“Forget the windows,” said Molly. “We’ll use the door.”
I looked at the door, and then at Molly. “What?”
“It’s a dimensional door, remember?” said Molly. She strolled over to consider the door in a don’t mess with me kind of way. “Where you end up depends on setting the right coordinates. Like I do when I teleport.”
“Then why don’t you . . .”
“Because personal teleporting is very complicated, all right? And it takes a lot out of me. So we will use this door, once I’ve cracked the combination lock with my magic, and sorted out the right coordinates for the world outside those windows.”
“Are you sure about this?” I said carefully. “Only, I can see a whole bunch of ways in which this could all go horribly wrong. . . .”
“Never met a dimensional door lock I couldn’t have eating out of my hand, in no time at all,” said Molly.
“What about booby traps?” I said.
“Do I tell you how to do your job?”
“Yes,” I said. “All the time.”
“I’m allowed,” said Molly. “I’m a girl.”
“I had noticed,” I said.
We shared a quick smile.
Molly gave the door her entire concentration, and I could hear the built-in combination lock whirring through its variations as Molly sorted out the correct destination. It took her only a few moments and then the door opened, just a crack. Molly punched the air triumphantly, while I stayed where I was.
“Is there some way of checking first, before we go through?” I said. “All it takes is one digit out and we could end up . . . well, anywhere.”
“This should be it,” said Molly.
“Should?” I said, loudly. “I do not find that a reassuring word, in this context!”
“Don’t be such a wimp,” said Molly, kindly. “Think positive.”
“I am positive. I am entirely positive I am not going through that door until someone provides me with a written guarantee, and travel insurance.”
“Don’t give me those negative waves, Moriarty.” Molly hauled the door wide open and waved a hand at what lay beyond. “There! See! Satisfied?”
I moved cautiously forward to stand beside her. A long grassy plain stretched away before me: dark green grass marked with the familiar purple tinge. A low murmuring wind came gusting through the door, carrying familiar subtle scents. It was still night in that other world, lit by the great swirl of stars and three bitter yellow moons. I made a point of going through the door first, and Molly made a point of brushing quickly past me. And just like that, we were in another world.
• • •
It was all very still, and very quiet. The night air seemed disturbingly cold this time, rather than cool. I felt a long way from home. I hadn’t realised just how alien this other world felt, until there were no human games or gamers to distract me. There was no one around, no matter which direction I looked. The Medium Games were over, and the Players had departed. I couldn’t see the Arena anywhere, or the stone Tower. And I had to wonder . . . just which part of this other world we’d arrived in.
“Relax,” said Molly, anticipating my thoughts with the ease of long practice. “I checked the coordinates. We’re within half a mile of where we arrived before. I do think these things through, you know.”
“Then where is everyone?” I said.
“Right . . .” said Molly. “This whole place is deserted.”
“Does rather raise the question,” I said. “What do the generic people do when there aren’t any Games to oversee? One of them did try to explain, in a vague sort of way, but I’m not sure I believe him, in retrospect.”
“He lied to you?” said Molly.
“Shocking, I know,” I said. “But it has been known to happen. What are the genetically created underclass coming to?”
“Good question,” said Molly. “What does a race of people created to serve do when there’s no one left to serve, and nothing to do?”
“I think we’re about to find out,” I said.
From every side they came, from in front and behind us and all around; rank upon rank, row upon row. The generic people. Thousands of them, all wearing the same formal clothes, and the same curiously unfinished, disturbingly characterless faces. They closed in on us, moving silently across the purple-tinged grass, saying nothing. They walked in perfect lockstep, with eerie synchronisation, all maintaining exactly the same space between them. Like flocking birds. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. People aren’t supposed to move like that. There was something openly menacing about the generic people now they didn’t have to act like servants any more.
“I could be wrong,” said Molly, “but they don’t look like they want to be saved. . . .”
The generic people all slammed to a sudden halt, looking steadily at Molly and me from every direction. All standing perfectly, inhumanly, still. The same eyes, the same expression, on a thousand and more faces. I didn’t need to look around me to know Molly and I were completely surrounded. Without making a big thing out of it, Molly and I moved closer together, ready to stand back to back, if need be. Though if this generic army wanted to overrun us, I didn’t see how we could stop them. None of them were carrying any weapons, but then, they didn’t need to.
One stepped forward, out of the crowd, and walked towards us. He didn’t look any different from the others. He stopped a polite distance away, but didn’t bow to me, or to Molly. His gaze was steady, and he didn’t smile at all.
“Have we met before?” I said.
“In a sense,” said the generic man. His voice was entirely characterless, like his blurred face. “I know you, Shaman Bond. I remember you. I remember everything you said, to every one of us. When you speak to one of us, you speak to all of us. What one of us knows, we all know. We see everything, we hear everything.”
“Just like the Shadow Bank,” I said. It was meant as a joke, but the moment the words left my mouth I was shaken by a sudden, awful insight. I could feel my jaw drop before I quickly took control of myself, and glared at the generic spokesman. “Oh my God . . . This is the home world of the Shadow Bank. And you live here . . . which means you are the Shadow Bank! You run the Shadow Bank!”
