The Outsorcerer's Apprentice

by Tom Holt

  Benny gave him such a sad look. “But the way things are here, it’s not right. It doesn’t work. And people are starting to notice.”

  Gordon looked at him. “You mean that annoying girl in the village? Oh yes, I know about her. And she’s not the only one. For a start, there’s King Mordak, and several others. They’re starting to think, ask questions, spoil everything. That’s the point. So long as nobody thought or asked questions, it did work, and it will again once they stop doing it. And you know why they’re thinking and asking questions? Go on. Three guesses.”

  “Uncle?”

  “You, that’s why.” Gordon shook his head. “Hadn’t you figured that out? It’s ever since you came. There wasn’t any of that stuff before you turned up. You’re changing things, just by being here. That’s why you can’t stay. Not if you really care about these people. If you stay here you’ll ruin everything.”

  Benny’s eyes opened wide. “Me?”

  Gordon nodded. “You,” he said. “Some kind of instability in the transfer matrix, I don’t know, you figure it out, you’re the bloody scientist. All I know is, it’s happening. And what’s more, if you stay and it carries on, everything I’ve built here’s going to collapse, in ruins, thud. And don’t for one moment imagine—”

  “Base theory,” Benny said.

  Gordon blinked twice. “You what?”

  “Base theory,” Benny repeated eagerly. “As formulated by Sonderberg and Chen in the late nineties, but nobody listened to them. Essentially, it’s like how there’s different bases in maths–you know, like base ten is the default we all use, just because we happen to have ten fingers, but you can have base eight or base twenty or whatever. What Sonderberg and Chen did was postulate a theoretical model of the multiverse where the very fabric of reality is capable of being rebased, sort of like in maths only it affects everything, so that physical laws operate differently, or don’t operate at all, depending on which base you happen to be in. So if you were to jump from, say, base six to base nine, suddenly magic would be possible, or you could have some clown in a red cape able to fly through the air and leap tall buildings in a single bound. The danger would be that an unadjusted base sixer intruding into base nine territory would create what they called a dynamic drag effect, a bit like poking a stick into a spider’s web. It’d bend the fabric of space/time and eventually break it, and the first symptoms would probably be quite minor, such as elements of a base six mindset manifesting themselves in base nine consciousnesses, like a little voice in the backs of their heads, so to speak; like when I was back home, and suddenly none of the stuff I was revising for my exam made any sense any more, because I’d just been in a different base. I’m guessing there’s some kind of self-calibrating Sonderberg compensator built into the root code of the YouSpace device, and if it’s malfunctioning—”

  “Benny.”

  “Yes?”

  “Shut up,” Gordon said. “Now, like I was saying, if you honestly believe that it’d all go back to how it was before I came, subsistence farming, some kind of primeval pastoral idyll, you’re deluding yourself. Oh no. These people have got used to certain things; money, food, clocks, things. If something happens and all that gets taken away from them, they’re not going to be happy. You really want to be responsible for plunging this world into civil war? I’m not kidding, Benny, I’m serious. That’s what’ll happen if you stay.”

  Benny stared at him. “Civil war?”

  “Oh yes. Well, you’re the one who reckons they’re real people. What would real people do?”

  “Start a war,” Benny admitted.

  “Start a war, that’s exactly right. You’ll have an army of woodcutters cutting wood nobody can afford to buy, you’ll have dragons rampaging around the place and nobody to kill them, so growing crops or rearing livestock will be forget it. You’ll have the goblins and the dwarves against the Elves, which will last roughly five minutes, and then they’ll go back to slaughtering each other again, but without the mining to distract them, so they’ll wipe each other out and be extinct, no great loss, you might say, but that’s not exactly green thinking, is it?” He paused for breath, and studied his nephew’s face. “That’s a lot of tough challenges for a prince to face, if you ask me, especially one whose grip on power is decidedly tenuous. You think you’ll be able to cope, and make everything all right for the people depending on you? Or would it be better for everyone if you went home, I sort out the mess and the people get a real prince, who knows what needs to be done? It’s up to you, Benny. You’re the one holding the sword, you choose. All I can do is offer a little bit of advice.”

