The Good, the Bad and the Smug

by Tom Holt

  “That’s an idea. Gosh, yes. Clever old you for thinking of it.”

  “Oh, just common sense, really. Mind how you go.”

  The usual crashing and ripping noises as the prince negotiated the bramble thicket, then nothing but the sighing of the wind in the trees, the hoot of a distant owl, the hum of the spinning-wheel. The little man was counting under his breath. Ninety-eight, ninety-nine—

  “Just one last thing.”

  He turned and smiled. “You’re back again.”

  “I almost forgot,” the prince said. “If by some amazingly miraculous flukey chance I happen to guess what your name is, does that mean I get let off the interest on the straw?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” The prince’s face fell, then he smiled again. “Worth a try, I suppose. Never mind. Cheerio for now, then.”

  “Goodnight, Your Majesty.”

  “Goodnight, Rump–I mean, whoever you are.”

  Real silence this time. The little man took his foot off the treadle and let the wheel spin to a standstill. He laid his hand on the frame; it was hot. He sighed, and leaned forward, resting his head against the rim of the wheel. He’d been working flat out for–well, as long as he could remember, and he was exhausted.

  Worth it, though, he told himself. Gradually, step by painful step, he was getting there. And although most of the princes and kings and dukes and earls were as dumb as he’d expected them to be, some of them showed the occasion glimmer of intelligence, and there were one or two who might eventually, with the proper guidance and coaching, one day be capable of getting it. At that point, assuming he ever got there, his work here would be done and he’d be at liberty to move on, pitch his tent and his wheel in some other ghastly, god-forsaken bramble patch, and start all over again with another consignment of deadheads.

  Gosh. Put like that, it all seemed pretty bleak. On the other hand, at least he was doing something; and he’d known all along that if he was ever going to pay off his debt to society and make atonement for the things he’d done before he came here, it was going to be a very long road indeed, with many a sheer cliff to scale before he had any chance of reaching the moral foothills, let alone the high ground. He lifted his right foot with his hand, peeled off the shoe and the sock and examined the sole. A mass of blisters, from working the damn treadle. He pulled up a handful of grass to stuff the sock with.

  I deserve it, he thought. In fact, I’m getting off lightly. When I think about what I used to be—

  He shuddered, and stuffed his foot back into the sock. But I’m done with all that now, he reassured himself, I’m a reformed character, I’m the dwarf with no name–he liked the sound of that. An enigmatic stranger who blows into town, rights wrongs, succours the afflicted and then departs, as mysteriously as he’d come, to continue his mission elsewhere, alone, misunderstood—

  Um.

  Using his forefinger as a shoehorn, he eased the shoe back on to his foot, replaced it on the treadle and began to pump. The wheel whirled round, making its characteristic humming noise; not an inherently unpleasant sound, but loud enough to drown out minor background noises, such as stealthy footsteps, the snapping of one small twig, the shallow breathing of two men trying very hard to be quiet, stuff like that. It wasn’t loud enough to cover the flapping of the coarse hessian sack as it was lifted high in the air and dropped neatly over the little man’s head; he heard that one loud and clear, but by then it was far too late.

  “Gosh,” said the Elf, “you’re all dressed up. Just a moment, I’ll get my coat.”

  Archie shivered slightly. It can get a bit nippy after sunset in the back end of the Ashburton country, and the brightly coloured patterned shirt he’d borrowed from one of the cameramen was made of some thin material better suited to warmer climes. A goblin wouldn’t have minded, of course, because goblins have thick fur, except in the early spring, when they moult. At that moment, Archie was missing the fur.

  The Elf reappeared a moment later, covered from head to foot in an olive-green army surplus parka, with the fur collar up around her ears. “You’ll catch your death, you know that,” she said. “Still, it was a sweet thought.”

  “The camera guy said this is what he wears when he’s out with girls.”

  The Elf shrugged. “Probably something to do with natural selection,” she said. “It demonstrates to a potential mate that you have superior cold-resistance DNA. Come on, I’m starving.”

