Ah. Right.
Damn.
His counterpart’s lack of curiosity had always been too good to last.
What do they say? The easiest lies are the ones we tell ourselves?
“I… consult, Gerald. Solve problems of a thaumaturgical nature.”
“And how is it you know Sir Alec Oldman?”
Careful now, careful. “Well, I wouldn’t say I
know
him,” he said, casually dismissive. “We’re slightly acquainted. We crossed paths after I got home from New Ottosland.” He shrugged. “Sir Alec was just one of a long line of government busybodies I had to put up with while the dust was settling. Look—how come you don’t know this? I mean, if you’ve got the wherewithal to pluck me from my world into yours, how can you not know who I am there?”
The other Gerald smiled thinly. “The
plucking
, as you call it, Professor, is a brand new feat. As it stands
I wouldn’t call the technique precisely
refined
. But don’t worry. Once Monk’s taken care of a few otherÓ ofr, tasks I have in mind he’ll be turning his prodigious talents to the reading of alternative dimensions. In fact, we all will. But for now first things first. Just like dominoes, worlds need to fall one at a time.”
It was the off-handed way the words were said that made him ill.
Bloody hell. So that’s it. That’s his grand plan. It’s not enough to rule one world. He wants to rule them all.
“What?” said the other Gerald, reading him like a book. “Oh come on, Professor. Don’t tell me you’re
surprised
.”
He didn’t know what he was… except terrified and sick.
Sighing, the other Gerald unfolded his arms and pressed his left hand flat to the locked door before them. With a blinding surge of power the tangle of warding hexes on the door deactivated, blowing them all back several paces.
“What did you expect, Professor?” said his counterpart, grinning. “Keeping Monk Markham penned isn’t exactly child’s play.” With a snap of his fingers the de-hexed door swung open. “After you.”
The first thing he saw, walking into the unsealed lab with the other Gerald and Bibbie on his heels—was Reg. This world’s Reg. Crammed into a cage dangling from a tall stand, tail feathers sticking out through its bars, fluffed-up and miserable. Her beak was tied shut with a length of red ribbon. When she saw him she made a strangled sound of surprise.
He stopped dead.
You bastard. You utter, utter, pillocking bastard. I will kill you for this. I swear you are dead.
With a bang and a thaumic blast, the laboratory door swung shut behind them, the warding incants reigniting.
The other Gerald put a hand on his shoulder. “Can’t be too careful, Professor. Like I said, this is Monk. And look, there she is. Reg. Didn’t I say you’d be seeing her?”
He swallowed acid and bile. “Get her out of that damned cage, Gerald.”
“I will,” the other Gerald said. “In a minute. Say hello to Monk, why don’t you?”
Oh, yes. There was Monk. This world’s Monk. Shadbolted like Attaby and the others, and barricaded behind a veritable wall of thaumaturgical apparatus, monitors and etheretic flux capacitors and test tubes and various bits and pieces he couldn’t put a name to, wearing an expression that could only be described as
stunned
.
“Gerald…” he whispered.
“Actually,” said the other Gerald, “to avoid confusion, I’m calling him Professor. Your sister’s calling him Gerry. You can call him whatever you like—but I’m the only Gerald here. Understood?”
“What?” said the other Monk. He shook himself like a wet dog. “Oh. Yeah. Sure. Sorry.”
The small, windowless laboratory stank of discharged thaumaturgics and the ether quivered with echoes of thaumic activity. A table shoved against the rightÓain>Th-hand wall was littered with dirty plates and cutlery. Crowded with discarded mugs. There was a single gas ring in the corner unlit, and an icebox beside
it. A narrow door in the left-hand wall offered a glimpse of bathroom. Along the same wall was a bedroll, a pillow and a heap of blankets. How long did Bibbie say this Monk had been here? Three days and counting? The lab was a cage.
“So,” said the other Gerald, as his Monk Markham continued to stare. “How have you been getting on, old chap?”
Monk blinked. “Getting on?”
