Earth, Air, Fire and Custard

by Tom Holt

‘Sod it,’ Ricky said. ‘I’m a Knight of the Holy Grail and an honorary lieutenant colonel of the Riders of Rohan - I’m buggered if I’m going to be backed into corners by a poxy fridge.’ He strode forward, reaching out his hand to give the fridge a shove. As soon as he was within range, the fridge swung its door at him with appalling force. Ricky flew across the room like a cricket ball middled by a cover drive, slammed up against the wall and went to sleep.

  ‘Idiot,’ said the fridge contemptuously. ‘Anyhow, that’s him out of the way for a bit. Didn’t want to talk in front of strangers, obviously. Now then, where were we? As I recall, Utgarth-Loke had just stolen the Great Cow of Heaven from the gods—’

  His memory, Paul suddenly realised, was a jigsaw, and there’d been a piece missing for quite some time, only he hadn’t noticed that it wasn’t there. ‘You talked to me,’ he said. ‘That night after I came back from the pub and all the fuses were blown. You were telling me all sorts of weird shit about gods and stuff.’

  The fridge sighed. ‘This is what you get,’ it said sadly, ‘for trying to be user-friendly. Burning bushes don’t have to put up with this sort of apathy. But here I am, making a real effort not to be scary or intrusive, and you can’t even be bothered to remember what I told you. It’s in one ear and out the other with you people. All right, here we go again. In the beginning—’

  Sophie, meanwhile, appeared to have had about as much as she could take. She jumped up and stood in front of the fridge (though, Paul noticed, just slightly more than a door’s width away from it) with her hands on her hips. He couldn’t see the look on her face, and reckoned that that was probably just as well.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Shut up a minute. I want to ask you something. ’

  The fridge clicked some internal component, probably a valve. ‘I remember her,’ it said. ‘Bloody door-slammer. Please don’t tell me you’ve made up and she’s moving back in, I don’t think my seals could stand it. Anyway, in the—’

  ‘Quiet.’

  The fridge door might have quivered for just a moment; if so, the fridge thought better of it. ‘That’s better,’ Sophie said. ‘Now, I want answers. If you’re the fridge from the flat, what’re you doing in here? And how come you can talk, anyway?’

  ‘I was just about to tell you,’ the fridge answered stiffly, ‘only you started shouting at me. I hate that.’

  ‘Oh.’ Sophie shrugged. ‘Fine. Carry on.’

  ‘Thank you so bloody much. Right, as I was saying. In the beginning—’

  Sophie practically flickered with rage. ‘Fridge—!’

  ‘It’s a long story,’ the fridge protested. ‘He’s heard a bit of it already, but he’s forgotten, and you’ve got to hear all of it, or none of it makes sense. Look, do you want me to explain or don’t you?’

  ‘Explain,’ Sophie repeated. ‘You can do that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Of course I can. I can explain the whole bloody thing from start to finish, if only you clowns give me the chance. Maybe you haven’t got your thick skulls round this yet, but I’m not your bog-standard run-of-the-mill food-storage unit. I exist simultaneously in all known dimensions and I transcend the elements like a rainbow bridge. I know all that was, all that is and a fair old chunk of what will be. The tiny, trivial footnote to history you’re concerned with is only the smallest fraction of—All right, don’t pull faces at me, and stop bobbing up and down like that, it makes me dizzy.’

  There was a moment in which the immovable object reached breaking strain; and then Sophie said ‘Sorry’ and sat down on the floor. ‘I won’t interrupt any more,’ she said. ‘Promise.’

  ‘Splendid,’ said the fridge. ‘Finally, here we go. In the beginning—’

  That was as far as it got, because Ricky Wurmtoter, who’d woken up from his concussed sleep while their attention had been elsewhere, suddenly surged to his feet and, in one smooth, seamless movement, grabbed the sword, hop-skip-lunged across the floor and drove the blade into the fridge’s works. A bang, a cloud of foggy gas, a brief shower of sparks; Ricky dragged the sword out of the gaping hole it had made, and water gushed out as the fridge slowly keeled over and crashed sidelong to the floor. Ricky howled with savage triumph and swung the sword over his head in a barbaric gesture of victory, inadvertently clobbering the lampshade so that contrasts of light and shadow danced round the room like Tinkerbell running for a bus.

  ‘Ricky,’ said Sophie, in a soft, deadly voice.

  ‘Eat dirt, fridge,’ Ricky snarled, as he reached up to steady the lampshade. ‘You try pushing the Graf von Wurmtoter around, you get what’s—’

  ‘Ricky,’ Sophie repeated. ‘You total idiot. What the hell did you do that for?’

