The Song of the Quarkbeast by Jasper Fforde

Author:Jasper Fforde
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Girls & Women, Action & Adventure, Family, Juvenile Fiction, Orphans & Foster Homes, General, Fantasy & Magic
ISBN: 9781444707229
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Published: 2011-11-02T07:00:00+00:00

* * *

1 Unusual and realistic cloud shapes were the usual method by which bursts of wizidrical energy could be detected. The cloud shape above the experimental forty-megaton wizidrical detonations in the Cambrian Empire was a staggeringly realistic rendition of an Amanita phalloides, coincidentally one of the major ingredients of the potion that built the device.

The perfidy begins

* * *

Sleep was difficult and both fitful and restless, and I was reduced to staring at the fireflies that flickered about the window, feeding off the gentle buzz of wizidrical energy that leaked out of the building.

Once a reasonable hour had arrived, I had a bath and came downstairs. I found the Youthful Perkins and Patrick of Ludlow in the lobby, busily at practice building an arch out of some cobbles. It was a tricky act, and one that required not only good co-ordination, but teamwork. The trick was to hold them all in a semicircle until the final cobble – the keystone – was placed at the apex, at which point they could both relax and the arch would stay up on its own.

Trouble was, it didn’t seem to want to. On the few occasions they managed to get a complete arch made, it tumbled down as soon as they relaxed.

‘It will be easier with bigger stones and the abutments to take the outward forces,’ said Perkins, and Patrick grunted an agreement.

I had some breakfast and went to the office to check on Kevin Zipp. He was still asleep. Owen of Rhayder was standing by on Kevin-watch for a few hours while Prince Nasil ran some errands. Owen was our second carpeteer and, through no fault of his own, the lesser of the two. Whereas the Prince’s carpet was a frayed and moth-bitten artefact that would make the inside of a skip look untidy, Owen’s was eight times worse. A carpet’s design life was twenty thousand hours or three centuries before remanufacture, and Owen’s was well beyond both.

‘Did Kevin say anything in his sleep?’ I asked.

‘Not much,’ replied Owen, ‘just mumblings about index fingers, the Tralfamosaur, important people being blown to bits and how ice cream will be on the menu more than once a month from this time next year.’

‘I like the sound of that,’ said Tiger, who had just wandered in.

‘I hope you’re referring to the ice cream and not the blowing to bits. Put the visions in the book, will you? I think we’re at RAD099. I’m going to have a look at the contest preparations.’

I stepped out of the hotel into Snodd Lane and walked to where it widened out into Snodd Street before turning left into Snodd Boulevard. I picked up a copy of the Hereford Daily Eyestrain from the seller on the corner and noted without much surprise that the competition was headline news.

TWO HOUSES BATTLE FOR TOP WIZ SLOT

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