by Tom Holt
The boy was still sitting behind the terrible machine, eating digestive biscuits. Mordak hadn’t noticed him move, but the spout of the machine had shifted slightly and was now directly in line with Mordak’s head. “Eats a lot, doesn’t he?”
“About the same for a normal boy his age, sir. Growing lad, got to keep his strength up.” The old man frowned, just a little. “I really do think you ought to be heading back home now, sir. It’s getting late.”
“It’s not, it’s—”
“Later than you think, sir,” the old man said gravely. “Take care, now.”
Being careful to maintain eye contact, Mordak backed away until he felt something soft under his heel and heard a loud squeak. “Mind where you’re going,” Tinituviel said. “That’s my toe.”
“Sorry. We’re going now.”
“Did you see what that ghastly thing did to all those—?”
“Yes. Wave goodbye to the nice gentlemen.”
“What are you—?”
“That’s an order.”
The old man waved back ever so nicely, and even the boy waggled his chunk of apple pie at them before swallowing it whole. “Who the hell were they?” she whispered in his ear as they edged backward slowly down the hillside.
“No idea,” Mordak said.
“I told you, didn’t I? I said, I wouldn’t be the least surprised if they had really powerful, advanced weapons.”
“Yes, you did.”
“And I was right.”
“Yes, you were.”
She looked round. A stray beam of sunlight flashed off the cylindrical part of the horrible machine. She shivered. “You know what,” she said. “I really wish I wasn’t.”
A small, squat door opened in the lower panel of the left-hand Great Gate of Snordor. A goblin guard peered out and scowled at the smiling human standing in front of him. “Was that you making that godawful racket?” he asked.
The human nodded. “I knocked. Sorry, was that wrong?”
“What do you want?”
“To give you a present.”
The guard made an anatomically impractical suggestion designed to convey scepticism. “No,” the human said, “straight up. This is your lucky day.”
There was something so honest and open and trustworthy about the human’s broad, fat face that the goblin checked himself in the act of slamming the door. “Don’t give me that.”
“Not that.” The man’s smile broadened, and from the sleeve of his coarse woollen robe he took a shiny gold tube. “This. For you. Because it’s your lucky day.”
“What are you on about?”
The man’s beam was almost bright enough to fry an egg. “Congratulations,” he said. “You have been chosen as our lucky winner in this week’s Open-the-Gate competition.”
“How’s that work, then?”
“Simple. We knock on a door, and the first goblin to open it receives this splendid prize, to keep, absolutely free.”
The goblin peered at the tube. “Is that real gold?”
“Twenty-four-carat.”
“Stone me.” He reached out his paw, hesitated, then lunged impulsively and snatched the tube from the human’s hand. “All right, then, what is it?”
“It’s called a writ,” the human said. “What you do with it is, you take it to a person in authority, such as the guard commander or the field marshal of the goblin host, or better still King Mordak himself, and he opens it and sees what’s inside, and then he gives you a fabulous reward.”
“And I also get to keep the tube?”
“For the rest of your life, probably.” The human took a couple of steps back. “Have a nice day, now. Bye.”
Neatly done, John the Lawyer congratulated himself, as he hurried down the narrow track toward the eaves of the forest, and it’s good to see you’re learning from your mistakes. That said, goblins were an order of magnitude more gullible than dwarves. Even so.
He couldn’t wait to tell the client. He was looking forward so much to seeing the look on his face, or any look, come to that, assuming the client actually had a face to have looks on. Guess what, he’d tell him, I’ve made legal history—
“Have you? How splendid.”
Where he came from, John could never figure out, though he spent several sleepless nights trying. He was just there, so close that John had great difficulty stopping himself from cannoning into him. Still the same swirly black cloak and hood. Probably a uniform, or the customary habit of some religious order.
“Sorry,” John said. “Was I thinking aloud?”
