Expecting Someone Taller by Tom Holt Read Free Book Online

to be personally responsible for every catastrophe in the world. And I thought it was only my mother who blamed me for everything.’

    â€˜Not necessarily,’ said the pigeon, soothingly. ‘Perhaps - I say perhaps - you can stop all these terrible things from happening. Don’t ask me how, but you stopped I don’t know how many people from being killed today.’
    â€˜Did I?’
    â€˜Well, if you didn’t, then who the hell did? Let me put it to you this way.’ The pigeon buried its beak in its feathers and thought hard for a moment. ‘By and large, all things considered, you wouldn’t actually want to kill anyone, now would you?’
    â€˜No,’ replied Malcolm, ‘certainly not.’
    â€˜But when you hear about disasters in other countries, it doesn’t spoil your day. You think, Hard luck, poor devils, but you don’t burst out crying all over the place.’
    â€˜True.’
    â€˜Whereas a disaster in this country would affect you rather more deeply, wouldn’t it?’
    â€˜Yes, I suppose it would.’
    â€˜That follows. All these disasters, you see, happened abroad. The only bit of local disaster was that England lost a cricket match, and the way things are nowadays, that would probably have happened anyway. I remember when I was feeding in the outfield at Edgbaston in nineteen fifty-six . . .’
    â€˜Get on with it,’ said Malcolm irritably.
    â€˜The way I see it,’ said the pigeon, picking up a crumb of stale cheese it had previously overlooked, ‘the Ring is being guided by your will. A certain number of momentous things have to happen when the Ring changes hands. It’s like a volcano: all that force and violence has to go somewhere. But your will protected Britain . . .’
    â€˜Do you mind not using that word? It makes it sound like my last will and testament.’

    â€˜All right then, you protected Britain, because you care more about it than about other countries. All subconsciously, of course. And you refused to let the Ring kill anybody, because you instinctively don’t approve of people being killed. When you think about it, that’s pretty remarkable. Have you got any more of that cheese anywhere?’
    Malcolm was rather taken aback. ‘You mean I really can make the world do what I want?’
    â€˜Not in the way you think. The Ring won’t take orders from your conscious mind. But you can prevent it from destroying the world, if you’re sufficiently strong-minded.’
    â€˜But that can’t be right.’
    â€˜It does seem odd, I agree. After all, Wotan couldn’t do it. Fafner couldn’t do it. Even Siegfried couldn’t do it and he was much more . . .’
    â€˜Siegfried was an idiot. Or did Wagner get that wrong, too?’
    â€˜Yes, he did. Siegfried wasn’t an idiot, not by a long way. He just didn’t know what was going on. But then, neither did you.’ The pigeon fell silent again.
    â€˜How come I can’t read your thoughts?’ Malcolm asked. ‘You’ve done this two or three times now.’
    â€˜I’m not so much thinking as communing.’
    â€˜What with?’
    â€˜How should I know?’ snapped the pigeon in a sudden flurry of bad temper. ‘Mother Earth, I’ve always assumed. Go on, you try it.’
    Malcolm tried it, opening his mind to everything in the world. There was a perfectly horrible noise and he switched it off. ‘Nothing,’ he said, ‘just a lot of voices.’
    â€˜Oh,’ said the pigeon, and Malcolm could sense unease, even awe, in its thoughts. ‘Oh, I see .’
    â€˜You mean it’s me you’re communing with?’ Malcolm
was so amazed that he turned himself into a stone without intending to.
    â€˜That’s the way it’s looking,’ said the pigeon. ‘Sir,’ it added.
    â€˜Go ahead,’ said Malcolm bitterly. ‘You and my