Telepathic bludgeon, said William proudly.
Best kind, said Ammonia.
Yes said the Sarjeant. Luckily, it appears only a very few of these things can teleport, or we d be hip deep in the bloody things by now. Is it dead or just sleeping, Ammonia?
Dead, of course. The telepath kicked the creature in the head a few times, just to be sure. William, get this out of here, would you?
Of course, dear.
William armoured up. I didn t think I d ever seen the Librarian in armour before. He grabbed the long barbed tail and dragged the creature briskly down the hallway to the front doors. He kicked them open and dragged the dead thing outside, where he picked the whole creature up and pitched it right through the shimmering barrier. William came back in to join us, and armoured down.
Why am I always the one who has to take out the trash?
Show-off, said Ammonia. She fixed me with a hard look. Don t even think about hugging me, boy. Why are you so pleased to see everyone?
He thought you were all dead, Molly said briskly.
When this Hall disappeared from the world, another Hall rotated in to take its place. That Hall was a burnt-out ruin, full of dead Droods. It took us a while to figure out what had happened.
Wait a minute, said the Sarjeant-at-Arms.
The whole world thinks the Droods are dead? We have got to get back. With the cats away, the rats will run riot.
Well, yes, quite right, Sarjeant, said William.
But first things first. The Armourer really was very clear and most upset when he told us that Alpha Red Alpha couldn t get us home again. That we were, in fact, trapped in this shithole of a world. And it was very nice of you to come and join us, Eddie. But have you brought anything useful with you? Something to help us get back home?
I ve brought along a few useful items, I said. I ll take them down to the Armourer.
I still want to know who all these other people are! said Ammonia, scowling at the Regent in particular.
Ah yes, said William. I should have got around to that, shouldn t I? Sorry, everyone. My mind isn t what it was.
Though we are working on that, Ammonia said quickly.
The Regent smiled gently at the Librarian. Do you remember me, William? I m your uncle Arthur. First husband to Martha. I ve been away for a while, but I m back now in your hour of need. Because that s what I do.
William just nodded vaguely. He clearly still had some way to go. The Sarjeant nodded heavily.
The Regent of Shadows. Never thought I d see the day Welcome home, Great-uncle.
I and my associates here are just along for the ride, said the Regent. It s Eddie s show, really. And Molly s, of course.
The infamous Molly Metcalf, said the Sarjeant-at-Arms. And wearing Drood armour There s a story behind this, I m sure, and I m really not going to like it. Am I?
Almost certainly not, I said.
Then it can wait. Get down to Alpha Red Alpha and do what you can to help the Armourer. Those things out there are getting closer all the time. We don t have any of the Hall s usual exterior defences; they didn t travel along with us. Most of the family are out manning the perimeter, doing what they can with all the weapons we could find in the Armoury, some of which are being field-tested for the first time even as we speak. He scowled briefly. We ve lost some good people. And a lot of the weapons are running out of ammunition. I don t want to open the Armageddon Codex, but I will if I have to. I will destroy this world before I let it destroy us.
Spoken like a true Sarjeant-at-Arms, I said.
The whole hallway was suddenly full of a rose red glow as Ethel manifested, bestowing her peaceful and calming presence on us.
Hello, hello, hello, Eddie! said the familiar disembodied voice. I m so glad you caught up with us at last! Isn t this an absolutely fascinating world? I ve never seen creatures this ugly before, and I ve been to dimensions you don t even have concepts for! I m sure if some of these things would only stop trying to kill us, just for a moment, we could have some really interesting conversations!
You can talk to them? I said.
Well, no, not as such, Ethel said reluctantly.
I keep trying, but all I get is this mental static. They re just so different! I ll keep trying, though. But first things first. You need your armour back, Eddie.
And I cried out loud in relief as armour poured out of my torc and formed around me. I d forgotten how good it felt after the cold embrace of the rogue armour. I revelled in the feeling for a moment and then reluctantly armoured down again. But before I could say anything, the rose red glow seemed to concentrate around Molly, as though Ethel was studying her closely.
