Odds and Gods

by Tom Holt

  ‘I told ’em, of course,’ replied the Dragon King of the South-East, materialising in a deck chair in mid-air about four feet over Lundqvist’s head. ‘The way I saw it, if you’re such a galah you won’t ask me to help you, it’s up to me to use a bit of initiative.’

  Lundqvist groaned and lay back on the ground. ‘I shall count to ten,’ he said. ‘If you’re still here . . .’

  ‘Cheerio for now, then. Remember, you’ve still got one wish.’

  ‘I wish you’d disappear up your own arse, you fucking stupid goldfish.’

  ‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,’ said the King cheerfully, and vanished.

  Kurt propped himself up, painfully on one elbow, and turned to the two doctors, who were planting invisible landmines. ‘You heard that,’ he said, ‘you’re witnesses. I made a perfectly valid wish. I asked him to vanish, he vanished. Okay?’

  A doctor looked at him. ‘Who vanished?’ he asked.

  ‘Concussion,’ said his colleague.

  ‘Oh yes, of course. Silly me. Here, Mr Lundqvist, you’d better make that three aspirins.’

  Why bother? Lundqvist said to himself. He whimpered, got slowly to his hands and knees, and crawled away behind the wall.

  Fortuitously, it turned out; because no sooner had he vanished from sight than Hotduyrtdx suddenly hove into view, making the ground shake with his footsteps.

  ‘Oy, you,’ yelled a doctor. ‘Not this way, there’s a minefield, you could get—’

  Bang.

  There was a short pause, during which large chunks of uprooted turf plopped back down to earth.

  ‘Excuse me, but are you injured at all?’

  Hotduyrtdx snarled; difficult, because his body was now in more pieces than one of those incredibly complex jigsaw puzzles you were given by aunts for Christmas in your formative years, and which went straight up into the loft first thing on Boxing Day morning.

  ‘I got blown up,’ he grunted. ‘I’d leave me well alone if I were you.’

  The two doctors exchanged glances.

  ‘Ah well,’ one of them said at last. ‘Now at least we know they still work.’

  To the gods all things are possible. Well, virtually all.

  ‘Marvellous,’ Thor growled. ‘Absolutely bloody wonderful. Now what do we do?’

  Frey pointed. ‘There’s a little sticker,’ he said, ‘look, there on the windshield.That probably tells you the procedure. ’ He leant forward and read aloud: “This vehicle has been immobilished; do not attempt to move it . . .”’

  ‘Yes, thank you, I can read,’ Odin said. ‘The question is, how do we get rid of the confounded thing?’

  One of the things - the very, very few things - not possible to gods is removing wheel clamps from illegally parked traction engines, using only the rudimentary tools usually carried in the glove box. ‘We could pay the fine,’ Frey suggested. ‘I gather that usually does the trick.’

  Thor snarled. Not for nothing had he been the god of thunder for countless centuries; it started to drizzle with rain.

  ‘Over my dead body,’ he said. ‘Nobody wheelclamps a god and gets away with it.’

  ‘Fine. So you do know how to get it off, then?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll, um, remember in a minute.’

  Always the way, isn’t it? A quick pitstop in the suburbs of Mexico City, to buy gasket sealant and gear-box oil; Odin’s cheerful assurance that they could park in the No Parking zone with impunity since they were only going to be three minutes, and there were no traffic wardens in sight of his all-seeing eye. And here they were. Stuck.

  Thor pulled himself out from under the chassis, oily-faced but grinning. ‘I think I see how to go about it,’ he said. ‘Odin, I’ll need the tin of grease and a cold chisel. Frey, my hammer.’

  A quarter of an hour passed noisily, at the end of which time Thor had hit everything he could reach (including, on a regular basis, his own fingers) and the clamp was still there.

  ‘All we have to do is give them some money and they come and do it for us,’ Frey insisted. ‘Come on, it’s easy. Mortals can do it, even.’

  ‘Shut up, I’m thinking. Odin, go and buy a hacksaw.’

  Twenty minutes later; the hacksaw blade had eventually snapped, taking a lump out of Thor’s thumb as it did so. Otherwise the situation was pretty well unchanged.

