by Tom Holt
Bullshit. It doesn’t say, Emily Spitzer will face the greatest of all dragons in a dark place, they will fight and she will win. It says when they fight. Difference, see?
Pause; then - You are suggesting a postponement?
No. Well, yes, I suppose I am. An indefinite one. A bit like the difference between saying ‘You’ll die tomorrow’ and ‘You’ll die eventually.’
Thoughtful silence. There’s a difference?
Oh for crying out To me, yes. You can please yourself. Only, I’d quite like to get out of here, and I’d much prefer not to have to wake you up and fight you, because I don’t particularly want to kill you, and I really don’t want you to kill me, so if there’s any sort of compromise we can reach
Why don’t you want to kill me? You’re a dragon-slayer.
Yes, but
Spiders. The word dragon-slayer fills your mind with images of spiders. You crush them because they are-intolerable. Therefore, by the same token…
No. Well, it’s not the same. I mean, here I am talking to you, it wouldn’t feel right. It’d be like, I don’t know, murder.
Because we have talked to each other.
(Put like that)
I guess so, Emily replied awkwardly. I don’t know, it’s just a silly irrational feeling. Look, you don’t want me to kill you, do you?
I take no interest.
What? But you can’t
As far as I’m concerned, it has already happened. And it wasn’t so bad. The circle turns. I am still here.
Oh be quiet, you stupid bloody reptile. If I’m not killing you, I’m not killing you. Understood?
If you say so. I was just pointing out an inconsistency
Then don’t.
Fine, as you wish. I have to say, though, that for a dominant species, you have a rather lackadaisical approach to maintaining your dominance. I don’t want to kill you because you can talk to me. What kind of attitude is that?
(On the other hand, Emily thought, if I could come up with a way if killing it, at least that’d make it shut up.) Here’s the deal, she proposed confidently. Tell me how I can get out of here. I’ll go away and promise never to come back. You stay here, snuggle up with your manganese
Bauxite.
All right, bauxite. Be happy. Live long and prosper, I don’t care. I just want to get out of here and carry on with my life.
Do you really?
Yes.
Forgive me for saying so, but that’s rather like me asking you what you want for your twelfth birthday, and you replying that you want to be twelve. Your life will carry on regardless of me. Until it stops, of course. In the dream, on the other hand
For a moment, Emily felt like giving up. If the stupid creature couldn’t be bothered to stop talking drivel and co-operate when she was trying to save both their lives It would’ve been very different, she admitted, if she’d had a bucketful of industrial-strength SlayMore with her. But she hadn’t; and she was stuck in there with it, and from various things it had said she’d got the impression that if it woke up there’d be a little less conversation and a little more action, with consequences that she’d prefer to avoid, even if this daft prophecy thing was true
Besides, the dragon said, you can’t get out. There’s no exit.
What did you just?
When they brought you here, they collapsed the only tunnel with explosives. You’d have to dig through I don’t know how much rock and rubble, and I don’t think you’d be up to the task, not without heavy machinery.
Oh.
Or a whatsitsname.
Portable Door?
Sorry, I don’t know what that means. Sort of a bit of rubber mat, rolled up inside a cardboard tube. Is that what you had in mind?
Yes. But I haven’t got one.
I haven’t, either, not any more. A great shame. It would have solved your problem for you. A remarkable invention, I must say, particularly for a species that doesn’t know about the dream. I can’t imagine how your people came up with it. Rather like a blind man inventing the camera.
Just a minute. Did you say you haven’t got one any more?
Yes.
A sharp, stabbing pain started up in the front of Emily’s head. So you did have one once.
Oh yes, though of course I never got around to using it. As far as I was concerned, it was just an extremely valuable object, and as such something desirable in itself, quite apart from what it was capable of doing. Like a pension fund buying up Old Master paintings. Of course, some of the best pension-fund managers in the world are dragons.
You had one once, but you just laid on it.
That’s right, yes.
In a bank vault.
Of course. You should know. You were there.
I was? No, wait, hang on. You can’t possibly mean
You were there. You sat in the corridor outside the vault, waiting for me to die. Then-I don’t know what happened then, of course, because I died.