That s a very interesting torc you ve got there, Molly, said Ethel. Where on earth did you get it? It s not one of mine. I can see it contains armour, but it s not strange matter. It tastes funny. I don t like it.
I don t like it, either, said the Sarjeant-at-Arms. Only Droods are supposed to have armour.
This was a special case, said Molly.
I needed armour, I said steadily. And you were gone with the Hall, Ethel. So I went with the only armour that was left. The armour in the hedge Maze. Moxton s Mistake.
The Sarjeant just frowned, but William s head came up immediately. He looked at me sharply, and I thought he was going to say something, but he didn t.
Still doesn t explain why she turned up here wearing it, and not you, said the Sarjeant.
It s complicated, said Molly.
I want to know what it is! insisted the Sarjeant.
It s rogue armour, I said. Created by a previous Armourer to be intelligent, self-aware and to operate on its own. It rebelled and killed a whole bunch of Droods. That s why it was imprisoned in the hedge Maze for so long. But I made a deal with it: service in return for freedom. And since I spoke with Drood authority, Sarjeant, you will abide by my decision in this matter.
The Sarjeant scowled at Molly s torc but said nothing.
How did you get here, Eddie? said William.
How did you find us?
The Merlin Glass, combined with some useful information I picked up along the way, I said. Which I really do need to get to the Armourer. Defend the Hall, Sarjeant. Buy us time to get the dimensional engine working again. Regent, Patrick, Diana: You come with me and Molly. You re about to see a part of the Hall we don t normally show people.
Not back in the Hall ten minutes, and already you re barking orders, said Molly.
I led them all down to the Armoury, that great stone cavern set deep in the bedrock underneath the West Wing. It felt weird, hurrying through deserted workstations and abandoned firing ranges, with not a single overenthusiastic lab assistant to be seen, doing something unwise with something dangerous. It reminded me too much of the deserted Armoury in the ruined Hall. I found the trapdoor lying open at the far end of the Armoury, and we all gathered around it. Nothing to be seen but the top part of the iron ladder leading down into an impenetrable darkness. I didn t give any of them time to think about it, just started down the ladder without looking back. I was quietly pleased that one by one they followed me down, without saying anything. There was no light anywhere, and several times I had to stop and feel for the next rung in the ladder with my foot. The ladder seemed to descend for ages, long enough that my leg muscles had begun to cramp painfully by the time I reached the bottom. The moment I stepped away from the ladder, a bright light flared up, dazzling me for a moment. The others quickly joined me, and then we all waited patiently as the Regent took a moment to quietly massage his old leg muscles.
We had arrived in a truly massive stone cavern stretching away in all directions. It looked to be bigger than the whole Hall itself, and I wasn t even sure exactly where under the Hall we were. The huge stone walls were covered with line after line of carefully delineated mathematical symbols, none of which meant anything to me. The Armourer had called them mathemagics, the bastard child of supernatural equations and description theory. When people start tel
ling me things like that, I usually just nod and move on because I know that even if I do ask questions, I m not going to understand the answers.
Strange machines rose everywhere, set out in no obvious pattern, packing the great cavern from wall to wall and from floor to ceiling, with only narrow walkways left in between. Technology so advanced that none of it meant anything to me. Just brutal and ugly shapes, with no obvious function or controls. Some of the machines appeared blurred or indistinct, as though human eyes couldn t properly perceive or understand them. The result of one Armourer s mad wisdom. Along with gifts from other worlds, dimensions, realities. Our best and craziest Armourers have always been pack rats, putting things we pick up along the way to good use. Drood knowledge is older and weirder than most of us care to admit. Mile upon mile of colour-coded cables held everything together and hung in a complicated web between the upper levels of the machines and the uneven stone ceiling. Sometimes they twitched dreamily, like a dog s legs kicking in its sleep.
I called out to the Armourer, and his voice rose from deep back in the cavern.