  ‘On the other hand,’ Frey said, ‘we could stay here for ever and ever. You know, find jobs, settle down, get married, that sort of thing.’

  ‘I said shut up.’

  ‘Leave Frey alone, Thor. It’s not his fault.’

  ‘Yes, but he’s being aggravating, and if he carries on like that I shall knock his block off with my hammer.’

  ‘He’s always aggravating. I don’t notice it any more.’

  ‘. . . Ready-made start in the scrap iron business . . .’

  ‘You see? How am I supposed to concentrate with him mithering on all the time?’

  ‘You’ve just dropped the three-eighths spanner down that grating.’

  Thor sighed. ‘I seem to remember,’ he said dismally, ‘we had a damn sight fewer problems when we were creating the Earth.’

  Odin nodded. ‘Me too,’ he said. ‘On the other hand, it’s one thing making something from scratch, but mending it once it’s bust is another matter entirely. Besides,’ he added wistfully, ‘we had the proper tools then.’

  ‘God, yes.’ Thor sighed in nostalgic reverie. ‘Remember that seven-mill Bergsen cutter with the adjustable three-way head? Went through igneous rock like a knife through butter.’

  ‘And what about the old rotary magma plane?’ Odin smiled involuntarily. ‘Whatever became of that, by the way? It must still be about the place somewhere.’

  Thor shook his head. ‘Swopped it with the Celtic mob for a set of river-bed props and a beach grinder. Load of old tat that was, too. Worst deal I ever did.’

  ‘Bet you they let it get all rusty.’

  ‘Never cleaned anything in their lives.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Frey, ‘but are we going to do something about this wheel thing or are we just going to stand here chattering on until they pull the city down and build a new one?’

  His two colleagues looked at him.

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ they said.

  ‘Whose damnfool idea was this, anyway?’ Osiris demanded, scratching his ear and wriggling uncomfortably in his wheelchair. ‘It certainly wasn’t mine.’

  It was a hot day and the hill was steep. Pan therefore had to save up his breath, like a child with a piggy bank, in order to have enough to answer.

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ he said.

  Neither of the mortals said anything, mainly because neither of them had a very clear idea of where they were or what they were meant to be doing. One moment they’d been escaping from an anthropomorphic oral hygiene accessory, the next they were on a Lear jet flying south-east.

  ‘He’s your friend,’ Osiris retorted. ‘I naturally assumed . . .’

  Pan shook his head, while his lungs went into overdraft. ‘I knew the man once, many years ago, but I wouldn’t say we were friends. Generally I try not to associate too closely with people who spend most of their time bloody to the elbow.’

  Osiris sighed. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we’re here now, we might as well do the job. Then I suggest we get out of here as quickly as possible. This whole thing is getting unnecessarily complicated, if you ask me.’

  ‘Behind you all the way,’ Pan replied, and in his mind added, Yeah, pushing. Same as usual. Why do I get all the rotten jobs?

  ‘Excuse me.’

  Osiris looked back over his shoulder. ‘Well?’ he asked.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Sandra, ‘but the gold teeth things. What did you do with them?’

  By way of reply Osiris grinned and patted his trouser pocket. Then the grin became a frown, the patting became frantic thumping, and spread to his other pockets like plague in a sixteenth-century seaport.

  ‘You’re not going to bel
ieve this,’ he said.

  But Pan believed it all right. In fact, he’d been waiting for it for a long time, and in a sense he was relieved it was over.

  ‘Where,’ he asked tonelessly, ‘did you have them last?’

  All living things are good at something; and Osiris’ innate gift was for losing things out of pockets. When he was still an active god, before his retirement, this unfortunate habit was the main thing standing between him and high office within the Federation. (To give just one example: the lost kingdom of Atlantis was a centre of Mediterranean trade and marked on all the maps until one day it was Osiris’ turn to lock up and switch off all the lights after the other gods had gone home. Atlantis remained lost for over four thousand years, until it eventually turned up, dusty and covered in bits of grey fluff, down the back of Osiris’ sofa.)

