by Tom Holt
Mordak frowned. Half a dozen of his personal guard were playing darts, each taking it in turn to be the dartboard. They were smiling and laughing, but there was no war. No war, and they were happy…
The old joke: I’d just taught my donkey to survive without food and it went and died on me. Well, Mordak thought. Sod it. I shall teach the Children of Groth to survive without protein, and let’s see how far we get.
He heard a twig snap behind him. “Look at them,” he said, without turning his head. “They seem to have got the hang of it.”
“Yes, sir. All credit to you, sir, if I may say so. Quite a transformation, don’t you think?”
Mordak grunted. “The Elves are always banging on about Change,” he said. “Like it’s a good thing. Not that they ever do anything about it, of course, but that’s Elves for you. If they didn’t have anything to whine about, they’d pine away and die.” He shifted round a little and gave the old man a long, hard stare. “Me, I’m not a great fan of change. Why mess with something when it’s been working pretty well for a thousand years? And even if it hasn’t, you’re just as likely to replace it with something worse, so why go asking for trouble?” He shook his head. “And now look at me. Mordak the bloody Innovator. Makes me wonder if someone’s been putting something in the drinking water.”
“You mean, apart from the main sewer outflowing into the rainwater tank?”
“We happen to like it that way,” Mordak said coldly. “Really, I’m starting to wonder. All this.” He waved a vague claw. “Why me, for Groth’s sake? Why did it have to be me?”
The old man shrugged. “There’s an old human saying, sir. Only Nixon could go to China.”
“Who?”
“Doesn’t matter, sir. Just a saying. I’ll let you get on now, sir. Young Art will be wanting his dinner.”
Mordak nodded, and the old man wandered away and soon vanished among the trees. Mordak sighed, opened a packet of candied fingers and started to chew. Only who could go to where? Bloody cryptic humans.
A loud shout, followed by a crash, made him spin round. His guards, one of them with a dart sticking out of his forehead exactly between his second and third eye (double top to start, presumably), came hurrying up, axes at the ready. Another crash, then a dazzling flash of light, then a distinct howl of pain.
“Dwarves,” someone growled, but Mordak told him to be quiet. Dwarves didn’t make lightning flashes; that was someone else’s trademark. Oh, Mordak thought. Oh well. “All right,” he said to the guard captain, “take six men, find out what that’s all about.”
The captain didn’t look happy at all. “Right away, Your Majesty,” he said, and then, “Now then, you, you lot and you, with me.” But suddenly there was no need for that. The old man and his nephew were walking up the track. The nephew held a hooded, muffled figure dangling by its collar in one hand, a bacon sandwich in the other. As they approached, Mordak could smell sulphur.
“All right, gentlemen,” the old man was saying, “it’s all over, nothing to see here, move along now, please, let the boy through. Excuse me, sir, but could you spare us a moment?”
Mordak dismissed the guard, and the nephew dumped his prisoner at Mordak’s feet. The hood fell back, revealing a pair of pointy ears. “He’s out cold, sir,” the old man said, “sorry about that, young Art doesn’t know his own strength sometimes. Be all right in a minute, I should think.”
Mordak frowned at the stunned Elf, then looked at the old man. “Just now,” he said. “There was a sort of bright—”
“That’s right, sir. Magic, sir. Silly sod tried to blast us out of the way with fireballs. I’m afraid we don’t take kindly to that sort of thing, do we, Art?” The young man shook his head and ate a cheese and onion slice. “So I’m afraid we were a bit sort of brusque with him, sir, so he won’t be available for questioning for an hour or two. Still, we know who sent him, so that’s all right.”
Mordak looked at him. “Do we?”
“Oh, I think we do, sir. The wizard. Who else?”
Who else indeed. The old man had a solemn look on his face, incongruous as an undertaker in a nightclub. “Do you reckon it’s war, then?” Mordak asked.
“I should think so, sir, yes. I don’t think he’s too happy about you giving the dwarves a monopoly on them yellow stones. Take you out of the picture, so to speak, and probably your people will go back down the mines. Sort of makes sense, sir, from where he’s standing.”
