by Adam Roberts
‘No, seriously, wait a minute—’ said Lizbreath,
Marrer looked at his uncle, in silence. Käal felt a stir of hope in his dragonheart that the younger Vagner might be about to rebel against the older. But it was not to be. Slowly Marrer raised his weapon, and pointed it at
‘Now wait a minute,’ said Lizbreath for the third time. ‘If that lock was a magic lock, and the key could only be turned by somebody with Vagner blood…’
At last Käal cottoned on: ‘… then how did we get inside?’ he finished.
Helltrik looked at them. ‘Do you know what?’ he said, wearily. ‘I don’t care. You got help, obviously, but I don’t care how. I don’t really even care who.’
‘It wasn’t me!’ squealed Asheila. ‘It’s true I helped them in here, but not the Clawsoleum!’
‘So how did we do it?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Helltrik. ‘I’m sorry my dear, but it doesn’t. This has all been a horrible mess. I allowed my anxiety about Hellfire’s death to get the better of me. No, not even anxiety. It was a simple curiosity. Three hundred years is long enough for the natural grief to fade away. But not knowing exactly what happened meant that simple curiosity got its claw inside my mind. It compacted down the press of years, the way old trees become coal. After three centuries of not knowing I snapped. But how I wish I had held my nerve! Compared to… all this… not knowing is a simple burden. Compared to the desecration of my ancestral tomb; to all this necessary death and destruction.’ He sighed. It had been a long speech. But people had listened to all of it without interruption. That was because he had a gun.
‘Nobody helped us,’ Lizbreath insisted. ‘I found the key in Hellfire’s room, put it in the lock and… something happened.’
‘Mis. Salamander,’ said Helltrik. ‘I appreciate that you wish to postpone the inevitable moment of your own demise by talking. But it will do you no good.’
‘I put the key in,’ she said, quickly. ‘But the lock opened anyway.’
‘The lock is a very ancient mechanism,’ said Marrer. ‘Perhaps it malfunctioned.’
‘No!’ said Lizbreath. ‘No!’
‘She’s terrified,’ said Burnblast, with satisfaction.
But Lizbreath was not terrified. The expression on her face was, on the contrary, one of sudden delight. It said: I understand! She had solved the mystery of Hellfire Vagner’s disappearance.
‘The solution!’ she cried. ‘Is Hellfire Vagner! In the vault! With the candlestick!’
Helltrik heard this, or he did not, but either way he had reached the moment of his own decision ‘Enough,’ he said. He aimed his weapon, and fired.
25
Afterwards, Käal could not be sure how much of his memory of events was shaped, retrospectively, by that portion of the brain that arranges the jumble of sense-data into neatly ordered boxes. None of it felt ordered at the time; but afterwards it was possible to distinguish several consecutive stages. There was, for instance, the candlestick. It was a massive golden artefact that was poking out of the main hoard.
As Käal watched, it elevated itself.
It lifted as if by magic, horizontally. Then it righted itself, dipped down, and lifted up again. Käal had never seen a levitating candlestick before. It was a remarkable enough sight for him to be struck by it, even in the teeth of his own impending death.
Then Helltrik fired. Or more precisely, as Helltrik fired, the magically levitating candlestick flew suddenly towards him, striking him on the wrist.
The blow, following the principle of conservation of momentum, transferred some motion to the wrist, hand and gun. Helltrik, having intended to shoot Lizbreath in the head, ended up shooting his grandnephew Marrer in the ear.
The thin red line of light passed straight through the outer scales and inner cartilage and out the other side. Marrer, not expecting this development, screeched – as much in surprise as pain – and dropped his own pistol.
Lizbreath sized up the situation very rapidly indeed. She pounced on the gun, covering the distance between her and the weapon in an instant, plucking it from the floor before it had stopped bouncing.
But Burnblast was just as quick. He saw what was happening, and launched himself straight at her. His aim, evidently, was to disable her before she could bring the pistol round, and he went for it with old-school dragonly ferocity – wings opening, jaw agape, roaring and blasting flame with all his might. He was an old, large dragon. All his might was a lot of might. Fire filled the whole chamber ahead of his thunderous approach: intensely white directly before him, billowing and feathering into incandescent hues of yellow, grey-blue and orange in every direction.
