by Tom Holt
‘Joke over,’ Carl said, and folded his arms. ‘Satisfied?’
Sis gulped, as if trying to swallow a very large live goldfish. ‘How did you do that?’ she asked.
Carl shrugged. ‘I can do anything I like,’ he said. ‘It’s only make-believe.’
‘What?’
‘Make-believe. Pretend. Like virtual reality or holo-suites in Star Trek. Just computer stuff, that’s all.’
Sis thought about that. ‘Then how come I can’t do it?’ she demanded.
‘Because you’re thick,’ Carl replied, with the air of Einstein crafting the inevitable solution of a quadratic equation. ‘And you’re only a girl. Girls don’t understand computers, everybody knows that.’
He could live another eighty years and earn his living defusing bombs, and still Carl would never be closer to death than he was at that particular moment. But it passed.
‘Oh, shut up,’ Sis replied wearily. ‘And get us out of here. I’ve had enough. And Mum’ll be worried sick.’
‘No she won’t,’ Carl replied, as he systematically erased the rest of the Baron’s laboratory until there was nothing left but four bare stone walls and a flagstone floor. ‘We haven’t been anywhere in real time,’ he explained, ‘only in cyberspace. I’d have thought even you’d have realised that.’
‘Excuse me.’
‘The day I understand your gibberings is the day I have my brain replaced,’ Sis replied haughtily, “cos then I’ll know I’ve gone as barking mad as you. And I don’t want to understand computers,’ she added quickly. ‘Only very sad people understand computers. Only very sad people who haven’t got a life—’
‘Excuse me.’
‘Shut up,’ Sis commanded, and Rumpelstiltskin immediately pulled his nose back through the trapdoor. Then Sis turned slowly round and stared in his direction. ‘Just a minute,’ she said. ‘Carl, did you do that?’
Carl frowned and shook his head. ‘Never seen him before,’ he replied. ‘I thought it must be your new boyfriend. You know, the one you don’t want Mum to know about…’ Sis made a strange, high-pitched noise, rather like brass foil shearing under enormous pressure. ‘You know who that is?’ she demanded. ‘That’s bloody Rumpelstiltskin. That’s a character from a fairytale!’
Carl shrugged. ‘So? For once you got lucky. Well, when I say lucky, compared to some of the freaks you’ve brought home—’
In order to explain her reasoning, Sis made use of the old dialectic technique of grabbing the other guy’s ear and twisting it. ‘He’s imaginary,’ she yelled. ‘Can’t you see that?’
‘So you got yourself another imaginary friend. Big deal. Hope he’s got a better appetite than the last one, because Mum got really pissed at having to cook dinner for him and none of it ever getting eaten. Ouch, that hurts!’
‘Carl. Listen to me. He’s a little pretend person from the Pink Fairy Book. Make him go away.’
With a well-judged jink and swerve, Carl pulled himself free and put an arm’s length between himself and his sister. ‘I didn’t make him up,’ he said, ‘you did. So you’ve got to make him go away. Nothing to do with me.’
‘Excuse me.’
Sis whirled round and pulled the trapdoor open, revealing Rumpelstiltskin cowering behind it. ‘I thought I told you to shut up,’ she said.
‘Yes, but—’
‘But?’
‘But,’ Rumpelstiltskin said, pointing, ‘I was just wondering, had you noticed? Sorry to have bothered you.’
‘What are you—?’ Sis looked over her shoulder. ‘Oh,’ she said.
The laboratory was slowly fading back in. The workbenches were already there, and the retorts, alembics, Bunsen burners, circuit boards, generators and other clutter were gradually taking shape. Everything was where it had been, right down to the pool of green fluid that had seeped out of the beaker Igor knocked over just before he disappeared.
‘Just thought I’d mention it. Bye for now, then.’
Before he could escape, Sis grabbed his collar and pulled. ‘Oh no you don’t,’ she said. ‘You’re going to stay here and talk to them. They’re your kind, not mine.’
A door opened. No need to look to know who it was. ‘Igor!’ he was shouting. ‘Call the guards!’
‘My kind? I didn’t send for them!’
This time, Sis realised, there was something subtly different, even though everything was apparently the same. Something that hadn’t been there before. What could it be? Ah yes, the guards, with their body armour and machine pistols. That was what was different.
