The Concarnadine Chronicles #099 -- Author's Choice :: "Abridgement"
Title: "Abridgement"
'Fandom': The Concarnadine Chronicles
Claim: General; Characters
Prompt: #099 :: Author's Choice :: “Abridgement”
Word Count: c.2850
Rating: PG-14
Summary: Another less-than-ideal day in the life.
Author's Notes: The prompt, seeing I had nothing specific in mind, was picked at random from Roget's Thesaurus. The “Superlatives” are a product of my own imagination, and are not based on any real undergraduate or post-graduate dining club.
"Abridgement"
“Can you get that ?”
Concarnadine regretted the words as soon as they’d come from his mouth. Whilst he did want the telephone answering, Borin was one of the last people to ask to -
“Hello -- Who is it ?” A short pause. “We don’t do that. No, not even for - ”
“Let me,” Concarnadine said, holding out his hand for the handset, before Borin had the chance to give any more of an impression. Dwarves were excellent engineers but terrible at courteous conversation …
“Concarnadine - ”
“Ah, yes - as I was explaining: we want to hire you for a party at the college - perhaps an hour’s worth, and we’ll arrange for a meal for you and a bottle of wine - good wine - to go with it.”
“Have you spoken to my theatre manager -- ?”
“I’ll send you details by post tonight, and we’ll look to see you in two weeks’ time.”
The person on the other end put the phone down and Concarnadine had a nasty feeling of foreshadowing.
“You didn’t happen to note who that was ?” he asked.
“Man with too high an opinion of ‘imself,” Borin replied, dourly.
The “details” - a single sheet of paper with a map on, and a date and time for the second Saturday after - came next day. Concarnaidne took them with him to see David Tremair at the Durbar.
“What do you think ?”
“Did you agree to this ?”
“More like I wasn’t give the chance not to,” Concarnadine admitted. “Why ?”
“These aren’t your average college students,” Tremair said, tapping the paper with a forefinger. “The Superlatives are a dinner club. And they have a … reputation. Or several.”
“Go on.”
“Eating, drinking, smashing up restaurants. Till the college went co-educational, they were supposed to have a running account with a local … escort agency … so that they had escorts for formal functions. Now … ”
“Let me guess - nowadays, they recruit their own … female companions, from among, to coin a phrase, the student body.”
Tremair nodded.
“And they want me to perform at a party in the college.”
“Give me an hour, and I’ll find out what I can.”
The news, when it came, was not good.
“According to what I can find out, they’ve been banned from most of the restaurants, and the college principal has insisted that all their “dinners”, for the foreseeable future, take place on college property, and that they pay for any damage. So they’ve booked one of the Common Rooms, for a supposed twenty-first party, and advertised that you’re attending as the entertainment.”
“So far, so ominous.”
“It gets worse. In all probability, they’re planning, somehow, on using you to cover up whatever mischief they have planned. Especially since the college rugby team - a group of young men not noted for their rigorous adherence to society’s standards - ”
“In other words, a bunch of muscle-bound youngsters who like drink, curry, and rambunctiousness,” Concarnadine offered.
“I’ll never know where you get your vocabulary from,” Tremair commented, then went on: “The rugby team have been heard to comment that the Superlatives have turned into a bunch of effete ‘little girls’. So there is a high possibility - ”
“That the Superlatives will want to get their revenge … or at least, make their mark.”
“It’s a good thing Elizabeth’s away.”
“Oh ?”
“As said, they have a reputation about women - if you’d taken her, you’d have been risking her being used as a hostage against you. Anyway, I’ll write and tell them that you’re unavailable and - ” Tremair paused, confused as to why Concarnadine was so empathically shaking his head. “You can’t mean you’re thinking of going ?”
“I’m not going to be scared away by a few college kids.”
“They could buy this place … well, if they put their trust funds together … in a heart beat.”
“I’ll handle them. Can you book a rail ticket for me ?”
“Rail ticket ?”
“Yes. Yes - I’ll do this one with just an overnight bag and my pockets.”
He made a discreet and early arrival and, with the assistance of the porters, had a look at the venue whilst the meal was still being set up. He was on his way out of the college, to go to the little hotel he’d booked, when he was intercepted by one of the college administrators.
