Rebellion (Chronicles of Charanthe #1)

  Chapter 12

  Eleanor marked the passage of time by carving little tally marks into the wood at the side of her hammock and tried not to be impatient as days turned into weeks at sea, for all that she longed to be back in the familiar waters of the Empire. It would presumably take about as long to get home as it had taken the Rose to reach Taraska, but she wished the time would pass more quickly – once she was home she'd have things to do that might take her mind off Raf and the state she'd left him in. She had little time to dwell on it during her shifts – working by moonlight required extra concentration – but during daylight, as she struggled to sleep with the sounds of the ship's normal life going on about her, she often wondered how he was faring.

  She found it strange to be on a ship with women and children who did nothing to pull their weight so far as the sailing was concerned – although the women did cook, which made for a somewhat more varied diet than aboard the Rose. It felt very old-fashioned to have such a strong divide between gender roles, and Eleanor could only imagine how odd they must find it to have her insisting on working alongside the men.

  The women eyed her with curiosity and no shortage of suspicion, and the intensity of their stares didn't diminish as the days passed. Eleanor found herself glad to be working at night, once she got used to the poor visibility, since that meant the women and children were mostly sleeping while she worked and working while she slept. It reduced the intrusion, and gave her space to herself when she was in her hammock.

  They'd been at sea for eighteen nights when, suddenly, the command was given to drop the anchors.

  "What's happening?" Eleanor asked Bhal, the man who spoke the most Charanthe, as they worked together to heave a large iron anchor over the side.

  "Stop," he said. "Get money."

  She was puzzled, but there was no time for asking more questions. Even the men who usually worked the day shift were on deck, and they set about lowering three small rowing boats into the water. Eleanor simply joined in where she could see an extra pair of hands would come in useful – she didn't need to know what she was doing. The men had rope ladders, and began climbing down into the rowing boats; Eleanor went to follow, but Bhal stopped her.

  "Captain say not," he said.

  "Not what?"

  "You not come. Woman not come."

  She shook her head. "It was 'women not work', a couple of weeks ago, but everyone still seems to be alive."

  "Woman not come," he repeated firmly.

  "Okay." It was pointless trying to have a discussion when they had so little language in common. She sat on one of the lockers and watched as the little rowing boats started out into the sea.

  It was only when the moon came out from behind a cloud that she could see what they were heading for. Another ship. All of a sudden she understood: piracy. Of course, this was what the Magra were famous for. She felt rising indignation that they'd thought she wouldn't be any good at this, before realising they'd never seen her fight. Besides, she told herself, she had no desire to be a pirate. But she still felt left out.

  She wandered across the deck to where the scout's telescope was mounted and swung it round, hoping to get a better look at the raid, although it was hard to make out any details through the darkness. After only a short while, though, she saw the rowing boats begin to move back towards her.

  Once the day shift were back in bed, Eleanor approached Bhal again. "What were you doing?" she asked. Surely an act of proper piracy would have taken longer.

  "Tax," he said. "In Tarask, tax at port. Here, tax for Magra."

  "Tax." She repeated it softly and wondered if that was the reality behind the legends of piracy. Were they simply levying a tax on traffic across 'their' seas? Things weren't always as they seemed.

  The next time the ship anchored was in daylight. One of the women woke Eleanor and led her up onto the deck, where Bhal assured her that they were now "very near" to the Empire.

  "How near?" she asked, unable to see any land as she squinted towards the horizon.

  "Yes, yes – very near. Five days, or ten. Very near."

  "Days? Then why are we stopping?" She was aware of a small group of women and children watching her intently.

  "Stop, yes."

  "Why?" She couldn't keep the exasperation out of her voice. If they were close, now was not the time for stopping. She wondered why they'd woken her up to tell her this.

  "You need bag," he said. "You need leave."

  "My bag?"

  "Yes, bag." He pointed vigorously down towards the sleeping quarters.

