The Outsorcerer's Apprentice

by Tom Holt

  The half-eaten apple vanished up the boy’s sleeve so fast it looked as though it had been teleported away. “Guvnor.”

  “Here’s a shilling.” Benny held it up so the light would glint off it. Obligingly, it glinted. “Yours if you take a letter to the Cradle of All Goblins.”

  The boy hesitated. Not a good sign.

  “You know where that is,” Benny said.

  “Course I do. But me mam says—”

  Benny smiled. “You don’t look to me like the sort of boy who does what his mother tells him to.”

  “Course I ain’t. But—” The boy looked genuinely scared. “There’s goblins there, see? They eat you.”

  Fair point, and one that had crossed Benny’s mind once or twice since he’d parted from the unicorn. But what choice did he have? “Tell you what,” he said. “You show me how to get there, and you can have the shilling. How’s that?”

  “Deal,” the boy said quickly. “All right. From here, you go straight up Main Street far as the watering trough, take a left, down Cow Street till you’re outta town, follow your nose till you’re at the crossroads, take a right, follow the course of the road, next crossroads left, two miles, next crossroads right then sharp left, follow the road and take the second left then the second right, keeping the river to your left and bearing south-south-west until you reach the third derelict cottage on the right—”

  Benny produced a scrap of parchment and a stick of charcoal. “Why don’t you,” he said, “draw me a map?”

  Piece of cake, Benny said to himself, as the boy ran off. That was getting there taken care of. That just left the problems connected to being there, which were harder to shrug off. By now he’d got used to wandering around the place with a stupid great big sword dangling from his belt; he hardly ever tripped over it any more, and when he wasn’t wearing it he felt strangely lopsided, as though one leg was slightly shorter than the other. But he hadn’t ever drawn it, in case it was sharp and cut his fingers. You’ll be fine, the boy had told him, you gotta sword. Yes, but having something and being able to use it are two very different things, as witness the very fine Fender Blacktop Jaguar currently sitting unplayed in his wardrobe at home.

  Home, he thought, oh God. He tried to picture it, and realised that, slowly but surely, he was starting not to believe in Home, just as not believing in Santa Claus comes on you slowly, over time, without you really noticing. Could there really be such an improbable place as his bedroom, with its battery of home electronics, its comfortable bed, its familiar piles of discarded clothes and unwashed plates? He’d been certain of it once, just as he’d been certain of Elves and talking animals and schools of wizardry, but you can’t go on just believing for ever; belief is a garment to clothe the soul, and it doesn’t take much spiritual growth before the cuffs are up around your elbows. Did I really live there, he asked himself, once upon a time, or was it just my imagination? And can it really still be there, somewhere over the doughnut? Bless him, he still believes in reality, that’s so sweet.

  Meanwhile, there were very real goblins in his immediate future, and all he had to defend himself with was a stupid sword. According to the Captain of the Guard, its name was Tyrving, and it had been forged in dragonfire from meteorite iron by Weyland the Smith and tempered in the blood of his mortal enemy; thirty-seven properly accredited heroes had wielded it over the centuries, and the ruby set into its hilt had once been the eye of Mogroth. And, Benny knew for sure, if he tried to open so much as a tin of baked beans with it, he’d cut himself to the bone.

  Well, he told himself, if I see a goblin I’ll just have to hide behind something till it goes away. He studied the map carefully, folded it and put it away. Then, feeling even more helpless than usual, he turned to face east and started to walk.

  Mercifully, the roads were deserted, and he didn’t see a living soul until eventually he stood in the shadow of the Great Mountain, gateway to the goblin-mines. The road led right up to a cliff-face, and stopped dead. He gazed at the blank, featureless rock and thought, Oh come on.

  There was a soft creaking noise. A fine line appeared in the stone and quickly thickened out into the outline of a vertically aligned rectangle, about five feet high. The sun was setting behind him, and the last red rays fell on a series of grooves cut into the rock, which proved to be letters, which read Please Use Other Door. Thank you so fucking much.

