The Outsorcerer's Apprentice (4 page)

One day, perhaps. Right now, she had to take the food basket to the workshop, and then it’d be time to go home and boil the copper for washing the clothes, and then there were floors to sweep and the carrot bed to weed, and all the other things that needed to be done, and there wasn’t anybody else to do them. She wasn’t absolutely sure that that made sense either.

She walked round a bend in the road, then stopped dead. Standing in the middle of the path, holding the bridle of a milk-white horse, was a young man with long golden hair. He was dressed in green velvet, with a red cloak and shiny black boots, and there was a sword hanging from his belt. It wasn’t exactly clear what he was doing. He had a little rectangular black and silver box nestled in the palm of his hand, and he was prodding at it with his thumb and frowning. She’d never seen him before, needless to say, but there was absolutely no doubt in her mind about his identity.

One day, they kept telling her, your prince will come. Well, he just had.

I
n the vast, echoing space of the Halls of Udrear, half a mile underground and lit by the wild flickerings of a thousand pine-resin torches, two mighty armies confronted each other in dead silence. On one side, the grim dwarf-host of Drain son of Dror son of Druin stood motionless in serried, geometrically perfect ranks and files; on the other, the goblin horde of King Mordak seethed like a cesspool in an earthquake. The thick, damp, smoky air felt heavy with the miasma of five hundred years of war, a physical presence that lay like a crushing weight on the shoulders and neck of every warrior present. For a long time they stood, their eyes full of the enemy. Then Mordak took a step forward–one step, but everyone present would have sworn the earth shook. Opposite him, Drain clenched his empty hands until his knuckles showed white, and advanced precisely one step to meet him.

Iron-clad toe to iron-clad toe; they were so close that the tip of the dwarf’s beard was almost touching the goblin’s sixth chin. Their eyes met; the hatred, the disgust and the hope—

“Well?” Drain said.

Mordak’s deep voice seemed to rumble up out of the mine shafts under their feet. “It’s time.”

“Bags I go first.”

Mordak drew in breath for a great shout of refusal; but all he did was nod his enormous head. “Fine,” he said. “You can go first.”

Drain hesitated. In his mind’s eye he could see ninety-seven generations of his ancestors, looking down at him from the gates of Nargoprong, waiting for him to screw up. The entire future of dwarfkind rested on the choice he was about to make. And if he should fail—He steeled his heart, lifted his head and in a loud, clear voice said, “I spy with my little eye something beginning with F.”

Mordak blinked. “Eff?”

“You heard me.”

Mordak breathed out slowly through the three slits just above his upper jaw that served him as nostrils. Eff, he thought, for crying out loud. “Fire.”

“No.”

Eff. Apart from fire, what was there in the Great Hall that began with F? Soldiers, lots of soldiers, in armour, holding weapons. And that was about it. He racked his brains for abstruse military terminology. “Phalanx?”

“Phalanx,” Drain said smugly, “begins with a P.”

Mordak’s eyes widened; two of them, anyway. “Does it?”

“Yes. Look it up.”

Which left just one more guess; and if he guessed wrong, the five hundred year war would be over and he’d have lost. By the terms of the armistice (which he’d proposed, argued passionately for in the teeth, the yellow, split-ended teeth, of furious opposition from every single goblin clan chieftain under the Mountain) the dwarves would then be entitled to vacant possession of the entire network of mines, from Drubin’s Gate to the Nazerbul. It didn’t bear thinking about.

Eff, for pity’s sake. By the rules of the contest, thrashed out over the course of two years by five hundred negotiators
from each side, he wasn’t allowed to look round, to see what Drain could see. He had to rely on his memory and, Thun preserve us, his imagination.

Flames? Fighters? Wasn’t there some sort of rare, obsolete throwing-axe whose name began with F? No, howled a little voice inside him, it’s nothing like that, it can’t be. Remember, Drain’s a dwarf. Dwarves are
devious
.

The dwarf-lord cleared his throat. Time was passing. If Mordak didn’t answer in five seconds, he’d lose by default.

All right, Mordak thought desperately. The rules say it’s got to be something he can see from where he’s standing; but he knows he daren’t lose, so it can’t be anything I might possibly guess. What, within the parameters of the rules and, as a dwarf would define it, the truth, would he know I’d never ever say?

