Simon Green - Property of a Lady Faire

“Well, well,” I said. “The Sarjeant-at-Arms, out in the field . . . He is taking this seriously. And, perhaps, personally.”

Diment gestured at my safe house, having presumably got to my part in what happened, and the Droods all turned to look at my window. Molly and I both flinched back in spite of ourselves, but they only looked casually at the house for a moment, then turned back to Diment. The house’s shields were still holding. The Sarjeant gestured for the other Droods to inspect the dead False Knights thoroughly, while he continued his interrogation of Diment. The Droods nodded quickly and moved away to form a circle round the bodies and bits of bodies. Some knelt down to study the bitter yellow armour close up, though they were all very careful not to touch anything.

“That was close,” I said. “Too close for my liking. I think we should go visit the Doormouse. Right now. No, wait a minute . . . Am I right in thinking his House of Doors is situated in the Nightside?”

“Well, yes and no,” said Molly.

“That is never a good start to any answer,” I said. “Molly, I keep telling you, I can’t enter the Nightside! Droods are banned, by long compact and agreement!”

“Even rogue Droods?”

“I think especially rogue Droods.”

“Well, technically the House of Doors isn’t necessarily actually inside the Nightside,” said Molly. “You can access the Doormouse’s establishment from the Nightside, but then, you can access it from a whole lot of places. The entrance may be in the Nightside, but the shop isn’t. That’s the whole point of Doors. They’re short cuts, through Space. So the House of Doors is in the Nightside, but not of it. A bit.”

“That is a technicality,” I said. “But it’s good enough for me. If the Merlin Glass is in a mood to cooperate . . .” I glared at the hand mirror, still firmly gripped in my hand. “You behave yourself, or I’ll write dirty words on you with a bar of soap.”

The Merlin Glass seemed to stare innocently back at me. I took another look out the window. The Sarjeant-at-Arms was looking straight at me from the middle of the road, standing very still. I stood just as still. Could he see me? His face was unreadable, his gaze steady. And then he turned away, and I started breathing again. If the Sarjeant had seen me, he’d chosen to let me go. Which wasn’t like the Sarjeant-at-Arms. Unless he knew something I didn’t. Which wouldn’t surprise me in the least. Given my current situation, I was entirely ready to believe that everyone in the world knew more about what was really going on than I did.

So I needed to concentrate on what mattered: getting my hands on the Lazarus Stone, and rescuing my parents. I turned my back on the window and nodded abruptly to Molly. She provided the Merlin Glass with the spatial coordinates for the House of Doors, and the hand mirror jumped eagerly out of my hand, shaking itself out to Door size. A bright light shone through the Glass from the other side, and I stepped quickly through the Door, with Molly on my heels.

• • •

We arrived in a large and strikingly impressive reception area that was bigger than most shops. The Merlin Glass shut itself down immediately, shrank back to hand-mirror size, and all but forced itself into my grasp. I got the distinct impression it didn’t like this new location. I put it away, and looked curiously about me.

“This is it!” Molly said proudly. “The House of Doors! For when you definitely, absolutely, have to be Somewhere Else in a hurry!”

“Where is this House of Doors, exactly, if it isn’t in the Nightside?” I said.

“I don’t think anybody knows, exactly,” said Molly. “The Doormouse takes his privacy very seriously, and so would you if you were large and fluffy. You can only access his establishment through the Doors he makes. And yes, there is a hell of a lot of unseen security operating here, so let’s try being polite first, okay?”

“Of course,” I said. “First.”

“Stand further away from me,” said Molly.

The reception area was a large open space of quite staggering style and elegance. Thick white carpeting and walls so white they were positively luminous. Lots of large abstract paintings and intricate mosaics, heavy pieces of antique furnishings, and a number of low tables covered with strange things that might have been high tech, abstract sculpture, or just objets d’art. The track lighting was bright and cheerful, but I couldn’t help noticing there wasn’t any reception desk, or even a receptionist. At least there was no piped music, which argued for a certain level of civilised behaviour.

“Hey, Mouse!” yelled Molly. “Shop!”

I glared at her, and she smiled sweetly back. And just like that, there he was-the Doormouse, scurrying forward to meet us from the back of the reception area. A six-foot-tall, vaguely humanoid mouse, with dark chocolate-coloured fur, under a white lab coat that reminded me irresistibly of the Armourer. The Doormouse even had a neat little pocket protector in place, to back up his many colour-coded pens. He had a dark muzzle, laid-back ears, long twitching whiskers, and thoughtful, very human eyes. He looked cute, in an oversized and extremely disturbing and unnatural way. Mice just aren’t supposed to be that big. I felt an overwhelming urge to put some traps down. The Doormouse hurried forward to join us, clapping his fuzzy paws together, and when he finally spoke, his voice was high-pitched, cheery, and not quite human.

“How did you get in here without an appointment?” he said loudly, bouncing up and down before us. “No one’s supposed to be able to get in without-oh, it’s you, Molly! I might have known. You never did have any respect for other people’s privacy. Especially when there were valuables involved. Ah, well, at least it isn’t your sisters. Don’t tell them I said that. Hello, Molly! How are you, my dear?”

Molly started to say something, and then all the colour just drained out of her face, and she would have collapsed if I hadn’t caught her in time. I made a loud, pained noise despite myself, as her weight almost dragged me down too. The damage I’d taken from the False Knights was catching up with me. The Doormouse leaned in close for a better look at Molly’s pale face, and then he nodded quickly.

“It’s dimensional shock! Seen it before, seen it before. Too many trips through too many Doors, with not enough time in between, crashes the nervous system. You’d better both come on through, into the Showroom. Yes, that’s the ticket! Oh, my word, yes. Bring her through, Drood. Oh yes, I know who you are. I know a torc when I See one.”

He led the way to the back of the reception area, chittering loudly to himself, scurrying along and then making himself wait until I caught up with him. It was all I could do to keep Molly staggering forward. Her eyes were half shut, and she was barely cooperating. I was worried. I hadn’t seen her this exhausted in a long time. She must have really drained her energies, fighting the False Knights. And I’d let her do it. I held her up, biting my lip against the fierce pains shooting through my abused body, and kept her moving.

And I still had the presence of mind to study the Doormouse unobtrusively. Very few people can See a Drood torc. That’s rather the point.

The Doormouse led us through a very ordinary-looking door at the back, and on into his Showroom. Which turned out to be almost unbearably vast. One of the biggest enclosed spaces I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been around. I literally couldn’t see the sides or the end of it. When I looked up, there wasn’t a ceiling, just a layer of puffy white clouds. The Showroom was packed full of Doors, standing upright and unsupported, hovering a few inches above the colourless floor. They stood in long rows and ranks, stretching away into the far distance. They seemed to go on forever, Doors beyond counting, made from every kind of wood I could think of, in every shade and fashion. There were even some Doors made from metal and glass and crystal. Some burned and blazed with their own inner lights. And each and every Door had its own special handwritten card, describing its particular destination. I looked at a few of the closest as I held Molly up. The Doormouse had disappeared off somewhere.