The Dragon with the Girl Tattoo

by Adam Roberts

Genres: Thrillers

Synopsis

Lizbreath Salamander is young and beautiful. Her scales have an iridescent sheen, her wings arch proudly, her breath has a tang of sulfur. And on her back a tattoo of a mythical creature: a girl. But when Lizbreath is drawn into a dark conspiracy she will have to rely on more than her beauty and her vicious claws the size of sabres ... A dragon has disappeared, one of a secretive clan. As Lizbreath delves deeper into their history she realises that these dragons will do anything to defend their secrets. Welcome to the world of The Dragon With The Girl Tattoo. A world of gloomy Nordic dragons leading lives uncannily like our own (despite their size, despite the need for extensive fireproofing of home furnishings), a world of money hoarded, a world of darkness and corruption. A world where people are the fantasy.

Release date: November 18, 2010

Publisher: Gollancz

Print pages: 313

Sample

It happened every year and had done so without fail for three centuries. The parcel arrived, as it always did, and the elderly dragon regarded it with a more than usually grim expression. Believe me, you’ve never seen a face with a grim expression until you’ve seen a dragon face with a grim expression.

The parcel lay on his desk. He already knew what it contained, and knew the debilitating heart-sinking he would feel when he unwrapped it; but it couldn’t be avoided. First things first. He called a firedrake into his study. ‘Where are we over?’

‘Limbchopping,’ the servant replied.

‘Of course. Be so good as to leave the island. Fly down to the city, and ask Detective Superintendent Smaug to pay me a visit.’

The firedrake glanced at the desk, and saw the package. He knew what it contained, just as well as his master, and understood the gravity of his commission. He curled around in mid-air, wings beating a hummingbird rhythm, and flew straight through the main window.

‘You’ll find him in the main Police Castle,’ the old dragon called after him, although the firedrake didn’t need telling. It would not be the first time he had summoned the Detective Superintendent to attend the opening of one of these parcels. In mid-air the drake ducked and was gone.

Leaving the parcel on the desk, Helltrik Vagner went to the window to wait with the sort of patience that comes easy to a being half a millennium old. It was a pleasant afternoon in late summer. Light was slanting in from the empty west, as the sun – that great sphere of whitegold fire – bestowed its superb treasure upon the world with its habitual carelessness. To look down was to observe a great many white bobbly clouds, like Moomins, overlaying the distant landscape. But to look up and west was to see a great stretch of high cirrus, tinted pale tangerine, stretched like a wing of fire around the horizon.

Shortly, Helltrik watched in silence. He was, as you might expect with a dragon his age, large and gnarly, his once golden scales now going cream-coloured at the edges. Immediately below his window lay the western gardens of the Vagner floating island, Doorbraak. To say that the garden was well-manicured was both true and false. It was true in the sense that every hedge and flowerbed was perfectly trimmed and maintained; but false in the sense that ‘manicure’ is something one does to a hand. This garden was not a hand. It had no fingernails. It was, as I think I have mentioned, a garden. Broad lawns of blond, bristly grass were mowed to a perfect flatness. Ash, willow, elm were planted in rows, and small-leaved limes grew at the edge, overlooking the small wall and the mile-long drop. The trees cast fishnet shadow in the summer light. Smoke from a dozing dragon – another member of the large Vagner clan – spilled over the hedge like poured pollen. And as Helltrik watched this peaceful world, the unwrapped parcel sat on his desk, mutely accusing.

Soon enough there came the sound of something large in flight, and up over the edge of the island a very large-bellied, impressive-looking dragon appeared. Helltrik’s firedrake was flying by his side, although he hardly needed guiding. He flew straight over the garden, broad wings forcefully massaging the air, and alighted a little heavily on the stone of Helltrik’s personal balcony.

‘Sammy,’ said Helltrik. ‘Thanks for coming.’

Detective Superintendent Smaug came through the balcony door and settled his prodigious rump into an easy chair. He was no longer young, and the exertion of the flight had roughened the edge of his breathing a little. ‘Another one?’ he wheezed.

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Same time of year, same thing,’ said Smaug, peering at the parcel. ‘Well – are you going to open it?’

‘I suppose I must,’ said Helltrik, heavily. ‘I dread doing so, even though I know what is inside – of course, because I know what is inside.’

‘Come on, Trikky,’ said the Detective Superintendent. ‘Let’s get it over with.’

Vagner took the parcel and, in a few easy gestures, tore its wrapping away. Inside was a narrow strip of leather, a spotted dark purple in colour, more than a metre long and shaped into a chevron at one end.

The two elderly dragons looked eagerly at it, as if hoping to read its pattern of pale purple mottles. But if such was their intention, they were frustrated. They both sat back, Vagner holding the limp strip in his right foreclaw.

‘There’s nothing very distinctive about it, this year,’ said Detective Superintendent Smaug. ‘It’s clearly from a mature beast, though.’

‘I’m never quite sure what we’re looking for,’ Vagner admitted, in a weary voice. ‘I mean, when we peruse them like this.’

