The Parodies Collection

by Adam Roberts

  ‘Did you look through the eyes?’

  ‘You mean the ones above and below the island? No.’ When Lizbreath made a surprised face, he added: ‘The police did all that. I’m sure there’s nothing we can learn from them.’

  ‘We’re investigating this,’ said Lizbreath. ‘Not the police. Well, we’ll do that tomorrow. You take the top eye, and I’ll take the bottom. What else? What did you find in Hellfire’s old room?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In Hellfire’s old room? The one she lived in, before she disappeared? Were there any clues in there?’

  ‘I haven’t, exactly, checked the room… look, once again, I’m confident the police checked all that sort of thing out. There’s nothing to be gained from reinventing the wheel…’

  ‘Hard to believe you’re quite as much a berk as you appear,’ Lizbreath said, pleasantly. ‘Come on. That’ll be our first stop.’

  They went into the main hall. A firedrake was sweeping the marble tiles in a desultory sort of way. ‘Hello!’ said Lizbreath, brightly. ‘Can you tell me where we might find the rooms formerly occupied by Hellfire Vagner?’

  ‘Haunted,’ said the firedrake, glumly.

  ‘Are they?’

  ‘Whole castle is. Bad things happened here. Young Hellfire?’ The firedrake shook its skinny head. ‘Dead and gone.’

  ‘We’d still like to look in her room, please.’

  ‘Unsettled spirits in this place,’ the firedrake said, doomily. ‘The whole island. Stra-a-a-ange goings on! It’s down those stairs, seventh floor, northside. Nobody’s been in there for three centuries.’

  ‘Surely,’ Käal said, feeling he had to make the point, ‘surely the police looked through them, after her disappearance?’

  The firedrake settled its blank eyes on Käal. ‘They didn’t find nothing,’ he said. ‘Disappeared, they say!’ He clucked, disapprovingly. ‘Disappeared from life,’ he said. ‘Appeared amongst the dead.’

  ‘Thank you!’ said Lizbreath, chirpily.

  Käal and Lizbreath descended the stairway together. ‘I’m impressed you manage to get those firedrakes talking,’ he said to her. ‘They’re not so chatty around me.’ As soon as they emerged on the seventh floor the location of Hellfire’s old room was obvious: the door was layered in three centuries of dust. ‘Untouched in all this time!’ said Lizbreath, putting her claw on the door-handle. ‘What will we find inside?’

  The door opened with a creak so creaky it sounded as if the air itself needed lubricating. Inside was a spacious apartment. Light, coming through a large crystal window, fell on all the furniture you would expect to find in a young she-dragon’s lair, and every surface was covered with dust, like a skin. Stepping into the space was eerie. And spooky. And sneezy.

  ‘It obviously hasn’t been touched since her disappearance,’ said Lizbreath. ‘It’s like they’ve kept it – as a shrine to her.’

  ‘I’m sure they’d keep a shrine cleaner than this,’ said Käal, as he sneezed spikes of flame from his nostrils. ‘You ever see a dusty shrine? I think not.’

  Lizbreath was at the bookshelf. ‘All the usual scrolls and Sagas,’ she said. ‘Exactly the sort of thing a respectable young she-dragon would read: Adventures of Huckleberry Fang; The Tail of Peter Dragon; Treasure Flying Island; The Wonderfully Chewy Wizard of Oz; Fiery Potter and the Goblet of Gold.

  ‘What’s this?’ said Käal, at the desk. ‘A television, is it?’ He puffed air from his nostrils, and blew a cloud of fine dust in the air off the object.

  ‘Ah!’ cried Lizbreath, delighted. ‘Now that is very interesting.’

  ‘A clue?’

  ‘It’s a computer.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Come, Käal,’ said Lizbreath, banteringly. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of computers?’

  ‘I’m guessing from the come prefix that they have some sexual purpose?’

  ‘No!’ said Lizbreath, shocked. ‘Computers have nothing to do with any of that! Well,’ she added, scratching her chin, ‘not entirely to do with that, at any rate. Computers are data-processing devices. They run programs to make virtual scrolls, play games, and even connect with other computers to generate a web.’

  ‘Like between a frog’s toes?’

  ‘Well… I suppose you could say so.’

  ‘So why haven’t I heard of these computers, then?’ Käal asked. ‘Are they a young person’s toy?’

  ‘Pretty much,’ said Lizbreath. She reached a claw round to the back of the ‘computer’ and scrabbled around for a while. ‘They’re fairly common in the counterculture. But I suppose a respectable dragon like yourself would have nothing to do with countercultural shenanigans.’

