The Scrying Game

by Andrew Harman

Genres: Fantasy; Humor & Satire

Synopsis

Life as Clerk-in-Charge of Avocado Preservation in the Mountain City of Axototl was a real cushy number. Hurling a few bones about the place, peering into the future, foreseeing all the forthcoming problems screaming your way and making plans to dodge destiny's hurled brickbats. Piece of cake. Or at least it would have been if Quintzi Cohatl actually possessed anything even remotely resembling foresight. After forty years in the job his lies were getting a bit thin. So when a travelling salesman offered him a bargain crystal (with Scry Movie Channel option) how could he refuse? Certainly Merlot and the proto-mage Hogshead would have preferred it if he had. Then they wouldn't have a clump of murdered wizards dumped in the River Slove on their hands. And as for the folks of Axolotl - they wouldn't have had to discover the amazing explosive potential of a few hundred prize melons.

Release date: June 27, 2013

Publisher: Orbit

Print pages: 296

Sample

If he’d known precisely what was going on inside the throat of his alarm macaw at that instant he would have been out of bed and screaming.

But then, if he could have foreseen precisely what joys Frightday the triplet and tenth was about to hurl his way he might have lain there, whimpering and hoped it would all just go away. It would have been a shed load easier if he had. For several hundred people.

Instead he lay on his hammock, twitching in the fitful recollections of yesterday at work. Staring out through his sleep-closed eyes at those all-too-recent events …

Trembling nervously beneath the icy gaze of Soleed, the Over-Seer for Fruit Preservation, Quintzi Cohatl had shaken the scrappy collection of bones as he had done for countless years.

‘Well?’ Soleed had snapped violently, his eyes lancing scorn from either side of his aquiline beak of a nose.

Quintzi continued shaking the bones in his dream. He had little choice, the recollection of yesterday’s nerves had made it almost impossible for him to release his desperate grip on the cluster of animal remains. All he had to do was fling the tiny bones on to the table, summon all of his foretelling ability and interpret the message. Easy. It would have been far easier if his future financial security hadn’t depended so much on it.

‘Come on, I haven’t got all day!’ Soleed had snapped. ‘Give me an answer!’

‘I …’ began Quintzi above an increasingly irritating chatter of shrew thighs.

It wasn’t surprising he hadn’t slept well. The air was alive with the sense of panic. It was always the same at this time of year. You could almost see sparks of excited terror shorting off people’s earlobes. It was the awards, see? The whole Mountain City of Axolotl was seized in its annual frenzy of last-minute prophesying, foreseeing and general divination. Each and every seer, prophet and portent-reader gripped in a flurry of desperation, wild for that final glimpse of the future that would get them noticed by the Augury Academy in time for the annual awards and pay rises. And with 99 per cent of the hyperstitious Axolotians able to foresee the future in some way or other, that meant the air was filled with the rattling of bones, burning of strange substances or simply the chanting of unfathomable mantras.

‘If you let the side down you’ll have more than just me to deal with!’ Soleed had snarled meaningfully, scowling at the ageing Clerk-in-Charge of Avocado Preservation and Protection. ‘The whole department’s up for an efficiency award this year, Cohatl. If we lose it again to those louts in Litter Prediction I will personally …’

It had suddenly been too much for Quintzi. Involuntarily his hands had parted and, panicking, he’d spilled his bones on the table. He watched now in dreamily-terrified slow motion as the dozen rodent limbs scattered and came to rest in a specific and highly complex pattern. A spurt of alarm flushed through him as he felt the spotlights of truth arc around and burn into his trembling body.

Everybody, including him, knew that the pattern displayed by those bones was dictated by the forces of destiny, shaped by the currents of chance and honed to immensely informative perfection by the very laws of the universe. Each osseous indicator was a key in a giant message, its angle and position within the whole dripping with meaningful portentousness, offering vital clues to the dangers approaching the three barns of avocados under his predictive protection. All he had to do was unravel the message and he could preserve the entire Axolotian stock for another few months. That was all he ever had to do. That was the snag.

‘Well?’ Soleed had growled, as he always did. ‘What’s it mean?’

‘Er … I …’ flustered Quintzi as he stared at the meaningless portentous picture. ‘Er, you see …’ In his hammock a thin film of sympathetic sweat glistened on his brow.

So much he wanted to throw his arms in the air, overturn the table and stamp out of the Fruit Preservation Company once and for all, screaming. And every day for the last forty years he had stifled the same overwhelming urge. If he actually came clean, faced the music and admitted that he had as much portentous acumen as the average myopic woodlouse then he’d be ostracised, cast out and probably beaten to a pulp by everyone else who actually had the gift.

