Hungry, I wondered if they planned to starve me until I was too weak to run. That way they wouldn’t have to worry about me escaping. Not that I knew where to go if I did escape!
Almost as soon as I’d thought of food something moved, and a young woman in a red woolen one-piece suit, a blank mask hiding her face, her head closely shaved and embedded with what looked like precious jewels, appeared behind me with a tray in her hands. She had passed straight through the aquarium walls to reach me. There must be a door there, but I couldn’t see one.
“This is certainly the best prison I’ve ever been in,” I told her as she set the tray down on a small table beside one of the chairs. Of course, I’d never been in any prison before that. “What’s your name? I’d like to be able to thank everyone personally when I write my memoirs.”
That sounds ridiculous to me now, but I distinctly remember saying it. Bravado? Sheer terror, probably. “Why don’t you take off your mask and have supper with me? Or maybe it’s breakfast …”
I made myself stop talking. I was on the verge of hysteria. The girl bowed. The wall began to move; one section of the aquarium slid past another. She bowed again as she stepped through. Another shimmy of watery light, and she was gone.
The food was delicious, and I don’t think it was just because I was hungry. But I probably would have eaten it no matter what it was. Only afterwards did it occur to me that it might be poisoned. Sure enough, as soon as I put down my spoon, having cleaned a plate of what I assumed was a sweet dessert, I felt sleepy again.
The next time I woke up I was no longer in the aquarium room. A white light, bright enough to blind me, hit me full in the eyes. I couldn’t easily see outside the circle of light as my eyes tried to adjust, but it was clear I was being observed again. I had the impression of more shadowy beast masks and a murmur of conversation. I got to my feet and found I was dressed in a filmy silk frock. I had on fresh underwear and was wearing thick tights. Everything was a shade of soft green. Someone had obviously cleaned me up while I was knocked out, because even my hair had been washed. Then a big man walked into the circle of light and hauled me up bodily before I could object.
The substance in the food also served to calm me. Either that, or I was in total denial about the fate of my friends and the fact that I was unlikely ever to see my mum and dad again.
The man carrying me was dressed in armor. It was like being lifted by one of the robots out of Star Wars. My clothes weren’t heavy enough to give me much warmth, and I shivered against his metal-covered body. I was carried down a short corridor and then out into a street, where a tall wheeled machine, hissing and puffing out steam, waited for us. Shaped like an animal and about the size of a double-decker bus, it had a single huge wheel in the front and several small ones at sides and back. In what I assumed was a driving seat, on the top and at the rear of the thing, sat a figure whose armor and livery were identical in design and materials to the carriage. His head was enclosed in a snarling horse’s head with sharp-filed teeth like a dinosaur’s. He could just see over a tower in the roof made of copper and brass and glass. It looked like a mobile observatory with a telescope to me!
The driver signed to the man who held me. A door opened in the windowless side of the vehicle, and I was put in rather gently before the door was closed and locked.
A dim light was produced by gas jets. I could hear it hissing faintly. I was in a compartment with seats arranged around the sides. In the center of the floor was a circle of light in which I could see a busy street, people riding horses, and even what looked like a kind of huge motorbike. These were dwarfed, however, by buildings erected in the shape of ugly, squatting humanoid figures with beast heads. They reminded me of something I’d seen in The Egyptian Book of the Dead.
Watching the scene immediately outside, I found that by moving a wheel near the big circle of light, I could see everything around me for some distance. It was a mobile camera obscura. I had come across something like it in Oxford, when I visited my uncle Dave, also in Bath, where one of my mum’s sisters lived. But they had been fixed versions. Like many of the Dark Empire’s inventions, it was a very awkward way of achieving the privacy they seemed to crave, but science had obviously developed very differently since that period they called “the Tragic Millennium.” Their economics had to be radically different, for a start; but I suppose when you are bent on looting everyone else’s goods and land, you don’t have to worry too much about efficient costings.
As we moved, I turned the wheel, trying to get as good a picture of the city as I could. I was sure it was London—what they called Londra—though there wasn’t a single familiar building or street. A busy, baroque city, with everything anthropomorphized. Slaves, naked but for masks, hurried on errands. Shops displayed their wares, most of them pretty ornate and many of them impossible to identify. Groups of warriors marched together along narrow thoroughfares over which those same grotesque buildings loomed. The bus was soundproofed, so I could hear the street noises only faintly.
We were soon joined by a guard of mounted soldiers in the livery and masks of what I guessed to be the Order of the Dog. They were heavily armed, though I wasn’t likely to escape, since the door I had come in by seemed to be the only way out, unless you were the size of a mouse.
Ahead of me was a riot of statuary the size of the Empire State Building, all of it populated, judging by the windows and doors and the tiny figures I could see leaning over balconies or crossing walkways. It was very impressive because it dwarfed the tallest of the other buildings and dominated the city with its various towers, ziggurats and domes in a crazy profusion of quartz, obsidian, marble and ebony. This could only be King Huon’s palace. When the carriage drew up inside a covered courtyard lit by naked flambeaux I saw mantis masks of rank upon rank of warriors, carrying the banners and insignia of the “king-emperor.” I recognized them from trophies which Prince Yaroslaf displayed in his own palace. But on living men, the armor and masks truly resembled the carapaces of insects.
