by Booth, John
Fluffy sat down and I joined him. using his flank as a back rest.
“When did you first notice you were being watched?”
[About three minutes before I came to you.]
“This could be a long wait then.”
[I do not think so. I have never felt so unnerved. My feeling is that the danger is imminent.]
I looked at my watch. It was already gone eleven.
“Let’s hope they get on with it. I have an appointment at two this afternoon.”
Fluffy laughed and flames danced across the stage. [You are the only creature in the universe who would hurry up an apocalypse because you had arranged a haircut for later that day.]
“Priorities, my scaly friend. It’s all down to priorities.”
Fluffy stood and I tumbled as my back rest disappeared. [Make ready, Jake. Something is coming.]
Fluffy took the north and I watched the south side of the amphitheater. Nothing moved and apart from my own quickened breathing and Fluffy’s claws scratching on stone there was nothing to hear.
Then a hundred or more Knights of Justice appeared from nowhere. They formed a perfect circle around us, their swords pointing in at us, held two handed as though they expected to keep up the stance for some time.
A knight appeared facing me, well inside the circle and perhaps thirty-five feet away. As soon as he started talking I recognized the voice and style. God, these knights were pompous.
“Be it known that Wizard Jake Morrissey and his dragon Retnor are thrice condemned to death,” Sir Grendon said as he read from a scroll, “for revealing our worlds to the Valhallans, for resisting Justice delivered by a Knight of Justice, and for threatening the stability of the legal system of the Diamond Worlds by successfully resisting a Knight carrying out his duty.”
I had to rise to that. “Aren’t two of those the same thing? And on what basis do you involve my dragon in all this?”
[I am not YOUR dragon.]
“Technicalities, you know what I mean.”
[Humph.]
Sir Grendon was not amused by our witty banter. “Be quiet, criminals. You must be expunged from the multiverse before you are able to spread your method of defiance. When we finish here, we will execute your relatives and friends to limit the chances of contamination. The dragon extermination program will be accelerated.”
I raised my hand and willed him driven to his knees. It didn’t work of course. The dampening field all those swords were putting out stopped my magic dead at my skin. Still, verbal defiance could partly satisfy the cold anger his words had caused.
“When you lose this time, I will not be so forgiving.”
Fluffy sent a burst of flames in Sir Grendon’s direction. I saw the magic stripped from it after the first yard or so, but dragonfire without the magic is still fire and Sir Grendon turned his back and crouched down so it sprayed across his amour. I wondered if his pink underwear was fireproof and kind of hoped not.
Stepping forward I forged the sword of pure magic I’d used before. As a man, all the knights in the circle took a step towards me and the sword shrank a couple of inches.
“It does that when it gets cold,” I quipped, but nobody laughed. Not even Fluffy, the traitor. “Still, it’s more than long enough to strip you and your friends to your underwear. Did you know that pink is a girly color?”
Sir Grendon came out of his crouch to face me. I saw a wisp of smoke rise from inside his mail.
“Hot in there, is it?”
Sir Grendon pointed his sword at me in the manner of his fellows and in response each took a further two steps towards us. My sword shrank by another four inches.
[Jake, we need to attack before they get too close.]
That was an understatement. At the rate my sword shrank as they closed in I’d be fighting them with a nail file before they got halfway. And a nail file against a steel sword is no contest, even if it’s a magic nail file. I’d be salami before I could turn more than a couple of swords to dust.
‘Cover me,’ I thought at Fluffy and ran towards Sir Grendon.
Fluffy splattered fire around the Knight as I closed the distance between us. He had adopted a stance chosen to allow him to launch a killing blow from his sword before I could reduce his equipment to dust. My sword was down to a long dagger when I reached him. I guessed the knights were continuing to shrink their circle.
As I brought my dagger down on him and he swung his sword to cut me in two, I changed my left hand to titanium and grabbed his sword. Magic still worked within my flesh and I had coated my metal flesh with pure magic. His sword stopped though the pain was horrendous. His sword and amour crumbled. I changed my right hand to living metal as I delivered a roundhouse punch to his jar. Sir Grendon swayed in his underwear and collapsed in an untidy pink heap.
