2.3 Hell's Headquarters

With the unfortunate Count Steinbrook’s letter at last located in a trouser leg, the pair were past the disappointed guards and into the city. Silven had never seen such opulence on his travels. An inner moat hosted flocks of golden waterfowl against the wall; the street on which they walked was studded with polished quartz; and the smart houses and shops lining it were decorated with elaborate lead windows depicting scenes of gardens and waterfalls in bright coloured glass. There was also a filthy drunkard squatting to dispose of solid waste right in the middle of it all, but even the finest of cities have their underbelly.

Silven waved his letter in the air and was pleased to see the roof of an elegant townhouse a couple of streets over turn bright gold. Not that anyone else seemed to notice. Inside, he relayed the sad final moments of the count to his weeping family. Just when Silven had reached that awkward moment when he really wasn’t sure if it was worse to stand there all day or slip out, desperately studying the tearful faces for signs they actually remembered he was still present, wondering whether to unleash that tickle in his throat in all his hereness or quell its rudeness, agonising over the great hand on shoulder or respectable distance debate, his widow looked up. She turned to the others. “I think it’s time. We must pass on our secret to the would-be rescuer.”

Silven drew back. “For what?”

“Would-be rescuing.” She rose, and as she did, her finely-dressed relatives followed suit. With silent nods of agreement, they tied back their hair and fanned about the sitting room. They peeked out the windows and drew the curtains. They barred the doors. They muffled the chimney with a blanket. And then, they drew up into formation and danced.

Silven and Olgred watched in astonishment as their hosts drew their right arm in and out, shook a hand in the air, turned as one and stuck up their left thumb. And, like that, it was over. “There,” puffed the countess, perching politely on a stool as if nothing had ever happened. Silven opened his mouth, but nothing came out. “My husband’s secret gesture. A token of gratitude. Long may it serve you.”

“But... whatever can he use it for?” gasped Olgred.

“My lady,” added Silven with a stern glance at his partner.

The widow wiped at her eyes and managed a smile. “To look uber cool. My husband crafted it in the Jungle War of 1444 to save his men. The savages just joined in, and a new dance craze was born. It’s died out now, but anyone worth knowing will acknowledge your alliances.”

Silven struggled to find a suitable answer. “Ahem... errr.... well many thanks, Countess Steinbrook. I shall treasure the choreography forever... in my mind.”

The pair took their leave and rushed out into the street. The countess bustled out inches behind, clutching a glorious velvet-lined slipper. “And one last thing. I must also present this. Take it. It’s part of a perfectly chic little outfit split between the counts. This gives a little extra speed to your blade. Help the others, collect the full set, and you’ll get 10% off all pasties from Bob’s bakery down the road. Lamb and mint is always best.” She patted Silven and waddled away to weep.

Olgred waited for Silven to move and lost patience. “Go on then. On it goes.”

“What? It’s purple, man! I’ll look like a jester. Even with the other one.”

Olgred waggled a finger in the warrior’s face. “You’ve been wearing those rags at least since I saw you last. You look like you’ve come straight out of a prison. Not befitting of your new career. And there’ll be lots of danger here too. Business is cutthroat in Solmond.”

Reluctantly, Silven followed the advice. It was a comfortable slipper, it was true, and, as the pair walked off towards the market, he was surprised to see not one person so much as batting an eyelid at his crazy attire.

Silven had ideas, but little confidence of where to start. However, his path became clear. Solmond City had very interesting economics to say the least. Combining the contents of the pair’s satchels, he summed up his choices after a full circle of the shops, booths and boutiques crowding the lavish city square. “So, Olgred, it appears we are in a truly outrageous part of the country. Today, we may purchase two tubs of wild hog stew, a cart wheel, three quivers of ‘True Shot’ arrows, or a fully furnished mansion in the picturesque hamlet of Overwall, just, err, over the city wall. It comes with an indoor swimming pool, steam-heated flooring, three bedrooms and a disconcerting glowing green portal in a secret chamber off the living room that has a habit of belching out all manner of grotesque demons every Wednesday. All for the bargain price of one gold and ten silver.”

Olgred grew pale. “You’re still not thinking about it, are you? It all sounds very nice, but there are, you know.... the neighbours?”

Silven laughed. “Ha! You call yourself an entrepreneur? See here.” He pointed to his list. “We... well, I... could fight my way to that portal in minutes. I’m sure there’s a big glowing red off switch on the side that needs a whiff of Aunt Margaret’s legendary goblin pie to finish the job; I know how this works. But, see the price of these stun traps? For a few coppers, we line them up every Tuesday night, rush in the next morning, and roll them into the furnace room. Then they can unleash all the angry fireballs they like onto the piping. That’s a ninety-two percent drop in expenditure on the average coal contract for Overwall; I checked with the agent.”

Olgred’s jaw dropped. “There’s something about you, mast-, I mean, Silven. You’re just too clever.” He sighed. “Okay, to the gates of hell. Literally.”

The mansion was just the right size for the headquarters of a newly established company. Now, the real work could begin. Silven was delighted to discover the magic cupboard into which he could place a single saucepan and pull out twenty feet of copper piping a second later. By the following month, the straggling row of cottages that called itself Overwall was cooking on demon fire. A season or two later, half of the city put up with the slight overtone of sulphur and rotting hell-goo for discount baths. Thus, Fireline was born.

The money rolled in, and Silven made sure it rolled straight back out. First on his list was protection from the assassins that forever haunted his troubled mind. In his scholarly days, he had read all there was to know about the powers of the common capital guard. By sponsoring the extension of Solmond City’s patrols into Overwall, therefore, he ensured any old oaf he deemed incapable of producing irksome questions magically gained several stone of muscle over brutes he may have hired directly. All the better to keep honest lonely travellers at bay, he thought bitterly, but he himself couldn’t complain. The remade walking towers of destruction cut through his foes like butter before they had any real time to gather strength of numbers. He was safe enough, but he was trapped. At least it was an indoor swimming pool.

