I thought about it for a moment, before answering. “I was very young when they were killed. I’m not sure how much of what I remember of them is actual memory, and how much is what I want to remember. When I think of them, I see their official family portrait, rather than any real image, because I’ve seen the portrait far more often than I ever saw them.”
“We never turned up any evidence it was anything other than a series of stupid mistakes. Bad advance information, insufficient preparation, a mission that went wrong every way it could from the moment they hit the ground. It does happen. Do you really think I’d still be working for the family if I thought they were responsible for the death of my sister? We all loved Emily. She would have been the next Matriarch, if she’d lived.”
“Could that have been a motive?” I said. “Could she have been murdered because someone didn’t want her taking control of the most powerful family in the world?”
“We looked,” said the Armourer. “We never found anything. Not even a suggestion of anything out of place. But now, I wonder; if there really are enemy agents hidden inside the family, posing as Droods . . . I really hoped we’d put this paranoia behind us, with the destruction of Zero Tolerance. Now we have to worry about the Immortals? The men who could be anyone? If it’s true . . . then we can’t trust anyone anymore.”
“It could give us an answer to an old mystery,” I said. “Who was responsible for bringing the Loathly Ones into this world? Maybe it wasn’t our fault after all; it was theirs.”
“And they could have killed Sebastian,” said the Armourer. “I always said only one of the family could have got to him, locked securely away in the isolation wards.”
“That would simplify things,” I said. “God forbid there should be two sets of traitors within the family.”
“I’ll drink to that,” said the Armourer, producing a hip flask of brandy and liberally lacing what was left of his tea.
My throat was feeling a lot better. The Armourer must have put something in my tea too.
“There is something else I wanted to talk to you about,” I said carefully. “Something I was wondering about even before all that’s happened. Uncle James once had a gun he said could fire bullets made of strange matter, that could pierce Drood armour.”
“Yes . . .” said the Armourer. “I remember that. James asked me to make it for him. A very difficult project . . . quite a challenge, ac tually. I had it destroyed, after he died. It was just too dangerous to have around. I wanted it gone, and no threat to the family.”
“But why did you make it in the first place?” I said. “Why create a gun specifically designed to kill Droods?”
“Because he asked me to,” said the Armourer. “He was the legendary Grey Fox, after all, and if he said it was necessary, who was I to doubt him? I just assumed he had a good reason. Now, I have to wonder . . . did he suspect there were enemies hidden among us, even back then? He never said anything. He always kept things close to his chest. Even from me . . .”
The Armourer sighed heavily, and made a clear effort to pull himself together. “Come along, boy. If you’ve been declared a target by the Immortals, it’s my responsibility to see you properly armed and prepared. Look at this: a new Colt Repeater, because you wore out the last one. The new and improved version holds every kind of ammunition mortal mind could conceive of: hollow points, dumdums, silver, wood, blessed and cursed. Just say aloud what kind of ammo you need, and the Colt will have it. Even you couldn’t miss the target with this version, and you’ll never run out of ammo. Just try not to get it wet. Ruins the finish.”
“Where does all the ammunition come from?” I said, accepting the new Colt from him. “Is it held in a subspace locker, of some kind?”
“Oh please,” said the Armourer, choosing not to watch as I struggled to fit the Colt into my battered old shoulder holster. “Subspace is so last season. And don’t pretend you’d understand the physics, even if I did try to explain it to you. You never were any good at maths, Eddie. Now, what new gadgets have I got for you . . . Oh! Yes!” He glared at me. “I remember now. You’re on my special list. No more new toys for you, because you didn’t use the last lot I gave you.”
“Oh, come on!” I said. “You’re not still sulking over that, are you? I was busy! There was a lot going on! I just . . . never got around to using them.”
“You aren’t getting anything new until you’ve proved to me you can handle the last batch properly,” the Armourer said firmly.
I sighed quietly. Some arguments you just know you’re never going to win. “All right, talk me through how to use them again. You know that always cheers you up. And it’s been so long I’ve probably forgotten something important anyway.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me in the least,” the Armourer said darkly. “Here we are. I had them put out specially, when I heard you were coming home. This . . . is the Gemini Duplicator. Looks like a simple gold signet ring. You activate it by pressing hard against it with the adjoining fingers. Put it on, put it on . . . Yes. You now have the option of bilocation. And please, I have already heard every possible variation of every joke involving the word bi, and not one of them was worth the breath it took to tell them. Your generation thinks it invented sex. In this case, bilocation means the ability to be in more than one place at the same time. Means you can get twice as much work done, whilst at the same time providing an unbreakable alibi. Sort of like multitasking, only more so. And yes, I am way ahead of you as always, you can make more than two of yourself at the same time, but the more duplicates you call up, the harder it will become to concentrate, to control you all. Make too many of yourself, and you could end up lost in the crowd, and unable to find your way back.”
He handed me a small black box, containing a pair of silver cuff links.
