Angus ran a filthy hand over his eyes. “I raised them from piglets on my island. It was the best thing I ever did in my life. If you want an oath on that, pal, you’ve got it.” He continued along the railing, head bowed.
Sunni expected a harsh comment from Blaise but nothing came. He was staring after Angus and she knew he was weighing things up. Without a word, he nodded and set off after him.
“Changed your mind?” Angus asked when Sunni and Blaise caught up and they climbed onto the next vessel.
“Not a hundred per cent,” said Blaise. “That’s up to you.”
The tornado of torn colours and broken sketches churned in the dark above their heads, now pulling chunks out of the city. The green of the hedge mazes and the ochre of island sands flew over the sea and joined in, circulating higher and higher, courtesy of Lady Ishbel, who had not moved an inch from Marin’s side.
“You think Ishbel’s recognised me?” Angus’s brow was furrowed as he looked up. “There was some bad blood between us in Arcadia. I’m surprised she hasn’t launched me into the ozone layer yet.”
“There’s still time,” said Sunni with a sniff. “But I think Ishbel’s found the person she had the most unfinished business with.”
They struggled along the length of six empty ships, shouting above the wind and keeping an eye out for sailors and spectres, but went unhindered. When they got close, they could see that Soranzo’s ship was still surrounded in a bright flurry of deconstructed colours and drawings.
As one sailor ran across Soranzo’s deck, his tanned skin and rough clothes were unwound from his body like a mummy being unwrapped. The drawing of his figure was not much more complicated than a stick man and it blew away as if it had never existed.
“Corvo’s taking out the enemy troops,” said Angus, climbing onto Soranzo’s chaotic ship. “Excellent.”
“Ready?” Blaise gave Sunni a grim smile and she nodded.
Soranzo’s vessel sighed with the last breaths of the vanishing sailors. Sunni shielded her face from the storm of flying materials and tried to keep up with Angus, who was edging along the side of the ship towards the bow.
Above the whirling colours she saw Soranzo’s motionless figure on the top deck facing the sea stack. He talked non-stop, a frozen smile on his face, even though his sailors were being undone all around him.
“How’s he keeping so steady?” Sunni muttered as she tried to stay on her feet.
“No idea. It’s us I’m worried about. I’m going after Angus. You stay up here and keep an eye on things.” Blaise pulled her into a dark spot under the top deck and hurried below through a small door.
Sunni huddled there, the force of the moving ship keeping her rigid against the wall. She was aware of Soranzo’s voice growing louder as the wind carried the remains of his sailors up and away. The decks began to clear and she could once again make out the shapes of the other twelve boats moving swiftly round the sea stack.
“Fausto Corvo,” Soranzo called. “I have waited hundreds of years to find you. You have thwarted me at every turn, hiding behind your apprentices, leaving puzzles to mislead me.”
Corvo’s silhouette in the sky seemed to pause for a moment and then continued surveying its work.
“You can easily crush me now,” shouted Soranzo. “I have nothing left but my loyal followers from beyond the grave. So why do you not strike me down?” He laughed long and hard, sending a chill down Sunni’s spine. “Stop hiding behind your sorcery, Corvo! Come and fight me like an honourable man, face to face.”
To her surprise, Corvo’s huge form folded in its arms and head and shrank back into the pointed sea stack. A raven belted out from its darkness and flew straight to Soranzo. In its beak was a sheet of parchment.
Alarmed that she couldn’t see, Sunni sneaked to the middle of the deck and found a new hiding space behind a barrel, just as Blaise and Angus burst from below with Lorimer Bell between them. The teacher’s face was bruised and he limped, but he gave her a pained smile. Sunni nearly burst with relief at seeing him and was ready to run over, but he held his hand out in a warning to stay still. Blaise and Angus sat him in a sheltered corner and moved to Sunni’s side.
Blaise let out a breath. “He’s all right.”
The seven phantoms hovered over Soranzo, diverting Lady Ishbel’s whirlwind. Each held a lantern, creating a ring of lights around him.
