Suddenly Jack stopped.
“Soldiers!” he hissed.
Too late. “Oh, bugger!” We turned instinctively. Behind us crept half a dozen warriors in the snarling war helms of the Order of the Vulture, Asrovak Mikosevaar’s own legion.
I heard a stomping sound in front of me. Rounding a corner came a score of hounds bearing flame lances. They were led by the Chevalier St. Odhran, in all his bizarre Scottish finery. I dashed into another alley, dragging Jack, but there was no way of escape.
They seemed to have known where to capture us. St. Odhran recognized us both. We couldn’t hope to fool them. We were trapped. At any moment we’d be back in the hands of enemies who planned to kill us in the most disgusting and painful way imaginable.
Oona had to be dead or captured! I had led her brother into a trap! All our efforts had brought us no advantage. I felt that I deserved what they were going to do to me, that I had betrayed my friends in a profound way.
Jack yelled a warning.
St. Odhran put his hand out towards me.
But instead of grabbing me—he pushed!
Suddenly Jack and I were falling.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
WE FELL SLOWLY for what seemed a mile or more. I could see Jack’s white hair standing straight up from his head, just below me as he sank in slow motion. Once he turned, staring upwards. His blind eyes had an expression of pure pleasure.
In other circumstances I might have enjoyed the sensation, which was like riding in a hot-air balloon—a cushioned weightlessness.
It was impossible to judge the time. We could have fallen for hours. My mouth was very dry. My heart stopped pounding from the terror of the encounter with St. Odhran. I was determined to get my nerve back.
Someone had to have known where we were. Had the traitor deliberately set things up so that he could push us into the pit? But who had warned them? The panther?
I heard Jack land first. I drew a deep breath. He grunted with surprise, sprawled flat on his back. “Bugger! I was enjoying that. What’s happening?”
I came down with a thump beside him. The ground yielded slightly, like a sponge. But it wasn’t grass. Deep moss? I got up and helped Jack to his feet. All the stench of the city had disappeared. The air was clean, sharp, even a little bitter. I took big gulps of it, the way a near-drowning person might. I tasted it on my tongue. After all the horrible, suggestive smells of the city above us, this air was a welcome relief.
I still had a candle in my pocket. I decided to risk lighting it.
“That was awesome!” Jack said enthusiastically from nearby. I saw his pale skin in the fluttering yellow light. “A lot better than the London Wheel! I wouldn’t mind doing that again.” He treated the experience as he had treated a ride in a theme park. He hadn’t seen St. Odhran. He didn’t even know how profoundly we’d been betrayed. Again, it seemed churlish to spoil his moment. He wouldn’t benefit from any outburst of mine.
I was thirsty. I thought I heard water running somewhere nearby. The candle illuminated what appeared to be a ventilation shaft or maybe, in an earlier epoch, a goods chute for whoever lived down here. Hadn’t there been something like it in The Time Machine? A sort of gravity regulator. Of course, I half-hoped we had accidentally returned to the land of the kindly, courteous Off-Moo, who would surely know how to help us. But St. Odhran wouldn’t have sent us into the arms of our allies.
I held the candle up as high as I could. There was glittering dust in the shaft. Magic? Vestiges of an older science, as Flana and most of her kind believed? Another invention from before the Tragic Millennium? The surrounding walls were the same spongy, pink-red rock as the floor: tough, elastic and made of no material I had ever experienced. It felt faintly damp. Its smell was almost familiar. Fishy yet pleasant. I put my palm on the wall and brought it to my nose. What was that smell? Skin? Hair after you’ve washed it? Definitely something organic.
“Over there,” said Jack. “The air’s different.”
Ahead of us I saw an even smaller passage leading off to one side and poked my candle in so that I could see where it led. It gleamed back at me, reflecting the light, but I couldn’t easily tell if it went anywhere or had been blocked off.
“I’m not sure. If we got stuck …” I began nervously.