“You’re Concarnadine ? And you’re … entertaining … the Superlatives tonight.”
“Or they’re entertaining me,” Concarnadine replied.
“Then you should know three things: the college won’t bear responsibility for any damage or injury you suffer as a result, unless we were the direct cause; on the other hand, we will require you to bear responsibility for anything you do, whether as part of your entertainment or at the behest of your hosts; thirdly, the room is booked until midnight - the proctors will be sent in one minute later, with instructions to secure the room, pending any investigation which proves necessary. So if you are still there at that time, you will be treated as - ”
“You don’t need to go on,” Concarnadine replied: “And you didn’t need to threaten me at all. I’m here to practice my craft, not to damage your fine architecture.” He paused and then added: “By the way - you should take better care of your wallet.”
Handing the man the wallet, he made his way to his hotel.
The Superlatives’ dinner was timed to start at eight, so Concarnadine made sure that he was there by seven-thirty. There were already one or two young men at the Common Room, drinking dark beer, and a couple of college servants, setting tables and so forth.
It was just before eight, and the room was filling rapidly, when a florid young man, in evening dress and cummerbund, arrived.
“You’re Concarnadine ? I’m Edgar Freimes - we’d like you to do your stuff round about nine-thirty, when we’ve finished most of the food. Have you been shown your seat ? We’ve put you just off the main room - that way the other lads shouldn’t disturb you. Oh, and I’ll have some wine sent in to you, just as soon as they open the bins.”
Concarnadine offered his hand, but Freimes seemed more interested in the meal in prospect.
“We’ll see you in … when we’re ready.”
And Freimes turned away, dismissing his “hired help” in favour of his well-heeled young friends. The beer was now flowing liberally, and even some of the young women were indulging, although most of them had moved straight to spirits, given that the bar wasn’t serving the wines they’d have preferred. The male Superlatives were all dress-suit attired, their female members seemed to divide between a school of emulating their male peers, and another of wearing black cocktail frocks. Among them fluttered, like exotic butterflies, in bright (and minimal) club-dresses the female guests rounding out the numbers.
Before Concarnadine could do much more assessment, however, the bell rang for the dinner to start, and Concarnadine found himself escorted three doors down the corridor, to a small private room, where a table had been laid for him.
“Will there be anything else, sir ?” the servant asked, after he’d delivered the shrimp starter. “Your soup will be coming in about five minutes.”
“Yes - bring me a fishbowl and water,” Concarnadine said. “I’ve some television to catch up on.”
By the time he was well into the steak chasseur, Concarnadine was satisfied that his worst fears were on their ways to being realised. The wine was flowing freely among the Superlatives and they were already intoxicated enough to be reckless of damage to their clothes from the red wine sauce the meat was in.
The images were coming quite clearly to him, via the fishbowl and one of the more basic clairvoyance spells, and Concarnadine didn’t really like what he was seeing.
‘Prejudice against the privileged classes’: that was as good a platitude as any, to indict his distaste. But the fact was that Concarnadine was less troubled by the fact that it was their wealth that let them carry on like this, assuming that, whatever they did, a cheque and a patronising apology would cure the damage, than that anyone would act this way, wasting food, and demeaning not only themselves (which was, he supposed their own business) but also their guests. Several of the young ladies were, as far as he could see, frankly frightened by the boorish behaviour. And Concarnadine himself was … troubled … by what he interpreted as the predatory nature of the expressions on the faces of one or two of the girl-Superlatives.
They came for him about a quarter to ten, two dinner-jacketed bravos, faces flushed with drink and the heat of the room, their air completely dismissive.
“You’re the conjurer ? Come on, you’re due on soon.”
Then one of them leaned over: “There’s two large for you, if you can stitch Freimes up without him knowing, and two more if you can do Maggie the Lez.”
Concarnadine nodded, vaguely, and, slipping his hand into a pocket, palmed a playing card into the bravo’s hip pocket, as a means of keeping a track on him.
He was shown into the dining room, and found himself simply left at one end, by a small open space (where, presumably, he was meant to perform) whilst the raucous laughter and drinking went on. And, looking round him, he found the Superlatives as unattractive in the flesh as they had through clairvoyance. There were days when it seemed utterly pointless doing what he did - the people you wanted to entertain were busy with their own lives, and the people who wanted you to entertain them were all too often totally unsuited to being entertained.
