Читаем The Eye of Zoltar полностью

At Kazam I found out that magic had not much to do with black cats, cauldrons, wands, pointy hats and broomsticks. No, those were only in the movies. Real life was somewhat different. Magic is weird and mysterious and a fusion between science and faith, and the practical way of looking at it is this: magic swirls about us like an invisible fog of emotional energy that can be tapped by those skilled in the Mystical Arts, and then channelled into a concentrated burst of energy from the tips of the index fingers. The technical name for magic was ‘the variable electro-gravitational mutable subatomic force’, but the more more usual term was ‘wizidrical energy’, or, more simply, ‘crackle’.

So there I was, assistant to the Great Zambini, learning well and working hard, when Zambini disappeared – quite literally – in a puff of smoke. He didn’t return, or at least, not for anything but a few minutes at a time and often in random locations, so I took over the running of the company, aged fifteen. Okay, that was a biggie, but I coped and, long story short, I saved dragons from extinction, averted war between the nations of Snodd and Brecon and helped the power of magic begin to re-establish itself. And that’s when the trouble really started. King Snodd thought using the power of magic for corporate profit would be a seriously good wheeze, something we at Kazam weren’t that happy about. Even longer story short, we held a magic contest to decide who controls magic, and after a lot of cheating by the King to try to have us lose, he failed – and we are now a House of Enchantment free from royal meddling, and can concentrate on rebuilding magic into a noble craft one can be proud of.

I now look after forty-five barely sane sorcerers at Kazam, only six of whom have a legal permit to perform magic. If you think wizards are all wise, sage-like purveyors of the Mystical Arts with sparkling wizidrical energy streaming from their fingertips, think again. They are for the most part undisciplined, infantile, argumentative and infuriating, and their magic only works when they really concentrate, which isn’t that often, and misspellings are common. But when it works, a well-spelled feat of magic is the most wondrous thing to behold, like your favourite book, painting, music and movie all at the same time, with chocolate and a meaningful hug from someone you love thrown in for good measure. So despite everything, it’s a good business in which to work. Besides, there’s rarely a dull moment.

So that’s me, really. I have an orphaned assistant named Tiger Prawns to help me, I am Dragon Ambassador to the world – of which more later – and I also have a pet Quarkbeast, which is at least nine times as frightening as the most frightening thing you’ve ever seen.

My name is Jennifer Strange. Welcome to my world.

Now: let’s find that Tralfamosaur.

Zambini Towers

Myself, Tiger and those forty-five sorcerers all lived in a large, eleven-storey, ornate former hotel named Zambini Towers. It was in a bad state of repair and even though we had some spare magic to restore it to glory, we decided we wouldn’t. There was a certain charm about the faded wallpaper, warped wood, missing windowpanes and leaky roof. Some argued that this added a certain something to the surroundings that made it peculiarly suitable for the Mystical Arts. Others argued that it was a fetid dump suitable only for demolition, and I kind of sat somewhere between the two.

When the call came in I was standing in the shabby, wood-panelled lobby of Zambini Towers.

‘There’s a Tralfamosaur loose somewhere between here and Ross,’ said Tiger, waving a report that had just been forwarded from the police. They’d taken the call but had passed it on to the zoo, who passed it on to Mountain Rescue, who passed it back to the police, who then passed it on to us when the zoo refused it a second time.

‘Anyone eaten?’ I asked.

‘All of two railway workers and part of a fisherman,’ said Tiger, who was only just twelve and, like me, a foundling. He was stuck here for four years and after that he could apply for citizenship, or earn it fighting in the next Troll War, which probably wouldn’t be far off. Troll Wars were like Batman movies: both are repeated at regular intervals, feature expensive hardware, and are broadly predictable. The difference being that during the Troll Wars, humans always lost – and badly. In Troll War IV eight years ago, sixty thousand troops were lost before General Snood had even finished giving the order to advance.

‘Three eaten already?’ I repeated. ‘We need to get Big T back to the zoo before he gets hungry again.’

‘How long will that be?’ asked Tiger, who was small in stature but big on questions.

I swiftly estimated how much calorific value there was in a railway worker, and matched that to what I knew of a Tralfamosaur’s metabolism with a rough guess at how much of the fisherman had been consumed, and came up with an answer.

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