by Adam Roberts
‘So in our world,’ Lizbreath said, ‘and in the ape world too, the gods cursed Siegfried’s treasure.’
‘And that curse has worked its way through the millennia.’
‘Ordinary dragons deserve to know the truth,’ said Lizbreath, firmly. ‘We’ve no right to keep it from them. If we have not truth, then what do we have?’
Everybody was looking at Helltrik. ‘I never thought to see my darling girl again,’ he told them. ‘I thank you for returning her. For persuading her to emerge from her invisibility. I thank you with all my heart. And I apologize for trying to kill you, earlier.’
‘Don’t mention it,’ drawled Lizbreath.
‘I suppose you will leave this place and fill the Sagas with tales of the wyrmhole.’ He sighed. ‘I have worked so hard for so long to stop that from happening – and yet I find myself facing the prospect of exposure with equanimity. Getting my Hellfire back is all the consolation I need. But,’ he said, holding up his uninjured claw, ‘I will say one thing. I will say why the Dragonlords elected to keep the Wyrmhole secret, and why I considered it an honour for the Vagner nest to shoulder this desperate falsehood.’
‘They decided to keep it secret because that’s what tyrants do,’ snapped Lizbreath. ‘They don’t need another reason!’
‘That’s not the reason,’ said Helltrik, sorrowfully.
‘I assumed,’ said Hellfire, ‘that it was to keep the technological advances derived from apean prototypes to yourselves. Those lucrative technologies!’
‘Not that.’
‘To stop those horrible hömös apes,’ said Asheila, ‘from swarming through and re-infesting our world!’
‘Especially,’ Käal added, ‘if they’re all armed with those dangerous lazy pistols.’
‘No.’
‘Why, then?’ Lizbreath asked.
‘For the sake of the apes, of course! To protect them!’
‘Come on,’ scoffed Lizbreath.
‘I’m perfectly serious. The Dragonlords feel the shame of genocide bitterly. We shared this world with an intelligent species; horrible to look at, of course, and barbaric, but capable of great ingenuity and craft! The technological advances that have come down the wyrm-hole prove that. Yet we slew them all. Some we slew nobly, in open battle. Most we burned alive in their towns, or penned them into cages like cattle and ate them, and it was most ignoble of us. The conflict between us was rooted in shame and deceit, and is a stain upon our honour as dragons.’
‘So, you want to avoid contamination? Is it something like that?’ said Lizbreath.
‘It’s too late for that. No. The point in not revealing the existence of that portal is to keep the apes on the other side safe.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Hellfire.
‘You don’t? Yet you say you have monitored that world?’ He sighed again. ‘What is the most striking feature of that place? It is that there are no dragons in it – none at all. The apes killed them all. If dragonkind discovers that fact, what force will be powerful enough to prevent armies of raging dragons from rushing over there to avenge that terrible fact?’
‘You think… ?’
‘We know. And so do you. All you need to do is think about it. Once word gets out, as it must once this wyrmhole becomes public knowledge, what then? You don’t think the warrior spirit of dragonkind will be piqued? You don’t think the old blood will be roused? And… what is more…’ He seemed to find this next part difficult to say. ‘There is… over there, I mean, on the other side of the wyrmhole. There is… gold.’
Several of the dragons there drew their breath in sharply. ‘Gold?’ said Asheila. ‘Lots of it?’
‘As much as in our world. More, perhaps, since the apes are more technologically advanced than we, and have developed ways of extracting it unknown to us: from seawater, for instance. And all of this gold is, according to the legal standing of dragons, unowned. The hömöses think they own it, of course; but under dragon law that is a null claim.’ Helltrik drew down a great shuddering sigh.
‘Look at you all!’ cried Hellfire; and she pointed at each of them in turn. ‘Even you, Lizbreath! You can’t help it! The curse is in your blood. The prospect of a whole planet of unclaimed gold makes you tremble with lust and hunger.’
Everybody on the balcony was silent for a long time.
‘So,’ said Helltrik eventually. ‘You can tell me, Lizbreath Salamander. You too, Käal. Tell me that you think our world should be told the truth. That there is a doorway to a world in which apes swarm over the land, triumphing over the corpses of murdered dragons. A world in which gold lies around just waiting for a brave dragon to claim it Tell me: what will dragons do when they hear this?’
‘You may,’ said Lizbreath, in a tight voice, ‘have a point.’
‘You could have tried to explain all this to us before,’ said Käal. ‘Rather than, you know, trying to kill us.’
Helltrik frowned. ‘I have already apologized for that,’ he said, in a tight voice. ‘You must understand, young dragon, that we have guarded this secret for hundreds of years. The fate of an entire planet of sentient creatures in our hands. We cannot simply explain the state of affairs to every Tomm, ðick and Dragon who comes along. That would, rather, defeat the purpose.’
‘But you invited me onto your island,’ Käal reminded him.
‘To solve the mystery of Hellfire, here,’ said Helltrik. ‘Nothing more. It was, as perhaps you can understand, a delicate balance – one reason why it took me so long to hire somebody for the job. I needed somebody who might be able to locate my grandniece, but not somebody so clever they would penetrate the true mystery of Doorbraak. I needed somebody with the reputation for finding stuff out, but who was enough of an idiot not to be a threat.’