“Ah,” I said. “I remember those. The Chameleon Codex. They pick up trace DNA from people I come into contact with, so I can make myself into an exact duplicate of them. Oh, I can see endless possibilities for fun here. I can do women as well as men, can’t I?”
“You have no shame,” said the Armourer. “Now, this is a skeleton key, made from real human bone. Don’t ask who it came from; you really don’t want to know. Opens any lock, physical or electronic, and in an emergency, will even open a bottle of wine. Right. That’s it. I expect a full report on all of them as soon as this is over, detailing every way you made use of them, complete with problems and recommendations. And then I’ll let you see some of the really fun stuff I’ve been working on.”
I slipped the cuff links into place, popped the skeleton key in my pocket, and then looked thoughtfully at the Armourer.
“Uncle Jack . . . There’s something I never told you. When the Blue Fairy was killed last year, during the great spy game, I went to take the stolen torc off his body. But when I touched it with my armoured fingertip, the armour . . . absorbed the Blue Fairy’s torc. Just sucked it right in. I kept quiet about it, because the implications worried me. There’s still a lot we don’t understand about this new armour Ethel’s given us. But now I have to wonder . . . Could the Matriarch’s killer have taken her torc in the same way? And if he did, would that make his armour twice as strong? You read my report on what happened when I encountered the old monster, Grendel Rex, the Unforgiven God, in Tunguska last year. He absorbed the torcs of others, to make himself a living god. Until the family took him down, and imprisoned him under the permafrost. Could something like that happen again?”
“You do enjoy giving me things to worry about, don’t you?” said the Armourer. He scowled thoughtfully. “We still don’t know enough about the properties and limitations of the new armour. We treat it like the old armour because that’s what we’re used to, but it’s potentially very different. It is strange matter, after all. Not of this earth . . . Ethel? Are you listening?”
Oh sure! Ethel said cheerfully. I’m always listening, except when I’m not. But there isn’t much I can tell you about the armour I provide. It’
s as close to the old armour as I could make it, only more so. I’m constantly amazed at all the wonderful things you’ve learned to do with it. But I can’t help you with its limitations; this world and its physical restrictions are still something of a mystery to me.
“Are we going to have to go through the privacy thing again, Ethel?” I said.
But you weren’t alone! There were two of you!
“Sometimes two people need their privacy even more,” I said pointedly.
Oh pooh! You’re talking about that sex thing, aren’t you. Like I care . . .
“Let us talk about the armour,” the Armourer said doggedly. “Eddie, did you feel any stronger, after you’d absorbed the Blue Fairy’s torc?”
“Not that I noticed,” I said. “But given how strong the armour is normally . . . I have just survived being inside a hotel when it collapsed, but so did Luther, and he only had the standard armour.”
“I can see I’ll have to run a whole series of tests,” said the Armourer, brightening up a bit. “The whole family depends on the armour. We need to know everything there is to know about it.”
Good luck with that, Ethel said cheerfully.
“Go away, Ethel,” I said firmly.
I’ve been talking to your poltergeist, said Ethel. Oh, the things I could tell . . .
I waited, but her vague sense of presence was gone. It’s never easy talking to Ethel. She does her best to be human, but it’s only ever an act. So much more than human, but hopefully less than a god. I couldn’t help noticing she hadn’t said anything about Molly’s death. I hadn’t raised the subject for fear she’d start wittering on again about how life and death are just different states of being. I really wasn’t in the mood. I took the Merlin Glass out of the sunspace pocket it had disappeared into on arriving in the Armoury, and every alarm in the world went off at once. The Armoury was full of bells, sirens, flashing lights, the works. All the lab assistants galvanised into action and dived for cover. Uncle Jack ran madly around the Armoury, shutting down one system after another, swearing at the top of his voice. After a while, peace and quiet grudgingly returned. Lab assistants reappeared here and there, peering cautiously out of their hiding places with eyes like owls, brandishing various nasty-looking weapons. The Armourer looked them over, with cold calculation.
“Very good, boys and girls, excellent reflexes. Claudia, put that portable disintegrator back where you found it. Kenneth, has Matron seen those gills? And Gregory, where did that trapdoor come from? I’ve told you all before—you’re not to add modifications to the Armoury without submitting plans in advance. All right, everyone, back to work. Make me proud. Come up with something really upsetting, and there’ll be ice cream for everyone.”
He turned his back on them and looked at me.
“Sorry about that,” I said.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “The occasional emergency and threat to life helps keep them on their toes.”
“Why didn’t the Glass set off the alarms when it brought us here?”
“Because I’ve programmed the Armoury to ignore that. Just hadn’t got round to telling it to ignore the Glass’ presence. It really is a very dangerous item.” He looked at the Merlin Glass thoughtfully. “In fact, the more I discover about it, the more disturbed I become. The Librarian sent me a book he found in the Old Library the other day. It had a lot to say about the Merlin Glass, mostly operating instructions, all the practical stuff; but not a lot about why it was created in the first place. Officially, it was a gift to the Droods, from Merlin himself, for services rendered. Back then, that could cover a whole lot of ground. Hardly anything in the book about the Glass’ history, who used to own it, and what happened to them. Though I did come across a rather interesting footnote, suggesting that there might be Someone or Something imprisoned inside the Glass. Apparently you can sometimes catch glimpses of it in the Glass’ reflection. It ˚ might be what powers the Glass.”
