Daemons Are Forever

  “They’re using swords in the future?” said Molly incredulously. “When they have the technology to produce cyborgs like these?”

  I shrugged. “Who knows what’s normal around here?”

  I spotted a discarded gun lying in the snow, and bent down to pick it up. The gun was eerily light in my hand, for all its bulky size. It was mostly a dull green metal, crusted with glowing crystals and blinking coloured readout lights. But it had a barrel, and a trigger, so I aimed it out across the plain and fired. A searing bolt of energy blasted from the gun and blew a massive crater out of the snow a good hundred yards away. The ground shook under our feet for a moment, and Molly grabbed at my arm. All the snow above the crater had been vaporised, leaving thick spirals of mist twisting in the air.

  I hefted the energy gun, grinning. “Oh, Uncle Jack is just going to love this.”

  “If you can keep from blowing us all up,” Molly said dryly. “Put it away, Eddie. You can play with it later.”

  I looked for a safety catch, but the gun didn’t seem to have one, so I just slipped it carefully into my jacket pocket. Molly knelt down beside one of the cyborg bodies.

  “Do you think we should take one of these back with us? The Armourer could probably learn all kinds of things from the technology.”

  I considered it, but shook my head firmly. “Feels a bit too much like body snatching, I think.”

  “Wimp,” said Molly. She started to straighten up, and the cyborg grabbed her suddenly by the arm with one dead hand.

  Molly yelled, despite herself. She tugged fiercely, but the cyborg had a death grip on her arm. I stepped quickly forward, and stamped hard on the cyborg’s chest. The armour bruised my heel even through my shoe, but the impact tore the cyborg’s hand away from Molly’s arm. It grabbed for my leg, but I’d already stepped back. Molly backpeddled away from the cyborg as fast as the thick snow would let her, cursing loudly. The cyborg sat up in the bloody snow and looked at us both with a dead, expressionless face. Silvery circuit patterns covered his brow and trailed down one side of his face. He raised one arm and pointed at us, and a thin black barrel slid smoothly out the back of his hand. I threw myself down into the hard-packed snow, and an energy bolt flashed through the air where I’d been standing, close enough that all the hair on my body stood up at once.

  I rolled to one side and struggled to my feet. The cyborg rose up out of the snow in swift, jerky movements, already turning his head back and forth, checking for a new target. And yet for all of this, I never once got the feeling that the cyborg was alive. The man was clearly dead, his eyes fixed and unblinking; it was just the built-in machinery that kept him going, probably set off by Molly’s proximity.

  I subvocalised the activating Words and armoured up, the silver strange matter flowing all over me in a moment. At once I was insulated from the alien world’s cold, and I felt stronger, faster, sharper. I ran easily through the deep snow, heading straight towards the cyborg. It turned quickly and shot me at point-blank range. The energy beam hit me square in my armoured chest, and ricocheted harmlessly away. I relaxed a little. I’d been pretty sure the armour would protect me, but it was nice to know. I reached out, grabbed the cyborg’s gun arm, and ripped it right out of the socket with one burst of armoured strength. The cyborg rocked on its feet, but didn’t cry out and didn’t fall. It started to raise the other arm, so I tore that one off too. It still didn’t fall, so I grabbed its head with both hands and yanked it clean off.

  The eyes stared up at me, unblinking. The mouth moved a few times, and then was still. I looked at the cyborg body. It stood in place, unmoving. I threw the head away.

  Molly applauded, the sound flat and small in the empty quiet. “Hardcore, Eddie.”

  “He was already dead,” I said. “Or at least, I hope so. Tell you what; let’s give the other bodies plenty of room, okay?”

  Molly sniffed loudly, still hugging herself against the cold. “I don’t like this place. Really. My senses are supernaturally attuned to the natural world, to the energies generated by all living things . . . and I’m not getting anything. I know, I know, this is an alien world, but even so . . . I ought to be picking up something. I’m telling you, Eddie, there’s not a living thing here. Nothing. And not just here, in this place . . . you’ve brought us to a dead world, Eddie. These cyborgs, or whoever they were fighting, killed everything on this planet.”