‘Well,’ said Käal. ‘Thanks for that.’
‘Your secret must remain secret, I suppose,’ said Lizbreath, heavily.
‘Thank you,’ said Helltrik, with genuine, unmistakable relief.
‘Hey!’ said Käal. ‘You’re deciding on behalf of both of us, are you?’
‘I am,’ said Lizbreath. ‘You’ll go back to Starkhelm with the Siegfried treasure. You’ll have nothing to complain about.’
‘I suppose that’s true,’ said Käal.
‘But there’s something else that occurs to me,’ said Lizbreath. She came over and faced Helltrik directly. ‘We fought the Scorch Wars against apes who were living at a very basic level, in terms of their technology: spears and swords. Of course we wiped them out, but they inflicted many casualties upon us – dragons drowned, or crushed under rockfalls, or speared in their open mouths. The hömöses on the other side of that wyrmhole are armed with more than spears and swords. We all saw what damage even one of their little hand-pistols can do…’
‘You think we haven’t thought of this too?’ said Helltrik. ‘The aim has been to keep the wyrmhole thoroughly blocked on both sides: not only physically impassable, but hidden. It is a unique phenomenon of spacetime, a twist in the fabric of the cosmos itself, and it emits a very distinctive radiation signature.’
‘Say who-does-the-what, now?’ asked Käal.
‘The details don’t matter,’ said Helltrik. ‘What matters is that by plugging it with gold, we dampened its signature, and almost completely blocked it. From time to time, we have emptied it out and made exploratory trips over, checking the terrain, snatching examples of technology and so on. But recently we have abandoned even that. The risks are too great. And even stuffed with gold, it is still possible to transmit through the wyrmhole.’
‘I know,’ said Lizbreath.
‘As far as we know, the apes remain unaware of the existence of the wyrmhole. As do the majority of dragonkind. If you help us keep that the state of affairs, then you shall have my gratitude.’
‘Gratitude,’ said Lizbreath, looking out across the morning skies. ‘OK.’
27
They stayed another three days at Doorbraak; long enough to see the island ret
urn, more or less, to its normal routines. The story was disseminated that Burnblast had been visiting when a savage stroke had struck him down. In their attempts to help him, both Helltrik and Marrer had been slightly injured; but the life of the eminent old dragon had been saved. Nothing was said of Ghastly. ‘We’ll leave it a month,’ Helltrik confided to Lizbreath. ‘Then we’ll announce that he died in his sleep.’
As for Hellfire: the story was that she had been in Hostileia after all – that she had suffered a form of dragamnesia, and had not recognized what Käal had said to her when he travelled to bring her back. But that the trauma of the encounter had dislodged the memories, or some such nonsense. It was a lie, of course, and painful to utter. But Hellfire said she had discovered that once one lie is uttered, a second is easier to get out.
The Siegfried treasure was carefully separated from the main hoard by Helltrik himself, and packed into twenty wooden chests. These, in turn, were loaded into the mouth of a fat cargo Skylligator with a complacent expression on its face. Käal and Lizbreath, who were going to travel to Starkhelm along with this booty, made their farewells.
‘You’re staying?’ Lizbreath asked Hellfire, who had come down with her granduncle to see them off.
Hellfire nodded. ‘I am – tied to this place,’ she said.
‘Goodbye,’ said Helltrik. ‘I appreciate your discretion.’
‘Don’t mention it,’ said Käal.
There was only one moment of awkwardness, and it came as the Skylligator was readying to leave. They had all spoken their formal dragon farewells, when, as a parting shot, Käal said: ‘Oh, I almost forgot. The ring?’
He reached out a foreclaw to Hellfire, who was still wearing the ring around her neck on a gold chain.
Her reaction was instant: she flinched back, and wrapped her wings around her chest to hide the precious object. ‘No!’
The hard gleam of hunger flickered in Käal’s usually placid eye. ‘Come on!’ he said. To Helltrik he said: ‘We had a deal.’
‘When we made that deal,’ said Helltrik, speaking slowly, ‘I made it clear to you that the treasure was incomplete. The deal was for the Siegfried treasure, minus this ring.’
The atmosphere had acquired a malign tingle. Nobody was breathing.
‘I don’t see it like that,’ said Käal. ‘The deal was for the Siegfried treasure. That ring is part of the treasure.’ He looked to Lizbreath for support, but her eyes were on Hellfire. ‘It is true,’ Käal went on, ‘that when we made the deal you apprised me of the fact that the treasure was, at that point, incomplete. But that is no longer the case. The ring belongs to me.’
‘I disagree,’ said Helltrik, softly.
For a moment it looked as though the two dragons were going to rush one another, roaring in flame. But then the moment passed. Käal smiled. ‘Well, then you and I will just have to agree,’ he said, ducking his snout, ‘to disagree. Goodbye!’
And they departed. On the journey back to Starkhelm, Lizbreath spent most of the time over by the teeth, lifting a portion of lip to watch the land roll by beneath. As Starkhelm came into view below she made her way, slinkily, back over to Käal.
