second now, and when they did -
'Bloody hellV he shouted, and leapt for the nearest cable.
It wouldn't disengage. None of the cables would disengage. He ran up and down the benches, tugging and swearing, but the leaking power had fused the cables to the cradles and each other.
He'd have to get the staffs clear before they all got charged.
Stumbling, sweating, parched with terror, he started hauling the gold-filigreed oak spindles out of their cradles. Tossed them behind him like so much inferior firewood, even as the air continued to coalesce and the etheretic conductors juddered and sweated and discharged bolts of indiscriminate power.
In his pocket his modest little cherrywood staff began to glow. It got so hot he had to stop flinging the First Grade staffs around and drag off his coat, because it felt like his leg was burning. Moments after he threw the coat to the floor the wool burst into flames and disintegrated into charred flakes, revealing his smoking staff with its copper bands glowing bright as a furnace.
The First Grade staffs he'd released from confinement leapt about the floor like popcorn on a hotplate. Those still in their cradles began to buzz. On a sobbing breath he continued tearing them free of the benches.
Ten — twenty — thirty: oh lord, he'd never finish in time -
And then the staffs were simply too hot for flesh to touch. As he fell back, scorched and panting, the power's song became a scream. Both thaumic emission gauges exploded, the top of the conductors peeled open like soup cans… and a torrent of unprocessed, uncontrolled etheretic energy poured out of the reservoirs and into the remaining First Grade staffs.
The thaumic boom blasted him against the nearest wall so hard he thought for a moment he was dead, but seconds later his blackened vision cleared. He wished it hadn't.
Terrible arcing lines of indigo power surged around and through the staffs hed failed to pull free of their conductive cradles. The emptied conductors, ripped apart from the inside out, lay fallen on their sides. Two ragged gaping holes in the ceiling directly overhead spilled sunlight onto the dreadful aftermath of undisciplined thaumic energies. Through them spiralled two thin columns of unfiltered emissions: the leftover power not captured by the staffs escaping into the wider world beyond the factory.
Groaning, Gerald staggered to his feet. If he didn't shut down that self-perpetuating loop of energy pouring through the First Grade staffs it would continue to build and build until it exploded… most likely taking half the suburb of Stuttley with it. It wasn't a job for a lowly probationary compliance officer, or a Third Grade wizard who'd received his qualifications from a barely recognised correspondence course. He doubted it was even a job for a First Grade wizard… at least, not one working solo. A whole squadron might manage it, at a pinch.
But that was wishful thinking. There wasn't time to contact Mr Scunthorpe and get him to send out a flying squad of Departmental troubleshooters. There was just him. Gerald Dunwoody, wizard Third Grade. Twenty-three years old and scared to death. So long, life. I hardly lived you… Looming large before him, the howling, writhing mass of thaumaturgically linked First Grade staffs, bathed in unholy indigo fire. Abandoned on the floor at his feet, his pathetic little cherrywood staff, as useful now as a piece of straw.
And scattered around him, four of the First Grade staffs he'd managed to rescue before the massive conductor inversion. Rolling idly to and fro they glowed a gentle gold, their filigree activated. They must have been caught in the nimbus of exploding thaumic energy.
Everybody knew that Third Grade wizards didn't have the etheretic chops to handle a First Grade staff. Even using a Second Grader was to risk life, limb and sanity. Attempting to use one of those erratically charged First Graders was proof positive that sanity had left the building.
But he had no choice. This was an emergency and he was the only Department official in sight. Instincts shrieking, fear a gibbering demon on his back, he reached for the nearest activated First Grade staff. If it was one of the special orders, keyed to a specific wizard, then he really was about to breathe his last -
A shock of power slammed through his body. The world pulsed violet, then crimson, then bright and blinding blue, spinning wildly on its axis. Something deep inside his mind torqued. Twisted. Tore. His vision cleared, the mad giddiness stopped, and he was himself again. More or less. Something was different, but there was no time to worry or work out what.
Bucking and flailing like a live thing, the staff struggled to join its brethren in the heart of the magical maelstrom. Gerald got his other hand onto it, battling to contain the energy. It felt like standing inside the world's largest waterfall. The staff was channelling the excess energies from the atmosphere, attracting them like a magnet. Pummelled, battered, he wrestled with the flux and flow of power. Poured everything he had into taming the beast in his fists. But the beast didn't want to be tamed.
Gasping, fighting against being pulled into the maelstrom, he opened his slitted eyes. The etheretic conductors were empty now, their spiralling columns of power collapsed. But the trapped staffs within the indigo firestorm continued to blaze, amplifying and distorting the energies they'd consumed. Only minutes remained, surely, before they exploded. And he had no idea how to stop them.
CHAPTER TWO
Desperate, Gerald tipped back his head and stared through the nearest hole in the factory ceiling.This was no time for pride; he'd take help from anywhere.
'Reg? Reg] Are you out there? Can you hear me?'
No reply. Did that mean she was just refusing to answer or was she really not there? Was this the one time she'd actually done what he asked and was keeping her beak out of his business? Typical.
'Reg, if you're out there I'm sorry, all right? I apologise. I grovel. Just — help]'
Still no answer. Breathing like a runner on his last legs he ignored the howling pain in his shoulders and wrists and battled the gold-filigreed staff to a temporary standstill. Like a wilful child it fretted and tugged, still trying to join its blazing siblings.
A glimmer of an idea appeared, then, an iceberg emerging out of a fogbank. Staffs were both conduits and reservoirs of power. They were attracted to it like flies to honey Yes, this staff was already charged — but not completely. And everybody knew that Stuttley's staffs absorbed higher levels of raw thaumic energy than any other brand in the world. So if he could just coax some more of that untamed pulsing power into this activated staff and perhaps one or two others — maybe he could prevent the imminent enormous explosion.
Summoning the last skerricks of his strength, he inched closer to the indigo firestorm. Immediately the staff began to fight him again. He hung on grimly: letting go would be the worst, last mistake of his life. When he was as close to the writhing thaumic energy as he could get without being sucked in, he stopped. Raised the statf above his head. Focused his will, and plunged it end-first into the factory floor. Where it stuck, quivering.
A questing tendril of thaumic energy licked towards it and, amidst a sizzling crackle, fused with the staff's intricate gold fretwork. More power poured into the tall oak spindle. Gerald watched, the stinking air caught in his throat. If it held… if it held… The transfer held.
Staggering, he picked up another partially activated staff and plunged it into the floor two feet along from the first. Within moments it too was siphoning off the lethal, undirected thaumic energy. He did the same to a third staff, then a fourth. A fifth. A sixth. By the time he'd finished, he was looking at a whole row of crackling, power- hazed First Grade staffs and his legs could barely hold him upright. His lungs were a pair of deflated balloons. Indigo spots danced before his eyes. But he'd done it. He'd averted disaster. The suburb of Stuttley and its famous staff factory were saved.
Holly Devree had kept his handkerchief, so he smeared the sweat from his face with one shirtsleeve and watched, exhausted, as the ferocious thaumic firestorm faded. Smiled, shaking, as the ear-battering roar of untrammelled power abated.
Saint Snodgrass's trousers. Had anything like this ever happened before? A Third Grade wizard managing to successfully stymie a major thaumatur-gical inversion? He'd never heard of it. As he stood there, gently panting, he let his imagination off its tight leash.
This could be it, Dunwoody. This could be your big chance, finally.
Mr Scunthorpe would have to take him seriously now. Let him off probation early. Possibly even approve a transfer to a different department altogether. Even ¦- miracle of miracles — Research and Development.
