by Adam Roberts
‘I’m still stuck on why,’ said Vagner. ‘Ever since…’
‘Now, Trikky, I know what you’re going to say. It’s never been conclusively proved that these tongues have anything to do with… your poor grandniece’s lamentable and mysterious fate.’
‘Not conclusively proved?’ Vagner repeated. He drained his own glass, and belched a shining violet-coloured flame. ‘Come come, Sammy. Who can doubt it? Whoever it was murdered my grandniece – and is the same dragon who’s sending me these horrible… tokens. They’re mocking me. Mocking me with their continuing impunity. And, as you say, continuing with their horrible crimes! Mutilating and killing a dragon every year!’
‘We’ve no evidence of the killing part.’
‘You think there are three hundred live dragons flying about with no tongues in their heads? You don’t think that would be noticed? No, no, he tortures them, kills them, and disposes of their bodies – sinks them in the seas, or something like that. All the loved ones know is that a dragon has vanished. He must be caught, Sammy. We must catch him.’
‘Well,’ said Detective Superintendent Smaug, getting up on his hindlegs and tucking the severed dragon tongue away in a pouch slung from a golden belt. ‘Of course the police would like nothing better than to apprehend him. And, as with the others, I’ll make enquiries. But, as with all the others, I’d be amazed if anything comes of it. And as for your grandniece… I’m afraid that case was closed long ago.’
‘We’ll see,’ said Vagner. ‘I have somebody in mind. Apparently he’s a genius at the new arts of finding stuff out.’
‘Here’s hoping,’ said the Detective Superintendent, stepping from the balcony and into the air. ‘Here’s hoping!’
1
Käal Morekill Brimstön was widely known as a genius at ‘finding stuff out’. In fact, he was rubbish at finding stuff out. But reputation trumps reality in the card game of life. Provided the card game is one that uses trumps. Like bridge. Or canasta. The two of clubs of Käal’s fame laid on top of the King of Diamonds of his true incompetence. If we have previously agreed that clubs are trumps. If you see what I mean.
Käal worked for a small but influential Saga, whose central Starkhelm office was kitted out with only the very trendiest Drakea furniture. Come to think of it, I’m not sure canasta uses a trump system. It doesn’t matter. Anyway, the Saga – Köschfagold Saga – specialized in financial news, on the understanding that the proportion of dragonkind interested in money (which is: all of it, give or take) would ensure it a steady readership. It hadn’t worked out that way. But although it was not widely read, the Saga was widely respected. There were Sagas that sold more copies, of course: the celebrity news-based Sptöüägbble Saga, for instance, the literary review Flblloljalblblkklbl Saga, or the cookery-themed Pütunthlobstrëënthpotborkborkbork Saga. But few had the extraordinary reputation for finding things out of Köschfagold. And even fewer had the top-range swivel chairs. And Käal was the star reporter. There were other dragons on staff: the editor, Beargrr, a forceful female with lapis-lazuli coloured spines running down her ample back; and Fyrstarter the deputy editor. But neither of them quite looked the part the way Käal did.
His scales overlapped as neatly as roof-tiles, and were of a similar brick red and orange-rind colour. He was not young, exactly – his size alone told you that – yet he still had the glamour of youth. His wings, when he stretched them to full length, were entirely free of gaps, holes or tatters. His eyes were so pale they looked almost a white; but a gleaming, handsome sort of white. All these things counted for a good deal in Scandragonia.
For years he had coasted on these splendid looks, and on the work done by minimum-wage researchers. But then, Köschfagold Saga had run a story on a senior dragon businessman called Wintermute. Wintermute had sued.
When the raven first arrived at the Saga with the news that they were going to have to defend the story in court, Beargrr had an editorial conversation with Käal. ‘I’ll need to see your notes, records, and all your sources.’
‘Right,’ said Käal. ‘What?’
‘All your notes,’ she said. ‘So we can ready the court-room defence.’
Käal shrugged his wings. It took Beargrr several repetitions of her request for her to comprehend that he knew nothing at all about the story that he himself had written.
‘But you researched it!’ she kept saying. ‘You must have sources – you must have notes, files, unpublished material.’
