Simon Green - The Man with the Golden Torc

Molly called out to me as the armour closed in on her, but she couldn’t hear my answer. And since the Heart took up most of the space in the Sanctity, there wasn’t really anywhere for her to go. She backed away around the perimeter of the great chamber, trying to keep a safe distance between her and the advancing armour. There were two exits out of the Sanctity, but she had to know the armour would be upon her before she could even open a door. I was screaming the activating Words now, and screaming at Molly to get away, but none of it got past the featureless golden mask that covered my face.

Molly realised she couldn’t reach me and stood her ground. Her face became calm and coldly resolved. She conjured up a roaring storm wind that came howling in out of nowhere, sweeping the air before it like a battering ram. It tried to pick me up and blow me away, but my armour grew heavy spikes out of the bottom of its golden feet and anchored itself to the wooden floor. The wind battered harmlessly against my golden exterior, failed to find any purchase, and dropped away to nothing. The armour took a step forward.

Molly conjured up handfuls of hellfire and threw them at me. Flames from the deepest part of the Pit, designed to sear both body and soul, and still they couldn’t touch me through the golden armour. The flames scoured and blackened the floor around me, and the air shimmered in a vicious heat haze, but I felt nothing. The armour took a step forward.

Monsters appeared out of nowhere to block my path. Huge, awful creatures, with armoured hides and lashing barbed tentacles and wide snapping mouths full of razor teeth. But the armour walked right through the illusions to get to Molly. She backed away, dismissing the illusions with a wave of her hand, and conjured up a bottomless pit between her and me. The effort brought beads of sweat to her face. The armour leaped easily over the gap to stand before her, propelled by the unnatural strength of its armoured legs. Molly called up a shimmering screen of pure magic to stand between her and me. It snapped and crackled on the air, supported by her iron will. The armour placed a single golden hand against the screen and pushed slowly, remorselessly, with all the armour’s boundless strength behind it.

Until the screen shattered and broke and disappeared, and Molly fell back, crying out in shock and pain. Because in the end Molly was human, and the armour wasn’t.

Molly was clearly exhausted now, all her inner resources drained. She stumbled backwards, away from me, clinging to the wall for support, and the armour went after her. Its deadly golden hands stretched out towards her, and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do to stop it.

"Eddie," said Molly, in a voice trying hard to be calm and steady, "I hope you can hear me in there. I know this…isn’t you. I’ve done all I can. It’s up to you to stop the armour now. But if you can’t…I want you to know I understand. I understand it won’t be you, doing it. So don’t blame yourself. Just…find a way to make the Heart pay. Good-bye, Eddie. My one true love."

I couldn’t even answer her.

I’d exhausted all my strength, fighting helplessly inside the armour. Setting my human strength against its inhuman power. I couldn’t move any part of me except as the armour moved me. It was like having my hand disobey me, pick up a weapon, and commit murder, while I could only watch and scream helplessly at it to stop. It didn’t help that so much stress had weakened my defences, and the strange matter had flooded into all of my body now. I could feel it pulsing within me. The pain was sickening, and I was so weak I would probably have fallen if the armour hadn’t been holding me up. I was so tired. I’d fought for so long, refusing to give in, and all for nothing.

And then a little voice at the back of my head said, Then stop fighting, you idiot. The voice didn’t sound anything like mine. It didn’t sound like the Heart’s, either. So I took a gamble and stopped fighting.

I let the weakness flood through me, taking all the strength from my arms and legs. I stopped resisting and let the strange matter do what it would. I gave up…and the armour lurched to a sudden halt. Its golden hands stopped a few inches short of Molly’s throat, and then slowly and ponderously the armour sank to its knees before her. Because the torc was linked to me, body and soul, and even the Heart couldn’t break that link. The armour is only ever as strong as the man within, and this man…had nothing left. The golden living metal rippled over my skin, struggling to obey the Heart’s orders, but it was overridden by my stubborn weakness, backed by the strange matter’s presence in my body. A small amount of control came back to me, and I slowly forced the golden metal away from my face so Molly could see and hear me. She crouched down before me, and I think she could see death in my face. She started to cry.

"Sorry, Molly," I said. "But this is as far as I go. We always knew I probably wouldn’t get to see the end of the story…The strange matter’s all through me now. Only one thing left you can do for me now. Quickly, before the Heart finds a way to force control of the armour away from me, take Torc Cutter and cut the torc around my neck. That destroys the armour. It won’t be able to hurt you. Then take Oath Breaker and smash that smug talking diamond into a million pieces."

"I can’t do that, Eddie! It’ll kill you!"

"I’m dying anyway! Do it, Molly. Please. Protect yourself. At least this way…my death will have some meaning. Some purpose."

"Eddie…"

"If you love me, kill me. Because I’d rather die than see you hurt."

"I wish things could have been different."

"Me too. Good-bye, Molly. My one true love."

I lowered my golden head, showing her my neck. Already my movements were getting stiff as the Heart fought to regain control. Molly produced the ugly black shears and set them against the side of my golden neck. Somewhere in the background, the Heart was shouting orders, but neither of us was listening. Molly forced the shears together, and the black blades cut through my torc. My golden armour disappeared in a moment, and the two halves of my golden collar fell to the floor.

And I laughed out loud as new strength flooded through me.

I rose to my feet, still laughing, and lifted Molly up with me as she stared blankly into my face. She started to laugh herself from sheer relief. I took her in my arms and held her close, and she held me, and I felt strong and well and at peace at last. Molly and I clung on to each other for what seemed like forever, and it felt good, so good to be alive. Finally we let go and stood back and looked into each other’s faces.

"Eddie, you’re alive…"

"I know! Isn’t it great?"

"How…Eddie, there’s a collar around your throat. And it’s silver."

"I know," I said. "It’s the strange matter. Apparently there’s been something of a misunderstanding…"

"To put it mildly," said a new voice. "I was beginning to think I’d never get through to you in time."

The new voice was large and powerful and very sane, and it thundered through the Sanctity. It emanated from me, but it wasn’t me speaking. The Heart cried out in rage and despair, but it sounded like a very small thing compared to the new voice. The strange matter, speaking through me.

"Time for the truth at last," it said. "Know now the true history of that foul and evil creature you know as the Heart. Criminal. Sinner. Thief. Coward. Murderer. It came here because it was running scared. Because it knew I was close behind it, coming to capture it and take it back to where it came from, for judgement and punishment. For all the awful things it has done in so many dimensions. The Heart has been on the run for millennia, passing through dimension after dimension and preying on whatever it found there.