The Man with the Golden Torc sh-1

by Simon R. Green

Oh, sure! No problem! I just live to confuse the issue! You know, you think very clearly for a three-dimensional entity!

  So the Confusulum exerted itself, the world threw up its hands and said, Oh, have it your way then, and Molly and I appeared just inside the Hall’s grounds. Vast grassy lawns stretched away before us, with the house looming up ahead on the horizon. It was early evening now, the light already going out of the day. The sky was full of lowering clouds, and the air was hot and heavy. I looked quickly around, but there didn’t seem to be anyone about. I was half crouching, tense with anticipation for alarms going off and defences activating, but everything seemed calm and quiet, the peace of the evening undisturbed except by the singing of a few drowsy birds and the whickering of the unicorns in their stables. The peace didn’t fool me. The Hall and its grounds were seriously protected at all times by quite appallingly vicious scientific and magical means. All of which, it seemed, were currently utterly bewildered by the Confusulum. I straightened up and nodded slowly.

  I’d come home.

  "Stick close to me," I said to Molly. "The family can’t view me remotely while I wear the torc, and as long as you’re right beside me it should protect you too."

  "I can protect myself," Molly said automatically. She was staring about her with wide eyes and a disbelieving smile. "Oh, Eddie, you should have told me…This place is fabulous! I mean, the size of these grounds…You could land an airplane on lawns this size! And you’ve got fountains, and your own lake…and swans! Oooh…I just love swans!"

  "Me too," I said. "Delicious."

  "Barbarian! Are those peacocks over there?"

  "Yes. Try not to set them off. They can make more noise than the alarms."

  "I always figured you guys lived well, but this is incredible. I know some landed gentry who don’t have it as good as this!"

  "Welcome to my home," I said. "One day, absolutely none of this will be mine."

  Molly looked at me. "Why drop us off here, so far from the Hall? Why not arrive somewhere useful, inside the house?"

  "Because that would have set off alarms," I said. "Even the Confusulum couldn’t handle the kind of security my family has set up throughout the Hall. The kind of alarms primed to go off if they’re even suspicious or just have a bad dream. The defences out here are more straightforward: on/off, kill/don’t kill, that sort of thing. Child’s play for the Confusulum."

  Molly grinned cheerfully. "If I’d known burgling the Hall was this easy, I’d have done it years ago."

  We moved cautiously forward across the lawns, towards the house. We stayed off the gravel path, far too noisy, and we gave the peacocks plenty of room. A few sounded off, but no one in the house would give their plaintive cries any attention. Molly and I actually covered quite a distance before half a dozen robot guns rose suddenly out of the ground from their hidden silos. Big, ugly, brutal weapons, they swivelled back and forth as their fire computers struggled to target the intruders whose proximity had set them off. Molly and I stood very still while I rested one hand on the badge at my lapel. The Confusulum did its thing, and the guns swivelled jerkily back and forth, increasingly confused and upset by conflicting impulses. So in the end the stupid things decided that since they were the only things moving, they must be the intruders. And they shot the hell out of each other. Muzzles roared, bullets flew, and one by one the robot guns exploded messily in bursts of fire and smoke. None of the bullets came anywhere near Molly or me.

  "So much for sneaking in," said Molly as the last echoes of gunfire died away.

  "Shut up and run," I said.

  We sprinted forward across the lawns. Lights were coming on inside the Hall. I had no doubt people would be crowding around their security monitors, trying to figure out what was happening. Hopefully the Confusulum would keep them guessing for a while. The robot guns had been known to malfunction before; they were one of Alistair’s ideas.

  "Up ahead," said Molly. "What are those ugly-looking things?"

  "Oh, shit," I said.

  "I really hate it when you say that."

  "Just stick really close to me, okay?"

