Expecting Someone Taller

by Tom Holt

  ‘And you can do everything that we can do, as well or even better. For instance you can read thoughts, like you’re doing now - selectively, of course. But in your case, you can blot them out and hear nothing if you want to. We can’t.’

  One distinct advantage of this conversation without speech was that these communications, which would have taken several seconds to say out loud, flashed through Malcolm’s mind in no time at all. To give an illustration: an actor reciting the whole of Paradise Lost by thought-transfer would detain his audience for no more than six minutes. As Malcolm opened his mind to the concept, he found that he could hear the pigeon’s thoughts even when it wasn’t trying to communicate them.

  ‘Same to you,’ he said (or thought) irritably.

  ‘Sorry,’ said the bird. ‘I forgot you could hear. That’s why we birds never evolved very far, I suppose, despite our considerable intelligence. We have to spend all our time and energy watching what we think, and so we can never get around to using our brains for anything useful. You humans only have to watch what you say. You’re lucky.’

  ‘Where was I?’

  ‘Listening to the radio.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  This entire conversation had taken up the time between the second and third pips of the Greenwich time signal. Malcolm, whose mind had grown used to working at a faster speed, found the wait for the next pip unendurably dull, as whole seconds of inactivity ticked by. When the newsreader started speaking, her words were at first almost incomprehensible, like a recording slowed right down.

  The announcer seemed rather harassed, for her beautiful BBC voice was distinctly strained as she went through the catalogue of natural and man-made disasters that had struck the planet since about one o’clock that morning.

  ‘When you killed the Giant,’ said the pigeon.

  There had been earthquakes all across North and South America, a volcano had erupted in Italy, and a swarm of locusts bigger than any previously recorded had formed over North Africa. Seven Governments had been violently overthrown, the delicate peace negotiations in the Middle East had collapsed, the United States had broken off diplomatic relations with China, and England had lost the First Test by an innings and thirty-two runs.

  ‘That’s awful,’ said Malcolm, aloud.

  ‘Listen,’ urged the pigeon.

  Amazingly enough, said the announcer (and her voice palpably quavered) in all these disasters nobody had been killed or even seriously injured, anywhere in the world, although the damage to property had been incalculable. Meanwhile, at London Zoo Za-Za the Giant Panda . . .

  Malcolm dismissed the voice from his mind. ‘So what’s going on?’

  The pigeon was silent and its mind was blank. ‘Is it my fault?’ Malcolm demanded impatiently. ‘Did I do all that?’

  ‘No, not exactly. In fact, I would say it was sort of a tribute to your integrity, like.’

  ‘My what?’

  ‘Integrity. You see, because of the curse Alberich put on it, the Ring can’t help causing destruction. Every day it continues to exist, it exercises power on the world, and unless this power is channelled deliberately into positive and constructive things, which is impossible anyway, it just sort of crashes about, causing damage and breaking things.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘The earth’s crust. Governments. You name it. Why do you think the world’s been such a horrible place for the last thousand years? Ingolf couldn’t care less what happened to the world so long as he was all right, and over the past century and a bit, when his temper wasn’t improved by perpetual toothache, he actively encouraged the Ring by thinking unpleasant thoughts. Hence wars, progress and all the rest of it.’

  Malcolm shook his head in disbelief. ‘But . . . but what about the Gods, then? I mean, I’ve only just found out they exist. What do they do?’

  ‘What they like, mostly. Wotan - he’s the only one who matters - is omnipotent; well, omnipotent up to a point. The only thing he can’t compete with is the Ring, which is far more powerful than he is. That’s why he wants it so badly. But it doesn’t really interfere with his being all-powerful. You see, no-one can control the Ring, or make it do what they want it to. That’s the point . . .’

  The pigeon’s thought tailed off into a blank. Something had obviously occurred to it that it could not even put into thoughts, let alone words. It made an effort and continued.

  ‘Needless to say,’ said the pigeon, ‘when the Ring changes hands, it gets very temperamental. Nobody likes being killed, and all the bad vibes that went through Ingolf ’s mind as he died last night won’t have made things any better. You see, bad thoughts give the Ring something to get its teeth into. Hence all those earthquakes.’

  Once again, the pigeon’s thoughts tailed away. It walked round the table, pecked at a Biro, and then stopped dead in its tracks.

