“I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d try and talk me out of it,” I said calmly. “And I didn’t intend to be talked out of it. And anyway, it worked. William, have Rafe bring our visitor here, so everyone can meet him.”
“I’ve got him standing by,” William said dourly. “I knew you’d get to this point eventually.”
The living Jacob stepped into view beside him and smiled cheerfully at the dumbfounded faces before him. He had a glass of wine in one hand, and he must have found some food, because he’d spilled half of it down his front. “Greetings to my noble descendants! I am Jacob Drood: soldier, philosopher, and bon vivant!”
The Armourer and the Sarjeant-at-Arms, both of whom had good reason to know the ghost of Jacob, both looked equally shocked and appalled. Harry and Roger and Callan all recognised the name, and looked at me sharply. The Sarjeant, not surprisingly, put it into words first.
“Have you gone stark staring mad? Does he know about . . . ?”
“No he doesn’t,” I said quickly. “And I really don’t think we should tell him just yet. It’s the kind of thing you need to work up to.”
“Tell me what?” said Jacob, immediately suspicious.
“Does the other Jacob know?” said the Armourer. “How’s he going to take it?”
“He does know,” I said. “And he’s taking it . . . as well as can be expected. He approves, though. He says it’s . . . necessary.”
“What other Jacob?” said the living Jacob. “Edwin, is there something thou’rt keeping from me?”
“Oh, lots,” I said. “You know how it is in this family.”
Jacob sniffed, and drained his wineglass.
I stared steadily at the Armourer and the Sarjeant. “The Merlin Glass chose this man, as the best and most suitable candidate out of the whole past family. That ought to tell you something. Jacob, all will be made clear to you, in time. Now please, introduce yourself.”
“I have fought in many wars,” the living Jacob said, just a little grandly. “Those secret and invisible wars the Droods have always specialised in, for the protection of the world. I can help thee deal with the practical and political sensibilities, those being my area of expertise, in my day. The principles of waging war are really quite simple: divide and conquer, identify and strike at weak spots, and most of all, get everyone else so confused they don’t dare do anything for fear of doing the wrong thing.”
“The world has changed some, since your day,” said Callan.
“But the hearts of politicians have not, I’ll warrant,” said Jacob.
“He’s got a point,” said Callan.
“Thank you, Jacob,” said the Armourer. “I’m sure your experience will prove invaluable. Now, if you and William will excuse us, we have private matters to discuss.”
William nodded and gestured, and the Merlin Glass shrank back down to normal size again and tucked itself into my jacket pocket. Thankfully without the bloody gong sound this time. The Armourer glared at me.
“All right, Eddie. You’re still looking dangerously smug. Drop the other shoe. Who or what did the mirror find for you in the future?”
“Ah,” I said. “This is where it gets just a bit complicated. I have located a superb future warrior, and distant descendant of ours, called Giles Deathstalker.”
“Deathstalker?” said Harry. “What kind of a name is that?”
“It suited him,” I said. “The point is, I’ve seen the man fight, and he’s death on two legs and nasty with it. Just what we need. He’s quite ready to help us out. Unfortunately . . .”
“I just knew there’d be a catch,” said the Armourer.
“Unfortunately, he’s so far ahead of us in the potential timelines that the Merlin Glass couldn’t just bring him through, like Jacob. I’ll have to go get him. And that means using the Time Train.”
The Armourer didn’t actually sink to the floor and bury his face in his hands, but he looked very much like he wanted to.
“The Time Train? Have you finally lost every last little bit of your senses, Eddie? You can’t use the Time Train! It’s far too dangerous!”
“By all means, try it,” Harry said generously. “Either way, we win.”
“Smugness is very unflattering, Harry,” I said loftily. “I know what I’m doing, Uncle Jack.”
The Armourer snorted loudly. “Be the first time. Well, if you must go . . . be sure and bring back as many future weapons as you can.”
