In Your Dreams

by Holt, Tom

  Paul looked away. Mostly, he felt cold, as though he’d been lying in the snow for an hour. ‘Hey, you,’ he said quietly. ‘Elf.’

  At once the small girl was standing beside him. ‘We are not elves,’ she said angrily. ‘Elves are Santa’s little helpers. We are the Fey. Please bear that in mind if you enjoy breathing.’

  Paul pulled back his lips in a poor imitation of a smile. ‘Oh be quiet,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to ask you, is there any reason why we’ve got to stay here, or can we get on? Only there’s other things I could be doing, and—’

  If the look on the child’s face was anything to go by, she was genuinely impressed. ‘You want to go on?’ she said. ‘After hearing that?’

  Paul shrugged. ‘I don’t see what that’s got to do with why I’m here,’ he said.

  ‘Are you stupid or something?’ The child raised her eyebrows. ‘Look, maybe you’re missing the point here. You’ve seen what we can do to you if we want to, and you still want to carry on. Either you’re really, really brave, or—’

  Paul smiled grimly. ‘I know what I am,’ he said. ‘Beating me up like this – well, I’m not exactly enjoying it, but you won’t stop me this way. All you’re really doing is telling me what a pathetic mess I am, and I knew that already.’

  ‘Oh.’ The child seemed rather taken aback. ‘So, she told you, did she? About taking the potion?’

  Paul shook his head. ‘But I’d guessed it had to be something like that. I mean, I had an idea she’d drunk the stupid thing. I thought it was by accident, but apparently not. Broad as it’s long. So, can we press on now, please?’

  The child pulled a face. ‘Talk about a piece of work,’ it said. ‘All right. But if you think this sucks—’

  ‘You should’ve stuck with dragons and stuff,’ Paul interrupted. ‘I’d almost certainly have run away from dragons. All this –’ he waved a hand vaguely towards the corner where the thin girl sat ‘– this is just stuff I live with every day.’

  ‘Very brave,’ the child said mockingly. ‘On the other hand, I’ve got a dictionary at home which says that “brave“ is just another word for too stupid to get out of the way.’

  Paul couldn’t be bothered to reply. It wasn’t as though any of it mattered, anyway. He’d known why Sophie had left him the moment he’d seen her letter. If this was the worst that the Fey could throw at him—

  That business with the light again. He opened his eyes, and then closed them and opened them once more. Made no difference. Either it was very dark indeed wherever this was, or he’d gone blind.

  ‘Hello?’ he mumbled.

  ‘Paul? Is that you?’ Benny’s voice; but sounding uncharacteristically subdued. ‘Over here.’

  Paul tried to walk to where the voice had come from, but something caught his foot and he staggered clumsily to his knees. ‘Benny?’ he called out. ‘Is it dark in here, or—?’

  ‘Yes,’ Benny replied. ‘Stay where you are, it’s not worth trying to move about. What the hell are you doing here, anyhow? Please don’t tell me you’re trying to rescue me.’

  ‘Well,’ Paul said, ‘yes.’

  ‘Fuck,’ Benny replied. ‘Whose stupid idea was that, then?’

  Paul didn’t answer that. ‘What’s happening?’ he asked. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Dungeons,’ Benny said gloomily. ‘And that’s about all I know. I asked you a question. Who sent you?’

  ‘It was my idea,’ Paul said.

  ‘Liar. Who was it? Was it Ricky Wurmtoter? Did he manage to get out somehow?’

  ‘Sorry,’ Paul replied. ‘I mean no, I haven’t seen any sign of him.’ He remembered something. ‘Isn’t he supposed to be in here too?’ he asked.

  ‘Don’t know,’ Benny replied. ‘I came down here to rescue him, but I’ve been here so long I’m losing track of everything. You do realise, don’t you?’ he added, suddenly urgent. ‘We’re stuck here for good. We aren’t ever going to get out.’

  Paul was still too disorientated for that to mean anything. ‘What makes you say that?’ he said. ‘I mean, they know we’re here. The partners, I mean. The Countess and—’

  ‘So she sent you.’

