Like the elegantly long-legged rococo cat-faced robots that were walking with us, which he"d picked up from some future Chinese time-line. Gleaming curves of metal, more works of art than functional servants, topped with stylised cat faces, complete with jutting steel whiskers and slit-pupilled eyes that glowed bright green in the gloom. They moved with an eerie grace, tap-tapping along on their tiny metal paw-like feet. Now and again, one of the robots would flex its steel-clawed hands, as though considering what it would like to do if it wasn"t bound by the Collector"s commands.
It was dark all around us now, the only illumination spilling out from the Collector"s spotlight.
"I have to be careful," the Collector said abruptly. "There are people out there who would stop at nothing to rob me of my lovely treasures. Other collectors, rogue traders-thieves, the lot of them!"
"Indeed," I murmured. "How dare they steal the things you stole first?"
"I appreciate them!" the Collector said haughtily. "And I never give up anything that"s mine. My lovely things."
Light flared up around us, and Lud"s Gate Station was gone. A new warm, golden glow revealed a huge warehouse, sprawling away in all directions. Ma.s.sive gla.s.s display cases held all the wonders of the world, arranged in rank upon rank for as far as the eye could see, along with shelves and shelves of curios and collectables, the popular trash of decades past and future, everything rare and valuable from every period of Time. It was a maze, a labyrinth, of rarities and marvels, toys and trinkets, objets d"art and objets trouves ... If it was bright and shiny, the Collector had an eye for it.
"You can look," the Collector said grudgingly. "But don"t touch! Every time I let you in, Taylor, things get broken. But see for yourself: there are no people here! Unless someone"s tried to break in again. I haven"t checked the traps recently."
I looked at Larry and had to grin. His dead face finally held an emotion, and it was as much shock as awe. Like many people, he"d heard about the Collector"s legendary h.o.a.rd, but the reality was so much bigger. The Collector had promised us half an hour, but you couldn"t manage a proper look around in under a month. Not that I felt the need to examine everything. If the Collector had started picking up people, they"d have been set out on prominent display, in pride of place, so he could gloat over them. And there weren"t any.
I wandered down the aisle before me, Larry stumbling along behind. I pointed out a few things of particular interest. A stuffed waterbaby, covered in thorns; a frozen water ghost in a refrigerated container; and the original sketches for the Turin Shroud. Two of the cat robots followed us at a respectful distance, ready to tell on us to the Collector if we got too close to anything. After a while, I stopped before a diorama of stuffed giant albino penguins and looked at Larry.
"Walker lied," I said.
"It would appear so," said Larry. "But why would he lie about my brother?"
"The devil always lies," I said. "Except when a truth can hurt you more. But you"re right; why would he lie about this?"
The Collector laughed harshly, and we both looked around. He was watching from a safe distance, surrounded by his cat robots.
"If you"ve started trusting Walker, you"re really letting the side down, Taylor. He always has a plan inside a scheme inside an agenda, and he"ll tell you whatever he needs to tell you to get you to do what he wants you to do. Face it, Taylor; he sent you on a wild goose chase to get you out of his way; and you fell for it."
"Looks like it," I said. "Sorry to have troubled you. Show us the way out, and we"ll be going."
"No," said the Collector. "I don"t think so." He leaned casually against an old-fashioned grandfather clock, with a cobwebbed human skeleton propped up inside it. His gaze was clear and cold, and he didn"t seem nearly as out of it as he had before. "I"ve been thinking, Taylor, and it seems to me ... that you owe me far more than I owe you. I lost my leg to those giant insects at the end of Time, all because of you."
Larry looked at me. "You do get around, don"t you?"
"I"ve replaced the leg a dozen times," said the Collector, still glaring at me. "I"ve used machines, cloned tissues, even regrown it using a lizard serum; but it never feels right. I still have nightmares about the insects eating my skin and burrowing into my flesh, while you stood by and did nothing."
"Is that right?" said Larry.
"Sort of," I said. "There was more to it than that. He was planning to do something far worse..."
