by Tom Holt
“Interesting. Where I come from, we call it something quite other, rhymes with hit-haired.” She shaded her eyes with the flat of her hand. “It’s just a very old man and a skinny boy.”
“Oh. Are you sure?”
“Yes. Yes, I’m sure. Warrior’s intuition, for crying out loud.”
You can’t fault Elves on their eyesight. The old man was short and completely bald, with a flat cloth cap stuffed in the pocket of his brown warehouse coat and two lenses clamped to his nose in a wire frame, presumably to make his eyes look bigger. The other one was about nineteen, ridiculously tall and skinny with ears like wings, and eating a wedge of fruit cake only slightly smaller than his head. Mordak had to admit, he’d seen more dangerous-looking kittens; but somehow he couldn’t get rid of that strange churning feeling in the pit of his stomach. On the other hand, that could easily be the baked beans.
“Excuse me,” the old man said, addressing the space between them. “Would you be King Mordak?”
“That’s him.”
“Ah. So you’d be her Serenity the Lady Efluviel.”
Mordak opened his mouth, but couldn’t quite manage to speak. The boy finished off his fruit cake and ate three boiled eggs. “That’s me,” Efluviel said firmly, her face a becoming shade of boiled lobster. “Who the hell are you?”
“Technical support.”
“Say what?”
“We’re the guardians of the portal,” the old man translated, “Art and me–he’s my sister’s boy, he’s a good lad really, hot as mustard on the tech–the magical side of things.” The boy nodded in confirmation and ate a sausage roll. “You’re here for the portal, aren’t you?”
“The weird hole,” Mordak said. “Things go into it and don’t come back, and so forth.”
“That’s the one,” the old man said.
“Right,” said Efluviel. “So, how come you know our names?”
The old man looked faintly surprised. “Oh, bless you–everybody knows King Mordak, don’t they, Art? I was just saying to the lad the other day, I wouldn’t be surprised if King Mordak wasn’t the best-known goblin in the whole of the Realms. And if he’s Mordak, miss, then you must be the Lady Efluviel, his trusty—”
Mordak grinned. “Sidekick.”
“Heroine,” the old man amended. “This quest of yours, miss, it’s famous, everybody’s talking about it. In the Face and everything.”
Efluviel looked up sharply. “Is it?”
“Oh yes.”
“Which page?”
“Front page, miss, naturally. About how the fate of the Realms is hanging in the balance, but that’s all right, because Mordak and Efluviel are on the case, all over it like flies on a–two safe pairs of hands, that’s pretty much the gist of it, miss. They got confidence in you, see. Comes the hour, comes the Elf. And the goblin too, of course, sir, no disrespect.”
There was a brief, stunned silence, broken only by the sound of powerful jaws crunching pastry. “Well,” Mordak said, “that’s another triumph for goblin security. Nobody was supposed to know.”
The old man grinned. “Oh, you can’t keep something like this quiet for very long, sir, not when it’s a matter of life and death, so to speak. But that’s all right. They’re all rooting for you, behind you every inch of the way. Oh yes.”
Mordak was frowning. “When you say a matter of life and death—”
“Oops.” The old man clicked his tongue. “Sorry about that, sir, may have spoken a bit out of turn there. Just pretend I never said that.”
“Life and death how, exactly?”
“Sorry, sir. Love to be able to tell you, but you know how it is. Rules are rules. You’ll appreciate that, military man like yourself.”
“I didn’t think it was life and death. More of an annoying little mystery, really.”
“Absolutely, sir, that’s all it is. No big deal at all, sir. You hit the nail right on the head there, sir, if you’ll allow me to say so.”
“But you said—”
“This portal,” Efluviel said firmly. “You know where it is.”
“Oh yes, miss.”
“Splendid. Take us there.”
The old man looked very sad. “Sorry, miss. Can’t do that.”
Efluviel scowled at him, as if he were a compositor who’d got her name wrong on a front-page by-line. No perceptible effect. In spite of herself, she was impressed. “Yes you bloody well can. We’ve come a long way, you know.”
