In a hole in the ground there lived an advertising account executive. Not a nasty, cramped, smelly hole with no indoor plumbing, electricity or mains water; nor yet a ghastly primitive hole without air conditioning, broadband access, wi-fi or cable. It was a tastefully modernisedhalfling- hole, which the advertising account executive had bought for an absolute song and spent a fortune doing up; and that meant comfort.

When he and Pauline bought the place, of course, it had been a rather different story. After one look at it, they’d very nearly given up and gone back to Fulham. For a start, the front door was round – no, honestly; well, that had to go, naturally, which meant ripping out the doorframe, which was structural, wouldn’t you know, so the whole frontage had to come out and be propped up with RSJs, and as soon as they did that they discovered the joists were completely shot, woodworm or termites or something, God only knows what was holding the place up, force of habit presumably, so they had to scrape off all the turf and go in from the top, because of subsidence or whatever, and you can imagine how much that cost, and then redo all the timberwork, really, it’d have been so much easier to start from scratch but you don’t know that, do you, when you start bashing holes in walls; and once you got inside everything was panelled in this godawful gloomy dark wood, so all that had to come out and then the whole lot had to be plastered, and the floors, don’t talk to me about the floors, just horrible great stone slabs, freezing cold underfoot and every time you walked across a room it sounded like Frankenstein, so that was no good; a hundred and six tons of concrete it took before we could get a floor level enough to lay a decent bit of carpet. And the plumbing, don’t get me started on the plumbing. For one thing you just can’t get a plumber, they’re all dwarves and they live about a thousand miles away under some stupid mountain, it’s three months each way just to get there, and of course the moment they start work they discover they haven’t got some stupid tool or other and they’ve got to go back for it. And if you think it’s hard getting a plumber, you just try finding anyone who’s prepared to do a bit of cleaning and dusting. Which is hardly surprising, you should see the way the Short- arses, sorry, mustn’t call them that, the locals keep their houses, it’s disgusting, really, and they all smoke like chimneys. And the nearest supermarket’s the Lidl in bloody Hobbiton, twelve miles away, I know it doesn’t sound a lot but you try it rattling about on what they laughingly call roads in a stupid pony-trap, and they all drive like maniacs, and when you get there it’s practically a dead cert they’ll be out of Tunisian olives or parmesan. Thank God for the Internet, that’s what Pauline and I say, if we couldn’t order in stuff from home we’d starve.

Do we regret it? Oh no. No, once we’d got past all the teething problems, you can’t beat it. I mean, I can work from home via the Net, and now we’ve built the pool and found a company back in England that’s prepared to ship eh, out Beefeater gin, Pauline’s happy as a clam, and it’s so quiet and peaceful and unspoilt. And the locals, once they’ve got to know you, they couldn’t be more friendly.

* * *

Or take the Barringtons, Terry and Molly. He was something high powered in phosphates and she ran a thriving online boutique, but then they got sick of it and thought, wouldn’t it be nice to get away from the pressures of the big city and rediscover the simple life. She could carry on with her business but sell locally sourced artisan craftworks, while he’d always fancied having a crack at writing that novel . . . And then they heard about the Hidden Realms from the Hendersons, who’d just sold their poky little flat in Ealing and bought what was effectively a castle, with a sodding great deer park and a lake and its own windmill, and still had enough left to pave over the rose garden for extra parking.

Getting to the Realms was a bit weird but incredibly quick and easy, and almost as soon as they arrived they saw the place of their dreams and knew they just had to have it –

Terry Barrington craned his neck until he could feel something go click, but still he couldn’t see the top of the tower. He took three steps back, but it didn’t help. The black stone seemed to swallow up the light – it wasn’t so much a colour as an absence, a rip in the fabric of reality – and when Molly Barrington touched the wall it was so cold it tore skin off her fingertips, as though it was covered in superglue.

“Who did you say used to live here?” Terry asked.

The guide smiled. “Well,” he said, “according to local folklore, a great wizard once dwelt in Caras Snorgond.”

