The Outsorcerer's Apprentice (25 page)

“Ah. Well, in that case—”

The Chairman was running his fingers over the names inscribed in the great brass plates. “He can start immediately,”
he said. “And if he’s thinking of escaping, he can’t, because the door’s locked and we’ve got the key. Must keep the door locked, or
they’ll
get in.”

Bugger, Benny thought. Really don’t want to have to do this, but it doesn’t look like I’ve got a choice. He put his hand to the hilt of his sword and said, “Look, it’s not that I don’t appreciate the offer and it’s really nice of you, but I think I’ll go now, so if you’d be very kind and just unlock the door—”

The Chairman looked at him, then looked away again. If he’d noticed the hand on the sword hilt, he gave no sign of it. Damn, Benny thought, and he drew the sword.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I’m going to have to–
ow
, that
hurt.
”

The Chairman had moved so fast, Benny hadn’t really seen what he’d done; a punch, a kick, something of the sort. In any event, the sword was lying on the floor with the Chairman’s foot firmly on the blade, and Benny’s hand felt like he’d just caught it in a car door.

The Chairman’s bright, horribly amplified eyes were staring at him. “So,” the Chairman said, “he’s one of
them
, after all. We should have known, he said the T word, of course he’s one of
them
. So, what are we going to do with him? Can’t let him go, he knows where to find us, it wouldn’t be safe, it wouldn’t be separate, no Chinese walls, nothing. Can’t let him go and bring
them
here, not to the registered office. So what
will
we do with him? What indeed?”

The Chairman rose from his chair and started walking towards him. Benny backed away as far as he could go, which wasn’t terribly far, and then said, “Just kidding.”

The Chairman kept on coming. “What did he say?”

“Actually, it was a test. The wizard sent me. To test your security. To make sure you’re keeping them safe. And separate, of course.”

The Chairman stopped. “The wizard?”

Benny nodded. “The wizard,” he replied. “My friend.” He turned up his smile to maximum beam. “Be—Florizel, he said to me, I’d like you to trot along down to the registered office and make sure everything down there’s safe and secure. And separate,” he added quickly. “I mean, he said, I’m sure there’s not a problem, I’d trust the Chairman with my life, but when it comes to keeping them safe, you can’t be too careful. Well, can you?”

The Chairman peered up at him out of his bug-like eyes. “Prove it,” he hissed. “He must prove it. Or we’ll eat him.”

“Um, there’s a bit of a problem with that,” Benny said frantically, “on account of, how am I supposed to prove what was said in a private conversation in a secure environment with absolutely nobody else present? Love to help, can’t be done. Looks like you’re just going to have to take my word for it.”

The extraordinary hissing noise suggested that the Chairman didn’t think much of that. “We’ll know,” he said, and started creeping forward again. “We’ll know when we smell him, oh yes. We’ll know if he’s been with the wizard any time in the last month, we always know. And if he’s been telling the truth we’ll let him go, and if he hasn’t, we’ll gobble him up, maybe with artichoke hearts, baby new potatoes and a dry Chablis.” He stopped; his nose was an inch from Benny’s chin. Snff, snff, like one of those dogs at airports.

“Look,” Benny said, “about the job offer. On mature reflection—”

“Ah.” The Chairman smiled, and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. “We apologise. We are so sorry to have doubted him. We hope he will forgive us and let the wizard know that everything is in order here.”

“Oh yes,” Benny said, having a little trouble with his throat. “Really separate and safe. I’ll be sure to tell him.”

“How very kind.”

“Please, don’t mention it.”

“We’ll unlock the door now,” the Chairman said, “and he can go back and tell the wizard, and maybe the wizard will be pleased and send us more companies to keep safe.”

“You know, I’m almost certain he will.”

“More and more companies,” the Chairman purred. “To keep them safe from
them
. Until one day, who knows, all the little companies will be here, all the dear little companies, and we will watch over them and keep them separate, and the T word will have no dominion. One day,” he said, moving his glasses to wipe away a tear. “Perhaps.”

“Entirely possible,” Benny said, stepping round him to retrieve the sword. “Now, if you could just get the key.”

