The Dark Flight Down

  “Knowing she would be pursued, Sophia tried to hide her tracks. She faked the death of the child. I don’t know what happened exactly. I saw . . . in the book . . . I saw the millrace at Linden, and people dragging a woman’s body from the water. All I know is that the baby did not die. Somehow, someone must have saved it, and it grew into a boy. A boy who lived on the streets for years, by himself.

  “You, Boy. You. You’re Frederick’s son.”

  She stopped.

  Boy stared through her as if she was a ghost, but if anything it was he who felt like a ghost.

  “This can’t be true . . . ,” he said.

  “It’s the truth. It may not be the truth you want, but it’s the truth all the same.”

  She put her hand out to him. He didn’t push it away but he didn’t take it either.

  “What did you want to find, Boy? What did you think would make you happy?”

  Boy shook his head.

  “I don’t . . . I don’t think . . .” He trailed off, at a loss for words. “I don’t know if I wanted to be happy, I just wanted to know.”

  “And now that you do . . . ?”

  “I can’t believe it. Frederick . . . my father.”

  “It’s funny. He’s so tiny, like you.”

  “Funny?” cried Boy. “Funny? That’s not what—”

  “I’m sorry!” Willow said. “I only mean—”

  “Never mind,” Boy said. “It’s just . . . That means that the Phantom . . . is my brother.”

  Willow nodded.

  “And Boy, do you know what else it means?”

  Boy looked up at her.

  “What?”

  “When Frederick dies . . . you’ll be emperor.”

  Boy walked over to the window, beyond which was a small balcony. He put his hand to the catch and pushed the narrow glass door open.

  “Boy . . . ,” said Willow.

  He stepped out onto the balcony, and watched the snow. He stood there, staring at the thousands of snowflakes plummeting to the end of their journey, the end of their dark flight down.

  He wanted so much to join them.

  But only for a moment. He turned back to Willow.

  “Willow,” he said.

  “Boy?”

  “I want to tell you some things too. I love you too. But listen to me. I know who my parents are now. I’ve got my answers. They’re not answers I like very much. Sophia Beebe, who died fifteen years ago. The emperor.

  “No. I’ve been stupid. I’ve been so desperate to find out, to find the truth, and now that I have, it’s all meaningless. It doesn’t alter who I am.”

  Willow smiled. She nodded.

  “It doesn’t change me,” Boy went on. “I was wrong to think it would. I’m just me, Willow. I’m Boy, who lived on the streets, who lived with Valerian, and now who’s in love with you. That’s who I am.”

  Willow rushed over to him and they held each other tight.

  “And now I know,” Boy said, “I don’t want anything to do with him. I’m not going to be anyone’s emperor. Only you and I know about this—”

  “No, Kepler knows.”

  Boy swore.

  “Of course!”

  “Kepler knows. That’s why he’s been trying to get to you.”

  “What? To get me out of here?”

  “No, he wanted to bring you here.”

  Boy shook his head.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Kepler knows who you are. He’s known it ever since he got the book. Ever since he cast your horoscope. And he knew immediately he could use you. He wanted to bring you here, and present you to the emperor. You, his long-lost son. He wasn’t quite the unassuming scientist Valerian thought he was. He craved power, having spent years in the wilderness after leaving the Academy. He thought that if he brought you here, and the book too, he’d be showered with money, power. He intended to take Maxim’s place.”

  “I can’t believe it. That’s why he’s been so desperate to hang on to me?”

  “Yes. It makes sense. Only it happened too soon. Your coming here, I mean. Kepler wanted to do things in his own time. He knew about Maxim, told me how dangerous he is. He was wary of him, and wanted to take things carefully.”

  “So why did he tell Valerian I was his son?”

  “It was all he could think of to save you. He knew you were the right age, so he told Valerian the one thing that could save you, and it worked. But all the time he had other plans for you. To bring you here, use you, to get the position of power he wanted.”

  Boy said nothing, taking time to think it all through. He roused himself, turned to Willow.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said firmly. “All that matters is that I’m not going be anyone’s emperor. We—”

  He stopped.

  “What?” Willow cried. He was staring past her, over her shoulder.

  “Willow!” he choked. He didn’t move.

  Sensing the fear in Boy’s body, Willow turned slowly in his arms, until she saw.

  The Phantom.

  The Phantom was standing in the doorway of the room. It stared hard at both of them, and lifted one finger to its mouth, licking it. Boy could see blood on the finger, his blood.

  The beast took a step forward, and in the lamplight, Boy could see its face clearly for the first time. Now at last he knew what it was that had horrified him the night he had run into the Phantom in the palace tunnels. What it was about the thing’s eyes. It was that they were his own.

  His brother. His mutated monster of a brother.

  Boy and Willow waited for the attack, yet still the Phantom paused. It seemed not to have noticed Willow at all, but kept its eyes fixed on Boy alone.

  Eye to eye, their gazes met, Boy and beast. Boy looked deep into those eyes. Beyond the tragic face, beyond the watery gray film across the eyes themselves, and further, he looked into the Phantom’s mind.

  Were there thoughts there? Real thoughts? Or just impulses, to kill, to eat, to run?

