Jas per Fforde. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Boston New York

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2 Jas per Fforde The Chroncles of Kazam Book THREE C Houghton Mffln Harcourt Boston New York

3 Copyrght 2014 by Jasper Fforde Orgnally publshed by Hodder & Stoughton All rghts reserved. For nformaton about permsson to reproduce selectons from ths book, wrte to Permssons, Houghton Mffln Harcourt Publshng Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York Text set n Garamond 3 Lt Std. Lbrary of Congress Catalogng- n- Publcaton Data Fforde, Jasper. The Eye of Zoltar / by Jasper Fforde. pages cm. (The chroncles of Kazam ; book 3) Summary: Sxteen-year-old Jennfer Strange faces the mpossble when the Mghty Shandar emerges from hs preserved state and presents her wth a task that sends her and her companons on a journey from whch they may never return. ISBN (hardback) [1. Magc Fcton. 2. Voyages and travels Fcton. 3. Fantasy Fcton.] I. Ttle. PZ7.F4443Eye 2014 [Fc] dc23 Manufactured n the Unted States of Amerca DOC XXXXXXXX

4 O N E W here W e A re N ow E The frst thng we had to do was catch the Tralfamosaur. The obvous queston, other than What s a Tralfamosaur? was Why us? The answer to the frst queston was that ths was a magcal beast, created by some longforgotten wzard when conjurng up werd and exotc creatures had been brefly fashonable. The Tralfamosaur s about the sze and weght of an elephant, has a bran no bgger than a Png-Pong ball, and can outrun a human. More relevant to anyone tryng to catch one, Tralfamosaurs aren t partcularly fussy about what they eat. And when they are hungry whch s much of the tme they are even less fussy. A sheep, cow, rubber tre, garden shed, antelope, smallsh automoble, or human would go 1

5 down equally well. In short, the Tralfamosaur s a lot lke a Tyrannosaurus rex, but wthout the sunny dsposton. And we had to capture t. Oh, and the answer to the Why us? queston was that t was our fault the rotten thng had escaped. In case you re new to my lfe, I m sxteen, a grl, and an orphan hey, no bgge; lots of kds don t have parents here n the Ununted Kngdoms, because so many people have been lost n the endless Troll Wars these past sxty years. Wth lots of orphans around, there s plenty of cheap labor. I got lucky. Instead of beng sold nto the garment, fast food, or hotel ndustry, I get to spend my sx years of ndentured servtude at Kazam Mystcal Arts Management, a regstered House of Enchantment run by the Great Zambn. Kazam does what all Houses of Enchantment used to do: rent out wzards to perform magcal feats. The problem s that n the past half century, magc has faded, so we are really down to fndng lost shoes, rewrng houses, unblockng drans, and gettng cats out of trees. It s a bt demeanng for the once-mghty sorcerers who work for us, but at least t s pad work. At Kazam I found out that magc has not much to do wth black cats, cauldrons, wands, ponty hats, and broomstcks. No, those are only n the moves. Real magc s werd and mysterous, a fuson between scence and fath. The practcal way of lookng at t s ths: Magc swrls about us lke an nvsble fog of emotonal energy 2

6 that can be tapped by those sklled n the mystcal arts, and then channeled nto a concentrated burst of energy from the tps of the ndex fngers. The techncal name for magc s varable electro-gravtatonal mutable subatomc force, but the usual term s wzdrcal energy, or, smply, crackle. So there I was, assstant to the Great Zambn, learnng well and workng hard, when Zambn dsappeared, qute lterally, n a puff of smoke. He ddn t return, or at least not for anythng but a few mnutes at a tme and often n random locatons, so I took over the runnng of the company at age ffteen. Okay, that was a bgge, but I coped and, long story short, I saved dragons from extncton, averted war between the natons of Snodd and Brecon, and helped the power of magc begn to reestablsh tself. And that s when the trouble really started. Kng Snodd thought usng the power of magc for corporate proft would be a serously good scam, somethng we at Kazam weren t that happy about. Even longer story short, we held a magc contest to decde who controls magc, and after a lot of cheatng by the kng to try to make us lose, he faled and we are now a House of Enchantment free from royal meddlng and can concentrate on rebuldng magc nto a noble craft. I now manage forty-fve barely sane sorcerers at Kazam, only eght of whom have a legal permt to perform 3