“You must’ve been,” the client said. “Either that or I can read your mind, which isn’t very likely, is it? So presumably you were talking to yourself. Which is perfectly all right. Most people do, actually, though not many of them admit it.”
John took a deep breath. The air seemed unusually thin, probably because of the altitude. “I’m so glad I bumped into you,” he said.
“But you didn’t. You stopped yourself just in time. Rather cleverly, I thought.”
“Happened to meet you quite by chance,” John amended. “We’re making progress. The game’s afoot.”
“Hopscotch?”
“Matters,” John translated, “are going forward. I’ve just served a writ on the goblins.”
“I saw,” said the client, sitting down on a boulder. His back was very straight and he folded his hands neatly in his lap. “That was extremely brave of you.”
“Oh, you just need to know how to handle them. Which reminds me. You did say expense was no object?”
Not a quiver. “Yes.”
John closed his eyes and took a run at it. “Fine, because I owe the dwarves for a solid gold document tube, and I was wondering if it’d be possible to have a bit of money on, well, you know—” His voice had dwindled to a whisper. “Account?”
“Certainly. How much would you like?”
How deep is the ocean, how high is the sky? To keep his heart from exploding, John rephrased that to how much do you need? It was still an amazing phrase to have echoing around inside his head, and he looked forward to replaying it on an endless loop every morning and evening for the rest of his life. “Um, fifty florins?”
“Make that a hundred,” the client said, and from some hidden pocket in his robe he produced a bulging leather sack the size of a prize cooking apple. Which was odd, because it weighed ever so much, so it should’ve dragged down the client’s robe on one side, but it hadn’t. “Don’t bother about a receipt,” the client added. “I trust you.”
“What? Oh, right. Thank you.” John’s knees had gone all weak. He looked for a rock to sit on, but there wasn’t one, so he subsided into a scruffy heap on the bare ground.
“You were saying,” said the client. “About making legal history.”
“Was I? Yes, of course I was. Sorry, I got side-tracked.” Another deep breath. Was he really as high up as all that? “I served a writ on King Mordak and the goblins.”
“You already told me that.”
“A writ,” John continued, “for vacant possession of Snangorodrim, the Caverns of the Aubergine Mountains, the Dark Fortress of Gruin and the Mines of Snoria. It gives him twenty-eight days to clear out, failing which we immediately institute legal proceedings against them for forfeiture of premises, damages and costs. So? What do you think?”
“It sounds like you’ve worked really hard and been both resourceful and imaginative,” the client said. “Purely out of interest, though, what are you basing this claim on? Those places have been goblin territory for thousands of years.”
“Ah.” John beamed happily. “My point exactly.” He fumbled in his pocket for a scrap of parchment and a stub of charcoal. “You’ll recall that in the beginning, the High Ones created the heavens and the earth, and sundered the Realms from the Surrounding Sea.”
“I’ve heard it said, yes.”
“Fine. And on the eighth day they assigned the heavens and the Blessed Land to the Not Quite So High On
es, the woods and groves of Luviendor to the Elves, the caverns of Groth to the dwarves, the plains and meadows of Nithruil to the Children of Men, and the Dark Places to the goblins. With me so far?”
“You’ve explained it all beautifully, if I may say so.”
“Thank you. Now then. The Dark Places include, among other locations, Snangorodrim, the Caverns of the Aubergine Mountains, the Dark Realm of Gruin and the Mines of Snoria. We’re not disputing that.”
“Aren’t we? Ah well. Jolly good.”
John shook his head. “I spent two days in the archives of the Woodland King, and I managed to find the original charters.” He grinned. “Wonderful people, the Elves, they never throw anything away. They just refuse point-blank to tell you where it is. Anyway, I went over the charters with a fine-tooth comb, and they made pretty interesting reading, I can tell you. For one thing—”
“Why a comb?”
“What?”
“I’d have thought a magnifying glass would have been more useful. Still, I’m not going to try and teach you your job, which you’re clearly very good at indeed. Please go on.”
