Accidental Sorcerer (4 page)

He cleared his throat. 'Um. Why don't I just try that again?'

Before Scunthorpe could refuse he attempted to animate the painting a second time. Nothing. A third time. Nothing. A fourth ti-

'Forget it!' shouted Scunthorpe, and snatched back his precious silver-filigreed staff. 'You're a fraud, Dunwoody! After a performance like that I'm at a loss to understand how you even got your
Third
Grade licence! My Aunt Hildegarde's geriatric cat has more wizarding talent than you!'

Stunned, Gerald stared at the uncooperative painting. Then he fished inside his overcoat and pulled out his slightly singed cherrywood staff. Turning, he snatched the broken pencil pieces from Scunthorpe's desk, tapped them with his staff and uttered a joining incant, a task so simple it wasn't even included in the Third Grade examination.

The pencil stayed stubbornly broken.

Oh God.
'Idon't understand it,' he muttered. 'I've got nothing.
Nothing.
How can that be? Unless -' Horrified, he stared at Scunthorpe. 'Do you think I burned myself out when I short-circuited the inversion? Do you think channelling all that raw thaumic energy through those First Grade staffs somehow used up all my power?'

'All
what
power?' roared Scunthorpe. 'You don't
have
any power, Dunwoody! You're the worst excuse for a wizard I ever met! I must've been
mad
the day I took pity and gave you a job! I must've been
ravingl
Get out! You're fired!'

Gerald felt his throat close.
Fired.
Again. His stomach heaved.'Mr Scunthorpe, I protest. I didn't do anything wrong. Harold Stuttley's the criminal here, not me. I don't care what he says, I contained that thaumic inversion, I didn't cause it. The resulting explosion was unfortunate but -'

'Unfortunate'?'
Scunthorpe wheezed. 'You mean catastrophic! Are you really this naive, Dunwoody? Stuttley's is demanding a parliamentary enquiry! They're threatening to sue the government! They want this entire Department disbanded!'

'But - but that's ridiculous -'

'Of course it's ridiculous!' snapped Scunthorpe. 'But that's not the point! The point is that if your head's not rolling down the Department staircase in the next five minutes we will lose control of this situation!'

'And then what? Harold Stuttley gets off scot-free?'

'Never you mind about Harold Stuttley! Forget you ever heard of Harold Stuttley! This isn't about Harold Stuttley, Dunwoody, it's about
you.
Don't you
understand?
You've embarrassed the Department and disgraced your staff. You're finished, do you hear me?
Finisliedl
So don't stand there staring like a poleaxed bullock! Get out of my office. Get out of the
building.
So that when Lord Attaby demands the privilege of personally kicking you into the street I can put my hand on my heart and say I don't know where you are!'

Gerald shook his head. 'This isn't right. I'm not going to take this lying down, Mr Scunthorpe. I'm going to -'

'What?' sneered Scunthorpe. 'Demand an enquiry of your own? Go on record claiming you're a better wizard than the likes of Lord Attaby himself?
You:
A correspondence course Third Grader? Well, I suppose you can. If you insist. But you'll never work as a wizard again, Dunwoody. That much I can promise you.'

Stung, he looked at his red-faced superior. 'I thought I was already finished!'

Abruptly Scunthorpe's manner softened. 'You are, son. At least around here. But if you go quietly, no fuss, no indignant, outlandish claims and accusations, lay low for a while, well, I'm sure once the dust has settled, in a few months, a year maybe, some little locum agency somewhere will take you on.'

'A year?' He almost laughed. 'And what am I supposed to do in the meantime?'

Scunthorpe shook his head. 'Sorry. That's not my problem. You should have thought of that before you blew up Stuttley's. Now if I could just have your official badge ...'

Fingers numb, Gerald pulled his identification wallet out of his pocket and handed it over. In a final act of petulant defiance, he undid his official tie and thrust that at Scunthorpe as well. Then, with as much dignity as his tattered pride could muster, he turned on his heel and marched out of Mr Scunthorpe's pokey office.

Mr Scunthorpe slammed the door closed behind him.

Braving the gauntlet of eyes beyond it, the secretaries and the other inspectors, the visiting bodies from elsewhere in the DoT, he felt as insignificant as a beetle and as conspicuous as an elephant. Not one of his former colleagues said a word, just watched him walk past desk after desk to the lifts in hot, humiliating silence.

