Paint Your Dragon Tom Holt

by Paint Your Dragon (lit)

  ‘Chubby,’ said the dragon quietly, ‘I’d change the subject if I were you.’

  ‘Huh? Suit yourself.’ Chubby spread marmalade, drank coffee. ‘Sorry to harp on,’ he said, ‘but what exactly is bothering you? I thought you hated humans.’

  ‘Me?’ the dragon looked at him. ‘Whatever gave you that idea? As of nine twenty-seven pm yesterday, there’s nobody and nothing left alive in this world that I hate, or even strongly dislike, although,’ he added, with a slight twitch of

  his nostrils, ‘this may change if a certain topic of conversa­tion doesn’t get shelved pretty damn quick.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Chubby replied meekly. ‘It’s just that, since it was us who killed all your people, stole your birthright—’

  ‘Not you,’ the dragon said. Inside his skull he could hear the faint chip-chip of a headache hatching from the egg. ‘When the last of the people who wiped out the dragons died, there were still wolves wandering around the forests of Islington. And besides,’ he added irritably, ‘the thing with George and me had nothing to do with the dragon clearances. It was purely personal.’

  ‘Because of the Big Fight, huh? Because he won, simple as that?’

  The dragon shook his head. ‘He was supposed to win. It was killing me that I didn’t hold with. And now that’s all over and done with, so let’s drop it. All right?’

  ‘Right.’ Chubby folded his newspaper, drained his coffee cup and stood up. ‘So, as soon as you’ve done that little job—’

  ‘Who says I’m going to do the little job?’ the dragon interrupted dangerously. ‘Fuck you and your nasty bloody schemes. If you want to beat up on your own species, be my guest, it’s none of my business. But I’m off.’

  Chubby shook his head. He didn’t say anything, but he patted the underside of his chin with the tips of his fingers. The bomb.

  ‘You bastard,’ the dragon said softly. ‘I ought to torch you right now.’

  ‘Inadvisable,’ Chubby replied. ‘With all that inflam­mable liquor inside you, they’d be picking up bits of you in Tokyo. And like I said, what’s it to you? Different species, right?’

  The dragon said nothing. Not that he needed words, exactly. He’d have been sent home from a Gorgons’ children’s party for pulling faces.

  ‘Welcome to the Baddies,’ Chubby said, and left.

  The fire brigade had gone home, the police were brewing up in their big blue-and-white portakabin and even the journalists had given up and gone to the pub. Under a pile of rubble, something stirred.

  ‘Have they gone?’

  ‘I think so.’

  The pile of rubble avalanched, half-bricks and chunks of concrete scudding downslope, stirring up dust. A head and shoulders poked out. Eyes blinked in the starlight.

  ‘About bloody time, too. I’ve got a crick in my neck like a letter S.’

  ‘Keep your voice down, Slitgrind. And for pity’s sake, stop complaining.’

  Gradually, and with much seismic activity, the demons emerged, all five of them. They were dusty and, after twelve hours under the rubble, stiff as all Shopfloor. Apart from that, no ill effects whatsoever.

  A sixth pile shifted and turned into George. He wasn’t in quite the same immaculate condition — he had a black eye, and his hair was all singed off— but otherwise he was intact. He dusted himself off, just like Oliver Hardy used to do in the films, and climbed out of the mess.

  ‘Now you see why we had to wear costumes,’ he said.

  Chardonay nodded. ‘Good stuff,’ he acknowledged. ‘What did you call it?’

  ‘Asbestos,’ George replied. ‘And the lining’s Kevlar, which is like old-fashioned steel armour, only lighter and a hell of a lot stronger. I used the same stuff for the scenery, too. Just as well,’ he admitted. ‘If we hadn’t all ducked behind the flats the moment he materialised, I don’t reckon the cozzies’d have been enough. Anyway, time we weren’t here. Come on,

  you lot. The Padre’ll be worried sick about us.’

  Nobody had disturbed the rickety old Bedford van and soon they were on their way. Chardonay, sitting in the front with George, raised the obvious topic.

  ‘Well,’ George replied, ‘he took the bait all right, you’ve got to admit that much. Maybe we should have spent a little more time thinking through how we were actually going to scrag the bugger, but we’ll know better next time.’

