Detective Nicely Strongoak and the Case of the Dead Elf (16 page)

I looked at the dragon. ‘I don’t think that will be necessary Slant, will it, Dragon?’ We stared at each other for a while, then he conceded. ‘Ah, why not then? Let’s use the front door. All right mates, you all get on the platform, then just press on the chimbleys on those lit’l models, as and when I tell you.’

We followed his directions and as he shouted out the names of some of the more famous Citadel buildings, so we pressed each chimney stack, which gave like a small button. Finally, I pushed down on the top of the Citadel Archive, and we felt the platform move below us. Gradually, we were aware that the whole dais was moving, and upwards! We were on an open lift heading for the cavern roof. I managed to get a look, over the edge of the dais, at the huge pillar on which we rode.

‘Look at this engineering, will you? Outstanding, and all done with pig-iron and no steam hammers.’

The others were too concerned about the approaching ceiling. They need not have worried. As I expected, a section of the ceiling moved to one side to make room for the ascending platform. What I did not expect was what came hurtling down from the ceiling to greet us: a large amount of solid oak, followed by a cascade of scripts and scrolls. If it had not been for Slant we would have been hurt, at best, or even knocked off the dais. He managed to knock the structure to one side and we watched it plummet to the chamber floor, where it was blanketed by a fall of parchment.

‘Axes and blood, Dragon! What was that! Some last trick?’

The dragon, looking very uncomfortable as Slant’s fist tightened around his neck, protested his innocence, saying he had no idea. It soon became clear, when, much to our surprise, we found ourselves in the middle of the Citadel Central Archive, in front of the Widergard Frieze. The information booth had bombarded us.

‘They should have known better than to put anyfing there!’ said the dragon, flapping angrily in Slant’s knuckle embrace. The dais had now come to a halt, fitting snugly into the floor, without so much as a gap.

‘Things get forgotten,’ said Tolly. ‘Even wizards can forget. All right?!’

‘But this is important,’ said the dragon indignantly.

I was still too busy admiring the engineering to pay much attention. ‘Tolly, didn’t I say the chamber looked like the architecture in the Archive! And here we are in the Second Level.’ I stepped off the impressive piece of dwarfish ingenuity.

Don’t get me wrong, detecting is in my blood now and I’d rather be looking for clues at a crime scene than gold in an ore seam any day, but sometimes I just have to hand it to my forefathers: when dwarfs are hot they are steaming!

‘Yes, we were climbing upwards back in the tunnels, even before this lift,’ explained Tolly, also stepping off. When Slant unburdened the platform of his considerable bulk, there was a noise of gears moving and the dais began to sink.

‘Hey, what about me?’ cried the dragon, as the dais disappeared from sight. Slant let him go and he flew over to perch on the very top of the peak of the Citadel. ‘Right mates, don’t you folks forget, if you can find that ring it would make me granddaddy’s skelington positively rattle wiv pleasure.’

‘Sure, little lizard,’ said Slant, ‘and if you get bored down there, I could always find a job for you doubling as my power torch.’

What the dragon’s thoughts on that possibility might have been we were never to know, as the platform disappeared before he could share them. We looked closely at the floor. There was no trace of a join.

‘Now, that’s what you call engineering,’ I muttered to nobody in particular.

The private guards that patrol the Archive were a bit surprised to find us there in one of the most secure places in the Citadel. The wizard’s natural authority, my shield and, most of all, Slant’s size got us through. As Tolly had said, there weren’t many people in the Citadel who Slant could not intimidate. We took the first street-train of the morning down the Hill. What the driver made of us I neither knew nor cared – just another bunch of happy Hill fellows after a very long night, maybe. I checked for any sign of a tail, but if Slant had been right, we had certainly lost him. We swapped numbers before I got off the train and went and picked up my wagon. I made it back to my rooms, and the welcoming bedroll, just before the first blast from the Day Watch. I fell into a deep sleep as the Citadel stirred around me.

I still had one other vein to tap before I contacted Mr Arito Cardinollo, the source of all (non-elf) wisdom on elves. I needed to follow up the lead that Mother Crock had handed to me concerning Leo Courtkey – the royal lead. It was going to necessitate me being out of town for a few days. Ralph wasn’t going to be happy about that but Ralph wasn’t going to know.

