They turned down another passageway between a pair of the larger buildings. It was about two metres wide, with half of the gap taken up by a wooden staircase attached to the side of one of the structures. Eric was sitting on the bottom step.
Paris’s eyes travelled above him, to where the stairs disappeared into the gloom.
‘Is this it?’ he said. ‘For an inn, it doesn’t look very inviting.’
‘Don’t have to be back here,’ said Eric. ‘This is the fire exit.’
Fair enough, thought Paris. Not just economics; health and safety too.
The dwarf got to his feet and led the way up the creaking stairs. At the top was a door roughly halfway along the side of the building. Eric knocked gently three times. The door opened and a figure with a lamp appeared.
‘Come in!’ hissed a voice. ‘Quickly!’
Paris and the others shuffled into a dimly lit wooden corridor. The lamp holder closed the door behind them, then turned to beam a smile. It was another male elf, the same height as the one they already had, but with a fatter body and a rounder, more cheerful face. He looked like someone who’d abandoned Tergil’s military training and cave habitat for a life spent running a pub and sampling the produce. Which, Paris decided, was probably what had happened.
‘Tergil!’ said the newcomer. ‘Long time!’
‘Indeed,’ replied Tergil. ‘Greetings, my friend.’
They hugged, gabbling away in their own language for a moment. Paris surveyed his new surroundings while they did so. The corridor ran from one side of the building right across to the other, with four doors and a couple of ineffectual lanterns along each wall. Half of the rooms were at the front of the inn, half at the back. Judging from the outside, they must all be fairly small. And none of them would be a safe place to hide when the Vanethria soldiers arrived.
Tergil tapped him on the shoulder.
‘This,’ said the elf, ‘is Mandannon, a friend of many, many years. And this is Inspector Paris and Sergeant Bonetti.’
‘Hello!’ said the other elf. ‘Welcome to the Duck and Dragon. Call me Mandy.’
‘Hi,’ said Paris, pulling off the woolly hat. ‘You speak English.’
‘Yes,’ said Mandy. ‘Everyone near the portal does a bit. Got to. Never think I will talk to a real human, though. Can you hear me with those little ears?’
‘I believe they are fully functional,’ said Tergil. ‘Although slightly odd.’
‘Yeah,’ said Paris, glaring at him. ‘Everything’s relative.’
He turned back to Mandy.
‘I hate to be a pushy guest,’ he said, ‘but somewhere out there is a load of angry demons, looking for whoever took their prisoner. Tergil said you had somewhere we can lie low?’
‘I do.’ The chubby elf beamed. ‘Follow, please.’
He reached out and touched a wooden panel. Part of the wall clicked open to reveal a concealed passageway and some more stairs. Mandy winked at Paris.
‘Never stay in room seven,’ he said. ‘Smaller than the others.’
Paris followed the elf along the narrow passage and up the equally thin staircase. They dog-legged back on themselves, with the roof of the building directly overhead. It was a bit of a squash, although these steps were obviously better maintained than the ones outside. No creaking or noise of any kind came from them. Over Mandy’s shoulder, Paris saw a light shining at the top.
‘Looks like you’ve been getting ready for us,’ he said.
‘Not me,’ said Mandy. ‘Somebody else.’
Paris’s head emerged into the loft, still trying to work out what his host meant. Mandy moved out of the way and a familiar face grinned at him.
‘About time too!’ said Cassandra.
47
As he clambered up into the loft, Paris felt definitely caught in two minds. He was very happy to see Cassandra again and relieved to see that she was still in one piece. He was, however, also quite annoyed to be seeing her at all.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ he demanded. ‘You were supposed to go back to our world!’
The witch gave an exaggerated tut. ‘And miss all the excitement? I don’t think so.’
‘We didst try reason,’ said Grarf, sitting cross-legged next to her. ‘To no avail.’
‘Damn right,’ added Malbus, from his perch on the demon’s shoulder. ‘She weren’t having it.’
Paris glared at them. ‘Couldn’t you just pick her up and carry her?’