‘I can barely remember it,’ he said. ‘Was that the one with the red-and-yellow border on the front page?’
‘But how can you not know?’ she berated him. ‘You wrote the story!’
‘I wrote it,’ said Käal, ingenuously. ‘But that doesn’t mean I researched it. It’s the same as all my stuff. I sent a raven down to the researchers, and they sent all the facts up. I just arranged them in Saga form, putting in all the necessary alliteration and so on.’
‘That,’ said Beargrr, ‘is not what a journalist does!’
At this Käal had looked slightly confused. ‘Are you sure?’ he said. ‘Because I was working on the assumption that it, well, was.’
‘Are you kidding me?’
‘No.’ He thought about it. ‘Kid as in goat, do you mean? Are you hungry?’
‘Kid,’ said Beargrr, in a dull voice, ‘as in: setting up my Saga for financial ruin in an unwinnable court case.’
Now, the situation between these two dragons was complicated. Beargrr was hamfast with another dragon, a well-respected Swedragenish medical man. But despite that, she had started a relationship with Käal. She had done so because she had found him attractive, but a large part of that attraction had to do with his reputation as a Super Journalist. This, it now seemed, was an unfounded reputation.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘Putting raw data into Saga form is not easy. And we’ve always employed researchers – haven’t we? I mean, isn’t that the point of employing researchers? That they do the research and I write it up?’
‘No,’ said Beargrr, looking at her lover with cold eyes. ‘The point of researchers is that they relieve the journalists of tedious or repetitive tasks. But the journalists are still supposed to go out and actually find stuff out.’
‘Oh,’ said Käal, looking interested. ‘I did not know that.’
‘What do you mean you didn’t know that!’ Beargrr yelled. ‘You’re my star reporter! How can you be a star reporter and not know what a star reporter even does?’
‘Well,’ said Käal, mildly. ‘It’s never seemed to be a problem before. You liked the Quetzoacoatlofmanycolours story I filed? That won an award!’ Quetzoacoatlofmanycolours had been a soap merchant. Köschfagold Saga had run a story exposing that his company stock had been involved in a Bubble.
‘I assumed you’d gone out and interviewed Quetzoacoatlofmanycolours yourself. I assumed you’d asked about, looking in dustbins, checked the archives of local Sagas, and slowly pieced together the story of the cover-up. Please tell me that you interviewed Quetzoacoatlofmanycolours yourself, asked about, looked in dustbins, checked the archives of local Sagas, and slowly pieced together the story of the cover-up?’
‘Nope, I didn’t do any of that.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Well, I sent a raven down to the researcher’s office, like I always do. There’s a young researcher who’s usually pretty good: still a Salamander, I think. I asked her: what’s up with this Quetzoacoatlofmanycolours geezer? You’d told me to look into him, you see. After a few days she sent all the data back – by raven – and I wrote it up.’
‘But you were away for a week!
‘I was in the sauna, mostly.’
‘I thought you were doing star reporter investigative stuff!’
‘No. Just sauna stuff.’
‘I can’t believe this!’ Beargrr howled, blowing a bright spire of orange flame straight from the back of her throat. Fire licked and blazed across the office filing cabinet.
‘You
’re angry!’ said Käal, laughing. Then, the gravity of the situation striking him for the first time, he said it again, without the laugh. ‘You’re angry.’ Then, very sombrely: ‘You’re going to sack me, aren’t you.’
‘How can I sack you?’ Beargrr roared, leaping into the air and hurtling round the room, near the ceiling. ‘You’re my star reporter! What would that say about the credibility of the Saga? We’re just about to go to court! I can’t afford to admit that our star report was a grade 1 gumbo.’
‘Plus,’ said Käal, with a hopeful inflection, turning his head to try and follow her, and wringing his own neck like a wet rag, ‘not forgetting that we’re lovers – ack!’ He uncoiled his neck.
‘Don’t remind me,’ snapped Beargrr, coming down to the floor again. ‘What about the Firegate story? The political corruption one?’
‘Well, you asked me to investigate it. So I sent a raven down to the researcher’s office, and when the raven came back with all the facts I wrote it out in Saga form, making sure that the alliteration…’
‘Aaarh!’ said Beargrr, with some force.
