Tom Holt

by 4 Ye Gods!

  Diana shook her head. She threw.

  'Twelve,' she said. 'Go to... Oh, nuts!'

  Thank you, said Mars under his breath, whoever you are. Three whole throws and not a shot fired in anger. Not even a shot fired in a spirit of reckless jollity, which can sometimes be a great deal worse. The Driver of the Spoil crossed his fingers, shook the dice-box gently, and spilt the dice.

  Nine.

  Mars twitched like a fisherman's float with a whale on the end of the line and turned towards the Earth. The wail of sirens was dimly audible across the emptiness of the solar system.

  'Fire alarm?' he asked hopefully.

  No chance. Pausing only for his head to stop moving long enough for him to put his helmet on it, Mars shouldered his shield and spear, whistled for his chariot, and trudged off to war.

  Three small lumps of rock in the middle of a frozen sea.

  The nearest land: the Argentine coast, approximately two hundred miles away. Natural resources: rock, ice and snow (in season). Strategic value: nil. Population: four.

  Until recently, of course. Now, the population is fluctuating around the twelve thousand mark, as huge numbers of men hop out of big green aeroplanes on the ends of pieces of string tied to sheets. Down below, someone is staging an impromptu fireworks display.

  In the middle of it all stands Mars, Destroyer of Men, holding a golden spear with the spearhead shot off and feeling a complete nana. Fortunately, he is invisible and his body, being composed of ichor and ambrosia, doesn't give off enough heat to attract the attention of the large number of heat-seeking missiles nosing about in the air like psychotic dolphins. Cautiously, his head bobbing up and down like one of those nodding dogs you see in the backs of cars, Mars starts to unwrap his sandwiches.

  Cheese and gherkin, notes the Father of Battles with disgust. Cheese and gherkin, as if I didn't have enough to put up with as it is.

  From the hill with the machine-gun on it came a succession of peculiar noises, which set Mars's head going like a beam-engine. First there was a terrible yelling noise, then a smart crackle of rifle-fire and some loud, deep thumps, then another yell and some screams of pure panic. Then loud cheering. Then silence.

  Mars peered cautiously over the rim of the wrecked armoured personnel carrier, behind which he had taken prudent if inglorious shelter. The shooting appeared to have stopped. The only noise was the distant song of birds and the sound of the cheekpiece of Mars's helmet tapping against the mangled turret. What, asked the Widow-Maker, the hell is going on?

  Gingerly, he took off his helmet, balanced it on the tip of his spear, and lifted it into the air. No bullet-holes or shrapnel-gashes appeared in it. Nobody seemed interested. It was probably some sort of diabolical trap.

  On the other hand, Mars said to himself, maybe it isn't, and what the hell, you can only die once, if that. He rose unsteadily to his feet, put the helmet on, and whistled for his chariot. Odd, he reflected as he climbed up behind his four coal-black, red-eyed coursers, the way nothing ever seems to hit the bloody chariot. Sometimes I think they must do it on purpose. He gripped the reins, picked an unexploded mortar-shell out of the fold of his cloak, and shouted 'Giddyap!' in a voice like the crash of colliding battalions.

  The battle was over. Even Mars, who had learned the hard way not to judge by appearances, was convinced of that. It was the way the soldiers were leaning thoughtfully on their rifles and looking out over the stricken field while the senior staff officers gave interviews to the News at Ten that convinced him. Mars tethered the chariot to a crashed helicopter, alighted, and crept over to where a slightly dishevelled man in a blue anorak was talking loudly to a television camera. Beside him, two technicians in leather jackets were operating a large portable electric fan, to give his hair the authentic wind-blown look.

  'The Battle of Mallard Esplanade,' shouted the man above the whirr of the fan, 'is over. Shortly before three o'clock this afternoon, the entire enemy land forces surrendered to a man, it seems as the result of an unprecedented act of gallantry by a young private in the Catering Corps, Private Jason Derry, who apparently charged them single-handedly. This is Danny Bennett, News at Ten, Mallard Esplanade; George, you're standing on my holdall.'

  Mars rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand, took off his shield and threw it in the back of the chariot. Great, he thought, marvellous; now let's get out of here quick before these lunatics change their minds. And a big thank you to Private Jason Derry, whoever the hell he is...

