The Song of the Quarkbeast

perilously close to a patient’s spine, the result of a shooting accident.

‘Ah!’ said Full Price, as the ring-shaped lump moved across the top of his hand. ‘Ow, ow, OW!’

The ring travelled down the tighter skin of his finger, rotated around his fingertip and, after a lot of swearing, he succeeded in expelling it from under his nail-bed.

‘That is so gross,’ said Tiger.

‘I agree,’ replied Perkins, ‘but it’s sort of impossible not to look, don’t you think?’

‘There,’ said Full Price, wiping off the ring and handing it to Mawgon. ‘Happy now?’

But Lady Mawgon was already thinking of other things. She took the ring, murmured something around it and handed it back to Dennis, who held it tightly in his fist.

‘I don’t like the feel of this,’ he said. ‘Something bad happened.’

‘I agree,’ replied Mawgon, taking out a small crystal bottle with a silver stopper. We had stepped back to allow them to work, and Perkins, now fully mystified by what was going on, had joined us.

‘They’ll try to animate the memory,’ I said.

‘Gold has a memory?’

‘Everything has a memory. Gold’s memory is quite tedious – got mined, got crushed, went to the smelters, got banged with a hammer – big yawn. No, we’re looking for a stronger memory that has been induced in the gold – the recollections of the person wearing it.’

‘You can transfer your memories to inanimate objects?’

‘Certainly. And the stronger you feel for something, the longer it will stick around. Some people think that objects like jewellery and paintings and vintage cars actually have a soul, but as far as we know they don’t – just the memories of the people who have been around them. The more something is loved, enjoyed and valued, the stronger the memory, and the more we can read into it.’

‘And the crystal bottle?’

‘Watch and learn.’

Lady Mawgon placed a single drop on the ring that Full Price was holding, and in an instant the ring had morphed into a small dog that was sitting on the floor wagging its tail happily. It sparkled slightly, indicating that it was not real, and seemed to be made of solid gold.

‘Good boy,’ said Lady Mawgon, ‘find it.’

The small memory-dog[9] gave a low bark, then scuttled off happily, sniffing the ground this way and that as it tried to remember where the ring might have gone. Lady Mawgon and Full Price followed the terrier away from the road, opened a gate to let it in and then chased the small dog across a field, much to the amusement of several cows. Mawgon and Full Price stopped occasionally as the memory-dog paused to think for a while or scratch its ear with a hind leg, then carried on as it chased off in another direction. It would often double back on itself as it tried to catch the memory-scent, all the while with Lady Mawgon’s index finger steadily pointed at it. Once, it thought its tail was the quarry and snapped at it, then realised and moved on.

‘I wonder what did happen to it?’ said Tiger as we followed the sorcerers and the dog across the field, over a stile and a smaller road, then into a small wood.

‘Happened to what?’

‘My luggage,’ replied Tiger, who wasn’t yet done on his missing luggage problem. ‘Luckily, it didn’t have anything in it. I don’t have any possessions. In fact, the luggage was my only possession. It was what I was found in.’

Owning very little or even being found in a red suitcase with castors and a separate internal pocket for toiletries was not unusual when you consider Tiger’s foundling heritage. He had been abandoned on the steps of the Sisterhood of the Blessed Lady of the Lobster, the same as me, then sold into servitude with Kazam Mystical Arts until he was eighteen. I still had two years to run before I could apply for citizenship; Tiger had six. We didn’t complain because this was how things were. There were a lot of orphans owing to the hideously wasteful and annoyingly frequent Troll Wars, and hotels, fast-food joints and laundries needed the cheap labour that foundlings could provide. Of the twenty-three kingdoms, duchies, socialist collectives, public limited companies and ramshackle potentates that made up the Ununited Kingdoms, only three of them had outlawed the trade in foundlings. Unluckily for us, the Kingdom of Snodd was not one of them.

‘When we have some surplus crackle we’ll retrieve your luggage,’ I said, knowing how valuable any connection to parents was to a foundling. I had been left on the front seat of the Volkswagen Beetle that I drove today, and little would part me from my car.

‘It’s okay,’ he said, demonstrating the selflessness and humility with which most foundlings comforted themselves. ‘It can wait.’

We followed Mawgon, Full Price and the memory-dog out of the small wood and through a gate into an abandoned farm. Brambles, creeper and hazel saplings had grown over many of the red-brick buildings, and rusty machinery stood in abandoned barns with dilapidated roofs. No one had been here for a while. The memory-dog ran across the yard and stopped at an abandoned water well, where it wagged its tail excitedly. As soon as Lady Mawgon caught up with it she made a flourish and the dog started to chase its tail until it was nothing more than a golden blur, then it changed back to the ring again, which continued spinning on a flagstone with a curious humming noise.

Lady Mawgon picked up the ring and gave it back to me. It was still warm and smelled of puppies. Full Price pulled an old door off the wellhead, and we all gazed down the brick-lined well. Far below in the inky blackness I could see a small circle of sky with the shape of our heads as our reflections stared back up at us.

‘It’s in there,’ she said.

‘And there it should stay,’ replied Full Price, who still wasn’t happy. ‘I can feel something wrong.’

‘How wrong?’ I asked.

‘Seventh circle of Wrong. I can sense the lingering aftertaste of an old spell, too.’

There was silence for a moment as everyone took this in, and a coldness seemed to emanate up from the well.

‘I can sense something, too,’ said Perkins, ‘like that feeling you get when someone you don’t like is looking over your shoulder.’

‘It doesn’t want to be found,’ said Full Price.

‘No,’ said Perkins, ‘someone doesn’t want it to be found.’

They all looked at one another. Missing objects are one thing, but purposefully hidden objects quite another.

‘I can think of five thousand good reasons to find it,’ said Lady Mawgon, ‘so find it we shall.’

She put her hand above the well in order to draw the ring from the mud below, but instead of the ring rising, her hand was tugged sharply downwards.

‘It’s been anchored and resists my command,’ she said with a voice tinged more with intrigue than concern. ‘Mr Price?’

Full joined her and they both attempted to lift the ring from the well. But no sooner had they started the lift than a low rumble seemed to come from the earth beneath our feet and the bricks that made up the low wall started to shift. Tiger and I took a step back but the others simply watched as an old and long-forgotten enchantment moved the bricks into a new configuration, sealing the wellhead tight. Within a few seconds there was only a solid brick cap.

‘Fascinating,’ said Lady Mawgon, for this was in effect a battle of wits between sorcerers – just separated by thirty years. Whatever enchantment had been left to keep the ring hidden, it was still powerful.

‘I vote we walk away now,’ said Full Price.

‘It’s a challenge,’ retorted Lady Mawgon excitedly, ‘and I like a challenge.’

She was more animated than I had seen her for a while, and within a few minutes had formulated a plan.

‘Right, then,’ she said, ‘listen closely. Mr Price is going to prise open the wellhead using a standard Magnaflux Reversal. How long can you keep it open, Mr Price?’

Full Price sucked air in through his teeth thoughtfully.

‘About thirty seconds – maximum forty.’