Ace of Wands

A man named John Christopher arrives at Mr. Sweet’s bookshop, desperate to see the bookseller, but he is killed shortly after hiding a parchment inside one of the antique books. In a sinister taxidermist’s shop, the dark magician Estabis, also known as Mr. Stabs, is searching for the ‘Seven Serpents’ parchment, which holds the secret of turning base metal into gold; he is assisted in his task by the smelly Luko and a spirit named Polandi.

Learning that Tarot has now found the script, Stabs takes on the form of Polandi so that he can break into the magician’s flat; he hypnotises Lulli into poisoning Tarot, but in the nick of time the plan is thwarted by Sam.

Tarot, Sam and a restored Lulli take a trip to Swineshead, where the alchemist Flameld hid is secret of transmogrification six-hundred years ago. It is the site of the final confrontation between Tarot and Mr. Stabs - but which of the magicians will win the deadly battle of wits?

A bizarre troupe of travelling players dressed as playing-card characters is run by the eccentric Uncle Harry; operating out of their brightly-decorated bus they journey across the country visiting schools and entertaining the pupils. However, these good intentions hide a sinister motive, for when the act reaches the part involving the Joker, Uncle Harry’s ventriloquist dummy, the children suddenly go berserk and wreck their classrooms.

Learning of the strange behaviour of the schoolchildren, Tarot and his friends investigate; while the magician looks into a company called ‘Spells on Wheels’, Lulli poses as a hitch-hiker and thumbs a lift with Uncle Harry and his players.

However, the Joker has realised Lulli is not what she seems, and has set a trap for her…

Mr. Sweet is visited by Doctor Winthrop, who urgently needs help in locating a consignment of his deadly hallucinogenic gas known as ‘H23’, so called because it induces sleep and then horrifying nightmares in its victims, who then die of shock after just twenty-three minutes; the lorry containing the gas canisters was recently hijacked while en route to a dumping ground.

After Mr. Sweet contacts Tarot and his friends, Lulli discovers that Winthrop’s former assistant Thalia Smith is involved in the theft. She takes the doctor to see Brigadier Connaught, but before they can reach him they are both captured by Thalia and her brother Dalbiac, and taken to their windmill hideout. Thalia plans to sell off the stolen consignment of ‘H23’, and plans to demonstrate its effects to her buyers by using the gas on Lulli and Winthrop.

Lulli uses her telepathic link to Tarot to inform him of Thalia’s hideout, but when Tarot arrives he falls victim to the effects of the gas, and finds himself in the nightmare world of the English Civil War, about to be burnt at the stake for practicing sorcery…

When a priceless diamond called ‘The Eye of Ra’ goes on display in London, Tarot learns that the diamond has magical properties, and that its light is capable of turning people into six-inch-high chalk statuettes. The diamond is also sought by Ceribraun, a crippled chess-master, who, aided by his master computer and his butler, Fredericks, begins a devious campaign to steal the diamond.

He kidnaps Mr. Sweet and leaves behind a chalk statuette of the bookseller as part of his scheme to use Tarot to obtain the jewel; however, when the statuette of Mr. Sweet is accidentally smashed, Tarot and his friends believe him to be dead.

Ceribraun then captures Lulli and replaces her with a figurine; however, she is able to inform Tarot via their telepathic link that she is being held in the vaults beneath the house of Sir John Packham.

Tarot attempts a rescue, but is swiftly trapped on a huge chessboard between two giant robotic chess-pieces, which are slowly crushing out of him…