  ‘Next time!’

  George nodded. ‘Of course next time,’ he replied, faintly puzzled by the demon’s tone. ‘Okay, so the first two attempts, we bombed. I mean, we didn’t do so good. Third time lucky, eh? Think of Robert Bruce,’ he added, ‘and the spider.’

  ‘No, thanks,’ Chardonay replied, shuddering. ‘I’m scared of spiders. And now,’ he added, with as much unpleasant overtone as he could muster, ‘I’m also scared of dragons.’

  ‘Funny you should say that,’ George said, blithely overtaking on a blind corner, ‘because spiders have always terrified the shit out of me. But eventually I found a way to cope.'

  ‘Really?’

  George nodded. ‘I squash ‘em,’ he said. ‘Helps put things in perspective when your mortal foe’s looking like a raisin with hairs sticking in it. I think the same may hold true of dragons. Only one way to find out.’

  Chardonay was about to say something, but wisely saved his breath. The way George was driving, he’d need it soon for horrified screaming.

  ‘Mind you,’ George went on — he was definitely getting the hang of driving, because this time he remembered to brake with a full thousandth of a second to spare. ‘It’s going to be harder decoying the creep a second time because he’s going to assume we’re dead. And we can’t exactly publicise the fact we aren’t, because of the low profile thing. Tricky one, that.’

  ‘Aaaaagh!’

  ‘What? Watch where you’re going, you senile old fool! Sorry, you were saying?’

  Chardonay opened his eyes. ‘I think,’ he murmured, ‘in this country they drive on the left.’

  ‘Ah. That’d explain a lot. Well spotted. To be honest with you, I think from now on it’s going to be up to us to look for him, rather than the other way around. Don’t you? Of course, we could try this gig again, only next time we’d be a bit better prepared, maybe plant a bomb of our own in the auditorium so as to be sure of getting him first. What d’you reckon?’

  A look of horrified disgust pitched camp on Chardonay’s face. ‘You couldn’t do that,’ he gasped. ‘The audience. Innocent people.’

  George shrugged. ‘Not people, Char,’ he said mildly. ‘Potential customers, your lot’s and mine. One stone, very many birds, huh?’

  It’s hard to stand on your dignity when you’re horrified, petrified and covered from head to foot with brick dust. In Chardonay’s case, he’d never had all that much dignity to start with; if he’d ever wanted to stand on it, he’d have had to master the knack of balancing on one foot. What little he had, however, he now used to good effect.

  ‘George,’ he said, ‘when you die, be sure to go to Heaven. We can do without your sort where I come from.’

  In order to sell newspapers, you have to get your priorities right, and an unexplained explosion with fatalities is clearly rather more important than a spate of thefts from art galleries. The lead stories in the next day’s papers were, therefore, in order of headline size and column inches:

  ROYAL VET’S SEX ROMP WITH CHAUFFEUR

  SOUTHENDERS STAR IN LOVE TRIANGLE WITH PLUMBER

  BUZZA DECKS REF IN OFFSIDE RUMPUS

  Bomb Kills Sixteen

  Statues Stolen From Italian Museum

  The statues — eight Berninis, three Donatellos, three Celliis, a Canova and the Giambologna Mercury — all went missing from various locations in the space of about eight hours. No sign of forced entry, no arrests, no clues. No visible connection, either.

  ‘Okay, guys. Guys!’ Kurt banged on the floor with the butt of his rifle, but nobody took any notice. They were all talking at once, at the tops of their voi
ces, in Italian. With a weary gesture of resignation, Kurt sat down on a packing-chest and waited.

  ‘Finished?’ he demanded, ten minutes later. ‘Good. Now, listen up.’

  Sixteen pairs of malevolent eyes fixed on him. I don’t need this, he reflected. I’ve got a nice cosy grave I could be in right now.

  ‘Now then,’ he said. ‘I guess you’re all wondering why—’

  Marvellous language, Italian, for talking very fast in. They should insist all peace conferences should be in Italian; that way, nobody’d ever know what was going on long enough to start the war. ‘Shuttup!’ he cried. Not a blind bit of notice.

