Book 1 - The Man With the Golden Torc (48 page)

Even dead, some of the spiders still clung to Molly and me,
their clawed and barbed legs embedded in our torn and bloody 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
embarrassed 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 bastards, 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 space 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 passed 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 hit 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! Hell, 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, hell," 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 massive
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 manuscripts
and scrolls for as far as the eye could see. I looked behind me, and beyond the
open space 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 manuscripts,
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
nobody 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, passed 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.