House of Many Doors

by Ian Richards

  The genie continued. ‘Hassan often spoke with me about what he would do with his final wish. He had decided that I should be set free. I should be allowed to roam the world like every other living creature and we would spend the rest of our lives together. We would have adventures every day and live like kings. He meant it, too. He loved me as I loved him. I had never had a friend before I met Hassan. I had never dreamed that I would ever meet somebody who would care enough to release me from my torment.’

  Tony felt a sickly feeling rise in his stomach. ‘Go on,’ he said.

  ‘Hassan made his second wish on the eve of his fourteenth birthday. We were in Morocco and had been made guests of honor at a sultan’s palace. The sultan had a daughter whom Hassan had fallen in love with. He wished for a casket of jewels that could be presented to the sultan in exchange for his daughter’s hand in marriage. I granted it in an instant. He was my best friend. I was delighted for his happiness. And I also knew that now Hassan had only one wish remaining I would be freed from my prison within days.’

  He paused before continuing.

  ‘The wedding was due to take place the following evening. But the sultan was a cruel, greedy man. A casket of jewels was not enough for him. He demanded more riches from Hassan. Treasure chests full of gold coins. Diamonds the size of fists. He vowed to only release his daughter into marriage if he were made the richest man in all of Arabia.’

  ‘Oh, genie …’

  ‘Hassan was heartbroken. He had promised me my freedom and yet he had fallen hopelessly in love with his bride-to-be. It was an impossible situation. Whichever decision he made would break his heart. He spent the night crying and I could see from the pained expression on his face how much he agonized over his choice. But eventually he decided. He chose her. His final wish was for the sultan to have all the riches he could dream of. With a heavy heart I granted it. The last time I saw Hassan he was on his knees, begging for my forgiveness. And because I loved him, and because I knew that the happiness he had found with his new wife was greater than the happiness he shared with me, I forgave him. I am told that he lived a happy life. That is good. Of all my masters he was the one who deserved such happiness. The next time I was summoned from the lamp my master was a miserly old man who had stolen me from Hassan’s palace during a feast. His wishes were cruel and selfish—wealth—power—respect. The same as most. I never saw my friend again. And that, my lord, is why I can appreciate your sorrow at the loss of yours.’

  The genie’s face was sad and stoic. He tried to smile but the pain he felt, even all these years later, was clear.

  ‘I would have freed you, genie’ Tony said eventually. His voice was a whisper. ‘I don’t care how beautiful she was. I don’t care how much he loved her. I would have let you go.’

  ‘No, master,’ the genie said softly. ‘You wouldn’t have.’

  He had nothing more to add now. Wishing Tony goodnight he disappeared back into his lamp. The remaining smoke followed him inside until the room had been returned to its cold, sparse self. A hint of tea-tree oil lingered in the air, strangely out of place in the emptiness of the icy November night.

  For a long moment Tony sat alone on the bed, holding the lamp in his hands.

  The genie had saved his life once and would probably do so again. But to think of the centuries spent as a slave to the whims of strangers. To think of the loneliness, the hopelessness, the knowledge that he was destined to be a prisoner for the rest of his days. He thought again of Hassan—imagined the two friends swooping over the turreted towers of desert cities on board their magic carpet—the laughter as they ate fresh fruit in sun-drenched oases—the sheer joy of being young and alive in a world brimming with adventure.

  The heartbreaking moment when true love had spoilt that happy friendship forever.

  No master. You wouldn’t have.

  He shook his head. ‘I would have, genie. And I will. I promise you now that I’ll use my last wish to set you free. I give you my word on that.’

  A soft voice spoke from inside the lamp. ‘Hassan was not the last to make such a promise, Tony Lott. Others have promised me the same in the centuries that have followed. None have ever seen their promises through.’

  ‘I mean it, though. I will, I swear it.’

  There was no reply. The genie didn’t believe him.

  When it eventually spoke again it did so from a position of experience.