"Shut up!" said the Collector. "This is my moment, not yours! If you"d just left me alone, I might have let bygones be bygones ... but no, here you are again, intruding and interfering and insulting me in my own home. Relying on my guilt over a few minor past indiscretions to keep me in line ... Well, I have had enough of you, John Taylor. I don"t care if you are Charles"s son. I don"t care about Charles or Henry or your mother, or any other ... people. I don"t care about people! They always let you down. I like my things, my wonderful things. You can depend on them to be what they are and nothing else, forever and ever. So I"m going to flush you out of my life, Taylor, because I don"t care any more."
"You see," I said to Larry. "Told you that you and he had a lot in common."
"Yes, but I"m dead," said Larry. "What"s his excuse?"
The Collector actually stamped his sandalled foot in rage, his face flushed an unhealthy shade of purple. "You never take me seriously, Taylor! You always have to make fun of me, and my marvellous collection! You never appreciated me!"
"You looked after me, sometimes, when I was a kid and my dad couldn"t," I said. "I remember that, Uncle Mark. I appreciated that man. Whatever happened to him?"
"No. Don"t you dare," said the Collector. "That was a long time ago. We were all different people then."
"And look what"s become of us," I said. "All your travels in time, and you couldn"t see what was coming? That man with his whole future before him ... He couldn"t avoid ending up a lonely, sad, old man, surrounded by things?"
"Kill them," the Collector said to his robots. "Kill John Taylor, and rip his dead friend to pieces."
The cat robots started forward, inhumanly graceful, taking their time, closing in from all sides to leave us no chance of escape. Their slow, studied approach had something in it of the cruelty of cats. Larry pulled out his magic wand, started to say something, then stopped abruptly.
"That won"t work here," I said, looking quickly about for possible escape routes and maybe even a weapon. "The Collector has wards in place for unexpected items like yours."
"Pretty little thing," said the Collector, from behind the safety of his robots. "Elven, isn"t it? Thought so. Wasted on a dead thug like you, Oblivion. But it"ll make a fine addition to my new elf annex. And you needn"t try raising your gift, either, Taylor; I"ve got shaped charges hanging on the air, bristling with antic.i.p.ation, ready to do really quite appalling things if you even peek through your inner eye. Should have set them up years ago."
"Come on, Collector," I said, doing my best to sound brave and heroic and not in any way panicking. "You can"t kill me. You know lots of people will track you down to avenge me."
"I"ll bet a h.e.l.l of a lot more will celebrate," said the Collector. "h.e.l.l. Half of the Nightside will probably throw a party. With streamers and balloons. Besides, no-one will ever know it was me. You and your unpleasant a.s.sociate will join my collection, as very small portions in a series of very small boxes. Then maybe I"ll be able to get some proper sleep at last."
I"d looked everywhere and run out of options. The cat robots had covered every possible escape route, and there were no obvious weapons out on display. None of the usual cursed needles, singing swords, or interstellar blasters. Not even anything heavy enough to pa.s.s for a blunt instrument. The robots were all around us now and pressing closer. The Collector didn"t allow them weapons, in case they might damage any of his beloved exhibits, but they still had their inhuman strength and wickedly sharp claws.
"Don"t suppose you"ve a gun on you, by any chance?" said Larry.
"I don"t like guns," I said. "Besides, most of the time I"m smart enough to avoid getting caught in situations where I might need them. I really thought I had the Collector intimidated ... or at the very least, sufficiently guilt-tripped ..."
"On the whole, I"d have to say he doesn"t look intimidated," said Larry. "And no; I don"t have a gun on me either. I"ve grown far too dependent on my wand since I died."
"Yes," I said. "Tricky."
"Well, don"t just stand there; do something! Those robots are getting b.l.o.o.d.y close! I do not want to spend the rest of my life as kitty litter! I"m dead, not invulnerable."
"I told you that," I said. "And will you please stop hyperventilating? It"s really very unattractive in a dead person. Dead Boy never makes a fuss like this when we work together."
"Dead Boy is crazy!"
"There is that, yes ... I think we should grab some of the more fragile-looking exhibits, and build a barricade between us and the robots. The Collector won"t let them damage anything."
"Are you sure about that?" said Larry.
"I"m betting my life on it."