  ‘It hit me,’ Ricky replied, a wounded look on his face. ‘Bastard thing slammed me against a wall. You got to take a hard line with these things, or next thing you know—’

  ‘You killed it.’

  Ricky had lowered the sword by now; he was looking ever so slightly embarrassed, in an utterly defiant sort of way. ‘Don’t anthropomorphise,’ he said. ‘It’s a fridge, fridges are machines, you can’t kill a machine. You can bust it,’ he admitted. ‘You can bust it real good,’ he added with relish, ‘as a lesson to any other arrogant son-of-a-bitch barrowload of valves that reckons it can shove a Grail Knight around and get away—’

  ‘You know what I think?’ Sophie said, ignoring him completely. ‘I think you just murdered old Mr Wells.’

  The look on Ricky’s face was really rather impressive. Commission any of the greatest artists in history and tell them to depict a blend of horror, guilt, fear, disgust, disbelief, embarrassment and very, very profound annoyance using just a nose, two eyes and a mouth. Ricky did it better than any of them, unpaid and without even having to think or consult a mirror.

  ‘What makes you say that?’ he mumbled.

  ‘Think about it,’ Sophie said. ‘Nobody’s seen him in ages, right? And it’s a known fact, as soon as the poo hits the ventilation system around here, what does old Mr Wells do? Turns into something. First he was that stapler thing, for years and years; then, when Countess Judy was on the rampage, he turned himself into a bad cold and hid inside people’s heads till it was safe to come out. And now, with all this weirdness going on, you dead and Paul being hunted for murder, quite suddenly a talking fridge pops up out of nowhere and says it’ll explain everything.’ She clicked her tongue. ‘Naturally I hope I’m wrong, but if not—’

  Ricky said something under his breath that rhymed with Luck. ‘Stupid bastard,’ he added bitterly, ‘why didn’t he say anything, let us know what he was up to? Of all the inconsiderate . . .’

  Paul wasn’t listening to any of this. He had no idea why, but he was on his knees beside the fallen fridge. If there were tears in his eyes, it may have been that once, long ago, he’d kept onions in it, and the powerful chemical still lingered. After a long time, he looked up at Ricky, and his expression wasn’t friendly. ‘You arsehole,’ he said. ‘You stabbed my fridge. Now look at it.’

  Ricky scowled at him. ‘Look, I said I’m sorry. I’ll get you a new one. I’ll get you a bloody Zanussi. Right now, that’s the least of my problems. If she’s right, and that’s really Jack Wells in there—’

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ Paul commanded; and to his surprise, Ricky did as he was told. ‘I remember,’ he went on. ‘Back home, at the flat. I came in late one night, and it started telling me stuff; about what happened in the beginning, Utgarth-something and the Great Cow of Heaven. Seemed to think it was important.’ He frowned in Ricky’s direction. ‘And now,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘you’ve killed it.’

  ‘All right,’ Ricky protested, ‘all right, I get the message. My bad, I’m very, very sorry. Next time a piece of electrical equipment uses me as a punchbag I’ll turn the other bloody cheek. Nothing we can do about it now, though, so I really think we should stop stressing and do something practical.’

  ‘Really,’ Sophie said.
‘Such as?’

  Awkward silence.

  ‘Sorry,’ Sophie went on, ‘I forgot. You’re a man of action, and long words bother you. All right, here’s a suggestion. First, you tell us both exactly what you’re up to, and why you framed Paul for killing you. And then you can find a way of getting all three of us out of here, so you can go to Tanner and make it absolutely clear that you aren’t even the teeniest bit dead. And then—’

  ‘Excuse me.’ It was hard to associate the tiny, whimpering voice with Ricky Wurmtoter. ‘Slight problem there. You see, I can’t leave here and go back to Realspace.’

  ‘Oh, really? Why’s that?’

  ‘Well,’ Ricky said reasonably, ‘I’m dead. Over there, anyhow. No, honest, I am. It’s just here that I’m alive. That’s why I came here, you see. I have—’ He paused and bit his lip. ‘Reasons.’