Mordak suddenly felt very cold. He’d faced death every day of his life, that’s what being a goblin is, and he’d lived accordingly; only for the moment, but with a view to living for ever in the hearts and minds of brood as yet unspawned. Now, for some reason, it was different. The thought of dying, of not being here tomorrow to see what happened next, terrified him. Quite deliberately, he transmuted the fear into cold rage. Goblin alchemy.
“Do me a favour?” he said.
“Course, sir. What would you like me to do?”
“Take a message to King Drain,” Mordak said. “After all, why the hell should we have all the fun? Tell him what just happened, and that if I go he’ll be next. Make him understand that, you hear me? Tell him, if we’re united, goblins and dwarves together, we can beat the wizard.”
The old man raised an eyebrow. “You want me to lie to him, sir? Not that I got any problem with that, just checking I got your meaning right.”
“It’d be a lie, would it?”
“Oh yes, sir. But that’s all right. I’m a very good liar, though I say so myself as shouldn’t. Not like young Art, sir. Couldn’t tell a lie to save his life, bless him, just like his poor mother.”
Mordak looked at the old man, but he couldn’t make out anything at all; just wrinkles, and a pair of very deep pale blue eyes. “Who the hell are you, anyway?” he said.
“I’m Art’s uncle,” the old man said, “and he’s my nephew. I’ll be getting along now, sir. Art’ll look after you while I’m gone.”
Mordak glanced at the stunned Elf, and nodded. “Right,” he said. “So long as he doesn’t mistake me for a cheese and onion slice, I’ll be just fine.”
“Not much chance of that, sir,” the old man said, not unkindly. “Well, cheerio for now.” He started to hobble away, then turned back. “Almost forgot, sir. When we done the Elf, this fell out of his pocket. You might find it useful.”
He handed Mordak a small, flat, rectangular thing, smooth and black with a sheet of glass on one side, a bit like a picture frame. “What’s that?” Mordak said.
“Magic stuff,” the old man told him. “It’s how the wizard talks to his henchmen. You press this here, see, and a light comes on. Oops, careful, sir, they don’t work too good if you drop them. Then you press here and here, and a little list comes up, and then you choose an option and go like that, and you can talk to people a long way away. It does other stuff, too, but I wouldn’t worry about that right now, sir, if you get my meaning.”
It was resting on Mordak’s palm, colourful and glowing like one of the yellow stones. Very slowly, keeping his hand dead level, he lowered it until the back of his hand was flat on the ground. Then, with a clawtip, he gently nudged it off his palm and quickly snatched his hand away. He was sure he could feel it tingling. “Keep that disgusting thing away from me,” he growled, in a voice that brought goblins running from all over the glade. “Get rid of it, for crying out loud. It’s—”
“Useful, sir,” the old man said reproachfully. “But not to worry. Young Art’ll look after it for you, he’s used to them, spends all his time playing with the bloody things, sir, pardon my Elvish. You can even play chess on ’em, sir. Wonderful what they think of nowadays.”
“Don’t be stupid, how can that thing play chess, it hasn’t got any arms.” Mordak looked up, terrified. “It hasn’t, has it?”
“Not in that price range, sir. Here, Art, look after this phone for the gentleman. And don’t go using up all his battery, neither.” The young man stuffed his sandwich in his mo
uth to free his hands, picked the box up carefully and put it away in an inside pocket. “Well, I’ll be off. Look after His Majesty, Art. Be seeing you.”
Maybe the word was finally starting to get around, because the wolf looked like it really, really didn’t want to have to do this. But it was making an effort to smile, in spite of the way its teeth were chattering. It was enough to break your heart.
“Listen, wolf,” Buttercup interrupted. “You don’t know it, but this is your lucky day.”
“All the better to see you with, my—what?”
