The Sarjeant looked at Howard, who nodded quickly. The Sarjeant smiled. “Ready when you are, Eddie. Everyone’s in place; everyone knows what to do. Callan’s ready in the War Room. All defences are on high alert.”
“Then let’s do it,” I said.
I contacted the Armourer through my torc and told him to fire up Alpha Red Alpha. He agreed immediately, with a little too much enthusiasm for my liking. He does so love a new toy. I took out the Merlin Glass and instructed it to lock onto the Timeless Moment. Molly put one hand on mine and the other on the Glass, and added her link to Isabella to the mix. A slow, steady vibration ran through the floor. Heads came up all over operations as everyone felt it. My skin began to crawl.
“I’m not sure what will happen once the dimensional engine has done its stuff,” Ethel murmured quietly in my ear. “I might get to go with you, or I might not. This is all new territory to me.”
“But you’re a dimensional traveller,” I said.
“Yes, but I do it naturally. What your Alpha Red Alpha does is, quite frankly, an abomination, and wouldn’t be allowed in a sane universe. If I’m not there with you, in the Timeless Moment, I’ll be waiting for you here when you get back.”
“And if we don’t get back?” I said.
“Then I’ll go home,” said Ethel. “I wouldn’t want to stay here if you weren’t here, too. It was nice knowing you, Eddie, you and all your family. I will remember you. It’s all been such fun.”
The vibrations had grown strong enough to shake the whole room. Equipment was jumping and rattling, and the technicians hung onto their workstations with both hands. The lights flickered and flared, and shadows leapt all over the place. Strange sensations crawled across my skin, and my teeth chattered. I hung on grimly to the Merlin Glass, whose mirror was utterly blank, and Molly hung onto the Glass and to me with a grip so strong I knew nothing in this world would ever shake it loose. Everything around me seemed vague and uncertain, the people around me ghostly. The vibrations shook my bones and shuddered in my flesh, and it felt like I was being torn apart and put back together again, over and over. It reminded me of my time in Limbo, neither living nor dead, and I couldn’t trust anything. I concentrated on Molly, and something like a hand gripped firmly onto what I thought was my hand. And then everything snapped back into focus, as though the whole Hall had been picked up and slammed down again somewhere else. Molly and I relaxed our grip and laughed aloud, glorying in being alive.
I looked into the Merlin Glass. The image was still only a blur. I carefully didn’t shut it down, but put it away for the time being. Howard was already moving among his people, talking to them quietly, getting them over the shock and back to work. Display screens everywhere were blank, showing nothing but a shimmering silver void all around the Hall.
“There’s nothing out there,
”
said one of the technicians, his voice rising. “Nothing! No matter, no energy; that’s not even light as we understand it. This is what the end of the universe will look like, when the game’s finally over and the doors have been shut and the chairs piled up on the tables. . . .”
“Somebody give that man a stiff drink,” said Howard. “And a slap round the head. This is no time to be going to pieces, people. Which part of ‘we are going to a whole different reality’ did you not understand? Now get working; there has to be something out there. Even if it’s only this Castle Horror the Satanists are hiding out in. Come on, people; how can you miss a whole castle?”
The technicians busied themselves at their work, and a certain calm fell across the ops room as they concentrated on familiar tasks. The Sarjeant moved in beside Howard.
“No matter, no energy?” he said quietly. “What about gravity, and heat and . . . things like that? Everything seems normal enough in here.”
“The Hall’s many defences and protections are still running,” said Howard, just as quietly. “I made sure of that before the Armourer activated that bloody machine. I had to be sure we would survive under whatever conditions, or lack of them, we ended up in. The shields preserve our reality inside the Hall. Of course, what happens to us when we go outside . . .”
“Hold everything,” said the no-longer-panicking technician. “New readings coming in. We seem to have stabilised. I’m getting . . . no damage reports from anywhere in the Hall. According to the long-range sensors, conditions outside the Hall are . . . surprisingly Earth normal. Air, gravity, temperature . . . all within acceptable limits. That can’t be a coincidence. I don’t think this place just happened. . . . I think somebody built it.”
“I don’t know whether that’s more or less worrying,” I said.
“Could it be the conspiracy?” said Molly. “The original one, I mean, back in the nineteen forties.”