“Sorry, miss. Not allowed. You know how it is.”
“No I don’t. What’s to stop you?”
“Actually, miss, it’s our job. Guardians, see, of the portal. We guard it.” He lowered his voice a fraction. “Against un authorised personnel.”
Efluviel considered that for a moment. Then she said, “Mordak, hit them.”
Mordak stirred, then stopped dead, as though he’d walked into a glass wall. The old man clicked his tongue. “Not meaning to be funny or anything, sir and miss, but I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Really I wouldn’t.”
It was Mordak’s turn to frown. “Oh? Why not?”
“You’re too valuable, sir,” the old man said earnestly. “You can’t go getting yourself horribly injured or maybe even killed, though obviously we’d only use the bare minimum of force, sir, that’s what it says in the guidelines and we’re red hot on the guidelines, Art and me. Don’t do it, sir. There’s people depending on you. Art wouldn’t be able to live with himself if you got yourself horribly injured. He’s sensitive, bless him. Gets it from his mother.”
Efluviel rolled her eyes. “Are you going to hit them or have I got to do it?”
“Take us to the portal,” Mordak said in his best commanding voice, which didn’t seem to be working within normal parameters. “And, um, look sharp about it.”
The old man looked terribly worried. The boy paused halfway through unwrapping a cheese and onion slice and put it back in his pocket. “Really, sir, really and truly, I would not do that if I were you. It’s you I’m thinking about,” he added pleadingly. “You ought to know, sir, I happen to be a master adept in forty-six different secret martial arts, and the boy, well, I know he doesn’t look it, but back when we was doing security, they used to call him the Destroyer. Doesn’t know his own strength, sir, that’s half the problem.”
Whatever the boy’s strength may have been, he was diligently keeping it up by eating macaroons. Even so, Mordak hadn’t survived well over a century of constant warfare without developing a few instincts, all of which were telling him to listen to the old man’s warning. “Look,” he said, “there’s no need for anyone to get hurt, just so long as we all act reasonably. Show us the way to the portal and everything’s going to be just fine.”
The old man sighed and took off the bag he’d got slung over his shoulder. He fiddled with the straps, stopped, fished about in his pockets, found another pair of wire-mounted lenses, took the old pair off his nose, handed them to Mordak to hold for him, put the new pair on his nose, fumbled with the straps a bit more and got them undone, opened the bag and produced what looked like a sausage, carefully wrapped in yellow dusters. It proved to be a very small club. “This’ll have to go in the book, you know,” he said. “Every time we draw weapons it’s got to go in the book, plus a full incident report, three copies, double-spaced. I’ll have my other glasses back now, if that’s all right.”
“He’s going to beat us to a pulp,” Efluviel said. “With that.”
“Not to a pulp, miss, not unless it’s completely unavoidable.” The old man lifted the club and waggled it about. He needed both hands. “You really sure you want to do this, sir? It can only end one way.”
“You know what,” Efluviel said, “I think I agree with him. Oh go on, for crying out loud. Hit him.”
Mordak frowned. “I think I’ll have to,” he said. “Otherwise she’s going to make my life so miserable.”
The young man was nibbling the chocolate off a Swiss roll. “Fair enough, sir, don’t
say I didn’t warn you.” He lowered the club to rest his arms for a second or two, then lifted it again. “Come on, then,” he said, “and don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Mordak sighed and drew his sword; at which point, an eagle circling high overhead dropped a log on his head, and he fell over.
“Hey!” Efluviel yelled. “That’s cheating.”
The old man was down on his knees beside Mordak, thumbing back his eyelid. “It’s all right, miss, he’ll be fine, just a bit woozy. You know, he really ought to wear a helmet and appropriate safety equipment when he’s on dangerous missions. It’s like I keep telling Art, it’s there for your protection.” Mordak groaned and tried to sit up. “Now then, sir, nice and steady. How many fingers am I holding up?”
“It wasn’t him,” Efluviel said loudly. “It was a freak accident, a bird dropped a lump of wood on you. He never did a thing.”