It was so dazzling, in fact, that any but a dragon’s eye would have missed the single thead of red running right through the middle of the fire, in the opposite direction to its thrust.
The laser beam struck Burnblast right in the middle of the back of his wide open mouth. If dragons had tonsils the shot would have bisected them perfectly. But of course dragons don’t have tonsils. Only a fool would think they did. Instead, the beam broke through the membrane at the back of his mouth, and passed into the brain pan. The difference in respective heights (for Burnblast had reared himself up, and Lizbreath was on the floor) meant that the shot passed through the middle of his brain, and exited through the top of his head.
The dragonfire stopped gushing, leaving only smoke. Burnblast flew up towards the ceiling with several uncoordinated thrashes of his wings, making weird mewing sounds of agony, and then crashed down to land on his side. He clamped his rear claws to his snout, curling himself thereby into a large ball, and began rocking back and forth.
The smoke began to dissipate, to reveal Lizbreath standing there.
Helltrik was holding his laser pistol at an angle, goggling at the sight of his two companions. Marrer was hopping about clutching his ear and yelling ‘Ear! Ear! Ear!’ over and over. Burnblast was lying on his side, moaning and mumbling.
His astonishment gave Lizbreath the time she needed. She took aim, and fired for a second time. The laser discharged its orderly energy, crossing the space between her and Helltrik almost instantaneously, intersected the casing of his gun, exiting via the flesh of Helltrik’s hand, and hitting the stone wall behind. The pistol broke into pieces, and Helltrik hissed with pain, grasping his right with his left hand.
‘Ear! Ear! Ear!’ said Marrer. He danced, circlingly, through the vault’s door and disappeared up the stairs. Helltrik and the supine Burnblast were left alone to face Lizbreath, Käal and the dazed-looking Asheila.
‘Hang on a minute,’ said Käal, looking wildly around. ‘What happened?’
‘The tables have turned,’ said Lizbreath.
‘What?’ said Käal, confused. ‘Wait a sec. What?’
‘So now you have the weapon, Mis. Salamander,’ said Helltrik, in an ugly tone. ‘I suppose you will shoot me now?’
‘Why would I do that?’
‘And when I am dead,’ he went on, ‘what will you do? Steal my gold? You are everything I despise about modern dragonkind. You have no respect for tradition, or authority, or – fire.’
‘What?’ said Käal, blinking. ‘What?’
‘No need to steal the Siegfried gold,’ said Lizbreath. ‘It’s Käal’s now, anyway.’
‘What?’ said Käal
‘You made a deal: he solves the mystery of your grandniece’s disappearance, and you give him the gold.’
‘What are you talking about, Salamander?’ Helltrik snapped.
‘The mystery of Hellfire’s disappearance,’ said Lizbreath.
‘What?’ said Käal.
‘There’s nothing useful you can say to me about her,’ said Helltrik, grief entering his voice.
‘I’m not saying it to you,’ laughed Lizbreath. ‘I’m saying it to her. Hellfire, it’s time, now. Take off the ring.’
The empty air produced a sigh. And then, with a little shiver, like a horizon heat-haze, a good-sized, middle-ag
ed she-dragon of attractive demeanour, pale-blue-and-silver scales and a short snout, suddenly appeared in the middle of the room.
‘Hellfire!’ gasped Helltrik, hot tears boiling suddenly in his eyes. ‘Hellfire! Is it really you?’
‘Hello Granduncle,’ said the new apparition. ‘Yes. It’s me.’
‘What?’ said Käal.
The pain in his claw forgotten, the old dragon stumbled to the newcomer and embraced her, giving way to unconstrained sobs of broken-hearted pleasure.
26
They limped back up to Helltrik’s personal suite, where a firedrake with a gloomy expression on his face bandaged up his hurt claw. Burnblast had to be rolled onto a tarpaulin and dragged out of the vault. Though still alive, he was unable to utter articulate sound, and had evidently suffered severe brain damage. When the medical services arrived, Helltrik told them he had had a stroke whilst displaying the fullest stretch of his best flameblast. ‘But that doesn’t explain this… hole in the top of his head,’ the doctor said, in a puzzled voice. ‘It looks like it’s gone right through the scales…’
‘Congenital,’ said Lizbreath, easily.
