From a Drood to a Kill - Simon R. Green Page 0,168

remembered Walker saying how the people made from the Shifting Lands could sometimes actually believe they were what they’d been made to resemble. But this wasn’t Molly. This thing might look like her, but it didn’t act like her. Not really. So even though it broke my heart, I looked her right in the eye, and denied her.

“I don’t believe in you,” I said.

She screamed something at me, but she was already disappearing, fading away. Her scream vanished along with her, leaving me standing alone, in the middle of nowhere. And the rage in my heart, for what had been done to me, and for what they’d tried to make me do . . . was a very cold thing indeed.

* * *

I could feel my armour returning to its normal shape and configuration as I regained control of myself. I looked at my hands, and they were just gloves. I had sworn never to kill again, but it had been close, so close. Killing things that looked like people, that I had been sure weren’t people, had weakened my conviction. Which was, of course, the point. I armoured down. I didn’t want any distractions from what I was about to do. I lifted my head and addressed the grey and empty space around me.

“I know who you are, now. Who you have to be. Walker was right; the clue was in the title you gave yourselves. The Powers That Be . . . Only one people I know of would be that arrogant. I encountered a setting like this before, not so long ago. On a smaller scale, but . . . A soft world, out in the subtle realms, inhabited by elves. The only people who would feel at home in such a place. The only people arrogant enough to want a whole world that would do what it was told. So come forth, you Powers. Come forth and face me, King Oberon and Queen Titania.”

A new world appeared around me, sinking into place with a cold and cheerless authority. An elven setting, with ancient stone and coral buildings whose long sweeping lines seemed more organic than functional. I was standing in a rose garden, but I knew better than to try to touch the blood-coloured flowers. I knew from experience that the dark, bitter green leaves would have razor-sharp serrated edges. The thick, pulpy flowers pouted and pulsed rhythmically, as though they were breathing. Gathering up their venom, to spit at anyone foolish enough to come within range. Statues stood scattered about the garden, in alarmingly naturalistic poses, elves caught in mid-motion, as though transfixed by a Gorgon’s gaze.

The grass was a faded green, as though the life had been sucked out of it. The sky was almost unnaturally blue, flat and featureless, without a single cloud. The sun blazed fiercely, but shed little warmth. A great circle of massive standing stones surrounded the rose garden, sealing it off from the rest of the world. The stone henges looked oddly new, as though they’d only recently been hauled into position. But then, everyone knows the elves are far older than anything mankind has to offer.

King Oberon and Queen Titania stood before me, tall and regal and imposing. Oberon was a good ten feet tall, bulging with muscles, wrapped in a long blood-red cloak and leggings, the better to show off his milk-white skin. His hair was a colourless blonde, hanging loose around his long angular face, which was dominated by golden eyes with no pupils. He smiled a smile with no humour in it. His bone structure was subtly inhuman, and he had sharp pointed ears. He looked effortlessly noble, and regal, but worn thin, by age and hard times. He had taken his throne from Queen Mab through intrigue and violence, and it showed.

Titania wore a long black robe with outré silver patterns, and wore it with a casual, brooding elegance. She was lovelier than any mere mortal woman could ever hope to be, and she knew it, and didn’t give a damn. She was a few inches taller than Oberon, though her musculature was leaner and more aesthetic. But still inhumanly powerful. Her skin was so pale that blue veins showed clearly at her temples. She wore her blonde hair cropped severely short, and her dark gaze was cold and calculating.

They both wore simple crowns of beaten gold, and held themselves like the immortal royalty they were, and always would be. Because they had nothing