‘Nay!’ replied Grarf indignantly. ‘I be a Knight of the High Council. Such actions wouldst not be chivalrous.’
Bloody marvellous, thought Paris. Forcing her to go where it was safe isn’t allowed, but letting her stay where she might get killed is more gallant. He would never understand magical creatures.
He groaned, and gave up. It was hard to be in two minds when both of them were exhausted. And he really was happy to see Cassandra. He flopped down next to her as Tergil and the others emerged up the stairs.
‘How did you get here, then?’ he asked.
‘The path to the portal,’ said Cassandra. ‘Instead of going up the mountain, there’s a fork that comes down into this valley. So we took a detour.’
‘Yeah,’ said Malbus. ‘Only everyone in Jallengard hates demons, don’t they? So how did we get the big guy through the town? Answer: very carefully.’
Paris nodded.
‘Eric told me about the fork,’ he said. ‘And I figured you two must’ve come up with some way of getting Grarf to this building. What I want to know is, how the hell did you get him up those attic steps?’
‘’Twas not a simple task,’ said Grarf. ‘Methinks I hath dislocated a buttock.’
Paris considered the statement and decided not to inspect the damage. At times like this, he was glad he wasn’t a doctor.
He glanced around the loft instead, peering through the feeble lamplight that constituted magic world illumination. Bare timber roof beams sloped up on all four sides to a point in the middle maybe twice as tall as him. The odd bit of thatch poked through here and there. Beneath them, the centre of the room had approximately ten square metres of floor space for his group to occupy. Outside that, everywhere except the staircase was filled with sacks, boxes and assorted piles of unidentified stuff. Makes sense, he reckoned. If the Vanethria are raiding the town, you’ve got to keep your merchandise out of sight.
Paris turned towards Cassandra to continue his conversation, only to stop in mid-movement. He thought about the stashed supplies again and peered at the closest ones. The sacks were hemp, evidently containing some sort of grain. The piles of stuff included clogs, axes and sea shells. But the boxes? How, in this medieval civilisation, could they possibly have cardboard? He looked round the room, paying more attention this time. Behind a pile of bleached white bones he spied plastic bottles of lemonade. Underneath some animal skins stood tins of paint and a football. And all around him were boxes and boxes of tinned vegetables, biscuits, soap powder and just about anything else he could imagine.
‘I’ll be damned!’ he said.
‘What did you expect?’ asked Tergil. ‘I did tell you this was a trading post.’
‘I know. But we’re not talking handfuls of beads, are we? Look at this stuff! Some of it you can’t even use here. Why have you got a pile of CDs?’
‘CDs?’ said Mandy. ‘Oh. You mean shiny beer mats.’
Paris shook his head.
‘How did you get all this?’ he asked.
‘For many years it was difficult,’ replied Tergil. ‘Most magical creatures can hardly go into one of your supermarkets. But now we have the Internet.’
The inspector raised an eyebrow. ‘Seriously? There’s an online shopping company who deliver to a hole in the ground?’
‘What can I say? Computer geeks live in some unusual places.’
Paris sat staring at the elf, trying to work out how much of this stuff had actually been bought. He knew how good the dwarves were at “finding” things. He
decided he wouldn’t do anything about it. This was, after all, slightly outside his patch.
He gazed around the attic again.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Internet shopping. I see you haven’t got any IT equipment among the stockpile, though.’
‘Course not,’ said Eric. ‘We ain’t got no electric.’
‘Good point.’ Paris fixed his eyes on Tergil. ‘You haven’t got any guns either.’
‘Don’t need ’em,’ said Malbus. ‘Folk over here like to do their fighting up close and personal.’
‘Really?’ said Paris, turning towards the bird. ‘Why?’
‘Because,’ said Eric, ‘it’s more fun.’
Tergil nodded his agreement as Paris watched, flabbergasted. These people had a very strange idea of what constituted enjoyment. Then again, he reminded himself, these aren’t people. They were magical creatures and he already knew better than to apply human standards of behaviour.
‘And,’ said Malbus, ‘if we do need long-range stuff or wanna do lots of damage in one go, that’s what magic’s for, ain’t it? How do you think Rocky’s mum and dad got killed?’
