Live and let Drood sh-6

by Simon R. Green

  This book tells you all you need to know, and some things you d be better off not knowing, about the massive hedge Maze standing in the Drood grounds, I said with exaggerated patience. It covers half an acre. You must have noticed it.

  Don t you get snotty with me, Eddie. I know where you re ticklish. All right, you ve got a Maze! Big deal! Whoop-de-do! What makes it so special?

  The hedge Maze is one of the great mysteries of the Drood family, I said, carefully not looking back at the open book. I still hadn t decided whether it was a gift or a trap. One of those disturbing bits of family history that just fell between the cracks and disappeared. The hedge Maze was put in place a long time ago, so long ago that no one now remembers who had it designed and constructed. Or why. There are indications the knowledge was deliberately suppressed at some point. All we know for sure is that the Maze was constructed to contain something really nasty. Too powerful for us to destroy, something so bad it could only be imprisoned

  What could be so powerful that even your family couldn t destroy it? said Molly.

  Good question, I said. No one alive today knows the answer.

  And you think this evil thing is still trapped inside the Maze?

  Oh, I m pretty sure it s still in there. Every now and again the family takes someone they really don t like and throws them in the Maze to see what happens. None of them ever come out again. And don t look at me like that. If you knew the kind of people I m talking about, you d be first in line to kick their arses through the Maze entrance. And when I had my near-death experience just recently When I was wandering inside the Winter Hall, I looked out the top-floor window and saw something moving inside the Maze, raging back and forth, still trying to break out, after all this time.

  I am being very patient, said Molly. Look! This is me being very patient! But if you don t tell me why this is suddenly so important

  Relax, I said. It s the book. It describes exactly what we put inside the Maze and why. And I think it s something we can use. I looked around the rows of silent stacks, holding dark shadows between them, and at the greater gloom that surrounded them, beyond the reach of Molly s witchlight. Was Pook out there, perhaps? Being helpful? But it s not something I feel comfortable talking about in a place like this.

  But what is it? said Molly. What are we talking about?

  Moxton s Mistake, I said.

  Something moved out beyond the light. A cold breeze blew suddenly through the Old Library, disturbing air that hadn t been breathed in centuries. Molly shuddered despite herself.

  Okay, I can take a hint, she said. Let s get the hell out of here.

  There was the sound of something moving out in the dark. Something large and heavy.

  Try the Merlin Glass, Molly said quickly.

  We ve got to give it a trial run sometime, and this is looking more and more like a really good time. Get us out of here, Eddie.

  Cross your fingers, I said. And anything else handy.

  I took the Glass out of its subspace pocket and subvocalised the activating Words, praying they were the right ones for this Glass. Something in the dark said my name in a not-human voice. All the hairs on the back of my neck went up, and Molly grabbed my arm with both hands. The Merlin Glass glowed with a sudden fierce light, coming alive in my hand, as though eager to be used. I shook the hand mirror out till it was the size of a door and it automatically locked on to the coordinates I had in mind. Bright sunlight from the Drood grounds shone through the new doorway, pushing back the dark of the Old Library. Molly snuffed out her witchlight, and together we stepped quickly through the Glass, out of the Old Library and into the open air of the Hall grounds.

  I shut the Glass down immediately, shook it back to hand-mirror size and put it away. And then I just stood there, looking out over the extensive grassy lawns, breathing in the sweet and pure open air. Molly stood there with me, both of us quite happy not to talk about whatever it was that had just spooked us. Sometimes you just know you re in a bad place. After a while we went for a walk across the lawns, taking our time. Without actually discussing it, we both kept our backs to the ruined Hall. It was easier that way. It might not have been my family, my Hall, but they were still Droods, and I had known people very like them. I would avenge their deaths. After I d rescued my family. I couldn t risk losing them twice. Molly turned her head abruptly to look at me.