Youd
Haven’t you been listening? That’s why it’s really a prophecy, just a memory; a memory of something that has already happened, and which will happen again. Hence, of course, the inherent irony of your profession. Every dragon you’ve ever killed is me, and everybody who’s ever killed a dragon is you. All that talk of circles, you see, was a hint
‘Now just a moment’
The sound of the words, inadvertently said out loud-said out very loud-hung in the still, dead air for a full three seconds. Then, just as Emily thought Oh shit, and started to scramble to her feet, the dragon woke up.
‘Slow down,’ Dennis Tanner said, ‘for crying out loud. Now, where were we? You came through, but the Spitzer chick’
‘Emily,’ Frank growled. ‘That’s her name.’
‘Whatever. She didn’t follow, and you thought you heard her say ‘ Which one?’ just as you stepped over the threshold.’ Dennis leaned back, bit the end off a cigar and spat it out. ‘You realise,’ he said bitterly, ‘that by law I’m not allowed to smoke in my own bloody office. Health and safety. The only way I can get away with it is by registering this building as an annexe to the Goblin High Commission in Tavistock Square, which makes it diplomatic so I can do what I like. Which one?’ he repeated thoughtfully. ‘Implying two Doors, yes?’
‘I don’t know, do I?’ Frank snapped. ‘Sorry, yes, I suppose so.’
‘And Amelia’s got one, and that clown Colin Gomez gave you the other.’ Dennis Tanner scowled. ‘Weird as a barrelful of ferrets, the whole thing. Still, that’s the magic business for you. Did your dad ever tell you about the time he took on Countess Judy and the Fey? Now that really was weird, because’
‘No, he didn’t, and I’d prefer it if you didn’t, either. Look,’ Frank said, almost pleading, ‘all I know is, she’s disappeared and I don’t know where to start searching for her. Couldn’t you look in a crystal ball or something?’
Dennis Tanner didn’t bother to reply to that. ‘My guess is,’ he said, ‘knowing Amelia as I do, that there’s more than one bit of nonsense going on here. The thing about her is, she does like to run things together rather than keep them separate. Which explains why she took a fairly roundabout way of getting hold of the Door. A more straightforward person would’ve traced you to where you live and had someone steal the Door from your pocket while you were asleep. Instead, there’s this complicated rigmarole with Better Mousetraps and God knows what. Seems to me,’ he went on, ‘that the main plan was getting rid of your Emily, and the Door only entered into it-no pun intended when she refused to stay dead. Soon as Amelia figured out that whoever was saving Emily must be using the Door, she decided it’d be a nice bonus, or maybe she shifted the priorities, put getting the Door ahead of the other scam. But I’m pretty sure the Emily-must-die thing came first.’
‘Fascinating,’ Frank said, with a certain lack of sincerity. ‘But how does that?’
‘Fortuitously,’ Dennis Tanner went on, ignoring the interruption, �
�I have a pretty good idea of what the main plan is, mostly because I’m in it, right up to my neck. Bauxite.’
‘Bless you.’
‘It’s a mineral,’ Dennis said sternly. ‘Well, of course, you know that, Paul and Sophie’s little boy, of course you do.’ He paused, frowned, puffed at the cigar to keep it alight. ‘And your Emily was in pest control, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘I see.’ Dennis rubbed his eyelids with his fingertips. ‘Now we’ve got to ask ourselves, why would Amelia want to kill one of her own employees? Actually, that’s a pretty dumb question. When I had employees, there were times I’d cheerfully have slaughtered the whole lot of them-particularly,’ he added with a grin, ‘your parents. But aside from that. If she wanted to get shot of Emily, why not just fire her instead?’
Frank shrugged. ‘I hope you’re just thinking aloud, rather than hoping I’ll contribute something useful,’ he said.
‘You bet. Same reason I talk to myself a lot: it always pays to talk to the smartest guy present. And the answer is that if she fired her, Emily would probably just go away and get another job with another firm. After all, she’s got a living to earn, and I’m assuming she’s good at what she does. And we don’t go a bundle on references and stuff in this business, so there wouldn’t be any of that you’ll-never-work-in-this-town-again stuff. No,’ Dennis added, blowing smoke out of his nose (blue from the left nostril, red from the right), ‘what I’m thinking is this. Amelia didn’t want Emily on the staff any more, and she didn’t want her to go working for anyone else, either. OK so far?’