‘Now we die,’ I thought bleakly as I raised my eyes to the advancing knights. Sunlight glinted off their blades and amour. Their eyes fixed on me as though I was the devil incarnate. The nearest were still a good ten feet away from my position, but that wasn’t going to help.
The air rippled behind the knights. Dragons appeared out of glim less than two feet from their backs. Each blew fire at a knight. The flames went straight through them without doing the slightest damage. The knights paused as they looked down at their chests to see where the fire was coming from.
Then they looked up and yelled as they saw the dragons behind their colleagues on the other side of the circle. They sprang around to face their new foes, and as they turned their swords and amour turned to dust.
I felt my magic expand out and worked at repairing my hands, which were literally beginning to kill me. A human is not designed to have metal hands. The pain they caused was almost overwhelming.
I heard screams and black acrid smoke wafted towards me. Burning pork is what it smelled like. Looking up I saw charred bodies of knights around me, some still screaming as the dragonfire had not yet reached their lungs. Then there was an eerie silence punctuated only by the dull thud of bodies falling on stone and breaking apart.
I looked at the carnage with sheer disbelief. The dragons had them helpless; there was no need for this. Fluffy came up behind me and bumped my back with his head.
[You should thank my brethren for rescuing us from this trap.]
[THERE IS NO NEED. THE TRAP WAS OURS AND YOU MADE EXCELLENT BAIT.]
“You knew they were coming?”
[MORE DRAGONS HAVE DIED AT THE HANDS OF THE KNIGHTS THAN ANY OTHER GROUP. YOUR AFFINITY WITH DRAGONS IS WRIT LARGE IN THE TEMPLE. THEY HAD NO CHOICE TO ATTACK YOU BEFORE COMING AFTER US. IT WAS INEVITABLE.]
“But you knew they were coming now.” This particular point was important to me.
[YES. YOU UNDERSTAND. WE WARNED RETNOR AND WERE DELIGHTED WHEN YOU CHOSE THIS PLACE TO MAKE YOUR STAND. THEIR ARMOUR FORCED US OUT OF GLIM AS WE ARRIVED BEHIND THEM AND WE MARTIALED PURE MAGIC TO SEND IT AS FLAME. WE HAD TO BE VERY CLOSE FOR IT TO WORK AND YOU PROVIDED THE PERFECT DISTRACTION.]
Sir Grendon groaned at my feet and I forced him back into unconsciousness.
“What now?”
The leader of the dragons looked at me without speaking, but I knew anyway. There was only one question I needed to ask.
“Will they attack me or my family after this?”
[NOT FOR A LONG TIME. THIS IS MOST OF THEM.] The dragon moved his head indicating the smoking ruins on the ground. [THOSE THAT REMAIN ARE NEEDED TO POLICE THE WIZARDS OF THE DIAMOND WORLDS. THEY CANNOT RISK THEIR OWN DESTRUCTION. WARN THEM.]
All the dragons excepting Fluffy disappeared back into glim. I gave him a look.
[Do you know what to do?]
“Oh yes.”
“Oh, Sir Grendon?” He was awake, because I’d made him wake, but he was pretending to be unconscious.
He opened his eyes and saw me leaning against my dragon.
“Get up and look around.” There was cold steel in my voice.
Sir Grendon stood and gasped as he saw blacke
ned skeletal remains in all directions. He reached for the sword he no longer carried.
“I killed all your men.”
[Humph!]
“I had a little help from Retnor, but I could have easily done it on my own.”
“Assassin. Murderer.” Sir Grendon’s hands clenched and I wondered if he would be daft enough to attack me.
“Now you’re getting it. I don’t know how many more of your silly knights there are back home, but I would remind you that you and they have threatened me and my family. Do I have to go back with you now and kill them as well?”
I could almost see the wheels turning in Sir Grendon’s head.
“You would spare us?”
