The Wurm reared up to its full height while I clambered up the last of its neck until I was right below the mouth. The circles of grinding teeth whirled round and round, unable to reach me. I pulled one hand back and then thrust it deep into the flesh right in the gaping mouth, as hard as I could. My fist sank in deep, probing for the brain, until my arm was in all the way to the elbow. The Wurm convulsed, shaking its great head back and forth, trying to throw me off. I yanked my hand out, and dark purple blood spurted, steaming on the chilly air. The head whipped back and forth, and I hit it again, with all my armour’s strength behind it. This time my arm sank in almost up to my shoulder.
The long, scaly body shuddered down all of its length, and then suddenly went limp. I’d found the brain at last. The head crashed down as the body collapsed, and I rode it all the way to the snow-covered ground, waving my free arm and whooping wildly. The snow came flying up to meet us, and I jumped free at the last moment. The ground shook as the Wurm measured its length on the earth, and snow jumped up into the air all around it. The Wurm just lay there, shuddering and twitching its whole length, the great grinding teeth slowing to a halt. I dug myself out of the hole I’d made in the snow, and strode back to join Molly.
“Showoff,” she said. But she couldn’t keep from grinning.
“Worms should know their place,” I said.
“You want to tell that to the ones still heading our way?”
“What are they burrowing through, exactly?” I said. “The snow, the earth, the rock beneath?”
“If we hang around here long enough, you can ask them,” said Molly.
“Good point,” I said. “Follow me.”
I led her the last few feet to the Gateway. Up close, it was just a light shining up into the sky, from no obvious source. Molly still couldn’t see it, but she could feel it. She put her hands out to the light, as though to warm them.
“I can feel the power it’s generating,” she said. “Nasty, crawling sensation. Like sticking your hands into a dead body that isn’t dead enough. How do we open the Gate?”
“I don’t think it’s closed,” I said. “No one made this, it’s a . . . phenomenon. A crack in the world. Like a geyser . . . I think we just walk through it. Ultima Thule should be on the other side.”
“Should?” said Molly. “Really not liking the should. Something like this, we need to be sure.”
“We can’t stay here,” I said. “Stuck in the middle of the Siberian wilderness, with a whole bunch of Death Wurms coming straight for us. There isn’t anywhere else for us to go, Molly.”
“You’re right,” said Molly. “After you.”
I had to smile. “Whatever happened to ladies first?”
“Do I look crazy?” said Molly.
I looked at her as she shivered violently in the cold, and a hand tightened round my heart. “Molly . . . this is just the cold of the natural world. I don’t know if you can survive the unnatural cold of Ultima Thule without your protections.”
“You’ll find a way to protect me,” said Molly, meeting my gaze steadily. “I trust you, remember? I trust you to find a way to keep me alive in Ultima Thule. Don’t let me down, Eddie.”
“Never,” I said.
The Siberian Death Wurms were almost upon us. I took my Molly by the hand, and led her into the light and out of this world.
Into Ultima Thule.
CHAPTER NINE
So Many Lovers, So Little Love
The cold hit Molly like a hammer, driving her to her knees. She cried out once, despite herself, an awful sound of shock and pain, and then she couldn’t get her breath back. All the colour was forced out of her face in a moment, and her mouth and eyes stretched painfully wide. I knelt down beside her and took her in my arms, but she was shaking and shuddering so much I could barely hang on to her. A terrible cold wind buffeted us this way and that. I wrapped myself around Molly as best I could, trying to protect her from the cold and the wind with my body and my armour. She clung to me desperately, making horrible straining sounds as she fought for breath.
I couldn’t help her at all.
There was no snow or ice, just black and grey rock, in a world more bleak and bare than anything I had ever seen before. I could feel the cold even through my armour. Molly had no magics left, no shields or protections. She was only human, in a place not meant for anything human to live. She collapsed against me. I called out to her, but she couldn’t hear me. She was dying of the savage cold, in the place I’d brought her to.
