Simon Green - Property of a Lady Faire

“Hold it,” said Molly. “If the Armoury’s protections are that good . . . How did we get in? How could the Merlin Glass . . . Oh, wait a minute. Is this another of your secret back doors?”

“No,” I said. “One of the Armourer’s. He’s never trusted the Merlin Glass. Especially since it merged with its duplicate from the Other Hall. So he took measures, to ensure I could always bring the Glass straight to him if it started misbehaving.”

“Your family is seriously paranoid,” said Molly.

“With good reason,” I said. “Most of the universe really is out to get us.”

“True.”

I peered cautiously round the corner of the nearest machine, and looked out across the Drood family Armoury. As always, it was a busy place, with dozens of experiments going on simultaneously, a whole bunch of complicated machines doing inscrutable things, and lab assistants running wild everywhere. Rows upon rows of work-benches, design tables, and assembly points, and all kinds of weapons being tried out for the very first time, nearly always without any reasonable safety precautions. Uncle Jack’s assistants were always so eager for a chance to prove how clever they were, it often seemed genius had taken up a lot of the space in their brains that was normally reserved for self-preservation instincts.

One assistant with two heads was arguing coldly with himself as to whose fault that was. Something large and wolfish in the ragged remains of a lab coat ran happily back and forth on all fours, pursued by several other assistants with nets and Tasers. And a young lady with far too much frizzy red hair walked calmly across the stone ceiling, upside down and apparently entirely unconcerned, as she pursued a giant eyeball equipped with its own flapping batwings. And all she had was a really big butterfly net.

Just another day in the Armoury.

There were loud bangs, even louder shrieks and curses, and several slowly dispersing clouds of smoke. Off in the distance I could just make out the Armourer himself, watching approvingly while some of the younger lab assistants blew the hell out of what was left of the firing range, with really big guns.

I pulled my head back in, and gave Molly my best serious look. “I need you to set up a distraction. Something that will grab everyone’s attention, and pull all the lab assistants away from Uncle Jack so I can get him to myself. Something loud and scary and dangerous, but preferably also something that isn’t actually going to damage anyone.”

Molly snorted loudly. “Come on, Eddie, these are your uncle Jack’s assistants we’re talking about. You couldn’t upset them with any less than a nuclear grenade. You can’t damage them! They’re like cockroaches. They always bounce back.”

“This would be a really bad time to prove otherwise,” I said. “I need the Armourer’s help, and willing cooperation.”

“Oh, all right. Something highly scary and threatening but not actually deadly coming straight up, just for you.”

Molly reached down and plucked a single silver shape from the delicate charm bracelet around her left ankle. She stood up, peered around the corner of the machinery, and threw the charm the whole length of the lab. A dragon suddenly appeared inside the Armoury. A massive creature, with a huge golden-scaled body and vast flapping membranous wings. It shrieked harshly, and lowered a horrid horned head on the end of a long snakelike neck. Its clawed feet dug deep furrows in the concrete floor, and a barbed tail lashed back and forth behind it, throwing heavy equipment this way and that. Its eyes glowed blood-red, and its gaping mouth was packed full of large serrated teeth. It was actually very impressive, given that it wasn’t real. As such.

The dragon filled all the available space at the far end of the Armoury, its curved back slamming up against the stone ceiling, while its great head swept this way and that to menace everyone in reach. The wings flailed wildly, creating heavy gusting winds to blow away everything that wasn’t actually nailed down. But the lab assistants didn’t stop to gape at the dragon, even for a moment. They took one look at the thing and immediately grabbed the nearest weapon and opened fire. They blasted away at the dragon with guns, energy weapons, magical artefacts and a whole bunch of strange things I didn’t even recognise. The dragon soaked it all up, without taking any damage.

Uncle Jack was right on the ball, of course. He rummaged around in his desk drawer and came up with a bulky high-tech thing that looked like it had been cobbled together from half a dozen other items just that morning. And for all I knew, it had. Uncle Jack does love to tinker. He slapped the piece of tech a few times, till it was ready to do what he wanted, and then a dimensional gateway appeared, directly behind the dragon. A great circle cut out of Space, with rogue energies sparking and spitting all around the circumference, and beyond it, a view of Somewhere Else.

Molly muttered a few Words, and the dragon seemed to back away from all the armed figures, retreating through the dimensional gateway and out of the Armoury. The lab assistants pressed forward after it, caught up in the moment, still firing everything they had. They all passed through the gateway, except for the Armourer, who stood his ground. He looked more resigned than upset, as though a suddenly appearing dragon was just another annoyance to interrupt his day.

The massive creature reared up on the other side of the gateway, holding the attention of the lab assistants, so they wouldn’t realise they weren’t inside the Armoury any longer. And also so they wouldn’t realise their weapons weren’t having any effect. Molly shot me a quick grin.

“I’ll have to go join the dragon, or it’ll disappear the moment the gateway closes. I’ll keep the lab assistants occupied for as long as I can, so you can talk with your uncle. But keep it short, Eddie. It only takes one smarter than average lab rat to shout Illusion! and the game’s over.”

She snapped her fingers and teleported away, air rushing in to fill the gap she’d left. I glimpsed her briefly on the other side of the gateway, half hidden behind one of the dragon’s legs. And then the circle snapped shut, and they were all gone. The dragon, the assistants, and Molly. It was suddenly very quiet and peaceful in the Armoury.

I moved out from behind the machine stacks, and headed for the Armourer. He dropped the piece of improvised tech on his desk, and scratched at his bald head thoughtfully. Anyone else would have handled such a powerful piece of equipment more carefully, not to mention respectfully, but the Armourer built his toys to take punishment. He knew they had to work out in the field, often under harsh conditions. He sat down at his workstation and drummed the fingers of one hand on the desktop. I hadn’t got within ten feet of him when his head come up.

“Hello, Eddie. I knew you wouldn’t be able to stay away for long.”

“You knew I was here,” I said.

“Of course!” he growled. “I always know . . . Nothing happens in my Armoury that I don’t know about. It’s a necessary survival skill. Even if I am getting old, and tired. I’ve spent too many years buried away down here, Eddie. Time . . . for a change, I think. Time for a younger Drood to come in and take over. Someone who’s got the energy to keep up with all the madness the current crop of lab assistants specialize in. Some days . . . I feel that when I wake up in the morning I should give myself a round of applause just for making it through the night.”

“Don’t talk like that, Uncle Jack,” I said. “You’ll outlive us all.”

“Well,” said the Armourer, “I am working on something . . .”

He suddenly spun round on his swivel chair, so he could smile at me. I smiled back, pulled up a chair, and sat down opposite him.