Live and let Drood sh-6 Page 4

  The design has changed, I said. But I couldn t tell you how.

  Put it away for now, said Molly. It s enough that we ve got it and the enemy missed it. We re here to look for weapons. Remember?

  I slipped the Merlin Glass into the special pocket dimension I keep in one of my jacket pockets. I always like to have somewhere secure about me to store dangerous things. If only so I can get at them quickly in an emergency and throw them at other people. I breathed a little more easily with the Merlin Glass safely stored away, and looked at Molly.

  Speaking of horribly powerful things that the world is undoubtedly better off without I ve been thinking about the Forbidden Weapons. I need to be sure they re still secure within the Armageddon Codex.

  Molly looked at me sharply. You don t really think the enemy could have got into that. Do you?

  I don t know what to think anymore, I said. But given that we are talking about weapons so powerful my family locked them away, only to be used when reality itself is under threat

  We should take a look, said Molly.

  So I led the way, to the very far end of the Armoury, to the final and very off-limits stone chamber. The Armageddon Codex is kept in a very private, very separate pocket dimension, for maximum security. To get to it you have to pass through the Lion s Jaws a giant stone carving of a lion s snarling head, complete with mane, perfect in every detail. Not stylised in any way, it looks like the real thing, only some twenty feet tall and almost as wide. The Lion s Jaws are carved out of a dark, blue-veined stone, so long ago that no one now remembers who did the work. It s a lion to the life; the eyes seem to glare, the mouth seems to snarl and the whole thing seems ready to lunge forward at any moment and have your head off. To open the Codex, you have to pass through the Jaws, and if you don t have the proper clearances at best, they won t open. Rumour has it that if you so much as put your hand in the Lion s Jaws and you re not pure of heart, the Jaws will bite your hand right off. The Armourer had assured me that this was just a story to keep young Droods from messing with the thing for a dare, but I wasn t sure I believed him. The Lion s Jaws always looked hungry.

  You want to try opening it? said Molly, who knew no fear.

  I don t have the key.

  Who needs a key when you have me?

  No, Molly, I said very firmly. I m not doing anything that might upset it without the Armourer present. He s the only one who knows the correct Words to access the Codex. I just need you to use your magics to make sure no one s pressured him into opening it. Make sure the Jaws are still closed and the seals haven t been compromised. You can do that, can t you?

  Molly sniffed loudly and gave me a withering glare, which wasn t actually an answer. She struck a witchy pose, ran her hands through a series of smooth mystical gestures, and muttered meaningfully under her breath. I m pretty sure a lot of it was just for show, to make a point, but I had enough sense not to ask. Molly stopped abruptly and shook her head firmly.

  The Jaws are still firmly closed. No one s even tried to open them. And if you could See the layers upon layers of protections laid down on this thing, you wouldn t try to open it, either. This is some seriously strong shit, Eddie. If the enemy had tried to force their way in, or even just meddle with the seals, all that would be left of them would be a series of greasy stains on the floor here.

  Good to know, I said. All that matters is that the Armageddon Codex is secure.

  Yes, but we can t get to them, either! said Molly. The weapons of the Codex are lost forever! No more Oath Breaker, Winter s Sorrow, the Time Hammer and the Juggernaut Jumpsuit! The most powerful weapons in the world Just think what we could have done with them!

  Exactly, I said. The mood I m in, I couldn t be trusted with them. I would blow the world apart, if that was the only way of taking my enemy down. No. It s better this way. With the Armourer gone, no one can get to them. I think the world will be just that little bit safer, with the Armageddon Codex locked away forever. It s enough that our enemies don t have them.

  Molly pouted. You re just no fun sometimes.

