The Dark Flight Down

by Marcus Sedgwick

  Willow squealed and dropped the match, which had burned to her fingertips.

  “Quick!” Kepler said. “Light another one! I saw something.”

  Willow struck another match and once more a little patch of light spread around them.

  “There!” said Kepler. “Over there!”

  “What is it?” Willow asked, and followed Kepler carefully to the edge of the hole left by the trapdoor, where something on the floor had caught his eye.

  He picked it up.

  It was a white feather.

  “What?” asked Willow, desperately. “What does it mean?”

  “It means that our crooks were rather powerful people. And I think it means I know where Boy is. The Imperial Palace.”

  “How do you know?” Willow asked.

  “The feather. The feather is from the uniform of an Imperial Guardsman. That’s where he is.”

  Willow dropped the match, and they were left in darkness again.

  “I will get him out,” Kepler said, but not really to Willow.

  “I’ll help. I’ll come too.”

  “Not this time, girl!” Kepler declared. “I’ve had enough of you tailing around. Boy is mine, and I don’t need your help with anything. Not least Boy. You go back to the orphanage and be grateful I found you a job!”

  Willow said nothing.

  She knew what she was going to do whether Kepler liked it or not, and there was no point in arguing about it. Without another word she left the Tower, and the house, behind her.

  Kepler stood in the ruins of the Tower, brooding.

  “Boy!” he said to the thick dark air. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not yet. But your fate is mine now. You will be mine.”

  He pulled the lens from his pocket and held it tight in his fist.

  “And I have this, at least. . . .”

  3

  For a long, long time Boy saw nothing, heard nothing. It was as if he had become deaf and blind, and panic began to well up inside him. Finally he could stand no more, and as much to prove he had not gone deaf as anything else, he shouted into the darkness.

  “Hello! Hello?”

  His voice fell dead around him, with a short, curtailed echo. It reminded him of those dank underground tunnels where he had been pursued by Valerian, and he didn’t like the memory one bit.

  “Please! Please don’t leave me here!”

  The heavy silence covered him the moment his voice was killed by the close stone walls and low damp ceiling. He was about to cry out for a third time, when he caught a whiff of the smell he had sensed before. His heart beat faster, but he heard nothing. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to be calling out into the nothingness.

  He put his head back on the cold stone floor, and still trussed up like a slaughtered beast, he lay motionless for a while.

  He must have slept.

  He was woken up by being pulled roughly by his ankles from where he lay.

  Hands seemed to be everywhere, grabbing him, but he still couldn’t see anything, dazzled by the light from several oil lamps.

  “What . . . ?” he tried to say, but was winded as he was thrown over someone’s shoulder.

  “Get on with it,” said a voice. “He’s in a foul mood. And he wants it all now.”

  “As usual,” said another voice.

  In an instant Boy was swung away down a low, gloomy tunnel, but he felt that they were rising this time, headed up to the real world. He was glad of that, at least. Maybe there would be someone he could talk to, to explain things and get himself set free. It all had to be a silly mistake; he couldn’t really belong to the emperor. Like most people in the City, Boy knew little of the emperor, just vague stories about him, that he was very old, and maybe a little crazy. No one knew anything for sure.

  As his eyes grew used to the lights bobbing ahead of him, he saw that he was being carried by one of a long line of men, each with some burden or other. He was hanging upside down, and it was hard to be sure, but as the file of carriers made its way into a larger and this time torchlit tunnel, he saw what it was they were carrying. Valerian’s things. All of them.

  Before he had time to wonder what was going on, Boy sensed something else. That smell again. He twisted around to see its source, and in the dim light could just make out a small, rough-cut entrance to a flight of stairs leading down from the corridor they were in. It was barred by an iron grille, with a padlocked chain holding it shut.

  Beyond the grille, Boy could see that the stairs were narrow, and hideously steep. It made him feel sick merely looking at them. They plunged down into darkness and there was no sign that they ever ended.

  “Stop wriggling, you monkey,” snarled the man carrying Boy. He let himself hang loosely again and they moved past the entrance to the dark flight down.

  They were still trudging upward, and now turned and climbed three stone steps. Then there was a doorway, and suddenly the light was brilliant all around them.

  They were in a long and ornate corridor, with a polished wooden floor. Bright morning daylight poured in through tall leaded windows. Along the walls hung huge, elaborately framed portraits of people in royal attire.

  The corridor seemed to stretch forever, and when they finally left it, they turned and the long file of men made their way down another identical gallery.

  As they went, taking a flight of stairs here, and entering and leaving countless golden-glimmering rooms and passages, Boy finally understood that he really was in the Imperial Palace.

  He heard voices ahead, and saw from his upside-down point of view that they were in a chamber large enough to be a ballroom. Huge windows took up much of one wall, flooding the room with more light than Boy’s eyes could bear for the time being. He squinted as he was dumped onto a tabletop, blinking and trying to get the right way up.

  “Stay there, you little brat!” snapped his porter, and cuffed him round the head. Boy lay, blinking.

