“We should be safe enough,” I said, trying hard to sound calm and reassuring. “As long as we don’t stick around too long.”
“How long is too long?”
“Good question. How the hell should I know? I never thought I’d ever have to talk to the man.”
“Isn’t there anyone else we could talk to?” said Molly.
“I’m doing this for my parents,” I said steadily. “Wouldn’t you have done something like this for your parents?”
“My parents are dead,” said Molly.
We walked on in silence, for a while, following the Merlin Glass. Either there weren’t any more protections or hidden surprises left, or the Glass just wasn’t bothering to show them any more.
“Eddie,” said Molly, after a while, “if Laurence is the Drood in Cell 13, what about the other twelve cells? Are there other secret prisoners down here? Somewhere?”
“Not as far as I know,” I said. “I think it’s more like it took twelve attempts to produce a cell strong enough to hold Laurence Drood.”
“I thought you said he asked to be locked away?”
“He’s been down here a very long time,” I said. “And as I understand it, he has been known to change his mind, on occasion.”
“Terrific,” said Molly. “What makes you think he’s going to be in any mood to help us? Or even answer your questions?”
“Because there’s one thing all the stories agree on,” I said. “Laurence Drood just lives for the chance to tell people things that will seriously mess with their head.”
“Terrific,” said Molly. “You can do all the talking.”
• • •
We came at last to what looked like a perfectly ordinary wooden door, set flush into a bare stone wall. A simple wooden slab, with no door handle, no bell or knocker, not even any obvious hinges. The Merlin Glass came to a sudden halt, on the far side of the door. Molly and I stood side by side and studied the wooden door carefully, from what we hoped was a safe distance.
“That’s it?” said Molly. “This is the infamous Cell 13? Doesn’t look very secure.”
“Looks can be deceiving,” I said. “In fact, that’s probably my family’s unofficial motto.”
“You have an official motto?”
“Of course: Don’t fuck with the Droods.”
“I thought it was Anything, for the family.”
“Same thing. It’s us versus the world, and the world had better beware.”
“I can believe that.” Molly scowled at the door. “How are we supposed to get in?”
“We can’t,” I said. “No one can. That’s the point. No one gets in, no one gets out. Food and drink are teleported in. Uncle Jack told me how to gain access to the Drood in Cell 13, back when I was briefly running things around here. Just in case I needed to know something only Laurence Drood knows.”
I armoured up my left hand, and then stopped and tensed, expecting all kinds of alarms to go crazy. But this close to Cell 13, different protocols took precedence. I placed my golden palm flat against the door, and said my name aloud. The wood of the door seemed to shudder under my touch, and then the whole door just faded away, replaced by a series of criss-crossing steel bars. Molly and I moved closer, together, to peer into the room beyond.
It seemed comfortable enough, for a cell in the depths of Drood Hall. Just a simple stone-walled room, with no window and only the most basic furniture. A man was lying on his back on the narrow single bed, wearing just a grubby white shirt and faded blue jeans. He ignored us, staring up at the ceiling. I said my name again, and he jumped up off the bed and stood quivering in the middle of the room. A small, slight man, who could have been any age at all, with a shock of white hair and wild, staring eyes. He looked at me, and then at Molly, his head cocked to one side like a bird.
And then he ran round and round the small room, his arms pumping at his sides, vaulting over the furniture and bouncing off the walls, building up speed. He went skittering up one of the walls like some terrible huge insect, dropped back down again, and ran round and round in tight circles, his arms flailing wildly. And then he launched himself at the steel-barred doorway, only stopping himself at the very last moment, to stare through the bars at Molly and me.
He wasn’t even breathing hard.
His eyes were large and luminous, and didn’t blink often enough. Up close, it was clear he was inhumanly thin, his shirt and jeans flapping loosely about him. The bones of his face pressed out against the taut skin. His smile was so wide it looked actually painful, revealing teeth like yellow-brown chisels. He all but vibrated with barely suppressed nervous energy. And above all, he had a strange, unnerving presence, as though there were more than one man standing before us.
