Moonbreaker

by Simon R. Green

  “Worse,” said Peter. “These were alchemical marriages, of the spirit as well as the flesh. Imagine a thing from the Pit, with the added power of Drood armour, operating freely in this world.”

  “I’d rather not,” said Molly.

  Peter smiled grimly. “That was the point. To intimidate our enemies. Heavy hitters, for the most extreme missions.”

  “How many Droods took part in these marriages?” I said.

  “Too many,” said Peter.

  “If these Demon Droods were such a tremendous tactical advantage,” Molly said slowly, “why were they forced outside the Hall?”

  “Because we discovered we couldn’t trust them,” said Peter. “It really shouldn’t have come as a surprise. I mean, come on. Demon Droods? The clue was right there in the name, if anyone had been paying attention.”

  “What did they do?” I said.

  “Tried to drag the entire Hall and everyone in it down to Hell,” said Peter. “Human sacrifice on a really big scale. Came pretty close, by all accounts.”

  “Why not just take their armour back and tear up the agreement?” said Molly.

  “Because we couldn’t,” said Peter. “That was part of the deal. Some marriages really are forever. The best the family could do was imprison all of the Demon Droods, and then force that prison outside our reality. But if they’re back . . . If Edmund has found a way to release them . . .”

  “Would even he be that stupid?” said Molly. “Because you can bet the Demon Droods wouldn’t thank him for his pains.”

  “He might be that desperate,” I said, “and that vindictive.”

  • • •

  Peter finally came to a halt before a single closed door. He stood there for a while, just looking at it, while he got his breathing back under control. I studied the door carefully. Solid oak, with black iron studs laid out in Druidic ritual markings. Above and below the metal studs, long lines of ancient writings had been carved deep into the wood. I leaned in close for a better look and then drew in a sharp breath. Molly moved quickly in beside me.

  “Eddie? What is it?”

  “That writing. It’s the same ancient form of Enochian we found in the Book of Morgana La Fae in the Other Hall.”

  Peter looked at me sharply. “You found a copy of that book? Did you bring it back with you?”

  “No,” I said. “Doesn’t the family have enough problems as it is?”

  “Good point,” Peter said reluctantly. “The writings on the door are bindings, agreements imposed upon reality itself, to keep what’s beyond the door from ever getting out. Do I really need to tell you this door shouldn’t be here? I only know of it from a Thirteenth-Century account of the Demon Droods’ banishing. This door and the room beyond were forced outside of Space and Time, so no one could ever release them.”

  “Well, now it’s back,” said Molly. “One hell of a bad penny. I don’t know why you’re looking so upset, Peter. We know a lot more about dealing with demons than they did back then. We can handle a few refugees from the Pit. They do it all the time in the Nightside. Is there any sign Edmund got here before us?”

  “No,” said Peter. “But we still have to go in there and check.”

  “After you,” I said generously.

  Peter scowled at me and then back at the door. “It’s always possible the strain of the sudden transition has weakened the bindings.”

  “Quite a long way after you,” I said firmly. “In fact, I’m thinking of using you as a human shield.”

  “Don’t be such a wimp, Eddie,” said Molly. “Never met a demon yet I couldn’t outfight or out-think.”

  “Yes, but that’s you,” I said. I looked dubiously at the door. “How are we supposed to get past all these protections?”

  “Just walk in,” said Peter. “We are Droods, after all. It’s our right to enjoy the fruits of our labours.”

  He turned the door handle and the lines of ancient writing flared up briefly in warning. The door fell back easily, as though it were weightless. Peter drew in a deep breath, straightened his back, and strode forward like a man walking to his own execution. I followed after, with Molly crowding impatiently behind me. Both of us ready to hit anything that caught us by surprise. We didn’t get far, because it turned out to be really quite a small room.

  “This is it,” said Peter. “This is where we imprisoned the Demon Droods. To hold them securely forever.”

