From a Drood to a Kill - Simon R. Green Page 0,135

world like that?”

“Because they can,” said Walker.

“The Powers That Be can’t control everything that happens here,” I said. I was starting to get short of breath from the climb.

“No . . . ,” said Walker. “But they can and do decide what will best serve the Game, and its players. They always take a keen interest.”

“While you’re in such a helpful mood,” I said, “tell me, is there anything in particular I should look out for?”

“Parts of this world can break away,” Walker said carefully. “And form themselves into specific, individual people. Apparently separate living beings can appear in this world, under the urging of hidden thoughts or needs from the Game’s competitors. Sometimes you can’t tell the players from the playing pieces. The players from the played. It’s that kind of place, and that kind of Game.”

“Terrific,” I said.

“So remember, not everything you encounter is necessarily going to be who, or even what, it seems.” Walker broke off, smiling, apparently quite pleased with the thought. “Or even who they believe themselves to be.”

“Including you?” I said, perhaps just a bit spitefully.

“Of course!” said Walker. “Now you’re getting it . . . It’s not unknown for old friends and enemies, the living and the dead, to appear to take part in the Big Game. Some will be real, and some won’t. Good luck figuring out which is which. And which of them you can trust.”

“Should you really be telling me all this?” I said. I was finding it hard to get my breath now, from the climb and the altitude. Walker didn’t seem at all bothered by the climb or the conditions. Neither did the Somnambulist. Walker considered my question carefully.

“Perhaps,” he said finally. “Perhaps not. Who can tell? If I’m not really me (and I have to say, it does feel like me), then perhaps the Powers That Be made me too well. In which case, I am Walker. Particularly if I’m dead everywhere else.”

“If you were to leave here,” I said, “and step outside the Shifting Lands, would you still be Walker?”

“What a fascinating question!” He actually stopped for a moment, to think about it, and the Somnambulist stopped with him. I stopped too, glad of a chance to get my breath. If the mountain wasn’t real, climbing it felt real enough. Walker smiled briefly. “I suppose it would depend on who and what I really am. Though it would be one hell of a way to find out I’d guessed wrong . . .”

“Why did the Powers That Be take Molly?” I said. “Do you know? I mean, there must be any number of people who’ve got in too deep and owe too many people . . . Why choose her, out of all of them? When the Powers That Be must have known that the infamous Molly Metcalf has friends and family who will never stop looking for her?”

“The Powers That Be don’t explain themselves to me,” said Walker. “They don’t need to. They move in mysterious ways because they can. But I am convinced they have a purpose in everything they do. Maybe, quite simply, it was her turn.”

He shot me a quick glance over his shoulder as he set off again. “Come on, Eddie. Nearly there.”

“Nearly where?” I said testily, forcing myself onward again.

Everything changed again, and we were walking through the massive nave of an impossibly huge Cathedral. A building so big I couldn’t see the beginning or end of it. The farthest walls seemed to be miles away, the ceiling unbearably high. The sheer scale of the building was staggering. The Cathedral was a city, a world, in its own right. Far too huge to be anywhere real, or even historical. Warm sunlight spilled in through massive stylised stained-glass windows. But when I looked closely at the designs on the nearest wall, I discovered the depicted Saints were all Droods I knew. James and Jack, Arthur and Martha, Cedric and William, all wearing golden medieval-styled armour, with old-fashioned circular halos around their exposed heads. They were all fighting hideous demons, and losing.

I deliberately turned my head away. The interior space of the Cathedral was impossibly huge, a space too large for the human mind to comfortably comprehend. Walker just strode forward across the bare stone floor in an unwaveringly straight line, looking neither left nor right, with enough confidence to suggest he knew where he was going. The Somnambulist followed him, and I followed her. Our feet made no sound at all