‘Well – distinguishing marks, I suppose,’ said the policedragon. They sat in silence for a while. ‘I almost feel,’ the Detective Superintendent added, ‘as if we should open a bottle of firewater. Drink to it.’

‘Drink to it?’

‘Oh it’s poor taste, I daresay. But – well, it’s the three hundredth, after all! That’s quite a remarkable statistic: every single year without fail for three entire centuries. You don’t think we should mark the significance of that fact?’

‘I’ve never understood the hobgoblin hold whole numbers have over the minds of otherwise sane dragons,’ said Vagner. ‘My father wanted to host the largest party Scandragonia had ever seen when I reached a hundred. But why? It’s no different to reaching the age of ninety-nine, or a hundred and one.’

‘Come, come, Trikky,’ said Smaug, indulgently. ‘You don’t mean that. Three hundred is significant.’

‘Its significance,’ said Vagner, a little stiffly, ‘lies only in telling me one thing. That this has been going on for far too long. I have become complacent. It’s time to act. Time to call in outside help, to get to the bottom of this once and for all.’

Detective Superintendent Smaug shook his equine head briskly. ‘There’s really nothing more the police can do, my friend. We’ve investigated as thoroughly as any police force can. We’ve in-and-outvestigated it. We’ve been all over it. It’s been all over us.’

‘I meant, somebody exterior to the police, Sammy.’

‘Oh!’ said Smaug. ‘A private investigator? Well, good luck with that.’

Helltrik sensed his friend’s grumpiness. ‘I’m not saying we can’t share a dram, old boy. What’ll it be? Firewater? Or shall we burn some sack?

‘The former, for preference. And I suppose you’d better hand that… that thing over to me. I’ll take it into official police custody, and lay it in the vault with the other two hundred and ninety-nine tongues.’

Vagner passed the item across. ‘Three hundred dragon tongues,’ he mused, as he busied himself at the drink’s cabinet. ‘All laid out together in a police vault. If only they could talk, eh? Three hundred tongues, and none of them capable of saying a single word.’

‘Being ripped from the mouth does tend to diminish the loquacious potential of the tongue,’ said the Detective Superintendent. He took his drink from Vagner’s outstretched claw.

‘But who is sending them, eh, Sammy?’ Vagner asked, sitting himself down. ‘Always the same thing, every year without fail. Such a grisly, horrible thing! Why are they sending them? To me?’

‘Where are they getting them from, is the question uppermost on my police mind,’ said Smaug. ‘Ripping them out of some poor anonymous dragon’s –bottoms’ he lifted his glass ‘up – mouth. Think of the draconic suffering! Three hundred tongues!’ He drained the firewater, and blew a sharp little red-orange flame.

‘I’m still stuck on why,’ said Vagner. ‘Ever since…’

‘Now, Trikky, I know what you’re going to say. It’s never been conclusively proved that these tongues have anything to do with… your poor grandniece’s lamentable and mysterious fate.’

‘Not conclusively proved?’ Vagner repeated. He drained his own glass, and belched a shining violet-coloured flame. ‘Come come, Sammy. Who can doubt it? Whoever it was murdered my grandniece – and is the same dragon who’s sending me these horrible… tokens. They’re mocking me. Mocking me with their continuing impunity. And, as you say, continuing with their horrible crimes! Mutilating and killing a dragon every year!’

‘We’ve no evidence of the killing part.’

‘You think there are three hundred live dragons flying about with no tongues in their heads? You don’t think that would be noticed? No, no, he tortures them, kills them, and disposes of their bodies – sinks them in the seas, or something like that. All the loved ones know is that a dragon has vanished. He must be caught, Sammy. We must catch him.’

‘Well,’ said Detective Superintendent Smaug, getting up on his hindlegs and tucking the severed dragon tongue away in a pouch slung from a golden belt. ‘Of course the police would like nothing better than to apprehend him. And, as with the others, I’ll make enquiries. But, as with all the others, I’d be amazed if anything comes of it. And as for your grandniece… I’m afraid that case was closed long ago.’

‘We’ll see,’ said Vagner. ‘I have somebody in mind. Apparently he’s a genius at the new arts of finding stuff out.’

‘Here’s hoping,’ said the Detective Superintendent, stepping from the balcony and into the air. ‘Here’s hoping!’

Käal Morekill Brimstön was widely known as a genius at ‘finding stuff out’. In fact, he was rubbish at finding stuff out. But reputation trumps reality in the card game of life. Provided the card game is one that uses trumps. Like bridge. Or canasta. The two of clubs of Käal’s fame laid on top of the King of Diamonds of his true incompetence. If we have previously agreed that clubs are trumps. If you see what I mean.