  As he got used to the light he gradually opened his eyes a little more, and dared to look around. Men were standing in groups; others were still filing in from where Boy had come, all bearing more and more of Valerian’s things. Boy lost count of how many came in carrying a stack of a dozen or so thick leather-bound books, depositing their burdens on long polished oak tables, just like the one he was lying on.

  Occasionally someone would glance at him, but when he tried to get their attention, they ignored him, merely regarding him as if he was an animal, or some curiosity in a marketplace.

  Suddenly there was a commotion, and the porters hurried frantically along the tables and made their way out. A trumpet blast sounded at the far end of the hall, and the groups broke up to form an orderly line. They all bowed, ridiculously low.

  A nervous voice cried out.

  “His Imperial Majesty, His Royal Greatness, Emperor Frederick!”

  Boy twisted round where he lay and regarded the far end of the room.

  A tall, imposing figure in flowing bloodred robes swept into the room. The silence was total.

  Boy, like many people in the City itself, had often doubted that there was an emperor at all behind the high walls of the palace. No one had seen him in years, life in the City seemed to go on perfectly well by itself, and some people even believed him to be nothing more than a legend.

  Now, right before his eyes, Boy saw an impressive, powerful man with a shaven head striding down the length of the ballroom, and knew the rumors were false. Another figure trailed after the first. A small old man, richly dressed but shrunken, hobbled in after the emperor, who stood waiting with his hand resting on a high-backed chair, so sumptuous it could have been a throne.

  Boy watched, puzzled. The line of men still bowed with their noses near their knees, while the old man scurried along, taking short hopping steps. He reached the throne, and sat down in it, then put his head back, his eyes closed.

  Finally he opened them again, and turned to look at the tall man beside him.

  “This had better be w
orth it, Maxim,” he whined. “I haven’t been down to the Eastern State Rooms since . . . well, I can’t remember, but there’s far too many flights of stairs on the way. You should have had a chair sent for me.”

  “My apologies, Emperor,” said Maxim.

  And now Boy understood. The decrepit little man was the emperor, not the tall figure in red.

  Emperor Frederick. The last of his line, at least eighty years old, with no kin to succeed him.

  “I do indeed believe,” Maxim went on, “that you should see everything we recovered from the magician’s house. And I recall that you did yourself say that the Eastern Ballroom would be the only place large enough—”

  “Nonsense!” snapped Frederick. “I said no such thing. I never change my mind, you know that! What’s wrong with the court? That’s twice the size, and several floors closer to my chambers! Dare you contradict me, Maxim?”

  “Indeed no,” said Maxim, flatly. “I do not question you, sire. But some of the items were . . . a trifle awkward to carry that far. Shall we?”

  Maxim gestured for Frederick to join him, but the emperor shut his eyes and shook his head.

  “I can see from here. You may begin.”

  Maxim clicked his fingers. The line of bowing courtiers jerked upright, some a little faster than others. One or two older ones straightened very slowly, a hand clasped to the small of their backs. They made their way over to join Maxim, who was walking along the line of tables, inspecting the things lying there.

  Unable to move himself upright, Boy had a rather sideways view of what was going on. Nonetheless, he could sense there was something familiar about Maxim. It was in the way he moved, the way he looked at the emperor and the way he seemed to be restraining his voice whenever he spoke. There was something restless about him, something hungry, though Boy did not know what it was exactly.

  “Magical apparatus, sire!” Maxim announced from across the room.

  Frederick yawned, opened his eyes for a second, then shut them again.

  “Why did we have to do this so early in the day?” he sniped at Maxim. “You know my stomach hurts if I have to arise early.”

  “It’s nearly noon,” Maxim said, calmly, “and I thought the matter too urgent to wait. This magical equipment could hold the secret to occult powers that may aid us in our quest.”

  Boy looked at the things Maxim had indicated and frowned. He didn’t see that a box that chickens disappeared into, and a device for making smoke screens for Valerian’s stage act were going to be of much use for anything the emperor could be interested in.

  Maxim and the other members of court moved on, then stopped at the next group of tables.

  “Books, sire,” Maxim announced to Frederick, who remained with his eyes shut, and waved a hand dismissively.

  “What of it? We have lots of books.”

  Maxim bit his tongue.

  “Yes, sire, but the magician was known to have certain books of considerable power. Certain. Books.”

  He paused, thinking Frederick would respond to this, but the Emperor was barely listening. Maxim sighed and went on.

  “It may be that some answer to our search lies within one of these tomes. I will bend my researches in their direction, scour every page for the slightest clue.”

  He flourished a hand at the hundreds of books stacked in crazy piles on the tables.

  And that should keep him off my back for a while, Maxim thought, but said nothing. Instead, he spread a large and very fake smile across his face and continued.

  “In fact,” Maxim went on, “I am convinced our solution lies in that direction. The magician . . .”

  But Maxim stopped midsentence. He had seen something that surprised him. Curled up on one of the tables, with hands and legs tied behind him, was a thin youth with spiky hair.

  For a moment Maxim was thrown. He glanced at one of the porters, who rapidly whispered in his ear.

  “The magician’s famulus!” Maxim declared.

  Frederick coughed and opened his eyes. He followed Maxim’s hand pointing to where Boy lay.

  “His what?” he spluttered.