7 magc. If you thnk wzards are all wse purveyors of the mystcal arts and have sparklng wzdrcal energy streamng from ther fngertps, thnk agan. They are for the most part undscplned, nfantle, argumentatve, and nfuratng; ther magc only works when they really concentrate, whch sn t that often, and msspellngs are common. But when t works, a well-spelled feat of magc s the most wondrous thng to behold, lke your favorte book, pantng, musc, and move all at the same tme, wth chocolate and a meanngful hug from someone you love thrown n for good measure. So despte everythng, t s a good busness n whch to work. Besdes, there s rarely a dull moment. So that s me. I have an orphaned assstant named Tger Prawns, I am now Dragon Ambassador to the World, and I have a pet Quarkbeast at least nne tmes as frghtenng as the most frghtenng thng you ve ever seen. My name s Jennfer Strange. Welcome to my world. Now, let s fnd that Tralfamosaur. 4

8 T W O Z ambn T owers F Those forty-fve sorcerers, Tger, and I all lved n a large, eleven-story, ornate ex-hotel called Zambn Towers. It was n a bad state of repar, and even though we had some spare magc to restore t to glory, we had decded we wouldn t, other than expandng the Kazam offces after busness pcked up. There was a certan charm about the faded wallpaper, warped wood, mssng wndowpanes, and leaky roof. Some argued that the surroundngs were pecularly sutable for the Mystcal Arts, others argued that the place was a fetd dump sutable only for demolton, and I sat somewhere between the two. When the call came n, Perkns and I were n the shabby, wood-paneled lobby. 5

9 There s a Tralfamosaur loose somewhere between here and Ross, sad Tger, wavng a report forwarded by the polce. Anyone eaten? I asked. All of two ralroad workers and part of a fsherman. Tger was twelve and, lke me, a foundlng. He was stuck at Kazam for four years and after that could apply for ctzenshp or earn t fghtng n the next Troll War, whch probably wouldn t be far off. Troll Wars were lke Batman moves: both were repeated at regular ntervals, featured expensve hardware, and were broadly predctable. The dfference was that durng the Troll Wars, humans always lost and badly. In Troll War IV, eght years ago, sxty thousand troops were lost before General Snood had even fnshed gvng the order to advance. The fnal death toll was sx tmes hgher. Three eaten already? I sad. We need to get Bg T back to the zoo before he gets hungry agan. How long wll that be? asked Tger, who was small n stature but bg on questons. I swftly estmated how much calorfc value there was n a ralway worker, matched that to what I knew of a Tralfamosaur s metabolsm, and added a rough guess of how much of the fsherman had been consumed. Three hours, I sad. Four, tops. Whch sorcerers are on duty rght now? 6

10 Tger consulted hs clpboard. Lady Mawgon and the Wzard Moobn. I ll help out, sad Perkns. He smled and added, As long as I m not eaten. I told hm I couldn t really offer many guarantees as far as Tralfamosaurs were concerned. Stll n? I asked. Why not? he sad wth a chuckle. I haven t been terrfed for ooh at least a couple of days. Perkns was Kazam s youngest and newest legal sorcerer, lcensed for less than a week. He was eghteen and, whle not yet very powerful, showed good promse; most sorcerers ddn t start dong any really useful magc untl ther thrtes. Perkns and I had been about to go on our frst date when the Tralfamosaur call came n, but that would have to wat. Okay, I sad to Tger. Fetch Mawgon and Moobn, and you should also call Once Magnfcent Boo. Got t, sad Tger. I turned to Perkns. Okay f we go on that date later? You know how t s n the magc ndustry: spell frst, fun second. I knd of fgured that, he repled, so why don t we make ths assgnment the date? I could brng some food and a thermos of hot chocolate. Consderng that nether of us had any experence n romance whatsoever, a workng date would surely be 7

11 easer than an actual date. Okay, I sad, you re on. But no dressng up, and we splt the cost. Game on. I ll go and make sandwches and conjure up that thermos. Whle I wated for the other sorcerers to arrve, I read what I could about Tralfamosaurs n the Codex Magcals, whch wasn t much. The creature had been created magcally n the 1780s on the order of the Cambran Empre s Emperor Tharv I, because he wanted a challengng beast to hunt for sport, a role t played wth all due savagery. Two hundred years later, people stll pay good money to try to hunt them, usually wth fatal consequences for the hunter. Oddly, ths made Tralfamosaur huntng more popular; t seemed that ctzens were becomng ncreasngly fond of danger n these modern, safety-conscous tmes. The Cambran Empre now made good money out of what t called jeopardy toursm: vacatons for those seekng lfe-threatenng stuatons. The frst to arrve n the lobby was Wzard Moobn, who, unlke all the other sorcerers, was barely nsane at all. Asde from hs usual magcal dutes, he worked n magc research and development. Last month, Moobn s team had been workng on spells for turnng oneself temporarly to rubber to survve a fall, as well as a method of relable communcaton usng snals. He was good com- 8