Huge as the courtyard was, I still had a strong sense of claustrophobia. One of the leaders stepped forward. I watched the door open from where I sat inside, and there he was, just as he had been in the camera obscura, only, if anything, a bit larger. He reached in and signaled me to come to him. As soon as I stood beside him, he picked me up and took me out to a four-wheeled sedan chair, pushed and pulled by slaves. He put me into this, then joined the entire legion, who surrounded me to march us through King Huon’s palace. We finally came to a set of doors, very tall and studded with jewels, bas-relief, painted panels, all depicting what seemed to be the mythical history of Granbretan and stories of her more recent conquests. The guards divided, each section pushing on one of the doors, which moved gradually open, revealing an even more fantastic scene inside.
It was a hall you could have placed a small city in, with room to spare. From the distant heights of the vaulted ceilings hung great woven sheets embroidered with all kinds of brilliant and grotesque devices. Judging by the proliferation of animals on many of them, I guessed they were the banners of Granbretan’s leading clans, interspersed with the insignia of the conquered lands.
Their backs against the richly decorated walls, hissing, murmuring soldiers and courtiers intermingled, showing a strong interest in me. I pretended I couldn’t see them. I wasn’t there to entertain them but to offer my defiance.
It must have taken half an hour to move all the way to the end of the hall. There in midair hung a large globe, rather like a Christmas tree decoration, its insides swirling with murky colors shot through with sparks of gold, silver and emerald. I saw the faintest suggestion of eyes staring out at me. The coldest, hardest, nastiest pair of eyes I had ever seen, they contained the malice and greed of ten thousand years.
We reached the steps below the globe. As one, the mantis guards flung themselves facedown with a deafening crash. I looked around and saw that everyone was in the same prone position. I sat there, refusing to joi
n in, watching as the contents of the globe gradually eddied and swirled, became agitated, began to form a shape. At first I thought these people were more insect-like even than the guards, because what I saw was a sort of egg, and within the egg was an incredibly wizened and wrinkled homunculus, the owner of those terrible eyes, who curled a long, prehensile tongue from its disgusting, toothless mouth and touched something within the globe.
A voice, startlingly beautiful and sweet, came from the floating creature within the globe.
“Good morning, child. Few of your kind are as honored as you. Are you aware who I am?”
“You’re King Huon,” I said. I had nothing to lose by being polite to this disgusting thing. “And you used to think you could conquer the world.”
A vast susurration and clucking arose behind me. The sound was immediately silenced, presumably by a gesture from Huon’s captain. Almost in amusement he said, “You seem aware of your importance to us, little creature. Or are you mad, like so many of those we make captive?”
“It could be both,” I said. “I know I’m some sort of bait for a trap you’re setting, and I know you’re going to try to win back the power you’ve lost.”
Now there was nothing but silence in that incredible throne room.
Courtiers waited to see how the king would react.
An unpleasant, beautiful chuckle came from the throne globe. “You are our route to the Runestaff. You understand, at least, that you have no more personal worth than a grub on a fisherman’s hook. Or do you hope to deceive Huon, who sees and knows everything?”
The tongue flicked again, and the curtain to the right opened to reveal the shape of a man pinned against a board. His skin hung in strips from his body, which resembled the pictures you see in an anatomy book. Only his face, still masked, was not a bloody map. From within the wolverine helm came a whimpering groan.
Gloating, greedy, full of a glee I found more horrible than anything else, King Huon whispered, “Here is one of our favorite subjects, who came to warn us of your revolt. His name is Lord Olin Desleur. This is his reward.”
The curtain closed. “We are less kind to our enemies,” he said.
My stomach turned over. I couldn’t erase that image from my mind. I tried to control my breathing and contain the sense of horror I felt, the pity I had for the crucified man.
King Huon remained amused. “I gather you have met your brother, young Jack D’Acre, only recently. We await his arrival with interest. Yes, yes, our servants have found him. Do not fear, my dear. You will be reunited with him soon. And when that event takes place, we shall be conquering far more than a single continent or even a single world. When that happens, my dear, sweet child, the entire multiverse will be ours.”
I was completely baffled. This was the last thing I’d expected.
“Who on earth is Jack D’Acre?” I asked.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
KING HUON DID not reply. His insect tongue flicked out to touch what I supposed was a control panel. The globe grew murky, as if it filled with dirty blood, and then he was gone. They wheeled me out of the throne hall again. This time, when we reached the first anteroom, we turned in a different direction, into unfamiliar passages and halls.
Could I really have a brother I didn’t know about? A dark secret of my mum’s? Impossible. Mum just wasn’t that mysterious. She and Dad had met at university and become sweethearts; then they’d separated for a bit because my dad got a Mellon Fellowship to study at Yale, and she’d had a few boyfriends, as he’d had girlfriends, but they always said they were made for each other, they got on so well. And who was Mr. D’Acre, anyway? Not my brother! Jack had to have another dad.