  ‘All right, yes, she sent me. Which means,’ he plodded on, ‘when I don’t come back—’

  He tailed off. It was a moment before Benny spoke. ‘When you don’t come back,’ he said, ‘that’s it. After that, there’s nobody left. Haven’t you got it yet? If Ricky Wurmtoter’s still in the cell next door, it means the whole fucking department’s down here. All of us. There’s nobody left up there to come after us.’

  A small, detached portion of Paul had to admit: Well, yes, actually, a hell of a lot better than dragons. ‘But what about Mr Tanner? Or Professor van Spee, or—?’

  ‘You clown,’ Benny snapped. ‘They can’t do this sort of stuff, they aren’t heroes. They couldn’t get past the portal, even if they wanted to, which they wouldn’t. Haven’t you worked it out yet? If any bloody fool of a sorcerer could do this job, we wouldn’t be needed. It’s a specialisation. Not everybody can do it. In fact, only a tiny handful.’

  Long silence. ‘I don’t understand,’ Paul whimpered.

  ‘Fine. Then I’ll explain.’ Paul took a step backwards. Even though it was pitch dark, he could feel Benny’s anger building rapidly, like a motorway tailback. ‘In order to do this bloody ridiculous stuff,’ he said, ‘you need a hero, right?’

  Paul nodded, then remembered that Benny couldn’t see him. ‘Right,’ he said.

  ‘And you’re a hero, it says so in your personnel file, right after where it says no initiative, not a team player, attitude leaves much to be desired. So it’s a fact. Now you’re thinking,’ Benny went on, ‘that it can’t be true, you’re not the hero type. And that’s where your total and complete lack of a fucking clue betrays itself.’

  ‘But it can’t be true,’ Paul almost pleaded. ‘Come on, I should know—’

  ‘You don’t know anything.’ He could hear Benny forcing himself to calm down. ‘Nobody ever said you were a great hero. Obviously you’re not. You’re a little tiny one; you know – faster than a speeding second-class letter, leaps very small buildings in a single bound. But what the hell. A Pekinese is still a dog, right?’

  Paul thought fleetingly of the little Yorkshire terrier with its three heads. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I still don’t quite see—’

  ‘Then shut your face and let me tell you.’ Silence; Benny marshalling his thoughts. ‘Where you go wrong is, you don’t know what makes someone a hero. You think it’s probably bulging muscles, superior weapon skills, trivial stuff like that. Well, you couldn’t be more wrong if you tried. A hero’s only got to be two things: brave, and good. That’s all.’

  In comparison, Paul thought, beating my head against a brick wall would be both productive and agreeable. ‘But I’m not either,’ he whined.

  ‘Fuck you, Carpenter, if I say you’re good and brave, you’re good and brave. Do you want me to explain, or don’t you?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘So you should be. And you are. Right, where was I? Good and brave. Well, brave you can probably get your head around, but how about good? Do you have any idea what “good“ means?’

  ‘I used to think I did,’ Paul muttered.

  ‘Well, you don’t. Here’s something for you to think about. Would a good person deliberately do something that’d mean unbearable lasting pain for those who love him most?’

  ‘Um,’ said Paul. ‘No.’

  ‘Thank you, now we’re getting somewhere. How about “brave“? Can you do brave for me?’

  Paul nodded. ‘Facing danger,’ he said.

  ‘Good. Nearly right, anyhow. Brave is facing up to stuff that you know is dangerous, because, obviously, if you don’t know that it’s dangerous it doesn’t count. So a brave guy is someone who does something even though he knows he could get killed, right?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Fine.’ Paul had never heard Benny sound so
harsh, even in his manic drill-instructor mode. ‘So you’re a brave man, and you face the terrible danger, and you get killed. So what about people who love you? Family and kids and wives and girlfriends? Obviously you’re going to have to use a little imagination here, Carpenter; but how do you think they’re going to feel when they hear you didn’t make it this time? That you went chasing off to fight evil against overwhelming odds, knowing full well that you didn’t have a chance, knowing full well there’re these poor fools who love you, and you got yourself killed. What does that make you?’

  Paul thought about that. ‘A bastard,’ he said.