  There had to be more to his brother than that. Boy took a deep breath, and smiled.

  He stepped forward, and put his hand out to his brother.

  The Phantom looked at Boy, put his head on one side, like a dog considering something. He licked the blood on his fingers once more, and moved slowly forward.

  There was a clattering of feet on the steps, and Kepler burst into the room.

  “No!” he shrieked, and flung himself at the Phantom from behind.

  The Phantom was thrown to the floor, but pulled Kepler down with him, knocking over the table with the lamp. The lamp shattered and oil spread across the floor, a moment later catching fire and exploding. The room was lit only by the flames flickering up the side of the overturned table.

  Willow screamed.

  Boy screamed too.

  “No!”

  But it was too late. The Phantom rose and attacked Kepler, who had come armed with a knife.

  Boy watched horrified as the two figures struggled to their feet. They stumbled as one body, and backed into the burning table, which caught on the Phantom’s rags instantly. It shrieked with pain and lashed out at Kepler, dashing him backward onto the balcony.

  “No! Stop it! Stop it!” Boy cried.

  The Phantom lurched after Kepler, who was getting to his feet. The Phantom hit him hard in a crazed attack that sent them both hurtling toward the balustrade. Boy and Willow shrieked as both figures plunged over the balcony.

  Boy rushed out and was in time to see the burning figures plunge like a comet through the snowy night to the flags of the courtyard below. They were still.

  “No!” he cried, heedless that the whole palace could hear him. “No!”

  Willow hurried to his side and looked down. Then she turned and buried her face in Boy’s neck.

  Boy put his arm around her.

  “Come on,” he said. His voice sounded calm, and strong.

  Willow looked up at him.

  “It’s time we left,?
?? he said, “but there’s one more thing we have to do first.”

  Willow nodded.

  The book.

  They both turned to where it lay on the floor, a few feet from the burning table. The book that had caused so much pain and death.

  Together they made their way over to the book, and knelt by it. What they did next was not easy. It seemed to be radiating hostility toward them, as if it knew. They began to shake as they lifted the thing between them, the book suddenly feeling much heavier than ever before.

  “Maybe . . . ,” began Willow, but Boy shook his head.

  “No,” he said, powerfully. “It’s the end.”

  They opened it and fanned its pages into the flames of the burning table.

  “Die,” said Boy under his breath. “Die.”

  The flames seemed to lick around its pages and cover, but they would not take. It was as if it was impervious to fire.

  “It won’t burn!” cried Willow. “It won’t!”

  They watched, terrified, as if they’d been caught trying to kill someone. The book sat in the flames, and they grew more afraid.

  “It won’t burn!” cried Willow, again.

  “No,” Boy said. “Look!”

  He was right.

  The book hissed, like green birch logs. It crackled, and seethed, and spat spots of flame at them, but it was catching.

  “Burn!” Boy shouted. “Burn!”

  The spitting got worse and Boy and Willow backed away as finally the ancient, stained, grimy, ink-littered pages began to burn. Page by page caught, a lovely orange flame spreading across it, running the paper into blackness, before vaporizing as hot carbon dust.

  With each page that went Boy and Willow felt their hearts grow lighter, and their fears recede.

  The cover had caught now, and the leather was giving off noxious curls of stinking smoke that made their eyes water.

  “Die,” Boy whispered. “Go.”

  Willow held Boy’s hand.

  “It’s time we went too,” she said.

  So they did.

  3

  Boy and Willow walked through the City streets. It felt to them both as if they had been away for years, although it was only a matter of days. So much had happened.

  The snow was falling still, but it seemed possible that it was easing. Rumors of food shortages were spreading, though, and people wore grim expressions as they went about their business on the bitter January morning.

  They’d risked spending the night at Kepler’s house, having fled the palace. It had been easier to escape than they might have imagined, with chaos still spreading from the court, people dead or wounded by the Phantom, guards searching for Maxim, and Frederick barking away atop his throne. In all this madness, they had been able to leave the South Tower unobserved. They’d run along through the various palace courtyards until they found themselves by one of the outer walls.

  They still had to get out somehow, but it was the snow that had saved them, after all, the irony of which was not lost on Boy. He had yearned for forgetting all through the snowfall, and in the end it was the snow that had saved them, though in a much more mundane way. From the top of the palace wall they saw that a huge drift of snow had formed between the outer wall and the bank from which it rose. Holding hands, they had dared to jump, and tumbled down the thick, sloping snowdrift as gently as if they had landed on a goose-feather quilt.

  As they left the palace behind, and crossed the river, they saw that the Old South Tower was alight, flames shooting up into the snow-speckled night sky around them, sparks dancing upward as the snowflakes fluttered down.

  “That’s the end of the book,” Willow said.

  “Yes,” Boy replied. “It will cause no more suffering.”

  Willow smiled and held Boy’s hand. She looked into his eyes.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “People were wrong about him,” Boy said. “Maybe he wasn’t just a monster. Maybe if someone had looked after him . . .”

  “Your brother?”

  Boy nodded.

  Willow thought of something else.

  “He tried to save you, you know. Perhaps he did genuinely care for you.”

