Simon Green - Live and let Drood

I keep trying, but all I get is this mental static. They re just so different! I ll keep trying, though. But first things first. You need your armour back, Eddie.

And I cried out loud in relief as armour poured out of my torc and formed around me. I d forgotten how good it felt after the cold embrace of the rogue armour. I revelled in the feeling for a moment and then reluctantly armoured down again. But before I could say anything, the rose red glow seemed to concentrate around Molly, as though Ethel was studying her closely.

That s a very interesting torc you ve got there, Molly, said Ethel. Where on earth did you get it? It s not one of mine. I can see it contains armour, but it s not strange matter. It tastes funny. I don t like it.

I don t like it, either, said the Sarjeant-at-Arms. Only Droods are supposed to have armour.

This was a special case, said Molly.

I needed armour, I said steadily. And you were gone with the Hall, Ethel. So I went with the only armour that was left. The armour in the hedge Maze. Moxton s Mistake.

The Sarjeant just frowned, but William s head came up immediately. He looked at me sharply, and I thought he was going to say something, but he didn t.

Still doesn t explain why she turned up here wearing it, and not you, said the Sarjeant.

It s complicated, said Molly.

I want to know what it is! insisted the Sarjeant.

It s rogue armour, I said. Created by a previous Armourer to be intelligent, self-aware and to operate on its own. It rebelled and killed a whole bunch of Droods. That s why it was imprisoned in the hedge Maze for so long. But I made a deal with it: service in return for freedom. And since I spoke with Drood authority, Sarjeant, you will abide by my decision in this matter.

The Sarjeant scowled at Molly s torc but said nothing.

How did you get here, Eddie? said William.

How did you find us?

The Merlin Glass, combined with some useful information I picked up along the way, I said. Which I really do need to get to the Armourer. Defend the Hall, Sarjeant. Buy us time to get the dimensional engine working again. Regent, Patrick, Diana: You come with me and Molly. You re about to see a part of the Hall we don t normally show people.

Not back in the Hall ten minutes, and already you re barking orders, said Molly.

I led them all down to the Armoury, that great stone cavern set deep in the bedrock underneath the West Wing. It felt weird, hurrying through deserted workstations and abandoned firing ranges, with not a single overenthusiastic lab assistant to be seen, doing something unwise with something dangerous. It reminded me too much of the deserted Armoury in the ruined Hall. I found the trapdoor lying open at the far end of the Armoury, and we all gathered around it. Nothing to be seen but the top part of the iron ladder leading down into an impenetrable darkness. I didn t give any of them time to think about it, just started down the ladder without looking back. I was quietly pleased that one by one they followed me down, without saying anything. There was no light anywhere, and several times I had to stop and feel for the next rung in the ladder with my foot. The ladder seemed to descend for ages, long enough that my leg muscles had begun to cramp painfully by the time I reached the bottom. The moment I stepped away from the ladder, a bright light flared up, dazzling me for a moment. The others quickly joined me, and then we all waited patiently as the Regent took a moment to quietly massage his old leg muscles.

We had arrived in a truly massive stone cavern stretching away in all directions. It looked to be bigger than the whole Hall itself, and I wasn t even sure exactly where under the Hall we were. The huge stone walls were covered with line after line of carefully delineated mathematical symbols, none of which meant anything to me. The Armourer had called them mathemagics, the bastard child of supernatural equations and description theory. When people start telling me things like that, I usually just nod and move on because I know that even if I do ask questions, I m not going to understand the answers.

Strange machines rose everywhere, set out in no obvious pattern, packing the great cavern from wall to wall and from floor to ceiling, with only narrow walkways left in between. Technology so advanced that none of it meant anything to me. Just brutal and ugly shapes, with no obvious function or controls. Some of the machines appeared blurred or indistinct, as though human eyes couldn t properly perceive or understand them. The result of one Armourer s mad wisdom. Along with gifts from other worlds, dimensions, realities. Our best and craziest Armourers have always been pack rats, putting things we pick up along the way to good use. Drood knowledge is older and weirder than most of us care to admit. Mile upon mile of colour-coded cables held everything together and hung in a complicated web between the upper levels of the machines and the uneven stone ceiling. Sometimes they twitched dreamily, like a dog s legs kicking in its sleep.

I called out to the Armourer, and his voice rose from deep back in the cavern.

Over here! Whoever you are. Unless you re a monster, and then I m out. Leave a message.

I headed for his voice, past colossal machines whose intricate workings were constantly moving, rising and falling, turning this way and that in endless variations, in pursuit of unknown purposes. Some of the structures seemed to lean and slump against one another, half melting, combining into some new and even stranger thing. Some changed shape right before my eyes, as though unable to settle, humming loudly to themselves in complex harmonies. And all the time I had the feeling of being watched and studied by unseen cold and thoughtful eyes. The cavern was comfortably warm and well-lit, but there was a bristling static in the air and the smell of iron filings and something burning, and I couldn t escape the feeling that I just wasn t welcome.

None of the others said anything. They just stuck very close to me as I led them through narrow wandering walkways. Just as well, because I didn t know what I could have said in return, except, Yes, I know. It creeps the hell out of me, too.

And finally, at last, we came to Alpha Red Alpha itself, which looked just as complicated and disturbing and overwhelming as I remembered it. Big as a house, bigger than most houses, rising all the way up to the ceiling, so you had to bend your head right back to see the top of it. It looked mostly like a plunging waterfall of solid crystal with glowing wires running through it like multicoloured veins. Etched all over with row upon row of inhuman symbols. And all of this surrounded a massive hourglass, some twenty feet tall or more, fashioned from solid silver and glass so perfect you could barely see it. The top half of the hourglass was full of shimmering golden sand, with not one golden mote falling down into the lower half.

The Armourer s lab assistants were crawling all over Alpha Red Alpha, clinging precariously to outcropping parts, making adjustments, taking readings and occasionally just hitting it with hammers in a hopeful sort of way.

The Armourer himself came bustling forward to meet us a tall middle-aged man with too much intelligence and nervous energy for his own good, wearing the usual stained and slightly charred lab coat over a T-shirt reading Eat, Shoot and Leave. He was quite bald, apart from two tufts of white hair jutting out over his ears, from where he kept tugging at them while he was thinking, and bushy white eyebrows protruding over steely grey eyes. He also had a permanent stoop, from years of leaning over workstations for long hours, designing useful dangerous things for the family. He beamed happily at me, nodded happily to Molly and then stopped dead as he saw who was with us. The Regent stepped forward to smile gently at him.