  Molly sniffed loudly, unimpressed. I didn’t disagree. The poky little room made me think of a medieval dungeon. Rough and crude and pretty damned basic. No furniture, nothing in the way of comforts. The stone walls and floor were splashed with ancient bloodstains, suggesting the Demon Droods hadn’t gone quietly. No windows, and no other way in or out. The only light spilled through the doorway behind us. The air was still and stale and uncomfortably warm. Something about the aspect of the place felt soured, poisoned, by old rage and old violence.

  We were the only ones in the room, but it felt like we weren’t alone. Some part of the Demon Droods was still present, and always would be. A room haunted by its past. The atmosphere was spiritually oppressive, because you can’t deal with Hell and not get something burnt.

  “I don’t see anyone,” Molly said loudly. “Did we get here too late? Has Edmund beaten us to it and let them out?”

  “No,” said Peter. “They’re still here. Trapped in the Grim Gulf.”

  He pointed to a simple stone altar standing at the far end of the room. No adornments or trappings; just an ugly block of stone with its own long-dried bloodstains. Set on top of the altar was a single great ruby the size of a man’s fist. Polished rather than faceted, it looked like a huge drop of heart’s blood. The ruby gleamed defiantly against the gloom with a sick, corrupt light. As though it had been waiting for us.

  We all moved slowly forward, drawn on almost against our will to stand before the altar. To face something that was still a threat to our souls as well as our bodies, even after all this time. Peter’s face was pale, set in strained but determined lines. His forehead was beaded with sweat. Every instinct I had was yelling at me to get out while I still could. But sometimes standing your ground, even under the most extreme conditions, is simply what the job requires. Molly shook her head slowly.

  “I can feel Hell’s presence,” she said, matter-of-factly. “As though something was called up here and not put down again properly.”

  “The Grim Gulf,” said Peter, gesturing at the ruby with a hand that wasn’t as steady as it might have been. “The hell we made, to hold our personal demons. A prison within a prison, because we had to be sure. Or we’d never have felt safe again.”

  “All right,” I said. “We’re here and Edmund isn’t. What do we do?”

  “Take the ruby with us, of course,” said Peter. “To make sure Edmund can’t get his hands on it.”

  Molly looked at him incredulously. “Are you kidding me? You would not believe the power levels I’m picking up off that thing! It stinks of Hell . . . Even in the one place made specially to hold it! Do you really think it’s a good idea to take it out of here?”

  “No,” said Peter. “But we’re going to, anyway.” He jerked his gaze away from the ruby and turned to me. “Jack once told me you have your own pocket dimension in your trousers. Is that still true?”

  “Well, yes,” I said. “But I don’t think I like where this conversation is going. You really want me to put a Grim Gulf full of Demon Droods in my pocket?”

  “Can you think of a safer place?” said Peter.

  All kinds of answers rose in my mind, none of them particularly helpful. Much as I hated to admit it, Peter was right. We couldn’t just leave the ruby here and hope Edmund didn’t find it. Inside my pocket dimension, the ruby would be effectively isolated from the rest of the world. And hopefully hidden from all prying eyes.

  I armou
red up one hand, reached out, and took hold of the ruby. The moment my golden fingers closed around the Grim Gulf, my head was suddenly full of screams. Terrible voices, all of them calling out at once in pain, despair, and fury. A hatred so vicious and overwhelming it hammered inside my head. I swayed on my feet. Molly grabbed hold of my arm to steady me, but I barely felt her touch. The voices howled through my thoughts, demanding I let them out. Release them back into the world so they could have their revenge at long, long last.

  The ruby seemed weighed down by an almost spiritual inertia. As though it was connected to the altar stone by invisible chains. I gritted my teeth against the voices clamouring inside my head, and forced them back. I’m a Drood. I can do this. I stepped away from the altar, my hand clamped around the Grim Gulf, and then thrust the ruby into my pocket dimension. The entrance expanded to swallow the thing up and contain it, and then closed quickly again as I let go of the ruby and snatched my hand out. The voices cut off. I couldn’t even feel the weight of the Grim Gulf in my pocket.