When he finally spoke, the words seemed to just tumble all over each other in their eagerness to get out.
“Well well well, what have we here? Visitors! Oh yes . . . Don’t often get visitors, down here. Not allowed, oh no, very very rarely allowed. Because I upset people. Well! If they don’t want to know the answers they shouldn’t ask the questions. Should they? Don’t bother answering, it’s a rhetorical question. Still, I’m going to have to be on my very best behaviour with you two, aren’t I? Hmmm? For Eddie Drood and Molly Metcalf? No nasty little head games, for the infamous wild witch and the most respected Drood of all. I shall tell you everything you want to know.”
“Everything?” said Molly bluntly. “No lies, no evasions, no misleading half-truths?”
He grinned at her easily. “I do have a bit of a reputation, don’t I? But you mustn’t worry, you dear little thing you, you sisterly witch. I never lie. Not when a truth can do so much more damage.”
“My Eddie needs your help,” said Molly. “You mess with him, and I swear I will find a way to get to you.”
“Nothing but the unvarnished and entirely unembellished truth for you!” said the Drood in Cell 13. “All for you! I love visitors . . . They always want to know things, but they’re never happy when I tell them. I think it’s because the world isn’t what they think it is, and no one ever likes being told that.”
He broke off, and fixed me with his burning gaze. “Do you know who and what I really am, Eddie Drood? The result of an accident, is that what they’re still saying? Oh no no no . . . the real and secret truth, the sad sad reality is . . . that I did this to myself. I am the author of my own tragedy. The idea was for the family to have its own Living Library, just in case they lost the real thing. Like they did with the Old Library. I was family Armourer back then, all those years ago, and I worked with the Heart to find a way to download all the contents of the family Library into a single human mind. A living repository for all Drood knowledge. Except that the human mind was never meant to contain so much information . . .
“There were six volunteers, including me. I used to remember their names but now I choose not to . . . Anyway, the result of the experiment was three dead, two insane and later dead, and me. Poor poor Laurence . . . Of course, I’m not the only one of my kind, these days. Once word got out that the idea was possible, was in fact doable, all kinds of other organisations had to try. With . . . differing results. You met one, Eddie! Remember the Karma Catechist? You bumped into him in Saint Baphomet’s Hospital, in Harley Street! He knew all there was to know about magical systems, rituals, and forms of power. And much good it did him. He killed himself, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” I said. “I was there when he did it.”
Molly looked at me sharply. “I didn’t know that. You never told me about that.”
“I’ll tell you later,” I said.
“But . . .”
“Hush,” I said. “He’s just trying to distract us, and turn us against each other.”
Laurence laughed breathily. “Stick to what you’re best at, that’s what I always say.”
“Do you really know everything?” I said.
“Well, not everything, no. I didn’t know you were coming. I don’t know why you’re
here, Eddie Drood and Molly Metcalf . . . and I don’t know what you want with me. Go on. Surprise me, I dare you.”
“What do you know about the Lazarus Stone?” I said.
Laurence stepped back from the bars, folded his arms tightly across his sunken chest, and looked at me curiously. “Well well well . . . It’s been ever such a long time since anyone mentioned that name to me. The Lazarus Stone . . . possibly the single most dangerous individual item in the whole damned world. Yes . . . It’s usually thought to be a small piece of the great stone that was rolled away from Lazarus’ tomb, so Jesus could raise him from the dead. People think the Lazarus Stone can bring loved ones back from the dead, and make them live again. Because people are stupid. All nonsense, of course. Just romantic religious bullshit. A fake exotic history, to conceal the Stone’s far more dangerous nature.
