Moonbreaker

  “I suppose it has a certain scenic quality,” he said. “But it’s a bit basic, isn’t it? If this place were any emptier, it wouldn’t even be a place. Hmmm . . . you’re right, Eddie: There is something here. I can’t see it, but I can feel it. Something deep down, in the cellar of the world.”

  I got down from the dragon. It took me such a long time, because I was so tired and my grip was so weak, that Molly had to come down and help me. It was a sign of how weak I was that I let her—and a sign of how worried she was that she didn’t say anything. We stood together eventually, the man in the golden armour and the witch in her shimmering force shield. There was no sign of Edmund anywhere, and I felt a small lift in my heart. He shouldn’t have been here; in fact, there was no way he could have got here before us, but he’d beaten me so many times, I was glad to seize even this small advantage.

  I reached out to the Matriarch through my torc to let the family know where we were and what the situation was . . . and found I couldn’t. My voice just fell away into a great silence. I turned to Molly.

  “I can’t reach my family. Something is blocking me.”

  “Grendel Rex?” said Molly. “Or maybe something to do with the tomb?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “We’re in unknown territory here.”

  Molly placed the fingertips of her left hand on the torc at my throat and concentrated. Trying to boost my signal with her magics. But after a moment she shook her head and took her hand away.

  “We’re cut off, Eddie. Something here doesn’t want us talking to anyone.”

  “I think it’s time for me to take to the sky again,” said the dragon. “Fly around, get a feel for the territory, be your eye in the sky.”

  “Are you by any chance just a bit concerned about what might happen if a living god like Grendel Rex were to get out?” said Molly.

  “I don’t believe in gods,” said the dragon. “And I should know; I’ve eaten a few.”

  He leapt up into the sky, and in a matter of moments he was just a speck in the distance. Molly looked around slowly and carefully, and then moved in close so she could murmur in my ear.

  “Is there any chance Edmund could have found his way here and is hiding behind a glamour again?”

  “You’re just full of worrying ideas, aren’t you? I can’t See him, and I’m assuming you can’t, but feel free to check things out.”

  Molly unleashed the same Reveal spell she’d used in the Museum. The air heaved and shimmered, and there was a sense of something brittle cracking and falling apart. Weird local phenomena manifested suddenly all around Grendel Rex’s resting place. The sky became heavily overcast, crackling with wild aurora borealis. The ground stirred uneasily under our feet, as though something unimaginably huge had just turned over in its sleep. And the snow was suddenly a deep crimson, forming a great circle almost half a mile wide. The world’s biggest bloodstain, and we were standing right in the middle of it.

  “Tell me that’s not really blood,” said Molly.

  “That’s not really blood,” I said. “Just a psychic imprint. A stain stamped on the world by what my family did here. Or possibly from Grendel Rex, dreaming about his many victims.”

  “Does that mean he’s feeling guilty?” said Molly.

  “More likely he’s enjoying old times.”

  Molly glowered about her. “I’ve heard of X marks the spot, but this . . .”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “There’s something else. Look.”

  I pointed straight ahead, quietly pleased my golden hand didn’t shake at all. Molly nodded slowly as she saw it too. A disturbance in the air, like a crack in reality or a channel etched into Space itself. It stabbed down out of the sky, right into the centre of the blood circle.

  “What is that?” said Molly.

  “A psychic scar,” I said. “Carved into the atmosphere of the place. Showing Grendel Rex’s fall.”

  “How far did he fall?” said Molly, looking up into the disturbed sky.

  “All the way,” I said. “Though of course he didn’t fall; he was pushed. And then my family pushed him outside the world, imprisoning him in a place no one else could reach. So he could be forgotten by the world forever. Not because we were afraid of Gerard Drood, but because we were ashamed of him.”

  “And this is who you plan to sweet-talk?” said Molly.

  “I’m rather going off that idea, to be honest,” I said. “Still haven’t come up with a better one, though.”

  I looked around me, taking my time. So did Molly. The empty steppes stared back at us, the Drood in his armour and the witch surrounded by her magics.

  “I’m picking up on something,” I said finally. “A feeling . . . that we’re not supposed to be here. That nothing is supposed to be here. A really powerful aversion field, presumably put in place long ago to dissuade anyone from coming here. They wouldn’t even know why; they’d just feel it in their gut. People, beasts, birds . . . not even wanting to look in this direction, for fear of what they might see.”

  “Why isn’t it affecting us?” said Molly.

  “Because you’re the wild witch of the woods, and I’m a Drood. We’re used to feeling unwanted and not giving a damn.”

  But the skin on my back was crawling under my armour, right between my shoulder blades. Standing in the middle of the world’s biggest bloodstain felt very much like standing on a target.

  “At least this time we quite definitely got here first,” I said, trying for a light touch.

  “I just had a thought,” said Molly. “And not a pleasant one. What if Edmund doesn’t find his way here? I mean, how can we ambush him if he doesn’t turn up?”

