Earth, Air, Fire and Custard

by Tom Holt

  ‘Fascinating. What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘And I was thinking,’ Paul went on, ‘there’s other things that transcend elements, as well as mermaids. Swords, for instance. Not,’ he added, ‘that I’m an expert. I mean, I could write out everything I know about metalworking in big capital letters on the back of a postage stamp and still have room for my name and address. But if I remember right - from this history programme I’m guessing I must’ve seen at some point, or else how would I know any of this shit? - if I’m right, a sword starts off as iron ore deep in the ground - that’s earth - and then it gets heated up till it’s red-hot - that’s fire; and you get fire hot by blowing it with a bellows, so that’s air, too—’

  ‘Technically,’ said Vicky, ‘though I think you’re pushing it.’

  ‘And then,’ Paul said, ‘you make it hard and tough by dunking it in water; and there’s your complete set. Earth, air, fire, water. A sword is equally at home in all four.’

  ‘Assuming you’re counting air,’ Vicky objected. ‘I still think that one’s a bit iffy, myself.’

  ‘I don’t agree. I think a sword transcends all the elements. Which is why, I think, when Viking warriors died, they always had their swords buried along with them, because something that transcends elements like that is something you can take with you. Don’t you think?’

  ‘Nah. I think it’s because they hated their relatives, so they wanted to make sure they didn’t leave them any nice stuff when they snuffed it. People can be so petty. I had an uncle—’

  ‘No,’ Paul said. ‘I don’t believe you ever had an uncle, or any relatives of any sort. I think that when the goblins stabbed me at that party and I died, I took the sword with me, because swords transcend the elements. That’s why I still had it in my hand when I woke up in that TV studio; and it must’ve been real, because there was real blood on it, just enough to keep me from fading away.’

  ‘TV studio? I never knew you’d been on telly.’

  ‘I don’t think I was,’ Paul replied. ‘I think it was the goblin afterlife; I went there because I got killed by goblins, I’m a little bitty part goblin myself, and a TV show where they play back the shittiest moments of your life and ask you to comment on them is exactly the sort of thing you’d expect to find in the goblin hereafter. Which is why,’ he added, with a slight shudder, ‘I’m reasonably sure I didn’t actually kill somebody, even though I cut off that bloke’s head. I don’t think he was real; at the very most, he was some kind of goblin angel, and I’m guessing he wasn’t killed in any meaningful sense—’

  ‘You killed someone? Why would you do a thing like that?’

  ‘But,’ Paul went on, ‘later on, when I licked the blood off the sword, it was real blood, real enough to get me out of there, and that must be because being in contact with the sword made it real, because swords transcend the elements. They must do, actually,’ he added, ‘or else how could I have had a hand to hold it with, when I’d just died? That’s it, must be. Touching the sword kept me real, or at any rate real enough. Is that right? Is that how it works?’

  ‘What’re you asking me for?’

  ‘Well,’ Paul said, ‘you ought to know better than anybody. It was you, wasn’t it? You’re it. Brown hair with curly bright streaks in it, just like the patterns in the blade. You’re the sword they gave me to cut the cake with. Well, aren’t you?’

  Pause.

  ‘No,’ Vicky said.

  Deep in the smelly recesses of Paul’s mind, a nasty thought stirred: the thought that he’d been barking up entirely the wrong tree, and he’d just made the nuttiest speech of his entire life to one of his work colleagues, who’d lose no time in telling everybody else around the office that he was barking mad and very, very strange indeed—

  ‘No,’ Vicky repeated, ‘but you’re close.’

  ‘Am I? Oh good.’

  ‘Very close, actually. But you’re wrong about that. I’m not a sword. I’m a girl.’

  ‘Oh. Right. Sorry.’

  ‘Perfectly all right. I’m a girl, but the sword is my other half.’ She paused. ‘Is none of this ringing any bells?’

  ‘No,’ Paul confessed. ‘No, it isn’t.’

  ‘Really?’ She clicked her tongue. ‘That Ricky Wurmtoter. Next time I see him, I’m going to kick his arse from here to Dagenham.’

  Paul considered what she’d just said. ‘Splendid idea and it’s high time somebody did, but why? What’s he got to do with anything?’