  She shrugged and went to get her things together, collecting her bag from its peg by her hammock, wondering what was going on. They surely weren't expecting her to take one of the rowing boats. But his meaning had been clear enough: she needed her bag because she was leaving.

  A short while after she'd made her way back on deck, a small Imperial fishing craft moved alongside them and threw a rope across; Bhal caught it and tied it loosely in place. As men from both sides set about moving crates between the vessels, Bhal exchanged a few words of Magrad with the captain of the smuggling boat.

  He turned to look at Eleanor, who was looking on with interest.

  "You want a lift home?"

  "Yes please."

  "And they say you can sail."

  "Fairly well, yes."

  "Dashfort's okay for you?"

  She nodded, though anywhere in the Empire would have been fine at this stage.

  "Alright, climb aboard – and don't be long about it, the wind's in our favour. We want to get underway as soon as we can."

  Eleanor picked up her bag and scrambled over the gunwale, rolling as she hit the deck of the smuggler craft.

  "What's a nice Imperial girl like you doin' out here, anyway?" he asked as she picked herself up.

  Eleanor rolled her eyes. "It's a long story – maybe later."

  "My name's Jack," he said, extending his hand.

  She shook it. "Eleanor."

  She breathed a sigh of relief as she helped the smugglers turn their ship to head back towards Imperial waters. She wasn't quite home yet, but it was starting to feel closer.

  The smugglers were a jolly crew which made for pleasant company, but she was relieved when they finally came in sight of Dashfort; the weeks in cramped conditions were beginning to take their toll. Jack insisted she take a small allowance out of the boat's profits – "just by way of thanking you for your help, lass" – and gave her a hearty clap on the back by way of goodbye. She disembarked unsteadily and headed straight for the line of food stalls by the city gates.

  She walked around the harbour to get used to the feel of solid ground beneath her feet again, before making her way up the hill and back to the puzzle chamber. Knowing exactly what she was doing this time made the whole experience rather more pleasant. There was no-one in the square when she arrived, and she quickly unlocked the concealed door and let herself in. She managed to rearrange the mosaic while tripping only two acid-laced blades, and knowing when to expect the spinning discs – coupled with the fact that she was properly armed to defend herself – meant she escaped with a minimum of cuts.

  And a new number which, she realised, she still didn't understand.

  She wished she'd thought to ask Raf about it, but she hadn't had enough time to work through the consequences when he'd told her she had to go on alone. Ever since she'd found out that they had the same goal she'd assumed he'd be there to guide her through, or at least to work everything out alongside her. She was suddenly overcome with grief, and guilt at the idea that she might have left him to die there; she collapsed to the ground in the square and all the tears she'd been holding back streamed silently down her cheeks.

  Eventually she dried her eyes and got to her feet, feeling a little better for it, and started walking slowly back to the harbour. She wasn't looking forward to yet another boat journey, but at least Flying Rock Island was within the Imperial archipelago.

  The harbo
ur was almost deserted – it was good sailing weather, and all the fishing boats were out at sea. The first man Eleanor saw down by the sea-front was a weathered old sailor busy repainting his hull; he glanced up as she approached.

  "How can I help you, miss?"

  "Do you know of any boats going to Flying Rock Island?" she asked. He looked like the sort of person who should know all the comings and goings.

  "Day after tomorrow," he said. "That's the regular supplies boat."

  "Oh. Thank you." Eleanor tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice, but she'd been hoping to start her journey sooner than that. Still, she reminded herself, a day or two was unlikely to make much difference.

  "You might find someone else headed in that sort of direction, but I'd say it's unlikely at this time of year. She's called the Arabella. She should be berthing tomorrow evening, so you'll want to come back then. I'll still be here painting," he added. "So I can point her out if you have any difficulty."

  Eleanor thanked him again and turned back towards the city. She needed to find somewhere to stay – it was too far into winter to risk sleeping on the streets – and unless that was going to be the puzzle chamber, she needed to get some more money first. Unfortunately, the streets were all but deserted, and the few people she did pass were well wrapped in their cloaks and walking far too briskly to provide an easy target.