Everything was quiet in the office for a bit.
‘I blame myself,’ said Beargrr, in a calmer voice. ‘I should have realized that you are not star-reporter material. In retrospect, I’ve been foolish. I thought your twittish, louche, bumbling manner was a clever persona that you could use to coax information out of people. Looking back I can see that you just are a twittish, louche, bumbling dragon.’
‘Maybe a little louche,’ Käal conceded.
‘But you reflected glory upon Köschfagold Saga. Dragons all over Scandragonia think that you – and therefore we – have a genius for “finding stuff out”. And it turns out, in the end, that we are nothing of the sort… that there’s some researcher in the bowels of the building who is the real genius.’
‘Maybe we should give her a staff job?’
‘Right now,’ snapped Beargrr, ‘we have to handle this Wintermute disaster. This could bankrupt the whole Saga, you know! We can’t go into the court case admitting, in effect, that we are incompetent. No, we’re going to present a confident, unified front, whilst I try and figure out how to handle this.’
‘I could go back to the sauna,’ Käal offered. When Beargrr gave him a hard stare, he added: ‘You could come too, of course. If you wanted to.’
‘You don’t seem to understand,’ she said. ‘The entire future of Köschfagold Saga hangs in the balance. Wintermute is an extremely powerful and influential dragon. If I send you into court to substantiate your own article, his lawyers will rip you to pieces. In fact,’ she said, her face registering that she had had a good idea, ‘I think you had better make yourself scarce.’
‘I am quite scared, actually,’ Käal agreed, nodding. ‘You’re so cross! Plus, all this talk of courtrooms is quite putting the willies up me.’
‘Scarce, not scared,’ said Beargrr. She flew-leapt to her desk, and rummaged through the pile of scrolls littering its surface. ‘There was something…’
‘Scarce!’ said Käal. ‘Yes, I knew you meant that. Obviously I’m not scared. That would be pitiable! I’m a dragon, aren’t I?’
‘A request for your services…’ Beargrr said.
‘And making myself scarce is a good idea,’ said Käal. ‘I could go to a really big sauna and just spend a couple of weeks…’
‘Here!’ Beargrr held up a gold-trimmed scroll. ‘You’ve heard of the mystery of the Vagner clan?’
‘Vagner – ah yes, Vagner,’ said Käal, nodding sagely and scratching his underchin with one talon. ‘No, never heard of them.’
‘I asked if you’d heard of the mystery of the Vagner clan, and you reply that you’ve not even heard of the Vagner clan?’
‘No!’
‘Joking aside, Käal,’ said Beargrr. ‘You have heard of them.’
‘Nope.’
‘How can you not have heard of them?’ she bellowed. ‘They’re one of the wealthiest nests in the whole of Scandragonia!’
‘Are they really?’
‘They keep putting out fantastically advanced consumer durables. Everything they market turns to gold. Nobody knows where they get all their new ideas.’
‘Interesting.’
‘They’re behind the flashfire drive – the supersonic Skylligator – the computer.’
‘No. Not ringing any bells.’
Beargrr sighed. ‘The head of the clan, Helltrik Vagner, is five hundred years old. He’s personal friends with several Dragonlords.’
‘That’s nice.’
‘You must have heard of Doorbraak?’
‘Door—? No.’
‘The floating island?’
‘Nope.’
‘You’re my star reporter! How can you not know of the famous Vagner floating island? It floats through the sky, north across Swedragenia, south over Fangland, and round over the mainland.’
‘Golly,’ said Käal.
Beargrr contemplated her (mentally she inserted ‘former’) lover and star reporter with disdain. Then she put her head on one side and looked at him with datdain. Eventually she said: ‘I don’t care. I need you out of the way, such that I can plausibly tell the court you’re unavailable. Vagner has asked for your help – specifically for you. He believes that you have a genius for finding stuff out. Apparently some terrible thing happened in the family three centuries ago, and nobody has ever got to the bottom of it.’
‘And you’d like me to solve the mystery?’
