She glared at me. "I may not have had the benefits of your
private education, but I know a thing or two. You can’t work any of the major
magics without at least a working knowledge of Latin. Most of the old pacts and
bindings are written in it. What we’re looking at here…is a spell. A spell to
reveal hidden truths…about the beginnings of the Drood family! You were right,
Eddie; it is the answer. So, do we use the spell? Right here and now?"
"Of course," I said. "We might not get another chance."
"Is this something you need to do alone?" said Molly. "I mean,
I’d understand if you—"
"No," I said immediately. "We’ve come this far together; it’s
only right we go the last mile together too."
So we both spoke the spell in unison, chanting the ancient Latin
aloud, and the world we knew blew away on a wave of wild magic, as the spell
gave us a vision of time past.
We were not there. We saw and heard everything, but we were not
present. This was the past, and we had no place in it, except as observers.
Before us lay old Britain. The Romans called it the Tin Islands,
because that was all we had that interested them. The land of the Britons: a
savage place, back when we all lived in the forest, in the wild woods, in the
dark places the Romans dared not follow us. The vision shifted and changed,
showing us sights charged with meaning and significance. We watched, and
learned.
In this time, Drood history began. Fierce men in ragged furs,
with blue woad daubed on their snarling faces, ran howling through the trees. My
ancestors, the Druids. So fierce, so savage, they shocked even the hardened
Roman legionnaires. They fought; tribes against armies, bronze against steel.
And yet at first the Druids won, forcing the invading Romans all the way back to
their waiting ships, and then slaughtering them in the shallows until it seemed
the whole ocean ran red with their blood. The survivors sailed away; but they
came back. The Romans came again, and again, until finally they triumphed
through steel and tactics and weight of numbers. Because they were an army, and
we were just scattered tribes who often hated each other as much as we did the
invaders.
The Romans feared the Druid priests most of all, and wiped them
out, destroying their spoken knowledge and traditions along with their savage
religion. And so it might have gone…until the Heart came, and everything
changed.
It did not fall from the sky, as the official story says. It did
not fall like an angel from heaven, or a meteor from outer space. It downloaded
itself from another dimension, a different kind of reality. Imposing itself upon
our world through an act of sheer will. The impact of its arrival killed every
living thing in the vicinity and flattened all the trees for miles around. The
ground shook for days, and strange bright lights and energies burned in the
skies. But the Druids, though sensibly cautious, were scared of nothing and sent
emissaries to the Heart.
Those Druids would become the very first Droods.
They walked among fallen trees for mile after mile, and though
they saw wonders and horrors and living things twisted and mutated by the
terrible energies released through the Heart’s arrival, they did not stop or
turn aside. They were shamans whose job it was to defend and protect the tribe
from outside threats. And finally they came to the great clearing of dead and
blasted earth in which the Heart lay. A diamond as big as a hill, brilliant and
beautiful; and alive. It spoke to the Druid shamans who came to it, and they
worshipped it as a sign from the gods or perhaps even one of the gods
themselves.
The Heart was quite content for them to do this. It was lost and
far from home and weakened by its long journey. It had come to our world fleeing
something else. Something the Heart was still very much afraid of. So it
proposed a bargain to the Druid shamans. It would make them powerful, make them
as gods among their own kind, and in return they would revere and protect the
Heart against all enemies. In this world…and without.
The Heart gave the Druids their living armour, and they became
more than men.
Originally, the shamans only used the armour to protect the
tribes against the dark powers and forces of evil who walked more openly in the
world in those days. But the armour made these Droods very powerful, and all
power tends to corrupt…The greatest threat to the tribes were the invading
Romans, but the shamans were wise enough to know that not even the golden armour
could hold off the Roman armies forever. So they went to the Romans and made a
deal. Rome would rule…through the Droods. And thus the tribes would be protected
from the worst of Rome’s power. When, five centuries later, the Roman Empire
finally declined and fell, and Roman authority left Britain, the Droods just
kept going. Operating secretly, to protect the tribes from all threats, from
without…and within.