  ‘And nobody got killed,’ it said. ‘That’s strange, don’t you think? Did you put the Ring on straight away?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t know if this is even possible, but maybe you were controlling the Ring in some way or other, stopping it from actually killing anyone. God knows how. I mean, even Siegfried couldn’t control it, and he was much more . . .’

  ‘I know, so everyone keeps telling me.’

  ‘Anyway, he couldn’t stop the curse, although he was probably the only one so far who had the potential - he was Wotan’s grandson, but no longer in his power. But perhaps it’s not the curse . . . Anyway, he couldn’t do a thing with it. And look at you . . .’

  ‘In that case,’ said Malcolm, ‘all I have to do to end this whole curse business and make the world safe, all I have to do is throw the Ring back into the Rhine. It was the Rhine, wasn’t it?’

  The pigeon flapped its wings and flew round the room to relieve its feelings. It didn’t work.

  ‘Idiot!’ it shouted. ‘You haven’t been listening to a word I’ve thought, have you? That’s the worst possible thing you could do.’

  ‘But it said in the book. The waters of the Rhine will wash away Alberich’s curse.’

  ‘How quaintly you put it, I’m sure. You haven’t grasped the point I’ve been trying to make. The curse isn’t like that. In fact . . . Sorry.’ The pigeon fluttered up from the table and perched forgivingly on Malcolm’s head. ‘I forgot, you aren’t used to reading thoughts. Only it’s just occurred to me that the curse is nothing to do with it. It’s just a curse, that’s all. It just brings all the owners of the Ring to a horrible and untimely death. But the Ring was powerful before Alberich put the curse on it. If you were to throw the Ring into the Rhine . . .’

  ‘Would you please stop pecking at my head?’

  ‘Sorry. It’s instinct, I’m afraid. We birds are martyrs to instinct. Where was I? If you were to throw the Ring into the Rhine, there’s no guarantee that the Rhinedaughters would be able to control its nasty habits any more than Ingolf could. And even if they could and they wanted to, they can’t be expected to be able to guard it properly against the bad guys - Wotan and Alberich and that lot. Let alone any new contenders. They have no power, you see, they can only offer an alternative.’

  ‘What alternative?’

  ‘Think about it.’ The pigeon chuckled. ‘In the Dark Ages, of course, it was inconceivable that anyone would prefer unlimited wealth to a bit of fun with a pretty Rhinedaughter - that’s what all that stuff about forswearing Love was about - but that was a thousand years ago. What could you buy a thousand years ago that was worth having? The ultimate in consumer goods was a rowing-boat or a goatskin hat, and the ideal home was a damp log cabin with no chimney. These days, everything has changed. These days, most people would forswear Love for a new washing-machine, let alone the entire world. No, if you throw the Ring into the Rhine, you’ll make everything much worse.’

  Malcolm buried his head in his hands, causing the pigeon to lose its balance. ‘Watch out,’ it said.

  ‘But Wagner said . . .’

 
‘Forget Wagner, this is real life.’

  ‘Where did he get the story from, by the way?’

  ‘A little bird told him.’

  Malcolm sat for a moment in silence, while the pigeon tried to eat his diary.

  ‘This is terrible,’ he said at last. ‘Now I’m going to be personally responsible for every catastrophe in the world. And I thought it was only my mother who blamed me for everything.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said the pigeon, soothingly. ‘Perhaps - I say perhaps - you can stop all these terrible things from happening. Don’t ask me how, but you stopped I don’t know how many people from being killed today.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘Well, if you didn’t, then who the hell did? Let me put it to you this way.’ The pigeon buried its beak in its feathers and thought hard for a moment. ‘By and large, all things considered, you wouldn’t actually want to kill anyone, now would you?’

  ‘No,’ replied Malcolm, ‘certainly not.’

  ‘But when you hear about disasters in other countries, it doesn’t spoil your day. You think, Hard luck, poor devils, but you don’t burst out crying all over the place.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘Whereas a disaster in this country would affect you rather more deeply, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it would.’

  ‘That follows. All these disasters, you see, happened abroad. The only bit of local disaster was that England lost a cricket match, and the way things are nowadays, that would probably have happened anyway. I remember when I was feeding in the outfield at Edgbaston in nineteen fifty-six . . .’

