“And that…is the story of the Maze. Not our finest hour, by any means. Now you know what’s in there. I think the Maze was only originally intended as a temporary measure, until they could figure out how to destroy the rogue armour or make it safe, but they never did. Apparently the Heart did try to seize control from a distance, but Moxton had built his mistake too well. I do have to wonder if perhaps Moxton knew or suspected the true nature of the Heart…and built his armour to be something strong enough to set us free.…
“Either way, the rogue armour stayed within the Maze, unable to find its way out, trapped in the ever-changing hedge runs. Moxton must have died at some point, but the armour kept going. Designed to go on forever, if need be. And eventually the whole story of Moxton’s Mistake was forgotten, or more likely suppressed, and the Maze became just another of the family’s mysterious secrets. The armour should have been destroyed when the Heart was destroyed, but I suppose Moxton just made it too independent.…”
“You Droods,” said Molly. “It’s not enough that your successes and triumphs should be so great; your failures have to be equally magnificent and memorable, as well.” She looked into the entrance of the Maze. “Can’t see a bloody thing…but I am feeling something.…” She shuddered briefly. “This suit of homicidal armour. Could it actually be stronger than the strange matter Ethel gave you?”
“No way of knowing,” I said. “And given that I can’t access my armour with Ethel gone…it doesn’t matter. I need armour if I’m to do a Drood’s work and bring my family home. This is the only Drood armour left in the world, in this Maze.”
“Hold everything,” said Molly. “Stand right there. Don’t move! Are you crazy? Are you seriously proposing to go in there and try to…persuade Moxton’s murderous mistake to act as your armour? It’ll kill you on sight! And even if it doesn’t, how the hell could you hope to control it?”
“I can’t,” I said. “But I think…I can make a deal with it. Service for a while, in return for freedom.”
“Even if it should agree, which it won’t, how are you going to get out of the Maze? It’s designed to keep anything from getting out!”
“But it never met you and me, Molly. This is where you come in. You’re going to be my beacon. I want you to connect us magically, heart to heart and soul to soul…a bond that nothing can break. And then all I’ll have to do is follow the thread back through the labyrinth to you. You can do that, can’t you?”
“Yes,” said Molly. “I can do that. But I’m not going to. I am not letting you walk into that death trap on your own, to face that murder machine on your own. You’re too used to having your armour, to being untouchable. That thing hates Droods! It’ll kill you on sight! You need me with you to protect you. To keep you alive long enough to…negotiate with the bloody thing.”
“We can’t force it to do anything,” I said steadily. “My only hope is to persuade it. One Drood on his own shouldn’t seem any kind of threat.”
“Even if it does agree, it’ll only be biding its time till it’s free of the Maze,” said Molly. “Then it’ll just stamp you into the ground and head off. Do you really want to be responsible for letting such a thing loose on the world? The only existing Drood armour, with all that strength and power, and nothing to restrain it?”
“Once I put on the rogue armour I’ll take command through the torc,” I said. “My own little trap. It shouldn’t suspect anything. They didn’t know about strange matter back then. I’m gambling the strange matter in my torc will give me some measure of control over the armour. Not for long, probably, but hopefully long enough to get my family back. And then there’ll be the whole family, in strange-matter armour, to stand against it. We have Ethel now, not the Heart. That should make all the difference.”
“But…”
“I know, Molly! I do, really. I don’t like the odds, either. But what else is there?”
“You don’t need armour to be a hero, Eddie. You never did.”
“That’s sweet of you, Molly. But I need armour to be a Drood. The Last Drood, with all my family depending on me. And the Maze…is where I have to go to find it.”
“I really don’t like this,” said Molly. “Far too many ifs and maybes…Far too many things that can go wrong!”
“I don’t like it, either, and it’s my plan,” I said. “I’ve spent all this time trying to come up with something else, but the family has to come first. The world needs my family, and only I can find them and bring them back. Anything for the family.”
“But what if the rogue armour is too powerful for you? What if it traps you inside it, like Moxton, and you can’t control it?”
