pointing bone at me, and something slammed against my armoured chest like a cannonball. The sound echoed through the Jewel House, as though someone had just struck a great golden bell, but I didn’t move. I felt no impact inside my marvellous armour. I advanced slowly on Big Aus as he stabbed the bone at me again and again, and every time the impact and the sound was less.
Big Aus shrugged quickly, stuffed the pointing bone back into his pocket, and gabbled something in a language I didn’t understand. Which worried me just a bit, because my torc was supposed to translate every language I heard, or at the very least supply best-guess subtitles. These words were so old, so ancient and separate, that they predated the Druids who eventually became the Droods. Big Aus really had done his homework.
I was almost within arm’s reach of him. I showed him a golden fist, with spikes rising up from the golden knuckles. He wasn’t smiling anymore, his voice strained by the uncivilised words, his broad red face shining with sweat. He backpedaled so fast he was almost running, but he still stayed close to the Crown Jewels, refusing to be driven away. And then he spat out the last few words, and a snake big as all the world appeared out of nowhere and wrapped itself around me.
It was huge beyond bearing, its coils big as tube trains, superimposed on the Jewel House but no less real for that, twisting slowly as the coils tightened around me. It wasn’t a real snake, of course. This was the spirit of a Snake, an ancient ur-spirit in snake form, called back out of the Dreaming by Words that should never have been spoken. I couldn’t believe any Aboriginal shaman would have willingly surrendered these Words to Big Aus, no matter what he was promised. Spirits like this should never be summoned back into our limited physical world; they always have their own agenda.
Big Aus was chanting more Words now at the iron bars surrounding the Crown Jewels. Protective spells sparked and sputtered and went out, and the metal bars dropped and ran away like melting candle wax. I could See it all through the coils of the snake, and I had had enough. It might be an ancient spirit made flesh, perhaps even an elder god let back into the world from which it had been driven long ago, but it was still just a snake, and I was a Drood. Through the golden mask I could See its life force flowing through the massive coils like a river of burning light. I thrust my armoured hand deep into the unnatural snake flesh, closed my golden fist around the life force, and squeezed . The snake screamed once, and then vanished, disappearing back into the safety of the Dreamtime.
And I was left alone in the Tower with Big Aus.
He looked at the Crown Jewels, defenceless before him, and then at me. “You can’t stop me,” he said defiantly. “I’ve prepared too long for this. I have weapons and devices enough to stop even a Drood in his tracks and a teleport spell already set up to take me and the jewels right out of here.”
“You might have the weapons,” I said. “But I know the right Words.”
And I spoke aloud the Words the family Armourer had sent me, written in his own hand on a one-time-only sheet of parchment. Words that disappeared even as I memorised them, because they were too dangerous to be read by anyone who wasn’t family and protected. Old Words, powerful Words. I’d really hoped I wouldn’t have to use them, because they were a summoning to forces best left undisturbed. And the first principle of magic is, do not call up what you cannot as easily put down.
But needs must, when the Devil drives. I spoke the Words, and one by one they came; the old Kings and Queens of England. Their spirits bound by their own will to answer the call, in this place, to serve England again in her time of need. Kings from Athelstan to Canute, Henries and Richards, Queens Mary and Elizabeth and even poor Anne of the Thousand Days. They stood tall and proud in their
Big Aus shrugged quickly, stuffed the pointing bone back into his pocket, and gabbled something in a language I didn’t understand. Which worried me just a bit, because my torc was supposed to translate every language I heard, or at the very least supply best-guess subtitles. These words were so old, so ancient and separate, that they predated the Druids who eventually became the Droods. Big Aus really had done his homework.
I was almost within arm’s reach of him. I showed him a golden fist, with spikes rising up from the golden knuckles. He wasn’t smiling anymore, his voice strained by the uncivilised words, his broad red face shining with sweat. He backpedaled so fast he was almost running, but he still stayed close to the Crown Jewels, refusing to be driven away. And then he spat out the last few words, and a snake big as all the world appeared out of nowhere and wrapped itself around me.
It was huge beyond bearing, its coils big as tube trains, superimposed on the Jewel House but no less real for that, twisting slowly as the coils tightened around me. It wasn’t a real snake, of course. This was the spirit of a Snake, an ancient ur-spirit in snake form, called back out of the Dreaming by Words that should never have been spoken. I couldn’t believe any Aboriginal shaman would have willingly surrendered these Words to Big Aus, no matter what he was promised. Spirits like this should never be summoned back into our limited physical world; they always have their own agenda.
Big Aus was chanting more Words now at the iron bars surrounding the Crown Jewels. Protective spells sparked and sputtered and went out, and the metal bars dropped and ran away like melting candle wax. I could See it all through the coils of the snake, and I had had enough. It might be an ancient spirit made flesh, perhaps even an elder god let back into the world from which it had been driven long ago, but it was still just a snake, and I was a Drood. Through the golden mask I could See its life force flowing through the massive coils like a river of burning light. I thrust my armoured hand deep into the unnatural snake flesh, closed my golden fist around the life force, and squeezed . The snake screamed once, and then vanished, disappearing back into the safety of the Dreamtime.
And I was left alone in the Tower with Big Aus.
He looked at the Crown Jewels, defenceless before him, and then at me. “You can’t stop me,” he said defiantly. “I’ve prepared too long for this. I have weapons and devices enough to stop even a Drood in his tracks and a teleport spell already set up to take me and the jewels right out of here.”
“You might have the weapons,” I said. “But I know the right Words.”
And I spoke aloud the Words the family Armourer had sent me, written in his own hand on a one-time-only sheet of parchment. Words that disappeared even as I memorised them, because they were too dangerous to be read by anyone who wasn’t family and protected. Old Words, powerful Words. I’d really hoped I wouldn’t have to use them, because they were a summoning to forces best left undisturbed. And the first principle of magic is, do not call up what you cannot as easily put down.
But needs must, when the Devil drives. I spoke the Words, and one by one they came; the old Kings and Queens of England. Their spirits bound by their own will to answer the call, in this place, to serve England again in her time of need. Kings from Athelstan to Canute, Henries and Richards, Queens Mary and Elizabeth and even poor Anne of the Thousand Days. They stood tall and proud in their
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