  ‘Get on with it,’ said Malcolm irritably.

  ‘The way I see it,’ said the pigeon, picking up a crumb of stale cheese it had previously overlooked, ‘the Ring is being guided by your will. A certain number of momentous things have to happen when the Ring changes hands. It’s like a volcano: all that force and violence has to go somewhere. But your will protected Britain . . .’

  ‘Do you mind not using that word? It makes it sound like my last will and testament.’

  ‘All right then, you protected Britain, because you care more about it than about other countries. All subconsciously, of course. And you refused to let the Ring kill anybody, because you instinctively don’t approve of people being killed. When you think about it, that’s pretty remarkable. Have you got any more of that cheese anywhere?’

  Malcolm was rather taken aback. ‘You mean I really can make the world do what I want?’

  ‘Not in the way you think. The Ring won’t take orders from your conscious mind. But you can prevent it from destroying the world, if you’re sufficiently strong-minded.’

  ‘But that can’t be right.’

  ‘It does seem odd, I agree. After all, Wotan couldn’t do it. Fafner couldn’t do it. Even Siegfried couldn’t do it and he was much more . . .’

  ‘Siegfried was an idiot. Or did Wagner get that wrong, too?’

  ‘Yes, he did. Siegfried wasn’t an idiot, not by a long way. He just didn’t know what was going on. But then, neither did you.’ The pigeon fell silent again.

  ‘How come I can’t read your thoughts?’ Malcolm asked. ‘You’ve done this two or three times now.’

  ‘I’m not so much thinking as communing.’

  ‘What with?’

  ‘How should I know?’ snapped the pigeon in a sudden flurry of bad temper. ‘Mother Earth, I’ve always assumed. Go on, you try it.’

  Malcolm tried it, opening his mind to everything in the world. There was a perfectly horrible noise and he switched it off. ‘Nothing,’ he said, ‘just a lot of voices.’

  ‘Oh,’ said the pigeon, and Malcolm could sense unease, even awe, in its thoughts. ‘Oh, I see.’

  ‘You mean it’s me you’re communing with?’ Malcolm was so amazed that he turned himself into a stone without intending to.

  ‘That’s the way it’s looking,’ said the pigeon. ‘Sir,’ it added.

  ‘Go ahead,’ said Malcolm bitterly. ‘You and my Immortal Soul have a nice chat, don’t mind me.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said the pigeon, ‘I suppose it must be very frustrating for you, especially since it’s so good, you’d enjoy it if you could hear it, you really would.’

  ‘What did it say last?’

  ‘Well, it suggested that you may not be wise or noble or fearless or brave or cunning or anything like that . . .’

  ‘That sounds like me talking.’

  ‘. . . But you’re probably the only nice person in history to own the wretched thing.’

  ‘Nice?’

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘You really think I’m nice?’ said Malcolm, blushing.

  ‘Where I come from,’ said the pigeon, ‘that’s not a compliment. Anyway, I didn’t say it, you did, only you couldn’t hear yourself think. But if by nice you mean decent, inoffensive, wouldn’t hurt a fly, yes, I think you probably are. And all the other Ring-Bearers have been right bastards in one way or another.’

  ‘Even Siegfried?’

  ‘Siegfried had a wicked temper. If his porridge wasn’t just right, he’d throw it all round the hall.’

  Malcolm rubbed his eyes. ‘And my niceness is going to save the world, is it?’

  ‘Could do, who knows? Just try saying to yourself over and over again, I don’t want anything bad to happen to anyone anywhere today. See if that makes any difference.’ The pigeon turned its head and looked at the sun, which was starting to shine with the evening light. ‘Time I was on my way,’ it said. ‘There’s a field of oilseed rape out there I want to look in on as I go home. They’ve got one of those machines that go bang every ten minutes, but who cares? I like it round here. Always wanted to retire to the seaside.’

  ‘So that’s it, is it? Think nice thoughts?’

  ‘Try it. If it doesn’t work, try something else. Well, take care, won’t you? It’s been a privilege meeting you, I suppose. But watch out for the Gods and the Volsungs for a while. They’ll be after you by now.’

  ‘Can they read thoughts too?’