‘That was always your trouble,’ she hissed to her brother, who was standing as still as a rock and gazing at the troopers as if they’d just appeared from out of his own nose. ‘No imagination.’
‘I didn’t send for them,’ Carl said. ‘I thought it was you.’
‘Me? What would I want with…?’
‘This is silly,’ Carl said loudly. ‘Delete guards, enter!’ Nothing happened. ‘Control, delete guards, enter!’ More nothing. ‘Control, Alt, Delete!’ he barked shrilly. ‘Oh come on, you useless thing, stop mucking about and do as you’re bloody well told!’
Somehow, that didn’t inspire Sis with a great deal of confidence, since she’d heard him shouting more or less the same words up in his bedroom on the not-too-infrequent occasions when he’d contrived to crash his computer. And Carl’s computers, she recalled with a heavy feeling, tended to crash about as often as a blind rally driver.
‘I don’t think they can hear you,’ she said softly. ‘Or they aren’t particularly interested.’
Nor, on the other hand, were they getting there all that fast; like Igor a few minutes ago, they seemed to be running on the spot. ‘Restart,’ Carl howled. ‘Return to DOS. Mummy! Help!’
Whoever or whatever it was that Carl was yelling at didn’t seem to be taking the slightest notice; which was, of course, completely normal. All computers expect to be yelled at. There’s not a single computer in the whole world that hasn’t been sworn at. Even the discreet little VDU with the crossed keys monogram on the keyboard that sits on the Pope’s desk in his office in the Vatican has in its time heard language that’d make a Marine blush.
‘I don’t understand,’ Carl confessed, as the guards continued their racing-stalagmite rush towards them. ‘It shouldn’t be doing this. I think someone’s been playing with it, and it’s gone haywire.’
‘I have an idea,’ Sis said. ‘Let’s run away.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ Carl replied contemptuously. ‘It’s just software, it can’t—’
One of the guards racked back the slide of his machine gun. He made a pantomime of it, and the sound effects were both overdone and unrealistic. And when he fired, the row of bullet holes in the wall above their heads was far too straight and unwavering.
However…
They ran.
‘I dunno,’ sighed the elf, gracefully sidestepping a falling roof-beam. ‘Before I got mixed up with you, I used to go days at a time without having houses fall on me. But now…’
‘Shut up.’ Fang grabbed a chair and threw it through a window. ‘After you.’
‘You’re too kind.’
‘I want to see if they’re still shooting at us.’
As it turned out, they were; but both arrows missed by at least an eighth of an inch. The elf made a peculiar noise, two parts rage to three parts terror with a pinch of cayenne pepper and a cocktail olive, and darted away in the direction of the nearest bush. A couple more arrows narrowly missed her, persuading Fang to jump back out of the way of the window. Then he jumped forward again to avoid a manhole-cover-sized chunk of falling plaster.
‘Hey, you,’ he yelled at Julian, ‘you know about this sort of thing. What should we do?’
Julian, sensibly crouched under a stout oak table with a paper bag over his head (he’d picked up that tip from a government leaflet), beckoned with his front right trotter. ‘Under here,’ he said. ‘It’s what I usually do, and it hasn’t let me d
own yet.’
Fang joined him, just as a rafter landed right where he’d been standing. Not long afterwards, what was left of upstairs and a representative sample of the walls followed suit. Despite several direct hits, the table stayed in one piece.
‘Thanks,’ Fang muttered, when the bombardment was over. ‘I reckon I owe you one.’
Julian took off his paper bag. ‘Just who are you?’ he said. ‘I’ll swear the voice is familiar.’
‘Ah.’ Fang thought quickly. There were the three little pigs. There were the dwarves. There were also, apparently, the samurai, though what harm he’d ever done them he hadn’t a clue. Virtually everybody he could think of at the moment was fairly radically anti-wolf.
On the other hand, Wolfpack’s fundamental and highly cherished Prime Directive demanded that its officers tell the truth at all times, regardless of the consequences. Along with justice and the Fairyland Way, truth was what the Pack stood for. It was what made them a force for good in the world.
‘I’m a handsome prince,’ Fang replied. ‘What does it look like?’
Julian shrugged. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘Now let’s get out of here quick, before those nutcase brothers of mine come looking for me.’