‘Old Vagner wants you to do that. All I care about it that you’ll be out of sight for a couple of months, whilst I try and clear up this Wintermute mess. So, you will accept Vagner’s generous invitation, and go to Doorbraak.’
‘Um,’ said Käal.
‘No ums,’ said Beargrr, forcefully.
‘Right. Do I go straight off… ?’
‘Go buy a Skylligator ticket for Limbchopping. That’s where the floating island is, now. I’ll send a raven telling Vagner that you’ve accepted his invitation.’
‘I haven’t had breakfast, yet…’ Käal said.
‘Oh for crying out loud. Go grab a sheep, and then take the Skylligator to the Vagner estate.’
‘Right!’ said Käal, brightly.
Before he quit the office, he sent a raven down to the Saga’s researchers. ‘Lizbreath? I’m off to Doorbraak, which apparently is a floating island. I’m supposed to solve a mystery concerning the Vagners. Anything you can give me?’
Then he went outside and grabbed a sheep from a roadside booth. Then he flew off to the Skylligator terminal.
The raven croaked and flew off, carrying its charge. It circled down the gleaming flame-shaped tower, passed the busy thoroughfare and its thronging crowds of dragons, workwyrms and firedrakes. The bird ducked through a vent, and flew down into a poorly lit room beneath the main office.
A slender young dragon called Lizbreath Salamander listened to the raven’s message. ‘The Vagner clan, eh?’ she mused. ‘Doorbraak, no less. This could be interesting.’
Salamander was taupe, which is a colour, actually; a dark gleaming shade with a fine sheen in the light. She was not large, her shoulders no wider than her pelvis, and her wings were a little undersized. But there was something strangely attractive about her. And up by the shoulder of her right wing she carried the picture of a young female human being. Very few dragons had seen anything like it.
She knew about the Vagners, of course; and about their fabulously expensive floating island Doorbraak – borne aloft in the sky by some strange magic (for it did not fly with wings) that most of dragonkind wot not of. Indeed, what they wot of was beyond the wit of many dragons to, er, woot.
What?
At any rate, Lizbreath had a personal interest in the Vagners. They were a mysterious, reclusive, fabulously wealthy family; and she knew all about the rumours of a dark secret at the heart of the clan. Lizbreath liked dark secrets, the darker the better.
And she had her own reasons f
or wanting to get closer to Doorbraak.
There was no question but that this was a project that interested her. But to pursue it properly, she would need more money for essential equipment. And that, unfortunately, meant begging her new Guardian for some cash.
It was not a pleasant prospect. But it had to be done.
2
The Skylligator set down at Limbchopping, and Käal disembarked, tripping over a tooth as he did so. It was exciting. The Vagners’ floating island – Doorbraak – was unmistakably there in the sky, a vast hanging planet half a mile over the city, a rough egg shape. Rough, there, being understood to modify shape rather than egg. Clouds drifted beneath it. What I meant, with the ‘rough egg shape’ line, was that Doorbraak, being an elongated oblate sphere, approximated the shape, though not the texture, of an egg. I wasn’t trying to imply that it was exactly shaped like a rough egg.
Just so as we’re clear.
Käal was standing with his long neck curled back on itself, like a C, so as to be able to gawp at the enormousness of the suspended object above him, when a scrawny and indeed scraw-entireleg firedrake coughed at his right wing. ‘Käal Brimstön?’
‘Yes.’
‘Mon. Vagner sent me to meet you. Come with me, please.’
‘How does it – how does it stay up there?’ Käal asked, wonderingly.
‘Magic,’ replied the firedrake, in a what-else? tone of voice. Then he added: ‘Please come along,’ in an I-haven’t-got-all-day tone of voice.
Without more ado this firedrake clambered up into the sky on slowly flexing wings, with Käal following. From below, Doorbraak was a convex mass of crusted mud and rock, from which occasional roots poked, white as exposed nerves. But pulling himself, with hauling wingstrokes, up through the clouds, brought the island’s upper portions into view: a rim of superbly maintained gardens and parks arranged around a large central castle, whose many tapering towers and spires reached above like the antennae of a prawn. Or, now that I come to think of it, perhaps like something a little more romantic and evocative.