  She stopped in a doorway and counted the money Jack had given her. It was enough for a few meals, and she could hardly complain about the rate of pay when she'd only been after a way to get home, but a guesthouse in the city would be expensive.

  She reached the harbour again and realised she'd walked in a big loop. Her eyes settled on the boat where the old sailor had been, its fresh paint gleaming in the last of the day's sun. He'd said he was going to be painting again tomorrow – there was no way that boat was going anywhere in the next couple of days. Glancing around to make sure she wasn't seen, she scrambled up the ladder and let herself into the boat's small cabin. This was only a tiny craft, the sort that would take one or two men to sea for one day's fishing at a time, but while it wasn't set up for sleeping it would surely be much warmer than outside.

  She slept with one hand on her knife, eyes flickering open at the slightest sound, but morning dawned without incident. As soon as she saw daylight she got up, not wanting to be caught out by the boat's owner when he came back to resume his painting, and made herself scarce in the city streets, determined to take full advantage of this chance to stretch her legs.

  As the sun began to dip lower in the sky again she made her way back to the harbour. As the old sailor had predicted, the Arabella was already moored; she nodded hello as she passed him, and approached the Arabella wondering what they would think of her request – and whether it would cost her.

  A young sailor was sitting in the bow with a large tankard gripped in both hands.

  "Excuse me!" Eleanor called out, stepping along the plank towards him. "Excuse me, is this the supplies boat for Flying Rock Island?"

  "Aye," he said. "An' the other islands that side o' the reef."

  "Could I get a lift?"

  "To Flyin' Rock? Well sure, I don' see why not. We'll be leavin' around daybreak, so don' you be holdin' us up, though – we won' wait."

  "Actually..." She took a couple more steps and dropped lightly onto the deck. "I was wondering if I could spend the night on the boat."

  "Oh." He looked a bit taken aback, but quickly recovered himself. "Uh, sure you can. Want a drink?"

  He held his tankard aloft but Eleanor shook her head. "Thanks, but I'm tired. Where should I...?"

  "Oh, grab any bunk." He waved languidly at the hatch. "Most o' the crew won' be back tonight – I drew the short straw to watch over her."

  Eleanor made herself comfortable in one of the hammocks, and she woke only once the boat was already moving out to sea: as the youth had predicted, no-one came in to disturb her sleep in the night.

  It was eight days before they reached their first port, and Eleanor was disappointed to be told that this wasn't the island she wanted. The next day, however, Flying Rock Island came into view.

  She could see a castellated building looming at the top of the island's highest cliff. "Is that Venncastle?"

  "Aye."

  She was speechless. As schools went, this was surely the most impressive. Raf had said it was a castle – and it really was. The vast structure was built out of black rock and looked like it rose straight out of the cliff, built to withstand an attack from lower ground on the island while looking out to sea for enemy ships. It was an uncompromisingly military structure, clearly designed back in the days before the Empire brought its peace across the archipelago. There could be no need for such a building now.

  "You headed up there?" the sailor asked. "Because you can get a lift on the supply cart, if you're prepared to help us unload first."

  So Eleanor helped unpack the crates of fruit and vegetables, wheat and barley, leather and paper – all things that an island this small and this rocky couldn't produce in feasible quantities. They loaded three carts – one bound for each of the two small towns on the island, and the third solely for the school. Eleanor climbed up alongside the driver, and they started to make their way up the hill.

  "What you want with the school, anyway?" the driver asked as they drove up the winding lane. "You don't look pregnant – and even then, it's usually the fathers as bring children up to Venncastle."

  "I just need to pass on a message," she said.

  "What kind o' message?" he asked, but she stared out to sea and ignored him, and thankfully he didn't push the question.

  Eventually they reached the school's vast gate-house, and the driver brought the cart to a halt parallel to the gates. "They'll come out to fetch their goods," he said. "They always do. If you need to go further, you're on your own – but they won't let me past the gate, and I've been doin' this delivery for twenty-odd years."