  ‘Indeed not! Neither shenanigans, nor henanigans. I have my reputation to think of.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Lizbreath. ‘Which makes it all the more intriguing that a respectable young she-dragon, a member of the clan in which the blood of Regin flows purest of all… that such an individual would own one of these. Ah!’

  The screen was suddenly lit from within. ‘Oh!’ said Käal. ‘You’ve… what, switched it on?’

  ‘Let’s have a look,’ said Lizbreath. She pulled a shelf out from underneath the desk, upon which Käal saw a rectangular tray in which a series of molars had been arranged in rows. Lizbreath’s claws clattered and sclattered across this strange tray, and the whiteness of the screen filled with writing.

  ‘That’s clever!’ said Käal. ‘How are you doing that?’

  ‘I’m trying to drag-log-on,’ said Lizbreath. Several rectangles appeared on the screen, each one plastered on the others, and each heralded with a ‘ding!’ noise. Käal peered at the screen. ‘What does “Error Code 404” mean?’ he asked.

  ‘It means this software hasn’t been upgraded in four hundred and four years,’ said Lizbreath, through gritted teeth. ‘It’s an old system.’ She pressed some more buttons, and a new rectangle appeared: ‘SERPENT NOT FOUND’. ‘Well, I should be able to see the sites she was drag-logged-into.’ There was more tippity tappity.

  Bored, Käal strolled about the room. ‘Spooky,’ he said. ‘Being in here.’ He picked up a paperweight: a crystal globe, containing a tiny model of a landscape. He shook it, and red-and-yellow imitation flames filled the inside of the sphere. He put it back on the side, and watched them slowly settle again, leaving the scene in the globe as still and tranquil as it had been when he first saw it. On the far wall was a Michael Dragson poster. ‘Hmmf!’ said Käal. ‘Remember him?’

  ‘That does rather date the room,’ agreed Lizbreath. She appeared to have finished with the ‘computer’, and was looking through Hellfire’s adornment wardrobe. ‘Find out anything useful?’ Käal prompted.

  ‘Well, she was clearly a young she-dragon with a wide range of interests,’ Lizbreath replied, absently. ‘A shame she was cut off on this island. If she’d lived in a big city, like Starkhelm, she might have found some like-minded dragon to hang out with.’

  ‘Like – you did?’

  Lizbreath flashed a smile. ‘At least I’m still alive.’

  ‘Maybe Hellfire’s still alive,’ Käal said.

  ‘Maybe. But if so, then where is she?’

  ‘Not on this island any more, certainly,’ Käal mused. ‘It’s been pretty thoroughly searched, not once but many times. So – if she’s alive – she must be somewhere else.’

  ‘On the mainland, maybe,’ said Lizbreath. She looked to be searching for something specific; but if she was, she didn’t find it.

  ‘Not in Scandragonia, I think,’ said Käal. ‘Her family has put up enormous rewards, and hired flights and flights of private investigators. Scandragonia’s not that big a place. If she were here, I think she’d have been found.’

  ‘Further afield, then,’ said Lizbreath, standing up straight in the middle of the sepulchral room. ‘Even the Vagner millions can’t sieve the entire world.’

  ‘You think she is alive, then?’

  ‘I don’t know. But
I doubt it. Why should she hide? The obvious reason would be; because she is afraid. But what makes a dragon afraid?’

  ‘Something very terrible.’

  ‘So on the one hand we need to calculate the odds that she has not only escaped this something terrible, but also successfully evaded it for three centuries. On the other hand we need to work out the odds that the something terrible got to her and snuffed her out. Balance of probabilities is with the second of those two, don’t you think?’

  ‘Poor Hellfire!’ said Käal, looking around the dismal space.

  ‘Hey,’ said Lizbreath, bringing out a metallic tub or box of some sort. ‘Well well!’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘An ice-cream maker, I do believe.’

  ‘You’re kidding!’ gasped Käal. ‘Surely those aren’t legal?’

  ‘Perfectly illegal. Ice cream is a very dangerous substance.’ The smile on Lizbreath’s face rather contradicted the tenor of what she was saying. ‘Still, a lot of the wilder kids like to muck about with it.’

  ‘In heaven’s name – why?’

