Part 10 (1/2)

Mr. Stab sealed up his private place, and we moved on through the sewers until finally we came at last to Manifest Destiny's hidden domain, their underground kingdom. I'd come a long way in search of a credible resistance to my family's newly exposed tyranny, and they had better not disappoint me. I needed them to be something I could depend on in this treacherously changing world. I needed them to be a weapon I could throw at the family who'd betrayed me. The entrance point was a huge circular portal of solid steel set flush with the old brick wall. Four very large and muscular men stood before the portal, wearing stark black uniforms with discreet silver piping and covering us with heavy automatic weapons as we approached.

”Cold iron,” said Molly, indicating the portal. ”Keeps magic out. They're very security conscious.”

Mr. Stab sniffed loudly. ”It would take more than that to keep me out, if I wanted in.”

”Oh, get over your bad self,” said Girl Flower, and Mr. Stab surprised us all with a brief bark of laughter.

I armoured up as we approached the armed guards. I wasn't ready yet to trust Manifest Destiny with the secret of my Shaman Bond ident.i.ty. The guards were visibly impressed at the sight of my armour, gleaming golden in the gloom, and they quickly got on their radios to check for instructions from someone higher up. Whatever they heard through their earpieces clearly impressed them even more, and then they couldn't open the portal fast enough for me. I strode up to them as though I expected such treatment as my right, and they fell back, raising their weapons in salute. All except for one, still blocking the way but not looking especially happy about it.

He smiled nervously at my featureless golden mask, his eyes darting back and forth. The lack of eyes on the mask really throws people. The guard swallowed hard. ”Your pardon, sir, Sir Drood, but...We have orders to admit you and the witch Molly Metcalf, but no one said anything about your...companions. Perhaps they could wait here while you-”

”No,” I said. ”I don't think so. This is Girl Flower and Mr. Stab. Upset them at your peril.”

”Get out of my way or I'll fillet you,” said Mr. Stab in his most cold and sepulchral voice. The watching guards retreated even farther, one of them making small squeaking noises. The guard before us looked like he'd like to make some noises of his own. I gestured for him to lead us in, and he nodded jerkily. Molly extinguished her witchfire, and the four of us strode into Manifest Destiny's most secret headquarters as though we were thinking of buying the place. Of course Girl Flower had to spoil the moment by giggling.

A short tunnel led into a vast chamber whose walls and high ceiling were covered entirely with gleaming steel. Presumably originally added to protect against the effects of atomic blast, but useful now to keep magic at bay. No wonder my family had never suspected their existence. You couldn't hope to scry or remote view through this much cold iron. The guard led us on through more gleaming steel corridors and chambers, and everything bristled with urgent efficiency. There were banks of computers and monitor screens, maps and clocks and operations tables, and any amount of cutting-edge communications equipment. It reminded me of the Drood War Room, on a somewhat smaller scale. And everywhere there were tall and splendid men and women in their black uniforms, sitting at workstations or crowded around tables or just striding back and forth with important messages. The men were all perfect masculine specimens, glowing with health and vitality and purpose. Perfect soldiers. The women were tall and lithe, and just as heavily armed as the men. Valkyries, warrior women. They all nodded respectfully to me as I pa.s.sed. A few nodded familiarly to Molly. None of them so much as looked directly at Mr. Stab or Girl Flower. I glanced across at Molly. She didn't seem very happy.

”Have you ever been here before?” I asked quietly.

”No. I was never important enough to be invited here. And I have to say...it isn't what I thought it would be. I don't like the feel of this place...”

The guide led us on and on, through endless branching corridors, escorting us deeper and deeper into this unexpected labyrinth far below the streets of London. A steel maze, with the head of Manifest Destiny at its unknown heart.

”What do you know about this man we're going to see?” I said quietly to Molly.

”Not much,” she said just as quietly. ”His name is Truman. Never met him. Don't know anyone who has. You should feel honoured, Eddie.”

”Oh, I do,” I said. ”Really. You have no idea. How did you hook up with these people in the first place?”

”I was recruited four years ago,” said Molly. ”By Solomon Krieg.”

”Now him I have heard of,” I said. ”The Golem with the Atomic Brain, right? A Cold War attempt at combining magic and science, to produce a Cold War supersoldier. Deadly in his time, and a legend in those secret wars the public never get to hear about; but last I heard, he'd been retired from the field.”