“The Lazarus Stone isn’t actually a stone, and it doesn’t really bring the dead back to life . . . As such. No no no . . . It’s some kind of mechanism, almost certainly alien in origin, and it’s all to do with Time Travel. Supposedly, and I say this because I don’t know anyone who’s actually used the thing successfully . . . Supposedly the Lazarus Stone can reach back through Time, and pluck any person from the Past, just before History says they died. Then bring them forward into the Present Day. So that someone who was dead can live again. This of course rewrites History. Often in unexpected and highly disturbing ways. So it is possible that the Lazarus Stone has been used and I just didn’t notice. No one would, except for the people involved. I wonder if they thought it was worth it, in the end . . . I loathe Time Travel. You put butter in a pocket watch and it’s bound to mess up the works even if it is the very best butter. Our family did possess the Stone briefly, but the Regent of Shadows took it with him when he left.”
“What?” I said. “Why?”
Laurence leaned in close to the bars, and slipped me a sly wink. “Ask your uncle Jack! And do it quickly, oh yes; accessing me sets off all kinds of silent alarms, up above. And you can be sure they’ll all come running to shut me up before I say something they think I shouldn’t. Before I can say things about the family that the family doesn’t want anyone to know.”
He shoved his face right up against the bars, glaring at me. “Too late! Too late!”
I took a step back, reached out and took hold of the Merlin Glass, and shook it down to hand-mirror size. I showed it to Laurence.
“Do you know what this is?”
“Of course I know!” said Laurence, pouting just a bit. He thrust a hand through the bars and tried to snatch the mirror from me, but I was careful to stay just out of reach. Laurence sneered at me, and stepped back. He pulled a white hair from his head, studied it intently, and then threw it away. He waved at the hand mirror, as though he could see someone in the reflection as well as himself, and then smiled at me guilelessly.
“That is the Merlin Glass, and you only think you know what it is and what it’s for. It’s not a toy. Or even a useful device. That . . . is Merlin Satanspawn’s last revenge upon our family.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
He shook his head several times, and then smiled craftily at me. “Let me out of here and I’ll tell you. No? You’re smarter than you look, Eddie Drood. Are you sure? I could tell you so many things.”
“I thought you wanted to be locked up down here,” said Molly.
“That was then,” said Laurence. “This is now. They’re different. The family will never let me out. I know that. When I let them imprison me, I never thought I’d live this long . . . But then, who knows how long a Living Library will last? Information is immortal, and Truth wants to be free! I am the family’s memory, and as long as the family goes on, so must I . . . After I’ve spent all these years soaking up Drood information and Drood secrets, they can’t ever allow me to fall into someone else’s hands. Far too dangerous . . . But one day I will know all there is to know, including all the things they’ve managed to keep from me, and then . . . I’ll just walk right out of here and there will be nothing they can do to stop me! And oh, the fun I’ll have, walking up and down in the world, and playing with it . . .”
He laughed softly, a cold, horrible, and barely human sound. He broke off abruptly and looked at Molly.
“There’s something you want to ask me, little witch. About the Regent of Shadows, and just how dark the shadows get.”
“Yes,” said Molly. “Do you know who gave him his orders after he left the family?”
“Of course!” said Laurence. “I know everything! That’s the point. Arthur Drood, Grandfather to Eddie, late husband of the late Matriarch Martha. The Drood with a conscience, they used to call him . . . though that didn’t last long once he was out alone in the cold cold world. The Droods used him to do their dirty work. All the secret executions and deniable operations thought to be too much even for Droods. They held the possibility of being allowed to return over him, of being welcomed back into the bosom of the family . . . and he did want that so very badly.”
“Who was it?” Molly said harshly. “Who, specifically, gave him his orders? Who told him to kill my parents? Was it the Matriarch?”
“Oh, she was just one of many,” Laurence said offhandedly. “A lot of people in the upper registers of the family used the Regent, for their own reasons, to do the things they weren’t supposed to do. He did so many bad things, and so many good . . . before he finally wised up. And realised the family never had any intention of taking him back. He told them all to go to Hell and walked away, and set up his own organisation. The Regent of Shadows, doing good, doing penance, for the atonement of sins.”
