“There’s no stopping Louise,” said Molly. “That’s what makes her so . . . disconcerting.”
“Moving on . . .” I said, firmly.
“We use the ancient Martian Tombs for Summit Meetings,” said the Armourer, “because there’s nowhere left on Earth that’s truly neutral ground. Every group and organisation lays claim to some territory. So we go to Mars, when we have to.”
“Are you saying the family has its own rocket ship?” I said. “Blast off to Mars, and all that? Something worryingly old and unusual, like Ivor the steam Time Engine?”
“Well, I have been working on something like that,” said the Armourer, not at all modestly. “Though it doesn’t have rockets, and isn’t really a ship, as such. . . . But no. We have a Door. A good old-fashioned dimensional doorway. Takes us straight to Mars, no stopping off along the way, no passport control, no chance to lose your luggage.”
I looked at Molly. “He wants someone to make Ooh! and Aah! noises. You do it; I’m too tired.”
“Wouldn’t give him the satisfaction,” said Molly.
“All right,” I said. “Where is this Door? Back in the Armoury?”
“Actually, no,” said the Armourer. “We felt we needed to keep it somewhere more secure than that.”
* * *
Uncle Jack led Molly and me out of the Sanctity, and then out of the Hall, passing through the main entrance and on into the massive grounds that surround Drood Hall. Sweeping lawns, hedge mazes and ornamental lakes, peacocks and gryphons, and robot guns sleeping under the grass in case of unwanted visitors. A peaceful retreat for a family that’s always at war with someone. The Armourer led us briskly along the gravel pathway, past the East Wing and round the corner . . . and for the first time I realised where he was taking us.
The old family chapel looked just as I remembered from all the times I’d sneaked out of the Hall at night, against all the rules and regulations, to visit with the disreputable old family ghost, Jacob Drood. The chapel was tucked away out of sight, though not always out of mind, and didn’t look particularly religious. An ugly stone structure with crucifix windows and a grey slate roof with holes in it, the chapel didn’t even try to look inviting. It gave every appearance of being Saxon, with maybe a touch of Norman, but it was really just a nineteenth-century folly. Back when it was all the rage to erect brand-new buildings that already looked like they were falling apart. The Gothic tradition has a lot to answer for.
These days, the family has its own peaceful and restful and thoroughly multi-denominational chapel inside the Hall. For those who feel the need. When you have to deal with Heaven and Hell’s cast-offs and spiritual droppings on a daily basis, it makes you more thoughtful than anything else. We all believe, we have no choice, but we reserve the right to have serious doubts about just what it is we’re believing in. The old chapel is a left-over from more traditional times, and strictly out of bounds. Not that such limited thinking ever stopped me, of course.
“Isn’t this where . . . ?” said Molly.
“Oh, yes,” I said. “This is where I used to meet with the only member of the family who was more of an outcast than me. Mostly because he was dead, but damned if he’d depart. With a family as old as ours, you have to take a tough line on ghosts and the causes of ghosts, or we’d be hip deep in the bloody things. But Jacob was . . . different.”
Uncle Jack paused by the door to let me look the old place over. For a man who claimed never to look back, the Armourer could be very understanding with those who did. Most of the few happy memories I have from my childhood concern the times I escaped from my family, with Uncle Jack in the Armoury, or Jacob the ghost in the chapel. It seems like every time I come home, I get my past pushed in my face. Like the family can’t even leave my memories alone. . . .
I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and looked the chapel over. Ugly as ever—rough stone walls buried under thick mats of ivy. The heavy greenery was already stirring and murmuring restlessly, disturbed by our presence. I stepped forward and spoke to the ivy in a calm and friendly way, and it soon settled down again. Jacob’s personal early warning system . . . still operating long after he was gone. The heavy door still stood half open, wedged in place. Swollen wood in a contorted frame. I put my shoulder to it, and the door creaked loudly as it slid reluctantly inwards. I led the way in.