  I patted the Lion s Jaws fondly with one hand, and then a sudden blast of energy threw me backwards. Molly caught me before I could fall, while a great Voice said Eddie! Eddie! Eddie! Molly moved quickly to stand between me and the Lion s Jaws, shielding me with her body, her hands surrounded by flaring energies. And then she stopped and lowered her sputtering hands, as a vision appeared before us. A middle-aged man in a white lab coat, looking seriously at both of us. A message from out of the Past. I could tell at once that it was just a recording; the vision was dim, fading in and out and ragged round the edges but when it spoke, the Voice was perfectly clear. By touching the Lion s Jaws with a Drood hand, I d triggered a hidden message from the Armourer. My heart actually leapt for a moment at the thought that finally someone was going to tell me what had happened here. And then I looked again, at the man in the lab coat, and I realised it wasn t going to be that simple.

  The man before me was clearly the Armourer, but it wasn t my uncle Jack. It was my uncle James.

  At first I almost didn t recognise him. Uncle James had always been the finest field agent the Droods ever produced. So successful he d created his own legend apart from the family. In good places and bad, in villains hideouts and disreputable bars, at the highest levels and in filthy back alleyways, they all knew his name: the Grey Fox. Tall and dark and handsome and always smartly dressed, my uncle James walked up and down the hidden world, writing the secret histories that the rest of the world is better off not knowing about. Keeping the world safe, one day at a time. The best of the best. Until he turned against what the family was supposed to represent and stand for, and Molly and I had to kill him. My favourite uncle, James had been almost a father to me. But he would have killed me in that last vicious duel if Molly hadn t got to him first with the Torc Cutter.

  He looked a very different man as the Armourer. His lab coat was impeccably white and clean, which was more than Uncle Jack had ever managed, but James looked tired and stooped. He looked older. More weighed down by long service and hard grind and responsibilities he could never trust to anyone else. His hair, which had always been proudly jet-black for as long as I had known him, was mostly grey now. His eyes were deep set, and heavy lines had been driven deep into his face. This Uncle James had known hard times, and it showed. He seemed to look straight at me as he spoke, and his manner was harsh and strained, as though he knew he didn t have much time left.

  Eddie, you re here at last. About time, boy. I m leaving this message for you because there s no one else. Listen to me, Eddie, for once in your life. We have been betrayed by one of our own. The Hall s defences are down, the Hall is under siege and the family is under attack. Our ancient enemies have finally brought us down. Avenge us! The Immortals can t be allowed to get away with this!

  Molly started to say something when he used that name, but I shushed her fiercely. I needed to concentrate on what Uncle James was trying to tell me.

  The Matriarch Penelope is dead, along with her husband, Nicholas. Jack is out there somewhere, organising what defences we have left. He always was the best field agent this family ever produced. I ve sent my lab assistants out to back him up, armed with whatever we had lying around, but the odds are I ll never see them or Jack again. They took our armour away from us, Eddie. Sabotaged us from within. I can t even activate the self-destruct systems for the Armoury. I ve destroyed the key to the Lion s Jaws; I can do that much. At least now they ll never get their hands on the Forbidden Weapons. But they ll probably get everything else.

  He stopped for a moment and then smiled at me. All these years in the Armoury, producing weapon after weapon for the family to use to bring down the world s enemies and in the end it s one of our own that s brought about our ending. There s no way out for me. All that s left is to die fighting and deny the Immortals as much as I can. I don t know where you are right now, Eddie. We tried for so long to find you and bring you home. We should neve
r have driven you out, driven you away. I don t know where you ve gone to ground, but you must have dug yourself a really deep hole if even the Heart can t find you. Listen to me, Eddie. Please. If you re listening to this, odds are you re the only one of us to survive. The Last Drood. The Immortals have made it very clear they re not interested in taking prisoners. Just bodies, for dissection. I m asking you, begging you, to forget the Past, forget everything that came between us, and do whatever you have to do to avenge the family and bring down our enemies: the Immortals. Don t let those bastards win.

  The image disappeared abruptly, and a cold deathly silence fell across the Armoury. Tears burnt my eyes. He wasn t my uncle James, but he was close enough. His words tore at my heart. Why wasn t I there when they needed me? I realised Molly was all but jumping up and down at my side, and turned to look at her.