Finally Edgar Freimes noticed him and called for silence. When that didn’t work, he simply hurled a wine bottle, and the smash got some attention.
“La’eez and g’mun: we come to th’entertainment. All th’way from Lunnon - y’ve seen ‘im on the box: ‘s Concarnanadrine.”
It was obvious from the outset that this wasn’t a sympathetic audience. Concarnadine’s first illusions were met with silence, which finally gave way to raucous (and obscene) suggestions for alternatives. He decided to improvise, and plucked a full glass of wine from a set of inelegant fingers, and then made the glassful fill two more glasses, then, taking one of those, multiplied its volume by more than four-fold. He “borrowed” an ice-bucket, and tipped the wine into that, deftly balancing glasses on the rim, so that five of them were emptying at once, then flicking all the glasses off into a pyramid, before tipping the entire ice-bucket over Freimes, and smiling when the result was absolutely zero.
Of course, that disappointed a number of the attendees - their displeasure (quite loudly expressed) was also, it was obvious, frightening some of their guests. Concarnadine locked eyes with one - a chit who looked no older than 18, and seemed well out of her depth.
“Would you help me ?” he said, extending his hand. Nervously, she got up from her seat and walked over. Beneath the braying incoherence of the Superlatives, he said “I get the impression you’d like to be somewhere else ?”
“They said it would be a polite college dinner,” she replied. Concarnadine nodded.
“When I say ‘now’, think very hard about being just outside your front door. Oh, do you need anything from the cloakroom ?”
“No - I had a coat, but it’s still at the library, where Niall picked me up from.”
“It should be there tomorrow, then,” he said, and looked up. “Gentleman - Ladies and gentlemen - my lovely assistant will demonstrate that you should never believe your eyes. Now !!”
The girl disappeared and, in the silence that followed, Concarnadine fixed her erstwhile escort with a steely gaze, and added: “And you thought she’d been sitting beside you all along, didn’t you ?”
The young man’s face took on a confused expression.
Concarnadine capitalised on that by walking straight over to the man, and handing him a red carnation, plucked from empty air.
“Do you believe ?” he asked, and immediately moved on to the next diner: “Do you believe ?” he tapped the back of his left hand with his right index fingers, handed him the seashell which appeared, and moved on. By the fifth, people were starting to get interested, and he could feel the power starting to swell. He picked up a glass from in front of one of the young lady guests, and when he turned his hand over, what was there was a miniature glass sculpture of a rose, which he gave to her.
One of the Superlatives even had the nerve to answer “No”; Concarnadine tapped the back of his hand twice, before saying “Then this can’t be yours, can it ?”, holding up a wallet. He dropped it onto the table, even as he moved on, making a full glass of wine turn into a fountain-pen, loaded with wine-coloured ink. When one young man smashed a plate in front of him and handed him a piece, he didn’t even hesitate.
“Thank you.” He turned, and handed the restored plate to one of the waiting staff, and then turned back and turned the fool’s bow tie into a plastic snake.
Freimes had seen something of this, and been the target of a degree of remonstration, and came over: “Here - you’re supposed to be - ”
“I’m a magician,” Concarnadine interrupted urbanely. “Tell me, do you believe ?”
“Well ... “ Freimes stuttered.
“Then you’ll want these,” Concarnadine said, handing his sometime host a set of keys: “They’ll help you get back into your rooms. By the way, did you know that I was offered two thousand pounds to humiliate you ? You might want to think about that circumstance.”
He’d got three more people down the tables (including taking one girl’s wristwatch and switching it for a Fabrizzi Veneziani worth (probably) as much as the bill was going to come to for the damage being done to the room, what with the white gold, the diamonds, and the engraving -- thankfully, he knew exactly which cabinet it had come out of, and he was confident that no-one would notice, it being in a different parallel dimension and all) before Freimes had caught up to him.
“Who said that ? Which one -- ?”
“I’ll tell you - better, I’ll show you … later.”