The interior was the same old mess. All the pews had been pushed over to one side long ago, and stacked up against the wall. Dust and cobwebs and desiccated leaves scattered everywhere. The far end of the chapel was taken up with Jacob’s old great black leather reclining chair, set before a massive old-fashioned television set on which Jacob liked to watch the memories of old television programmes. I could feel old memories welling up, like tears I was damned I would shed. Molly sensed my mood and moved in close beside me.
The Armourer looked around, and sniffed loudly. “Horrible old place. Horrible old man. But he was still family . . . and he did finally go to his end in an honourable fashion. Destroying the Hungry Gods. I come in here, from time to time, hoping he might have found some way to escape his doom. . . . Hoping against hope that he might find his way home again . . . But he never has.”
“Why are we here?” said Molly, impatiently.
“Because this is where we keep the Door,” said the Armourer, immediately all business again. “It’s been here pretty much forever. That’s why the family suffered Jacob to remain here all those years, instead of just exorcising him. He guarded the Door for us. Family ghost, family watchdog . . . Certainly no one was going to bother the Door while he was here.”
“Are you going to get another guardian, now Jacob’s gone?” I said.
“How do you know we haven’t?” said the Armourer.
He spoke a Word of Power and gestured vaguely, and just like that the Door appeared before us. Standing still and alone, and completely unsupported, in the middle of the chapel. A heavy elm wood door with no handle or hinges, no knocker or ornamentation of any kind. No mystic symbols carved into the wood, nothing to suggest it was anything more than an ordinary, everyday door. Apart from the fact that just looking at it, you knew it was old. Really old. And that, just possibly, it was looking back at you. I studied the Door carefully from what I hoped was a safe distance. Molly strode right up to it, stuck her face close to the wood, and inspected it thoroughly. Did everything, in fact, but sniff and lick the damn thing. Molly never let caution get in the way of satisfying her curiosity.
“Old,” she growled, not looking back. “And I mean really old. I can feel Deep Time in this, going back more centuries than I’m comfortable with. And . . . I think it knows we’re here.”
She backed away from the Door, not taking her eyes off it for a moment.
“How the hell did the family get its hands on this?” I said to the Armourer. “It doesn’t have the feel of something one of our old Armourers might have cobbled together, while not in spitting distance of their right mind. This came from Outside. . . .”
“Forget Saxon or Norman,” said Molly. “I’d say Celtic. Maybe even Druidic. It’s got some of that old-time religion to it, that Nail his guts to the old oak tree vibe.”
“Very good, Molly,” said the Armourer, beaming. “Gold star on your report card, and extra honey for tea. We acquired this Door from the same place we got the Merlin Glass. From the same benefactor.”
“What?” I said. “Merlin made this Door? Merlin knew about Mars?”
“Merlin knew about everything,” said the Armourer. “That’s what made him so dangerous.”
“He gave us the Glass, and he gave us this Door?” I said. “Come on, Merlin Satanspawn was never known for his generosity. This doesn’t feel like gifts, or even tribute; it smells a lot more like payment for services rendered. So what exactly did the family do for him, all those centuries ago? That he felt obliged to craft us such matchless gifts? What did we do, or what did we promise him, in return?”
“Excellent questions,”
said the Armourer. “If you ever find out, do let us know. I’d love to have one less thing to worry about. There’s always the chance he might turn up in person one day, to present us with the bill.”
“Merlin’s dead,” said Molly.
“That never stopped him before,” said the Armourer, darkly. “So, everybody ready? Time to go to Mars, before the others get there.”
“Why?” I asked bluntly.
“We can survive the Martian conditions in our armour, so we get to open up the Martian Tombs and turn on the machines,” said the Armourer. “The old energy generators are still working, and can supply air and heat and gravity to Earth normal conditions, for the length of the Summit. And, we go first because it’s traditional. Doesn’t do any harm to remind the others that Droods always go first.”
“Of course,” I said. “The family runs on tradition. Don’t smile, Uncle Jack. I didn’t say that was a good thing.”