  "That's great," she said, jumping down from the cart. "Thanks."

  She turned and came face to face with a dozen black-uniformed youths – students approaching the end of their time at the school, she guessed – who began lifting crates from the cart. Eleanor's eyes were drawn to the stylized 'V's embroidered at the collars in striking green thread. A couple of the students cast suspicious glances at her, but most of them ignored her just as they ignored the cart's driver, focused only on their duties. Once they'd emptied the cart they turned and filed neatly back into the school.

  Eleanor made her way across to the gate-house, where two guards flanked the gate with crossbows in their hands. Armed guards felt excessive for a school, particularly in such a remote spot, but it was in keeping with the imposing military feel. They were wearing similar uniforms to the students, but edged with green piping. One of them lifted his bow, somewhat half-heartedly, and aimed an arrow at her as she approached.

  "You can't come in," he said as she continued undeterred.

  "I don't want to come in. I've just got a message for the Provost." She wondered whether a Provost was something like a headmaster. She walked up to the point of the guard's arrow, and looked him straight in the eye. "You don't have to let me past. You certainly don't have to shoot me. All you have to do is pass a message on to the Provost so that he can send word to the Association."

  "You're nothing to do with the Association," the guard said with flat certainty. "You're a girl."

  Eleanor felt anger rising in her chest. "Do you want to bet the safety of the Empire on that?" she asked, inspired by Raf's melodramatic style – if it was good enough for him to claim that defeat of the Association would eventually lead to the destruction of the Empire, then she could certainly borrow a little of his rhetoric. She wished he were here to back her up, particularly as the guard met her gaze impassively and silently. They'd listen to him. "There's a trap at the code tower," she continued. "Most of this year's aspirants are dead... I need this to get through to the right people."

/>   The guard continued to stare at her along the shaft of his arrow. She wondered what he was waiting for. Was there something she could say which would persuade him to take her seriously? Nothing obvious came to mind; it took her an uncomfortably long moment to think of an angle to try.

  "Listen, I was locked up with an ex-student of this school – he said I should come here. His name's Raf, his ID number is V-N-five-nine-F-six-three..." She paused for a moment to double-check her memory. "No, six-two. V-N-five-nine-F-six-two-E-Y-G."

  Still the guard made no response.

  "How can I make you listen to me?" she asked, frustrated.

  "I've been listening," he said, a hint of irritation creeping into his tone. "You do go on. Have you finished?"

  "Well, are you going to pass on the message?"

  "In the proper time."

  "Why not now?"

  He shook his head. "I'm on duty."

  "But–"

  "Oh, be quiet! I've heard what you said, and it's not so urgent that it can't wait for the end of my shift. Now, are you going to leave so I can stop waving this blasted bow around?"

  "Okay." She could tell she wasn't going to get any further by arguing. "Thank you."

  She walked down the hill feeling wholly dispirited. It hadn't gone at all the way she'd hoped, and though she'd followed Raf's instructions she didn't feel confident that their message was going to reach the right ears. Why did a school need an armed guard anyway? And what was the special link between Venncastle and the Association that meant this had been the right thing to do? She suspected the two questions were related.

  It was getting late by the time she reached the town again. She enquired about local guesthouses only to be told that the island didn't get enough visitors to warrant one, but that one of the taverns might find a corner where she could sleep for a reasonable rate.

  The rate she managed to negotiate did indeed seem reasonable, though the attic cot was hard and she could hear rats scuffling under the eaves as she tried to get to sleep. The tavern wasn't in the habit of providing overnight hospitality – the sheets smelled musty, and for breakfast the landlord managed only a few morsels of bread and cheese, meaning Eleanor was still hungry when she went out again.

  If, as Raf had suggested, she was going to leave it a few days before going to the code tower, then she had time to kill. Not sure what she was hoping to accomplish, she made her way back up to the school. Today's guards were different youths but the uniforms, the crossbows, and the unflinching stares were the same; after an abortive conversation, she walked on to see if she could see the code tower from the cliffs here.