“We won’t.” He was totally confident. Now Jack took the lead. Anything was better than just sitting around, so I followed him. I told him to let me know if he needed my eyes, and blew out the candle, squeezing after him through the slightly yielding rock, along a short passage until I breathed a sigh of relief as we emerged into a much larger cavern, full of thin, spiky stalactites and stalagmites, with a rather beautiful, pastel-colored luminous fungus growing over everything, enabling me to see quite a long way in all directions. Strangely familiar territory. Could this really be the way to Mu-Ooria? Or, in this world, had Granbretan conquered so thoroughly that all the Middle March was theirs, too? No. The Middle March, by its definition, was common territory to all. Once there, we’d be free.
I described it to Jack, and he nodded. “I’ve been somewhere like it, I think. God, doesn’t it smell clean after that horrible crap?”
I felt we needed something more than “clean” to reassure us, since St. Odhran had deliberately pushed us down here and I couldn’t see a friendly, elongated Off-Moo face anywhere. We appeared to be on our own.
“Have we lost ‘em?” asked Jack.
“I doubt it,” I told him. St. Odhran had surely known what he was pushing us into. Where exactly were we?
I took Jack’s hand. The floor of the cavern was unusually smooth. An underground river had once run this course. As my eyes became used to the soft glow I saw the walls of the cavern rising in a sequence of terraces and ledges. The cavern was a natural amphitheater, with the terraces forming seats and walkways. The perfect place for a bit of human sacrifice. The Dark Empire had certainly been here. Many of the outcrops of limestone were carved in their typical designs, of animal faces and grotesque, bestial figures, only partially human. I was surrounded by an audience of gargoyles, their stone eyes glaring, their stone lips curled in cruel, triumphant sneers. I could hardly believe we hadn’t been deliberately lured into a trap.
My hand tightening on Jack’s must have alerted him. He turned his sightless eyes on me. “What’s up? I can’t hear anyone.”
“We’re still in Empire territory,” I told him. “And I have a horrible feeling this is where they’ve wanted us all along. It’s some sort of theater or ceremonial temple.” I didn’t speculate further for him.
“Are we the first act on?” He was trying to make light of the situation, with the dawning understanding that we might not get clear. “Or are we the grand finale?”
“They want our blood, remember? Mumbo jumbo, but that doesn’t make it any better for us!”
“Well, if it’s only a pint or two, they’re welcome to mine. Let’s get the transfusion over and go home. I fancy a nice big plate of Dover sole and chips. How about you?” Jack had become unnaturally amiable.
It wasn’t really in my nature to make jolly quips as the great big saw drew nearer and nearer, but I could not be irritated with him. I knew why he was doing it. I was pretty nervous, too. I thought that our only hope of getting out of this cavern alive was to leave at once, before the people chasing us realized we were down here. Again, as we made our way along that ancient riverbed, I was impressed. These images, corrupted and warped as they were, reminded me of what I had seen when we had gone with my parents and grandparents on our trip to Egypt. Strangely, I wondered if we were on the inside of a pyramid. The walls did slope slightly inward as they disappeared out of sight into the gloom above. Heads of birds and fish, reptiles and mammals, stared down. But they lacked that peculiar integrity which you found in Egypt. Perhaps they had derived their ideas from a more barbaric source. History and the human imagination being what they were, maybe they’d come up with it all themselves, developing it out of the football tri
bes, as I mentioned before, who had once ranged urban England and the Continent, looking for trouble.
I had another thought. Was this, in fact, an old sports arena? Were we going to be pitted against real lions or gladiators or something? Was this reserved just for football—only with our heads as the balls?
“Should we be keeping quiet?” Jack’s voice was just audible in my ear.
Whispering back, I told him what I thought. “I can’t see how they would have made a mistake, given what’s happened. St. Odhran pushed us down here deliberately.”
“Who’s St. Odhran?” he asked.
“He used to be a friend of mine,” I said. “Turns out he’s the worst villain of all.”
“Scottish bloke, is he?”
“Why, yes!”
“He’s been around for a while. He’s the one got me the original job in the forge testing those swords, I think. ‘Our mutual friend’? I heard him talking to Klosterheim before Oona got me out of there. Something about a sword, now I come to think of it! They seemed to be bargaining. I was part of the bargain, though I wasn’t always sure it was actually me he was talking about. What’s the Stone?”