Okay, so he couldn’t see half a minute into the future. So what? Nobody had actually spotted it yet. One thing he knew he could do was lie through his back teeth. Forty years of daily practice could really hone a skill. Especially when you wanted a job badly enough. In his dream he took a deep breath, disengaged his brain and let rip in as authoritative a manner as he could muster.

The fitfully slumbering Quintzi winced and gnashed his molars as he listened to his dream-self trotting out yet another bucketful of prophetic untruths.

‘This group of three here indicates a tight clumping of rising possibilities of a bumper harvest and, coupled with the ascendant femur here (which, being an ocelot, does in fact confer the skills of the hunter to the scenario), leads to a verification of the tendency towards exceptionality. A pair of skulls here indicates an upcoming choice or being in two minds, and this pelvis here is normally associated with, er … childbirth.’ He stopped and looked up at Soleed’s fuming expression.

‘So what’s that mean, eh? In plain Axolotian?’

‘Er, a good year for avocados,’ grinned Quintzi pathetically. As far as he was concerned, anything meant a good year for avocados. Foreseeing a bad year was a sackable offence. ‘And your lucky colour for the week is green,’ he’d added.

Soleed had lurched forward and, with a lightning flash of sleeve, shot out his arm and snatched Quintzi firmly by the molars. ‘You’d better be right!’ he had spat derisively, twisting the clerk’s head violently and punctuating each consonant with inflicted agony, wrenching ageing teeth painfully. ‘If we miss the department award, you’ll have some very difficult explaining to do!’

‘Arrrrrgh!’ Quintzi had grunted around Soleed’s wrist, desperately wishing that drawing blood from a superior officer wasn’t another sackable offence. Oh, to let his jaw muscles snap shut, just once …!

‘Wubbb I eber lie to ooo?’ Quintzi had cringed submissively around a mouthful of Soleed’s forearm.

‘What?’

‘Would I ever lie to you?’ he had croaked, his molars suddenly released.

Soleed had grunted a string of obscenities, scowled once again and stomped off towards the Chief Melon Manager for another Fruit Preservation Prediction.

Blissfully unaware of the time, the sleeping Quintzi rubbed the side of his face and plotted revenge far beyond his wildest capabilities. One day he’d give Soleed something the swine would never forget. The right time, the right place and … what? What could he possibly do to that damned boss of his which could cause even a fraction of a moment of agony? Maybe he should buy a dagger or two …

Outside Quintzi’s window dark clouds hurled bright lightning spears at the distant Meanlayla Mountains to the east; a corncrake choked on a worm in the avocado field; and in the unfathomable heavens above, the constellation of Tehzcho, the Gatherer, slid inexorably towards its zenith. Today, slightly more signs and portents than usual were being pitched about with gay abandon. But then it was Frightday the triplet and tenth.

Hours ago, all across the Mountain City of Axolotl people had scrambled out of their beds backwards, spun around three times, bathed their feet in llama milk and spent the next half-hour chanting furiously into a mahogany block held firmly against their foreheads. They all knew what day it was, and they all knew how many wild spirits of bad omen would be abroad today chewing at their heels. They were all dreadfully aware that if their warding chants weren’t up to scratch, terror would stalk their every move until the Great Sun finally set.

It was a jolly good job the editor of Scryin’ Out had remembered to print all the essential recitations in ‘Omen Corner’. If the entire, extremely hyperstitious, population of Axolotl ensured that their own personal paths of destiny were cleared of the weeds of peril, then today there would be no casualties, things would still run as smoothly as a greased eel.

Unfortunately, for one Quintzi Cohatl things were never that simple. And it was already starting to become apparent.

For the thirty-seventh time that morning Tiemecx his alarm macaw stood on its perch, filled its avian lungs and attempted to squawk its little feathery head off.

And for the thirty-seventh time that morning it failed utterly to reproduce the requisite racket needed to raise its master from beneath his favourite duvet. All that happened, as on the other unfortunate occasions, was a sad rattling wheeze of a cough and an unnerving feeling of wild dizziness.

Laryngitis? thought the macaw, massaging its throat with a careful flight feather. Pneumonia? Old age? No surely not. Six, years isn’t that long to be an alarm macaw, is it?