“Don’t play the idiot, Monk,” Bibbie snapped. “Because you know what happens when you play the idiot. Gerald gets cranky, you get punished and
I’m
the one who has to listen to you scream. So if you love me like a big brother’s supposed to, just answer the bloody question.”
“Bibbie,” said the other Monk. And now he was staring like he’d never seen her before. Reg, in her horrible cage, banged her beak against the bars. Monk flinched. “Yes. Of course I love you, Bibs.” He looked at his Gerald. “I’m sorry. It’s not finished.”
“
Not
finished?” said the other Gerald, his voice silky with displeasure. “
Why
not? Monk, you told me all you needed was a few more days in absolute solitude, so you could focus. You
swore
to me that in a few more days it would be
done
. So why isn’t it
done
? You know the timetable. You
know
what’s expected. Monk, I can’t tell you how disappointed I am. Bibbie—”
Bibbie looked at him. “Yes, Gerald?”
“Now would be a good time to stick your fingers in your ears.”
As Bibbie turned away, clapping her hands to the sides of her head, the other Gerald snapped his
fingers. And Monk—the other Monk—dropped howling to the floor.
“Stop it!” Gerald shouted, lunging at his counterpart. “Bloody hell, Gerald.
Stop it!
He’s your
friend!
”
“Mind your own business, Professor,” the other Gerald retorted, and clenched his fist.
The ether surged and he flew through the air to smack into the nearest bit of wall, flicked aside as though he were a pestering fly. He struck the plastered brick so hard bright lights burst before his good eye and all the stale lab air was punched out of his lungs. He fell to his hands and knees, gasping, and watched himself watch Monk’s suffering with no sympathy at all.
Reg was banging her head against the cage.
And then Bibbie tugged at the other Gerald’s arm. “That’s enough. If you need him you can’t keep hurting him like this.”
The other Gerald spared her an irritated glance then snapped his fingers again. Monk stopped howling.
“You’re a bloody idiot, mate,” the other Gerald said, sounding weary. “When you know what that shadbolt can do, why the hell did you have to go and disappoint me?”
Sheet-white, the other Monk staggered to his feet. “You think I wanted to?” he said raggedly.Ó sa he “I’ve been working non-stop, Gerald. I’ve been slaving around the clock. I need help. This bloody contraption—I don’t have what it takes to get the job done. You’re the only wizard in the world with the
potentia
to make this work. You’ll have to stay and help me. It’s the only way you’ll have it in time.”
“Well,
that’s
not going to happen,” said the other Gerald, frowning. “I’ve got about a million things to do, Monk.”
Bracing himself, the other Monk lifted his chin. “Then you’ll have to stay disappointed,
mate
. Because I’m officially at the end of the thaumaturgical road.”
The other Gerald laughed. “No, you’re not, Monk. You should’ve let me finish. Why d’you think I brought you a visitor?
I
can’t stay here and help you—but
he
can.”
M
e?” Gerald stepped back. “Ah—no. No, I don’t think so. For one thing I don’t have a clue what he’s—your Monk’s—working on, and for another—you may have completely abandoned your principles, Gerald, but I haven’t.”
“Oh,” said the other Gerald. “D’you know, Professor, that
hurts
. I mean, you abandoned them for Lional.”
“I did,” he said steadily. “To my everlasting shame.”
“Everlasting
shame?
” The other Gerald raised an eyebrow. “Really? Because it looks to me like you got over it all right. So what’s the problem?”
“That,” he said, “is a bloody stupid question, and you know it.”
“What I
know,
Professor,” said the other Gerald, prowling towards him, “is that Ottosland is on the brink of attack. Your country, your countrymen, are in terrible peril. If you don’t help me then the blood of countless innocents will run in the streets.”
“Not because of anything
I’ve
done,” he retorted.
“From what I can tell, Gerald, you started this fight. And you can finish it by standing down. Besides. This isn’t my country.”
Halting, his counterpart smiled. “Well, if we’re going to talk about saying stupid things, Professor, you’d win a prize for
that
fatuous statement. You can’t fool me. You care. You care too much. It’s always been your greatest flaw.”