  He started in the direction of the canteen, but she said, “No, this way,” and he stopped. “What’s over there?” he said.

  She smiled at him. “Surprise.”

  The other thing he missed about not having fur was the lack of hackles. Confoundedly useful things; as soon as there’s danger, they puff up all round the back of your neck, providing you with a pretty reliable early-warning system and saving you the effort of having to think about things all the time. If they’d still been there, he felt sure, they’d have been doing their stuff like mad; but they weren’t, so he was forced to rely on observation, experience and common sense, all of which informed him that there was nothing to worry about. You’re heading into the dark unknown with a pretty girl, they said, don’t be such a wuss. His residual goblin instincts got as far as yes, but, and then gave up.

  “This way,” she said. She was almost out of sight among the shadows.

  “I’m not sure I like surprises.”

  “You’re going to love this one.”

  Bloody Kurt and his field research. “Slow down,” he said. “I can’t see where I’m going.”

  “Nearly there.”

  He caught his toe on something, stumbled forward, tripped again and landed hard on the ground, with only his nose to break his fall. “Come on!” came a sweet voice from the darkness. He scrambled to his feet and followed, muttering under his breath.

  “Surprise!”

  A light flared. It proved to be a lantern, hanging inside a tent. He paused and sniffed. Foo—

  “Is that—?”

  She laughed. “Come inside,” she said.

  He blundered his way inside the tent, his brain reeling from the familiar smell. There was a camping stove on the floor, with a frying pan perched on top. “It can’t be.”

  “Actually, it isn’t.” She was sitting on the floor, holding a white enamel plate. “For obvious reasons,” she added. “But one of the props guys has a brother whose girlfriend’s sister’s boyfriend has a sister who works in a lab for one of the biggest processed food companies in Australia. They can synthesise any flavour you want out of chemicals. This,” she lifted the lid of the frying pan, and Archie’s head swam, “is poulet à l’homme.”

  “P-poulet?”

  “Chicken.”

  “Chicken?”

  She nodded. “Sort of bird. Tastes like human.”

  With a soft moan he sank to his knees and waddled across the tent floor, hardly able to see for the tears in his eyes. “Oh God,” he whispered. “It’s been so long.”

  “I’m having salad.”

  “Are you? Rotten luck.” He hesitated, torn between gratitude and longing. “Have some of mine,” he mumbled. “There’s enough for two. Barely.”

  “No, thank you,” she said briskly, her mouth full of lettuce. “There’s blood pudding for afters, and a bowl of crystallised teeth.”

  He could hold out no longer. He dug his fingers into the grey goo and pawed it into his mouth. Sensations he’d almost forgotten flooded through him, like rain on parched earth.

  “Well?” she said.

  “Perfect.”

  “Not too heavy on the cayenne pepper?”

  “What’s cayenne pepper?”

  “That’s all right, then.” She ate a breadstick. “So, how was your day?”

  “What?”

  “Your day. How was it?”

  He made an effort to remember. “Oh, we sat about waiting for eight hours, then we ran up a hill making silly noises, then we waited four hours, then we ran up t
he hill again. Then it rained. That was about it.”

  A bit of gristle had got itself lodged between his teeth. It was perfect; just the right bendy, rubbery texture. “Do you want to hear about my day?”

  “Not specially.” He crunched a sliver of bone. The splinters pricked the roof of his mouth, and he purred. “This is really, really good.”

  “Glad you like it.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “You must’ve gone to a lot of trouble.”

  “Yes.”

  “Next time, though, it could do with a bit more salt.”

  “Thank you, I’ll bear that in mind.”

  “It’s all right, it doesn’t totally spoil it.”

  “I’m so pleased.”

  “And the sauce is a bit on the runny side. But otherwise it’s not bad.”

  She was looking at him. “More salt,” she said, “sauce not so runny. Hold on, I’ll write that down so I don’t forget.”

  “Good girl.”

  “Thank you.”

