Suzie was shouting at him, yelling at Stark to get that sword out of my face or she’d blow his head off; but he wasn’t listening. I was pretty sure she wouldn’t shoot while I was in danger, but it was clear Stark’s attention was elsewhere. For all his knightly experience, Stark was holding the blade like an amateur. Because Excalibur wasn’t helping him, as it had helped me. It was fighting him for control, and Stark was losing. It was all he could do to hang on to the sword as it fought and burned him.
And while Stark stood there, fighting a battle inside his head, I stepped quickly to one side, and Suzie lunged forward and slammed the butt of her shotgun into the metal cup protecting Stark’s groin. The metal actually clanged as it dented, and the sound the cup made as it collapsed in on itself made both Artur and me wince. The force of the blow bent Stark suddenly forward, all the breath forced out of his lungs, and tears actually flew from his eyes before the lids squeezed tightly shut. He sank to his knees amidst a clatter of armour, and I neatly snatched Excalibur from his numbed fingers. The long, golden blade blazed up immediately, its supernaturally bright light filling the room, and once again I could feel the weight of the invisible scabbard on my back and the presence of Excalibur in my thoughts again.
King Artur snatched up his sword from the bed, and hit Suzie in the side of the head with his armoured elbow while she still had all her attention focused on Stark. She sat down suddenly on the floor, still clinging grimly to her shotgun; but her head hung down, and her eyes weren’t tracking. I yelled something foul at Artur, and he turned smoothly to face me, sword at the ready. There was nothing magic or special about his blade; it was a big ugly pigsticker, but he clearly knew how to use it. His every move was polished and professional. He feinted once, then swung the sword in a vicious arc that would have taken my head right off if it had connected; but Excalibur leapt up to block it. And the heavy dark blade shattered into a hundred pieces on contact, and Artur was left standing there with only a hilt in his hand. I pressed the tip of Excalibur against his breast-plate, and the dark pieces actually squirmed back out of its way, hissing and squealing. Artur looked down at the golden point pressed against his suddenly bare chest and opened his hand, letting the hilt fall to the floor. He smiled at me cheerfully and sank down on one knee.
“I offer my surrender. I know when I’m beaten.”
“Stay down there,” growled Suzie. “It suits you.”
She forced herself up onto her feet again. A massive bruise was already forming on one side of her face. And while I was looking at her, Stark surged up onto his feet and threw himself forward, moving almost impossibly quickly for a man in full armour. He tried to grab Excalibur from my hand, but even caught off-balance, I still held on to it. The sheer weight of the man in his armour was enough to push me back, and I struggled to hang on to the sword. And while Stark pressed me back, his harshly breathing face thrust into mine, Artur rose up on what he thought was my blind side and stabbed at me with a concealed dagger.
Suzie gave him both barrels in the face. Artur’s head simply disappeared in a red flurry of blood and flesh, bits of splintered bone and grey matter painting the wall behind him. His body sank slowly to the floor, held upright only by his armour, blood jetting from the neck stump. Stark let go of Excalibur and moved quickly to put me between him and Suzie. She grinned nastily as she pumped fresh shells into the chambers.
“Plebs one, aristocracy nil. That’s history for you. Still, Merlin isn’t going to be pleased I’ve killed his nasty little King, is he?”
“Almost certainly not,” I said.
“Good,” said Suzie.
She moved round to get a clear shot at Stark, but he surprised her by holding his ground. His hand fell to the heart at his belt, and Julianne appeared again. Stark yelled at her to embrace Suzie. The ghost looked at Suzie with sad eyes and advanced on her. Suzie gave her both barrels, but even the best blessed and cursed ammunition has no effect on a ghost. The bullets blasted right through Julianne, barely missing Stark and me behind her. The ghost embraced Suzie, who cried out in shock. I lifted Excalibur, to cut at the ghost, and Stark threw himself right through her immaterial form and caught me off-balance again. He hit me in the right biceps with a mailed fist, and my fingers, numbed along with my arm, sprang open, releasing Excalibur. Stark snatched it away from me, and I felt the invisible scabbard leave my back again.
