Expecting Someone Taller (2 page)

‘Hang on,' said Malcolm, ‘I'm a bit confused. Why did you have to hide?'

‘Because,' said Ingolf, ‘they wanted the Ring.'

‘So why didn't you give it to them - whoever they were - and save yourself all the bother?'

‘Whoever owns the ring is the master of the world,' said Ingolf, gravely.

‘Oh,' said Malcolm. ‘So you're . . .'

‘And a fat lot of good it's done me, you might very well say. Who did you think ruled the world, anyway, the United bloody Nations?'

‘I hadn't given it much thought, to be honest with you. But if you're the ruler of the world . . .'

‘I know what you're thinking. If I'm master of the world, why should I have to hide in a copse in Somerset disguised as a badger?'

‘More or less,' said Malcolm.

‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,' said the Giant sagely. ‘Looking back, of course, I sometimes wonder whether it was all worth it. But you will learn by my mistakes. '

Malcolm furrowed his brow. ‘You mean you're leaving them all to me?' he asked. ‘The Ring and the - what did you say it was called?'

‘Tarnhelm. It means helmet of darkness, though why they describe it as a helmet when it's just a little scrap of wire I couldn't tell you. Anyway, take them with my blessing, for what that's worth.'

Ingolf paused to catch his breath.

‘To gain inexhaustible wealth,' he continued, ‘just breathe on the Ring and rub it gently on your forehead. Go on, try it.'

Ingolf eased the plain gold ring off his finger and passed it to Malcolm, who accepted it rather as one might accept some delicacy made from the unspeakable parts of a rare amphibian at an embassy function. He did as Ingolf told him, and at once found himself knee-deep in gold. Gold cups, gold plates, gold brooches, pins, bracelets, anklets, pectorals, cruets and sauce-boats.

‘Convinced?' said Ingolf. ‘Or do you want a metallurgist's report?'

‘I believe you,' said Malcolm, who was indeed firmly convinced that he was dreaming, and vowed never to eat Stilton cheese late at night again.

‘Leave them,' said Ingolf. ‘Plenty more where that came from. The Nibelungs make them in the bottomless caverns of Nibelheim, the Kingdom of the Mists. They'll be glad of the warehouse space.'

‘And the Tarnhelm - that works too, does it?'

Ingolf finally seemed to lose patience. ‘Of course it bloody works,' he shouted. ‘Put it on and turn yourself into a human being.'

‘Sorry,' said Malcolm. ‘It's all been rather a shock.'

‘Finally,' said Ingolf, ‘cut my arm and lick some of the blood.'

‘I'd rather not,' said Malcolm, firmly.

‘If you do, you'll be able to understand the language of the birds.'

‘I don't particularly want to be able to understand the language of the birds,' said Malcolm.

‘You'll understand the language of the birds and like it, my lad,' said Ingolf severely. ‘Now do as you are told. Use the pin on one of those brooches there.'

The blood tasted foul and was burning hot. For a second, Malcolm's brain clouded over; then, faintly in the distance, he heard the owl hoot again, and realised to his astonishment that he could understand what it was saying. Not that it was saying anything of any interest, of course.

‘Oh,' said Malcolm. ‘Oh, well, thank you.'

‘Now then,' said the Giant. ‘I am about to go on my last journey. Pile up that gold around my head. I must take it with me to pay the ferryman.'

‘I thought it was just a coin on the eyes or something.'

‘Inflation. Also, I'll take up rather a lot of room on the boat.' He scowled. ‘Get on with it, will you?' he said. ‘Or do you want a receipt?'

Malcolm did as he was told. After all, it wasn't as if it was real gold. Was it?

‘Listen,' said Ingolf, ‘listen carefully. I am dying now. When I am dead, my body will turn back into the living rock from which Lord Ymir moulded the race of the Frost-Giants when the world was young. Nothing will grow here for a thousand years, and horses will throw their riders when they pass the spot. Pity, really, it's a main road. Oh, well. Every year, on the anniversary of my death, fresh blood will well up out of the earth and the night air will be filled with uncanny cries. That is the Weird of the Ring-Bearer when his life is done. Be very careful, Malcolm Fisher. There is a curse on the Nibelung's Ring - the curse of Alberich, which brings all who wear it to a tragic and untimely death. Yet it is fated that when the Middle Age of the world is drawing to a close, a foolish, godlike boy who does not understand the nature of the Ring will break the power of Alberich's curse and thereby redeem the world. Then the Last Age of the world will begin, the Gods will go down for ever, and all things shall be well.' Ingolf 's eyes were closing, his breath was faint, his words scarcely audible. But suddenly he started, and propped himself up on one elbow.

