The Rules Are What We
Say They Are
When I think of all the Doors I’ve walked through, often with only a suspicion of what might be on the other side, or where I might end up, it frankly astonishes me that I’m still around. It’s like rolling the dice while wearing boxing gloves, knowing they’re fixed but hoping whoever did it owes you a favour.
The moment I passed through the Travel Bureau’s Door, the swirling mists glowed a dozen different colours, and then just disappeared, like curtains drawing back so the play can begin. I stood braced in my armour; ready for action, ready for anything. Except. . . . the scene before me.
I was back on the grounds of Drood Hall. The familiar grassy lawns stretched away into the distance under a bright Summer sun. It was all very calm, very peaceful. I felt a bit of an idiot, standing there in full armour with absolutely nothing threatening in view, so I relaxed just a little and armoured down. My first thought was to wonder whether my family might have interrupted my journey and brought me home by force. They’d done it before, when they disapproved of something I intended to do. I smiled, and just knew it wasn’t a pleasant smile. I was going to find and save my Molly and no one was going to stop me, not even my family. Perhaps especially not my family.
I looked around for someone to yell at and discovered that the Door had disappeared from behind me. The Travel Bureau people had been right; the Door existed only from the other side. And the next thing I noticed . . . was that while everything in the grounds looked exactly as it should, there was still something wrong, something . . . off, about my surroundings. I looked around me slowly, frowning. The grounds were deserted. Where was everybody? It all seemed unnaturally quiet and still. At this time of day there should have been any number of people out and about, but there were no security patrols, no gardeners, no happy young things taking a break just to enjoy the Summer day . . . No autogyros or flying saucers or winged unicorns sweeping by overhead. None of the familiar sights of home. I couldn’t even hear the usual harsh cries of peacocks and gryphons. There wasn’t a breath of moving air, and no scent of freshly cut grass. And when I finally looked up, into the bright blue sky, I realised none of the clouds were moving.
It was like standing in a photograph. Or perhaps a moment clipped out of Time and preserved.
Drood Hall was gone. My heart lurched sickly as I realised that while I was looking straight at where the Hall should have been nothing but empty open space was there, just wide, grassy lawns sweeping away forever. I looked frantically around me, but there was no sign of the Hall anywhere. The grand old manor house that had stood for centuries, protecting the family within as they protected the world . . . had been wiped out of existence.
I remembered coming home once before to find Drood Hall completely destroyed. A burned-out ruin, full of dead bodies. Of course, that turned out to be some other-dimensional Drood Hall, from some other reality, but still, that had been bad. This was worse. I wondered . . . whether someone might have activated the old dimension-travelling apparatus deep underneath Drood Hall, the enigmatic Alpha Red Alpha mechanism. Could the new Armourers, Maxwell and Victoria, have meddled with something they only thought they understood, and rotated the Hall out of this reality? No. That wasn’t it. There were too many things wrong with this picture. It wasn’t just the Hall that was missing; there were no trees, no ornamental lake, no hedge maze . . .
I wasn’t where I thought I was.
These weren’t the real Drood grounds, just some place that looked like them. Good enough to fool me, but only for a moment. No wonder there was no Hall, no people. Far too difficult to counterfeit convincingly. This was just a familiar-looking trap. And with the Travel Bureau’s Door gone, I had no way of leaving.
I looked down at my feet. Something else was bothering me. The grass looked real, and the ground felt solid enough under my feet, but something was missing. It took me a moment to realise that although the sun was shining brightly overhead, I wasn’t casting a shadow. I looked quickly around me, and even lifted each of my feet in turn, as though my shadow might be trying to hide from me, but there was nothing. No trace of a shadow anywhere. Which was . . . disturbing. I could feel all the hairs standing up on the back of my neck.
What kind of a place had I come to?
I was sure my armour had fed the correct Space/Time coordinates into the Door. It should have delivered me straight to the Shifting Lands. So where was I? And why did I keep trusting Doors, anyway? And then I jumped, just a little, as I suddenly discovered I did have a shadow. A perfectly ordinary respectable shadow, that moved when I did. As though someone had realised I’d spotted a mistake in the design of this new reality, and had moved quickly to correct it. Which implied that someone was watching me . . .
I called out to Kate, through my torc. There was no response. I wasn’t surprised. The Shifting Lands were supposed to be beyond the reach of the Droods. That was the whole point. I was cut off from my family, and completely on my own. I couldn’t help but grin. If that was supposed to shake me, or undermine my confidence, whoever was watching didn’t know me at all. I’ve always done my best work on my own, without my family butting in to stop me from doing things they disapproved of. I bounced up and down on my feet and looked speculatively about me. Whoever thought they could trap me here was in for a really nasty surprise when they found they had an angry Drood by the tail.
And then someone close at hand cleared his throat, quite politely, and I looked round sharply.
Standing calmly before me was a familiar figure, with a face I knew only too well. Walker. He looked to be in really good condition, for a man who died years ago. Or at least, was supposed to have died. This was Walker, after all. As always, he looked very smart, like someone big in the City, in an expertly tailored three-piece suit. Right down to the gold pocket-watch chain stretched across his patterned waistcoat, the rolled umbrella, and the bowler hat. Not a young man, Walker, not for some time—though clearly full of energy and purpose. A man past his best days, perhaps, but still a man to be reckoned with.
Walker was the ultimate authority figure: straight back, patient stance, and cold, cold eyes. He used to run the Nightside, that dark and dangerous place, inasmuch as anyone could. And did it with a ruthless efficiency that inspired respect in gods and monsters. He was much admired, even more feared, and liked by . . . remarkably few people. Not that he ever gave a damn about that, of course. He leaned nonchalantly on his rolled umbrella now, bestowing on me his most enigmatic smile. As though he knew far more than I did. More than anyone did.
Daring me to try something.
I have to say, I felt a little shocked to see Walker standing so easily and so freely on Drood family grounds. Even if this wasn’t the real Drood grounds. Walker and I might have been allies on occasion, and even worked together once, to bring down the Independent Agent, but even so, he had no right to be here. Walker was far too dangerous a man to ever be allowed in Drood territory. And besides, if my family were banned from the Nightside by long-established Pacts and Agreements, it seemed only right and proper that all the creatures of the Nightside should be banned from setting foot in Drood territory.
“Hello, Eddie,” Walker said easily. “Welcome to the Shifting Lands. So good of you to join us.”
I glared at him. “Doesn’t anyone stay dead any more? This seems to be my day for being bothered by ghosts with familiar faces. Memories from my past. Am I supposed to be glad to see you? It’s been a long time since you and I were on the same side . . .” And then I broke off as a sudden insight struck me. I stabbed an accusing finger at him. “Except, you’re not really him, are you? You’re not Walker! You’re whoever or whatever pretended to be Walker, back when I was caught hovering between Life and Death, trapped in the Winter Hall, in Limbo’s waiting room. You tried to pressure me into giving up important information, personal and family secrets . . .”
“Perhaps,” said Walker, entirely unmoved by my accusations or my anger. “But I feel I should warn you, Eddie; you don’t come to the Shifting Lands for certainties. This face will do as well as any other.”
“All right,” I said. “What are you doing here, Walker? I don’t have time for games. I have business of my own to be about.”
“I am here because the Powers That Be require me to be here,” said Walker. “And now they want you.”
“Where’s Molly?” I said.
“Oh, she’s around, somewhere,” said Walker.
“Where?”
