Virgil took a torch from the wall and squeezed through.
‘It is the entrance to a tunnel. He must have escaped through here.’
Hugh went after him, but when Sovay made to follow, he stopped her.
‘No, Sovay. Stay with Oldfield. This may be dangerous.’
‘And coming near to being sacrificed was not?’ Sovay gave a mirthless laugh. ‘No, Hugh, I’m coming with you.’
She remembered the look in Dysart’s eyes as she was being dragged backwards onto that loathsome altar. He had made her feel somehow defiled. Her cheeks burned with the shame of it, even now. She could not stay behind and just wait for others to catch him. She had a personal score to settle. She had to be there when he was caught.
‘Let her come, Hugh,’ Virgil called back. ‘We don’t have time to argue. She has shown more courage than most men I know and he gets further away with every minute we waste.’
Virgil swept his light around, illuminating the chamber in which they were standing. They had entered a series of tunnels carved into the soft rock. Strange shapes and grotesque faces loomed out of the chalky stone, whether carved by pagan peoples, or there as part of Dysart’s bizarre rituals, it was hard to tell. Just above the entrance, a red light hung in a deep niche, positioned to shine through the pupil of the carved eye. From this side of the wall, the All-Seeing Eye was diminished to a tawdry illusion, like the face carved on a country child’s turnip lantern.
The outer chamber gave onto a tunnel which became progressively lower and narrower, leading off into darkness. Far ahead, the tiny spark of Dysart’s torch got smaller by the second.
‘We’ve got to keep him in sight,’ Virgil said. ‘He knows these tunnels better than we do. There’s no telling how much of a warren they are, or which way he’ll go.’
Dysart knew his advantage. He increased his pace and for a time it seemed that they might have lost him. Virgil led them on into the darkness, taking one tunnel after another, ruled by instinct, and finally they were rewarded by a distant red flicker. The air was becoming fouler, ever more stale. Sovay noticed that their own torches were beginning to burn dim, ready to fail. They would be left in utter blackness, with no way back and no way forward. They could be down here forever with Dysart getting clean away.
Hugh reached back for her.
‘Hold my hand. We must stay close together. I’ve been counting paces, working out the distance,’ he whispered. ‘If Dysart is making for the main part of the abbey, it can’t be far now.’
‘What if he isn’t?’ she whispered back. ‘What if he’s seeking to escape through some distant part of the grounds?’
‘Then he is going in the wrong direction.’ Hugh squeezed her hand harder. ‘My mental compass works even underground.’
Sovay smiled in the darkness. If Hugh was right, they still had a chance of catching up with Dysart, and Hugh never got lost. When they were children, playing in the woods, he always knew exactly where they were, no matter how far had they wandered, and which was the quickest way home.
‘Why would he go back?’ she whispered. ‘Why not try to escape?’
‘Who knows?’ Hugh shrugged. ‘Who can read the mind of a madman?’
The end of the tunnel was marked by a small iron door. It had been left slightly ajar, as if whoever had left by it had not had time to lock it. The doorway opened onto a flight of steps leading up to a narrow spiral staircase, which appeared to be above ground. Lancet windows pierced the walls, admitting a faint silver wash of moonlight. Although Dysart had long disappeared beyond the first tight twists of the stairs, they could hear the swift patter and scrape of his fleeing footsteps. They started after him. Here and there, curtained doorways offered access to the abbey proper, but still the footsteps fled away from them, mounting ever higher. Why Dysart would try so hard to get away, only to climb the tower, was another mystery.
Suddenly, the footsteps stopped. Virgil put his arm out and indicated that they should proceed quietly, with all caution. They were approaching the laboratory. Sovay recognised the peculiarly pungent mixture of chemicals and organic decay.
Dysart was busy at the brick-built furnace, shovelling paper and documents into the fiery aperture, destroying the results of the vile experiments that he had conducted here. He resembled some demented alchemist with flames leaping and licking about him, surrounded by arcane instruments and pot-bellied copper stills.