“A wizard,” Molly squeaked, “that’s wonderful. I can almost feel the aura. Can you feel it, Terry?”

“When was the last time this lot was rendered?” her husband asked.

“Recently,” the guide said smoothly. “They used a local process, very reputable contractors, and it comes with a twenty-five-thousand-year guarantee.” He didn’t add that the re-rendering had been necessary to cover up the scuff marks left by the war engines of the Kings of Men during the Great Siege, when for six weeks a thousand trebuchets had pounded the tower day and night. Because of the spells of Gorman the Blue, they had succeeded in causing only minor cosmetic damage, but an offcomer might be sceptical about that and demand a full structural survey, which would confirm the futility of the assault but which might well turn up other issues which a purchaser might find off-putting. A quick dab over with coal tar and a freezing spell, however, covered a multitude of sins.

Terry took a further step back and felt something snap under his heel. He stooped down and picked it up. “What’s this? Looks like a bit of dowel.”

“Arrow shaft,” the guide said. “Stuff like that’s always turning up. This site is particularly rich in historical artefacts and antiquities.”

“Is that a fact.”

“Absolutely. The locals can’t dig their vegetable patches without coming across a dozen arrowheads or a bit of rusty armour.”

You can make good money selling historical artefacts on eBay. Terry casually dropped the fragment in his pocket and took a few steps towards the tower. Something was missing. It took him a moment to figure out what it was.

“Where’s the door?” he asked.

“Ah.” The guide beamed at him. “I was going to tell eh, you about that. One of the special features that makes this property so unique is the amazing security system.”

“Great. Where’s the door?”

“There isn’t one,” the guide said. “That is, unless you know the secret incantation.” He made a very peculiar noise, like someone gargling with gravel, and four glowing red lines appeared on the face of the black stone and slowly joined to form a rectangle. There was an audible click, and the rectangle swung open. “You can forget your triple-bolt deadlocks and your infra-red motion detectors and your CCTV,” the agent went on. “Without the magic words, no force on earth can get in here. It’s also handy,” he added, “for anyone who has trouble remembering where they put their keys.”

“Mphm,” Terry said, trying hard not to sound impressed. “So how about windows?”

“Ah. Just step inside and see for yourself.”

They followed him, through the almost invisible entrance and up a long flight of winding steps. It was pitch dark and bitter cold. Terry was just about to say something when the guide did some more of that weird muttering, and suddenly –

“The walls, you see,” said the guide, “are transparent.”

Molly squealed with delight, and Terry had to admit he was impressed. It was a 365-degree picture window, looking out over green pastures and vast tousled forests towards the gaunt grey outline of the distant mountains –

“With,” the guide added, “built-in magnification.”

– which were suddenly right up close, in your face, as if you’d just teleported a hundred miles and were hovering in mid-air just short of the cliff face. Then lift your head just a little and suddenly you’re looking over the mountaintops, down through the clouds (which part and dissipate instantly) at purple moorlands, golden wheat fields, and then a rocky coastline and the sky-blue sea . . .

“That’s amazing,” Terry said. “It’s like Google Earth without a mouse.”

“Quite,” the guide said. “Or, if you prefer, you can mute them so they’re just slightly translucent.” The view vanished abruptly, and they were in a bare circular room with walls of faintly glowing mother-of-pearl, and a polished pink marble floor.

“That’ll have to go,” Molly said firmly. “I’m not spending the rest of my life on my hands and knees keeping that clean.”

The guide smirked. “No need,” he said. “Self- cleaning. Just say the appropriate spell.”

Terry looked at him suspiciously. “You keep saying that,” he said. “Spells and rubbish. Are you trying to tell us this place is powered by magic?”

“Good heavens no,” the guide said, and in the pocket of his jacket his fingers were tightly crossed. “It’s just really sophisticated voice-activated, solar-powered technology, so advanced and discreet it looks like magic. But perfectly normal, I promise you. I mean, magic. Would I ask you to believe in anything like that?”

“Mmm,” Terry said. “Where’s the toilet?”