  After her fourth pointless conversation with Venncastle's impassive guards, who would still give her no information about whether her message had been acted upon, Eleanor decided she was going to have to take a more direct approach. Her daily walks were giving her a fair impression of the castle's layout; the guards could survey all approaches to the main gate from their station, but although the school clearly took its security seriously they seemed not to bother with patrols on the ramparts looking out to sea. That would be the only way to get in without detection – and once she was within the walls, she hoped there might be further clues to help her find the Provost himself.

  She asked the landlord at the tavern that afternoon whether he knew anyone with a boat she could borrow.

  "What for?" he asked.

  She was sure it was an innocent question, but an honest answer would've aroused his suspicions so she simply said, "I was hoping to visit the White Isle – a friend of mine said it was easy to row from here."

  He pushed the door open. "That's the White Isle, just down there," he said, pointing across the water. "It's uninhabited – they say it's haunted – but you're welcome to borrow my boat to row across if you're really interested."

  "If you don't mind," Eleanor said. Tales of a haunting didn't bother her; she knew all about using superstition to keep people away, she'd played often enough to her schoolfriends' fears.

  "Of course. The tide's in your favour at the moment – if you leave now, you should just about be able to make it before dark. Tomorrow morning's probably your best bet for getting back."

  "Do you need the boat back tomorrow? I was hoping to have a couple of days to look around."

  He shrugged. "There's not that much to see – but do what you like, I don't use the boat much out of season."

  He took her down to the beach, turned over his small blue rowing boat and pulled it into the sea for her.

  "Take as long as you like," he reiterated as she settled herself on the seat of the boat and slotted the oars into place.

  "Thanks." She knew it'd take her more than a day, if she had to break into Venncastle before she could even think about going across to the code tower. She started rowing towards the White Isle until the landlord disappeared back into the tavern, then turned the boat to steer her way around the coast.

  The cliffs rose sharply to her left; not an easy climb but at least it was a natural surface, nowhere near as difficult as the smooth rock of the Tarasanka buildings. The walls of the castle would be a different matter but she couldn't predict that from here.

  She found a small inlet towards the northernmost tip of the island, and moored the boat against a jagged column of rock; it bobbed gently in the waves as she scrambled up onto the rocks.

  As she'd guessed from water-level, the climbing was mostly easy, with only a couple of challenging sections. She paused to catch her breath after negotiating a particularly difficult overhang, then turned to look up for her next handhold and found herself face-to-face with a dark-haired young man.

  "No-one has much time for people who poke their noses where they don't belong," he said. He was hanging from a rope which looked to go all the way up to the castle's battlements, with his feet planted firmly against the rock.

  "What do you mean?" Eleanor asked. The young man's uniform appeared to be of the student design, without the green piping of the guards, so she wondered what she could get away with.

  "Who'd notice if you didn't return?" he asked, pulling a knife from his belt.

  She considered his question. The landlord would miss his boat, eventually, but it wouldn't be that hard to find it. Other than Raf, no-one knew where she was; the threat was real. Assessing the situation, though, she knew she had no choice but to talk herself out of it. He had too many advantages over her as she clung by her fingertips to the rock face. Even reaching for a weapon of her own carried too many risks.

  "Raf would notice," she said boldly. "He asked me to come here."

  "Raf?"

  She struggled to keep the smile from her lips; she could tell she'd got him. His voice was loaded with familiarity and expectation. "He was a student here until last year," she said. "Did you know him?"

  The young man nodded but said nothing, still waiting – for what, Eleanor could only wish she knew.

  "Raf got hurt," she said. Easier not to mention that he was in a different country at the time, or she'd lose what little protection she'd gained by saying he knew she was here. "He wanted me to bring a message to the Provost – can you help?"

  "Why'd he send you?"

  "I just happened to be there," she said. It wasn't far from the truth. "He was injured too badly to come himself."

  He eyed her suspiciously. "Why not just walk up to the gate?"

