I have to ask, who or what do you need protecting from in the Shifting Lands?”
“They do things differently here,” said Walker. “Not all the dangers in this setting are immediately obvious. The Somnambulist . . . is quite extraordinarily powerful. For as long as she sleeps, she has the strength of dreams. She was once Carrys Galloway, the legendary Waking Beauty of that small but significant country town, Bradford-on-Avon.”
I nodded, remembering the story Molly had told me of her visit there, and her encounter with Carrys. The woman who never slept. Had never slept, for centuries upon centuries. Molly and her sister Isabella helped Carrys break her long-standing pact with the elven Queen Mab so she could finally sleep again.
“And now she’s sleeping hard, making up for lost time,” said Walker. As though he’d been listening in on my thoughts. “But she still has to pay off her debts to the Powers That Be for brokering the original deal those many years ago. Now she protects me from all threats. Until she wakes up.”
“Why?” I said. “Why do you need her?”
“The Game has been known to get a bit boisterous sometimes,” said Walker. “The players aren’t always willing to accept a decision that goes against them. Not when there’s so much riding on it.”
“Since when does the mighty Walker need an enforcer?”
“It is the nature of the Shifting Lands that they are constantly changing,” said Walker. “Particularly during the Game. I can’t be everywhere at once. But she can. Because she’s dreaming and therefore not bound by the limitations of the waking world.”
I nodded slowly. That sounded almost reasonable. So why didn’t I believe it? I looked at the Somnambulist, and then back at Walker, still standing carefully behind her.
“I want answers,” I said. “And I want Molly. And I’m going to get them, one way or another.”
“Typical Drood,” said Walker. “Subtle as a sledgehammer.”
“Stick with what works,” I said. “That’s what I always say . . .”
I advanced on Walker, but the Somnambulist didn’t move. Just stood there, quietly blocking the way, eyes shut. Her face was a complete blank, as though she was thinking about something else. Or perhaps more properly, dreaming about something else. I put one hand on her shoulder, gripping firmly, to steer her out of the way, but she didn’t move. I pushed again, harder, and I still couldn’t move her. It was like trying to shift a brick wall. I put both my hands on her bony shoulders, and set all my armoured strength against her; she didn’t even notice. Which was unheard of. A Drood in his armour can move a mountain if he puts his mind to it. I clamped down with my golden hands to pick the Somnambulist up bodily, and her hands came flashing up with impossible speed. They grabbed my arms just below the elbows, picked me up, and held me in mid-air, with no effort at all showing in her sleeping face. And then she just threw me away.
I shot through the air, tumbling helplessly end over end, until finally I crashed to earth again, some distance away. I hit hard, digging a deep trench in the grassy lawn, and rolled to a halt. The repeated impacts knocked all the breath out of me, even inside my armour, and for a while I just lay there, gathering my wits. It had been a long time since I’d been humiliated so easily.
Slowly and painfully, I hauled myself out of the deep hole I’d made, and straightened up. I was actually shaken at being dismissed so easily. As though I was nothing. I was also starting to feel seriously angry. Bad enough that Walker stood between me and Molly, but a sleeping woman as well? I felt a very definite need to prove I wasn’t going to be pushed around. I strode back across the lawns to face the Somnambulist again. It took me a while. I hadn’t realised she’d thrown me so far . . . Walker was still standing behind the quietly waiting Somnambulist. As I closed in on her, he shook his head at me, more in sorrow than in anger.
“You wouldn’t hit a woman, would you, Eddie?”
“Hell yes,” I said. “I’m a Drood.”
I walked right up to the Somnambulist and threw a punch at her head. She slapped the fist aside easily, even though she couldn’t have seen it coming with her eyes closed. I tried again, aiming the punch right between her eyes,