‘Only one person was spared to relate the story,’ said Mother Zenobia. ‘It was said that Mu’shad Waseed himself was left until the last when Maltcassion himself enveloped him with a thunderous blast of fire so intense that the Persian wizard was turned to charcoal where he stood. The Dragons stayed until dawn, razing Mu’shad Waseed’s headquarters to the ground, scouring the earth with their hot breath until all that was left of the carts, horses, ambassadors, musicians and guests was a fine grey ash. Then the Dragons vanished back to where they had come from, leaving behind a blackened patch of earth and a lot of disgruntled hotel owners and restaurateurs who, as far as we know, never got paid.

‘Mu’shad Waseed had failed. The Dragons carried on as before. Unsurprisingly, they reacted badly to the attempted extermination, and caused much trouble on the islands; the Dragonslayers could do little. By the time the year was out and snow once more blanketed the land, only three Dragons had been slain to seven lost Dragonslayers. It was a disaster, and the seventy-eight kings, emperors, queens, presidents, dictators, dukes and elected representatives who paid Mu’shad Waseed for not very much fiercely regretted not spending the extra eleven dray-weights of gold and employing the Mighty Shandar instead.’

‘That’s quite a story,’ I said as Mother Zenobia stopped for breath, ‘but if there were still dozens of dragons, where did all the forehead-jewels come from?’

‘No one knows,’ replied Mother Zenobia. ‘Perhaps the Dragon census was inaccurate, or Waseed decided to claim his reward by making false jewels. How am I meant to know? But that’s not the best bit.’

She paused for a moment, produced a pair of pliers from the air and plunged them into the Quarkbeast’s open mouth.

‘Sister Angeline had a Quarkbeast,’ she mentioned in explanation and, panting slightly with exertion, added, ‘A pair of pliers, a corkscrew and an angle-grinder should be included in the grooming kit. Ah – got it!’

She withdrew the pliers as the Quarkbeast shut his jaws with a snap. In the pliers was a piece of twisted metal.

‘Piece of a tin can. Just behind the fifth canific molarcisor. Common problem. Where was I?’

‘You were about to tell me the best bit.’

Mother Zenobia smiled.

‘This: the Mighty Shandar did not return that winter. He did not return that spring. Summer turned to autumn, turned back to summer and then to spring again. And then one day, the following summer after that, Shandar reappeared.

‘“Sorry I’m late,” he said once all the ambassadors had gathered before him, “I had one or two things to attend to.”

‘“You must help us,” begged the ambassadors, all hastily replaced but one, “Mu’shad Waseed tried to create Dragonslayers, but now the Dragon Question is worse than ever—”