Suddenly he relaxed, and knew that he’d won. Put like that, there could only be one answer.

Mordak smiled, revealing all his teeth. “Friend,” he said.

Drain went white as a sheet. “Sorry. Didn’t quite catch—”

“Friend,” Mordak repeated, loud and grimly clear. “That’s the answer, isn’t it?”

“Um,” said Drain. “Best of three?”

“Friend,” Mordak boomed, and his voice ricocheted off the vaulted roof like catapult shot. “Well?”

Twenty thousand dwarves and twenty thousand goblins held their breath. Then Drain mumbled something to his shoes. It sounded like
ymblmbl
. “Say again?”

“Yes.”

It was one of those trigger moments; when the destiny of the Three Races hung on a tiny detent, like the slim steel spur lodged in the nut of a spanned crossbow that keeps the string from slamming forward and launching the arrow. It would only take the smallest pressure to release it; some fool drawing a sword or nocking an arrow on a bowstring, or
dropping a clattering spear on the granite floor. The last time two armies of this size had been this close to each other under the Mountain, the battle had lasted three days and there had been just one survivor, and they’d had to hire in outside contractors to clear away the dead.

“Just to clarify,” Mordak said. “That means I’ve won.”

The dwarf didn’t speak. Mordak hadn’t expected him to. As soon as Drain admitted defeat, the dwarves would come out swinging; a fraction of a second later, the goblins would retaliate in kind, and forty thousand sentient beings would set about the congenial task of turning every living thing in the Great Chamber into pastrami. It was probably just as well, Mordak told himself, that I’ve prepared for this moment.

“Tell you what,” Mordak said, “let’s call it quits.”

The dwarf’s head snapped up. “You what?”

“Let’s do a deal,” Mordak said, and his voice seemed like it was coming from a long way away and belonged to someone else. “Your lot can have all the mine workings south of this room, and we’ll have everything to the north. Well?”

Imagine how you would feel if forty thousand and one people were staring at you, convinced you’d gone off your head. But at least they weren’t shooting. “Just like that?”

“Yup.”

“We’d have all the mines
south
of this room, and you’d have all the mines
north
—?”

Mordak nodded. “That’s the general idea. So?”

Drain lowered his voice to a harsh whisper. “But you won.”

Mordak nodded. “So I did,” he hissed back. “And in two minutes, unless we can pull this off, these idiots are going to start slaughtering each other. Not to mention,” he added with feeling, “us. But if we do this deal, they’ll all be so bewildered and confused they won’t know what to do, which
means you and I can slip away quietly, and maybe just possibly we’ll both still be alive this time tomorrow.”

“But—”

The dwarf had spoken automatically, because anything a goblin says to a dwarf has to be contradicted immediately. “Hang on,” Drain said. “That’s not such a dumb idea.”

“Thank you so much.”

“But—”

The inner conflict raging inside the dwarf’s small, round head was fascinating to watch; like a fight to the death between three goldfish. “But that’d mean
peace
.”

“Good heavens, so it would. There’s a thing. Still—”

“No,” Drain whispered nervously, “no way. They’ll tear me limb from limb.”

“Not,” Mordak hissed, “necessarily. Just stop and think, will you? What does peace actually
mean
?”

Behind him, Mordak could hear twenty thousand goblins starting to mutter. “I don’t know, do I?” Drain said helplessly. “There’s never been—”

“Peace,” Mordak said, quickly and urgently, “means no more fighting. Also, it means an end to the ruinous expense of training, equipping and supplying two ridiculously large armies, which is bleeding both of us white. It means an opportunity to stand down the armed forces, fire the existing generals and get new ones who aren’t actively plotting against us, recruit and train up a decent professional standing army to replace the useless, sloppy, bolshie bunch of draftees we’re both lumbered with, and take a bit of time and a bit of care to get ready for the
next
war—”

“Ah!”

“—At the end of which, our combined forces will have wiped the Elves off the face of the Earth.
That’s
what peace means. Well?”

“
Ah
.”

Mordak allowed himself a brief, happy grin. “Thought you’d get the hang of it,” he said, “a bright fella like you.”