“I’ve heard them mention that, too. A religious object of some kind. With a lot of jewels in it, which is why it’s so valuable. The Runestaff?”
“That’s the word. Only I thought they said ‘Moon-staff.’ I guessed they’d lost it and thought I could find it for them.”
I explained what little I knew. The whole time I talked I scanned our surroundings, trying to see if anyone else was here. In this part of the amphitheater, the rock had a more volcanic appearance, as if lava had poured over the terraces and hardened. They gleamed, reflecting all the grotesque heads, reminding me of my first impressions of the World Below. Maybe we weren’t just underground, but in a bizarre mirror image of the World Above. We were definitely in a riverbed. Or maybe even a lake bed. Were our pursuers going to flood the place, as Mirenburg had been flooded? It seemed an unnecessarily elaborate plan, even for the baroque tastes of Granbretan.
I was desperately looking for another tunnel like the one which had brought us in here, but the closer to the ground things were, the harder they were to see. Eventually I gave up and began looking for a way down into those terraces. It didn’t look as if anyone on our level was meant to climb up into the seating areas. We were definitely the performers, rather than the audience.
There didn’t seem much point in trying to retrace our steps. I decided to move us closer to the smooth side, so that we’d be harder to see in the shadows. I honestly felt sorrier for Jack D’Acre at that moment than I did for myself. At least I hadn’t been blind most of my life.
“Aaahhhh!” It was a hiss of pleasure from above. I looked up. I couldn’t see anyone.
I stopped. Although I found it hard to tell, we seemed to have reached roughly the middle of the amphitheater. Out there, at the center, was an enormous square block of green stone, taller than me. It might have been a monstrous emerald. Slightly opaque, it reflected the light from the pastel mold growing in patches along the rising tiers of that inverted cone. And now at last I saw eyes glittering, too. Not many. A pair here. A pair there.
A wet snuffling, a grunting, a whine or two. It was truly horrible, as if we two were about to become entertainment for a bunch of salivating beasts. Wet, slobbering noises. Little cackles and croaks. None were sounds I’d ever heard in the throats of real animals, for they still had a trace of human origin.
Was the theater filling up with the nobles of the Dark Empire? I still couldn’t actually see any people. I drew Jack with me to the side, into the deepest shadows. I surveyed the frozen lava of the tiers for signs of those beast-headed Granbretanners, but only saw the odd shadow which, blending with the carved figures, might have been a household god, might or might not have been human.
An echoing voice confirmed the worst.
“No need to be shy, my dears. All that we have sought is at last in place, save for the Runestaff. But that will manifest itself soon. Like answers to like. Child answers to child. Blood answers to blood. You will bring it to us. The Staff cannot remain hidden, just as you are now unable to remain hidden. That much we know. We have waited what seems centuries for this moment. Now the Consanguinity is assured. See!”
A yellow light played over the great block of emerald stone. On it, laid out like an altar with its vestments, sat two shallow golden bowls. And what I had not immediately seen was the huge black broadsword piercing the glowing green stone from left to right. Scarlet symbols twisted and turned in the blade near the hilt, like somber neon. Like smoke trapped inside a jar. The colors were incredibly vibrant, as if the objects had not just a life of their own but a soul as well.
Around me, overhead, I heard a creak, a jingle, a suppressed cough. There was no doubt we had a small audience.
I heard Jack sniff. “Ugh. Bous-Junge’s here.”
“We can smell you, Mr. Bous-Junge,” I said. A cheap shot, but I had a feeling I wasn’t going to be up for anything much better.
“And that other one. I can smell him, too. What’s his name? Taragorm? They’re thick, those two.” Jack had some difficulty speaking. His mouth was dry. “He’s just as bad.”
But no King Huon? I thought. No Baron Meliadus? Was the Countess Flana still a prisoner? And what about St. Odhran? Shouldn’t he be here to relish his triumph?
I heard a sort of phut, a swish. I looked down at a dart sticking out of my arm. Another sound, and Jack was similarly shot. Quickly I pulled the thing free of my arm, then yanked the other dart from Jack’s. But I was already feeling woozy. I leaned against the wall, trying to hold steady. Those cowards! We might as well be feral cats!