  "I tried." She allowed herself a pained sigh, partially for dramatic effect but also to let out a little of her frustration; her arms were aching from holding herself in place, and her injured shoulder was beginning to twinge again. "Any sane person would try that first, but the guards here don't listen. Well, not to me." She looked him straight in the eye and batted her eyelashes. "Will you help me?"

  He sheathed his knife and extended his arm towards her. "Give me your hand."

  She reached up and gripped his wrist; he pulled himself upwards on the rope, tugging her after him. The extra lift made it easy for her to scramble up the
rock behind him, and in no time they were scaling the wall of the school.

  "I have no idea how much trouble this is going to cause me," he said as he helped her over the battlements. "But Raf was a good bloke, even to those of us who'll never make the grade."

  "What grade?"

  "Never mind." He blushed slightly. "I'd hoped catching you might count in my favour, you know. I could do with a bit of extra credit. But if Raf sent you, well, you're virtually one of us. Come on."

  He led her along the battlements, winding the rope around his arm as they walked, and into a small tower.

  "My room's not far," he said as they started down the steps. "You can wait while I fetch the Provost for you."

  His room turned out to be set into the side of the tower, a tiny space which must once have been a guard room and now contained a low bed, a small wardrobe, and a rack of practice weapons. A couple of arrow-slits gave views over the sea, and she understood now how he'd happened to spot her as she tied up her boat.

  "Make yourself comfortable," he said, waving her into the room. There was barely space for both of them beside the bed. "I'll be back soon."

  Eleanor perched awkwardly on the edge of the bed and studied the room with interest. How very different to her own school, where bedrooms had been shared and all weapons held in a central repository. These weapons were of a much higher quality than the cheap practice knives they'd had at Mersioc; she wondered if the difference was some kind of throwback to times before the Empire, when men had formed all the armies and women had stayed home to raise children, or whether this school just had better kit because it was in an old castle. Whichever it was, she felt just a little envious.

  She was still deep in thought when the young man returned. "The Provost will see you in his office," he said. "I'll take you across."

  They went down to the bottom of the tower, across a cobbled yard to the keep, and into another tower. The Provost's office was high up in the tower, a semi-circular room with green velvet curtains covering what must have been a very large window looking out over the school.

  "Thank you, James, you can wait outside."

  The Provost was a grey-haired, sharp-featured man with a stern expression; he didn't get up from his desk to greet them, and Eleanor hesitated before taking a seat across from him.

  "So you're the girl who's been bothering my guards, are you?" he said once she'd settled herself.

  She swallowed, wondering if he had more to say, but he seemed to be waiting for something. She sucked her lip nervously and wondered if this had been a bad idea. "One of your ex-students sent me," she said. "Raf. He wanted me to bring you a message."

  "About the code tower?"

  She nodded. Obviously some part of her message had got through to him already.

  "Why did you think you needed to break in to my school? Young James would've been perfectly within his rights to kill you – but he's got a soft heart, that one. A little too soft."

  Eleanor wondered how anyone could be considered 'within his rights' to kill her for a little rock climbing, but she didn't voice her thoughts. The Provost wasn't obviously armed but his manner carried more than a little menace and she was sure he had a few tricks up his sleeve. She didn't want to have to fight her way out of the school.

  "Did it occur to you that we might already know?" he continued. "Did you think that, just maybe, such a clumsy trick might have been noticed?"

  "Raf thought we should share what we learned in Taraska," she said. "So they can't try the same thing next year."

  "They won't be trying anything else, next year or ever," the Provost said. "Not that it's any concern of yours. For someone so determined to meddle in things which don't concern you, I'd say you've been lucky to last this long. Now, please ask young James to escort you from the castle, and expect my guards to shoot you on sight if you try to come back."

  Eleanor kept her eyes fixed on the floor as she made her exit, feeling a total failure.

  "Success?" James asked as she pulled the door closed behind her.

  "Sort of." At least she knew the message had got through. She felt cross at Raf for sending her here to be so humiliated, and then angry at herself for blaming him. He'd only been trying to help – as had she. "You're to show me out," she added.

