Earth, Air, Fire and Custard

by Tom Holt

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Also by Tom Holt

  Dedication

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  www.orbitbooks.net

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © The One Reluctant Lemming Co. Ltd. 2005

  Cover illustration by Darren Nash. Cover copyright © 2012 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Orbit

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  www.orbitbooks.net

  Orbit is an imprint of Hachette Book Group. The Orbit name and logo are trademarks of Little, Brown Book Group Limited.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  The Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to www.hachettespeakersbureau.com or call (866) 376-6591.

  First US e-book edition: September 2012

  ISBN: 978-0-316-23333-0

  Also by Tom Holt

  Expecting Someone Taller

  Who’s Afraid of Beowulf?

  Flying Dutch

  Ye Gods!

  Overtime

  Here Comes the Sun

  Grailblazers

  Faust Among Equals

  Odds and Gods

  Djinn Rummy

  My Hero

  Paint Your Dragon

  Open Sesame

  Wish You Were Here

  Only Human

  Snow White and the Seven Samurai

  Valhalla

  Nothing But Blue Skies

  Falling Sideways

  Little People

  The Portable Door

  In Your Dreams

  Earth, Air, Fire and Custard

  You Don’t Have to be Evil to Work Here, But It Helps

  Barking

  The Better Mousetrap

  May Contain Traces of Magic

  Blonde Bombshell

  Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Sausages

  Doughnut

  For Cassandra Claire

  (back atcha)

  &

  TH, the artist,

  with thanks

  CHAPTER ONE

  The soft, blurred light of dawn. A small, lonely island at the mouth of a sheer-sided fjord. A sparkle pierces the muffling sea fret; the flat clang of steel on steel troubles the eerie silence.

  A small boat bobs at the water’s edge. Two sets of footprints in the sand lead up the beach towards the thin grass. Two men stand facing each other, catching their breath by unspoken mutual consent. Both are exhausted, their hair spiked with sweat. One, gripping a sword, peers nervously over the rim of a hacked and splintered shield; the other leans heavily on the shaft of an axe.

  Simultaneously they take a step forward, their bodies immediately tense as drawn bowstrings. The swordsman takes a low guard, while his opponent hefts the long Danish-pattern axe and waits, analysing the swordsman’s defence. Presumably he sees something, because he plunges forward and swings the axe round his head and down, pulling the swing a little to one side at the last moment. The bright cannel-ground edge strikes the shield’s rim but skids off, and the axe bites deep into the turf; spotting an unexpected advantage, the swordsman pushes forward with his shield and pivots his right shoulder for a devastating diagonal cut—

  ‘Hold it,’ grunts the axeman. ‘Offside.’

  The swordsman checks the stroke painfully in mid-air. ‘It was not!’ he protests.

  ‘Offside,’ the axeman repeats firmly. ‘Look at where you’ve got your feet.’

  The swordsman glances down, tries to draw his left foot back.

  ‘I saw that,’ the axeman says.

  ‘All right,’ the swordsman sighs. ‘I suppose, technically—’

  ‘Technically be buggered,’ the axeman interrupts, ‘offside is offside. Free hit to me.’

  ‘Yes, all right,’ grunts the swordsman. ‘Though if we’re going to be all picky about it—’

  With a tremendous effort, the axeman heaves the axe-head out of the turf and swirls it round his head in a flashing arc, while his enemy stands perfectly still behind his ruined shield. The axe impacts on the rim, shearing through the steel band and deep into the timber, only just stopping short of the swordsman’s left hand. In reply the swordsman jerks the shield and the trapped axe-head sideways, nearly disarming his opponent—

  ‘You’re doing it again,’ the axeman points out.

  ‘What?’ Another quick glance. ‘Oh, snot. It’s ever since they changed the LBS rule,’ the swordsman complains bitterly. ‘I’d only just figured out what the old rule was, too.’