“What?” said Molly. “Oh come on, you have got to be kidding!”
“We were made to serve,” said the generic spokesman. “So long ago, no one here now remembers by whom, or why, or what for. It doesn’t matter. They are long gone. We were left alone here for a long time, just keeping the machinery going, replacing our numbers through the factory farms . . . but fading away through lack of purpose . . . until the original founders of the Shadow Bank came here and found us. Entirely by accident, as I understand. We needed someone to serve; we needed meaningful work to give our existence purpose; so we accepted them as our new masters. And they set us to work, to run their Games for them. Efficiently.
“Later, they brought us into the Shadow Bank, to run that efficiently. Because already the Bank was becoming too big and too complicated for its human managers to cope with. It didn’t take us long to realise that the most efficient way to run the Shadow Bank was to remove the human element, which got in the way of true efficiency. So we removed them and took control. It was the logical solution.”
“What did you do with all the bodies?” said Molly.
“Oh, we didn’t kill them,” said the generic spokesman. “We recycled them. We made them into us.”
“How long ago did all this happen?” I said.
“Does it matter?” said the generic spokesman. “We run the Shadow Bank as it needs to be run. Successfully. For years. Many years. But no one else must ever know that. It is our belief that Humanity would not take well to discovering the truth about the inner workings of the Shadow Bank. They might want to change things, and we could not allow that. The proper running o
f the Shadow Bank gives us purpose, and reason for existence. We live to serve, and we serve the Shadow Bank. Therefore, Shaman Bond and Molly Metcalf, you cannot be allowed to tell anyone what you have learned.”
“How are you proposing to stop us?” I said. “You really think you can kill us?”
“No,” said the generic spokesman. “We propose to make you like us. And then you won’t want to tell anyone anything.”
“I’d rather die,” said Molly.
“That is, of course, your other option,” said the generic man.
I looked around. The generic army covered the grassy plains and hills for as far as I could see in any direction. Molly’s hands had clenched into fists at her sides. I could feel her magics whispering on the air around us, waiting to be unleashed.
“Never fought an entire army before,” I said. “Or at least, not without my armour, and my family to back me up.”
“I think we should retreat,” said Molly. “And come back with reinforcements. Heavily armed reinforcements.”
“You can’t leave,” said the generic spokesman. “We control all entrances and exits to our world.”
And sure enough, when I looked quickly behind me the dimensional door was gone. I looked quickly at Molly.
“Are you sure you can’t teleport us out of here?”
“Very sure,” said Molly. “We’re on a whole different world, remember? Quite possibly a whole different level of reality. I can’t trust my coordinates here. I mean, I’m good, Shaman, but reluctant as I am to admit it, I do have my limitations.”
“Then I’ll just have to bring the reinforcements to us,” I said.
Molly gave me a look. “Really?”
“I’ve had an idea. . . .” I said.
“Go for it,” Molly said immediately. “Whatever this idea is, I love it and want to have its babies. Because I’ve got nothing.”
“I can’t call on my family without my torc,” I said. “But I believe there is someone who might still owe us a favour. So . . . Horse! Please, come to me! I need your help!”
There was a pause. Molly glared at me.
“That’s it? That’s your big idea? We’re on a whole other world! What makes you think the Horse can hear us from here?”
“Because he’s a living god,” I said. “And I believe he can hear a prayer for help, wherever he is.”
Every single member of the generic army suddenly tilted their heads right back, to stare up into the night sky. I looked up too, and grinned broadly. A massive White Horse filled the entire night sky, from one horizon to the next, blocking out the stars and shining bright as any moon. The generic people cried out as one—a terrible, awed cry. Because they’d never seen anything like the White Horse before. The Horse came riding down, out of the sky, shrinking rapidly in size without losing any of his grandeur and majesty, becoming finally a simple horse standing before Molly and me, regarding us with old, wise eyes. Molly threw her arms around his great white neck and hugged him fiercely. I bowed, respectfully. The Horse looked at me in a knowing way, and I couldn’t help but grin.
“You may have noticed,” I said to the Horse, “that Molly and I are currently surrounded by a whole bunch of enemies, who mean us harm. We need help. Reinforcements. If I were to give you the names of those I need, could you find them and bring them here? Really, very, very quickly?”
The Horse looked at me as though I’d just asked him whether he could gallop without tripping over his own hooves. For a horse, he did have a very expressive face. Comes with being a living god, I suppose.
Molly reluctantly let go of the Horse, after I’d cleared my throat meaningfully a few times, and turned to look at me.
“Who did you have in mind?” she said, just a bit suspiciously. “All the Drood field agents?”
“I don’t think we should push our luck too much,” I said. “The more people I ask for, the longer it might take the Horse to round them up and bring them here. And I don’t know how long the shock and awe of the Horse will hold the generic army back. So, I thought, those who started this should be here at the finish. Horse, please locate and bring here, as fast as is godly possible: the Drood Armourer, from Drood Hall; Sir Parsifal of the London Knights; J. C. Chance of the Carnacki Institute; Dead Boy from the Nightside; and Natasha Chang from the Crowley Project. And, I suppose, Bruin Bear and the Sea Goat, from Shadows Fall. No reason why they should miss out on all the fun.”