He’d won. He knew it. Goblins and dwarves hated each other; of course they did. But
everybody
hated the Elves; and why not? Bunch of stuck-up, supercilious, patronising, bleeding-heart-liberal-intellectual tree-huggers, it made his blood boil just thinking about them. If peace was what it took to nail every last Elf to a tree by the tips of its pointy ears, it was a small enough price to pay. And Drain might be thick as three lead bricks, but he had to see that, too. Didn’t he?

“Done,” Drain said. “You got yourself a deal.”

“Thanks,” Mordak said. “Friend,” he added. That got him an extra special dwarven nasty look, but he felt he deserved a little self-indulgence.

He let Drain do the speech; and, to be fair, the little chap did it pretty well. He talked about new beginnings and a bright new dawn for their children and their children’s children, about understanding and reconciliation and kicking twelve kinds of shit out of the Elves; and by the time he’d finished forty thousand battle-hardened warriors were standing around with stunned expressions on their faces, and five centuries of war were suddenly over, just like that—

I did that, Mordak thought. And then he thought;
why
did I do that?

Well, he told himself afterwards, as he sipped a well-earned margarita from the jewel-encrusted skull of his predecessor (the gemstones picked out the words WORLD’S BEST BOSS; goblin craftsmanship at its finest), obviously I did it so that we can go after those bastard Elves and sort them out once and for all. And then he played a little game; substitute dwarves for Elves and Elves for dwarves, and see what difference it makes.

None whatsoever.

Yes, but—He frowned. Fine. First we deal with the Elves. Then we can break the alliance and sort out the dwarves, after they’ve done most of the hard work annihilating the pointy-ears. Put like that, it made perfect sense. One thing at a time, and only an idiot fights a war on two fronts. Yes. Of course.

And was that the real reason? No. Thought not.

What’s got into me?
He scowled at his drink and put it down. While we’re on the subject of things that only fools do, how about lying to yourself? Other people, fine, no problem; yourself, no. The
real
reason—

Was that the war was
stupid
. The war meant that 75 per cent of the goblin workforce was fighting the war, costing him money, when they could be working down the mines, earning him money; sure, the war was about who controlled the mines, but so long as it lasted, ownership was irrelevant, because practically nobody was working down there. Also, a hell of a lot of goblins were getting killed, and maybe that wasn’t such a good—

He cringed. He was starting to sound like an Elf. No, worse than that (because Elves had no problem with wars so long as they weren’t actually doing the fighting). He was starting to sound like a
human
.

Yuck.

After we’ve done the Elves and the dwarves, he promised himself, the humans are definitely going to be next. Absolutely. No question.

His predecessor was grinning at him. As well he might; Ugrok had been a good, traditional, uncontroversial Goblin King, loved and respected by his surviving subjects. A robust approach to diplomacy and a fine head for military strategy (and here it was, empty; Mordak reached for the bottle and poured himself a large brandy) He’d never have made peace with the dwarves, just because some wizard—

No, we won’t go there. Mordak sighed. Too much thinking made him dizzy, and right now the room was slowly churning round and round. Keep it simple, he told himself, keep it real, keep it
goblin
. The only reason I just ended the war was so I can start it again. Put like that—

Put like that, it was silly; also, it wasn’t true. But not to worry. A goblin needs truth, the old saying went, like an Elf needs intestines. With a conscious effort, he turned his attention to more important things; like, for example, how to screw the dwarves to the floor over this new treaty without actually breaking it. That was more like it. North and south of the Halls of Udrear; he was quite proud of that one, given that the richest veins of The Stuff lay directly underneath the Halls, and therefore weren’t covered by the terms of the agreement. Of course, Drain was too stupid to realise that. Or was he?

Slowly and carefully, Mordak devised a plan of campaign. It was, he told himself with pride, typically goblin; cunning, vicious and morally bankrupt. Much more like it. His self-esteem restored, he drained his brandy, waddled into the kitchen, dumped his empty mug in the headwasher and strolled out through the Royal Mews to take the evening air.

Which was particularly fine tonight. Mordak’s sensitive nose easily discerned the various trace elements–sulphur, magnesium, a dozen different isotopes of silicon; in spite of everything, he’d managed to keep Shaft Nine in full production 24/7, and by the smell of it they were bringing the day shift’s production to the surface right now. He wandered across to the pit head to see for himself, and was rewarded with a view of sixteen large wooden trolleys, drawn by captive dwarves, laden with rough-hewn blocks of glowing yellow rock.