'Reg? Reg] Are you out there? Can you hear me?'
No reply. Did that mean she was just refusing to answer or was she really not there? Was this the one time she'd actually done what he asked and was keeping her beak out of his business? Typical.
'Reg, if you're out there I'm sorry, all right? I apologise. I grovel. Just — help]'
Still no answer. Breathing like a runner on his last legs he ignored the howling pain in his shoulders and wrists and battled the gold-filigreed staff to a temporary standstill. Like a wilful child it fretted and tugged, still trying to join its blazing siblings.
A glimmer of an idea appeared, then, an iceberg emerging out of a fogbank. Staffs were both conduits and reservoirs of power. They were attracted to it like flies to honey Yes, this staff was already charged — but not completely. And everybody knew that Stuttley's staffs absorbed higher levels of raw thaumic energy than any other brand in the world. So if he could just coax some more of that untamed pulsing power into this activated staff and perhaps one or two others — maybe he could prevent the imminent enormous explosion.
Summoning the last skerricks of his strength, he inched closer to the indigo firestorm. Immediately the staff began to fight him again. He hung on grimly: letting go would be the worst, last mistake of his life. When he was as close to the writhing thaumic energy as he could get without being sucked in, he stopped. Raised the statf above his head. Focused his will, and plunged it end-first into the factory floor. Where it stuck, quivering.
A questing tendril of thaumic energy licked towards it and, amidst a sizzling crackle, fused with the staff's intricate gold fretwork. More power poured into the tall oak spindle. Gerald watched, the stinking air caught in his throat. If it held… if it held… The transfer held.
Staggering, he picked up another partially activated staff and plunged it into the floor two feet along from the first. Within moments it too was siphoning off the lethal, undirected thaumic energy. He did the same to a third staff, then a fourth. A fifth. A sixth. By the time he'd finished, he was looking at a whole row of crackling, power-hazed First Grade staffs and his legs could barely hold him upright. His lungs were a pair of deflated balloons. Indigo spots danced before his eyes. But he'd done it. He'd averted disaster. The suburb of Stuttley and its famous staff factory were saved.
Holly Devree had kept his handkerchief, so he smeared the sweat from his face with one shirtsleeve and watched, exhausted, as the ferocious thaumic firestorm faded. Smiled, shaking, as the ear-battering roar of untrammelled power abated.
Saint Snodgrass's trousers. Had anything like this ever happened before? A Third Grade wizard managing to successfully stymie a major thaumatur-gical inversion? He'd never heard of it. As he stood there, gently panting, he let his imagination off its tight leash.
This could be it, Dunwoody. This could be your big chance, finally.
Mr Scunthorpe would have to take him seriously now. Let him off probation early. Possibly even approve a transfer to a different department altogether. Even ¦- miracle of miracles — Research and Development.
The thought of reaching such an exalted height made him dizzy all over again.
With a final whimpering sputter the last randomly dissipated etheretic energies discharged into the staffs he'd plunged into the floor. The benches and staffs still trapped in their conductive cradles disintegrated in a choking cloud of indigo ash.
Despite his exhaustion and his myriad aches and pains, Gerald did a little victory dance. 'Yes! Yes! R and D boys, here I come!'
Then he stopped dancing, because it was that or fall over. Instead he just stood there, eyes closed, heart pounding, revelling in his moment of unexpected triumph.
Breaking the blessed silence, a sound. Thin. Sharp. Dangerous — and escalating. Nervously he opened his eyes. Stared at the militarily upright staffs plunged into the floor. Before he had time to blink, the first one transformed into a narrow blue column of fire. Moments later the second followed suit. Then the rest, one by one, like a row of falling dominoes. The air began to sparkle. The factory floor began to smoke.
He frowned. 'Oh.' Apparently he'd found the thaumaturgical limit of a Stuttley Superior Staff. How clever of me. Research and Development, indeed. 'Right. So this would be a good time to run away, yes?'
His wobbly legs answered for him. He had just enough time and wit to grab up his poor little cherrywood staff and reach the nearest door. The blast wave caught him with his fingers still on the handle, tumbled him through the air like so much leaf litter and dropped him from a great height into the middle of an ornamental rose garden.
The last thing he saw, before darkness claimed him, was the irate face of Harold Stuttley.
'You bastard! You bastard! I'll have your job for this!' Mr Scunthorpe folded his hands on top of his desk and shook his head. 'Gerald… Gerald… Gerald…'
Gerald winced.'I know, Mr Scunthorpe,' he said contritely. 'And I'm very sorry. But it wasn't my fault. Honestly.'
It was much later. The ambulance officers from the district hospital had fished him out of the rose garden then transported him, over his objections, to the emergency room, where an unsympathetic doctor extracted all the rose thorns from various and delicate parts of his anatomy and pronounced him sound in wind and limb, if deficient in intelligence. Which meant he was free to catch a taxi back to Stuttley's and drive at not much above snail's pace home to the Department of Thaumaturgy so he could make his report.
Unfortunately, Harold Stuttley's tongue had travelled a damned sight faster.
'Not your fault, Gerald?' echoed Mr Scunthorpe, and looked down at the paperwork in front of him. 'That's not what the people at Stuttley's are saying. According to them you barged into the middle of a highly sensitive First Grade thaumaturgical transfer, ignored all reasonable warnings and pleas to leave before there was an accident, used your Departmental authority to evict the personnel from their lawful premises and then caused a massive explosion which only by a miracle failed to kill someone, or reduce everything within a radius of three miles to rubble. As it is you totally destroyed the factory, which is going to put back staff production by months. I have to tell you Lord Attaby is profoundly unamused. One of the staffs you blew up had his nephew's name on it.'
It took a moment for Gerald's brain to catch up with his ears. When it did, he almost choked. 'What? But that's rubbish! Yes, all right, the factory did blow up, but I'm telling you, Mr Scunthorpe, that wasn't my fault! Harold Stuttley caused that! The etheretic conductors failed due to a lack of proper maintenance. They were on the brink of inversion when I got there! Ask the technicians! They'll tell you!'
Mr Scunthorpe tapped his fingernails on the open file. 'What I just told you, Gerald, is a summary of their testimony. Theirs and, of course, Mr Harold Stuttley's. He's threatening all kinds of trouble. Lord Attaby is very unhappy'
'But — but — ' He clenched his fingers into fists. 'I went there in the first place because there was a protocol violation. Overdue safety statements. That proves they — '
Mr Scunthorpe's round face was suffused with temper. 'All it proves, Mr Dunwoody, is that even the best of companies can fall behind with their paperwork. You were sent to Stuttley's to deliver a polite reminder to this nation's most valuable and prestigious staff manufacturer that the Department of Thaumaturgy looked forward to their prompt provision of all relevant documentation. You were not sent there to cause international headlines!'
Mr Dunwoody. Gerald leaned forward, feeling desperate. 'But there was a woman! I spoke to her! She said things weren't being done right, she said there was trouble.' He scrabbled around in his post-explosion memory. 'Devree! That was her name! Find her. Ask her. She'll tell you.'