The Dragon with the Girl Tattoo Read online

  ‘How can I sack you?’ Beargrr roared, leaping into the air and hurtling round the room, near the ceiling. ‘You’re my star reporter! What would that say about the credibility of the Saga? We’re just about to go to court! I can’t afford to admit that our star report was a grade 1 gumbo.’

  ‘Plus,’ said Käal, with a hopeful inflection, turning his head to try and follow her, and wringing his own neck like a wet rag, ‘not forgetting that we’re lovers – ack!’ He uncoiled his neck.

  ‘Don’t remind me,’ snapped Beargrr, coming down to the floor again. ‘What about the Firegate story? The political corruption one?’

  ‘Well, you asked me to investigate it. So I sent a raven down to the researcher’s office, and when the raven came back with all the facts I wrote it out in Saga form, making sure that the alliteration…’

  ‘Aaarh!’ said Beargrr, with some force.

  Everything was quiet in the office for a bit.

  ‘I blame myself,’ said Beargrr, in a calmer voice. ‘I should have realized that you are not star-reporter material. In retrospect, I’ve been foolish. I thought your twittish, louche, bumbling manner was a clever persona that you could use to coax information out of people. Looking back I can see that you just are a twittish, louche, bumbling dragon.’

  ‘Maybe a little louche,’ Käal conceded.

  ‘But you reflected glory upon Köschfagold Saga. Dragons all over Scandragonia think that you – and therefore we – have a genius for “finding stuff out”. And it turns out, in the end, that we are nothing of the sort… that there’s some researcher in the bowels of the building who is the real genius.’

  ‘Maybe we should give her a staff job?’

  ‘Right now,’ snapped Beargrr, ‘we have to handle this Wintermute disaster. This could bankrupt the whole Saga, you know! We can’t go into the court case admitting, in effect, that we are incompetent. No, we’re going to present a confident, unified front, whilst I try and figure out how to handle this.’

  ‘I could go back to the sauna,’ Käal offered. When Beargrr gave him a hard stare, he added: ‘You could come too, of course. If you wanted to.’

  ‘You don’t seem to understand,’ she said. ‘The entire future of Köschfagold Saga hangs in the balance. Wintermute is an extremely powerful and influential dragon. If I send you into court to substantiate your own article, his lawyers will rip you to pieces. In fact,’ she said, her face registering that she had had a good idea, ‘I think you had better make yourself scarce.’

  ‘I am quite scared, actually,’ Käal agreed, nodding. ‘You’re so cross! Plus, all this talk of courtrooms is quite putting the willies up me.’

  ‘Scarce, not scared,’ said Beargrr. She flew-leapt to her desk, and rummaged through the pile of scrolls littering its surface. ‘There was something…’

  ‘Scarce!’ said Käal. ‘Yes, I knew you meant that. Obviously I’m not scared. That would be pitiable! I’m a dragon, aren’t I?’

  ‘A request for your services…’ Beargrr said.

  ‘And making myself scarce is a good idea,’ said Käal. ‘I could go to a really big sauna and just spend a couple of weeks…’

  ‘Here!’ Beargrr held up a gold-trimmed scroll. ‘You’ve heard of the mystery of the Vagner clan?’

  ‘Vagner – ah yes, Vagner,’ said Käal, nodding sagely and scratching his underchin with one talon. ‘No, never heard of them.’

  ‘I asked if you’d heard of the mystery of the Vagner clan, and you reply that you’ve not even heard of the Vagner clan?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Joking aside, Käal,’ said Beargrr. ‘You have heard of them.’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘How can you not have heard of them?’ she bellowed. ‘They’re one of the wealthiest nests in the whole of Scandragonia!’

  ‘Are they really?’

  ‘They keep putting out fantastically advanced consumer durables. Everything they market turns to gold. Nobody knows where they get all their new ideas.’

  ‘Interesting.’

  ‘They’re behind the flashfire drive – the supersonic Skylligator – the computer.’

  ‘No. Not ringing any bells.’

  Beargrr sighed. ‘The head of the clan, Helltrik Vagner, is five hundred years old. He’s personal friends with several Dragonlords.’

  ‘That’s nice.’

  ‘You must have heard of Doorbraak?’

  ‘Door—? No.’