  ‘They’re here somewhere,’ Osiris was saying, in the tone of voice that implies that everything will come right just so long as you have faith. This didn’t convince Pan, who knew from long experience that faith does indeed move mountains, but always puts them down again in the wrong place and invariably loses or breaks a couple of foothills in the process. ‘Just bear with me a second and I’ll . . .’

  ‘You’ve lost them, haven’t you?’ he said.

  ‘Of course I haven’t lost them. How can anyone lose a set of false teeth the size of Mount Rushmore?’

  ‘To the gods all things are possible.’

  ‘Ah,’ Osiris said, ‘here they are.’

  From his inside jacket pocket he produced a shiny yellow object which, on closer inspection, proved to be the upper set. Of the lower set there was no trace.

  ‘Brilliant,’ Pan said. ‘Well, there’s nothing for it, we’ll just have to retrace our steps. It shouldn’t be too hard a job,’ he added grimly. ‘All we have to do is find a country we’ve passed through or flown over which has suddenly quadrupled its national wealth overnight. Look out for new, expensive-looking warplanes with the cellophane still on the seats, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Carl.

  ‘Or maybe we could try the lost property offices,’ Pan continued. ‘Ask if anyone’s handed in any gold icebergs. There are some honest people left in the world, after all, and—’

  ‘Excuse me.’

  The two gods turned round, to see Carl balancing the missing dentures on the palm of his hand. Pan swallowed hard, and grabbed.

  ‘I think,’ he said, gently but determinedly relieving Osiris of the other set, ‘I’ll take charge of these little tinkers for the time being. I’d prefer it if any further outbreaks of alarm and despondency were my fault. After all, that’s what I’m good at.’

  Osiris nodded meekly. ‘Best thing to do,’ he said, ‘would be to get this lot cashed in as quickly as possible.’

  ‘Cashed in?’

  ‘Realised. Turned into money.’ He hesitated, musing. ‘Mind you,’ he added, ‘that’s easier said than done. I don’t think we can just wander into a jeweller’s shop and expect to be paid cash.’

  ‘We need a specialist, you mean?’

  Osiris nodded. ‘And come to think of it,’ he said, ‘I know just the very chap. More or less down my old neck of the woods. Retired now, of course, but stayed in those parts. Don’t think he had much choice.’

  ‘Excuse me.’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Carl, we’ve found them now,’ Pan said irritably. ‘Get on with evolving into a sentient life-form or something, there’s a good—’

  ‘It’s them doctors,’ Carl said. ‘I thought you’d want to know, that’s all.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Over there.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Look,’ said Carl, pointing. ‘Just there, behind that big grey thing.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You know something,’ said one of the doctors to his colleague, as they lowered the lid of the tank into place and tightened up the restraining bolts, ‘when this job is over I think I might retire. Pack all this in.’

  His colleague wiped sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his white coat. ‘Yeah?’ he said.

  The doctor nodded. ‘Think so,’ he replied. ‘Retire, open a little clinic somewhere, make people better. You know, sick people.’

  His colleague frowned. ‘You reckon there’s a future in that, do you?’

  ‘Could be. I mean, it’s worth a shot, isn’t it?’

  ‘Might work, I suppose. Right,’ he added, lighting the blowtorch. ‘We’ll just seal up the interstices with molten lead, and then that’s that job done.’

  It had been a remarkably efficient operation; basically a larger-scale version of catching rabbits with the aid of a ferret, except that the net had been a three-foot-thick sheet of invisible glass dumped across the road, and the ferret had been the two doctors plus a large group of stage extras hired for the day, equipped with uniforms, collecting tins, leaflets and Gideon Bibles.

  ‘How was I to know,’ said Pan, inside the tank, bitterly. ‘They looked just like real Jehovah’s Witnesses to me.’

  ‘We should have stood our ground, in any case,’ Osiris replied. ‘You don’t just turn tail and run as soon as you see a lot of God-botherers walking up the path.’

  ‘I do. And so, I seem to remember, did you.’

  ‘True.’ Osiris nodded sadly. ‘Basic inbuilt reflex action.’ He scratched his head sadly. ‘And another thing,’ he went on. ‘They call themselves witnesses, but they can’t be. They’re all too young, for a start.’