I looked desperately around for help or inspiration, or just something that might serve as shelter, but there was nothing. We’d appeared some way down a narrow valley set between two great mountains thrusting up into a purple sky. No sign of people or civilisation anywhere. The valley channelled the raging wind, so that it howled and shrieked as it hit us like a battering ram, again and again. There wasn’t a cave or a crevice, an overhang or windbreak. Nowhere I could take Molly to hide and protect her.
I had to do something; either I came up with some way to save her, in the next few moments, or I could watch her die. And all I had was . . . my armour. I seized on the idea. The armour protected me; there had to be a way it could protect Molly too. The armour came from my torc. I called on it, and it came out to cover me. But what if it could cover more than just me? I had learned to reshape my armour, through willpower, so what if I could make it cover both of us at once? I concentrated, and the golden armour surged and rippled all over me . . . but it wasn’t enough. Ethel had created the armour to cover just me. One torc, one Drood. I raised my head and called out.
“Ethel! Please! You made this armour; help me use it to save the woman I love! Please, Ethel, I need to do this! For her!”
And from a world away, her voice came to me, quiet but distinct.
Oh, all right. Just this once.
I concentrated again, and the golden armour leaped out from me, surging forward to cover Molly in a glistening golden wave . . . before contracting suddenly to armour her from head to toe. Sealing her off from the killing cold. She stopped shaking immediately, and I heard her draw a great, ragged breath. We were two golden statues, clinging to each other. She raised her head to look at me, and two featureless golden masks reflected each other. But I could still feel her gaze. And I could hear her laughing. She let go of me, and I helped her to her feet. And we stood together, side by side in Ultima Thule. Two suits of strange matter armour, linked by two fused golden hands. We couldn’t let go; that golden umbilical cord was all that sustained Molly’s armour. But as long as we remained linked, nothing Ultima Thule could throw at us could hurt us.
“You see?” said Molly from behind her mask. “I knew you’d find a way to save me. You should learn to have more faith in yourself. I do. Damn! This feels good! I feel better than good—I feel great! I could get used to this . . .”
“Don’t,” I said. “This is a strictly temporary solution, to get us to the Winter Palace. There’s a reason why my family introduces strict training from a very early age. Wearing Drood armour can easily become . . . addictive. We’re trained to control our armour, so it doesn’t control us.”
“I can cope!” said Molly. “Oh, it feels so good to be warm again! Been so long I’d almost forgotten what it feels like . . .” She looked around her, taking in the desolate landscape. “Miserable bloody location. Worse than Siberia. At least that had snow. This is Ultima Thule, is it? Looks like the end of the world.”
“The final winter of the world,” I said. “The end of everything. Look at the sun.”
We both looked up. In a bruised and empty sky, the sun was just a dull red circle, hanging low above the mountaintops. It looked tired and worn out, a dying star for a dead world.
“The heat is going out of this place,” I said. “I don’t think this pocket dimension was made to last. Unless it was made by someone who liked feeling miserable. I think we’re in the far future of the world, in the dying days, when Entropy is King.”
“Presumably,” I said, “it provides a proper setting for the Winter Palace.”
Molly sniffed loudly. “I don’t see it. Are you sure the Gateway brought us to the proper location?”
I pointed down the long, narrow valley, and there, right at the end, set between two great towering precipices, stood a single massive structure, half as large as the mountains around it. Made entirely out of gleaming ice, wide and vast and impossibly intricate, its long projections branched endlessly in all directions. Like a single massive snowflake, half buried in the cold cold ground. Shining and shimmering, blazing with its own fierce light. Unlike anything a human mind might conceive, it was overwhelming in its perfection. And yet there was something about it that made me think of an ancient fairy-tale castle. The Winter Palace of the Ice Queen, who made everyone love her, whether they wanted to or not. Who summoned men and women to her with her siren song, and made them love her until they died of it.
“The Lady Faire built that?” said Molly.