  “You can’t know that,” I said. “Might have been a dead world before they got here.”

  “No,” said Molly. “I can tell. They killed every living thing here, just so they could use this world as a battlefield. What kind of future have you brought us too, Eddie? And what kind of man would it produce?”

  I shrugged uncomfortably. “I don’t know! You can’t judge a whole future civilisation by just one world.”

  “I wonder who these people were?” said Molly. “And who they were fighting?”

  “Giles said something about serving an emperor,” I said.

  “Then I suppose these must be the Rebel forces,” said Molly, smiling slightly for the first time.

  “Didn’t know you were a Star Wars fan,” I said, glad of a chance to change the subject.

  “Just the original trilogy.”

  “I never really understood about the rebel forces in those films,” I said. “I mean, they had rebel bases on rebel worlds, and starships and armies and weapons . . . but who was paying for it all? Where was the funding coming from? They couldn’t have had volunteers standing around on street corners, rattling collection tins and saying, Please support the rebellion. Darth Vader would have had them all shot.”

  And then we both looked around sharply as the sound of approaching engines caught our ears. We looked out over the snowy waste to where the horizon disappeared in the mists, and there was Giles Deathstalker, plunging through the snow towards us at a terrific pace. Faster than I could have managed, even with my armour’s help. And above and behind him came a dozen airships, strange, elegant craft bristling with unfamiliar weapons, all of them aimed down at the running fugitive. But though crackling energy beams stabbed down from the airships again and again, somehow they never even came close to hitting the frantically dodging figure below. Giles Deathstalker was always somewhere else.

  The airships swept past him, streaking through the soft pink sky, and pulled around in a wide arc that would bring them back again for another strafing run. Giles hadn’t seen me, or the Time Train, yet. He had his head down, just concentrating on running and evading his enemies. Out of the mists behind him came a small army of jade green armoured figures, trudging determinedly through the heavy snow, firing vivid energy beams after the man fleeing before them. They had no better luck than the airships, but craters were appearing all around Giles now, filling the air with a mist of vaporised snow.

  I yelled at Giles, using the silver mask to amplify my voice. His head snapped around and he changed direction to head straight for me and the Time Train, ploughing through the deep snow like it wasn’t even there. His movements were almost inhumanly fast. But even with his speed and determination, it was clear that at least some of his pursuers would cut him off before he could reach us. And the airships were returning.

  “Get back to Ivor,” I said to Molly. “Protect the Time Train, whatever happens. It’s our only way home.”

  “Damn right,” said Molly. “This is a lousy place to visit, and I wouldn’t want to live here.”

  She headed back to the engine, forcing her way through the snow, while I set off across the frozen plain towards Giles. My armoured legs slammed through the snow, sending it flying through the air to either side of me. The pursuing figures saw me coming, and yelled to each other. God knows what they thought I was. A few fired energy guns in my direction, but they didn’t even come close. And then there was an explosion behind me, and I stopped abruptly to look back.

  The airships had spotted the Time Train and were attacking it with their energy weapons. A whole bunch of crat
ers had been blasted out of the snow all around Ivor, getting closer and closer. A shimmering protective screen suddenly appeared around Ivor, and I grinned. Molly had finally got her act together. Energy beams glanced away from the screen, but every blow hit the screen like a hammer, sending ripples through the protective energies. And then several beams all targeted the screen at once . . . and one got through. It sliced across Ivor’s black steel side, and he screamed shrilly through his funnel.

  I turned my back and ran on. There was nothing I could do to help. Either Molly would find a way to strengthen her shield, or she wouldn’t. I trusted her to do her job, so I got on with mine. I had to get to Giles and escort him safely back to the engine. I forced on the speed, my silver arms pumping at my sides, moving so quickly now that I couldn’t even feel the obstruction of the snow I was slamming through. Up ahead, Giles had come to a sudden stop. A whole group of his armoured enemies had manoeuvred to get between him and the Time Train. More were catching up from every side. There seemed to be hundreds of them, yelling triumphantly, their voices high and thin in the bitter cold air. Giles looked around him, calmly and unhurriedly, and then drew his long sword. He was surrounded now, by a whole army that clearly wanted him dead, but I couldn’t see the slightest trace of concern on his face.

