Daemons Are Forever

CHAPTER FIVE

These Two Baby Seals Walk into a Club…

Visiting the family Armourer is always an interesting experience, and often an excellent chance to test how good your reflexes are. There’s always something loud and noisy going on, usually of an explosive nature, and how productive a visit you have can depend on your ability to duck and cover at speed. So when I went to visit the Armoury, set deep in the bedrock under the Hall, so that when things inevitably go wrong at least the rest of the family will be protected from the awful consequences, my first surprise was how quiet and peaceful everything seemed. The Armoury is basically a long series of co

The place seemed busy enough. Interns in stained lab coats clustered around computers and chalked pentacles, chattering animatedly with each other as they designed new, terrible things to unleash on the enemies of humanity. One young man with recent scorch marks on his coat was working industriously on a portable lightning generator, while another was cautiously testing an aerosol that could spray plague in any chosen direction. Judging by the look of him, he was still having problems with blowbacks. Giving him plenty of room, I moved on, and then looked up to see an intern walking upside down across the high stone ceiling, using boots that stuck to the stone. He waved cheerfully to those watching from below, and then one foot slipped right out of the boot, and he was left dangling precariously from the one boot still stuck to the ceiling. He called piteously for help, and another intern, with what I fervently hoped were only temporary bat wings sprouting from her back, fluttered up to assist him.

Meanwhile, half a dozen interns with the same face stood together in a tight circle, arguing fiercely over who was the original and who were the clones. And one guy sat giggling inside a glass pyramid while an endless stream of butterflies flew out of his nose. Just another day in the Armoury, basically.

So why did the whole place seem so … subdued? No sudden bangs or fires or clouds of poisonous gas drifting on the air … I strode through the Armoury, stepping carefully over clumps of colour-coded wires and the occasional exploded test animal, and finally spotted the Armourer himself, sitting hunched over a workbench, as usual. He was tinkering with some new gadget, trying to make it do what it was supposed to do through a combination of craft, genius, bullying, and bad language. He looked around as I sat down beside him and sniffed loudly.

“This is all your fault, you know. All this u

“Then make sure the list is ready for me when I get back,” I said patiently. “I’ll see that everyone who needs one, gets one.”

The Armourer looked at me sharply. “Get back? What do you mean, get back? You’re not off again, are you? You haven’t been home ten minutes!”

“I find my family is best appreciated in small doses,” I said solemnly.

“Yes, well, there is that,” said the Armourer. “But while the cat’s away, you may find the rats getting damned uppity. It’s only your presence and example that’s holding this family together in these troubled times. And now that Harry’s back…”

“Don’t worry about Harry,” I said. “I can handle him, if I have to.”

“Oh good,” said Molly, strolling over to join us and kicking a wandering dodo out of the way. “Does that mean we don’t need to be nice to Roger anymore, and I’m free to kill him in slow, horrible, and i

“You really do nurse a grudge, don’t you?” I said.

“You have no idea,” said Molly.

“I was just telling Uncle Jack that we’re off to look up a few old friends,” I said. “You ready to go?”

“Of course. Are you?”

“Not quite.” I turned back to the Armourer. “We could use some of your latest gadgets and dirty tricks on this one. What have you got?”

“Ah,” said the Armourer, brightening up. He was always happiest when discussing new methods of murder and mayhem. “I just might have a few new things that will chill and thrill you, only waiting for some brave soul to test them out in the field…”

“Hold it,” said Molly, peering over the Armourer’s shoulder. “What is that you’re working on there?”

He scowled. “It’s supposed to go bang. And it doesn’t.” He picked up a large lump hammer and hit the black box before him. Molly and I both flinched, and I wrestled the lump hammer away from the Armourer and put it down safely out of reach. His scowl deepened. “You have to teach technology to respect you! It needs to know who’s in charge!”

“You can try again later,” I said. “When we’re both safely out of range. Now, tell me about your new gadgets.”

“Yes, well… To start with, you’d better have this.” He took a heavy sheaf of handwritten papers out of his desk drawer and handed them to me. “This is your instruction manual for Merlin’s Glass. Don’t let anyone else see it. I wrote it all out in longhand so there’d be no record in the computers. Something this powerful needs to be kept strictly confidential.”

“There’s over forty pages here,” I said feebly.

“And more to come,” said the Armourer. “The damned thing’s full of extra options, many of which I don’t fully understand. Yet. Typical Merlin; couldn’t just make the Glass he was asked for… had to show off… These are just the options I’ve identified so far, along with the activating Words. And don’t go experimenting, Eddie; the thing’s probably full of booby traps for the unwary. It’s what I would have done. And Merlin Satanspawn was apparently renowned for his strange and unpleasant sense of humour.”

“You sure he wasn’t a Drood?” I said, thumbing quickly through the pages.

“Pay attention, Eddie. The two most useful options are these: the Glass can see everywhere in the present, as well as the past and the future, and it can also be used as a door, for immediate transport to anywhere in the world. Just tell it where you want to go, tug at the frame till it’s big enough, and then step through.”

I gave up on the pages, folded them neatly, and stuffed them into an inside pocket of my jacket. “Thank you, Uncle Jack. I’m sure it’ll be very helpful. But I was hoping for something a bit more…aggressive.”

“Hold everything,” said Molly. “If the Glass can show us scenes from absolutely everywhere in the present…we can use it to spy on people in the shower, or on the toilet! Maybe even take incriminating photographs! The possibilities for blackmail are endless!”

“You can take the witch out of the wood…” murmured the Armourer.

“Let’s test it!” said Molly. “Go on, you know you want to.”

I took the silver-framed hand mirror out of my pocket and hefted it thoughtfully in my hand. “I suppose we should try it out, in the spirit of scientific enquiry. Just to make sure it can do what it’s supposed to do.”

“That’s my boy!” the Armourer said cheerfully.

I sighed. “You are both such a bad influence on me.”

I used the activating Words I’d memorised from the pages and ordered the Glass to show me what the Matriarch was doing, right then. Molly and the Armourer crowded in on either side of me as we stared into the Glass. Our reflections became dim and uncertain, and then were suddenly replaced by a view of the Matriarch’s bedchamber. It was as though we were watching from someplace by the door, unseen and unsuspected. Martha was now sitting on a chair beside the bed, ignoring Alistair, who stared up at the ceiling, making low, dreamy sounds. Presumably there had been a heavy dose of something in the soup. The Matriarch’s bedroom was still full of friends and supporters, but now she had new guests: Harry and the Sarjeant-at-Arms. I wasn’t really surprised to see either of them. Harry, because he needed support if he were to establish a new power base inside the family, and the Sarjeant because I’d always known which way his sympathies went, even before I invited him into my I