“You’re a petty annoyance unworthy of my time. Isn’t this lesson enough? Attack anyone close to me again and I shan’t be so merciful. Leave me and mine alone and I’ll let you keep your local wizards under control. No more dragon hunting, mind.”
Sir Grendon grimaced. “How can I trust a wizard?”
I stepped away from Fluffy. “Okay, a little genocide it is then.”
“Wait.” Sir Grendon put out his hand to stop me. “I accept your terms on behalf of the Knights of Justice.”
“Away you go then.” I made a shooing gesture and hopped him back to his world.
[Well done, Jake. He will never know how close they came to killing us.]
I took another look at the top half of a skeleton with its charred flesh still smoldering and vomited. When the heaving stopped, Fluffy nuzzled me gently.
[Time to go, Jake. Didn’t you have a two o’clock appointment? It’s gone that now.]
11. Fool’s Gold
I smelled like a barbeque, or maybe an abattoir, not that I’ve ever been in the latter. It was already quarter past two and I needed to be at Highfields Farm to meet the archaeologist. It sometimes annoyed me how the world kept rolling on without noticing that I was out saving it. A quick thank you once in a while would be nice.
I fled for home and had a quick shower. Mam seems to have a sixth sense about my needs and there was a change of clothes waiting on my bed. My shoes were a problem and I had to use extra powerful magic to get the ichors and gore out of them. Then I hopped.
I assumed everyone was at the farmhouse and knocked at the door. It took such a long time for someone to answer that I thought I’d got it wrong and was about to hop to the cow shed to see if they were over there.
Betty opened the door and pointedly looked at her watch.
“Broomstick not working? Nobody bought you a Cumulus 4000?”
“I got detained. Sir Grendon reappeared and brought his mates with him.”
Betty eyed me up suspiciously. “You look awfully clean and tidy.”
“I cleaned up. Didn’t think you’d want me turning up dripping in gore.”
Her father’s voice roared from somewhere deep in the house.
“Is that Jake? Let him in for God’s sake. We’re sitting here waiting.”
Betty reluctantly let me into the house, whispering in my ear as I edged past her. “I wanted to have you before he turned up.”
“Take a ticket,” I offered in reply, but not unkindly. She took it the way I meant and smiled. It was when she squeezed a delicate part of my anatomy that I realized she had taken advantage of our closeness. Recent activities had left me sore, and it hurt.
“Are you two coming?” Mr. Hardy shouted.
“We will be soon,” Betty predicted in a whisper. “Yes Dad,” she shouted back.
Which were more of a problem, the Knights or women? At least when you had it out with the Knights they didn’t come back for seconds. Women are definitely harder to satisfy.
We entered a cozy little dining room. The treasure filled the table. A man with hippy hair and a big smile on his face put down a bracelet and stood to offer a hand to me. He tried to crush me when he shook it and I used a little unfair magic to let him know how it felt.
“I like a man with a strong grip,” he said cheerfully. “Do you work out?”
“Practicing his favorite activity provides him with a lot of exercise,” Betty offered. “Especially for his hand.”
“Oh yes, detectoring. I’m Andy Gorsham by the way. You might have seen me on television.”
I shrugged. His face looked a little familiar.
“How long have you been using a metal detector, Jake, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “Since yesterday. I borrowed the detector from a friend.”
That shook his smile for a second. Then it returned, full on.
“Ah, beginners luck. What made you choose that particular field, Jake?”
I’d been mulling over what to tell the authorities about finding the treasure and had decided to fall back on my well-practiced psychic excuse. When I began finding missing people the police had become highly suspicious of me, but as soon as I said I was psychic they moved me into the file labeled ‘nut-job’ and let me get on with it.
“I had a dream and that brought me here. Mr. Hardy was willing to let me search his land and I found the pot straight away.”
Andy frowned. Scientific types don’t like that sort of talk. I reckoned they’d all be in asylums if they had any idea what I can do.
“What did you see in your dream?”
I did my best to look embarrassed; the truth was I was trying not to giggle over what I planned to say next.
“Come on Jake. You can tell me.”