But what was the armour, this glorious golden living metal?
Where did it come from? And what price did the Heart demand to make those first
few Droods so much more than human?
A Drood stood before the Heart, presenting a pair of twin babies
to the massive diamond. One of the babies was snatched out of the Drood’s arms
by an unseen force, and it hung on the air before the Heart, kicking and
screaming. And then it was suddenly sucked into the Heart’s shining surface and
disappeared inside. Its screams cut off abruptly. And around the neck of the
baby still held by the Drood, a shining golden collar appeared. The vision
showed other sacrifices, other sights, down many years, until the secret of the
family’s armour was plain.
All the Druids exposed to the energies of the Heart underwent
predetermined genetic changes, and from that point on all Drood children were
born as identical twins. Soon after birth, one child was given to the Heart,
which absorbed its body and its soul, so that the surviving twin might wear the
golden armour and serve the family. When I wore the living metal, I was
surrounding myself with all that was left of my sacrificed twin. The brother I
never knew. Every time I armoured up, I was wearing my brother like a second
skin.
How many twins, how many lives, had been sacrificed to the
Heart, down the long centuries? How many innocent children denied their chance
at life, so the Droods could be more than human?
The vision showed us more. It got worse.
As more and more babies were given to the Heart, the
other-dimensional being grew brighter, stronger. The souls of the sacrificed
children were held and sealed within the Heart, trapped there to generate the
power that created our armour, that powered our magics and our sciences, that
made our family strong.
I felt sick. Soiled. I had been brought up to revere and protect
the Heart in its Sanctity, without ever knowing what it really was. An eater of
souls. Just like those disgusting entities the Loathly Ones, but on a far
greater scale. All those babies…all those generations of trapped souls, denied
an afterlife, condemned to never-ending existence within the Heart, to make it
powerful. Did they know? Were they aware in there? Did they suffer endlessly?
Were they screaming all the time, behind the gleaming facets of that massive
diamond?
The vision ended, and Molly and I fell back into our bodies. We
both looked at each other, shocked speechless. I’d never felt so angry in my
life. I rolled the scroll up very carefully, retied the ribbons, and set it back
on its shelf. I couldn’t risk it being damaged. It was evidence of a crime. My
anger burned cold within me, and I had never felt so focused, so determined.
Molly reached out to me, and then stopped at the last moment. As though I might
have burned her fingers. I don’t think she liked what she saw in my face, in my
eyes.
"Eddie…"
"It’s all right," I said, though something in my voice made her
flinch.
"I’ve always known my family was rotten to the heart."
I didn’t hear anything, didn’t see anything, but suddenly I just
knew that he was there, standing behind me. And since I’m not at all easy to
sneak up on, I knew who it was, who it had to be. I turned slowly, and there he
was, with a gun pointed at me. Molly turned too, and then instinctively moved a
little closer to me. The Matriarch had sent the greatest field agent of all to
deal with me.
"Hello, Uncle James," I said.
He nodded, not smiling, tall and dark and handsome as ever,
splendidly elegant in a formal tuxedo, the gun seeming almost out of place in
his hand, as it covered Molly and me. He might have just come from a cocktail
party or an ambassador’s ball. Some important occasion, where the high and the
mighty gathered to discuss all the matters that mattered. Uncle James was always
at home in the very best circles, when he wasn’t chasing the scum of the earth
through backstreet bars or hidden lairs, the Amazonian rain forests, or the
darkest canyons of the urban jungle.
"Hello, Eddie," he said, and his voice didn’t sound at all
strained.
"You never would do what you were told, even as a child. I told
you not to come back here. Told you I’d have to kill you if we ever met again.
And yet here you are, and here I am. So…Aren’t you at least going to introduce
me to your young lady?"
"Heavens," I said. "Of course; what was I thinking? Uncle James,
this is Molly Metcalf, the witch of the wild woods. Molly, this is my uncle
James. Better known in disreputable circles as the Gray Fox."