Inevitably, one of the semi-drunken students decided to make a point, and reached out for Concarnadine. By now, though, there was enough power swirling round the room, that, even as his fingers closed over the formal jacket, they were striking empty air, and Concarnadine was brushing his hands.
“Where is he ?”
“He’s cooling off. Somewhere in Siberia, I think. But I’m sure he’ll find his way back, eventually.” He paused, then added “Believe me.”
Which put a hesitation in the advance of several more Superlatives, looking to extract a stone or two of flesh (with or without attendant blood) from Concarnadine. And, before they could recover their motivation, he had moved again, pulling flowers from the air for two girl-Superlatives, and then effortlessly dodging an outstretched hand, trying to clew on to him, and backing into a clearer space.
By now, it was clear that the Superlatives had taken against him, and intended him harm. There were bulky young men getting up from various tables, and shouted plans being exchanged. What was more to the point, was that there was no sign of either his fee or of Freimes taking any steps to protect him.
Concarnadine drew in all the energy he could, and traced a complicated design on the air in front of him. It glowed blue-purple and, under its influence, he was able to step, briefly, Between time.
So far as the Superlatives were concerned, he vanished. So far as the College staff were concerned, it was the Superlatives who seemed to be affected, paying no attention as Concarnadine walked past them, and collected his things from around the area by the top table.
Finally he walked to the doorway, and spoke to the senior college servant.
“I’d recommend that you get your people out of the room.” Concarnadine watched as the servers and stewards filed out, and then he released time. As the students began to recover their wits, he traced a second design across the doorway.
“You can amuse yourselves all that you like,” he told the Superlatives, “But you will find that none of you can leave until the morning.” Then, remembering that there were some invited guests there, who weren’t part of the mayhem, he made a slight alteration to the glowing hieroglyph.
“There - those of you who have pure hearts may leave. I just don’t advise - ” He stepped back as a tackle-sized man charged the door and went down in a flurry of sparks. “As I was saying, I don’t advise anyone who isn’t pure of heart to try it, though. And any damage you do will still be there in the morning, so … ”
There was little more that he could do, so he didn’t. He did make a telephone call though: he wanted to be sure that the morning newspapers would have the story, so that he could find out what went on after he left.
'Fandom': The Concarnadine Chronicles
Claim: General; Characters
Prompt: #099 :: Author's Choice :: “Abridgement”
Word Count: c.2850
Rating: PG-14
Summary: Another less-than-ideal day in the life.
Author's Notes: The prompt, seeing I had nothing specific in mind, was picked at random from Roget's Thesaurus. The “Superlatives” are a product of my own imagination, and are not based on any real undergraduate or post-graduate dining club.
"Abridgement"
“Can you get that ?”
Concarnadine regretted the words as soon as they’d come from his mouth. Whilst he did want the telephone answering, Borin was one of the last people to ask to -
“Hello -- Who is it ?” A short pause. “We don’t do that. No, not even for - ”
“Let me,” Concarnadine said, holding out his hand for the handset, before Borin had the chance to give any more of an impression. Dwarves were excellent engineers but terrible at courteous conversation …
“Concarnadine - ”
“Ah, yes - as I was explaining: we want to hire you for a party at the college - perhaps an hour’s worth, and we’ll arrange for a meal for you and a bottle of wine - good wine - to go with it.”
“Have you spoken to my theatre manager -- ?”
“I’ll send you details by post tonight, and we’ll look to see you in two weeks’ time.”
The person on the other end put the phone down and Concarnadine had a nasty feeling of foreshadowing.
“You didn’t happen to note who that was ?” he asked.
“Man with too high an opinion of ‘imself,” Borin replied, dourly.
The “details” - a single sheet of paper with a map on, and a date and time for the second Saturday after - came next day. Concarnaidne took them with him to see David Tremair at the Durbar.
“What do you think ?”
“Did you agree to this ?”
“More like I wasn’t give the chance not to,” Concarnadine admitted. “Why ?”
“These aren’t your average college students,” Tremair said, tapping the paper with a forefinger. “The Superlatives are a dinner club. And they have a … reputation. Or several.”
“Go on.”