Käal worked for a small but influential Saga, whose central Starkhelm office was kitted out with only the very trendiest Drakea furniture. Come to think of it, I’m not sure canasta uses a trump system. It doesn’t matter. Anyway, the Saga – Köschfagold Saga – specialized in financial news, on the understanding that the proportion of dragonkind interested in money (which is: all of it, give or take) would ensure it a steady readership. It hadn’t worked out that way. But although it was not widely read, the Saga was widely respected. There were Sagas that sold more copies, of course: the celebrity news-based Sptöüägbble Saga, for instance, the literary review Flblloljalblblkklbl Saga, or the cookery-themed Pütunthlobstrëënthpotborkborkbork Saga. But few had the extraordinary reputation for finding things out of Köschfagold. And even fewer had the top-range swivel chairs. And Käal was the star reporter. There were other dragons on staff: the editor, Beargrr, a forceful female with lapis-lazuli coloured spines running down her ample back; and Fyrstarter the deputy editor. But neither of them quite looked the part the way Käal did.

His scales overlapped as neatly as roof-tiles, and were of a similar brick red and orange-rind colour. He was not young, exactly – his size alone told you that – yet he still had the glamour of youth. His wings, when he stretched them to full length, were entirely free of gaps, holes or tatters. His eyes were so pale they looked almost a white; but a gleaming, handsome sort of white. All these things counted for a good deal in Scandragonia.

For years he had coasted on these splendid looks, and on the work done by minimum-wage researchers. But then, Köschfagold Saga had run a story on a senior dragon businessman called Wintermute. Wintermute had sued.

When the raven first arrived at the Saga with the news that they were going to have to defend the story in court, Beargrr had an editorial conversation with Käal. ‘I’ll need to see your notes, records, and all your sources.’

‘Right,’ said Käal. ‘What?’

‘All your notes,’ she said. ‘So we can ready the court-room defence.’

Käal shrugged his wings. It took Beargrr several repetitions of her request for her to comprehend that he knew nothing at all about the story that he himself had written.

‘But you researched it!’ she kept saying. ‘You must have sources – you must have notes, files, unpublished material.’

‘I can barely remember it,’ he said. ‘Was that the one with the red-and-yellow border on the front page?’

‘But how can you not know?’ she berated him. ‘You wrote the story!’

‘I wrote it,’ said Käal, ingenuously. ‘But that doesn’t mean I researched it. It’s the same as all my stuff. I sent a raven down to the researchers, and they sent all the facts up. I just arranged them in Saga form, putting in all the necessary alliteration and so on.’

‘That,’ said Beargrr, ‘is not what a journalist does!’

At this Käal had looked slightly confused. ‘Are you sure?’ he said. ‘Because I was working on the assumption that it, well, was.’

‘Are you kidding me?’

‘No.’ He thought about it. ‘Kid as in goat, do you mean? Are you hungry?’

‘Kid,’ said Beargrr, in a dull voice, ‘as in: setting up my Saga for financial ruin in an unwinnable court case.’

Now, the situation between these two dragons was complicated. Beargrr was hamfast with another dragon, a well-respected Swedragenish medical man. But despite that, she had started a relationship with Käal. She had done so because she had found him attractive, but a large part of that attraction had to do with his reputation as a Super Journalist. This, it now seemed, was an unfounded reputation.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘Putting raw data into Saga form is not easy. And we’ve always employed researchers – haven’t we? I mean, isn’t that the point of employing researchers? That they do the research and I write it up?’

‘No,’ said Beargrr, looking at her lover with cold eyes. ‘The point of researchers is that they relieve the journalists of tedious or repetitive tasks. But the journalists are still supposed to go out and actually find stuff out.’

‘Oh,’ said Käal, looking interested. ‘I did not know that.’

‘What do you mean you didn’t know that!’ Beargrr yelled. ‘You’re my star reporter! How can you be a star reporter and not know what a star reporter even does?’

‘Well,’ said Käal, mildly. ‘It’s never seemed to be a problem before. You liked the Quetzoacoatlofmanycolours story I filed? That won an award!’ Quetzoacoatlofmanycolours had been a soap merchant. Köschfagold Saga had run a story exposing that his company stock had been involved in a Bubble.

‘I assumed you’d gone out and interviewed Quetzoacoatlofmanycolours yourself. I assumed you’d asked about, looking in dustbins, checked the archives of local Sagas, and slowly pieced together the story of the cover-up. Please tell me that you interviewed Quetzoacoatlofmanycolours yourself, asked about, looked in dustbins, checked the archives of local Sagas, and slowly pieced together the story of the cover-up?’

‘Nope, I didn’t do any of that.’

‘What did you do?’

‘Well, I sent a raven down to the researcher’s office, like I always do. There’s a young researcher who’s usually pretty good: still a Salamander, I think. I asked her: what’s up with this Quetzoacoatlofmanycolours geezer? You’d told me to look into him, you see. After a few days she sent all the data back – by raven – and I wrote it up.’

‘But you were away for a week!

‘I was in the sauna, mostly.’

‘I thought you were doing star reporter investigative stuff!’

‘No. Just sauna stuff.’

‘I can’t believe this!’ Beargrr howled, blowing a bright spire of orange flame straight from the back of her throat. Fire licked and blazed across the office filing cabinet.

‘You’re angry!’ said Käal, laughing. Then, the gravity of the situation striking him for the first time, he said it again, without the laugh. ‘You’re angry.’ Then, very sombrely: ‘You’re going to sack me, aren’t you.’

‘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 he. . .