“There are garderobes,” the guide corrected him gently, “on every floor, naturally.” He mumbled something, and a door appeared in the wall. The outside wall, Terry was about to point out, but then the door swung open to reveal a large bathroom, with pale green marble walls and what looked suspiciously like a solid gold bath and lavatory bowl. Terry reached in and fingered the toilet paper. It was amazingly soft, as though woven from cloud.

There comes a point when there are no more tyres left to kick. “How much did you say they want for this place?” eh, Terry heard himself say.

The guide quoted a sum of money that would just about buy a lock-up garage in Chiswick, provided you weren’t fussy about roofs and stuff. “There’s got to be a catch,” Terry said. “What about rates and ground rents and local taxes?”

“Ah,” said the guide. “They come to about five thousand silver marks a year.”

“That’s a bit—”

“They pay you,” the guide added quickly. “As Lord of the Tower of Snorgond and Prince of Falthithuil. The titles come with the property.”

Terry’s mouth moved up and down for a bit, but no sound came out. Molly said, “Does that mean we’ll be lords and ladies? That’s so exciting.”

“Something like that,” the guide said. “Of course, there’s a few purely nominal obligations that go with it; basically, just letting the locals use part of the grounds for fetes and flower shows, that sort of thing. No big deal. Of course you don’t have to accept the title, but—”

Five thousand silver marks a year; what exactly was a mark, and how much did it weigh? Gift horses’ teeth, Terry thought. “Oh, I think we ought to enter into the spirit of things, don’t you, Moll? I mean, what’s the point of coming to a place like this if you aren’t going to make yourself part of the community? That’s what the big society is all about.”

“That’s the spirit,” the guide said cheerfully. “Now, if you’d like to follow me up onto the roof, I think you’re going to like the view. You can see right out over the Entwoods as far as the Great River.”

“Whee!” Molly said, gazing up at the eagles circling overhead. “What’s an Entwood?”

Maybe the guide hadn’t heard her. “Over there,” he said, “you can see the White City, with its celebrated shopping facilities, entertainment complex and folkloresque Old Town. There’s a carrier’s cart three times a week, but I expect you’ll keep your own carriage. Now, if you look closely you can just make out the remains of the curtain wall, which marks the boundary of the property. It’s about five square miles, give or take.”

Just before they came to the Realms they’d had drinks with the Lushingtons, who’d made them both feel sick, banging on about their wonderful converted mithril mine in the foothills of the Taram Asalat, which they’d snapped up for a trivial sum and had such plans for. Already, in his mind’s eye, Terry was showing the Lushingtons this view, before adjourning to the patio for a glass of wine from his own vineyard, which would be somewhere about there – “What do you think, Moll?” Terry said. “Will it do?”

Before she could answer, they heard a scream. It started low and rose to a piercing shrill crescendo, blending all the hate and all the sorrow in the world into one heart-stopping, anguished leitmotiv. Then it died away as abruptly as it had begun.

“Ooh,” Molly said. “That’s a bittern. They’re dead rare, they are.”

The guide had gone white as a sheet and stepped back into the shadow of the ramparts. The sound had apparently awoken some old memory; once bittern, twice shy, or something of the sort.

“Well?” Terry said.

“I love it, Terry. We are going to buy it, aren’t we?”

Only last year the Cordwainers had paid nearly as much for a beach hut at Lyme Regis. “Not at that price,” Terry said, with what he hoped was genuine sincerity.

“Knock off ten per cent and maybe we’d be interested.”

“Done,” the guide said.

Terry blinked twice. “When I said ten, what I actually meant was twelve.”

“Of course you did,” the guide said, contorting his neck so he could peer up at the sky without coming out of the shadows. “Twelve per cent it is. Now, by some extraordinary chance I happen to have a draft contract in my pocket, all we need to do is fill in the blanks and we’re away.” A shadow had fallen across the sun; a slick, fast-moving shadow that f lew against the wind. “Just sign the last page, where the pencil cross is, and initial the first paragraph. You can use my back to rest on if you like.”