I pointed it out to Molly, and we found a few last vestiges of strength to hurry us on. The panel slid jerkily open as we approached, activated by our presence, and then stuck halfway just long enough to scare me with the thought that the ancient mechanism had broken down. And then it started moving again, spilling painfully bright light into the darkness.

I pushed Molly through the narrow gap and squeezed myself through right behind her. I spun around and twisted the carved wooden rose on the wall, and the panel closed itself with a series of heavy, slow jerks. One last giant spider forced its way through after us, rearing up, only to collapse and die on the floor, its long multijointed legs scrabbling weakly. The oversized thing couldn't exist in our reality. The spiders that still clung to Molly and me slowly fell away, also dying. They scuttled weakly across the waxed and polished floor, trying to get back to the safety of the dark, but Molly and I stamped on them, pulping them under our feet. They would have died anyway, but we needed to kill them.

Even dead, some of the spiders still clung to Molly and me, their clawed and barbed legs embedded in our torn and b.l.o.o.d.y clothing and in our flesh. Molly and I took turns to pull the nasty things off each other, flinching at every touch, until it was over. We were both dead tired, breathing so harshly it hurt, our hearts pounding in our chests, bloodied and hurting from a hundred cuts and bites. We stumbled away from the dead spiders, and then just held each other tightly, shuddering and shaking and making quiet shocked noises. We clung to each other like children newly wakened from a bad dream, and it would have been hard to say who was comforting whom. Finally we let go and stood back. Too embarra.s.sed to look at each other for a while, partly because neither of us were used to being weak, but mostly because of the unexpected depth of our emotions.

"All right," said Molly, her voice nearly back to normal. "I admit it; those were really big spiders."

"Persistent little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, weren't they?" I said, trying for a light touch and only just missing it.

"You're hurt," said Molly.

"So are you."

Somehow she found the strength for a quick healing spell, just enough to heal our bites and close over the scratches. I can't say it made me feel any better, but I acted as though it did. She didn't need to know about the spreading pains in my left side. Three days, maybe four? I didn't think so.

"I know where we are," I said. "The library's only a few minutes away."

"Then let's go," said Molly. "But this library of yours had better be worth the trip, Drood."

I had to smile.

We trotted down the corridor, glad to be back in our own comfortable world again. The light was clear and warm, and the Hall was full of human sights and scents. For the first time in a long time, I was glad to be home. It felt as though I'd spent years in the crawl s.p.a.ce dark. How did I ever stand it as a child? Maybe it was I could run faster back then.

Molly and I rounded a corner, and half a dozen members of my family came strolling down the corridor towards us, chattering animatedly about the false dragon's attack. All kinds of names came up as possible suspects, but none of them so much as mentioned me. I didn't know whether to feel relieved or insulted. They glanced briefly in our direction, and then just as the Armourer said, they looked away again the moment they took in our lab coats. Just to be on the safe side, I'd already buried my face in my hands, as though I'd been injured. Molly caught on immediately and half supported me as we pa.s.sed the other Droods.

"It's your own fault!" she said loudly. "I've no sympathy for you. How can anyone mistake gunpowder for snuff?"

"My nose," I moaned. "Did anyone find my nose?"

The other Droods laughed briefly and kept going. Just another lab mishap, nothing to see, keep moving. Molly and I kept up the act until we were safely around the next corner, and there was the library, right before us. No one else was around. I tried the doors, but they were locked, as expected. Still no one standing guard, though. Everyone must have run outside to get a look at the dragon. Very sloppy security, entirely unprofessional and bad discipline. What was the family coming to? No doubt the Sarjeant-at-Arms would have a thing or two to say, when he finally woke up. I used the key the Armourer gave me, and the doors swung open at a touch. I ushered Molly in and quickly closed and locked the doors behind us. I didn't want to be disturbed. I didn't know how long this was going to take.

The library appeared to be completely deserted. I called out a few times, and no one emerged from the towering stacks to hush me. Molly stared about her, gaping openly. I nodded, understanding. The sheer size of the library always. .h.i.t new visitors hard.

"Welcome to the Drood family library," I said just a bit grandly. "No shouting, no running between the stacks, no peeing in the shallow end. And no, it isn't as big as it looks; it's bigger. Takes up the whole lower floor of this wing. The whole world is in here, somewhere. If you can find it."

