There was Big Hall, an immense single structure that covered the entire grounds. Acres of stone walls under miles of roof with thousands of windows. The whole place just hummed with activity, with an army of people coming and going, hurrying about their unknown missions. They all wore golden armour. All kinds of flying machines filled the skies over Big Hall, landing and taking off from dozens of busy landing pads, scattered across the vast roof. They flashed back and forth in carefully conceived patterns, often coming within inches of one another but never once colliding, moving like the very best regulated clockwork. There was a real sense of purpose to it all, of everyone playing their part in some grand important scheme.
Next came Small Hall. Drood Hall as it had once been back before the family grew so big we had to add on four more wings. Small Hall was just the original central building from Tudor times, with its black-and-white boarded frontage, heavy leaded-glass windows and jutting gabled roof. The grounds stretched away around the Hall, open and empty. No lake, no hedge Maze, no unicorns or gryphons, and no sign of Droods anywhere.
Two small suns burnt hotly in a deep purple sky over Alien Hall. The air was unbearably hot and humid, dragging in the lungs, even for the few moments it took us to walk through it. Alien Hall was a huge, organic structure, seemingly as much grown as constructed, a strange shape made up of unnatural curves and shadowy hollows, its angles forming patterns that made no sense at all to human eyes. All over the smooth, shiny exterior swarmed golden-armoured creatures, almost human in shape but not in nature or in movement, as they darted in and out of hollow mouths in the side of the Hall. There was something of the insect in their behaviour, and the whole place had more the air of a hive than a home.
A dim red sun in a grey sky shed a murky bloodred glare over Machine Hall. A massive steel cube with no doors or windows, just sharp projections and waving antennae, strange undulating patterns and endless flashing lights. Vehicles in solid primary shapes moved smoothly all around Machine Hall, in a single complex pattern. The few golden figures to be seen were quite clearly mechanical. The grounds were just empty stone flats stretching away; empty and without shape or purpose.
And then there was Magic Hall. In this version, this Earth, Drood Hall was a castle in the grand old style, complete with towers and turrets and crenulated battlements. Flags and pennants flapped bravely in the gusting wind under a perfect cloudless summer sky. Great open lawns surrounding the castle were covered with gleaming white tents and colourful pavilions, and the golden figures strolling back and forth had the aspect of knights from medieval legends. Winged unicorns flew back and forth above the castle, and golden-armoured figures waltzed happily on the air among them.
The Hall as Camelot, I said, pausing for a longer look. The best of us, perhaps
The Pendragon, King Arthur, has returned to Castle Inconnu and the London Knights, said the Regent. I shall be most interested to see what happens next.
Boys and their knights, said Molly. I ll never be a maid-in-waiting.
Camelot lasted only a few decades, I said.
The Droods have endured for centuries. We might wear armour, but we were never chivalric.
I followed the compass and the remote, which had waited obligingly, and Magic Hall disappeared, lost in the shuffle of so many realities, so many variations on the Drood family.
And then the world turned, there was a blinding flash of light and the compass and remote dropped out of the air to land at my feet. I quickly stooped down to pick them up and stuff them in my pocket. And only then looked around me. The Merlin Glass had already shut itself down, zipping back to hide in my pocket dimension, as though it didn t care for its new surroundings. I didn t blame it.
Can the remote get us out of here? said Molly.
Almost certainly not, I said. All it possessed were the arrival coordinates. We need the Hall and Alpha Red Alpha to get home again.
Now you tell me, said Molly.
She armoured up, taking on the exaggeratedly feminine aspect of Moxton s Mistake. And the more I looked around me, the more I missed my armour. Patrick and Diana were already standing back-to-back, guns tracking this way and that in search of a target. The Regent of Shadows just beamed happily around him as though he were on holiday and determined to enjoy every moment of it. I took a firm hold on Oath Breaker.
We were standing in the middle of what I decided to call a jungle, because I had to call it something. There were no trees, no vegetation; instead, massive gnarled and whorled growths erupted out of the ground, rising, twisting and turning as though they had been forced molten from the ground and then hardened in the air. They rose high above us, hundreds of feet tall, sprouting branches here and there, twisted and knotted things that thrust out to challenge and interlock with one another. A tiny sun shone fiercely in what we could see of a sick green sky, the light forcing its way down through the canopy overhead. The gravity was distinctly heavier than I was used to and the light had a strained, sour quality. The air was so thick and wet I had to struggle to breathe the stuff. There were things moving in the shadows surrounding us on all sides, and none of them looked pleased to see us.
It took me only a few moments to realise there were loud noises, roars and screams and explosions, off to one side, and not far off at all. We all looked in that direction.
I say we go that way, said Molly.
It does sound like my family, I admitted.
Molly strode off in the direction of the destructive noises, smashing her way through the alien growths in her rogue armour. She didn t look for a path or an opening, just forced her way through with brute strength. The gnarled and knotty growths were no match for Moxton s Mistake. I knew how it felt to wear armour like you re walking through a world made of paper so why go around when it s so much easier to go through? You have to learn to treat the world with respect, because it can always surprise you. Molly hadn t had the armour long. I just hoped it hadn t gone to her head. Molly was dangerous enough in her own right.
I made a point of walking right behind her in the trail she d opened up. Ready to watch her back, because in her current mood she probably thought she didn t need to. Patrick and Diana hurried close behind, guns constantly moving, ready to target anything that looked threatening or even overcurious. And the Regent just strolled along behind like a retired gentleman on his day out, enjoying the sights.
We d barely been moving a few minutes before really unpleasant-looking creatures emerged from the alien jungle to attack us. Hopping insectoid things came first, with glowing green carapaces and dark faces with clacking, complex mouth parts. They sprang all around us, bounding and leaping with horrid speed high into the air before plunging down at us with clawed hands extended. Many-legged crawling things shot out of the shadows, curling and coiling and doing their best to snake around our legs and drag us down. They had great sucking mouths with needle teeth. And squirming blobby things just fell on us from the lower branches. One dropped right onto Molly s golden shoulder and tried to cling to her neck. It scrabbled and skittered there for a moment, unable to get a hold, and then Molly grabbed it in one hand and squeezed till the living pulp shot out between her golden fingers.
Patrick and Diana blew away the hoppy things with great speed and enthusiasm, and the air was soon full of flying innards. We all stamped on the long-legged things, and they made high wailing sounds as they burst messily underfoot. Anything that got too close I smashed out of the air with my ironwood staff, and whatever Oath Breaker touched exploded. It didn t take long for the alien wildlife to get the message, and we went the rest of the way observed but unmolested.