“Deathstalker,” said Roger Morningstar. “Hell of a name.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
About Time
When it came to my using the Time Train, the Inner Circle was right behind me. Fortunately, I was able to shake them off thanks to some fast running, and my superior knowledge of the Hall’s shortcuts and side passages. They really should have known better than to order me not to use the Time Train, under any circumstances. I’ve always had this problem with authority figures, even now that I am one. I left their raised voices behind me, and headed quickly for the rear of the Hall, and the old hangar where the family keeps those past mechanical marvels we have more sense than to try and use nowadays.
I reached out with my thoughts through my silver torc, and made mental contact with Strange.
“Hi there!” said Strange. “Did you know the Sarjeant-at-Arms is looking for you? And the rest of your Inner Circle?”
“The fact has not escaped me,” I said. “I need you to run a diversion for me. You game?”
“Of course! I could use a little fun. Your family is all very worthy, Eddie, but a lot of them really are very solemn.”
“Trust me; I had noticed. All right, I need you to broadcast the news that everyone in the family is to get their new torcs. The Inner Circle and I just decided. You still okay with that?”
“Oh sure; the more the merrier, I say.”
“Good. Then spread the good news, and tell everyone they need to come to the Sanctity right now.” I grinned. “That should block the corridors nicely, and keep the Circle from interfering with what I’ve got planned.”
“Oh dear,” said Strange. “Are you about to do something desperate and dangerous again?”
“Of course. Mind the store while I’m gone, Strange.”
“Please, call me Ethel.”
“Over my dead and lifeless body.”
To my surprise, when I finally got to the rear of the Hall, avoiding the main corridors that were already filling up with cheering family members, Molly was already there waiting for me. She greeted me with a fond embrace and a smug smile.
“How did you know I was going to be here?” I said.
“Honestly, sweetie, I am a witch, remember? Sorry it took me so long to get away, but Penny took a lot of talking to. I think I finally managed to beat some sense into her pretty little head. There’s no one more stubborn than a secret romantic. Especially one who’s taken it on herself to redeem the unredeemable.”
“Has she agreed to stop seeing Mr. Stab?” I said.
“Well, not as such,” said Molly. “The best I could get out of her was an agreement never to meet with him alone.”
I nodded reluctantly. “Penny always was stubborn. Runs in the family. Baffles me what she sees in him anyway.”
“I suppose it’s like those sad, desperate women who want to marry serial killers in prison,” said Molly. “Women always believe they can change a man, bring out the good in him through the power of their love. Some just like more of a challenge, I suppose. And Mr. Stab does have that dark, dangerous, vulnerable thing going for him. I know, I know, don’t look at me like that; I do know he’s been slaughtering and butchering women for over a century . . . but there is more to him than that, Eddie. I have seen him do . . . good things. So have you.”
“He’s Mr. Stab,” I said. “He kills women. That’s what he does. If he hurts Penny . . .”
“He won’t,” said Molly. “He’s never hurt a friend of mine.”
“If he kills her, I’ll kill him. Friend
of yours or not.”
“If it comes to that, I’ll help you,” said Molly. “So, why are we here, Eddie?”
I gestured at the long steel-and-glass hangar, standing tall and proud at the rear of the Hall, though set a discreet distance away. It was a wide, steel-girdered construction, with an arching glass roof, big enough to hold several football matches in simultaneously. The family never does things by halves, even when it comes to museums hardly anyone visits anymore. I took Molly’s arm in mine and led her towards the open entrance.
“I’ve located a very useful ally in the future,” I said. “Unfortunately, he’s so far ahead of us that we’re going to have to go and get him in person. And for that, we need the Time Train.”
“Just the two of us?” said Molly.
“Well,” I said, “I did ask for volunteers, but the response was disappointing. Apparently everyone else had more sense. Time travel is always dangerous, and no one’s actually used the Time Train in ages. Probably with good reason. It’s not the most . . . reliable device the family ever built. If you’d prefer to stay behind, I’d quite understand. I’d stay behind if I could find anyone daft enough to go in my place.”
