A Blink of the Screen (14 page)

‘None of mine would fit,’ said Dogger. He looked at Erdan’s shoulders. ‘None of mine would half fit,’ he added. ‘Anyway, you’re not going anywhere. I give in. I’ll rewrite the last chapter. You can go home.’

He beamed. This was exactly the right way. By taking the madness seriously he could make it consume itself. All he need do was change the last page, he didn’t even need to write another Erdan book, all he needed to do was to make it clear that Erdan was still alive somewhere.

‘I’ll write you some new clothes, too,’ he said. ‘Silly, isn’t it,’ he went on, ‘a big lad like you dying in an avalanche! You’ve survived much worse.’

He pulled the manuscript towards him.

‘I mean,’ he burbled happily, ‘don’t you remember when you had to cross the Grebor Desert without water, and you—’

A hand like iron closed over his wrist, gently but firmly. Dogger remembered one of those science films which had showed an industrial robot, capable of putting two tons of pressure on a point an eighth of an inch across, gently picking up an egg. Now his wrist knew how the egg felt.

‘I like it here,’ said Erdan.

He made him leave Skung behind. Skung was a sword of few words, and none of them would go down well in a wholefood restaurant where even the beansprouts were free-range. Erdan wasn’t going to be left behind, though. Where does a seven-foot barbarian hero go? Dogger thought. Wherever he likes.

He also tried writing Erdan a new suit of clothes. It was only partially successful. Erdan was not cut out by nature, by him, to wear a sports jacket. He ended up looking as Dogger had always pictured him, like a large and overenthusiastic Motorhead fan.

Erdan seemed to be becoming more obvious. Maybe whatever kind of mental antibodies prevented people from seeing him wore away after a while. He certainly got a few odd looks.

‘Who is tofu?’ said Erdan, as they walked to the bus stop.

‘Ah. Not a who, an it. It’s a sort of food and tiling grout combined. It’s … it’s something like … well, sometimes it’s green, other times it isn’t,’ said Dogger. This didn’t help much. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘remember when you went to “fight-for-help” the Doge of Tenitti? I’m pretty sure I wrote you eating pasta.’

‘Yes.’

‘Compared to tofu, pasta is a taste explosion. Two to the centre, please,’ Dogger added, to the conductor.

The man squinted at Erdan. ‘Rock concert on, is there?’ he said.

‘And you carouse in this tofu?’ said Erdan, as they alighted.

‘You can’t carouse organically. My girl— a young lady I know works there. She believes in things. And, look, I don’t want you spoiling it, okay? My romantic life isn’t exactly straightforward at the moment.’ A thought struck him. ‘And don’t let’s have any advice from you about how to straighten it. Throwing women over your pommel and riding off into the night isn’t approved of around here. It’s probably an ism,’ he added gloomily.

‘It works for me,’ said Erdan.

‘Yes,’ muttered Dogger. ‘It always did. Funny, that. You never had any trouble, I saw to that. Twenty-six books without a change of clothes and no girl ever said she was washing her hair.’

‘Not my fault, they just throw—’

‘I’m not saying it was. I’m just saying a chap has only got so much of it, and I gave mine to you.’

Erdan’s brow wrinkled mightily with the effort of thought. His lips moved as he repeated the sentence to himself, once or twice. Then he appeared to reach a conclusion.

‘What?’ he said.

‘And you go back in the morning.’

‘I like it here. You have picture television, sweet food, soft seats.’

‘You enjoyed it in Chimera! The snowfields, the bracing wind, the endless taiga …’

Erdan gave him a sidelong glance.

‘Didn’t you?’ said Dogger, uncertainly.

‘If you say so,’ said Erdan.

‘And you watch too much far-seeing box.’

‘Television,’ corrected Erdan. ‘Can I take it back?’

‘What, to Chimera?’

‘It get lonely on the endless taiga between books.’

‘You found the Channel Four button, I see.’ Dogger turned the idea over in his mind. It had a certain charm. Erdan the Barbarian with his blood-drinking sword, chain-mail kilt, portable television, and thermal blanket.