  Sophie’s mouth flopped open. ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘Alas, no.’ Ricky’s mouth folded into a sad smile. ‘Wish I was, but I’m not. And the fact of the matter is, I am dead, back home anyway, chock-full of arsenic, and he did kill me. Not on purpose, obviously,’ he added quickly, ‘but the bitch of it is, I did a really bang-up job of making it look like poor old Paul here murdered me, and there’s absolutely no way he could ever possibly prove otherwise. And in Trade circles, that thing about innocent till proven guilty is actually sort of the other way around.’ He grinned weakly, which couldn’t have been easy for a man whose chin made Kirk Douglas look like a parsnip. ‘What happened is, you see, I really did die back there, it was real arsenic in the custard slice, I know because I put it there myself, while poor old Paul here was mopping coffee off his crotch. I was dead for a bit, but my old mate Mr Dao at the Bank owed me a favour, in return for worming his three-headed dog one time, and he let me stash a spare body and a quart of AB negative in a safe-deposit box. I came here through the door in Benny Shumway’s room - obviously there’s one in this dimension, same as in Realspace - and I was just on my way out when I saw Sophie’s e-mail; so I dashed off and collared the sword, which was a piece of cake because it exists in all five dimensions simultaneously, the way swords do, and here I am. I’m afraid Paul and I are both stuck here pretty much for the duration. You’re not, of course, you can go back any time. But not us. Sorry.’

  ‘But that’s—’ Sophie shot him a look of pure cold fury. ‘You’ve ruined everything. Our whole lives, everything. You—’

  ‘Just a second,’ Paul interrupted.

  ‘Bastard,’ Ricky said, with a hint of impatience cutting through the guilt. ‘Yes, I know, I think we’ve established that point already. But be practical, for heaven’s sake. I mean, if you can suggest anything we can do that’ll put things right then, yes, I’m up for it, no worries. Unfortunately, I can’t think of anything. Can you? I’m open to suggestions.’

  ‘Just a second,’ Paul insisted, so loudly this time that both of them turned and looked at him. ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ he went on, ‘but what did you just say? Not you. Her.’

  ‘Oh, I was just explaining to muscle-head here,’ Sophie growled, ‘about how he’s made a complete bitch of everything, and it’s all his fault, and—’

  ‘You said our,’ Paul interrupted. ‘Our whole lives.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. And it’s no good him standing there like two yards of concentrated pillock saying there’s nothing he can do about it, because—’

  ‘No, hang on,’ Paul insisted. ‘There’s something I want to get straight before we go any further. When you said our whole lives, you meant you and me, right?’

  ‘Well yes, of course. I couldn’t give a flying fuck about his life. Assuming,’ she added acidly, ‘he’s still even got one.’

  ‘That’s what I thought you meant,’ Paul said. ‘Only, sorry if I’m being a bit slow, but why would him and me being stuck here for ever ruin your life, particularly? Because—’

  ‘Because I love you, you moron,’ Sophie snapped. Then she paused, as though she’d only then realised what she’d just heard herself say. ‘Oh,’ she added, and frowned thoughtfully.

  Paul didn’t notice, but Ricky was looking at them both. First bemused amazement, as though it had just started raining badgers; then a brief uncontrollable spurt of anger, followed by a rather more self-conscious radiant beam, as he clapped his hands together with a resounding crack and boomed, ‘Congratulations, kids! I always knew it’d work out between you guys. And you see, it’s an ill wind—’

  ‘What did you say?’ Paul asked quietly.

  ‘I said it’s an ill wind that blows—’

  ‘Not you. Her.’

  Ricky shrugged, grinning, and started to walk away. If he thought he was off the hook, however, owing to a sudden outbreak of moonlight, laughter, love and romance, he’d underestimated Sophie’s apparently limitless reserves of fury. ‘Not so fast,’ she snapped, ‘we haven’t finished with you. The explanation.’

  ‘But Sophe,’ Paul put in, and was ruthlessly shushed for his trouble. ‘Oh well,’ he mumbled under his breath, and went back to kneeling beside the fridge. He wasn’t quite sure why, but he knew that his place was still at its side.

  Meanwhile, Ricky was getting glowered at. ‘The explanation,’ Sophie repeated. ‘The one you were about to give us, remember, when the fridge appeared?’

  ‘Ah,’ Ricky said. ‘That explanation. Well, I think we’ve more or less covered all that, really.’

  ‘No, we haven’t.’ Sophie didn’t stamp her foot, but her knee quivered. ‘You said there was someone after you, some him who could follow you anywhere except here; and presumably that’s why you staged your own death and got us all in this God-awful mess in the first place. So, who is he? Well?’

  Ricky sighed. ‘It’s embarrassing.’