It didn"t take long to drag some of the shelves and display cases into place around us, pushing the more delicate objects to the front. A gla.s.s phallus from the Court of Cleo patra, engraved with snake scales; dainty china b.u.t.terflies from the Court of Versailles, with tiny erotica hand-painted on the wings; and half a dozen paper ghosts from Hiroshima. And sure enough, once the Collector realised what we were doing, he stopped his robots in their tracks rather than have them break anything. Things would always matter more to him than any human emotions, even revenge. He glared at us, and we glared right back at him, and there was no telling where the stalemate might have taken us, if we hadn"t been distracted by the sound of deliberate, approaching footsteps. We all looked round sharply, and there was Walker; strolling through the packed shelves and cases, as calm and composed and elegantly dangerous as ever.
The cat robots immediately forgot all about Larry and me and turned as one to focus on Walker. The Collector gestured urgently for them to stand still, and they did. Walker ignored them completely, smiling and nodding to the three of us as though we"d just happened to meet in the street. He walked through the still ranks of robots and finally came to a halt before the Collector. Walker smiled at him warmly.
"h.e.l.lo, Mark. Been a while, hasn"t it?"
The Collector scowled at him. "Don"t come the old-chums act with me, Walker. That was a long time ago. We"re both different people now. And don"t try your Voice, either; it won"t work here."
"Never occurred to me that it would," murmured Walker.
"How did you find me?" said the Collector, plaintively. "I put a lot of hard work into choosing this site and hiding it from unfriendly eyes."
"It wasn"t difficult," said Walker. "I just followed John."
"I didn"t see you!" I said.
"People don"t, unless I want them to," said Walker.
"You lied to me," I said. "You used me to find the Collector for you!"
"Needs must, when the Devil"s knock knock knocking on your door," said Walker.
The cat robots were still watching Walker with their glowing green eyes, almost visibly straining against the orders that held them motionless. They knew a real threat to their master when they saw one. Walker ignored them all with magnificent disdain. The Collector and Walker stood face-to-face, and when the Collector finally spoke, his voice was quieter, and more human, than I expected.
"It has been a long time, hasn"t it, Henry? But with your resources, you could have found me at any time if you"d really wanted to. I"ve always known that. Why did you stay away so long? We might have been on opposing sides, but that never stopped you with other people. Why did you wait until you were dying to come and see me? Yes, I know; of course I know. All those years we were friends, and I had to hear it from someone else? What were you thinking? Why didn"t you come to me the moment you found out? I could have come up with something! I have all of Time to look in!"
"But I am running out of Time," said Walker. "And I couldn"t bring myself to trust anything you might find for me. Our relationship has always been ... complicated."
"And whose fault is that?" said the Collector. "I had such plans, such dreams, before you swept me along with your d.a.m.ned ambitions!"
Walked nodded slightly, accepting the point. "And what have you made of your life, Mark? All the great things you boasted you were going to do ... and you gave it all up to collect toys?"
"What have you done with your life, Henry?" the Collector said angrily. "You wanted to fight the establishment, and instead you became it. You"re the Man now; everyone knows that. You"ve become everything we despised! And for what? To be king of s.h.i.t heap? Caretaker of a freak show? Errand and bully-boy for the Powers That Be!"
Walker didn"t flinch once, even as the Collector spat hot, hateful words at him. He waited politely for the Collector to run down, then spoke calmly and reasonably in return.
"Time changes all things, Mark. You of all people should understand that. And you ... have become too dangerous and too unpredictable to be left running around loose, making trouble when I am gone. I did help towards making you the man you are; and that makes you my responsibility."
"I made myself what I am," snapped the Collector. "I don"t owe you anything!"
"You never did listen, Mark," murmured Walker, almost sadly. "This isn"t about what you owe me."
"You always did have too high an opinion of yourself," said the Collector. "I made myself the greatest Collector in the Nightside, through my own hard work and determination. Despite everything you or anyone else could do to stop me!"
"I should have tried harder," said Walker. "But I always had so much else on my plate, and you were my friend, so ... If I"d known you were going to end up like this, I would have done something. I can"t help feeling this is all my fault."
"What are you talking about?" said the Collector.
"Oh, wake up, Mark!" snapped Walker. "Look around you! What kind of a life is this for anyone? No family, no children, no friends; just ... things?"