No, it wouldn’t work. It wasn’t as if there were many channels in Chimera, and probably one of the few things you couldn’t buy in the mysterious souks of Ak-Terezical was a set of decent ni-cads.

He shivered. What was he thinking about? He really was going mad. The fans would kill him.

And he knew he’d never be able to send Erdan back. Not now. Something had changed, he’d never be able to do it again. He’d enjoyed creating Chimera. He only had to close his eyes and he could see the Shemark Mountains, every lofty peak trailing its pennant of snow. He knew the Prades Delta like the back of his hand. Better. And now it was all going, ebbing like the tide. Leaving Erdan.

Who was evolving.

‘Here it say “House of Tofu”,’ said Erdan.

Who had learned to read.

Whose clothes somehow looked less hairy, whose walk was less of a shamble.

And Dogger knew that, when they walked through that door, Erdan and Nicky would hit it off. She’d see him all right. She always seemed to look right through Dogger, but she’d see Erdan.

His hair was shorter. His clothes looked merely stylish. Erdan had achieved in a short walk from the bus stop what it had taken most barbarians ten thousand years to accomplish. Logical, really. After all, Erdan was basically your total hero type. Put him in any environment and he’d change to fit. Two hours with Nicky and he’d be torpedoing whaling ships and shutting down nuclear power stations single-handedly.

‘You go on in,’ he said.

‘Problems?’ said Erdan.

‘Just got something to sort out. I’ll join you later. Remember, though, I made you what you are.’

‘Thank you,’ said Erdan.

‘Here’s the spare key to the flat in case I’m not back. You know. Get held up or something.’

Erdan took it gravely.

‘You go ahead. Don’t worry, I won’t send you back to Chimera.’

Erdan gave him a look in which surprise was leavened with just a hint of amusement.

‘Chimera?’ he said.

The word processor clicked into life.

And the monitor was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the screen, with of course the exception of the beckoning flicker of the cursor.

Dogger’s hand moved upon the face of the keyboard.

It ought to work both ways. If belief was the engine of it all, it ought to be possible to hitch a ride if you really were mad enough to try it.

Where to start?

A short story would be enough, just to create the character. Chimera already existed, in a little bubble of fractal reality created by these ten fingers.

He began to type, hesitantly at first, and then speeding up as the ideas began to crystallize.

After a little while he opened the kitchen window. Behind him, in the darkness, the printer started up.

The key turned in the lock.

The cursor pulsed gently as the two of them came in, talked, made coffee, talked again in the body language of people finding they really have a lot in common. Words like ‘holistic approach’ floated past its uncritical beacon.

‘He’s always doing things like this,’ she said. ‘It’s the drinking and smoking. It’s not a healthy life. He doesn’t know how to look after himself.’

Erdan paused. He found the printed output cascading down the table, and now he put down the short MS half read. Outside a siren wailed, dopplered closer, shut off.

‘I’m sorry?’ he said.

‘I said he doesn’t look after himself.’

‘I think he may have to learn,’ he said. He picked up a pencil, regarded the end of it thoughtfully until the necessary skills clicked precisely in his head, and made a few insertions. The idiot hadn’t even specified what kind of clothing he was wearing. If you’re really going to write first person, you might as well keep warm. It got damn cold out on the steppes.

‘You’ve known him a long time, then?’

‘Years.’

‘You don’t look like most of his friends.’

‘We were quite close at one time. I expect I’d better see to the place until he comes back.’ He pencilled in ‘but the welcoming firelight of a Skryling encampment showed through the freezing trees’. Skrylings were okay, they considered that crazy people were great shamans, Kevin should be all right there.

Nicky stood up. ‘Well, I’d better be going,’ she said. The tone and pitch of her voice turned tumblers in his head.

‘You needn’t,’ he said. ‘It’s entirely up to you, of course.’

There was a long pause. She walked up behind him and looked over his shoulder, her manner a little awkward.