“Around,” said Walker. “Somewhere. Don’t get testy with me, Eddie. You’re in no position to make demands; not here. You’re on the same footing as everyone else in this place. Molly is . . . waiting, preparing to take her place in the Big Game.”
“Molly was kidnapped!” I said, and the cold anger in my voice would have been enough to warn off anyone else. “Taken from the Wulfshead and brought here against her will.” I gave Walker my best slow, threatening smile. “What makes you think you can hold Molly Metcalf? Especially now I’m here.”
Walker sighed, as though faced with a particularly difficult, and not very bright, small child. “It doesn’t matter how anyone gets here, Eddie; they all stay of their own free will. Ready, and indeed eager, to participate in the Big Game in the hope of winning a way out of the terrible and awful obligations they agreed to when they first made Pacts and Agreements at the beginning of their career. Obligations that are now coming due; promises made that must be paid. And your Molly did agree to so many things, to acquire the power she needed to take on your family. She wanted, needed, revenge for the Droods’ murder of her parents. And she didn’t care what she had to do, or agree to, as long as it would get her the power she needed.
“And then . . . she fell in love with you. A Drood. Funny how things work out, isn’t it? Of course she must have known, even if she never discussed it with you, that she could never hope to pay off everything she owed in one lifetime. So what do you think will happen to her after she dies? And all those debts come due? I really don’t like to think about it. She made promises to Heaven and to Hell, to so many Powers and Dominations. They’ll tear her soul apart, arguing over who has the best right to it.”
He stopped as he saw the look on my face. “Of course, if you were to support her, she would stand a much better chance in the Big Game.”
I took a step towards Walker, my hands clenched into fists, and then stopped myself. This was what Walker wanted, what he did; he got people angry, and off balance, so they’d be that much easier to out-think and manipulate. For his own ends. So I stood my ground and stared coldly at him.
“You always did have a taste for blackmail, Walker.”
He shrugged easily, unmoved. “Stick with what works, that’s what I always say.”
“I have been told,” I said carefully, “that Molly was taken by the Powers That Be. And that if they’d wanted me, they could have just as easily taken me at the same time. So if they didn’t want me then, why are they so keen I should take part in their Big Game now?”
“Because you’re the first one to break in,” said Walker. “The Powers That Be admire that. They’re impressed, and that really doesn’t happen very often. Trust me . . . They’re fascinated to see what you might do next.”
“What if I decide I don’t want to take part in their damned Game?” I said. “What if I’m just here to break Molly out?”
“You can’t,” said Walker. “With or without your family, or your quite remarkable armour, you’re no match for the Powers That Be. This . . . is their world. They made it. Everything here answers to them. The very rules of reality in this place change from moment to moment, according to what the Powers That Be want them to be. And I have to tell you, Eddie, Molly doesn’t want to leave. She wants the way out that winning the Game offers her. She knows what’s waiting for her, at the end, all the awful things in store for her . . . and even the infamous wild witch is sensible enough to be scared of that. It’s one thing to take on such an appalling burden when you’re young, and driven by rage and revenge. It’s quite another to see the awful things you’ve condemned yourself to drawing nearer day by day, and to know there’s no way out.”
“My family have entered into a great many Pacts and Agreements of their own,” I said. “They have power to call on that could be used for the cancelling of debts . . .”
“Not here,” said Walker. “We’re a long way from anywhere your family has influence or power. You’re all Molly’s got, Eddie.”
“Always,” I said.
I took another step forward, until Walker and I were practically face-to-face. He didn’t flinch, didn’t fall back.
“Where’s Molly?” I said. “I could make you tell me . . .”
“No, you couldn’t,” said Walker.
I started to reach for the Colt Repeater at my hip, in its hidden pocket dimension, and then I hesitated, and stopped myself. The real Walker had a Voice that could not be resisted or denied. That could make you do anything, anything at all. There are those who say he once made a corpse sit up on its slab in the mortuary to answer his questions. And there was always the chance . . . that this was the real Walker. People in the Nightside don’t follow the usual rules about anything, including Life and Death. Walker could have faked his own death, for reasons of his own. He’d done stranger and sneakier things, in his time. If my uncle Jack could come back . . . If he had come back . . . I took my hand away from my side, away from my stash of hidden weapons and dirty tricks. I didn’t want to reveal all my cards, all my nasty little secrets, just yet. Not until I had a better understanding of the lay of the land, and the rules of the Big Game.
I looked at Walker, and he looked calmly back at me. As though he knew everything I’d just been thinking. Which was very Walker . . .
“So,” I said, “is it just you, or have you brought a few friends and colleagues with you? Like John Taylor, or Shotgun Suzie?”
“Perish the thought,” said Walker. “They’re far too busy running the Nightside in my absence. And the Powers That Be are very careful about who they let into this world. Those two would wreck the place.”
“What gives these Powers authority over you?” I said. “I didn’t think anyone could order you around. You’ve faced down gods and devils in the Nightside, in your time.”
“Oh, I have,” said Walker. “Really. You have no idea. But this . . . is different.”
I waited, but that was all he had to say on the matter.
“The real Walker would never put up with that,” I said.
“You’re right,” said Walker. “He wouldn’t. Unless, of course, it served some hidden purpose of his own.”
“Okay, you’re making my head hurt now,” I said. “Which is the best argument yet that you are the real deal.”
I looked around me, at the green grass and the blue sky, the bright Summer sun and the unmoving clouds. The empty grounds, and the utter silence surrounding us. More than ever it all looked like a stage set. A simple background for the play to come. I thought about the sheer power it would take to make a world like this. To create a whole separate reality, just to have somewhere suitable to play your Game. Unless . . . Walker wasn’t telling me the truth. Or all of the truth.
“Where are we, really?” I said. “These aren’t the actual Drood grounds.”
“Of course not,” said Walker. “They’re just here to help you feel at home. To put you at your ease.”
“Definitely not working,” I said.
“We’re in a private pocket dimension,” said Walker. “A world created specifically to hold the Big Game. The Shifting Lands, far from everywhere and of their own unique nature. Because nothing less would do.”
I took that with a pinch of salt. There was always the chance the Powers That Be had simply discovered the Shifting Lands and taken them over for their own use. I didn’t trust anything about this deceitful world that had lied to me from the moment I arrived. And I definitely didn’t trust Walker. Of course, he knew that when he started telling me things . . .
“So,” I said, “what does this place really look like, when it isn’t pretending to be Drood grounds?”
“Don’t ask me,” said Walker. “I’m just a visitor, like yourself. Only with rather more privileges. Think of me as the umpire. Feel free to come to me with all your little problems.”
“You really are pushing it now,” I said.
“I am, aren’t I?”
I thought for a moment of the subtle realms, of the soft world where I met Melanie Blaze. That had been a private pocket dimension too, where the world changed according to the wishes of those who lived there. Could I be back there and not know it? It seemed to me that ever since I’d walked through that damned Travel Bureau Door, I hadn’t been able to trust anything.
“Who are the Powers That Be?” I said.
“Ah,” said Walker, “that would be telling.”
“Do you know?”
“Of course I know. But you don’t . . . How unusual. I thought Droods knew everything. No doubt the Powers That Be will tell you when they want you to know.”
I decided I’d had enough, and so I armoured up. Golden strange matter flowed out of my torc and covered me in a moment, and just like that I felt stronger and faster, more awake and more certain. Walker fell back a step in spite of himself. Not surprising, really. The last thing a lot of people ever saw in their life was an angry Drood in his armour, advancing on them. Coming for them. I lifted one golden fist and let Walker see the heavy spikes rising up from the knuckles. And then, quite suddenly, someone else appeared, to stand between Walker and me. The sheer impact of her presence stopped me in my tracks—and there aren’t many who can do that. Walker peered out from behind her, and smiled easily.
