“Sweet? It bit me!” Ferdie said, rubbing her ankle. “You have a funny idea of sweet, Oskar Sarn.”
Ten minutes later, having put both wood voles and Tod firmly out of their thoughts, Ferdie and Oskar set off from the clearing and took the path that the PathFinder villagers had been driven along. They were now in new territory. Soon they noticed that the trees were getting closer together and the light was growing dimmer; by midday the air felt cold. They pressed on through the afternoon, following the trail.
“It’s such a long way,” said Ferdie. “Torr must have been so tired. So scared . . .”
Oskar didn’t reply. He didn’t want to think about it.
The Far was getting very dense now and Oskar could tell that people had been split up into smaller groups in order to move through the trees. He imagined the Lady with her lamp striding up ahead, the terrified villagers staggering after her, herded by the Garmin, their yellow eyes flashing in the dark. Maybe some people had tried to make a break for it. Maybe a few villagers had got free and were now wandering, adrift in the depths of the Far. Maybe little Torr was one of them and now he was lost and alone and . . . Oskar shook the thoughts away. He must concentrate. He must follow the trail.
By late afternoon Ferdie and Oskar were very tired. The light was so dim that Oskar was using a light stick to follow the tracks. The trees felt oppressive and uncomfortably close, as though they were leaning over and watching them, and as Oskar and Ferdie pressed on, they began to hear strange howls and whoops from creatures that sounded a lot larger than wood voles.
“Oskie, we’d better stop before it gets really dark,” Ferdie said in a half whisper.
They had planned, if they were still in the Far by sundown, to spend the night up a tree. Oskar had prepared for this. He’d brought a weighted rope to throw over a branch and get them up a tree, a hammock for them to share, plus a thick blanket. But what Oskar hadn’t prepared for were the sounds of large creatures moving through the treetops. A sudden crack, then the crash of something heavy falling through the trees made them both freeze.
“What was that?” whispered Ferdie.
“Big,” said Oskar. He stared up, trying to see into the dark green canopy above, but all he could see was a swaying branch and a drift of leaves falling to the ground. The trees no longer felt so safe.
“Perhaps we should keep going,” said Ferdie.
“Yeah,” said Oskar. “Perhaps we should.”
The trail had the look of chaos about it now. It wound drunkenly through the trees and Oskar could see places where people had sat down, where they had stumbled and signs of a struggle where it looked like someone had put up a fight. He wondered what had happened to them. Some ten minutes later, Oskar stopped. “I can’t see the trail anymore, Ferd. It’s too dark.”
Ferdie did not reply.
“Ferd?” asked Oskar.
Ferdie was staring intently ahead. “Shh,” she hissed.
“What?” whispered Oskar.
“Look, Oskie.” Ferdie pointed through the trees. “Lights. I can see lights up ahead.”
Oskar waited a few seconds to allow his eyes to adjust from the glow of the light stick, and then looked. He saw them too: small white lights in the distance, unmoving, forming a regular pattern, with the occasional flash of a small, very bright, red light, which did move.
“I think it’s some kind of building,” Ferdie whispered.
“Yeah,” said Oskar. “It’s big.”
Ferdie looked at Oskar excitedly, her skin and long red hair shimmering in the dark, her eyes shining with excitement. “That’s where they are, Oskie. I’m sure of it. That’s where they are!”
“But I can’t see the trail, Ferd,” said Oskar. “We don’t know for sure.”
“I know for sure,” Ferdie declared. “Come on, Oskie, we’re going to find them!”
THE FAR FORTRESS
Oskar led the way. “Try to tread and move exactly as I do,” he whispered to Ferdie. “Then no one will see us coming. Okay?”
They put on their night gloves and pulled up their hoods, then Oskar moved forward, as silent and sinuous as a snake. Ferdie followed, not quite as silently but doing the best she could. The lights grew closer and very soon they reached the last of the trees. In front of them was an open patch of grass, in the middle of which squatted a short, round tower topped with battlements from which a brilliant red pinpoint of light could be seen moving slowly along. The tower stood out dark against a bright background of floodlights shining down from the battlements, illuminating the clearing in which it sat. Below the battlements was a single line of brightly lit slit windows. On either side of the tower stretching out like pale arms were two single-story stone buildings with no visible windows at all.