A moment later he was on the threshold. He stepped out into the cold, quiet tunnel, and the door started to close behind him. Then it stopped, and the Chairman’s nose appeared once more.

“You know,” he said, in a higher, marginally saner voice than before, “you remind me of him a little. You have the same ears. Goodbye.”

The door slammed shut, and there was that graunching noise again, and Benny was alone in the tunnel. He looked back at the door for some considerable time, because it wasn’t the first time he’d heard that last assertion; then he walked back up the way he’d come to the triple fork.

T
he pale amber beams of the Horrible Yellow Face slanted down through the high branches of the willow grove, blazing a lattice of golden light on the red and brown leaf mould. The glow reminded Mordak of the shining stones, which only yesterday had been the whole
raison d’être
of his people, and which he’d deliberately turned away from. He grunted, swung his billhook and took his doubts and fears out on a sapling.

Leading from the front is the goblin way, and there had been no question in his mind–they could do this. If a bunch of supercilious high-cheekboned ponces could do it, the Children of Groth could do it better, faster and with infinitely more style. You cut off a bit of twig, you split it and twist the strips into a basket. Piece of ear.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t turning out quite the way he’d anticipated. The sapling was ridiculously springy; you hit it with the billhook and it sort of bounced out of the way, then bounced back and smacked you in the face. When eventually you’d managed to chomp your way through it, assuming the hook hadn’t sprung off and cut deep into your ankle, when you came to split it, the result was usually shredded bark and splinters. So far, the Children of Groth had levelled two
acres of coppice, and nothing to show for it apart from blisters, a couple of dozen severed digits that’d take
days
to grow back, and a certain amount of ill humour.

I will persevere, Mordak told himself through gritted teeth. I’ll do this if it kills me.

Pause for thought and a surreptitious look round at his subjects. I’ll do this, and one of them’ll kill me, he amended; unless I can get the hang of it and show them, and I really need to do that quite soon, or else there’s going to be—

“ ’Scuse me, sir.”

He froze his slash in mid-swing and looked up, and saw the old human bodyguard, who was watching him with a look on his face. Mordak bared his fangs. “What?”

“Do please excuse the liberty, sir, and I really don’t mean to criticise, but there’s, um, there’s an
even better
way of doing that, sir, if you’ll just allow me to show you.”

Another furtive survey; nobody was watching. “Be my guest,” Mordak grunted, and handed him the billhook.

The old man smiled, took the hook and proceeded to harvest an armful of neatly severed saplings in the time it’d take Mordak to eat a pickled nose. “Sort of like that, sir,” the old man said, straightening his back with a grimace. “More a sort of diagonal motion, if you follow me, and as close to the ground as you can make it. You try it, sir, see how you get on.”

Amazing. Goblins have a proverb; the worst thing a king can say is, I never expected that. Mordak had never thought he’d see the day when he learned something useful from a human. True, forty-eight hours before he never thought he’d see the day when goblins made baskets, except for the purely decorative kind woven from the ribs of their enemies. “Yes, that’s much better,” Mordak said. “Um, thank you.”

“’Scuse me, sir? Bit deaf in this ear.”

“
Thank you
.”

The old man smiled, and Mordak got the distinct impression
that he’d just passed some kind of test. “My pleasure, sir. Well, I’ll leave you to it, don’t want to get in the way of the good work.” He paused for a moment, then said, “Again not wanting to sound cheeky and push myself forward where I’m not wanted, but purely out of interest, there’s a slightly different way of doing the splitting, too.”

“You don’t say.”

“Oh yes, sir, believe it or not. I could show you some time, maybe, when you can spare five minutes.”

“It just so happens I have five minutes right now,” Mordak said. “So, what’ve you got?”

Once the lesson was over and he was absolutely sure he’d learned it, Mordak spent an hour practising, to make perfect, after which his back ached like never before and his right arm felt as though he’d been holding up the cavern roof with it. Never mind. He took a long, satisfied look at the neat pile of willow strips he’d built up, then stomped across to the middle of the glade, climbed up onto a fallen tree and yelled “Listen up!”

The goblins stopped work and looked at him. He put on his most terrifying royal scowl, counted to five under his breath, puffed out his chest like a frog and addressed his people.