“Very interesting reading,” John went on, though his head was starting to swim a bit. “Because, and this is the key point here; no doubt you’ll recall that at the end of the First Age, Thungor was cast down and the Isle of Innocence sank for ever under the sea. Then, halfway through the Second Age, the Iaressë grew wroth at the wickedness of Men, cut off the Golden Realm behind a crystal barrier and split the Inner Realm with a great earthquake, which raised the Taupe Mountains, created the Great Chasm and buried the entrance to Gol Dinûr under millions of tons of rock. And then, about a quarter of the way into the Third Age, the Venar overthrew the Iaressë and imprisoned them on a rocky island which they raised from the seabed, which in turn led to a massive tidal wave that swept away the Silver Cities of the Coast and turned Pondor into what we now know as the Middle Sea. Agreed?”
The client shrugged. “Absolutely.”
“In other words,” John said gleefully, “since the date of the original charter, the Realms have on three occasions been subject to intense seismic activity leading to geological movement and accelerated tectonic shift. Which, in layman’s terms, means that pretty much everything is now at least fifty miles to the left of where it used to be. I intend to argue that, in accordance with the fundamental tenets of the law of real property, what the goblins were granted in the charter was the original locations, not the places where stuff that happened to be at those locations has now ended up. So—” He was sketching furiously on his scrap of parchment. “If we move Snangorodrim, the Caverns of the Aubergine Mountains, the Dark Realm of Gruin and the Mines of Snoria fifty-odd miles sideways, you’ll find they’re now out on the inner perimeter of the Great Salt Desert, which nobody wants and which has no development value whatsoever, leaving four great big chunks of prime real estate just sat there, not belonging to anybody.”
“But full of goblins.”
“Unlawfully full of goblins,” John corrected him, “because as soon as I realised all this, I shot over to the Land Registry and filed vacant land claims on all four locations in the name of JTL Holdings Inc.—that’s us—and since more than twenty-four hours have passed and no counterclaim had been received, all that beautiful property now belongs to us.”
“But is full of goblins.”
“Well, yes. Hence the writ, telling them to clear on out of it or else.”
The client nodded. “Or else what?”
“We have them thrown out. Send the bailiffs in, presumably, I don’t know, that’s an enforcement issue. The point is, we now have legal title. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
The client thought for a moment. “Yes,” he said, “I suppose it is. Actual vacant possession would have been nice, but like you say, that’s an enforcement issue, and we have other people for that. So, yes, legal title is a substantial step forward. You’ve done extremely well, I’m very pleased. You must allow me to pay you considerably more than we originally agreed. No, I insist.”
“Oh.” John waved his arms helplessly. “Go on, then.”
“Splendid.” From another pocket the client produced another fat bag of coins, this time the size of a sheep’s head. It nearly pulled John’s arms out of their sockets when he took hold of it. “Now then,” the client went on, “I’d like you to do the same for the Elves, the dwarves and the Children of Men.”
John looked at him. “Excuse me?”
“I want their land,” the client said. “All of it. With them gone if possible, but if you can’t manage that, then just the legal title. Let’s see, what’s today, Thursday. Would next Monday be possible, do you think?”
“All of it?”
“Yes, please.” The client stood up. “You really have done outstandingly well,” he said. “I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend you to any of my friends or acquaintances. Goodbye.”
“But where will they go? All the Elves and dwarves and—”
Big floaty shrug. “That’s hardly our problem, is it? Remember, expense no object. Ciao for now.”