He was so absorbed in his work that he did not notice them until they were fully in the room. He whirled round like some guilty thing, surprised. They stepped back in horror. For one terrible moment it appeared as though he really had undergone some dreadful, demonic transformation. His chest and abdomen were cased in an oval jointed carapace. His grey mask of a face glowed dull red in the glare from the fire and huge, round, protruding eyes glittered greenish and flickered with twin images of leaping flames. He hissed when he saw them, sucking breath through a series of holes and serrations.
He was wearing special clothing designed to protect him during experiments. On the bench, yet more papers were dissolving in a bubbling, choking bath of acid. He picked up a bundle of papers from the bench, clutching them to his chest.
‘No one will steal my work from me. No one.’ His voice came thick and muffled from behind the grille that covered his mouth. ‘My rule would have ushered in a golden age of science, unfettered by matters of conscience and paltry consideration of ethics. Human life is nothing! Knowledge is everything! What are the rights you bleat about, when set against the shining advance of scientific discovery? Human beings are dust, mere grist to be crushed and ground between the great millstones of knowledge. You know nothing. You stand there staring, as ignorant as children, as stupid and unthinking as barbarians before the greatness of Rome.’
He threw the papers he clutched into the air to drift down and scatter over the floor, then he paced to the end of the bench. He took a large flask from a stand and held it in his hand, shaking it, admiring the viscous movement around the bottom of the round glass, the yellowish, greenish hue of the contents.
‘Do you see this? An interesting substance. A discovery of mine which was later stolen by the German, Scheele. He called it dephlogisticated acid of salt. The theory of phlogiston has, of course, been discredited, but, unfortunately, we don’t have time for that debate.’ As he talked, Virgil and Hugh had been moving, making ready to close in on him, to cut off any avenue of escape. His grip on the flask tightened. ‘Stay where you are, gentlemen! My lecture has not finished! As I was saying, an interesting substance. As Scheele’s nomenclature suggests, it forms part of the make up of common salt. A harmless element, necessary to all life, I’m sure you’ll agree. We can tell by taste that it is in your sweat, gentlemen, and your tears, my dear. It is in our blood. This.’ He shook the flask, agitating the contents, causing the greenish-yellow fumes to swirl. ‘This is very different. It leaches the colour from flowers and is highly toxic to man and beast alike. I know, from experimentation, scientific experimentation, that it burns the skin, irritates the eyes to blindness, dissolves the tissue of the lungs so that you drown in your own blood!’
With that he dropped the flask. Hugh and Virgil leapt backwards. A pale green miasma curled up from the spreading liquid, giving off the sweetish, sharp smell of pineapples, laced with the sting of pepper.
‘Cover your mouth!’ Virgil shouted. ‘Cover your nose!’
Dysart raced for the main door, knocking over a lamp to cover his retreat.
They heard a key turning, as spilt oil soaked the scattered papers and snaked towards the blazing furnace. In moments a spurt of flames, a chance spark, would turn it into a spreading river of fire.
‘Back! Back towards the staircase,’ Virgil shouted through green, drifting fumes that tasted of metal and attacked the nose, throat and chest, making it hard to breathe. ‘No! Don’t go down! See how the gas clings to the ground? It will pour downwards. The stairs are narrow. We will have no chance. Up! We must go up!’
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It was a long climb to the top of the tower. Sovay could hardly see where to put her feet, her eyes were watering so profusely and her chest felt as if she was caught in the closing fist of a giant. Her throat was raw and each breath was a labour, wheezing and ragged. Hugh had to stop frequently, racked with coughing. He had always suffered from a weakness of the chest. Virgil came behind, urging them upwards.
‘Keep on. Keep on,’ he shouted, his own voice hoarse and roughened from the gas. ‘It can’t be far now.’
Just when Sovay thought she could not go any further for the burning in her legs and in her chest, the stairs took one more turn and she was under the open sky. She steadied herself against the parapet, taking great gulps of sweet air. Virgil came after her, bent over and retching. Then Hugh emerged. He collapsed to the ground and Sovay went to help him. His breath came in heaving ragged gasps, as if he could not get enough air into his chest.
‘Help me to get him up,’ she shouted to Virgil, but the American was distracted, staring upwards.
