Everyone was breathless and sweating.
“Good job,” Aamir gasped, clutching his ribs.
“I’m so out of shape,” Jari sighed, collapsing against the far wall.
“No time to rest,” Alex said, his chest heaving. “We have seven more to get done. The sooner we do this, the sooner we find the essence and go home.”
It did the trick, encouraging everyone to stand up. Although their tiredness was beginning to show, morale was still high, and Alex knew their chances were good as long as that optimism remained. He replaced the cover of module seventeen, and rallied his friends behind him as they moved on toward number eighteen.
It was going to be a long night, after all.
Chapter 12
They returned to the tower room just before dawn, completely exhausted. The night had been filled with all manner of monsters and mayhem, and though their bodies were shattered, their hearts were filled with the joy of success. All the protective shields had been removed from the cylinders, meaning all they had to do now was fit the jammers and overload the systems.
There had been giant golden snakes with poisonous fangs, fierce blockades of pure energy that sent them flying back against the wall, blasts of fire that surged up from the flagstones, a wall of flying golden arrows that had nearly caught everyone off guard, a bristling mist that had rendered them temporarily blind, a hooded reaper wielding a scythe with terrifying skill, and a few more hags on brooms swooping down to claw at their faces. Alex had been a little disappointed by the last one, wondering if Caius had simply run out of grim ideas and had to repeat one.
Either way, it had been a very long night, and they were ready to sleep. Twice in the night, the girls’ scarab devices had gone off, only to stop abruptly, leaving them to hope that Lintz or Demeter was seeing to the intrusion, in the middle of jammer-building and tending to Agatha. Alypia’s continued absence in the keep gave them confidence that it had been dealt with, but with the threat of the royal’s arrival perpetually looming over them, the group was spurred on to get the job done. The girls’ screeching scarabs led Jari and Aamir to realize that their devices had run out of juice, and were in need of fixing, though it would have to wait until morning, when they could seek out Lintz. Alex had forgotten to replace his own beacon after losing it on that first day exploring the keep, and he hoped Professor Lintz wouldn’t be too disappointed in him if he asked for another.
The group settled in for a few fitful hours of sleep. When he awoke, Alex checked himself for wounds in the full light of day, and found he had scabs on his shoulder and forearm where the tip of the reaper’s scythe had gotten him. And he wasn’t the only one. They all looked as if they had traveled through a warzone.
Ellabell had a bruise or ten from the blockade that had sent her hurtling into the wall, and the beginnings of a black eye where a broom had collided with her face. Natalie had the livid cut on her cheek, and another just above her eyebrow, where an arrow had skimmed past her. There was one on her arm too, where she had ducked too late to evade the scythe. Jari was covered in a crosshatch of cuts, having borne the brunt of the wall of arrows, as well as the wrath of the flying hags. Aamir was the only one who seemed to have emerged visibly unscathed, though he had narrowly missed having his arm bitten off by the fanged serpent. He’d lost his shirt sleeve as proof, but the actual arm beneath it was unharmed save for a small burn where the poison fang had touched him for the briefest moment.
Lintz and Demeter entered the room, chatting jovially. Words died on their lips as they took in the sight of the walking wounded, their faces morphing into expressions of pure shock.
“Oh my…” Demeter began.
“Goodness me, what happened to you?” Lintz cried, rushing to their aid.
Alex raised his hands. “We’re fine, Professor. It looks worse than it is. We just spent the night breaking down the module shields, so we can fit the jammers and overload the systems,” he explained, wincing as he tried to move his twisted shoulder.
Lintz frowned. “Why didn’t you come and get us?”
“You were busy,” Alex said, nodding toward the cluster of metallic objects the professor cradled in his plump arms. It looked as if Alex and his friends weren’t the only ones who’d had a busy night. He flashed a knowing look toward Demeter too, knowing the cause of the sickness that had kept the ex-teacher at Agatha’s bedside, tending to her tortured mind.
“Still, we’d have come with you if we’d known you were going on such a dangerous errand!” Lintz insisted.