Julianne disappeared the moment Stark took his hand off her heart. Suzie said something really foul and shook herself hard, trying to throw off the supernatural shock. Julianne wasn’t just any ghost. Whatever Stark had done to her to keep her with him had made her more terrible than any ghost had a right to be. It was as though she wore Death itself round her, like a shroud.
Stark was already out the door, Excalibur in his hand. I could hear his metal boots slamming down the corridor. I lurched after him, my arm hanging limp at my side, but by the time I was out the door, he was already in the lift. I watched the doors close on his cold face and went back into the room. Neither Suzie nor I was in any condition to chase after him.
She was sitting on the unmade bed, cradling her shotgun to her like a doll. Her eyes were clear, but her face was deathly pale. I sat down beside her, biting my lip against the pins and needles of returning circulation in my arm. On the floor, Artur’s headless body was no longer wearing armour. Instead, a large pile of dark scales stood quietly to one side, barely moving. Suzie glared at me.
“How can anyone lose Excalibur twice in one day?”
“It’s a gift,” I said.
“Well, try your other gift and track the bastard down.”
I raised my gift and locked on to Stark almost straight away. My inner eye Saw him run out of the Fortress and onto the street, produce a bone charm, and speak several very dangerous Words over it. A dimensional gateway materialised before him, a rip in Space and Time, brutally simple but effective. The rogue knight had a portable Timeslip of his own. Stark stepped into the dimensional gate and disappeared; but he’d barely been gone a moment before Merlin Satanspawn appeared out of nowhere and threw himself into the gateway after Stark. The Timeslip collapsed in on itself and was gone, leaving the street empty again.
I lowered my gift and brought Suzie up to speed. She frowned, thinking.
“So, where has Stark gone?”
“Sinister Albion,” I said. “My gift told me that much. And Merlin went straight through after him. So at least the Nightside is safe, for a while.”
“But we still need Excalibur, to face the elves when they come,” said Suzie. “So we have to go after them. Don’t we?”
“Unfortunately, yes. But Merlin took the Timeslip with him when he left. There’s not a trace of it left. And my Portable Timeslip can’t track his destination without the right co-ordinates. Which is a bit beyond what my gift can do.”
“Are you saying they’ve got away? There’s no way we can go after them?”
I smiled. “This is the Nightside. There’s always a way. Do you by any chance remember the Doormouse?”
“Oh bloody hell,” said Suzie.
SIX
The Land That Merlin Made
When you absolutely, definitely, have to be somewhere else in a hurry, there’s no substitute for the Doormouse and his excellent establishment, the House of Doors. He can open up a Door to anywhere and anywhen; though, of course, getting back again is strictly your problem. My Portable Timeslip took Suzie and me straight to his street, dropping us off, a little short because the Doormouse has very powerful protections. The old place looked pretty much as I remembered it. Still standing between a vampire theme pub, where the waiters snack on the customers, and a branch of the Bazaar of the Bizarre franchise, this week specialising in Necro-tattooing; where the tattooist uses blood instead of ink. Elf blood, werewolf blood, Frankenstein blood—producing images that don’t just sit there but get right under your skin ...
Suzie and I walked up to the Doormouse’s place, and the frosted-glass doors swung
regally open before us, admitting us to an extensive lobby of really quite remarkable style and elegance. Thick carpeting, huge mirrors, antique furnishings, and all the very latest high tech lying casually scattered round the place. Some of it so determinedly futuristic I couldn’t even begin to name it, let alone guess what it was for. The Doormouse is always up to the mark; and, thanks to his Time-travelling capabilities, often more than a bit beyond.
The Doormouse himself came scurrying cheerfully forward to greet us; a six-foot-tall, vaguely humanoid mouse, with dark chocolate-coloured fur under a pristine white lab coat, complete with pocket protector for his colour-coded pens. He had a long muzzle, twitching whiskers, and shrewd, thoughtful eyes. He actually looked quite cute, in an entirely disturbing and unnatural way. He spoke in a high-pitched, cheery, and very human voice, like the born salesman he was.