“Eating, drinking, smashing up restaurants. Till the college went co-educational, they were supposed to have a running account with a local … escort agency … so that they had escorts for formal functions. Now … ”
“Let me guess - nowadays, they recruit their own … female companions, from among, to coin a phrase, the student body.”
Tremair nodded.
“And they want me to perform at a party in the college.”
“Give me an hour, and I’ll find out what I can.”
The news, when it came, was not good.
“According to what I can find out, they’ve been banned from most of the restaurants, and the college principal has insisted that all their “dinners”, for the foreseeable future, take place on college property, and that they pay for any damage. So they’ve booked one of the Common Rooms, for a supposed twenty-first party, and advertised that you’re attending as the entertainment.”
“So far, so ominous.”
“It gets worse. In all probability, they’re planning, somehow, on using you to cover up whatever mischief they have planned. Especially since the college rugby team - a group of young men not noted for their rigorous adherence to society’s standards - ”
“In other words, a bunch of muscle-bound youngsters who like drink, curry, and rambunctiousness,” Concarnadine offered.
“I’ll never know where you get your vocabulary from,” Tremair commented, then went on: “The rugby team have been heard to comment that the Superlatives have turned into a bunch of effete ‘little girls’. So there is a high possibility - ”
“That the Superlatives will want to get their revenge … or at least, make their mark.”
“It’s a good thing Elizabeth’s away.”
“Oh ?”
“As said, they have a reputation about women - if you’d taken her, you’d have been risking her being used as a hostage against you. Anyway, I’ll write and tell them that you’re unavailable and - ” Tremair paused, confused as to why Concarnadine was so empathically shaking his head. “You can’t mean you’re thinking of going ?”
“I’m not going to be scared away by a few college kids.”
“They could buy this place … well, if they put their trust funds together … in a heart beat.”
“I’ll handle them. Can you book a rail ticket for me ?”
“Rail ticket ?”
“Yes. Yes - I’ll do this one with just an overnight bag and my pockets.”
He made a discreet and early arrival and, with the assistance of the porters, had a look at the venue whilst the meal was still being set up. He was on his way out of the college, to go to the little hotel he’d booked, when he was intercepted by one of the college administrators.
“You’re Concarnadine ? And you’re … entertaining … the Superlatives tonight.”
“Or they’re entertaining me,” Concarnadine replied.
“Then you should know three things: the college won’t bear responsibility for any damage or injury you suffer as a result, unless we were the direct cause; on the other hand, we will require you to bear responsibility for anything you do, whether as part of your entertainment or at the behest of your hosts; thirdly, the room is booked until midnight - the proctors will be sent in one minute later, with instructions to secure the room, pending any investigation which proves necessary. So if you are still there at that time, you will be treated as - ”
“You don’t need to go on,” Concarnadine replied: “And you didn’t need to threaten me at all. I’m here to practice my craft, not to damage your fine architecture.” He paused and then added: “By the way - you should take better care of your wallet.”
Handing the man the wallet, he made his way to his hotel.
The Superlatives’ dinner was timed to start at eight, so Concarnadine made sure that he was there by seven-thirty. There were already one or two young men at the Common Room, drinking dark beer, and a couple of college servants, setting tables and so forth.
It was just before eight, and the room was filling rapidly, when a florid young man, in evening dress and cummerbund, arrived.
“You’re Concarnadine ? I’m Edgar Freimes - we’d like you to do your stuff round about nine-thirty, when we’ve finished most of the food. Have you been shown your seat ? We’ve put you just off the main room - that way the other lads shouldn’t disturb you. Oh, and I’ll have some wine sent in to you, just as soon as they open the bins.”
Concarnadine offered his hand, but Freimes seemed more interested in the meal in prospect.
“We’ll see you in … when we’re ready.”
And Freimes turned away, dismissing his “hired help” in favour of his well-heeled young friends. The beer was now flowing liberally, and even some of the young women were indulging, although most of them had moved straight to spirits, given that the bar wasn’t serving the wines they’d have preferred. The male Superlatives were all dress-suit attired, their female members seemed to divide between a school of emulating their male peers, and another of wearing black cocktail frocks. Among them fluttered, like exotic butterflies, in bright (and minimal) club-dresses the female guests rounding out the numbers.