"Really?" said Molly, looking actually impressed for the first
time since I’d met her. "The Gray Fox? Damn! Eddie, you never told me the
legendary Gray Fox was your uncle! It’s an honour to meet you, sir. Really. I’ve
followed your career for years, from a distance of course. You took on the
Unholy Inspectres, the Bloody Beast of Bodmin Moor, and the Murder Mystics—"
"Not that last one," Uncle James said graciously. "My brother
Jack took down the Murder Mystics. He never did get the renown he deserved."
"You have a gun," I said. "You could have shot me in the back
the moment you walked in here, before I even knew you’d found me. It would have
been the sensible thing to do, before I could armour up."
"Yes," he said easily. "I could have killed you and your young
lady, but I didn’t. I needed to talk to you first, Eddie. I know you’ve opened
the scroll, said the Words, seen the vision. When you broke the seals, that set
off a silent alarm, and we all knew it had to be you. So I said I’d come down
here and take care of things. How did you break the seal, Eddie?"
"I have Oath Breaker," I said, and showed him the ironwood
staff.
"So you do. You’ve been to see Jack, haven’t you? Of course you
have. He always was the softhearted one. I shall have to have words with him
later. Put the staff down on the floor, Eddie. Very carefully."
I crouched down, laid the stick on the floor, and then
straightened up again, never once taking my eyes off Uncle James.
"Who sent you?" I said. "The council, or the Matriarch? How deep
does the rot go?"
"The council and the Matriarch," said Uncle James. "You’ve
pissed off pretty much everybody, Eddie."
"Do you know the secret of the scroll?" I said. "The truth
behind the armour, and the Heart?"
"Of course I know. It’s the first thing they tell you when you
join the council."
I raised an eyebrow. "I wasn’t aware field agents were allowed
to serve on the council."
"Exceptions are made, for exceptional people," said James. He
wasn’t boasting, just stating a fact.
"What did you do?" I said. "When you found out about all the
children who’ve been sacrificed so we could become what we are?"
"Oh, I was shocked," said Uncle James. "Horrified. But I got
over it. Just as you will, in time. The original bargain was made in a simpler,
more savage time, by savage people. But the family has become too important, too
necessary to risk undoing the bargain. We don’t just protect the tribe anymore;
we protect humanity. We have a duty, a responsibility, to stand between them and
the forces of darkness that they must never know about. And the secret…is just
part of the burden we have to bear so we can do the things that have to be
done."
"Like ruling the world from behind the scenes?" said Molly.
"Like stamping down hard on anyone or anything that doesn’t fit your narrow
criteria of what’s acceptable?"
"Getting upset won’t change anything," said Uncle James, still
looking only at me. "It won’t bring back your twin brother, or mine. They died
so we could wear the armour, so we could be a force for good in a world that
needs us now more than ever. We can’t tell everyone in the family, Eddie; you
must know that. Most of them have no idea what it’s like out in the world. They
wouldn’t understand…how necessary some things can be. That’s why only the
Matriarch and the council know: those of us who’ve proven our worth through long
service to the family. And to the world. We bear the burden of the truth so
others don’t have to. So we can go on saving the world every day."
"That’s it?" I said. "The end justifies the means? Come on,
Uncle James; you can do better than that."
"I insisted they send me down here," Uncle James said urgently.
"Because I’m the only one who wouldn’t shoot you on sight. I needed to talk to
you, Eddie, make you understand. I don’t want to have to kill you, Eddie. Not
when you could still do so much for the family. You have so much potential…and
you remind me so much of your mother."
"Don’t go there," I said, and I could hear how cold my voice
was.
He didn’t flinch. "My sister was one of the best field agents of
her generation," said Uncle James. "Only makes sense that her son would be
special too. I raised you, Eddie. Taught you everything I knew. I always saw
you…as the son I never had."
"You raised me to know right from wrong," I said. "To fight evil
wherever I found it. That’s what I’m doing, Uncle James."