“No way in hell,” said the technician. “This is far beyond their abilities. Far beyond ours . . . More likely they found it, somehow, and then moved in. And built their castle. This isn’t just a pocket dimension; it’s a whole
other
reality.”
“Could we survive outside the Hall without our armour?” said the Sarjeant.
“Probably,” said Howard, moving quickly from workstation to workstation, studying display screens over his people’s shoulders. “But I wouldn’t try it. Armour up and stay armoured up until we’re all safely out of here. Ah! Castle, ho! The Hall appears to be calmly floating in this silver void, and roughly half a mile below us is a castle floating in the void! Put it up on the main display screen.”
The big screen flashed a few times, ghosting in and out as though having trouble doing what it was being asked to do, and then the view cleared to show a massive medieval castle hanging in the silver-grey. It was hard to judge the scale with nothing to compare it to, so a stream of sensor information flowed along the bottom of the screen. The castle was huge, some twenty times larger than Castle Frankenstein, home to the now defunct Immortals. Massive stone walls, huge towers, long crenellated battlements, and everywhere, flags and banners of a familiar black and red, dominated by the swastika. Nazi flags. All of them stiff and still, untroubled by any breeze.
“I read all the books,” said William, and I jumped a little to find him standing right beside me. “But I never expected . . . You couldn’t build a castle that big on Earth; it would collapse under its own weight. The old conspiracy must have brought all its requirements through a bit at a time, and then assembled them here. But why did they need a castle that big? What was it built to hold, to contain? Or is there something else here, in this void that isn’t a void, that they had to defend themselves against? There was nothing about that in Laurence’s account. . . . And why did they name it Schloss Shreck? Castle Horror?”
The Sarjeant leaned over the comm systems and called down to the Armourer: “Is Alpha Red Alpha okay? Can you get us home safely? Answer the second question first.”
“Everything’s fine,” said the Armourer. “As far as I can tell. I did everything the way I was supposed to, and the engine did everything it was supposed to. If not exactly in the manner I expected . . . So do what you have to do, Sarjeant, and then let’s go home again. Because the sooner we’re out of this unnatural place, the better.”
“Can you get us safely home again?” said the Sarjeant.
“Ah,” said the Armourer. “Now you’re asking. Technically speaking, yes. Settle for that. I would.”
“I think we should get out of here as soon as possible, too,” said Howard. “I don’t care if the conditions are as near Earth normal as makes no difference; there’s no telling what long-term exposure could do to us. All my sensors are telling me this is a really bad place to be. I don’t think people are supposed to exist here. I’d almost say the Timeless Moment is straining itself to tolerate our presence. The Hall’s shields are holding steady . . . but the energy drain is enormous, far higher than it should be. Which means we have a deadline, Sarjeant. I’d say we’ve got twelve hours, tops, before the generators go down and the shields fall.”
“What are your scanners telling us about Schloss Shreck?” said William. “Can you tell if there’s anybody in there?”
“They’ve got heavy-duty protections of their own,” said Howard. “We’ve no way of telling what’s going on in there. I’m not seeing any signs of force shields, as such. . . . Nothing to stop us from walking right in. But I don’t like it.”
“Why would they need force shields?” I said. “What is there here that they would need to defend themselves against?”
“A really interesting question, and one that we should definitely look into
somewhen else
,” said Molly. “Look at the castle. There’re lights on in some of those windows. Somebody’s home. So let’s go pay them a visit and bash some Satanist heads in.”
“To the point, as usual,” I said. “Enough talking. We’re going in.”
“Damn right,” said the Sarjeant-at-Arms.
Up on the roof of the Hall, the Drood army gathered. Hundreds of golden figures gleaming bright as they scrambled across the slanting tiles, forming groups around gables and cupolas and preparing the flying machines on the landing pads. As more and more of us came up onto the roof, it became increasingly crowded, until it was a wonder we didn’t end up pushing one another off the edges to test the water, like penguins on an ice floe. Molly and I hung off both sides of an outcropping gable, me in my armour and her in her best let’s-go-arse-kicking white dress, looking down at Schloss Shreck, floating in the silver void some distance below. It really was huge, like a medieval city carved in stone and wrapped in Nazi flags and banners. Lighted windows stared back at us like watchful eyes.
