weave and weft started to separate with the strain, and at just under six hundred and twenty a hole opened up. In an instant the air caught it and the carpet was suddenly gone in a burst of tattered wool and cotton. Owen, his part of the job complete, was tossed into the void. We watched him fall away, his body splayed out to allow him to decelerate enough to safely deploy his parachute. We breathed a sigh of relief when we saw his canopy blossom open somewhere over Midlandia, and I felt the Prince’s body tense as he urged his carpet on.
The carpet was still vibrating badly, and I saw small holes appear in areas where the carpet was already badly worn. I had just moved my hand to grasp the ‘D’ ring of the parachute when there was a muffled concussion somewhere in the far distance.[31] The vibration suddenly stopped and everything became smooth. I opened my eyes and looked out. Either side of us were two trailing shock waves barely a yard wide that travelled back from the front edges of the carpet. I turned to the Prince but he was concentrating hard, and we continued as this pace for several minutes while, with every passing second, more wear showed up on the carpet.
I had my eyes tight shut as soon as the vibrations began again, and I had just resigned myself to my second free-fall that day when I realised that we weren’t breaking up, but
‘Do you think Owen’s okay?’ I asked.
‘I saw his parachute open.’
‘Me too. What about your carpet?’
He looked around at the even shabbier rug. Large sections had peeled off and were flapping in the breeze.[32] He shook his head sadly.
‘We’ll take longer to get home, Jennifer, my friend, and she’ll not be flying until a rebuild.’
‘Then let’s hope Zambini’s close by.’
The Troll Wall was a vast stone-built edifice over three hundred feet high and topped with rusty spikes. A second Troll wall was located about ten miles farther north, the result of a foolish misunderstanding three centuries previously over which particular wizard was allocated the building contract. It hadn’t made much difference. One wall or two, the Trolls still made meat patties of anyone who crossed over. The two walls stretched from the Clyde to Loch Lomond in the west, used the loch as defence, then rose once more and curved off in a westerly direction towards Stirling in the east.
We approached and then circled the City of Stirling, where the Troll Gates were located – a pair of oak doors seventy feet high strengthened with steel bands. The last Troll War had been twelve years before, and after repairs and a change of lock on the Troll Gates just in case, everything had pretty much returned to normal, except that human settlers in the zone between the first and second walls had been moved out ‘just in case’.
‘Jennifer?’ came Tiger’s voice over the conch.
I told Tiger we were at Stirling, and looked at my watch. We had three minutes before Zambini was due to reappear.
‘Okay,’ said Tiger, ‘Kevin’s not sure, but he thinks you’re to head to an abandoned village called Kippen, about eight miles west of the main gates and four miles north of the First Troll Wall.’
I relayed the information to the Prince, who whirled his carpet round, and we shot off in that direction, skimming along the top of the wall as fast as the tattered state of the carpet would allow.
‘See any Trolls?’ asked the Prince as we crossed the First Troll Wall and went into what was now termed ‘unfriendly’ territory.
‘What does one look like?’ I asked, as few had seen one and survived.
‘Large, and usually covered in tattoos and warpaint. Clubs and axes are optional.’
‘We’ll know when we see one, I guess,’ I said, but even looking hard I could see no sign of life – just an empty landscape that, while devoid of recent human habitation, showed much evidence that people had once lived here. We saw a few abandoned landships encrusted with ivy as we headed west, their rusty flanks suggesting they’d burned first.
After another few minutes the remains of a long-abandoned town hove into sight, and a quick look at the road sign on the outskirts told us we were indeed at Kippen. The Prince started to orbit slowly as I checked my watch. It was 16.02 and fourteen seconds. We had made it with a minute to spare.
Trollvania
‘That will be my LZ,’[33] said the Prince, pointing at an open area of scrubby land behind the church. ‘I’ll drop you off and then orbit until you signal me in for EVAC.’
‘Don’t come and get me until I call you,’ I said, ‘no matter what. If I’m longer than half an hour, I’m not returning, and tell Tiger he can have my Matt Grifflon record collection and the Volkswagen. Understand?’
‘I understand. Good luck.’
‘Thank you.’
I looked around nervously as we approached low across a heavily overgrown housing estate, half expecting a Troll to jump out at any moment, as they are noted for two things: their ability to hide motionless and undetected in a damp river bed or pile of dead wood for months if necessary, and a lack of any sense of moderation when it came to the use of violence. An arm pulled from the socket was generally for starters, and it got more unpleasant from there on in.
The Prince stopped the carpet a few feet from the ground and I jumped off. In an instant he was off again and I was suddenly quite alone. I stood there for a moment, looking around. After the noisy rush of air that had accompanied our journey north, all was now deathly quiet. Around me were the remains of houses partially reclaimed by a healthy growth of trees, brambles and moss. I could see a church near by with a damaged tower, the clock stuck permanently at ten to four. To my right there was a rusty landship, apparently now a home only to ravens. There was no sign of Zambini, Trolls or indeed any life at all, so I released my parachute, pulled off my flying helmet and bulky jacket and dumped them on the grass. I put a Fireball [34] in my pocket and placed the conch close to my lips.
‘Tiger?’ I whispered as I climbed over the wall at the back of the church. ‘Are you there?’
‘I’m here,’ he said. ‘Kevin’s gone into a trance and mumbling. Is that good news?’
‘Usually.’
‘Good. Hang on, he’s saying something.’ There was a pause. ‘Okay, here it is:
‘Not yet,’ I replied, ‘but knowing Kevin, it soon will.’
As my ears gradually stopped ringing from the flight I could hear rustles and creaks from the abandoned village, which made me more apprehensive, not less. I walked up the road, which now had weeds growing out of large cracks, and passed a rusty bicycle and scattered bricks and broken tiles. There was evidence of fierce fighting, too. Lying in among the dirt was the occasional corroded weapon, sections of body armour and human bones, some of which looked as if they had been cracked to extract the marrow.
‘Okay,’ I said to Tiger, ‘I’m at the top of Fore Street where there is a crossroads and the remains of a stone monument.’
‘I think you’re there,’ he replied over the conch.
I looked around at the empty, shattered town. Towering above the crossroads was the abandoned landship I had seen from behind the church. It had halted atop the rubble of some houses opposite the monument, its twenty-foot-wide tracks sitting atop a rusty ice-cream van. It was 16.03 and fourteen seconds precisely and the Great Zambini was nowhere to be seen. I yelled his name as loud as I could and regretted it almost immediately. The sound echoed around the still village, and from somewhere in the distance I heard the breaking of roof tiles. Something had moved. Something big.
‘I need some more help,’ I said into the conch, ‘anything at all.’
I hid behind the heavy tracks of the landship and then peered cautiously out. Farther up the road I saw a large tree sway as it was pushed aside. There was another distant crash and the sound of breaking glass, and I caught a glimpse of something move between two houses. Then, from the direction of the church, I heard a low
