The Man with the Golden Torc

Epilogue

With the Heart gone, the Sanctity didn’t feel like the Sanctity anymore. It felt like the quiet after the explosion, the calm after the storm, the incredible peace of waking up and knowing that the nightmare is finally over. The Sanctity was just an empty room now, wide and echoing, with a layer of sand on the floor. The dragon was dead, but I didn’t feel like a dragonslayer.

"How do you feel, Eddie?" said Molly.

"Pretty good," I said. "The pain is gone, the weakness is gone, and I’m back to normal again."

"No, Eddie," she said gently. "How do you feel?"

"I don’t know," I said. "Numb. Lost…I used to know what I was, what my life was all about. Then that was taken away from me. I used to have a family, and that’s gone too. All gone…"

"You still have me," said Molly.

"Do I?"

She put her hands on my shoulders, pulled me in close, and kissed me. "Try to get rid of me, idiot."

"So," I said after a while. "The Heart’s dead. What do we do now?"

"You mean for an encore?" said Molly. "Haven’t you done enough?"

The door behind us swung open, and we both spun around, ready to defend ourselves, but it was just the Armourer and the ghost of old Jacob. Molly and I relaxed a little as they came over to join us. The Armourer’s face was still half buried under dried blood, but he looked a lot steadier on his feet. Jacob had resumed his grumpy old ghost form, with garish Hawaiian shorts and a grubby T-shirt bearing the legend Dead Men Don’t Eat Quiche.

"Eddie, my boy," said the Armourer. "Are you okay? We heard all kinds of noises from in here, but we couldn’t get in till now. Not even Casper the Unfriendly Ghost here. And what the hell happened to the Heart?"

"Look down," I said. "You’re standing in what’s left of it."

He looked down, winced, and then shook his head. "So that’s what Oath Breaker does. I always wondered."

"Here," I said, handing the ironwood staff back to him. "The sooner this is back in the Armageddon Codex, the safer we’ll all be. Molly, give him Torc Cutter."

"Oh poo," said Molly, pouting. "I was hoping to keep it as a souvenir."

The Armourer gave her one of his hard looks, and she handed the shears over without another word.

"So," I said, "that’s it, at last. All over. Someone lead me to a comfortable chair and place a nice cup of tea in my hand. It’s been a busy few days…but at least it’s finished now."

"You have got to be joking," the Armourer said sternly. "After all the damage you’ve done here, you think you can just sit back and take it easy? You’ve done more in one evening to bring the Drood family to its knees than centuries of enemy action. It’s up to you to save the family, Eddie. I didn’t bring you up to leave a job half done. You brought the family down; only you can raise it up again."

"To hell with that!" Molly said sharply. "This is what I lived for: to see the high and mighty Droods humbled and forced to their knees, made to live down here in the dirt with the rest of us. Don’t listen to him, Eddie. You’ve taken the Droods’ foot off the neck of everyone in the world. We’re free at last!"

"Free?" I said, reluctantly. "No, Molly. It’s not that simple, and it never was. Truman’s Manifest Destiny is still out there, remember? Free from Drood influence and control and still determined to wipe out everything that doesn’t fit their narrow definition of normal and human. Who’s going to stop them, if not the family? And then there are all the other dark forces only kept in check by fear of what the family would do if they ever got out of hand. There has to be another power in place to stop the forces of darkness from overrunning the world. But if there has to be a Drood family, it’s going to be a new kind of family."

"Now you’re talking," said Jacob. "Always knew you were destined for great things, Eddie. Even if I couldn’t remember why."

I considered him thoughtfully. "You just remembered you were only hanging about here in order to help me destroy the Heart…So, and don’t take this the wrong way, but…why are you still here?"

He gave me his usual shifty grin and shrugged vaguely. Little bubbles of blue-gray ectoplasm jumped up from his shoulders before slowly settling back into him again. "Guess I’ve just got used to hanging around here. And besides, I really am curious to see what’s going to happen next. I haven’t had so much fun since the Great Gender Swap of 1741. We never did find out who was behind that…"

"I don’t see Alexandra or Matthew," I said carefully. "What have you done with them, Jacob?"

He met my gaze easily, and just for a moment something of his old terrifying self surfaced in his gaze. "They won’t be coming back. Ever."

"Don’t ask," the Armourer said stiffly. "Trust me, you really don’t want to know."

"Poor Alex," I said, and I meant it.

"Just what was this Alex person to you, anyway?" said Molly.

"It was more…what she might have been," I said. "If things had gone differently."

"Oh…" said Molly. "Yeah. I’ve had lots of relationships like that."

I looked at her for a moment. "I won’t ask," I said finally.

"Best not to," she agreed.

