My Hero (41 page)

And there are no happy endings for characters; because at the end of all things, after the shoot-out, after the hero folds the heroine in his arms and the background music swells to a crescendo, the lights go off and then come up, everyone takes off their make-up and puts their costume back on the rack and goes home to wait for the phone to ring with a new job. And quite frequently it doesn't. And then you're here. Stuck. For ever.

‘Excuse me.'

He looked down. Just under his left foot, which he'd been on the point of putting down on the ground, was a small brown scorpion. He wobbled frantically and staggered sideways.

‘Excuse me, but are you Regalian?'

He blinked. ‘'Fraid so,' he replied. ‘Or I was, anyway. It's a bit complicated.'

The scorpion waggled its tail. ‘I just wanted to say,' it continued, ‘how much I liked your last book. Well, not the last one, actually, I didn't think that was all that special, it's the one before that I was thinking of. I really liked that one.'

‘Gosh. Um. Thanks.'

‘Particularly,' the scorpion went on, ‘that bit where you're fighting the six spectral warriors who jump up out of the ground where the wicked grand vizier has just emptied his teapot. I thought that was really great, how you ducked down behind the stone and then jumped out and bashed them over the head.'

‘Did I? Oh yes, rather. Well, er, yes. Thanks very much. Glad you liked it.'

‘And another bit I liked,' went on the scorpion, ‘was that bit a few chapters later where you're trapped in the burning temple and you swing out through the stained-glass window on the bell-rope just in time to save the girl from the merciless desert nomads. I thought that bit was dead good, too.'

‘That wasn't me, actually,' Regalian said. ‘In fact, that was the, er, baddie, and he wasn't so much rescuing her as kidnapping—'

‘Oh.' The scorpion twitched slightly. ‘Anyway, it was dead good.'

‘Great.'

‘One other thing I wanted to ask,' the scorpion said. ‘You don't mind me asking, do you?'

‘No, no, you go right ahead.'

‘Thanks.' The scorpion waggled its front legs. ‘What I want to know is, where exactly do you get your ideas from? I mean, do you just sit down and think them up, or do they just come to you? Because—'

‘In actual fact,' said Regalian gently, ‘that's not me, that's the writer. She thinks of all the things to do and then I just do them.'

‘Really?'

‘Yes.'

‘Oh. Who's she, then?'

Regalian stifled a sigh. ‘Her name's Jane Armitage,' he said. ‘She's terribly nice, actually. I've met her and—'

‘And so all that stuff was really her idea?'

‘Yes.'

‘Oh. Well, it was nice meeting you anyway. Um, would you just sign my shell for me, please? To Jonathan.'

‘Sure.' Regalian groped in his pocket, found a pen and stooped down. As soon as he'd finished signing his name, the scorpion stung him.

‘Thanks a lot,' it said. ‘Well, must rush. Bye.'

Regalian tried to wave at the small, scuttling form as it disappeared among the dunes; however, since he was lying on his face, paralysed from the neck down, he couldn't quite manage it.

He died.

It wasn't nearly so bad this time; because when he woke up he wasn't in the desert any more. He was sitting on a horse, wearing a buckskin shirt and cowboy boots, riding across a green landscape at a pleasant ambling pace.

‘Hi,' said a voice at his side.

‘Don't tell me,' he said, without looking down. ‘You're a Smith and Wesson Scholfield model, and you used to belong to . . .'

‘Don't insult me, please,' replied the voice; and Regalian
noticed that it was female, quite soft and pleasant. ‘I'm a Colt. A
proper
cowboy gun, none of your gimmicky rubbish. My name's Cindy.'

‘That's an unusual name for a gun, isn't it?'

‘I'm only for show. Come on, it
is
a musical. And by the way, why aren't you singing?'

‘Should I be?'

‘Yes.
Oh, what a beautiful mornin'
. Forgotten it already? I'll hum it for you.'

Regalian nearly fell off his horse. ‘
Oklahoma!
' he exclaimed.

‘No,' said the gun, ‘that comes later, right now it's
Oh, what a beautiful mornin'
.' It paused. ‘Hang about,' it said. ‘You're not the usual guy, are you?'

Regalian grinned. Well, why not? A hero is a hero, after all.

‘Depends,' he said.