The Steward and the Sorcerer, James Peart [novels to read in english .txt] 📗

a bridge.  It’s full of students most of the year.  When we got tired of their company we used to escape to London, which is a much larger town, a city. You can do pretty much what you want there, there’s room for every activity.”

He looked sad as he spoke those last words and the Druid picked up on it.  “Something about you and your friend in this in this city disturbs you.  Judging by your expression it is a recent thing.”

“You’re right and I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Let’s go in and find your friend Christopher.”

Simon considered Daaynan as they approached The Elephant and Castle.  There was a brutal pragmatism about the man that in another he would have thought of as oafish.  Yet he got the impression that this quality sat beside other, more virtuous traits, some of which he was quite sure lay beyond his understanding.  He believed his story about where he had come from, detecting no false note either in his recounting of it or in his explanation of why he needed Christopher.  He had a formidable aura about him that was almost Byronic, past that really, the sort of type his University fellows would make fun of behind his back yet be afraid to confront themselves.  He felt oddly sure that no one was safe from this man.

Simon’s impression of him spoke of a truth that ran deep inside him.  And he could do magic.  He had seen that for himself.  That green flame he had witnessed issue from the Druid’s fingers when running to save Christopher had been no chemical dust or explosive powder.  His uncle had a small laboratory once, strictly amateur stuff to amuse himself for a hobby but where a young Simon had learned first-hand what happens when you mix the right combination of elements to produce an explosion.  The result was almost always exciting- the more unstable the blast the better- but it was short lasting.  This green fire was controlled.  It was sent from its issuer in a long, continuous streak that never faltered.  It seemed alive, like an extension of its user, and when it swallowed you it did not burn, or not in a way that was unbearable.  His uncle had told him about flame throwers, farmers used them on their land to burn off the heath.  But those things were large, not able to be concealed on your person, up a sleeve, say.  Simon accepted what he had seen.  Like that famous quote from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s favourite character Sherlock Holmes he and his fellows stayed up late to ironically deconstruct: ‘when you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth.’

The pub was gaily decorated inside, with bunting draped from one side to the other of each window and commemorative plaques and trophies stood on the bar counter.  “There must be a match on,” Simon explained to Daaynan.  Football.  I was never much of a fan.”  The Druid nodded vaguely, taking in his new surroundings and Simon did not know how much he understood of what he had just told him.  The bar ran half the length of the room and disappeared under an arch into the next.  There were wooden chairs made of thick oak loosely arranged around tables and plush, crescent shaped couches pulled up against one wall and in the corners.  Daaynan was staring at the bar, at the taps with their different logos.

“These dispense drink?”

“Yeah.”

“Each one different from the next, brewed by a different agency?”

“Sure.  What is it?” Simon asked him.

“I have never seen such a variety of drinks.  Are they all available right now?”

“You’ve got the cash, yeah.”

“Cash?”

“Money.  You’re not still using the barter system in your Northern Earth?”

“We are not.”

“Actually, I could do with a pint now, and seeing as there’s nobody about I may as well help myself.”  He leaned over the counter, balancing on his toes, lifted an upturned glass from a draining board and was about to pour himself a drink when he was suddenly seized from behind and dragged back to an upright position.

“Hey, what are you doing?”

“This is no time to drink mead.”

“I don’t want mead,” he said testily, “I want a bitter.  Why’d you do that?”

“This is not your tavern in London.  At best it is a copy and we don’t know yet why it is here.”

“I don’t care.”

“You are a fool!  For all you know that mead has been laced with poison.”

A disembodied voice floated across the bar from the adjoining room.  “It hasn’t.  It’s quite delicious.”

“Christopher!”

Sitting on a bench, huddled over the bar, nursing a glass of beer was his friend.  On the counter beside him stood an array of empty glasses of varying size and shape and one panel glass half filled with bitter.  Christopher sat over it, warding it as the two approached.

“How did you get here?” Simon asked, a touch of hilarity in his voice.

“I thought of it and there it was,” was his simple answer.

“It’s amazing.  It’s an exact reproduction of The Castle.  There’s not a single detail in it that doesn’t belong to the original.  Is the beer cold?”

Christopher shifted away from his friend, the flat of his hands encircling his glass as if to guard it.  His head arched back from the rest of his frame, his nose sniffing imperiously at him.  “You can find some for yourself, I can’t stop you.”

“Christopher!  I only want to find out what’s going on.  We’re probably light years from any kind of civilisation we know or have heard of and what do we find but surroundings that are not only familiar but familiar to us.  We’ve ended up here of all places!”

“Quite” the Druid added, “and have either of you wondered why the tavern is empty?”

“Who’s that?” Christopher enquired of no one in particular.

“Don’t you know?” Simon answered with indignant irony.  “This is our universal travel guide in this little trip of ours, whatever sort of Tolkienesque nightmare it is, only he seems to