  ‘The thrill, the danger, the taste,’ said Lizbreath. ‘You make a lump of it, and a friend – wearing gloves, of course – tosses it at you. You have to blast it with fire and eat it. If you get it right the dangerous ice turns into cold but just about edible slurry, very sweet, rather nice. But if you get it wrong, then you’ll suffer a scarring freeze-burn that you won’t forget in a hurry.’

  ‘Hellfire had one of those burn marks on her tongue,’ Käal remembered. ‘That’s how Helltrik recognized her severed tongue when it was sent to him. I guess she played that game one too many times.’

  ‘I’m more interested in what a respectable well-bred pureblood young she-dragon like Hellfire is doing with a piece of kit like this in her room.’ She put it back. ‘Come on,’ said Lizbreath. ‘I’m hungry.’

  They went down to the gardens, and asked a firedrake to release a couple of sheep from the larder pens. The beasts waddled slowly towards the trees. Lizbreath swooped and plucked hers in one easy moment, and took its head off with a single bite. Käal, not so nimble, had to chase his about a little. ‘I assume you have a “computer”, then,’ he said.

  ‘Perhaps you’ve heard the stories,’ Lizbreath replied, staring into the distance, where the late afternoon clouds gathered eighty shades of red and yellow on their plump western sides. ‘That I sleep on a hoard of silver?’

  ‘I did hear something,’ Käal conceded. ‘It sounded like a pretty… wacky sort of thing to do. Counter-cultural, is it? An act of rebellion against normalcy? Seriously – a hoard of silver?’

  ‘It’s not strictly true that I sleep on a hoard of silver,’ said Lizbreath. The last of her sheep disappeared, legs-last, into her maw. ‘Although I do sleep on a hoard of silver-coloured things. And I certainly wouldn’t ever contemplate sleeping on a hoard of gold. What would be the use?’

  ‘Use?’ asked Käal.

  ‘Gold is inert.’

  ‘Inert? It’s extremely valuable!’

  ‘Its value only exists in the context of exchange,’ said Lizbreath. ‘The irony is that dragons hardly ever use it that way. Instead they accumulate a great mass of gold, and then have to go through the financial contortions of raising paper-money loans mortgaged upon their hoards, at punitive rates of interest, and so on, and so forth. Me, I prefer just to use the gold. Since everybody is desperate to get gold, and I’m one of very few people spending it, my purchasing power is tremendous. I’m still young, but I’ve been able to buy some of the most sophisticated tech gadgets available in the world – and one or two out of it.’

  ‘And, let me guess: this tech happens to be silver-coloured?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And you sleep on it?’

  ‘A girl’s got to sleep somewhere.’

  ‘So, instead of curling up in a comfortable bed of gold, you sleep on a big pile of “computers”… yes?’

  ‘Only some of my gear is computers,’ said Lizbreath, distantly. ‘I have other sorts of tech, too.’

  ‘Oh I’m not mocking,’ said Käal, picking a hoof from between his front teeth, ‘You know what I sleep on? Ingots. It’s supposed to be modern and stylish: fresh-minted gold ingots in a sparsely furnished bedroom. Supposed to be up-to-the-minute Scandragonian. You know what it really is? Uncomfortable.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t know why I do it, really.’

  ‘Why do you?’

  ‘I’m a slave to convention, I suppose. In a way I envy you – that you’re not a slave in that way, I mean.’

  ‘It has advantages and disadvantages,’ said Lizbreath, looking west and speaking in a queerly passionless voice.

  15

  That night Käal slept uneasily. He kept waking from half-remembered dreams, many of which concerned Lizbreath. Not his type at all, of course. And yet he found he couldn’t get her out of his dragon brain.

  The morning came, and Käal did not feel rested. Lizbreath, knocking on his door with her hind legs, seemed filled with enormous energy. ‘Where does a hungry young dragon get breakfast round here?’

  They descended to the gardens, where chickens and pigs were being served up to various dragons. Helltrik was there, reading a Saga Telegraph with crystal lenses, held in a queer O-O shaped structure, balanced on his snout. Marrer and Redsnapper were there too. Käal even caught sight of Ghastly, lurking in the foliage, jumping out to grab a piglet, and then retreating from public view.

  ‘Ah, Käal,’ said Helltrik, putting his Saga down. ‘Good to see you. And is this your new researcher? Marrer told me that you’d hired some dragon to help you with your enquiries.’

  Lizbreath fluttered forward and tapped her tailend against his very politely. ‘It’s an honour to be here, sir,’ she said with what (although he’d only known her for a day) Käal could tell was wholly uncharacteristic deference. ‘Doorbraak is beautiful!’