  I didn’t like to think about what would have happened if I’d touched the damned thing with my bare flesh. I armoured down and nodded my thanks to Molly. She looked into my face searchingly before she let go of my arm, while I did my best to appear calm and unaffected. I wasn’t fooling anyone, and both of us knew it, but she smiled to show she appreciated the effort. I glared at Peter.

  “No wonder you didn’t want to touch it! You were ready to risk my life and my soul!”

  “I knew you could do it,” Peter said calmly. “You are the famous Eddie Drood, after all.”

  “The moment this emergency is over I am taking the Grim Gulf straight to the Matriarch,” I said. “The family needs to know the truth about this. About what our ancestors did, to make us what we are.”

  “Of course,” Peter said easily. “As soon as we’ve restored the suppressor fields, and put everything back where it should be, and everything is quiet again. But if you think the current Matriarch will decide any differently from her predecessors, you’re wrong. She’ll do her duty, like all the Matriarchs before her. The family doesn’t need to know everything about the family. The past should stay in the past, where it can’t hurt anyone.”

  “How can you people learn from your mistakes if you can’t remember them?” said Molly.

  “You could be right,” said Peter, but his tone of voice was just that of someone agreeing to put an end to an argument they were tired of.

  I didn’t know what else to say. But given that I had the Grim Gulf in my possession, I didn’t see what he could do to stop me.

  “Okay!” said Molly. “This has all been very entertaining, in a disturbing sort of way, but I really don’t think we should hang around here any longer. Where next?”

  “We have to find Edmund,” I said. “I don’t care how well he’s hiding himself; there must be some way to track him down.”

  “But if even Ethel can’t see him . . . ,” said Molly.

  “I suppose we could always ask the family oracle,” said Peter.

  I looked at him. “Wait a minute. We have an oracle? Since when has this family had its own oracle?”

  “Yeah,” said Molly. “What he said, only louder.”

  “We don’t, now,” said Peter. “And the reason we don’t have one is because when we did, it didn’t work out too well.”

  “When was this?” said Molly, beating me to it.

  “Some time back,” said Peter. He looked challengingly at me, defying me to get any further information out of him. Molly moved a little closer, signifying she was ready to put pressure on the old man in any number of unpleasant ways, but I stopped her with a look. We still needed Peter. And, besides, a man who’d been a field agent as long as he had probably still had a few unpleasant surprises left up his sleeve. I gestured for him to continue.

  “The family got rid of the oracle after he insisted on telling the then Matriarch something she really didn’t want to know,” Peter said carefully. “So she had him put in storage, along with all the other things the family keeps tucked away for a rainy day.”

  “You think he’s back now?” I said.

  “Seems likely,” said Peter.

  “You know a lot more about what’s going on here than you’re prepared to admit,” I said.

  “Of course,” said Peter. “I’m the last of the very-secret agents. Secrets are what we did best.”

  “As soon as this is over,” I said, “we are going to have a long talk.”

  “Looking forward to it immensely,” said Peter. He turned to Molly. “Fire up your magics, O witch of witches. The oracle is so powerful he should stand out like a fart in a perfume factory, even in the midst of all this madness.”

  Molly fixed me with a thoughtful stare. “Are you sure about this, Eddie? In my experience, oracles are always more trouble than they’re worth. They live to mess with people’s lives.”

  “We’ve been running behind Edmund for too long,” I said. “We need something to put us out in front for a change.”

  “I can try,” Molly said grudgingly. “But first, let’s get out of this room. It grates on my nerves like fingernails scraping down a corpse.”

  • • •

  Once we were out in the corridor again with the door firmly closed, Molly bit her lip and stared off into the distance.