”He was,” Molly said. ”Over ten years ago. His old masters didn't need him anymore, but he couldn't be allowed to run loose, so they sent him down here to guard the bunkers. Word is, they locked him in here and then changed all the combinations, just in case. Manifest Destiny found him when they moved in, still standing guard, and Truman took him in and gave him a new purpose. The Golem with the Atomic Brain has a new cause and a new faith, and he'd die for Truman. You can't buy loyalty like that.

”So now Solomon Krieg walks abroad in the world's hidden places, its secret haunts and clubs, recruiting people like me as allies to his new cause. He found me at the Wulfshead. He can be...very persuasive. And there he is, right ahead, guarding his master's lair.”

Our soldier guide handed us over into Solomon Krieg's care with visible relief and not a little haste, barely managing a sketchy salute before hurrying back to his post at the entrance portal. I studied Krieg openly. A legend in his own right, the most terrible secret weapon the British Secret Service ever produced. The English a.s.sa.s.sin, the British Bogeyman: Solomon Krieg had many such names down the years. But there was nothing romantic about the Golem with the Atomic Brain. In his own way, he was almost as disturbing as Mr. Stab. A killer with no conscience, no compa.s.sion, and, many said, no soul. The greatest secret agent of all, because he would do absolutely anything and never once question his orders. He was a terror weapon from the coldest part of the Cold War, designed to scare the s.h.i.+t out of whomever he was up against.

It was a very cold Cold War. Everyone did terrible things, then.

Krieg was a little over six feet tall, with jet-black hair and pale colourless skin that contrasted eerily with his black uniform. He was muscular but not to any unusual extent. That wasn't where his strength came from. Krieg was carved from clay, made flesh with ancient magics, and then supercharged with implanted mechanisms. The best technology of his day. Right across his forehead ran a long deep scar, usually hidden by makeup in the old photos I'd seen. It looked like they'd just sawed the top of his head off, popped in their amazing atomic brain, and then jammed the top back on again. It wasn't a subtle age, back then.

Just standing before us, calm and collected, his pale face empty of all emotion, Krieg looked dangerous. Like a coiled snake or a crouching tiger, ready to strike out and kill at any moment, without warning. I only had to look at him, and I believed every terrible story I'd heard about him. When he finally did speak, his voice was a harsh whisper, uninflected and uncaring.

”Edwin Drood,” he said, and just hearing my name in such a cold voice was like listening to my own death warrant. ”It is right that you should come to us. Now that you're rogue. You understand what it is, to be betrayed by those you gave your life to. You must meet Mr. Truman. He is a man of vision and destiny. You can trust him.”

”Well,” I said. ”That's good to know. Can my companions come too?”

Solomon Krieg looked them over with his cold, unblinking gaze. ”If they behave themselves. You understand: if they step out of line, I may have to spank them.”

”Go right ahead,” I said. ”I'll hold your coat.”

”Come on, Solomon,” said Molly. ”You must remember me. You were the one who brought me into Manifest Destiny, four years ago. At the Wulfshead. Remember?”

”No,” said Solomon Krieg.

He led us down yet another steel corridor, around a corner, and into a simple, private office. And there behind a simple desk sat the head of Manifest Destiny. Leader of the resistance against the old and mighty power of the Droods. He sat in his swivel chair with his back to us, watching as a dozen monitor screens blazed information at him. From the way he moved his head slowly back and forth, it seemed he was taking it all in, though it was just a babble of mixed-up noise to me. He made us wait a while, just to remind us who was in charge here, and then he waved one hand at the screens, and they all shut down at once. He turned slowly around to face us, while Solomon Krieg took up a place at his side. Truman had a broad, kindly face, but that wasn't what I was looking at. I'd seen some strange sights in my time, but what Truman had done to himself was truly extraordinary.

Long steel rods thrust out of his shaven head at regular intervals, radiating out for over a foot in length, connected by a wide steel hoop, like a great metal halo. The way the skin puckered around the base of the rods suggested they'd been there for some time. The combined weight must have been appalling, but Truman showed no sign of any strain. My first thought was that he'd been in an accident, and this was some kind of head brace, but the pride in his eyes and in his bearing suggested differently.

Look at what I have done to myself, his face said. Isn't it magnificent?

”Yes,” he said, in a deep authoritative voice. ”It's all my own work. I drilled the holes in my skull myself, inserted the steel rods one at a time, forcing them a specific distance into my brain, following my own very careful calculations. And then all I had to do was connect them up with a reinforcing ring, and I became the first man to realise the true potential of the human brain. Oh, yes, my friends, this crown of thorns serves a definite purpose.”