Before Concarnadine could do much more assessment, however, the bell rang for the dinner to start, and Concarnadine found himself escorted three doors down the corridor, to a small private room, where a table had been laid for him.
“Will there be anything else, sir ?” the servant asked, after he’d delivered the shrimp starter. “Your soup will be coming in about five minutes.”
“Yes - bring me a fishbowl and water,” Concarnadine said. “I’ve some television to catch up on.”
By the time he was well into the steak chasseur, Concarnadine was satisfied that his worst fears were on their ways to being realised. The wine was flowing freely among the Superlatives and they were already intoxicated enough to be reckless of damage to their clothes from the red wine sauce the meat was in.
The images were coming quite clearly to him, via the fishbowl and one of the more basic clairvoyance spells, and Concarnadine didn’t really like what he was seeing.
‘Prejudice against the privileged classes’: that was as good a platitude as any, to indict his distaste. But the fact was that Concarnadine was less troubled by the fact that it was their wealth that let them carry on like this, assuming that, whatever they did, a cheque and a patronising apology would cure the damage, than that anyone would act this way, wasting food, and demeaning not only themselves (which was, he supposed their own business) but also their guests. Several of the young ladies were, as far as he could see, frankly frightened by the boorish behaviour. And Concarnadine himself was … troubled … by what he interpreted as the predatory nature of the expressions on the faces of one or two of the girl-Superlatives.
They came for him about a quarter to ten, two dinner-jacketed bravos, faces flushed with drink and the heat of the room, their air completely dismissive.
“You’re the conjurer ? Come on, you’re due on soon.”
Then one of them leaned over: “There’s two large for you, if you can stitch Freimes up without him knowing, and two more if you can do Maggie the Lez.”
Concarnadine nodded, vaguely, and, slipping his hand into a pocket, palmed a playing card into the bravo’s hip pocket, as a means of keeping a track on him.
He was shown into the dining room, and found himself simply left at one end, by a small open space (where, presumably, he was meant to perform) whilst the raucous laughter and drinking went on. And, looking round him, he found the Superlatives as unattractive in the flesh as they had through clairvoyance. There were days when it seemed utterly pointless doing what he did - the people you wanted to entertain were busy with their own lives, and the people who wanted you to entertain them were all too often totally unsuited to being entertained.
Finally Edgar Freimes noticed him and called for silence. When that didn’t work, he simply hurled a wine bottle, and the smash got some attention.
“La’eez and g’mun: we come to th’entertainment. All th’way from Lunnon - y’ve seen ‘im on the box: ‘s Concarnanadrine.”
It was obvious from the outset that this wasn’t a sympathetic audience. Concarnadine’s first illusions were met with silence, which finally gave way to raucous (and obscene) suggestions for alternatives. He decided to improvise, and plucked a full glass of wine from a set of inelegant fingers, and then made the glassful fill two more glasses, then, taking one of those, multiplied its volume by more than four-fold. He “borrowed” an ice-bucket, and tipped the wine into that, deftly balancing glasses on the rim, so that five of them were emptying at once, then flicking all the glasses off into a pyramid, before tipping the entire ice-bucket over Freimes, and smiling when the result was absolutely zero.
Of course, that disappointed a number of the attendees - their displeasure (quite loudly expressed) was also, it was obvious, frightening some of their guests. Concarnadine locked eyes with one - a chit who looked no older than 18, and seemed well out of her depth.
“Would you help me ?” he said, extending his hand. Nervously, she got up from her seat and walked over. Beneath the braying incoherence of the Superlatives, he said “I get the impression you’d like to be somewhere else ?”
“They said it would be a polite college dinner,” she replied. Concarnadine nodded.
“When I say ‘now’, think very hard about being just outside your front door. Oh, do you need anything from the cloakroom ?”
“No - I had a coat, but it’s still at the library, where Niall picked me up from.”
“It should be there tomorrow, then,” he said, and looked up. “Gentleman - Ladies and gentlemen - my lovely assistant will demonstrate that you should never believe your eyes. Now !!”
The girl disappeared and, in the silence that followed, Concarnadine fixed her erstwhile escort with a steely gaze, and added: “And you thought she’d been sitting beside you all along, didn’t you ?”
The young man’s face took on a confused expression.
