The Great Troll War
- Автор: Ффорде Джаспер
- Серия: The Last Dragonslayer #4
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: Hodder & Stoughton
- ISBN: 9781444799958
- Жанр: Фэнтези
Электронная книга - «The Great Troll War». Краткое содержание книги:
I had been vegetarian for years, although not militant, but there was a point buried deep somewhere in his twisted logic.
‘May I ask a question?’ I asked.
‘Shoot.’
‘How does someone get to be as utterly immoral as you?’
‘You’ve got me all wrong: I’m not immoral, for that would make me at worst deceitful or unprincipled, as I would understand the wickedness behind my actions. No, I am amoral – without any morals at all. I see, I want, I take – without guilt, pity, mercy or sorrow.’
‘And how’s that working out for you?’
‘It’s working out very well,’ he said, indicating the surroundings, ‘as you can plainly see.’
He stepped closer.
‘Look into my eyes, Jennifer, and see if you can tell me what is missing.’
He was uncomfortably close, and I could smell the salt and vinegar crisps on his breath. But I did what he asked, and stared into his eyes. They were dark and empty like Once Magnificent Boo’s, but while the ancient sorceress’s eyes had a sense of bruised yet defiant humanity within them, Shandar’s had none, and I shivered.
‘Oh my goodness,’ I said in a quiet voice, ‘you have no soul.’
‘Correct,’ he said, ‘and it’s so much easier. A conscience is as much a barrier to knowledge as biology is to eternal life. Eventually, I will have both.’
‘So long as you get the Quarkbeast.’
‘You’ll come round to it,’ he said, ‘and you will join me on this journey, as will Miss D’Argento – you will not be friends to begin with, but will learn to enjoy each other’s company, like sisters.’
‘Very cosy.’
‘I’m offering eternal life and the ultimate answer to everything. What’s not to like?’
‘There’ll be something not to like,’ I said. ‘I can smell a catch in all this. It permeates your words, like cheap cologne.’
He smiled again, but I could see now that it was utterly devoid of warmth, humour and humanity. I shivered. There is little defence against someone with no soul. Even a Troll can keep a promise.
I’m going home now,’ I said, ‘and once there, I will figure out a way to vanquish you.’
‘Good luck with that,’ he said. ‘You’ve been an exciting adversary, but I think we’re pretty near the endgame. I will have the Quarkbeasts, they will conjoin, I will have eternal life, you will join me on my journey. It is foreseen, it is inevitable.’
‘The one thing I’ve learned about premonitions,’ I said slowly, ‘is that they come true in unexpected ways.’
‘I think we’ve talked enough, Jenny. If you haven’t surrendered the Quarkbeast to me before sunrise on Monday morning, then the Trolls will come into Penzance, and I will have the Quarkbeast anyway.’
He touched me on the shoulder and I felt the warm fizzy sensation of a user-defined enchantment.
‘When you’re ready to go,’ he said, ‘just click your heels twice and name your destination.’
And he vanished.
I looked across at D’Argento, who smiled back at me. Unlike Shandar’s smile, hers appeared almost genuine.
‘You agree with all that?’ I asked her.
‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘The Mighty Shandar is a true visionary. The Everything Project is a venture of extraordinary scope and ambition in which I am hugely honoured to play a part – as will you be.’
‘Cosying up to a man with no soul isn’t going to end well, D’Argento. It never does.’
‘Undertaking a self-soulectomy43 is just one of the many sacrifices Shandar has made on the altar of human enlightenment. Dispelling the Better Angels of his Nature was a difficult decision – but necessary.’
I stared at her for a moment in silence.
‘C’mon,’ I said, ‘he’s gone. Tell me what you really think – and what he’s actually up to?’
I saw the briefest flicker of doubt cross her face, then it was gone. It was a loaded question, and her reaction was what I was looking for. She couldn’t tell me anything even if she wanted to. Shandar would be watching and listening right now. She may even have been beguiled; possibly her will was not her own.
‘The Everything Project was four centuries in the making,’ she said. ‘Once His Mightiness has the Quarkbeast he will reveal all – and you will clamour to be by his side.’
‘Don’t count on it, D’Argento – and look, thanks for the milkshake.’
I tapped my heels twice and murmured ‘Queens Hotel, Penzance’. There was a sound like a thousand crisp packets being scrunched in unison, and there I was, outside the main entrance just across from the promenade. All the street lights were on and scattered groups of people were out for a walk in the warm night air. The Quarkbeast, who usually sat on the top step to soak up the sun when it was sunny and the water when it was rainy, sat up and wagged his weighted tail happily.
‘Quark,’ he said.
‘Hello, boy,’ I said, stepping forward to tickle him under the chin. ‘What’s been going on?’
‘Qu-ark,’ he replied, and his tail dropped. This didn’t sound good at all, so I hurried up the steps into the hotel.
Wedding bells
I pushed opened the main door to the hotel, hoping to tell the Princess and everyone else what had happened as soon as I could, but there didn’t seem to be anyone about. The ops room was locked although I could still hear people working inside, and while yesterday the reception area had been busy with clerks moving about with reports and paperwork and suchlike, there was little movement in the hotel at all. It seemed a little eerie – and worrying.
‘Where is everyone?’ I asked the man on the main desk.
‘They’re at the wedding,’ he said, grinning with an annoying level of royalty-based rapture. ‘I would have liked to go but I couldn’t move my shift. How was your day?’
‘It could have gone better. Room 266, please.’
He handed me a message from my pigeonhole. It was from William of Anorak, and he’d come to the conclusion that since he had no factoids about Trolls, someone must have stolen them from his head – and maybe that’s what Shandar had been up to: fogging any memories over how to stop them.
‘Bad news?’ asked the receptionist.
‘Not unexpected,’ I said. ‘Isn’t it a little late in the day for a wedding?’
‘The city runs a twenty-four-hour Harry and Sally marriage service,’ he replied, handing me my key, ‘because when you realise you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of that life to start with them as soon as possible. Also, I think the Princess said there was some constitutional urgency in it.’
‘Which princess?’ I asked, although only reluctantly, as royal weddings were, along with tapioca, boy bands and celebrity biographies, things in which I had zero interest. ‘The tall gawky-looking one or Jocaminca?’
‘No, no, the Princess – you know, the uncrowned Queen of all the Kingdoms – your friend – the one with the funny skin rashes.’
I suddenly had a very nasty feeling.
‘Who … is she marrying?’
The receptionist grinned fit to burst.
‘Why, Sir Matt Grifflon, of course. Such a lovely couple. I’ve managed to reserve a dozen commemorative plates; they’re going to become collector’s items one day – do you want to buy one? Actually, I think I’ve over-ordered so can let you have five at the extra-special price of anything you want to give me.’
I hurried across to Penzance’s cathedral, a neo-industrial design built entirely of red brick, oak beams and riveted iron, the material of choice of Cornish architects, who were more used to designing mine workings and engine sheds than ecclesiastical architecture.