“It’s like a fortress,” Oskar whispered.
“It’s horrible,” said Ferdie.
“There are guards,” Oskar whispered. “Look. On the battlements.” He pointed to a figure, tall and bristling with spikes, holding a long lance that sent a needle-thin beam of red light up into the sky.
“We have to get in there, Oskie.” Ferdie sounded desperate. “They are there, I can feel it.”
Oskar frowned. “How can you possibly feel that, Ferd? You can wish they were there. You can think that it’s very likely they are there, but you can’t feel that they are there.”
Ferdie returned Oskar’s frown with an added scowl. “Well, I can. So there.”
“Huh,” muttered Oskar, unimpressed. Ferdie stood up. “Sit down,” he hissed. “They’ll see you.”
“No,” Ferdie told him crossly. She stared intently across the open ground to the long, low arm of the fortress that stretched toward them. “Oskie,” she said excitedly. “I can see a door at the end. That’s where we can get in!”
Oskar cast a knowledgeable eye across the open space. The wide, undulating patch of turf was lit by floodlights on the top of the towers and was frighteningly exposed. But Oskar could see that the lights were not well aligned and there were some deep shadows between the beams. The dips in the ground could, he thought, also lend cover. But it was a huge risk and Oskar didn’t give much for their chances of getting across unobserved. “Ferd,” he said, “you’re crazy. Suppose the trail doesn’t stop here? Maybe it carries on through the Far—and what happens then? We get into this place, they catch us and that’s it. We’ll never find Mum and Dad and Torr, will we?”
“Don’t be silly, Oskie,” said Ferdie. “Mum and Dad and Torr are in there. Everyone from the village is in there. I told you. I can feel it.”
Oskar was struggling to keep his temper. “Look, Ferd,” he said. “Feeling is no more than wishful thinking. But we will know for sure tomorrow as soon as it gets light and I can see the trail.”
“And then it will be light enough for those guards up there to see us, won’t it? And a fat lot of use that will be.”
Oskar and Ferdie were dangerously close to having a serious fight. Oskar did what he usually did at that point: he stopped talking. Ferdie also did what she usually did: she pushed things too far.
“Oskar Sarn, you are a wuss,” she hissed.
“And you are an idiot. Hey, Ferd. Come back.” But Ferdie was up and running. Horrified, Oskar watched her heading toward the fortress, zigzagging through the shadows like a rabbit escaping a fox. Oskar broke cover. Dodging into the shadows, he raced across the exposed turf, following Ferdie’s dark shape.
Craaaack!
A shot from the tower echoed across the clearing. A flock of large birds fluttered up from the trees and a warning whoop-whoop came from a creature somewhere deep in the Far. Ferdie threw herself into a dip in the ground and in a moment Oskar had landed beside her feet.
Craaack! Craaack!
There was a crashing through the branches, the thud of a heavy body falling from a tree and then a triumphant boom of a voice from the top of the tower. “Got ’im!”
“They’ve shot something,” Ferdie whispered, a little unnecessarily.
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The booming voice continued. “Go and pick ’im up, pie-face. There’s some good meat on that one.”
“You shot him; you pick him up,” was the response.
There was a loud thump from the battlements and then, “Ouch! That hurt!”
“Good. So do as yer told.”
“All right, all right. I’m going.”
There was silence while, Oskar and Ferdie guessed, one of the guards was coming down from his post.
“Hurry,” whispered Oskar. “Before he gets down here.”
Crawling like snakes, they made their way across the grass as fast and efficient as any python. At the precise moment the thud of boots hit what sounded like hollow ground, they reached the door safely. Crouching in the shadows, they watched the guard tramp off toward the trees where so recently they had been hiding.
“See?” whispered Ferdie. “It’s a good thing we didn’t stay there.”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Oskar, still annoyed.
“Can you open it?” Ferdie pointed up at the door.