  Benny had forgotten about the sword. He dropped it, and it clanged loudly on the floor. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

  “That’s all right,” Gordon said, in a forgiven-not-forgotten voice. “You were upset, you weren’t thinking straight. We all of us do stupid things sometimes, the important thing is to stop once you realise you’re being a total dick. You do realise that,” Gordon added kindly. “Don’t you?”

  “Yes, Uncle.”

  “And now you’re going to go straight home and get on with your revision. Aren’t you?”

  “Yes, Uncle.”

  “Good boy. You see?” Gordon picked the doughnut up off the desk. “If only everybody would do as I tell them, what a wonderful world this could be. Right, you know the—”

  Just then the door flew open and a girl stumbled through, followed by a man. She saw Benny, and then Gordon, and then the doughnut.

  “Hey,” she said. “You’re the wizard.”

  Gordon gave her a scowl that should’ve turned her into a silhouette on the wall, but she didn’t seem to have noticed. “Get out,” Gordon said. “This is a private meeting. Go away.”

  “You’re the wizard,” she said. “And Prince Florizel, too, surprise surprise. What are you doing with that thing? No, I don’t want to know. We want a word with you.”

  Gordon looked over her head at the man. “Is she yours?”

  “No,” Buttercup snapped, “I’m mine. Turquine, get him.”

  Turquine surged past Benny, knocking him off balance, dived and scooped up Benny’s sword. He seemed relieved to be armed again, and correspondingly unhappy when the sword turned into a carrot in his hand.

  “Uncle?” Benny demanded. “Did you just do that?”

  Gordon shrugged. “I’m a wizard,” he said. “You two, piss off out of here before I call the guards.”

  Buttercup made a noise like a very angry pig, grabbed the carrot from Turquine’s hand and threw it. To be fair, it was a big carrot. Also, in accordance with the sixth law of metempsychotic transfiguration, its appearance had changed, but not its mass. It hit Gordon on the side of the head, and he went straight to sleep.

  “Oh for crying out loud,” Turquine said.

  “Be quiet,” Buttercup snapped. “And anyway, he’s not dead, he’s just–oh no you don’t.” She darted in front of Benny, who was on his knees scrabbling for something. She assumed it was the carrot, which was why she didn’t take particular care not to tread on the doughnut.

  “No!” Benny yelled, but it was too late. Buttercup’s robust, utilitarian footwear had reduced it to flattened dough and crumbs. The carrot, meanwhile (in accordance with the ninth law of metempsychotic transfiguration, concerning interruption of the power source to a catamimetic field), had turned back into a sword. Buttercup grabbed it and positioned the tip of the blade about three-quarters of an inch from the end of Benny’s nose.

  “So,” she said. “You’re his nephew, are you?”

  “Yes,” Benny said. “What’s that got to do with—?”

  Buttercup grinned. “Splendid,” she said. “You’re with us.”

  “You what?”

  “I think she means you’re now a hostage,” Turquine explained. He was trying very hard not to look at the compressed wreck of the doughnut.

  Benny shook his head. “That’s my uncle lying there,” he said. “I can’t just leave hi
m. He might be concussed or something.”

  “I wouldn’t annoy her, if I were you,” Turquine said. “She can be a bit—”

  “Turquine!”

  “Just do as she says,” Turquine said. “It works for me, or at least, it has so far. Come on, let’s get out of here before he wakes up.”

  Benny looked at his uncle, who was just starting to groan and twitch, then at the sword, then at the expression on Buttercup’s face. She probably wouldn’t hurt him on purpose, he decided, in cold blood; but see above, under sharp objects, strong emotions, accidents and collateral damage. “If you’ve hurt my uncle,” he said, “I’ll smash your face in. Got that?”

  Buttercup gave him a terrible scowl, then suddenly grinned. “You’re not really a prince, are you? Admit it.”