“Hello, hello, hello there! Welcome to my emporium of Doors! Every destination you ever dreamed of, nowhere too remote or unlikely! Come on in and, oh my God, it’s you again.”
He stopped dead in his tracks, whiffling his whiskers and staring balefully at Suzie, who glared right back at him. The Doormouse folded his arms across his broad chest and tapped one sandaled foot very quickly.
“She’s not going to break anything, is she? Only I still remember the last time you two were here, during the Lilith War. I’d have been safer out on the street with the rioting mobs. It’s bad enough you marched in and used one of my best Doors without paying, but the whole shop’s ambience was fatally compromised, just by her being here. Took three exorcists and a feng shui specialist to restore the usual happy House of Doors atmosphere.”
“We only want to use a Door,” I said soothingly. “We might even pay for this one. Show us what we need, and we’ll be on our way and leave you alone. Won’t that be nice?”
“She’s growling at me,” said the Doormouse.
“Yes, well, that’s her being her. Suzie doesn’t do cute and fuzzy. I think it offends her view of the universe on some level. Don’t make any sudden moves, and you’ll be fine. Let’s see the Showroom.”
The Doormouse sniffed loudly, stuck a very pink tongue out in Suzie’s direction, then he turned sharply and stomped off, leading us deeper inside. The main Showroom was full of Doors, row upon row and rank upon rank, all of them standing alone and upright and apparently unsupported. Made from every kind of wood and metal, glass and crystal, they all bore individual handwritten labels, describing their destinations: Shadows Fall, Carcosa, Haceldama, and Scytha-Pannonia-Transbalkania.
“A very popular holiday resort, that one,” said the Doormouse, bustling busily along. “If you like it old-fashioned and a little odd.”
I wasn’t really listening. I’d spotted a familiar face—that general fixer and go-to man, Harry Fabulous, lurking further down the Showroom. He took one look at me and disappeared through a Door. I get that a lot. Still, the guilty flee where no man pursueth, and Harry did a lot of fleeing. Suzie elbowed me discreetly in the ribs, and I pretended I’d been paying attention all along.
“Lots of Doors in stock,” said the Doormouse, padding along before us. “Lots and lots ... I’m always expanding, always looking for something new and interesting. I still design all the Doors myself, but I do enjoy tracking down the odd rarity. I nearly got my hands on the legendary Apocalypse Door at an auction in Los Angeles; but someone else got their hands on it first. It can be a cut-throat business in the travel industry, sometimes ... Where do you want to go this time, Mr. Taylor; and why do I just know I’m not going to like the answer?”
“I don’t know,” I said innocently. “Maybe you’re psychic. I need to get to an alternative Earth called Sinister Albion.”
The Doormouse stopped so abruptly I nearly walked right over him. He turned and looked at me thoughtfully.
“Oh. There.... Nasty place, by all accounts. But no doubt you know your own interests best. Have you made a will? I have. Very comforting things, wills. So, you want the Alternate Earths Door. This way, this way ...”
He started off again in a completely different direction, down a long line of standing Doors, until he finally lurched to a halt before a large mahogany door with a complicated brass combination lock inserted right in its centre. The Doormouse patted the gleaming dark wood with one soft paw.
“Remarkable piece of work, this, Mr. Taylor. Remarkable. This Door can give you access to any alternate history track you can think of and a few most people would be better off not thinking of. All you need is the correct co-ordinates. I should point out that you have to be extremely exact when entering the co-ordinates if you want to get the world you want and not one just a bit like it. Now, Sinister Albion. Are you sure you’re sure about this, Mr. Taylor?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” I said.
