Drinking Midnight Wine (17 page)

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Authors: Simon R. Green

BOOK: Drinking Midnight Wine
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He was just getting ready to tell Gayle to make a run for it when the troll suddenly leaned forward, fixed Toby with its dark goggling eyes, and spoke in a voice like stones crashing together in a stream, like all the cold horrid things that live in the depths.
“I have come for you, little human,” said the troll, its great voice shaking in Toby’s bones. “Little Toby Dexter. Thinks he’s so brave. Thinks he’s going to be Humanity’s Champion. Wrong. It all ends here, in blood and tears and splintered bones. This is my bridge, given to me under the old compact, and no one crosses it without my permission. Do you know the rules, little human, little Champion? The old game of riddle, of question and answer? If you do, and if you’re clever enough and fast enough and brave enough, you might just live to fight another day. But you’re a modern man, a child of your times, so it’s much more likely that I’ll feed on your tender flesh and make toothpicks out of your bones.”
A gun, a bazooka, a bloody slingshot . . . It doesn’t want her, it wants me . . . Well, when in doubt, bluff.
Toby drew himself up to his full height, fixed the troll with his best menacing glare and lowered his voice as far as it would go.
“Who the hell do you think you’re talking to? You back off right now, or I’ll have your balls for this! I am Toby Dexter, focal point and Humanity’s Champion. This is Gayle. I don’t suppose I have to tell you who and what she is, do I? I thought not. Do you really think you can get either one of us to do one damned thing we don’t want to? Now back off, or I’ll show you what happens when I get really upset.”
“Oh, hell,” said the troll, slumping just a little. “You’re a focal point? Really? Shit. No one said anything to me about your being a focal point.
Shit!
I never get to have any fun anymore. Is that you, Gayle? I didn’t know you were out and about again. How’s things?”
“Don’t you
how’s things
me,” said Gayle in a decidedly frosty tone. “
Bad
troll!”
“Oh, go on, rub it in,” said the troll. Toby was amazed to see that the huge creature was actually pouting now. “Make fun of me. Everyone does. No one respects you once you’ve reached a certain age, and your eyesight isn’t what it was. I’m just doing my job, you know. No one cares about riddles anymore, anyway. It’s all computer games and bloody Pokémon now. I can remember when monsters were respected, when teeth and claws meant something. Go on; walk across the bloody bridge, then. Run back and forth, see if I care. You do your best, spend ages working out a good set of threats, individually tailored, too, and they laugh in your face. I’m going back into the river for a good long sulk.”
And as quickly as that, the troll disappeared beneath the dark and murky waters, and was gone. Toby looked at the damaged stone wall where its great hand had rested, and then turned to Gayle.
“Bad troll?”
“He’s no real threat,” said Gayle easily. “Hasn’t been for centuries. He was bluffing. Mostly. Unless you’d run. Then it might have got a bit nasty. But you didn’t run. You put yourself between me and harm. Quite unnecessary, of course, but still . . . I’m glad to have had a glimpse of what you’re really made of.”
“What I’m really made of very nearly ended up filling my trousers,” said Toby hotly. “Are you telling me you were never in any danger at all?”
“Of course not. But you were still very brave, Toby. I’m impressed.”
“I am so mad I could spit soot. I do not want to have to feel like that again,
ever
. If I’m going to be Humanity’s Champion, unlikely as that still seems, I want a weapon of some sort. Something to give me at least a fighting chance.”
“What do you expect me to do?” said Gayle. “Find you a big stone with a sword stuck through it? Whistle you up a magic lamp, or a ring with three wishes? Forget about weapons, Toby. It isn’t going to be that kind of battle. Hob could break Excalibur across his knee, and Angel would probably eat it. And from now on, I will look out for myself, thank you very much.”
“Fine,” said Toby. “The next big monster to come along is all yours. You can handle it, while I make for the horizon like a dog with its arse on fire.”
Gayle looked at him consideringly, and her expression softened just a little. “You won’t run, Toby. You’re not the running kind. When push came to shove, you stood your ground and kept your wits about you. Which is good to know. The kind of beings, forces, we’ll be facing will be more impressed by brains than bravery.”
“Pity,” said Toby. “I could have faked bravery. I still don’t feel like any kind of hero.”
Gayle patted him gently on the cheek. “That’s the best kind. Now come along. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, and the day is young.”
“I will never wash that cheek again,” said Toby, and Gayle had to laugh.
 