Laurence abruptly turned his back on us, went back to his bed, and lay down again, staring up at the ceiling. As though all the energy had suddenly gone out of him. When he spoke again his voice was flat, almost uninterested.
“The Regent killed an awful lot of people who needed killing. And I’m afraid that includes your mother and father, Molly Metcalf. They did do so many awful things as part of the White Horse Faction, that you never knew about. Because they never wanted you to know what kind of people they really were.”
“Shut up!” said Molly. “Shut up!”
She turned away from the bars, hugging herself tightly, as though to hold herself together. Laurence’s soft laughter drifted out of the cell.
“You see, Eddie? People come to me and they say they want the truth, but they don’t. Not really. You’d better go now. People are coming. And they really won’t be happy to see you here.”
“Will you tell them I was here?” I said.
“Only if they ask.” He laughed happily. “I know everything there is to know, but you need to know the right questions to ask. And you didn’t ask the right questions, Eddie Drood and Molly Metcalf.”
CHAPTER FIVE
A Short History of the Lazarus Stone
Molly looked at me. “I don’t hear anyone coming. Do you hear anyone coming?”
“No,” I said. “But given this is a man who is supposed to know everything about my family, I am completely prepared to take his word for it. And if there really are Drood security forces on their way here, I don’t think we should be here when they turn up. They are not going to be in a good mood, or even a little bit understanding about this.”
“Let them come,” said Molly. “I can take them.”
I had to smile. “That’s why we’re leaving. Because I don’t want to have to watch members of my family being seriously damaged. I might want to come back here, someday.”
“Don’t see why,” said Molly. “You know this place is bad for you.”
In Cell 13, Laurence Drood was quietly singing, “We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when . . .”
I shook the Merlin Glass out to door size, subvocalised a new set of coordinates, and then pushed Molly through the moment the Door opened. I rushed through after her, not giving her time to argue, and immediately closed the Door down again. I tucked the han
d mirror away in my pocket, and looked quickly about me. We’d arrived in a dark, shadowy corner, surrounded on all sides by high banks of machinery. There was enough dust around to suggest that this particular location was as overlooked now as it had been when I was a lot younger. Molly glared at me, but had enough sense to keep her voice down even as she yelled at me.
“Don’t ever push! I hate being hurried! Where the hell are we now?”
“In the Armoury,” I said, just as quietly. “Tucked away in an area that isn’t much used. I used to hide here all the time when I was just a kid, avoiding lessons so I could watch my uncle Jack at work. Because whatever he was up to was always going to be more interesting than whatever school was trying to cram down my throat that day. I’m pretty sure Uncle Jack knew I was here all along, but he never said a word.”
“What are we doing in the Armoury?” said Molly, just a bit dangerously.
“You heard the Living Loony,” I said. “Ask your Uncle Jack, he said, which means he knows Uncle Jack knows something about the Lazarus Stone. Of course he would—if it’s a weapon, the Armourer always knows about it. So I need to talk to him, quietly and very privately.”
“The Voice said you weren’t to talk to your family,” Molly said carefully.
“I know,” I said. “I’m banking on the fact that the Armoury’s shields and protections are the most powerful in the Hall. Just to make sure that whatever happens in the Armoury stays in the Armoury. No matter how appalling, destructive, or violently explosive it might be. I really can’t see how the Voice could eavesdrop on us here. Even God probably has to concentrate to listen in . . . Anyway, I need to talk to Uncle Jack.”
“Hold it,” said Molly. “If the Armoury’s protections are that good . . . How did we get in? How could the Merlin Glass . . . Oh, wait a minute. Is this another of your secret back doors?”
“No,” I said. “One of the Armourer’s. He’s never trusted the Merlin Glass. Especially since it merged with its duplicate from the Other Hall. So he took measures, to ensure I could always bring the Glass straight to him if it started misbehaving.”