  ‘Exactly. You just did something that’d mean unbearable lasting pain for those who love you most. You put saving the world from some nebulous evil overlord, who’s probably so crazy or so thick he’d have blown himself up anyway if only he’d been left alone, above the feelings of the people you owe most to, because they loved you. You thought more of saving a poor lost kitty stuck up a rickety tree than ruining the lives of everybody who ought to matter most to you. Are you a good man, or are you a reckless little shit? Rhetorical question,’ Benny said, ‘because there can only be one answer. Which is why,’ he went on, ‘Cas Suslowicz can’t come and rescue us, because he’s got an invalid sister who depends on him; and Theo van Spee’s got children and grandchildren, and Countess Judy’s got a couple of dozen ex-husbands who’d self-destruct if anything happened to her, and even Dennis Tanner’s got a mother. But the three of us—’ He laughed suddenly. ‘Us three sad bastards. Ricky Wurmtoter’s an orphan, and you can imagine why he has problems with lasting relationships. I’ve outlived all my relatives who were on speaking terms with me by a couple of centuries. And you – well, you don’t need me to tell you. At your interview, the moment they set eyes on you, they knew. Because who the hell would ever be upset if you went off one day and never came back?’

  It occurred to Paul to wonder whether the small child was somewhere in the cell with him, in the shadows where she couldn’t be seen, grinning evilly and mouthing, Told you so. It’d be a pity if she wasn’t, and missed all the fun. ‘Right,’ he said quietly. ‘I think I see what you’re getting at. But you’re wrong.’

  ‘Really? You think so?’

  ‘Yes,’ Paul said firmly, ‘I do. All right, Sophie may have dumped me, and she never cared about me anyway. And my mum and dad went off to Florida, and they never had much time for me, and— But that still doesn’t mean they don’t love me; I mean, don’t love me at all. After all, I’m their son. And if anything happened to me—’

  He wondered if he’d just said something funny; an unintentional pun, maybe son was the Dwarvish word for turnip or something. ‘I’m sorry,’ Benny said, ‘didn’t mean to burst out laughing like that, I guess the stress is getting to me or something. But obviously you don’t know, do you?’

  Paul sighed. Not again. ‘Apparently not,’ he said. ‘What is it this time?’

  ‘Oh for – well, can’t do any more harm, I suppose. Like, it’s not as if either of us is ever going to get out of here, and pretty soon we’ll have other things on our minds beside the fact that—’ Paul waited while Benny sorted out his train of thought. ‘What I mean to say is, if there was any chance that we’d escape and go on to lead normal, happy lives, then I wouldn’t tell you this, because it’d screw you up permanently. But since we’re irretrievably fucked in any case, you might as well know. To cut a long story—’

  But Paul wasn’t listening. ‘Shut up,’ he snapped. ‘Please,’ he added, remembering his manners. ‘There, can you hear it?’

  ‘Hear what?’

  ‘Sort of panting, snuffling noise.’

  ‘Oh. I assumed that was you.’

  Couldn’t be bothered replying to that. ‘It’s the dog,’ Paul said. ‘The little dog with the tartan flea-collar.’ He could feel the grin flooding across his face. ‘They’re letting us go—’

  ‘Doubt it,’ Benny said, but Paul was down on his hands and knees, feeling for the source of the noise. He wasn’t quite sure how it was supposed to work; would the dog open a door for them or lead them to the exit, or did he have to grab hold of it, or what? But hope, the one thing he’d felt sure he’d never feel again, was sloshing about inside him like too much cherryade. If only he could find the dog—

  He found something, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t the dog. Then someone slapped his face, very hard.

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’

  Then someone called him something in German. He didn’t have to be a linguist to get the general meaning.

  ‘Monika?’ he said. ‘Is that you?’

  ‘Ja. And if you do not take your hand away now, I will—’

  ‘Oh.’ He shoved his hand behind his back, where he devoutly hoped it’d be out of the way.

  ‘Monika, thank God. Have you come to rescue us?’

  Silence.

  ‘Oh,’ Paul said again.

  ‘It was my intention to rescue you,’ Monika said stiffly. ‘However, I do not think I have succeeded. I think I have been captured too.’

  It didn’t help that Benny started roaring with laughter. It was too dark to see to kick him, however, so all Paul could do was hiss, ‘Shut up!’ in what he hoped was the right direction. ‘Sorry,’ he went on, now thoroughly confused as to where everybody was. ‘It was really nice of you to try, though.’

