The Good, the Bad and the Smug

by Tom Holt

  But the Dark Lord saw no need to dwell on that. It had all been monstrously unfair, in his opinion, a grossly excessive overreaction to what he still saw as a technical breach of the planning regulations (he’d neglected to file a Form EBB677/3/A2 before laying the groundworks for the Tower of Fangs), but he’d long ago conceded that the Elves had been right, on a strict interpretation of the letter of the law, and Flinduil, as hereditary Chief Planning Officer of the Blessed Realm, had had no option but to take enforcement action. It was a shame that the dispute had cost an estimated three million lives but, as Flinduil had remarked at the time, rules is rules.

  Instead, the Dark Lord preferred to learn from his mistakes and move on. And his plans were already well advanced, further than the fools could possibly know. Already, King Mordak’s goblin armies were massing in the caverns of Unfoth, day and night his trolls in the forges under the Elyhn Druil were churning out weapons and armour, and only yesterday three of his most trusted servants had ridden in furious haste from the Doom Gate, bearing a properly completed and countersigned Form EBB677/3/A2, in triplicate, for filing at the Central Registry at Pom Astaroth. Meanwhile, his spies told him, his enemies were hopelessly unprepared; divided among themselves, endlessly bickering over trivial disputes, hardly bothering these days to look to the East or keep up the watch on the dismal frontier of Arys Mog. Victory, according to every projection and risk assessment his people had prepared for him, was assured…

  Indeed. Winning is one thing, however, and staying won is another. To that end—

  A small piece of paper and a stub of pencil levitated off the floor of the empty chamber. The paper stuck fast in mid-air, as though glued to an invisible wall. The pencil quivered, then began to write.

  You’d better watch out

  You’d better not cry

  You’d better not—

  The pencil paused, and the shapeless, formless force of pure gravity that the Dark Lord now mostly consisted of seemed to ponder for a while. Lout, gout, snout—

  Hearts and minds, that was the thing. Conquering the free people of the West wouldn’t be a problem; like a stone through a wet paper bag, King Mordak had assured him, and though Mordak had said exactly the same thing the last time, and the time before that, the Dark Lord was nevertheless quietly confident. Keeping them firmly pressed down under his iron absence-of-heel, on the other hand, would take more than the cruel blades of goblin spears. For a thousand years he’d studied his enemies, all his mental power bent on knowing their innermost hopes, fears, dreams and nightmares. He’d enquired endlessly into their moral, ethical and political systems, perused every detail of their history, learned all their quaintly irregular languages, read the books they loved, sat through their insufferable tinkly music, grappled with the most abstruse concepts of their philosophies; and his conclusion was that it was impossible to enslave them against their will. But, if they wanted to be enslaved (only be careful to call it politics), no force in the Realms, the Abyss below or the Vaults above could stop them. Hence the song.

  Rout, knout, about, without, shout. Got it.

  He was quite pleased with the tune, which was just the sort of inane jingle that men and dwarves couldn’t help humming along with; Elvish music was different, of course, but if he could reach a rapprochement with the other three races and the Elves alone held out and had to be ruthlessly exterminated—Ah well, omelettes and eggs, omelettes and eggs. The pencil quivered again, and wrote down the next two lines.

  The Dark Lord hesitated; iron-shod boots crunching on the stone stairs. A faint ripple of air, roughly equivalent to a sigh, fluttered the dust-clogged cobwebs that dangled from the ceiling. Mordak, he thought, is that you?

  “Yes, Boss.”

  Panting slightly, the king of the goblins hauled himself up the last few steps and leaned against the doorframe to catch his breath. “Sorry to bother you, Boss. You weren’t busy, were you?”

  The cobwebs twitched again. No, not really. Hang on, though. Your opinion, please.

  “What, me? Sure. Fire away.”

  Mordak heard him, he knew, as a deep voice reverberating in the very depths of his consciousness. Considerately, therefore, he kept the volume down.