  “Scuse me.’

  He turned. ‘Well?’

  ‘Looks to me,’ David said, ‘like they’re upset about something.’

  Kurt scowled. ‘What the fuck’ve they got to be upset about, for Chrissakes? I’ve just sprung the suckers, they should be goddamn grateful.’

  David made a small head gesture indicative of doubt. ‘Look at it this way,’ he said. ‘They’re all male figures, all of Italian origin. Maybe standing about all day being admired is what they like doing best.’

  The proposition had merit, Kurt admitted, but that wasn’t his affair. He was only, as the expression goes, obeying orders. ‘HEY!’ he said.

  ‘Thank you,’ he went on. ‘All I can tell you is, my instructions said to get you out of those museums and galleries and bring you here. Which I’ve done. From now on, guys, you re on your...

  He stopped, puzzled. Instead of jabbering at him, shak­ing fists and waving arms, they were standing about like a lot of shop-window dummies.

  Maybe that was it; knock off priceless works of art and punt them out at twelve dollars a head to the leading New York department stores. Or maybe not.

  ‘Guys?’

  Long silence. Then a statue put its hand up.

  ‘Excuse me,’ it said. And, Kurt noticed, in English.

  ‘Shoot,’ he said.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said the statue — shit, it was a female voice now — ‘but can you tell us what’s going on, please?’

  Kurt swallowed. Spooky no longer worried him. He felt comfortable around spooky. Weird was as familiar to him as a pair of well-worn slippers. But this was strange.

  ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘I just did.’

  ‘Only,’ the voice bleated on. ‘I told my husband the play’d be over by ten and I’d be home in time to make him a late tea. And that was hours ago, and he gets all upset if his meals aren’t when he expects them.’

  Gradually, while Kurt was trying to get his larynx

  working again, the other fifteen joined in, a symphony of bleats and whines forming a baroque fugue around the same main theme.

  ‘I ...‘ Kurt had raised his hand for silence, and obtained it instantly. Thirty-two eyes were gazing at him. He could feel the blood rushing to his cheeks. It was horrible.

  ‘I...’

  Thirty-two ears, hanging on his every word. Jesus, he told himself, now the suckers are all goddamn British.

  He turned, grabbed David by the arm and dragged him forward. ‘My assistant will explain,’ he said, and ran for it.

  Chapter 11

  ‘The job,’ Chubby explained, ‘is basically very simple.’

  It was, the dragon wanted to point out, perishing cold. The air was full of high-velocity snow which he could feel even through his scales. There was nothing to be seen in any direction except flat white. Chubby and the dragon stood alone in an albino wilderness, like the last two balls on a white snooker table.

  ‘That’s not to say,’ Chubby went on, ‘that it’s easy. Easy and simple don’t necessarily mean the same thing. What I want you to do is simple, as opposed to complicated, but very, very difficult. With me so far?’

  The dragon couldn’t speak because his teeth were chatter­ing like a school party in a theatre, so he nodded instead.

  ‘All you have to do,’ Chubby continued, ‘is fly, any direction you like, as fast as you possibly can. Direction doesn’t matter ‘cos we're at the North Pole. Speed, how­ever, is of the essence.’

  The dragon frowned. ‘Don’t you mean time?’ he que­ried. Chubby grinned.

  ‘That,’ he said, ‘is either a naive remark or a very poor joke. Now then, here’s your parcel, don’t drop it. When I want you to stop, this little buzzer thing on your collar will bleep. Wonder of micro-electronics, that, cost me a for­tune.’ He paused, recited a check-list under his breath, and took five steps back. ‘When you’re ready,’ he said.

  The dragon shrugged. ‘Now?’

  ‘Now.’

  Theory: travel faster than light around the Earth and you can move forwards in Time.

  A likely story. Like all great hypotheses, the theory of relativity relies on the basic assumption that nobody will ever be able to do the experiment which will prove it wrong; and anything that can’t be disproved must be true. Garnish with fresh mathematics, heat and serve.

  But supposing it’s true, and feasible. Think, not of the fame, the glory and the Nobel prize, but of the commercial possibilities.

