‘They might have got out of the back door,’ said Goodmountain. ‘Boddony, some of you go round and check, will you?’
‘Plucky dog, this,’ said William.
‘“Brave” would be better,’ said Sacharissa distantly. ‘It’s only five letters. It would look better in a single-column sidebar. No … “Plucky” would work, because then we’d get:
PLUCKY
DOG PUTS
BITE ON
VILLAINS
… although that first line is a bit shy.’
‘I wish I could think in headlines,’ said William, shivering.
It was cool and damp down here in the cellar.
Mr Pin dragged himself to a corner and slapped at the burns on his suit.
‘We’re —ing trapped,’ moaned Tulip.
‘Yeah? This is stone,’ said Pin. ‘Stone floor, stone walls, stone ceiling! Stone doesn’t burn, okay? We just stay nice and calm down here and wait it out.’
Mr Tulip listened to the sound of the fire above them. Red and yellow light danced on the floor under the cellar hatchway.
‘I don’t —ing like it,’ he said.
‘We’ve seen worse.’
‘I don’t —ing like it!’
‘Just keep cool. We’re going to get out of this. I wasn’t born to fry!’
The flames roared around the press. A few late paint tins pinwheeled through the heat, spraying burning droplets.
The fire was yellow-white at the heart, and now it crackled around the metal formes that held the type.
Silver beads appeared around the leaden, inky slugs. Letters shifted, settled, ran together. For a moment the words themselves floated on the melting metal, innocent words like ‘the’ and ‘truth’ and ‘shall make ye fere’, and then they were lost. From the red-hot press, and the wooden boxes, and amongst the racks and racks of type, and even out of the piles of carefully stockpiled metal, thin streams began to flow. They met and merged and spread. Soon the floor was a moving, rippling mirror in which the orange and yellow flames danced upside down.
On Otto’s workbench the salamanders detected the heat. They liked heat. Their ancestors had evolved in volcanoes. They woke up and began to purr.
Mr Tulip, walking up and down the cellar like a trapped animal, picked up one of the cages and glared at the creatures.
‘What’re these —ing things?’ he said, and dropped it back on the bench. Then he noticed the dark jar next to it. ‘And why’s it —ing got “Handle viz Care!!!” on this one?’
The eels were already edgy. They could detect heat too, and they were creatures of deep caves and buried, icy streams.
There was a flash of dark as they protested.
Most of it went straight through the brain of Mr Tulip. But such as was left of that ragged organ had survived his every attempt at scrambling and in any case Mr Tulip didn’t use it much, because it hurt such a lot.
But there was a brief remembrance of snow, and fir woods, and burning buildings, and the church. They’d sheltered there. He’d been small. He remembered big shining paintings, more colours than he’d ever seen before …
He blinked and dropped the jar.
It shattered on the floor. There was another burst of dark from the eels. They wriggled desperately out of the wreckage and slithered along the edge of the wall, squeezing into the cracks between the stones.
Mr Tulip turned at a sound behind him. His colleague had collapsed to his knees and was clutching at his head.
‘You all right?’
‘They’re right behind me!’ Pin whispered.
‘Nah, just you and me down here, old friend.’
Mr Tulip patted Pin on the shoulder. The veins on his forehead stood out with the effort of thinking of something to do next. The memory had gone. Young Tulip had learned how to edit memories. What Mr Pin needed, he decided, was to remember the good times.
‘Hey, remember when Gerhardt the Boot and his lads had us cornered in that —ing cellar in Quirm?’ he said. ‘Remember what we did to him afterwards?’
‘Yes,’ said Mr Pin, staring at the blank wall. ‘I remember.’
‘And that time with that old man who was in that house in Genua and we didn’t —ing know? So we nailed up the door and—’
‘Shut up! Shut up!’
‘Just trying to look on the —ing bright side.’
‘We shouldn’t have killed all those people …’ Mr Pin whispered, almost to himself.
‘Why not?’ said Mr Tulip, but Pin’s nervousness had got through to him again. He pulled at the leather cord around his neck and felt the reassuring lump on the end. A potato can be a great help in times of trial.
A pattering behind him made him turn round, and he brightened up.
‘Anyway, we’re okay now,’ he said. ‘Looks like it’s —ing raining.’
Silver droplets were pouring through the cellar hatch.
‘That’s not water!’ screamed Pin, standing up.
