Property of a Lady Faire (A Secret Histories Novel) (36 page)

“The Lady Faire built that?” said Molly.

“Hardly,” I said. “The Winter Palace has been around a lot longer than she has. No, she just rents it, on occasion. Like everyone else.”

“Rents it from who?”

“Good question. If you ever find out, do let me know. Come on, let’s get moving. The sooner we get safely inside, the better. I’m not sure how long even Drood armour can protect us from such an extreme environment.”

“Why have a palace in a place like this?” said Molly, not unreasonably.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Probably to discourage unwanted visitors. All the properly invited guests are teleported in, arriving safely inside the Winter Palace without having to brave the cold.” I looked carefully around me. “I’m not Seeing any security fields, or force shields, or any kinds of protection set in place around the palace . . . No hidden mines, no floating curses, not even the most basic sensor arrays, to let people know there’s anyone out here . . . Perhaps they believe Ultima Thule is all the protection they need. And with anyone else, they’d probably be right. Come on, we have to find a way in, infiltrate the Lady Faire’s Ball without being spotted, and get our hands on the Lazarus Stone. Lots to do, lots to do . . .”

“And how, precisely, are we going to do all that?” said Molly.

“Once we get inside the Winter Palace, separately,” I said. “We’ll be far too conspicuous together. I’m hoping the Lady Faire will have invited enough guests that we can just blend in, and disappear in the crowd. But we can’t risk drawing undue attention to ourselves. Which means I can’t use my armour in there, and you can’t use your magics.”

“Oh poo!” said Molly. “I was just getting used to this armour. And I can feel my magics rushing back! I think being inside your armour is speeding up the process wonderfully.”

“Drood armour is designed to keep its wearer invisible from pretty much anything, under normal circumstances,” I said. “But the Winter Palace is bound to be bristling with all kinds of specialized security measures, to protect the guests from outside threats. And probably, from each other . . . My torc should be able to hide itself, as long as I don’t call on it, but if you even try to summon your magics, you can be sure they’ll hit you with everything they’ve got. Suddenly and violently and all at once.”

“All right!” said Molly. “We have to be sneaky. I get it! We go our own ways once we get inside, first one to grab the Stone signals the other, and then we both leg it back to the real world, at speed. Anyone would think I’d never done this before.” She stopped, and looked around her. “You know, I still can’t see the Gateway we came through.”

“That’s because it isn’t there, here,” I said. “It’s a one-way Gate; it only exists on the other side. So we can’t use it to get back. We’ll have to break into the Winter Palace’s teleport stream to get home again.”

“Wonderful,” said Molly. “More complications. And the more I look at the Winter Palace, the less I see anything that looks like an entrance. What if the only way in is by teleport?”

“Look, if breaking into the Winter Palace was easy, everybody would be doing it.”

“Someone got out of the grumpy side of bed this morning. So what does the Lazarus Stone look like? What are we actually looking for? An earring, or a stone big enough to club someone over the head with?”

“No idea,” I said. “I never even heard about the bloody thing till today. Does make things a bit tricky, doesn’t it? I suppose it’s too much to hope that it’ll be out on display somewhere, with a really big sign saying
This Is the Lazarus Stone; Please Don’t Touch
. . . Hmmm. I think our best bet is to locate someone inside the Winter Palace who does know what the Stone looks like, and get them to take us straight to it. Though of course when I say
us
. . .”

“I get it! Really! Separate ways, no looking back. Like I need you cramping my style . . .”

• • •

We started down the long, narrow valley, still holding hands. I did consider creating some kind of umbilical cord, but our link seemed precarious enough already, without adding any further strains to it. I didn’t want to push Ethel’s gift too far. We strode on, leaning into the teeth of the roaring wind, fighting its vicious gusting flurries with our armoured strength. The ground was hard and unyielding under our feet, cracked open in jagged splits and wide crevices. Some we could step over; others we had to jump. And sometimes I looked down and thought I saw sullen red lava, bubbling away at the bottom of the deepest cracks.