“Hardly,” I said. “The Winter Palace has been around a lot longer than she has. No, she just rents it, on occasion. Like everyone else.”
“Rents it from who?”
“Good question. If you ever find out, do let me know. Come on, let’s get moving. The sooner we get safely inside, the better. I’m not sure how long even Drood armour can protect us from such an extreme environment.”
“Why have a palace in a place like this?” said Molly, not unreasonably.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Probably to discourage unwanted visitors. All the properly invited guests are teleported in, arriving safely inside the Winter Palace without having to brave the cold.” I looked carefully around me. “I’m not Seeing any security fields, or force shields, or any kinds of protection set in place around the palace . . . No hidden mines, no floating curses, not even the most basic sensor arrays, to let people know there’s anyone out here . . . Perhaps they believe Ultima Thule is all the protection they need. And with anyone else, they’d probably be right. Come on, we have to find a way in, infiltrate the Lady Faire’s Ball without being spotted, and get our hands on the Lazarus Stone. Lots to do, lots to do . . .”
“And how, precisely, are we going to do all that?” said Molly.
“Once we get inside the Winter Palace, separately,” I said. “We’ll be far too conspicuous together. I’m hoping the Lady Faire will have invited enough guests that we can just blend in, and disappear in the crowd. But we can’t risk drawing undue attention to ourselves. Which means I can’t use my armour in there, and you can’t use your magics.”
“Oh poo!” said Molly. “I was just getting used to this armour. And I can feel my magics rushing back! I think being inside your armour is speeding up the process wonderfully.”
“Drood armour is designed to keep its wearer invisible from pretty much anything, under normal circumstances,” I said. “But the Winter Palace is bound to be bristling with all kinds of specialized security measures, to protect the guests from outside threats. And probably, from each other . . . My torc should be able to hide itself, as long as I don’t call on it, but if you even try to summon your magics, you can be sure they’ll hit you with everything they’ve got. Suddenly and violently and all at once.”
“All right!” said Molly. “We have to be sneaky. I get it! We go our own ways once we get inside, first one to grab the Stone signals the other, and then we both leg it back to the real world, at speed. Anyone would think I’d never done this before.” She stopped, and looked around her. “You know, I still can’t see the Gateway we came through.”
“That’s because it isn’t there, here,” I said. “It’s a one-way Gate; it only exists on the other side. So we can’t use it to get back. We’ll have to break into the Winter Palace’s teleport stream to get home again.”
“Wonderful,” said Molly. “More complications. And the more I look at the Winter Palace, the less I see anything that looks like an entrance. What if the only way in is by teleport?”
“Look, if breaking into the Winter Palace was easy, everybody would be doing it.”
“Someone got out of the grumpy side of bed this morning. So what does the Lazarus Stone look like? What are we actually looking for? An earring, or a stone big enough to club someone over the head with?”
“No idea,” I said. “I never even heard about the bloody thing till today. Does make things a bit tricky, doesn’t it? I suppose it’s too much to hope that it’ll be out on display somewhere, with a really big sign saying This Is the Lazarus Stone; Please Don’t Touch . . . Hmmm. I think our best bet is to locate someone inside the Winter Palace who does know what the Stone looks like, and get them to take us straight to it. Though of course when I say us . . .”
“I get it! Really! Separate ways, no looking back. Like I need you cramping my style . . .”
• • •
We started down the long, narrow valley, still holding hands. I did consider creating some kind of umbilical cord, but our link seemed precarious enough already, without adding any further strains to it. I didn’t want to push Ethel’s gift too far. We strode on, leaning into the teeth of the roaring wind, fighting its vicious gusting flurries with our armoured strength. The ground was hard and unyielding under our feet, cracked open in jagged splits and wide crevices. Some we could step over; others we had to jump. And sometimes I looked down and thought I saw sullen red lava, bubbling away at the bottom of the deepest cracks.