Having shifted sundry bits of dead architecture out of the way, Fang and Julian crawled out from under the table and looked round. The dense clouds of dust were just beginning to settle, and in the distance there were shouts of ‘There he is!’, followed by the twang of bowstrings.
‘Which way?’ Fang shouted.
‘No idea. Hang on, though, what about that castle over there? Good strong walls, high towers, moat, portcullis; you never know your luck. Come on.’
As they ran, Fang could have pointed out that in his quite extensive experience, the average castle could be razed to the ground with less puff than it takes to blow up a party balloon; but his burgeoning diplomatic instincts prevented him. They made it to the gatehouse in remarkably good time.
‘Here,’ Julian called out, ‘let us in, quick!’
A small sally-port in the main gate creaked open, and a long, thin nose appeared in the opening. ‘Why should I?’ squeaked a high, thin voice. ‘Get lost.’
‘We’re in mortal danger, that’s why,’ Julian replied urgently. ‘Haven’t you people got any respect for the concept of sanctuary?’
‘No.’ The nose withdrew, and the door started to close.
‘Stop,’ Fang barked out. ‘Wait. Don’t listen to my friend, he’s just kidding. What we are in fact is, we’re double glazing salesmen.’
The door didn’t open, but it stopped closing. ‘Double glazing salesmen?’
‘That’s right,’ Fang panted. ‘We also sell brushes, useful gadgets for the kitchen and complete sets of the Encyclopaedia Gigantica.’
‘That’s more like it,’ the voice behind the nose grumbled. ‘Still…’
‘Also,’ Fang added desperately, ‘we’re fully accredited evangelists of the Church of the Divine Revelation, and if you’d care to spare us a moment, we could show you some really interesting pamphlets.’
‘Pamphlets,’ the unseen doorkeeper repeated, with barely contained excitement. ‘Tracts? You got tracts?’
‘We got more tracts than you could possibly imagine. Not just religious ones, either. For discerning people like yourself, we also have a wide selection of canvassing leaflets to help you decide who to vote for in local elections.’
The door swung open. ‘You’d better come in,’ said the doorkeeper. ‘Got any Referendum Party videos? I love Referendum Party videos.’
Once inside, Fang and Julian quickly knocked the doorkeeper out and tied him up with a piece of rope they found hanging on a hook near the gate; it was just the right length, and presumably kept there for the purpose. ‘Now,’ Fang muttered, ‘we need a couple of guards. Ah, here they are.’ He reached for a thick billet of wood that was lying conveniently close; then he frowned. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he said. ‘Talk about inefficient. Here, you.’
‘Who, me?’ said one of the guards, coming over.
‘Yes, you. What’s your inside leg measurement?’
The guard thought for a moment. ‘Twenty-nine,’ he said.
‘Waist and collar size?’
‘Thirty-six and fourteen. Why?’
Fang sighed. ‘Go away,’ he said, ‘and send me one of your mates who’s thirty-one inside leg, thirty-two waist and a number sixteen collar. Go on, jump to it. Your colleague,’ he added, pointing to the short, fat guard who was standing a few feet away, ‘can stay. Go on, jump to it. We haven’t got all day.’
The guard trotted off, and a minute or so later was replaced by another one who was the right size. Fang bashed them over the head and stripped off their uniforms. ‘Here,’ he muttered, passing Julian the short guard’s boots. ‘I don’t know,’ he complained. ‘I mean, off-the-peg guards are one thing, but do I look like a thirty-six waist to you?’
Someone was hammering at the gate. ‘Desmond,’ Julian groaned. ‘Look, why don’t you buzz off, see if there’s a back door or something you can sneak out of before they start tearing the place down? It’s not you they’re interested in, and there’s no point in you getting hurt too.’
Fang was tempted. After all, he still had a wicked witch to find, and this didn’t seem like the sort of place witches frequented. On the other hand, he noticed, there were quite a few tall, pointy-topped towers, of the kind inevitably inhabited by crazy old wizards. There might even be a wicked queen…
‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ he replied. ‘Don’t you worry, they won’t get in here. And even if they do, they’ll never find us. A place this size, there must be millions of nooks and crannies we could hide in. Or a secret tunnel under the walls leading to a ruined priory. I heard somewhere there’s more miles of tunnel under the average castle than the whole of the Circle and Piccadilly Lines put together. No, you stick with me and you’ll be just fine.’