Needless to say, the masked guards wouldn’t respond to any of my questions. Though I put a brave face on it, I was beginning to have a distinct sense of dread. Something especially nasty was being planned. Luckily, my imagination couldn’t summon up the dimmest picture of what was in store. Even the sight of that poor, dying Sir Olin Desleur aroused pity and horror in me, rather than fear.
Did I secretly hope that somehow the armies of Europe would come pouring over the Silver Bridge to rescue me? Even though they were winning, it wasn’t unlikely their famous hero Hawkmoon would arrive in time to save me, and it would be a very long while before Granbretan itself fell. They would fight to the death to defend their capital. There was every chance, in fact, that Granbretan was already planning a counterattack. I suspected I might be involved in that plan. Was I a hostage, maybe?
The odd little four-wheeled carriage rolled and bumped its way through a series of tunnels. They were low, dank and smelling very strongly of perfume, which didn’t cover the stink of mold. It reminded me of those really strongly scented candles you could buy in tourist places. In fact, the flambeaux and other sources of light had largely been replaced by big, fat scarlet candles, guttering in their holders as a hot breeze blew through the tunnels. The walls here were painted with faded hieroglyphics rather than being carved or molded, and I was again reminded of Egypt, the only other culture I knew which had so many beast-headed men and immortals in its mythology. Yet how could a mythology like that ever have come to Britain? In a way, the masks and obsession with personal privacy made some sort of ghastly sense, but nothing else did. Dark, internalized, repressed and aggressive, these people reminded me more of twentieth-century Nazis than twenty-first-century Brits. For a moment I thought of football rowdies, wearing team colors, decorating their faces, supporting teams with names like Wolves or Lions. But I still found it difficult to believe I was in London. Maybe England had been conquered by aliens, and my own people killed!
At last my transport stopped, and I lurched forward in my seat. Through the window I saw we were outside a door made of lumps of sparkling granite and slate. It creaked and whistled as it opened very slowly to admit the carriage. The mantis guards stood to attention while guards in other masks, resembling the hoods and heads of rearing cobras, took over. The naked slaves strained to drag the chair through the door as it thumped shut behind us.
Even murkier passages, lit by dim red globes of some kind. I couldn’t work out what powered them. They displayed that bizarre mixture of advanced science and backward medievalism which characterized Granbretan.
We were now in another hangarlike building. This one was crammed with a profusion of very odd-looking machines. Many of them were monstrous, with snouts, dials, levers, wheels, cogs and engines whose purpose was totally unfamiliar to me. Some of the machines glowed faintly; others pulsed with color through layers of thick dust. The place resembled a museum more than a working factory. Perhaps these were some of the machines found since the end of the Tragic Millennium, and no one had discovered how they were used. It wasn’t hard to arrive at that conclusion. My logic was that if they could use them, they would have used them. I would have seen them on the streets. The ones which looked like weapons would have been used against Hawkmoon’s Continental army.
I took a long look at the things as we rolled by. The metal was all in weird colors: electric blues, glowing reds, vibrant greens. There was that smell you sometimes get from old wiring when it overheats. It was so strong, it stung my throat and eyes. I started to cough. The sound echoed through the vaulted ceilings high above and bounced off the metallic monsters on both sides of me.
The little vehicle stopped again. I peered out. A group of men stood in the shadows at the end of the hall. They wore cloaks made of snakeskin, mottled, dry, stretching from head to foot. Deep cowls hid their heads, but I caught a glimpse of eyes and the faint outline of the masks they wore, a dull sheen of dark metal.
A brusque command sent the slaves running from the place, and I was left, still sitting in the sedan chair, wondering what was going to happen next.
The door opened. One of the cowled men reached out an old, skinny hand, covered in papery yellow skin, and signaled for me to get out. I did. My knees were trembling. The cowled men then surrounded me, and I was led through several
more doors until we entered a laboratory of some kind, with benches, retorts, smoking test tubes, all of very unusual shapes. Miles of twisting glass pipes ran with evil-colored liquid and issued thick, smelly steam.
Now we were in a much smaller room, and the door closed behind us again. One of the figures sat on the far side of a desk and signed for me to sit down on a three-legged stool with thick padded arms.
“Good afternoon, my dear,” said the cowled one who had been taking the greatest interest in me. “I hope you are enjoying your time as our guest.”
I made some sarcastic remark. He chuckled at this. “I am Baron Bous-Junge of Osfoud. No doubt you have heard of me. I am the chief of Granbretan’s scientists.”
The first thought that came into my head was Vivisection! They were going to cut me up!
He came closer, dry cloak rustling, snake head peering, snake eyes glittering. “We shall have to make some tests, but you seem very healthy. Are you a strong little girl?”
“Stronger than you think,” I told him. “And I’ve never had a day’s illness in my life.” Which wasn’t remotely true. I’d had dozens of the usual complaints, from chicken pox to flu.
Again I heard a certain sort of amusement. “We were told you were a child with a mind of its own. Do you understand why our great king-emperor was so tolerant of your rudeness, little girl?”