They were all, he told them, useless. A bunch of globs straight out of the spawning vat could do better; damn it,
dwarves
could do better, blindfold in the dark with clamshell gauntlets on. It made him sick to his stomachs to watch them. Well, he couldn’t bear it any longer, so he’d better show them how to do it. First, you hold your billhook in your right hand like
this
—

Much later, when they were gathering up the split withies and loading them on carts, Mordak reflected on greatness. So far, five goblin kings had been accorded the honour of being called The Great; Mog, Uzak, Blung, Azmak and Groon. Mog had started the war with the dwarves, and his
bleached skull still decorated the guest bathroom in Drain’s winter palace at Hazad-Gloom. Uzak had slaughtered the Elves at the battle of Hoon, and all they’d ever found of him was one tattered sock. Blung had won a civil war; so, subsequently, had Azmak; Azmak’s successor Groon had had their skulls made into a condiment set–Blung was salt, Azmak was pepper, and in due course Groon joined them as salad dressing. That sort of thing, in goblin eyes, constituted greatness. If anyone remembered the name Mordak in a hundred years’ time, assuming there were any goblins left by then, it’d be as Mordak the Basket-Weaver, or Mordak the Big Girl’s Blouse. And quite right, too, he reflected. The purpose of goblins is to fight, hurt people and die. Surviving, prospering, being happy; a simple case of the wrong tool for the wrong job, like trying to drive in a nail with a rose.

So, he thought, what
has
got into me?

They’d finished loading the carts, and now they were sitting round a roaring campfire of minced-up brash, roasting squirrel kebabs and passing round a big jug of malted milk. They seem happy, Mordak said to himself; and the voice inside him said, exactly, that’s the point, goblins aren’t
meant
to be happy, any more than the sky is meant to be green. A green sky or a happy goblin may have a certain superficial attractiveness, but they’re both inherently wrong. Goblins can’t function on contentment, it’s lacking in certain essential vitamins absolutely required to sustain goblinity. A bit like celery; you can eat celery all day every day and still die of starvation. Goblins need
protein
.

Mordak frowned. Half a dozen of his personal guard were playing darts, each taking it in turn to be the dartboard. They were smiling and laughing, but there was no war. No war, and they were happy…

The old joke: I’d just taught my donkey to survive without food and it went and died on me. Well, Mordak thought. Sod
it. I shall teach the Children of Groth to survive without protein, and let’s see how far we get.

He heard a twig snap behind him. “Look at them,” he said, without turning his head. “They seem to have got the hang of it.”

“Yes, sir. All credit to you, sir, if I may say so. Quite a transformation, don’t you think?”

Mordak grunted. “The Elves are always banging on about Change,” he said. “Like it’s a good thing. Not that they ever do anything about it, of course, but that’s Elves for you. If they didn’t have anything to whine about, they’d pine away and die.” He shifted round a little and gave the old man a long, hard stare. “Me, I’m not a great fan of change. Why mess with something when it’s been working pretty well for a thousand years? And even if it hasn’t, you’re just as likely to replace it with something worse, so why go asking for trouble?” He shook his head. “And now look at me. Mordak the bloody Innovator. Makes me wonder if someone’s been putting something in the drinking water.”

“You mean, apart from the main sewer outflowing into the rainwater tank?”

“We happen to like it that way,” Mordak said coldly. “Really, I’m starting to wonder. All this.” He waved a vague claw. “Why me, for Groth’s sake? Why did it have to be
me
?”

The old man shrugged. “There’s an old human saying, sir. Only Nixon could go to China.”

“Who?”

“Doesn’t matter, sir. Just a saying. I’ll let you get on now, sir. Young Art will be wanting his dinner.”

Mordak nodded, and the old man wandered away and soon vanished among the trees. Mordak sighed, opened a packet of candied fingers and started to chew. Only who could go to where? Bloody cryptic humans.

A loud shout, followed by a crash, made him spin round.
His guards, one of them with a dart sticking out of his forehead exactly between his second and third eye (double top to start, presumably), came hurrying up, axes at the ready. Another crash, then a dazzling flash of light, then a distinct howl of pain.