  ‘Thank you!’ said Helltrik, evidently pleased.

  ‘I’m only sorry to be here under such disagreeable circumstances,’ said Lizbreath, demurely. ‘The tragic evanishment of your grand-niece. I hope Käal and I are able to shed some light on this mystery, for the sake of your peace of mind, and that of your whole distinguished family.’

  ‘“Evanishment”?’ said Käal.

  ‘What a well-bred she-dragon!’ Helltrik said to Marrer. ‘Rarer and rarer in this day and age. What’s your name, my dear?’

  ‘Lizbreath Salamander,’ said Lizbreath.

  ‘Delighted to meet you Lizbreath,’ said Helltrik, repositioning his crystal lenses and picking up the Saga Telegraph. ‘If there’s anything, anything at all, that I can do to help your researches, don’t hesitate to ask,’ he said in the tone of a man who wanted to be left entirely alone to read his paper.

  ‘Thank you, sir! Actually, there is one thing.’

  Without removing his gaze from his paper, Helltrik arched one eyebrow.

  ‘We were hoping to look in the tomb of your ancestors.’

  ‘The Clawsoleum?’ said Helltrik, in a stony voice, and still without taking his gaze from the Saga he was reading. ‘I’m afraid not, my dear. It’s strictly out of bounds. Nobody goes in there.’

  ‘That’s one reason why we were hoping to look inside… it strikes me, strikes us, as one place that was never searched – for Hellfire’s body, you know.’

  ‘In point of fact it was searched, after the fateful day,’ said Helltrik, in a low voice. ‘And nothing was found. Nothing except what is supposed to be in there – the bodies of fifteen score dead Vagner dragons, laid to their sacred rest, and not to be desecrated. It’s out of the question, my dear.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Lizbreath, looking abashed. ‘I apologize for asking. It was insensitive of me.’

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ Helltrik drawled, dismissively. Käal snaffled a chicken and ate it in one bite. ‘Shall we get on, then, Lizbreath? Lots of stuff-finding to be done, after all. Good morning, Helltrik.’

  ‘
Good morning, sir!’ said Lizbreath, brightly.

  As they were moving away Helltrik spoke again. ‘Lizbreath Salamander,’ he said.Lizbreath stopped. ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Where have I heard that name before?’

  ‘I’d be very surprised if you’ve heard it anywhere, sir. I’m very far from being famous. I’m a humble researcher, a nobody.’

  ‘Nevertheless, I’m sure I have heard it,’ said Helltrik. ‘And recently, too. One of my friends was… never mind, it’ll come back to me. Good day!’

  ‘Good day.’

  When they were back inside the castle, Käal tried asking ‘what was that all about?’, but Lizbreath ignored it. ‘One thing we learned there,’ she said. ‘We absolutely have to get a peek inside that Clawsoleum.’

  ‘Our employer just told us not to,’ Käal pointed out. ‘The person paying the bills. The dragon who wants us to solve this mystery. He said no, so we won’t.’ Käal thought about it. ‘Beside, how are we supposed to get in there? It’s a Clawsoleum. It will be locked.’

  ‘They must open it up, sometimes,’ said Lizbreath. ‘To put new corpses in, for instance.’

  ‘Lizbreath,’ said Käal. ‘You’re talking about desecrating a tomb.’

  ‘I know! It’s exciting, isn’t it?’

  ‘No,’ said Käal, from the heart. ‘No it isn’t! It’s the opposite of exciting! The very thought of it makes me feel sick in my stomach, and tingly under my scales! It makes my heart race! Exciting is the last thing it is!’ He thought for a moment, and added: ‘Oh. Ah…’

  ‘Dragonkind needs a little desecrating from time to time,’ said Lizbreath, with an offhand blasphemy.

  ‘Helltrik Vagner is our host. We’d be violating his courtesy.’

  Lizbreath gave him a big, reeky grin and darted down the main stairway. Käal lumbered after her. ‘You don’t trust him!’ he called after her. ‘But how can you not trust him? He hired me to solve the mystery! He wants the mystery solved. He’d hardly want to put obstacles in our way!’

  ‘And yet he specifically forbids us from looking inside his Clawsoleum.’ They emerged on the lowest level; a dimly lit hallway, coped in onyx-granite and lit by a central glowglobe. The floor was covered with a huge mosaic – Regin the King, the family’s ancestor, standing in a heraldic pose, with a stern expression in his orange eye.