‘Hold on a minute,' he gasped. ‘A foolish, godlike boy who does not understand . . . who does not understand . . .' He sank down again, his strength exhausted. ‘Still,' he said, ‘I was expecting someone rather taller.'

He shuddered for the last time, and was as still as stone. The wind, which had been gathering during his last speech, started to scream, lashing the trees into a frenzy. The Giant was dead; already his shape was unrecognisable as his body turned back into grey stone, right in the middle of the Minehead to Bridgwater trunk road. All around him, Malcolm could hear a confused babble of voices, human
and animal, living and dead, and, like the counterpoint to a vast fugue, the low, rumbling voices of the trees and the rocks. The entire earth was repeating the astonishing news: Ingolf was dead, the world had a new master.

Just then, two enormous ravens flapped slowly and lazily over Malcolm's head. He stood paralysed with inexplicable fear, but the ravens flew on. The voices died away, the wind dropped, the rain subsided. As soon as he was able to move, Malcolm jumped in his car and drove home as fast as the antiquated and ill-maintained engine would permit him to go. He undressed in the dark and fell into bed, and was soon fast asleep and dreaming a strange and terrible dream, all about being trapped in a crowded lift with no trousers on. Suddenly he woke up and sat bolt upright in the darkness. On his finger was the Ring. Beside his bed, between his watch and his key-chain, was the Tarnhelm. Outside his window, a nightingale was telling another nightingale what it had had for lunch.

‘Oh my God,' said Malcolm, and went back to sleep.

 

The Oberkasseler Bridge over the Rhine has acquired a sinister reputation in recent years, and the two policemen who were patrolling it knew this only too well. They knew what to look for, and they seldom had to look far in this particular area.

A tall man with long grey hair falling untidily over the collar of his dark blue suit leaned against the parapet eating an ice cream. Although impeccably dressed, he was palpably all wrong, and the two policemen looked at each other with pleasant anticipation.

‘Drugs?' suggested the first policeman.

‘More like dirty books,' said the other. ‘If he's armed, it's my turn.'

‘It's always your turn,' grumbled his companion.

The first policeman shrugged his shoulders. ‘Oh, all right then,' he said. ‘But I get to drive back to the station.'

But as they approached their prey, they began to feel distinctly uncomfortable. It was not fear but a sort of awe or respect that caused them to hesitate as the tall man turned and stared at them calmly through his one eye. Suddenly, they found that they were having difficulty breathing.

‘Excuse me, sir,' said the first policeman, gasping slightly, ‘can you tell me the time?'

‘Certainly,' said the tall man, without looking at his watch, ‘it's just after half-past eleven.'

The two policemen turned and walked away quickly. As they did so, they both simultaneously looked at their own watches. Twenty-eight minutes to twelve.

‘He must have been looking at the clock,' said the first policeman.

‘What clock?' inquired his companion, puzzled.

‘I don't know. Any bloody clock.'

The tall man turned and gazed down at the brown river for a while. Then he clicked his fingers, and a pair of enormous ravens floated down and landed on either side of him on the parapet. The tall man broke little pieces off the rim of his cornet and flicked them at the two birds as he questioned them.

‘Any luck?' he asked.

‘What do you think?' replied the smaller of the two.

‘Keep trying,' said the tall man calmly. ‘Have you done America today?'

The smaller raven's beak was full of cornet, so the larger raven, although unused to being the spokesman, said Yes, they had. No luck.

‘We checked America,' said the smaller raven, ‘and
Africa, and Asia, and Australasia, and Europe. Bugger all, same as always.'

‘Maybe you were looking in the wrong place,' suggested the tall man.