“Honestly, Professor, we’re fine,” Aamir interjected. “A few scratches and bruises, nothing we can’t handle. It needed to be done, and it needed to be done quickly. Now we can move on with today’s tasks.”
“Well, you look in no state to bring down the barriers today,” Lintz remarked sternly.
Alex straightened in his chair. “It can’t wait any longer. Are those the jammers?” he asked, looking at the cluster of devices Lintz had lain on the tabletop. They were small and neat, crafted from solid bronze and shaped like miniature crabs, though the shells had been tempered to shine a brighter red color.
“Yes, these are the jammers,” Lintz replied reluctantly.
“Then let’s blow this thing sky-high!” Jari announced, flashing the professor a grin.
“I suppose there’s no point in trying to dissuade this stubborn lot,” Demeter said.
Lintz sighed, shaking his head. “Give me your beetle beacons, then, please.”
They passed him their devices.
“Ours are out of juice,” Aamir said, gesturing toward himself and Jari.
“I was wondering when they might begin to fail… I’ll do what I can with them. Come, I suppose we must go and fit the jammers, if you will not be dissuaded,” Lintz mumbled, scooping the jammers off the table and tipping them carefully into the front pocket of his satchel.
Alert and nervous for what was to come, the group went down the stairs and followed the familiar route to the first vestibule, where module sixteen lay against the wall, waiting for someone to blow it up.
Alex froze as he saw Agatha coming toward them, heading up the hallway from the opposite direction. Vincent walked beside her, and it was only as she neared that Alex realized he had nothing to fear from her anymore. Her eyes were misty, and she wore a contented smile upon her face as she twirled a long, gray tendril of hair around her fingers in an oddly girlish manner. She paused when she came close to where Alex stood, her eyes narrowing for a moment, as if she were trying to remember something from long ago. Unable to grasp the memory, she waved in greeting instead, no hint of attack in her body language.
“Hello, you beautiful creatures!” she cried, in her melodic voice. “So wonderful to see you all. Goodness, you’re getting quite the shiner,” she remarked, reaching up to touch the bruise on Ellabell’s face. “Excellent day for a rebellion, if I say so myself.” She chuckled warmly.
“Good morning, Agatha,” the group chorused politely.
Alex gave Demeter a questioning look. He wasn’t sure how Demeter had roped the Spellbreaker-hating woman into helping, but it looked as if he had. His mind trailed back to the glowing strands pouring from Demeter’s hands into the skull of the usually mellow mage, and wondered if that was how he’d gotten her to change her mind. Whatever Demeter had done, Alex thought she seemed happy enough. She appeared unharmed by the act, but still, something didn’t sit quite right in his mind. Alex pushed the negative thoughts away, trying to convince himself that mind control couldn’t be all that bad if it could be used for good too, and if nobody was any the wiser, and nobody got hurt, was it really such an immoral thing?
“She’s come around to the idea of you,” whispered Demeter with a knowing smile, half-confirming Alex’s suspicions.
The auburn-haired man volunteered to be the first. He stepped up to the golden cylinder and removed the cover, pulling the two loose screws away.
“I suppose we must have a screw loose too, doi
ng this,” Demeter chuckled, surprising everyone.
Alex smiled tensely. “I think we probably do.”
Lintz stepped up and pointed toward the clockwork, adopting his most teacher-like tone as he instructed the others.
“So, I shall walk along with you and fit the jammers into the system. Once a short period of time has passed, all you will have to do is surge a vast amount of power into the mechanism. The system will already be jammed, but the jammer doesn’t stop the barrier magic completely—it simply halts the flow, preventing more from taking its place. Blowing the mechanism itself will blow the barrier magic, hopefully resulting in a section of it being brought down completely,” he explained, twisting the corners of his moustache with anxious fingers. “You will wait for my signal, which will be the appearance of a golden orb in the space behind you. Okay?”