Sovay had been so glad to reach the open air and so preoccupied with Hugh that she had failed to see the huge structure that loomed over them. She stared, astonished. A balloon reared up into the night sky. A great globular bag encased in a mesh of strong netting, looking much like the ones that she had seen in illustrations with the panels painted a bright cerulean blue and lavishly decorated with billowing clouds. Apollo’s golden chariot rode across the heavens, accompanied by frolicking spirits of the air. She and Hugh had made small versions when they were children, setting haystacks afire and getting into a deal of trouble. They had watched the frail, glowing paper globes floating off across the evening sky and had dreamed of making an ascent of their own. She had never seen a real one at such close quarters. It was huge. Cords, taut with strain, tethered the enormous floating structure to hoops driven into the stone floor of the tower. Some of Papa’s friends had taken flights, but he considered it far too dangerous. He would never countenance anything so reckless.
Virgil came over to Sovay. Together, they helped Hugh to his feet.
‘I’m sorry,’ Hugh managed to whisper. He could hardly speak.
‘Not at all.’ Virgil steadied him against the parapet. ‘You must have taken in more of that infernal gas. Stay here until your strength returns. Sovay, you must help me.’ He sniffed the air. Sovay, too, could smell burning. ‘I fear we do not have much time.’
Beneath the great balloon was a wicker gondola, a boat-shaped basket filled with bags of sand, blankets and items of clothing. There was even a hamper, with champagne and various delicacies.
‘Dysart thinks of everything. If we meet him again, we must thank him.’ Virgil gave a grim little smile.
Sovay looked up at the balloon. ‘What on earth is it doing here?’
‘My guess is it is here to provide yet another of Dysart’s little surprises. A dawn flight after a night of debauchery. Something else to cause his guests to marvel. He cannot resist showing off. Then it became his way out of here. He’s a quick thinker. I will grant him that. Now, we have to couple the gondola to the balloon. See the cords that are dangling from the balloon? They attach here, here, and here.’
‘You don’t mean for us to go up in it?’
‘Of course! How else are we to escape?’
Sovay fell silent and did as she was told. All the while, the smell of burning was stronger. Smoke curled from the entrance to the narrow circular staircase. It was acting as a chimney. Dysart’s laboratory must be well and truly ablaze.
When all was ready, Virgil helped Hugh into the gondola. His breathing still troubled him but he managed a weak smile.
‘Remember when we were children?’ he whispered and Sovay nodded. He turned to Virgil. ‘This was always a dream of ours.’
They climbed in after him and Virgil began to saw through the cords that tethered the balloon to the ground. Sovay took Hugh’s knife and helped him. She was careful to match him; the cords had to be severed in a certain order or the gondola would tip.
‘Quick! Together!’
They were still attached by two cords when great tongues of flame spurted from the windows of Dysart’s laboratory. Sovay felt the heat from them licking her face.
‘Fast now! The bag is filled with hydrogen,’ Virgil called. ‘If we cannot free ourselves, it will go up like a fire balloon.’
The last cord gave and the balloon lurched, bumping across the floor of the tower. It began to ascend, but the blast of hot air rising up the spiral staircase caused it to veer sharply and the base of the gondola became caught on one of the pinnacles at the corner of the parapet.
Virgil grabbed a pole and pushed frantically but the gondola would not budge.
‘There’s no help for it.’ He threw the pole from him. ‘I’ll have to climb out.’
‘No!’ Sovay shouted in horror, but the American was already over the side of the gondola and standing on the narrow crenulations of the battlements, some three hundred feet above the ground. A series of deep detonations caused the fabric of the tower to shudder beneath his feet. He hung onto the cords trailing from the sides of the gondola and swung himself inside the parapet. The cradle around the wickerwork base of the gondola had snagged on the decorative flourish that capped the pinnacle.
‘Sovay! Give me that pole!’
Sovay hung over the side to hand it to him.
‘A couple of knocks should do it. Move the sandbags over to the other side of the basket and then you and Hugh get over there when I shout. Be ready.’