  It was nearly dark when he stumbled across the gateway. Flanked with really quite revolting twice-life-size carvings of goblin warriors, it framed two massive bronze gates, weathered to a soothing green. Just for kicks Benny gave the left-hand gate a gentle shove, and it swung open until it hit something and clanged dully. Oh well, Benny thought, and walked in.

  He hadn’t got a torch, of course; not even one of those sticks with pitch-soaked hemp tied round the top, that light up better than halogen and last for practically ever—But it didn’t matter, because someone had thoughtfully cut long, narrow shafts diagonally through the side of the mountain just to illuminate this corridor, and the last dregs of sunlight bathed the tunnel in a rosy-red blaze. About two hundred yards down the tunnel was a left-hand turn, and after that there was no more red light; instead, he found he could see perfectly well by the soft golden glow of fist-sized chunks of rock, set in alcoves in the walls about twelve feet up. He remembered that the goblins and the dwarves mined shining rocks, and was impressed; at last, he’d found something that people did in this awful place that was actually useful.

  He walked on about half a mile down the same dead straight tunnel. The air was slightly damp and musty, but apart from that it was fine, and the only sound was the faint echo of his feet on the polished stone slabs. This is way, way too easy, he thought, and where are all the goblins?

  Where indeed? He reached a crossroads and had to stop for a moment, blinded by the glare coming from the side galleries. There he saw wagons piled high with shining rock, with pickaxes, crowbars, hammers and shovels stacked neatly next to them; as if the day shift had clocked off and the night shift hadn’t yet taken their place. From what little he knew of goblins, that didn’t seem likely. A few small bones on the ground suggested that someone had waited here for a short while, enjoying a well-earned snack. There was no dust to speak of, on the floor or the wagon rails. Weird, Benny thought, but I’m not complaining.

  It occurred to him that he hadn’t the faintest idea where his phone was likely to be. For some reason he hadn’t expected it would be an issue; getting there, yes; not being eaten, most definitely. But locating something small in a huge network of tunnels—He realised, with shame, that he’d started to think like a hero–because heroes don’t spend their time and earn their everlasting glory looking for things. They expect all that sort of stuff to have been taken care of before they arrive.

  Then he thought; yes, but heroism is predictable. It obeys certain laws, like any sequence of events involving objects in motion. One such law is that the task is tailored to the hero. It has to be, so that only so-and-so, by virtue of some unique attribute or ability, can perform it. Now, here’s me, down this tunnel; I think it’s safe to assume that hero rules are in effect. I’ve been brought here to perform a task, which only I can achieve. Because—

  He smiled. Put like that, it was simple. The task wasn’t abseiling or dragon-slaying or orc-slaughtering, which any damn fool in these parts could do standing on his head. The task is looking for something, in a sensible, methodical fashion; something that no glorious muscle-head hero would have the patience for. But something at which Benny Gulbenkian, inveterate loser of things and proprietor of one of the five untidiest bedrooms in Europe, had a lifetime of hard-won experience. Put a knight or a warrior down here and tell him to look for something, small, grey plastic, about yay long and wide; ten minutes later, he’d be bashing the walls with his balled fists out of sheer frustration. Whereas Benny Gulbenkian would be going through the procedures he’d spent a substantial part of his life perfecting–no, not under the bed
, maybe it’s in the wardrobe; no, not in there, maybe it’s in my coat pocket, and so on, for hours if needs be, until he’d found it.

  The thought hit him like a golden arrow. Maybe I am a hero, after all. Maybe that’s why I’m here. Maybe the YouSpace device is programmed to take you to the one and only reality in the Multiverse where you really can be what you yearn to be, deep in your unconscious soul. In my case; a magic realm where you can be Theseus and Siegfried and Frodo and all that, just by virtue of having spent your life making your immediate environment into a pig-heap.

  Wow.