‘What’s this?’ she said, in an attempt to turn the conversation away from its logical conclusion.

‘Just a story of his. I’d better mail it in the morning.’

‘Oh. Are you a writer, too?’

Erdan glanced at the word processor. Compared to the Bronze Hordes of Merkle it didn’t look too fearsome. A whole new life was waiting for him, he could feel it, he could flow out into it. And change to suit.

‘Just breaking into it,’ he said.

‘I mean, I quite like Kevin,’ she said quickly. ‘He just never seemed to relate to the real world.’ She turned away to hide her embarrassment, and peered out of the window.

‘There’s a lot of blue lights down on the railway line,’ she said.

Erdan made a few more alterations. ‘Are there?’ he said.

‘And there’s people milling about.’

‘Oh.’ Erdan changed the title to
The Traveller of the Falconsong
. What was needed was more development, he could see that. He’d write about what he knew.

After a bit of thought he added Book One in the Chronicles of Kevin the Bardsinger.

It was the least he could do.

¹
Like Zen Buddhists, only bigger begging bowls.

TURNTABLES OF THE NIGHT

H
IDDEN
T
URNINGS
,
ED
.
D
IANA
W
YNNE
J
ONES
,
M
ETHUEN
,
L
ONDON, 1989

Sometimes you just get an idea for a story title and you have to write it. And Diana Wynne Jones wanted a story for the Young Adult anthology
Hidden Turnings,
published in 1989 … I quite like it, but short stories always seem to cost me blood, and I envy the people who do them for fun
.

Look, constable, what I don’t understand is, surely he wouldn’t be into blues? Because that was Wayne’s life for you. A blues single. I mean, if people were music, Wayne would be like one of those scratchy old numbers, you know, re-recorded about a hundred times from the original phonograph cylinder or whatever, with some old guy with a name like Deaf Orange Robinson standing knee-deep in the Mississippi and moaning through his nose.

You’d think he’d be more into Heavy Metal or Meatloaf or someone. But I suppose he’s into everyone. Eventually.

What? Yeah. That’s my van, with Hellfire Disco painted on it. Wayne can’t drive, you see. He’s just not interested in anything like that. I remember when I got my first car and we went on holiday, and I did the driving and, okay, also the repairing, and Wayne worked the radio, trying to keep the pirate stations tuned in. He didn’t really care where we went as long as it was on high ground and he could get Caroline or London or whatever. I didn’t care where we went so long as we went.

I was always more into cars than music. Until now, I think. I don’t think I want to drive a car again. I’d keep wondering who’d suddenly turn up in the passenger seat …

Sorry. So. Yeah. The disco. Well, the deal was that I supplied the van, we split the cost of the gear, and Wayne supplied the records. It was really my idea. I mean, it seemed a pretty good bet. Wayne lives with his mum but they’re down to two rooms now because of his record collection. Lots of people collect records, but I reckon Wayne really wants – wanted – to own every one that was ever made. His idea of a fun outing was going to some old store in some old town and rummaging through the stock and coming out with something by someone with a name like Sid Sputnik and the Spacemen, but the thing was, the funny thing was, you’d get back to his room and he’d go to a shelf and push all the records aside and there’d be this neat brown envelope with the name and date on it and everything – waiting.

Or he’d get me to drive him all the way to Preston or somewhere to find some guy who’s a self-employed plumber now but maybe back in 1961 called himself Ronnie Sequin and made it to number 152 in the charts, just to see if he’d got a spare copy of his one record which was really so naff you couldn’t even find it in the specialist stores.

Wayne was the kind of collector who couldn’t bear a hole in his
collection
. It was almost religious, really. He could out-talk John Peel in any case, but the records he really knew about were the ones he hadn’t got. He’d wait years to get some practically demo disc from a punk group who probably died of safety-pin tetanus, but by the time he got his hands on it he’d be able to recite everything down to the name of the cleaning lady who scrubbed out the studio afterwards. Like I said, a collector.