  Eddie, I have to wonder What happened to the other Eddie? Their Eddie? I don t think he was there when the Hall was attacked.

  Seems like he was declared rogue, I said.

  Much like me. Only I met you and came back. He never did. He might not even know this has happened yet.

  How terrible, said Molly. An Eddie Drood out there in the world, all on his own. An Eddie who never met me.

  Yes, I said. How terrible.

  We shared a smile and kept on walking. There was still something we needed to do, but we weren t ready to do it just yet.

  Or, I said, he could be where we are right now; standing in the grounds of his world, wondering what the hell happened to his Hall. There could be nothing but a bloody big hole in the ground where his Hall used to be.

  Or, said Molly, there might be another Hall. A third Hall, rotated into place to replace his

  Please, I said. Let s not complicate this more than we have to. Instead let s talk about who could be responsible for all this. Our enemy. It isn t the Immortals here; I was there when we wiped them out. The Spawn of Frankenstein occupy their castle now, and the few survivors are on the run, keeping their heads well down and hoping not to be noticed. No way any of them could be responsible for… this. But who is powerful enough to seize control of Alpha Red Alpha from a distance and use it against us? And strong enough that once it started happening, my family couldn t wrestle control away from him and stop it from happening?

  I have another question, said Molly, determined to be difficult, as always. Once your family realised what had happened, that they d been rotated out of our world and dumped somewhere else, why didn t the Armourer just fire up Alpha Red Alpha again and bring everyone home?

  I ve been wondering that, I said.

  It could be that controlling the machine from a distance was enough to damage it. Or at the very least, scramble its coordinates. The Armourer would have more sense than to just activate the machine at random, over and over again, hoping to get home. Remember the alien Earth the first experimenters ended up in? Uncle Jack was very open about the fact that he had only limited control over Alpha Red Alpha in the first place. And on top of that, who knows what kind of Earth they were rotated into? Could be somewhere even worse than a jungle full of nasty killer plants. My family could be fighting for their lives right now, right here, somewhere else even as we speak.

  Easy, Eddie, Molly said immediately. Take it easy. We can t worry about every possibility. It s just as likely they arrived in some paradise world and they aren t in any hurry to come home. For all we know, they could all be sprawling on a nice beach somewhere, working on their tans and sipping cold drinks. We can t know anything for sure, so let s concentrate on what we can do. We are your family s only hope, Eddie. We owe it to them to think it through and not just rush into things.

  The wild witch of the woods, her own bad self, Molly Metcalf, preaching patience and self-restraint, I said, smiling. Maybe I am in some other world, after all. You re right, as always. I m not going to give up hope, not after just getting it back again. They re out there somewhere and I will find them and bring them home. But we have to start with: Who could have done this to them?

  Run through the usual unusual suspects, said Molly. Have there been attacks on the Hall before? And, no, I don t mean the bloody Chinese nuke back in the sixties that your family won t stop talking about, which leads me to suspect they got a damned sight closer than your family is willing to admit.

  Breathe, Molly. Breathe. There were a whole series of attacks on the Hall just before I met you. This awful cancer creature broke into the Sanctity an
d attacked the Heart. Killed several Droods before we drove it off. We never did find out who sent it, or why; or who was behind the other, earlier attacks. I d pretty much decided it was down to the traitor in the family, the original traitor who brought in the Loathly Ones, back in World War II. And who s been working against us in secret ever since.

  If there is a traitor inside the Hall, he probably disappeared along with everyone else, said Molly. So I doubt this is down to him.

  There is something else, I said slowly. When I was in the Winter Hall, when I thought I was dead I asked Walker, If this is a place of the dead, why haven t I seen my parents? And Walker said to me, Whatever makes you think they re dead?

  I know, said Molly. I remember. But one thing at a time, Eddie. Yes?

  It s just If my parents could be alive, so could yours.

  Yes, Eddie. I know. And we will talk about this later. But first things have to come first. So what do you want to do first?