  Filled with hope and something not entirely unlike joy, he quickened his pace and bustled on down the tunnel. How far he went he had no idea, but he stopped three times to explore side tunnels that proved to be dead ends, terminating in chipped and rough-hewn rock faces. He felt no trace of weariness, because heroes don’t; and when he scuffed his knuckles on a sharp flint and drew blood, he never felt a thing. Instead, he hurried on, his keen eye scanning every inch of the way for possible nooks and crevices where a phone might lurk, until suddenly he came to a closed door, dead ahead of him.

  Closed doors, he told himself, yeah right, we know exactly what to do about closed doors. We open them, no shit. He gave the door a sharp biff with the heel of his hand, and it swung open noiselessly on well-oiled hinges. Take that, door, and let it be a lesson to you. He grinned and walked through.

  He found himself in the corner of a huge room, white, with a high ceiling and brilliantly lit, so that his eyes, accustomed to the discreet glow of the yellow stones, blanked out and began to hurt. He closed them for a moment, and got a private firework display that took several seconds to die down. When he opened them again, he found he was looking down at someone.

  “Can I help you?” she said.

  The ears were pure Elf, but the smile couldn’t have been more different; also, Elves tended to be tall and thin, not short and enticingly curved, though, all things considered, the green smock thing wasn’t her best friend ever. Over the top of her head he could see hundreds, maybe even thousands, more like her; they were sitting at long workbenches, busy at a variety of intricate-looking tasks. Jolly music of the sort that Benny associated with shops in winter played over some sort of unseen PA system. It was almost like being home.

  “Um, yes,” he said. “You haven’t seen a phone, have you?”

  The elf-girl grinned at him. “Often,” she said.

  “Um, this particular phone. It’s a LoganBerry XPXX3000—”

  “Ooh, nice.”

  “Dark grey casing, with this and that and the other.”

  “Cool.”

  “It’s mine,” Benny said. “I dropped it.”

  She gave him such a sad smile. “Sorry,” she said, “haven’t seen one of those. Give me your number, and if it turns up, we’ll call you.”

  “That’s the point, I haven’t got a phone–Sorry,” he added, “I really didn’t mean to shout, I’ve been having a bad day.”

  She nodded. “I hate those. Email address?”

  “Just a minute.” He looked deep into her silver-grey eyes. “You know about technology and stuff.”

  She laughed; silver bells and tinkling waterfalls. “Of course we do, silly. It’s our business.”

  His heart stopped still. “Really?”

  She half turned and pointed at the benches. “Precision electronic engineering,” she said. “It’s what we do.”

  A little light came on in his head. Elves, but small and friendly. The music. The green smocks. Consumer electronics. “I know who you are,” he said. “You’re Santa’s little—”

  “Please,” she said, and the pure silver of her eyes clouded just a little, but then she forgave him. “That’s a common misconception. We are, in fact, independent contractors, and for many years we did work almost exclusively for a client commonly associated with lists and reindeer.”

  “But not any more?”

  She shook her head. “Dreadfully sorry about your phone,” she said. “If it turns up, I’ll have them put it somewhere safe. Goodbye.”

  Suddenly he wasn’t quite so welcome. Never mind. “Fine,” he said, “and thank you, that’d be really kind. Meanwhile—”

  Her eyes were getting colder by the second. “Yes?”

  “I was just wondering,” he said. “You know, kids nowadays, you must’ve made zillions of phones and laptops and tablets and things, you know, for the SC person.”

  “We might have done.”

  “Great. Um, you wouldn’t happen to have one left over I could buy off you, by any chance? Expense no object. I have gold.”

  She shook her head. “Terribly sorry,” she said, in a voice that suggested she wasn’t sorry at all. “But under the terms of our agreement with our new exclusive client, we aren’t allowed to sell anything to anybody else. Have a nice day, now. That’s the door, over there.”

  “New client?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “You’re the press, aren’t you? A journalist.”

  “Me? Good God, no. Promise. Cross my heart. Look, this client. He’s got technology?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Phones?”

  “Undoubtedly.” She hesitated, and a hint of her earlier tone crept back into her voice. “But that’s not what we’re making now.”

  “You don’t suppose your client would sell me a phone?”

  She laughed, but this time it wasn’t silver bells. “I don’t think so, no. Not unless you’re a major government.”