An ambulance Skylligator took the elderly, now-dumb dragon away. Asheila clung to Käal with hysterical gratitude, calling him ‘My saviour! My hero!’ Marrer was being tended by Red Snapper, and refused to leave his apartment.
As for poor old Ghastly: his death had not been made public, his corpse hidden. ‘Nobody will miss him – at least, not for a few weeks,’ said Helltrik, his hand wrapped in bandages. He spoke to them all, and Lizbreath in particular, with new respect. ‘Let us go out onto my balcony,’ he told them, ‘and have a drink. It has been a stressful day…’
‘Only if you promise not to try and kill us,’ said Lizbreath, banteringly.
‘What?’ said Käal.
Helltrik, who had his good arm linked in with his grandniece’s, laughed weakly. ‘I’m past all that now.’
On the balcony, Helltrik and Hellfire sat together on one side; Käal and Asheila on the other, and Lizbreath stood in the middle, leaning on the balustrade, gazing into the sky. Blue sky. That improbable blue, like the shade of liquid in a pharmacist’s yard-tall phial, set in the front window. Cobalt and azure blended.
‘How did you know?’ Hellfire asked.
‘The Siegfried treasure is the stuff of legend,’ Lizbreath said, shortly. ‘And people take legends for granted. But I did some research on it. On the other side of the wyrmhole – the existence of which Helltrik was prepared to go to such lengths to keep secret – there are many tales, sagas, narratives, operas and books about the Siegfried treasure. Over here, it’s just one pile of gold amongst many. But from the research I did, I found out about the ring.’
‘The ring!’ said Käal, as if reminded of something.
‘Brimstön told me that he’d been promised the Siegfried treasure if he could solve the mystery – but also that a piece of the treasure was missing. He said Helltrik acted… weird about that fact. As if he didn’t really care. Of course he did. But he couldn’t bear the shame of admitting that the jewel of his collection was missing. The magic ring – a ring of power, a ring that conferred invisibility.’
‘I took it that day,’ said Hellfire. She spoke with a pleasantly well-modulated voice, accompanied by little wisps of bright white smoke. ‘I just wanted to be alone.’
‘Why?’
‘I’d stumbled upon Helltrik and my father, Gutfire, discussing the family secret. That we were the hidden guardians of this portal to another world, a place ruled not by noble dragons but by swarming, democratic apes. It was a shock!’
‘I can imagine,’ said Asheila.
‘Oh, it wasn’t a complete surprise. But to have it confirmed! And to discover that the secret was so close to home! You see, I had a computer; and I had made contact with several groups of young dragons, in Scandragonia and elsewhere, who had suspicions that the Dragonlords were keeping some great secret from us all.’
‘Groups of young dragons still gather to discuss those sorts of theory,’ said Lizbreath.
‘I just wanted to hide. I’d stolen a key to the hoard vault long before – I was something of a tearaway, you know. So that day I crept down there, found the ring and put it on. Amazing! I could spy on everybody, but nobody could see me. I planned wearing it for a day or two, I think, and then on revealing myself. But there’s something… I don’t know. Addictive. About it.’ She was wearing it, now, on a chain around her neck; and she fiddled with it unconsciously as she spoke. ‘I fell into a new mode of life: observer.’
‘I was distraught!’ said Helltrik. ‘I had no idea what happened to you.’
‘I’m sorry about that,’ said Hellfire. ‘But it seemed somehow – appropriate. The whole of Doorbraak, all the senior members of the Vagner clan, it was all dedicated to a monstrous, appalling secret.’
‘A great secret – entrusted to us by the Dragonlords half a millennium ago,’ said Helltrik.
‘Well, I made myself into a secret,’ said Hellfire. ‘It meant I could spy on everybody. It meant, for instance, I could satisfy my curiosity about all the family secret. I sat at the back, unseen and unnoticed, at high-level clan meetings, where it was agreed that a fictional affection for “democracy” would be fabricated, and spread about by rumour, as a smokescreen to obscure the true secret. I discovered how deep the secrecy went.’ She shook her head. ‘How far into the family past. It revolted me.’