Life in the street outside the DoT building continued in blissful ignorance of his latest wizarding debacle. Well-dressed, affluent citizens of the city were smiling, laughing even, as they bustled about their lives, the insensitive bastards. How could they? Didn't they know his lifelong dream had just gone up in smoke right along with Stuttley's bloody staff factory?

No. They didn't. And even if they did, would they care? Probably not. Nobody cared. Not even Reg. She'd flown off and left him. He was all alone. Alone, disgraced and unemployed.

Stop snivelling, Dunwoody,
he told himself derisively.
Self-pity doesn't suit you.

Maybe not, but wasn't he entitled? After three failed attempts at wizarding hadn't he earned himself at least one small snivel?

All I wanted was to be a wizard. Is that so damned much to ask?

Yes. Apparently it was.

The motor he'd driven out to Stuttley's belonged to the DoT carpool.When he wasn't on official business he caught the bus. Well, he couldn't afford to do that any more. He'd have to watch every last penny now until he somehow managed to find another job. Street-sweeping, probably, if he decided he really couldn't face his revolting cousins and the tailor shop his father had loved and toiled in for most of his working life.

With his spirits sloshing about his ankles he headed for home, the Wizards' Club, where he rented a room.

But for how much longer he had no idea.

At the time of its official opening - October 19, 1274, according to the tarnished plaque by the front doors - the Wizards' Club had been brand spanking new. The wrought iron gates were shiny and silent, the brass-bound front doors undented and scratchless, the windows unwarped, the roof tiles gleaming, and its sandstone bricks clean and creamy white like newly churned butter.

But down the long centuries the club's pale sandstone bricks had acquired a patina of soot and ivy; exotic weeds began a ceaseless war for equal squatting rights amongst the flowerbeds; and a tangled jungle of briars, blackberries and tigerteeth grew up to flourish like living barbed wire around the property's perimeter, guaranteeing privacy without the tedium of having to regularly renew unfriendly incantations.

Now, nearly six hundred years later, all that could be said of the club was that it was still there, defiant in its grimy and time-twisted old age like an ancient relative who refuses to be decently shuffled off to the Sunshine Home for Old Wizards.

Dusk was dragging slow fingers through the tops of the ornamental amber trees as Gerald dawdled his disconsolate, chilly and blistered way along the quiet street. Even the starlings settling in for the night sounded derisive as they commented on his reluctant progress towards the club's now rusty and slightly mangled front gates.

His heart sank as he scanned the visitors' car park. Errol Haythwaite's gleaming silver Orion. James Kirkby-Hackett's scarlet Chariot. Edward Cobcroft Minor's black Zephyr. Oh lord. They were
all
here? So soon?

Well, of course they were. Haythwaite and Co had probably rushed right over as soon as the news about Stuttley's hit the streets.

He perused the residents' car park, hoping to see Monk Markham's battered blue Invincible, but it wasn't there. Hardly surprising. Monk's current secret project for the Department's Research and Development division had swallowed him alive, metaphorically speaking. He hadn't been home for three days.

Gerald sighed. A pity. Monk was his best friend, and such a genius not even the likes of Haythwaite and Co dared to offend him. What he was doing renting rooms at the club and slaving away as a civil servant when he could name his price anywhere in the world and have his pick of palaces to live in was a mystery.

The lowering sun sank a little further behind the trees. He shivered.

Come on, Dunwoody, you gutless worm. You can't loiter out here on the footpath all night. Might as well get it over with.

He stared at the gates. They were shut. To open them, all he had to do was wave his hand and say the word.

Except ...

What if it didn't work? Walking home he'd steadfastly refused to let himself dwell on that heartstopping moment in Scunthorpe's office when the thaumatic ether wouldn't obey him. But now he had to think of it. What if he really was finished? What if that insane stunt with the First Grade staffs had burned out his meagre talent? What if the only thing in the world he was good for now was tailoring?

Please, no.
No.
Heart thumping, he scrabbled for his cherrywood staff and waved it at the closed club gates.'Open!
OpenV

A spurting fizzle of power. A momentary pause that lasted forever. Then, with a complaining groan and a flaking of rust, the wrought iron gates dragged sluggishly apart. He fell against them, panting.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.