  The intensity of the experience was having a powerful effect on him. He felt dizzy, his eyesight was getting blurry, he didn’t seem to have much feeling in his toes or the tips of his fingers. Just goes to show, he told himself, how much I’ve missed proper old-fashioned home cooking. He felt his eyelids droop shut. His head slumped forward. A clattering noise told him that the plate had fallen from his hand on to the floor. Just a moment, he thought. And then he fell asleep.

  If you follow the old road through the high passes of the Beige Mountains, as you reach the highest point of your ascent, you arrive at a point where the high walls of the ravine suddenly fall away, and you’re greeted by a spectacular vista, looking out over the vast, flat expanse of the Wiffenmoors. Immediately, your eye cannot help but be drawn to the ancient tower that stands in the very centre of the moor.

  At first, you may have difficulty figuring out what it could possibly be. None of the rules of perspective seem to apply in that place; the mountains are too high, the plain is grotesquely wide and flat, and the tower looks like a thick, two-dimensional black line, arbitrarily drawn from the earth up into the sky. If you stop and study it, and the sheer improbability of what you’re looking at doesn’t cloud your judgement, you may well find it impossible to believe that you’re looking at a physical object. How could something so tall and narrow and straight possibly stay upright, when the bitter north-easterly winds rage across the plain? As you draw closer, the sense of utter implausibility only increases. You walk for a full day, from dawn to dusk, but the tower seems to be no nearer. The mountains behind you are smaller and further away, but the uniform black line is still just a line, created by placing a ruler against the horizon. Eventually, days later, you stand at the foot of the thing and crane your neck back in a vain attempt to see the top, you run your hand across the smooth, ice-cold masonry trying to detect a join between the massive coal-black stone blocks, you spend an hour walking round and round the base of it searching for any faint trace of a door; who built it, how, why? Men have gone mad dwelling on those questions, for this is the tower of Snorfang; it exists without the need for understanding, belief or consent. There are those who claim that it was there before the earth and the sky were split apart, that it goes down to the bottom of the earth and up through the top of the sky and far, far beyond, that it’s only a tiny segment of a line drawn from one edge of infinity to the other, impaling the Middle Realms like a spit through meat; that it’s the axle around which Time turns, the only fixed thing in the universe. Two thousand years ago, the first of the Wise came to this place and thought he could make out faint letters scratched on the east face (though no one has ever seen them since, and if you try and cut the stone with a diamond, the diamond crumbles in your hand like chalk). He wrote them down, and for fifteen hundred years scholars spent their lives trying to decipher the script and decode the language. Eventually, Baramond the Great succeeded, and announced to the Conclave of the Wise that the inscription spelled out Please Use Other Door. Since then, none of his order have come here, saying that even to the Wise there are some things better not known.

  Until now. Efluviel and Mordak stood at the base of the tower and leaned their heads back until Mordak’s hat fell off; immediately, the wind caught it and whisked it away, like a bad dog with a stick. He shivered. The sun was high in a sea of unblemished blue, but his hands and face were almost numb with cold.

  “Is this it?”

  Mordak sighed. “Well,” he said, “it’s either this one or one of those ones over there. Oh look, there’s nothing over there except a whole lot of sand. Yup, I’m guessing this is it.”

  “Snarky,” Efluviel said, not without a hint of admiration.

  Three hundred years ago, a star had fallen from the sky just outside the northern suburbs of the Golden City. When the dust-cloud had settled and the survivors crept down into the huge crater, they found that the burnt-out star had split open like a walnut. Inside it was a single slab of crystal, on which was written a prophecy: When the dark times come and all is doubt and confusion, Porridge-for-brains and Stupid will go to the tower of Snorfang, and their question will be answered. Oddly enough, none of the Wise had ever put themselves forward as the foretold ones, even though all had been doubt and confusion on a number of occasions. The terms of the prophecy, it was generally felt, had never quite been fulfilled.