Apart from the howling wind, there wasn’t another sound to be heard. Nothing moved but us. Not a living thing anywhere, not even vegetation. Not even any rocks or pebbles, as though everything had been worn down, reduced to its barest essentials. My hands and feet were numb, despite my armour. Ultima Thule’s cold was seeping in. Which was . . . disconcerting. I’d never known any conditions that could get through Drood armour before, no matter how harsh or severe the environment. Which led me to believe this wasn’t any ordinary dimension. If it was the end of the world, Earth’s final days, then perhaps this was a spiritual cold. The touch of Entropy itself.

No one really knows the limits of my family’s armour, because we’ve never encountered them. But Time brings all things to an end.

“How sure are we that the Lady Faire’s security people don’t know about the Gateway we came through?” said Molly.

“Not sure at all,” I said, glad of some conversation to take my mind off things. “But I think if they did know, or even suspect, they’d have put some kind of defence in place out here, to deal with whoever came through, the moment they arrived. Take them out while they were distracted by the cold. I prefer to believe that since the Gateway doesn’t exist on this side, it can’t be detected from here. Believe what makes you happy, that’s what I always say.”

And then we both stopped, as the ground fell sharply away before us, revealing two long rows of ice blocks, stretching away, facing each other. Each block was around seven feet tall and three wide, solid ice containing a human form. Men and women, frozen in place forever. Molly and I helped each other down the steep incline; and then we walked slowly down the central aisle between the ice blocks, looking closely at the figures frozen inside. Dead faces peered sightlessly out through the ice, their features preserved in emotions that would last an age, in this awful place. Shock and horror, mostly. Clawed hands scrabbled desperately at the inside of the ice, caught in one last attempt at escape before the ice closed in on them. Clothes and outfits, equipment and weapons, from a hundred different times and countries. And much good any of it had done them.

“Warnings,” I said finally. “Made from those who came before us.
Turn back, intruder, while you still can.
”

“Except we can’t,” said Molly. “Not that we would, of course, but . . .”

“Yes,” I said. “It would be nice to have the option.”

“So we’re not the first people to try to break into the Winter Palace from Outside,” said Molly. “You think these people came here through the Gateway?”

“No way to ask them now,” I said. “They didn’t have the advantage of Drood armour, so here they are. Preserved, permanent scarecrows.”

“Except we don’t scare,” said Molly. “Still, I have to say, leaving them here, like this . . . That’s cold.”

“Yes,” I said. “It is. I don’t know who these people were, or why they came here, but they deserved better than this. I will make someone pay for this.”

“Of course you will, Eddie.”

Molly squeezed my linking hand, and we strode on between the two long rows of ice blocks. After a while I stared straight ahead, so I wouldn’t have to make eye contact. You can’t keep feeling sorry for people; it wears you out. And I was having a hard enough time feeling confident as it was. I hate missions where there are too many unknowns, too many variables, and this whole case was nothing but.

We left the ice blocks behind and moved on down the valley, slipping and sliding on ground polished like glass by the endless wind. The Winter Palace loomed up before us, growing larger and more intricate the closer we got. Dazzlingly huge, breathtakingly detailed. The biggest snowflake in the world, in the last winter of the world. I finally stopped, to look it over carefully. Molly was all for pressing on, impatient to get started, but we were still linked by our joined hands and I wasn’t going anywhere till I’d thought about it some more. Molly stood reluctantly beside me, bouncing up and down on the soles of her golden feet.

“I am not seeing any door, or opening, or entrance anywhere,” I said. “And since all the properly invited guests appear
inside
, it may be that there is no way in from out here.”

“I told you that!” said Molly. “I suppose . . . we could break in.”

“We’re trying to be sneaky, remember?”

“Why should there be any openings?” said Molly, in her most irritatingly reasonable tone of voice. “I mean, it’s a snowflake! Which are famous for not having holes. However, now most of my magics have returned, thanks to this marvellous armour of yours, I can sense the teleport stream the guests arrive through. I think I can tap into it, even from this distance . . . and get us inside. With a bit of luck.”

I looked at her. “How much luck?”

“Well . . . We would be jumping blind. I’m pretty sure I can arrange for us to materialise in an open space . . .”

“Hold it!” I said. “I’ve got a better idea! The Merlin Glass! That’s our way in!”