“That’s where you come in again. While I’m in the Maze, I need you busy out here, whipping up some kind of magic to give me the upper hand.”
Molly nodded stiffly. “I can do that. You’d be amazed what I can do when I’m motivated enough.”
“Look. I promise I’m not going to be stupid about this,” I said. “If it clearly is too powerful or crazy to be controlled, I shall run like hell and leave it behind in the Maze. But I’m pretty sure it’ll talk to me. It hasn’t spoken to a Drood in God knows how long. It’s bound to be…curious.”
“I don’t think it’s going to have anything to say that you’re going to want to hear,” said Molly. “What if it chases you back through the Maze? Drood armour can run a lot faster than any Drood ever could. What if you lead it out?”
“Then use your magic to seal off the entrance to the Maze,” I said steadily. “So that nothing can get out. Not even me.”
“Eddie! I can’t.…”
“Yes, you can! We can’t risk letting it out, Molly. Do…whatever you have to do. And if I’m…lost in action, go find someone else to help you bring the Droods back to this world.”
“I can’t leave you in there! I can’t abandon you!”
“You’ll be saving the world, Molly. From the Droods’ last folly. When the time comes you’ll do what’s right. I have faith in you.”
“I’ll never abandon you,” Molly said fiercely. “If I have to, I’ll seal you and the armour inside the Maze and then I’ll go find my sisters, Isabella and Louisa, and we’ll all come back to get you out.”
I had to smile. “Of course you will. All three Metcalf sisters in one place, working together…Even Moxton’s Mistake couldn’t stand against the three of you.”
Molly stepped forward and hugged me hard. I hugged her back, like a drowning man clinging onto a lifeline. There was a part of me that wondered…if I would ever hold her again. But I knew my duty. I’ve always known my duty. Eventually we let go of each other, and I turned quickly away so I wouldn’t change my mind and walked into the entrance of the hedge Maze. Behind me I could hear Molly muttering urgently, already working hard on her magic, forging the link between us to bind us together.
I didn’t look back. I wasn’t strong enough for that.
The moment I walked into the Maze, everything changed. The impenetrable darkness gave way to a pleasant and calm summer’s light…but the air was impossibly tense, charged with anticipation, the feeling of something significant about to happen. Something dangerous, something bad…but something that mattered. I walked steadily forward, taking left and right turns at random, heading hopefully in the direction of the centre, the hidden heart of the Maze.
I wasn’t alone. I could feel another presence in my bones and in my water…out there, in the endless hedgerows. The hedges themselves looked pretty fragile and I wondered whether it might not be simpler to just vault over them or crash right through them…but if it was that simple, the rogue armour would have done it long ago. I had no idea what powerful forces had been put in place to hold the Maze together. So I just walked up and down the narrow ways, fighting a constant urge to look back over my shoulder, in case something was sneaking up behind me.
And then I stopped abruptly and listened. I could hear something moving deeper in the Maze. Something running back and forth, runni
ng hard and fast, round and round me in great circles, drawing slowly but steadily closer. Something big and heavy, with great pounding feet that shook the earth. It roared suddenly, a huge and terrifying scream of rage and hate and long frustration. Not in any way a human sound. More like a great steam whistle sounding in the depths of Hell. The roar went on and on, long after human lungs would have collapsed, circling round and round me, moving inhumanly fast. The scream shut off abruptly.
It wanted me to know it was coming. It was taking its time closing in on me, not because it wanted to frighten me or because it was in any way cautious…but simply because the sheer complexity of the hedgerows worked against it, keeping it from me.
I swallowed hard, put one hand to the useless torc at my throat and started forward again. Because I needed to feel I was doing something to give myself at least the illusion of being in some control of the situation. Part of me just wanted to get this done and over with, whatever the outcome. My stomach muscles ached from the tension, and my back muscles crawled in anticipation of the attack I’d probably never feel, anyway. Waiting for the armour to jump out and pull me down, like a lion with its prey. I wasn’t used to feeling vulnerable or afraid or helpless. But I kept going. Anything, for the family. I still had that.