  Jason Derry?

  Mars twitched so violently that the chariot drew up suddenly in mid-air, executed a remarkable banking manoeuvre, and force-landed on a strip of wind-blasted grass in the valley below. Being stuffed full of land-mines, it blew up.

  After a while, the tip of a charred and frantically nodding plume appeared above the lip of the crater, and Mars slowly drew himself up by his fingertips. Having ostentatiously dusted himself off and thrown a collection of mangled sheets of metal and the ragged remains of a Cloak of Invisibility into a nearby ditch, he whistled for a rather badly dented chariot, swore at the horses, and departed sunwards, just as a camera crew looked up in the hope of filming incoming Harriers.

  'Hey,' said the chief cameraman, pointing a trembling finger at the sky. 'Hey just look at that, will you?'

  The reporter looked up, nodded and shrugged.

  'If you ignore them; he said, 'they just go away. Anyone got a pen?'

  CHAPTER THREE

  Jason got up, looked around him, and wondered where he was. It didn't take him long.

  He was lost.

  Pity, but never mind. When you're a Hero, being lost isn't exactly the end of the world, just a passing inconvenience between adventures. It happens to all of them, and they know how to deal with it.

  For example; round about the end of the second reel, the Hero has usually been kidnapped and whisked away by helicopter to a secret location miles from anywhere where the villain tries to do my with him by some entertaining but hopelessly over-involved means. The Hero gets out of that, natch, and sprints out of the secret location just in time to clamber onto the wing of the villain's light aircraft, which is just taking off. Then there's a spectacular fight, the villain comes to a bad end, and the Hero has just enough time to leap out of the plane before it collides with the aide of a mountain. We are, you realise, miles from anywhere by this point. No trains. No public transport of any kind.

  Five seconds later, the Hero is strolling into the bar of the Casino, wearing a dinner-jacket, all ready for the final car/lorry/armoured personnel carrier chase sequence, which will end in a cloud of rolling flames out in the middle of the desert somewhere. Have you ever stopped to look at what these Heroes wear on their feet? No? Well, it certainly isn't walking shoes.

  There is a perfectly simple explanation for all this. Behind every Hero travels a small semi-divine functionary driving something not unlike one of those motorised golf buggies. In the trunk there's three changes of clothes, assorted lethal weapons, a first aid kit and usually a thermos of hot soup. It's strange that so few people know about this handy and convenient service; perhaps it's something to do with Heroes being basically insecure. Or perhaps they all take it so much for granted that they forget to mention it.

  Jason looked round, whistled irritably and tapped his foot. A moment later, the old familiar wheezing noise reached his ears as the buggy -- a sort of deluxe version of the obese golfer's friend - bumped over the rocks towards him.

  'What kept you?' he said.

  'Sony, boss; said the driver, 'the power pack went flat just outside Kabul. You try getting two torch batteries in a fundamentalist Moslem country, you'll soon see whether you've got what it takes.'

  'Where are we?' Jason asked, brushing a little dust off his immaculately-tailored battledress.

  'Caucasus mountains,' said the driver. 'I think. Let's have a shufti at the map.' He pushed forward the passenger seat of the buggy to reveal a useful luggage area, which was crammed with the sort
of old rubbish you and I keep in glove compartments, plus a few stun grenades and a copy of War and Peace. Heroes' drivers have to do a lot of waiting about.

  'Here we are,' said the driver at last, and emerged with a well-thumbed atlas. 'Now, let the dog see the rabbit, if that's Tbilisi down over there...'

  Jason made an impatient noise. 'And anyway,' he said, 'what am I here for?'

  The driver shrugged. 'Funny you should ask that,' he said, 'the other day I was reading this book by Descartes, and he says...'

  'No, no,' said the Hero, irritably, 'what I mean is, why have I ended up here, when I thought I was going back to Aldershot?'

  The driver wriggled uneasily in his seat. 'Now, boss,' he said, 'you know I'm not allowed to tell you things like that. Signed the Celestial Secrets Act, haven't I? It's not fair, asking me things like...'

  'All right, all right,' said Jason, 'just so long as this is where I'm meant to be, you know, right now.'

  'Don't worry about that,' said the driver. 'Bang on.'