  Vicky sighed. ‘Because he was supposed to have told you all about it, when he gave you the sword. Only, of course, obviously he didn’t. Tell you, I mean. Or give you the sword, apparently, because didn’t you just say the goblins gave it to you?’

  ‘Yes. Or rather,’ Paul added, ‘it just sort of appeared. Fell out of thin air. I assumed it came from them—’ He paused; something about the handle being wrapped in pink ribbon, and goblins are allergic to pink. ‘Presumably,’ he said, ‘but—’

  ‘Whatever. Fact remains, bloody Wurmtoter screwed up again. Nice enough bloke, quite cute, great bum, but about as reliable as a petrol-station watch. It was just like that while we were married.’

  ‘Just a second,’ Paul couldn’t help interrupting. ‘You were married to Ricky Wurmtoter?’

  Another sigh. ‘Don’t rub it in,’ she said. ‘Yup, Ricky and me, we go way back. But that’s none of your business. I was explaining, ’ she went on, ‘about magic swords and other halves. But clearly I was boring you, because—’

  ‘Sorry. Please go on. It’s very interesting, really.’

  ‘Well—’ she began. But Paul wasn’t listening. A memory was starting to bleed through the walls of his mind; a memory of himself and Ricky Wurmtoter sitting together in a very strange pub, not long after the conclusion of the whole Countess Judy business—

  ‘Her name is Skofnung,’ Ricky had told Paul, as he stared at the ferocious-looking sword that Ricky had just laid on the table in front of him. ‘Used to belong to King Hrolf Kraki. Go on, take a closer look. Rather a nice pattern, I think.’

  Paul remembered how he’d gripped the scabbard with his left hand and pulled the blade out an inch or so. To his surprise, it wasn’t bright and shiny; the blade was dark brown, with intricate patterns of silver specks and whorls. ‘Damascus steel,’ Ricky explained, or at least Paul guessed it was meant as an explanation. ‘You never find two the same, which makes it easier, of course.’

  ‘Makes what easier?’

  Ricky narrowed his eyes. ‘Finding her, of course,’ he said; then, ‘I forgot, you obviously don’t know. It’s a living sword, right?’

  ‘Is it? I mean, right, yes. Obviously.’

  Ricky laughed. ‘A living sword,’ he said, ‘is special because it has a life of its own - which is good, because it knows what it’s doing when in use, so you don’t have to. But it does mean that you have to find its other half before it’s much good for anything, and,’ he added, with a slight grimace, ‘I have to admit, I never did find her. And without the other half, of course, it’s pretty much useless.’

  ‘Other half.’

  ‘That’s right. A living sword has a human counterpart, and once you find - oh, excuse me.’ Ricky had stopped there and gone off to see someone he wanted to talk to, and he never had got round to finishing the explanation. For his part, Paul had just about managed to override the very strong instinct that had urged him to find a river or canal to throw the horrible thing into, because no doubt Ricky would be mortally offended if he ever found out. Instead, he’d taken it home and shoved it away out of sight under the sofa, and had never looked at it or thought about it since.

  ‘I remember,’ Paul said. ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I remember,’ Paul repeated. ‘I remember, I remember, I remember. There was a sword. Ricky Wurmtoter did give it to me, in a pub, just after—’

  ‘Fine,’ Vicky said, ‘that’s all right, then. You’ve just saved Ricky from a
very unpleasant experience which would, just for once, have been entirely undeserved. I wish you’d remembered it earlier, saved me a whole lot of explaining, and—’

  ‘That was it,’ Paul said, ‘the memory I knew I’d had but couldn’t find, the one I was looking for. It was Ricky and me, in that pub.’ He frowned; implications and logical conclusions and all sorts of other horrible things were swooping round his head like killer bats. ‘In which case,’ he said, ‘how the hell did it come to be falling out of the air at the christening? It should still be on my floor, covered in dust and bits of fluff.’

  ‘You mean you don’t hoover regularly under the sofa? I’m shocked. What would your mother think if she knew?’

  ‘And you’re—’

  ‘Hoo-bloody-ray, we finally got there in the end. Yes, I’m the other half Ricky told you about. He did tell you about that, didn’t he?’

  Paul nodded. ‘He said he could never use the sword because - well, he never found you.’

