The Portable Door (1987)

by Tom Holt

  Paul was no sceptic when it came to goblin prophecies. “Here goes nothing,” he muttered under his breath, and gave the door a gentle shove.

  §

  “Rosie!”

  “Arthur!”

  Paul looked away; it was enough to put you off true love for life. In passing, he wondered whether Arthur knew he had a son; probably not, he reflected, and a mental image of Mr Tanner floated into his mind. Well, he thought, he’s got that to look forward to, poor bastard.

  “Excuse me,” said Pip mournfully, “but if you two could leave each other alone for just one moment—”

  “You go ahead,” replied Arthur, with his mouth full. “We’ll catch you up in just a second.”

  Pip shrugged. “Don’t mind if I do,” he said. “I can’t wait to get out of this awful place.”

  He approached the threshold cautiously, as if expecting the door to bite him as he went through. “Odd,” he said, “I’ve been dreaming of this moment for ever such a long time, and now it’s actually here—”

  “We don’t know it is, yet,” Sophie interrupted. “Only one way to find out, though.”

  “True,” Pip said. “Ah well. Regardless of what happens next, I’d just like to say thank you, to both of you. And I’m most dreadfully sorry,” he added, to Paul. “About the dreams, I mean. Devil of a liberty and all that, intruding on another fellow’s sleep, but—”

  Paul smiled. “That’s all right,” he said. “Compared to what my dreams are usually like…”

  “I know,” Pip said. “Seen ‘em, actually. But even so.” He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and walked across the threshold.

  “Good Lord.” They could hear his voice on the other side. “That stain on the ceiling’s still there, I see. I remember writing to the landlord about that in 1874.”

  “You next,” snapped Mr Tanner’s mum; and she grabbed Arthur by his collar and frogmarched him through the door. “Well, I had to see it was safe first, didn’t I?” she explained.

  That was almost touching, in a way.

  She followed him; then Sophie went through, and finally Paul. He closed the door gently, then caught it as it rolled up and fell off the wall. “Well,” he said, “that’s that, I suppose.”

  Pip and Arthur were standing in the middle of his floor, one on either side of the now swordless stone. “I hate to say this,” Arthur said, “but I think I preferred the way we had it. Still, it’s nice to be out. Back,” he amended. “Very nice,” he added, and he smiled.

  “Glad you’re pleased,” grunted Mr Tanner’s mum. “Now, the next thing we’ve got to do is find Humphrey and shove him up himself with a long, sharp—”

  “No,” Sophie said, surprising herself almost as much as she surprised everyone else. “No, the first thing is to turn this other bloke loose; you know, what’s-his-name, the senior partner. John Wellington. It’s obvious, surely,” she went on, as they all stared at her. “We can’t take on Humphrey Wells on our own, he’s like this really powerful wizard, he’d cast a spell on us or something and we’ll all end up in that horrible little room. But if we can rescue this John Wellington, presumably he’s an even better wizard, and he can sort out Humphrey for us. I don’t know why you’re all gawping at me like that,” she went on, “I’d have thought it was obvious, myself.”

  Paul thought for a moment. “She’s absolutely right,” he said.

  “Balls,” snapped Mr Tanner’s mum. “Just wait till I get my claws on him, he won’t be doing any magic for a very long time.”

  “Well,” Arthur started to say, but then he caught his girlfriend’s eye and went very quiet. Pip, on the other hand, shook his head. “I agree with the young lady,” he said. “I think we’d best get the old devil—I mean, John Wellington, before we go marching into Humphrey’s office looking for a fight.”

  “I agree with him,” said a voice from the corner of the room. “At least,” it added, “that’s what I’d have done, in your shoes. Too late now, though.”

  They spun round, but before they’d stopped moving, the world started spinning in the opposite direction. Paul recognised the sensation; it was the same way he’d felt when Mr Wurmtoter’s recovery charm had whisked them out of the doorless room a few hours earlier. When it stopped, he saw that they were all standing in the boardroom at the office, lined up alongside the mirror-polished table, as Humphrey Wells advanced towards them. He was wearing his conjuror’s cloak and hat, and holding a saw.

