The Armourer wants to set fire to it, just to see what would happen. But that's the Armourer for you.
I enjoyed the view for as long as I could justify it, but I knew I was only putting off reporting in… so eventually I sighed heavily, and went down into the Hall via the winding back stairs. The Matriarch was waiting for me, and the Advisory Council. Of which I was a member, and a fat lot of good it had ever done me.
Walking through Drood Hall is like walking through History, with all the centuries jumbled together. The long corridors are packed with tribute (and/or loot) from all the ages of Man. We've accumulated important and valuable prizes from every period of human civilisation you can think of, including several that never officially happened. We've got Sir Gawaine's suit of armour from the Court of King Arthur; a section of the Beayue Tapestry that had to be confiscated because it showed a Drood in action (Harald would have won that war if so many of the family hadn't been busy with an extra-dimensional incursion); and a whole bunch of family por traits daubed by important masters. Nothing but the best for the Droods. We also have the Koh-i-noor diamond, the original Mountain of Light from India. And very definitely not the one Prince Albert ruined with constant recutting. That was just a duplicate. The real thing was far too important to be trusted to royalty. The last few Matriarchs have used the diamond as a paperweight, and for throwing at people. I've ducked it several times.
I sent my thoughts up and out through my torc, and made contact with Ethel. Joining my mind with hers is like plunging into a great clear crystal lake-comforting and intimidating at the same time. Ethel doesn't operate on the same scale as humanity, though she likes to pretend. She's your best friend, who will always know better than you, or a somewhat absentminded god. I guess that's other-dimensional entities for you…
Hi! Hi hi hi! Welcome back, Eddie! Shame about the hotel. How are you? Did you bring me back a present?
"I never know what to get you," I said. "What do you get the invisible and immaterial strange matter entity who has everything?"
She sniffed loudly, which is an odd sensation to have inside your mind. It's the thought that counts.
"How is Grandmother? And the Council?"
Still arguing.
"Ah," I said. "Situation entirely normal, then."
People passed on by as I strolled unhurriedly down the long corridors and passageways, wandering through huge open rooms and tall galleries. Most people were never quite sure how to react to me. I mean, yes, I used to run the family, but now I don't. I've been declared a traitor, hailed as a saviour, known as a failure and the man who saved the whole of Humanity from the Hungry Gods. The family owes me everything, and a lot of them still resent me for hauling them out of their old complacency. Some nod and smile when they see me coming, while others make a point of stalking by with their noses in the air. But, since Droods are notoriously hard to impress, either way, most? just nod briskly and keep going. Which suits me fine.
Two large and ostentatiously muscular fellows were standing guard outside the doors to the Sanctity, where all important meetings are held, and all the decisions that matter are made. These guards had clearly been chosen for their brutal menace rather than their intelligence, because they actually tried to block my way. I gave them my best hard look, and they stepped reluctantly to one side, scowling like I'd just stuck a thorn in their paw. I had to open the doors myself. So I kicked them wide open, stalked into the Sanctity like I was thinking of renting it out as a Roller Derby rink, and nodded briskly to the small group of people sitting round the table in the middle of the great hall.
The Sanctity was suffused with a rich warm rose-red glow that filled every corner of the massive room. That was Ethel, manifesting herself in the material world. The light was calming and bracing at once, like a spiritual massage; it encouraged calm and composure and clear thinking, but since only Droods ever came here, it had a lot of work to do. The Matriarch sat at the head of the table, stiff and straight backed as always. Martha Drood was a tall, slender and entirely formal personage in her late sixties. She wore smart grey tweeds, elegant pearls, and her long blond hair was piled elegantly up on top of her head. She'd been a famous beauty once, and it still showed in her poise and her fabulous bone structure. We've had Queens that looked less royal. I have actually seen photos of Martha smiling, in her younger days, or I'd never have believed it possible. She glared at me steadily as I approached, for having dared enter the Sanctity without waiting to be invited in.
The Advisory Council sat on both sides of the table. The family Armourer, my Uncle Jack, nodded cheerfully to me. He was tall but heavily stooped, from years of bending over workbenches in the Armoury, devising really horrible surprises to throw at our enemies. He was still wearing his stained and scorched white lab coat, suggesting that he'd been dragged away from his beloved Armoury against his will, just when things were getting seriously interesting and/or dangerous. He was middle-aged now, and looking like he'd worked hard for every year of it. He had a gleaming bald pate, with grey tufts sticking out over his ears, bushy white eyebrows, and steel grey eyes. Under his lab coat he wore a grubby T-shirt bearing the legend WHICH PART OF FUCK OFF AND DIE DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND? Uncle Jack smiled easily at me as I approached the table. He'd always had time for me.
"Eddie, lad! About time you turned up! Come and see me afterwards; I've got some great new gadgets for you to try out."
That was always going to be a mixed blessing, given that so many of his new gadgets had a tendency to go boom! when least expected, but I smiled gamely.
"Thank you, Uncle Jack. You always have the best toys."
Harry Drood, cousin Harry, looked at me thoughtfully from his chair set at the Matriarch's left hand. Harry always liked to be as close as possible to power. He'd actually run the family for a time, while I was away, and a right dog's breakfast he'd made of it. He was a pretty good field agent in his own right, but he'd only ever seen that as a means to an end. Harry believed in Harry much more than he ever believed in the Droods. Still, put him with his back to the wall and no way out, and he could be as brave and heroic as needed. His father was, after all, Uncle James, the legendary Grey Fox. Perhaps the greatest Drood ever. Harry leaned back in his chair and rocked easily back and forth on the rear legs as he studied me silently through his owlish wire-rimmed glasses. He'd already heard about the debacle at the Magnificat, and the loss of the Apocalypse Door, and he couldn't wait to hit me with every unfortunate detail, while he figured out how to turn it to his best advantage. Because that was what he did.
"Just once," Harry said calmly, "it would be nice if you could bring us back some good news after a mission, Edwin."
"You're allowed to lose? the occasional battle, as long as you win the war," I said, meeting his gaze squarely.
"Lose enough battles and you run out of war," said Harry.
"You want a slap?" I said. "Only I've got one handy…"
"Edwin!" the Matriarch said sharply.
"There will be no violence in this chamber unless I start it," said the final member of the Advisory Counciclass="underline" the Sarjeant-at-Arms. He sat to attention on his chair, a big ugly brute of a man with a face like a fist and muscles on his muscles. "Sudden and unexpected punishment is my domain. So take your seat at the table, Edwin, before I find it necessary to discipline you."