by Tom Holt
“Film extras.” He scowled. He knew about films now, thanks to the glowing blue light in his head. It struck him as a very strange idea. “No offence, but I came here for a better life. That’s not really my idea of—”
“Be like that,” said the wizard. “What else are you going to do, with no skills or qualifications? Be different if you were a plumber or an electrician. As it is, your only other options are security, cleaning toilets or working in a call centre. Not that your lot seem to mind that sort of thing,” the wizard added. “They see it as interesting work, free meals and a congenial atmosphere.”
“Why do you think I left?”
“Ah.” The wizard shrugged. “Well, that’s me about done, unless you’d care to register for the premium service. Take care, be good and enjoy yourself. Actually, it may seem pretty ghastly to begin with, but there are worse realities. In an infinite multiverse. Presumably. Sayonara,” the wizard added, and vanished in a haze of airborne cherry blossom.
Be it never so dark, damp, deep, musty and littered with yellowing bones, there’s no place like home. Mordak closed the door of his private chamber, tossed his faux-Elfskin suitcase into a corner, collapsed on the bed and went to sleep.
He was woken early the next morning by the distinctive grunting, shuffling noise of a lot of goblins waiting relatively patiently. He opened his eyes and saw that his bed was surrounded by a dense cordon of his senior courtiers, all of them looking at him. He remembered just how long he’d been away. He sighed, and propped himself up on one elbow.
“Morning, Chief,” said a senior councillor brightly. “Feeling rested?”
“A bit.”
“Just as well. We’ve got a shitload of stuff to get through, and you will insist on seeing every damn thing personally.”
“What time is it?”
The councillor shrugged. “We thought you’d like to make an early start. There’s ever so much to do.”
Mordak nodded sleepily. “Fair enough,” he said, sitting up and yawning. “All right, what’s first?”
Slight pause. “Well,” said another councillor, “you know when you went away, the last thing you told us was, don’t bankrupt the treasury and don’t start any wars?”
“Mphm.”
“One out of two’s not bad.”
A tiny nerve at the side of Mordak’s head started to throb. “Bankrupt?”
“War,” said a third councillor. “With the dwarves.”
“For crying out loud, I’ve only been away a few weeks.”
“Oh, it’s all right,” said a fourth councillor. “We won.”
“Ah.”
“Sort of.”
The second councillor nodded vigorously. “We really showed ’em, didn’t we, boys? Down in Mineshaft Seventeen. They won’t come trespassing there any more.”
Mordak narrowed his eyes. “Won’t they?”
“Oh no. See, it’s theirs now, and properly speaking you can’t trespass on your own—”
“You lost Mineshaft Seventeen.”
The first councillor shrugged. “But we made ’em rue the day, didn’t we, lads? Gave the bastards a bloody nose, all right. Besides,” he added cheerfully, “we can always take it back again. Give the men something to look forward to.”
Mordak allowed himself a moment to think. Mineshaft Seventeen; he knew it well. Horribly unstable, crawling with hidden pockets of deadly explosive gas, prone to flooding and very nearly worked out. He’d been thinking of closing it down for some time. His mind darted forward to the upcoming peace talks, and it occurred to him that if he ceded the enemy title to Seventeen and in return got exclusive rights to the unexplored bit just south of the Orcsnap Pass, which he happened to know for a fact held a particularly rich seam of high grade copper ore, that wouldn’t be such a bad deal after all. And the thought of the look on King Drain’s face when his surveyors reported… The trouble was, these fools expected him to take the useless thing back by force. “Leave it with me,” he said. “What else?”
A slight awkwardness, as though he’d said something wrong. “You don’t mind?”
“Probably just as well if you don’t make a habit of it, but—”
“We thought you’d be livid.”
Mordak’s nose twitched. “But you did it anyway.”
“Well.” The councillors shuffled their feet. “We thought we’d win, see.”