And then, finally, I looked at the Armourer, my uncle Jack, and said the one thing I’d been putting off, the one thing I knew I’d have to say the moment I saw him coming through the door. "I’m sorry, Uncle Jack. I’m really sorry, but…Uncle James is dead."

"I know," said the Armourer. "You couldn’t have done anything else, Eddie. James wouldn’t have given you any other choice. For him, the family always came first. And he never could say no to Mother."

"He was supposed to kill me on the motorway," I said. "But he let me go. Gave me a chance…made all this possible."

"Good for him," said the Armourer. "Maybe he was growing up, at last. So, the Gray Fox is dead…Good bartenders and bad women will be weeping bitter tears in bars all around the world once word gets out."

There was no point in telling him that Molly had actually killed my uncle James. The family was going to have enough problems accepting her as it was.

Jacob fixed me with a firm look. "You have to address the family, Eddie. Here, now! Explain to them what’s been going on. They need to know the truth. I’ll summon them here, and you can tell them what needs to be done to put the family back together again."

"What?" I said. "I don’t know what to tell them!"

"You’ll think of something," said the Armourer. "You have to take charge, Eddie. Push change through before the old guard take control again."

"Wait just a minute!" I said quickly. "I never even wanted to be a regular part of the family, let alone tell them how to run things! I ran away from this family the first chance I got, remember?"

"Well, you can’t run away this time," said the Armourer. "Not after all the trouble you’ve caused. You’ve smashed our defences, wrecked the Hall, demoralised the family fighters, destroyed the Heart, and taken away everyone’s torcs! You have a duty to undo the damage you’ve done."

"But—" I said.

"Only you can tell them the truth," said Jacob.

"It’s what your uncle James would have wanted," the Armourer said solemnly.

I glared at him. "I never knew you were so proficient at emotional blackmail."

He grinned. "Runs in the family."

And then we all winced and shuddered as Jacob took on his deathly aspect again. His spectral presence filled the chamber, cold and distant and only remotely human, powerful beyond imagination now that he was no longer bound by life’s limitations. His voice spread out through all of the Hall, ordering every member of the family to attend the Sanctity. Right now, no omissions, no excuses. I caught only the edges of the ghostly summons, and that was still enough to make me sway on my feet. The sheer power in Jacob’s voice was like nothing in this world. No one in the family would dare disobey.

And soon enough they came streaming through the great double doors and into the huge empty chamber of the Sanctity in ones and twos, and then in groups, and finally in crowds until there was a steady flow of bewildered Droods pressing in through the two doorways. Many of them were still wide-eyed with shock from the sudden loss of their torcs. For the first time in their lives they felt utterly defenceless and vulnerable, and they were desperate for answers and reassurances. They came in gabbling and shouting, only to subside instantly into murmurs and mutterings once they saw who was waiting for them. The family rogue, the family ghost, the bloodied Armourer, and the infamous Molly Metcalf. Whatever answers were coming, they clearly weren’t going to be very reassuring. Still they kept streaming into the Sanctity, house Droods and security Droods, researchers and planners and house staff, and every other member of the family. Right down to some extremely wide-eyed children, the smallest carried in their parents’ arms. The Sanctity filled up from wall to wall with Droods pressed shoulder to shoulder, while more peered in through the doorways.

"Make a start," the Armourer said to me. "Before people start getting crushed in the pack."

I looked at Molly, and she conjured up an invisible platform for the four of us to stand on, and then raised it several feet into the air, so everyone could see and hear me.

"It helps that they have to look up to us," she muttered in my ear.

"Gives us the psychological edge. Now go on; promise them bread and circuses, or something."

"Speaking of edges," said the Armourer just a little testily. "Could you perhaps put a little colour into the edges of this damned platform so some of us can see where the bloody things are? It’s a long way to fall, and some of us are feeling a bit fragile just at the moment."

The edges of the platform glared suddenly silver. They were a lot closer than I’d realised.

The chamber was now packed to bursting, with more faces peering in through the open doors. The muttering kept threatening to break out into something more, but didn’t, because any time someone started to raise their voice they found Jacob glaring at them, and then they got all tongue-tied and went right off the idea. The crowd went completely silent as the Matriarch finally arrived, pushing her way through the crowd. Everyone made as much room for her as they could to let her pass. She reached the front of the crowd and glared up at me on my platform. Instead of Alistair at her side stood the Sarjeant-at-Arms. His face was bruised and swollen, but his gaze was as cold and direct as ever. I nodded to the Matriarch.

"Hello, Grandmother. How’s Alistair?"

"Alive. Barely. He’s in the infirmary. They’re trying to save his face."

"He surprised me," I said, aware everyone in the Sanctity was hanging on our every word. "He was a good man, and true, at the end."