  She meant Kepler.

  “No,” said Boy, shaking his head. “He only wanted me, needed me alive, to get what he wanted.”

  “Oh!” cried Willow, and turned, grabbing Boy’s hands.

  “What?” asked Boy. “What is it?”

  “The book!” said Willow. “There was something else I saw.”

  A look of alarm crossed Boy’s face.

  “What?” he asked. “What did you see?”

  “Your name!”

  “No!” cried Boy. “No! Don’t tell me! I don’t want to know.”

  “But, Boy . . . ,” Willow said.

  “No! I don’t want to know. I am Boy, that’s all. That’s all I want to be.”

  “But, Boy, you don’t understand. What I saw. In the book, I saw Sophia, your mother, escaping with you. It was all so quick. She knew she had to escape with you, so she fled the castle, and headed out to the countryside. But she hadn’t even had time to give you a name.”

  “So I never had a name at all?” said Boy. He seemed calm; there was no anger, no pain in him now.

  “No,” said Willow. “No. Except, in the book, I heard your mother talking to you, all the time, as she hurried along with you in her arms. Talking to you, talking, talking, hushing your cries, blessing you with love, and all she called you was Boy, my lovely Boy, my darling little Boy. Boy.”

  Boy moved closer to Willow. She pulled him toward her, looked deep into his eyes.

  “Boy. That’s what she called you,” she said. “That’s your real name after all. Boy.”

  She put her arms round him, and held him fast until his tears were gone.

  Now, in the dim light of the following morning, they were leaving. They’d found a decent stash of money in Kepler’s study, and had packed clothes and blankets and some other valuables into two large bags. It was all they had, but it was more than either of them had ever owned before, and they knew it would be enough.

  “They probably will never come looking for you,” Willow said. “There’s too much confusion there.”

  “I know,” said Boy, “but that’s not the only reason we’re leaving.”

  “To think, Frederick was so desperate for an heir, and there you were, right under his nose. Now there’s only you and me who know.”

  She laughed.

  “What?” asked Boy.

  “Just think. You’re the heir to the empire. And if we ever tried to tell anyone, no one would believe us!”

  She stopped.

  “Are you sure, Boy? Are you sure? You’d be very rich. Powerful!”

  Boy looked at her.

  “In that madhouse? With those lunatics? No, Willow, we don’t need that kind of money or power. We just need enough to get by, and each other. And I think we’ll do that best somewhere else.”

  They walked on, heading for the City gates.

  Their route took them past St. Valentine’s Fountain. They both smiled, but remained silent until it was far behind them.

  “But where are we going to go?” Willow asked, not for the first time, as they reached the Northern Gate.

  They stood on the threshold.

  Behind them lay the huge, rambling, decrepit, awful, wonderful City, more or less all they had ever known. Their whole past lay in its maw. Ahead of them lay nothing they could see, but the emptiness and whiteness of a snow-laden, unknown future.

  “I don’t know,” said Boy.

  “We could go to Linden. After all, you’re a Beebe, sort of.”

  “After what we did to their church? I don’t think so. Anyway, I think I’ve got it wrong all these years. Wanting to have a past. To go back to Linden would be to make the same mistake. So let’s go and find a future, shall we?”

  They pulled their coats around them, and walked out into the pure white countr
yside, and as they did so, the snow began to ease. A small break opened in the clouds above them, and a weak but warming winter sun shone down on their path.

  Epilogue

  Midnight in the Imperial Court of Emperor Frederick III. The court is empty.

  The emperor sits on his throne, brooding.

  “Maxim!” he calls, in his high, pathetic voice. “Dammit, Maxim, where are you?”

  He waves a hand in the darkness, and flakes of his ancient skin drift up into the gloom.

  “Maxim, I need your help! I don’t think you understand. Sometimes I really think you’re trying to kill me! Do you hear me? You have no idea how difficult it is for me. You should help me more, Maxim. You really should understand. I need a solution, Maxim. Yes! And you’re going to find it for me.

  “Maxim, are you listening? Maxim! Maxim!”

  The emperor calls out in the darkness, in his madness, forgetting, forgetting.

  Forgetting that things have changed, forgetting what has happened, forgetting what he’s decreed.

  And far beneath the emperor, chained to a rough stone wall at the bottom of the dark flight of stairs where the emperor’s sad son used to lurk, lies Maxim, blinking in the darkness.

  So dance, my dears, dance,

  Before you take the dark flight down.

  About the Author

  MARCUS SEDGWICK’s first book, Floodland, was hailed as “a dazzling debut from a new writer of exceptional talent” and won the Branford Boase Award for a best first novel. Since then, he has written Witch Hill, which was nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Young Adult Novel; The Dark Horse, which was short-listed for the Guardian Award for Children’s Fiction, the Carnegie Medal and the Blue Peter Book Award and was a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year; and The Book of Dead Days, the prequel to The Dark Flight Down.

  Marcus Sedgwick has worked in children’s publishing in England for ten years; before that, he was a bookseller. In addition to writing, he does stone carvings, etchings and woodcuts. He lives in Sussex and has a young daughter, Alice.

  Also by Marcus Sedguick