  “Allow me to introduce myself,” Benny said. “I’m Prince Florizel. Around here, they don’t come much majorer than me.”

  “Um.” Her eyes narrowed. “That might be different. I’d have to ask the wizard, of course. But—”

  “The wizard. That’s who you work for.”

  “Of course, who else? But I happen to know he’s looking to expand his activities in this sector, so I can ask him, if you’re interested. Of course, there’s minimum-order requirements, end user certificates, that sort of thing. Still, there’s ways round everything.”

  “Hold on,” Benny said. “End user certificates. Isn’t that just for—?”

  “Well, yes. We’re making guidance systems for long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles.” She smiled confidingly. “It’s a bit of a step up from Xboxes and PlayStations, but that’s the direction the industry’s going in, so we reckoned we’d better keep up or get left behind. And when the wizard offered us such a good deal, which was so much better than what Mister Shave-Those-Margins-Ho-Ho-Ho used to pay us, we thought, heck, why not? After all, microcircuitry’s microcircuitry, and who gives a damn what it’s eventually used for?”

  Benny was suddenly rather short of breath. “Just to clarify,” he said. “You used to make toys for kiddies and now the wizard’s got you making missile parts.”

  “Yes. So?”

  “Well.” He took a deep breath. “It’s not very Christmassy, is it?”

  She looked at him, and he knew that, yes, she was an elf all right. “So?”

  He smiled. It came out all wrong. “Very sorry to have bothered you,” he said. “I think I’d better go now.”

  She shook her head. “Security,” she called out. “Get him.”

  Security were Elves, too, but with a distinct goblinish look. They stood maybe five feet in their iron-shod boots, but height isn’t everything. They advanced. Benny took a long step backwards, and stopped. The wall was in the way. Oh, he thought. Then, feeling incredibly self-conscious, he drew his sword.

  Later, he rationalised that they weren’t to know he was the world’s foremost fencing klutz, and maybe the sword Tyrving was as famous as the guard captain had told him it was. In any event, Security stopped dead in their tracks and stared longingly at him, like a dog on a lead watching a cat. He edged along the wall until he could feel the door handle in the small of his back. “Sorry,” he said, then he turned the handle with his left hand, darted through the door and slammed it hard behind him.


  Preoccupied as he was for the next three minutes with running down tunnels and being terrified, Benny nevertheless found spare capacity in his brain for a fierce burn of indignation. Missile guidance systems, for crying out loud. Really, there’s no call for that. Whoever this wizard was, evidently he was a nasty piece of work, and if only he could spare the time from doughnut-hunting he’d be inclined to send in the palace guard and have him arrested. And then he thought; really, so you’d pick a fight with someone with magical powers, who would appear to have access to the sort of technology you need to get home. Besides, missile guidance systems aren’t all that bad. At least, if they’re any good, they stop the bombs falling in the wrong place. Practically humanitarian.

  A sharp stitch in his chest made him stop for breath; he listened, and could hear no pursuing footsteps. Jurisdictional issues, presumably, goblins and Elves not being known for working and playing well together. Talking of goblins; in his headlong flight, he’d noticed several more apparently abandoned ore carts and neat stacks of tools, but not a single goblin. Which was, of course, delightful, but he couldn’t help wondering where they’d all got to. Another thing he hadn’t seen was any sign of his phone, though he hadn’t been searching quite as diligently as he’d have wished. So much for heroism.

  His feet were sore from running, but he trudged on down the tunnel, gazing keenly into the shadows as if to make up for his earlier casual attitude, until he came to a three-way junction. His heart sank. Still, if he was right about why he was there at all, this was exactly the sort of challenge he ought to expect, a trial of diligence and perseverance. He called to mind the time he’d spent a whole day searching for a phone-jack adapter, when he could’ve gone online and ordered a replacement for the price of a slice of cheesecake. I can do this, he told himself, and took the left-hand fork.

  Another long, arrow-straight tunnel, goblin-free and adequately lit. He walked down it for about three minutes, and came to a door. He tried it. Locked.