  “Trying to push my Sight past your family’s defences is like trying to kick a door in while wearing carpet slippers,” she growled. “Slow and painful, with no guarantee of success. It doesn’t help that Space itself has become so crowded, so saturated with new information, it’s hard to See anything.”

  “Are you saying you can’t See the oracle?” I said.

  “Of course I can See him! I just wanted you to understand how difficult this is! Your trouble is you don’t appreciate me, Eddie Drood.”

  She gestured sharply and a glowing arrow appeared, floating serenely on the air before us. Molly set off down the corridor and the arrow darted ahead of her, pointing the way. I followed quietly after her, and Peter ambled along in the rear.

  The arrow led us unwaveringly through a twisting tangle of familiar and unfamiliar locations, never once pausing to make up its mind. Doors hung open to every side, offering tempting glimpses of strange sights, marvels, and curiosities. I kept a watchful eye out for possible threats, but nothing showed itself. Possibly because Molly was in the lead, and quite obviously ready to walk right through anything that got in her way.

  The glowing arrow finally slammed to a halt outside a closed and seemingly unremarkable door. It juddered back and forth for a moment, as though it would have liked to press on further but couldn’t, and then blinked out. Molly turned to me.

  “Do you know this door, Eddie? Is it regular issue, or a blast from the past?”

  “I haven’t recognised anything for some time,” I said. “None of this should be here. Including the corridor we’re standing in.”

  “I’m getting distinctly tired of all this novelty,” said Peter. “The sooner we put everything back where it should be, the better.”

  “So the family can forget all its sins again?” I said.

  “What good would it do to rake everything over again? What’s done is done.”

  “The past can still serve as a dreadful warning,” I said. “As to what happens when certain members of the family decide they know better than anyone else. When we screw up we have a responsibility to clean up after ourselves, not just sweep it under the carpet.”

  Peter shrugged. “This was all decided long before our time. By people a lot closer to the problem than we are.”

  “Are we going in or not?” Molly said loudly. “I swear, if you two don’t stop arguing like an old married couple, I will nail your ears to the wall.”

  I looked at Peter. “She would too. I’ve seen her do it.”

  “Let�
�s go talk to the oracle,” said Peter.

  He pushed the door open and strode in. Molly hurried after him, and I brought up the rear, still scowling to myself. Another small, shadowy, windowless room, entirely empty . . . apart from the man in the iron cage. It wasn’t much of a cage; more like a standing coffin crudely fashioned from metal bars, only just big enough to hold the man inside. A slow chill ran through me, as I realised the prisoner could never sit down, never rest. Another chill followed as I saw the door to the cage had been welded shut long ago. My family really didn’t want this guy getting out.

  The man in the cage was entirely naked, tall and scrawny and caked in filth, with long, matted hair and beard. His eyes were fierce, mad, feral. He looked right at us as we came in, as though he’d been expecting us. We lined up before the cage, and then all pulled the same face as the smell hit us. I turned angrily to Peter.

  “How long has he been here? This isn’t just imprisonment; it’s inhuman!”

  “Don’t waste your sympathies on him,” said Peter, staring, unflinching, at the prisoner in his cage. “The only reason the Matriarch didn’t order his death was because after everything he’d done, mercy was out of the question. As to how long he’s been here, who can say? I’m not sure the question means anything. Time doesn’t affect people the same once they’ve been forced outside it.”

  “None of this makes sense to me,” said Molly. “Why keep any of this stuff?”

  “Because my family never throws away anything if there’s a chance we might need it again someday,” I said. “And, yes, that does apply to people as well as things.”

  “In this case they were right, weren’t they?” said Peter. “Now hush, children. It’s time to consult the oracle. Let me do all the talking.”

  He stood directly before the man in the iron cage, holding the oracle’s fierce gaze with his own. “I admonish and adjure you, in the name of the Droods, to answer all questions put to you. And speak only truth, in the most simple and straightforward way.” He paused to glance at Molly and me. “You have to do that, or he’ll dance around the subject forever without getting anywhere. Just because he can.”