  ‘Embarrassing!’ If Sophie had been a kettle, the room would have been full of steam. ‘You’re dead, he’s the most wanted man in Europe, and you’re shy? Oh, for—’

  ‘All right.’ For a moment, Ricky snatched back a little of his old, arrogant authority. ‘If it means so much to you, I’ll tell you, if you’ll just shut up for a moment.’ He took a deep breath and sat down on the edge of a shelf, leaning forward, the sword across his knees. ‘It was all a long time ago,’ he said. ‘A matter of honour, I guess you could call it. There was - well, let’s say there was a very bad man, back in the old country. A magician, goes without saying. He was being a real pain, beating up on my family and friends, I was young and just getting into the hero biz. When you’re that age, of course, you think you can do any bloody thing. So I challenged him to a duel. Holmgang,’ Ricky went on, shaking his head slightly. ‘Sorry, technical term. The two of you go to an island out in one of the big fjords, and only one of you comes back. It’s a pretty big thing, very solemn, absolutely no cheating and absolutely absolutely no running away. Anyhow, we rowed out to the island in a little boat - didn’t talk much, naturally, I rowed and he sat there hating me, it was all a bit fraught - and then we started fighting. And - well,’ Ricky said, turning his head away, ‘he was winning, there was nothing I could do, so I ran. Not very far,’ he added, ‘because it was a small island. After that, I swam. The point is, I broke the rules and earned undying dishonour. Also,’ he added bitterly, ‘I lost. I hate losing. And that’s it, basically,’ he said, ‘except that the other guy, the very bad person, didn’t like me running out on him like that. He came after me. I kept running.’ Long sigh. ‘I still am.’

  Sophie looked at him for a moment or so. ‘And that’s why you came here.’

  Ricky nodded. ‘I was sure I’d finally got shot of him,’ he said. ‘It’d been, well, a very long time, I hadn’t seen or heard anything, I was starting to think he’d given up, got a life, died. But no, there he still was, waiting for me, bloody lurking. And this time, he nearly got me, I was just an inch or so away—’ He stopped, shivered. ‘I knew this time I had to do something a bit clever, because I’ve run out of places to hide over the years. So, I figured: he wants me dead, fi
ne, give him what he wants. Sooner or later, once he knows I’m dead, he’ll pack it in and go away; and then, after a really long interval, I can come out again, make a new life for myself, all that. Actually,’ Ricky said, with a slight grimace, ‘that’s one detail I haven’t quite got sorted yet, because when I say make a new life, that’s exactly what I’m going to have to do if I ever want to get home without dropping dead the moment I cross the interface. But what the hell, one problem at a time, and I always knew I’d be stuck here for a good long while. It’ll give me something to occupy my mind while I’m waiting.’ He breathed out, closed his eyes, as though he’d just escaped from some oppressive burden. ‘And that’s it,’ he said, ‘the whole sorry story. And really, I do regret most sincerely having to involve you two, but in my place, what would you have done?’

  Sophie looked into Ricky’s eyes for quite a long time, five seconds at least. Then she said, ‘I think you’re an unmitigated shit, Mr Wurmtoter.’ Then she stamped on his toes, quite hard, and walked away.

  ‘Ow,’ Ricky yelped. ‘What did you want to go and do that for?’

  ‘Fun,’ Sophie replied without looking round. ‘Also because you just killed old Mr Wells. And even if you didn’t, you still smashed up Paul’s fridge, and he can’t afford a new one. Mostly, though, because I don’t like you very much.’

  A look of profound bewilderment and distress crossed Ricky’s face. ‘You don’t?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh.’ He hesitated; you could practically see the crumbling ruins of his cosmos tumbling about his shoulders. ‘But that’s - Everybody likes me,’ he pointed out. ‘I’m a very pleasant, affable sort of guy.’

  ‘Affable,’ Sophie repeated. ‘Really. Well, let me tell you, Mr bloody Wurmtoter, I wouldn’t aff you if you were the last man left alive in the whole world.’

  Ricky was starting to get annoyed. ‘That’s so tight,’ he said. ‘Look, you don’t know what he’s like, this very bad person. If he was after you, I’m telling you, there’s nothing you wouldn’t do to get away from him. All right, so I set up ferret-features here. Big deal. I knew how incredibly resourceful and clever he is, I knew he’d be OK. I mean, he’s been dead twice - correction, three times - and hardly turned a hair. That’s how it is with best mates; you know you can do stuff and you can trust your best mate to guard your back, do what’s got to be done, look after himself. It’s a sign of respect, really.’ He turned to Paul. ‘And we’re mates, aren’t we, Paul old chum?’