  ‘The floating island?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘You’re my star reporter! How can you not know of the famous Vagner floating island? It floats through the sky, north across Swedragenia, south over Fangland, and round over the mainland.’

  ‘Golly,’ said Käal.

  Beargrr contemplated her (mentally she inserted ‘former’) lover and star reporter with disdain. Then she put her head on one side and looked at him with datdain. Eventually she said: ‘I don’t care. I need you out of the way, such that I can plausibly tell the court you’re unavailable. Vagner has asked for your help – specifically for you. He believes that you have a genius for finding stuff out. Apparently some terrible thing happened in the family three centuries ago, and nobody has ever got to the bottom of it.’

  ‘And you’d like me to solve the mystery?’

  ‘Old Vagner wants you to do that. All I care about it that you’ll be out of sight for a couple of months, whilst I try and clear up this Wintermute mess. So, you will accept Vagner’s generous invitation, and go to Doorbraak.’

  ‘Um,’ said Käal.

  ‘No ums,’ said Beargrr, forcefully.

  ‘Right. Do I go straight off… ?’

  ‘Go buy a Skylligator ticket for Limbchopping. That’s where the floating island is, now. I’ll send a raven telling Vagner that you’ve accepted his invitation.’

  ‘I haven’t had breakfast, yet…’ Käal said.

  ‘Oh for crying out loud. Go grab a sheep, and then take the Skylligator to the Vagner estate.’

  ‘Right!’ said Käal, brightly.

  Before he quit the office, he sent a raven down to the Saga’s researchers. ‘Lizbreath? I’m off to Doorbraak, which apparently is a floating island. I’m supposed to solve a mystery concerning the Vagners. Anything you can give me?’

  Then he went outside and grabbed a sheep from a roadside booth. Then he flew off to the Skylligator terminal.

  The raven croaked and flew off, carrying its charge. It circled down the gleaming flame-shaped tower, passed the busy thoroughfare and its thronging crowds of dragons, workwyrms and firedrakes. The bird ducked through a vent, and flew down into a poorly lit room beneath the main office.

  A slender young dragon called Lizbreath Salamander listened to the raven’s message. ‘The Vagner clan, eh?’ she mused. ‘Doorbraak, no less. This could be interesting.’

  Salamander was taupe, which is a colour, actually; a dark gleaming shade with a fine sheen in the light. She was not large, her shoulders no wider than her pelvis, and her wings were a little undersized. But there was something strangely attractive about her. And up by the shoulder of her right wing she carried the picture of a young female human being. Very few dragons had seen anything like it.

  She knew about the Vagners, of course; and about their fabulously expensive floating island Doorbraak – borne aloft in the sky by some strange magic (for it did not fly with wings) that most of dragonkind wot not of. Indeed, what they wot of was beyond the wit of many dragons to, er, woot.

  What?

  At any rate, Lizbreath had a personal interest in the Vagners. They were a mysterious, reclusive, fabulously wealthy family; and she knew all about the rumours of a dark secret at the heart of the clan. Lizbreath liked dark secrets, the darker the better.

  And she had her own reasons for wanting to get closer to Doorbraak.

  There was no question but that this was a project that interested her. But to pursue it properly, she would need more money for essential equipment. And that, unfortunately,
meant begging her new Guardian for some cash.

  It was not a pleasant prospect. But it had to be done.

  Chapter 2

  The Skylligator set down at Limbchopping, and Käal disembarked, tripping over a tooth as he did so. It was exciting. The Vagners’ floating island – Doorbraak – was unmistakably there in the sky, a vast hanging planet half a mile over the city, a rough egg shape. Rough, there, being understood to modify shape rather than egg. Clouds drifted beneath it. What I meant, with the ‘rough egg shape’ line, was that Doorbraak, being an elongated oblate sphere, approximated the shape, though not the texture, of an egg. I wasn’t trying to imply that it was exactly shaped like a rough egg.

  Just so as we’re clear.

  Käal was standing with his long neck curled back on itself, like a C, so as to be able to gawp at the enormousness of the suspended object above him, when a scrawny and indeed scraw-entireleg firedrake coughed at his right wing. ‘Käal Brimstön?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mon. Vagner sent me to meet you. Come with me, please.’