“Be quiet,” Mordak said. “And you, if you carry on waving fingers under my nose, I’ll bite them off. Got that?”
The old man smiled. “He’s feeling better now, bless him. Art, get the gentleman a drink of water.” The boy straightened up, looked round, observed that there was no water anywhere in sight, and ate a bacon sandwich. “Now then, sir, as I would’ve told you only you would insist on getting all aggressive, you don’t really want to go to the portal.”
“Yes I do.”
“No sir, with respect.” The old man stopped, straightened his back with an audible click, and winced. “You don’t want to go to the portal, sir, nothing there for you at all. You want to know who’s been going in and out of there lately, and if it’s got anything to do with all the money and stuff.”
Mordak lifted his head, craned his neck round and gave Efluviel a look, which she avoided. “True,” he said.
“Well, then.” The old man smiled. “We can tell you that, can’t we, Art?”
“You can?”
“Oh yes, sir. Happy to tell you. No problem with that at all.”
“Told you,” Efluviel murmured. “Ask someone, I said. But you wouldn’t listen.”
Mordak made a faint, sad noise. “You might have mentioned that,” he said, “before you started dropping trees on my head.”
“Oh, that wasn’t anything to do with me, sir. Freak accident, like the lady said.”
“I see.” Mordak carefully massaged the back of his head. “Do you get a lot of freak accidents around here?”
“Funny you should mention that, sir.”
“Mphm.” Mordak tried to stand up and sat down again. “You were saying,” he said.
The old man was wrapping up the club in the dusters. “What you want to do,” he said, “is go to the edge of the old forest at Pol Snuldor. That’d about cover it more or less, wouldn’t it, Art?”
The boy looked up from his slice of Bakewell tart and nodded. “The where?” Efluviel said.
“Ah.” The old man smiled. “It’s dead easy to get to. All you do is, you go back down the mountain the way you just came, then you head out on the Old West Road going east until you come to a crossroads. Take the first left then the second right then the second right then the third left, keep going till you come to an old water mill. Couple of hundred yards further on, you come to a crossroads. Take the first right then the second left then the third left then the second right, should bring you out on the Old North Road heading south. Carry right on bearing left till you come to an oak tree, looks a bit like a goldfish standing on its head. Then you leave the road heading due east, two miles further on you’ll come to a river, follow that due north, nine hundred yards, cross over by the bridge, not the first bridge, the second bridge, brings you out on the Old East Road headed north. Carry on, first left, seventh right, just follow your nose, you can’t miss it. Okay?”
“Sorry. Say again?”
“I’ll draw you a map,” the old man said. “Here, Art, give us a bit of your sandwich paper.” He reached behind his ear and found a stub of charcoal. “Right then, you’re here.” He drew something that looked like the climactic last battle of the Octopus Civil War. “And if you get lost, just ask someone, all right?”
“Yes, thank you.” The old man took the paper away from him and turned it the other way up. “Right, got that,” he said. “And when we get there, what will we find?”
The young man grinned with his mouth full. The old man shook his head. “Ah well, sir, that’d be telling. Anyhow, take care, mind how you go. Just follow the map, you’ll be there in no time flat. It was a pleasure meeting you, sir, miss. Have a safe journey now. Come on, Art. Get a move on or we’ll be late for dinner.”
The boy sprang to attention like a guard-dog hearing gravel crunching, and started to walk away very fast. The old man turned to follow him. “Hold on,” Mordak said. “You can’t just go waltzing off. I haven’t finished asking you—”
“Sorry, sir, can’t stop. Oh, and make sure you look out for—” Before he could complete the warning, the boy grabbed his arm and hustled him along, so fast his feet barely touched the ground. “What will we find?” Mordak yelled after him, but a moment later they’d vanished out of sight round a bend in the road. Mordak stood and stared at where they’d been for a moment, then sat down on a rock and rested his head in his hands.
“Are you all right?” asked Efluviel.
“More or less.” Something touched his hand, and he looked at it. A single snowflake. “That’s all we need,” he said. There was something scrunched up inside his hand. He opened it and saw the old man’s map. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“Do we do like he said and go to this forest place he told us about?”