“Why didn’t you think of that before?” said Molly. “We could have used it back at the Gateway, and avoided this bloody walk!”

“I got distracted,” I said.

“Ah,” said Molly. “Of course you did.”

I eased my free hand through my armoured side, and reached for the hand mirror, but the damned thing avoided my grasp again, refusing to cooperate. Presumably because it didn’t want to be exposed to the cold of Ultima Thule. I could understand that. I chased the Merlin Glass around my pocket for a while, just on general principles, and then gave up. I removed my empty hand, and Molly shook her head sadly.

“Not again . . .”

“Once this increasingly infuriating mission is over,” I said, “I am going to have a very firm talk with the Merlin Glass. In fact, once everything’s been sorted out, and I have reestablished communications with my family . . . I think I’ll take the Glass down to the Armoury and let the lab assistants play with it. That should frighten it.”

“Shall I try my teleport spell now?” Molly said sweetly.

“How accurate can you be, working blind?” I said. “We don’t want to materialise inside the furniture. Something like that can be very hard to explain.”

“Trust me,” said Molly. “That hardly ever happens. I have an instinct for these things. If I tap into the existing teleport stream and follow that, we should be perfectly safe.”

“Should?”

“Look, do you want the truth, or a comforting lie?”

“Guess.”

“Everything’s going to be fine!” said Molly.

We appeared inside a very small room. So small we were standing face-to-face, surrounded by all kinds of objects pressing in on us.

“We’re inside a broom closet, aren’t we?” I said.

“It was the best I could do!” said Molly. “It was the only enclosed space next to the teleport station.”

“It’s a broom closet!”

“I know! It was either this or the toilets!”

I scrabbled along the wall with my free hand, found the light switch, and turned it on. Flat yellow light from a bare hanging bulb illuminated a space just big enough to contain the two of us and assorted cleaning products. I suppose even a Winter Palace needs janitorial staff. I armoured down, and Molly appeared before me. She smiled at me brightly, gave my hand one last squeeze, and reached for the door. I stopped her quickly.

“Hold it,” I said. “Better check out who’s outside first. Might look a bit odd for the two of us to just walk out of a broom closet.”

“Not at the Lady Faire’s Ball,” said Molly. “I’ll bet there are all kinds of furtive assignations going on here, in all sorts of places.”

“I’ll go first,” I said. “Remember, no magics.”

“Bet I get to the Lazarus Stone before you do,” said Molly.

“Yell if you do,” I said. “And then I’ll race you to the teleport station.”

“What if the station’s locked down?” said Molly. “I got us in here, but there’s no guarantee I can get us back to the real world.”

“One problem at a time,” I said.

I squeezed past her, eased open the broom closet door, and peered cautiously through the gap. All kinds of people were hurrying past, but they all seemed intent on their own business, and didn’t even glance at the broom closet. And after all, why should they? I looked back at Molly.

“Okay, I am out of here. Give me a minute, and then it’s your turn. Try not to kill anyone you don’t absolutely have to, there’s a dear.”

“Teach your grandmother to suck . . .”

I slipped out into the corridor and closed the door firmly behind me.

• • •

The interior of the Winter Palace could have been any first-class, extremely expensive and very elite hotel, anywhere in the world. Lots of wide-open space, richly polished wood, gleaming marble, and deep-pile carpeting. Every conceivable luxury out on display. And well-dressed, very important people hurrying back and forth on their own very important business. No windows anywhere, though. It was comfortably warm, for which I was very grateful. I’d had more than enough of the cold of Ultima Thule. I could feel the last of the bitter chill seeping out of my bones, and out of my soul, as I strode quickly through the wide corridors of the Winter Palace.

I acted as though I belonged there, as though I had every right to be there, so everyone just assumed I did. It helped that as a field agent, I had been trained to have one of those faces that everyone thinks they half recognise. Just a familiar kind of chap, the kind you see every day, everywhere. I smiled and nodded easily to everyone I passed, and they nodded and smiled easily back. Because that was what you did in places like this. Where everyone was bound to be someone, and you were bound to have met them somewhere before . . . It never occurred to any of them that I might be an outsider, or an intruder, because they knew the only way to get in was through the teleport station. And for that, you needed an invitation.