“Ah, I get you,” Mordak said. “You reckoned I wouldn’t mind you making an unprovoked attack on an enemy we’re in the middle of complicated peace negotiations with over a fairly worthless hole in the ground while my back was turned without asking me first, provided you won.”
“Right,” said the first councillor brightly. “Well, you wouldn’t, would you?”
It was a dreadful thing to have to admit, but there were times when he felt happier in the company of humans, or dwarves, or even Elves, than among his own kind. “Moving on,” he said, “how did you get on with rolling out the new employment regulations? All went smoothly, I imagine.”
“Sort of.”
That tone of voice. “There were problems.”
The second councillor whetted his tusks against his jaw for a moment. “The thing is,” he said, “all that stuff’s not very popular with the lads in the pits, you know? They don’t hold with it. Goblin jobs for goblin workers is what they want. Humans and dwarves working in our mines, it just isn’t right. They reckon,” he added quickly.
“Tough,” Mordak said. “It’s fine by me. I’m the king.”
“Well, there’s been—”
“What?”
“Teething troubles.”
“Meaning?”
“Troubles,” said the councillor awkwardly, “with teeth. Like, the lads took it on the chin, they accepted they’ve got to have dwarves down the mine now, it’s the law. But they’ve been sort of working to rule.”
Mordak’s headache got a little worse. “Have they now.”
“Like,” the councillor went on quickly, “it says in the law they’ve got to let them go down the mine, but there’s nothing in the actual wording about not eating them once they’re down there. But,” he added quickly, “it’s all sorted itself out now, because the dwarves and the humans don’t want to go down the mines any more, so that’s all right, isn’t it? Problem solved.”
Indeed. Six months of brittle, tentative negotiation with King Drain and three human princes to get the skilled workforce he so desperately needed to increase production in Shafts Nine and Thirty-seven, to extract the ore he needed to pay for the huge consignment of top-grade dwarf-made armour he’d ordered from King Dror and now had no hope in hell of being able to pay for, and a bunch of idiot miners had had his supreme diplomatic achievement for lunch. He explained this, quietly and patiently, but the councillors just looked pleased.
“That’s all right, then,” they said, “we were just coming to that. Dror’s cancelled the order, soon as you were out of the country. He’s selling all that gear to the humans instead.”
Mordak was silent for a moment. Then he smiled weakly. “It just gets better and better, doesn’t it?”
The councillors nodded happily. “We’re glad you see it that way,” said one of them. “We were afraid you might be cross.”
“Mphm,” Mordak said. “Get out.”
His predecessor (he reflected a few minutes later, as he pulled on his trousers) would’ve had them all beheaded, and there’d have been a new dinner service in the royal china pantry and forty-six vacancies on the royal council; and what? Forty-six other idiots would’ve taken their place, and everything would have gone on the same, except that he’d have had another forty-six families plotting revenge against him. Yawn. When all was said and done, what else could he have expected? You can’t stop goblins fighting dwarves, it’s against nature; and eating Permitted Food Species while on mine premises wasn’t even a breach of the health and safety regulations, provided they ate them raw and didn’t pose a fire risk. On the other claw, if he made a fuss about
it, that would give the impression that his orders had been disobeyed, and then he’d have to execute his entire council in order to save face (or at least, to keep his face from becoming a receptacle for coffee) and he didn’t want to do that, it led to bad feeling and slowed everything down. No, the only sensible thing was to let them believe it didn’t really matter, and work even harder to save what he could from the wreck. It was a bloody nuisance about the armour, though. And the thought of it falling into the pudgy pink paws of humans—
He stopped, one leg trousered, the other bare. Dror was selling the armour to the humans instead. Note the word selling. He knew (none better) the ridiculous prices Dror charged. The humans were all dirt poor, always had been, because of the idiotic way they ran their economy. Where the hell had they suddenly got that sort of money from?
One damn thing after another. If the humans had money, and were using it to buy armour, you didn’t have to be a genius to figure out that bad times were on the way. He finished putting his trousers on, tightened his belt and yelled. After a long wait, a face appeared in the doorway. It had pointed ears.
