The Song of the Quarkbeast

downwards and out, much like a conductor beginning a symphony. A blue-filled tear appeared in the air, as though a tent flap had been unzipped. She continued to move her hands as if conducting, and as she signalled to an imaginary percussion section, the randomly placed chairs in the room moved away from the tear and the chandeliers tinkled slightly. Lady Mawgon made a few flourishes as one might do to signal in the entire string section, then held one hand in the air as if sustaining a note from the bassoons, and peered closer into the rent. The tear had depth within, and coloured lights flashed to and fro as Lady Mawgon subtly moved her hands between the theoretical harp and kettle drums to probe the inner workings of the spell. It was a incantation of great complexity, and Tiger and I stared wide eyed. Spellbound, in fact. I’d worked around spells for years, but never actually seen one.

‘Hmm,’ said Lady Mawgon, speaking over her shoulder while signalling to an imaginary cello section to play pianissimo. ‘The enchantment is standard Wa’Seed on a RUNIX core. The secondary spells are off-the-peg Shandar that self-regulate the internal fields, but it seems Dibble added a few gatekeepers to thwart a hack, then set them orbiting the central core in all five directions at once so they couldn’t be unwoven.’

‘The Great Zambini was always cautious,’ I replied, risking her anger by breaking my silence. ‘He thought four GigaShandars of raw crackle lying around might tempt a fallen wizard with mischief on their minds.’

‘You might be right,’ said Lady Mawgon.

There then followed about five minutes of hard spelling which was almost indistinguishable from the gesticulations of a conductor. Indeed, I am told the skills are interchangeable, and the myth about wands may originally have begun with a conductor’s baton.

And then, just as Tiger and I were getting bored and thinking of other things to do, our ears popped as something happened.

‘Okay,’ she said, giving a rare smile, ‘I’ll just reset the passthought and we’re done.’

She made a few more flourishes with her hands to an illusory woodwind section, and the rent closed.

‘There,’ she said triumphantly. ‘I’m surprised it was so easy. The coils will be full by this time tomorrow and we can run a test spell with them by Friday morning. Prawns, go and fetch Moobin so I can share the passthought.’

Tiger hurried out and I congratulated her on the work.

‘I could have done it in my sleep ten years ago,’ she replied, ‘but I thank you for your praise. Why are you staring at me?’

‘You’re going grey,’ I said.

‘I’ve been grey for years,’ she said, ‘and I’ve warned you against impertinence.’

‘No, no,’ I replied, ‘everything on you is going grey.’

And so she was. Her black crinoline dress was now a charcoal colour, and lightening by the second. Lady Mawgon frowned, looked at her hands and then stared up at me with a wan smile.

‘Blast,’ she said in a resigned tone, and a few moments later she had turned entirely to stone.

‘Damn,’ I said.

Turned to stone

I’d never seen anyone turned to stone before, and after the initial shock had worn off, I ventured closer. Every single pore of her skin, every wrinkle, every eyelash was perfectly rendered in the finest alabaster I had seen. It felt odd being in such close proximity to Lady Mawgon, even if she was now a four-hundred-pound block of stone, and although getting turned to stone was bad news, it might have been worse. The really serious cases of petrification involved dolorite, marble, or worse, granite.

Moobin laughed as he walked in, closely followed by Tiger.

‘Goodness, the old girl will never live this down. Dibble the Extraordinary lived up to his name – a stoning incantation as a gatekeeper. Well, well, never would have thought of it.’

‘You can change her back?

‘Child’s play. Although to be honest, it is a lot quieter with her like this.’

‘If I draw a moustache on her,’ added Tiger, ‘will she still have it on her when she changes back?’

‘It’s not funny,’ I said, even though I, too, had mixed feelings. ‘I’d be happier to have her back in one piece as soon as possible.’

‘Very well,’ said Moobin, and after taking a deep breath, he drew himself into the ‘hard spelling’ posture, pointed both index fingers at her and let fly.

Nothing happened.

He stood up, relaxed, then tried again.

Still nothing happened.

‘That’s odd,’ he said at last. ‘Did she change to stone quickly?’

‘About ten seconds.’

‘Oh dear. Wait here a moment.’

And he ran out the door.

‘She still looks kind of frightening, doesn’t she?’ said Tiger.

She did, even though her features were not trapped in the more usual Mawgon look of scowling displeasure. Rather she wore the resigned smile she had given when she had realised that the long-dead Dibble had outwitted her.

‘Still,’ said Tiger, ‘it proves what I always thought.’

‘What’s that?’

‘That she does wear roller skates under her dress.’

I looked down, and just peeking out from the soft white folds of her gypsum prison was the shape of a roller-skate wheel pressed against the hem of her dress.

‘Holy cow!’ said Half Price as he walked in, accompanied by Full Price and Wizard Moobin. ‘I’ve never seen her looking so stony before.’

‘She’s certainly stuck between a rock and a hard place,’ added Full Price with a giggle. ‘Did you try the standard Magnaflux Reversal?’

‘I tried it twice,’ said Moobin, ‘not a flicker.’

‘Let me try,’ said Half, and let fly in a similar manner to Moobin, with similar negative results.

‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘Full?’

His brother tried and failed also, and they all suddenly looked a lot more serious, and went into one of those wizidrical discussions where I generally understood one word in eight. After ten minutes of this, they all let fly together, but all that happened was that the room grew hot and clammy, and our clothes let out a size.

‘Did she say anything before she went?’ asked Moobin, doing his belt up a notch.

‘Only that the coils were taking on power,’ I replied, ‘and that the spell was written in RUNIX.’

‘No one writes in RUNIX any more,’ said Full Price. ‘It’s an archaic spell language that was big in the fourth century before we moved over to ARAMAIC. Half, who’s our RUNIX expert?’

‘Aside from Lady Mawgon?’

‘Yes, obviously.’

‘Monty Vanguard always had an interest in old spell languages.’

Moobin told Tiger to fetch Vanguard. He nodded and ran off. The atmosphere, which earlier had all been a bit jokey and silly, was now deathly serious.

‘But the Fundamental Spell Reversibility Rule still applies, yes?’ I asked.

‘Totally,’ agreed Moobin, ‘there’s no spell cast that can’t be unravelled if you know precisely how it was written – it just may take a while to figure out.’

‘How long?’ I asked.

‘If we work lunchtimes, about six to seven years.’

‘Years?’ I echoed in some alarm. ‘The bridge gig starts on Friday. We’ve got less than forty-eight hours!’

‘Life is short, magic is long, Jennifer.’

‘That’s not helpful.’