There is nothing like a dwarf, Ms. White told herself, nothing in the world. Where else but the Dwarvenhold could you place an order for a twenty-foot-diameter wrought-iron doughnut pan in the morning, and be heating fat in it the same afternoon? And what a pan. Not just a stunningly efficient, irreproachably ergonomic kitchen utensil but a thing of beauty, sinuously contoured and perfectly balanced, its rim chased with gold-inlaid runes, its ten-foot handle defiantly arched like a springing leopard. Not just an object, a mere thing; but to the dwarves, things are never mere. Dwarves paint no paintings, compose no operas or symphonies, write no sonnets or Great Dwarven Novels, but into everything they make they pour the very essence of their being, their hearts and souls. They don’t go much on fancy, useless decoration—floral borders, embossed panels of vine leaves, birds and grazing deer; that sort of thing they dismiss as Elvish side salad. Instead, without sacrificing an iota of utility and function, they put beauty in every line and curve, every proportion and ratio, everything that, taken together, makes up a shape, a symmetry, a design.
It took fifteen strong dwarves to lift it, and twelve tons of charcoal to make a fire hot enough to melt the lard.
“What’s its name?” she asked, as they hauled it into position.
“You what?”
“Oh, come on. Something as big and beautiful as that’s got to have a name.”
Pause. “All right, if you say so. We name this pan Kharez-Zhâraf.”
Kharez-Zhâraf. The echo of the words rolled away like distant thunder, mysterious and grand. She smiled. “That’s a wonderful name,” she said. “What does it mean?”
“Large Pan.”
“I think I’ll call it Peter,” she said.
So, into Peter went all the flour, the beaten-up eggs, the milk and the butter, and shortly afterwards a crane, hastily shipped in from the mine head, winched a huge, glistening brown O out of the roiling fat. A specially adapted winch raised it seven levels to the Great Inner Hall, where the masons had just finished shoring up a wall for it to stand against. There was an awkward moment when a rope broke and the enormous object tottered and threatened to fall, but quick thinking on the part of the gangmasters saved the day; a volunteer jumped down from the boom of the crane, drove a handspike into the pastry and made a chain fast to it, and then it was every hand to the ropes, to haul it back upright while the fixing brackets were screwed in. And when it was all done, King Drain took a step back, scratched the back of his neck and said, “What in God’s name is that all in aid of?”
“Ah,” Ms. White said.
“Ah what?”
“Just ah. For now.”
“Suit yourself. So, how’s that going to help you get all that stuff we were talking about?”
“Ah.”
“You know what? You’re starting to get on my nerves.”
She blew him a kiss; he shuddered and stomped
away, leaving her alone in the vast echoing chamber with the giant doughnut. Splendid. She looked round to make sure all the workmen had gone, then took her LoganBerry from the pocket of her apron, hit the appropriate key and waited. Three rings. Then, “Hello?”
“White here. All right, everything’s ready this end. In your own time.”
“What about the money?”
“When I’ve had a chance to look at the stuff.”
“Oh, for crying out loud. All right. Stand back.”
The line went dead. She hopped and skipped back a couple of paces, and just as well. The towering stack of crates that materialised out of nowhere would’ve been right on top of her if she hadn’t moved.
She stared at it for a moment, then noticed an envelope sellotaped to a front-row crate.
You said that if I had any other stuff, to send it through. Same terms. Prompt payment will oblige. How did you say this thing works, exactly?
She hadn’t said, naturally. That technology wasn’t hers to license, and she had an idea that anyone who tried to double-cross smiling, harmless looking George would quickly find themselves in a depth and diversity of trouble beyond the capacity of the human brain to imagine. Ms. White’s motto had always been a simple one: don’t be too greedy. It had served her well over the years and she respected it.
She chose a crate at random and peered at the label, but it was in Chinese, which she could speak after a fashion but not read. So she looked round and found a crowbar left behind by the construction crew, hauled the crate down off the stack, and prised open the lid.
Five hundred sets of wine bottle stoppers in the shape of letters of the alphabet. Cool. The next crate held a thousand leather-look cradles for carrying a bottle of wine suspended from the crossbar of a bicycle. Perfect. Eighteen thousand combination beard combs/bottle openers. Pure gold. Five hundred mahogany iPhone covers, sourced from sustainable forests. Well, the last bit would be wasted on Drain and his lot, but never mind. Some fool would buy them. Some fool always does.