  He sang the song all the way through three times, then paused to allow the echoes to die away inside Mordak’s head. Then he said, I’m thinking of calling it, “Vordagog Is Coming to Town”.

  “Who’s Vordagog?”

  I am, you halfwit.

  “What? Oh, right. You know, I never knew that. It’s always been the Dark Lord or Guess-Who or just, you know, Him; or Boss or My Lord to your, um–when I’m talking to you, I mean. You think you know someone, and then you find out something like that. Vordagog. That’s a nice name.”

  What do you think about the tune?

  “Oh, I like it. Catchy. Tumpty-tumpty-tumpty, tum-tum.”

  And the words?

  Mordak paused for thought. “Probably factually accurate,” he said.

  Do you like them?

  “They’re striking,” Mordak said. “Definitely that.”

  Striking.

  “Well,” the goblin said, “it all depends on what you’re trying to achieve, doesn’t it? I mean, if the idea is to pierce their hearts with terror and despair so that they’re bowed down by the inevitability of doom, then yes, I’d say you’re bang on target.”

  But not cheerful.

  “Not really.”

  Or friendly.

  “No.”

  The Dark Lord brushed away the brief flurry of irritation. All right, how about this bit?

  “Definitely,” Mordak said. “Like, you point out that you’re spying on them when they’re sleeping, and when they’re awake, which is pretty damn chilling if you ask me, you’re compiling this hit list of everyone who’s ever done anything wrong, you’ve been over it twice so there’s no chance of anybody slipping through the net, you know the truth about who’s been good and who’s a sinner so there’s no point even trying to argue the toss, and you’re on your way right now, and when you get there–well, obviously it’s not going to be pretty, is it? Bloody hell, Boss. It gives me shivers down my spine just thinking about it.”

  Oh.

  “I mean, no offence.”

  None taken, thought the Dark Lord sadly. I value your honesty.

  “Do you? Stone me. Well, always glad to help. And it’s a cracking tune. You know, I never realised you were musical.”

  Now you mention it, neither did I. Anyway. Was there something?

  “Well, actually, yes.” There was a slight nervous tinge to Mordak’s voice. “I’m sure it’s perfectly all right and nothing to worry about, but I thought I’d probably better mention it, you know how you always say—”

  Mordak.

  “What? Yes, right, sorry. We’ve had reports, you see. Well, when I say reports—”

  Mordak, you’re drivelling. What’s the matter?

  It takes a lot to make a goblin drivel. “Well,” said Mordak, “it’s hard to put your claw on it exactly, but you know, straws in the wind, that sort of thing. The humans are buying armour from the dwarves.”

  Very sensible of them.

  “Ah.”

  But you’ve put a stop to it, naturally. You’ve stepped in and outbid them, and the greedy dwarves, blind to their own best interests—

  “No, actually. More the other way round.”

  Say what?

  “The humans,” Mordak mumbled, “outbid me. I went as high as I could, offered them top dollar, but the humans, um, had more money. So—”

  Mordak felt his synapses grind together; the Dark Lord, frowning inside his head. That’s not possible. The humans haven’t got any money.

  “They have now.”

  A surge of anger welled up in Mordak’s head, pressing so hard that he could feel his eyeballs being slowly forced out from the inside. “But it’s all right,” he said. “I’m right on top of it.”

  Really.

  “You bet. I�
��ve got a special agent on the case, making enquiries.”

  Have you indeed?

  “Yes, and as soon as she’s found out who’s behind it, I’ll be down on them like a ton of—”

  She?

  Mordak opened his mouth, then closed it again. It was hard to think straight when at any moment your eyes were liable to shoot out of their sockets and bounce back at you off the wall, but he realised he’d probably made a tactical error. “Um, yes. My agent is indeed female, but that’s all right, you know what she-Elves are like, poking their noses in other people’s bus—”

  You have entrusted this vital mission to an Elf?

  Mordak would’ve closed his eyes at this point, except he couldn’t see any point in adding tattered eyelids to the list of his forthcoming problems. “Well, yes,” he said. “Like I said, when it comes to snooping around and finding stuff out, Elves are the business.”

