Property of a Lady Faire (A Secret Histories Novel) (13 page)

“Because the Voice has a specific reason to be scared of Droods?” said Molly.

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” I said. “A lot of people have good reason to be scared of my family. Though that would seem to imply that . . . whoever the Voice is, he knows my family. And they know him. Interesting . . . Doesn’t get us anywhere, but it is interesting . . .”

“I could have Isabella and Louisa here in minutes,” said Molly.

“No,” I said. “I think we need to do this ourselves. The more people we bring in, the more complicated the situation becomes. Who knows what other people might do, to get their hands on the Lazarus Stone? It must be pretty damned powerful, or valuable, if the Voice was prepared to wipe out the whole Department of Uncanny, just on the chance they might have it. No, we do this on our own, Molly. Because we know we can trust each other.”

“All right, then,” said Molly. “Let’s get this show on the road. Where are we going, exactly?”

“To the one part of Drood Hall where no one ever goes,” I said. “If they’ve got any sense.”

I took out the Merlin Glass, held the hand mirror close to my lips, and murmured the special set of spatial coordinates I’d programmed into it. Keeping my voice down, not because I didn’t trust Molly but because I wasn’t sure whether the Voice might still be listening. The Merlin Glass jumped out of my hand and hung on the air before me. It spun round rapidly several times, and then grew quickly in size to form a Door. I couldn’t keep from smiling. My uncle Jack isn’t the only one who can do marvellous things with useful items. I may not be the engineering genius he is, but I have always paid careful attention when he speaks. Even if he doesn’t always think so. Where the reflection in the Glass should have been, I could now see a dark and gloomy stone corridor. Molly squeezed in close beside me, and studied the opening dubiously.

“Is that it? I thought there’d be more . . . special effects, or something.”

“It’s a Door,” I said. “And the essence here, as you have already pointed out, is sneakiness.”

“But is that really it? The way to Cell 13?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve never been there before. Now follow me, stick close, and keep your voice down.”

“Oh please,” said Molly. “Like I’ve never burgled anywhere before.”

I stopped to take one last look round the Regent’s office, and at the Regent himself, still sitting in his chair, behind his desk.

“Good-bye, Grandfather,” I said. “I wish I could have . . .” And then I stopped, because there were so many things I wished we could have. “If you’re still listening, Voice,” I said, “I will do whatever it takes to save my parents. And then I will hunt you down. Even if I have to go to the ends of the Earth and beyond.”

I waited, but there was no response. So I just nodded to Molly, and we stepped through the Merlin Glass and into the depths of Drood Hall.

• • •

A long stone corridor fell away before us, just dull grey walls and a floor of bare flag-stones. Sparse illumination came from a line of naked light bulbs, hanging far apart so that there were long stretches of dark shadow between the pools of light. The air was cold, and still, and dusty. Not a place where people came unless they absolutely had to. Unless they were driven to it. The slightest sound seemed to echo on and on, hanging on the air. Drood Hall doesn’t have dungeons; we have something worse.

I turned back to retrieve the Merlin Glass, but the Door hung back, avoiding my reaching hand. Instead it turned edge on in the narrow space, so that for a moment it seemed to disappear, and then it floated smoothly down the corridor ahead of us, like a guide or a guard in dangerous territory. It stopped when it realised I wasn’t immediately following, and hovered on the air. There was a sense of impatience to it, as though it knew best what was needed here. I studied the Merlin Glass thoughtfully.

“It’s never done this before, has it?” Molly said quietly. She was standing right beside me, her mouth brushing my ear.

“No,” I said. “It hasn’t. But that’s the Merlin Glass for you, always full of surprises.”

I did my best to keep my voice casual and unconcerned. This was the very worst moment the Glass could have chosen to develop a personality, and I didn’t want Molly getting distracted from the business at hand.

“Is this why you didn’t want to give the Glass back to your family?” said Molly. “So you could come and go from Drood Hall as you pleased?”

“No,” I said, seizing gratefully on the change in subject. “That’s not it. I don’t actually know why I feel it’s so important the Glass remains in my possession. I just have this feeling . . . that I’m going to need it.”