That, however, was not the only line of defence; something else needed to be kept at bay. He hadn’t seen them since he had first unsuccessfully tried to hang up his sword. And yet, Silven still found himself glancing under his cushioned bed, fingering the skirting boards for signs of nibbles. As soon as the assassins were under control, he sent a guard out to the city to round up as many stray cats as he could find. “For the cursed mice,” he explained, eyeing the cellar floorboards as the ravenous felines were unleashed. Olgred, in turn, eyed his master. “The ones in the hats,” added Silven. It didn’t help.

Fireline soon reached maximum income. There was, after all, limits even to hell’s fury. Silven sat through languorous days and pondered. He sent for the notorious Seven-Tonne Tome of Silicarco and all its retinue, and at bloody great cost to the tiles in the halls, as Olgred elaborated. After three long days, the pulley men had found the geology section and Silven ordered a full ream of paper to catalogue the rocks of central Oldeburgh. Meanwhile, Olgred ordered a straitjacket and got ready to pounce.

After a full week of tea and snail egg dinners, Silven arrived at his breakthrough. He handed Olgred a small metallic ball and announced, “We’re opening a quarry on the eastern Limetop Hills.”

“And I’m opening a bottle of that Old Cow rum. You look exhausted, master,” fussed Olgred. “And that will cost a lot of money, you know.”

“Nonsense,” scoffed Silven, wiping away smears of something unsavoury from his wrinkled shirt. He had bought some nice smart I-mean-business sort of attire a while back, but that didn’t mean he was going to look after it. “Not with my new magnet.”

Olgred’s astonishment at getting away with a bit of adoration for Master was gone. “A... magnet? That little ball?”

Silven waved away the question distractedly as he ordered a barbecue gargoyle sandwich from a passing servant. “No, that’s the end product, silly. The magnet’s just a block of polarised earth, like the rest of it. Position it carefully upside-down with a steady crane and we can repel the surface cubes straight out of the ground. Just like that.”

“Have you thought of taking up writing, master?” replied Olgred as he poured the beverage. “You know, if you get into some sort of shapeshifting dragon fetish, we’re made for life. They lap that up in the capital.”

“I’m not making it up, Olgy. You know, I’m actually starting to believe in some sort of...creator.” He looked around anxiously for his Desert Marsh visitors. “Everything’s interconnected. I’ve deduced the structure of the earth just now, but think about what you already know. The fast travel system. The mail system. Something’s jumping from one seemingly unrelated place to another.”

Olgred drained his glass. “Go on.”

“It’s the Elsenberg principle. Someone needs something, and it happens.”

“Did someone call for me?” asked Sir Edmund, suddenly sitting in the chair in the corner.

“No,” Silven lied.

“Okay then,” replied Elsenberg, and disappeared back to his bed far away.

“As I was saying,” continued Silven, “The same should go for everything. It’s just that we’ve only found the most obvious examples. But imagine the possibilities.... like speech!” He handed his companion the little ball. “Put that in your ear. That’s Expertminerium, a rather rare metal. The best for amplifying sound.”

Olgred placed it in his ear as instructed and shrieked. “I heard..... my mother. She said she’s planning on throwing out my Trolls and Travellers collection. The wench!”

“Now, now. That’s no way to talk about your family. And besides, you should have taken them ages ago. Anyway, that was a fortunate coincidence. That’s happening right now. The signal was there all along; we just needed help to listen.”

Olgred threw up his hands and emptied the bottle of dark rum into his crotch. “That’s...oh, bother... amazing! Instant messaging!”

“Good name, we’ll keep that. Now clean yourself up. It’s time for a meeting,” snapped Silven.

But Olgred was deep in thought. “I see how it works. It’s just that.... where’s the limits? I mean, not everything can be linked like that. I can’t think about Rosa from the apple stall and find her in my bed.” He blushed and suddenly smiled. “Or can I?”

Silven ignored the example. He frowned. “I don’t know. If the principle holds, if the signal is found.... is there anything stopping us? Some greater power? Or are our dreams at our fingertips?” He shook himself free of the philosophical tangle. “Enough of that. Time for work.”

Olgred couldn’t help but feel a tad dismayed when he arrived at the meeting to find his pursuers seated at his breakfast table. Also, he felt a bit terrified, too. Yet, he needn’t have worried. It was here and now that Silven learned a great deal about the finesse of the financial dance. An intricate layout of the benefits of a buyout of Zapco did nothing. ‘We’ve got loads more dosh than you and we’ll use it all to cave your ugly mugs in’, however, was just what the cartel leaders needed to hear. That day, the communication wizardry company Silverlink was born, Zapco’s employees straight on staff, and all before lunchtime to top it all off.

Olgred rejoiced at his newfound freedom. Silven smiled sadly and watched at the window as he danced off into the city.

The top Zapco nerds were shipped in to newly-constructed cottages along the single street of Overwall, and Silven engaged them to refine his instant messaging service. By altering the final shape and texture of the Expertminerium ear plugs, Silverline could offer filtered communication for the discerning customer. No-one wanted to be walking down the road listening to their wife cackling about his pimpled buttocks to her whole sewing class on a Sunday afternoon.

A month or two after that first test, the instant messaging service was rolled out to the people, and the life of the everyday citizen changed forever. Olgred took up that long-promised desk job to direct his network of map staff. Silven discovered all the joys and health benefits of the braised gargoyle sandwich whilst tying up major structural work on his ever expanding gold warehouses.

They lived happily ever after. The end.

Not quite.