Casino Infernale

  The light slammed down like a brick-red waterfall, and everywhere I looked, red planet Mars looked back. Even through my armour’s protection I could tell I’d come to a whole new place, a whole other world. I stood very still, just looking around me. The bleak and dusty surface of the Martian plateau stretched away in every direction. A huge red plain, interrupted here and there with rocks and pebbles, but nothing else. No sign of life at all. The surface of Mars looked like the bottom of the ocean: a sea bed with all the water gone, long gone. A scene not just dead and lifeless, but lacking in any quality to suggest there might ever have been life here. Except for the city. Straight ahead of us rose a huge cliff face. Brick red, rising high as a mountain range, dominating the horizon. And there, cut deep into the cliff face itself, Someone or Something had carved a great city.

  Not as we would understand such a thing, of course, but the shapes and structures, the entrances and windows, the long lines and the deep-etched details, all added up to something recognisable as a city. I couldn’t even grasp the scale. I had to tilt my head right back, just to take in the jagged-towered top. There was nothing like it on Earth, in all of human history. The sense of . . . sheer scale, was utterly inhuman. I didn’t know why I was so excited, why my heart was hammering so madly in my chest. I’d been to other worlds, other dimensions, other realities . . . but this was Mars. And Mars has always had a special place in the human heart. It had honestly never even occurred to me that I would ever get to walk on the Martian plains. Behind my golden mask, I was grinning so hard it hurt my face.

  So, this was it. The Martian Tombs. All that remained to mark the presence of a race that was over, finished. A race gone to dust and less than dust before Humanity ever appeared on Earth. Our closest neighbour, our older brother. It felt like walking through a graveyard.

  Molly moved in close beside me. “A rose red city, half as old as Time . . .”

  “That’s what most people say, the first time they see it,” said the Armourer.

  I glanced behind me and realised for the first time that the Door was gone. Not a mark left on the red ground, nothing to show the Door had ever been there. We were alone, on Mars.

  “Don’t worry, lad,” said the Armourer. “It’ll return, when it’s called. It’s a good Door.”

  Molly couldn’t tear her eyes away from the deep red cliff face. “Look at it . . . it’s magnificent! That’s not even a human aesthetic, but it’s obvious what it is. A Martian city . . .”

  “No matter how many times I see it, it still takes my breath away,” the Armourer admitted.

  I turned to look at him. “You’ve been here before? You never said. How many Summit Meetings have you attended?”

  “Three,” said the Armourer. “Neutral ground like this is important. When important decisions have to be made.”

  “What sort of agreements are we talking about here?” I said. “I never heard anything about any of this, and I used to run the family! Or at least I thought I did . . .”

  “We would have got around to telling you about things like this,” the Armourer said vaguely, “if you’d stayed in charge a bit longer. . . . Do I ask you about all your secrets?”

  “Yes!” I said. “All the time!”

  “I’m allowed,” said the Armourer. “I’m your uncle. I worry about you. When are you two going to get properly married, and make me a great-uncle? I’m not getting any younger, you know.”

  “No,” I said. “But I bet you’re working on it.”

  The Armourer shrugged easily. “Ask me something else.”

  “How are we hearing each other talk?” I said. “There’s no atmosphere here.”

  “Armour speaks to armour,” said the Armourer. “Though how Molly’s joining in is frankly beyond me.”

  “Why did the Door drop us all the way out here, on the Martian plain?” said Molly. “It’s a good half-hour’s walk to that cliff. Why not deliver us safely inside the Martian Tombs?”

  “Because the Tombs won’t let it,” said the Armourer. “This . . . is as close as the Tombs will allow.”

  “Who built the city?” I said. “And when?”

  “We don’t know,” said the Armourer. “We just found it. The family, I mean.”

  “When?” said Molly.