  Benny shrugged. “Fine, I’m not a prince. Now, please stop waving that stupid thing about, and I’ll come with you. All right?”

  “They’re so sweet when they suddenly grow backbones,” Turquine said wearily. “Now come on. Both of you.”

  The chasm of Bhazad-glum, spanned until recently by a narrow stone bridge, is said to be bottomless, falling away into an abyss so profound that it transcends both space and time. Note the weasel words is said, which nine times out of ten translates as can’t be bothered to find out. Just for once, though, what is said is entirely accurate. In the abyss of Bhazad-glum there are no dimensions; no x, y, z or t axes, nothing established, nothing at all to triangulate by. You can’t climb down into it because there’s no down to climb into. It inevitably follows, therefore, that only a complete idiot would try.

  The tall, thin young man ate a hamburger and three Jaffa Cakes. Then he uncoiled his rope, secured one end to a crampon driven into the rock, and tugged on it with all his weight to make sure it was in good and solid. Holding on to the rope, he bent from the waist and peered down into the chasm. A surge of vertigo made him giddy; he tugged on the rope to straighten himself up. Then he looped the rope over his shoulder, ate a corned-beef sandwich, clamped another between his teeth, the way pirates do with cutlasses, and began to climb down into the abyss.

  He went down so far that the pale light from the torches in the wall sconces above failed; he climbed for so long that he left time behind, like someone crossing a frontier. At some point he reached the stage where there was no rock face to brace his feet against; so, pausing only to eat the second sandwich and half a packet of Rolos, he continued the descent the hard way, bracing his feet on the rope as he shifted handholds. He went further than any living thing had ever knowingly gone, passed the limits of memory and identity, leaving his past and even his name behind. The rope ran out, but he carried on climbing, his hands and feet gripping on nothing at all. Eventually, he left behind his reason for being there. Only one thing remained with him, kept him going, kept him strong. He was, he remembered, hungry; and if he carried on, maybe he’d find something to eat.

  There came a moment, an isolated fragment of time utterly devoid of context, a sample of time on a sterile microscope slide, when he stopped and listened; and a voice said to him, “Art?”

  It was dark. There was nothing. Who or what was Art, and could you eat it?

  “Art? That you?”

  A dim flare of memory lit a corner of his mind and he nodded. No light, of course, for anyone to see him do it by.

  “Good lad, Art. I knew you’d come for me. Over here, son. Nearly there.”

  An arm grabbed him, looped round his neck, clung on, nearly strangling him. He felt weight on his windpipe, which shifted to his shoulders. “That’s it, Art, I’m fine. You done well, boy. Off we go.”

  He started to climb. A hand brushed his neck, stuck a raspberry Danish in his mouth. He chewed it gratefully. “There you go, Art, got to keep your strength up, you’re a growing lad. Nearly there, Art, nearly there.”

  There predicates here, and here was a baseless assumption, but he kept on going, feet together, hand over hand, until he felt rope against his palms and remembered, quite suddenly, who Art was. He made a gentle grunting noise and his uncle fed him a custard slice.

  Light, when it came, was like a second birth. There was rock to brace his feet against, and he powered up the rope, fuelled by joy, hope and a small piece of cherry Bakewell. Before he knew it, he was hauling himself over the edge of the precipice. Job done.

  “Cheers, Art,” the old man said, straightening his cap and brushing nothingness off the knees of his trousers. “Right, we better get on. We’ll just stop a minute and catch our breath.” The young man was lighting a primus stove and pouring soup from a can into a saucepan “And then we’d better go and find King Mordak. We ain’t out of the woods yet, Art, not by a long shot.”

  Mordak was pleased, though mildly stunned, to see them. “I thought you were—”

  “Nice of you to be worried, sir, but here we are, safe and sound.” The old man beamed at him. “Anyway, that’s enough about Art and me. You want to be careful, King Mordak, sir. That wizard, he won’t give up easily. He’ll be coming for you, you can bet anything you like.”