‘As far as I know,’ replied Paris, ‘it was in a landslide. Wasn’t it?’
‘Yeah. After Shadrak brought half a mountain down on them. See, if you’re using spells for that sorta thing then you don’t have to drag big heavy cannons all over the place or faff about finding bullets. You just point your hand and go boom. And magic can bend round corners, or go through a wall without demolishing it. Makes your guns look a bit rubbish.’
‘What?’ said Paris, his flabber now well and truly gasted. ‘The one thing that probably had more impact on human society than anything apart from the wheel – “a bit rubbish”?’
‘Don’t feel too bad, Mr Parrots,’ said Eric. ‘We do like wheels.’
Paris rolled his eyes. He would never, ever understand magical creatures, and he would certainly never understand their civilisation. Plus this didn’t explain why the Vanethria had taken four automatic rifles. Perhaps they had a different idea of fun.
Cassandra poked him in the shoulder. ‘Since you’re all here, I gather the rescue mission went okay?’
Paris glanced at her. She was right, without even saying it. Time to stop pondering and get back to business.
‘Like synchronised clockwork,’ he replied. ‘Kudos to Tergil. And also to Eric, for his brainstorm to throw a burning torch into one of the tents. Must’ve delayed them for a while. Bought us some time.’
He looked up at Bonetti.
‘They’re probably still not far behind us, though. Which is why I’ve had no chance to talk to you yet. What happened in the camp? Were you tortured?’
Bonetti shuffled uncomfortably under the collective gaze of his companions.
‘No, Boss,’ he said. ‘They just asked me questions.’
‘In what sort of language? You don’t speak demonic, and I’m pretty sure they don’t speak Mancunian.’
‘Well, they didn’t really say anything. It was kind of a voice inside my head.’
‘Mystical telepathy,’ explained Tergil. ‘It provides instant translation and ensures that you are telling the truth.’
Paris looked at him.
Tergil shrugged. ‘I told you there are ways.’
Paris continued to stare at him, wondering about the elf’s own mental powers. Supernatural mind reading would be extremely useful back in the station. He often had to deal with people who denied all knowledge, or protested their innocence in spite of the evidence. Maybe now he could find out what the canteen was actually serving.
He turned back to face his sergeant.
‘What did they ask you?’
‘They wanted to know how I do magic, Boss. I told them I haven’t got any magic powers, which confused them a bit. So they asked me how I picked up that car. I said I didn’t have a clue, which confused them a bit more. Then I remembered you sprinkled some stuff on it, and they went “Ah!”. Which confused me.’
‘They realised it was an enchantment,’ said Tergil. ‘But not one you had done.’
‘So,’ said Mandy, nodding towards Bonetti. ‘This human not a mage?’ He pointed at Paris. ‘This one?’
‘Neither of them,’ replied Tergil. ‘It was a fairy flying spell, contained in a vial.’
Mandy gave his fellow elf a very puzzled look. Paris saw it and, in the back of his tired brain, neurons were kicked into life almost against their will. The familiar gears started to mesh. He snapped his fingers.
‘That’s it!’ he announced. ‘Back in the cave we talked through all sorts of things. I knew one of them wasn’t quite right, only I couldn’t work out which. Now I have. You said that all fairies can do is fly. So how do they produce a spell?’
Tergil gazed back at him thoughtfully.
‘Not quite correct,’ said the elf. ‘I told you they possess the power of flight.’
Paris felt his half-awake neurons metaphorically scratching their heads. ‘What’s the difference?’
‘Fairies can fly, that is true. They also have the magical ability to enable other beings to do the same.’
‘Okay,’ said Paris. ‘A fairy can make me take off using hocus-pocus. Good for them. That still isn’t the same as creating a test tube full of flying sand.’
Tergil pursed his lips. He looked like he was trying to work out how to explain something. Either that, considered Paris, or he’d also dislocated a buttock.
‘Performing mystical acts,’ said Tergil, ‘requires focusing your energy to produce the enchantment, and then using your willpower to make it have the desired effect. Although these two things go hand in hand, and it is treated as one operation, it is in fact a two-stage process. And the fairies have managed to separate them.’