‘You don't understand,' said the smaller raven. ‘It's like looking for . . .' the bird racked its brains for a suitably graphic simile ‘. . . for a needle in a haystack,' it concluded triumphantly.

‘Well,' said the tall man, ‘I suggest you go and look again. Carefully, this time. My patience is beginning to wear a little thin.'

Suddenly he closed his broad fist around the cornet, crushing it into flakes and dust.

‘You've got ice cream all over your hand,' observed the larger raven.

‘So I have,' said the tall man. ‘Now get out, and this time concentrate.'

The ravens flapped their broad, drab wings and floated away. Frowning, the tall man clicked the fingers of his clean hand and took out his handkerchief.

‘I've got a tissue if you'd rather use it,' said a nervous-looking thin man who had hurried up to him. The tall man waved it away.

‘How about you?' he asked the thin man. ‘Done any good?'

‘Nothing. I did Toronto, Lusaka, and Brasilia. Have you ever been to Brasilia? Last place God made. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean . . .'

‘The more I think about it,' said the tall man, ignoring this gaffe, ‘the more convinced I am that he's still in Europe. When Ingolf went to ground, the other continents hadn't even been discovered.'

The thin man looked puzzled. ‘Ingolf?' he said. ‘Haven't you heard?'

The tall man turned his head and fixed him with his one eye. The thin man started to tremble slightly, for he knew that expression well.

‘Ingolf is dead,' continued the thin man. ‘I thought you'd have known.'

The tall man was silent. Clouds, which had not been there a moment before, passed in front of the sun.

‘I'm only the King of the Gods, nobody ever bothers to tell me anything,' said the tall man. ‘So?'

‘He died at a quarter to midnight last night, at a place called Ralegh's Cross in the West of England. He was knocked down by a car, and . . .'

Rain was falling now, hard and straight, but the thin man was sweating. Oddly enough, the tall man wasn't getting wet.

‘No sign of the Ring,' said the thin man nervously. ‘Or the helmet. I've checked all the usual suspects, but they don't seem to have heard or seen anything. In fact, they were as surprised as you were. I mean . . .'

Thunder now, and a flicker of distant lightning.

‘I got there as quickly as I could,' said the thin man, desperately. ‘As soon as I felt the shock. But I was in Brasilia, like I said, and it takes time . . .'

‘All the usual suspects?'

‘All of them. Every one.'

Suddenly, the tall man smiled. The rain stopped, and a rainbow flashed across the sky.

‘I believe you,' said the tall man, ‘thousands wouldn't. Right, so if it wasn't one of the usual suspects, it must have been an outsider, someone we haven't dealt with before. That should make it all much easier. So start searching.'

‘Anywhere in particular?'

‘Use your bloody imagination,' growled the tall man,
irritably, and the rainbow promptly faded away. The thin man smiled feebly, and soon was lost to sight among the passers-by. Wotan, the great Sky-God and King of all the Gods, put his handkerchief back in his pocket and gazed up into the sky, where the two enormous ravens were circling.

‘Got all that?' Wotan murmured.

Thought, the elder and smaller of the two messenger ravens who are the God's eyes and ears on earth, dipped his wings to show that he had, and Wotan walked slowly away.

‘Like looking for a needle in a haystack,' repeated Thought, sliding into a convenient thermal. His younger brother, Memory, banked steeply and followed him.

‘This is true,' replied Memory, ‘definitely.'

‘You know the real trouble with this business?' said Memory, diving steeply after a large moth.

‘What's that, then?'

‘Bloody awful industrial relations, that's what. I mean, take Wotan. Thinks he's God almighty.'

‘He is, isn't he?'

Memory hovered for a moment on a gust of air. ‘I never thought of that,' he said at last.

‘Well, you wouldn't,' said Thought, ‘would you?'

T
he next morning, Malcolm thought long and hard before waking up, for he had come to recognise over the past quarter of a century that rather less can go wrong if you are asleep.

But the radiant light of a brilliant summer morning, shining in through the window in front of which he had neglected to draw the curtains, chased away all possibility of sleep, and Malcolm was left very much awake, although still rather confused. Such confusion was, however, his normal state of mind. Without it, he would feel rather lost.