“This is my protector. The Somnambulist. Isn’t she splendid?”
I looked her over carefully. I could sense the power burning in her, the dangerous strength and speed, even though she was quite clearly fast asleep. Her eyes were tightly closed, but the eyeballs still moved. Rapid Eye Movements. The Somnambulist was dreaming.
She had a sharp chin and prominent cheekbones, a formidably pretty face, packed full of character, and more than a hint of ethnic Gypsy about her. She could have been anything from her twenties to her forties. Dark russet hair fell in thick ringlets to her shoulders and beyond. Her arms lay limp and unmoving at her sides, but still managed to suggest they were ready for action at a moment’s notice. She had large, bony hands, with heavy knuckles, weighed down by a great many gold and silver rings, set with strange and unfamiliar gems. She wore traditional Romany clothes, Gypsy chic, complete with a hell of a lot of necklaces, bangles, and bracelets. She stood almost unnaturally still, between me and Walker, blocking the way. Walker smiled easily at me over her shoulder.
“This is my personal assistant,” he said.
“You mean bodyguard,” I said.
“That too!”
“Why would Walker need a bodyguard?” I said. “When he never needed one in the Nightside, possibly the most dangerous place there is? After all, with or without his Voice, Walker was always an extraordinarily dangerous person in his own right. So I have to ask, who or what do you need protecting from in the Shifting Lands?”
“They do things differently here,” said Walker. “Not all the dangers in this setting are immediately obvious. The Somnambulist . . . is quite extraordinarily powerful. For as long as she sleeps, she has the strength of dreams. She was once Carrys Galloway, the legendary Waking Beauty of that small but significant country town, Bradford-on-Avon.”
I nodded, remembering the story Molly had told me of her visit there, and her encounter with Carrys. The woman who never slept. Had never slept, for centuries upon centuries. Molly and her sister Isabella helped Carrys break her long-standing pact with the elven Queen Mab so she could finally sleep again.
“And now she’s sleeping hard, making up for lost time,” said Walker. As though he’d been listening in on my thoughts. “But she still has to pay off her debts to the Powers That Be for brokering the original deal those many years ago. Now she protects me from all threats. Until she wakes up.”
“Why?” I said. “Why do you need her?”
“The Game has been known to get a bit boisterous sometimes,” said Walker. “The players aren’t always willing to accept a decision that goes against them. Not when there’s so much riding on it.”
“Since when does the mighty Walker need an enforcer?”
“It is the nature of the Shifting Lands that they are constantly changing,” said Walker. “Particularly during the Game. I can’t be everywhere at once. But she can. Because she’s dreaming and therefore not bound by the limitations of the waking world.”
I nodded slowly. That sounded almost reasonable. So why didn’t I believe it? I looked at the Somnambulist, and then back at Walker, still standing carefully behind her.
“I want answers,” I said. “And I want Molly. And I’m going to get them, one way or another.”
“Typical Drood,” said Walker. “Subtle as a sledgehammer.”
“Stick with what works,” I said. “That’s what I always say . . .”
I advanced on Walker, but the Somnambulist didn’t move. Just stood there, quietly blocking the way, eyes shut. Her face was a complete blank, as though she was thinking about something else. Or perhaps more properly, dreaming about something else. I put one hand on her shoulder, gripping firmly, to steer her out of the way, but she didn’t move. I pushed again, harder, and I still couldn’t move her. It was like trying to shift a brick wall. I put both my hands on her bony shoulders, and set all my armoured strength against her; she didn’t even notice. Which was unheard of. A Drood in his armour can move a mountain if he puts his mind to it. I clamped down with my golden hands to pick the Somnambulist up bodily, and her hands came flashing up with impossible speed. They grabbed my arms just below the elbows, picked me up, and held me in mid-air, with no effort at all showing in her sleeping face. And then she just threw me away.
I shot through the air, tumbling helplessly end over end, until finally I crashed to earth again, some distance away. I hit hard, digging a deep trench in the grassy lawn, and rolled to a halt. The repeated impacts knocked all the breath out of me, even inside my armour, and for a while I just lay there, gathering my wits. It had been a long time since I’d been humiliated so easily.
Slowly and painfully, I hauled myself out of the deep hole I’d made, and straightened up. I was actually shaken at being dismissed so easily. As though I was nothing. I was also starting to feel seriously angry. Bad enough that Walker stood between me and Molly, but a sleeping woman as well? I felt a very definite need to prove I wasn’t going to be pushed around. I strode back across the lawns to face the Somnambulist again. It took me a while. I hadn’t realised she’d thrown me so far . . . Walker was still standing behind the quietly waiting Somnambulist. As I closed in on her, he shook his head at me, more in sorrow than in anger.
“You wouldn’t hit a woman, would you, Eddie?”
“Hell yes,” I said. “I’m a Drood.”
I walked right up to the Somnambulist and threw a punch at her head. She slapped the fist aside easily, even though she couldn’t have seen it coming with her eyes closed. I tried again, aiming the punch right between her eyes, with all of my armour’s strength behind it. For anyone else, that would have been a killing blow, enough to tear her head right off, but by now I was convinced the Somnambulist wouldn’t even notice anything less. This time she stopped my hand in mid-blow, her hand closing hard over mine and bringing it to an abrupt halt. I was almost thrown off balance at having my attack anticipated and stopped so effortlessly. I might even have fallen if her grasp hadn’t held me so firmly in place. I tried to pull my hand back, and found I couldn’t. Her hand clamped down fiercely on mine, the heavy ringed fingers crushing my armoured hand.
I had to grit my teeth to keep from crying out under my mask. My armoured glove was no protection against her unnatural strength. I could feel the bones of my hand grinding together, and the pain was almost unbelievable. She had to be applying tons of pressure per square inch to reach my hand inside the glove, and that just wasn’t possible. I put all my armoured strength into resisting her, fighting to pull my hand free—and couldn’t.
“I’d surrender,” said Walker, “if I were you. Even the world of the Shifting Lands is no match for the world of dreams.”
“What does that even mean?” I said angrily, fighting to keep the pain out of my voice.
Walker shrugged. “It’s your hand. You tell me.”
“All right!” I said harshly. “I give up! I surrender!”
The Somnambulist let go of my hand. I staggered back a few steps and armoured down, holding my aching hand to my chest. It throbbed painfully, but it didn’t feel like anything was broken. The Somnambulist hadn’t wanted to injure me, just to teach me a lesson. Except . . . if she was asleep, how could she make decisions like that? I looked past her, at Walker, the legendary puppet master of the Nightside. He patted his sleeping enforcer on the shoulder, but she didn’t seem to notice. I flexed my hand, trying to drive out the pain and the weakness.
“Told you,” said Walker. “She has the strength of dreams. Which means she can be as strong as she dreams she is.”
All right, I thought, When in doubt, when all else fails, cheat. Or engage in lateral thinking, if you like.
I stepped forward, thrust my face right into the Somnambulist’s, and shouted “Wake up!” as loudly as I could. “Wake up! Bedtime’s over! Wakey wakey!”