“Good thing they’re down there, and we’re up here,” said Molly, after a while. “We can just drop in on them. Death from above!”
“They must know we’re here,” I said. “Must know who we are. Must know we’re coming . . .”
“Good,” said Molly. “Let them panic.”
“There’s no telling how many of the bastards there are,” I said. “Could be a whole army . . . Could be the army we never got to face at Cathedral Hall.”
“You have got to stop obsessing over that,” said Molly. “None of it was your fault.”
“I have unfinished business.”
“You know more ways to feel guilty about things that you’re not responsible for than anyone I know,” said Molly. “I’ve never felt guilty about anything. You should try it. It’s remarkably liberating.”
More and more golden figures spilled up onto the roof, emerging from attics and trapdoors and other less official openings, and were quickly harangued into groups by the Sarjeant-at-Arms. I’d never seen so many armoured Droods in one place before, not even when we were defending ourselves against the invading Accelerated Men. A lot of them were carrying weapons, courtesy of the Armourer. Normally the golden armour is all the weapon a Drood needs in the field, but this was different. We were going to war.
One by one the various flying machines powered up, their cheerful roar and clatter a reassuring presence in the uncanny quiet of the Timeless Moment. There were skeletal autogyros, coughing out black clouds of smoke and steam; carefully preserved Spitfires from the 1940s, with supercharged engines, really nasty guns and their own personal force shields (the Armourer got the idea from some television show); and dozens of different kinds of flying saucers. Not actual alien craft; rather reverse-engineered alien tech made into saucers . . . simply for the fun of it. Some Droods have the strangest hobbies. . . . All of which are encouraged, because you never know when they might lead to something useful.
The Sarjeant-at-Arms came over to join me, striding across the rising and falling tiles with calm assurance. You can always recognise the Sarjeant in his armour; he’s modified it to look as blunt and businesslike as a golden bullet.
“The flying machines are ready to go,” he said. “I’ve ordered them to take a first look at the castle, sound out any defences and maybe even try a few strafing runs to put the wind up whoever’s at home. I’d feel happier if I knew how many we were facing; could be anything in there from a skeleton staff to a full army.”
“Eddie said that,” said Molly.
“Really?” said the Sarjeant. “Some of me must be rubbing off on you, Eddie.”
“What a terrible thought,” I said.
“And a mental image I could really have done without,” said Molly.
“It doesn’t matter how many there are,” I said. “We’re going in. We have people to rescue, and punishments to hand out. Send in the first wave, Sarjeant.”
He turned and waved one golden hand at the landing pads, and all the flying machines rose up. The autogyros sprang into the air like startled birds, banking away from the Hall and then plunging down towards the castle. The Spitfires threw themselves off the edge of the roof and curved smoothly round to swoop down on the castle like angry eagles, force shields shimmering and sparking where their edges made contact with the void. The flying saucers rose up in ones and twos, silent and serene, glowing all kinds of colours, some of them never meant for human eyes. They dropped down towards the castle like so many gaudy ghosts.
They all took it in turns to overfly the castle and then buzz it again and again, increasingly close each time, trying to provoke a response. They hit it from every side at once, pulling away only at the last moment, but the castle didn’t react. The lights were still very definitely on in many of the windows, but no force shields sprang up, and no weapons appeared. One Spitfire flew in so close its passing actually rippled one of the Nazi banners hanging down from the battlements. Another Spitfire roared right across the castle roof, opening up with all its guns. A loud series of explosions rocked the castle battlements as bullets chewed up old stone and sent heavy fragments flying . . . but still no response. I looked at the Sarjeant.
“Give the signal. We’re going in.”
And I let go of the gable and jumped off the Hall. My armoured legs pushed me out and away, and I dropped into the silver void like a stone, aiming for the castle below. Even inside the protection of my armour, I seemed to feel a chill wind caressing my flesh and shuddering in my bones. Air and light and gravity be damned; there was nothing Earth-like about this place. I plummeted towards the castle, arms and legs stretched out wide, and then I concentrated and great golden wings erupted out of my back. They slowed my fall appreciably, and I soon got the hang of tilting them this way and that to steer me in towards the castle roof. More golden figures appeared beside me as we fell on Schloss Shreck like avenging angels.