‘You did the right thing,’ she told him. ‘Letting that ring go. There’s more than enough treasure for you in all this.’
‘I haven’t let the ring go,’ he said, ominously. ‘It’s mine, and I want it.’
‘Why?’ said Lizbreath, surprised. ‘It’s tiny! You’ve got a tonne of gold here. What’s so desirable about that little O?’
‘It’s precious,’ Käal said. ‘The rest of the treasure is all very well, but I can’t say it fires my heart. You can have a chest of it, if you like.’
‘Thank you,’ said Lizbreath.
‘I couldn’t have done it without you,’ he said, condescendingly.
‘You’re not wrong, there. Boy, I’ll take a chest. It’ll come in handy. But mostly,’ she added, settling herself onto the tongue prior to landing, ‘mostly I’m just pleased to be able to come back to Starkhelm without having to worry about Burnblast.’
At the airport they clacked tail-ends together, agreed to meet for lunch the next day, and went their separate ways. Käal supervised the delivery of the Siegfried treasure to his apartment, and then went to the Köschfagold Saga offices. The receptionist told him that Beargrr had just gone to court, to hear the initial judicial ruling on the Wintermute case.
He flew eagerly to the courthouse, and joined Beargrr at the back of the crowded chamber. The judges had just gone into recess, and were expected out again at any moment.
Beargrr did not seem overly delighted to see Käal. ‘You!’ she said. ‘I thought I’d got you tucked safely out of the way.’
‘I’ve got the treasure, Beargrr,’ he told her, his eyes gleaming. ‘Well, pretty much all of it, anyhow. You can let the den dragon know.’
She looked at him. ‘You’re not joking?’ she asked him. ‘You’re not being ironic?’
‘No—I solved the mystery, and got the reward.’
Beargrr opened her eyes very wide. ‘That,’ she said. ‘That is fantastic news.’
‘It will help?’
‘Of course it will! Even if the case goes badly against us, the Siegfried treasure will more than cover any damages. And things don’t look as bad as I first thought, legally.’
‘You mean, the case might not go against us?’
‘Maybe not. It’s early days, of course,’ Beargrr said. ‘If I understand the state of play, the main contention of the case so far is that the form of the plaintiff complaint was without substantive provisions with respect of necessary granite-carved specimen testimonial and attestation clauses in conjunction with the drafting notes for the relevant clause contained in the original Saga coverage agreement. Such precedent as was relevant to memorializing generic Saga-relevant provisions was usually, the court ruled, to be found in commercial Saga composition transaction. For example, matters such as the choice of governing alliteration, the mechanism for serving notices and requirements that any amendments be agreed and documented in flame-proof scrolling, to be overlaid by dragonwax. Any provisions to restrict rights of assignment, provide remedy for the plaintiff in the final order of ab initio and sub via sandwich, contested by either or both parties to the lawsuit, and third-party imposed obligations of confidentiality or define events of force majeure when the instituting declaration of judicial litigation may not be capable of enforcement…
[Eleven pages omitted]
… or any implied contract of adhesion, it must be presented in any standard judgement appellant to the declaration of form, and give one party no ability to reapply for regulatory adjudication of the performance of reasonable expectation.’
‘Right,’ said Käal. ‘Well, good. Good!’
‘It’s an oblique suggestion of possible infringement,’ said Beargrr.
‘Excellent. OK. Well, I just thought I’d touch, eh, base with you. Which I have now done.’
‘This is the culmination of a gripping story!’ said Beargrr. ‘Oh! The judges are returning from recess!’
‘See you tomorrow,’ said Käal. He slipped from the courtroom, and found himself on the main street of Starkhelm, as dragons and firedrakes and workwyrms bustled to and fro. ‘Maybe,’ he said to himself. ‘Maybe it’s time for a sauna.’
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND DEDICATION
Thanks to Simon Spandragon, as ever. Darren Gnash, also of Dragollancz Books, supplied one gag to this undertaking, and Malcolm Edragon another (and no, I’m not going to tell you which ones); all other gags in this book are mine. I dedicate it to my wife, Rachel, who is not a dragon. She is the only person I know who could read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and, when asked afterwards what she considered the most memorable and striking part of it, say: ‘Well, they all seem to drink a lot of coffee…’ She wanted me to put coffee into this novel too but, as everybody knows, dragons don’t drink coffee.
Copyright
A Gollancz eBook
&nb
sp; Copyright © Adam Roberts 2013
The Soddit Copyright © Adam Roberts 2003
The McAtrix Derided Copyright © Adam Roberts 2004
The Sellamillion Copyright © Adam Roberts 2004
Star Warped Copyright © Adam Roberts 2005
The Va Dinci Cod Copyright © Adam Roberts 2005
Doctor Whom: E.T. Shoots and Leaves Copyright © Adam Roberts 2006
The Dragon with the Girl Tattoo Copyright © Adam Roberts 2010
All rights reserved.
The right of Adam Roberts to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This eBook first published in Great Britain in 2013 by
Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 1 473 20296 2
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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