“What?” I said.
“Hold everything, go previous, hit rewind,” said Molly. “Mars, as in the planet Mars? You mean the Martian Tombs? My sister Louise was just there!”
“We know,” said the Armourer, scowling. “And we’re really not happy about that. If you ever find out how she got there, and how she got inside the Tombs, we’d really like to know. So we can stop her ever doing it again.”
“There’s no stopping Louise,” said Molly. “That’s what makes her so . . . disconcerting.”
“Moving on . . .” I said, firmly.
“We use the ancient Martian Tombs for Summit Meetings,” said the Armourer, “because there’s nowhere left on Earth that’s truly neutral ground. Every group and organisation lays claim to some territory. So we go to Mars, when we have to.”
“Are you saying the family has its own rocket ship?” I said. “Blast off to Mars, and all that? Something worryingly old and unusual, like Ivor the steam Time Engine?”
“Well, I have been working on something like that,” said the Armourer, not at all modestly. “Though it doesn’t have rockets, and isn’t really a ship, as such. . . . But no. We have a Door. A good old-fashioned dimensional doorway. Takes us straight to Mars, no stopping off along the way, no passport control, no chance to lose your luggage.”
I looked at Molly. “He wants someone to make Ooh! and Aah! noises. You do it; I’m too tired.”
“Wouldn’t give him the satisfaction,” said Molly.
“All right,” I said. “Where is this Door? Back in the Armoury?”
“Actually, no,” said the Armourer. “We felt we needed to keep it somewhere more secure than that.”
Uncle Jack led Molly and me out of the Sanctity, and then out of the Hall, passing through the main entrance and on into the massive grounds that surround Drood Hall. Sweeping lawns, hedge mazes and ornamental lakes, peacocks and gryphons, and robot guns sleeping under the grass in case of unwanted visitors. A peaceful retreat for a family that’s always at war with someone. The Armourer led us briskly along the gravel pathway, past the East Wing and round the corner . . . and for the first time I realised where he was taking us.
The old family chapel looked just as I remembered from all the times I’d sneaked out of the Hall at night, against all the rules and regulations, to visit with the disreputable old family ghost, Jacob Drood. The chapel was tucked away out of sight, though not always out of mind, and didn’t look particularly religious. An ugly stone structure with crucifix windows and a grey slate roof with holes in it, the chapel didn’t even try to look inviting. It gave every appearance of being Saxon, with maybe a touch of Norman, but it was really just a nineteenth-century folly. Back when it was all the rage to erect brand-new buildings that already looked like they were falling apart. The Gothic tradition has a lot to answer for.
These days, the family has its own peaceful and restful and thoroughly multi-denominational chapel inside the Hall. For those who feel the need. When you have to deal with Heaven and Hell’s cast-offs and spiritual droppings on a daily basis, it makes you more thoughtful than anything else. We all believe, we have no choice, but we reserve the right to have serious doubts about just what it is we’re believing in. The old chapel is a left-over from more traditional times, and strictly out of bounds. Not that such limited thinking ever stopped me, of course.
“Isn’t this where . . . ?” said Molly.
“Oh, yes,” I said. “This is where I used to meet with the only member of the family who was more of an outcast than me. Mostly because he was dead, but damned if he’d depart. With a family as old as ours, you have to take a tough line on ghosts and the causes of ghosts, or we’d be hip deep in the bloody things. But Jacob was . . . different.”
Uncle Jack paused by the door to let me look the old place over. For a man who claimed never to look back, the Armourer could be very understanding with those who did. Most of the few happy memories I have from my childhood concern the times I escaped from my family, with Uncle Jack in the Armoury, or Jacob the ghost in the chapel. It seems like every time I come home, I get my past pushed in my face. Like the family can’t even leave my memories alone. . . .
I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and looked the chapel over. Ugly as ever—rough stone walls buried under thick mats of ivy. The heavy greenery was already stirring and murmuring restlessly, disturbed by our presence. I stepped forward and spoke to the ivy in a calm and friendly way, and it soon settled down again. Jacob’s personal early warning system . . . still operating long after he was gone. The heavy door still stood half open, wedged in place. Swollen wood in a contorted frame. I put my shoulder to it, and the door creaked loudly as it slid reluctantly inwards. I led the way in.
The interior was the same old mess. All the pews had been pushed over to one side long ago, and stacked up against the wall. Dust and cobwebs and desiccated leaves scattered everywhere. The far end of the chapel was taken up with Jacob’s old great black leather reclining chair, set before a massive old-fashioned television set on which Jacob liked to watch the memories of old television programmes. I could feel old memories welling up, like tears I was damned I would shed. Molly sensed my mood and moved in close beside me.
The Armourer looked around, and sniffed loudly. “Horrible old place. Horrible old man. But he was still family . . . and he did finally go to his end in an honourable fashion. Destroying the Hungry Gods. I come in here, from time to time, hoping he might have found some way to escape his doom. . . . Hoping against hope that he might find his way home again . . . But he never has.”
“Why are we here?” said Molly, impatiently.
“Because this is where we keep the Door,” said the Armourer, immediately all business again. “It’s been here pretty much forever. That’s why the family suffered Jacob to remain here all those years, instead of just exorcising him. He guarded the Door for us. Family ghost, family watchdog . . . Certainly no one was going to bother the Door while he was here.”
“Are you going to get another guardian, now Jacob’s gone?” I said.
“How do you know we haven’t?” said the Armourer.
He spoke a Word of Power and gestured vaguely, and just like that the Door appeared before us. Standing still and alone, and completely unsupported, in the middle of the chapel. A heavy elm wood door with no handle or hinges, no knocker or ornamentation of any kind. No mystic symbols carved into the wood, nothing to suggest it was anything more than an ordinary, everyday door. Apart from the fact that just looking at it, you knew it was old. Really old. And that, just possibly, it was looking back at you. I studied the Door carefully from what I hoped was a safe distance. Molly strode right up to it, stuck her face close to the wood, and inspected it thoroughly. Did everything, in fact, but sniff and lick the damn thing. Molly never let caution get in the way of satisfying her curiosity.
“Old,” she growled, not looking back. “And I mean really old. I can feel Deep Time in this, going back more centuries than I’m comfortable with. And . . . I think it knows we’re here.”
She backed away from the Door, not taking her eyes off it for a moment.
“How the hell did the family get its hands on this?” I said to the Armourer. “It doesn’t have the feel of something one of our old Armourers might have cobbled together, while not in spitting distance of their right mind. This came from Outside. . . .”
“Forget Saxon or Norman,” said Molly. “I’d say Celtic. Maybe even Druidic. It’s got some of that old-time religion to it, that Nail his guts to the old oak tree vibe.”