Everyone nodded, and Alex could feel a tremor of nervous anticipation course through his body. It had all become very real. In the planning of it, there had been a detachment in which they could feel confident of their success, but now, faced with the stark truth of it, Alex didn’t feel quite as gung-ho about the whole thing. The imminent threat of the warden coming for them sent a shiver of fear up his spine; the evasive man was powerful, and Alex just hoped they would be strong enough to take him down, when it came to it. They had plotted as best as they could, but Alex knew there were no assurances of success in this. Glancing at the others, he saw his fear mirrored on their faces. They were about to step into a relative unknown. As soon as they broke the barrier down, there would be no turning back.
Lintz stepped toward the clockwork and lifted one crab-shaped jammer out of his bag, pressing the metal crustacean up against a connecting section of cogs and pulleys. Sparking into life, the bronze crab snapped its claws and grasped two nodes that stuck out at the top of the mechanism, clinging fast. The jammer-crabs might have looked small and weak, but they were surprisingly strong. Immediately, the clockwork began to struggle, the cogs stalling, the pulleys straining.
“Mechanism successfully jammed,” Lintz said, visibly unable to contain his pride in the miniature crustaceans. “Shall we move on?” he encouraged, though there was a tightness in his voice that belied his true fears. The group did just that, following Lintz as they left Demeter behind.
Natalie took the second module, with Aamir, Jari, Ellabell, Vincent, and Agatha taking the ones that followed. At each stop, another jammer was fitted, the claws snapping triumphantly into place. Alex took the penultimate module, and Lintz carried on to the final one in their chosen section.
Glancing around, Alex thought it was strange to be in such isolation in the midst of a collaborative task. The vestibule in which he stood was oddly silent, with nothing but the steady rumble of the day-to-day prison life filling the quietude. It made things all the more unsettling as he waited, head turned over his shoulder, in anticipation of Lintz’s signal. He tried to imagine his friends, lined up along the hallways, wondering if they were feeling as nervous as he was. There was excitement, too, that the plan was finally coming together, but it was all tinged with a streak of terror. If Caius took the bait, Alex knew they could have the essence in their hands by dinnertime, but he also knew there was a good chance they could be dead. Alex had to cling to the hope that it would be the former. If he allowed himself to think of Caius overcoming them, he knew he might just lose his nerve.
They had strength, they had power, they would hopefully have the element of surprise, but that didn’t mean anything in the realm of Kingstone Keep. Alex knew Caius could scupper it at any stage.
Behind him, a floating golden orb brightened into view, coming to rest in the center of the room. Alex’s heart began to pound harder. Taking it as his indication to move, he turned toward the clockwork mechanism and rested his hands on top of the cylinder. Glancing down, he saw that they were shaking slightly, as he conjured a vast ball of raw energy, feeling the swell and surge of it beneath his hands. Focusing, he pressed the anti-magic into the module’s mechanics, feeling it come up against the resistance of the jammer Lintz had fitted. Using that as a point against which to brace his anti-magic, he let the pressure build and build, using all his strength to push it harder against the jammer, feeling it grow to an extraordinary force beneath his hands. He was giving it everything, and still the mechanism wasn’t giving way. He could feel a trickle of sweat on his brow as he surged more and more anti-magic into the system, willing it to overload. Finally, with an enormous explosion that sent him sprawling backward, the mechanism relented, the whole thing breaking apart, releasing the hold it had on the barrier magic.
Alex scrambled to his feet, hearing the echo of explosions down the hallway. Rushing toward the mechanism, which was still searing hot from the blast, he picked up the golden cover from the floor and hurriedly fixed it back into place, burning his hands slightly as he tried to make it look the way it had before. Stepping back, he was pleased to see that it looked as if nothing had happened, save for the rush of red fog that was escaping upward, out of the keep.
His pulse was racing, and he could feel the sweat on his brow go cold as he braced for Caius’s arrival. The barrier was down; they couldn’t bring it back now.