  'Well,' confessed the Hero, 'sometimes I wonder, you know? I haven't really got the hang of all this, somehow. I mean, Daddy did say...'

  'What?'

  'He said,' replied Jason, 'that I should do what I was told and keep my mouth shut. Fair enough, I suppose, but...'

  Heroes have these short intervals of what can only be described as Doubts, and the driver had heard it all before. Take Arjun, for example. Many was the time he'd had to give him a good talking-to on the eve of a big battle. 'Don't you worry about all that,' he said. 'The big fellas know what they're doing; you just carry on and enjoy yourself.'

  Jason nodded, reassured. Ever since Daddy had told him, a few months ago now, just before his eighteenth birthday party, that he was a Hero and it was high time he stopped daydreaming about a career in hotel management and went out in search of his Destiny, he had done his best not to look back. And it had been fun, so far, hitting people, charging machine-gun nests, pulling the barrels off tanks with his bare hands, all that sort of stuff. Most of the boys he'd been to school with still thought smashing up space invader machines was a wild time.

  'Anyway,' said the driver, 'far be it for me to drop any heavy hints, but I think your destiny lies over there.' He pointed at a nearby hillside.

  'What, the one with the trees?'

  'No,' said the driver patiently, 'the one with the goats and the small shack. I think you'll find there's someone over there waiting for you.'

  'Ah,' said Jason, 'right, then. In the shack?'

  'Very probably,' sighed the driver. 'Why don't you go and find out?'

  Overhead, a huge eagle hugged a thermal and scanned the surface below. When he saw the human figure plodding grimly up the hillside he let out a squawk you could have heard in Azerbaijan. Then he swooped suddenly to recover the copy of Time he'd been carrying in his beak, looped a swift loop, and sped away.

  In the shack, Jason found an old woman. She was sitting by a fire stirring a big pot. A pair of black ravens perched on her shoulders, making her look like an old-fashioned bedstead.

  'Hiya,' said Jason. 'Where to?'

  The old woman scowled at him. This was her one big scene, and she wanted to make the most of it.

  'Sit down, boy,' she said, and pointed with a gnarled finger at a low stool on the other aide of the pot.

  'No offence; Jason said, 'but can we skip all that? I've had a hard day, what with having to parachute out of the Hercules when the rockets hit it, then landing in the tree, then getting the motorbike started and being chased for thirty miles over rocky terrain with helicopters shooting at me. Then,' he added, 'getting the flat tyre. So if we could just...'

  'You'll sit still,' said the old woman, 'and like it.'

  'Bloody hell,' Jason whined rebelliously, but the old woman gave him a look which put the helicopter gunships firmly in context. He sat.

  'Whither away, stranger?' said the old woman, after a gratuitously long pause. 'It is seldom we see strangers in these lonely parts,' she ad-libbed.

  'I go to seek my Destiny,' said Jason woodenly. He'd say it, but he was damned if he was going to ham it up.

  'Your Destiny?' said the old woman. She managed the capital D rather better than he did. 'And where will that lead you?' She cackled. Cackling is a dying art, so they say.

  'Over... Look, have I got to say all this shit?'

  'Yes.'

  'Oh, come on,' Jason pleaded. It made him feel so self-conscious. 'I mean,' he said, 'if we skip it no one'll ever know.'

  'I will,' said the old woman. 'Say it.'

  'No.'

  'Very well, then,' she said grimly, and reached for her knitting.

  About five minutes later, Jason cleared his throat and said, very quickly;

  'I-go-in-search-of-the-source-of-the-mystic-Power-thePower-of-the-Sun, all right?'

  The old woman nodded. 'Know,' she said, 'that I am not what I seem.' She put down her knitting and grinned. Jason looked at her.

  'Well?'

  'Well what?'

  'Get on with it,' Jason said.

  'You're supposed; said the old woman, 'to register surprise.'

  Jason indicated that he would shortly be registering extreme annoyance, and the old woman put down her knitting quickly. 'Know,' she said, 'that I am none other than Hecate, Witch-Mother of the Mountains, and I shall grant you one wish...'

  'One wish?'

  'You, never heard of the cutbacks? One wish, to help you to achieve your heart's desire. But choose carefully; the gifts of the gods are very . .

  'Tell me,' said Jason-firmly, 'what I'm supposed to do next. Or,' he added, 'I'll thump you one, okay?'