His abilities, such as they were, had returned.

Straight ahead, at the end of a long brickwork path, squatted six wide stone steps. Above them loomed the club's ancient, imposing front doors. And behind those doors waited Haythwaite and Co, doubtless primed with Bellringer's best brandy and salivating at the thought of dragging that upstart nobody Dunwoody down a peg or two. Because the idea of discretion or sympathy was as foreign to them as a delegation of ambassadors from Katzwandaland. Errol and his friends had tongues like well-sharpened knives and there was nothing they enjoyed more than carving up their social inferiors. Especially when those inferiors made spectacularly public blunders.

On the other hand, perhaps loitering isn't such a bad idea after all.

'Bloody hell,' he said to the fading sky. 'When did I turn into such a coward?'

Heart colliding painfully with his ribs, he walked through the gates.

The club's parquet reception area was blessedly deserted. Blinking in the carefully cultivated gloom Gerald checked his pigeonhole and found a letter from his globe-trotting parents. This one was postmarked
Darsheppe.
He had to think for a moment where that was. Oh, yes. Capital city of Hortopia. Half-way round the world. Suddenly that seemed even further away than it actually was.

As he stared at his mother's sprawling scrawl he found himself torn between relief that they weren't here to witness his latest disaster, and sharp sorrow-that he'd disappointed them again. That was the trouble with being the only offspring: no sibling shoulders to help carry the burden of familial expectations.

MrPinchgut, the club's retainer and general factotum, emerged from his tiny office set underneath the grand staircase that led up to the private apartments. He saw Gerald and stopped. From the angle of his bushy eyebrows and the particular stiffness of his tail-coated spine it was clear he'd heard all about Stuttley's. Gerald tucked the letter into his pocket and nodded at him. 'Mr Pinchgut.'

The retainer favoured him with a frosty bow. 'Mr Dunwoody.'

He sighed. 'Would it help if I said it wasn't my fault?'

Mr Pinchgut thawed, ever so slightly. 'I'm sure it's not for me to comment, sir.' 'Even so. It wasn't.'

Another bow. 'Yes, sir. May I say I hope that's a comforting thought?'

'You may,' he said, heading for the stairs. 'But we both know you'd be wasting your breath.'

The staircase stopped being grand after the first two flights because all the posh apartments were on the first and second floors. For the next two flights it was plain but serviceable, just like the rooms it led to. After that the stairs became narrow, uneven and downright higgledy-piggledy, which was also a fair description of the cheap rooms crammed beneath the roof of the building. Puffing, Gerald staggered on up to his bedsit.

Itwas tucked away at the rear of the club's top floor. Squashed cheek-to-jowl inside were a saggy-mattressed single bed, a lopsided wardrobe, a narrow cupboard, a three-legged card table, a rickety chair, a very skinny bookcase and a single temperamental gas ring. Mysterious plumbing groaned and gurgled at all hours of the day and night. The bathroom he shared with six other wizards was on the next floor down. This meant a chamber-pot, which added a certain piquancy to the atmosphere. There was one miserly window with a fine view of the noisome compost heap and only two places where he could stand completely upright without cracking his head on an exposed roof beam.

'Reg?' he called softly as he kicked the bedsit door unstuck and shoehorned himself inside. 'Reg, are you here?'

A resounding silence was the only reply. He flicked on the light-switch and looked around, but the room was empty.

Dammit.
Where the hell
was
she? He'd left the window open, just in case. She should
be
here, all broody and complaining on the tacky, revolting old ram skull she insisted on using for a perch. Eating a mouse and leaving the tail on the floor because tails always get stuck halfway down. Why wasn't she here? They'd quarrelled before. Hell, they quarrelled practically every day. Just because he'd lost his temper and called her a moulting feather duster with the manners of a brain-damaged hen, was that any reason to fly off in high dudgeon and not come back?

Had she gone for
good?

Scrunching down to avoid the rafters, he crossed to the window and stuck his head out. The last of the daylight was almost gone and the first faint stars were starting to sparkle. A thin rind of moon teetered low on the distant horizon. All in all, it was a beautiful evening.