  Correct; there are none. That’s why it’s a safe hypothesis. Nobody will ever try the experiment because there’s nothing in it for the institutional investors. That’s why there’s a whole lot of scientific theories about the nature of the space/time continuum, and rather fewer about the medium-term acceleration of racehorses. It’d be different, of course, if you could then send a messenger from the future back to the present, notebook crammed with stock exchange results, football scores, winning lottery numbers and the like; but that’s impossible, according to the theory. Guess why.

  The truth is that it’s possible — simple, even (see above) to travel back through Time, in roughly the same way as you can travel forwards. It involves flying round the world, yes; but at a rather different tempo.

  To go forwards, you have to fly faster than light. To go backwards, you have to fly slower than history. The maths goes like this:

  T-d=h

  P=n+h

  — where T is Time, d is disinformation, h is history, P stands for the Past, and n is the now, or present.

  For anybody who missed the first sixteen lessons, here’s a very simplistic summary.

  The past is made up of the present plus an awareness of there having been a time before the present; the awareness is called history. The speed at which history travels is equal to the speed of Time, less the time it takes to record it. The recording of history is slowed down by disinformation; official secrets, the reluctance of partici­pants to tell the story because of the repercussions on themselves, and so on. The quantum of d varies from nation to nation, culture to culture; in Britain, there’s a thirty-year rule which means that nobody can look at important official documents for thirty years, whereas in the USA the freedom-of-information statutes say that you can see them straight away, except for the really important ones, which nobody ever gets to see at all. In some regimes, history gets rewritten every time there’s a change of government personnel. The constant d is therefore not a constant at all; accordingly history moves at a different speed depending on where you are, and in some places it’s at a complete standstill or moving backwards.

  Fly round the world, therefore, and you’re constantly crossing into different history zones. As you soar over the continents, the retrospective march of Time, from present to past, is taking place at all sorts of different speeds. Instead of being a tidal wave, crashing relentlessly down onto the reef of the present, the advance of history is a confused mess of recollection particles, swarming about in no sort of order. And there are always particles that move so slowly in comparison with the others that they’re getting left further and further behind; relatively speaking, going the wrong way.

  Reverse history and you reverse Time.

  In practical terms, then; if as you fly round the world you follow a carefully plotted course through the anomalies of the different history zones, you can get so far behind that you’ll be
travelling backwards in time. As a further refine­ment, if you have moles and undercover agents at work in universities, public records offices and national computer archives all over the world, busily hiding, destroying, obscuring, obfuscating, rewriting, stuffing files down the backs of radiators and generally sabotaging the manu­facture of history, you can control the production of anomalies and artificially create a navigable course from a given point in the future back to a given point in the past. Or, as the classic equation so elegantly puts it:

  I = fd2

  — where I stands for the Time-traveller’s itinerary, d is disinformation as above, and f stands for a statistically acceptable incidence of clerical and administrative fuck­ups.

  While we’re on the subject of Time, it’s universally acknowledged to be a great healer. By rights, therefore, it should be available free of charge through the National Health Service. But it isn’t, of course. If you want chron­otherapy, you have to go private.

  ‘It’ll cost you, mind,’ the doctor muttered in a low voice. ‘Very, very expensive. Not to mention illegal. If they catch me doing this, I’ll be lucky if I can get a job casting out evil spirits in New Guinea.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ Bianca replied. ‘I’ve got to get well and get out of here as soon as possible. It’s urgent. It’s a matter of...’ She was going to say life and death, but that could mean anything; like, for example that she’d managed to get seats for the Shrunken Heads concert at the NEC and didn’t want to waste them. ‘The future of the human race,’ she said, ‘is hanging in the balance here. It’s essential—’

  ‘Hey,’ the doctor interrupted, ‘you mean you got tickets for the Heads gig? You wouldn’t consider selling them, would you?’

  Having your right arm in plaster means you can only hit doctors with your left; unless you’re a natural southpaw, this can be a nuisance. ‘Shut up,’ Bianca snapped. ‘Look. Sixteen people, one of them quite possibly a close friend, have died. Most likely, that’s only the beginning. The only person who can stop it is me. So name your frigging price and let’s get on with it.’