  “His assistant,” Maxim replied. “His apprentice. His . . . boy. We found him in the ruins of the house, he belonged to the magician. We believe he may be of considerable use in explaining many of the practices and skills of the magician himself.”

  Boy frowned, wishing he could scratch an itch that had started on his nose.

  There was silence. The emperor stared, his little eyes blinking slowly.

  “Maxim, I have had enough,” he said.

  “But, sire, this is a great development in our search. We are getting closer—”

  “Shut up!” Frederick whined. “Shut up! We are not getting closer to anything. I am getting closer to lunchtime, and I haven’t even had my breakfast yet.”

  “Sire . . .”

  “And you, Maxim, are getting closer to the executioner’s block.”

  “Sire, I—”

  “Understand me, Maxim. I mean you to succeed in this quest. That is vital. But how you do it is of no interest to me whatsoever. Understand? So get me a chair to take me to breakfast, and make sure that damn chef does the eggs properly. You know they make me ill if they’re too runny. I swear he’s trying to kill me.”

  “Yes, sire, I—” Maxim tried again, but the emperor was not listening.

  “I’m running out of patience, really I am. You had better find an answer soon. Where’s that blasted chair? I can’t wait all day, you know. I won’t have time for breakfast before lunch and you know that I get a headache if I don’t get enough rest between meals. You’re trying to kill me too! Well, I won’t have it.”

  The emperor got to his feet.

  “Come, Maxim! We shall walk back, though you know how my feet ache. If I faint on the way you’ll have to carry me.”

  He scurried away down the hall, and Maxim followed.

  “Keep up, Maxim, keep up,” Frederick was saying. “Oh, and one more thing. Have that brat thrown into the river. He’s dirty and probably spreading disease. You have no thought for my welfare! None at all! He’s only some street brat on the make, you know. Honestly! There’s thousands of them just like him out there! This whole city is like a scabrous beggar holding out its hands for a penny. Well, I won’t have it. Throw him in the river and then get me my breakfast. Maxim!”

  He had reached the end of the hall and disappeared round a corner.

  “Sire,” Maxim called, hurrying after him. “Coming, sire.”

  Boy had jolted upright. He tried to sit up and in doing so fell off his table.

  Guards hurried over to where he lay writhing on the floor.

  “Right,” said one of the courtiers, “you heard His Majesty. In the river with him.”

  With that, several hands clutched at Boy’s clothes. Once again he was thrown over someone’s shoulder.

  “No!” he cried. “No!”

  As he made to scream again, a rolled-up handkerchief was shoved into his mouth.

  “Get on with it,” someone said. “We’ve got enough to do today as it is.”

  4

  Boy struggled, but four pairs of hands held him firmly, so firmly that there was no chance of escape.

  He spat the handkerchief from his mouth.

  “You can’t do this!” he yelled as he tried to kick out at the men carrying him. “I’ve done nothing! You can’t do this!”

  The men did not reply, but one of them struck Boy across the back of his head with an open hand.

  “Little brat!” he said, to his companions.

  They were hurrying down a narrow dark passage, the rough-cut stone floor sloping away before them.

  “Would be easier just to chuck him down there,” one of them muttered.

  “Where?”

  “You know where I mean.”

  “And save some other poor soul,” said another voice.

  “You heard what he said,” said the second voice. “Put him in the riv
er and get back to work.”

  There was no more talk after that.

  The men renewed their pace; Boy doubled his efforts to break free and was cuffed around the head again, and punched in the ribs this time too. Now he heard the sound of water rushing past somewhere nearby.

  “Right, then, let’s be done with it.”

  Boy knew they were standing by an underground quay. He could hear and smell the running water, and knew he was once more at the edge of the subterranean water-world of canals and catacombs through which he had been relentlessly pursued by Valerian in the Dead Days before the end of the year. So there was at least one connection from the palace to that cold, damp hidden city beneath the City itself.

  “Right!” shouted one of the men. “On three . . .”

  Boy had given up trying to plead, but tried to wriggle and kick harder than ever. He was helpless, and he knew that as soon as he hit the water he would sink like a stone.

  “One!” the man shouted.

  “Two!”

  There was another shout from behind them.

  “Hold!”

  Boy already recognized that commanding voice: Maxim.

  Two of the men hesitated. The third had already begun to swing Boy’s knees out, and lost his grip. Boy’s bottom half sank under the water. The two holding him by the shoulders nearly overbalanced and followed him into the water.

  Maxim ran over to the men. With his help, Boy was easily retrieved from the under-river.

  The men stood back from where Boy now lay on the quayside.

  “Sire?” one of them said, looking up at Maxim.

  Boy could sense the basis of the relationship between the men and Maxim. It was something he knew well from life with Valerian: fear.

  Valerian. Boy now knew who Maxim had reminded him of when he had first seen him in the ballroom. They shared the same strange mix of desperation and frightening power.

  Maxim surveyed the scene before him. He wrung the sleeve of his robe, which had dipped into the water.

  “The emperor may not think he needs the boy,” he said, “but I do. Leave him with me.”

  The men shuffled away a step or two, heading back for the steps to the palace.