The force of my breath was enough to disturb her long hair, but her expression didn’t change in the least. Even though I was shouting at the top of my voice, screaming right into her face, she didn’t react at all. No ordinary sleeper could have stayed asleep, but she did. I stepped back again, shaking my head. Walker grinned at me, as though pleased at my choice of tactics, and sportingly joined in, shouting right into the Somnambulist’s ear. Still nothing. Walker shrugged easily.
“She can’t hear us,” he said. “She’s asleep. Far beyond the reach of mortal voices. She only hears what the Powers That Be want her to.”
I considered some of the nastier weapons and dirty tricks I still had scattered about my person, that might be of some use against her, or Walker . . . but I couldn’t justify using anything like that against Carrys Galloway. She wasn’t the villain here; she was just the villain’s weapon. And besides, I didn’t want to reveal all the aces I had hidden up my golden sleeves, not this early. It was bad enough I’d allowed Walker to provoke me into using my armour against the Somnambulist, and failing. No . . . there were other ways of getting information out of people besides brute force. I looked thoughtfully at Walker.
“She won’t always be around to protect you.”
“Yes she will,” he said calmly. “As long as I have need of her, she’ll always be here. That’s what she’s for. She’s paying off her debts, Eddie. I wonder what poor Molly will be made to do to make good on all her promises?”
“Don’t go there,” I said. “Really. Don’t.”
And there must have been something in my voice, because he looked at me for a long moment. “What if you could pay off her debts for her? To Heaven, and to Hell? Would you be prepared to do that, Eddie? Suffer her torments and punishments? How much would you be prepared to sacrifice, and how far would you go? For Molly Metcalf?”
I meant it, and I could see he knew I meant it.
“That’s my boy!” he said genially.
To my surprise, he seemed genuinely pleased with my response. As though that was the answer he’d been hoping for. He came out from behind the Somnambulist and leaned companionably against her, shoulder to shoulder, as he smiled at me.
“You need to come along with me now,” he said. “So you can meet the other players in the current Big Game. Before everything kicks off and it all gets a bit rowdy.”
He turned abruptly and walked away, striding out across the open grassy lawns. The Somnambulist turned and followed him, ignoring me. I hesitated, and looked around me. There was nothing to keep me here, and nowhere else for me to go. Nothing else to do. At least Walker seemed to have some idea of what was going on. So I just shrugged, and went after him.
* * *
The three of us strode along together, across the Drood grounds that weren’t really Drood grounds. The Somnambulist quickly took up a position between Walker and me, keeping us apart even though she was still clearly fast asleep. I wondered how she could see where she was going with her eyes closed. But then, there was a lot about her I didn’t understand. So I ignored her, if only because her presence up close was creeping the hell out of me.
“In the Winter Hall,” I said finally to Walker, “back when I was floating between Life and Death; that was you, wasn’t it? Why did you interrogate me there? Why were you so determined to get answers out of me, to learn my secrets and those of my family? Who sent you there, and who told you to ask those questions?”
“The Powers That Be,” said Walker, not looking round.
“Getting really tired of that answer,” I said. “Who are they? What are they?”
“I would have thought that much was obvious,” said Walker. “Just from the title they’ve given themselves.”
And the really annoying thing was, Walker really did seem to feel I should be able to guess, from the clues available. I frowned fiercely as we walked along, considering the matter, though Walker seemed quite unconcerned. Was he hinting at something, or trying to distract me, keep me pointed in the wrong direction? I’ve never been good at puzzles. When you wear a suit of armour that can punch holes through the world, mostly you don’t have to be. Other people will normally fall all over themselves to tell you everything you need to know. The Somnambulist started to snore quietly. Walker elbowed her discreetly in the ribs, and she stopped.
The Drood grounds seemed to just go on and on forever, much farther than they ever could have in the real world. Nothing but empty open lawns, stretching away into the distance. No landmarks anywhere; no trees or lakes or flower gardens. Nothing to help me judge distances. Nothing living moved anywhere in the grounds, apart from the three of us. I wondered whether this was a living world, or just an artificial construct. Time didn’t seem to change either. When I first arrived here, through the Departure Lounge Door, it had felt like midday, and it still did. Even though we seemed to have been walking for ages. I wanted to ask Walker if he felt the same way, but I knew he’d only say something evasive and deeply irritating, and I was damned if I’d give him the satisfaction.
And then change did set in, quite suddenly, almost as though I’d triggered it by noticing its lack. The green lawns lost all their colour, all their detail, everything just dropping away until the three of us were walking across endless grey dust plains. Still no landmarks, still no sign of where we were, or where we were going. Great plumes of dust rose with every step we took, then fell slowly back to the ground again. Our footsteps made no sound at all, as though we weren’t really there. Just ghosts, passing through. It wasn’t hot or cold or anything much. I glanced back, and saw that the lawns we’d been walking through had vanished, replaced by endless plains of grey dust that looked like they’d always been there. A world of nothing but dust, because everything else had died long ago. The sky was full of static. And then the world changed again; and again; and again.
Walker took it all in stride, and just kept going. I gaped openly around me, like a tourist. The Somnambulist didn’t seem to notice anything.
We were walking through the dark, rain-slick streets of the Nightside. I recognised them immediately, from when I’d visited them before, with Walker. The dark, hidden heart of London, where it’s always three o’clock in the morning, always the hour that tries men’s souls. With its forever night sky, packed full of unfamiliar stars and a hugely oversized full moon. I didn’t like that moon; it looked like it might come crashing down on me at any moment.
Hot neon signs burned fiercely on every side, sweet and gaudy as Hell’s candy and twice as tempting. Shop-windows displayed things no one in his right mind should ever want. Barkers outside nightclubs with ever-open doors yelled their price lists for the awful and unnatural practices to be found inside, and there never seemed to be any shortage of punters. Women lounged around on street corners in all their fetish finery, offering love for sale. Love, or something like it. And gods and monsters went walking hand in hand.
I couldn’t keep from glaring at the scene around me. I’ve always hated the Nightside, where morality is relative, and Good and Evil work side by side and seem quite content to do so. I didn’t belong here, and not just because I was a Drood, and therefore banned. I’ve always needed to know where I stand, what matters and what doesn’t. The whole dark and sleazy setting set my spiritual teeth on edge.
People hurrying up and down the crowded streets turned their heads to watch the three of us pass by, as though they could tell we didn’t belong. The looks they gave us weren’t in any way friendly. I was tempted to call on my armour, but I couldn’t escape the feeling that was what they wanted. To give them the excuse they needed to fall on me. Like a pack of rabid rats. For daring to disapprove of them. I stared straight ahead, ignoring them all, but after a while even the brightly lit windows in the towering office buildings came to feel like watching eyes. Observing the three of us with bad intent.
Interestingly enough, no one seemed surprised to see Walker. Even though he was supposed to be dead.
Sunlight suddenly blasted in, driving back the endless dark, dazzling me for a moment. I had to raise an arm to shield my eyes. Walker didn’t seem at all bothered by the harsh light, and neither did the Somnambulist. Of course, she already had her eyes shut. When I was finally able to see clearly again, the Nightside streets were gone, as though they’d never been there. The three of us were striding down a pleasant country lane. Low dry stone walls slouched on either side of us, pockmarked with age and long exposure to the elements. To my left stood a huge field of gently waving corn, so brightly golden it was almost painful to look at. To my right, a great open field full of grazing cows. And then the hair on the back of my neck stood up, as one by one the cows lifted their heads and turned to look at us. Until all of them were staring right at us, with cold, fixed intent.