Molly hugged my arm firmly to her side. “Do you really think I’d let you go anywhere without me?”
I grinned at her. “I really like this being an item thing.”
“You romantic devil, you. Flatter me with your silver tongue, why don’t you?”
“Together, forever,” I said. “How about that?”
“Forever and ever and ever,” said Molly.
I led her into the long hangar. It’s a huge place, packed full of all the early technological wonders produced down the ages by family Armourers with a bee in their bonnet. It had to be said: Both the museum and its exhibits had known better days. The inner walls were cracked and discoloured, and dull yellow sunlight fell through glass panels left cloudy and spotted by age and neglect. This was just a storage space now, for things whose time had moved on. Strange and wondrous artefacts that had once been ahead of their time, now overtaken and forgotten.
Like the 1880s Moon Launch Cannon, only used once. And the oversized Moleship, basically just a steel cabin with a bloody big diamond-studded drill head mounted on the front. It had been constructed to investigate the interior of the earth, back in the days when people still believed in the Hollow Earth theory. The hulking exhibit before us was actually Mole II, built so the family could go looking for whatever had happened to Mole I. In the end it never got used, because we had to fill in and block off the original tunnel after something big and nasty from the lower depths tried to crawl back up it.
“And we used to have a giant mechanical spider,” I said, leading Molly through the exhibits. “We confiscated it from some American mad genius, back in the Wild West. Not entirely sure what happened to it. I think it ran away.”
“Boys and their toys,” said Molly, smiling sweetly. “You’ll be boasting about the size of your engines next. Why keep all this stuff if you never use it anymore?”
“Because the family never lets go of anything that belongs to it,” I said. “Besides, this is history. It’s . . . interesting. Not to mention instructive. And you never know when you might need something again. Better to have a thing and not need it, than need it and not have it. Like the Time Train . . . I only remembered it was here because I used to love reading about things like that when I was a kid, and sloping off from my lessons.”
We weren’t alone in the hangar. A dozen or so men and women in scruffy overalls fussed around various exhibits, tinkering with the machinery or just polishing and cleaning them to within an inch of their lives. None of them looked at us, as long as we were careful to maintain a respectful distance. Molly gestured at them, and raised an eyebrow.
“Enthusiasts,” I said. “They all volunteer to work here in their spare time. All obsessed with a particular period, or device. They keep the exhibits in order, just for the joy of it. Express the slightest interest in their particular pride and joy, and they’ll talk your ear off.”
“Now, let me be sure I’ve got this right,” said Molly. “This Time Train you want to use . . . No one’s actually taken it out of the hangar in ages, it’s pretty damned dangerous even when it’s working properly, and the only guarantee we have it’ll work at all is some dedicated amateur technician? Have I missed anything? You are not filling me with confidence here, Eddie.”
By now we’d reached the Time Train, and the sheer size of the thing dwarfed all the other exhibits. The Time Train itself was a big, black, old-fashioned steam engine, gleaming and glistening like the night, with luxurious silver and brass fittings, all of them buffed and polished to a cheery warm glow. Half a dozen luxury Pullman coaches, in the familiar milk chocolate and cream livery, stretched away behind the coal tender. A quick peek through the coaches’ curtained windows revealed a whole other world of seats and fittings whose quality would have shamed the Orient Express in its heyday. The family never did believe in doing things by half. The huge black engine towered over us like a sleeping beast, only waiting to be roused. A tall gangling individual appeared suddenly in the cab and smiled bashfully down at us.
“Oh hello,” he said. “Visitors, how nice. We don’t get many visitors, old Ivor and me. Ivor is the engine, you see.”
“Yes,” I said. “I had a hunch it might be. Molly, allow me to present to you the family’s one and only expert steam train engineer: Tony Drood. Latest in a long line of such enthusiasts, right Tony?”