"It's...huge," Molly said finally. "How do you find anything in here?"

"Mostly we don't," I had to admit. "William was the last librarian to try and put together an official index, and most of his papers disappeared with him. We're always adding books, losing books, and misfiling them. At least the sections are clearly marked."

"You look for family history," said Molly, pulling herself together and putting on her most efficient manner. "I'm going to work my way through the medical section. There must be something here I can use to help you. Even if it's just to slow down the progress of the strange matter till we can get you to someone who can help you."

"Molly..."

"No, Eddie. I don't want to hear it. I'm not giving up, and neither should you. I won't let you die. Not when you risked your life to save me. I can't...There has to be someone out there who can put you right! h.e.l.l, if all else fails, I know half a dozen people who can bring you back from the dead as a zombie."

"Thanks for the thought," I said. "Medical section is down there; twenty stacks along, third right, then follow the-"

"Oh, h.e.l.l," said Molly. "I never was any good at directions. I'd better use a locator spell, or we'll be here all night." She pulled a pendulum on a silver wire out of a hidden pocket and set it spinning. The pendulum slammed to a halt pointing right at me. Molly frowned. "That's...interesting. It's reading a power source on you, and it's not Oath Breaker. In fact, I'm picking up quite a lot of undischarged magic still attached to the key the Armourer gave you."

She put the pendulum away as I pulled out the key and looked at it. The Armourer had made a point of giving me the key, even though he had to know I could just armour up and kick the doors in. Was the key a clue of some kind? To some secret he couldn't quite bring himself to say in person? I studied the key with my Sight, and there was a second spell written on it so clearly even I could tell what it was. A spell to work a hidden lock, to open a hidden door. Here, in the library? There'd never been even a whisper about a secret door in the library...

I turned the key back and forth, and the spell flared up briefly when it pointed in one particular direction. I followed the key through the stacks, Molly trotting along at my side. Until finally we came to the old portrait on the southwest wall.

It was the only painting in the library. A huge piece, a good eight feet tall and five feet wide, contained in a solid steel frame. It was centuries old, older than the Hall itself, some said; artist unknown. The portrait depicted another library whose many shelves were packed with ma.s.sive leather-bound volumes and parchment scrolls tied with colourful ribbons. There were no people in the painting, no symbolic objects, no obvious arrangement of important items. No meaning, no message; just the old library. Molly and I stood before the painting, considering it.

"I'm no expert," said Molly, "But that...is a seriously boring painting. Is it significant to the family?"

"Sort of," I said. "This portrait shows the old library, the original repository of Drood knowledge. In this first library was held all the early history of the Droods, perhaps even knowledge of our true beginnings, long lost to us. You see, the old library was destroyed in a fire set by our enemies. One of our greatest tragedies. The whole house burned down with the library, which is why the family moved here, in the time of King Henry V. This portrait is all that remains from that time, to remind us of what we lost."

"There's something weird about this painting," Molly said slowly. "I can feel magic in it. In the frame and the canvas, in the paint and the very brushstrokes. Can you feel it?"

I studied the painting closely with my Sight, holding the key tightly in my hand, and the whole portrait seemed to blaze with an inner light. And finally I noticed something I'd never seen before. There was a small, carefully disguised keyhole in the silver frame, hidden in some ornate scrollwork. I pointed it out to Molly, and then slowly eased the Armourer's key into the hole. It fit perfectly. I turned the key, and just like that the whole portrait came alive. I wasn't looking at a painting anymore but a scene from life, an opening into another place. A doorway into the old library. I took Molly by the hand, and together we stepped through.

The old library wasn't lost, wasn't gone, just hidden in plain sight. Hanging in front of all our eyes, for all these years. The old library, real and intact, all its ancient history and knowledge preserved after all. (Preserved for whom? No. Think about that later.) I stood very still just inside the doorway, looking about me. The old library stretched away in every direction, endless towering stacks and shelves packed with books and ma.n.u.scripts and scrolls for as far as the eye could see. I looked behind me, and beyond the open s.p.a.ce of the doorway I could see more stacks, more shelves.