Concarnadine capitalised on that by walking straight over to the man, and handing him a red carnation, plucked from empty air.
“Do you believe ?” he asked, and immediately moved on to the next diner: “Do you believe ?” he tapped the back of his left hand with his right index fingers, handed him the seashell which appeared, and moved on. By the fifth, people were starting to get interested, and he could feel the power starting to swell. He picked up a glass from in front of one of the young lady guests, and when he turned his hand over, what was there was a miniature glass sculpture of a rose, which he gave to her.
One of the Superlatives even had the nerve to answer “No”; Concarnadine tapped the back of his hand twice, before saying “Then this can’t be yours, can it ?”, holding up a wallet. He dropped it onto the table, even as he moved on, making a full glass of wine turn into a fountain-pen, loaded with wine-coloured ink. When one young man smashed a plate in front of him and handed him a piece, he didn’t even hesitate.
“Thank you.” He turned, and handed the restored plate to one of the waiting staff, and then turned back and turned the fool’s bow tie into a plastic snake.
Freimes had seen something of this, and been the target of a degree of remonstration, and came over: “Here - you’re supposed to be - ”
“I’m a magician,” Concarnadine interrupted urbanely. “Tell me, do you believe ?”
“Well ... “ Freimes stuttered.
“Then you’ll want these,” Concarnadine said, handing his sometime host a set of keys: “They’ll help you get back into your rooms. By the way, did you know that I was offered two thousand pounds to humiliate you ? You might want to think about that circumstance.”
He’d got three more people down the tables (including taking one girl’s wristwatch and switching it for a Fabrizzi Veneziani worth (probably) as much as the bill was going to come to for the damage being done to the room, what with the white gold, the diamonds, and the engraving -- thankfully, he knew exactly which cabinet it had come out of, and he was confident that no-one would notice, it being in a different parallel dimension and all) before Freimes had caught up to him.
“Who said that ? Which one -- ?”
“I’ll tell you - better, I’ll show you … later.”
Inevitably, one of the semi-drunken students decided to make a point, and reached out for Concarnadine. By now, though, there was enough power swirling round the room, that, even as his fingers closed over the formal jacket, they were striking empty air, and Concarnadine was brushing his hands.
“Where is he ?”
“He’s cooling off. Somewhere in Siberia, I think. But I’m sure he’ll find his way back, eventually.” He paused, then added “Believe me.”
Which put a hesitation in the advance of several more Superlatives, looking to extract a stone or two of flesh (with or without attendant blood) from Concarnadine. And, before they could recover their motivation, he had moved again, pulling flowers from the air for two girl-Superlatives, and then effortlessly dodging an outstretched hand, trying to clew on to him, and backing into a clearer space.
By now, it was clear that the Superlatives had taken against him, and intended him harm. There were bulky young men getting up from various tables, and shouted plans being exchanged. What was more to the point, was that there was no sign of either his fee or of Freimes taking any steps to protect him.
Concarnadine drew in all the energy he could, and traced a complicated design on the air in front of him. It glowed blue-purple and, under its influence, he was able to step, briefly, Between time.
So far as the Superlatives were concerned, he vanished. So far as the College staff were concerned, it was the Superlatives who seemed to be affected, paying no attention as Concarnadine walked past them, and collected his things from around the area by the top table.
Finally he walked to the doorway, and spoke to the senior college servant.
“I’d recommend that you get your people out of the room.” Concarnadine watched as the servers and stewards filed out, and then he released time. As the students began to recover their wits, he traced a second design across the doorway.
“You can amuse yourselves all that you like,” he told the Superlatives, “But you will find that none of you can leave until the morning.” Then, remembering that there were some invited guests there, who weren’t part of the mayhem, he made a slight alteration to the glowing hieroglyph.
“There - those of you who have pure hearts may leave. I just don’t advise - ” He stepped back as a tackle-sized man charged the door and went down in a flurry of sparks. “As I was saying, I don’t advise anyone who isn’t pure of heart to try it, though. And any damage you do will still be there in the morning, so … ”
There was little more that he could do, so he didn’t. He did make a telephone call though: he wanted to be sure that the morning newspapers would have the story, so that he could find out what went on after he left.