"Eddie," said Molly, in a voice trying hard to be calm and steady, "I hope you can hear me in there. I know this…isn’t you. I’ve done all I can. It’s up to you to stop the armour now. But if you can’t…I want you to know I understand. I understand it won’t be you, doing it. So don’t blame yourself. Just…find a way to make the Heart pay. Good-bye, Eddie. My one true love."
I couldn’t even answer her.
I’d exhausted all my strength, fighting helplessly inside the armour. Setting my human strength against its inhuman power. I couldn’t move any part of me except as the armour moved me. It was like having my hand disobey me, pick up a weapon, and commit murder, while I could only watch and scream helplessly at it to stop. It didn’t help that so much stress had weakened my defences, and the strange matter had flooded into all of my body now. I could feel it pulsing within me. The pain was sickening, and I was so weak I would probably have fallen if the armour hadn’t been holding me up. I was so tired. I’d fought for so long, refusing to give in, and all for nothing.
And then a little voice at the back of my head said, Then stop fighting, you idiot. The voice didn’t sound anything like mine. It didn’t sound like the Heart’s, either. So I took a gamble and stopped fighting.
I let the weakness flood through me, taking all the strength from my arms and legs. I stopped resisting and let the strange matter do what it would. I gave up…and the armour lurched to a sudden halt. Its golden hands stopped a few inches short of Molly’s throat, and then slowly and ponderously the armour sank to its knees before her. Because the torc was linked to me, body and soul, and even the Heart couldn’t break that link. The armour is only ever as strong as the man within, and this man…had nothing left. The golden living metal rippled over my skin, struggling to obey the Heart’s orders, but it was overridden by my stubborn weakness, backed by the strange matter’s presence in my body. A small amount of control came back to me, and I slowly forced the golden metal away from my face so Molly could see and hear me. She crouched down before me, and I think she could see death in my face. She started to cry.
"Sorry, Molly," I said. "But this is as far as I go. We always knew I probably wouldn’t get to see the end of the story…The strange matter’s all through me now. Only one thing left you can do for me now. Quickly, before the Heart finds a way to force control of the armour away from me, take Torc Cutter and cut the torc around my neck. That destroys the armour. It won’t be able to hurt you. Then take Oath Breaker and smash that smug talking diamond into a million pieces."
"I can’t do that, Eddie! It’ll kill you!"
"I’m dying anyway! Do it, Molly. Please. Protect yourself. At least this way…my death will have some meaning. Some purpose."
"Eddie…"
"If you love me, kill me. Because I’d rather die than see you hurt."
"I wish things could have been different."
"Me too. Good-bye, Molly. My one true love."
I lowered my golden head, showing her my neck. Already my movements were getting stiff as the Heart fought to regain control. Molly produced the ugly black shears and set them against the side of my golden neck. Somewhere in the background, the Heart was shouting orders, but neither of us was listening. Molly forced the shears together, and the black blades cut through my torc. My golden armour disappeared in a moment, and the two halves of my golden collar fell to the floor.
And I laughed out loud as new strength flooded through me.
I rose to my feet, still laughing, and lifted Molly up with me as she stared blankly into my face. She started to laugh herself from sheer relief. I took her in my arms and held her close, and she held me, and I felt strong and well and at peace at last. Molly and I clung on to each other for what seemed like forever, and it felt good, so good to be alive. Finally we let go and stood back and looked into each other’s faces.
"Eddie, you’re alive…"
"I know! Isn’t it great?"
"How…Eddie, there’s a collar around your throat. And it’s silver."
"I know," I said. "It’s the strange matter. Apparently there’s been something of a misunderstanding…"
"To put it mildly," said a new voice. "I was beginning to think I’d never get through to you in time."
The new voice was large and powerful and very sane, and it thundered through the Sanctity. It emanated from me, but it wasn’t me speaking. The Heart cried out in rage and despair, but it sounded like a very small thing compared to the new voice. The strange matter, speaking through me.
"Time for the truth at last," it said. "Know now the true history of that foul and evil creature you know as the Heart. Criminal. Sinner. Thief. Coward. Murderer. It came here because it was running scared. Because it knew I was close behind it, coming to capture it and take it back to where it came from, for judgement and punishment. For all the awful things it has done in so many dimensions. The Heart has been on the run for millennia, passing through dimension after dimension and preying on whatever it found there.
"I am the shaman of my tribe, much like your Druid ancestors. We protect the innocent and punish the guilty, and we never give up.
"I’d almost lost track of the Heart. The trail had gone cold, and I had searched so many places. And then a small opening appeared between the dimensions. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before: vague and unfocused, quite primitive really. It was the Blue Fairy using his gift at random to go fishing and see what he might find. Intrigued, I allowed him to catch just a small piece of myself and take it through into his primitive backwater dimension. And there was the Heart! Hidden away, in the back of beyond where no one would think to look. I could sense its presence, but its exact location was hidden from me. So I manipulated the Blue Fairy into passing the small piece of me onto the most powerful group in this dimension, the Drood family. And sure enough, once I was brought here, I was able to locate the Heart. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough of me to break through the defences your family had put in place around the Heart.
"So I waited. And soon enough the Blue Fairy went fishing again, and I allowed him to catch more of me. And then I manipulated him, and the Drood traitors, and finally the elf lord, all so that he would fire an arrow of me into you, Eddie. So that you could bring me here, into the presence of the Heart. Inside all its protections. I never meant to cause you such pain, Eddie. All the suffering and weakness were caused by my strange matter clashing with the Heart’s collar. What you might call a short circuit. The human body was never meant to contain such diametrically opposed other-dimensional materials."
"Why didn’t I die when Molly cut the torc from me?" I said.
"Droods only die when separated from their torcs because that’s what the Heart wanted," said the voice. "It couldn’t risk any of its toys getting loose. But that’s all over now. The Heart can’t hurt you anymore, Eddie. Not while I’m here to protect you. And it won’t be able to hurt your family anymore, once it’s been destroyed. And though I’ve chased the Heart for so very long…I think it’s your privilege to put an end to the Heart, Eddie. If you want it."
"I want it," I said, and I drew Oath Breaker from my belt and turned to face the Heart.
"You can’t do this!" it screamed. "I made you what you are! I made your family powerful! I put you in charge of this stupid little world! You don’t dare hurt me! I’m your god!"
"Bad god," I said.
I raised Oath Breaker over my head and brought it smashing down on the huge diamond. The ancient weapon took on its simple brutal aspect and undid all the forces that bound the other-dimensional being together. The Heart screamed shrilly, its light flaring in great staccato pulses, and then the massive diamond exploded soundlessly. It shattered into millions of lifeless fragments, falling to the floor like sand until nothing was left of the Heart. There hadn’t been much to it, after all. The Heart was hollow all along.