The sunlight was bright, even fierce, but I couldn’t feel it on my skin. I didn’t feel hot, or cold, or anything much. On an impulse I reached out and trailed my fingertips along the nearest dry stone wall. It felt hard and solid, and reassuringly rough to the touch; indisputably real. But I still couldn’t hear any footsteps, as the three of us walked along the road. The ground felt hard and solid enough underfoot, but I wasn’t sure I trusted it to stay that way. I checked for shadows, but we all had them.
As though my checking was the last straw, the world changed again, and we were walking along the bottom of the ocean. Sand crunched and slid treacherously under my feet but still didn’t make a sound. The waters were dark, but I could see our surroundings quite clearly thanks to great shafts of light filtering down from far above. I waved a hand back and forth before me, and slow, fat ripples moved through the water ahead of me, but I couldn’t feel any of the expected resistance from the water.
Clouds of clashing technicolor fish swam endlessly around us, sometimes sweeping in for a closer look but never getting close enough to be touched. Their mouths opened and closed in an eerie synchronisation. Some of them glowed in the dark, carrying their own lights within them. Which made me wonder just how deep we were. I was relieved to find I was breathing quite normally, but I didn’t feel any of the expected deep cold or pressure. Massive dark shapes passed by, to either side and overhead, vast and ponderous, observing the three of us from a safe distance. There were whales the size of mountains, and massive squid with huge, bulging eyes and tentacles that seemed to trail away for miles. There were other things too, not so easily identified. Just huge shadows, darker than the waters, watching with great unblinking eyes the size of houses. I really wanted to put on my armour now, but I knew I couldn’t afford to seem weak or scared in front of Walker. He was looking straight ahead as he strode along, but I had no doubt he was keeping an eye on me. He seemed entirely unmoved and unaffected by the whole underwater experience, while in my case it was only pride that was keeping me from being a gibbering wreck. An underwater wreck. Heh.
I had no idea where I really was, or where I was going. I felt, simply, lost. And that was a strange new feeling, one I wasn’t used to at all. In my armour I always knew exactly where I was, and where everything else was. But now there was no way out and no direction home. I really didn’t like this new feeling. I stuck close to Walker—or as close as the Somnambulist would allow. At least Walker still seemed to have some idea of where he was going. And if he had some idea of how I was feeling . . . he had the decency to keep it to himself.
Change again, and the three of us were trudging up the steep side of a mountain, heading for a far-off summit. All of us bent right over, staring down at the rocky ground before us, just to keep our balance as we fought our way upwards against the steep incline of the mountain. Even the Somnambulist had to lean forward, and she wasn’t even looking where she was going. I glanced back, and down, and saw that the sheer steep drop fell away behind us. The base of the mountain was far below, lost to view, hidden among thick clouds. I felt a sudden stab of vertigo and had to turn away. The air seemed authentically thin, and cold. I looked up and saw that the mountain plunged up into the sky. The snow-covered summit was only occasionally visible among slowly drifting clouds.
I think Walker sensed I was losing patience and about to start demanding answers to questions again, because he just started talking, without having to be prompted. Still staring straight ahead, and stepping casually over and around the many broken stones littering the way.
“The entire structure and substance of this world,” Walker said cheerfully, “this pocket reality called the Shifting Lands . . . is made up of psychegeography. That is, the whole physical environment shapes and reshapes itself constantly, to reflect the needs, wishes, and even hidden desires of the people who move within it. We are the world . . . if you like. Nothing here can be trusted to stay the same for long. But a word of warning, Eddie: the more you try to control your surroundings, through willpower and concentration . . . mental discipline . . . the more control will evade you. The Shifting Lands respond better to mood and emotion than to logic and common sense.”
“So we create the world as we walk through it?” I said.
“Perhaps,” said Walker. “Or it might all be down to the Powers That Be. Testing and toying with us, for their amusement.”
(And again I remembered the soft world of Melanie Blaze, where everything changed constantly . . . That had to mean something, something important; but what?)
“Which means,” said Walker, “this world can be anything at all. A cobbled street in old Paris; a Gothic castle; a giant chessboard with living pieces. I have seen them all, or something very like them. This is a place of visions and nightmares, fever-dreams and wild imaginings, and the worst impulses in man.”
“Why?” I said. “Why would anyone want to make a world like that?”
“Because they can,” said Walker.
“The Powers That Be can’t control everything that happens here,” I said. I was starting to get short of breath from the climb.
“No . . . ,” said Walker. “But they can and do decide what will best serve the Game, and its players. They always take a keen interest.”
“While you’re in such a helpful mood,” I said, “tell me, is there anything in particular I should look out for?”
“Parts of this world can break away,” Walker said carefully. “And form themselves into specific, individual people. Apparently separate living beings can appear in this world, under the urging of hidden thoughts or needs from the Game’s competitors. Sometimes you can’t tell the players from the playing pieces. The players from the played. It’s that kind of place, and that kind of Game.”
“Terrific,” I said.
“So remember, not everything you encounter is necessarily going to be who, or even what, it seems.” Walker broke off, smiling, apparently quite pleased with the thought. “Or even who they believe themselves to be.”
“Including you?” I said, perhaps just a bit spitefully.
“Of course!” said Walker. “Now you’re getting it . . . It’s not unknown for old friends and enemies, the living and the dead, to appear to take part in the Big Game. Some will be real, and some won’t. Good luck figuring out which is which. And which of them you can trust.”
“Should you really be telling me all this?” I said. I was finding it hard to get my breath now, from the climb and the altitude. Walker didn’t seem at all bothered by the climb or the conditions. Neither did the Somnambulist. Walker considered my question carefully.
“Perhaps,” he said finally. “Perhaps not. Who can tell? If I’m not really me (and I have to say, it does feel like me), then perhaps the Powers That Be made me too well. In which case, I am Walker. Particularly if I’m dead everywhere else.”
“If you were to leave here,” I said, “and step outside the Shifting Lands, would you still be Walker?”
“What a fascinating question!” He actually stopped for a moment, to think about it, and the Somnambulist stopped with him. I stopped too, glad of a chance to get my breath. If the mountain wasn’t real, climbing it felt real enough. Walker smiled briefly. “I suppose it would depend on who and what I really am. Though it would be one hell of a way to find out I’d guessed wrong . . .”
“Why did the Powers That Be take Molly?” I said. “Do you know? I mean, there must be any number of people who’ve got in too deep and owe too many people . . . Why choose her, out of all of them? When the Powers That Be must have known that the infamous Molly Metcalf has friends and family who will never stop looking for her?”
“The Powers That Be don’t explain themselves to me,” said Walker. “They don’t need to. They move in mysterious ways because they can. But I am convinced they have a purpose in everything they do. Maybe, quite simply, it was her turn.”
He shot me a quick glance over his shoulder as he set off again. “Come on, Eddie. Nearly there.”
“Nearly where?” I said testily, forcing myself onward again.
Everything changed again, and we were walking through the massive nave of an impossibly huge Cathedral. A building so big I couldn’t see the beginning or end of it. The farthest walls seemed to be miles away, the ceiling unbearably high. The sheer scale of the building was staggering. The Cathedral was a city, a world, in its own right. Far too huge to be anywhere real, or even historical. Warm sunlight spilled in through massive stylised stained-glass windows. But when I looked closely at the designs on the nearest wall, I discovered the depicted Saints were all Droods I knew. James and Jack, Arthur and Martha, Cedric and William, all wearing golden medieval-styled armour, with old-fashioned circular halos around their exposed heads. They were all fighting hideous demons, and losing.