With the sort of fluent efficiency, bordering on grace, that only comes with long practice, Buttercup reached out and twisted the wolf’s ear round her hand. The other hand held the edge of the hatchet blade to its scrawny throat. “It just so happens,” she said, “that I don’t need any clocks or spoons, I’m all right for tea and I’ve just had lunch, so I don’t want any cucumber sandwiches. Also, my friend’s there behind that bush, having a pee, and he thinks girls disembowelling wolves is unfeminine. So, I’m going to count to three. One. Two. You’re still here.”
“You’re holding my ear,” the wolf pointed out.
“What? Oh, right.” Buttercup looked into its eyes, and saw nothing but stupidity. “If I let you go,” she said, “you’re going to try and jump me, and then I’ll have to kill you.”
“Um.”
“I could wait for my friend and get him to hit you over the head with a rock, but your skulls are so damn thin on top, I don’t suppose he can get away with just stunning you.” She thought for a moment. “There wouldn’t be any rope in your cottage, would there?”
“Sorry.”
“Oh damn. Look, could you try not to jump me, just this once? I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.”
The wolf looked really sad. “Sorry,” it said.
“Me, too.” Buttercup braced herself for the long slice across the jugular vein, then hesitated. “Turquine,” she called out.
Sir Turquine appeared from the bushes, adjusting his breeches. He took one look at the wolf and drew his sword. “Hang on, I’m—”
“It’s all right,” Buttercup said wearily, “everything’s under control. Look, I want you to do something for me.”
“Sure.”
She looked back at the wolf. “Right,” she said. “I’m only the poor defenceless little country girl, but that over there is the fortuitously arriving knight. With me so far?”
“Wrff.”
“Splendid. Now, obviously, you’ve got to do your damnedest to eat up the little country girl, I understand that. In a way, I sort of respect you for it. But clearly, if the fortuitously arriving knight has fortuitously arrived, you’re no longer under any obligation to attack me, and you can run away and save your miserable skin. Agreed?”
The wolf narrowed its eyes in thought. “A knight.”
“Most definitely.”
“Not a woodcutter.”
Hell, she thought. She’d so hoped it wouldn’t pick up on that. “Think of him as a sort of honorary woodcutter.”
“Hey,” Turquine objected. “And besides, in actual fact I’m not a practising knight any more, I’m in retail groceries.”
The confusion in the wolf’s eyes would’ve touched a heart of stone. “He’s a grocer?”
“With a sword. Big, sharp sword. He kills dragons with it.”
“This is all wrong,” the wolf protested. “It’s not fair. Grocers aren’t allowed.”
Buttercup stopped grinding her teeth long enough to say, “Turquine, be a love and just chop down that sapling there, would you?”
“What, this one?”
“That’s fine. Now,” she went on, “you saw that, he cut wood. Therefore, he’s a woodcutter. All right, in just a second I’m going to let go of your ear, and you’re going to—Oh bugger.”
“Never mind,” Turquine said kindly, as she wiped blood out of her eye, “you did everything you could. I thought that woodcutting thing was really smart. Did you just think of that, or—?”
“Not now, Turquine,” Buttercup said, as the dead body slumped into an untidy heap on the ground. Always so messy, legs in a tangle, head impossibly sideways. “Oh, damn and blast the stupid thing. What did it have to go and do that for?”
Turquine was frowning. “It wasn’t your fault. Not the wolf’s fault, either. It’s the system.”
“Oh, of course. Society is to blame. That’s so very profound.”
“You heard what it said,” Turquine replied quietly. “It’s not right, it said. I think I have to agree. Same with the dragons. Something is so not right around here.”
Buttercup shrugged, wiped her hatchet on the grass and put it away in her basket, on top of Florizel’s nasty talking box. “No argument from me on that score. Come on, we might as well check out the cottage. Well, it’d be a shame to let it go to waste.”
They found the usual stuff inside the cottage: scatter cushions, a nice clock, a carved wood tea caddy and a rather fine bone-china tea service, the milk jug slightly chipped. Buttercup shovelled them into her basket, out of force of habit. There wasn’t quite enough room, so she had to squash them down a bit to get the cover back on. “This is really strange,” Turquine said, examining one of the chairs. “All this stuff. We never had anything as good as this back at the castle, and my dad’s a baron. How can a wolf—?”