“Well?” it said.
As always, Mordak had to fight back his instincts. A goblin king having an Elf for a secretary wasn’t natural, he knew that. But Tiniturel was the only personal assistant he’d ever had who actually did things, quite often the things she’d been told to do. It was a shame about her unfortunate manner, but never mind. “I want you to find something out for me.”
“Of course you do. What?”
“The humans,” Mordak said, adjusting his trollskin cape around his shoulders. “Suddenly they’ve got money to spend. Why is this?”
Tiniturel shrugged. “Found it in the pocket of their other trousers, probably. How do you know about this?”
He told her about Dror and the armour. She clicked her tongue and muttered something about boys and their toys which he fortunately didn’t quite catch. “Granted,” she said, “that’s unusual. Their balance of payments is generally a mess. All right, I’ll look into it. You’re not going out in public wearing that, are you?”
“What’s wrong—” He caught himself just in time. “Yes,” he said.
“Mphm.” There was a look of something like affection on her face, such as an owner might display when her dog’s just learned to roll over and die for Master. Good goblin! “Right, I’ll get started, then. It may take a while.”
“No doubt.”
“You do realise that while I’m swanning about the place investigating humans, there’ll be nobody here with two brain cells to file the daily reports, read the incoming mail and give you a words-of-one-syllable summary, schedule your meetings, arrange your diary, tell you where you’re supposed to be, when, why and what you’re meant to be doing there, write your letters for you, interpret in sixteen languages, tidy your desk, keep your loyal ministers from bursting in here and interrupting you every five minutes, advise you on domestic and foreign policy, explain difficult words for you and make your coffee?”
“Yes.”
“Fine.” She nodded. “Just don’t blame me when this whole place grinds to a juddering halt.” She glanced at the water-clock dripping quietly away in the corner. “I estimate that’ll be about three o’clock this afternoon. Think of me while you’re struggling to cope.”
“I will. Goodbye.”
“Ciao for now. Try not to bog everything up.”
Which, he reflected as her heels tapped away down the corridor, coming from an Elf, was practically flirting.
The little man almost looked right. He wore a green jerkin with a red hood and yellow stockings, black square-toed boots and a pair of round, rimless spectacles perched on the bridge of his nose. The only giveaways were the furtive way he looked round before sitting down in front of his campfire, and the fact that all his clothes were clearly brand new. The furtive look was all right, as it happened, because there was no one there to see it; and as for the clothes, the newness would wear off quickly enough, and then he’d be perfect.
Beside the campfire was a large wooden crate, festooned with delivery notes, customs declarations and other bits of paper that would have been utterly alien to a passing local. Having made another furtive check, the little man pulled a small but ergonomically designed prybar out of his sleeve and set to work demolishing the crate. The chrome molybdenum alloy steel the prybar was made of would’ve been worth five times its weight in gold to any smith in the kingdom, since from it he could’ve forged a finer, stronger sword than any to be found in the armouries of the dwarf-kings. The little man was vaguely aware of that fact, but when he’d finished opening the crate and had no further use for it, he slung the bar away into the nearby bushes. Money, after all, was the least of his concerns.
From the ruins of the crate (which the little man quickly heaped on to the fire) emerged a spinning-wheel. Like the little man’s clothes, it was authentic in everything except its condition; there were no chips or dings in the varnish, and the sides of the treadle board were square and unworn. The little man sat down on a straw-bale and looked at it for a while, as if trying to decide something. Then from his other sleeve he took a small booklet, which he read twice from cover to cover before throwing it into the fire. He took a doughnut from his pocket, brushed off some fluff and ate it. His hand shook slightly as he licked the last grains of sugar off his fingertips. Then he sat down at the wheel, put his foot on the treadle and began to pump.