“As long as it doesn’t turn out to be a small Victorian girl with long blond hair,” I said solemnly.
“Never liked those books,” said the Armourer. “Creeped the hell out of me when I was a boy. Entirely unsuitable for children, I’ve always said.”
“How is William?” I said, carefully changing the subject. “Has he settled into his position as head Librarian?”
“Not really,” said the Armourer. “He’s still crazy, and not in a good way. But if anyone in this family knows anything that matters about the Immortals, it will be William. He knows everything. When he can remember it.”
“He didn’t know much about the Apocalypse Door,” I pointed out.
“You need to pop into the Old Library and have a good talk with him,” said the Armourer. “I’ll stay here, where it’s safe and sane.”
“What if the Sarjeant-at-Arms turns up here looking for me, and starts putting the pressure on you?”
“Like to see him try,” said the Armourer. “I think sometimes people forget I used to be a field agent. I’m just in the mood to get unpleasant and unreasonable with someone. I’ve got a set of depleted uranium knuckle-dusters around here somewhere.”
I never know when he’s joking.
CHAPTER FIVE
Secret Discussions, With Unexpected References to Heaven and Hell
I stepped through the Merlin Glass into the Old Library, and the Glass shrank down and disappeared back into its subspace pocket with even more haste than usual. As though it was actually disturbed by the place I’d brought it to. Which was fair enough. The Old Library contains far more than just shelves and shelves of old books. It is a place of secrets, a depository of knowledge too terrible for the everyday world. I was standing somewhere among the rows and rows of stacks, stretching away in every direction I looked. Not that far away, the Librarian, William, and his young assistant, Rafe, were talking quietly together, so intent on the book before them they hadn’t even noticed my arrival.
I took a moment to look around me. Simple, functional, standing shelves packed with books rose all the way to the gloomy ceiling. The floor was just bare wooden boards, that clearly hadn’t known wax or polish in a very long time. There were no windows, the only illumination a sourceless golden glow that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. Presumably real lights would be too much of a fire risk. I had to wonder about central heating, since the air was toasty warm—again, presumably to help preserve the books. There wasn’t a touch of dust anywhere, and not a single cobweb, despite the Old Library having ˚ been lost and abandoned for centuries before I rediscovered it.
The golden glow reminded me of the last days of summer, and the place felt more like a chapel than a library. A repository of wisdom, of worship. And yet, not a comfortable setting. Although the many rows of standing shelves limited my view of the Old Library, it still felt unnaturally large, as though the stacks stretched away farther in every direction than the human mind could comfortably accept. There were rumours that the Old Library was actually growing, quietly, to make room for all the books and papers entrusted to it, and I was quite prepared to believe it. Just looking around I had no idea how to find an exit, without the help of a map, a compass, and a ball of thread to follow. And I also had to wonder: if this was a labyrinth, might there be a monster somewhere, lurking at the heart of the maze?
Rafe was patiently trying to persuade William to put aside his work for a while, and get some rest. William ignored him, standing stooped before a great oversized volume set out on a podium. The Librarian was a frail old man, with a sad lost face, wearing a bright cheerful dressing gown and a pair of fluffy bunny slippers. His bushy grey hair seemed to stick out in every direction at once, but his mouth was firm and his gaze was sharp and keen. William had a great mind, but a lot had happened to it, little of it good.
The assistant Librarian, Rafe (never call me Raphael, I am not a turtle) was a pleasant young man with a bright beaming face. He always looked like he’d got dressed in a hurry and didn’t give a damn. He had a first-c
lass mind, and was devoted to the old Librarian. He was currently trying to persuade William to be sensible, and getting nowhere.
“You need to go to bed, William; get some proper rest.”
“Haven’t got a bed,” William said craftily. “I’ve got a nice little cot, and my very own blanket. All I need.”
“When was the last time you got a good sleep?” said Rafe.
The old man shrugged. “My memory doesn’t go back that far. Besides, I don’t like to sleep. I have dreams . . . bad dreams. And anyway, I’ve far too much work to do. So many books, so little time . . .”
They both looked round sharply as I approached, but William accepted my sudden appearance the way he accepted everything, because everything was equally important, or unimportant, to him. Rafe gave me a hard look.
“Hello, Eddie. I didn’t think anyone could just walk into the Old Library these days, without setting off all kinds of alarms.”
“I think the Merlin Glass is getting sneaky,” I said. “That’s what happens when you hang around with Droods. Hello, Rafe. Hello, William.”
“Hello, hello, nice to see you, don’t bother me now, I’m busy.” William turned back to the book on the podium. “If you want to make yourself useful, see if you can find my socks. Someone’s been stealing them.”
I looked at Rafe. “I thought the whole idea of allowing William to live down here was that it would help to stabilise him?”
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