  ‘Arsehole,’ Vicky said succinctly. ‘Never bothered looking, more like. Anyway, there we are. And yes, you were right, at least as far as you went. You survived the christening party because my other half kept you real, because it transcends elements, as you so elegantly put it. Actually, you’d be amazed how many perfectly ordinary everyday objects do exactly the same thing, not just swords. Humdrum kitchen appliances that you take for granted, every bit as good; and the only reason Viking heroes weren’t buried with electric kettles and fridge-freezers is that they hadn’t been invented yet. But you’re on the right lines at last; slowly, painfully, by incredibly tortuous routes, a bit like a second-class letter, but you’re getting there. The only big question you don’t seem to have addressed yet is, why didn’t you pay attention in history and geography when you were in school?’

  Oddly enough, precisely the same question had just crossed Paul’s mind; and so remarkable was the coincidence that he broke his resolution and looked round at her - except she wasn’t there any more. She’d gone, and he was alone on a bench in a small public garden with a mouldy old Victorian statue of an east-facing man on a horse.

  East-facing. That was what mattered. Everything else - swords, mermaids, elements transcended or otherwise, goblins, decapitated TV anchormen and even Audumla the Great Cow of Heaven - was just trivia compared to the single joyful fact that the mouldy statue’s horse’s head, on which a rather disreputable-looking pigeon had just landed, was pointing due east rather than due north. I’m back, Paul thought. Back from exactly where I am right now. Isn’t that just the most amazing thing ever?

  His legs were weak and wobbly when he put his weight on them, and he staggered a few times before they started working again, but he took no notice. The first priority was to get the hell out of there, as far away from the mouldy old statue and the bench and the small public garden as he could go before his strength gave out and he fell over.

  In the event, he found he’d underestimated himself; he contrived to stay upright as far as a bus stop and rested for a minute or so, hanging from the concrete stand. Then a bus seemed to materialise out of nowhere, and by some freaky chance it happened to be going to St Mary Axe. By some equally weird coincidence, the driver was a short, bald man with a perfectly spherical head resting on top of a minimalist neck and a wide slough of chins, like an egg in an eggcup.

  Paul fetched up outside Number 70 on the stroke of two o’clock. Perfect. He’d escaped from wherever the hell it was that his insane curiosity had led him into, and he wasn’t even late for work. He wasn’t wobbling at all when he strolled through the door and past reception—

  ‘There you are, at bloody last.’ Mr Tanner’s mum wasn’t at her usual place behind the front desk. Instead, her son was standing in the doorway, with a scowl on his face that stripped away Paul’s feeling of vague euphoria like Fairy Liquid cutting through grease. ‘Where the hell have you been? We thought you’d skipped the country or something.’

  Not fair, wailed Paul’s inner child; so not fair. ‘But it’s just gone two, I’m not late,’ he started to protest. But the words never got past Customs; because before he’d got as far as just, the front door slammed and four very large goblins stepped up behind him and twisted his arms behind his back.

  Paul opened his mouth to yell at the pain, but fear muted out his voice. There was something very wrong here, far worse than sloppy timekeeping. Mr Tanner was staring at him as though he was trying to remove his liver and spleen just by looking. Not good at all.

  ‘Well?’ said Mr Tanner.

  It took Paul a moment to remember how his mouth worked. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘You don’t. Is that right.’ Mr Tanner flared his nostrils; a goblin thing, Paul assumed. He could do it himself, sometimes, a bit. ‘Well, in that case I’d better bring you up to speed. It’s Dietrich Wurmtoter.’

  Dietrich? Oh, Ricky. ‘What about him?’

  ‘He’s dead.’

  Dead. Dead what? Dead lucky, dead annoying,Vicky the non-mermaid had thought at some stage he was dead cute, but apparently not any more. Or could Mr Tanner possibly mean—?

  ‘Dead?’

  Mr Tanner lifted and lowered his head slowly. ‘Dead. In his office.’ His little round eyes glowed, with a flash of the genuine goblin red. ‘He was murdered.’

  ‘Murd—’ Paul cut off the word before he choked on it. ‘Did you just say—?’

  ‘Poisoned,’ Mr Tanner said. ‘Absolutely no doubt.’