Molly nodded. To a witch, premonitions are just warnings from the future, and always to be taken seriously. I didn’t mention my inner conviction that the Glass wanted to stay with me. I didn’t want to worry her. Molly looked up and down the long stone corridor. It stretched away into darkness in both directions, for as far as the eye could follow and then some. Molly didn’t actually turn up her nose, but she looked like she wanted to.

“This is pretty basic, even for Drood Hall,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything as . . . brutal as this, in the Hall before.”

“Not many have,” I said. “Most of my family prefer to believe that the Drood in Cell 13 doesn’t exist. And for most of them, he doesn’t. He’s our equivalent of an urban legend, a cautionary tale. It’s safer that way. You need special permission to approach him, along with very definite instructions on what you can and can’t ask him. And that’s for the visitor’s protection. Just talking to the Drood in Cell 13 has been known to drive people crazy.”

“Your family never ceases to intrigue and appal me,” said Molly. “I thought my sisters were scary . . .”

“They are,” I said.

Molly punched me in the arm.

“Ow,” I said obligingly.

Molly looked dubiously down the corridor.

“Just how dangerous is this Drood in Cell 13?”

“You have no idea,” I said. “He’s not imprisoned here as a punishment, but because he’s a danger to the whole family.”

“So he is a prisoner?”

“Yes. But he asked to be locked away. He knew how dangerous he is.”

“Is he crazy?”

“Hard to say . . .”

“What’s his name?”

“Laurence Drood,” I said. “Once the family Armourer. There was an accident, some two hundred years ago, or so. The details of the story are either lost, or blatantly contradictory. Either way, as a result of . . . whatever happened, Laurence now knows everything the family knows. Or has ever known. Including all the very secret things most of the family aren’t even supposed to suspect. And unfortunately, it’s a never-ending process. Every time the family learns something, Laurence knows.”

“How is that even possible?” said Molly.

“We’re the Droods,” I said. “We all do ten impossible things before breakfast, just to get our hearts started. Don’t hit me! Look, Molly . . . I don’t think anyone in my family knows anything for sure where the Drood in Cell 13 is concerned, not after all this time. He knows, of course. But apparently he only tells people what he feels like telling. There are . . . stories, among the higher levels of the family. About people who managed to make their way down here, to ask the Drood in Cell 13 questions. About things they weren’t supposed to know. It seems . . . he uses the things he tells to destroy people.”

“Why would he do that?” said Molly.

“Because he can,” I said. “Because he thinks it’s funny . . . The point is, whatever information comes into Drood Hall, Laurence just soaks it up and stores it away in his amazing altered mind. It’s impossible to hide anything from him. All of which makes him the perfect weapon to use against the Droods. That’s why he asked to be locked away, from the world and the family, and that’s why they went along. Put him down here, in the depths, out of sight and out of mind. It was either that or kill him, and who knows when he might prove useful? Or even necessary. It’s always possible that some small piece of information, forgotten by everyone else, might prove essential to the safety and security of the family. Droods never throw away anything that might prove useful someday.”

“Hang on,” said Molly. “Laurence Drood is over two hundred years old?”

“Well over,” I said. “And he’s spent nearly all of it locked away, down here, in solitary confinement. So if he wasn’t crazy when they locked him in . . .”

“Your family,” said Molly, shaking her head.

“Trust me,” I said. “I know.”

I started forward, into the gloom of the long corridor, and the Merlin Glass retreated smoothly before me, hovering in mid-air. It wasn’t just a Door any longer; its opening now showed me all the hidden secrets of the corridor ahead. What was really there. All the carefully concealed booby-traps and hidden protections. I wouldn’t have seen any of them without using my armoured mask, and I didn’t dare armour up down here. No wonder the Glass insisted on preceding me. But how did it know . . . ?

The Glass progressed down the corridor, quietly defusing booby-traps and shutting down protections. Molly leaned in close again.

“How is it doing that?”

“Beats the hell out of me,” I said. “It’s never done this before. I certainly never programmed it to do anything like this.”

“Maybe the Armourer . . .”

“My uncle Jack would never make anything that might prove more powerful than the family’s defences,” I said.