  ‘There is always a final wish that needs to be made, master. Nobody could love me as much as Hassan did—and yet even he discovered this inevitable truth. No matter the promises, there will always need to be one … final … wish …’

  26 - Talking With Silvertongue

  Life in Marshwood ticked by slowly for Joseph Martell. Each day felt the same as the last. There was no variation. The servants performed their usual routines, he worked on solving the riddle, and the rotting grandfather clock in the hallway sounded off each passing hour like a funeral bell. He felt as if he were losing his mind. A sense of atrophy poisoned everything. Waking up to the same grey mist, day after day, created a sense of infinite regress, almost as if time were playing tricks on him.

  Here you are, Black Magician. As long as you’re here at Marshwood you can look forward to the same day repeating itself again and again and again …

  Sometimes, when the stress of trying to unpick the riddle got too much for him, he took long, lonely walks through the corridors of the house, stopping occasionally to touch the handle of one of the locked doors and wonder about what lay beyond it. Did this one lead to England? To London, or Manchester, or Brighton? Or did it lead to Faerie instead? Would opening it transport him to a world of color and magic and mischief and adventure? Perhaps a fairy market in which stallholders sold strange potions, herbs, flowers … Now that he had been in the house for a while he understood the appeal the doors held. They represented freedom. Who wouldn’t long for that after being locked up in here? Compared to the dull dankness of Marshwood, the promise of unlimited worlds at one’s fingertips seemed the sweetest gift conceivable. Imagine, leaving behind this awful house and stepping out into the brightest sunshine …

  Firefox rarely bothered him. Occasionally he dropped by to inspect Martell’s notes and enquire about his progress, though more often than not he occupied his time by playing his violin or enjoying the giggling affections of one of his many concubines. He was a strange character, Martell thought. He had a ruthless streak and a callous disregard for anyone but himself, but how much of this had been exaggerated by living in this house for so long was difficult to say. Martell wasn’t frightened of him—not as frightened as he had been at first—but he didn’t trust him, like him, or wish to have anything to do with him either. As far as he was concerned Firefox wasn’t evil; he was simply unstable. This made him dangerous, of course, but it also made him sympathetic. At times Martell could almost feel sorry for him. It was Marshwood that had driven Firefox to madness. The malevolent energy in the air, crackling like ozone, seeping into the skin of all those who dwelled there. So far he himself had been immune to this darkness. But it was there. He could feel it, a permanent presence, an invisible weight pricking up the hairs on the back of his neck. How long it would be before he started to succumb to its pressures was something he didn’t like to think about.

  The structure of Martell’s days in Marshwood—or should that be ‘day’, he thought miserably; it’s the same bloody one after all—followed a strict formula. He would wake with the dawn, breakfast with the servants, and spend the majority of the day furrowing his brow over the intricacies of a riddle he had long since come to believe he would never solve. In the evening he ate again with the servants—always the same meal: potato stew, served lukewarm—then helped them with the washing up. The only aspect of living in Marshwood that he had come to enjoy happened after the rest of the household had gone to bed. Over time he had begun to share late-night conversations with Thomas Silvertongue, who proved to be an exceptionally clever indivi
dual, willing to discuss all manner of topics with him. Martell liked the fairy, and believed the feeling to be mutual. Silvertongue was a kindred spirit—a brilliant mind boarded up inside the most rotten of houses. Usually they chose a subject at random—literature, art, history, politics—then talked about it for hours, probing each other’s opinions and relishing the opportunity to exercise their intellects. Unlike the other occupants of the house, all of whom had sunken into muddled obedience a long time ago, Silvertongue remained as sharp as a blade. How he had managed to do this, Martell wasn’t sure, but it gave him hope that he had at least one potential ally in this madhouse.

  One night, as the wind howled, rattling every window in the house, the two of them sat together in the library talking about Martell’s life back in England. They had originally been discussing the riddle, trying to solve it through teamwork and logical thinking, but somehow, as was often the way with these late-night discussions, the conversation had meandered in a different direction altogether. Martell didn’t mind. He liked talking about home; his shop, Tony, the rough and tumble of life on Dover Street.