"I’ve always known that," said the Matriarch. "He served the family. Not like you. What have you done to us, Edwin? Where are our torcs? Where is the Heart?"

"That’s what you’re all here for," I said. "To hear the truth at last." I looked out over the crowd, at all the confused, frightened, desperate faces. "You’re here to learn the truth about everything that’s happened. Everything that’s been hidden from you down all the centuries of this family’s existence. The secrets only a Drood can tell you."

"We know you," said a female voice from deep in the crowd. "But what’s the infamous Molly Metcalf doing up there with you?"

There was a general murmur of agreement, quickly cut off as Molly snapped her fingers and the woman in the crowd squeaked loudly as all her clothes suddenly disappeared. Molly smiled sweetly upon the crowd.

"Any more questions? I just love answering questions from the crowd."

And while the crowd was quiet, I told them everything.

I explained to them what the Heart really was and the true nature of the bargain that had given us all our torcs. There were shocked cries and gasps, but no one challenged me. I told them how the bargain had to be confirmed by every new Matriarch, and every eye in the chamber went to Martha Drood. She ignored them all, glaring coldly up at me. I explained how I’d destroyed the Heart, and why they hadn’t all died when their torcs disappeared. And then I told them the final awful secret of the Droods, known only to the inner circle. That we were not the secret defenders of humanity, but their secret rulers.

I think there would have been a riot then, as various factions in the family shouted and pushed at each other, but Jacob rose suddenly up into the air and took on his spectral aspect again. The temperature in the Sanctity plummeted, and we all shuddered, and not just from the cold. Death was in the chamber and looking right at us. Jacob glared about him with no longer human eyes, and everyone went very quiet and very still, not wanting to draw his attention. Jacob sank slowly back onto the platform and resumed his usual form.

From the silence, one voice rose. The Matriarch cursed me, naming me traitor to the family, calling me a fool and a liar and an enemy of everything the Droods stood for. She said I was no grandson of hers and called on every Drood present to rise up and drag me down and kill me. Her voice rose and rose, shrill with fury and hysteria, spittle flying from her mouth, until suddenly the Sarjeant-at-Arms dropped a hand on her shoulder and gave her a good shake. Her voice cut off abruptly, and she looked at him, shocked. The Sarjeant let go of her and turned his back on her to address the crowd.

"You all know me," he said, and his familiar harsh voice held everyone’s attention. "You all know what I stand for. And I tell you, Edwin has earned the right to be heard. He’s the truest son this family ever had. Go on, boy. Tell them what they need to know."

"Thanks," I said. "I still hate your guts, mind."

"Goes with the job," he said, entirely unconcerned. "Get on with it."

So I told them the rest: how I’d been falsely outlawed by the Zero Tolerance faction who were secretly running Manifest Destiny. That really put the cat among the pigeons. They all knew about Truman and what his people stood for.

"We’ve been lied to," I said finally, tiredly. "We’re not who we thought we were. We aren’t the good guys, and haven’t been for centuries. But we can be; we can be what we were meant to be. If you’re prepared to fight for it."

The men and women before me didn’t look much like fighters at the moment. Most of them looked pretty shell-shocked, as though someone had just punched them all in the gut, after hearing so many unpleasant and unsuspected truths one after the other. They looked at each other uncertainly, and then back at me, until finally a voice at the back of the crowd said:

"What do you want us to do?"

"I want us to do what we were born to do! I want us to be what we were always supposed to be: shamans to the tribe, protecting people from all the evil forces that threaten them! Only now the tribe is humanity, and we have to be warriors of the world, fighting the good fight; not for ourselves, but just because it’s the right thing to do! We have to earn the right to be proud to be Droods again!"

"But…how can we fight, without our torcs?" said another voice.

I smiled and let one hand rise to the silver torc at my throat. "The Heart is gone, but fortunately I’ve found a new sponsor for the family." And I subvocalised, Show them, strange matter.

The new armour flowed over me in a moment, encasing me completely in shining silver. The crowd cried out; some even applauded. A great voice spoke to them then, the strange matter addressing the family through me, its voice full of peace and calm and good fellowship:

"Long and long have I pursued the creature you knew as the Heart, across all the many dimensions, to punish it for all its terrible crimes. Now it is gone, I will stay here to help undo the evil it did. I will be your new protector, and there shall be torcs for all."

"How long do you plan on sticking around?" said a practical voice.

"Until I’ve taught you all how to be strong without armour," said the voice. "You have no idea of your true potential."

There was a lot more murmuring in the crowd about that.

"But what price do we have to pay for this new armour?" said another voice in the crowd. "The Heart wanted our children. Our unknown brothers and sisters. What do you want?"