For the first time, out of the window that stood beside the module, Alex could see out into the world, the bronze fog clearing to reveal the landscape beyond. He peered out over the ledge, soaking it all in, feeling the rush of cool, fresh air on his skin, trying to calm his nerves. In the near distance, a fair stretch from the moat, a lush, dark green forest ran as far as the eye could see, leading to the faint shadow of mountains behind, which rose up to meet the darkening sky. Closer still, nestled in the shade of the forest, where the trees separated to forge a rudimentary path, Alex could see a gatehouse, perfectly formed and almost quaint to behold. It stood a fair distance from the wide moat that surrounded the keep. It was just far enough away from the prison, Alex thought, which, to his mind, looked like a promising place for a warden to visit.
He wondered if that was where Caius would come from.
Breaking into a sprint, he ran to meet the others. Everyone seemed on edge, chattering anxiously, but their modules were suitably exploded, the covers replaced. It had already been a few minutes, and still Caius had not come.
“Any sign?” Alex asked, as Lintz, Vincent, and Agatha came up the corridor.
Lintz shook his head. “Nothing as yet, but it may take a short while.”
Alex didn’t want to wait any longer. He knew Caius needed to appear before they all lost momentum; they were ready for him now. There was no time to lose, and Alex felt the familiar bristle of annoyance ripple through him, mixing with his anxiety.
“It worked, right?” he pressed.
Demeter nodded. “It worked perfectly.”
“Then where is he?” Alex stared out the nearby window, scrutinizing the gatehouse in the distance.
As a frustrated sigh emerged from Alex’s lips, the ground shook beneath their feet, beginning as a small tremor, then descending into a full-blown, wall-shattering, earth-trembling quake. Shouts of fear erupted from the prisoners nearby. Alex grasped the wall, trying to stay on his feet. A deafening roar filled his ears, and he turned to the others, fear pulsing in his veins. If this was Caius making his entrance, Alex had never expected the warden to make such a violent arrival.
Demeter and Vincent were trying to say something, their mouths wide, but Alex couldn’t hear them above the din.
“WHAT?” Alex screamed.
This time, he realized what the two men were saying: Run! Hide! Get out of here!
Alex didn’t even have a chance to grab the Stillwater essence Ellabell had hidden a few feet further up the corridor in preparation. All he could do was dive toward the nearest door. He saw Ellabell and Natalie throw themselves into a cell just ahead, with Aamir and Jari following suit through another door at the top of the hall. Vincent and Agatha sprinted past him with surprising speed.
Alex broke the l
ock to the cell with a twist of his anti-magic and jumped inside, slamming the door behind him. He peered through the grate. Demeter and Lintz whispered hurriedly in the corner, brushing down the fronts of their gray uniforms and sweeping their hair back, their faces pale pictures of abject fear.
The ground continued to shake, and Alex felt as if the whole keep might crumble and collapse on top of them. Clusters of dust and debris dropped from the ancient ceiling, chunks of rock falling away from the walls.
This wasn’t right. They had known Caius would come, and so the reaction of Vincent, Demeter, and Lintz didn’t make sense. They were truly, wholeheartedly terrified of what was coming, and Alex had no idea why.
Chapter 13
The earthquake ceased as suddenly as it had begun, although the suffering cries of the inmates still echoed through the Keep. Alex glanced behind him, unnerved. He could feel the burn of eyes, watching him. Turning slowly, he peered into the darkness. With a startled gasp, he saw a hunched figure, crouched down in one corner of the cell. The beady eyes of an ugly, sagging face followed him, a rotten-toothed smile stretching across the pale skin of the frightening troglodyte. The limbs of the prisoner stuck out at unnatural angles, the hair limp and greasy.
Piercing the unpleasant tension, the man began to laugh hysterically, the sound jarring amid the shouting. Alex wanted to shut him up, but he didn’t dare get close. He had no idea what the prisoner was in here for, and he didn’t think it wise to go toe-to-toe with a murderer.
The sound of heavy footsteps on the flagstones outside distracted Alex’s attention, though he was careful to keep one eye on the manically laughing man.
“What do I have to do to find someone who has at least bathed in the last fortnight?” a sharp voice bellowed from the end of the hallway just beyond Alex’s line of vision. The prison went silent, the only sound the cackling of Alex’s cellmate.