The raven dropped the parchment into the circle of wraiths. When it had drifted to the ground, the paper shook violently and the figure of Fausto Corvo sprang from it fully formed, his eyes flashing. He was dressed head to toe in black with a slender rapier in each hand.
Out of the corner of her eye, Sunni saw the three apprentices scramble down from the rigging to the main deck and hang onto the hull with anxious faces. Lady Ishbel still floated behind Marin, her arms tightly about his neck and a protective expression on her spirit face.
“Signore,” Corvo said. With a formal bow, he tossed one of the weapons to Soranzo, who caught it one-handed in mid-air.
“English, signore,” replied Soranzo, sweeping the rapier back and forth so it could taste the air. He nodded down at the main deck. “I wish them to hear the answers from your own lips before you die.”
Corvo gave Sunni, Blaise and Angus a swift, dark glance and held the blade vertical in front of his ebony eyes before lowering it with a stiff flourish.
Soranzo briefly held his before his ice-blue eyes and the enemies assumed the en garde pose, rapiers extended. The weapons’ two tips touched for a moment, then exploded in a flash of silver. As the two men danced around each other, thrusting and parrying, the spectres grinned. Above them, the flow of colours, marks, skins and other elements of Corvo’s Arcadian underworlds continued as they were pulled back to where they belonged. The sky over Amsterdam was littered with flying shapes wrenched from the canals, sea and reclaimed earth of the city. And high above the entire soaring mass, the celestial drawing board glittered ominously.
“You did not understand the Oculus’s fourth shadow-land, Soranzo,” Corvo grunted as he climbed backwards down the ladder and jumped onto the main deck. The seven spirits followed with their lanterns and set them down on the deck and on barrels. The flames hardly flickered, despite the wind.
Soranzo clattered down after him and darted sideways like a crab towards his adversary. “There was nothing to understand,” he said through gritted teeth. “You sailed for London without the paintings.”
“The answer was there all along!” Corvo smiled. “If you had been able to see it!”
The other man’s face was outraged. “You did hide the three lost paintings in the fourth shadowland then?”
Corvo laughed out loud and with a quick slash of his rapier slit open Soranzo’s doublet. Before his adversary could respond, he skewered the wooden frame of the fourth Oculus slide and pulled it away. As Corvo triumphantly raised the rectangle high in the air, everything went black.
Chapter 23
When the Oculus’s flame went out, Munro barked, “No! No, the flame can’t go out!” He fumbled about in the dark amidst the sound of plaster crackling and raining to the stone floor in small chunks. “Beam that torch here!”
Dean found the white-faced spirit photographer with his torchlight. “What do we do now?”
“I have to get that flame lit or they’re not coming back!” Munro lunged towards the supplies on the table and knocked over the small bottle of oil. It fell with a thump, and a greasy pool began forming on the ground. He set it upright with a grimace and fished a handful of drenched wicks from it, his hand glistening in the light. “Open the magic lantern’s door!”
“Hold the torch,” Dean commanded Mandy, who quickly set Lexie down. She trained the light on the back of the Oculus and Dean yanked the door open. The spent wick spewed out a smelly curl of smoke and he coughed, brushing it away. “Now what?”
“Is there any oil in the pan?”
“Not much.”
Munro slipped thro
ugh the mess on the floor and pushed Dean out of the way. His hand shook so much as he tried to pour fresh oil into the Oculus that Mandy exclaimed, “You can’t even get your hand in there! Let Dean have a go!”
Dean glared at him. “Come on!” He took the bottle and kept his own hand still enough to pour a full amount into the oil container.
“Wick.” Munro thrust the wet wicks at him and Dean teased one out. “Lay it in the oil and light it.”
His own hand quaking now, Dean managed to get the wick into place.
“Matches,” said Munro.
“Yeah? Where are they?” Dean nearly exploded as he searched around. “You were supposed to be looking after this, weren’t you?”
Munro crouched awkwardly on the floor, feeling around in the oil slick.
“Here.” Mandy pushed the small matchbox towards Dean. “Right on the table.”
