All these people laboured, in their separate ways, to entertain and amuse the human race. But what the human race really wants to watch, in the final analysis, is a good, dirty fight.
Ernest Hemingway, on the other hand, would have loved it. Sir Thomas Malory would have been taking notes. Homer would have been sitting somewhere on a balcony wearing a straw hat and saying, “Ah yes, but you should have seen Hercules back in ’86, he had a copybook cover drive off the back foot that would have put these young whippersnappers to shame.” Chaucer would have missed the fight itself, since he’d have been tearing round the deserted streets trying to find an open betting shop.
It was a good fight, by any standards. Most fighters are inhibited by the fear that, unless they exercise at least some degree of circumspection, they may end up getting permanently damaged. Since Kiss and Philly Nine had no such worries, they were able to give their full attention to trying to beat the crap out of the opposing party.
Genies, for whom poetry inevitably begins with the words “There was a young lady of…” and in whose world-view painting is something involving scaffolding, long brushes, ladders and being indentured to someone whose windowsills need doing, are connoisseurs of the fight beautiful, and as far as they’re concerned the Marquess of Queensberry is a pub in Camden Passage. For the first time ever, Saheed’s was deserted, except for a small knot of spectators peering out through the skylight.
“Strewth,” observed the Dragon King of the South-East. “I never thought that was even possible.”
“Well, now you know,” replied a Force Six who had money invested. “Wouldn’t like to try it myself, mind.”
“You could do yourself an injury,” agreed a Force Three, who had the binoculars.
“Anybody know,” asked a small Force Two, whose view was obstructed by about ten larger genies and a few cardboard boxes, “what the fight is about, exactly?”
There was a thoughtful silence.
“Good and evil?” suggested the Six.
“All violence is a symptom of the underlying malaise in carbon-based society,” said the Three.
“They do that,” agreed the Two. “They lurk in among the rubber trees and jump out on people with big curly knives.”
“You what?”
“And in Sumatra and parts of Burma, too. I think it’s something to do with the heat.”
A large chunk of rock, part of a mountain that had been pressed into service as a knuckleduster, hurtled down from the sky. The genies ducked.
“It’s all right,” said the Three, looking up. “Landed on Daras. Are they allowed to use weapons? I thought this was strictly a bare-knuckle job.”
“You want to go up there and remind them, be my guest.”
“Fight fair, yer rotten bludger!” shouted the Dragon King. The others looked at him.
“Yes, well,” he said, shamefaced. “I mean, fair crack of the whip, lads. One of them is trying to save the world.”
“So?”
“Would you mind moving your bloody great elbow? You’re blocking my view.”
“I think,” said a tall, thin Force Eight, “it’s something to do with a girl.”
“What is?”
“The fight. I think it’s about some girl or other.”
“Surely not?”
“It’s as good a reason as any. I mean, the fight’s got to be about something. All fights are about something.”
“Oh.”
THIRTEEN
The fight was getting bogged down. It had, in fact, reached something of a stalemate.
“All right,” suggested Philly Nine, “try this. You let go of my throat, and then if I simultaneously take my teeth out of your left ankle…”
“I don’t think that’ll work,” Kiss mumbled after a moment’s thought. “All that’ll happen is we’ll fall over.”
Philly, who was turning purple, clicked his tongue. “Well,” he said, “we’d better think of something, unless we want to stay locked together like this for ever and ever.”
“Agreed. The sooner the better, as far as I’m concerned.”
“How about if—?”
Whatever Philly’s suggestion was, it never got a hearing; because before he could make it both genies were knocked spinning by a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile.
“Shit,” gasped Philly, who’d been winded, “what the hell was that?”
Kiss floundered his way out of the soft cloud-bank into which he had fortuitously tumbled. “Don’t ask me,” he replied. “It was long and metallic and—”
He broke off and ducked as a large and colourful carpet, flapping its edges frantically like a manta ray in a hurry, shot past, calling out, “Stop! I didn’t mean it!” at the top of a voice which Kiss only heard in the back of his brain. The two genies dusted themselves off and floated level with each other.
“One of yours?” Kiss asked.
“Never seen it before in my life.”
“Well, it’s solved one problem for us.”
“True. Shall we carry on, then?”
“Might as well.”
“Where were we, exactly?”
“Hmm.” Kiss stroked his chin. “Well, as I recall, you had me in a scissor lock and were trying to bite my leg off, and I—”
“Not a scissor lock,” Philly interrupted. “More of a Polynesian death-grip, surely?”
“No, you’re wrong there. Isn’t that the one where the left knee comes up under the opponent’s armpit?”
“You’re thinking of the Mandalay wrench.”
“No, that’s the one where—”
This time the bomb hit Kiss in the small of the back, catapulting him neatly into orbit. Philly had the presence of mind to duck, only to be swatted flying by the bunch of roses the carpet was frenziedly waving. He had just recovered his balance from that when a tall, thin apprentice carpet salesman landed around his neck, jarring his spinal column and sending him spiralling towards the ground. He couldn’t have been more than ten feet off the ground, and travelling at a fair pace, when he managed to break the spin and pull out of it.
He landed and shrugged off the apprentice carpet salesman, who landed in a gooseberry bush and lay still, making faint whimpering noises. Philly looked down at him.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Heeeeeeeeeeeeeelp!”
Philly considered for a moment. “Yes,” he said, “you’re all right. Don’t go away, now.”
“Have they gone?” Kiss asked, when they were once more face to face.
“I think so,” Philly replied cautiously. “Can’t see them, at any rate.”
“You got any idea what they’re playing at?”
“Not really, no. Looks like the rug’s got the hots for the bomb, if I’m any judge.”
“How can a rug be in love with a bomb?”
“Dunno. Still, one of them’s colourful and flat and the other one’s dull grey and round, and they do say opposites attract.”
Kiss bit his lip. “I ought,” he said, “to go and defuse that bomb before it does any damage.”
“It’ll keep. Looks like the rug’s doing a pretty good job, anyhow.”
The genies shook their heads, as if to say that they wouldn’t mind fighting to the death over the destiny of the world if only the world would show a little respect.
“Right,” Philly said at last, “back to the job in hand. What say we start again from scratch?”
Kiss raised an eyebrow. “You sure?” he asked. “I had you ahead on points.”
“Did you?”
“Sure.” Kiss nodded. “I was giving you six for the head-butt, nine for the savage blow to the left temple with the giant redwood and seven for the combined half-nelson and stranglehold on the windpipe.”
“OK,” Philly replied dubiously, “but I wasn’t counting that because of the nutcracker hold you had on my right elbow at the same time.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“Maybe you had other things on your mind. Anyhow, I put us more or less dead level, so…”