“Quite so, quite so ... I gather from your companion’s expression that she’s about to start growling again, so I’ll get to the point. I don’t know the exact co-ordinates for Sinister Albion. Don’t know anyone who does. I didn’t even know the awful place existed before its inhabitants started showing up in the Nightside: King Artur, Merlin Satanspawn, Prince Gaylord the Damned ... That last one actually turned up here a few days ago. I locked the doors, pulled down all the shutters, hid in the toilets, and pretended I was out until he gave up and went away. I mean, you have to draw the line somewhere. No, if you want to go to Sinister Albion, Mr. Taylor ... you’re going to have to provide the co-ordinates. Of course, they say you can find anything ... Must be a wonderful gift. Very useful. I can never find anything. Can’t even find my spectacles most of the time.”
“They’re on top of your head,” I said absently, studying the Door before me. It looked like any other wooden door, but even without using my Sight I could tell it was much more than that. It had a sense of potential about it, a strong feeling of possibilities, as though it could take you anywhere at all. And might even snatch you away for standing too long in front of it. This was a Door that wanted to be used.
I raised my gift and let it glide forward and sink into the Door. Beyond it I could see endless scenes, flickering on and off, worlds without end, worlds come and gone in a moment—some familiar, some horrible, and some so utterly other I couldn’t even make sense of what I was Seeing. I concentrated, frowning, focusing on Sinister Albion. Worlds fanned out before me like a pack of cards; and one world snapped suddenly into focus. I pulled back immediately and concentrated on the brass combination lock on the Door. The mechanism whirled back and forth, spinning rapidly under the impetus of my gaze, then it snapped to a halt, and the Door swung open a little.
Blood-red light spilled out round its edges, bleeding into the cool antiseptic light of the Showroom. The Doormouse fell back a step, his whiskers twitching frantically. A terrible stench of blood and carrion filled the air, wafting out into the Showroom from the world beyond the Door. It was the smell of death and horror, like some gigantic slaughter-house. The world Merlin Satanspawn had made, to please his father ...
“You know,” Suzie said thoughtfully, “you can be really spooky sometimes, John.”
“You’re just saying that,” I said, shutting my gift down as thoroughly as I knew how.
“I feel it is my duty to remind you,” the Doormouse said diffidently, “that while my Doors can take you anywhere in the unknown universe, they are all strictly one-way operations. To be blunt: once you’re in Sinister Albion, you’re on your own. I cannot bring you back. And no, I don’t do travel insurance.”
Suzie looked at me. “What about your Portable Timeslip?”
“Only works in this world,” I said. “It operates in Space and Time, not dimensions. It’s a gold watch, not a TARDIS.”
“Wouldn’t work anyway,” said the Doormouse. “Not where you’re going.”
I looked Suzie in the eye. “You heard the mouse. This could be a one-way trip. You don’t have to come with me.”
“Don’t make me slap you in front of a mouse,” said Suzie. “You can??
?t do this without me, and you know it. Someone’s got to watch your back.”
I nodded. Suzie’s never been very good at the sentimental stuff, but I knew what she meant. There was no way she’d let me go into danger without her, not while she had a say in the matter. I pulled the Door all the way open, and the blood-red light flared up. Suzie and I walked forward into it, into Sinister Albion.
And behind us I could hear the Doormouse crying, “Come back! Come back! You haven’t paid yet ...”
It was dark, even though it was day. The sun burned a sullen crimson through heavy, lowering clouds, turning the sky blood-red. Ashes fell out of the sky as though the clouds were on fire. But it didn’t take me long to work out where the ashes were really coming from. In long rows, all along the distant horizon, stood rank upon rank of giant burning Wicker Men. Huge hollow forms, roughly man-shaped, full of men and women burning alive. I couldn’t really hear them screaming, from so far away; but it felt like I could. The Wicker Men burned like beacons, illuminating Sinister Albion.
The land round us was churned-up mud, for as far as the eye could see. No fields, no crops, no forests, and no rivers. Thick filthy mud, soaked with old and new blood, punctuated here and there with human body parts and all kinds of scattered offal. Some of the mud had been disturbed in more or less straight lines, tracks rather than roads. The air was hot and sweltering, difficult and unpleasant to breathe. Thick with the stench of burning meat, it coated the inside of my mouth with grease and ashes.