Over here! Whoever you are. Unless you re a monster, and then I m out. Leave a message.
I headed for his voice, past colossal machines whose intricate workings were constantly moving, rising and falling, turning this way and that in endless variations, in pursuit of unknown purposes. Some of the structures seemed to lean and slump against one another, half melting, combining into some new and even stranger thing. Some changed shape right before my eyes, as though unable to settle, humming loudly to themselves in complex harmonies. And all the time I had the feeling of being watched and studied by unseen cold and thoughtful eyes. The cavern was comfortably warm and well-lit, but there was a bristling static in the air and the smell of iron filings and something burning, and I couldn t escape the feeling that I just wasn t welcome.
None of the others said anything. They just stuck very close to me as I led them through narrow wandering walkways. Just as well, because I didn t know what I could have said in return, except, Yes, I know. It creeps the hell out of me, too.
And finally, at last, we came to Alpha Red Alpha itself, which looked just as complicated and disturbing and overwhelming as I remembered it. Big as a house, bigger than most houses, rising all the way up to the ceiling, so you had to bend your head right back to see the top of it. It looked mostly like a plunging waterfall of solid crystal with glowing wires running through it like multicoloured veins. Etched all over with row upon row of inhuman symbols. And all of this surrounded a massive hourglass, some twenty feet tall or more, fashioned from solid silver and glass so perfect you could barely see it. The top half of the hourglass was full of shimmering golden sand, with not one golden mote falling down into the lower half.
The Armourer s lab assistants were crawling all over Alpha Red Alpha, clinging precariously to outcropping parts, making adjustments, taking readings and occasionally just hitting it with hammers in a hopeful sort of way.
The Armourer himself came bustling forward to meet us a tall middle-aged man with too much intelligence and nervous energy for his own good, wearing the usual stained and slightly charred lab coat over a T-shirt reading Eat, Shoot and Leave. He was quite bald, apart from two tufts of white hair jutting out over his ears, from where he kept tugging at them while he was thinking, and bushy white eyebrows protruding over steely grey eyes. He also had a permanent stoop, from years of leaning over workstations for long hours, designing useful dangerous things for the family. He beamed happily at me, nodded happily to Molly and then stopped dead as he saw who was with us. The Regent stepped forward to smile gently at him.
Dad? said the Armourer. His mouth worked for a moment, as though he couldn t figure out what to say. And then he plunged forward and hugged the Regent close. It did look a bit odd from the outside. There was a lot of hugging going on today, and we re really not a touchy-feely kind of family on the whole. The Armourer finally let the Regent go and held him at arm s length so he could look him over properly.
It s been such a long time, Dad! I did my best to keep in touch, but it hasn t been easy. I did think you might come home again when Mum died.
It would only have complicated things, said the Regent. At a time when you really didn t need distractions.
You re looking great! said the Armourer.
I told you that serum would work.
And then he finally looked past the Regent, at Patrick and Diana, and his whole face just shut down, as though it didn t know what to do. He looked blankly at them, and they just looked quietly back.
I can t believe you re here, the Armourer said finally. I can t believe you ve come back at last. He broke off, looked at me and then back at the Regent. You haven t told him, have you? Why haven t you told him? He has a right to know!
Because it isn t the right time, the Regent said firmly. Far too much going on right now. He doesn t need to be distracted.
I ll decide what I need to know and when I need to know it, I said just as firmly. What s going on here?
I will tell you everything once this mess is over, said the Regent. I give you my word.
The Armourer frowned at Patrick and Diana and then nodded slowly.
He s right, Eddie. You need to focus on what s in front of you. We all do. Just trust us. For now.
All right, I said. For now. Talk to me about what s happening here.