I deliberately turned my head away. The interior space of the Cathedral was impossibly huge, a space too large for the human mind to comfortably comprehend. Walker just strode forward across the bare stone floor in an unwaveringly straight line, looking neither left nor right, with enough confidence to suggest he knew where he was going. The Somnambulist followed him, and I followed her. Our feet made no sound at all on the stone floor. But at least we all had shadows.
After a while, I made out a small group of people up ahead, standing in front of an oversized altar. They seemed to be waiting for us. Still too far away for me to be able to make out any of their faces, but it did seem to me there was something decidedly familiar about the way one of them was standing. Something in the way she held herself . . .
She stepped forward, away from the others, and called out my name. Her voice echoed through the great open space, hanging on the air. My name, spoken in a voice I knew like my own. I broke away from Walker and the Somnambulist, running past them, sprinting across the great open space of the nave, and Molly came running towards me. It seemed to take ages before we finally met and crashed into each other. We hugged and held each other tightly, crying out each other’s name, tears on our faces.
“Oh Molly, my Molly,” I said, fighting to get the words out past the ache in my heart, “I am never letting you out of my sight, ever again.”
We finally let go of each other, and stood back to look into each other’s face, our hands still on each other’s shoulders. We were both laughing and crying at the same time, and not giving a damn. I wiped the tears from her face with my hand, and she did the same for me.
“I thought you’d never get here,” said Molly. “Where’s the cavalry?”
“You’re looking at it,” I said.
Molly actually looked a little outraged. “No Iz, or Lou? Not even some of your appalling family?”
“It’s been really hard to track you down,” I said, just a bit defensively. “And even harder to get here.”
“Not as hard as it is to escape from,” said Molly. “And believe me, I’ve been trying.”
There was a polite clearing of the throat, and we both looked around to find that Walker and the Somnambulist had caught up with us. Molly and I stood side by side to face them. Molly sniffed loudly.
“I see you’ve met two of our jailors. A dead man and a traitor. After everything I did for you, Carrys!”
“She can’t hear you,” I said. “She’s asleep.”
“I know!” said Molly. “It’s so infuriating, not to be able to give the ungrateful cow a piece of my mind. You wait till you wake up, my girl . . .”
“I’m not even sure she can hear me,” said Walker. “And I’m supposed to be able to give her orders.”
“Have you tried?” I said.
“Not as such, no . . . She is very good at anticipating. For someone who’s fast asleep.”
I looked at Molly. “Have you met the people in charge here yet? The Powers That Be?”
“No,” said Molly. “None of us have. They’re keeping themselves well in the background. Only make their wishes known through Walker. Which leads me to think . . . We might just know them, if we saw them.”
“Well,” I said, “it’s not like we have a shortage of enemies.”
“I know!” said Molly.
I had to smile. She sounded so proud. Molly looked down her nose at Walker, hovering nearby.
“Why can’t you stay dead?”
“Too much to do,” Walker said calmly. “Come along, Eddie. There are people waiting up ahead that you’re going to want to meet.”
Molly surprised me then, by nodding and smiling in agreement. “You really won’t believe who’s here, Eddie.”
Walker led us across the vast nave to the small group of people waiting in front of the oversized altar. Two of them stood hand in hand, as though they belonged together. The other three stood stiffly on their own. Because of the sheer size of the nave, it took a while to reach them. Molly stuck close by my side, her arm tucked firmly through mine, as though determined not to be separated from me again, even for a moment. The Somnambulist brought up the rear, perhaps to keep any of us from falling behind, or escaping.
But when we finally got to the altar, I recognised the couple standing together. My heart lurched in my chest, and for a moment I couldn’t get my breath. I knew this older man and woman, knew their smiles. They looked so happy to see me.
“Mum?” I said. “Dad?”
I ran forward, and Molly let me go. Though I didn’t realise that until later. I ran to my parents and hugged them both in turn, and they held me close, held me the way I always wanted my mother and father to hold me, when I was a child, left alone with the family. I had to fight for self-control, but eventually I let go and stood back, and looked them over carefully.
My father, Charles. A calm, self-possessed middle-aged man, completely bald but with a bushy salt-and-pepper beard. He had sleepy eyes and an easy smile, but there was still a definite presence to the man. Something about him suggested he could still be dangerous if the need arose. He wore a casual suit in a careless manner. My grandfather, the Regent of Shadows, originally introduced him to me as Patrick, the best weapons master the Department of Uncanny ever had. Apparently the engineer’s gene ran in my side of the family, though it seemed to have bypassed me. Uncle Jack did try to teach me some basic skills when I used to hang out in the Armoury as a child, but nothing ever took.
“I have to ask,” I said quietly, “do you happen to have any of your nasty little tricks about you? Like your famous protein exploder?”
“Unfortunately, no,” said Charles just as quietly. “We’re only allowed what the Powers That Be allow us.”
He didn’t ask whether I had anything about me. But we did exchange a look before I turned to my mother, Emily.
Originally presented to me as Diana, one of the Regent’s very Special Agents. She spoke with a clipped, aristocratic accent that I knew for a fact never came from any of the standard finishing schools, because Droods don’t go in for that sort of thing. Emily was a calm, poised middle-aged lady, good-looking in a classic way. She wore an elegantly cut tweed suit, with a creamy panama hat crammed down over her long grey hair. And a flounced white silk scarf at her throat. She sparkled with charm and grace, without even trying.
Without being asked, she shook her head. “No, Eddie. I’ve tried repeatedly, but the Powers That Be have suppressed my shadow-dancing skills. Just as well, or I’d have grabbed your father, dived into the nearest shadow, and disappeared from this awful place so fast it would have made their heads spin. I didn’t think anyone could interfere with my abilities, especially after everything I had to go through to get them; but then, I didn’t think anyone could kidnap your father and me against our will either.”
“So you’ve been here all this time?” I said.
Charles and Emily looked at each other, quickly picking up from me that more time had passed during their absence than they’d thought.
“Not by choice,” said Charles.
“We were abducted,” said Emily. “Snatched out of our hotel room, past all the Casino’s defences, between one moment and the next.”
“No warning,” said Charles. “No way to avoid it. A most professional job.”
“I have so many questions to put to you,” I said. “But first, I have some bad news. You’ve been gone for months, and bad things have happened. The Regent of Shadows is dead. Murdered.”
Emily and Charles made low, shocked sounds and held each other’s hands. They looked like they’d been hit.
“How?” said Emily. “My father had Kayleigh’s Eye! How could anyone hurt him while he had that?”
“The Drood in Cell 13 found a way,” I said. “But my grandfather has been avenged. His murderer is dead. And I’m sorry, but that’s not all. The Armourer, Jack, is also dead. A heart attack.”
Charles and Emily embraced each other tightly, as though they were holding each other up. They looked suddenly older, and frailer.
“But I just saw him!” said Emily. “He seemed fine!”
“You’ve been gone a lot longer than you think,” I said.
“Have we missed the funeral?” said Emily. “We have, haven’t we. Bastards!”
“And the wake,” said Charles. “After we were forced to miss James’ wake, we swore we’d be there for Jack’s. Someone is going to pay for this.”
