‘Looks like BellShout Communications are covering all bases,’ murmured Half Price.
Mr Trimble had been sounding me out earlier for Kazam’s feelings on reactivating the mobile phone network, and I had foolishly given him a straight answer: that attempting to apply such a fundamental force would be like trying to tax gravity or own the stars. It confirmed what we all suspected – the King was attempting to control the administration of magic for financial ends, and with the help of Blix and Lord Tenbury. They could name their own price to Mr Trimble and BellShout Communications. And that would just be the beginning. Magic for sale to the highest bidder.
‘We really need to win the contest on Friday, don’t we?’ said Perkins.
‘Definitely,’ replied Moobin as he switched off the TV. ‘There’s a lot riding on it. It’s not just about the ownership of Kazam, but of magic itself.’
We fell silent then, thinking about what the magic industry would be like run by the King and Blix. It wasn’t a happy scenario, no matter how upbeat you tried to be. Quite the opposite, in fact – it would be a disaster.
‘We’ll win easily so long as we keep our heads,’ said Moobin breezily, pointing at two pictures of the bridge. One as it should look, all nice and neat, and another of how it looked now – several hundred tons of damp slippery rubble.
‘It’ll be a standard lift and fix, with two teams working in pairs. One to raise the stones from the river bed, and the other to hold them in position while the first speed-sets the mortar. I suggest Perkins and Full in one team and Half and Patrick in the other. I’ll be on hand to offer assistance wherever it is needed and to direct the operation. We shouldn’t have any problems, but we should all practise tomorrow, and try to get Mawgon back – despite being a monumental pain in the backside, she is actually a first-class sorcerer. Jennifer has some ideas on this. Jenny?’
I stood up and cleared my throat.
‘Kevin Zipp has prophesied that the Great Zambini will return tomorrow at 16.03 for a few minutes. I’ve got the Prince shadowing Zipp, and as soon as we have a location for his reappearance, I’ll get straight over there. My primary job will be to find a way of unlocking Lady Mawgon and the Dibble Storage Coils, and after that, to try and help Zambini.’
‘Good,’ said Moobin, ‘any questions?’
‘Yes,’ said Tiger, ‘why do “inflammable” and “flammable” mean the same thing?’
‘Sorry, I should rephrase that: any questions relating to the job in hand?’
There weren’t.
‘Well,’ said Moobin with finality, ‘there it is, then. Rest well.’
The perfidy begins
Sleep was difficult and both fitful and restless, and I was reduced to staring at the fireflies that flickered about the window, feeding off the gentle buzz of wizidrical energy that leaked out of the building.
Once a reasonable hour had arrived, I had a bath and came downstairs. I found the Youthful Perkins and Patrick of Ludlow in the lobby, busily at practice building an arch out of some cobbles. It was a tricky act, and one that required not only good co-ordination, but teamwork. The trick was to hold them all in a semicircle until the final cobble – the keystone – was placed at the apex, at which point they could both relax and the arch would stay up on its own.
Trouble was, it didn’t seem to want to. On the few occasions they managed to get a complete arch made, it tumbled down as soon as they relaxed.
‘It will be easier with bigger stones and the abutments to take the outward forces,’ said Perkins, and Patrick grunted an agreement.
I had some breakfast and went to the office to check on Kevin Zipp. He was still asleep. Owen of Rhayder was standing by on Kevin-watch for a few hours while Prince Nasil ran some errands. Owen was our second carpeteer and, through no fault of his own, the lesser of the two. Whereas the Prince’s carpet was a frayed and moth-bitten artefact that would make the inside of a skip look untidy, Owen’s was eight times worse. A carpet’s design life was twenty thousand hours or three centuries before remanufacture, and Owen’s was well beyond both.
‘Did Kevin say anything in his sleep?’ I asked.
‘Not much,’ replied Owen, ‘just mumblings about index fingers, the Tralfamosaur, important people being blown to bits and how ice cream will be on the menu more than once a month from this time next year.’
‘I like the sound of that,’ said Tiger, who had just wandered in.
‘I hope you’re referring to the ice cream and not the blowing to bits. Put the visions in the book, will you? I think we’re at RAD099. I’m going to have a look at the contest preparations.’
I stepped out of the hotel into Snodd Lane and walked to where it widened out into Snodd Street before turning left into Snodd Boulevard. I picked up a copy of the Hereford Daily Eyestrain from the seller on the corner and noted without much surprise that the competition was headline news.
TWO HOUSES BATTLE FOR TOP WIZ SLOT
The article was more or less correct, but heavily skewed in favour of Blix, who the state-controlled paper described as ‘Newly appointed Court Mystician,’ and also repeated the incorrect ‘All Powerful’ accolade. Farther down they referred to him as ‘a very distant relative of Blix the Hideously Barbarous’ and then quoted him as saying that ‘the forces of good must be properly managed for the benefit of the people’. I went and gave the newspaper back to the seller and skilfully negotiated a partial refund, and then made my way to the wrecked bridge.
There had been many attempts to shame King Snodd into footing the bill for repairs following the bridge’s collapse. The most persuasive argument was that without the bridge there was nowhere to dangle the corpses of the recently executed, as local city health ordinances forbade it within the city precincts. To be honest, no one had been executed for almost two decades as it was considered unfashionable these days, and it was for perhaps this reason that the King hadn’t ordered a rebuild.
I stood at the abutment on the north end and looked at the large heap of rubble that stretched all the way to the opposite bank. There had been four piers, and although they still projected about a yard above the waterline, most of the stone was now on the river bed. Working in water was always difficult as it was a poor conductor of wizidrical energy. Moving a block of masonry a yard in water would take as much energy as moving one fifty yards out of it.
Snoddscaffolding, Inc. had already constructed a footbridge across the river to enable the sorcerers to better survey the rubble, and were now hastily erecting the tiered seating and royal box. I went and found the Minister for Glee, who was dicussing with his staff how best to accommodate the maximum number of people, how much they could charge them for seats, popcorn and hot dogs, and what concessions to give to the unwashed and destitute – if any.
After introductions I explained that owing to health and safety considerations all observers would have to be at least fifty yards away to guard against secondary enchantments that split off the main weave.
‘Fifty yards?’ repeated the minister. ‘That’s not really a close-up view of anything. The King himself insisted that he had a ringside seat to watch the action at close quarters.’
‘It’s your call,’ I said, ‘but I’m not going to be the one who has to explain why His Gracious Majesty and his family will be spending the next two weeks with donkey’s heads.’
There was a pause.
‘Donkey’s heads?’
‘Or two noses. Perhaps worse.’
‘Fifty yards, you say?’
‘Fifty yards.’