  It didn’t occur to you that there might be a potential conflict of interests?

  Mordak explained about the editorship of the Face, and immediately the pressure on his retinas slackened off a little. “She’d do anything for that job,” he went on, “even if it does mean selling the free peoples of the Realms down Shit Creek in a leaky canoe. Absolutely nothing to worry about on that score.”

  The Dark Lord’s sigh made Mordak’s eardrums creak in agony. Maybe not. But I don’t want this Elf prowling around unsupervised. Send someone with her. Someone we can trust.

  It was so nice now that the pain had dropped off a bit; shame to jeopardise all that just for the sake of clarity. But Mordak said, “Such as?”

  Well, a goblin, naturally. One of your best.

  “Um,” said Mordak. “I’m not sure I’ve got any best, to be honest with you. Quite a few could-be-worses, but—”

  Then you’ll have to go, won’t you?

  The sound of his sneeze seemed to fill the valley. In the forest behind him, flights of startled birds burst from the thick canopy of leaves and rose like smoke. The mountains caught the echo and tossed it from hillside to hillside.

  Gesundheit, the little man thought.

  For someone with chronic pollen issues, spinning straw into gold is an unfortunate choice of occupation. The wheat straw was bad enough, but the barley–what kind of cheapskate, he asked himself, sends barley straw to be spun into gold?–was full of fine abrasive dust that got into his nose and made the base of his nostrils and his upper lip unendurably itchy. He dabbed at his eyes with his sleeve, sniffed ferociously, and carried on pedalling.

  A crunching noise among the brambles to his left made him smile. Thirty seconds or so later, a young man emerged backwards from the thicket, tugging his long ermine-trimmed sleeves free of the thorns. Any minute now, he thought, he’ll trip over his feet and—

  “Ouch,” said the young man, or words to that effect.

  “Mind the brambles,” the little man replied, not looking up from his work. “You can get a bit tangled if you’re not careful.”

  A ripping noise suggested that the young man had found an effective, if not particularly cheap way out of his difficulties. “Is it ready?”

  The little man jerked his head toward the stack of gold bales on the other side of the clearing. “All done.”

  “Oh boy.” The young man was staring. “Will you look at that!”

  “It’s all right, I suppose, if you like gold.” The little man stopped the wheel and turned round. “You’re going to have ever so much fun getting a cart up here,” he said. “You might do better to have it carried down the hill to the river and floated downstream on rafts.”

  “Whatever.” The young man was counting under his breath. The little man could almost hear the creaking as he did the mental arithmetic.

  “That’s the lot, is it?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You haven’t got any more straw you want spun? No extra charge.”

  A sore point. Lately, the price of straw had rocketed. Worth its weight in gold, the dealers were saying. “No, that’s all. We had a bad harvest this year. Not that it matters now.”

  “Quite,” said the little man with distaste. “Except for the village people, who can’t afford bread. But hey.”

  “Oh, that’s all right,” the young man said cheerfully. “With this lot I can start recruiting an army. I’ll be needing every able-bodied man I can get.”

  For one fleeting moment, the little man was tempted to explain; supply and demand, inflation, Gresham’s Law. But the prince wouldn’t understand, so why bother? “Indeed,” he said. “Well, pleasure doing business with you. Remember me when Old Mister Stork comes to call, won’t you?”

  “Ah.” A big, cunning grin spread over the prince’s face. “I wanted to talk to you about that.”

  “Really? Found Miss Right, have we? Wedding bells all set to ring out?”

  “No.” The grin was threatening to spread past the prince’s ears and out round the back of his neck. “You said, the whole first-born child thing would all be off if I guessed your name. Yes?”

  “Perfectly true.”

  “Well,” the prince said triumphantly, taking a scrap of parchment from the purse at his belt. “I think it’s time I called your bluff, Mister Rumblestitsky.”

  The little man sighed. “Give it here,” he said, and held his hand out for the parchment. “God, who wrote this, a doctor? Look, that’s a P not a B. And that’s an L, and that’s not a Y, it’s an IN. Now,” he added, handing the parchment back. “Would you care to rephrase that?”

