The Great Troll War

‘Any spells hidden anywhere? A sorcerer miniaturised and hiding in the glovebox? A Dibble Jar full of crackle waiting to do me some mischief?’

‘Nothing,’ I said.

‘I still need to be cautious,’ he said. ‘There are always a few naysayers who want to rain on your parade when you contemplate galactic domination.’

He gently laid his fingertips on the Beetle’s bonnet, and there was a low humming noise. Shandar paused, like a tuner listening to a piano. He moved down the rear panel, then reached right under the car in the area of the engine and pulled out a small Bovril jar that had been tightly stoppered with red wax.

‘What’s this?’ he asked.

‘You’ve just been inside my head,’ I told him. ‘I don’t know – and you know I don’t know.’

He sniffed it delicately, then covered it with both his hands.

‘Well, well,’ he said, ‘a timed thermowizidrical explosive device, due to go off in twenty-six minutes and eight seconds. Written in ARAMAIC V3.4, to give a low wizidrical signature. It looks like one of Monty’s. I will concede he’s a good spell-writer. If he’d been able to do magic as well, he may even have been relevant. It’s a little crude, though. A bomb? I thought they would have been more imaginative.’

‘Powerful enough to start a chain reaction?’ I asked.

‘No – it would just have taken a sizeable chunk out of the tower and enough to topple it. Your friends just tried to kill you,’ he continued with a smirk. ‘Funny how people turn on their chums when they get desperate, isn’t it?’

‘I would only be collateral damage in the assassination of a tyrant,’ I replied. ‘They would have happily accepted the same fate, even if engineered by me. And I would have,’ I added, fixing him with my best steely gaze.

‘You pompously self-righteous people are all the same,’ he said, ‘horribly—’

‘Pompous and self-righteous?’ I suggested.

‘I was going to say “disgustingly smug”. And I’m not a tyrant. In fact, I’m probably the least tyrannical person you know.’

He didn’t go on to explain why he thought this, or even why he thought I should believe it. He then crushed the explosive device in his hands, and the stored wizidrical energy flooded into his body.

‘Happy now?’ I asked.

‘No,’ he said, continuing his search in and around my Beetle, ‘for if I wanted to assassinate someone, I would place two weapons – one hard to find, and the other almost impossible.’

He was right, and eventually found the second, which had been suspended inside a glass jar filled with water – always a good way to cloak wizidrical energy. It was well concealed, too – Shandar had to actually reach through the metal to retrieve it.

‘Much more impressive,’ he said, showing me the jar, which was glowing a soft shade of emerald green in his hands.

‘Now this might have kicked off a chain reaction,’ he said, almost admiringly. ‘D’you know, I almost respect your wizardy chums. There was only a 4% chance I wouldn’t find it, but at least they tried.’

He absorbed the power from this one, too.

‘We’re clear,’ he said finally. ‘One of the Hollow maids will show you to your quarters.’

‘When do we leave?’ I asked.

‘Leave? My dear girl, we’ve already left. We’re currently 20,000 feet above the Earth, travelling at roughly fifty times the speed of horse. We’ll pick up more speed once the Quarkbeast conjoinment occurs, but we won’t be leaving the solar system straight away – as chance would have it, Jupiter and Saturn are in conjunction, so we can drop off for a look-see on the way out. After that, I’ll ramp up the speed and we’ll head off across interstellar space to Proxima Centauri, allowing me to refuel myself, then jump into a more richly inhabited part of the galaxy – somewhere that will give me greater scope for the crushing of worthless peons who dare to oppose my might.’

I stared at him.

‘Or,’ he added quickly, ‘to a place where you can advise me how best to temper my worst excesses to maximise the size and reach of the Shandarian Empire. Now say goodbye to the Beast and I shall elevate myself to immortality.’

The Quarkbeast had been sitting there, quite happily, and wagged its tail as I knelt down to say goodbye. I’d never hugged it before as its sharpened scales didn’t lend themselves easily to cuddling unless there is a large tin of plasters and a bottle of iodine to hand, but as I approached his spines folded flat into his back and he closed his mouth tight so his fangs wouldn’t show. I placed my hand on his back and he purred at me.

‘Sure you’re okay with this?’

He wagged his tail and licked my face, which felt raspy and smelled of rusty hammers.

‘You’ve been a good friend,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’

‘Goodbye, Jennifer. The best view of Jupiter is from the orbit of Ganymede.’

‘What did you say?’ asked Shandar.

‘I didn’t say anything.’