‘Then we won’t waste it here, young lady,’ he said, ushering me through a rusty ground-level escape hatch in the landship, just as the Trolls rounded the corner.
‘This way,’ he said, leading me past some machinery and up a steel staircase in the semi-gloom. As we reached the lower storage deck of the fighting vehicle, we heard the Trolls talking outside.
‘We’ll never get it now,’ said one of them.
‘I’ve an idea,’ said the other.
We heard them walk off, then some low murmurs as they talked to one another.
‘We’re safe for the moment,’ said Zambini, leading me past the main engine room and up towards ‘B’ Deck, where the crew quarters were located. ‘Their knowledge of humans is fairly rudimentary.’
This particular landship had not been set on fire, and all the crew’s provisions and equipment were still where they had been abandoned – food, water and racks of weapons – all with the Snodd Heavy Industries logo on them. Zambini sat on a crew couch and stared at me.
‘How long have I been gone?’ he asked.
‘Eight months.’
He opened his eyes wide and shook his head sadly.
‘That long? This is my sixteenth return, and each runs into the next – it’s like casting oneself into stone but without the splitting headaches on waking. We’ve got about six minutes, by the way – I can’t stop myself vanishing again, but I can delay it. However did you find me, and what’s been going on?’
I told him about Kevin, and how we had to trash both the carpets to get up here in time, then about the Big Magic, how we have two more Dragons, the wizidrical power on the rise, then how King Snodd made Blix the Court Mystician.
‘Theoretically that makes Conrad eighth in line to the throne,’ said Zambini incredulously.
‘It sounds as if the King and Tenbury are hell-bent on commercialising magic,’ I told him, ‘and they want to take control of Kazam. We’ve got a contest to decide the matter tomorrow.’
‘Kazam will win hands down,’ observed Zambini. ‘Blix and his cronies are useless.’
‘I’m not so sure. Lady Mawgon got changed to stone while trying to hack the Dibble Storage Coils and all the others are in prison on trumped-up charges – which leaves only Perkins. We haven’t a chance, unless you can tell us how to unlock the Dibbles. We’ve got four GigaShandars of power sitting there doing nothing.’
‘Without a passthought, you can’t, and the only people who know RUNIX well enough to crack it are myself, Mawgon, Monty Vanguard and Blix.’
‘Monty is stone too, and I’m not keen on asking Blix for help.’
Zambini smiled.
‘Conrad as stone might solve a lot of problems.’
‘But what if he succeeds? I’m not sure handing him four Gig of raw crackle is a good idea.’
‘I think I agree with you on that score.’
And that was when we heard the Trolls again.
‘Here, person person person,’ came a deep voice from near the rear cargo door, ‘I’ve got some lovely yummy honey for you. Here, person person person.’
There was a pause.
‘Do you think it’s gone?’ said the same Troll.
‘No. Leave the honey there and we’ll S-Q-U-A-S-H it when it comes to get it.’
‘Right,’ said the other Troll, and it all went quiet again.
‘Anything else?’ asked Zambini, getting to his feet and pacing around the crew quarters.
‘Anything else?’ I echoed. ‘Does there need to be anything else? The future of magic is in the balance!’
‘The thing about magic,’ said Zambini in a soft voice, ‘is that it often seems to have an intelligence. It moves in the direction it wants to. It may decide to let iMagic win as part of some big mysterious plan to which we are not yet party. Or, if it thinks Kazam should win tomorrow, it will find a way to ensure that we do.’
‘I’m not sure how,’ I replied somewhat dubiously. ‘I even asked Once Magnificent Boo to help us.’
Zambini looked up at me, genuine concern on his face.
‘How is she?’
‘She lives alone with a lot of Quarkbeasts. A bit batty, if you ask me, and horribly selfish – she refused to help us.’
‘Do you know why?’ asked Zambini.
‘Why what?’
‘Why she hasn’t undertaken a single spell since her kidnapping?’
I shook my head. Zambini thought for a moment and took a deep breath.
‘Ever wondered why she never shakes hands? Why she always wears gloves?’
I stared at him, and an awful realisation welled up inside me.
‘Yes,’ he said, holding up his own index fingers – the conduit of a sorcerer’s power, without which they would be powerless, ‘she wasn’t returned unharmed. The kidnappers removed her index fingers.’
I didn’t speak for several moments. She could have been one of the all-time greats, and now she was studying Quarkbeasts and going slowly nuts. She had lived with her loss every day, knowing that a life of wonder and fulfilment in the Mystical Arts had been cruelly taken from her. I couldn’t imagine what it might be like. Greatness had slipped from her grasp.
‘Who did it?’
‘Two of the gang were found dead a week later, apparently over a squabble. There might have been others, but no trace was ever found. I was away in Italy talking to Fabio Spontini about his work on Magical Field Theory, and by the time I got back they’d already taken her fingers. She blamed me for not being there, and Blix for messing up the negotiations.’
‘Did he?’
‘I don’t know, but I don’t think he would have. We both loved her dearly and the three of us could have done great things together – stuff that would have made the Mighty Shandar look like a Saturday afternoon hobbyist. But then Boo lost her fingers, Blix and I fell out over the direction of magic, and that was it. She’s not talked to either of us since.’
He sighed and looked at his watch.
‘Two minutes left. I need to give you something.’
He reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope covered with tiny writing.
‘This is a list of notes I’ve been making while I’ve been jumping around. I thought it was an accident for a while – that I’d mispelled while vanishing – but now you’ve told me about the failure of Shandar to destroy the Dragons, I’m beginning to think it might have been the Mighty Shandar himself who wanted me out of the picture during the Big Magic, and now he has unfinished business he’ll keep me trapped out here for as long as he wants, rattling around the here and now like a pea in a whistle.’
‘What sort of unfinished business?’
‘This: he was paid eighteen dray-weights of gold to rid the Ununited Kingdoms of Dragons. He failed, and the Mighty Shandar doesn’t do refunds. He’ll want to return and deal with the Dragons once and for all. He’ll also want to take his revenge on the person who helped the Dragons foil his plan in the first place. Who was that, by the way?’
‘Me.’
‘Oh dear.’
He paced for a moment as he thought. I remember him doing this when he was back at the Towers, and I think it was then that I missed him more than ever. I wanted him to be back. To take the decisions, to be the one in charge, to sometimes make the wrong decisions, and ignore the criticism.
‘You must be vigilant,’ he said at last. ‘The job of Shandar’s agent has been filled by the D’Argento family for four centuries. They report to him when he comes out of granite for a minute every month. He’ll leave the donkey work up to them and only appear himself for the seriously big spelling stuff, so you should know what to be wary of. His agent will be well spoken, well dressed, ride around in a midnight-black top-of-the-line Rolls-Royce, and have an anagrammatic name. A bit corny, I know, but it’s traditional, apparently.’