I drove into the Two Fingers to call round my various scouts. The light was on in my reception room. I entered wondering about who was visiting, but my nose, as normal, was ahead of me. It whispered about expensive perfume, it murmured about a mane of hair misted with water from an enchanted pool and it spoke quietly about sin. My nose was one very happy protuberance.

‘Mrs Hardwood. If you are going to make a habit of this I really must redecorate.’

‘Don’t worry. I do a lot for charity.’ She got out of the chair with a dancer’s grace. ‘After missing lunch, I thought I had better come round. See if there were still any … hard feelings.’

‘Let’s go through into the office and check.’ I unlocked the door and picked up some mail, throwing it onto the desk and then sitting down next to it. This unfortunately put me at the wrong height for talking to Mrs Hardwood, bearing in mind what she was wearing. The dress was of a demure grey, but it had a neckline that plunged further than the Great Troll in the Everflow Chasm. A dead animal kept her shoulders warm. I tried to keep my eyes on her face, which was no hardship either.

‘So, Master Detective. Any news on my missing property?’

‘Business talk already? And just for a moment there I thought you might be missing my big brown eyes and snappy dress sense.’ She came up closer.

‘My pardon, Master Strongoak. Your raiment is most becoming. I particularly like your tie.’ She pulled it from my vest. ‘Big and fat. So much more preferable to those small thin ones you see around these days.’ She wound me in and was about to land her catch when the office door burst open.

‘Nicely, my mother just told me— oh, I’m sorry.’ Liza stood there surprised, mouth open, her hand still on the doorknob.

‘What’s the matter, child?’ drawled Mrs Hardwood, in a voice that dripped with depravity. ‘Never seen a dwarf getting his tie cleaned before?’

‘Not with a tongue, no,’ she replied.

‘Liza! Don’t run off!’ I began, but it was too late. She turned on her heels and was out of the office quicker than a mermaid on a bow wave.

‘Sorry, Master Detective. Did I spoil a little something there?’ The amusement was evident on Mrs Hardwood’s face.

‘That’s all right; just business.’

‘Oh yes, business, of course. Well, I just hope she didn’t get the wrong idea about our business.’

‘Oh no, Mrs Hardwood. I’m sure she got exactly the right idea.’

‘Good.’ Mrs Hardwood pulled her dead animal closer and backed off to a distance that didn’t qualify as an invasion of my personal space. She played with her hair in a manner straight out of
The Naughty Girl’s Guide to Bad Behaviour
and casually added: ‘Only my need to recover my missing item is becoming rather more urgent and I’d hate to think that I wasn’t right at the top of your priority list.’

‘Mrs Hardwood,’ I assured her, ‘you are the first thing I think about in the morning and the last thing at night. Especially the last thing at night.’

With a small laugh and a little-girl smile (Chapter 2 of
The Naughty Girl’s Guide to Bad Behaviour
: ‘Smiles, Flirts and Teases’), Mrs Hardwood left the office. Suddenly the place felt like a theatre after the audience had gone home.

I followed after her down the corridor, a few strides behind, and watched the lift descend. I wasn’t sure that the office fire insurance could handle a more prolonged visit. I carried on round the building but Liza was not in her office. I kicked the corridor waste bin on the way back just because I could. Looking out of a window I saw her waiting for a hire wagon and I took the stairs down to street level two at a time. Out of breath, I caught up with Liza just as the hire wagon pulled up and realised, a bit too late, that I didn’t have a clue what to say.

‘Ah, Liza …’ I managed at last. ‘Back there, it wasn’t what it looked like.’

‘I’m sure your social life isn’t any of my business, Master Strongoak.’

‘My social life doesn’t get that exciting!’

‘Well, in that case I’m sorry you’ve not had the chance for anything agreeable, like a pleasant roof-top picnic, recently.’

I was wondering whether I should dig myself deeper into the hole I was already in when the wagon driver made up my mind for me.

‘Would you two lovebirds mind getting on with it? I’m losing steam here!’ he shouted, with all the tact his profession is renowned for.