I walked slowly forward down the aisle before me, almost numb with shock. The greatest tragedy in my family's history was a lie. I shouldn't have been surprised, after everything else I'd learned, but to deliberately conceal so much knowledge, so much wisdom...was a sin almost beyond understanding. I took down some of the oversized books, handling them very carefully, and opened them. The leather bindings creaked noisily, and the pages seemed to exhale dust and ancient smells. They were handwritten, illuminated ma.n.u.scripts, the kind monks laboured over for years. Latin mostly, some ancient Greek. Other tongues, equally old or obscure. There were palimpsests and parchments and piles of scrolls, some so delicate looking I didn't want even to breathe too heavily near them.

"There's some kind of magic suppressor field operating in here," Molly said suddenly. "I can feel it."

"I'm not surprised," I said absently, absorbed in a scroll concerning King Harold and the Soul of Albion. "Must be a security measure, to protect the contents."

"I could probably force through a few small magics, if necessary," said Molly. "If we have to defend ourselves."

"Will you relax?" I said. "We're the only ones in here."

I rolled the scroll up again, retied the ribbon, and carefully put in back in its place. The answer to my earlier thought was clear. The only people who could have hidden the old library like this...were the inner circle of the Droods. The Matriarch, her council, and her favourites. Our history and true beginnings weren't lost, weren't destroyed; they were deliberately hidden away from the rest of us for the benefit of the chosen few. But what could be here that was so important, so dangerous, that it had to be hidden away? That they couldn't, or wouldn't, share with the rest of us? I moved on through the stacks, opening books and scrolls at random, almost drunk on the prospect of so many answers to so many questions, and all mine for the taking. (Maybe that's why they kept it just for themselves...so they could feel like this.) As I moved deeper into the stacks, I discovered histories written in languages no one had used for centuries; works put down on parchment and tanned hide by the Saxons, the Celts, the Angles and the Danes and the Norse. And other tongues so old n.o.body had spoken them aloud in centuries.

"All this was here," I said finally. "And I never knew it. My family's true heritage, stolen away from us by those we were always taught to trust and revere. This should have been made freely available to all of us. We have a right to know where we came from! Who our ancestors were, what they did, and why they did it. It makes me wonder what other secrets the inner circle have been hiding from the rest of us; from the rank and file and all the good little soldiers who went out to fight and die for the honour of the family...We've reached the end of the trail, Molly. The answer is here; I know it."

"The answer?" Molly said carefully. "Which particular answer is that, Eddie?"

"To how it all started! Where we came from. Where the armour came from. How we became Droods." I looked at Molly. "I did wonder, sometimes, if maybe my ancestors made some kind of deal with the Devil."

"No," Molly said immediately. "If that was the case, I would have known."

I decided I wouldn't ask. This was no time to get distracted. I looked around, using my Sight. A complex latticework of protective spells lay over everything, some of them quite impressively strong. And nasty. Some books and scrolls shone brightly on their shelves, radiating strange energies. And one blazed like a beacon, full of ancient power. It turned out to be a simple scroll, words inked on roughly tanned animal hide. The outer markings were in a language I didn't even recognise. Molly crowded in close beside me.

"Any idea what that is?"

"The answer," I said.

"Well, yes, but apart from that..."

"Only one way to find out," I said, and touched the wax seals holding the scroll closed with Oath Breaker. The activating Words just popped into my mind from the old ironwood staff itself, and as I said them, one by one, the protections around the scroll shattered and disappeared. I unrolled it very carefully, and the dark ink on the interior stood out clearly against the coffee-coloured hide. The text was Druidic, from Roman times. Which was unusual in itself, because Druidic learning was strictly an oral tradition, pa.s.sed down mouth to mouth from generation to generation. Never written down, in case it might fall into the hands of enemies. But they'd made an exception for this; and I could see why.

"It's Latin," said Molly, peering curiously over my shoulder. "Strange dialect. Something about a bargain."

"You read Latin?" I said, unable to keep the surprise out of my voice.

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 s.p.a.ce. 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 G.o.ds or perhaps even one of the G.o.ds 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 G.o.ds 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 ma.s.sive diamond. One of the babies was s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 Sanct.i.ty, without ever knowing what it really was. An eater of souls. Just like those disgusting ent.i.ties 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 ma.s.sive 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.

"h.e.l.lo, 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 c.o.c.ktail party or an amba.s.sador'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 sc.u.m of the earth through backstreet bars or hidden lairs, the Amazonian rain forests, or the darkest canyons of the urban jungle.

"h.e.l.lo, 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? d.a.m.n! 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 p.i.s.sed 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."