  ‘But—’ Paul couldn’t move enough to gesture his disbelief, because of the goblins holding on to his arms. ‘That’s so - Have you got any idea who might’ve done it?’

  ‘Oh yes, we know who did it, all right. And we’ve got all the proof we need’

  Paul waited for a second, but Mr Tanner just carried on glaring at him, so he asked, ‘Go on, then; who was it?’

  Mr Tanner grinned, like an open wound. ‘You.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  All the evidence they could possibly need. A‘ll the have four witnesses who saw you with it,’ Mr Tanner was saying. ‘My mother, on reception when you came back; Christine and Benny Shumway both saw you carrying it with you on the way to Frank Laertides’s room; and Frank says you were still carrying it when he sent you away. One custard slice, in an open-ended cardboard box inside a paper bag. The same custard slice that Ricky was eating when he suddenly collapsed, started screaming and died. He’d eaten about a third of it.’

  ‘Custard slice?’ Paul remembered: the coffee bar, the round-headed man who’d told him about leaving Manitoba because of the war. He’d made Paul take on a cup of coffee and another custard slice; and Ricky had bumped into him in the corridor—

  ‘I was there when it happened,’ Mr Tanner went on. ‘Me and Cas Suslowicz and Sophie Pettingell, we all saw it. He took the cake out of the bag, mentioned that he’d met you in the passage and you’d given it to him. He said how generous you were, and wondered how you knew custard slices were his favourite. Then he dropped to the ground, and two minutes later he was dead.’ Mr Tanner nodded at the four goblins, who tightened their grip on Paul a little. ‘Just to make sure,’ he went on, ‘I had Frank Laertides analyse it; he’s a fully qualified forensic sorcerer. He says there’s enough arsenic in what’s left of that cake to poison a small army.’ Mr Tanner folded his arms. ‘I wonder if there’s anything you’d like to say at this point.’

  ‘Yes, there bloody is,’ Paul yelped. ‘I didn’t do it.’

  Mr Tanner frowned. ‘Anything apart from that,’ he said. ‘The truth, for instance.’

  Paul knew better than to struggle, with four goblins holding on to him. ‘It didn’t happen like that, like you just said. Yes, I brought a cake back with me—’

  ‘A custard slice?’

  ‘Yes, a custard slice, in a box, in a bag, just like you said. And yes, I bumped into Ricky in the corridor. But I didn’t offer him the bloody thing, he dropped these really heavy hints, about how custard slice was his favou
rite.’

  ‘I see,’ Mr Tanner said calmly. ‘And then you offered it to him, and he took it.’

  ‘No.’ Paul scowled. ‘Sorry, actually yes. But only because he made it obvious he wanted the stupid thing. What I mean is, I didn’t bring it back on purpose to give to him.’

  Mr Tanner’s lips curled in an expression that was a smile the way a young, hungry lion is a kitten. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘You offered him the cake, he took it, but it’s nothing like what I just said. All right,’ he went on, ‘tell me where you got the cake from.’

  ‘It was this little sandwich place,’ Paul said. ‘Kind of like a poor man’s Starbucks, just a few yards down the road from the Waterpebbles where I got Frank - Mr Laertides’s book.’

  ‘Book.’

  ‘That’s right. Didn’t Mr Laertides tell you? He sent me out to pick up a book he’d ordered in Waterpebbles.’

  ‘Right.’ Mr Tanner’s scowl deepened. ‘You’re quite sure about that?’

  ‘Of course. You just ask Fr—’

  ‘Mr Laertides doesn’t seem to remember it quite like that,’ Mr Tanner said. ‘He told me you vanished for a while, didn’t say where you’d been when you got back, and you had a styrofoam cup of coffee and a cake box in a bag with yellow showing through. He didn’t say anything about any book.’

  ‘But it’s there. On his desk.’

  It hadn’t been, of course. When Mr Tanner went to look, there was no sign of a big book full of pictures of medieval Canadian illuminated manuscripts; and when Paul told him what he’d seen in the book, Mr Tanner just looked straight past him, as though he was pretending for Paul’s own benefit that he hadn’t heard it. He even sent Christine to see if she could find the sandwich bar; and needless to say she couldn’t. No trace of it to be seen, she reported back. The location Paul had described, she added, was the lingerie department of Marks & Spencer, it wasn’t even a separate shop.