  ‘How does it – how does it stay up there?’ Käal asked, wonderingly.

  ‘Magic,’ replied the firedrake, in a what-else? tone of voice. Then he added: ‘Please come along,’ in an I-haven’t-got-all-day tone of voice.

  Without more ado this firedrake clambered up into the sky on slowly flexing wings, with Käal following. From below, Doorbraak was a convex mass of crusted mud and rock, from which occasional roots poked, white as exposed nerves. But pulling himself, with hauling wingstrokes, up through the clouds, brought the island’s upper portions into view: a rim of superbly maintained gardens and parks arranged around a large central castle, whose many tapering towers and spires reached above like the antennae of a prawn. Or, now that I come to think of it, perhaps like something a little more romantic and evocative.

  The firedrake alit on a pink marble balcony about halfway up the towering central structure. Käal followed suit. ‘Mon. Vagner will see you straight away,’ the firedrake told him. He indicated the direction with a toss of his firedrakey head.

  Käal went inside.

  ‘Ah! Brimstön. Come in,’ said Old Vagner. ‘Sit down, please. Take the weight off.’

  Käal found himself in a superbly appointed sitting room. A vaulted granite ceiling and polished marble floor defined a huge space. Exquisite wall-mosaics displayed scenes of dragon heroics, or ‘draconoics’ as they are sometimes called. An exquisite scent of sulphur wafted from an incense burner.

  Two sofas faced one another. Vagner made his way towards one, so Käal went to the other. The couch in question was ancient, and very expensive-looking. That might even have been real apeskin covering it. But it was not very big. Dragons had been smaller, of course, in the old days, before prosperity and adequate nutrition added length to the long bones and bulk to the body. But that meant that the honour of being offered an antique sofa as a seat was undermined by the titchiness of the artefact itself. Käal looked at the sofa, and then back at his host. Old Vagner had settled himself on the opposite couch and was now tilted into an upright posture, with his fat hindlimbs akimbo and his forelimbs hunched before him like two letters ‘r’.

  ‘Please,’ he said again. ‘Sit down.’

  Käal took a deep breath, and tackled the business of sitting. Lifting his tail, he tried to fit its fat diamond-shaped tip through the slot at the back. The slot was narrow, and his angle of approach was not quite right, so instead of slipping neatly through – thereby permitting the rest of his tail to follow so that Käal could seat his rump upon the upholstery – it got stuck. Käal pushed, but it wouldn’t go through. He tried to pull it back, but it wouldn’t come out either. He tugged the tail, and the couch shifted a yard across the marble with a friction squeal like a monkey in pain. Käal looked round at Old Vagner, who was watching him with placid patience.

  Käal smiled. Old Vagner smiled back.

  Making the decision, Käal turned his whole body to face his host, and curled up his tail as best he could, coiling it over the cushionry of the sofa, before seating himself upon it. This was not a very comfortable arrangement, and the added bulk of his own tailflesh lifted him comically and pushed him rather precariously forward on the seat. But at least he was sitting. He cleared his throat.

  ‘Thank you for coming to see me,’ said Old Vagner. ‘I have long been an admirer of your Saga work.’

  ‘You have?’

  ‘Certainly I have. You have a talent for – discovering things. It’s not common, among dragons, of course. Most of us disdain the implicit novelty in discovery. But you’re different.’

  ‘More different than you imagine,’ Käal said proudly.

  ‘I want to put that talent to good use here on Doorbraak. You see, there’s something I want you to find out.’

  Käal cleared his throat again. ‘What do you want me to find out?’

  ‘There is a tragedy at the heart of this family,’ said Old Vagner.

  Attempting, covertly, to adjust his awkwardly coiled tail beneath him, Käal stretched his rump muscles minutely, hoping with a delicately handled squeeze to pop his tail through the slot. He felt the end of his tail shift an inch deeper into the slot. In his mind a beguiling image presented itself, perfectly and fully formed: he pictured the tail-end plopping through, and the rest of the clumped-up tail following smoothly and easily after. He could almost feel the relief of settling his bum properly on the sofa cushions. He gave another discreet rumpward heave. One more would do it.

  ‘My grandniece,’ said Old Vagner, his voice breaking with emotion. ‘My beautiful, innocent, young grandniece was… horribly murdered.’