  §

  FOURTEEN

  Of course,” said Humphrey Wells, pausing to mop his forehead on the hem of his conjuror’s cloak, “I’m probably being over-cautious, which is something of an occupational hazard with villains. After all, you know that I transformed my Uncle John into something, but you haven’t got the faintest idea what. Accordingly, you don’t really pose any sort of threat to me. Still, I happen to believe in attention to detail.”

  He grinned and continued sawing. He was about two-thirds of the way through. Inside the box, Mr Tanner’s mum had stopped kicking and screaming, and was now lying ominously still.

  “Furthermore,” he continued, raising his voice slightly over the grating sound of the saw, “I could probably have forced young Arthur here to tell me where the talisman’s hidden just by threatening to saw his sweetheart in two, without actually doing it. But I’ve been waiting for a pretext to get my own back on the miserable bitch for two hundred years.”

  Arthur made a faint squealing noise and tried to struggle, but it didn’t do any good. Humphrey’s restraining spell held him tight in his chair, as firmly as though the ropes and gag had been real hemp and cloth rather than some magical effect. The others didn’t even try to move or make a noise. Real rope can be surreptitiously cut, burnt or frayed; the immaterial version is far less vulnerable.

  “Of course,” Humphrey added, “you’re probably all wondering what I’m going to do with you once I’ve got my hands on this talisman. Good question; I’ve been asking myself the same thing. I suppose I could maroon you all in that poky little room; but as we’ve all seen, that’s not necessarily a permanent solution. Turning you all into things has a certain appeal, and once I’ve got the talisman it’ll be the proverbial piece of cake; or I suppose I could just kill the lot of you and have done with it. That’d be the sensible course,” he sighed, “but my trouble is, I’m far too tender-hearted. It’d be untrue to say I couldn’t hurt a fly, but I think I draw the line at five—no, make that six cold-blooded murders, since this time I’d have to do for poor old Uncle John as well. Who knows? I might even let you all go, for all the harm you could possibly do me.”

  It was at this point, for the first time, that Paul genuinely wished that he was good at magic. A proper fully trained wizard, he felt, would be able to get free from the invisible ropes, turn Humphrey into a gnat and cause a heavy object to fall on him and deprive him of a dimension, all with a twitch of the nose or the waggle of an eyebrow. But Paul wasn’t a proper wizard, never had been one and never would be one, not now. Pity, he thought; though that wasn’t what he regretted most. The true bitch of it was that Sophie loved him—God only knew why—and any minute now he’d be dead, or transformed into a gerbil. Do gerbils love? he wondered. Naturally he’d still worship and adore Sophie if she was a gerbil; but would a gerbilized Sophie still love him, or would all that sort of thing get filtered out in the transformation process? In any event, it wasn’t fair, and if only he could get his hands free, he’d have a good mind to write to Esther Rantzen about it.

  Humphrey had stopped sawing; he was leaning against the table and breathing heavily. “Actually,” he puffed, “make that seven cold-blooded murders, because I don’t suppose Dennis Tanner’s going to take kindly to having his dear old mum sawn in half. Still, he’s been a thorn in my side for far too long; and besides, I’ve never really liked him much.” He put one hand on each half of the box, and slid them gently apart. “Now,” he said, looking at Arthur, “let’s not muck about. You can see I’m se
rious, so don’t bother telling lies or playing for time. I want that talisman, please.” He snapped his fingers, and Arthur nearly fell out of his chair. “Come along,” Humphrey chided, “I’ve got a lot of things to see to after I’ve dealt with you people, so don’t waste my time.”

  Arthur stood up. He was shaking all over, Paul noticed; couldn’t blame him for that. “Very well,” he said quietly. “But what assurance do I have that you’ll put her back together again?”

  “My word as a gentleman, of course.”

  “Ah,” said Arthur bleakly. “To be honest, I was hoping for rather more than that.”

  Humphrey smiled. “Tough,” he said. “Did I mention that unless I put her back within three minutes, there won’t be a lot of point?”

  Arthur closed his eyes briefly; then he reached across the table and picked up Humphrey’s conjuror’s hat, out of which he produced three white doves, a rabbit and a fine gold chain. The doves and the rabbit made themselves scarce; Arthur put the chain down on the table and said, “That’s it.”