12 pany, aged a lttle over forty, and was at least polte and gave me due respect for my efforts. The Tralfamosaur escaped, I told hm. When you and Patrck surged ths afternoon durng the brdge rebuldng, two quarter-ton blocks of stone were catapulted nto the sky. I wondered what had happened to them, sad Moobn thoughtfully. One fell to earth n an orchard near Belmont, and the other landed on the Ross-to-Hereford branch lne, deralng a tran that was transportng the Tralfamosaur to Woburn Safar Park for some sort of dangerous anmal exchange deal. Ah, sad Moobn, so we re knd of responsble for ths, aren t we? I m afrad so, I repled, and t s already eaten three people. Whoops, sad Moobn. Whoops nothng, sad Lady Mawgon, who had arrved wth Tger close behnd. Cvlans have to take ther rsks wth the rest of us. Unlke Moobn, Lady Mawgon was not our favorte sorcerer but was undenably good at what she dd. She had been the offcal sorcerer of the Kngdom of Kent before the downturn of magcal power, and her fall from that lofty status had made her frosty and ll-tempered. 9

13 She had recently turned seventy, scowled constantly, and had the unsettlng habt of gldng everywhere, as though she wore roller skates beneath the folds of her large black dress. Even so, I sad dplomatcally, t s probably not a good dea to let the Tralfamosaur eat people. I suppose not, conceded Lady Mawgon. What about Once Magnfcent Boo? Already n hand, I repled, ndcatng to where Tger was speakng on the phone. Once Magnfcent Boo had, as her name suggested, once been magnfcent. She could have been as powerful as the Mghty Shandar hmself, but was long retred and saddled wth a dark personalty that made Lady Mawgon seem almost sunny. The reason was smple: Boo had been robbed of her dazzlng career n sorcery by the removal of her ndex fngers, the condut of a sorcerer s power. Lost for over three decades, the fngers had been recently recovered by us but even when Boo was reunted wth the dry bones, the only magc she could do was wayward and unfocused. These days she studed Quarkbeasts and was the world s leadng authorty on Tralfamosaurs, whch was the reason we needed her. She ll meet you there, sad Tger, replacng the recever. I ll stay here and man the phones n case you need anythng sent over. 10

14 Once Perkns had returned wth the sandwches, we trooped outsde to my Volkswagen Beetle. There were better cars n the basement at Zambn Towers, but the VW had huge sentmental value: I had been found wrapped n a blanket on the back seat outsde the Lades of the Lobster orphanage one wndswept nght sxteen years earler. There was a note stuffed under one wndsheld wper: Please look after ths poor dear chld, as her parents ded n the Troll Wars. PS: I thnk the engne may need some ol and the tre pressure checked. PPS: We thnk her name should be Jennfer. PPPS: The chld, not the car. PPPPS: For her surname, choose somethng strange. The car had been kept all tems found wth a foundlng were, by royal decree and was presented to me when the Blessed Lades of the Lobster sold me to Kazam. After checkng the tre pressure and addng some ol, the engne had started the frst tme, and I drove to my frst job n my own car. If you thnk fourteen s too young to start drvng, thnk agan. The Kngdom of Snodd grants drver s lcenses on the bass of responsblty, 11

15 not age, whch can frustrate forty-somethng guys no end when they fal ther responsblty test for the umpteenth tme. Shotgun! yelled Lady Mawgon as she plunked herself n the passenger seat. Everyone groaned. Beng n the back of the Volkswagen meant sttng next to the Quarkbeast, a creature often descrbed as a cross between a Labrador and an open knfe drawer, wth a bt of velocraptor and scaly pangoln thrown n for good measure. Despte ts terrfyng appearance and an odd habt of eatng metal, the Quarkbeast was a loyal and ntellgent companon. Rght, I sad as we drove off, does anyone have a plan for how we re gong to recapture the Tralfamosaur? There was slence. How about ths, I sad. We modfy our plans wth regard to ongong facts as they become known to us, then re-modfy them as the stuaton unfolds. You mean make t all up as we go along? asked Perkns. Rght. It s worked before, sad Lady Mawgon. Many tmes, repled Moobn. Quark, sad the Quarkbeast. 12