We would have talked more, but Walker insisted on interrupting so he could present the other players in the Big Game. I turned reluctantly away to study the three other people standing at the altar. Walker started with Tarot Jones, the Tatterdemalion. A tall, lean, and almost indecently young-looking man, though years of experience showed in his eyes. He wore the traditional mix of travellers’ clothes: rags and woollens, leathers and jeans, bangles and beads. Strangely constructed stick figures clung to his back, as though they were catching a lift. He had a great mass of curly black hair, and a long, bony face dominated by a beak of a nose and a big, toothy grin. His occasional sudden gestures were surprisingly graceful. There was a certain otherworldly, almost fey quality to him, like a woodland creature, only superficially civilised.
Tarot Jones looked wildly out of place in the Cathedral setting, with his patchwork outfit and almost feral presence, but then, I would have been hard-pressed to name anywhere the Tatterdemalion would have seemed at home that didn’t involve a whole lot of trees. I put forward a hand for him to shake, but he declined, studying me thoughtfully.
“I am the Totem of the Travelling Tribes,” he said finally. “Their protector and spiritual leader. I stand between them and the violence of the town people. I sold my soul, repeatedly, to gain the power I needed to look after my people. So I could hide them away in isolated natural settings, far from anywhere civilised. Where no one could find or reach them to punish them for being different. And for enough power to defend them from any threat. You probably don’t remember the bad old days, when Thatcher sent her stormtroopers against us. The blood, and the horror . . . I swore then: Never again.”
“But to sell your soul . . . ,” I said.
“Over and over again,” said Tarot Jones, suddenly grinning broadly. “What’s a soul or two between friends, eh? I knew what I was doing. I did it of my own free will. It is the old way, after all. The King sacrifices himself; for the good of the Tribe. But it seems none of the power I bought so dearly is enough to get me out of here. Out of this awful, unnatural place. I have to get home, to look after my people! They need me!” He glared at Walker. “Why did your Powers choose me?”
“They don’t tell me things like that,” said Walker. “But I have heard it suggested that just possibly, the players of the Game choose themselves. Because they’re so desperate to avoid the fate awaiting them.”
Tarot Jones looked at Walker for a long moment, and then looked away.
Next we were introduced to Chandarru, Lord of the Abyss and Seeker After Truth. Chandarru made a point of adding these titles themselves, stressing the capital letters. He bowed to me, rather than taking my hand. He was a robust, comfortably padded Oriental gentleman, wearing a smart formal tuxedo, with top hat and swirling opera cloak. He also had the traditional long moustaches, painted-on devilish eyebrows, and a tarred pigtail. When he spoke, it was in considered formal phrases, as though English wasn’t necessarily his first language. He gave the impression of a man holding everything within, giving nothing away.
“I used to be big on the stage,” he said. “One of the last authentic Oriental conjurers to tread the boards. London, Paris, New York. Such days! But as I grew older I decided I’d had enough of tricks, and went in search of the real thing. And I was never the same after that. I have made many deals in my time; and many promises, to Powers and Principalities, in return for secrets. And power, of course, because once you have secrets, other people want to take them from you. I never really believed I’d have to pay the many debts I amassed, because I was always careful to play my various debtors against each other. But eventually I ran out of tricks. I was actually on the run when I was contacted.”
“So you weren’t kidnapped?” I said.
He gave me a quick, meaningless smile. “No. I was offered a chance to earn my salvation, through participation in the Big Game. And I jumped at the chance.”
I gave him a meaningless smile of my own. With a sudden insight, I realised that Chandarru was a performer. What he was showing us was just a role he played. No more him than the man he was onstage. He hadn’t told us a single real thing about himself.
The Sin Eater was a large black American with a big round face, close-cropped white hair, and a gaze so direct and unblinking it was a challenge to meet it. He wore the blindingly white suit of a Southern preacher, complete with a dog collar, and held himself as though he expected to be attacked at any moment. And was more than ready to give as good as he got. He refused to shake my hand, or even to give me his real name.
“Sin Eater,” I said. “Interesting title. A very old, very heretical practice, condemned by all sides of the Christian Church. Consuming the sins of others, to allow them forgiveness . . . Why would anyone do that?”
“It’s what I am,” said the Sin Eater, in a dark, rich voice that sounded more used to addressing and intimidating a large audience. “I gave up my old life, gave up everything, to become what I am now. I have allowed myself to be possessed, many times, exorcising the demons out of the afflicted, and then locking them up inside me. Making a cage for them out of my body and my soul. Partly so I could save the cursed and demon-ridden, and bring peace to the persecuted. But also so that I could take the demons for myself . . . draw on their hellish powers and make them mine.”
“There are demons inside you?” said Molly. “Why would you want that?”
“So I can use Hell’s power to fight Hell’s agents,” said the Sin Eater, smiling for the first time. It was not a pleasant smile. “So I could use demonic power to strike down Evil wherever I found it. It isn’t difficult to find these days. I save those worth saving, protect those worth protecting.”
“Whether they want saving, or protecting, or not?” said Molly.
“It is my duty before God,” the Sin Eater said coldly. His voice was flat and uncompromising. “What else is there that matters?”
“Then what are you doing here?” I said.
“I was ready to pay the price, or so I thought,” he said slowly. “Until I got old. And tired. It has become . . . more difficult to contain the demons inside me. They are always whispering in my ear, tempting me . . . They want me to do things, and sometimes I do. I wake up with blood on my clothes, and worse.” He suddenly pulled back his left sleeve to show us the length of barbed wire wrapped around his arm. The barbs had dug deep into his flesh, and there was dried blood caked around the wounds. Some of them looked to be infected, but I knew better than to say anything.
“I mortify the flesh,” said the Sin Eater, gently running his right hand over the barbed wire and patting it fondly, like a favoured pet. Before carefully pulling the sleeve down again. “I control myself, through pain and punishment. So I can still do what I need to do. Be the Sin Eater; and bring salvation to those who need it most. Because what we do in Heaven’s name has Heaven’s strength.”
“He’s very conflicted,” Walker said quietly.
“So!” I said, smiling easily about me. “We’re all here to play the Big Game! For the entertainment of the Powers That Be . . . Does anybody know what this Big Game actually entails? What the rules are? What we have to do?”
“No one’s said anything yet,” said Molly, scowling impartially around her. “Nothing useful, anyway.”
“How long have you been here?” I asked.
“Not long,” said Molly. “Hardly had time to swap names and backgrounds. Of course, it helped that everyone here had heard of me . . .”
“Witch!” said the Sin Eater.
“Exactly!” said Molly and turned her back on him. “I couldn’t believe it when I met your parents though, Eddie. I mean, what were the odds?”
“Yes,” I said. “I was thinking that . . . You and Charles and Emily were kidnapped. But not the other three . . .”
“They were contacted, in various ways,” said Walker. “And offered a way out of their problems. They agreed, and were brought here. They all considered themselves lost, you see, damned, and running out of time and hope. Now look at them—almost giddy with relief at the chance of a last-minute reprieve.”
“You are not Walker,” Chandarru said suddenly. “Walker is dead.”
“That’s no problem here,” said Walker. “But you’re quite right, of course. I look like Walker, because someone here wants me to. I wonder who, and why . . .” He looked happily around the small group, and they all looked thoughtful, as though any of them might have their own reasons.
Unless, I thought, Walker is just pretending not to be Walker, for reasons of his own. I wouldn’t put it past him.
I turned to Molly. “Sorry it took so long for me to get to you.”
“What are you talking about?” said Molly. “It’s only been a few hours since they grabbed me from the Wulfshead.”
I looked at her, and then at the others. They were all nodding in agreement.
“It’s only been a few hours for us,” said Charles. “Since we were abducted from the hotel in Nantes.”
