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

“Dibble” groovy?’
    ‘No, not really. It’s more . . . dorky .’
    ‘I suppose you’re right,’ I replied, ‘but real life isn’t like that. Dibble invented them, so Dibble they are.’
    We walked across the lobby and into the Palm Court. In the heyday of the Majestic Hotel, this would have been an exotic indoor garden of tropical plants, tall palms and limpid pools with lily pads and koi carp. Scattered around would have been small tables filled with gossiping nobility taking tea, while waited upon by attentive waitresses.
    No longer.
    The room had not been used for entertaining or growing tropical plants for years, and many of the glass panes in the bell-shaped roof were either cracked or missing. Buckets lay scattered about into which water dripped during rainstorms, and the marble floor was stained and uneven. In the centre of the room was a large and very dry fountain. Standing next to it was Lady Mawgon. She had changed out of her usual black crinolines and into her even blacker ones, which showed she meant business. Her clothes were so black, in fact, that they were simply a dark Lady Mawgon-shaped hole in the world, and it could give one vertigo if you stared too long.
    ‘You never thanked me for putting the hayrick under you, Prawns.’
    ‘I’m most grateful to you for not letting me fall to a painful death,’ said Tiger, knowing it was senseless to argue.
    ‘Good manners cost nothing,’ she grumbled. ‘Did Miss Shard pay up?’
    ‘The matter was concluded satisfactorily,’ I replied.
    ‘Hmm. Now, you are here to witness my attempt to hack into the Dibbles. You will not approach me and you will not talk. Do you understand?’
    Tiger and I weren’t sure whether that meant we couldn’t answer or not, so we played it safe and nodded vigorously.
    ‘Good. Primarily I will be trying to get into the root directory of the spell’s central core to reset the passthought. 2 From there I will attempt to switch the coils back on. You should make notes as I talk my way through it. I shall permit you to wish me good luck.’
    ‘Good luck, ma’am,’ I said, taking out my pocketbook and a pencil.
    She turned to an empty space in the room and raised her index fingers. After a pause, she drew her hands downwards and out, much like a conductor beginning a symphony. A blue-filled tear appeared in the air, as though a tent flap had been unzipped. She continued to move her hands as if conducting, and as she signalled to an imaginary percussion section, the randomly placed chairs in the room moved away from the tear and the chandeliers tinkled slightly. Lady Mawgon made a few flourishes as one might do to signal in the entire string section, then held one hand in the air as if sustaining a note from the bassoons, and peered closer into the rent. The tear had depth within, and coloured lights flashed to and fro as Lady Mawgon subtly moved her hands between the theoretical harp and kettle drums to probe the inner workings of the spell. It was a incantation of great complexity, and Tiger and I stared wide eyed. Spellbound, in fact. I’d worked around spells for years, but never actually seen one.
    ‘Hmm,’ said Lady Mawgon, speaking over her shoulder while signalling to an imaginary cello section to play pianissimo. ‘The enchantment is standard Wa’Seed on a RUNIX core. The secondary spells are off-the-peg Shandar that self-regulate the internal fields, but it seems Dibble added a few gatekeepers to thwart a hack, then set them orbiting the central core in all five directions at once so they couldn’t be unwoven.’
    ‘The Great Zambini was always cautious,’ I replied, risking her anger by breaking my silence. ‘He thought four GigaShandars of raw crackle lying around might tempt a fallen wizard with mischief on their minds.’
    ‘You might be right,’ said Lady Mawgon.
    There then followed about five minutes of hard spelling which was almost indistinguishable from the gesticulations of a conductor.