  "The way you came in?" he asked. "Or would you prefer a more conventional route this time?"

  "I'd better go the same way," she said. "I need to get the boat back, and I don't fancy swimming round."

  It was pitch black outside, and although James held the rope for her to abseil down the cliff she still had to take care of her footing in the darkness. She held the end of the rope until she reached the boat and then released it, watching the end snake upwards as he reeled it in. Then, because it was too dark to risk anything else, she curled up in the bottom of the boat and wrapped her cloak tightly around herself. It was going to be a very cold night.

  She woke at first light the next morning, muscles stiff and aching from the cold, and started rowing as much to warm herself up as to go anywhere – the tide was against her, it would be quicker to simply wait, but she was shivering and knew the exercise would warm her. She realised she'd forgotten to bring any food, and hoped she'd find enough winter plants to provide some sustenance.

  She took a momentary break from rowing and looked over her shoulder towards the White Isle. The tower stood alone, isolated at one end of the islet. It looked for all the world like an abandoned lighthouse, with an equally-abandoned cottage at its base where the lighthouse-keeper would have lived. A small sandy bay looked like the ideal spot to land, and she turned the boat slightly to aim for the strip of sand.

  Eventually she reached waters shallow enough that she could see the bottom, and stepped into the ice-cold water to haul the boat up onto the beach. She dragged it across the sand and up onto the pebbles beyond the tide line, safely out of harm's way, and turned her attention to the code tower which was just a few paces further up the hill.

  The only obvious door went in to the cottage; a low, wide door with faded red paint. She tried the handle, not expecting it to open, and was taken by surprise when the door swung easily inwards on well-greased hinges. Was she really in the right place, or was this – as it appeared – simply a deserted lighthouse?

  She drew her dagger as she stepped inside; the Provost had implied that the trap had already been dealt with, but she wasn't prepared to take any risks where the Tarasanka were concerned.

  Quite out of keeping with the run-down appearance of the building's exterior, she found herself in a well-presented farmhouse kitchen. The iron stove was cold, but a stack of dry logs waited by the fireplace. Curious. Again she wondered if she'd come to the wrong place, but Raf's directions had been perfectly clear. The code tower was on the White Isle – and here she was.

  There were two doors at the back of the kitchen and a ladder leading up into the attic. Still holding her knife in readiness, she climbed a few rungs up the ladder and peered around – there was a neatly made-up bed under the eaves, but other than that the space was empty.

  Deciding there was nothing of interest up there, and assuming the heart of the code tower was likely to be the actual tower, she next tried the door to the left of the kitchen. The door lead not to the tower but rather into a pantry – she was only half-surprised to see that the shelves were stocked with pickled vegetables, smoked meats and dry biscuits. There was something very strange here, a house just sitting ready for someone to move in. Someone had prepared this place.

  Aware of her rumbling stomach, she reached for a biscuit before she went to open the final door, so it was with a mouth full of crumbs that she finally understood why they called it the code tower.

  The tower itself was circular, only about eight feet in diameter, and the internal walls were whitewashed then painted with a seemingly endless stream of numerals which ran together but formed no recognisable sequence. A series of pegs protruded from the walls forming a kind of sparse staircase spira
lling upwards, a ladder which would have to be climbed to read all of the numbers. The eponymous code, Eleanor assumed. Overwhelmed by the enormity of the task, she decided to satisfy her hunger first – the wall wasn't going anywhere, and she was starting to understand why the pantry was full. This was likely to take some time.

  Once she'd eaten her fill, and got a small fire going in the grate, she returned to the tower. It didn't look any better the second time – one long string of numbers which, so far as she could tell, ran unbroken from floor level up to the roof of the tower. She climbed to the top of the ladder, but the code didn't make any more sense from her new perspective.