“The Droods are always the hosts of the Summit,” said the Armourer.
“Okay, my turn,” said Molly. “Why?”
“Because we found the Tombs,” said the Armourer. “And because we are best placed to keep the peace, if certain others start getting out of hand. Discussions have been known to get a bit . . . heated, in the past.”
“So, everyone else goes along because they’re afraid of us,” I said.
“Isn’t that what I just said?” said the Armourer. “I’d prefer to be admired and respected, but I’ll settle for everyone else being shit-scared of us, if that means we can get the job done. Decisions have to be agreed on, one way or another. Now, ready yourselves, my children. Because once I open that Door, the red planet is waiting.” He looked dubiously at Molly. “Eddie and I have our armour; are you sure you’ll be all right . . . ?”
“I go to worse places than Mars for my tea-break,” Molly said briskly. “I regularly visit clubs where you have to evolve into a more dangerous being just to use the toilets.”
“It’s true,” I said solemnly. “She has. You wouldn’t believe the things she brings home as party favours.”
The Armourer surprised me then by laughing, and fixing Molly with a twinkling gaze. “Always knew Eddie would bring home someone . . . interesting.”
Uncle Jack and I subvocalised our activating Words, and armoured up. Two gleaming golden figures stood facing each other in the chapel, and the confined space seemed suddenly that much smaller, and more shabby. Interestingly, the Door felt more real, more solid. There were differences between the Armourer’s armour and mine. His was traditional, smooth, functional. Mine was more streamlined, detailed, personalised. There was a time all Drood armour looked the same, but since Ethel gifted us with her strange matter, we can shape our armour to fit our own needs and personalities. Uncle Jack was just a traditionalist.
We both looked to Molly, to see what she would do, and then we both stepped back quickly as a great leafy tree burst up through the flag-stones of the chapel floor. The tree surged upwards, and stopped only when its leafy head slammed against the stone ceiling. The tree toppled forward over Molly, and engulfed her in a brown and green embrace, until it was gone and only Molly stood before us. Wrapped from head to toe in skintight living tree bark, decorated here and there with strings of mistletoe. She looked like a wood nymph, or a dryad of old, with an elemental Druidic feel. The hole in the floor was gone, as though it had never been there, and possibly it hadn’t. Molly turned to face Uncle Jack and me, and smiled. The gleaming bark stretched easily across her face, without cracking.
“I got the idea from you, Eddie,” she said. “This way, I carry the strength and protection of the wild woods with me, wherever I go.”
“You look amazing,” I said.
“Treemendous,” said the Armourer.
“Leaf it out,” I said.
Molly shook her head sadly. “You don’t deserve me; you really don’t.”
The Armourer turned to face the Door. “Mars!” he said loudly. The Door swung open, falling back before us, and a great red glare spilled through the Doorway and into the chapel. A whole new shade of red, unlike anything I’d ever seen before. Warm, almost organic . . .
“That’s it?” Molly said to the Armourer. “You just shout where you want to go?”
“They liked to keep things simple, in Arthurian times,” said the Armourer. “Now stay close, and don’t go wandering off.”
He led the way through the Door, and just like that . . .
We went to Mars.
* * *
Everything changed.
The light slammed down like a brick-red waterfall, and everywhere I looked, red planet Mars looked back. Even through my armour’s protection I could tell I’d come to a whole new place, a whole other world. I stood very still, just looking around me. The bleak and dusty surface of the Martian plateau stretched away in every direction. A huge red plain, interrupted here and there with rocks and pebbles, but nothing else. No sign of life at all. The surface of Mars looked like the bottom of the ocean: a sea bed with all the water gone, long gone. A scene not just dead and lifeless, but lacking in any quality to suggest there might ever have been life here. Except for the city. Straight ahead of us rose a huge cliff face. Brick red, rising high as a mountain range, dominating the horizon. And there, cut deep into the cliff face itself, Someone or Something had carved a great city.
