The Last Dragonslayer

‘It’s not sound, it’s visual.’

To demonstrate I walked to the other side of the room, paused for ten seconds and then walked back. Sure enough, a pale outline of myself appeared a few seconds later.

‘The longer you stay in one place, the more powerful the echo. I don’t know why the tenth floor does it, but the self-tidying makes up for it. Unless you want to change?’

‘Are the other rooms any less weird?’

‘Not really.’

‘Then this is fine.’

‘Good. I’ll see you downstairs when you’re ready.’

Tiger looked around the room nervously.

‘Wait a moment while I unpack.’

He took from his pocket a folded tie and placed it in one of the drawers.

‘I’m done.’

And he followed me down the lift shaft, but this time with a little more confidence, and with a little less shouting.

‘Can you do any magic?’ he asked as we walked past the shuttered ballroom on our way to the Avon Suite.

‘Everyone can do a bit,’ I said, wondering where Kevin Zipp had got to. ‘If you are thinking of somebody and the phone rings and it’s them, that’s magic. If you get a curious feeling that you’ve been or done something before, then that’s magic too. It’s everywhere. It seeps into the fabric of the world and oozes out as coincidence, fate, chance, luck or what have you. The big problem is making it work for you in some useful manner.’

‘Mother Zenobia used to say that magic was like the gold that is mingled in sand,’ observed Tiger, ‘worth a lot of money but useless since you can’t extract it.’

‘She’s right. But if you have magic within you, were properly trained and the sort of person who could channel their mind, then it is possible a career in sorcery might be the thing for you. Were you tested?’

‘Yes, I was a 162.8.’

‘I’m a 159.3,’ I told him, ‘so pretty useless the pair of us.’

You have to have 350 or more before anyone gets interested. You’ve either got it or you haven’t—a bit like being able to play a piano or go backwards on a unicycle while juggling seven clubs.

‘You and me and Unstable Mabel are the only sane ones in the building, and I have my doubts about Mable. Don’t feel left out or anything by being normal.’

‘I’ll try not to.’

I opened the door to the Kazam offices and flicked on the light. The Avon Suite was large but seemed considerably smaller owing to a huge amount of clutter. There were filing cabinets, desks where once sat now- long-redundant agents, tables, piles of paperwork, back issues of Spells magazine, several worn-out sofas and, in the corner, a moose. It chewed softly on some grass and stared at us laconically.

‘That’s the Transient Moose,’ I said, looking through the mail, ‘an illusion that was left as a practical joke long before I got here. He moves randomly about the building appearing now and then, here and there to this one and that one. We’re hoping he’ll wear out soon.’

Tiger went up to the moose and placed a hand on its nose. His hand went through the creature as though it were smoke. I took the papers off a nearby desk and placed them on a third, pushed up a swivel chair and showed Tiger how to use the phone system.

‘You can answer from anywhere in the hotel. If I don’t pick up, then you should. Take a message and I’ll call them back.’

‘I’ve never had a desk,’ said Tiger, looking at the desk fondly.

‘You’ve got one now. See that teapot on the sideboard over there?’

He nodded.

‘That’s the perpetual teapot I mentioned earlier. It’s always full of tea. The same goes for the biscuit tin. You can help yourself.’

Tiger got the subtle hint. I told him I liked my tea with half a sugar, and he trotted off to the steaming teapot to fetch some.

‘There’re only two biscuits left,’ said Tiger in dismay, staring into the biscuit tin.

‘We’re on an economy drive. Instead of an enchanted biscuit tin that’s always full, we’ve got an enchanted biscuit tin with always only two left. You’d be amazed at how much wizidrical energy we save.’

‘Right,’ said Tiger, taking out the two biscuits, closing the lid and then finding two new biscuits when he opened it again.

‘The economy drive explains why they’re plain and not sweet, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Quark.’

‘What is it?’

The Quarkbeast pointed one of its sharpened claws at a bundle of old clothes on one of the sofas. I went and had a closer look. It was the Remarkable Kevin Zipp. He was fast asleep and snoring quietly to himself.

‘Good morning, Kevin,’ I said cheerily. He blinked, stared at me, then sat up. ‘How is the job in Leominster going?’

I was referring to some work I had found him in a flower nursery, predicting the colours of blooms in ungerminated bulbs. He was one of our better pre-cognitives, usually managing a strike rate of 72 per cent or more.

‘Well, thank you,’ muttered the small man. His clothes were shabby to the point of being little more than rags, but he was exceptionally well presented in spite of it. He was clean shaven, washed and his hair was fastidiously tidy. He looked like an accountant on his way to a fancy-dress party as a vagrant.

I could see that ungerminated bulbs were not the cause of his visit, and whenever a pre-cog gets nervous, I get nervous.

‘This is Tiger Prawns,’ I said, ‘the seventh foundling.’

Kevin took Tiger’s hand in his and stared into his eyes.

‘Don’t get in a blue car on a Thursday.’

‘Which Thursday?’

‘Any Thursday.’

‘What kind of car?’

‘A blue one. On a Thursday.’

‘Okay,’ said Tiger.

‘So what’s this about a vision?’ I asked, sorting through the mail.

‘It was a biggie,’ Kevin began nervously.

‘Oh yes?’ I returned pleasantly, having heard a lot of predictions that never came to anything, but also having heard some chilling ones that did.

‘You know Maltcassion, the Dragon?’ he asked.

‘Not personally.’

‘Of him, then.’

I knew of him, of course. Everybody did. The last of his kind, he lived up in the Dragonlands not far from here, although you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who could say they had caught a glimpse of the reclusive beast. I took the tea that Tiger handed me and placed it on my desk.

‘What about him?’

Kevin took a deep breath.

‘I saw him die. Die by the sword of a Dragonslayer.’

‘When?’

He narrowed his eyes.

‘Certainly within the next week.’

I stopped opening the mail—mostly junk anyway, or bills—and looked over to where Kevin Zipp was staring