He squatted down on his haunches, glancing round conspiratorially.
‘Manipulating magical power is a tiring process. Imagine if you were able to focus your mystical force, impart it into inanimate objects, then not activate it. You could do this away from battle or danger, remaining in safety while your natural reserves replenish. The energy which you stored is now also available, for use at a later date.’
Paris frowned, not sure what to make of this. He was in two minds again and both of them were confused. ‘So how did I make it work? I’m not a sorcerer.’
‘But you are sentient. The sand is not, and has no knowledge that it is supposed to do anything. However, you believed the vial contained a flying spell, did you not? You used it as such. Your willpower essentially switched it on.’
Paris sat back against the boxes behind him.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Let’s see if I’ve got this right. In this primitive society of no electricity and rubbish lighting, fairies have invented the battery?’
‘Oh, wow,’ said Cassandra. ‘It’s obvious when you think about it, but it’s not something you’d think about. And nobody has thought of it before?’
‘Nobody has needed to,’ replied Tergil. ‘There is no other race for whom being tired means that you might become an eagle’s lunch.’
Mandy puffed out his cheeks loudly.
‘I did not know they do this,’ said the chubby elf.
Tergil nodded. ‘I learnt of it through the High Council, although it is not general knowledge.’
Mandy slapped a hand down on his compatriot’s shoulder.
‘Well!’ he said. ‘So I hide you all and I find out something new at same time. Is like old elf saying of kill two birds with one rock troll.’ He beamed. ‘I have to go back to bar now. You stay here. Have rest. Floor is extra thick so nobody in rooms hear you. Some food in corner. Hides and straw to sleep on. All keep quiet. Keep out of sight. And do not use chamber pot too much.’
He moved towards a pile of boxes and pulled something out of the top one.
‘Before I go,’ he said. ‘A gift for you.’
He held out a bottle of whisky.
Paris’s two minds both jumped for joy, with little neurons s
inging and dancing between them. Ye gods, he thought, I really must be knackered.
‘Thanks,’ he said, taking the bottle.
Mandy shuffled himself down the stairs. Paris watched him go, then cast his eyes around the group. They all looked as shattered as he felt. He tried to summon up a rousing pep talk.
‘Different sort of battery,’ he said, ‘but the one I’ve got back home works my alarm clock. Don’t think we need one here, because the town will be waking up soon anyway. Try and get what sleep you can. Replenish your energy. And does anyone else fancy a nightcap?’
48
Sleep came easily to Paris, his tiredness aided by two quick slugs of booze. Concerns about the current situation and the discomfort of his straw bedding evaporated into dreams of crosswords and mathematical equations. Things which should be solved using logic rather than magic. He drifted off smiling.
He woke abruptly with a hand over his mouth. The smile had been wiped from his face, in every possible sense. Tergil loomed over him, one finger held to his lips to indicate silence. The elf removed the offending palm and stood up, drawing his sword as he did so. Grarf was behind him, already armed. Eric stood by the stairs, battleaxe at the ready.
‘What’s going on?’ whispered Paris.
‘I believe,’ replied Tergil, ‘that the Vanethria have arrived.’
Banging and crashing sounded from outside the building, followed by shouting in a variety of tongues. Paris lay still as he listened for a moment, then looked up at Tergil.
‘A few streets away?’
‘No,’ said the elf. ‘Closer than that. A thatched roof provides very good sound insulation.’
Paris vaguely remembered hearing that piece of information some time in the past. He’d also learnt they were good for ventilation, which was far more useful knowledge. It meant that Grarf had been able to doze on the far side of the room without his noxious breath gassing them all.
The inspector sat up and looked at his watch. He grimaced. He’d managed barely an hour’s sleep. He glanced at the whisky bottle and grimaced again. The two swigs he’d taken had consumed rather more than he intended. Either that or somebody else had carried on supping after he’d nodded off. He hoped that was the case, although his head told him otherwise.
Breaking the Lore Page 28