“When we’re finished with this,” said Molly, “you need to let me take that thing apart. See what’s going on inside the Glass.”

“Oh no you don’t,” I said, very firmly. “Merlin Satanspawn made that Glass. You really think he didn’t set some nasty surprises in place for anyone dumb enough to try to tamper with his work? You want to test your magics against possibly the greatest sorcerer of all time?”

“Well, if you’re going to put it like that . . .”

“I am putting it like that.”

Molly sniffed loudly. “Why isn’t the Glass shutting everything down, instead of just messing about, defusing and bypassing them one at a time?”

“Because,” I said patiently, “shutting down all the protections at once would set off all kinds of alarms. That’s why I haven’t armoured up. And why you mustn’t use your magical shields. If my family even suspected someone was trying to talk to the Drood in Cell 13, they’d start fumigating this corridor with flame-throwers and explosives, and then escalate.”

“I could cope with that,” said Molly. “I can take anything your family can come up with.”

“Really?” I said. “Generations of Drood Armourers have put a lot of thought into keeping Laurence Drood safe, and isolated. Would you go up against my uncle Jack’s ingenuity?”

“Well, if you’re going to put it like that . . .”

The Merlin Glass stopped abruptly, so we did too. Through the opening I could see an overlay on reality, a clear vision on top of what I was supposed to see. Trap-doors had been cunningly set among the floor’s flag-stones, over terrifyingly long drops. Robot gun emplacements lay in wait behind apparently innocent stone walls. Shaped curses and floating hexes had been salted like mines the whole length of the corridor, floating unseen on the still air. And right ahead of us, two dimensional doors flickered in and out of reality, too quickly for the human mind to process. The Merlin Glass slowed the flickering right down, so I could see what lay behind the doors. I heard Molly gasp quietly beside me, and she clutched at my arm.

“Are those . . .”

“Yes,” I said. “Drood scarecrows.”

As one of my family’s more infamous lines of defence, we keep scarecrows scattered across the grounds to deal with the more persistent and dangerous intruders. Savagely, and brutally. We make our scarecrows out of the dead bodies of our most hated enemies. Just because we can. I edged closer, to get a better look at them. Their faces were taut as parchment, with tufts of straw protruding from ears and mouths, but their eyes were still alive, and aware. Eternally suffering, endlessly hating, bound by unbreakable pacts to defend Drood Hall against all enemies. For as long as they lasted. If you listen in on the right supernatural frequencies, you can hear them screaming.

“Do you know them?” Molly said quietly. “Do you recognise either of them?”

“The clothes are unfamiliar,” I said carefully. “I only know our most recent enemies, and there’s no telling how long those two have been down here.”

We both jumped despite ourselves, as the scarecrows stirred slowly, becoming aware that someone could see them. And then they fell still again, and the dimensional doors disappeared as the Merlin Glass put all the defences to sleep, one at a time. Until the corridor seen through the opening looked exactly like the one I could see with my own eyes.

“Did you know those . . . things were down here?” said Molly.

“No,” I said. “I’m not sure anyone does, any more. Even the highest parts of my family prefer not to know what goes on down here.”

“Is it safe for us to move on?”

“Only one way to find out . . .”

I moved slowly forward, Molly still clinging to my arm, and the Merlin Glass retreated steadily ahead of us. None of the booby-traps activated, and we walked right through the floating mines, unaffected. I was so tense from anticipation that all my muscles ached fiercely. The corridor stretched away ahead of us, as we moved from light into shadow and out again.

“Your family really doesn’t want anyone talking to this guy,” said Molly after a while. “Are there any human guards down here? Anywhere?”

“No,” I said. “Never have been. Apparently just continued proximity to Laurence Drood can be enough to mess with people’s minds.”

Molly glared at me. “Liking this plan of yours less and less all the time, Eddie.”

“We should be safe enough,” I said, trying hard to sound calm and reassuring. “As long as we don’t stick around too long.”

“How long is too long?”

“Good question. How the hell should I know? I never thought I’d ever have to talk to the man.”

“Isn’t there anyone else we could talk to?” said Molly.

“I’m doing this for my parents,” I said steadily. “Wouldn’t you have done something like this for your parents?”