  I looked out over the wide-open grounds of Drood Hall, the green grassy lawns and the lake and the hedge Maze in the distance. It was all so quiet, so peaceful. It didn t seem possible there could have been so much death and suffering so close at hand in such a peaceful setting.

  The Drood grounds contain a marvellous selection of wildlife, I said. Natural and supernatural, the living and the dead, and lots and lots of really wild things. Why don t we go and ask them what they saw?

  CHAPTER TWO

  When the Droods Are Away

  You don t realise how much you miss a thing until it s gone. The grounds were almost unnaturally quiet as Molly and I strode across the wide-reaching lawns. Where were the peacocks that always strutted so grandly and noisily in front of the Hall? Where were the gryphons, who should have been the first to sound the alarm because they were psychic and could see a short distance into the Future? (Given how ugly the things were, and how much they loved to roll in dead things and then come up to you and rub affectionately against your new suit, I d be hard-pressed to name any other good reason to keep them around.) (All right, I like them, but it s already been established that I m weird.) If the peacocks and gryphons had all been killed during the attack, where were their bodies?

  Why were there no winged unicorns anywhere? I hadn t got around to checking out the stables at the rear, but I couldn t see them just flying off. Where were any of the dozen or so magical creatures that had taken up residence in and around the Hall for as long as I could remember? You were never short of choice for an unusual pet, when I was a kid, though you had to be very careful about which ones you could turn your back on safely. I d never known the grounds to be this still, this silent and I didn t care for it one bit.

  I led the way down to the great ornamental lake, a wide expanse of cool blue waters spread out before us like a modest inland sea. Long and wide enough that you had to pack a picnic lunch if you felt like taking a walk round it, and deep enough that the family once lost a small submarine in it. It was all very peaceful down beside the lake, as though nothing at all had happened. Though there was something wrong with the view. It took me a moment to realise that there weren t any swans sailing majestically back and forth on the calm blue surface, and there were always swans on our lake. I stood at the water s edge with Molly beside me, looking out across the calm blue-green surface at the cool dark copse of beech trees on the other side. Nothing moved anywhere. It was all very still, not even a breath of a breeze.

  Like a ghost town at midnight. Like a museum after closing time. Like what the whole world will be like after Humanity has finally left and closed the door behind them.

  It is beautiful, said Molly, after a while.

  Everything a lake should be.

  Thank you, I said. It s artificial, of course.

  Molly looked at me. What?

  Oh, the whole thing was designed and created by a head gardener to the family, Capability Charlotte. This was back during Victorian times, when you were nobody if your country manor house didn t have its very own artificial lake. So we had one put in. Complete with its own waterfall feature at the far end, and a small family of selkies specially imported from the Orkney Isles to live in the lake and keep it clean and tidy. It does look good, doesn t it?

  What was here before? said Molly. What did you get rid of to make the lake? How many perfectly good trees did you cut down, how much natural vegetation did you dispose of, how much wildlife did you kill just so you could have a lake exactly where you wanted it?

  I don t know, I said. I wasn t here then. I m sensing disapproval from you, Molly. This isn t the wild woods; it s a garden. We re always changing things in the grounds, because you can get bored of anything if you have to look at it long enough. Wouldn t surprise me if all this was gone some years or decades or centuries from now, replaced with something completely different. Maybe an equatorial rain forest

  I am changing the subject now, said Molly.

  Before hitting happens. I remember there being swans on this lake. Or did someone get bored with them, too?

  No, I said. Whatever happened to the swans, it wasn t us. Come on. Let s go take a look at the waterfall.

  An artificial waterfall?

  Of course! It was all the fashion.

  Words fail me.

  Don t worry, I said. I m sure you ll get over it.