The others all chimed in, saying the same thing. No matter how long they’d been gone from the world, as far as they were concerned they’d been in the Shifting Lands only for a few hours. Everyone turned to Walker for an explanation.
“Time is a matter of choice and intent here,” he said, just a bit grandly. “Like Space, Time is made to serve the purposes of the Powers That Be. You were all taken from your world at different positions in Space/Time, but arrived here at the same moment. Because that’s what the Powers That Be wanted.”
I turned to Molly. “He must be finished, because he’s stopped talking, but I can’t say I feel any wiser. Do you feel any wiser? No? Thought not.” I glared at Walker. “Just tell us what we need to know! Tell us what the Big Game is, and what it’s for.”
“And what the rules are,” said Molly. “If only so I can have the fun of breaking them.”
“There is only one way out of the Shifting Lands,” said Walker. “A Door is waiting, to take you home. But it will only open once, for one person. So the only way to be sure of winning the Game, of freeing yourself from your obligations and returning home . . . is to kill everyone else in the Game.” He smiled about him, into the sudden silence. Everyone was thinking hard, and looking at one another speculatively. Walker carried on. “Let me be very clear; there can only be one winner, one survivor. If you want your debts paid.”
“No,” I said immediately. “I won’t do it. I won’t kill for you. I don’t do that any more.”
“Not even to save Molly?” said Walker.
“I don’t need saving!” said Molly.
“Or your parents?” said Walker, still looking at me. “Though of course, in the end, you could only save one of them. Would you give up your life for the parents who abandoned you? And if so, which one would you choose?”
I gave him my best cold smile. “Like Molly said, rules are made to be broken. I’ve spent my whole career winning games by kicking over the board and scattering the pieces.”
“But you never played a Game like this,” said Walker.
Everyone else in the group was still staring at one another, weighing people up and judging the competition.
“You’re a Drood,” Tarot Jones said to me suddenly. “I can See your torc. My people have heard of you. The authority figure’s authority figures. You maintain the status quo, by any means necessary. I don’t think I’d have any problem killing you to protect my Tribe.”
“Butt out, hippy,” said Molly.
“I have a mission and a cause to return to,” said the Sin Eater. “Nothing can be allowed to stand in the way of that.”
Chandarru remained quietly thoughtful, as though still considering the odds, and the possibilities.
Charles and Emily looked at each other and smiled over some shared secret thought. They took each other’s hands, and turned to face Walker.
“Screw the rules,” said Emily. “We won’t kill our son, and we won’t kill each other.”
“You can’t make us play the Game if we choose not to,” said Charles.
“Damn right,” said Emily. “Any debts or obligations we may have incurred, we’ll take care of ourselves.”
“We defied the Droods,” said Charles. “Do you think it bothers us to defy your precious Powers That Be?”
“You can’t leave here except through the Door,” said Walker.
“Then we’ll stay here together,” said Emily. “To protect our son.”
“Damn right,” said Charles. “We understand duty, and sacrifice.”
“We’re Droods,” said Emily.
Molly shot me a quick grin. “All right, Eddie . . . Your parents have style!”
I looked coldly at Walker. “I can see why everyone else is here, but why my parents?”
“They made deals,” said Walker. “To be able to leave the Droods and remain undetected by your family.”
Emily nodded slowly to me. “We had to disappear completely, Eddie. Become entirely different people, to protect you.”
“Some people might have put pressure on you,” said Charles, “if they thought we were still alive. To get us to return.”
“Or they might have hurt you, even killed you, to get at us,” said Emily. “Your grandfather, as Regent of Shadows, was able to hide us away in his organisation, but only as long as we were someone else.”
“Patrick and Diana,” I said.
“Exactly,” said Charles.
“So we entered into Agreements,” said Emily. “To make sure you could never be put in danger.”
“Who did you make these Agreements with?” I said.
Charles and Emily looked at each other and didn’t say anything.
“We were so mad at you,” said Molly. “Or I was, anyway, thinking you’d just run away from Casino Infernale . . .”
“We were abducted!” said Charles. “Right in the middle of our mission!”
“Right in the middle of our game plan,” said Emily.
“You do know,” Charles said to me apologetically, “that we lost your soul, as well as our own, gambling at the Casino?”
“I did find that out, yes,” I said. “Don’t worry; I won them all back again and broke the bank.”
“Of course you did,” said Emily. “You’re our son.”
“We were a little concerned,” said Charles. “About being trapped here, and leaving you in the lurch.”
“Our game plan would have worked,” said Emily, glaring at Walker, “if we hadn’t been interrupted!”
I gave him one of my best glares too. “What is to stop any or all of us from working together to win the Game?”
“Nothing,” said Walker. “But in the end, the Door will still only open once, for one person.”
“Hah!” Molly said loudly. “I never met a Door I couldn’t unlock.”
“I never met a Door I couldn’t force open,” I said. Which wasn’t strictly true, but Walker didn’t need to know that.
He just smiled easily, apparently entirely unmoved. “The rules are different here. Because the Powers That Be decide what the rules are.”
Chandarru suddenly stepped forward and thrust out a hand at me. Savage green lightnings sprang from his extended fingertips, but I already had my armour in place, reacting instinctively to his movement. Magical lightnings crawled all over my armour, trying to force their way in, only to fall away defeated. Chandarru immediately turned his lightnings on everyone else, and the rest of the group scattered to avoid them. Somehow, Tarot Jones was never where the lightnings struck. The Sin Eater stood firm, protected by a magical circle. Emily grabbed Charles’ arm and stepped back into a concealing shadow, reappearing only after the lightnings had passed. She grinned, delighted.
“My abilities are back! I’m a shadow dancer again!”
“Somebody must want you to have them, for the Game,” said Charles.
“More fool them,” said Emily.
And of course, none of the lightnings got anywhere near Molly. She just stood her ground and faced them down, until Chandarru lowered his hand and the lightnings stopped. He bowed briefly to Molly and to me, and smiled inscrutably, apparently completely unembarrassed by his sneak attack. I armoured down.
Tarot Jones turned angrily to Walker, who had quietly stepped behind the Somnambulist until the attack was over.
“Is that allowed? Can he just get away with that? Attacking us without warning, before the Game has even started?”
“The Game started the moment you all arrived,” said Walker.
“We should kill the conjurer now,” said the Sin Eater. “All of us, together; while we have the chance. We can’t concentrate on winning the Game if we have to worry about being stabbed in the back all the time.”
“That’s part of the Game,” said Walker.
Chandarru just smiled around at us. “You are, of course, welcome to try . . .”
“But some or all of you might find you have need of his particular talents, at some point in the Game,” said Walker. “Shifting allegiances is a standard tactic amongst the most powerful players.”
“Whose side are you on?” I said.
“Nobody’s,” said Walker. “That’s the point.”
“Why is the Somnambulist here, really?” I said. “To enforce fair play among the participants?”
“Hardly,” said Walker. “She’s here to enforce the rules. You must play the Game, all of you. No complaints, and no way out. Fight and win, or die. The Powers That Be must have their amusement. And their pound of flesh. If anyone refuses to participate in the Game, the Somnambulist will kill them.”
“No!” said Molly. “Carrys wouldn’t do that!”
“Possibly not, but Carrys isn’t here right now,” said Walker. “She won’t know anything about it until she wakes up. She might be very upset at that point, but it will be far too late to do any of you any good.”
“Who are you really?” I said.
“Who do you want me to be?” said Walker.
And I have to say, that did sound a hell of a lot like the real Walker.