Hugh Cook - The Werewolf and the Wormlord

Then the dragon’s head emerged from the drink. Liquor gleamed wet and slick against its scales. The untunchilamon burped. Unfortunately, this action conjured forth a single spark of dragonfire. The dragon-spark ignited the liquor. Next moment, the little beast was wreathed in writhing fire.

Instantly, Alfric saw that the dragon was doomed to be burnt alive, or at least badly injured. For, while dragons are firebreathers, they cannot live amidst fire, any more than can the human firebreather who performs at village festivals. So Alfric knew at once that the untunchilamon was in big trouble.

Then the dragon was gone.

Nappy had snatched the thing away and had plunged it into a pitcher of milk, reacting so swiftly to the unexpected that the thing was done even before Alfric had time to gape in dismay.

‘That’s the thing with them dragons, sir,’ said Nappy. ‘They like their liquor, but they don’t know the dangers of the stuff.’

The pink-faced little man peered into the pitcher where the untunchilamon was swimming around in drunken circles. He hoicked it out and dumped it down on the liquor-table. The disgruntled dragon shook itself, throwing flecks of milk in all directions. Some splattered against the lenses of Alfric’s spectacles. He tried to take them off and clean them.

‘Here, sir,’ said Nappy, handing him a clean white handkerchief.

‘Thank you,’ said Alfric.

He cleaned his spectacles then put them back on.

‘I’ve got cancer,’ said Nappy.

But the words were said so casually that Alfric was not sure whether he had heard correctly.

‘It’s… it’s good drink,’ said Alfric, draining his.

‘Cancer,’ repeated Nappy.

‘You don’t mind if I pour myself another one?’ said Alfric.

‘In my gut it is. Started on the skin then ate its way in.’ ‘A very, very nice drop,’ said Alfric, draining his thimble-skull.

‘Here,’ said Nappy, pulling his clothes away from his midriff.

Then Alfric had to look, had to, he had no choice, and it was cancer all right, cancer or some kind of lethal ulcer or something worse, yellow at the margins, yellow becoming brown, brown becoming wet black in the centre, and the centre was a kind of funnel that descended inward, inward to the wet pain and the glistening ooze.

Then Nappy covered the thing once more.

‘A drink,’ said Alfric. ‘Maybe you’d like a drink.’

He poured one for himself, one for Nappy.

Then said:

‘How long have you got?’

‘The doctors, they gave me six months,’ said Nappy. ‘But that was last year. I won good money off Olaf Offorum. He bet I’d be dead by now. But, well, let’s put it this way. I’ve made no wagers since. I won’t last long, sir, not now.’

‘Do you take anything for it?’

‘Laudanum, sir. At nights. So I can sleep. But nothing during the day, no, have to stay sharp, you know. So it hurts, oh, it hurts, I won’t say it doesn’t hurt.’

A pause.

The untunchilamon took to the air, circled, then settled on Alfric’s head. He felt its claws seeking purchase. There was a tiny twinge of pain as its talons momentarily dug into his scalp. Then it settled, content with the grip it had established on the hairs of his head.

Pain is the worse thing.

‘They want you dead, you know,’ said Nappy in a conspiratorial whisper.

‘I had suspected as much,’ said Alfric.

Another pause.

Then:

‘Yes,’ said Alfric.

‘That’s nice to know,’ said Nappy. ‘I was never sure, you see. I was always too… well, too shy to ask, if you know what I mean. They said I had a reputation, but I never really knew whether to believe them. It’s nice to know, now that… now that it’s all coming to an end.’

‘You’re — you’re not going to kill yourself, are you?’

‘Kill myself?’ said Nappy in wonderment. He thought about it, then laughed: ‘Oh, I see what you mean. No. No, sir. I’m not going to kill myself. Oh no, there’s no need for that. It’ll all end soon enough, without me doing anything about it. Would you like this, sir? As a souvenir, I mean.’

So saying, Nappy offered Alfric his stiletto. Alfric blinked at the weapon. It had been gone from sight ever since they came into the room, but here it was again, back in Nappy’s hand, and Alfric was prepared to swear by a complete list of all his known ancestors that he had not seen Nappy sheath or unsheath the thing. The steel simply came and went. Like magic.

‘Thank you,’ said Alfric, gingerly reaching out and taking the stiletto. ‘It’s very kind of you to give me this.’

‘Oh, you’ve eamt it, you’ve eamt it. It’s my father, see.’

‘This?’ said Alfric, looking at the knife.

The room no longer seemed cosy. Rather, it was hot, hot, overheated by the brazier. Alfric wanted to get out, to escape from Nappy, from Nappy’s cancer, from Nappy’s madness. He wanted to be out in the night, alone, utterly free from all the demands of the rest of humanity.

‘No, young sir, it’s not the knife I’m talking about,’ said Nappy. ‘It’s my dad. You met him, you see. He’s a werehamster.’

‘Ah,’ said Alfric, enlightened.

‘He was most impressed with you, he was. You leaving him the most of his treasure. As for what you took, why, I found out about that. What you wanted it for, I mean. That was very handsome of you.’

‘It was nothing, really,’ said Alfric, mystified as to why he should be getting such praise for such trivial acts of courtesy and (minimal) kindness.

‘It shows you as a generous man,’ said Nappy.

‘But I’m not,’ said Alfric, speaking the truth. ‘I’m narrow, intolerant and selfish to boot.’

‘Oh, that’s how you see yourself, doubtless,’ said Nappy. ‘That’s how you may be, too, set up against some absolute good. But people — people, young sir, I wouldn’t rightly like to speak of them, not the truth of them. It’s ugly, that’s what it is. But you’re not ugly, not ugly-evil at least.’

‘Thank you,’ said Alfric, wishing he could believe this were true.

‘So I’ve given you the knife,’ said Nappy. ‘I’d like you to have this, too.’

With that, Nappy gouged out his right eye. Alfric locked his jaws together, choking off a scream. Nappy reached out. He had the eye in his hand. He wanted Alfric to take it. Carefully, Alfric put down the stiletto. He forced his fingers open. He extended his palm. Nappy pressed the eye into Alfric’s open palm.

‘Thank you,’ said Alfric.

Then closed his fist on the eye, expecting it to sklish and squash, to splatter and spurt.

But the eye was of glass, warm where it had been in contact with Nappy’s flesh, cool where it had been exposed to the night air. Alfric took a good long look at Nappy’s face. The gaping eyesocket was dark, and gave an unexpected touch of malevolence to Nappy’s countenance. But it was bloodless. The injury was years old. ‘Thank you,’ said Alfric. ‘Thank you very much.’

‘I thought… I thought you’d appreciate the gesture,’ said Nappy. ‘Something to remember me by. Now, young sir, I don’t want to impose on you, but I do need-someone to take over when I die.’

‘But of course,’ said Alfric, as if in a dream.

He had no wish to be a killer, but he would be, if that was the only way for him to live.

‘I’ve got a list,’ said Nappy, opening a snuff box and taking out several sheets of onionskin which were almost covered by crabbed handwriting. ‘I wrote this out. I can write. There’s not many who can write, but I wouldn’t be wrong in taking you for one of them.’

‘I’m a Banker Third Class,’ said Alfric. Then, remembering his recent promotion: ‘No, Second Class. Anyway. All bankers can read.’