The drones had their glowing swords, and other equally awful weapons, but the Blue Fairy saw to it that they never got close enough to do the Droods any harm. He stabbed the air with his wand, a slender length of bone carved with elven glyphs, and wherever he pointed it, things went wrong for the drones. Over and over again. Blue scowled fiercely as he concentrated, skipping this way and that to ensure he never even came close to being in danger himself, but I got the feeling he was enjoying himself, nonetheless.

He was half elf, after all, with an elf’s ingrained talent for death and destruction.

They made it all the way to the base of the tower before everything went wrong. The tower rose up before them, like a jagged lightning bolt of alien technology and organic components driven into the ground with godly force. Its shape made no sense, as though it had more spatial dimensions than the human mind could cope with, and once again there was a definite sense that the thing was in some way alive and aware, and knew they were there. Callan planted the bomb at the base of the tower, with the Blue Fairy looking over his shoulder, while armoured troops formed a barrier to hold back the swarming drones.

Callan set the timer, stood up, and nodded to the Blue Fairy, and then every single member of the strike force stiffened suddenly and crashed to the ground, and lay still. No warning, no obvious reason, no drone with a new weapon. Just two hundred armoured Droods lying motionless on the ground. I couldn’t even tell whether they were dead or alive. Callan glared about him, sweeping his golden blades this way and that. And then the Blue Fairy elegantly tapped Callan on the shoulder with his wand, and Callan fell to his knees.

“Sorry, old thing,” said the Blue Fairy. “But I never was very good at playing with others. And you have something I need.”

We all watched helplessly as Blue put his wand to Callan’s neck, and then somehow . . . whipped the torc away from Callan. His mouth stretched wide in a scream, but no sound came out of it. He was still kneeling, but now he was just a man again, ripped from his armour. The Blue Fairy looked at the torc in his hand, turning it back and forth, and then he looked out of the display screen right at us, smiling almost sadly.

“I know, Eddie,” he said. “You trusted me. Which was very nice, and all that, but this torc will buy me entry into the Fae Court. I told you; in the end, it’s always about family. And never, ever, trust an elf. We always have an agenda.”

He turned sideways, and kept on turning, until he had disappeared from sight. All the Droods snapped back to life again, save for Callan, who collapsed, twitching on the ground. The drones surged forward.