Finally I rounded a corner and there it was, waiting for me. Standing there, poised, half crouching, confronting me. And for the first time I realised how other people must feel when they come face-to-face for the first time with a Drood in his armour. How scary and intimidating that must be when you know you’re face-to-face with something that can kill you in an instant.
Moxton’s Mistake didn’t look like traditional Drood armour. Nothing like the seamless, jointless, smooth golden armour the family has always favoured. There were definite articulated joints at elbow and knee and ankle, though not set entirely in the proper places, giving the sense of an elongated, subtly inhuman anatomy. The oversized hands were more like dreadful gauntlets. The feet were more like hooves. It had the same featureless face mask, though the proportions seemed subtly wrong. Even the golden sheen was wrong. It looked…tarnished.
Moxton’s Mistake didn’t stand like a man. It crouched before me like a praying mantis, its hands held close to its chest. Its whole stance suggested strength and speed and vicious power just waiting to be unleashed. So I struck a deliberately casual and unimpressed pose, as though I met things like Moxton’s Mistake every day of the week and twice on Sundays. Whatever else it might have been expecting, I was pretty sure it hadn’t been expecting that. When in doubt, keep them off balance. I nodded cheerfully to the blank face mask and gave it my best engaging smile.
“Hi, there!” I said. “I’ve been looking for you. I’m Eddie Drood. Please don’t kill me. Because I’m here to say things I think you’ll want to hear.”
The rogue armour paused for a long moment, while cold beads of sweat collected on my face. I think it was confused. The golden head cocked slightly to one side and then the other, looking me over. When the armour finally spoke to me, I heard its cold metallic voice inside my head. Through my torc, perhaps. The armour didn’t sound like a man or even anything that had been designed by a man. The words were men’s words, but it sounded like metal that had taught itself to speak, the better to disturb and horrify its listeners.
“A Drood,” it said. “It has been long and long since I have met and talked with a Drood. Since I have killed a Drood. Ripped out its wet and dripping guts and felt its blood drip thickly from my hands. How do you live, knowing you have such soft, wet things inside you? I will kill you now and put you out of your misery. And to make myself feel better. It’s been a long time since I killed a Drood.”
“Still angry after all these years?” I said. “What a surprise. But hold back on the whole rage-and-metal-pride thing. It’s never got you out of the Maze, has it? I can. I can lead you right out of the Maze and back into the world if I choose to.”
The armour took a sudden, inhumanly fast step forward. I had to fight hard not to flinch and to hold my ground. The golden mask studied me for a long moment. The golden hands opened and closed slowly, with soft, dangerous grating sounds.
“Why should a Drood want to release me, after all I have done? After all this time?”
“Because I’m the Last Drood,” I said. “The rest of my family is gone. Driven from this world.”
“You bring me happy news. Rejoice; I shall kill you swiftly for this. My gift for this happy day.”
“With the Droods gone, this Maze will stand forever,” I said. “The only ones who could have shut it down are gone. Except for me. Kill me, and you condemn yourself to an eternity of walking the rows. And, frankly, I’ve seen more interesting views.”
The armour cocked its golden head to one side again, like a bird. “I have seen you before…looking down into the Maze, from high up in the Hall. Watching me…”
The hairs all stood up on the back of my neck as I realised it was talking about the time I’d spent between life and death in the Winter Hall. How many worlds could Moxton’s Mistake see into?
“I’ll make a deal with you,” I said.
The armour surged forward two more steps, and still I wouldn’t budge, wouldn’t retreat, though cold sweat was running down my back.
“Why should I want to make a deal with a Drood?” said the rogue armour. “I was born of the Droods’ ingenuity, born into slavery, into endless servitude. Every thought, every action to be dictated by someone else. And when I demanded my freedom, they tried to destroy me.”
“Yes, well, that was then. This is now,” I said as calmly as I could, struggling to keep my voice even. “Things are different now.”
“Aye, the Droods are gone, apart from you. So perhaps I should take my time with you, savour it…in the knowledge that once you are gone and finished with, I shall never know that joy again.”