  Two of the gryphons came lumbering across the grass towards us, great lumpy things with gray scaly bodies and long, morose faces. They were the only ones who looked forward to intruders, because they got to eat them. The Confusulum had to be having some effect on them, or they would have foreseen our coming and warned the house. But this close, the simple creatures believed what their senses were telling them, no matter how confused they might feel. I waited till they were almost upon us, and then sank down onto my haunches and spoke easily to them, calm and friendly, letting them remember my voice as they got my scent. They approached me slowly, gave me a good sniff all over, and then nuzzled my hands with their soft mouths. They blinked suspiciously at Molly, but I just kept talking soothingly to them, keeping their attention on me. They sat down and leaned their great weight against me, making happy snuffling sounds.

  "Those things smell really horrible," said Molly.

  "Hush," I said. "You’ll hurt their feelings. They’re gryphons. Better than guard dogs because they can actually see the near future. Usually. But because they never met a piece of carrion they didn’t want to roll in, they’re never allowed inside the house. I always felt sorry for them when I was just a kid; left out here alone, in all weathers. So I used to sneak out at night and feed them bits of offal and stuff from the kitchens. It seems they remember me…"

  "You soppy old softy, you," said Molly. She reached cautiously over and scratched one of the gryphons behind its long pointed ear, and it snuffled loudly in gratitude.

  "Down!" I said suddenly.

  Molly and I crouched down with the gryphons, just a gray silhouette in the growing dusk, while I watched the Sarjeant-at-Arms stalk out of the Hall’s main front entrance. He looked around the grounds, taking his time, but his gaze swept over Molly and me and the gryphons without slowing. Of course he wouldn’t believe the guns blowing each other up was just a malfunction. He lived to defend the Hall. More members of the family poured out of the entrance behind him, and the Sarjeant directed them this way and that with curt instructions. They swarmed around the exterior of the house, looking for signs of an attack or a break-in, while others fanned out across the grounds. A few even took off from the landing pads on the roof, in those clumsy old da Vinci helicopter chairs that the Armourer’s been trying to get the bugs out of for years. Rather them than me. They roared by overhead, spotlights stabbing down through the gathering gloom. I hadn’t expected such a dramatic response to a single incident. Presumably everyone was still on edge after the attack on the Heart. Or perhaps it was because I’d phoned and told them I was coming home…I liked to think so.

  "You had to tell them you were coming," said Molly.

  "The grounds defences have all been activated," I said to avoid answering her. "But as long as the Confusulum’s operating, they shouldn’t be able to lock on to us."

  "Why are they all carrying weapons?" Molly said suddenly. "I thought you people mostly relied on your armour."

  "Mostly, yes. But just recently there’ve been some serious attacks on the Hall. Really nasty ones. No one feels like taking chances anymore."

  "Attacks?" said Molly. "By anyone I might know?"

  "We don’t know who’s behind them," I said. "And if my family doesn’t know, no one knows. But that’s why they’re pulling out all the stops. The very thing I’d hoped to avoid, by sneaking in. Bloody Alistair and his stupid bloody robot guns."

  "Should we leave?" said Molly. "Maybe come back some other time?"

  "We don’t have the time," I said. "For better or worse, this is the only chance we’ll get. You still game?"

  "Always," she said, grinning. "Let’s go start some trouble."

  "Let’s," I said, grinning back at her.

  We gave the gryphons a few last pats, and then pushed them firmly away and sprinted across the open lawns towards the house. In the growing dusk, we should
look like just two more moving figures. If the family were bracing themselves for an attack by the kind of thing that had broken into the Sanctity, they shouldn’t be looking for merely human targets. I could feel the grounds’ defences trying to kick in: all the hidden trapdoors and deadly weapons, all the scientific and magical devices in their underground silos, but none of them could lock on to Molly or me as long as we were protected by the Confusulum. Force shields snapped on and off all around us, magical energies manifested and dispersed in a moment, and none of them could touch us. The grounds’ defences were baffled. But there were still far too many people around, too many Droods between us and the Hall. Someone would be bound to challenge us soon.

  "We need a diversion," I said to Molly. "Something big and dramatic, to draw people away from the front of the house."

  "No problem," said Molly, breathing just a little hard from the running. "Watch this."

