Daemons Are Forever

“If you’ll follow me to the Time Train,” I said, just a bit breathlessly, “I think it’s time we were getting out of here.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Giles. “I could use a break.”

We headed back towards Ivor, still encased in Molly’s protective shield. The airships flew back and forth overhead, energy beams stabbing down on and around the engine. None of them seemed to be getting through. All the snow around the Time Train was gone now, blasted away right down to the bedrock.

“The sooner we can get out of here, the better,” Giles said conversationally. “The emperor will send reinforcements, as soon as word gets back that I am still alive. He’ll send a whole army, if that’s what it takes to bring me down.”

“I thought you said you served the emperor?”

“I did,” said Giles. “But I am currently out of favour, at court. It’s…complicated.”

“Somehow I just knew it would be,” I said. “Is there by any chance a woman involved?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

I had to smile. “There’s always a woman involved.”

Once we were close enough to the Time Train for Molly to spot us, she set about distracting the airships by broadcasting illusions. A dozen different Ivors appeared, scattered all around the real thing, each with its own apparent protective shield. But the airships must have had some kind of sensors because they weren’t fooled for a moment. They just kept pounding away at the screen surrounding the real Ivor. A dozen huge yellow dragons appeared above us, clashing horribly with the pink sky. They launched themselves at the airships, which fired back reflexively. Energy beams flashed right through the illusions and actually took out some of the other airships. There were explosions in the sky and broken airships fell out of the air like burning birds.

By now Giles and I had reached the Time Train, and Molly opened a door in her protective screen just long enough for the two of us to hurry through. I armoured down, and then paused as I reached for the ladder leading up to the cab. The one energy beam that had punched through the screen had gouged a deep furrow all the way along Ivor’s black steel side, and steam or something very like it was venting furiously from the open wound. I scrambled up into the cab, with Giles close behind me. Tony was bouncing from one gauge to another, worriedly studying the shifting readings, while Molly sat cross-legged on the floor, working on maintaining the protective screen.

“Greetings to one and all,” Giles said cheerfully. “Is my translator working now? Good. Allow me to present myself. I have the honour to be Giles VomAcht Deathstalker, Warrior Prime to the emperor Ethur, at your service.”

“Wonderful,” said Molly, not looking up. “Now shut up and let me concentrate on the only thing keeping us all from being blown to shit.”

“Ah,” said Giles. “You’re an esper!”

“No, I’m a witch.”

“Oh,” said Giles. “One of those…”

Given the way he said it, and the look on Molly’s face, I just knew this conversation wasn’t going to go anywhere useful, so I turned to Tony.

“How bad is the damage to the engine?”

“Bad enough, bad enough. God alone knows what it’s done to Ivor’s containment fields…”

“Can you still get us out of here, and back home?”

“I don’t know! If we try, and the fields buckle, they’ll be finding bits and pieces of us all across history.”

“Never mind the if,” I said. “See those shapes, emerging from the mists on the horizon? They look very much like reinforcements to me, and lots of them, and I really don’t think we should still be here when they arrive. We need to go now, Tony.”

He glared at me, and then slammed home all the long steel levers, one after the other. Ivor shook and shuddered. Tony started shovelling his crystallised tachyons into the fuel chamber again. Giles considered this thoughtfully.

“I hadn’t realised you came from so far back in the past…”

“One more word out of you, and you can get out and push,” said Tony, shovelling for all he was worth.

“Don’t bother the engineer while he’s working,” I said to Giles. “He’ll just get tetchy.”

A whole bunch of energy beams hit the protective screen all at once, and Molly cried out in pain, her eyes squeezed shut with the strain of maintaining the field. A trickle of blood burst out from under her left eyelid. Tony slammed the fuel chamber door shut, and then threw the throttle all the way open, muttering a mixture of prayers, obscenities, and encouragements to Ivor under his breath. Ivor lurched forward, sending us all staggering, and then headed for the Merlin Glass, which was once again hovering in the air before us. One of the airships shot at it, and the energy beam rebounded straight back to blow the airship out of the sky. It figured that anything built by Merlin Satanspawn would be able to defend itself.

The other airships increased their fire on Ivor as he began to move, chugging unevenly through the thick snow, but none of the attacks got through, even as Molly’s face ran with sweat, and more blood ran from her clenched shut eyes. Ivor slowly built up speed, the snowy waste slipping away behind us, until the Merlin Glass seemed to sweep forward and swallow us up; and just like that we left the alien world behind us, plunging back through the other side of space and time, heading for home.

Molly relaxed with a great shuddering sigh and leaned exhausted against the i

Ivor was clearly straining. His speed seemed to rise and fall, and his insides made strange and worrying noises. Tony fussed endlessly over the various gauges, making constant small adjustments to his levers, while keeping up a monologue of encouraging, soothing words to his beloved engine. Giles stood patiently on his own, his arms folded across his chest, looking interestedly out at the oceans of stars around us. After a while, Molly was able to open her eyes again, and once I was sure they weren’t damaged after all, I got up to talk with Giles. I thought I ought to try and make him feel welcome…but it wasn’t easy. Although our translation was still working well enough, there was a hell of a lot of history between us, and it was sometimes hard to find words, or even concepts, we had in common. We couldn’t even be sure how many centuries separated us.

“I’m taking you back to Earth,” I said. “At the begi

Giles just shrugged. “Sorry, means nothing to me. I’m from the centre of the empire, Heartworld, in the thirty-second century of the New Age. And before that, from a small colony world out on the rim.”

“And you used to work for the emperor?” I said carefully.

“Well, still do, officially. I am Warrior Prime, by popular acclaim leader of the Emperor’s Host in battle. The emperor will take me back, once we’ve put this little…misunderstanding behind us.”

“Won’t he miss you?”

“Ethur? He’ll be glad to see the back of me, for a time. Give him a chance to cool down, let my supporters make reparations behind the scenes…and then he can summon me back to court without losing face. Some emergency will arise that only the Warrior Prime can deal with; something always does. And then he’ll welcome me back with open arms. He’ll have to. He needs me. He might rule the empire, but I’m the one who keeps the peace.” He looked at me thoughtfully. “You can get me back again, can’t you?”

“Oh sure,” I said immediately, trying hard to sound confident. “That’s the joy of time travel. We can return you to your exact departure point in space and time, give or take a few seconds.”

“I’d rather you allowed a few months,” said Giles.