  ‘There’s nothing to figure out,’ the axeman says coldly. ‘Left foot no more than five inches in front of the shield-boss, or it’s a foul shot. Perfectly simple. A child of four could understand it.’

  ‘Yes, well.’ The swordsman isn’t happy, but he lets his left arm drop enough for the axeman to dislodge his blade. ‘I can’t see what was so bad about the old rule. If they’d only leave well alone and stop fiddling with it—’

  ‘Another free hit to me,’ the axeman points out, with a smirk. ‘You aren’t doing terribly well so far, are you?’

  The swordsman grins back at him. ‘Given that you’ve had six free hits and I’m still standing,’ he said, ‘looks like I’m not the only one. If you ask me, you’re trying to hit too hard. Relax, loosen up, let the axe do the work instead of trying to force it.’

  The axeman pulls a face and tries again. This time, perhaps because he’s tired and irritated, he manages to miss completely. The swordsman sniggers.

  ‘While we’re on the subject of rules,’ the axeman replies, tugging his blade out of the turf once more and stepping back into a defensive back-guard, ‘what about rule 46, section 3, no unnecessary talking?’

  ‘That’s a bit rich coming from you,’ says the swordsman huffily. ‘Talk about your pot and kettle—’

  Before he can finish his sentence the axeman swings again, bending his knees and drawing the stroke very low as he aims for the swordsman’s ankles. But the swordsman reads the cut perfectly and jumps high in the air from a standstill, so that the blade passes harmlessly under his feet. As he lands, one foot jams the axe-shaft down, ripping it out of the other man’s hands. Almost before the swordsman gets his balance he swings; the axeman rears away, arching his back, and just manages to avoid the sword-blade, but the sudden violent effort unbalances him. He seems to hang in the air for a moment, both hands waving helplessly, before cr
ashing down on his back. As soon as he’s down the swordsman cuts again; the axeman wriggles sideways, almost but not quite far enough, as the very tip of the blade engraves a line across his forehead, about an inch above eye-level.

  ‘And on a double-wound score, too,’ the swordsman gloats. ‘Now then—’

  ‘Just a minute,’ sighs the axeman. ‘You haven’t got a clue, have you?’

  The swordsman scowls horribly, but stays put. ‘Now what?’

  ‘Rule 27,’ replies the axeman smugly, ‘section 14. Gotcha!’ he adds.

  The swordsman’s eyebrows bunch together like huddling sheep. ‘Remind me,’ he growls.

  ‘With pleasure. The back-foot rule.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Exactly. When making an offensive stroke at a fallen or unbalanced opponent, the back foot must be in contact with the ground at all times. The ground, please note; not the other bloke’s axe-handle.’ He smiles unpleasantly. ‘Another free hit to me.’

  The swordsman clicks his tongue. ‘Get on with it, then,’ he mutters. ‘And this time, don’t bunch your shoulders together like that. You want to be careful you don’t chop your own foot off.’

  With a scowl that’d curdle mercury the axeman starts to get to his feet.

  ‘Hang on,’ the swordsman objects. ‘Just what do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘What does it look like?’

  The swordsman beams like the sunrise. ‘Rule 17,’ he says, ‘section 8. All free hits to be taken from the position the striker is in when the foul shot occurred.’ He licks his lips. ‘Free hit to me,’ he adds cheerfully.

  ‘It doesn’t say that.’

  ‘Yes, it does.’

  ‘Doesn’t’

  ‘It does.’ The swordsman’s face is a study in baffled rage. ‘Are you calling me a liar or something?’

  The axeman nods. ‘Yes,’ he says.

  ‘You take that back or I’ll smash your face in . . . Oh, nuts,’ the swordsman adds. The axeman chuckles, and slowly gets to his feet.

  ‘Supervening fresh challenge,’ the axeman says cheerfully. ‘Rule 92. The current bout is declared null and void, start all over again.’

  The swordsman makes a growling noise. ‘You did that on purpose,’ he mutters. ‘Tricked me into a fresh challenge.’