  Mordak crossed his arms over his chest and folded his aching hands under his armpits. The way he saw it was, only Porridge-for-brains would be stupid enough to come here. I’ve come here. Therefore—

  Above the howling of the wind he heard a faint pecking sound. It reminded him of chicks hatching from eggs. He looked up, and saw a thin but unmistakable horizontal line slowly forming in the black stone, as though drawn by an invisible pencil. Not daring to breathe, he watched as the line extended itself, three feet, three feet six inches, then two vertical lines dropping at right angles from each end, until a rectangle more or less the size of a small door was clearly etched on the tower wall. He took a step back. There was a loud click, and the door swung open.

  “Did you do that?”

  “No,” Mordak replied. “Did you?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.”

  Ninety years after the star fell, a three-headed goat was born in the Arcantha valley. It died the next day, and when the local priests examined its entrails, they cut through the liver and found that in cross-section the blood vessels spelled out the words, A perfect fool will go inside the tower of Snorfang. Or rather, that was one interpretation. Owing to the obscure dialect used and some sloppy knifework by the priests, the text was marginally ambiguous. It could also have been, Only a complete idiot would go inside the tower of Snorfang. You paid your money and you took your choice.

  It was pitch dark inside the tower, and they’d only gone a couple of steps when the door swung shut behind them with a horrible clang. It must’ve been the wind, Mordak told himself, although he couldn’t help remembering that the door opened inwards.

  He stood quite still for a moment, completely at a loss as to what to do. Then, out of the darkness, a voice spoke to him. It was rather a nice voice, female, but entirely devoid of expression.

  “Thank you,” it said, “for using the Snorfang automated facility. Please note that anything you say or do may be recorded for training purposes and as an awful warning to others. You will now hear a list of options. When you reach the option of your choice, please say stop.”

  Then dead silence, for what seemed like for ever. Efluviel took a book from the side pocket of her rucksack and started to read.

  “Enquiries about the meaning of the universe,” said the voice. “Enquiries regarding personal destinies. Enquiries regarding forthcoming lottery draws. Enquiries regarding the current state of doubt and confusion.”

  “Stop,” Mordak said.

  “Thank you for choosing option four,” resumed the voice, a semitone lower. “Your enquiry is important to us. Please hold until a
n adviser is available.”

  Strange music began to play; soft, ethereal and somehow intensely annoying. When the same fifteen-bar sequence had repeated for the ninety-third time, the voice said, “Please access the tower using the third door on the right.”

  Forty years after the birth of the three-headed goat, a poor fisherman living on the desolate northern coast of Sherm caught an enormous sea-bass. He took it as a gift to the king, and when it was cut open, in its stomach was found a gold coin, on which was written; Should anyone ever be stupid enough to enter the tower of Snorfang, let him remember to take a lantern. Damn, thought Mordak. I knew I’d forgotten something.

  Twenty minutes of methodical wall-groping later, he turned an unseen doorknob and fell through into a wide, spacious chamber, dimly lit by an amber glow whose source he couldn’t identify. On the wall was a gold plaque. It read:

  GROUND FLOOR: RECEPTION

  FLOOR 215: ENQUIRIES

  “Are you sure we’re in the right place?” Efluviel said behind him. “This looks more like a post office or something.”

  Mordak closed his eyes for a moment, then looked round. There was a small door in the opposite corner of the room. It opened on to a staircase. “Come on,” he said. He started to climb.

  There was, of course, no light whatsoever in the stairwell, but he could tell by the feel of them under the thin soles of his boots that the steps were shallow, smooth to the point of being slippery, and dished in the middle by centuries of constant use–what could have worn the treads away like that he really didn’t want to think, particularly since no member of any species known to the Wise had been inside the tower since records began. He counted as he climbed, and soon found out that after every seventy steps he came to a landing. He’d just passed the one hundred and ninety-ninth landing when he remembered that forty years ago, in the far-distant northern city of Grembold, the temple of the Moon had been struck by lightning and the ensuing fire had melted the inch-thick gold in which the entire outer surface of the temple’s great dome was encased. Droplets of molten gold had fallen into the deeply packed snowdrifts below, and when the spring thaw came and the snow melted away, they were discovered to have formed runes, which when duly translated spelled out: The fifth door on the left is the elevator. Ah well, Mordak told himself, another mystery cleared up.