From a Drood to a Kill - Simon R. Green Page 0,110

Jack. Am I dead?”

“Not necessarily,” said the Armourer. “You’re feeling better because you’ve left your earthly cares and woes behind to come to this place in search of judgement and forgiveness and renewal. A new chance at life. You do want to return to the world above, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I said. “I have to. Molly is depending on me.”

The Armourer grinned. “You always were very single-minded. I approve of Molly. She’s good for you. Don’t ever tell her I said that. She’d hate to think she was a good influence on anyone.”

The dark waters suddenly levelled out, and our descent slowed and stopped. The barge eased to a halt beside a new platform that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Dead Boy grounded his long pole and leaned on it, nodding to me companionably.

“Okay, this is it. Even I can’t go any farther. See you around, Eddie. Hopefully.” He nodded to Jack. “Good seeing you again. I enjoyed your wake. Oh, sorry . . .”

“That’s all right,” said the Armourer. “I was there, in spirit.”

I stepped carefully up out of the barge and onto the platform, and the Armourer quickly joined me. Everything looked . . . perfectly ordinary, but once again there was no one around. The long, empty platform was bathed in a flat, characterless light, and the Destinations board consisted of just two arrows—one pointing up and the other pointing down. Some symbols are so obvious they’re not even really symbols. More like a slap round the back of the head. I turned to Jack and did my best to sound off-handed and confident.

“Okay, what are we doing here?”

“You’re here to face the Arbiter,” said Jack. “To tell the truth, at last; because nothing less can save and redeem you. It’s judgement night.”

I really didn’t like the sound of that. Particularly when I became aware that the flat light was fading steadily all around us. I looked back at the black river, but Dead Boy and his barge were already gone. Gloom closed in on Jack and me from all sides, until finally there was just a spotlight, sharp and clear and concentrated, falling out of nowhere onto me and Jack. Pinning us in place, like specimens mounted on a board.

“I’m on trial, aren’t I?” I said.

“Yes,” said the Armourer.

“By this . . . Arbiter? Who put him in charge? Who gave him authority over me?”

Jack smiled. “You did, Eddie.”

I sniffed loudly. “I’ve never liked authority figures. Even when I was one.”

A second spotlight stabbed down, abruptly illuminating a dark human silhouette sitting on a bar-stool not far away, facing me. A bar-stool that looked just like the one I’d been sitting on, not so long ago, at Jack’s wake in the Wulfshead Club. The dark figure leaned forward suddenly, and his face came into the light. It was, of course, me. Smiling.

“Yes,” said the Arbiter. “The one person you know you can’t lie to.”

I looked to my uncle Jack. “Is it too late to request a change in venue?”

“It was too late for that before we even came down here,” said the Armourer. “Some things just have to be faced, Eddie.”

“Who knows you better than me?” said the Arbiter. “Who can you trust to give you fair judgement, if not me? There can be no lies between us, no prevarications, no justifications. Just the truth. At last.”

“You must confess your sins, Eddie,” said Jack. “If you want to be forgiven. If you want to survive this. You were dying, up there, but this . . . is your chance to be reborn. If you’re worthy of it.”

I thought hard. This mattered; I could tell. I’d been hurt bad, by the London Knights. It was quite possible my broken body was lying huddled somewhere on Oxford Street, quietly bleeding out, while people just stepped over me and kept going. While my soul was . . . here. Wherever or whatever here was. I looked to Jack. He seemed realer than anything else. And if I was going to die, I couldn’t think of better company to do it in.

“All right,” I said. “For you, Uncle Jack.”

I turned to face myself, to face the Arbiter, and began my confession of sins. I talked about my career as a Drood field agent. Of the man I’d been, and the man I’d wanted to be; and the man my family had tried and failed to make me into. About the things I was ordered to do that sometimes I agreed