‘Look Liza, I have to go away for a couple of days.’

‘Fine,’ she replied, getting into the wagon.

‘I’m following a lead – to the Fortress of the Desolate Wastes.’

‘I hope you have yourself a very nice time, then. You seem to be good at that.’

And before I could get another word in, the wagon had pulled out.

To make matters worse, who should come strolling along but Scout Telfine, having overheard everything. He wore a smile like the wolf that caught the cat that ate the cream and his trouser creases cut the air like one of those whips they call a Lugburg Lick.

‘That’s what happens when you go fishing outside your own waters,’ he said, with a particularly nasty tone.

‘I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Scout.’

‘Citadel folk – they’re not meant to mix. It never works.’

Social comment from a minor officer of the law was not on my list of ‘must have’ for the day.

‘Does Sergeant Fieldfull know you are out on your own?’

‘Of course.’

‘Then how about your mother?’ I added, somewhat unnecessarily.

I left Telfine to his scouting, took the lift back upstairs and gave the waste bin another good kicking. I finally pulled myself together enough to attend to the calls I needed to make before I headed out. ‘Missing Persons’ could give me nothing new on Perry Goodfellow, though, and none of the staffing agencies had him freshly signed onto their books. Doroty was busy and Josh was out. So, in the end I resorted to going home and counting my suits. I do this when I am too keyed-up for anything else useful. It is a form of therapy, I guess. The answer was still thirty-four. It was no good: I needed more cupboard space.

I put a couple of the lightweight numbers into a travel trunk along with a few other things a well-dressed dwarf detective needs to retain his image and I took the trunk down to the Helmington. I considered picking up my Dragonette; it certainly was a better ride, but the Helmington probably provided a little more of the cover I sorely needed.

The route east took me near to the stud farm where Rosebud was housed. I thought about the horse and his connection to the dead elf Truetouch. I still had less than nothing to tie them together. All that thinking was giving me a headache, so for light relief I reviewed what I already knew about the King of the Desolate Wastes, Leo Courtkey’s one-time employer.

As the histories tell the story, when the elves returned, bringing with them that good old democratic principle and all the trappings of power politics, royalty was made to look rather redundant. Although it is not the official version, as far as I can gather, reading between the lines, the Crowns and Coronets (who were at this stage somewhat past their dragon-slaying best) were given a choice. The choice was this: either you throw in your lot with the rest of the Citadel or we cart you all off somewhere where you can do very little damage. A large number (a very large number) took the latter option, and they were rewarded with the Desolate Wastes. This is, of course, that famous area in the Uttermost East, where nothing of interest could ever be found and hence no one of interest ever went. Generally flat, boring, and, well, desolate; that part of Widergard that used to be distinguished on the maps by the classic line: ‘Here there be demons’, just in case.

As the usurped were royalty, the democratically elected new regime could not just dump them in the middle of nowhere with a few packing trunks. Kings are used to living in palaces built on towering summits or craggy peaks. Nothing in the geology of the Desolate Wastes could quite fit the bill, so they built one – a mountain, that is. And because of conservation laws and height restriction they put it in a hole in the ground.

It was legendary in construction circles. The greatest triumph of the dwarfish construction business: The Fortress of the Forbidden Wastes. Massive walls and soaring towers, all out-competing each other to reach the sky, but still outdone by spires and steeples that threatened to pierce it – well, if they hadn’t all been stuck at the bottom of a canyon, of course.

I had yet to see it in the stony flesh, though, and I was not about to see it tonight. The surroundings were getting distinctly desolate and the long summer dusk was darkening imperceptibly into a brief daylight hiatus as grey as a pilgrim’s nightgown when I decided to lay the axe down for the evening. I found a halfway decent-looking lay-by inn and parked the Helmington where it would get the most of any morning shade.

The heat out here was a dry heat. It dried your eyeballs between blinks, it dried the sweat on your back before it even had a chance to cool you; it dried the very tongue in your mouth as you went to speak. I was grateful to be out of the wagon. I stretched and looked on down the Great East Road as it disappeared into the gathering dark, the heat haze still playing above the black stuff that spread into the distance like a child’s greatest fantasy liquorice.