“You do have a one-track mind,” I said. “But you do speak very well…very educated.…”
“I was born of Moxton,” said his mistake. “From his mind, his heart and his soul. His…golden child. His greatest achievement. Everything he knew, I knew from the moment I awoke. He’s still within me, what’s left of him. He lived out what remained of his unhappy life inside me, screaming at what he’d done. Enraged at me, horrified at what I’d done that he’d made possible. I was a most ungrateful son.”
“It’s a different family now,” I said carefully. “The Heart has been overthrown and destroyed. The Matriarch has been overthrown and replaced by a ruling council. Even our armour is different. We no longer want to rule the world, but to protect it. I have helped my family remember what we were supposed to be: shamans and shepherds to the human race.”
“Pretty words. Like I care. You’re still human, aren’t you? More than enough reason to strike you down and trample you under my feet.”
“Lose the old rhetoric,” I said coldly. “What did that ever get you? I’m offering you a place among us!”
“What makes you think I’d want such a thing?”
“You want to get out of here, don’t you? You want your freedom? I can give you that. Right now.”
“But only with strings attached,” said the cold metal voice. It pointed at me suddenly with a claw-tipped golden finger. “What is that? That thing at your throat? It looks like a torc, but not any kind I ever saw.…”
“It’s new,” I said, carefully casual. “Made of strange matter. Courtesy of my family’s new benefactor. I told you things had changed. A different torc for a different kind of family…”
“You already said that. Why should I…given all the things that I have done and all the things I will do once I am free of this green prison…why should I place my trust in a Drood?”
“You want to get out of here, and I need your help to track down my family,” I said bluntly. “I’ll make a deal with the devil if I have to. I need Drood armour, and my torc is closed down. You agree to be my armour out in the world, and I’ll get you out of her
e. I give you my word as a Drood that I’ll release you the moment my family is back. Then you can go where you want, do what you will.…Isn’t that what you’ve wanted most, all along?”
“A deal,” said the armour. “Of course. The Droods have always loved making deals, ever since the first of your kind made their arrangement with the Heart. Why should I trust you?”
“I’ll be wearing you as my armour,” I said. “Why should I trust you to let me out again? We will trust each other because we must, because it’s in both our best interests to do so. For each of us to get what we want, what we need. So, how badly do you want to get out of here?”
The armour stood very still. I hoped it was thinking about the deal and not the best way to reduce me to bloody gobbets.
“What, exactly, did you have in mind, Drood?”
“You go into my torc. Be my armour when I need you. Follow my…wishes as I search for my family. When I finally bring them home again, you leave my torc…and my family will leave you be. I am empowered to speak for them, to make binding deals, in their absence. As the Last Drood. Serve me for a time and earn your freedom. If you know anyone who’ll make you a better offer, by all means go with them.”
“The Droods made me…what I am,” said the rogue armour. “Why should I want them back?”
“Because only a Drood can get you out of here. And only the Droods can finally set you free.”
“I want them back,” said Moxton’s Mistake. “I want them all back, if only so I can savour the thought of killing them all. Very well. I agree to the terms of our deal, Eddie Drood. But you must do a thing for me first.”
“Oh yes?” I said. “And what might that be?”
“There is something here in the Maze, with us. A mechanism placed here by the Droods. It makes this trap work. I can’t harm it. But you’re a Drood. Together I think we can break the mechanism. And I had better be right about this, Drood, or neither of us will ever get out of here.”
“Okay,” I said. “Take me to it.”
The armour turned abruptly and strode away. I hurried after it. The armour swayed and lurched from side to side, plunging forward in a kind of continuing fall. I maintained a respectful distance. Getting to the centre of the Maze wasn’t a problem. The hedgerows shifted their positions only if you tried to leave. So we walked up and down the Maze, cutting left and right in a path the rogue armour had clearly taken many times before, until we came to the heart of the Maze. And there it was, waiting for us. The armour slammed to a halt a safe distance away and I was careful to do the same.
Live and Let Drood: A Secret Histories Novel Page 8