  The tank was a masterpiece of applied theology. Specially built in Germany, where they still know a thing or two about craftsmanship, to exquisitely precise specifications, it was proofed to withstand internal pressures which would make the Big Bang seem like a car back-firing, while the lining of pulped copies of standard nineteenth-century Nihilist philosophical texts was capable of damping out supernatural manifestations equivalent to 7.9 miracles. Anyone able to get out of there would have to have been capable not only of parting the Red Sea but folding it up like a newly ironed tea towel.

  ‘Well,’ Sandra said, ‘you’d better hurry up and get us out of here. I really am starving, you know?’

  ‘I’m doing my best,’ Osiris replied. ‘Who do you think I am?’

  ‘Well . . .’

  ‘Yes, point taken. Any suggestions?’

  Sandra considered. Her mythological knowledge was limited to stray particles of legendary matter that had adhered to the fly-paper of her imagination. ‘How about turning yourself into a shower of gold?’ she suggested.

  Pan and Osiris looked at each other, and simultaneously sighed.

  ‘Listen, love,’ said Pan. ‘Two thousand years ago, no problem. These days, with the best will in the world, I think that at our age, between us, the best we could manage would be a small wad of Italian lire. It’s a case,’ he explained, ‘of the spirit being willing but the currency being weak.’

  Sandra wrinkled her nose. ‘I see,’ she said. ‘All right, what about a burning bush? You could cut your way out, like one of those oxy-acetylene torch things.’

  ‘Nah,’ Osiris replied, ‘that’s not us, that’s more your Judaeo-Christian touch. Different cultural heritage entirely.’

  ‘Not solar-based,’ Pan agreed. ‘Completely different technology. Besides, we’d need goggles. We’ve just got to face facts, we’re stuck in this bloody thing until somebody lets us out.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ Sandra enquired. ‘Who, for instance?’

  ‘Gawd only knows.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Lundqvist woke up.

  He found himself in a dark, gloomy cave, rank with the smell of stale air and rotting vegetation. His arms and legs were securely bound with thick electric cable; he was gagged with what tasted like a very old and lonely sock, and there was a guard with an Armalite rifle sitting about five yards away, reading a pornographic magazine.

  Ah, he said to himself, back to normal. I was beginning to worry back there.

  It had been
, he reflected, a pretty bad run so far, by his standards. He’d divided his time on this project so far between standing about like a bottle of brown sauce at a state banquet, getting under people’s feet and being in the way (which was bad enough) and being chased, scared out of his wits, abducted and made to run away (which was awful). He was confused, unarmed and thoroughly depressed, and he hadn’t killed anything except time for as long as he could remember. The way he’d been feeling, if a spider had run up his leg he’d probably have tried to trap it in a matchbox and put it outside the door.

  Now, however, things were looking up.

  It was the work of a moment to fray through the cable against the rock behind him; a mere bagatelle to chew the sock in half; a trifling inconvenience to roll over, break free from his bonds and stun the guard with one blow. In fact, if he hadn’t slipped on (of all things) a banana skin and nutted himself on a low shelf of rock, he’d have been out of there in less than six minutes, thereby shattering for ever the record set by Clignancourt and O’Reilly at the Grande Convention Mondiale des Assassins et Espions Professionels in 1967. As it was, he merely equalled it.

  Once outside, with a rifle in his hands and (presumably) people to rescue against overwhelming odds in the face of certain death, he felt much better. His manner as he worked a steady and decidedly businesslike way through the various heavily armed men he found here and there about the place was positively jovial. He smiled as he dodged the hail of bullets from the Browning .50 calibre machine gun mounted on the back of the half-track beside the big grey rectangular box, and grinned as he kicked open the rear cargo doors and beat the occupants into insensibility with the butt of his rifle. Somwhere nearby, he felt sure, he could hear nightingales singing.

  Then he caught sight of the two doctors.

  Yum, he thought.

  Please, he said to himself, please let them open up with a couple of Uzis, so that I can take cover, return fire, lob in a couple of these beautiful stun-grenades I found lying about over by the jeep and then go in with the cold steel. And please let them be wearing Kevlar body armour. And please let them have reinforcements standing by to try and keep me pinned down while I dynamite the lid off that big box thing.