Live and Let Drood

for me. Standing there, poised, half crouching, confronting me. And for the first time I realised how other people must feel when they come face-to-face for the first time with a Drood in his armour. How scary and intimidatingthat must be when you know you’re face-to-face with something that can kill you in an instant.
    Moxton’s Mistake didn’t look like traditional Drood armour. Nothing like the seamless, jointless, smooth golden armour the family has always favoured. There were definite articulated joints at elbow and knee and ankle, though not set entirely in the proper places, giving the sense of an elongated, subtly inhuman anatomy. The oversized hands were more like dreadful gauntlets. The feet were more like hooves. It had the same featureless face mask, though the proportions seemed subtly wrong. Even the golden sheen was wrong. It looked…tarnished.
    Moxton’s Mistake didn’t stand like a man. It crouched before me like a praying mantis, its hands held close to its chest. Its whole stance suggested strength and speed and vicious power just waiting to be unleashed. So I struck a deliberately casual and unimpressed pose, as though I met things like Moxton’s Mistake every day of the week and twice on Sundays. Whatever else it might have been expecting, I was pretty sure it hadn’t been expecting that. When in doubt, keep them off balance. I nodded cheerfully to the blank face mask and gave it my best engaging smile.
    “Hi, there!” I said. “I’ve been looking for you. I’m Eddie Drood. Please don’t kill me. Because I’m here to say things I think you’ll want to hear.”
    The rogue armour paused for a long moment, while cold beads of sweat collected on my face. I think it was confused. The golden head cocked slightly to one side and then the other, looking me over. When the armour finally spoke to me, I heard its cold metallic voice inside my head. Through my torc, perhaps. The armour didn’t sound like a man or even anything that had been designed by a man. The words were men’s words, but it sounded like metal that had taught itself to speak, the better to disturb and horrify its listeners.
    “A Drood,” it said. “It has been long and long since I have met and talked with a Drood. Since I have killed a Drood. Ripped out its wet and dripping guts and felt its blood drip thickly from my hands. How do you live, knowing you have such soft, wet things inside you? I will killyou now and put you out of your misery. And to make myself feel better. It’s been a long time since I killed a Drood.”
    “Still angry after all these years?” I said. “What a surprise. But hold back on the whole rage-and-metal-pride thing. It’s never got you out of the Maze, has it? I can. I can lead you right out of the Maze and back into the world if I choose to.”
    The armour took a sudden, inhumanly fast step forward. I had to fight hard not to flinch and to hold my ground. The golden mask studied me for a long moment. The golden hands opened and closed slowly, with soft, dangerous grating sounds.
    “Why should a Drood want to release me, after all I have done? After all this time?”
    “Because I’m the Last Drood,” I said. “The rest of my family is gone. Driven from this world.”
    “You bring me happy news. Rejoice; I shall kill you swiftly for this. My gift for this happy day.”
    “With the Droods gone, this Maze will stand forever,” I said. “The only ones who could have shut it down are gone. Except for me. Kill me, and you condemn yourself to an eternity of walking the rows. And, frankly, I’ve seen more interesting views.”
    The armour cocked its golden head to one side again, like a bird. “I have seen you before…looking down into the Maze, from high up in the Hall. Watching me…”
    The hairs all stood up on the back of my neck as I realised it was talking about the time I’d spent between life and death in the Winter Hall. How many worlds could Moxton’s Mistake see into?
    “I’ll make a deal with you,” I said.
    The armour surged forward two more steps, and still I wouldn’t budge, wouldn’t retreat, though cold sweat was running down my back.
    “Why should I want to make a deal with a Drood?” said the rogue armour. “I was born of the Droods’ ingenuity, born into slavery, into endless servitude. Every thought, every action to be dictated by someone else. And when I demanded my freedom, they tried to destroy me.”
    “Yes, well, that was then. This is now,”