  As usual, Firefox stopped by to see them on his way to bed. Two fairy concubines with hair down to their waists stood alongside him, their smiles dull and characterless. If they had any idea where they were or what they were doing, Martell would have been very surprised.

  ‘Good evening, gentlemen. I gather from the relaxed atmosphere that my riddle has finally been solved?’

  As always, Martell noted the change in his companion whenever Firefox was around. Silvertongue’s body became taut and tense, the smiling friendliness replaced by a nervous anxiety. It made Martell think of a dog that had learnt to cower in the corner whenever it heard its master approaching.

  ‘We were just discussing it, sir’ Silvertongue offered apologetically. ‘I’m sorry if we gave the impression that—’

  Firefox cut the fairy off with a nonchalant wave of his hand. ‘Calm yourself, Silvertongue. I have no quarrel tonight. I’m on my way to slumber. I shall see you both in the morning.’

  Once he had gone Silvertongue let out a shuddering sigh of relief.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said to Martell. ‘Lord Firefox’s moods can be very … changeable. It’s hard to tell whether he’ll be angry or utterly indifferent. There’s no real logic to it.’

  ‘That’s because he’s mad,’ Martell answered. ‘Like everyone else in this blasted house.’ He caught himself. ‘Apart from us, of course, Silvertongue. Though I am curious as to why you seem to be the only one of the servants to have retained his wits.’

  ‘Because I choose to, Mr. Martell. Everybody else here succumbed to despair a long time ago. Even the master, for the longest time he was frightfully intelligent. But Marshwood gnaws at you. Every second of every day you can feel it working its magic. Teasing you. Taunting you. Eventually people just give up. They see the house as a prison they will never escape and they let their minds rot. I suppose it makes it easier for them. They seem happier, don’t they? The cooks, the cleaners. Even Lord Firefox. Better to live as an idiot than to face up to the grim reality of it all.’

  Hearing this gave Martell a newfound admiration for his companion. The sheer mental effort that must have been required to hold back the madness for all these years.

  ‘What keeps you going?’ he asked.

  ‘Hope, Mr. Martell.’

  ‘Hope.’ Such a small word, but such a strong one, too.

  Hope that he would get out of here alive. Hope that he would see Tony again, that the boy was safe, that they could put this whole sorry mess behind them. Silvertongue poured them each a glass of murky water. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘perhaps I am mad. Perhaps you are too, and our madness has simply taken a different form to everyone else’s.’

  ‘You don’t like him, do you?’ Martell knew he was moving the conversation onto thinner ice, but if there was a moment to fish for Silvertongue’s true feelings about his captor, this was it. If there was a chance he could be turned, Martell had to know. Together they might be able to concentrate their energies onto finding a way out of here.

  Hope. That word again.

  ‘Don’t like him?’ Silvertongue adjusted his spectacles, considering the matter carefully. ‘I suppose it depends what you mean by that, Mr. Martell. Do I find him difficult to deal with? Certainly. Do I enjoy being ordered around like a common slave? No, I do not. But do I dislike him? No, I shouldn’t say that. It isn’t his fault. The house made him like this. Before Marshwood he was just an ordinary, ambitious, driven man.’

  ‘Man? I thought he had always been a fairy.’

  ‘Mm? No, Mr. Martell, the master used to be as human as you or I. There are only a handful of actual fairies here in Marshwood. The rest were turned that way by the house.’

  ‘Including you?’

  Silvertongue smiled. ‘Including me. Back in the human world I was seventy-two years old, short-sighted, and walked with a limp. Now look at me. Bright red hair, bright green eyes. Mobile for the first time in over a decade. I’ll say one thing about becoming a fairy, it certainly does wonders for one’s health.’

  ‘What were you like before you came here?’

  ‘Ordinary,’ Silvertongue replied. ‘My life was quiet and uneventful. I never had any family and lived on my own in a small village near Hastings. I was a librarian by trade. I loved to read. My cottage was wall-to-wall books. That’s how I got involved in all of this. One day I read a book about fairy magic and it utterly enchanted me. I became quite obsessed. I joined the CS and from that point onwards—’

  ‘I’m sorry, the CS?’