Swallowing hard, he struck his match again and again.
“I can do that,” offered Munro.
“You’ve done enough already,” muttered Dean as the match burst into flame. With one touch of it, the wick flowered into its familiar golden light. The projection returned, a mass of colours and shapes twisting and morphing before their eyes.
Dean turned to Munro, raging. “What did you mean they can’t get out if the flame goes dead? How do you know that?”
“We found out how it works today, by accident,” said Munro. “Sunni and Blaise have been in and out of two other projections and now they’re trying to rescue Lorimer Bell. He sneaked in behind my back. As long as the flame is on, they can all get out.” He glanced at the wall. “That is, as long as we can see them.”
“What do you mean?” asked Mandy.
“The minute they appear in that projection on the wall, someone has to kill the flame so they can be transported back. But something’s gone wrong ever since I aimed the Oculus on the painting.”
“What did you do that for?” Dean exclaimed.
Munro pinched the bridge of his nose again. “It’s a long story.”
“I’ll bet,” said Mandy disdainfully. “And then you were swamped by those spirits, weren’t you?”
Suddenly, the Mariner’s Chamber ceiling shook with a strange wind. A scratching noise came from the ancient wooden beams decorated with painted mermaids, dolphins and other odd sea creatures. Dean shone the light upwards and gasped. The beams were rapidly becoming dislodged.
The floor shifted slightly under their feet, and without waiting a moment more Mandy dropped the torch on the table, scooped Lexie up in her arms and ran through the dark to the door.
“We need help,” she murmured, skidding out of the Mariner’s Chamber and making her way blindly down the corridor.
“Yeah, and who do you know that can help with this?” Dean yelled after her, but she was already gone. He gave Munro a warning look. “Don’t even think about following her. You’re sticking it out here and getting them back, no matter what! Where are the keys to this place? Come on!”
Munro forlornly pulled his keys from his trouser pocket and, before he knew it, Dean had locked the Mariner’s Chamber from the inside.
At that moment, Blackhope Tower shuddered as if an earthquake had rocked its foundations.
When Mandy got to the first-floor level of the spiral staircase, there were so many shocked guests leaving the fancy dress party that she was blocked in the narrow passage. She finally pushed through and made for the Great Hall against the tide of people cowering and shielding their heads, including Mrs Gordon who shouted directions no one was heeding.
Another tremor made the castle sway and there was a collective cry from the spiral staircase. As she ran into the nearly empty Great Hall, she collided with James and Iona. Lexie sprang from her arms and Mandy yelped, “Catch her!”
“That’s Munro’s cat,” said Iona. “Where is he?”
“Upstairs,” Mandy gasped, flailing about for Lexie, who had hidden under a table. “Help me!”
“Where upstairs?” James glanced nervously around him as the floor shuddered again. The Great Hall was covered in a fine coating of plaster dust from the network of fine cracks in the vaulted ceiling and the jack o’ lantern blazed brighter than seemed possible.
“The Mariner’s Chamber,” she answered and hunted among the few remaining guests for her parents. But there was no sign of them. “Got to find my dad!”
“Everyone’s gone outside,” said James. “And we should too!”
“But Sunni,” Mandy breathed. “And Blaise. And Mr Bell!”
“What about them?” Iona shook Mandy’s arm hard. “What are you talking about?”
But Mandy couldn’t answer. She pointed in horror at the skeleton and witch silhouettes falling off the walls, revealing a growing network of cracks. At that moment two adults pushed their way through the crowds of fleeing guests and stood frozen at the sight.
It was Sunni’s dad and stepmum.
Blaise heard a man’s angry cry and the smash of glass hitting the deck in the dark. There was a momentary scuffle, but everything went quiet and he was overtaken by a tremendous sleepiness, as if all his systems were shutting down.
“No, no, no,” Sunni whimpered. “Munro’s let the Oculus’s flame go out!” Her fingers grasped about for his and nearly crushed them.
“Sunni,” he whispered, fighting with all his might against the creeping fatigue. “This might be it for us, so…”
He heard a sharp sob. “No.”