  “He’ll be here,” I said. “When we set loose all the local phenomena, we might as well have lit a beacon. Psychics all around the world will be shaking their heads and complaining about the noise. Edmund will See it, and the Merlin Glass will bring him straight here.”

  “And then we kill him,” said Molly.

  “That’s the plan,” I said.

  I didn’t mean to be short with her. I’d killed a great many people who needed killing in my time as a field agent. I really thought I’d killed enough; I didn’t want to kill any more. But after everything I’d been put through, I didn’t much care if I went to meet my maker with more blood on my hands, as long as I took Edmund down first. Not just for what he’d done to me, but for what he’d done to so many others.

  Molly kicked moodily at the crimson snow. “What did happen here, exactly? What did your family do to Grendel Rex?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “There were no details in the official history. I always wondered if there was another, more complete version, but the Librarian said not.”

  “Who wrote the history?” said Molly

  “Not surprisingly, no one felt like putting their name to it,” I said.

  “Why did you read the book in the first place, Eddie?”

  “Because I always want to know things I’m not supposed to. And, besides, I was running the family at the time. It seemed something I should know.”

  “But you didn’t know the proper coordinates for the tomb,” said Molly. “The Matriarch had to tell you.”

  “It was a tricky situation,” I said. “My grandmother, the old Matriarch, was still alive then. And I wasn’t really talking to the old Sarjeant-at-Arms. I’m sure we would have gotten round to it if I’d stayed on as head.”

  “They didn’t trust you!” said Molly. “That is so typical of the Droods.”

  “Trust is a hard thing to come by in my family,” I said. “We all have so many secrets. I think my ancestors may have found it necessary to do things here that they were ashamed of afterwards.”

  “That would take some doing for Droods,” said Molly.

  “Yes,” I said. “It would.”

  “Is it possibl
e,” Molly said carefully, “that your family might have allied themselves with certain . . . Powers, to get the job done? Someone or something they would normally have enough sense not to go anywhere near? I mean, after seeing Heaven and Hell’s Droods, I have to wonder if there’s anything your family would draw the line at.”

  I thought about that for a while before finally shaking my head. “I don’t think so. This was a family affair. We wouldn’t have wanted anyone else to know. That’s why we went to such pains to clean up afterwards, and remove all mention of Grendel Rex from the history books. We couldn’t afford for anyone to know just how close one Drood came to destroying all of Humanity. They’d never have trusted us again.”

  “They don’t trust you now!” said Molly.

  “All right,” I said. “They would have trusted us even less. Whatever my family did here was justified, Molly. Grendel Rex really would have broken all Humanity to his will. In the end there would have been just him, living in billions of bodies at once. Thinking his thoughts, speaking with his voice, carrying out his wishes. He would have been . . . everyone.”

  “What did he plan to do then?” said Molly. “I mean, what was he going to do with all those bodies?”

  “I’m not convinced he’d thought that far ahead,” I said. “I can’t help feeling it would have been a very lonely existence, with no one left to talk to but himself. But maybe that’s what he wanted. To be left alone, with no one to tell him what to do. And that’s what happened to him, anyway, locked up in his tomb, alone in the dark. Forever.”

  “He probably only did it to impress some girl,” Molly said wisely. “You’d be surprised how often that turns out to be at the bottom of things.”

  “No,” I said. Smiling, behind my mask. “I wouldn’t be surprised at all.”

  “All right,” Molly said briskly. “We’re here. What are we going to do? I thought we’d have to fight Edmund to keep him from opening the tomb. Hot armour-on-armour action, and general destruction on a grand scale. But despite your psychic beacon, he still hasn’t turned up yet.”

  “We need to do something to make it impossible for Edmund to release Gerard Drood from his tomb,” I said.

  “Okay,” said Molly. “Such as?”

  “I have a plan,” I said. “Though you’re probably not going to like it.”

  “Probably?”

  “Almost certainly.”

  She smiled grimly. “There hasn’t been much about today I have liked. Go on, hit me with it.”

  “I’ve gone back to thinking I need to talk to Gerard.”

  “Eddie! I thought we agreed that is a really bad idea!”

  “You’re right. It is. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to come up with anything else that might work. Edmund has the Immaculate Key, the one thing that could quite definitely open the tomb and release Gerard from his chains.”

  “Your family should have destroyed the Key long ago,” said Molly. “Just to make sure that couldn’t happen.”

  I shrugged. “You know my family. Never throw out anything you might need someday.”

  “And how many times has that come back to bite them on the arse?”

  “Moving on . . . ,” I said. “Edmund must believe he has something that will control Grendel Rex after the Key has released him. Something strong enough to protect him from the living god’s power. Our only hope is to make it impossible for Edmund to get to Grendel Rex. And that means . . . talking to Gerard.”

  “You’re really comfortable calling him Gerard?”

  “That’s his name,” I said. “We need to remind him what it was like to be human, and part of a family. He must miss that, after so long on his own.”

  “Eddie, if he wasn’t crazy before, the odds are centuries of being buried alive will have finished the job.”

  “I’m hoping it’s the other way round,” I said. “That all this time alone worked as shock treatment. Showing him the error of his ways.”