As soon as they’d put on the captured uniforms, they crossed the courtyard, climbed a short flight of steps and opened the door to the chapel. It was empty, and the light passing through the stained glass windows threw bizarrely garish pools of coloured light on the polished stone floor.
‘It’s odd, about the nooks and crannies,’ Fang said. ‘They must be put there on purpose, because they’re no earthly use for anything except hiding in, but you take a look at an architect’s floor-plan for a castle and show me where it says Nook here or gives the dimensions for a cranny. It’s almost as if they grow of their own accord.’
‘Or else something makes them,’ Julian replied. ‘You know, like woodworm holes and places where moths have been at the curtains.’
It was bleak and cold in the chapel, and on all sides the grim faces of dead knights and bishops, lying on the lids of their stone coffins like so many malevolent fossilised sun-bathers, seemed to be staring at them. It felt like the inside of Medusa’s freezer.
‘Somewhere around here,’ Fang muttered, ‘there ought to be some stairs leading down to the crypt. Plenty of places to hide in a crypt. Assuming these cheapskates haven’t turned it into a pool room or a wine cellar, of course.’
‘I don’t think I like the sound of a crypt,’ Julian replied with a shudder, as he did his best to avoid the eye of a particularly sinister-looking marble crusader. ‘Crypts have Things in them.’
Fang bent down, grabbed hold of an iron ring in the floor and pulled, revealing a trapdoor and some steps going down. ‘Depends on who you’re more afraid of,’ he said, ‘Things or your brothers, You know them better than I do.’
‘Good point,’ Julian answered. ‘All right, after you.’
Fang duly led the way, reflecting as he did so that a good industry-standard Thing, with the usual level of regulation magical powers, could have him back in his nice warm fur coat and running about on four feet quicker than you could say H.P. Lovecraft. ‘Mind your head,’ he called out as he disappeared down the steps, ‘the ceiling’s rather ouch!’
‘Thank you. I’ll bear that in mind.’
It was, of course, as dark as strong black coffee in the crypt, and for a while the only sound was Fang’s muffled swearing as he stubbed his toes on what turned out to be large marble sarcophagi. But of Things, amazingly, not a sign.
‘I don’t know,’ he grumbled. ‘A place like this, you’d expect it to be lousy with Things. Huh. I’ve been in creepier bus stations.
‘Have you?’
‘No. It’s a figure of speech.’
‘Oh.’
‘It’s a pretty poor show, though,’ Fang went on. ‘I suppose it could be something to do with the cock-ups, but it doesn’t feel that way to me.’
‘I think you’re right.’
Fang sighed. ‘I reckon it’s just good old-fashioned sloppiness,’ he said. ‘That or the cuts.’
‘Could be.’
‘And stop agreeing with me.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Excuse me,’ Julian interrupted from the other side of the crypt, ‘but who exactly are you talking to over there?’
There was a moment of utter stillness, during which the fall of a pin would have had the neighbours phoning the environmental health people to complain about the noise.
‘I think that’s a very good question,’ Fang croaked. ‘I thought it was you.’
‘No it wasn’t.’
‘Yes it was.’
Fang took a deep breath. ‘Excuse me asking,’ he said, ‘but are you a Thing? Not you,’ he added quickly, before Julian had a chance to reply. ‘Him.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes, you. The one who lives down here, not the one I brought with me. Are you a Thing, or just waiting for a bus or something?’ He clicked his tongue impatiently. ‘God, if only it wasn’t so dark in here…’
‘It is rather, isn’t it? Just a moment.’
There was a disconcerting flash of blue light, which faded into an aquamarine glow that revealed, among other things, a spider.
‘Actually,’ Julian admitted, ‘what I’m really terrified of, most in all the world, is spiders.’
‘Tough.’ Fang took a step closer to the web in which the spider hung. Web, he thought. No, surely not. The spider didn’t move; there, in the very centre of the fragile, lethally efficient environment it had created for itself, there wasn’t any need for it to stir, only to wait for the gullible and the clumsy to come blundering through. Web, Fang thought again. Imagine there was a spider’s web that stretched right across the known world…