–David Wellington
“You… you can’t be serious,” Gary said. Mael kept moving deeper into the dark museum, through a sculpture garden lit only indirectly by windows on the outside. “You honestly expect me to believe that you’re going to walk out there into the city and start killing survivors?” As the Druid hobbled along the mummies began to emerge from the Egyptian wing, clutching Canopic jars and heart scarabs to themselves. A supremely frustrated Gary called for Noseless and Faceless to come as well-he didn’t necessarily want to get outnumbered just then. “Anyway, this isn’t where you would do it. There are maybe a handful of people left in this city-”
There were over a thousand of them, when last I took a peek.
Mael pushed open a door and they stepped through into a spray of colored light. Stained glass windows high overhead showered the radiance down upon them, while massive Gothic arches invited them to press on. Mael stopped and turned to face Gary.The lot of them are in poor shape, lad. Starving-holed up so tight they can’t get out again, or just too terrified to go out scavenging for food.
“So just let them starve to death!”
That’d be cruel. I’m all about mercy, lad. The human race is done for, nobody can question that. It’s taking its time on the way out, though. Imagine how much suffering I’ll save. Here!
Mael had found a glass display case exactly like the hundreds of others Gary had seen. With the help of two mummies he opened it and lifted out a sword. It had been beautifully wrought, once, though over the centuries it had corroded to a dull green patina and the blade had fused with its scabbard. The hilt was worked in the shape of a howling Celtic warrior. Mael twisted it through the air in a wide cutting motion.
She’s not the Answerer, but she’ll do.
“You’re going to kill people with that?”
Mael’s head sagged forward.Try not to be so literal. I just want to be kitted out properly. You won’t help me, then. It’s not ‘your thing’. Very well. Will you be playing at being my enemy, then? Will I need to go through you to complete the great work? Or will you stand aside and leave me to it?
Gary entertained the notion for a moment but it was pointless. He was no fighter-and he had seen how strong Mael was despite appearances. Mael’s dark energy was enormous and powerful, too. It looked like a sunless planet, vast and round and self-contained, something so big and deadly it had its own gravitational field. “I… I don’t suppose I could stop you. I can try to talk you out of it.”
There’s no debate, Gary. This is what we are.Uamhas. There’s good in this world and there’s evil, and we’re evil. Now either come with me or leave me be, lad. There’s work to do.
Using the sword like a cane Mael lurched forward through the Medieval exhibit and passed into the museum’s great hall. Not knowing what else to do Gary followed, his mind reeling.
Saying no had been his immediate reaction and he knew he should stick with it but Mael’s conviction was a powerful argument on its own. Gary had come to the Druid with his questions, after all. Did he have a right to pick and choose among the answers, discarding the ones he didn’t like?
It wasn’t as if Gary felt any particular allegiance to the living. They’d treated him shabbily enough. He remembered the moment of recognition he’d had when he first saw Noseless on Fourteenth street, when they had seemed like reflections of one another. Gary had called himself a monster, then, and meant it.