‘Then,’ asked Käal, ‘why didn’t you spill the beans? You could have left the island – told your story.’
‘But I was trapped!’ said Hellfire. ‘Not by any physical barriers, but by the dilemma. These lies, this hypocrisy – it revolted me. What could be less dragonlike? But at the same time, the more I learnt of the situation, the more I understood why the fraud was being perpetrated.’ She paused, and then went on. ‘Besides: I was a young dragon, barely older than a Salamander. Who would listen to me? I came to the conclusion that what was needed was Helltrik himself to go to the Dragonlords, and for them to come clean, publicly.’
‘That,’ said Lizbreath, sardonically, ‘would be political suicide.’
‘Of course! But the more I grew accustomed to my invisible life on the island, the less motivated I became to unveil myself. I had my ring. It had become – precious to me.’
‘Why the tongues, though?’ asked Käal
Hellfire looked at him. ‘The family was turning the place upside down looking for me. I thought to myself: if I can persuade them I am dead, they will stop looking. Better for them, to get over me; better for me, to be able to live unmolested. So I went down into the Clawsoleum, and cut out one of my ancestors’ tongues.’
‘Hellfire!’ Helltrik exclaimed, weakly.
‘It was a long time ago, Granduncle,’ she replied. ‘And I was – desperate. I took it to my room, where I had a secret ice-cream maker… another artefact from my reckless youth. I powered it up and burned the tongue in the same place my tongue is burned. Then I wrapped it and delivered it to Helltrik, here. But having done that once, I was struck by the appropriateness of it… the symbolism. Our family was shamed. Not just guarding the wyrmhole, but lying about it to the world. A dragon should speak freely to the wind; truth is in our blood. We have been struck dumb. Every year I would go back down to the vault, and take another tongue. I wanted Granduncle to see that somebody understood what had happened to us.’
‘Not a burden,’ said Helltrik, sadly shaking his head. ‘An honour.’
‘A curse!’ said Hellfire, urgently. ‘I have monitored the ape-world over many years, and they fly higher than we do! Just look at the laser weapons. No dragon could invent such a thing; but the apes did! And not just that: they have houses on the moon, and robot servants and their Sagas are available on ingenious tablet-sized devices as pure data. Why don’t we have those things? I have given it thought for a long time, and now I know the answer.’
‘Which is?’ said Lizbreath.
&nb
sp; ‘Our gold is cursed. It’s so obvious, it is staring us in the snout. And yet no dragon seems to notice! We all dedicate our lives to accumulating masses of the stuff, and it’s perfectly useless!’
‘Not all of us…’ said Lizbreath, mildly.
Hellfire came over and embraced her. ‘You, I exempt. I’ve watched you since you arrived. You’re the sign that all is not lost for dragonkind. You, and your friends, have wriggled out from under the curse, and that bodes well for the future – that’s why I found myself drawn back into the world, helping you in your investigation. But how do other dragons treat you, now that you’ve broken the curse? They call you mad, put you under legal sanction. Marginalize and persecute you!’
Lizbreath ducked her head, modestly.
‘Where does this curse come from?’ Käal asked. ‘I… don’t understand.’
‘Where from? The gods! Of course, the gods. They cursed the gold.’
‘But why?’
‘Because they hate mortal life. They hate it, because mortality has a focus, intensity and authenticity denied to immortality. To be immortal is to live a life horribly attenuated, diluted by eternity. So the gods punish mortals where they can. In our world there used to be many gods – we’ve managed to reduce that to one. Luckily for us! One god is manageable, even if he is as cranky as Woden. Many gods are dangerous: like wolves, they move in packs. In the ape world, through the wyrmhole, they have done the same thing, although in a more patchy way. Some small pockets of that world still have many gods, but for most of the planet the apes have reduced the number of gods to three – or, best of all, to one. I don’t know much about the world of the riverpeople; I haven’t been there. But in all three of those worlds – fire, water and earth – the balance of elements has been shifted away from the primacy of the gods. In the world of air it is different. In that world the gods had the edge. The result is a wasteland – lands picked clean by monstrous world-spanning gales, seas churned to muddy whirlpools by the never-ending tempest. Too many gods.’ She shook her head.