  The prince blinked at him. “Rumpleslitsni?”

  The little man closed his eyes and massaged his temples with his fingertips. “What the hell?” he said. “Close enough is good enough. Curses,” he added, in a weary voice, “you have guessed my secret name. Clever old you.”

  Pause. “Does that mean I get to keep the gold?”

  “Yup.”

  “And no, you know, heirs or heiresses change hands?”

  “The slate,” the little man said solemnly, “is wiped clean. You got me, fair and square. Boy, didn’t you ever screw me to the floorboards. Ah well. No hard feelings.”

  “Cool.” The prince smiled. “So, it’s all mine.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that much gold before.”

  “Few people have. You know, I think that may have some bearing on its rarity value.”

  The prince sat down on a log. His eyes were shining. “I’m going straight home,” he said, “and I’m going to raise a mighty army, and then I’m going to drive the Northrons into the sea.”

  “And why not? The seaside’s nice at this time of year.”

  “And after that we’ll deal with the goblins once and for all. And the dwarves.”

  The little man cleared his throat. “Just a suggestion,” he said. “But since you’ve got so much gold now, mightn’t it be a good idea if you spent some of it on a mighty army and some of it on other stuff.”

  “Other stuff?” The prince looked puzzled. “What, you mean expensive clothes and pedigree falcons and silk rugs for the horses?” He thought for a moment. “No, I don’t think so. Not till we’ve wiped the goblins off the face of the earth.”

  “Actually,” said the little man, “I was thinking, maybe you could build some roads. Repair all those bridges that are about to fall down. Maybe establish a cloth-weaving industry. Just thinking aloud, of course.”

  “Roads.” The prince tasted the idea as if it were wine. The look on his face suggested it was corked. “No, we’re fine for roads. We’ve got a perfectly good road that leads straight to the Northron border. Just right for soldiers to march on.”

  “You see,” the little man went on, “if you’ve got roads, and bridges you feel like crossing even if you can’t swim, and a really thriving cloth industry, then maybe people will come down the roads and across the bridges to buy your excellent cloth. And with taxes and customs duty and tolls and stuff, you’ll have lots of money all the
time, even after you’ve spent this lot.”

  The prince looked at him. “Don’t be silly,” he said. “Anyhow, I can’t sit here all night chatting, I’ve got a draft to organise. Good idea of yours about the barges, by the way. I’ll send some people.”

  “Another good thing about roads and bridges,” the littler man went on, “is that you pay people to build them, so they’ve got money to spend, so they go away and buy stuff from other people, and then they’ve got money too. And so on. And then you don’t have all those poor people hanging about, making the place look untidy.”

  “That won’t be a problem when I’ve enlisted them all for my army, now will it?” The prince smiled patronisingly. “War is good for the country. That’s what my father used to say. You see, it’s not just soldiers, it’s all the people who sell food and uniforms and spears and things. Universal prosperity, in fact.”

  The little man nodded slightly to concede the point. “Except there’s nobody left at home to grow the food or make the stuff, so you end up having to buy it from somebody else at extortionate prices. But what the heck! I can spin some gold for them too, and then they’ll go to war, and then your people can sell them food and weapons.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Assuming any of them survive the war. But yes, it’s one way of doing it, I suppose. Better than the way you used to run things, at any rate.”

  “Quite. Got to let those goblins know who’s boss, haven’t we?”

  “And if you win the war, I imagine you’ll pay yourself a whopping great big bonus. Or even if you lose.”

  The prince scowled. “Certainly not,” he said. “I’m just doing my job. I wouldn’t have earned it.”

  Ah well, the little man thought, as the prince strode happily away, they may be idiots, but they’re not as dumb as some I could name. And the military-industrial complex worked for Roosevelt, sort of, so maybe it’ll be all right. Then a stray atom of pollen drifted up his nose, and he nearly sneezed a hole in the space/time continuum.