  Silvertongue raised his eyebrows. ‘Yes, the Cottingly Society. You haven’t heard of it? I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised really. There weren’t many of us. We were a small group of like-minded souls who got together once a year to socialize and discuss recent findings about the fairy world—old stories, legends, things like that. It was there I first learnt about Marshwood. The master thought a group of fairy fanatics like us might turn up someone who could unlock the mystery. He had Mr. Kepler infiltrate the society and select the mostly likely candidate to help him. Mr. Kepler made me the offer, I accepted, and here I am. Please understand, for me the chance of working with a real-life fairy was a dream come true. And when I learnt about what this house would be able to do … I confess, I became quite single-minded. Imagine it, Mr. Martell. Doors to other worlds. I could visit Faerie. I could walk through the lush forests, feel the sun on my skin … hear the rivers singing … I was an old man, I had nothing to lose and so I came. Perhaps it was an inflated opinion of myself that made me think I could solve the riddle when so many before me had failed. But in truth, as sad as it sounds, I think it was simply hope. Hope that I might one day be able to open the doors and explore the wonders of the universe.’ The old servant was quiet for a very long time. When he eventually looked up again his smile was pained and false. ‘But enough about me. Tell me more about your life in London. I want to hear more about your nephew.’

  Martell nodded. They usually finished off their late-night talks by discussing Tony. Martell would talk about the boy’s wit and wisdom, his toughness, his hatred of injustice, and Silvertongue would listen intently, nodding in some places, smiling in others, and occasionally interrupting to pass comment or press for further information. From his gentle questions Martell imagined Silvertongue to be a lonely creature. It made him appreciate how lucky he was to have the boy. Without Tony around he might have been another Silvertongue himself: a sad old man who threw away his entire life in pursuit of a fantasy.

  When he finished speaking he sighed and picked up the riddle box once more. Its clotted darkness seemed even more impenetrable than usual.

  ‘I envy you, you know, Martell’ Silvertongue said. ‘You’re a good man.’

  He smiled. He had never looked at it that way before. To him, raising the boy had been perfectly natural—a pleasure, not a chore.

  ‘I never had any family mysel
f,’ the fairy went on. ‘No nieces, no nephews. Just me and my books.’

  Martell paused. The words jarred for a reason he couldn’t quite work out. Looking up he saw Silvertongue’s plain, sad face staring back at him.

  ‘What is it, Mr. Martell?’

  ‘Nothing, I just …’ He frowned. ‘You said you never had any family.’

  ‘That’s correct. My parents died when I was in my twenties.’

  That jarring again. Something wasn’t right. Something didn’t add up.

  After a moment’s pause he realized what it was.

  ‘But you were married, weren’t you?’

  ‘Married?’ Silvertongue spat out the word in astonishment. He looked at Martell quizzically, as if he didn’t quite understand what sort of game was being played with him. ‘No, Mr. Martell, I was never married. I’ve been a bachelor my entire life, I told you that. Why would you think otherwise?’

  Martell pointed to Silvertongue’s left hand. ‘You’re wearing a wedding ring.’

  ‘This? Oh, goodness me, no.’ He chuckled with relief. ‘This isn’t mine. It was a gift from the master. He gave it to me for good luck when I first came here. He was more generous back then. He liked to lavish gifts on all his servants.’

  ‘He was married then?’ The thought of it was incredible. What kind of woman could love such a monster?

  ‘He was,’ Silvertongue said. ‘At least I presume so. In truth, I don’t know much about his life before Marshwood.’

  Suddenly Martell froze. The words of the riddle jumped into his mind. I have no top or bottom, no beginning or end … A cool, creeping feeling began to come over him—the sense that he was suddenly teetering on the edge of a huge precipice. Vertigo. A lightness in his stomach. I am a gift, a treasure, Mankind’s greatest pleasure …

  Silvertongue was still talking. ‘He gave away lots of things back then, you see. Fleur Dowsleydale was given an old necklace. I think Lily Cobweb got a nice set of antique cufflinks …’