“Oh yes,” he said, clambering agilely down the gleaming steel ladder on the side of the cab to join us. He had to be in his late fifties, though his hair was still suspiciously jet-black. He wore a set of grubby overalls, and his hands and face were covered with dirty smudges from whatever he’d just been working on. He finally stood before us, smiling and bobbing his head just a bit shyly. “An honour to meet you both, Edwin and Miss Molly. Can’t remember the last time anyone of quality came to see us, eh, Ivor, old thing?”
He reached up and fondly patted the bulging black steel chamber.
“Ivor really is very . . . impressive,” said Molly, and Tony beamed at her as though she’d just taken a thorn out of his paw.
“Impressive he is indeed, Miss Molly, and that is no lie. I have made it my business to see that he is kept spotless, and in perfect working order, ready to go at a moment’s notice.”
“Ready to go anywhere, anywhen?” I said. “Even into the far future?”
“All of time is at your disposal,” said Tony, just a bit grandly. “Ivor can take you back to the dawn of the world, or up any of the future timetracks. You do understand about parallel future histories . . . of course you do, we’ve all seen Star Trek. Though I always preferred the original series. Where was I? Oh yes, Ivor is fully functional and raring to go! He can do the Kessel run in under five centuries!”
“He’s still a bit . . . ancient, though, isn’t he?” said Molly.
Tony glowered at her. “Do not listen to her, Ivor! She is a philistine, and knows no better. I will have you know, Miss Molly, this engine was built back in the days when they still valued skill and craftsmanship, as well as efficiency. This is no modern soulless device; this is Ivor, the Time Train! A comfortable and civilised way to travel in time. I tell you, Miss Molly, Ivor could still do the family proud, given half a chance.”
“Funny you should say that, Tony,” I said. “As it turns out, you are in a position to do me and the family a great service. I think it’s well past time Ivor was allowed out for a little trip.”
Tony grinned so broadly it must have hurt his cheeks, and actually wrung his hands together in his enthusiasm. “Just say the word, Edwin! I’ve waited all my life for a chance to take the old boy out and show what he can do! No one in the family’s authorised use of the Time Train since my grandfather took her out, at the end of the nineteenth century.” His face fell, and he looked at Molly and me just a little guiltily. “An unfortunate busine
ss, that . . . Bit of a disaster all around, really. The last Matriarch but three, Catherine Drood that was, got a bee in her bonnet that one of the Old Ones was waking up, down on some obscure little island in the southern hemisphere. And nothing would do but that grandfather take the newly invented Time Train back into the recent past, with a team of expert specialists, to shut the Old One down before it could properly awaken. Of course it all went horribly wrong. Turned out that it was the energies generated by Ivor’s arrival that woke the Old One up in the first place . . . One thing led to another, and in the end grandfather and his team had no choice but to blow up the whole damned island to seal the Old One back in its tomb.
“Krakatoa, the island was called. Anyway, Ivor got all the blame, which was really quite unfair, and he’s been out of favour ever since.”
“Hold everything,” said Molly. “If no one’s taken the Train out since the nineteenth century, does this mean you’ve never actually driven the thing yourself?”
“Well, no, not as such,” said Tony. “But I know all I need to know! The care and handling of Ivor is a sacred trust, miss, handed down from father to son for generations. A family within the family, you might say. Rest assured that I have read every one of the manuals, and my grandfather’s journals, and I know all the workings of Ivor inside and out. Don’t you worry, miss! Old Ivor’s just straining at the traces, raring for the off! Aren’t you, old boy!”
He slapped the black steel familiarly, and Molly and I both jumped a little as Ivor let loose a sudden blast of steam from his funnel, as though in response. Maybe it was. Wouldn’t be the first time the family built something that turned out to have a mind of its own.
Don’t even get me started about the sentient water cooler that was supposed to know when you were thirsty; drowned three people before we could wrestle it to the ground.
“Let’s get going,” I said briskly. “Build up your pressure, or whatever it is you need to do, and full steam ahead to the future!”
Tony looked at me just a bit blankly. “You mean . . . right now?”
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