Miserably facing the possibility that perhaps retirement was approaching early, Tiemecx hopped along its perch and dropped on to his master’s grubby pillow. If he couldn’t squawk him into wakefulness he’d jolly well try something else with his beak. Well, if you’ve got it …

He stood on the pillow, drew himself up to his full colourful four inches, lifted his beak and imagined being a pied rockpecker attacking the thinning grey strands of a particular tasty lichen.

He got three blows on to the side of Quintzi Cohatl’s head before his master erupted, snatched him by the throat and hurled him across the sandstone room in a flurry of untidy feathers. Almost as if it was an extension of the same motion, the hammock flipped over and dumped him unceremoniously on the stone floor. Snarling, he hurled back his untidy tent of covers and stood shaking in his favourite blue and gold astrological pyjamas and stained socks.

Tiemecx flapped himself upright, folded his wings huffily and glared at the ageing Clerk-in-Charge of Avocado Preservation. Why’d he look so miffed? He was awake, what more did he want? Breakfast? Pah! He could whistle.

Quintzi Cohatl smacked his mouth irritably, rubbed his eyes with a worrying scrunching sound and attempted, as he had for the last thirty years or so, to touch his toes. As usual he was a good three feet short. How long had it been since he’d last touched his toes? He wondered forlornly as he stared at the forty-year-old socks his feet were still steadfastly inhabiting.

Rasping a series of hoarse curses to itself and rubbing its throat miserably, the macaw fluttered on to its perch and tugged open the curtains.

It was then that Quintzi screamed uncontrollably.

Cold terror-laden sweat swarmed down between his shoulderblades as he snatched back the tattered curtains and stared at the scalding ball of fire before him. His heart squirmed nervously as he recognised its unnatural position in the sky. For a second he was certain it winked back accusingly.

Shrieking, he covered his eyes and spun away from the window, trembling, purple spots flashing on and off. It was a portent, it had to be! The sun should never be that high in the sky at this time in the morning. It must mean something vital, something terrible. But what? Were the Meanlayla Mountains crumbling? Had the fixings of the firmament come unglued, tipping the Great Star Mover 30 degrees off kilter? Was Chaos about to come raining down over this gilded City of Axolotl? How long did they have to pack?

He stared accusingly at his ornamental sundial and screamed. A single finger of shadow pointed steadfastly at a time normally associated with elevenses. Then it sprouted wings, claws and peered up at him as Tiemecx swooped in to see what the fuss was about, pointing at its throat and writhing melodramatically.

Panic surged as Quintzi realised he was in the middle of a devilishly wicked vision. The sun, the dial and the mysterious behaviour of his alarm macaw. This was prescience on a grand scale at last: the big portent. He wheeled on his heel and headed for a vast sheet spread on a wicker table.

The macaw tutted, knowing that it wasn’t going to get any sympathy from him now. With a resigned shrug it flapped over to its bowl of sunflower seeds, shaking its head as the mysterious tickling continued in its throat.

Behind it Quintzi shrieked wildly as he flipped open the chart and in a flash, knew what his vision meant. There it was, detailed in the chart issued free with this month’s Good Seer Guide. The sun out of control, the dial showing stunning chronological ineptitude, the mad macaw – it all pointed to the ‘Death of Time, the Coming of Disorder, the Rise of the Cuttlefish of Ultimate Destruction’. In short – peril on a grand scale, here, today.

Was he the only one with these sights? Did anyone else know? His mind spinning with visionary importance for the first time in his life, he leapt towards his window and grabbed, white-knuckled, at the sill. He had to warn people. It was his duty. He had been delivered a prescient vision from on high, his first ever prescient vision, he had to spread it; as a loyal Axolotian Citizen he had to.

Staring down at the street below he took a breath and … so many people up and about so soon, bustling innocently about their early morning business, sitting in the café opposite, eating elevenses … They should be warned! Shouldn’t they?

For the first time that fateful morning a snippet of doubt flopped in his mind. The vision hadn’t been accompanied by the voices in his head, or the flashing lights that everyone had told him about. And then there were the folk eating elevenses. No, no. He staggered back and collapsed on to his hammock as realisation kicked down the doors of his resolve, pouring icy water on his visionary flames.

It wasn’t a Big Portent. It hadn’t been the real live vision of the future he had been waiting over sixty years for. In short it would not result in the Death of Time, but the death of something a little, well, featherier. At least, it would as soon as he got his hands around that damn bird’s scrawny neck and started to squeeze …

‘Why’d you choose today?’ yelled Quintzi in his astrological pyjamas, an artery pounding at his temple. ‘This morning of all the thousands … Gods, of all the mornings you could’ve picked to let me sleep in! This a conspiracy, or something?’ He sprinted across the room, skidded to a halt and snatched the pathetic heap of feathers off the stone sundial, his frantic hands clenching angrily around its throat. The macaw wheezed and made a pathetic choking sound.