The drops ran together, became a steady stream. It splashed oddly and mounded up under the hatch, but more liquid poured on top of it and spread out across the floor.
Pin and Tulip backed against the far wall.
‘That’s hot lead,’ said Pin. ‘They print their paper with it!’
‘How —ing much is there going to be?’
‘Down here? Can’t end up more than a couple of inches, can it?’
At the other side of the cellar Otto’s bench started to smoulder as the pool touched it.
‘We need something to stand on,’ said Pin. ‘Just while it cools! It won’t take long in this chill!’
‘Yeah, but there’s nothing here but us! We’re —ing trapped!’
Mr Pin put his hand over his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath of air that was already getting very warm in the soft silver rain.
He opened his eyes again. Mr Tulip was watching him obediently. Mr Pin was the thinker.
‘I’ve … got a plan,’ he said.
‘Yeah, good. Right.’
‘My plans are pretty good, right?’
‘Yeah, you come up with some —ing wonders, I’ve always said. Like when you said we should twist the—’
‘And I’m always thinking about the good of the Firm, right?’
‘Yeah, sure, right.’
‘So … this plan … it’s not, like, a perfect plan, but … oh, the hell with it. Give me your potato.’
‘What?’
Suddenly Mr Pin’s arm was stretched out, his crossbow an inch from Mr Tulip’s neck.
‘No time to argue! Gimme the damn potato right now! This is no time for you to think!’
Uncertain, but trusting as ever in Mr Pin’s survival abilities in a tight corner, Mr Tulip pulled the thong of the potato over his head and handed it to Mr Pin.
‘Right,’ said Mr Pin, one side of his face beginning to twitch. ‘The way I see it—’
‘You better hurry!’ said Mr Tulip. ‘It’s only a coupla inches away!’
‘—the way I see it, I’m a small man, Mr Tulip. You couldn’t stand on me. I wouldn’t do. You’re a big man, Mr Tulip. I wouldn’t want to see you suffer.’
And he pulled the trigger. It was a good shot.
‘Sorry,’ he whispered, as the lead splashed. ‘Sorry. I’m sorry. Sorry. But I wasn’t born to fry …’
* * *
Mr Tulip opened his eyes.
There was darkness around him, but with a suggestion of stars overhead behind an overcast sky. The air was still, but there was distant soughing, as of wind in dead trees.
He waited a while to see if anything would happen, and then said: ‘Anyone —ing there?’
JUST ME, MR TULIP.
Some of the darkness opened its eyes, and two blue glows looked down at him.
‘The —ing bastard stole my potato. Are you —ing Death?’
JUST DEATH WILL SUFFICE, I THINK. WHO WERE YOU EXPECTING?
‘Eh? For what?’
TO CLAIM YOU AS ONE OF THEIR
S.
‘Dunno, really. I never —ing thought …’
YOU NEVER SPECULATED?
‘All I know is, you got to have your potato, and then it will be all right.’ Mr Tulip parroted the sentence without thinking, but it was coming back now in the total recall of the dead, from a vantage point of two feet off the ground and three years of age. Old men mumbling. Old women weeping. Shafts of light through holy windows. The sound of wind under the doors, and every ear straining to hear the soldiers. Us or theirs didn’t matter, when a war had gone on this long …
Death gave the shade of Mr Tulip a long, cool stare.
AND THAT’S IT?
‘Right.’
YOU DON’T THINK THERE WERE ANY BITS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED?
… the sound of wind under the doors, the smell of the oil lamps, the fresh acid smell of snow, blowing in through the …
‘And … if I’m sorry for everything …’ he mumbled. He was lost in a world of darkness, without a potato to his name.
… candlesticks … they’d been made of gold, hundreds of years ago … there were only ever potatoes to eat, grubbed up from under the snow, but the candlesticks were of gold … and some old woman, she’d said: ‘It’ll all turn out right if you’ve got a potato …’
WAS ANY GOD OF SOME SORT MENTIONED TO YOU AT ANY POINT?
‘No …’
DAMN. I WISH THEY DIDN’T LEAVE ME TO DEAL WITH THIS SORT OF THING, Death sighed. YOU BELIEVE, BUT YOU DON’T BELIEVE IN ANYTHING.
Mr Tulip stood with his head bowed. More memories were trickling back now, like blood under a closed door. And the knob was rattling, and the lock had failed.