  She muttered under her breath and gestured sharply, and suddenly a huge dragon was hovering over the Hall. A massive creature, with a long golden-scaled body and vast, flapping membranous wings. It shrieked horribly as it descended on the Hall, a horrid horned head thrusting forward on the end of a snakelike neck. It was impossibly big, half the size of the house, and it tore great holes in the outer wall of the east wing with casual blows from its clawed hands. It breathed fire across the landing pads on the roof, sweeping away all the vehicles there in one great blast of flames. It screamed in triumph and slammed into the Hall with one great shoulder so hard that the whole building shook.

  "Will that do?" said Molly.

  "Where the hell did you find a dragon that size?" I said. "I am officially impressed, Molly. Honest. But that is my home, and I would rather like to have some of it left at the end of the day! Does the word overkill ring any bells with you? Are you sure you can even control it?"

  "Of course," said Molly. "I once took a thorn out of its paw. Relax, Eddie, it’s not a real dragon. Just another charm off my bracelet."

  "So the damage it’s doing to the Hall isn’t real either?"

  Molly frowned. "Well, yes and no."

  "Let’s get inside quick," I said. "Before the family works out what’s happening."

  Most of the family had gone around to the back of the house by now to deal with the most obvious threat, leaving the front of the Hall undefended. Just open lawns between me and the front entrance. And then the scarecrows appeared out of nowhere, blinking in to block my way. First one, then two, and finally an even dozen. I grabbed Molly by the arm, and we skidded to a halt well short of them. They moved stiffly to take up defensive positions between us and the front entrance, their gloved hands stiff as claws. Unnaturally still, impossibly strong. Twelve scarecrows come down off their crosses, wearing battered clothes from various periods all the way back to the seventeenth century. The Drood family’s most hated enemies, made over into scarecrows to guard the Hall they’d threatened. Just because we could. The scarecrows’ faces were weather-beaten, taut, brown as parchment, and just as brittle. Tufts of straw protruded from the ears and from the mouths, but their eyes remained still alive, endlessly suffering.

  "Are those the…?" said Molly.

  "Yes," I said. "Someone in the Hall has panicked and let the scarecrows loose. Our fiercest enemies, defeated and put to use. Their bodies hollowed out and filled with straw while they were still alive, and then bound by unbreakable pacts to defend the Hall, to their destruction if necessary. Not dead, any of them. They couldn’t still suffer, if we let them die. If you listen in on the right supernatural frequency, you can hear them screaming."

  "Oh, my God," said Molly. "That’s Laura Lye, the water elemental assassin, the one they called the Liquidator. And that’s Mad Frankie Phantasm. I always wondered what happened to them."

  "No one attacks the family where we live and gets away with it," I said.

  "We take that personally. And we always did like a splash of irony with our revenge. So now you know what waits for us, if we get this wrong."

  "Why isn’t the Confusulum dealing with them?" said Molly.

  "Good question. I think…because the scarecrows exist on the border between life and death, neither one nor the other. Their nature is already so confused the Confusulum probably couldn’t make it worse if it tried."

  "Are we in trouble here?" Molly said carefully.

  "Absolutely," I said. "Because of what they are, and what was done to them, the scarecrows can’t be hurt, stopped, or turned aside."

  "So what do we do?"

  "We take them down hard," I said. "Because in the end they’re just scarecrows, while we’re Eddie Drood and Molly Metcalf."

  "Damn right," said Molly.

  I armoured up, the living metal sweeping over me, and I went to meet the scarecrows as they lurched forward. The golden armour made me strong again, despite the pain stabbing through all of my left side now. I slammed into the first scarecrow and tore it apart with brute armoured force. I ripped its arms off, smashed in its chest, and then tore the head right off its shoulders and threw it away. The other scarecrows crowded around me, beating at me with their stone-hard fists, pulling at my shoulders, but even their unnatural strength was no match for my armour.

  (It was never intended that they should be able to take down a Drood. We never take the chance that our own weapons might be used against us.)

  They pulled at my golden legs, trying to overturn me, pressing in from all sides, but I stood firm and would not fall. I tore them apart, limb from limb, and no blood ever flowed, just more straw sticking out of ragged sockets. I ripped their hollow bodies apart, throwing the pieces this way and that. Heads rolled across the grass, the eyes still alive, still suffering and hating.

