Simon Green - Live and let Drood

Could anyone else have gained access to this technology? said Molly. Through the traitor in the family, perhaps? Yes, I know you don t like to talk about him, but think, Eddie. Could someone else have their own version of Alpha Red Alpha that we could make use of?

Unlikely, I said. The family Armourer who designed Alpha Red Alpha was half-crazy when he started, and all crazy by the time he d finished it. Supposedly the family had to lock him away for everyone s safety. They left him alone to die, but there are stories that he didn t die. Couldn t die after what exposure to the stardrive had done to him. That he s still locked up somewhere in the Hall

None of this is filling me with confidence, said Molly. Though I will take a moment to say Your family in a very disapproving voice. Eddie, if they were the only ones to possess a dimensional engine that powerful how can we hope to go get them, even if we do get our hands on this compass of yours?

One step at a time, Molly, I said. You have to have faith.

How long ago was this Egypt thing set up? she said suddenly. How far back are we talking about?

Oh, centuries, I said. At least. My family s been around long enough to think up plans and responses for pretty much every situation you can think of. Everyone knows some of them, and I know more than most because I used to run this family. But I d never heard anything about this particular backup plan until Uncle Jack took it upon himself to tell me. Apparently not everyone else thought I needed to know. They didn t think I d be in command long enough for it to matter. And as it turned out

Are you sure this thing is still there? Molly said bluntly. I mean, hidden in Egypt for all this time?

If it isn t, we re screwed, I said. So think positively.

I held the Merlin Glass up before me, and Molly and I both regarded it thoughtfully. It looked very much like the hand mirror I remembered, but there was definitely something different, even off, about it. I remembered my uncle Jack telling me he was half-convinced there was something, and perhaps even someone, trapped inside the mirror. And that whatever it was could be glimpsed sometimes in the background of a reflected image. An extra face in a group, or peering out from behind something I looked carefully, but all I could see was Molly and me looking dubiously back at ourselves. So that was a problem that could wait for another day.

Just as long as it didn t turn out to be some blond-haired Victorian child called Alice. I d already encountered a giant white talking rabbit in the Old Library.

I reached out cautiously to the Merlin Glass through my torc and told it where we needed to go. My torc now had rogue armour in it, and this wasn t the Merlin Glass I was used to, so it did occur to me that all kinds of things could go wrong but in the end the Glass jumped out of my hand just like always, and grew to the size of a door in a moment. It hung on the air before Molly and me, dangling unsupported above the grass. Our reflections were gone. Instead the Glass showed nothing but an impenetrable darkness. Molly edged closer very cautiously and peered into the dark.

That is not exactly promising, said Molly. Where, exactly, are we going in Egypt, Eddie?

To a very secret hiding place, I said. Which I don t feel comfortable naming out loud.

Oh, come on! said Molly. Look around you! There s no one here. We re on our own, deep in the Drood grounds. Who could possibly be listening?

You heard the Road Rat, I said. All our shields and protections are down. So, theoretically, anyone at all could be remote viewing the Hall and its grounds and listening in on our every word. Very definitely including Crow Lee.

I think we should get going, said Molly.

After you, I said.

Through an unknown Glass, into complete darkness and a place you can t even bring yourself to name? Do you ever want to see me naked again, Eddie?

I ll go first, I said.

I stepped briskly over the bottom frame and through the Merlin Glass into pitch-darkness, and then stepped quickly to one side so I wouldn t be run over by Molly as she came storming through right after me. She liked to make her point, but she never wanted to be left out of anything. Immediately both of us began to cough and choke. The air was bad. It smelled strongly of spices and rot, and air that had been left undisturbed for far too long. I should have expected that. I called my golden face mask out of my torc, and the moment it slammed into place over my face, I could breathe again. I looked quickly round at Molly, but she d already conjured up a bubble of fresh air around her head. The edges of the magical field shimmered in the gloom. She glared at me, and I shrugged apologetically.

Bright sunlight streamed through the open Merlin Glass behind us, summer sunshine falling through from the Drood grounds, illuminating an enclosed stone chamber no more than twenty feet square with no obvious door or other openings and an uncomfortably low ceiling. Dust thrown up by our sudden arrival swirled back and forth in the stream of light. I asked Molly to call up some witchlight, and she nodded quickly. A few muttered Words later and a warm and cheerful amber light radiated from her left hand, held up above her head. I immediately shut down the Merlin Glass. It fell back to its usual size, cutting off the sunlight, and I tucked the Glass away in my pocket. Molly s witchlight illuminated the chamber well enough.

And I didn t want something as powerful as the Merlin Glass announcing our presence to anyone who might be watching.

There was nothing in any way interesting about the stone chamber the Glass had delivered us to. Square, dusty, entirely enclosed. No obvious way in or out. Thick dust jumped up from the floor with every small movement Molly and I made, forming clouds in the air before falling sullenly back again. The four walls were completely bare, featureless; just basic blocks of dark stone put in place God alone knew how long ago. My family hadn t made this place. We just took advantage of it.

Are you sure we re in the right place? said Molly. I m not seeing anything useful. In fact, I m not seeing anything worth looking at.

I gave the Glass the right coordinates, I said.

The place isn t important; it s just a repository for what we re looking for.

Then where are we? said Molly. Her voice, and mine, sounded very flat and very small in the ancient enclosed surroundings. I am officially not impressed by any of this or the fact that I ve got to maintain a goldfish bowl of fresh air around my face. So, tell me exactly where we are right now or I am divorcing you.

We re not married.

Eddie!

We are in the Valley of the Kings, where ancient Egypt buried their most revered dead, I said. Or at least we are currently deep underground, underneath the Valley of the Kings. In a secret compartment of an undiscovered tomb. And, no, I don t know whose. There are still quite a few undiscovered tombs buried deep under the shifting sands, ready to be dug up. And given some of the things the old-time pharaohs had to bury or imprison everything from djinn with bad attitudes to animal-headed gods that had got a bit above themselves it s probably just as well that no one s found them.

Molly looked at me for a while, realised that I d said all I was going to say on the subject and gave me one of her looks.

You really do get on my tits, sometimes, Eddie. You know that? We re here somewhere, in someone s tomb, looking for something. I ll bet my sister Isabella knows more about this place than you do. More than your whole family, probably.

I wouldn t doubt it, I said generously.

Molly sniffed and looked about her, trying to find something worth looking at. Isabella would love this. Much more her thing than mine. Louisa; who can say? Wait a minute. Did you say deep underneath the Valley of the Kings? How deep, exactly?