  Just something that might have been pleasant anticipation.

  I charged forward, smashing my way through the weakest part of the circle, sending armoured men flying through the air. I finally crashed to a halt beside Giles, and he looked at me curiously, his sword at the ready.

  “Hi,” I said. “Edwin Drood, at your service once again. Told you I’d be back.”

  “Yes,” said Giles, “but I that was two days and three nights ago. I’ve been dodging my enemies ever since, waiting for you to show up.”

  “Yeah, well, sorry about that,” I said. “Things to do, you know how it is. And time travel isn’t the most exact of sciences.”

  “We know,” said Giles. “That’s why it’s forbidden.” He studied my armour. “Nice outfit. How do they get you out of it, with a can opener?”

  “Show you later. Your carriage awaits; shall we go?”

  Giles looked around him. “These gentlemen might have other ideas.”

  “Hell with them,” I said.

  Giles grinned. “My sentiments exactly.”

  The armoured men finally got fed up listening to us talk and surged forward from all sides. There were ranks and ranks of them, but strangely they were all holding swords and axes now, instead of their energy guns. I really was going to have to talk to Giles about that later. At least these definitely were men in armour this time, and not cyborgs. So they should stay dead when I killed them. I grew long silver blades from my armoured hands, and Giles and I went to meet them.

  There had to be over a hundred of them, all heavily armed, pressing in from every direction at once. They never stood a chance. Their swords and battle-axes glanced harmlessly away from my armour, and my strange-matter blades cut easily through every protection they had. I hacked about me with inhuman speed and strength, and blood flew on the freezing air, steaming in the moments before it hit the snow. Men fell screaming, dying, to every side of me, and I kicked them out of the way to get to my next victims. Giles stamped and spun and sliced about him with a speed and strength very nearly equal to my own. His long blade flashed through the air as he cut men down with almost clinical precision. No one could even get near him. We fought back to back, and sometimes side by side, and we were unstoppable. The dead piled up around us, the churned-up snow crimson with blood and guts. Screams and horrified cries filled the air, but always from them, not us.

  It wasn’t a fight, for all their superior numbers. It was a slaughter.

  I don’t usually kill on missions. Usually I don’t have to. The armour gives me all the edge I need. I’ve always thought of myself as an agent, not an assassin. The last time I had to fight and kill, on the Nazca Plain, I didn’t hesitate because the Loathly One drones weren’t human anymore. Killing them had felt like stepping on insects. This, here, was different. Giles and I were surrounded by a small army of enemies, intent on killing us. They’d already injured Ivor. In such circumstances, family training takes over. I did what I had to; I cut men down and ran them through, and all the time I did my best to feel nothing, nothing at all. I might have to kill, but no one had ever been able to train me to enjoy it.

  Giles enjoyed it. He grinned cheerfully all the while, sometimes laughing aloud when he executed a particularly successful or graceful attack. Giles was a warrior, doing what he was born to do. That was what I’d come here for, after all.

  The armoured men began to fall back and resort to their energy weapons at last. They were losing, and they knew it. But the searing beams ricocheted harmlessly away from my armour, often taking out their own men, and none of them could hit Giles. He danced and pirouetted in the heart of the enemy, striking out with deadly grace, now and then catching an energy beam on his arm-mounted force shield. I’d never seen a fighter like him. And in the end . . . the last of the armoured men broke and ran, rather than face us. They scattered across the snowy plain, running in a dozen different directions, and we let them go. Giles calmly lowered his sword, and I retracted my blades back into my silver hands. We stood together, both of us breathing heavily from our exertions. Giles flicked heavy drops of blood from the end of his sword. The front of his armour was splashed with blood, none of it his. There was no blood on my armour, but only because it couldn’t stick to the strange matter. Giles nodded to me cheerfully. He wasn’t even breathing hard.

