“Just a suggestion,” murmured Walker. “Let’s not antagonise the incredibly powerful and psychotic Queen of all the Elves.”
“Hell with that,” I said, glaring up at the Queen. “Listen to me, Mab. No one threatens humanity and gets away with it as long as the Droods still stand. And we do still stand, despite all the years you’ve been away. Now, you can apologise to me, or I can drag you right off that throne and make you kneel to me. Your choice.”
“You underestimate us, little Drood,” Queen Mab said calmly. “Your small and limited kind always did. There is nothing our sciences and magics cannot duplicate, given time. And we have nothing but time. Whatever your source is, we shall bind it to our will and make it ours. Still, it was good of you to confirm the existence of this source, separate and distinct from the dreaded Droods. We had reason to suspect its nature but no proof, until now. Makes our planning so much easier. For, after all, if we have this source, what do we need the Droods for?”
“Any weapon is only as good as the one who wields it,” I said. “It’s not the armour but who’s inside it.”
“Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?” said Queen Mab. “Now, inform us of the true nature and extent of this source.”
“I don’t think so. That’s Drood business.”
“That we shall take first the truth, and then the torcs, from your screaming shell,” said Queen Mab. “We shall have such fun, tearing the secrets from you and breaking your spirit, bit by bit.”
“You proceed from a false assumption, Your Majesty,” said Honey. I was so caught up in the moment I’d actually forgotten she and the others were with me, and it made me feel a little better to know I wasn’t alone in this.
“You tell her, Honey,” I said, hoping she could buy me time to think of something. Anything.
“You would not like the Earth as it is these days, Your Majesty,” Honey said smoothly. “You wouldn’t recognise the old place after all we’ve done to it. It’s very . . . normal now. Very sane and reasonable. All science, with magic forced into the shadows and the nooks and crannies. The Earth has changed and evolved, just like humanity. Whereas you and your people, Your Majesty, haven’t. There’s no place for you in our world anymore. You’re better off here. Really.”
“Speak again, little thing, and we will change you into something amusing,” said Queen Mab. “We speak only to the Drood, and only then because his family is bound to us, and us to them.”
“And because you’re still afraid of my family,” I said. “That hasn’t changed. Stay here, Mab. Where you’re safe.”
She leaned suddenly forward, a movement as unexpected as a statue bending in two. Her great head came down to glare at me, and it was all I could do to keep from falling back. Up close, her golden eyes blazed like the sun.
“You killed my Blue,” she said in a voice soft and implacable as death. “He wasn’t much. A half-breed, born of taboo. But he had courage, and we liked his style. The only elf ever to trick his way into the stronghold of my enemy the Droods, win their trust, and steal a torc. Not for himself, but for us. That we might return in glory again. We would have raised him high in our regard, forgetting the taint in his blood . . . But he insisted on going back alone to your world to play one last game. We couldn’t say no. It meant so much to him, to prove his worth in your world as well as ours. And you killed him for it.”
“I didn’t kill him,” I said. “I was his friend. A real friend; not like you. I valued him for who he was, not for what he could bring to the table. I sent you back his body as a sign of respect. To him, as well as to you.”
“Not good enough, elf killer. There are so many other dead. Elf lords and ladies in good standing with this court, dead by your hand, lost to your unnatural Drood weapons. Did you even bother to learn the names of those you killed? They had noble names and mighty lineages; their lives and deeds and accomplishments were the things of legend. And you murdered them. Their spilled blood calls out for revenge, and we are minded to have it.”
I deliberately turned my back on her and looked over the ranks of elves lined up behind me. They all had some kind of weapon in their hands, and every single one of them was smiling, anticipating suffering and slaughter: food and drink to elven kind. An old story, where elves and humans were concerned, but unfortunately for them, I wasn’t playing by the old rules. Honey stepped away to give herself room to work. The shimmering crystal weapon was back in her hands. Walker leaned casually on his umbrella, beaming happily about him, apparently completely unconcerned, as though he knew something no one else did. And perhaps he did; this was Walker, after all. And Peter King . . . was looking at me. He didn’t seem especially concerned or scared, just interested to see what I was going to do.
I looked back at Queen Mab. “You’ve been gone so long, you’ve forgotten the first rule of the universe. Don’t mess with the Droods.”
I concentrated, and my armour glowed and glared like an angry golden flame. Razor-sharp blades rose up out of my armoured arms and legs, thick spikes protruding from my knuckles. My featureless face mask became a savage demonic visage topped with curling horns. Strange exotic weapons burst out of my back on long golden streamers, covering the elves in their ranks, and rose up over my shoulders to threaten Queen Mab on her Ivory Throne. This was the battle form the Deathstalker had taught me to make from the malleable strange armour of my new torc. I didn’t have time to perfect it before the war with the Hungry Gods was over, but I’d spent a lot of time working on it since.
The elves stood very still. This was a new thing, and the elves have always been cautious of change. They don’t know how to react to new things.
“Meet the new boss, even more of a bastard than the old boss,” I said to Queen Mab, my voice amplified to a deafening roar, filling the whole vast chamber. Honey and the others actually flinched away from me, and Queen Mab sat back on her throne.
“You dare to threaten us, in our own court, in our own land?” she said, but she didn’t sound nearly as certain as she had before.
“Why not?” I said. “Who are you?”
“What are you?” whispered the Herald. “What have the Droods become?”
“Shamans,” I said. “Protectors of the tribes of man. Threaten humanity, and you threaten us. Threaten one of us, and the whole family stands ready to go to war. Is that what you want, Queen Mab? War in the Sundered Lands between all of your people and all of mine? To throw away your word and your honour and everything you’ve recovered here in a quest for torcs you couldn’t use and a world you couldn’t live in? Is that what you want?”
“No,” said Queen Mab, slowly and reluctantly. “But speak not to us of honour, Drood. Your family is corrupt, rotten from within, riddled with traitors. We have heard this even here.”
“We’re cleaning house,” I said. “And then let all the worlds tremble and all that lives beware.”
I allowed my armour to return to its usual smooth and gleaming human form, blades and spikes and weapons sinking smoothly back into the golden surface. My devil’s face had become a featureless mask again. Maintaining the battle form took a hell of a lot out of me, so much that I’d never been able to use it in training for more than a few minutes, but of course Queen Mab didn’t know that.
“We’re leaving now,” I said. “We’ve learned what we needed to know. Open the door for us, assist our departure, and then close the door and seal it shut behind us. My people will check, at regular intervals, to make sure it stays closed.”
“Why should we assist you in even the smallest of ways?” said Queen Mab. It was meant to be a threat, but it sounded more like the sullen, sulky tones of a disappointed child.
“Well, put it this way,” I said. “You wouldn’t want us to stick around and spoil the rest of your day, would you?”