Close up it looked formidable—a thick slab of iron peppered with rivets—but Oskar knew that the metal of the door would make it easy to listen to the telltale click of levers inside the lock.
“Yeah,” he whispered. “I think I can.” Oskar pushed up the rusty plate covering the lock to reveal a small keyhole. He selected a large pin with a bend in it from his lock-pick kit and set to work, while Ferdie kept watch.
Suddenly from the trees there was a yell. “Hey!”
Oskar froze—they’d been seen.
“Hey you, fatso!” the yell continued. “Yes, you up there. If you want tree-leopard steak tonight, you can come down and give me a hand. I’m not doing my back in, thank you very much.”
From the top of the tower came a very rude word.
Oskar put his ear to the door once more. He gave the pick a sharp twist and as the second set of heavy boots hit the ground, he felt the lock move. As the guard’s heavy footsteps headed toward them, Oskar pushed against the door. It moved silently open and in a moment they were inside the fortress.
They knew at once that they were in a cellblock. A wide, straight corridor lit by a line of white, hissing lanterns hanging from the ceiling ran to another iron door at the far, misty end. On both sides of the corridor were cell doors with tiny barred windows set in them at eye level.
“They were in those cells,” Ferdie whispered.
“But they’re not there now,” said Oskar.
Ferdie concentrated hard. “No. But they are here somewhere.”
“Okay. We’ll keep looking.” The sight of the cells had shocked Oskar. He was beginning to take Ferdie seriously.
They moved stealthily along the passageway. Oskar checked a few cells, but he saw nothing but bare sleeping shelves. At the iron door at the far end of the corridor he carefully pushed the plate covering the lock to one side. Something moved—it was the door. “It’s open!” he whispered.
They slipped through the gap and walked straight into something pink and squashy.
MY LADY’S CHAMBER
A huge sofa, lavishly upholstered in pink velvet and awash with a sea of tiny blue silk cushions, had been placed a few feet in front of the door. It took Ferdie and Oskar some seconds to understand that they were actually in someone’s bedroom. It was a very large, round room clad in dark wooden paneling above which were painted vibrant blue and pink stripes with a row of tiny windows far too high up to look out of. A big four-poster bed hung with shining blue silk stood opposite them. There were two large painted wardrobes on either side of the bed, and the rest of the room was taken up with tiny chairs with bendy legs painted in gold leaf. Ferdie shuddered; there was no doubt in her mind as to whom this room belonged.
Oskar hardly noticed the contents of the room—to him it was just a stuffy old room full of weird furniture. However, he did notice a metal door identical to the one they had just come through, leading off from the other side of the room. He had no doubt that it, too, led to a cellblock. Oskar was about to suggest they check it out when Ferdie grabbed him and pulled him down behind the sofa. “There’s someone coming,” she hissed.
They heard a sharp click of a concealed door opening in the paneling beside the bed, and then Ferdie heard something that made her go cold—the trilling voice she had grown to loathe during her time aboard the Tristan.
“How many more does he want, for goodness’ sake?” the Lady was demanding.
Ferdie and Oskar heard the rustle of silk as the Lady swept across the room. They heard footsteps hurrying behind her and a voice said, “My Lady, he has asked for twenty.”
The voice was shockingly familiar. Aunt Mitza, Oskar mouthed to Ferdie.
Ferdie opened her eyes wide in astonishment.
“And we are sending him thirty-five,” said the Lady. “So what is his problem?”
Aunt Mitza sounded unusually conciliatory. “My Lady, as you know, these thirty-five are not regular workers. They have other . . . er, skills. Well, maybe three or four of them do—if we are lucky.”
“So he can use the other thirty-one.” There was a crackle of silk, the sigh of overstuffed upholstery and Oskar and Ferdie felt the joints of the sofa sag as the Lady sat down. The sickly-sweet smell of powder took Ferdie right back to the Tristan. She felt panic beginning to rise. Oskar looked at Ferdie in alarm; he knew she wanted to run. He gave her the PathFinder “okay?” sign with his left hand. Ferdie gave Oskar a strained smile and returned his sign using her right hand.
