Moobin took out his Shandarmeter and turned it on. I looked over his shoulder as the small needle bobbed against the scale.

‘The background wizidrical radiation has risen almost tenfold since yesterday,’ he mused. ‘I’ve never seen anything quite like it.’

‘Is that why you’re here?’ I asked Brother Stamford. ‘Like moths to a light?’

Stamford answered by firing a shimmering globe from his fingertip that buzzed round the room before vanishing.

‘I couldn’t do that yesterday,’ he announced. ‘You may joke about Big Magic, but it’s real and it’s true and it’s going to happen very soon.’

‘But what is it?’ I asked.

They both looked at one another. Wizard Moobin was the one who answered.

‘There was a time before magic, and there will be a time when magic has gone. In between those times the power of magic will ebb and flow like the tide. But like it or not there will come a day when the tide will recede and never return – the power of magic will vanish for ever.’

‘But that’s unthinkable!’

‘It’s not all bad. There is always an opportunity to rekindle that spark and bring the tide of power back into flood – and with the flood bring on renewal. Renewal of the power of magic.’

‘And that opportunity is Big Magic?’ I asked.

‘A chance to recharge the batteries, so to speak. But at times of low power, sorcerers are less likely to see the signs of a Big Magic. We never know when it will be, or what form it will take. The last time Big Magic took place was two hundred and thirty years ago, with the appearance of the star Aleutius in the evening sky. If Brother Thassos of Crete had not seen it for the sign it was, magic might have vanished for good.’

‘But where does magic come from?’ I asked. ‘And where does it go?’

‘Explaining magic is like explaining lightning or rainbows a thousand years ago; inexplicable and wonderful but seemingly impossible. Today they are little more than equations in a science textbook. Magic is the fifth fundamental force, and even more mysterious than gravity, which is really saying something. Magic is a power lurking in all of us, an emotional energy that can be used to move objects and manipulate matter. But it doesn’t follow any physical laws that we can, as yet, understand; it exists only in our hearts and minds.’

‘And the Dragonlands? What do they have to do with it?’

‘I wish we knew. But one thing is crucial. With the way that the power of magic has been deteriorating over the past fifty years, this happening – whatever it is – might be the last chance to regather the power before it goes completely.’

‘What are the chances it will happen?’

‘A renewal is a risky undertaking. Chances are twenty per cent, at best.’