The inn was surprisingly comfortable considering that I did not imagine they got much custom. In my room the asthmatic air-conditioning worked overtime but brought some relief. I bought a cooled flagon from the plywood bar then went back to the room, filled my pipe and watched the stars come out.

Some time during the night I had a dream. I was back on the Gnada Peninsula. It was hot, but for some reason I was wearing formal attire. As I looked over the sea, I could see a line of elves surfing. They caught a wave and were carried towards the shore. As the wave began to break the white tips began to turn into elfin horses. Now the elves were truly riding the waves. I saw Highbury draw a sword as the waves grew higher and higher. I realised I was in danger of being swamped, but I was rooted to the spot. Behind Highbury I spotted the dead elf Truetouch, not riding, but being carried as a lifeless burden, his eyes staring blankly. His horse, though white, had a Rosebud on its muzzle. To my surprise I saw the corpse’s mouth open. He was trying to tell me something. The lips formed words; I strained to hear them above the sound of the pounding surf, but no sound came out. I could feel the spray now and shouted to the dead elf, willing him to speak. Then the waves were upon me and I woke up bathed with sweat. At some point during the night, the ailing air-conditioning unit had gone to the great Appliance Paradise out west, where all white goods finally find eternal rest from their life’s labours.

I staggered out to the small bathroom, and stuck my head under the water pump. Through bleary eyes, I looked at my reflection in the vanity mirror. I needed a shave, but otherwise, as faces go, it all seemed to be in order – no ghosts lurking. I went back into the bedroom and opened the balcony door, then staggered back to bed and slept undisturbed until morning.

I paid gold and did not bother with the tally. I had no idea who might be paying for this journey – it’s hard to inventory a hunch. I had put a fair number of leagues behind me, before I began to notice that the old Desolate Wastes did not look quite so desolate any more. A few road signs began to spring up and the occasional small hamlet. All the signs pointed in one direction: This way to the Fortress of the Desolate Wastes. I guessed that the place must have become a bit of a tourist site. My suspicions were confirmed a short while later when I passed a large stagecoach carrying Citadel plates. Musing on the vagaries of fate, I nearly missed my first glimpse of what has frequently been referred to as one of the wonders of the New Age. The chasm opened up beneath me like, well, like a hole in the ground. And what a hole! The far side was almost lost in the heat haze; I could just make out the distant canyon cliff. Even by itself it would have been some sight, but put an artificial fortress in the middle and you have something quite breath-taking. The Citadel has sometimes been likened to a wedding cake, gift-wrapped with five stone walls. The Fortress of the Desolate Wastes was something else completely. If the moon had splintered and a large section had fallen and wounded the heart of Widergard, it would have looked just like this: awesome. Sometimes I missed the construction business.

Well, I had found my fortress. The road down the canyon wound like a dragon’s tail and was not much smoother. Halfway down I got myself stuck behind another stagecoach and sat grinding my teeth as it wormed laboriously down. It was one hot, tired dwarf who finally pulled up in front of the massive ironclad gate that marked the front entrance to the Fortress of the Desolate Wastes. The stagecoach had disappeared around the back some place – presumably to find the visitors – but I try to do my business through the front door; it keeps things on the right level. I picked up a brass knocker that had done time as the head of a battering ram. I used both hands.

After what seemed like an age, the door was finally opened. Another one of those old retainer types opened it. He could have been the twin of the old boy Goodenough who worked for Mrs Hardwood. Maybe there was a school somewhere that turned them out by the dozen.

‘Nicely Strongoak,’ I began.

‘Their Royal Highnesses maintain a charitable trust for the underprivileged and are not in the habit of giving at the door.’

I found myself standing slack-jawed as the door closed in my face. I gave it another try: ‘Nicely Strongo––’

‘Sorry, we never give at the door.’ I took timber in the face from him. So, I knocked one last time.

This effort got more of a reaction. I pulled the axe free from the door, noting that it was laminated, built with cheap workmanship and must have been of recent origin. The old retainer blanched a more reflective tint of alabaster and beckoned me in. Goodenough would have been less accommodating, I’m sure. Goodenough would probably have complained that axes today weren’t what they used to be.