“Are you kidding?” Efluviel snatched the map from his hand and threw it away. A breeze caught it and it floated in the air, like the last leaf of autumn. “Look, if that old fool told me to breathe, I’d rather choke. He’s clearly nuts. And as for you, letting him ambush you like that—”
“That wasn’t an ambush, it was a freak accident. You said so.”
A tiny gust of wind lifted the floating map, and it drifted gracefully down and settled in Mordak’s hand. “So was that, presumably.”
“If he wants us to go there, I vote we don’t.”
Mordak frowned. Then he carefully folded the paper into a little origami glider and launched it away. It looped the loop and came to rest in his ear. “Cute,” he said. “Let’s go.”
It was snowing quite heavily. Efluviel pulled her coat round her ears. “You do what you like,” she said. “I’m going back the way we came.”
The moment she said it, there was an ominous rumbling from the cliffs above them, and the ground began to shake. She only just had enough time to grab Mordak’s arm and pull him to safety before an avalanche of rocks and boulders thundered down on the place where they’d been standing, filling the air with dust. When it cleared, they saw that the path they’d come up by was completely blocked and filled in.
Mordak got to his feet and stretched his neck. “A hint, do you think?”
Efluviel looked down at the map, then sideways at the rockfall. “Guess what?” she said. “The only way out of here that isn’t buried under a zillion tons of rock is the way he wanted us to go.”
“Ah.” Mordak nodded. “Freak accident.”
“It’s the only possible explanation,” Efluviel said. She kicked at a small pebble to relieve her feelings. It ricocheted off a rock, Mordak’s heel and the upturned root of a pine tree toppled by the earthquake, and hit her on the ankle. “One million-to-one chance after another. Have you got anything to eat?”
“No.”
“Of course you don’t.” She sighed, and took a step along the one remaining path. “You know, sometimes I ask myself, is even being the editor of the Face worth all this?”
“And?”
“Don’t be stupid,” she replied. “And don’t dawdle.”
Archie woke up. He was a bit chilly. He couldn’t move.
Panic attack. A human thing, pres
umably bundled with the hardware; he wasn’t entirely sure why, because it didn’t really help much, and he couldn’t quite see the rationale behind it. When danger threatens and you need to be at the very top of your game, every mental and physical resource instantly available to expedite the serious business of running away, whoever designed humans thought it’d be a good idea to give ’em the shakes, the shits and the screaming heebie-jeebies. Since he couldn’t move at all, not even his eyeballs, it had no real practical effect as far as the bodily side of things went; but when your mind is completely given over to the frustration of wanting to squeal, tremble like a leaf and relinquish bladder control, and then you find you can’t, it’s hard to think straight, or indeed at all. If one is very much and five is not at all, how do you like the human body? Six.
The fit passed, and slowly goblinness seeped back along his veins and nerves, soothing, reassuring and urging the various motor functions to pull themselves together and get a grip, until he was in a fit state to compile a detailed situation report. As follows. Eyes open, but can’t see a damn thing, only white mist. Can’t move anything, all systems offline. And it’s cold in here. Recommended course of action? Um.
All right, then, hypothesis. I’m dead. Plausible, fits the few known facts–cold, can’t move–but unsatisfactory on an intuitive level. We don’t feel dead, and the consensus of opinion is that if you don’t feel dead, you probably aren’t. In which case, we’re probably in big, big trouble. Indeed. Thank you so much for that, and keep your voice down or the human bits will hear you.
So he lay perfectly still for a while, and then he lay perfectly still some more, and some more after that. The human body didn’t seem to mind all that much–restful, it called it–and Archie remembered that one of the things humans liked doing most was lying perfectly still for long periods of time, preferably adjacent to the edge of the sea, marinated in oil like a chop and exposed to the full mind-bleaching fury of the Horrible Yellow Face. He’d have shuddered like anything if he’d been able to, but he couldn’t. This is no good, he thought. I don’t like it at all.