I hesitated, then my words came out in a rush. “It was like when you zoom in on one of those map programs on the internet. I knew where the farm was. Then I saw these beautiful girls dancing in a circle, in the field.”
“Bet they didn’t have no clothes on,” Betty offered cynically.
“That’s right! Did you have the same dream?” I spoke so eagerly that Betty got into the spirit.
“With me it’s always Johnny Depp. Lots and lots of him, strumming on his…”
“Betty!” Mr. Hardy snapped.
Betty pouted.
“On his guitar, Dad. He plays the guitar as well as acts. Didn’t you know?”
Andy Gorsham sighed. “Well I guess we can be certain it’s treasure trove, unless the young ladies in question turn up for the inquest. Congratulations Jake, you are going to be very rich one day soon, along with Mr. Hardy of course.”
I was going to ask ‘How much?’ but Mr. Hardy beat me too it.
“What’s all these trinkets worth? Just a wild guess will do.”
Andy Gorsham took in a deep breath. “I’ve never seen anything like it. There’s more gold and jewels here than they found at Sutton Hoo or that hoard discovered in the Midlands. Even with the pot out of any context, it’s going to give us a major insight into Ancient Britain.”
“How old is all this stuff and how long was the pot in the ground?” Betty asked and got a glare from her Father for her troubles.
“Difficult to say. The styles are all over the place, some Norse, some Greek, some Egyptian. What we’ll do is catalogue every single piece and the youngest will give us a time frame for when the pot was buried.”
Mr. Hardy waited and when Gorsham said nothing more, tried again, “And value?”
“At least a million, probably more. It will take months before we can say for sure. And then we’ll have to excavate your fields, to try to put the pot in context.”
“My cows are very sensitive. Lots of strange people digging holes all over the place is going to worry them.”
“We’ll be very quiet, Mr. Hardy. We rarely get any complaints.”
“Do you have complaints, Jake,” Betty asked. She was behind the other men and was circling a breast with a finger.
“What do I need to do?” I asked and ignored the gesture Betty gave me in response. I checked my magic levels to make sure I wasn’t putting out any suggestions to her and almost gasped in shock. My reserve was only a third full, despite being full when I’d gone to bed last night. The reason it was a third full was because my reservoir had gr
own enormously. And that was just plain impossible.
“Did you hear what I said, Jake?”
I stared at Gorsham. I hadn’t heard a word he’d spoken.
“It just struck me. A million pounds. I’m rich. Sorry, could you repeat what you said?”
Gorsham grinned. “Understandable, under the circumstances. You and Mr. Hardy should take photographs of all the pieces. That will be your proof of ownership and stop me from stealing any of it.” He laughed and I smiled, but Mr. Hardy nodded grimly as if he wouldn’t be the slightest bit surprised if the archaeologist was a thief.
“Then you have to sign a couple of forms and you show me exactly where you found all this.”
“We photographed the things last night,” Betty said triumphantly. “I’ve made a copy for you, Jake.” She handed me a memory stick and I dropped it into my top pocket.
It was five o’clock before we finished with Gorsham. He found a couple of items in the mud that Betty and I had missed. I signed a lot of forms and Mr. Hardy countersigned some of them. Then we wrote out an inventory lining the items up with Betty’s photos and using descriptions Gorsham provided. Gorsham phoned for a van from the museum to collect the treasure and it arrived before we finished, complete with two uniformed security men. Their presence seemed to please Mr. Hardy.
“I have to talk with you, in my room,” Betty said as the van and Gorsham’s car pulled away from the house.
‘Yeah, I bet you do.’ At least she hadn’t asked me up to see her etchings. I was determined to end our fling. It should never have started in the first place.
“She has something important for you,” Mr. Hardy put in.
Now that was a surprise. I couldn’t see him acting as Betty’s pimp. There must a real non-sexual reason she wanted me in her room, though that seemed a little out of character.
Betty took my hand and pulled me up a narrow creaking staircase to a tiny bedroom with a ceiling so low I had to duck to avoid the overhead beams. It was a very feminine room with an immaculately made up bed. Two small teddy bears rested against the pillows.