He froze. Buttercup’s basket was playing music again. “Oh hell,” he said.
Buttercup tumbled all the wolf-plunder out onto the floor. The slate thing was glowing, and the music was definitely coming out of it. “I must’ve woken it up somehow,” Buttercup said.
“That does it.” Turquine picked up Buttercup’s hatchet. “I’m going to kill it, right now.”
“No, don’t.” He lowered his arm. “I’m going to talk to it.”
“Are you sure that’s—?”
“No,” Buttercup said, “but what the hell.” She picked it up, held it at arm’s length and said, “Hello?”
It carried on playing music. “It can’t hear you,” Turquine said.
“I think you have to squeeze it in a special place.”
“Ick.”
The glass plate, she observed, was decorated with bizarre symbols. She prodded one at random with her fingernail. “Hello? Hello.”
“Hello?”
She dropped the slate, but managed to catch it before it hit the ground. “Yes, hello. Are you the wizard?”
“Who is this?”
She looked at Turquine, then said, “If you’re the wizard, we’ve got your talking shiny slate thing.”
Pause. “Well, of course you have, otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Is Sir Turquine there, by any chance?”
Buttercup stared at the slate, then turned and held it out. “It’s for you.”
“No way.” Turquine shook his head ferociously. “For all I know, it’ll suck my soul out through my nose. And anyway, how the hell does it know my—?”
“Talk to it.”
Turquine shrugged, then took the slate from her, pinching it warily between thumb and middle forefinger. “Yes,” he said, “I’m Sir Turquine. What about it?”
“This is the wizard. Thank you for finding my magic box.”
“Ah, so it is—”
“If you’d be kind enough to bring it to the front gate of Sair Carathorn, I’ll give you fifty gold florins. Hello? Are you there?”
It was talking to Turquine’s foot, because at the words fifty gold florins he’d dropped it and frozen stiff, like a mammoth in a glacier. Buttercup swept down, grabbed it and stuffed it back in his hand, then kicked him on the shin.
“Ah, right, yes,” Turquine said. He seemed to be having trouble with his lower jaw. “Fifty florins, well, that’s fair, I guess. See you soon.”
“Splendid. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Um, what do I do now?”
“Just put the magic box in your pocket, it’ll be fine. Goodbye.”
Turqu
ine shrugged and pocketed the slate. His mouth formed the words fifty gold florins, but no sound came out.
“Turquine.”
Probably because 90 per cent of the women he’d met over the last five years had been princesses he didn’t want to marry, Turquine was no expert on female psychology, as he’d have been the first to admit. Interpreting the tone of Buttercup’s voice, however, was hardly rocket science. “Fifty gold—”
“He doesn’t mean it. It’s a trap.”
“Oh come on,” Turquine pleaded. “We’ve got his box. He wants it back. He’s got loads of money. Why the hell has it got to be a trap?”
“He’s the wizard. And we’re on our way to do him over. Or had you forgotten?”
Turquine made a faint whimpering noise. “All right,” he said. “No problem. We’ll punish him by making him pay us fifty gold florins if he wants his box back. How much more harsh do you want to be?”
“It’s a trap,” Buttercup said firmly. “Trust me. There are no fifty florins. And we aren’t going to walk up to the gate of Sair Carathorn and ring the bell. Got that?”
Turquine winced, then nodded sadly. “You’re right, of course,” he said. “Too good to be true and all that sort of thing. Pity, though. Fifty gold florins, for crying out loud. Have you any idea how much cheese we could’ve bought for that?”
“Cheese?”
“For the stall. I was thinking. Vegetables are all right as far as they go, but cheese is where the real money is. I was in a tavern in Atramar the other day, one miserable little corner of stale cheese, a penny farthing. We could make out like bandits.”
She couldn’t resist. Before she knew what she was doing, she was in his arms. “Ouch,” he said. “You’re squashing the hilt of my dagger into my solar plexus.”
“Turquine.”