“I-I have to tell you something. I’ve wanted to for a really long time but every time…” He yawned. “But something happens every time…”
“What?” She asked between sniffles, her voice fading.
Blaise was losing consciousness. He let go of Sunni’s hand. “I really…”
The lanterns exploded into light and he felt like he’d been slapped awake. Sunni looked at him wide-eyed, waiting for him to finish his sentence, but there was no time. To his annoyance, he noticed Angus was smirking at him as if he knew what Blaise had been about to tell her.
The fourth glass slide lay shattered on deck and the seven spectres had Fausto Corvo surrounded, their axes, daggers and garrottes poised to strike. He held them off with his glinting rapier.
“Now you do not fight like a gentleman, signore,” said Corvo, glancing at his three apprentices and then back at the ghosts of the spies and bounty hunters who had pursued him for so long. He brought his free arm down and the fearful whirlwind slowed somewhat, though it continued pulling debris from Amsterdam into its vortex high above.
“You have destroyed the fourth shadowland!” Soranzo drew the tip of his rapier through the broken glass. “If the enchanted paintings were hidden in it, they are gone.” He slowly turned to Corvo, his pale eyes wild with disbelief. “And there is no reason to keep you alive.”
Corvo was scornful. “I have not destroyed my paintings! They are not in any of the four shadowlands – nor are they with me in Arcadia.”
Blaise’s mouth dropped open and Angus muttered “What?” under his breath.
Soranzo swept his blade back and forth as if he were cutting his adversary in half. “Explain!”
“You may as well know, since you will never be able to put your foul hands on them,” said Corvo. “If you leave this shadowland, you will die immediately. Too many years have passed for you to survive.”
“I know this.” Soranzo nodded at the scowling phantoms. “Like these brave men who ended up as skeletons on your labyrinth in the Mariner’s Chamber.”
“Yes, and you may haunt that chamber as these filthy spies no doubt have,” said the magician. The wraiths roared at this insult and jangled their weapons.
Soranzo glared at Angus and pointed one shaking finger towards the sea stack. “This ruffian told me your three enchanted paintings are in that tower.”
Angus glowered at this description.
“Only ordinary copies. It made no sense to leave the enchanted works there or inside glass pictures that thieves cou
ld steal.” Corvo looked as though he was about to spit. “Instead, as you already know, I left coded messages about the paintings for His Imperial Majesty.”
“Messages that I could not decipher without a cryptographer!”
Corvo gave a hard laugh. “What a terrible shame for you!”
“Your messages can go to the Devil!” Soranzo was so incensed that he nearly lunged at the artist. “Where did you hide the enchanted paintings?”
“They are somewhere under the Bright Ravens,” Corvo replied enigmatically. “I left each one in a different place, but after four hundred years perhaps they have been moved.”
“Under the Bright Ravens!” Soranzo seethed. “That is a riddle, not an answer.”
“That is all I will say,” said Corvo.
Under the Bright Ravens, Blaise repeated to himself.
“You’re lying,” said Soranzo, holding his blade up between his eyes and moving closer. “And I will have the truth from you.”
“I speak the truth, Soranzo. Why should I lie? It is impossible for you to steal my paintings now. And that means you can never enter their enchanted under-layers and abuse the powers hidden there,” said Corvo calmly. “You will leave this shadowland and die like any ordinary mortal. Or remain trapped here forever in darkness.”
“No!” Soranzo lunged at Corvo and the spectres joined in.
The dark-eyed sorcerer’s weapon was everywhere at once, holding off the vengeful spies and stabbing at his old enemy, but he was outnumbered. Marin and the other apprentices leaped into the fray, their own weapons held high. At the sight of them, Angus growled and set off after Zorzi, the youngest. He disarmed the boy, poised to join the battle.
Blaise was at his back in seconds. “Our deal is off, Angus! I should have known better…”
“What are you on about?” Angus muttered as he sliced at a wraith. He waded into the fray, swinging at Soranzo and his minions. “I swore an oath for you and I meant it!”
The Shadow Lantern Page 18