"Just to help," said the voice. "That’s my job. And you’ve already paid me, by destroying the Heart. You have no idea how long I’ve spent chasing that damned thing. I’m just glad it’s finally over…I’m entitled to some leave, so I think I’ll spend it here. Just for a few millennia. Fascinating dimension, fascinating people. You’re really going to have to tell me more about this sex thing you do…"

"Later," I said quickly, subvocalising. "You know, I can’t keep calling you ‘strange matter.’ Don’t you have a name I can use?"

How about Ethel? said the voice in my head. That’s a good name.

"We’ll discuss that later, too," I said. "Now get this armour off me, please."

Oh sure.

The silver armour disappeared back into my torc, and I looked out over the family again. "Follow me, and you’ll all have armour again. And we will all be…what the family was supposed to be, before we lost our way."

"Under your leadership?" the Matriarch said loudly, her voice harsh and unforgiving.

"Not if I have anything to say about it," I said. "Never wanted that. Too much like hard work." There were a few chuckles from the crowd.

"No; we’ve had enough leaders. They can’t be trusted. You all agreed to the Heart’s bargain, Grandmother; generations of Matriarchs agreeing to the slaughter of generations of children."

"We had no choice!" she said fiercely. "We had to be strong, to fight the forces of darkness!"

"You always had a choice," I said. "We never did. We never agreed to the sacrifice of our brothers and sisters, Grandmother."

And there must have been something in my voice, because she looked away and did not answer.

"I suggest an elected council," I said to the crowd. "You can sort out the rules. Except that all current members of the council must be banned. They were part of the conspiracy. Part of the lies. I’ll see things through the transition, and then…I’m out of here. Back to being a field agent again. That’s where I belong."

"If you’re planning to run out on the family, why should we listen to you?" said a female voice in the crowd, only to duck her head down again as Molly looked at her thoughtfully.

"I’m not leaving the family," I said firmly. "Just going back to doing what I do best. Kicking the bad guys’ arses, and making them cry like a baby. Manifest Destiny’s still out there and all the other monsters who’d attack us in a minute if they thought we were weak."

"We are weak!" said the Matriarch. "You’ve shown them our defences can be broken!"

"We became weak under you, because you allowed the family to split into factions," I said, and once again she looked away. "We have to be strong, united. Shepherds to the flock, not wolves. Hell, if fighting evil was easy, everyone would be doing it. But don’t worry, Grandmother; from now on there will be no more fanatics. Just men and women of good will, fighting the good fight. And anyone who can’t or won’t go along with that can hit the road. Without torcs."

The Armourer stepped forward. "This is Edwin Drood. He took on the whole family and won. Who better to lead us? To make us strong again? To make us what we were always supposed to be? I am the Armourer, and he has my support."

"And mine," said the ghost of old Jacob.

"And mine," said the Sarjeant-at-Arms.

The crowd looked at the Matriarch. She looked slowly around her, taking in what she saw in their faces, and finally her proud shoulders slumped, and she turned away.

"I’m tired," she said. "And Alistair needs me. Do what you want. You will anyway."

She turned her back on me and walked away through the crowd, pushing out blindly with her hands, and again the people opened up to let her pass. No one said anything; no one jeered. She was the Matriarch, after all. And even after all that had happened, after all she’d done, to me and so many others, it still hurt me to see her humbled and broken. She was my grandmother, and she always gave me the best toys at Christmas when I was little, and nursed me when I was sick.

"Edwin leads us now!" said the Armourer, grabbing my hand and holding it over my head like a prizefighter. "The greatest field agent of all time! The truest, bravest son this family ever had! Edwin! Edwin!"

The crowd took up the chant, yelling my name, working themselves into a frenzy as the great chamber filled with the sound of the family cheering me, over and over. I found it just a bit scary. I’d never wanted to lead the family, but it seemed I wasn’t being given any choice. So I’d stick around for a while. Do what I could. And run away again, first chance I got. I eased my arm out of the Armourer’s grasp, turned to Molly, and grinned at her.

"It’s been a crazy few days, hasn’t it?" I said. I had to raise my voice to be heard over the din of the crowd. "Who would have thought we’d end up here, eh?"

"I’m glad for you, Eddie. But where do I fit into all this?"

"Wherever you want. The family is going to have to reach out to many of those who were once our enemies. I’ve seen for myself that the distance between us and the bad guys isn’t as clear and distinct as I was brought up to believe. We have to learn to work together against the real threats. Like Manifest Destiny. And who better than you to be our emissary?"

She smiled. "That the only reason you want me to stick around?"

"No," I said. "I need you here because…I need you."

"So," she said. "We are having a relationship, after all?"

"Looks that way," I said.

And that’s how I ended up running the family business. It’s a strange old world sometimes.