  “More centuries ago than I am comfortable considering,” said the Armourer. “Our family does get around. . . . You must always remember that the Droods are very old and hold many secrets. All I can tell you is that our family’s age is nothing compared to that city. The Tombs are really old. Millennia old. You’re about to ask me how we came here and discovered the Tombs, aren’t you, Eddie? Well, not even I know everything. Loath though I am to admit it. There’s supposed to be a full report on the original discovery somewhere in the Old Library. But William hasn’t found it yet. He says it’s hiding.”

  I looked at Molly. “Are you all right, in your . . . bark? Breathing okay?”

  “I’m fine, Eddie. Don’t fuss. I’ve probably got more air inside my woods than you have in your armour.” She stopped to look at the Armourer. “Should we be hurrying? Didn’t occur to me to wonder about your air supply.”

  “We have more than enough,” the Armourer said comfortably. “But you’re right; we should get a move on. The others will be here soon.”

  He started forward, across the great red plain, and Molly and I hurried after him.

  • • •

  My armour quickly adjusted to the different, lighter gravity, compensating for my every movement so I could walk almost normally, instead of just bouncing along. Molly quickly gave up trying, tucked her legs under her to sit cross-legged in mid-air, and floated along between me and the Armourer. There was no sound anywhere around us, just the faint thudding of our feet on the unyielding surface. No shadows, either. I looked up into the swirling dusty skies, where Martian sunlight fell through in fitful streams. It was hard to make out the sun at all, and the two moons were so small I couldn’t see them anywhere.

  Molly stopped suddenly and grabbed me by the arm, bringing me to an abrupt halt. “Eddie! Did you see that?”

  The Armourer stopped too, and we all looked where Molly was pointing, at the base of the great red cliff. I zoomed in through my mask for all it was worth, but I couldn’t see anything. Nothing moving at all . . .

  “What?” said the Armourer, urgently. “What did you see, Molly?”

  “I don’t know.” Molly’s voice was small, doubtful. “I thought I saw . . . something moving. But there’s nothing there now. Nothing at all.”

  We all stood and looked, for a while.

  “Nothing there now,” I said.

  “It moved . . . strangely,” said Molly. “Like nothing I’ve ever seen before. And I’ve been around.”

  “It’s true,” I said. “She has.”

  “Probably just a shadow,” said the Armourer. “Nothing’s lived on Mars for millions of years.”

  “You sure about that?” I said.

  “Absolutely,” said the Armourer. “Let’s get inside. We’ll be safer there.”

  “Safe from what?” said Molly.

  “From jumping at shadows,” said the Armourer, firmly.

  “We will be safe, inside the Martian Tombs?” I said.

  “Well . . . yes and no,” said the Armourer. “We can’t go far inside. The Tombs’ hospitality is strictly limited. But we’ll be safe enough in the entrance lobby. The only thing we really have to worry about are the other people coming to the Summit. Powerful organisations tend to send powerful representatives. Discussions can become heated, and it’s not unheard-of for there to be a certain amount of . . . physical jockeying for position. A butting of heads, if you like, to determine seniority. And all that.”

  “Alpha males,” said Molly, scathingly. “Evolution—I’m looking forward to it.”

  We moved on again, the
Armourer leading the way. Slow plumes of crimson dust rose up with our footprints, settling gradually back again. I moved in close beside Molly.

  “Did you really see something?” I said quietly. “Or were you just yanking the Armourer’s chain?”

  “I don’t know,” said Molly. “I saw something . . . but maybe it was just a shadow. In case you hadn’t noticed, the shadows don’t move here like they move on Earth. Even the light is weird. This whole place gives me the creeps. Don’t you feel like there’s something watching us?”

  “All the time,” I said. “Comes with being a Drood.”

  The closer we got to the cliff face, the more details I could make out in the crimson city. The whole cliff face was one enormous facade, all the pieces endlessly interlocking and connecting, and all of it made up of remorselessly straight lines. Not a curve, or a dome, or a circle anywhere. Every single detail was almost unbearably sharp and clear, after unknown millennia standing alone and forgotten. Standing firm, in the face of Time and the Martian elements. Any Earth city would have been ground to dust by now . . . I slowly realised that there were patterns in the face of the city, meaningful shapes within shapes . . . but none of them made any sense to me. The face of the city was an alien mask, inscrutable and unreadable to human eyes.