  Humphrey, who’d been staring, made a sort of gurgling noise at the back of his throat. “Do you mean to tell me,” he said at last, “that I’ve been carrying the wretched thing around with me for the last hundred and thirty years without knowing it? Of all the—” He laughed. “Well, I’ve got to admire your ingenuity,” he said, “not to mention your nerve. And I’ll forgive you for making me look a fool, because nobody’s ever going to know; and as soon as I’ve disposed of this annoying little trinket, my confounded uncle won’t be a problem any more.”

  “As you wish,” Arthur said. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind—”

  “What? Oh, yes, of course.” Humphrey pulled the two halves of the box together; they closed with an audible snap, he folded back the lid, and Mr Tanner’s mum sat up, blinking. “You see?” Humphrey said. “I did give you my word, after all.”

  With a blood—curdling snarl, Mr Tanner’s mum suddenly grew a set of three-inch claws and went to swipe Humphrey across the face with them; but he snapped his fingers, and she froze in mid-stroke. “As for you,” he said, “I’m not quite finished with you yet.” He snapped his fingers a second time, and Mr Tanner’s mum changed into a stunningly beautiful voluptuous blonde, with no clothes on. She shrieked and, to Paul’s great surprise, blushed.

  “Turning me down,” Humphrey said slowly, “is one thing. Turning me down, and then making an exhibition of yourself chasing after that (a savage nod in Paul’s direction) is another matter entirely.” He paused, then grinned at Arthur. “Oh, didn’t anybody tell you?” he said conversationally. “Your own true love’s been quite busy since you’ve been away, and her latest project is this half-baked excuse for a stick insect here. Do you know,” he added with a smirk, “I’ve a good mind to maroon the two of you in your old rooms together for the rest of eternity, to give you plenty of time to discuss the matter in private.”

  Paul opened his mouth to explain, but no words came out. Arthur looked at him, and shook his head. “I don’t believe you,” he said. “My Rosie’d never do anything like that.”

  Humphrey threw his head back and laughed. “Priceless,” he said. “Well, never mind. As I mentioned just now, I have some unfinished business with your sweet Rosie; once I’ve finished with her, I’ll send her along to join you in whatever place or setting you end up in. Unless, of course, she changes her mind about me, which is a lady’s prerogative, after all. She may decide that I’m preferable to fifty billion years in a confined space with you and your new friends. We’ll have to see, won’t we?” Humphrey snapped his fingers a third time, and Arthur froze solid before he could say a word. “Now then,” Humphrey went on, “what about your friend, young Philip here? Correct me if I’m wrong, but you were the one who tried to warn my dear uncle about me, thereby forcing my hand before I was quite ready. I believe it’s only fair I should think up something particularly suitable for you. And Miss Pettingell,” he added, “and Mr Carpenter. It was none of your business, was it? But you had to go poking your noses in where they didn’t belong. Let’s see, now; I do believe that, shortly before you came here, Miss Pettingell and Mr Carpenter had just discovered that they were part of the same happy ending. But we can easily fix that.” He stood up and crossed the room to where Sophie’s handbag lay on the floor. From it he took the plastic bottle, still over half full of clear golden liquid. “My uncle’s own recipe,” he said affectionately, “worth a fortune to us over the years. Let’s think, now: what permutation is likely to cause the most trouble?” He unscrewed the cap; then he put his hand on Sophie’s forehead and tilted her head back. “In about twenty minutes,” he said, “you’ll wake up and find yourself gazing in wonder into young Philip’s small, piggy eyes. But you’re a strong-willed, bolshy little thing; you’ll love our Pip with a frenzied passion that’ll last until the sun goes cold, but all the time you’ll know at the back of your mind that he’s not really the one. And since the three of you’ll be cooped up in that dingy little bedsit, without even the option of murder or suicide to break the tension, I imagine the atmosphere in there is going to get more than a little fraught.”

