Ghosts of Engines Past (12 page)

“I'll rebuild Wylver Bridge.”

“I also destroyed the Earthlye bridge.”

“Damn you. Then I'll cross to Earthlye through another portal and—”

“Try.”

“I—what do your mean?”

“Study the rules governing both of our worlds. La Hachette is a creature of air, water, fire and earth. When she chopped through the portal on Derwentwater's edge, she changed the rules of
all
portals. They no longer work. They will not
ever
work until she returns to Earthlye.”

“Impossible.”

“But true. Your brother made a spiral briar out of me,” said Tordral, tapping her chest. “Now it is his turn to grow twisted.”

“But you don't understand! Elves cannot have children without—without human lovers. If we perish, none will replace us.”

“Earthlye will be the better for it. Meantime, La Hachette caries a score of Faerie's victims. Be nice to them, they may help you have babies.”

The castellerine fought down the urge to be sick.

“Magic will vanish from Earthlye,” she said, her voice now ragged.

“So will elves,” replied Tordral. “Good riddance to both.”

“You cannot fight our entire world.”

“I already have, and won.”

Lynder looked out over the water. At this distance La Hachette seemed no more than a small, ugly ship, yet her cargo was a nightmare from which Faerie would not awake for a very long time.

It is 2010. Some people just don't appreciate art, but a two mile long metal dragon with a serious attitude problem can do more than just sneer.

Many people were quite distressed by this story because they really like art. I do too, but that is not the point. A lot of nice things can be bad for you, like sugar, tobacco, unprotected sex on the first date and easy credit. What would we do if art was shown to have serious health risks?What if art is not meant for grownup civilizations, and something has decided that we really ought to to grow up?

I was there when the dragon first appeared—and ate the Eiffel Tower. I was standing on the Quai Branly, taking a video of the Tower from beside one of its legs when there was a great gust of wind and the dragon swept into the viewfinder. It began at the top, biting off sections and gulping them down. It made no attempt to attack people, but neither did it make any effort to spare them. Two hundred and ten were crushed beneath its feet and tail, and seventeen were killed by falling pieces of tower. Another ninety were never accounted for, and were presumed eaten.

I stayed as long as I did through sheer paralysis. My camera was on a tripod, and continued to record while I stood gaping upwards in disbelief as wreckage crashed down all around me. Every so often the dragon would snort clouds of dust into the air, and this settled on me like a fine, black drizzle. I do not remember deciding to run, but having done so I recall thinking that I was doing something incredibly stupid. Surely the dragon would notice me and swat me like an insect, but it did not happen. I eventually stopped when my legs jellied from the exertion, and I fell headlong.

Forcing myself to look back was not at all easy. Were I to see the Eiffel Tower intact, I would know I was insane. All around me I could hear shouting, however, and the word 'dragon' was being used quite a lot. This made it easier to look back. The thing was eating delicately and methodically, and by now had consumed half of the tower. I looked down at my hands, then rubbed some of the black dust between my fingers. It was gritty, like a very fine abrasive. The dragon continued to munch on the tower as helicopters began to circle. One fired a pair of rockets that exploded against its head. It ignored the attack. There were more rockets and explosions, but none had any effect.

I cringed as the dragon reared up and looked about, but humans did not seem to interest it. As it turned, the tip of its tail swept through the air above me, yet I was crouching almost a mile from where the tower had stood. It crossed the river, followed the road—more or less—then began to eat the Louvre. I tried to stand up, but felt strangely weak. Someone grabbed me beneath my arms and began dragging me back.

“Monsieur, vous devez aller a l’hopital!”

Hospital? Only now did I realise that something had gashed my left arm, and that I was losing a lot of blood. I had noticed no pain at all.