  Sixty-one... that was the number she'd got from her second visit to the puzzle chamber at Dashfort, and she wondered if it would help her here. She tried counting sixty-one digits from the end of the string, and sixty-one lines up and down, but it meant nothing to her. Besides, Raf would surely have told her if she'd needed to do these things in a particular order.

  She wished again that he were here to help her. He'd known so much about everything in this process, surely he would've known what to do with all these numbers. If only she'd thought to ask him.

  Frustrated, she sat on the floor and started looking at the first few numbers, hoping to force some sense out of the sequence. Add seven, subtract two, add one, subtract four... it was easy to imagine any number of ways that the digits could be related but she could see no repeating patterns, no obvious links. She didn't even know what she was trying to find.

  She spent the rest of the day manipulating digits at the beginning of the string – adding and subtracting, dividing and multiplying, but learning nothing. As darkness fell she picked out some more food from the pantry and sat watching the flames dance in the hearth, wishing for inspiration. When no ideas were forthcoming, she went to bed, annoyed at herself over a wasted day.

  The following morning she tried mapping numbers on to letters, trying to force the sequence to speak to her, but every attempt yielded only more gibberish.

  Over the next couple of days she really came to appreciate the comfortable bed, the well-stocked pantry, and the firewood chopped and stacked neatly by the door. It was clear to see why the Tarasanka had thought to lay a trap here; it would be easy to relax in this place. All too easy to let your guard down while trying to solve the riddle of the numbers. She wondered again if that wasn't part of the point, still a part of her unable to shake the feeling that the Tarasanka trap could also be part of this strange quest, set up by the Association to further test its postulants. It would explain why no-one at Venncastle had seemed very interested in what she'd had to say.

  Yet the torture they'd endured had been more than real, and Raf had been really injured when she'd left him, and the others hadn't made it out of the castle. If it was a test, not many would pass.

  There seemed only one way to find out, and that was to wait – if being captured here was a normal part of the process, it would happen again. She was making little enough progress with the numbers that the idea of taking her time certainly appealed; she'd always disliked arithmetic, and it was even harder without instructions.

  She tried starting at both ends of the sequence, and at arbitrary points in the middle, trying to find any pattern that linked the digits. Whenever she thought she'd hit on something, looking a little further on would reveal a point where the pattern broke down, however devious she thought she'd been.

  Growing frustrated and bored with the task at hand she took to practising acrobatics in the tower, scrambling some way up the wooden ladder and somersaulting back to the ground, trying to land steadily on her feet with a knife in each hand as she leapt from greater and greater heights. The spinning numbers as she recovered her balance each time seemed to make no more or less sense than before.

  The time passed slowly, and she lost count of the passing days amid the numbers swirling in her head. There seemed to be no logic to it all. Believing she was looking for another two-digit number, she tried to convince herself that the paint on this digit or that one was of a subtly different shade, but tricks of the light meant that her choice of 'different' digits was continuously changing throughout the day.

  As she rested at the top of the tower one afternoon, she started to count the threes for no other reason than that her nose rested near to one. Once she'd counted up all those she could see from where she was, she started climbing down again, adding to her mental tally as she went.

  Her heart skipped a beat when she realised what total she'd reached at the end. One hundred and three threes. That couldn't be a coincidence, could it? She climbed back to the top of the tower and counted them again, just to be sure. Again she got a hundred and three.

  Suddenly excited, she scrambled up the ladder again, counting the ones as she climbed. One hundred and one. It was too neat to be chance.

  The twos, fours, and fives fitted the same pattern but the sixes, when she reached them, seemed not to. One hundred and nine sixes. Wrong by three. She counted again to make sure, but found the same result.

  The sevens were back to what she expected, but the eights were wrong at a hundred and fifteen.

  Could it really be so simple?

  She counted the nines and the zeros to check her theory; the totals were as she'd expected. Just two wrong digits. Sixes and eights. Out by three and seven respectively.

  Did that mean the number she was looking for was sixty-eight, thirty-seven, or something altogether more clever? She wasn't sure, but she was fairly confident that she didn't need to be in the tower to mull it over.