Virgil secured the rope round his waist. He used the pole to push at the base of the gondola and work it free from the obstruction. Sparks flew about like fireflies, flakes of burning paper danced in the air, brought up on the fierce updraught from below. At any moment, one of them could alight on the balloon’s panels. It would take seconds for an ember to eat through the thin layer of rubberised silk and ignite the gas beneath. He tried to put such thoughts out of his head. He worked methodically, patiently levering the thickly plaited band of wicker away from the stone hook of the pinnacle. Any element of panic would render his actions futile, making it impossible to free the balloon and save its passengers.
The balloon wasn’t budging. The gondola was firmly hooked and the wind was holding it against the pinnacle. Time to try a different tack. He looked for a joint and dealt the thin spire one mighty crack and then another. One more blow and the pinnacle began to topple. He braced himself. He had to be ready. If he wasn’t ready, they were all doomed. He was the only one who knew how to fly the thing.
‘Now!’
Virgil’s voice came from below. Sovay rolled over to the opposite side from him, dragging Hugh with her. She’d already moved most of the sandbags. Indeed, so much weight had been shifted that the gondola yawed alarmingly and for a heart-stopping second Sovay thought that they might be tipped out. Then Virgil’s counterweight began to bite.
Sovay looked over to the opposite side of the gondola, expecting to see the American, but he wasn’t there. She scanned the wicker edge of the basket, thinking to see his hands there pulling himself back over to them, but there was no sign of that either. His weight was there, preventing the gondola from tipping, which must mean . . . Sovay’s eyes widened and her hand went to her mouth, stifling a gasp. Virgil must be hanging, helpless, unable to regain the safety of the gondola. They were floating free now, the tower somewhere below and to the side of them. How long would it be before he would be forced by weakness and exhaustion to let go and tumble to certain death many hundreds of feet below? She made ready to dash over, to see where he was, to offer assistance, when Hugh grabbed her arm.
‘If you do that, you’ll tip the basket and we’ll all tumble.’
‘I will be careful, Hugh, but I have to go.’
Sovay shook herself free and began edging slowly over to the other side of the gondola, ignoring her brother’s protests.
She leaned over the side of the gondola. Virgil was pulling him
self, hand over hand, up the rope that he had secured round his waist. She reached down, ready to help pull him in to safety. Virgil took her hand and swung up to grab onto the side of the gondola. He hauled himself over, falling into her arms.
All about was the rush of black wings as the birds that haunted the tower rose in a dense cloud around them. The air was loud with their harsh cries as they ascended in a great beating of powerful wings. Their feathers flashed silver in the moonlight as they flew higher, wheeling above the tower. The birds, alerted by some ancient instinct, sensed that some dreadful disaster was about to occur.
‘Look!’ Virgil drew her to the side of the car. ‘Look down there.’
They were gaining height with every second and the abbey seemed to be plunging away from them, its elegant cruciform shape laid out like an architect’s drawing. Sovay could clearly see the cloisters and long galleries, the steeply pitched roof of the Great Entrance Hall, the rounded towers and square turrets, spiked with spires.
The impossibly tall tower stood proud, as slim as a pencil against the night sky. Suddenly, from deep within its narrow compass came a series of loud detonations. The whole length of it seemed to vibrate like a needle, as if shaken by an earthquake. Showers of sparks shot from the sides: white, blue, green, red and purple like a huge firework display. Saltpetre, black powder, phosphorus and sodium. Who knew what devil’s brew of chemicals he kept in his laboratory?
The fireworks were followed by great gouts of flame and further explosions. Sovay leaned out of the basket to see more, and then froze in an attitude of horror. With a great groan and a rending of timber and cement, the tower began to fall.
Far, far below figures, tiny as insects, had stood transfixed, as fascinated as they had been by the fireworks and flames and even more astonished to see a balloon sailing up into the night sky. Now they were scattering in every direction, running for their lives.
Hugh leaned over the other side of the gondola and they all stared down, trying to make out if any they knew were among the rushing figures scurrying on the ground. Their feelings of anxiety grew to a terrible sense of helplessness. The toppling tower would fall on friend and foe alike, and all the while they rose higher and higher, the wind bearing them away to the south.