to another. The coordinates decided what place the Door opened onto. So I set my armoured hand on the dial and let golden filaments burrow deep into the mechanism. The dial fought me, but it was no match for Ethel’s marvellous strange matter. There was a sudden sense of the Door throwing up its hands and going Oh hell, have it your own way, and the dial spun madly round and round under my hand before settling on the destination I wanted. The Shifting Lands. The Door started to swing open, and I stepped back.
The terrible emptiness was gone, replaced by brightly shining mists that curled and twisted before me. I called out to Kate through my torc, and she answered immediately. I brought her up to date on what had just happened and what I intended to do next.
“No, Eddie!” she said. “You can’t just dive straight in! Don’t trust the Door! Let me send some engineers in to inspect it first.”
“I have to do this,” I said. “It’s the only way to Molly.”
“At least wait for backup! You don’t have to do this on your own, Eddie!”
“Yes, I do,” I said. “Molly’s expecting me.”
And I strode forward, through the Door and into the Shifting Lands.
CHAPTER TEN
The Rules Are What We
Say They Are
When I think of all the Doors I’ve walked through, often with only a suspicion of what might be on the other side, or where I might end up, it frankly astonishes me that I’m still around. It’s like rolling the dice while wearing boxing gloves, knowing they’re fixed but hoping whoever did it owes you a favour.
The moment I passed through the Travel Bureau’s Door, the swirling mists glowed a dozen different colours, and then just disappeared, like curtains drawing back so the play can begin. I stood braced in my armour; ready for action, ready for anything. Except. . . . the scene before me.
I was back on the grounds of Drood Hall. The familiar grassy lawns stretched away into the distance under a bright Summer sun. It was all very calm, very peaceful. I felt a bit of an idiot, standing there in full armour with absolutely nothing threatening in view, so I relaxed just a little and armoured down. My first thought was to wonder whether my family might have interrupted my journey and brought me home by force. They’d done it before, when they disapproved of something I intended to do. I smiled, and just knew it wasn’t a pleasant smile. I was going to find and save my Molly and no one was going to stop me, not even my family. Perhaps especially not my family.
I looked around for someone to yell at and discovered that the Door had disappeared from behind me. The Travel Bureau people had been right; the Door existed only from the other side. And the next thing I noticed . . . was that while everything in the grounds looked exactly as it should, there was still something wrong, something . . . off, about my surroundings. I looked around me slowly, frowning. The grounds were deserted. Where was everybody? It all seemed unnaturally quiet and still. At this time of day there should have been any number of people out and about, but there were no security patrols, no gardeners, no happy young things taking a break just to enjoy the Summer day . . . No autogyros or flying saucers or winged unicorns sweeping by overhead. None of the familiar sights of home. I couldn’t even hear the usual harsh cries of peacocks and gryphons. There wasn’t a breath of moving air, and no scent of freshly cut grass. And when I finally looked up, into the bright blue sky, I realised none of the clouds were moving.
It was like standing in a photograph. Or perhaps a moment clipped out of Time and preserved.
Drood Hall was gone. My heart lurched sickly as I realised that while I was looking straight at where the Hall should have been nothing but empty open space was there, just wide, grassy lawns sweeping away forever. I looked frantically around me, but there was no sign of the Hall anywhere. The grand old manor house that had stood for centuries, protecting the family within as they protected the world . . . had been wiped out of existence.
I remembered coming home once before to find Drood Hall completely destroyed. A burned-out ruin, full of dead bodies. Of course, that