Read Online The Song of the Quarkbeast: Last Dragonslayer: Book Two by Jasper Fforde - Free Book Online

undesirable in society. You had to focus every synapse in your mind to the exclusion of everything else and fire the magic out of your index fingers. That’s why observers remained quiet when spelling was afoot. Break the concentration and whoever was casting the spell would have to start again. It’s like interrupting poetry. It just isn’t done.
    We heard a few grunts from the darkness beyond the sheet of ply, then a pause while nothing happened. There was another pause, more grunts, and then nothing happened again. It was just when nothing was about to happen for the third time that there was a faint ‘pop’ from the other end of the corridor as the air rushed in to fill the hole in the air where Moobin wasn’t, and a half-second later he reappeared in front of us, the air he had displaced hitting us a moment later as a faintly discernible shock-wave.
    ‘Ta-da!’ said Moobin, staring at his feet where he had appeared, directly above the white cross. ‘Seventy feet, and through a sheet of three-millimetre plywood. Tomorrow I’ll try six-millimetre ply, then chipboard.’
    ‘Impressive. I’ll mark it up in the records ledger tonight.’
    ‘It’s also a new personal best,’ continued Moobin excitedly, ‘and if those heathen scum over at iMagic aren’t also doing teleport work, it makes me the best teleporter on the planet. Why are you both staring at me?’
    ‘You look like you’ve been glazed,’ I said, putting out a hand to touch him, ‘like a doughnut.’
    Just then, the separate sheets of thin wood veneer that made up the plywood fell neatly into three thin and very flappy pieces.
    ‘Oh dear,’ said Moobin, ‘I appear to have picked up the glue from the plywood as I passed through. How did that happen?’
    He wasn’t asking any of us, of course, he was simply confused. But that was what research and development was like. Full of semi-triumphs and perplexing unforeseen consequences, such as the whole violent hiccuping thing when conjuring up fire – or the propensity for fillings to fall out of bystanders’ mouths when attempting to tease a rainstorm out of a cloud.
    ‘The Transient Moose can teleport almost without thinking,’ muttered Moobin, faintly annoyed, ‘ and go around corners.’
    ‘But he’s a spell himself,’ observed Tiger helpfully, ‘and presumably has zero mass, so it must be easier.’
    ‘Probably,’ replied Moobin gloomily. ‘I wish he’d let me have a closer look.’
    The Wizard Moobin had recently become fascinated by the Transient Moose, and had fired a few spell-probes into it to discover just what particular enchantment was keeping it going. The probes had learned little except that the original sorcerer was possibly Greek and the Moose was most likely running Mandrake Sentience Emulation Protocols, 1 which didn’t help, as nearly all spells that made something appear lifelike were run under Mandrake.
    It wasn’t just curiosity. The Mystical Arts were arcane, secretive and, once a specific spell was discovered, rarely shared. Ancient wizards went to their graves with the really groovy stuff still locked inside their heads. Some wrote it down in big leather-bound books, but most didn’t. It would be very valuable indeed to find out not only how the Moose managed to live so long and teleport so effortlessly, but how it could do it on an average crackle consumption of only 172.8 Shandars a day.
    ‘I’m going to have a shower,’ said Moobin, ‘so long as someone hasn’t already swiped the hot water.’
    ‘Oops,’ said Tiger.
    ‘What, again?’ asked Moobin.
    ‘I was covered in mud.’
    ‘Have you been thinking about the bridge gig?’ I asked, changing the subject. I had yet to see a detailed plan or risk assessment.
    ‘I’m working on it,’ Moobin said, ‘although with the Dibble Coils stuck on standby we’ll need all of us if we’re to do it in a day.’
    ‘Lady Mawgon is going to try to get them back online this morning.’
    ‘The old bat’s