On a television in the hospital's outpatients area I learned that the dragon had gone on to visit Notre Dame Cathedral, the Gardens of Luxembourg, and several other outstandingly beautiful places before flying away. Nobody on camera was talking about the fact that artwork was being eaten. I saw at least a minute of the dragon taken with my own camera. Gradually the picture deteriorated as dust settled on the lens, then the broadcast cut to an interview with one of the helicopter pilots. He was distraught, almost insulted, that the dragon had ignored his attempts to attack it. I asked about my camera, pointing out that a video that I had shot was being shown on the television. A nurse promised to make enquiries. I tried to call my family in London to say I was all right, but the lines were jammed.

I discharged myself after another half hour. By now people with far worse injuries than mine were being brought in, and I doubted that I was likely to receive any more treatment for many hours. My arm had been sewn up, but they also had ideas about giving me a blood transfusion. Being a hypochondriac, the idea of that had me close to panic. I had to stop to rest after every block, but eventually I reached the Gare du Nord. Even though I was expecting the worst, the trains were still running. I settled into my seat and watched Paris begin to glide past beyond the window, ignoring the other passengers who were exchanging stories about the dragon. Apart from a large number of military helicopters in the air, all seemed normal. Beyond the city, the French farmlands were untouched.  

On the British side of the Channel Tunnel everything seemed just as normal, but that did not last for long. The train stopped on the edge of Greater London, and there was an announcement that St Pancras station had been eaten. Nobody seemed to know what to do with the passengers from my Eurostar train, which was meant to terminate there. After a dozen attempts to phone my brother, I finally got through.

“Scott, you're alive!” he shouted into the mouthpiece.

“Alive, yes, and I don't suppose I need to tell you about Paris?”

“No, course not. Big hero, you are, taking those vids from right under the dragon when it ate the Eiffel Tower. It's been on the television. They even interviewed
me.”

Someone must have found my name and email address etched on the underside of the camera, I realised.

“Charles, can you get on your scooter and pick me up?”

“You're not in Paris?”

“No, I'm back in London, somewhere near the Orbital. There are no trains, the busses and cabs are crammed solid, and even if I could get onto something with a motor, the roads are gridlocked.”

“Why not just tell me where you are and they'll send a helicopter.”

“A helicopter? And who are
they?”

“Defence people, they're here now, in the house. “

“What do they want with me?”

“You got the best close-up pictures of the dragon eating the Tower. That makes you an expert on it.”

I was flown to some small, secure military base to the south of London, but was told nothing by those in the helicopter. Once on the ground I was taken straight to a briefing room. Here a team of interrogators questioned me very closely, going over the same questions again and again, each time phrasing them a little differently.

“So you arrived in Paris yesterday morning?”

“Yes, by train.”

“Why did you go there?”

“I got my doctorate in art history last week, I was going to spend a weekend in Paris, looking at art for fun instead of study for a change.”

“You have a PhD in art history, yet you drive a delivery truck for a living?”

“Well you try getting any other job with a PhD in art history.”

“Why were you taking videos of the Eiffel Tower at the very moment that the dragon appeared?”

My patience snapped.

“Well, you know how it is. Don't get to spend much quality time with the dragon, so I thought I'd vid some of those little domestic moments, like mealtimes.”

“Mr Carr—”

“Dr Carr to you.”

“Your flippant attitude is not going to achieve anything.”

“Neither are your damn aggressive questions! Are you saying that
I
summoned a two mile golden dragon with a silly grin from Dragonland, or wherever dragons come from?”

“Er... well, did you?”

I was finally given a break, and was shown into a room where my brother was waiting. We were left alone, and I flopped into a chair and closed my eyes.

“Charles, just what happened in London, apart from St Pancras?”

“You're kidding! You don't know?”

“I've been told nothing.”

“Well, a lot of stuff is gone. The station, the big museums and galleries, the Tower Bridge, the Boadicea statue... oh, and it scoffed Buckingham Palace, how could I forget? The British Library got pretty well trashed too, but they think that was an accident. You know, St Pancras was so close.”

“Where is the dragon now?”

“Last saw it in Amsterdam on the tele, just before the spooks arrived and asked about you.”