  Käal pushed. The couch lurched under Käal’s bulk, with a high-pitched whistle-scraping sound. Käal tumbled backwards. The sofa karoomed off the granite wall and, still tethered to the younger dragon by his tail, twanged straight back at Käal’s head. There was a muffled wham, and Käal’s head was punched forward by the impact of the hurtling furniture. When he lifted his face again, he was sat on his broad buttocks on the cold marble. He was wearing the sofa as a hat.

  Old Vagner was looking at him.

  ‘Murdered, you say?’ Käal said. Then, because his voice seemed to have been rather squeakily sopranoized by events, he cleared his throat and repeated with more bass-toned gravity of expression: ‘Murdered you say?’

  ‘Horribly murdered,’ said old Vagner.

  ‘Horribly, mm,’ said Käal. Very slowly – so as not to puncture the serious mood – he lifted the sofa off his head with his tail. ‘Horrible. Yes.’

  ‘Slain in the fullness of her youth.’

  With hardly a wobble, Käal lowered the item of furniture to the floor beside him. Trying, again, to be discreet, he lifted his hefty right hand-leg and placed its foot on the sofa. Pushing out with his thigh and simultaneously pulling with his tail, he tried to extract himself from the sofa slot. There was a sound of rending, and fabric and stuffing flew up. But at least the tail came free. Käal hazarded a smile; then, thinking of the grave situation he was in, he snapped the smile down into a frown. Then, worried that he looked merely grumpy, or perhaps ungrateful, he tried the smile again. That wasn’t right. Finally he settled his mouth into a neutral expression.

  ‘It,’ Old Vagner said, shortly, regarding Käal with a slightly puzzled expression in his eyes, ‘it – happened here.’

  Käal was surprised. ‘In this room?’

  ‘No, no, I mean on this island. I mean: on Doorbraak.’

  The magnitude of what Old Vagner was saying began to dawn on Käal. ‘Wait – you say she was murdered?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘As in – killed.’

  ‘Murdered as in killed, yes,’ said Old Vagner, drily.

  ‘But that’s horrible!’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more. It evokes horror, yes.’

  ‘It evokes more than horror,’ said Käal, the full force of the situation finally coming home to him. ‘It is horri
ble! It is both horror and – er,’ he said, looked about the echoey chamber rather at a loss for words, ‘and ible, hence, hence.’ His voice trailed away. ‘Horrible,’ he concluded. The silence gaped. ‘Ibble, ibble, wibble,’ he added, a minute later, although he wasn’t exactly sure why.

  Old Vagner was looking intently at him. ‘Are you mocking me?’ he asked, softly.

  ‘Good grief! Not at all!’ said Käal, genuinely.

  ‘Only there are those who think,’ Vagner went on, ‘that I have lost my mind. They say the grief at my loss has driven me out of my mind. That, and the tormenting knowledge that the crime is unsolved, and the murderer unpunished. Do you think I have lost my mind?’

  ‘Oh, no, er, ah,’ said Käal, startled by this direct question. ‘No! And even if you have, I’m sure I don’t mind.’

  ‘Don’t mind?’ asked Old Vagner, sharply.

  ‘Don’t mind!’ said Käal, panicking a little. ‘Don’t mind your mind. That you’ve lost your mind. Or not. Would you mind if I were unmanned in my mind? Or, er, was,’ he added, losing the thread again, ‘what were you saying?’

  ‘I was saying,’ said Vagner, severely, ‘that I have not lost my mind. Though I have brooded over my poor innocent girl’s death – brooded for three hundred years – it has not driven me mad. Brooded.’

  ‘Brooded,’ repeated Käal.

  ‘Brooded,’ said Old Vagner again, his countenance falling as the memories of those three long centuries came back to him. ‘Three centuries of brooding!’

  ‘Brooded,’ noted Käal.

  ‘Broo—’ said Old Vagner. His eyes defocused, lost in thought, or memory. There was a long silence. ‘Dead!’ he said, abruptly, sitting up straight again.

  ‘What was she called?’

  ‘Hellfire,’ said the old dragon.

  ‘A very sweet and charming name,’ said Käal, with feeling.

  ‘Oh, she was, she was very sweet and charming. She was an innocent young fledgling.’

  ‘And you are certain she was murdered?’