Death nodded at him.
AT LEAST YOU STILL HAVE YOUR POTATO, I SEE.
Mr Tulip’s hand flew to his neck. There was something wizened and hard there, on the end of a string. It had a ghostly shimmer to it.
‘I thought he got it!’ he said, his face alight with hope.
AH, WELL. YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN A POTATO MIGHT TURN UP.
‘So it’s all going to be all right?’
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Mr Tulip swallowed. Lies did not survive long out here. And more recent memories were squeezing under the door now, bloody and vengeful.
‘I think it’s gonna take more than a potato,’ he said.
ARE YOU SORRY FOR EVERYTHING?
More unused bits of Mr Tulip’s brain, which had shut down long ago or had never even opened up, came into play.
‘How will I know?’ he said.
Death waved a hand through the air. Along the arc described by the bony fingers appeared a line of hourglasses.
I UNDERSTAND YOU ARE A CONNOISSEUR, MR TULIP. IN A SMALL WAY, SO AM I. Death selected one of the glasses and held it up. Images appeared around it, bright but insubstantial as shadow.
‘What are they?’ said Tulip.
LIVES, MR TULIP. JUST LIVES. NOT ALL MASTERPIECES, OBVIOUSLY, OFTEN RATHER NAIF IN THEIR USE OF EMOTION AND ACTION, BUT NEVERTHELESS FULL OF INTEREST AND SURPRISE AND, EACH IN THEIR OWN WAY, A WORK OF SOME GENIUS. AND CERTAINLY VERY … COLLECTABLE. Death picked up an hourglass as Mr Tulip tried to back away. YES. COLLECTABLE. BECAUSE, IF I HAD TO FIND A WAY TO DESCRIBE THESE LIVES, MR TULIP, THAT WORD WOULD BE ‘SHORTER’.
Death selected another hourglass. AH. NUGGA VELSKI. YOU WILL NOT REMEMBER HIM, OF COURSE. HE WAS SIMPLY A MAN WHO WALKED INTO HIS RATHER SIMPLE LITTLE HUT AT THE WRONG TIME, AND YOU ARE A BUSY MAN AND CANNOT BE EXPECTED TO REMEMBER EVERYONE. NOTE THE MIND, A BRILLIANT MIND THAT MIGHT IN OTHER CIRCUMSTANCES HAVE CHANGED THE WORLD, DOOMED TO BE BORN INTO A TIME AND PLACE WHERE LIFE WAS NOTHING BUT A DAILY, HOPELESS STRUGGLE. NEVERTHELESS, IN HIS TINY VILLAGE, RIGHT UP UNTIL THE DAY HE FOUND YOU STEALING HIS COAT, HE DID HIS BEST TO—
Mr Tulip raised a trembling hand. ‘Is this the bit where my whole life passes in front of my eyes?’ he said.
NO, THAT WAS THE BIT JUST NOW.
‘Which bit?’
THE BIT, said Death, BETWEEN YOUR BEING BORN AND YOUR DYING. NO, THIS … MR TULIP, THIS IS YOUR WHOLE LIFE AS IT PASSED BEFORE OTHER PEOPLE’S EYES …
By the time the golems arrived it was all over. The fire had been fierce but short-lived. It had stopped because there wasn’t anything left to burn. The crowd that always turns up to watch a fire then dispersed until the next one, reckoning that this one had not scored very highly, what with no one dying.
The walls were still standing. Half the tin roof had fallen in. Sleet had begun to fall, too, and now it hissed on the hot stone as William picked his way cautiously through the debris.
The press was visible in the light of the few fires still smouldering. William heard it sizzling under the sleet.
‘Repairable?’ he said to Goodmountain, who was following him.
‘Not a chance. The frame, maybe. We’ll salvage what we can.’
‘Look, I’m so sorry—’
‘Not your fault,’ said the dwarf, kicking at a smoking can. ‘And look on the bright side … we still owe Harry King a lot of money.’
‘Don’t remind me …’
‘I don’t need to. He’ll remind you. Us, rather.’
William wrapped his jacket around his sleeve and pushed aside some of the roof.
‘The desks are still here!’
‘Fire can be funny like that,’ said Goodmountain gloomily. ‘And the roof probably kept the worst of it away.’
‘I mean, they’re half charred but they’re still usable!’