‘I suppose so. I really don’t know enough about’
‘Stay with me,’ Dennis said reassuringly. ‘I know enough about the trade for both of us. All right,’ he went on, ‘Let’s suppose we’re right. Now, then. Why would Amelia want those things?’
He looked at Frank, who shook his head. ‘You’re thinking aloud, remember. I’m just sitting here doing background noises.’
‘We’re assuming that Emily’s good at the job,’ Dennis said. ‘And we’ll also assume there’s no internal-political stuff going on, or at least there wasn’t when all this started. I’m sure Emily’d have mentioned it, although she might well not have known about it. But anyway. Here’s what I think. I think Amelia wanted to make sure that Emily wasn’t working in pest control, for Carringtons or anyone else, at a certain point in time, namely now. And-knowing Amelia-I’m prepared to bet that the reason she wanted Emily out was all tied up with the bauxite scam she’s working.’
Frank looked at him blankly. ‘Why?’ he said.
‘Ah,’ Dennis replied smugly, and he quickly filled Frank in on the background to the new Wayatumba strike and Amelia’s aim of cornering the world bauxite market. ‘Which dovetails quite plausibly,’ he concluded. ‘Because on the one hand we’ve got a missing dragon-slayer, and on the other hand we’ve got this huge scheme resting on the fact that there’s a dragon blockading the new bauxite find. And not,’ he added, ‘just any old dragon. Latest word on the grapevine is, it’s taken out five specialist teams that’ve been sent to get rid of it; and the blokes who got torched were the best in the business, and from what I’ve gathered, they tried all the approved methods and none of them worked.’
‘That’s so sad,’ Frank grumbled. ‘So bloody what?’
‘Have I really got to spell it out for you? Amelia wants Emily out of the trade because, for some reason we don’t know about, Emily’s the only dragon-slayer in the business who can zap Amelia’s pet dragon. In which case,’ Dennis added, jumping to his feet and stuffing things snatched off his desktop into his pockets, ‘wherever the dragon is right now would probably be a good place to look for Emily. Of course, she might be a bit two-dimensional by now, since if I’m right Amelia will have sent her in without any useful dragon-killing kit-thinking, Maybe I can’t get rid of the stupid girl, but I bet my dragon could, provided Spitzer doesn’t have any of her toys with her-so when we get there we may just find a familiar-looking silhouette on a blackened cave-wall.’ He frowned at the wretched expression on Frank’s face, and went on: ‘But maybe you and the Door could do something about that. And of course,’ he added, grinning, ‘there’s the distinct possibility that it’s all some kind of trap, and when we get there we won’t live long enough to feel a thing. But what the hell.’ The broadest grin Frank had ever seen spread across Dennis Tanner’s face. ‘When you grow up in the rough and tumble of goblin society,’ he said, ‘you get to the point where mortal peril is a bit like rain in Manchester: you only notice it when it isn’t there any more. Let’s go and have a look, shall we? You know,’ he added wistfully, ‘I’ve always secretly fancied having a go on that thing.’
‘What? Oh, you mean the’
Dennis nodded. ‘And from what you’ve been telling me, it sounds like my dear mother had it stashed away somewhere all the time and never thought to mention it. And then,’ he added bitterly, ‘she gave it to your dad, presumably because she felt sorry for him. Can you believe that? Possibly the rarest, most valuable artefact in the world, something I’d have found incredibly useful in my work, and she just gives it away because she feels sorry for the hired help. Fine. She never ever felt sorry for me, though if anybody ever deserved sympathy I’m him.’
‘Oh?’
‘Growing up with a mother like that? Are you kidding? All right,’ Dennis said, bracing himself. ‘Let’s see it, then.’
Obediently, Frank took out the Door. Dennis stared at it for about three seconds, his face a blank.
‘That’s it, is it?’
‘Yes.’
‘My birthright.’
‘Well, I suppose you could see it in those terms.’
