“Well, that’s why we’re here,” I said. “Keep listening.”
We moved on, into the far-seeing section. The Armourer was there, building something complicated from the disassembled scraps of several important-looking machines. He nodded brusquely to us, intent on his work.
“They say modern technology won’t mix with traditional magics. I say they will, if you bang them together hard enough. Give me time, and I’ll give you something that will show you everything that’s happening inside that darkness. In high definition, with surround sound.”
Callan ignored him, peering over the shoulder of a fey young woman who was staring intently into her scrying pool, or magic mirror: an impossibly flat extrusion of compressed silver ectoplasm spread out on the bench before her. Images came and went in the pool too quickly for me to follow.
“You need the gift to be able to See the world through a magic mirror,” said Callan. “I specialised in far-seeing before I became a field agent. . . . Still got my crystal ball somewhere . . . Ah. Yes! There . . . Focus, Amelia, focus. . . .”
He squeezed the shoulder of the far-seer, adding his strength to hers, and they both concentrated. Just like that, I could See what they Saw in the scrying pool. A street, a perfectly normal small-town street. The buildings were all intact, though there were no people anywhere. But there was something subtly wrong about the image. It took me a moment to realise that the scene was too still, too sharp, too perfect.
“This is a cover image,” said Callan. “Meant to deflect anyone who did get a look in. It’s not safe to look underneath, not yet. We found that out the hard way. All the people are quite definitely gone . . . snatched away in a moment, kidnapped by unknown forces. But more than that, the whole area inside the town has been . . . changed. Horribly altered. Outside the five-mile radius of the dark circle, everything remains normal, as it should be. The world goes on, untouched, unaffected. But inside Little Stoke . . . We’ve had to put in a whole series of filters and safeguards to protect the far-seers. When they first broke through the circle and got a good look at what was happening, we lost nine good men and women almost immediately. They went mad from what they saw. But . . . I think we’re ready to try again, yes?”
The young woman, Amelia, nodded stiffly. The Armourer looked up sharply.
“I wouldn’t, Callan! Wait till I’m finished here, and I can give you some real protection. . . .”
“We don’t have time!” snapped Callan. “Go for it, Amelia.”
He beckoned forward a dozen other far-seers who’d been waiting nearby, and they all crowded in around Amelia. Linked together, that many far-seers should be able to See through anything. We’ve always had the best remote viewers in the world. The problem’s been to keep them out of the bedrooms of the rich and famous. They leaned in together, shoulder-to-shoulder, peering intently into the scrying pool. And then Amelia’s head exploded. Her skull shattered, blown outwards as though someone had buried a grenade inside her brain. Bone fragments and spatters of pink and grey meat shot across the scrying pool, and her headless body slumped forward, spouting blood in thick jets. Two more far-seers screamed shrilly as their eyes exploded, splashing the others with thick, viscous, bloody fluids. Another far-seer reached up and tore his own eyes out so he wouldn’t have to See what he was Seeing. Two more spontaneously combusted, burning fiercely with thick yellow sulphurous flames. They didn’t move; just stood where they were, burning right down to the bone. Another far-seer started laughing and couldn’t stop.
“Shut down the far-seers!” shouted the Sarjeant-at-Arms, running forward. “I told you to shut down the whole section!”
“Armour up!” Ethel’s voice said suddenly, out of nowhere. “Everyone armour up! My strange matter will protect you!”
We all put our armour on, and the whole War Room was full of gleaming golden figures. The golden man who had been the Sarjeant-at-Arms moved forward, pushing others out of his way, and smashed the scrying pool with one armoured fist. The silver ectoplasm lost coherence immediately and ran away down the legs of the workstation. We all waited a moment, but nothing else happened. The Sarjeant grabbed up a fire extinguisher and put out the two burning far-seers. Their charred and blackened bodies just stood there. Callan gestured for some of his people to come and take them away and escort the surviving far-seers out of the War Room to the nearest hospital ward. The Sarjeant-at-Arms glared around him.
“All right, everyone armour down! The danger’s over. But stay cautious! Callan, you and Eddie stay in your armour, with me. You’re always boasting about your old scrying skills, Callan; use that magic mirror on the next bench, and See what you can See.”
Callan nodded stiffly, and then glanced at Molly. “You’d better stay back. You won’t have armour to protect you.”
“Please,” said Molly. “Remember whom you’re talking to.”
“Ah. Yes . . . quite,” said Callan. “On your own head be it.” He nodded to the Sarjeant and me. “Let’s do this.”
He moved over to the next bench, still covered with its shimmering screen. The Sarjeant and I moved in on either side of him, and Molly leaned in. At first all I could see was a dark bloodred light, shining from some new and terrible kind of sun. The town buildings stood as they always had, but the air in the streets shook and trembled like some unearthly heat wave. There were great cracks and rents the whole length of the road, as though earthquakes had torn through the underlying strata. As I watched, some of the rents slammed back together again, and then reappeared, like doors opening and closing. Waiting for something to come through them. And there was something wrong about the buildings. In slow and subtle ways they seemed to slump, to seep, to fall in on themselves, as though they couldn’t quite be bothered to keep up the facade of normality. Some of the shop signs were misspelt, or garbled, or just plain gibberish. Or perhaps words from unknown languages. Doors and windows were set in the wrong places, or in the wrong proportions, or tilted at crazy angles. As though the madness in this place were infecting the very structure of the buildings.
“Have you ever seen anything like this?” I said quietly to Molly.
“Not on this earth,” she said.
I looked to Callan, and he shrugged uneasily. “We’re getting some information as to what’s happening inside the dark circle, but there’s no telling how dependable the readings are. . . . The very building blocks of reality have been compromised. No linear time, no cause and effect, everything changing for no purpose, from moment to moment. . . .”
“The Satanists have blown apart the very rules that hold everything together,” said Molly. “Dropped a whole town into chaos. That’s some bomb. . . .”
“We can’t be sure they’re behind this,” said Callan. “Not yet. More important, we haven’t a clue how they did this. That’s why I called in the Armourer.”
He looked hopefully at my uncle Jack, but the Armourer shrugged without looking up from whatever he was working on.
“Would even Drood armour be enough to protect me in such an environment?” I asked him.
Molly looked at me sharply. “You’re not thinking of going in there, are you?”
“There could be survivors,” I said. “People trapped in there. What do you think, Ethel? It’s your armour.”
“I don’t know!” Ethel’s voice sounded definitely troubled, issuing from somewhere above us. “It ought to, but this is all new to me. I can’t see inside the dark circle, but from what you’re seeing . . . I’ve never encountered such extreme conditions before; and I’ve been around. But I designed your armour to survive whatever your reality could throw at it. And since strange matter comes from my domain, not yours . . . Roll the dice, and see what happens! I can’t wait to find out!”