‘Oh, well, we’re home and dry, then,’ said the dwarf, now sliding towards ‘glumly’. ‘How soon do you want the next edition?’
‘Look, even the spike … there’s even bits of paper that are hardly charred!’
‘Life is full of unexpected treasure,’ said Goodmountain. ‘I don’t think you should come in here, miss!’
This was to Sacharissa, who was picking her way across the smouldering ruins.
‘It’s where I work,’ she said. ‘Can you repair the press?’
‘No! It’s … done for! It’s scrap! We’ve got no press and no type and no metal! Can you both hear me?’
‘Okay, so we’ve got to get another press,’ said Sacharissa evenly.
‘Even an old scrap one would cost a thousand dollars!’ said Goodmountain. ‘Look, it’s over. There is nothing left!’
‘I’ve got some savings,’ said Sacharissa, pushing the rubble off her desk. ‘Perhaps we can get one of those little hand presses to be going on with.’
‘I’m in debt,’ said William, ‘but I could probably go into debt another few hundred dollars.’
‘Do you think we could go on working if we put a tarpaulin over the roof, or should we move to somewhere else?’ said Sacharissa.
‘I don’t want to move. A few days’ work should get this place in shape,’ said William.
Goodmountain cupped his hands around his mouth. ‘Hel-looo! This is sanity calling! We have no money.’
‘There’s not much room to expand, though,’ said Sacharissa.
‘In what way?’
‘Magazines,’ said Sacharissa, as the sleet settled in her hair. Around her the other dwarfs spread out on a hopeless salvage operation. ‘Yes, I know the paper’s important, but there’s a lot of dead time on the press and, well, I’m sure there’d be a market for something like, well, a magazine for ladies …’
‘Dead time on the press?’ said Goodmountain. ‘The press is dead!’
‘What about?’ said William, completely ignoring him.
‘Oh … fashion. Pictures of women wearing new clothes. Knitting. That sort of thing. And don’t you go telling me it’s too dull. People will buy it.’
‘Clothes? Knitting?’
‘People are interested in that sort of thing.’
‘I don’t like that idea much,’ said William. ‘You might as well say we should have a magazine just for men.’
‘Why not? What would you put in it?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Articles about drink. Pi
ctures of women not wearing … Anyway, we’d need more people to write for them.’
‘Excuse me?’ said Goodmountain.
‘Lots of people can write well enough for that sort of thing,’ said Sacharissa. ‘If it was clever, we wouldn’t be able to do it.’
‘That’s true.’
‘And there’s another magazine that would sell, too,’ said Sacharissa. Behind her a piece of the press collapsed.
‘Hello? Hello? I know my mouth is opening and shutting,’ said Goodmountain. ‘Is any sound getting out?’
‘Cats,’ said Sacharissa. ‘Lots of people like cats. Pictures of cats. Stories about cats. I’ve been thinking about it. It could be called … Completely Cats.’
‘To go with Completely Women, and Completely Men? Completely Knitting? Completely Cake?’
‘I had thought of calling it something like The Ladies’ Home Companion,’ said Sacharissa, ‘but your title has got a certain ring, I must admit. Ring … yes. Now, that’s another thing. There’s all the dwarfs in the city. We could produce a magazine for them. I mean … what’s the modern dwarf wearing this season?’
‘Chain mail and leather,’ said Goodmountain, suddenly perplexed. ‘What are you talking about? It’s always chain mail and leather!’
Sacharissa ignored him. The two of them were in a world of their own, Goodmountain realized. It had nothing to do with the real one any more.
‘Seems a bit of a waste, though,’ said William. ‘A waste of words, I mean.’
‘Why? There’s always more of them.’ Sacharissa patted him gently on the cheek. ‘You think you’re writing words that’ll last for ever? It’s not like that. This newspaper stuff … that’s words that last for a day. Maybe a week.’
‘And then they get thrown away,’ said William.
‘Perhaps a few hang on. In people’s heads.’
‘That’s not where the paper ends up,’ said William. ‘Quite the reverse.’
‘What did you expect? These aren’t books, they’re … words that come and go. Cheer up.’
‘There’s a problem,’ said William.
‘Yes?’
‘We haven’t got enough money for a new press. Our shed has been burned down. We are out of business. It’s all over. Do you understand?’
Sacharissa looked down. ‘Yes,’ she said meekly. ‘I just hoped you didn’t.’
Truth Page 29
