The Last Hero

‘That's right, that's right, rub it in,’ said Harry sulkily. ‘Just because I was never in the big league, just because—’

‘Now, now, Harry, you know we don't think like that. We respected you. You knew the Code. You kept the faith. Well, Cohen just reckons the gods've got it comin' to them. Now, me, I'm worried because there's some tough ground ahead.’

Evil Harry peered along the snowy canyon.

‘There's some kind of magic path leads up the mountain,’ Willie went on. ‘But there's a mass of caves before you get there.’

‘The Impassable Caves of Dread,’ said Evil Harry.

Willie looked impressed. ‘Heard of them, have you? Accordin' to some old legend they're guarded by a legion of fearsome monsters and some devilishly devious devices and no one has ever passed through. Oh, yeah… perilous crevasses, too. Next, we'll have to swim through underwater caverns guarded by giant man-eating fish that no man has ever yet passed. And then there's some insane monks, and a door you can pass only by solving some ancient riddle… the usual sort of stuff.’

‘Sounds like a big job,’ Evil Harry ventured.

‘Well, we know the answer to the riddle,’ said Boy Willie. ‘It's “teeth”.’

‘How did you find that out?’

‘Didn't have to. It's always teeth in poxy old riddles,’ Boy Willie grunted as they heaved the wheelchair through a particularly deep drift. ‘But the biggest problem, is going to be getting this damn thing through all that without Hamish waking up and making trouble.’

In the study of his dark house on the edge of Time, Death looked at the wooden box.

PERHAPS I SHALL TRY ONE MORE TIME, he said.

He reached down and lifted up a small kitten, patted it on the head, lowered it gently into the box, and closed the lid.

THE CAT DIES WHEN THE AIR RUNS OUT?

‘I suppose it might, sir,’ said Albert, his manservant. ‘But I don't reckon that's the point. If I understand it right, you don't know if the cat's dead or alive until you look at it.’

THINGS WILL HAVE COME TO A PRETTY PASS, ALBERT, IF I DID NOT KNOW WHETHER A THING WAS DEAD OR ALIVE WITHOUT HAVING TO GO AND LOOK.

‘Er… the way the theory goes, sir, it's the act of lookin' that determines if it's alive or not.’

Death looked hurt. ARE YOU SUGGESTING I WILL KILL THE CAT JUST BY LOOKING AT IT?

‘It's not quite like that, sir.’

I MEAN, IT'S NOT AS IF I MAKE FACES OR ANYTHING.

‘To be honest with you, sir, I don't think even the wizards understand the uncertainty business.’ said Albert. ‘We didn't truck with that class of stuff in my day. If you weren't certain, you were dead.’

Death nodded. It was getting hard to keep up with the times. Take parallel dimensions. Parasite dimensions, now, he understood them. He lived in one. They were simply universes that weren't quite complete in themselves and could only exist by clinging on to a host universe, like remora fish. But parallel dimensions meant that anything you did, you didn't do somewhere else.

This presented exquisite problems to a being who was, by nature, definite. It was like playing poker against an infinite number of opponents.

He opened the box and took out the kitten. It stared at him with the normal mad amazement of kittens everywhere.

I DON'T HOLD WITH CRUELTY TO CATS, said Death, putting it gently on the floor.

‘I think the whole cat in the box idea is one of them metaphors,’ said Albert.

AH. A LIE.

Death snapped his fingers.

Death's study did not occupy space in the normal sense of the word. The walls and ceiling were there for decoration rather than as any kind of dimensional limit. Now they faded away and a giant hourglass filled the air.

Its dimensions would be difficult to calculate, but they could be measured in miles.

Inside, lightnings crackled among the falling sands. Outside, a giant turtle was engraved upon the glass.

I THINK WE SHALL HAVE TO CLEAR THE DECKS FOR THIS ONE, said Death.

Evil Harry knelt in front of a hastily constructed altar. It consisted mostly of skulls, which were not hard to find in this cruel landscape. And now he prayed. In a long lifetime of being a Dark Lord, even in a small way, he'd picked up a few contacts on the other planes. They were… sort of gods, he supposed. They had names like Olk-Kalath the Soul Sucker, but, frankly, the overlap between demons and gods was a bit uncertain at the best of times.

‘Oh, Mighty One,’ he began, always a safe beginning and the religious equivalent of ‘To Whom It May Concern’, ‘I have to warn you that a bunch of heroes are climbing the mountain to destroy you with returned fire. May you strike them down with wrathful lightning and then look favourably upon thy servant, i.e. Evil Harry Dread. Mail may be left with Mrs Gibbons, 12 Dolmen View, Pant-y-Girdl, Llamedos. Also if possible I should like a location with real lava pits, every other evil lord manages to get a dread lava pit even when they are on one hundred feet of bloody alluvial soil, excuse my Klatchian, this is further discrimination against the small trader, no offence meant.’