  Mordak frowned. There was a sort of peace here in the woods (peace apart from the swishing of axes, the creak of rending wood, the occasional howl as a goblin mistook his shins for a sapling) that he’d never experienced down below in the mines; somehow, up here in the soft, dappled light, the wizard seemed far away, almost irrelevant. But he knew the old man was right. “What should we do?” he asked.

  “Strike, sir, now, while you can.” The old man was looking straight at him. “Attack him before he attacks you. It’s the last thing he’ll be expecting.”

  If so, then Mordak would be in a good position to empathise, since he was just about to say the last thing he’d ever have expected to say, namely now let’s not be hasty, when advised by a human to make war. “But he’s got soldiers with magic weapons. We can’t fight them. That’s why I hired you.”

  The old man smiled. “Oh, I wouldn’t be too worried about that, sir, not down in the tunnels, what with your people being so good in the dark and all. In fact, sir, I took the liberty of sending young Art with a message to King Drain, sir, asking if he wouldn’t mind getting his army together and meeting us here in ten minutes. Hope you don’t mind, sir, but I thought it’d save time.”

  Mordak opened his mouth, and his jaw moved up and down quite vigorously for several seconds, but no sound came out. Then he said, “You did what?”

  “Well, sir, begging your pardon, but I fancy what’s needed here is what you might call a united front, if you get my meaning. Goblins and dwarves together, it sort of says it all, really. When the wizard sees that, he’ll know he’s beaten.”

  Mordak shook his head, and his flapping jowls made a sort of slopping noise. “What in hell makes you think Drain’ll—Oh. Oh my God.”

  A column of armed dwarves was threading its way through the trees towards them. All around the clearing, the goblins stopped what they were doing and stared. “God almighty,” Mordak whispered. “What did you say in that letter?”

  “Only what you’d have put if you’d been writing it, sir, I’m sure. There’s King Drain at the front, look. Might be a good idea if you was to go and say hello.”

  And so it was that the king of the goblins and the king of the dwarves met in the greenwood, on the last day of spring, in peace. They looked at each other in silence for a long time. Then Drain said, “You lot look pretty bloody silly doing basket-weaving, like a lot of girls.”

  Mordak smiled at him. “Yes, but when we stop weaving baskets, we’ll stop looking silly. I’m afraid it’ll be that much harder for you. But there you go. You want to come and have a crack at the wizard?”

  Drain shrugged. “Might as well, now we’re here.”

  “That’s the ticket,” Mordak said. “You’re not afraid of the magic weapons, then.”

  “What magic weapons? Nobody said anything about magic weapons.”

  “Ah. So you are afraid, then.”

  Drain scowled
horribly. “Like hell we are. Dwarves aren’t afraid of anything.”

  “Splendid,” Mordak said. “Wish we were that brave. There’s an old goblin saying; there is nothing to fear but fear itself and scary things. You lot can go first, in that case.” He grinned, showing all his many and various teeth. “Well, go on, then. Age before beauty.”

  If looks could kill, the expression on King Drain’s face would’ve wiped out all life on Earth. Clearly he was summoning all his powers for a thunderbolt of repartee so coruscating, it’d split the ground under Mordak’s feet clear down to the magma core. Mordak braced himself and waited for it to come.

  “You,” Drain said, at last. “You think you’re so damn clever.”

  Mordak released the breath he’d been not so much holding as interning without due process. “Thank you,” he said. “You’re very kind. Well? Shall we?”

  “You know what,” Turquine said suddenly. “I think I know where we are.”

  Buttercup put her back to the tunnel wall and slid down it until she was sitting on the floor. “You said that an hour ago,” she said.

  “Yes. But—”

  “And fifteen minutes before that. And half an hour before that.”

  “Yes,” Turquine said. “But I was wrong then and I’m right now. I know this place. I recognise the smell. It’s the back end of the dragonmeat plant.”

  Buttercup had taken off her left shoe and was gazing sadly at her heel. “Don’t be silly,” she said. “That’s miles away, on the other side of the—”