Simon Green - Property of a Lady Faire

I couldn’t help her at all.

There was no snow or ice, just black and grey rock, in a world more bleak and bare than anything I had ever seen before. I could feel the cold even through my armour. Molly had no magics left, no shields or protections. She was only human, in a place not meant for anything human to live. She collapsed against me. I called out to her, but she couldn’t hear me. She was dying of the savage cold, in the place I’d brought her to.

I looked desperately around for help or inspiration, or just something that might serve as shelter, but there was nothing. We’d appeared some way down a narrow valley set between two great mountains thrusting up into a purple sky. No sign of people or civilisation anywhere. The valley channelled the raging wind, so that it howled and shrieked as it hit us like a battering ram, again and again. There wasn’t a cave or a crevice, an overhang or windbreak. Nowhere I could take Molly to hide and protect her.

I had to do something; either I came up with some way to save her, in the next few moments, or I could watch her die. And all I had was . . . my armour. I seized on the idea. The armour protected me; there had to be a way it could protect Molly too. The armour came from my torc. I called on it, and it came out to cover me. But what if it could cover more than just me? I had learned to reshape my armour, through willpower, so what if I could make it cover both of us at once? I concentrated, and the golden armour surged and rippled all over me . . . but it wasn’t enough. Ethel had created the armour to cover just me. One torc, one Drood. I raised my head and called out.

“Ethel! Please! You made this armour; help me use it to save the woman I love! Please, Ethel, I need to do this! For her!”

And from a world away, her voice came to me, quiet but distinct.

Oh, all right. Just this once.

I concentrated again, and the golden armour leaped out from me, surging forward to cover Molly in a glistening golden wave . . . before contracting suddenly to armour her from head to toe. Sealing her off from the killing cold. She stopped shaking immediately, and I heard her draw a great, ragged breath. We were two golden statues, clinging to each other. She raised her head to look at me, and two featureless golden masks reflected each other. But I could still feel her gaze. And I could hear her laughing. She let go of me, and I helped her to her feet. And we stood together, side by side in Ultima Thule. Two suits of strange matter armour, linked by two fused golden hands. We couldn’t let go; that golden umbilical cord was all that sustained Molly’s armour. But as long as we remained linked, nothing Ultima Thule could throw at us could hurt us.

“You see?” said Molly from behind her mask. “I knew you’d find a way to save me. You should learn to have more faith in yourself. I do. Damn! This feels good! I feel better than good-I feel great! I could get used to this . . .”

“Don’t,” I said. “This is a strictly temporary solution, to get us to the Winter Palace. There’s a reason why my family introduces strict training from a very early age. Wearing Drood armour can easily become . . . addictive. We’re trained to control our armour, so it doesn’t control us.”

“I can cope!” said Molly. “Oh, it feels so good to be warm again! Been so long I’d almost forgotten what it feels like . . .” She looked around her, taking in the desolate landscape. “Miserable bloody location. Worse than Siberia. At least that had snow. This is Ultima Thule, is it? Looks like the end of the world.”

“The final winter of the world,” I said. “The end of everything. Look at the sun.”

We both looked up. In a bruised and empty sky, the sun was just a dull red circle, hanging low above the mountaintops. It looked tired and worn out, a dying star for a dead world.

“The heat is going out of this place,” I said. “I don’t think this pocket dimension was made to last. Unless it was made by someone who liked feeling miserable. I think we’re in the far future of the world, in the dying days, when Entropy is King.”

“But why?” said Molly. “I mean, really, why? If you could create a whole pocket dimension, why settle for this? What purpose does it serve?”

“Presumably,” I said, “it provides a proper setting for the Winter Palace.”

Molly sniffed loudly. “I don’t see it. Are you sure the Gateway brought us to the proper location?”

I pointed down the long, narrow valley, and there, right at the end, set between two great towering precipices, stood a single massive structure, half as large as the mountains around it. Made entirely out of gleaming ice, wide and vast and impossibly intricate, its long projections branched endlessly in all directions. Like a single massive snowflake, half buried in the cold cold ground. Shining and shimmering, blazing with its own fierce light. Unlike anything a human mind might conceive, it was overwhelming in its perfection. And yet there was something about it that made me think of an ancient fairy-tale castle. The Winter Palace of the Ice Queen, who made everyone love her, whether they wanted to or not. Who summoned men and women to her with her siren song, and made them love her until they died of it.

“The Lady Faire built that?” said Molly.

“Hardly,” I said. “The Winter Palace has been around a lot longer than she has. No, she just rents it, on occasion. Like everyone else.”

“Rents it from who?”

“Good question. If you ever find out, do let me know. Come on, let’s get moving. The sooner we get safely inside, the better. I’m not sure how long even Drood armour can protect us from such an extreme environment.”

“Why have a palace in a place like this?” said Molly, not unreasonably.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Probably to discourage unwanted visitors. All the properly invited guests are teleported in, arriving safely inside the Winter Palace without having to brave the cold.” I looked carefully around me. “I’m not Seeing any security fields, or force shields, or any kinds of protection set in place around the palace . . . No hidden mines, no floating curses, not even the most basic sensor arrays, to let people know there’s anyone out here . . . Perhaps they believe Ultima Thule is all the protection they need. And with anyone else, they’d probably be right. Come on, we have to find a way in, infiltrate the Lady Faire’s Ball without being spotted, and get our hands on the Lazarus Stone. Lots to do, lots to do . . .”

“And how, precisely, are we going to do all that?” said Molly.

“Once we get inside the Winter Palace, separately,” I said. “We’ll be far too conspicuous together. I’m hoping the Lady Faire will have invited enough guests that we can just blend in, and disappear in the crowd. But we can’t risk drawing undue attention to ourselves. Which means I can’t use my armour in there, and you can’t use your magics.”

“Oh poo!” said Molly. “I was just getting used to this armour. And I can feel my magics rushing back! I think being inside your armour is speeding up the process wonderfully.”

“Drood armour is designed to keep its wearer invisible from pretty much anything, under normal circumstances,” I said. “But the Winter Palace is bound to be bristling with all kinds of specialized security measures, to protect the guests from outside threats. And probably, from each other . . . My torc should be able to hide itself, as long as I don’t call on it, but if you even try to summon your magics, you can be sure they’ll hit you with everything they’ve got. Suddenly and violently and all at once.”

“All right!” said Molly. “We have to be sneaky. I get it! We go our own ways once we get inside, first one to grab the Stone signals the other, and then we both leg it back to the real world, at speed. Anyone would think I’d never done this before.” She stopped, and looked around her. “You know, I still can’t see the Gateway we came through.”