Simon Green - A Hard Day's Knight

The well knew I was coming before I did. I hadn’t even turned the corner when it called out to me.

“Well, well, the one and only John Taylor; which is just as well because I don’t think I could stand it if there were more of you. Your entire existence plays merry hell with the time-lines. Look over there in the corner; see that woman, crying her eyes out? That’s Fate, that is. Hello again, John. Knew you’d be back.”

“I never knew an oracle that was so in love with its own voice,” I said. “Now do me a favour and keep your voice down. The soulbomber isn’t far from here, and we really don’t want to upset him.”

“I know! I know he’s there, and I know why he’s there, which is more than you do. I know everything. Or at least, everything that matters, and I fake the rest. I even know what you’re going to ask before you ask it, and you really aren’t going to like the answers.”

“Tell me anyway,” I said, leaning heavily on its stone wall. “What can you tell me about this soulbomber?”

“Cross my palm with silver, sweetie, and I shall unfold wonders and marvels ...”

“Cut the crap. I’m not a tourist. You haven’t got a palm, and no-one’s used silver coins for years. You get the usual—one drop of blood, and that’s it.”

“You have no sense of drama.”

I pricked the tip of my left index finger with the sliver of unicorn’s horn I carry in my lapel to warn against poisons and let one fat drop of blood fall into the dark interior of the well. The oracle made a really disgusting satisfied sound, and I winced despite myself.

“All right, you old ham,” I said. “You’ve had your payment, now answer the question. What do I have to do to stop the soulbomber?”

“There’s nothing you can do. The soulbomb will detonate some forty-one minutes from now.”

I blinked a few times. “That’s it?”

“Afraid so. There isn’t a single possible future where the soulbomb doesn’t detonate.”

“No way of avoiding it?”

“None at all.”

“Can’t I try talking to him?”

“If you like.”

“Will that help?”

“No. Doesn’t matter what you do or say: Mr. Soulbomber, he go boom.”

“Well, you’re a lot of use!”

“Lot of people say that to me ...”

“All right,” I said, searching desperately for some solid ground. “Let’s try something else. What can you tell me about Excalibur?”

“You mean that appallingly powerful thing hanging off your back? Burning so brightly I can’t even look at it? Well, to start with, it’s not really a sword. It only looks like one.”

“What is it, then?”

“Reply cloudy, try again later. I told you, it’s so potent I can’t even get a good look at it. You could cut the world in half with a weapon like that.”

“I thought you said it isn’t a sword?” I said.

“It isn’t. It’s much more than a sword. More than a weapon. It’s the lever you turn to move the world.”

“Can you tell me why it’s entered my life?”

“I see you going on a long journey ...”

“If you tell me I’m going to meet a tall dark stranger, I swear I will unzip right here and now and piss into you.”

“You would, too, wouldn’t you? Bully ...”

“Hold everything,” I said. “You’re predicting a journey in my future. How can I have a future if the soulbomb’s going to go off in forty-one minutes?”

“Actually, rather less than that now. But yes, I see your point.” The oracle hummed tunelessly to itself for a moment. “Look, your whole existence is so unlikely it gives me a pain in the rear I haven’t got just thinking about it. It’s hard to be sure about anything where you’re concerned.”

“Because my mother was a Biblical Myth?”

“That doesn’t help, certainly. But it’s more that you’re involved in so many vital, important, and earth-shaking things, that every decision you make changes not only your life but everyone else’s as well.”

“It’s the destiny thing, isn’t it?” I said.

“See that sacred-looking guy over there, with the nervous twitch, trying to comfort Fate? That’s Destiny, that is.”

“Whatever happened to free will?”

“I do have an answer to that,” said the well smugly, “but it would make your head explode. I could tell you a lengthy but complex parable if you like.”

“Would it help?”

“Not really.”

“But you are completely certain that the soulbomb is going to explode?”

“Oh yes. In thirty-nine minutes.”

“I hate you.”

“I knew you were going to say that.”

I ran through the rest of the corridors to be sure of reaching the soulbomber in time. The oracle is shifty, crafty, and absolutely glories in being spitefully obtuse; but it’s never wrong. My only hope was that it had seen some kind of future for me afterwards. Otherwise, I’d have said, Sod this for a lark , and legged it for the nearest exit. There had to be something I could do. Contain the explosion, perhaps, using the mall’s shields? Throw the soulbomber through one of the dimensional doorways? I told myself I’d think of something, and tried very hard to believe it. After all, I wouldn’t lie to me about something like that.

I found him sitting quite casually on the floor, in the very centre of the mall. A balding, dumpy, middle-aged man in shabby clothes, with sad eyes and a tired mouth. Sitting on the floor, doing nothing in particular, waiting for me to turn up. I let him have a good look at me before I moved cautiously forward. I was a bit concerned that the sight of me might be enough to set him off; but he didn’t look scared, or angry, or impatient. He just looked ... relieved, that his waiting was finally at an end. He nodded to me, briefly, and I stopped a careful distance away from him. He didn’t look like a terrorist, or a fanatic. Maybe I could still talk him out of it.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m John Taylor.”

“I know,” he said. His voice was reassuringly calm, and normal. “He showed me several photos of you before they sent me in here, so I could be sure it was you. I’m Oliver Newbury. You won’t have heard of me. No-one has. I was an ordinary, everyday guy, and I liked it that way. I didn’t ask for much, didn’t want much; but the world took it all anyway ... You wouldn’t think you could get bored, waiting to die; but you can. Feels like I’ve been here for hours. And no; you can’t talk me out of this. My wife is dead. I’m crippled with debts I can’t pay and a family I can’t support any more. This is all that’s left—one last act of rage against a viciously unfair and uncaring world. He’s promised to pay off all my debts, you see, if I do this thing. He’ll see my children are protected and cared for. It’s all I can do for them.”

“If you’re so determined to die,” I said, “for revenge, for money ... why have you waited to talk to me?”

“That was part of the deal,” he said, not unkindly. “To lure you in and take you with me when I go. He said you wouldn’t be able to resist a trap baited with your name. He said you were arrogant and predictable. And you’re here, aren’t you?”

“Don’t go off bang just yet,” I said. “I’m also curious. What’s the point of all this? What does your benefactor hope to gain from your suicide?”

“Apparently, when I explode, the energies released will destroy every dimensional door in the Emporium,” Oliver said calmly. “Blow them all right off their hinges and allow Things from Outside to come in and destroy the Nightside. And please: yes, I do know what I’m saying. Don’t try and appeal to my better nature. I don’t care how many people die, or how much of the Nightside gets trampled underfoot by the Outsiders. No-one cared when I lost my wife, and my job, and couldn’t look after my children any more. I’m a suicide, Mr. Taylor. My life is over. I volunteered to be made into this awful thing, a soulbomb. It hurt like hell, but it was worth it because I can’t feel anything any more, only cold. I’m always cold now. At least this way, my death will mean something. It’ll make a difference. I get to show my anger and contempt at a world that let me down, then kicked me while I was down. I get to punish it as it deserves.”