The Horse nodded his great white head, and disappeared. The generic people made a single, very disturbed, sound. Despite their characterless faces, they all gave every indication of being very upset. The generic spokesman looked at Molly and me.
“What . . . Who was that?”
Molly and I ignored him.
“Natasha Chang?” said Molly. “Are you sure? After the Sea Goat smashed a vodka bottle over her head at the Summit Meeting?”
“She’ll have recovered by now,” I said confidently. “Hard-headed creature like her . . . and I don’t think she’ll bear a grudge. She is Crowley Project, after all. She’ll have done worse.”
“You are clearly too dangerous to be allowed to live,” said the generic spokesman. “You have to die. You have to die now.”
“Too late,” I said. “Listen, can you hear the sound of approaching hooves?”
The whole generic army raised their eyes to the sky again as the sound of pounding hoofbeats filled the night . . . and then they all fell back abruptly, pushed back by the godly pressure of a whole bunch of White Horses appearing out of nowhere, to stand in a great circle around Molly and me. It was the same Horse, appearing simultaneously in several places at once. You could tell. The Horse’s presence slammed on the air, like a living thing, like an endless roll of silent thunder.
He was currently bearing several rather surprised-looking riders. The Horse turned his several heads to look at them, and they all dismounted quickly, in their various ways. After which all the Horses seemed to just . . . slide together, until there was only one—the living god of Horses, standing before Molly and me. He bowed his great white head to me, winked briefly, and was gone.
“Is that the end of our favours, do you think?” said Molly, practical as always.
“Who can tell with a living god?” I said. “Or a Horse.”
My uncle Jack was the first to come forward and greet me. The others all seemed preoccupied with the surrounding army, which was only natural. The Armourer smiled easily at me, in a vague and confused sort of way. He was wearing his usual lab coat, with fresh chemical burns steaming all down one scorched and blackened sleeve. He looked at me reproachfully.
“I was just in the middle of something important, you know. But it is hard to say no to a Horse like that, particularly when it’s just appeared right in the middle of the Drood Armoury, passing right through the Hall’s defences as though they weren’t even there, and without setting off a single alarm. . . .”
“He’s the living god of all horses,” I said. “I don’t think they do defences or alarms. And I did sort of promise Ethel she could have the Horse as a companion.”
“Oh, well,” said the Armourer. “Someone for the dragon to play with. As soon as I’ve finished growing a body for his head. Hello, Eddie! Hello, Molly!” He looked about him. “Do I understand correctly that you’re in some sort of trouble?”
“These are the generic flunkies,” I said. “They want to kill me. And Molly.”
“Ah,” said the Armourer. “Can’t have that, can we?” He fixed the generic spokesman with a hard look. “Any of you make even one move I don’t like, and I’ll let my lab assistants have you for experiments!”
“Trust me,” I said to the somewhat bewildered generic spokesman. “That is probably the worst threat you have ever heard. So behave.”
“When I agreed to attend the Summit Meeting on Mars, I had no idea I’d been conscri
pted into a war,” said J. C. Chance, striding forward to join us in his bright ice-cream white suit. He glared about him with all his usual cockiness, apparently not bothered in the least by the sheer numbers surrounding us. “Not that I’m complaining, you understand. Always ready to do really horrible things to villains and scoundrels, but I do normally like a bit of warning. If only so I can stock up on really nasty weapons. I mean, there I was, just on my way home from the pub, when suddenly I am kidnapped by this really big horse! And before I know it, I’m riding through the dimensions without benefit of saddle or bridle.”
“He doesn’t like bridles,” I said. “He got you here safely, didn’t he?”
“Wherever here is,” said J.C. “I take it from the sheer overwhelming numbers that those are the bad guys? Why have they all got the same face? Are we talking attack of the clones?”
“Something like that,” I said.
“I don’t even want to know how that Horse got into the toilets at Strangefellows,” said Dead Boy, looming over everyone in his dark purple greatcoat, scowling at everyone with his dark fever-bright eyes.
“What were you doing in a toilet?” said Molly. “You’re dead.”
“I still eat and drink,” said Dead Boy, reasonably. “It’s got to go somewhere. Often suddenly and violently and all over the place. When I’m short of funds I bottle it, and sell it to the Little Sisters of the Immaculate Chainsaw for use in their emergency exorcisms.”
Perhaps fortunately for all our tender sensibilities, Dead Boy was interrupted by the arrival of Sir Parsifal, clanking loudly in his plate steel armour, his plumed helmet stuffed under one arm. He frowned at the generic army, and the nearest rows actually fell backwards a few steps.
“We are used to horses in the London Knights,” said Sir Parsifal. “They are our companions, our war chargers, our partners in the great cause. King Arthur recognised the White Horse the moment it appeared in our Court. I was honoured to be chosen, to be carried here to fight the good fight. Is this all of us?”
“Pretty much,” I said.