Aunt Mitza was a changed woman. Her grating, impatient tones had been replaced by a conciliatory wheedle. “But my Lady,” she said, “by the time we discover which three or four are the useful ones, the other thirty-one may not be very, er . . . employable. Ha-ha.”
“Humph.” Oskar and Ferdie felt the Lady give an irritated wiggle on the sofa. “Then send the creatures out to get some more. There are settlements on the other side of the Far.”
“With the waxing of the moon, every night becomes brighter, my Lady,” Aunt Mitza replied uneasily.
“I know what the moon does,” came the snappy response.
“Indeed, my Lady. You are an accomplished observer of the heavens. But it is not advantageous to use Garmin past half moon. Their paleness gives them away.”
There was a sudden movement and the sofa upholstery groaned in relief. The Lady had got to her feet. “Tell me something I don’t know, Mitza,” she snapped.
“Um. I cannot, my Lady. Your immense knowledge far exceeds my own small sum of learning.” Oskar rolled his eyes at Ferdie. What a creep, he mouthed.
They heard the Lady sigh. “How I wish my little pet had not left me.”
“Your pet, my Lady? Did you have a little dog?”
“No, Mitza. The girl from the test run on the village. The girl who sewed so nicely and was too good to send to that awful pit. She spoke plain and simple. She looked me in the eye, unlike you, Mitza. Or anyone else, for that matter. I am surrounded by a tribe of sycophants.”
Aunt Mitza did not know what a sycophant was, but suspected it to be related to an elephant. “We do our best, my Lady,” she murmured. “And like those magnificently determined, great gray beasts, we, too, will get there in the end.”
“What a lot of tosh you do talk, Mitza. Perhaps I should send you along to make up the numbers.”
“No, no, my Lady! I beg you!”
“Oh, give it a rest; you’re safe for the moment.” The Lady sighed wistfully. “But my little pet, she would have stared me down and dared me to send her. She had such spirit. And she never did tell me her name.”
Suddenly Oskar and Ferdie heard a swift, light footfall approaching. They looked at each other in panic—anyone coming through the door would see them at once. They crawled very carefully toward the end of the sofa, hoping they could take cover behind its overstuffed arm. They didn’t make it. The door from the cellblock swung open and a young woman hurried in. She had long brown hair worn in
two plaits tied together; she wore a tired-looking dress with the remains of a few ribbons woven through the cuffs of her sleeves and a pair of scuffed but sturdy brown boots. Her face was thin and there were deep, dark circles beneath her eyes. Ferdie thought she looked haunted.
The young woman gave a quick curtsy and began to speak. “Those in Block One have gone through, my Lady, but there is some trouble with Block Two. The guards ask for permission to get reinforcements from the tower.”
“No. The tower must be kept secure. Trouble? I’ll give them trouble. I will be down directly.”
“Yes, my Lady.” The young woman did not move.
“Well, go on, girl. Go and tell them.”
“Oh, my Lady . . .”
“What?”
“It—it is so harsh to send a whole village. The little ones are so upset. Can’t you let the children go free?”
Ferdie and Oskar exchanged glances.
The Lady’s reply was not a surprise. “No.”
“But surely—”
“Madam, you forget yourself. We had a deal. If you want your boy back you will do as you are told.”
“But I never thought that I’d be doing this.”
The Lady laughed. “What did you think you’d be doing—making fairy cakes? Wise up, girl. Come, Mitza. We will go below and sort out the troublemakers.”
Oskar and Ferdie froze. They saw the Lady sweep out of the door, with Aunt Mitza scurrying behind. The young woman stared after them and burst into tears.
“Madam!” came the Lady’s shout.
The young woman rubbed the tears from her eyes and hurried to the door. As she was about to go through, something caught her eye. She stopped and stared.
Ferdie and Oskar froze. They had been discovered.
MADAM
“How did you escape?” the young woman hissed, glancing around to check the room was empty.
Ferdie sized up their opponent. The young woman’s brown eyes were friendly and she was nervously twisting one of her long plaits through her bitten-to-the-quick fingers. Ferdie liked her.