For the next hour or so he was pretty busy, though he didn’t actually do any spinning. It was more as though he was familiarising himself thoroughly and conscientiously with the machine in front of him. Eventually he charged the bobbin with wool, pedalled the wheel up to full speed and proceeded to spin a useful quantity of first-quality yarn, which he inspected carefully, tugging at it with both hands to test for closeness and uniformity of weave, before chucking it on to the fire. Then he stood up, teased four heaped handfuls of straw out of the bale he’d been sitting on, and loaded it on to the bobbin. Just then, someone in the shadows outside the circle of firelight cleared his throat, and a voice said, “Hello?”
The little man stood up, took off his spectacles and peered in the direction of the voice. “Who’s there?”
The bushes parted and a big man in a fur-trimmed cloak and hood stepped nervously into the firelight. “Hello,” he repeated. “Are you him?”
The little man found that amusing. “I’d imagine so, if you’re looking for me.”
“Sorry,” said the big man. “I don’t think I quite caught your name.”
“Nice try.”
The big man grinned sheepishly. “So you are him, then.” He came closer and sat down, without being asked, on the straw-bale. “Devil of a job finding this place,” he said. “Can’t say I’ve ever been here before.”
The little man’s eyes twinkled in the firelight. “Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”
“No, not really.”
The little man shrugged. “If I owned a piece of land, I think I’d probably find the time to go there. Still—”
“I own a lot of land. I’m a prince.”
“Quite. And a busy one, I’m sure. What can I do for you?”
The prince frowned. “Well,” he said, “the thing of it is, I’d quite like some gold.”
“Good heavens. Would you really?”
Not a lot of call for irony in these parts, evidently. “Yes,” said the prince. “And a bloke I was talking to the other day said you were the man to go to. Gold-wise, I mean.”
“He was entirely right,” said the little man gravely. “If you’re after gold, you’ve come to the right place.”
“Ah.” The prince looked relieved. “That’s what this bloke told me. First-rate chap, he said. One of the biggest names in the business.” He paused. “Talking of which—”
“Go fish.” The little man smiled pleasantly. “So, how much?”
“Excuse me?”
“How much do you want?”
&nb
sp; The prince looked a bit startled by the question. He hesitated for a moment, then pointed at the bale he was sitting on. “That much?”
“No problem,” the little man said. “I expect you’d like to see a sample first.”
“Well, if it’s no trouble.”
“No trouble at all.” The little man gently pushed the prince off the bale, sat on it and began to work the treadle. A minute or so later, he unwound a length of shiny yellow thread off the spool, cut it with a knife and handed it to the prince. “There you go,” he said. “Have your alchemists test it, if you like. Twenty-four carat, point nine-nine-nine-nine pure or better.”
The prince stared at the thread for a moment, then wrapped it into a tight bundle and tried to graze it with his fingernail. “That’s—”
“Yup,” said the little man, “the good stuff, guaranteed. The real thing, the genuine article.”
“My God.” The prince looked down at him with awe and no small degree of fear. “You really can spin straw into—”
“Yes.”
“And you’ll do me—” He nodded at the bale.
“Sure. For starters. Plenty more where that came from. Good harvest down your way this year?”
“Can’t complain.”
“Plenty of straw, then.”
“Loads of it.” A penny dropped inside the prince’s head, and his mouth formed a perfect, silent O.
“Splendid,” said the little man. “And I imagine you don’t want everybody knowing about our little arrangement.”
“Well,” the prince said, “better not, if that’s all right.”
“Of course.” The little man nodded. “Discretion is my middle name. Figuratively speaking,” he added, with a twinkle. “Oh, and if you wouldn’t mind just signing this bit of paper.”
A hunted look came into the prince’s eyes. “Ah,” he said. “What does it say?”
“Oh, you know,” said the little man. “Basic heads of agreement, standard terms and conditions, that sort of guff. You get the gold, I get the kid. All perfectly simple and straightforward.”
The prince stared at the sheet of paper in the little man’s hand. “I haven’t actually got a child at the moment,” he said. “Does that—?”