  The old woman glowered at him. 'Over there,' she said, 'turn left at the second thorn bush, follow your nose till you come to a pillar of fire, left then left again through the Clashing Rocks, then straight on, you can't miss it.'

  'Miss what?'

  'It; said the old woman. 'Now push off.'

  Jason got up and headed for the door. 'Hang on,' he said, 'you've forgotten something.'

  'Have I?'

  'Yes.'

  'Oh.' The old woman rutted loudly. 'That's what comes of rushing things,' she said. 'You lose your place.'

  From under her chair she pulled out a long cloth bag. 'See,' she said, 'this is the Sword of... Oh sod the thing, the cover's got caught on the pommel somewhere. Look, you hold this end and when I say "Pull"...'

  There was a tearing sound; then a metallic clang.

  'Anyway,' said the old woman, leaning forward, 'this is the Sword of Glycerion, which may only be tamed by the pure in heart. To all others it brings Death. Wield it well, my son, for... hey, didn't anyone ever tell you it's rude to snatch?'

  'Right,' said Jason, looking at the Sword with mild disgust, 'about bloody time too.' He got up and strode towards the door.

  'May the Power be with you,' the old woman called out after him.

  'Oh, drop dead,' Jason replied. Then he clumped out to seek his Destiny.

  'Your throw.'

  'Right.'

  Rattle rattle rattle. Clonk.

  'Four and five, that's eight.'

  'Actually, Pol, that's nine.'

  'All right, it's bloody nine, then. One two three four five six seven eight oh, that's charming, that is.'

  'Go back three spaces.'

  'Yes, thank you, Vul, I can read, you know.' -

  Riffle riffle.

  'GET OUT OF TROUBLE FREE. Oh well, that's worth having, isn't it? Your turn.'

  Rattle rattle rattle rattle. Clunk.

  Onetwothreefourfivesixseven eight.'

  Pause.

  'Oh.'

  'Hello,' called Jason. 'Anyone at home?'

  He leaned against the doorway of the curious stone building, rested the Sword of Thingummy against a pillar, and tied his shoelace. Heroism was all very well, he reckoned, but if he'd wanted to do a lot of walking he'd have become a postman.

  Nothing happened. Jason put his newly-secured foot bac
k on the ground and tapped it.

  'Hello,' he repeated. 'Anybody there? I haven't got all day, you know.'

  From somewhere inside the ruined temple there was the sound of someone dropping something, and the something breaking. 'All right,' said a sweet, enchanting female voice testily. 'Just wait a minute, will you?'

  Then two women appeared in the doorway. Let us take the time to describe them.

  First things first: they are a pair of absolute honeys. No mistake about that. You expect to see the title of a glossy fashion magazine floating above their heads in big block capitals.

  One of them is tall, noble, austere. She is dressed in a simple, demure white robe, and on her head is a plain band of yellow gold. In the crook of one arm she carries what you instinctively know is a golden palm-branch symbolising something you can't quite remember. Her hair is the same colour as the band and the branch and her eyes are a sort of refrigerated blue. She doesn't happen to be wearing a sash right now, but if she was you could bet your life savings and next month's pay check that it would have VIRTUE embroidered on it.

  The other one is dark, smouldering and has more curves than Le Mans and Indianapolis put together. In the crook of her arm she carries what used to be called a cornucopia -- a sort of metallic cream horn with fruit in it -- and what she's wearing is largely academic. She does, however, have a sash, but instead of LUXURY it has 'Miss Personality North-West Area 1992' on it, presumably in the vain hope of leaving something about the wearer's appearance to the imagination. In her mouth she has a couple of hairpins, and she doesn't look too pleased.

  'Ready?' said Luxury, through the hairpins.

  'Sony?' Jason said.

  'Oh come on,' said Luxury. 'I've got a lemon souffle on the gas; let's not muck about.'

  'Oh,' said Jason, blushing slightly, 'yes, right. I've got to choose, have I?'

  'That's it,' said Luxury, 'and if you could see your way to getting a move on, we'd both be most terribly grateful, all right?'

  'Er,' said Jason.

  'Look,' said Luxury, 'if you're worried about hurting our feelings, don't be, okay? Just get on and choose, and then we can all carry on with what we're supposed to be doing.'