourth emergency service was something Mr Zambini had been most keen on.

‘What if someone did?’ he asked. ‘Commit an act of illegal sorcery, I mean?’

I took a deep breath and stared at him.

‘It’s about the only thing the twenty-eight nations of the Ununited Kingdoms agree upon. Any unlicensed act of sorcery committed outside the boundaries of a House of Enchantment is punishable by... public burning.’

Tiger looked shocked.

‘I know,’ I said, ‘an unwelcome legacy from the fourteenth century. Highly unpleasant. And that’s why you, me, we, everyone , has to be extra diligent when filling out the forms. Miss something or forget to file it and you’re responsible for a good friend’s hideous punishment. We lost George Nash four years ago. A lovely man and a skilled practitioner. What he couldn’t tell you about smoke manipulation wasn’t worth knowing. He was doing a routine earthworm charming and his B1-7G form wasn’t filled in. Someone’s eye wasn’t on the ball.’

Tiger tilted his head on one side.

‘That’s why you don’t talk about her, isn’t it?’

Tiger was smart. Mother Zenobia had sent us the best.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘the fifth foundling’s name isn’t spoken under this roof.’

We both sat in silence for a moment, the only sound the panting of the Quarkbeast, the chewing of the Transient Moose and the occasional sip, from us, of hot chocolate.

Tiger, I guessed, was probably thinking the same as me. About being a foundling. We were left outside the Convent of the Blessed Ladies of the Lobster before we were even old enough to talk. We didn’t know our true birth dates, and our names weren’t the ones we were born with. I think that’s why Tiger had guessed that the fifth foundling was the one responsible for George Nash. There is no greater insult among foundlings than to refuse to acknowledge the one thing that you value more than anything else—your name.

‘Did you ever try to find out?’ asked Tiger.

He meant my parents.

‘Not yet,’ I replied. Some of us built them up and were disappointed, others built them down so they wouldn’t be. All of us thought about them.

‘Any clues?’

‘My Volkswagen,’ I replied. ‘It was abandoned with me in it. I’m going to find out its previous owners when I become a citizen. You?’

‘My only clue was a weekday return to Carlisle and a medal,’ replied Tiger, ‘placed in my basket when I was left outside the convent. It was a Fourth Troll Wars campaign medal with a Valour clasp.’

We sat in silence for a moment.

‘ Lots of parents lost in the Troll Wars,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ said Tiger in a quiet voice, ‘lots.’

I stretched and stood up. It was getting late.

‘Good first day, Tiger, thanks.’

‘I didn’t do much.’

‘It’s what you didn’t do that matters.’

‘And what didn’t I do?’

‘You didn’t run away screaming, or try to fight me, or make peculiar demands.’

‘I like to think the Prawns are like that,’ he said with a smile, ‘loyal and dedicated.’

‘How about fearless?’

He looked at the Quarkbeast.

‘We’re working on that.’

I saw him up to his room and asked whether he needed anything, and he said he was just fine, and everything was 100 per cent faberoo as he had his own room and that was the best thing ever, even if it was enchanted. I went down to my own room and brushed my teeth, then climbed into my pyjamas and got into bed, taking the precaution of laying out a blanket on the floor with a pillow, just in case. I then had another thought and took down the poster of Sir Matt Grifflon as it made me seem a little undignified. I rolled up the picture of the Kingdom’s premier heart-throb and placed it in the cupboard.

I had read for only a few minutes when the door opened and Tiger tiptoed in, snugged up in the blanket I had laid out and sighed deeply. He’d never slept on his own before.

‘Goodnight, Tiger.’

‘Goodnight, Jenny.’

I didn’t sleep well that night. It wasn’t my fault; there was something in the air. Sorcerers tend to transmit their emotions when excited, upset, anxious or confused, and it permeates through the building like smelly drains. I’d taken to sleeping under an aluminised eiderdown, but it hadn’t helped—and was quite possibly a practical joke played by Wizard Moobin, who thought giving duff advice to juniors funny. For years he’d maintained that the Three Degrees were a triumvirate of sorceresses who specialised in reducing the temperature to just above absolute zero.

Tiger had gone by the time I awoke. The Quarkbeast too, so I imagined it had shown him the usual route for its morning prowl—in unused back alleys and the wasteground behind the papermill, where its fearsome appearance wouldn’t send anyone into traumatic shock. I knew the Quarkbeast well, and it sometimes frightened even me. It is said that the only thing a Quarkbeast looks good to is another Quarkbeast, but they never gather in pairs, for obvious reasons.

I had a quick bath, dressed, and stepped out of my room. I was on the third floor, sandwiched between the room shared by the Sisters Karamazov and Mr Zambini’s suite. I walked down the corridor and noted a sharp sensation in the air, very similar to the tingling that precedes a spell. The lights flickered in the corridor and my bedroom door, which I had closed, slowly swung open. I felt the building shimmer and the tingling sensation grew stronger and then, one by one, the light bulbs fell from their fittings, bounced on the carpet and then rolled to the far end of the corridor. Beneath my feet I could feel the floorboards start to bend and one of the many cats we have in the building shot across the floor and leaped out of the open window. I needed no further warnings. Zambini had briefed me about a Magiclysm, although I had never witnessed one. Without hesitation I ran to the alarm positioned next to the lift, broke the glass and pressed the large red button.