They made their way through the town, and everywhere people fell back to give them plenty of room. A few even turned and ran. Lots of people were still giving Toby the fish eye, but he found that smiling straight back at them, like he knew something they didn’t, was usually enough to make them turn quickly away and pretend to be interested in something else. Even when there was nothing else. There did seem to be an awful lot of people about, even for a Saturday morning, often gathered in little groups buzzing with animated conversation. Toby was surprised to find he recognized quite a few faces. Apparently more people than he ever suspected were a part of Mysterie, and always had been. It made him wonder about the connections between the two worlds, and how much he might have noticed before, if he’d only ever suspected the truth.
And most surprising of all, he felt comfortable in his new, magical world, for all its monsters and weirdness. He felt vaguely that he ought to be more ...
upset
by some of the things he’d seen and been told. The truth alone would have been enough to set a lot of people gibbering and frothing at the mouth, and the Howling Thing . . . In Mysterie all the rules were suspended, and everything was up for grabs. Toby could think of a lot of people who wouldn’t have been able to cope with such madness and anarchy for even a moment, and just a few days before he would have said he was one of them, but . . . He liked it here, in Mysterie, for all its uncomfortable truths and hidden dangers. He felt alive, for the first time in years.
It probably helped that his old life had been so utterly bloody boring, that he was glad to be rid of it.
Gayle indicated a row of old houses they were passing, mostly seventeenth- and eighteenth-century. Well preserved, but blunt and functional rather than charming. “That place there, a little back from the road, used to be the old Hobshouse Bank. A failed venture by the Serpent’s Son, a few centuries back. For a time, that one bank controlled all the town’s finances. Owned a lot of property, and gave out even more promissory notes. Everyone who mattered came to Hob with their hat in their hands, looking for a piece of the action. They knew his reputation, even then, if not exactly who and what he really was, but they were prepared to overlook any number of, er, character faults, in the pursuit of obscene amounts of money. And there was a lot of gold to be found in Bradford-on-Avon in those days, when the cloth trade flourished.
“There’s more than one way to power, Toby, and Hob’s tried most of them. He ran this town for years. When his overextended bank finally collapsed, its vaults full of nothing but unrecoverable debts and piles of worthless paper, and Hob disappeared into the night with what little cold cash there was, a lot of people’s fortunes were destroyed, from the highest to the lowest. Financial disasters have a way of trickling all the way down. It took the town generations to get over it. The town’s forefathers should have remembered the old adage; if you must sup with the Devil, use a long spoon. Even if it’s only the Devil’s Son. And certainly don’t use your own money.”
“Money,” Toby said thoughtfully. “That’s something other people have, isn’t it?”
Gayle looked at him. “I thought you said you were in publishing?”
“
In
is perhaps too strong a word,” said Toby. “
Connected with
is probably more accurate. Suffice it to say that money and I seem to have only the most fleeting of relationships these days. I don’t understand where it all goes. It’s not like I have any expensive vices. I never had the chance to acquire any. How much further, before we get to these Mice of yours?”
“They’re right out on the edge of town. They like their privacy, in Mysterie as well as Veritie. Place called Manor Farm.”
“The hippies?” said Toby. “Oh, wonderful. We’re going to end up sitting around on bean bags, drinking strange herbal teas and trying not to choke on the fumes from dodgy joss sticks, I just know it.”
“You know, you’re very judgmental, for a shop assistant.”
“You did know!”
“I’m afraid so. Carys knows everything, remember? Not to worry. I’m sure you were a very good shop assistant. Probably got a degree in stacking. You’ll like the Mice; charming creatures.”
“Yeah, well,” growled Toby. “They’d better have some cheese. I’m starting to feel distinctly peckish.”
 
A pleasant enough stroll took them through the rest of the town and out into the countryside beyond. It was a leisurely walk in the bright sunshine because Toby had slowed Gayle down by the simple principle of refusing to keep up. Gayle soon got tired of conversing over her shoulder with someone who might or might not be there, and reluctantly slowed her long stride to a more reasonable pace, much to Toby’s relief. He hadn’t done this much walking in years. The old Manor farmhouse was all that now remained of what had once been a thriving farm. But the land had gradually been sold off in small parcels over the years, and the livestock and outer buildings with it, till all that was left was the old Tudor farmhouse itself.
Someone had recently given the exterior a quick lick of paint and a good clean, and the half-timbered structure looked to be in reasonably good condition, for its age. Toby and Gayle trod noisily up the long gravel path that led to the great front door, but there was no response from inside the house. Most interesting to Toby, the windows weren’t boarded over, as they were in Veritie.
All in all, walking up the gravel path was like walking into the picture on the lid of a jigsaw box. It was the kind of perfect bucolic image that had become quite rare in the modern, mechanized, and impoverished countryside. Everything looked just right. Of course, this was Mysterie. Toby hadn’t been out this way in so long he couldn’t tell if the farmhouse usually looked this perfect, but he rather thought not. Upkeep on historical buildings like this could be ruinously expensive, in Veritie. The whole setting seemed utterly tranquil, calm and peaceful, with wide open green fields stretching out around the farmhouse, bordered on the horizon by traditional low stone walls. There didn’t seem to be anyone about.
Gayle walked right up to the impressive front door, a great solid slab of oak, and banged firmly with the black iron knocker. The sound carried loudly, but there wasn’t even a twitching of the lace curtains at the downstairs windows. Still, Toby had a strong feeling of being observed by unseen eyes. He hoped they were friendly, though just how dangerous a bunch of Mice could be . . . He looked up sharply as the huge door before him swung slowly inward, silent as a breath. There was still no sign of anyone, and only darkness within. Gayle strode straight in, without waiting for an invitation. Toby shook his head, squared his shoulders, and followed her in.
Just inside the door there was a sudden flash of light, revealing the farmhouse’s interior, and Toby stumbled to a halt. The door closed silently of its own accord behind him as he stared about him, openmouthed. Just when he thought he’d grown accustomed to all the curves Mysterie could throw at him, it came up with a whole new approach. All the interior structure of the old Manor farmhouse had been removed; all the walls and the first-floor ceiling, and all the rooms were knocked through into one, so that the whole place was now one big barn. Or one very big mouse cage. The vast open floor was covered in straw, much of it days old and well trampled down. There were piles of food all over (mostly raw vegetables), left dotted here and there with no discernible pattern or purpose. An old stone horse trough had been dragged in and filled with water. Brightly colored objects of all shapes and sizes were scattered here and there, as though picked up and enjoyed, and then just dropped carelessly wherever they happened to land.

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