We were being monitored, that was certain. Doubtless our conversation was a great disappointment to those listening.

“So what happens now?” asked Charles.

“The bad cop has had words with me, so I imagine it's the turn of the good cop.”

“What are you going to say?”

“I'll say what the bad cop did not give me a chance to say. I hope he gets a kick in the arse and a demotion.”

“Can you tell me?”

“Well Charles, funny you should ask. The dragon is eating art.”

“Art? You're daft. It's just doing a Godzilla on the big cities. If it weren't real, I'd say it was just a cheap movie. Did you see its silly grin? Spoils the whole effect.”

“It's not only attacking works of art, it's choosing those of the greatest symbolic value and highest visibility. Just you watch. In every city that it visits, only the great cathedrals, palaces, galleries and monuments will go.”

“But why?”

“If I knew that, Charles, the spooks bugging this room would be treating me a lot more politely.”

As it happened, the treatment given to me improved anyway, and I soon realised that I had been declared someone important. The dragon was eating art, I was some sort of authority on art, and I had been closer to the dragon than any other art authority who was still alive. I was taken to an operations room, where I was given a very detailed briefing while real-time pictures of the dragon eating bits of Berlin played on large screens. In the days that followed I spent much of my time here, being briefed about the dragon's position, and watching live coverage of what it was doing. The pattern was always the same. It arrived at a city, methodically munched its way through whatever prominent artistic works that took its fancy, then flew on.

St. Peterberg suffered terribly, and there were tears on my cheeks as I watched the dragon devour the Church of the Saviour. From there it left for Moscow, and it was about halfway there and five miles above open farmland when it was it was struck by a missile with a one megaton warhead. The explosion had no effect whatsoever. By then I had been coopted onto a group of experts called the Dragon Advisory Committee, and within the hour we were shown coverage of the attack taken from a monitor jet that had been shadowing the dragon at a safe distance. Nobody tried to stop it after that.

Weeks passed, and I was astounded at how very quickly humanity adjusted to the idea of a two mile dragon touring the world and eating artwork. Museums and galleries were avoided by everyone with any sense and general tourism dropped off as well, but airlines continued with reduced schedules. In some cities there were mass bonfires of paintings, while the prices of designer houses plunged. Martial arts academies were renamed martial skills academies, academies of fine arts just got their signs taken down, and universities expanded other faculties into empty arts buildings. Jackhammers were applied to pavement mosaics, murals were painted over, and public sculptures were either smashed or loaded onto dredging barges to be dumped at sea.

All the while the Dragon Advisory Committee studied the dragon, but the few facts that had been gathered together about it made little sense. All attempts to communicate, negotiate or fight had been ignored. It was two miles long, with a wingspan of three. Measurements of the footprints put its weight at only a million tons. When the thing moved it had a metallic, booming sound. The conclusion was that it was both hollow and metal. The nature of the metal was a mystery. It looked like gold. If it was metal and hollow, then what was inside? Air, according to computer models. It was an immense shell over not very much. The dragon did not digest the debris of what it had eaten, it pulverised them, then exhaled the dust. This was determined by the way that its weight remained constant.

My next contribution was to compare our immense visitor to the dragon ships of the Vikings. During the centuries that politically correct historians no longer call the Dark Ages, the dragon ships brought fearsome Norse warriors to Britain. They looted treasures, took slaves, burned much of what could not be carried, and killed anyone who tried to stop them.

“So you think it's a ship?” asked the secretary of the Dragon Advisory Committee. “A spaceship, perhaps, shaped like a dragon?”

“It could be.”

“Not a robot? Not a real dragon with metal armour?”

“You wanted theories, I am just giving you another theory.”

“A dragon full of alien Vikings, perhaps?” asked a sociologist named Glenda.

“I can't say. It might be just an art-hating dragon.”

“Does that mean it will go away once all the art has been eaten?” asked a major from the Special Air Service who always wore sunglasses and was only known by a serial number.