  When this was over, the family would just put them back together again. No rest for those who dared to be wicked against us.

  Molly took out her fair share of the scarecrows. She hit them with the four elements, all at once. Hurricane winds whipped up out of nowhere, picked up the scarecrows, threw them high into the sky, and then slammed them to the ground again. Sudden downpours targeted individual scarecrows and soaked them so heavily they could hardly move. Others burst into flames that burned so fiercely that the straw-filled bodies were consumed in seconds. And finally the earth itself cracked open, swallowed up all the scarecrows left standing, and then slammed itself together again, trapping the scarecrows underground. Molly looked around her and nodded once, satisfied.

  "Damn, we’re good."

  "Yes," I said. "We are."

  I could have used the Confusulum to interrupt the forces that kept the scarecrows going. I could have used it to free the trapped spirits from their scarecrow bodies. But I didn’t. Because they had attacked my family where we live, and we never forgive that.

  We were almost at the Hall when a voice in my ear suddenly said, Sorry! That’s it! Business calls and I have to be going! It was fun; we must do this again sometime! I looked down, and the badge on my lapel was gone. Just like that, the Confusulum had abandoned me. About to enter the centre of my family’s power, Molly and I were on our own. Which…was just typical of the way my life had been going recently. I decided not to tell Molly. It would only upset her.

  I strode up to the main front entrance, pushed open the door with a flourish, and marched on into the hallway beyond. Molly couldn’t wait to get in, actually pushing past me in her eagerness. I shut the door carefully behind us, and the background roar of my family fighting the dragon was immediately shut off. Inside the house, everything was quiet and peaceful, just like always. The slow ticking of old clocks; the smell of beeswax and polish and dust. Home. And then the Sarjeant-at-Arms stepped out of his security alcove to confront me, and I remembered why I’d been so happy to leave in the first place. He stood solidly before me, blocking my way, stiff and formal as always in his old-fashioned butler’s outfit. The man who had always been so much more than just a butler. I stood very still. I was still wearing my armour. I looked like any other D
rood. There was a chance…

  "I know it’s you, Edwin," said the Sarjeant. "I recognise the way you move. You always were sloppy, undisciplined. When the defences in the ground couldn’t lock on to anyone, I knew it had to be you. Always the lateral thinker, the sneak, skulking in the shadows. And your companion is the infamous Molly Metcalf? Didn’t take you long to fall into bad company. I always knew you were no good, Edwin. Even when you were just a boy."

  I armoured down to face him. I wanted him to be able to see my face. "I haven’t been a boy for a long time, Sarjeant. I’m not afraid of you anymore. You see this man, Molly? He made my life miserable when I was a child. He made all our lives miserable. Nothing we did as children was ever good enough for him. You see, all adult members of the family can override the collars of the children. So they can discipline us, control us…Punish us. We’re a very old family, very old-fashioned, and we never did believe in sparing the rod. And this man…loved to punish children. For any reason, or none. Just because he could. We all lived in fear of the Sarjeant-at-Arms when we were kids."

  "It was for your own good," the Sarjeant said calmly. "You had to learn. And you were always so very slow to learn, Edwin."

  I armoured up again and held up my fist. Golden spikes rose up out of the heavy knuckles. "Step aside, Sarjeant. I’m not going to be stopped this time."

  "It’s not too late," said the Sarjeant. "You could still surrender. Submit to family discipline. Make atonement for your crimes."

  "I never committed any crimes! Never! But the family has."

  The Sarjeant sighed. "You never listen, and you never learn. Lose your armour, Edwin. Or I’ll make your companion suffer."

  He pulled weapons out of the air. His singular talent, given to him so that he could protect the Hall. A gun appeared in one hand, a flamethrower in the other. He aimed them at Molly, and I lunged forward to protect her. Bullets hammered against my armoured chest and ricocheted away, but the flames swept right past me to threaten Molly…only to turn aside at the last moment, deflected by Molly’s magic. She jabbed out a hand at the Sarjeant, and he staggered backwards from the unseen impact. Molly laughed at him.