  “You always were a hopeless optimist. You’re really planning to appeal to his better nature?”

  “I’m going to appeal to his humanity,” I said. “On the grounds that being a living god didn’t work out too well for him.”

  “But what can you offer him in return for his cooperation?” said Molly. “A chance for early parole? A few millennia off for good behaviour?”

  “I can offer him company,” I said. “Someone to talk to. Look at the dragon. Baron Frankenstein beheaded the dragon to stop him destroying towns and killing people. Lots of people. But years of contemplation under a burial mound, and all the Droods who’ve been talking to him clearly made a difference. I’m hoping the same process will have the same effect on Gerard.”

  “You and your damned strays,” said Molly.

  “I need to persuade Gerard to stay where he is! To remain in his tomb, no matter what Edmund does or what he offers him. Such behaviour, a clear sign of sanity and repentance, would go a really long way to arguing for his release. He could come home again.”

  “That doesn’t strike me as very likely, Eddie.”

  “I know! It’s a long shot! But it seems to me that we did get on the last time we spoke.”

  “I’m still having trouble following what happened then,” said Molly. “How were you able to awaken him from his long sleep in the first place?”

  “I don’t believe I did,” I said. “I just reached out for help, and he answered. As though he’d been waiting. I’m increasingly convinced that reaching out to him was never my idea. I think he was already awake and influencing me.”

  “Okay, you are seriously creeping me out now,” said Molly. “Could he still be influencing you? Is being here right now your idea or his?”

  “Let’s not panic ourselves,” I said. “The very fact we’re able to ask the question is a good sign. It could be that he just detected a Drood’s presence, and wanted someone to talk to.”

  Molly didn’t look at all convinced. “What did he say to you?”

  I thought back, and Gerard’s words sounded in my head as though I’d only just heard them.

  “We can all be gods, or devils. We can shine like stars. We were never meant to stay human. We are just the chrysalis, from which something greater will emerge.”

  When I’d finished speaking, Molly and I looked at each other for a long moment.

  “Yes, well,” said Molly, “he doesn’t sound at all crazy, does he?”

  “Maybe he wants us all to be living gods, just like him,” I said. “So he won’t be lonely.”

  “Is there anything in what he did that makes him seem like the kind of living god who’d want to share his power?” said Molly.

  “Good point,” I said. “The last thing he said to me was: Tell the family I’ll be seeing them.”

  “Which doesn’t sound at all ominous, threatening, or pants-wettingly scary,” said Molly. “Come on, give it to me straight, Eddie. Just how bad would it be if Grendel Rex did break free from his tomb and he’s just as crazy as he ever was?”

  “The whole world, and everything in it, would be in danger,” I said steadily. “He came really close to succeeding last time. Even carved his face into the surface of the Moon so he could look down on us in triumph forever. Of course, he would face a lot more opposition these days. From all kinds of subterranean groups and organisations, and individuals of mass destruction. Like you. But, then, there are some Powers and Dominations who might work with him, against Humanity.”

  “So at best we’re hoping all these organisations and Powers would just cancel each other out?” said Molly.

  “Pretty much,” I said.

  “The more you think things through, the more disturbed I feel,” said Molly. “Try this one on for size: Is Grendel Rex likely to be more or less powerful, after centuries of being buried alive?”

  “Nobody knows,” I said. “Not le
ast because we’ve never been able to figure out exactly what it was he did to make himself so powerful. He only had Heart armour back then. He shouldn’t have been able to do any of the things he did.”

  “Why didn’t the Heart do something to stop him?”

  “Good question,” I said. “The only answer that makes any sense is that Grendel Rex made himself more powerful than the Heart. Is there anything scarier than a self-made god who’s pulled himself up by his own spiritual boot-straps?”

  Molly turned away from me. I didn’t need to see her face to know how upset she was. With anyone else I would have said scared, but Molly didn’t do scared. She went straight to angry. She looked out over the vast open spaces of the Siberian tundra, and her hands closed into fists at her sides. She wanted someone to hit. She always felt better when a problem presented her with someone she could hit. She turned back to look at me, and her face was set in harsh, dangerous lines.

  “What was the Immaculate Key doing in the Museum? Something as powerful as that?”

  “My family put it there,” I said. “Working on the Hide in plain sight principle. Just another old key, surrounded by junk; it should have been safe enough. Either Edmund knew about the Key from his world’s Museum, or . . .”

  “Or?”

  “Or someone in my family told him it was there,” I said slowly. “Someone who’s been working with Edmund all along.”

  “You really think that’s possible?” said Molly.

  “With my family that’s always possible. Damn. I really didn’t need something else to worry about.”

  “Then don’t,” said Molly. “Stick with what matters. Go on, Eddie. Talk to your old family god or devil. See what he has to say for himself.”

  I stamped hard on the ground, by way of knocking. My golden foot sank deep into the crimson snow, muffling the sound, but it was the gesture that mattered.

  “Gerard Drood!” I said loudly. “Old ancestor. This is Eddie Drood. You remember me. We need to talk.”