I was stirred from my thoughts by the wail of an air-raid siren and the unmistakable crack of an artillery piece close by. I looked out of the window as the massed anti-aircraft defences of Snodd Hill Castle opened up as one, a cacophony of noise so loud I had to put my hands over my ears, and with the shells bursting so close that I could hear the shrapnel striking the tower. One piece of red-hot steel flew in the window and landed on the bed, where it began to smoulder; I used my handkerchief to pick it up and dumped it in the sink.
I ventured another look out and amid the din, smell of cordite and black bursts of flak that were drifting past my window, I saw something shoot past, the flak-bursts following it. The notion of the Kingdom being under attack was unlikely as the king currently had no enemies interested enough to attack him, and it was only when my name was called that I realised what was going on.
‘Jenny!’ came Prince Nasil’s familiar voice, as he whipped past on his carpet. ‘Can’t stop!’ he added as he went back past in the opposite direction, then yelled ‘Jump!’ as he tore past the third time, with two anti-aircraft shells exploding so close the tower shook and plaster fell from the ceiling.
I needed no further bidding. I shoved Blix’s concession agreement into my bag, waited until the Prince turned to make another pass, and then jumped out of the window.
I’d never fallen from a high tower before and would not hope to do so again, but after the initial sense of fear and rapid acceleration, the only thing I could feel was the air rushing past me. I could see the top of the tower move swiftly away from me as I fell, and didn’t see the Prince at all until he gently scooped me out of the air. With a flick of the carpet we were out of the range of the artillery, which stopped as quickly as it had begun.
‘Thanks for the rescue,’ I said, ‘but it might have been easier and safer to extract me at night.’
‘At night?’ echoed the Prince. ‘If we’d left it until then there would be no chance of seeing Zambini.’
The penny dropped.
‘Kevin knows where the Great Zambini is going to reappear?’
‘Not precisely – but close enough. Somewhere near the Troll Wall.’
My heart fell.
‘The Troll Wall is almost fifty miles long!’
‘If we head up there now, we can home in when Kevin has a more accurate fix.’
This was undoubtedly true, as Kevin’s predictions of Zambini’s return had been uncannily accurate – just too late to be of any real use. I looked at my watch. We had less than an hour to go before Zambini was due back.
‘We’ll never make it,’ I said as we flew through the ballroom windows and slid to a halt on the shiny floor.
‘We have a plan,’ said the Prince, and I looked up. Perkins, Owen of Rhayder, Kevin Zipp and Tiger were all staring at me.
‘I’m all ears,’ I said as Tiger handed me two jumpers, some thermal leggings, a heavy leather flying jacket and then a flying helmet.
‘It’s a straight-line flight of two hundred and eighty miles to the Troll Gates at Stirling,’ said Owen, referring to a blackboard upon which a diagram had been hastily drawn, ‘and if we leave in five minutes we have only thirty-two minutes to get there. That’s an average speed requirement of five hundred and twenty-five miles per hour.’
I saw the problem immediately.
‘Even by moving at the carpet’s top design speed of five hundred miles per hour,’ I murmured, ‘we would still be . . . two and a half minutes too late.’
But Owen and the Prince were already ahead of the curve.
‘Precisely,’ said the Prince, ‘that’s why we need to push the carpets up to over seven hundred and sixty miles per hour during the flight to give us any hope of getting there in time.’
I looked at them both in turn.
‘You intend to go . . . supersonic?’
‘Trust us,’ said Owen with a smile, ‘it’s faintly possible that we know what we’re doing. Get prepared. We’ll be rugging off in two minutes.’
Owen and the Prince went to rewrite a few lines of the carpet’s source spell-code, and I turned back to Tiger and Perkins, who handed me a large pink seashell.
‘You’ll be out of range with a toddler’s shoe so we’re going to conch.’
He held a pair of left- and right-handed conches together for a moment, whispered a spell and then gave one to me.
‘Can you hear me?’ he said, and his voice echoed out of the shell, clear as a bell. In fact, I heard him slightly before he spoke, which created an odd reverse echo.
‘How did it go with Once Magnificent Boo?’ asked Tiger.
‘Not well. She’s doesn’t want to help us, and I got the feeling she’d hit me quite hard if I asked why she stopped doing any magic. But it sounded like something pretty unpleasant.’
‘It figures that she knew Zambini and Blix well,’ said Tiger as he showed me a photograph, ‘they were all on the unUK Olympic sorcery team in 1974.’
The photo showed the three of them when much younger, all posing after winning gold for the prestigious ‘400 Meters Turning into a Mouse Relay’ event. Boo was in the middle of the photo and grinning broadly while Blix and Zambini were standing on either side. Unlike Boo’s smile, theirs looked somewhat strained.
‘They were the best of friends,’ said Tiger, ‘and inseparable until Boo was kidnapped. Zambini was away when it happened so Blix negotiated the ransom. Blix and Zambini fell out big time, and have been at each other’s throats ever since. That’s about it.’
‘Past history of petty infighting doesn’t help us,’ I said with a sigh. ‘Did you discover the source of the thinness enchantment?’
‘Not yet, but the spell’s holding up well. Blix’s sorcerers have been out there attempting to get in all afternoon, but however much power they use to attempt to break the enchantment, the spell uses even more to stop them.’
‘Let’s hope it stays that way,’ I said, digging Blix’s concession document from my bag and handing it to Perkins.
‘As acting senior wizard you can sign this without my consent,’ I told him, explaining exactly what it was. ‘You should ask the retired sorcerers, too. I can’t make this decision alone, and what’s more, shouldn’t have to. We’ve got until midnight tonight. Nothing on Lady Mawgon or the passthought, I presume?’
‘Nothing,’ said Perkins, ‘except the Dibbles are at full capacity and occasionally venting into the atmosphere.’
‘I saw the cloud shapes as we flew over.’
Perkins’ eyes opened wide as he read the document.
‘Two million moolah if I agree never to spell again?’
‘All that moolah must be worth a fortune,’ remarked Tiger.
I looked at the Prince, who nodded that they were ready. This was it.
‘If I don’t make it back,’ I said to Perkins, ‘you’re to take over as acting manager in my place.’
Tiger gave me a hug, and Perkins looked as though he wanted to.
‘Break a leg,’ he said.
I walked over to where Owen and the Prince were making last-minute adjustments to the hemp backing of Owen’s carpet.
‘You’re sure about this?’ I asked.
‘Not at all,’ said Owen as he handed the Prince and me parachutes while he strapped one on himself, ‘but we need the Great Zambini back, and this is the best chance we’ve had so far.’
‘Then what are we waiting for?’ I asked, giving them both a nervous smile.