“Bloody hell,” I heard Jack say. “The animals are shooting us.” And then he crumpled to the hard, smooth, glassy surface of the amphitheater.
A moment or two later I went down, too.
Was I dreaming it, or did Bous-Junge’s unpleasant, tittering laugh fill the auditorium until the sound drowned out everything else, including my consciousness?
When I came to, I thought I heard the last vibrations of that voice, fading away. But I guessed more time had passed than that, because I was tied up, spread-eagled on one side of the stone itself. I guessed Jack must be on the other side. My arm was very sore but not in the place where the dart had gone in.
Baron Bous-Junge wasn’t wearing his mask. His round, sly face smiled at me as he held up two glass vials with something red in them.
It was blood. And I had a fair idea whom it belonged to.
“We are in time. We are in time!” This was an unfamiliar voice. Beyond Bous-Junge I saw a really peculiar, globular mask, with four different styles of clock face, one like Big Ben, the famous London landmark. Hanging from it, extended over the wearer’s body, was a wide pendulum, moving backwards and forwards so steadily that I thought they might be trying to hypnotize us. The legs and arms extending beyond it were skinny and mottled with brown spots, like those of a very old person.
Baron Bous-Junge giggled. “What? I can see it in your eyes, child. Did you think we’d be wasteful with your blood? That which flows in your veins makes you what we wish to be. When your blood flows in our veins, we become something of what you are. We take on your inherited power. We become guardians of the Grail. First we try its potency without killing you. We’ll bring the Staff to us. We have read all the appropriate books. The Staff heals all wounds and resurrects the recently dead. We have to keep you fresh. You’re good for another few pints yet.”
“That’s the smelly bastard talking.” Jack’s voice came from the other side of the stone. “But who’s the ticking bastard with him?”
“He means me.” The voice was curiously bleak, without nuance. “I’m Taragorm. We saved you from the moonbeam roads, didn’t we? Onric, isn’t it? Or do you prefer Jack?”
“I don’t remember you!”
“Oh, you saw me once, Jack. Just the once.”
“You’re the bastard who blinded me!”
Taragorm’s silence didn’t deny the accusation.
“What did you do that for?” Jack wanted to know. He sounded calm.
“We needed to be able to find you,” said Taragorm. “If you escaped, you’d hardly get far blind. Our mistake. We had no notion how many clever friends you have! Ah, here are our own clever colleagues at last.” There came a faint boom as if he struck the hour.
A little behind him I saw Klosterheim. His frame was dramatically thin compared to that of his bulky companion, Gaynor von Minct.
“You are late, Prince Gaynor.” Bous-Junge sounded disapproving. “The time is near. There’s not a moment to be lost. We must test the Stone and the Sword. Then we must fill the bowls. One with the male blood, one with the female. All countertypes are prepared for the Balance. The intellectual”—he bowed to Klosterheim—“and the practical brute.” He bowed. “Greetings, Prince Gaynor the Damned.”
“I wasn’t always this brute,” muttered Gaynor dully. I thought he mourned some other state, some time in his life when he had fought nobly with us, rather than against us. This rogue Knight of the Balance glared over at me. Something unreadable shone in his eyes. He sighed. “I have just come from the surface. It was difficult. I think we shall be safe for long enough. And then it will be easy for us to reverse our losses.”
“Losses?” Bous-Junge raised an eyebrow. “They had crossed the sea bridge. Are they now in the capital? There can be no doubt the crystal aids them. Yet I thought it smashed …”
“They have a fragment. They only need a fragment. The fraction is as great as the whole, remember? Hawk-moon’s killed or badly wounded. He’s disappeared, but Count Brass has taken Londra,” Klosterheim told him. “They summon armies from nowhere. And so many of your own have gone over to his cause! King Huon is destroyed. Meliadus pronounced himself king for about half an hour. The little red-haired brute, Oladahn, wounded him and he crawled away, to die somewhere I’d guess. The last I heard, they were trying to find where you’d imprisoned Flana. They wanted to make her queen.”