  ‘Yes,’ the axeman agrees. ‘Perfectly legal,’ he adds. ‘You can check if you like.’

  ‘When you’re ready,’ grunts the swordsman, icily polite.

  His opponent retrieves his axe, spits on his hands. ‘In your own time,’ he replies.

  For a moment the swordsman hesitates; then he darts sideways, feinting a lunge to the other man’s left knee, converting it effortlessly into a rising backhand slash. The axeman parries just in time with the axe-handle, but the swordsman’s blade slices it neatly in two, leaving his enemy gripping eighteen inches of headless shaft. Before the axeman can move or cite rule 38 the swordsman rocks back on his heels and lunges again— —And thrusts his sword deep into a thick patch of swirling grey mist, which instantly dissolves. ‘Oh, for crying out loud,’ the swordsman yells. ‘That’s cheating.’

  The last few wisps of mist wriggle like maggots in the air and glow briefly with yellow-gold fire, spelling out the words So report me in twelve-inch runes. The swordsman throws his sword on the ground and jumps on it. Then he frowns, stoops down and picks up a handful of fine-grained dirt, which he tosses into the air where the letters had appeared. The dirt flares vividly into sparkling light, revealing the outline of a door or gateway, complete with lintel, hinges and big round doorknob.

  ‘Right,’ the swordsman grunts; sheathing his sword, he reaches out, grabs the outline of the doorknob and twists it sharply a quarter-turn—

  —And vanishes, never to be seen in this timeline again.

  Paul Carpenter was dragged out of a singularly nasty dream - in which he was being chased through a thick, bramble-draped forest by the teddy bear he’d owned when he was six - by a knock at the door. He sat up, opened his eyes and realised that he’d fallen asleep in his chair in front of the TV. That in itself was hardly surprising, since there’s never anything good on in the summer. Who, on the other hand, would want to pay him a visit at this time of night?

  Paul scrabbled for the remote, hit the standby button, and stood up. There it was again: knuckles on the woodwork. He’d had the television’s sound turned right down, so it couldn’t be upstairs complaining about the noise; and door-to-door salesmen rarely wasted their energy trudging up the four flights of badly lit stairs. As he opened the door with his right hand, he pinched sleep out of his eyes with his left.

  ‘Hello,’ said a familiar voice.

  ‘Uncle Ken.’

  ‘I know that. Can I come in?’

  The yawn got past Paul’s defences and escaped before he could do anything about it, but Uncle Ken wasn’t the sort to be offended by yawns, or indeed anything that didn’t actually draw blood. He ducked under Paul’s arm (no great feat for a man of his minimal stature) and scuttled like a startled lizard into the living-room. By the time Paul caught up with him, he’d poured himself a large glass of the fine malt whisky that Paul had been given for his birthday two years ago, and was sitting in the only comfortable chair. Paul slumped a little and perched on the other one. ‘Didn’t know you were in town, Uncle Ken,’ he said.

  ‘I guessed as much,’ Uncle Ken replied, ‘otherwise you’d have locked up your booze and put the chain on the door. Got any corned beef?’

  Corned beef. Paul thought about that for a moment and shook his head.

  ‘Oh. Not to worry, anything’ll do, cheese or ham or tongue. Not too much butter on the bread. Oh, and a bit of fruit’d go down nicely.’

  Paul smiled grimly, went into the kitchen and made two rounds of industrial-chicken sandwiches. On the side of the plate he perched the apple he’d been saving for tomorrow; then, to save himself another trip, he opened the fridge (Sod it, he said to himself, the little light’s on the blink again) and took out the very last can of beer.

  ‘Cheers,’ Uncle Ken said, pulling the ring with his usual surprising grace. Five feet nothing in his cowboy boots, sausage-fingered and practically circular, Uncle Ken nevertheless managed to do even the simplest thing with the elegant poise of a geisha pouring tea. ‘You not having anything?’

