The Gates

XXXIII In Which We Bid Farewell to Nurd. For Now.

IN THE GREAT WASTELAND, Wormwood stared at the Aston Martin that had accompanied Nurd back to his kingdom.

“What is it?” asked Wormwood.

“It’s a car,” said Nurd. “It’s called an Aston Martin.”

Nurd was surprised that the car had made it to the Wasteland in one piece, although not as surprised as he was that he himself had done so with only minor injuries. After all, it wasn’t every day that one went the wrong way through an interdimensional portal wearing a blanket and driving a very fast car. He had already decided that if any curious demons asked him how the car had got here, assuming any of them could be bothered to investigate the Wasteland, Hell being a very big place with more interesting areas to explore, he would tell them that it had dropped out of the sky. After all, who would suspect Nurd, that most inept of demons, of being responsible for thwarting the Great Malevolence and his invading army?

“What does it do?” asked Wormwood.

“It moves. It moves very fast.”

“Oh. And we watch it move fast, do we?”

It sounded like fun to Wormwood, although not much fun. Actually, he was quite pleased that Nurd was back. It had been a bit quiet without him, and the throne hadn’t been very comfortable to sit on. Funny, that. For so long Wormwood had desired the throne and then, when he’d had it, it hadn’t been worth desiring after all.

“No, Wormwood,” said Nurd patiently. His trip to the world of men, and his encounter with Samuel, had mellowed him, and he was no longer immediately inclined to hit Wormwood for being a bit dim, although he had a feeling that this wouldn’t last. “We sit in it, and then we go fast too.”

Wormwood looked doubtful, but eventually he was convinced to sit in the passenger seat, his seat belt fastened and a concerned expression on his face. Beside him, Nurd started the engine. It growled pleasantly.

“But where will we go?” asked Wormwood.

“Somewhere else,” said Nurd. “After all, anywhere is better than here.”

“And how far will we get?”

Nurd pointed at one of the bubbling black pools that broke the monotonous landscape of the Wasteland.

“You see those pools, Wormwood?”

Wormwood nodded. He’d been looking at the pools for so long that they almost qualified as old friends. If he’d known his birthday, he’d have invited the pools to the party.

“Well,” Nurd continued, “what’s in those pools is remarkably similar to what makes this car go. Hell, Wormwood, is our oyster.”

“What’s an oyster?”

Nurd, who didn’t know either, but had seen the phrase “The world is your oyster” in the car showroom and had rather liked the sound of it, began to reconsider his decision not to hit Wormwood quite so often.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. He took a paper bag from his pocket. The bag contained the last of the jelly beans that Samuel had given to him. Nurd had been saving them, but now he offered one to Wormwood and took the final sweetie for himself.

“To Samuel,” he said, and Wormwood, who had heard so much about the boy from Nurd, echoed his master.

“To Samuel.”

The multiverse was unfathomably huge, thought Nurd, but it was still small enough to allow two strangers like Samuel and himself to find each other and become friends.

Together, Nurd and Wormwood drove off, the car growing smaller and smaller, disappearing into the distance, until all that was left to indicate that anyone had ever been there was a throne, a scepter, and an old, rusty crown…