“Yes… yes, of course,” said Methven. He was sweating, great damp patches staining the armpits of his white lab coat, beads of moisture rolling down his blanched face. He had a receding chin, and it was trembling. “That’s exactly what he’s trying to do. Yes.”
And in fact not only trying, but succeeding. Amazing. There was so much randomly generated thaumic energy inside the airship now it was glowing like a brazier, angry and bright red. The gold filigree on Errol’s staff was glowing too, hotter and hotter. It had to be almost too hot to hold, it had to be on the point of scorching him, surely, and he wasn’t wearing gloves, but Errol didn’t let go. Instead he was using an incredibly complicated and hard-to-balance etheretic-reversal incant to suck the excess thaumic energy out of the airship and into the staff where it could be stored temporarily.
Gerald shook his head. Errol was loathsome, an arrogant, insufferable, nasty piece of work… but there was no denying it. He was also a bloody brilliant wizard.
The experimental airship’s spinning slowed. Slowed further. Its furious colour began to fade. Now sweat was pouring down Errol’s face, which was twisting with the pain of his efforts and his blistering hand.
“I say, Errol!” shouted Methven, entirely forgetting his manners. “You ought to stop now, that staff is going to implode!”
“It’s fine,” Errol grunted, his chiselled jaw clenched. “I know what I’m doing. And that’s Mister Haythwaite to you, pillock!”
Gerald held his breath again. Methven was right, not even the kind of First Grade staff the likes of Errol could afford was strong enough to absorb much more raw thaumic energy. Remembering what had happened at Stuttley’s, remembering the catastrophic devastation caused by those overcharged First Grade staffs, he stepped forward and tentatively touched Errol on the sleeve.
“Errol-Mister Haythwaite-it can’t take any more.”
Errol wrenched his head round to glare at him with bloodshot eyes. “Did I ask for your opinion, you little maggot?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong. The airship’s stabilised, sir. Now get that staff out of here before it overloads!”
Cursing, Errol looked up at the vanquished Ambrose Mark VI prototype then stared at his staff. Its filigree was starting to melt, an ominous blue haze rising above the tracery.
“Damn you, Dunwoody,” said Errol, and ran.
Methven bolted after him, and Gerald, first hastily deactivating the prototype altogether and leaving it to plunge willy-nilly to the laboratory floor, hustled in their wake.
Wycliffe’s lofty-ceilinged Research and Development laboratory was laid out like a horse-barn, two long rows of individual labs separated by a wide aisle, which was crammed full of desks and chairs and benches and sinks. At one end of the building was Mister Ambrose Wycliffe’s office, and at its opposite end was the Emergency Pit, where thaumaturgically compromised articles were thrown for later, carefully supervised disposal.
Shouting at the top of his lungs Errol ran full pelt for the Pit, blue-hazed staff raised above his head.
“Get out of my way-shift your bloody arse, you fool-move-move-move- move! Don’t just stand there, get the Pit open, now!”
Startled wizards scattered before him. Someone made a dive for the Pit’s double doors and hauled them open. Errol turned sideways as he ran… adopted the lanky, long-legged lope of a javelin thrower… threw back his head on a roar of pain… and speared his staff down into the Pit.
“Shut the bloody doors, you fool!” he bellowed at the helpful wizard-Monaghan, one of Wycliffe’s Second Graders.
Monaghan obeyed. As the doors slammed shut Errol triggered their protective shielding hex then staggered to a halt.
“Good job, I say, good job,” Methven was panting, shoving his way through the stunned crowd of wizards. “Well done, Err-Mister Haythwaite! Are you all right, old ch-sir?”
Gerald, his heart stuttering, prudently hung back. Errol had dropped to his knees, the fingers of his left hand gripping his right wrist very tightly, his pale, sweaty face a grimacing mask of fury. He held up his right hand, and the other wizards gasped to see the livid, blood-filled blisters on its palm and fingers.
“Do I look all right to you, Methven?” he snarled. “Where the hell is Dunnywood, I’m going to-”
And then the floor heaved under their feet and the Pit’s hexed doors buckled and the air beneath the high roof of the R amp;D division shivered, as Errol’s caged First Grade staff surrendered to metaphysical inevitability and exploded.
“ Where is he?” shouted Errol, lurching to his feet. “Show your bloody face, Dunwoody, if you dare!”
Reluctantly abandoning the shelter of his muttering, whispering colleagues, Gerald shuffled into view. Oh dear. Oh no. I don’t think this is what Sir Alec meant by keeping a low profile.
“I’m here, Mister Haythwaite.”
“And why is that, Dunwoody?” Errol ground out, his eyes slitted. “ Why are you here? Why are you anywhere? First you blow up Stuttley’s. Then your new employer breaks his neck hunting. And now here you are trying to wreck Wycliffe’s. You’re a menace! You’re a one-man walking disaster! Everything you touch turns to shit!”
“Ah-actually, Mister Haythwaite, that’s not quite-” Methven started to say.
“Did I ask you, Robert, you-you turtle?” said Errol, turning on him. “Did I invite you to express your ignorant opinion? Did I-”
“What in the name of all things thaumaturgical is going on here?” demanded an unimpressed baritone voice from the back of the crowd. “Would someone kindly explain this fracas?”
Mister Ambrose Wycliffe, lured out of his den by all the excitement.
Gerald and his colleagues turned towards the man Sir Alec had characterised as decent enough, but not a patch on his father — and nearly fell over. Because hovering behind Mister Ambrose Wycliffe, the very image of sober prosperity in his black three-piece worsted morning suit, was-was Melissande?
What? What? What was she doing here?
Melissande seemed just as shocked to see him as he was to see her. Mouth dropped, she slid her prim glasses down her nose and stared at him over their rims, dumbfounded. Clutched to her black-bloused chest-lord, that was an ugly outfit! — was a pile of buff-coloured folders.
Then her expression changed to a warning, which gave him just enough time to duck aside as Errol Haythwaite thrust his way past to confront Mister Ambrose Wycliffe.
“What’s going on, sir, is that you’ve hired the most useless, incompetent and downright dangerous Third Grade idiot in the country… if not the entire world. If you’ll accept my recommendation, sir, you’ll get rid of him. Right now.”
Ambrose Wycliffe frowned, making his untrimmed bushy gingery grey eyebrows bristle. He looked a lot like a middle-aged basset-hound: sagging jowls, a wrinkled brow, and deeply dark brown, mournful eyes. “What? Who? Who are you talking about, Haythwaite?”
Gerald exchanged looks with Melissande, sighed, and raised his hand. “He’s talking about me, sir,” he said, as his colleagues prudently retreated from the direct line of fire. “Gerald Dunwoody.”
Ambrose Wycliffe squinted. “Never heard of you. Never laid eyes on you before, have I? How long have you been here?”
“Three weeks, sir. I was sent by Truscott’s, sir.”
“The locum agency?” Ambrose Wycliffe chewed at his lip. “They sent you?”
“Yes, sir.”
Ambrose looked at Errol. “You must be mistaken, Mister Haythwaite. He can’t be that bad. Not if Truscott’s sent him.”
Errol seemed nonplussed. “You use a locum agency, Mister Wycliffe?”
“For the unimportant staff, yes,” said Ambrose Wycliffe. “I only hand-pick the important people, like you. Don’t have time to waste on functionaries. Leave that to Truscott’s.”
“Oh,” said Errol. “Well, sir, did Truscott’s happen to mention that this functionary is the man who blew up Stuttley’s last year?”