  We came to a halt, finally, standing at the foot of the massive cliff face. Up close, I could make out lines of . . . markings, images. Might have been writing, or language. Though whether they were names, or instructions, or warnings . . . was beyond me. Each symbol was almost insanely intricate. Just running my eyes along them was enough to make my head ache, as though I was trying to assimilate concepts the human mind couldn’t cope with. I pointed them out to the Armourer and he just shrugged.

  “Don’t ask me, lad. Haven’t a clue. Don’t know anyone who has. There’s no one left to tell us what they might have meant. No Rosetta Stone, to help us translate them. The words of a lost race . . . their meaning lost, in Time.”

  I deliberately didn’t look up the cliff face. The sheer size and scale of it seemed to hang over me, as though it may come crashing down at any moment. Usually, when I’m wearing my armour I feel like I’m ready to take on anything in the world, but I didn’t feel like that here, on this world. My exuberance at making it to Mars was gone; I felt alone, in a strange place, beyond my understanding.

  The Armourer leaned forward abruptly, studying a door-shaped design in the cliff face before him. It was huge, some thirty feet tall and maybe half as wide. Definitely not built to any human scale. The Armourer placed one golden palm flat against the brick-red surface. Dust fell in jerking rushes from the outlines of the door, and there was a sudden sense of movement and purpose to the door shape. As though we’d disturbed, or awoken, something. Molly lowered her feet to the ground and stood beside me, ready for action. The door seemed to stand out before us, more definite than ever, as though taking on a role. It slid suddenly, smoothly upwards, revealing a dark opening. Utterly dark, impenetrable even to my mask’s augmented vision. I tried infrared and ultraviolet, and still couldn’t make out anything beyond the door.

  “Don’t worry,” said the Armourer. “I have powerful lights built into my armour.”

  “Of course you have,” I said.

  Two large lenses rose up out of my uncle Jack’s shoulders, and blasted great beams of pure white light into the doorway. They blazed brightly, pushing back the dark, revealing a tunnel of dark red, almost organic material. Like staring into the body of some enormous beast. The white light was subtly comforting, after so much red everywhere. The Armourer strode into the tunnel, blasting his white light ahead of him, and Molly and I followed him in, sticking close behind. We didn’t want to be left outside the light. The moment we were all inside, the door slid silently shut behind us. Locking us in.

  • • •

  The Armourer just kept walking, counting his steps under his breath. He moved his shoulders just enough to keep the lights ranging back and forth. The tunnel soon opened out into a huge, overpoweringly massive chamber. The sheer size of it was unpleasantly oppressive to merely human senses. The light from the Armourer’s suit showed only brief glimpses of our surroundings. No human could ever be comfortable in such a place. The sense of scale was off the chart. They were bigger people, here. Back then.

  The floor was made up of pale yellow squares that didn’t look like stone or metal. Some kind of crystal, perhaps. Flat and smooth, they seemed to swallow up the sound our footsteps made as we trod on them. For all its antiquity the floor was completely unsullied and unmarked, with not a speck of dust anywhere.

  “Is there nothing left here to tell us who and what the Martians were?” Molly said softly.

  “No,” said the Armourer. “Not a trace. They were long gone, millions of years gone, before the first Human set foot on Mars. Long and long before we found the Tombs. Of course, we haven’t been able to explore much. The Tombs don’t allow us to travel beyond this chamber. But as far as we can tell, nothing remains to even suggest what manner of creature the Martians were.”

  “Bigger than us,” I said. “And, they built to last.”

  We were all talking quietly, respectfully. As though we didn’t want to draw attention to ourselves. The darkness outside the Armourer’s white light was still complete, and unfathomable.

  “Why do you call this place the Tombs?” Molly said suddenly. “If you’ve never found any bodies?”

  “Because that’s what this place feels like,” said the Armourer. “A place of the dead.”