Apart from the howling wind, there wasn’t another sound to be heard. Nothing moved but us. Not a living thing anywhere, not even vegetation. Not even any rocks or pebbles, as though everything had been worn down, reduced to its barest essentials. My hands and feet were numb, despite my armour. Ultima Thule’s cold was seeping in. Which was . . . disconcerting. I’d never known any conditions that could get through Drood armour before, no matter how harsh or severe the environment. Which led me to believe this wasn’t any ordinary dimension. If it was the end of the world, Earth’s final days, then perhaps this was a spiritual cold. The touch of Entropy itself.
No one really knows the limits of my family’s armour, because we’ve never encountered them. But Time brings all things to an end.
“How sure are we that the Lady Faire’s security people don’t know about the Gateway we came through?” said Molly.
“Not sure at all,” I said, glad of some conversation to take my mind off things. “But I think if they did know, or even suspect, they’d have put some kind of defence in place out here, to deal with whoever came through, the moment they arrived. Take them out while they were distracted by the cold. I prefer to believe that since the Gateway doesn’t exist on this side, it can’t be detected from here. Believe what makes you happy, that’s what I always say.”
And then we both stopped, as the ground fell sharply away before us, revealing two long rows of ice blocks, stretching away, facing each other. Each block was around seven feet tall and three wide, solid ice containing a human form. Men and women, frozen in place forever. Molly and I helped each other down the steep incline; and then we walked slowly down the central aisle between the ice blocks, looking closely at the figures frozen inside. Dead faces peered sightlessly out through the ice, their features preserved in emotions that would last an age, in this awful place. Shock and horror, mostly. Clawed hands scrabbled desperately at the inside of the ice, caught in one last attempt at escape before the ice closed in on them. Clothes and outfits, equipment and weapons, from a hundred different times and countries. And much good any of it had done them.
“Warnings,” I said finally. “Made from those who came before us. Turn back, intruder, while you still can.”
“Except we can’t,” said Molly. “Not that we would, of course, but . . .”
“Yes,” I said. “It would be nice to have the option.”<
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“So we’re not the first people to try to break into the Winter Palace from Outside,” said Molly. “You think these people came here through the Gateway?”
“No way to ask them now,” I said. “They didn’t have the advantage of Drood armour, so here they are. Preserved, permanent scarecrows.”
“Except we don’t scare,” said Molly. “Still, I have to say, leaving them here, like this . . . That’s cold.”
“Yes,” I said. “It is. I don’t know who these people were, or why they came here, but they deserved better than this. I will make someone pay for this.”
“Of course you will, Eddie.”
Molly squeezed my linking hand, and we strode on between the two long rows of ice blocks. After a while I stared straight ahead, so I wouldn’t have to make eye contact. You can’t keep feeling sorry for people; it wears you out. And I was having a hard enough time feeling confident as it was. I hate missions where there are too many unknowns, too many variables, and this whole case was nothing but.
We left the ice blocks behind and moved on down the valley, slipping and sliding on ground polished like glass by the endless wind. The Winter Palace loomed up before us, growing larger and more intricate the closer we got. Dazzlingly huge, breathtakingly detailed. The biggest snowflake in the world, in the last winter of the world. I finally stopped, to look it over carefully. Molly was all for pressing on, impatient to get started, but we were still linked by our joined hands and I wasn’t going anywhere till I’d thought about it some more. Molly stood reluctantly beside me, bouncing up and down on the soles of her golden feet.
“I am not seeing any door, or opening, or entrance anywhere,” I said. “And since all the properly invited guests appear inside, it may be that there is no way in from out here.”
“I told you that!” said Molly. “I suppose . . . we could break in.”
“We’re trying to be sneaky, remember?”
“Why should there be any openings?” said Molly, in her most irritatingly reasonable tone of voice. “I mean, it’s a snowflake! Which are famous for not having holes. However, now most of my magics have returned, thanks to this marvellous armour of yours, I can sense the teleport stream the guests arrive through. I think I can tap into it, even from this distance . . . and get us inside. With a bit of luck.”
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