  I walked her down the side of the lake to the jagged stone cliff that towered over the farthest end, where heavy flowing waters cascaded down the craggy surface with endless noise and fury. A gentle mist of water drops gave a hazy, mystical look to the waterfall, and slow steady tides pulsed out from the water s impact, pushing across the lake s surface. There was even a dainty little cave cut into the cliff face, tucked away behind the tumbling waters. Very popular with courting couples. Nothing like a dark womblike setting to loosen clothes and dissolve inhibitions. Molly looked over the waterfall coolly.

  Your family built a whole cliff face here, out in the middle of the grounds, just so you could drive a waterfall over it?

  Yes, I said. You didn t think views like this just happened, did you? Does look rather fine, doesn t it?

  Where does the water come from?

  The lake, I said. We recycle it, through a M bius loop, so the water just goes round and round forever. This whole thing, the lake and the cliff and the waterfall, are what used to be called a folly back in Queen Victoria s time. They were great ones for re-creating all the grandeur of nature in their own back gardens, so they wouldn t have to travel to see them.

  And you Droods had to have a lake and a waterfall, because you were no one if you didn t?

  Exactly!

  But these are private grounds! said Molly, just a bit loudly. No one else is allowed in! Only your family would ever get to see them! No one else would ever know you didn t have them!

  We d know, I said. Don t get so overexcited, Molly. You know it s bad for your blood pressure.

  Sometimes your family makes no sense at all, said Molly.

  I know! I said. Why do you think I left home the first chance I got and ran away to London?

  Because you ve always had a problem with authority figures, said Molly. Even when you were one.

  Well, yes. That, too, I said. But mostly because my family could provoke the Dalai Lama into a kickboxing duel while drinking gin straight from the bottle.

  Why are we here, Eddie? You didn t walk me all this way across the grounds just to admire the artificial scenery.

  We re here because there s an undine in the waterfall, I said grandly. No one else has got an undine in their waterfall. She s been here for ages; keeps herself to herself, mostly. But whatever happened here, she must have seen it. Hell, she s got the best view of the Hall and most of the grounds. We know what must have happened, but there are still far too many unanswered questions for my liking. Like: Where s all the wildlife that should still be running round the place?

  You ve always had a soft spot for animals, said Molly. Anything soft and cuddly turns up, and your hea
rt just melts.

  I looked at her and started to say something, and she raised a hand to stop me.

  Do not even go there, Eddie. Talk to your waterfall.

  I grinned briefly, stepped forward and called out just a bit self-consciously to the rushing waters. There was no response. I hadn t expected it would be that easy, but you have to try. The undine hadn t been on a talking basis with anyone in my family for generations. Except for Jacob and she only talked to him because he was dead. I said as much to Molly.

  If she s so mad at your family, why is she still here? said Molly, getting right to the heart of the matter, as always.

  Good question, I said. The undine is another of the Drood family s many little secrets. Rumour has it, she was once married to one of us. Always a bad idea when mortal loves immortal, when nature loves supernature Bound to end in tears. They say love doesn t last, but sometimes love really is forever. After he died, the undine stayed on here because there was nowhere else she wanted to go.

  I take it there are other versions, other stories, said Molly.

  Oh, like you wouldn t believe, I said.

  Some of them quite appallingly nasty and violent. I prefer to stick with the love story because

  Because you re a soppy old romantic?

  Yes, but also because it enables me to forget all the other unpleasant stories and try to talk to the undine without filling my trousers.

  I tried again, calling out at the top of my voice, but the waters just kept falling and the undine did not appear. Molly started to get angry.

  I m not having her ignore you like this! You stand back and let me work on her, Eddie. I ll get her out. I am the wild witch of the woods, after all, and all the elements are mine to command. And I could do with a good stretch of my powers.

  She struck her usual impressive witchy pose and then undermined it just a bit by dropping me a swift wink. She ran through a quick series of slashing hand and arm gestures while chanting something in debased Celtic. The waterfall poured down the craggy cliff face entirely unmoved and then slowed and stopped. And then rose slowly upwards, reversing its path.