  ‘It was nothing,’ Monika replied. ‘It was my duty. I have failed.’ And then the snuffling noise started again, and Paul realised that it hadn’t been the dog; just Monika, crying.

  Marvellous, he thought.

  ‘Serves her right, though,’ Benny was saying. ‘That’s the other complete bitch about love. Not only does it really hurt when the irresponsible bastard goes off and gets killed, it makes people do really stupid, dangerous things, like trying to rescue the loved one from the dungeons of the Fey. Stupider than which,’ he added savagely, ‘it’s impossible to get, outside of a general election.’

  For a moment, Paul didn’t understand at all. It didn’t make sense. For one thing, Monika was a car. ‘You mean,’ he said, in a rather wobbly voice, ‘you came here just to try and save—’

  ‘Ja. What else could I do?’ Snuffle, whimper. ‘I could not just leave him here.’

  ‘Monika—’ Paul started to say, and then the incongruous pronoun hit him like a meteorite. Unless, of course, she’d been talking to Benny, in which case – Fuck total darkness, he thought bitterly, it makes everything so bloody complicated.

  ‘And now,’ Monika went on, ‘it turns out that he is not even here. That is correct, yes?’ she added.

  ‘Um,’ Paul said. ‘Who do you mean?’

  A snort from the middle distance. ‘Ricky Wurmtoter, you clown,’ Benny said. ‘You don’t think she came all this way just to keep you company, do you?’

  Well no, Paul thought, I suppose I didn’t. Not in the part of my mind that deals with reality and stuff. ‘Mr Wurmtoter,’ he repeated. ‘He’s your boyfriend.’

  Howl of outrage, with a pronounced German accent. ‘He is not my boyfriend. He is my brother.’

  Shit, Paul thought; and he wanted someone to blame, since it looked like he was now doomed to spend all eternity in a small, dark place with someone he’d mortally offended. The only person he could think of to blame was Ricky Wurmtoter, for not having mentioned it. But, he was forced to admit, it wasn’t the sort of thing that’d crop up in casual conversation: Oh and by the way, my sister’s a two-door hatchback. His nerves were now so thoroughly jangled he couldn’t even apologise; and as far as Paul was concerned, saying ‘Sorry’ came slightly more naturally than breathing. ‘I didn’t know that,’ he said.

  ‘It is quite all right,’ Monika said, with a lack of sincerity you could’ve carved into a second Mount Rushmore. ‘He does not talk about it. He is ashamed. It is understandable.’

  Paul, however, wasn’t paying attention. Something about what he’d just learned was bothering him; a detail that didn’t fit. He coul
dn’t quite figure out what it was, but it was itching, a raspberry pip of doubt under his mind’s dental plate.

  ‘Now perhaps,’ Monika said, ‘we should leave.’

  This time, Paul was sure that Benny was going to do himself an injury, he was laughing so much. ‘That’s right,’ he gasped between roars, ‘let’s leave. Why didn’t I think of that? It’s such a good idea—’

  ‘Mr Shumway,’ Monika said sternly, ‘your behaviour is most inappropriate. It is not good manners to laugh so, and besides, I do not see what is so amusing. This is a serious matter.’

  That more or less finished it, as far as Benny was concerned; Paul could hear his boots clumping against the wall as he rolled on his back. ‘I do not think Mr Shumway is well,’ Monika said, raising her voice so as to be heard. ‘Perhaps it is the stress. I think maybe that you and I should be the ones to deal with this problem.’

  Paul was beginning to see the joke himself. ‘Fine by me,’ he said. ‘What did you have in mind?’

  Pause. ‘I was hoping you might have an idea,’ Monika said awkwardly. ‘You are, after all, a qualified Ubermensch. Surely this situation was covered in your basic training.’

  ‘Not really,’ Paul said. ‘Mostly, it was more to do with killing things and stuff. How about you?’ he added hopefully. ‘I mean, someone told me you were a proper sorceress before you got – before you, um, joined the firm. What sort of thing did you do?’

  ‘My field of specialisation, you mean? Herbal remedies and ecological magic. In Germany, I was the leading authority on turning disused industrial facilities into flower-carpeted meadows.’