‘I should strangle you now! You do know how important the Augury Accuracy Awards are?’

Tiemecx shrugged.

‘Aaah, how long have I had the misfortune to own you? Have you been paying any attention? The Augury Academy Awards are only the most vital event of the year. Anyone who is anyone, and even those who aren’t anybody in the world of visions and portents, will be there, ready to vote. At the “Triple A”s. This morning!’

Tiemecx looked at his claws sheepishly.

‘I was in with a chance this year. I’d foreseen every major storage problem with particular reference to avocados to within 96 per cent accuracy.’ He shook the macaw violently and winced as his arthritis started playing up again. The bird’s eyes stared accusingly at him.

‘Okay. So I was lucky, but that’s beside the point! Why didn’t you wake me?’ He slapped the macaw’s beak with the flat of his wrinkled palm and spat. ‘Answer me! Death is the only excuse, and that can be arranged!’ he sneered threateningly. ‘Do you have any idea how long I’ve been in the Fruit Storage Service, hmmm? Fifty years, man and boy. They said I couldn’t do it. Said I would be a disaster. Well, I showed ’em all. Would’ve been promoted for sure this time, dead cert. Don’t look at me like that!’ He snarled as the macaw stared mockingly through black glassy eyes. ‘I could’ve walked away with an award, I could. Who saw the drought and made sure the avocado crops were put in early to avoid it? Me! Who foretold the hurricane? Me! I saw it all. Stop shaking your head!’ The macaw fixed Quintzi with a powerful, guilt-inducing stare. ‘Okay, okay, so I didn’t see it, but they don’t have to know that, do they? Don’t have to know I’m as prescient as a doorpost. I did the job. That’s all that matters isn’t it? But it’s too late now. You’ve ruined it!’

The macaw struggled to point desperately at its throat.

‘Everything’s down the gutter, and it’s all your fault! You know how the Council feel about lateness. It’s all there in Edict 964, version 3 subsection 29 f– “Any person exhibiting any act of tardiness in attendance of a prearranged meeting exhibits gross misuse of the powers of foresight and therefore deserves never to be considered a reliable source of prophetic information. Ever.” – I could be disbarred and all because you didn’t wake me, without warning! …’

Suddenly Quintzi Cohatl froze. What was he saying? Without warning? Course there was a warning, there had to be. Nothing ever happened in the Mountain City of Axolotl without some sort of warning. Well, with 99 per cent of the population being professional prophets, seers and scryers, it wasn’t surprising.

There were two ways at least in which he could have seen it all coming.

If he had been the Over-Seer in charge of Pet and Portentous Animals then he would’ve known about it in the middle of last week. He could’ve been staring at his breakfast tea leaves, clicked his fingers and known that his alarm macaw wouldn’t croak first thing in the morning. Sadly Quintzi could no more predict the actions of Portentous Creatures than your average bathmat could juggle fire-scorpions. Now, ask him about the possibilities of avoiding avocado beetle by careful crop rotation amongst the storage huts and he was your man. He couldn’t foresee a thing, but he could probably bluff his way out of a barrel in under a minute. The years of practice had honed his lying ability to humming sharpness.

Fortunately, the other, and far more common way for the hyperstitious residents of Axolotl to determine if the day held any painful surprises round the next corner was a lot less fiddly than staring into the fathomless depths of cold tea or even a properly tuned scrying crystal. And there was far less chance of getting a migraine. A few moments spent perusing a certain weekly rag and you’d know all the essentials for planning the day ahead. It was all there – everything from the pick of sympathetic sock shades with which to charm Lady Luck to suggested amulets and a selection of wise and apposite sayings. Want to know what fate has in store for you? Want to know what’s going on? Just look in the weekly parch-mag, Scryin’ Out. There it was, ‘Omen Corner’. Quintzi stared at the prediction and swore. No wonder he hadn’t seen it coming. It was a ‘cryptic’. He looked in horror at the first few lines and started to tug desperately at his thinning grey beard.