‘It looks like a bit of damp-proof membrane.’
‘Yes.’
Dennis shrugged. ‘Oh well,’ he said. ‘Let’s go, if we’re going.’
But Frank didn’t move, and his grip on the Door tightened ever so slightly. ‘Just to clarify,’ he said. ‘You’re coming with me to the cave of a giant dragon who’s already killed the best dragon-slayers in the business, on the off chance that we can rescue my girl. Is that about?’
Dennis nodded.
‘Why?’
‘Ah.’ Dennis smiled pleasantly. ‘Now there,’ he said, ‘you have the difference between you and your old man; and it’s the reason why there may still be just a tiny glimmer of hope for you yet. You’re suspicious because you can’t see what’s in it for me. Your dad would’ve assumed that I’d seen the light or got religion, and I was helping you out because it’s the right thing to do.’
‘Yes.’
‘Fair enough. What’s in it for me is the biggest bauxite strike in history, as against being ripped into little wet shreds by my blood relatives. Good enough reason?’
Frank nodded uncertainly. ‘If you say so. I just want to find Emily.’
‘Ah, bless.’ Mr Tanner shook his head. ‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘Haven’t you been tempted to nip forward through that thing you know, into the future? Take a look at yourself in thirty years’ time? You and the missus, nice bungalow somewhere, Volvo, golden retriever, National Trust season tickets, round-robin newsletter tucked in all the Christmas cards, swing on the lawn for when the grandchildren visit. Well?’
‘No, actually.’
Mr Tanner nodded. ‘Sensible boy,’ he said firmly. ‘Just because the abyss is there waiting for you, doesn’t mean you have to go and stare into it. Oh, nearly forgot.’ He pushed past Frank, opened the connecting door and yelled, ‘Mother!’
‘Oh,’ Frank said. ‘She’s coming too, then.’
Dennis nodded. ‘When putting yourself in danger, always bring a weapon. We could take a flame-thrower and a couple of Uzis, but why settle for second-best?’
A stunning brunette in a close-fitting scarlet dress and matching shoes put her head round the door. ‘I heard that,’ she said.
‘Oh for God’s sake, Mum. You’re not going out looking like that, are you?’<
br />
The brunette grinned. ‘He used to hate it when I picked him up from school,’ she said. ‘Mum, why can’t you be fat and drained-looking like all the other mummies? Of course,’ she added sweetly, ‘you’ve got all that to look forward to. Come on, then,’ she added, standing in front of the closed Door like a cat waiting to be let out. ‘Don’t just stand there like a prune, our Dennis. We’ve got work to do.’
For a split second Emily stood staring into a pair of small, round yellow eyes. Then she jumped.
As she landed painfully on one knee, she felt the intolerable heat. The thin stream of white plasma must have missed her by several feet, but she felt the skin on the back of her neck blister and melt. No time to waste on feeling pain. She rolled, scrambled onto her hands and knees and scuttled as fast as she could go away from the direction of the blast.
Fatuous, of course. Hiding from something whose mildest sigh can melt rock is a waste of time and effort. Even if there had been any sort of cover handy, huddling behind it would’ve been as much use as parrying a lightsabre with a stick of celery.
He’s not coming, Emily thought. Time is his oyster, so to speak. If he was coming, he’d be here by now.
Oh well.
The dragon’s head turned. She looked up and found herself staring into two huge black nostrils, dark and endless as the mouth of an Underground line where it leaves the platform and vanishes into the cavernous gloom. Any second now, there’d be light at the end of the tunnel: bright, red, and not at all what the original coiner of the phrase had in mind. She felt a stir in the air as the dragon breathed in
Behind her, something moved. Emily only noticed it subconsciously, since it really couldn’t matter, could it?
Wrong. Fingers tipped with bright coral nails clamped tight on her shoulder and jerked her backwards through a doorway, just as the dragon let fly.
She was in his arms.
Well, all right. Unexpected, but-she was actually mildly surprised to discover-really the only place she wanted to be. It had other attractions, of course (no dragon, for example) but the best thing about it was the gentle urgency of the squeeze, and the way he said, ‘You’re safe.’