  What?

  Don t you get it, Eddie? This wasn t your family! This isn t your Hall! This is some other Drood Hall, from some other dimension! And that means your family and your Hall are Somewhere Else, probably safe and alive!

  I had worked that out for myself, I said.

  So many of the details in what he said were wrong. No wonder the entrance to the Armoury wasn t where it should have been.

  Is that all you ve got to say? Your family is still alive! All this happened to some other family!

  They were still Droods, I said. And that was still my uncle James. I may never have known the Droods who lived in this Hall, but they looked a lot like people I did know.

  I didn t know them, said Molly, practical as ever. Concentrate on what matters, Eddie!

  Yes, I said. My family is still alive somewhere. Finding them and bringing them home has to take precedence. Vengeance can wait.

  Molly shook her head in exasperation. Sometimes I really don t understand you, Eddie. All this time we ve been grieving, under the belief that everyone you knew was dead. Now you find out they re still alive. Don t you feel anything?

  I laughed then, grabbed her in my arms and whirled her around, roaring my happiness so loud it hurt my throat. Molly whooped and cheered in my arms, tilting back her head to yell out loud along with me, then hugging me so tight I could barely breathe. After a while we both calmed down and I put her down again, and we leaned tiredly on each other till we got our breath back. I grinned at Molly.

  This is still very sad, I said. A whole other family of Droods has been butchered and their Hall destroyed. But that can wait. My family is out there somewhere, and it s up to me to track them down.

  Such a different family, said Molly. So many differences in such a short message. They had a whole different history from you. But what is their Hall doing here, in our world?

  It all comes down to the dimensional engine, Alpha Red Alpha, I said. Has to. That damned machine was created to be used only as a last-ditch defence. To save the Hall in a time of crisis, by rotating it out of this dimension, this Earth, and dropping it down in some other dimension, some other Earth, where it could wait safely until the threat here was over. The Armourer, our Armourer, told me that the first and only time it was used before, the Hall ended up materialising in some utterly alien Earth, surrounded by a whole jungle of vicious killer plants. They were lucky to get back alive. That s why Alpha Red Alpha was never used again, until I persuaded my family to wake it up, to give us access to Castle Shreck in the Timeless Moment. What s happened here has to be the result of our using Alpha Red Alpha.

  Okay, hold the lecture. I get it, said Molly.

  How about this: Someone found a way to override the machine from outside, and use it to send the Hall somewhere else. And this Hall, this other Hall, was rotated here to take its place. It was vulnerable because all its shields were down! Whoever s behind this must have seen it as the perfect way to get rid of your family and cover up what they d done! No one would even think your family was missing, with this ruined Hall to look at. Even you wouldn t have known if you hadn t accidentally activated that recording.

  At least Uncle James was still alive in that family, I said. We didn t kill him there. Maybe because we never met in that world? It was good to see him, to hear his voice again.

  Life is too short to sweat the small shit, Molly said briskly. Given a potentially infinite number of other dimensions, an infinite number of choices and outcomes is always going to be possible. If it comforts you to think of that two-faced, treacherous bastard being still alive somewhere else, feel free to do so. After everything that man did and would have done to you, I don t give a rat s arse. We re all alive, we re all dead and everything in between, on the Wheels of If and Maybe.

  Strangely, I don t feel at all comforted, I said. You re weird sometimes, Molly.

  She shrugged. Just trying to be helpful.

  So, I said. Questions Where is my family now? And who was responsible for their abduction? And if they are trapped in some other place, how can I find and rescue them and bring them home? We need information, Molly. And where better to find that than in a library?

  Molly laughed and clapped her hands together. Or, more exactly, an old library! The secret, carefully hidden and very thoroughly protected Old Library! Do you suppose this family even knows it exists? Your family didn t until you found it for them.

  Let s go take a look, I said.