Solar seed stifles personal promotion possibilities. Today’s lucky colours – magenta and puce. Lucky stone – date. Objects to avoid – recently sharpened daggers and stray jars of hemlock …

Pretty standard fare. And, as usual, there was more. Details of where to stand if you wanted to meet your true love, places to avoid if you didn’t want to be murdered, sixty-four different chants to use in sixty-four everyday crises – from flaccid soufflés to sand in your Vaseline. But nowhere did it mention the fact that his alarm macaw wouldn’t go off, destroying his chances of stardom in one foul feathery swoop. He looked again at the predictive line and swiftly reached the same conclusion as he had yesterday. The use of the word ‘stifles’ always means that the active object in the prediction is a few letters of the words before. In Quintzi’s case that was obvious. Solar seed would become Soleed, his boss at the Fruit Storage Service. Then the rest would follow. Soleed stifles personal promotion possibilities. Couldn’t be clearer. He’d always disputed Quintzi’s claim that he had been directly responsible for ensuring that this year’s avocados were stored fresher and crisper than ever before. He still had the scars from the heated, er, debate to prove it.

Snarling more angrily by the minute, Quintzi stared at the quivering bird in his clutches. ‘It’s still all your fault, you stupid worthless parrot!’ he screamed and hurled the terrified bird across the room, grinning sadistically as it ricocheted off the sundial and landed in a coughing heap of Technicolored spluttering. Tiemecx rolled melodramatically on to his back, clutching at his throat, his face turning red under the verdant feathers. Whoops of gasped air dashed into his tiny lungs as he writhed and flapped like an epileptic bat and then, with a final massive cough, something hard erupted from his beak. It whistled across the room, caught Quintzi in the eye with a ringing splat and ended on the stone floor. Quintzi stared in horror at the hard black and white something, snatched it up and glared angrily at the alarm macaw.

Tiemecx attempted a smile, failed and decided to play with his claws in a way that might just be thought of as cute and endearing. In that instant Quintzi realised that his prediction in ‘Omen Corner’ had definitely not been a cryptic. His head reeled as the truth hit. ‘Stifles’ wasn’t a clue. His message, when translated said, as clear as a bell, ‘That damned parrot’ll nearly choke to death on a sunflower seed! Just see if it doesn’t!’

Quintzi screamed, hurled his copy of Scryin’ Out across the room, sprinted through the door and plunged down the stairs, launching a series of macawicidal threats after him to keep the bird sweating.

If he could just reach the front doors of the Grand Municipal Council Temple before the start of the ‘Auguries’, he might be able to plead for leniency. Might even be able to sue if he could show that it was an incorrect prediction. It should’ve said, ‘Solar flower seed’, shouldn’t it? He knew how pricey sue-th sayers could be but it would be worth it to get a chance at an award.

He blasted into the ancient sandstone streets of Axolotl, flashed a quick glance at his wrist sundial and cringed. It was going to be close, but if Tuatara Street was clear he could just do it. Now what had the traffic predictions been for today?

It was only as he spun around a sharp corner and entered Cocoa Row that he realised he hadn’t read this morning’s prediction. And he suddenly wished he had. Tuatara Street, at any time of day, was always heaving with eager Axolotians busy about their daily business. Damn! His mind raced. He could duck around the back streets and then skip over to level three of the Grand Municipal … NO! That bridge was going to be out for repairs all day, as predicted yesterday. His sciatica twinged as he stumbled over an uneven crack. It was no good: crowds or no, he would have to brave Tuatara Street, the surface was better.

Besides, it was just round this last corner. He wheeled around and almost shrieked hysterically. He couldn’t believe it. Wall-to-wall traders blocking the street, mobs of shop-dazed punters lurching uncontrollably around in a trance of purchase … not a one in sight. For the first time in his life Quintzi Cohatl stared at a totally empty Tuatara Street. A nasty feeling crept up the back of his neck. Could this be a sign? Was this his first portent?

As he watched a stray tumbleweed trundle towards the Grand Municipal Council Temple, he realised he hadn’t a clue, he hadn’t read his Horrorscope. Today’s future was a complete mystery. He felt suddenly blind and bewildered. Where was everybody? What was happening? Would there be a ladder lurking around the next corner? Would he accidentally tread on thirteen cracks in the dusty street and suffer acne for a week? Or could he perhaps catch a falling star anise and enjoy a month of overwhelming good fortune? A day without a glimpse into his hyperstitious future was a day strewn with a million lurking perils.

And today, of all days, one of those perils was in Tuatara Street, a few hundred yards and a couple of minutes away.