“Dwarves,” someone growled, but Mordak told him to be quiet. Dwarves didn’t make lightning flashes; that was someone else’s trademark. Oh, Mordak thought. Oh well. “All right,” he said to the guard captain, “take six men, find out what that’s all about.”

The captain didn’t look happy at all. “Right away, Your Majesty,” he said, and then, “Now then, you, you lot and you, with me.” But suddenly there was no need for that. The old man and his nephew were walking up the track. The nephew held a hooded, muffled figure dangling by its collar in one hand, a bacon sandwich in the other. As they approached, Mordak could smell sulphur.

“All right, gentlemen,” the old man was saying, “it’s all over, nothing to see here, move along now, please, let the boy through. Excuse me, sir, but could you spare us a moment?”

Mordak dismissed the guard, and the nephew dumped his prisoner at Mordak’s feet. The hood fell back, revealing a pair of pointy ears. “He’s out cold, sir,” the old man said, “sorry about that, young Art doesn’t know his own strength sometimes. Be all right in a minute, I should think.”

Mordak frowned at the stunned Elf, then looked at the old man. “Just now,” he said. “There was a sort of bright—”

“That’s right, sir. Magic, sir. Silly sod tried to blast us out of the way with fireballs. I’m afraid we don’t take kindly to that sort of thing, do we, Art?” The young man shook his head and ate a cheese and onion slice. “So I’m afraid we were a bit sort of brusque with him, sir, so he won’t be available for questioning for an hour or two. Still, we know who sent him, so that’s all right.”

Mordak looked at him. “Do we?”

“Oh, I think we do, sir. The wizard. Who else?”

Who else indeed. The old man had a solemn look on his face, incongruous as an undertaker in a nightclub. “Do you reckon it’s war, then?” Mordak asked.

“I should think so, sir, yes. I don’t think he’s too happy about you giving the dwarves a monopoly on them yellow stones. Take you out of the picture, so to speak, and probably your people will go back down the mines. Sort of makes sense, sir, from where he’s standing.”

Mordak suddenly felt very cold. He’d faced death every day of his life, that’s what being a goblin
is
, and he’d lived accordingly; only for the moment, but with a view to living for ever in the hearts and minds of brood as yet unspawned. Now, for some reason, it was different. The thought of dying, of not being here tomorrow to see what happened next, terrified him. Quite deliberately, he transmuted the fear into cold rage. Goblin alchemy.

“Do me a favour?” he said.

“Course, sir. What would you like me to do?”

“Take a message to King Drain,” Mordak said. “After all, why the hell should we have all the fun? Tell him what just happened, and that if I go he’ll be next. Make him understand that, you hear me? Tell him, if we’re united, goblins and dwarves together, we can beat the wizard.”

The old man raised an eyebrow. “You want me to lie to him, sir? Not that I got any problem with that, just checking I got your meaning right.”

“It’d be a lie, would it?”

“Oh yes, sir. But that’s all right. I’m a very good liar, though I say so myself as shouldn’t. Not like young Art, sir. Couldn’t tell a lie to save his life, bless him, just like his poor mother.”

Mordak looked at the old man, but he couldn’t make out
anything at all; just wrinkles, and a pair of very deep pale blue eyes. “Who the hell are you, anyway?” he said.

“I’m Art’s uncle,” the old man said, “and he’s my nephew. I’ll be getting along now, sir. Art’ll look after you while I’m gone.”

Mordak glanced at the stunned Elf, and nodded. “Right,” he said. “So long as he doesn’t mistake me for a cheese and onion slice, I’ll be just fine.”

“Not much chance of that, sir,” the old man said, not unkindly. “Well, cheerio for now.” He started to hobble away, then turned back. “Almost forgot, sir. When we done the Elf, this fell out of his pocket. You might find it useful.”

He handed Mordak a small, flat, rectangular thing, smooth and black with a sheet of glass on one side, a bit like a picture frame. “What’s that?” Mordak said.

“Magic stuff,” the old man told him. “It’s how the wizard talks to his henchmen. You press this here, see, and a light comes on. Oops, careful, sir, they don’t work too good if you drop them. Then you press here and here, and a little list comes up, and then you choose an option and go like that, and you can talk to people a long way away. It does other stuff, too, but I wouldn’t worry about that right now, sir, if you get my meaning.”