We ve been working on Alpha Red Alpha nonstop, ever since the bloody thing started up for no reason and dumped us here, said the Armourer, giving the dimensional engine his best There s going to be trouble scowl. Power levels are fine. Everything s doing what I think it should be doing, but
You don t have the proper return coordinates, I said. I ran quickly through what Crow Lee had done and handed over the remote control and the Merlin Glass. The Armourer gave the remote a quick look and then handed it off to a hovering lab assistant, who hurried off with it. The Armourer scowled thoughtfully. There s a lot of useful information to be found in that thing, no doubt, but this Eddie, this isn t the Merlin Glass I gave you. I know that for a fact, because the original Merlin Glass is still lying on a bench up there in the Armoury, cracked from top to bottom and waiting for me to do something about it. This is a whole new Merlin Glass. Where did you get it?
It s from another Drood Hall, from another reality. Long story you really don t need to know for now. But this Glass can do anything the old one can, and then some. It should be able to point the way home for Alpha Red Alpha. It s very eager to please.
Not necessarily a good thing, with anything made by Merlin Satanspawn, sniffed the Armourer. But never look a gift whore in the mouth.
Language, Jack! said the Regent.
Sorry, Dad, said the Armourer. But you re right, Eddie. Let me work on the Glass. If you and the rest of the family can just keep the monsters at bay for a little while longer till I can get this heap of junk working Yes, I m talking about you, you oversized egg timer! Don t think I don t know you re listening!
We left him to it and went back up into the Hall. Which might have been under attack by an army of nightmarish monsters, but was still less disturbing than the cavern below.
Back in the main hallway, we all crowded together in the open front doors, looking out into the clearing. The monsters were pressing closer than ever to the Hall. The shimmering barrier that contained the Earth-normal conditions had been forced back right across the clearing and was now only a few yards away. The creatures seemed bigger and madder and more determined than ever, rising to fill the sky with huge slabs of angry shapes. The armoured Droods defending the perimeter had been pushed back, too, till they were only just outside the Hall. They were hitting the monsters with everything they had, but even the combined clamour of all their weapons was nothing compared to the howls and screams and roars of the massed monsters.
According to some short-range scanners the Armourer rigged up for me, the Sarjeant-at-Arms said tightly, these creatures give off dangerous radiations
and toxic emissions. As if they weren t ugly enough already. Together, just their presence is enough to overwhelm our poor Earth-normal conditions. The monsters have been pushing the barrier hard, and it can t stand against them much longer. Soon enough the clearing will be full of those monsters, and we ll have to fight from inside the Hall.
Could they push the barrier back inside the Hall? I said. Push their world s conditions in here with us?
I don t know, said the Sarjeant. The Hall has all kinds of protections, but most of them don t seem to work here. As though we re so far from our own reality that even the laws of physics are different.
Where are the Librarian and Ammonia Vom Acht? I said.
Planning some kind of psychic attack, said the Sarjeant-at-Arms, making clear what he thought of that idea with a very expressive upraised eyebrow. It s a sign of how desperate our situation is that I ve encouraged them to try. It keeps them out of the way.
Just how desperate is this situation? said Molly, peering out the door while tapping one finger idly against her silver torc.
We ve had to ground all our air forces, said the Sarjeant. The skies were getting too crowded. All that s protecting us from death from above are the gun emplacements on the roof. And just like everyone else, they re running out of ammunition. It s been centuries since we had to withstand a siege; we re just not prepared. A lesson for the Future, if there is a Future. Any idea how long it ll be before the Armourer can fire up Alpha Red Alpha and get us out of this hellhole?
He didn t say, I said.
Of course he didn t. He never does.
Pushed back by the monsters, their backs set against the front of the Hall, golden-armoured figures stood side by side, firing every kind of gun I d ever seen. Doing remarkable amounts of damage to the walls of flesh before them, but not enough to stop or even slow them. Vicious steaming fluids fell down to splash across the golden armour, only to fall harmlessly away. The stench drifting in through the doorway was unbelievably vile. I wondered if I should raise the question of the Armageddon Codex with the Sarjeant-at-Arms. He d noticed I was carrying Oath Breaker, but he hadn t said anything. I wasn t looking forward to explaining to him just who had taken the ironwood staff in the first place.
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