”Really?” I said. ”I'm so glad to hear that.”

”It all arose out of my interest in acupuncture and trepanation,” he said, carrying on with his prepared speech as though he hadn't even heard me, and perhaps he hadn't. ”The rods in my brain activate the energy centres, expand my thoughts, and increase the power of my mind beyond all normal limitations. My brain is now the equal of any computer, able to store incredible amounts of information, make decisions at undreamt-of speed, and mult.i.task like you wouldn't believe. I hold the entire organisation of Manifest Destiny in my head, down to the smallest detail. Nothing escapes me.

”I can see all the scientific and magical forces at work in the world around me, all the things that are hidden to most mortals. I can see all the invisible and intangible threats to the works of man. And at the same time, I am invisible and invulnerable to all those forces who would bring me down, if they could. No magic or science can touch me now.”

I tried to interrupt, but he was on a roll. He must have said this many times before, to new recruits, but I could tell he never got tired of it.

”I created Manifest Destiny through the force of my own will, bringing people to me and convincing them of the need for an organisation like this. People of like mind and true hearts, dedicated body and soul to the good and necessary work before us. Nothing less than freeing humanity from the ancient yoke of the Droods. Nothing less than setting mankind free, at last. Every day my agents walk abroad in the world, gathering new allies, sabotaging the Drood infrastructure, and clawing the world back from them, inch by inch. We're not strong enough to go head-to-head with the Droods, not yet. But soon enough, we will be. And then...we'll see a whole new world, with mankind no longer held in check by Drood authority, free to make our own destiny at last.”

He leaned forward across his desk, fixing me with his powerful gaze. He was staring right into the golden mask of Drood armour, but it didn't seem to faze him at all. ”Join us, Edwin. You know now that everything your family taught you is a lie. Believe me; it is a far greater honour to free a world than to rule it. With your help, with what you know, and with the secrets of your incredible armour...there are no limits to what we might achieve! Join us, Edwin. Be my agent. And I will give you a new cause and a new purpose. Just like Solomon here.”

He smiled briefly at the artificial man standing beside him. ”My faithful Solomon. He was a lost soul when I found him. Discarded by his creators, abandoned by those he'd served so faithfully and for so long. A warrior without a war. I opened his eyes to a new cause, new possibilities, and now he is a part of the greatest and most important army this world has ever known. An organisation dedicated to one end...setting mankind free.”

”Tell me,” I said when he finally paused for breath, ”did you start getting these ideas before or after you began drilling holes in your head?”

He stared at me blankly for a moment, and Solomon Krieg stirred ominously. And then Truman laughed, a big open cheerful sound, and Solomon relaxed again. Truman shook his head slowly, still chuckling.

”I know; I do tend to go on a bit once I get started, don't I? But people expect a big speech from the big man, so...d.a.m.n, it's good to have someone in here who isn't intimidated or overawed by me! Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to have a normal conversation around here? It's hard to just chat with other people by the watercooler, when everyone's ready to agree with every word I say, as though it was holy writ...Come and join us, Edwin, if only so I can have someone around me who isn't afraid to tell me when I'm talking c.r.a.p.”

He grinned at me, and I couldn't help grinning back. I liked him rather more now, even if I still didn't entirely trust him. First rule of an agent: if something seems too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true. Truman turned his smile on Molly.

”How's my little fellow traveller? Still spreading chaos among our enemies? Good, good...You've done well, Molly, in bringing Edwin to me. I know how badly you must have wanted to kill him. I'm not blind to the history you two have. But rest a.s.sured, having him here changes everything. The time is coming when we will take Drood Hall by force, and you have my word that you will be with us on that day and wade in Drood blood up to your ankles.”

”You know what a girl wants to hear,” said Molly.

Truman smiled at Mr. Stab and Girl Flower, if a little more distantly.

”Be welcome here, my friends. There is good work here for you to take up, should you choose to accept it. If not, go freely and of your own will.” He looked back at me, his smile broadening again. ”Tell me the truth, Edwin. Now that you've seen Manifest Destiny, what do you think of it?”

”You have a very impressive organisation,” I said carefully. ”But doesn't it all strike you as just a bit...Aryan?”

”h.e.l.l, no,” Truman said immediately. ”That was the past. We're only interested in the future. We have military discipline here because you can't get anything done without it. And everyone is expected to achieve their full potential. But we are all dedicated to the cause first, and ourselves second.”

”I'm still not clear on the philosophy behind your cause,” I said.