  “And Louise was here on her own?” I said to Molly. “Your sister must have been scared out of her wits.”

  “Oh, nothing bothers Louise,” said Molly. “Not if it knows what’s good for it. If she really was here . . . I mean, she didn’t leave any traces. Nothing missing, nothing broken. Which is not like Louise . . .”

  The Armourer was still moving steadily forward, counting steps, or maybe panels, under his breath. And we went with him, to stay in his light. He finally stopped counting, knelt down and placed one golden palm on the floor, covering one particular crystal square. It lit up immediately, pouring out a pale yellow light, strangely unpleasant, like stale urine. The Armourer stood up, and shut down his shoulder lights. Crystal squares lit up all around us, pouring more light into the massive chamber. Great rumbling sounds started up deep beneath the floor. I could feel slow juddering vibrations through the golden soles of my feet. The whole floor suddenly blazed with yellow light, and then the walls, and the ceiling far above. The huge chamber made itself known all around us, appallingly large and entirely unsympathetic. The three of us stood close together, desperate for human contact and feeling, in the face of such . . . inhuman vastness. You could have stuck the whole of Drood Hall in this chamber, and it would have looked small and lost.

  There was something wrong with the yellow light, something subtly disturbing, as though it was meant for a different kind of eye, or sensibility. It was like being underwater, though I could make out every detail clearly enough. The light pulsed endlessly, moving in slow rolls or waves from one end of the huge chamber to the other, and then back again. It took me a moment to realise I wasn’t casting a shadow. Neither was Molly, nor the Armourer. That spooked me, on some deep primal level. I wanted to ask the Armourer to put his lights back on, to have some sane white light to look at. But I didn’t. First rule of a Drood in enemy territory: never do anything that might make you look weak. I craned my head back to look up at the ceiling; it had to be three, maybe four hundred feet above us. I felt a kind of reverse vertigo, as though I might fall upwards at any moment. I looked away.

  There were no markings, no lines of alien symbols, on any of the walls. Just more flat crystal squares, like those on the floor and the ceiling: smooth and untroubled.

  “Why did this place react to your touch?” I asked the Armourer. Just to be saying something. “Did you . . . ?” br />
  “Hell no,” said the Armourer. “None of this is anything to do with me. The Tombs created this room, for us. To serve our needs. Don’t ask me why. It’s a mystery. Ah, there! Can you feel that? Earth gravity has been established. That means this room now has Earth normal conditions. It’s safe to armour down. In the sense that nothing in this room will actually try to kill us.”

  “You sure about that?” I said.

  “Don’t mess around, Eddie,” said the Armourer, not unkindly. “I have done this before.”

  He armoured down, and the golden strange matter disappeared back into his torc in a moment. He was still wearing his messy lab coat, over his rude T-shirt, and looked extremely out of place. But then he always did, anywhere outside his beloved Armoury. He peered interestedly about him, apparently completely unconcerned, so I armoured down too. The air was flat and tasteless, and though I breathed deeply, I couldn’t smell anything. The air was cool, and completely still. I turned to Molly just as the bark surrounding her disappeared. She shuddered briefly, despite herself, and then her head came up and she glared about her. Molly didn’t believe in being impressed by anything. She shot me a quick grin.

  “The wild woods I brought with me aren’t gone, I just shifted them sideways. I can call them back at a moment’s notice.”

  I looked at her, and then at the Armourer. “Her explanations are even worse than yours, Uncle Jack.”

  “What an appalling place this is,” said Molly. “I have been in travel lodges with more character. Whole place looks like one big toilet.”

  “Don’t you dare!” I said immediately.

  She sniffed loudly. “It’s all right for you. You can do it in your armour. Knew I should have gone before we left.”

  “What do you want me to do?” I said. “Extrude a golden chamber pot for you, from out of my armour?”

  “You can do that?” said Molly.

  “Well,” I said, “I’ve never tried . . . but I suppose, in an emergency . . .”

  “A little less chatter, children,” said the Armourer, not looking back at us. “We’re not alone, here. . . .”