  Paul couldn’t bear to watch. He looked away; at the ceiling, then down at the table—at the table, with its mirror-polish, on which stood that by now familiar object, the long stapler. A tiny part of his mind wondered how it had got there, since it hadn’t been there a moment ago; but he was so used to it turning up and disappearing again that its latest manifestation didn’t really bother him. He looked away, at the moulding on the oak-panelled walls; but then something registered in his mind, and he looked back; not, this time, at the stapler itself, but at its reflection in the table top. The last time he’d been in this room, when Ricky Wurmtoter had given them the Dire Warnings lecture and told them about the imp-reflecting qualities of that very table, he’d remembered thinking how curious was the manner in which the thing worked. You looked at the object, and then at its reflection; and the reflection was just the normal inverted image of the object, but at the same time it was also something else. On that occasion, it had been the doomed Mr Lundqvist, transformed into a mouse by some dark sorcery. This time…this time, the stapler was just a stapler, but it was also a tiny little bald man, dressed in a black frock coat and grey striped trousers, crouched like a hunting cat and waving frantically at him with his tiny hands.

  Fuck, thought Paul. Mr Wells senior.

  Yes, said a voice, very faint inside his head. Now pay attention. When I break the spell, lay the chain over the stapler.

  You what? Paul thought; but then he felt the unseen ropes give way abruptly, and he fell forward, just as Arthur had done when Humphrey had released him a while ago. Paul lost his balance and toppled out of his chair, but as he slid forward he shot his hand out, grabbing for the little gold chain on the table top. He could just reach it; and as Humphrey whirled round, a vicious-looking sword in his uplifted hand, Paul flicked the chain through the air with his fingertips.

  More by luck than judgement, the chain flew through the air, clattered against the stapler and wrapped itself round it like a bolas. At once there was a blinding flash of blue light. Humphrey dropped the sword with a clatter and crashed against the wall as John Wellington Wells (a short, stout man who looked like Arthur Lowe without his glasses on) stepped down from the table.

  “Thank you,” he said politely to Paul. Then he clicked his sausage-like fingers.

  Several things happened all at once. Mr Tanner’s mum acquired a long dress of rose-madder silk, with zouave jacket and bustle. Arthur and Pip fell off their chairs and landed on their backsides on the floor. A snake of some sort—a boa constrictor, or some kind of python—appeared out of thin air and coiled itself round Humphrey until only his nose and the tips of his shoes were visible. Sophie’s head fell forward on her chest, and she snored loudly. John Wellington frowned, and spat out a mouthful of staples. An empty plastic bottle rolled across the floor.

  Paul stared for a moment at th
e plastic bottle; then he slumped forward, his head in his hands. Then he heard the voice of John Wellington, directly above him. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he was saying, and Paul looked up sharply.

  John Wellington was frowning at him, and Paul expected him to say, “Stupid boy,” at any moment. Instead, he heard a voice inside his head; the same one he’d heard a minute earlier, only louder this time. John Wellington clearly believed in discretion.

  It’s all right, said John Wellington inside his head, it’ll be at least twenty minutes before she wakes up, and so long as you’re in position when the time comes, everything’ll be as right as rain. Better, in fact.

  Better? Paul queried.

  Quite so. Be realistic. True, the young lady does indeed love you, but nothing lasts for ever; under normal circumstances, I’d give it eighteen months, at the very most, and then she’d be off with someone else, someone quite unsuitable who’d make her very unhappy. This way is very much better, for both of you.

  But that’s not right, Paul stated. I can’t take advantage—It’s not a matter of taking advantage. It’s a matter of finding happiness, suddenly and against all probability, in a world where love is seldom true and never eternal. Not, that is, without the help of a little white magic, at seven and threepence ha’penny the pint, trade.

  But isn’t there anything you can do? he asked. An antidote, or something?

  No.

  Oh, Paul responded. But even so, I don’t think it’s right, it’s—The slight twinge of pain inside his head could have been the voice scowling. Stupid boy, said the voice.

  §

  Sophie woke up.

  “Paul?” she said.

  “Hello.”

  She narrowed her eyes and squinted. “Yes, right,” she said. “Only, you look different somehow.”

  Paul took a deep breath. “Yes,” he said, “I thought you might say that. There’s a reason.”