Unbeknownst to Quintzi, everything was exactly as had been foreseen yesterday afternoon by the Over-Seer of Portentous Creatures, just after a nice lunch of chillied avocados. And all who had read ‘Omen Corner’ this morning knew about its every detail.

Quintzi shook as he stared up and down the length of Tuatara Street and knew he had to gamble. Something was destined to happen here soon, something bad. But how soon? And how bad? He glanced at his sundial again. The only chance he stood to reach the ‘Auguries’ on time was to run. Full speed. Now.

Had Quintzi known that a Dreaded Black Mantric Gecko* lurked in a small bush a few yards ahead he probably wouldn’t have been quite so hasty. He knelt in the sandy dust of the street, spread his fingers out before him, raised his back, took a deep breath and exploded into the nearest approximation of a sprint he had reached in three decades.

Countless terrified faces peered out from convenient doorways, their jaws dropping as Quintzi waddled arthritically towards certain doom. Petrified eyes watched for the scaly menace they knew would appear, painfully aware of the disaster that would strike them (and the next seven generations on the maternal side) if the prophecy was only a few feet wrong.

A small bush rustled as a black forked tail began to emerge.

A thousand invocations of thanks floated skyward as hidden Axolations blessed the editor of Scryin’ Out for warning them of this coming danger.

The tiny bush rustled again and the Dreaded Black Mantric Gecko emerged into the sunlight accompanied by an orchestra of snatched breaths and the sound of Quintzi’s sprinting socks growing louder. The Gecko waddled backwards into full view as a panic-stricken figure whirled around the corner at full tilt and sprinted uncontrollably towards it.

He screamed as he recognised the damned lizard, slammed his sprint into reverse and screeched to a blubbering halt in a cloud of dust. In that instant a whole universe of choices for his day ahead was narrowed to a desultory two. He could either continue on his now terminally pox-crossed path and die painfully in the middle of next week, shunned by everyone; or he could crawl away from the incident on hands and knees, all the way home, bathe himself backwards and start out again wearing an amulet of jalapeno peppers as a ward against evil, to spend the rest of his life as the butt of a million prophet jokes.

At that very instant a joyous blast of ‘all-clear’ whistles rang out from slightly opened doors, and bodies erupted into the open. The peril was gone, planted firmly in Quintzi’s lap. His problem. Rush hour could resume.

Dreading to think what the half-mile crawl would do to his favourite blue and gold astrological pyjamas, Quintzi stretched miserably out on the dusty street and squirmed pathetically away towards his hovel on Skink Row.

It was without doubt the coldest and most desperate bath that Quintzi Cohatl had ever had in his life, and with very good reason. Time.

Or rather, the acute lack of it.

He didn’t have enough of it spare to wait for the sun’s rays to dribble through his complex array of lenses and heat the water in the tub and, most importantly, he knew damn well that any minute could be his last. How long did it take for the Curse of the Black Mantric Gecko to take effect? Panic rose as the single shadow of his sundial chewed away at the hours.

And so it was that, in the traditional hyperstitious warding ritual (for use following an unforeseen path-crossing by a Dreaded Black Mantric Gecko), he hurled himself head-first into three inches of icy water, shrieked, leapt out backwards and shook himself a fraction drier. Then, still dripping, he wrapped a hasty towel around his midriff, dashed into the bedroom and, in a flurry of panic, snatched a big wooden box off the top of his wardrobe. He hurled it on to his bed and flung open the lid.

Had any one of the other hyperstitious residents of Axolotl glimpsed the lid of the box through which Quintzi was rummaging they would have known in an instant that his path had been crossed by one of the three hundred and seventeen known Portentous Creatures of Evil. Every Axolotian had it slammed into their head from the earliest of ages that ‘in case of emergency head for the sign of the Red-Crossed Fingers’.

Quintzi’s frantic hands tore at the tiny drawers of his Emergency Omenical Kit, searching through seemingly endless supplies of rabbits’ feet, hurling fountains of garlic-purée poultices over his head, impatiently flinging individual bottles of God Liver Oil out of his way, and there, finally, behind a full set of spiritual supports, he found it – an unused jalapeno pepper amulet.

Allowing himself the briefest of relieved sighs he tugged it over his bony wrist, waggled a threatening finger of fury at his even more unforgiven alarm macaw, whirled on his heel and sprinted, once again, into the glaring sun of Skink Row. Dust erupted from his pounding footfalls as he powered his way once again up the hill towards Tuatara Street blissfully unaware of the unnaturally jet black cloud that had mysteriously formed in the sky behind h