Not as we would understand such a thing, of course, but the shapes and structures, the entrances and windows, the long lines and the deep-etched details, all added up to something recognisable as a city. I couldn’t even grasp the scale. I had to tilt my head right back, just to take in the jagged-towered top. There was nothing like it on Earth, in all of human history. The sense of . . . sheer scale, was utterly inhuman. I didn’t know why I was so excited, why my heart was hammering so madly in my chest. I’d been to other worlds, other dimensions, other realities . . . but this was Mars. And Mars has always had a special place in the human heart. It had honestly never even occurred to me that I would ever get to walk on the Martian plains. Behind my golden mask, I was grinning so hard it hurt my face.
So, this was it. The Martian Tombs. All that remained to mark the presence of a race that was over, finished. A race gone to dust and less than dust before Humanity ever appeared on Earth. Our closest neighbour, our older brother. It felt like walking through a graveyard.
Molly moved in close beside me. “A rose red city, half as old as Time . . .”
“That’s what most people say, the first time they see it,” said the Armourer.
I glanced behind me and realised for the first time that the Door was gone. Not a mark left on the red ground, nothing to show the Door had ever been there. We were alone, on Mars.
“Don’t worry, lad,” said the Armourer. “It’ll return, when it’s called. It’s a good Door.”
Molly couldn’t tear her eyes away from the deep red cliff face. “Look at it . . . it’s magnificent! That’s not even a human aesthetic, but it’s obvious what it is. A Martian city . . .”
“No matter how many times I see it, it still takes my breath away,” the Armourer admitted.
I turned to look at him. “You’ve been here before? You never said. How many Summit Meetings have you attended?”
“Three,” said the Armourer. “Neutral ground like this is important. When important decisions have to be made.”
“What sort of agreements are we talking about here?” I said. “I never heard anything about any of this, and I used to run the family! Or at least I thought I did . . .”
“We would have got around to telling you about things like this,” the Armourer said vaguely, “if you’d stayed in charge a bit longer. . . . Do I ask you about all your secrets?”
“Yes!” I said. “All the time!”
“I’m allowed,” said the Armourer. “I’m your uncle. I worry about you. When are you two going to get properly married, and make me a great-uncle? I’m not getting any younger, you know.”
“N
o,” I said. “But I bet you’re working on it.”
The Armourer shrugged easily. “Ask me something else.”
“How are we hearing each other talk?” I said. “There’s no atmosphere here.”
“Armour speaks to armour,” said the Armourer. “Though how Molly’s joining in is frankly beyond me.”
“Why did the Door drop us all the way out here, on the Martian plain?” said Molly. “It’s a good half-hour’s walk to that cliff. Why not deliver us safely inside the Martian Tombs?”
“Because the Tombs won’t let it,” said the Armourer. “This . . . is as close as the Tombs will allow.”
“Who built the city?” I said. “And when?”
“We don’t know,” said the Armourer. “We just found it. The family, I mean.”
“When?” said Molly.
“More centuries ago than I am comfortable considering,” said the Armourer. “Our family does get around. . . . You must always remember that the Droods are very old and hold many secrets. All I can tell you is that our family’s age is nothing compared to that city. The Tombs are really old. Millennia old. You’re about to ask me how we came here and discovered the Tombs, aren’t you, Eddie? Well, not even I know everything. Loath though I am to admit it. There’s supposed to be a full report on the original discovery somewhere in the Old Library. But William hasn’t found it yet. He says it’s hiding.”
I looked at Molly. “Are you all right, in your . . . bark? Breathing okay?”
“I’m fine, Eddie. Don’t fuss. I’ve probably got more air inside my woods than you have in your armour.” She stopped to look at the Armourer. “Should we be hurrying? Didn’t occur to me to wonder about your air supply.”
“We have more than enough,” the Armourer said comfortably. “But you’re right; we should get a move on. The others will be here soon.”
He started forward, across the great red plain, and Molly and I hurried after him.
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