  ‘No, but Wotan has a couple of clever ravens. I don’t think they can find you easily, though. The Tarnhelm masks your thoughts, except at very short range, and the world’s a very big place. You’ve got the advantage, having the Tarnhelm. But if I were you, I’d be a bit more discreet in future. It’s not clever to go around looking like people who have been dead for a thousand years.’

  ‘You mean Theseus?’

  ‘Who’s that? No, I mean Siegfried. And Brunnhilde, come to that.’ The pigeon flapped its wings, said, ‘Thanks for the crumbs,’ and was gone.

  For a moment, Malcolm did not understand what the pigeon had said about Siegfried and . . . He had only turned himself into one female character today. He stood in front of the mirror.

  ‘Quick,’ he ordered, ‘Siegfried, then Brunnhilde.’

  Once again, the images of the Most Handsome Man and the Most Beautiful Woman flashed across the glass. He sat down on the bed and, for some reason or other, began to cry.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A potheosis can be rather unnerving. Even the most hardened and cynical Royal visitor to remote islands is taken aback to find the islanders worshipping his framed photograph, and he at least has the consolation of knowing that he isn’t really a God. Malcolm had no such consolation as he faced up to the fact that his mind controlled the world.

  ‘If only,’ he kept on saying to himself, ‘Mr Scanlon knew.’ Mr Scanlon had tried to teach him Physics at school, and if his assessment of Malcolm’s mental capacities had been correct, the world was in deep trouble. For his part, Malcolm had always been inclined to share his teacher’s opinion; certainly, the weight of the evidence had always seemed to be on Mr Scanlon’s side. Nevertheless, it was necessary to make the best of a bad job. Malcolm now had literally no-one to blame but himself, and the Daily Service on the radio seemed to be directly addressed to him. Especially one line, which Malcolm took it upon himself to paraphrase slightly:
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  ‘For there is none other that fighteth for us, but only thou. Oh, God!’

  But the news from the outside world gave him grounds for cautious optimism. The disasters that had marked his accession cleared themselves up with embarrassing speed. The United Nations, for example, held a special session in New York and unanimously voted to levy an unprecedented contribution from all its members to relieve the suffering of the victims of the catastrophe. The various coups and revolutions resolved themselves into benign democracies as if that had been their intention all along. Peace negotiations in the Middle East were resumed, America and China started playing each other at ping-pong again, and the swarm of locusts was devoured by a huge flock of migrating birds. Admittedly, England lost the Second Test as well, but Malcolm knew that he could not be expected to work miracles. The only disaster that had been reported was the destruction by volcanic forces of a small, uninhabited atoll in the middle of the Pacific Ocean; and even that had its good side, as the residents of the neighbouring atoll had always complained that it was an eyesore and spoilt their view of the sunset.

  It needed no ghost come from the grave, and no visitation of prophetic birds to tell Malcolm that this was all the result of being nice. He had rigorously excluded from his mind all unpleasant, spiteful or angry thoughts for the best part of a fortnight (the strain was beginning to show), and the result had been a quite unparalleled upturn in the fortunes of the human race. ‘And all that,’ Malcolm reflected smugly, ‘was me.’

  But it was extremely frustrating to have to keep all this to oneself. Malcolm had never achieved anything before, except third prize in a village flower show when he was nine (three people had entered that particular category), and the wish to be congratulated was very strong. His sister, for example, had achieved many things, but she had never stopped a war or disposed of a swarm of locusts. But the Ring seemed to cut him off from the rest of the human race. Although he was the master of the Tarnhelm, he scarcely went out at all. This was partly laziness, partly caution; for if he was to remain nice and keep his mind free of malice or resentment, it would not be advisable for him to see any of his friends or relatives. He was also beginning to feel extremely hungry. All the food lying about the flat (some of which had been there for a considerable time) was long since finished, he had no money left, and he could see little prospect of getting any more. Even if his job still existed (and after two weeks’ unexplained absence, that seemed unlikely) he knew that for the sake of mankind he could not go back to it. One cannot work as a clerk in a provincial auction room without entertaining some fairly dark thoughts, any one of which, given his present position, could blot out a major city. The obvious alternative - theft, using the power of the Tarnhelm - was open to the same objection. If he were to start stealing things, who could tell what the consequences might be?