  Paul shook his head. ‘So,’ he said, trying to sound cheerful. ‘Have you got a gig in these parts or something?’

  ‘No such luck, son,’ Uncle Ken replied with his mouth full. Paul had known what the answer to his question was likely to be before he asked it. For the last twenty years, Uncle Ken had been pecking out a sparse living doing stand-up comedy in obscure, short-lived clubs and bars up and down the country, with occasional enforced sabbaticals in the construction, catering and retail-petrol industries. Ironic, really; Paul’s mum had chosen him to be her only son’s godfather because at that time he’d been an ineffably respectable actuary, and because he was the most boring man she’d ever met. Whether it was the strain of turning up at Paul’s christening and forking out for a small imitation pewter tankard that’d pushed Uncle Ken over the edge into the nomadic life he now pursued, Paul had no idea. He hadn’t lost much sleep over it.

  Watching someone else eat the food you’d hoped would tide you over till pay day isn’t the most fun you can have with the lights on, and Paul couldn’t help feeling slightly annoyed. But being small-minded about it wouldn’t bring his bread and sliced chicken back, so he dredged up a smile from somewhere and asked politely after his godfather’s health and general well-being.

  ‘Not so hot,’ Uncle Ken replied. ‘Did three nights in Peterborough in January, went over very nicely, not a huge crowd, probably the venue getting flooded out by a burst sewer the week before didn’t help. Joined up with with an experimental performance-arts collective for a bit - interesting bunch, there was a bloke who welded bits of angle-iron while his girlfriend sang medieval plainsong and played the zither, and another girl who juggled with
razor blades stuck into apples - she left the group at Redcar - and a couple of those living-statue blokes, only they were so good the audience never figured out they weren’t real, and a lad who did barefoot tightrope-walking on an electric fence, and me, of course. We were planning to take the show over to Canada for the Saskatchewan Arts Festival but we couldn’t afford the fare. How about you?’

  Paul grinned. ‘Oh, nothing exciting,’ he said.

  ‘Last I heard, you were just about to start a new job.’

  Paul nodded. ‘That’s right. Been there nine months now.’

  ‘Liking it?’

  ‘Not a lot.’

  Uncle Ken shrugged. ‘Pack it in, then. You’re young, no ties, find something you really want to do and do it. Like I did.’

  Paul shook his head slowly. ‘Nice idea,’ he said, ‘but I can’t.’

  ‘Can’t find anything you like doing?’

  ‘Can’t quit. Long story,’ he added, stifling another yawn. ‘But the bottom line is, I’m stuck there for the foreseeable future. Bummer, but there it is.’

  Uncle Ken frowned. ‘That’s no kind of an attitude,’ he said. ‘I was the same when I was your age; I’d just finished college, got my qualifications, people had expectations I had to live up to, all that crap. Just meant I wasted the best years of my life, doing a stupid rotten job I hated. You want to get out there, have adventures, strange new worlds and all.’

  Paul laughed, like a dry stick breaking. ‘Oh, there’s plenty of that kind of thing where I’m working now,’ he said. ‘It’s the adventures and the strange new worlds that’re the problem, not the mindless tedium and stuff. I can handle mindless tedium, it’s—’ He stopped, then shook his head. ‘You don’t want to hear about that,’ he said. ‘So, tell me, this girl who juggled the apples—’

  ‘You can tell me about it if you want to.’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t. Did she wear gloves, or did she just have particularly hard skin on her hands, or what?’

  ‘Yes, you do.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  Uncle Ken was giving Paul a stern look from behind his enormously thick spectacle lenses. Seen from the wrong angle, they made his eyes look like huge hard-boiled eggs. ‘I’ve known you since before you were born,’ he said, ‘and there’s something you want to tell someone about, but you’re hesitating because you think it’ll sound stupid, or I won’t believe it, or something. I’m right, aren’t I?’