"You have family, children, and friends," said the Collector. "Did they make you happy, Henry? Did they make you content? We were never going to be happy, or content, or satisfied. It wasn"t in our nature."
"We have come a long way from the idealistic young men we once were," said Walker. "When did we lose our innocence, Mark?"
The Collector laughed harshly. "We didn"t lose it, Henry; we threw it away first chance we got. Don"t waste my time with nostalgia just because you"re dying. Those days, and those people, are long gone."
"No," said Walker. "That was yesterday. And I would give everything I own to have it back."
"What do you want here?" said the Collector. "I"m busy."
"I came to say good-bye," said Walker.
He was standing right in front of his old friend, smiling kindly, holding the Collector"s eyes with his, when the knife he"d concealed in his left hand slammed between the Collector"s ribs. The cat robots started forward, and Walker"s other hand opened to reveal his gold pocket-watch. It snapped open, and the Timeslip inside s.n.a.t.c.hed up every one of the cat robots and whisked them away, all in a moment.
The Collector cried out once as the knife went in, sounding as much surprised as anything. He grabbed Walker with both arms, pulling him close. Walker let go of the knife, and held him, too. The Collector"s legs buckled, blood pouring thickly down his side, staining the old Roman tunic. Walker lowered the Collector slowly to the ground. The Collector tried to say something, and blood ran from his mouth. Walker snapped his gold watch shut and tucked it back into his waistcoat pocket. He never once took his gaze off the Collector"s dying face. He knelt down and helped the Collector to lie back on the floor, in a spreading pool of blood. The Roman tunic was soaked with gore now. The Collector clutched at Walker with weakening hands, looking confused.
"It"s all right, Mark," said Walker, quietly, tenderly. "I"m here, Mark."
"Henry ... ?"
"It"s all right. I"m here. I"ll stay with you."
Walker looked at me. "You can go now. I don"t need you any more. Leave me here with my friend."
Larry didn"t want to go, but I hustled him out. In his current mood, Walker was capable of anything. I only looked back once, to see Walker kneeling beside his dying friend, holding one of the Collector"s hands in both of his, saying good-bye. One dying man to another.
NINE.
Old Truths Come Home to Roost In the Nightside, it always pays to expect the worst; but the old girl can still surprise you. Back on Lud"s Gate platform, I reached out with my gift to find a train that could take us back to the city, and was pleasantly amazed to find one already waiting for us, right outside the station. It was the same train we"d arrived in, scared to stay but hanging around anyway, in case we might need it. I was genuinely touched and made a point of sending profuse mental apologies for my previous bad manners. The train just shrugged. Apparently trains are used to that sort of thing.
The gleaming steel bullet slammed back into Lud"s Gate Station, the carriage doors opened long enough for Larry and I to climb aboard. Then the doors slammed shut, and the train shot out of the station at full speed. Something dark and dripping raised itself from the receding platform, but I didn"t look back. Larry and I sprawled tiredly on our seats, staring at nothing in particular.
It"s not every day you see a legend murdered in cold blood.
"What about Walker?" Larry said finally.
"He can find his own way home," I said.
"Not what I meant," said Larry. "I meant: what are we going to do about Walker?"
"Nothing," I said. "You can"t do anything about him. He"s ... Walker."
"Is he? The Walker I remember from before I died might have been a ruthless b.a.s.t.a.r.d, but he made a point of never getting his own hands soiled. Someone else always did his dirty work for him. And usually with at least the appearance of law or justice to back him up. He didn"t just stick knives into people he thought he couldn"t trust."
"Yes," I said. "He murdered his oldest friend, right in front of us. As though ... he doesn"t give a d.a.m.n any more."
"Did he ever?" said Larry.
"Oh yes," I said. "Walker was always a stickler for the rules and regulations, even if he did make most of them up himself."
"He can"t expect us to keep quiet about this?"
"No. He"s counting on us to tell everyone. He wants people to know. When a man knows for sure that his time is running out ... he can"t be bothered with the little things. He wants to tidy up his messes while he still can."
"So I did hear right?" said Larry. "The great and mighty Walker is dying."