  “So, was it good for you too? Laugh, Edwin; the enemy is dead and we are alive, and there is no greater feeling in the world! You have the makings of a warrior, Edwin Drood. A bit slow and deliberate, but efficient enough for all that.”

  “If you’ll follow me to the Time Train,” I said, just a bit breathlessly, “I think it’s time we were getting out of here.”

  “Sounds good to me,” said Giles. “I could use a break.”

  We headed back towards Ivor, still encased in Molly’s protective shield. The airships flew back and forth overhead, energy beams stabbing down on and around the engine. None of them seemed to be getting through. All the snow around the Time Train was gone now, blasted away right down to the bedrock.

  “The sooner we can get out of here, the better,” Giles said conversationally. “The emperor will send reinforcements, as soon as word gets back that I am still alive. He’ll send a whole army, if that’s what it takes to bring me down.”

  “I thought you said you served the emperor?”

  “I did,” said Giles. “But I am currently out of favour, at court. It’s . . . complicated.”

  “Somehow I just knew it would be,” I said. “Is there by any chance a woman involved?”

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  I had to smile. “There’s always a woman involved.”

  Once we were close enough to the Time Train for Molly to spot us, she set about distracting the airships by broadcasting illusions. A dozen different Ivors appeared, scattered all around the real thing, each with its own apparent protective shield. But the airships must have had some kind of sensors because they weren’t fooled for a moment. They just kept pounding away at the screen surrounding the real Ivor. A dozen huge yellow dragons appeared above us, clashing horribly with the pink sky. They launched themselves at the airships, which fired back reflexively. Energy beams flashed right through the illusions and actually took out some of the other airships. There were explosions in the sky and broken airships fell out of the air like burning birds.

  By now Giles and I had reached the Time Train, and Molly opened a door in her protective screen just long enough for the two of us to hurry through. I armoured down, and then paused as I reached for the ladder leading up to the cab. The one energy beam that had punched through the screen had gouged a deep furrow all the way along Ivor’s black steel side, and steam or something very l
ike it was venting furiously from the open wound. I scrambled up into the cab, with Giles close behind me. Tony was bouncing from one gauge to another, worriedly studying the shifting readings, while Molly sat cross-legged on the floor, working on maintaining the protective screen.

  “Greetings to one and all,” Giles said cheerfully. “Is my translator working now? Good. Allow me to present myself. I have the honour to be Giles VomAcht Deathstalker, Warrior Prime to the emperor Ethur, at your service.”

  “Wonderful,” said Molly, not looking up. “Now shut up and let me concentrate on the only thing keeping us all from being blown to shit.”

  “Ah,” said Giles. “You’re an esper!”

  “No, I’m a witch.”

  “Oh,” said Giles. “One of those . . .”

  Given the way he said it, and the look on Molly’s face, I just knew this conversation wasn’t going to go anywhere useful, so I turned to Tony.

  “How bad is the damage to the engine?”

  “Bad enough, bad enough. God alone knows what it’s done to Ivor’s containment fields . . .”

  “Can you still get us out of here, and back home?”

  “I don’t know! If we try, and the fields buckle, they’ll be finding bits and pieces of us all across history.”

  “Never mind the if,” I said. “See those shapes, emerging from the mists on the horizon? They look very much like reinforcements to me, and lots of them, and I really don’t think we should still be here when they arrive. We need to go now, Tony.”

  He glared at me, and then slammed home all the long steel levers, one after the other. Ivor shook and shuddered. Tony started shovelling his crystallised tachyons into the fuel chamber again. Giles considered this thoughtfully.

  “I hadn’t realised you came from so far back in the past . . .”

  “One more word out of you, and you can get out and push,” said Tony, shovelling for all he was worth.

  “Don’t bother the engineer while he’s working,” I said to Giles. “He’ll just get tetchy.”