  We found the official Drood Library easily enough and exactly where it should be, but there wasn t much left of it. The door had been broken in, and all the shelves were empty. Ransacked, stripped clean. The Immortals had done their best to torch the place when they left, but the flames hadn t taken much of a hold. Molly and I walked between smoke-blackened and half-charred wooden stacks, with the blackened and twisted remains of unwanted books left lying here and there on the floor. But finally, right at the far end of the library, there it was: hanging untouched on the wall, protected by ancient and unsuspected defences, a very old painting of the Old Library. I let go of a breath I hadn t realised I d been holding as I saw the flames hadn t even touched the portrait.

  There is an especially hot place in Hell for people who burn books, said Molly.

  You d know, I said generously.

  It was a good-sized painting, eight feet high and maybe five feet wide, the bright and vivid colours seeming to glow in the gloom of the burnt-out library. Centuries old, artist unknown, the portrait depicted a view of the fabled Old Library. The original repository of all Drood knowledge, long thought lost or even destroyed until I found it. I took a key out of a special inside pocket. A key my uncle Jack had given me.

  Will that key fit this portrait? said Molly.

  There are differences between this world and ours, after all.

  Only one way to find out, I said. If they key doesn t work, there s always the Merlin Glass.

  Not too sure about that, either, sniffed Molly.

  You want a slap, girl? I ve got one right here in my pocket.

  Molly batted her eyelashes at me. Later, sweetie You know I ve got to be in the right mood for a spanking.

  I laughed despite myself and leaned forward to study the silver scallops that lined the rigid steel frame enclosing the portrait. And sure enough, there it was: a very small keyhole hidden in the details of the silver scrollwork. I eased the key into the lock, turned it carefully and then relaxed as I felt the mechanism turn. I pulled out the key, and just like that the painting before us was no longer canvas and paint and a work of art, but an actual view. A doorway into the Old Library.

  It was dark and gloomy in there, with not a light to be seen anywhere. This Hall s family had never found their Old Library. Molly conjured up some witchlight, a cheerful golden glow that surrounded her hand as she held it up. The light shined out into the Old Library, challenging the shadows and pushing back the gloom before us. I stepped carefully over the frame of the portrait and into the Old Library. Molly was right there with me, holding her glowing hand high above her head. The air was cold and stale but perfectly breathable. The old protections had preserved the place p
erfectly. Clearly, though, no one had been here in ages.

  I called out, anyway, to William the Librarian and his assistant Ioreth. Because you never knew My voice seemed a very small and weak thing in such a huge and silent place. There wasn t even much of an echo; the sound was soaked up by the rows and rows of book-packed shelving, stretching away for as far as I could see into the general gloom. There was no reply I even called out to Pook, but no one answered. I think I was actually a little bit relieved at that.

  One of these days, said Molly, just a bit tartly, you are going to have to tell me the whole story about this Pook thing.

  I m not sure I know the whole story, I said. Or that I want to.

  This setting feels longtime empty, said Molly.

  Look at the dust everywhere just like when we found the original Old Library. What, exactly, are we looking for here, Eddie?

  Maybe that, I said, pointing. Look

  Not far from where we were standing, an old-fashioned brass reading stand was set up, supporting a single large leather-bound volume, its pages open to one particular place. Just waiting to be read. I took a good look around and then approached the reading stand cautiously. Molly stuck close behind, all but treading on my heels. The book looked as though it had been deliberately set out and arranged. (I was reminded of Alice in Wonderland, and wondered if I should look for a sign saying READ ME. As a kid, I never liked Alice. Far too spooky.) I leaned in close to study the open pages, careful not to touch anything. I read for some time, fascinated. I could feel Molly hovering impatiently behind me.

  What? What? said Molly, when she couldn t stand the suspense one moment longer. What the hell is it?

  It s about the Maze, I said. This is a history of the Drood family hedge Maze.

  Maze? said Molly. What bloody Maze?

  I finished reading, shuddered briefly and then made myself smile condescendingly as I turned back to Molly. Partly so she wouldn t get too upset, and also because I knew that particular smile drove her crazy.