“I prefer to think of it as my saving grace.”
The other Gerald shrugged. “If I had time for semantics, Professor, I’d happily argue the point. But I don’t. So here’s the thing. I didn’t risk a temporal-dimensional implosion and give myself a skull-shattering headache bringing you here just so you could stand around carping at me like that bloody bird. I risked those things to make sure my plans come to fruition. You
are
going to help me. You
aren’t
going to argue. Because if you refuse to cooperate not only will your precious bloody Melissande get the chop, she’ll just be one of many victims you can chalk up to your short-sighted, sanctimonious pig-headed lack of cooperation.”
“Gerald!” said the other Monk, his voice rough. Close to breaking. “Please. Do what he says. He really will kill Melissande. And I love her, mate. She’s the only woman I’ll ever love. I’m begging you, Gerald. Don’t let her die.”
Oh, God.
“I’m sorry,” he said at last, and made himself look at the stranger wearing Monk’s face. “But if your Melissande’s anything like mine, she wouldn’t want to be used like this. Whatever that machine is you’re making for this bastard? It’s not good, Monk. It’s going to hurt a lot of people. And
I swore after Lional I’d never capitulate again. No matter what was done to me. No matter what was threatened.”
As the other Monk turned away, distraught, and Bibbie groaned, so sarcastic, the other Gerald laughed and sauntered to the birdcage. “How tediously bloody
noble
of you, Professor. I swear, I’m crying. Well, I’m crying on the inside. But that’s only so I don’t have to heave. Saint Snodgrass’s bunions! What a dreary pillock
you’ve
turned out to be!” A finger snap, and Reg’s hexed cage door sprang open. “And how bloody glad am I that I didn’t listen to this bitch’s nagging and face down Lional without some extra ammunition.” In a blur of motion he reached into the cage and snatched the other Reg out of it. Held her up by the throat, wings dangling, eyes rolling. “So how noble are you
really
, Professor?” he taunted. “Noble enough to watch me break the bird’s neck like a twig?”
“No, don’t hurt her!” the other Monk shouted, terrified. “Please, Gerald—don’t let him—God, you can’t—you
can’t—
”
But he had to. He had to make a stand. Make it clear to his mad other self that no matter what there’d be no cooperation. He closed his eyes. This wasn’t his Reg, but even so…
I’m sorry.
A stir in the ether and an agonized, strangled shout. And then, despite his cruel shadbolt, the other Monk was lashing out, tossing obfuscation incants and slippy-finger hexes and anything else he could think of to make the other Gerald let go.
For all the good it did, he might as well have been spitting.
Laughing, the other Gerald deflected the thaumaturgical attack and retaliated with a brutal strike of his own. The other Monk hit the lab’s low ceiling then dropped to the floor with bone-rattling force. Shrieking, Bibbie threw herself under the nearest table. Captive Reg flapped her wings desperately, struggling to get free. And Monk—the other Monk—
The other Monk staggered to his feet, lurched around his lab bench and came straight for him, a mad light in his eyes. “You bastard!
Bastard!
Let Melissande die, would you? Let Reg die? Not while I’m still breathing, sunshine!”
The last thing he wanted to do was hurt this other Monk. He tried to dodge but the lab was crowded with benches and equipment. There was nowhere to run. As the man who looked like his best friend crashed him to the floor he caught a glimpse of the other Gerald laughing as he shoved his Reg back in the cage.
Panting, the other Monk grabbed him by the hair and thudded his head onto the concrete. “I don’t know you!
I don’t know you!
”
“Markham—you idiot—get Û—yooncoff me!” he grunted. “I don’t want to hurt you but I will if you don’t stop!”
“Hurt me?” shouted the other Monk. “As if you bloody could!”
So he lunged upright, using fists and elbows and knees to fight free. But this other Monk was desperate. Red-faced and sweating, he crushed him close in a suffocating bear hug.
And then that horribly familiar voice was whispering frantically in his ear.
“Bloody hell, Gerald, it’s me. The real me. Play along with him, for God’s sake. I’ve got a way out.”