Secret Breakers: The Power of Three

by H. L. Dennis

  Smithies stumbled to a halt. The guidebook fell from his fingers. ‘Of all those in the Chamber. Of all those who’d want to stop us,’ he said darkly. ‘I should’ve guessed it’d be her.’

  ‘There’s nothing for it. We’ll have to face her.’ Smithies’ face was grave and his brow was creased into deep worry lines.

  ‘What, and give up the search?’ Hunter gasped.

  ‘But if we continue, and are successful, then we lead her straight to the phoenix, and she’ll take it from us and we’ll never know the truth Van der Essen wanted us to know.’

  ‘We could split up,’ Miss Tandari whispered nervously. ‘Some of us stall her while the rest keep searching.’

  Smithies looked behind him down the long gallery. It was empty but he could hear voices. People getting nearer. ‘You lot go,’ he said and there was a sorrow mixed with steely determination in his eyes. ‘You find the phoenix and I’ll hold Kerrith back.’

  Miss Tandari reached out for his arm. ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘This was always about the power of youth, wasn’t it?’ Smithies said wistfully. ‘Now go. Before it’s too late.’

  Brodie turned but Tusia stood rooted to the spot. ‘I’ll stay,’ she said. ‘I can help make things safer for the rest of you. Provide a distraction. A Petulova speciality,’ she added.

  Before the others could argue she began to make a wailing noise. A sort of guttural gasping. Then she bent herself in two, clutching at her stomach. ‘Panic attack,’ she squeaked, winking beneath the fall of auburn hair. ‘Need help. Lots of help.’

  Smithies swung into action. ‘Give her space, please. Lots of space. Poor girl can’t breathe.’ And taking her cue from his outstretched hand, Miss Tandari grabbed Brodie and Hunter by the arm, ducked below the view of the guard and began to run.

  Behind them Brodie could hear continued wailing, the guard calling frantically into his radio for assistance and new voices in the saloon.

  With a glance over her shoulder Brodie saw Tusia sprawled across the Axminister carpet. She was breathing fast into a brown paper bag Smithies had thrust into her hands. And she was positioned perfectly, across the open doorway, cleverly preventing anyone from getting past her into the room beyond.

  ‘Shape and space,’ Brodie called to Hunter. ‘It’s “her thing”.’

  Hunter nodded, leading the way.

  ‘We’ve only a few moments,’ Miss Tandari gasped as they ran. ‘Vernan won’t want to break with her story about being a teacher from Pembroke or the guards’ll be suspicious. So she’s trapped for a while. But Smithies won’t be able to hold her back for long. Everything depends on speed.’

  The three of them stormed down the long gallery beneath the skylight picture of the thunder dragons. A curling stairway, with bamboo balustrades, took them to the second level past a room painted poppy red, before they came to another long gallery whose walls were painted vivid azure blue. There were no windows but two huge daylights painted with swooping dragons and large winged bats. One wall was lined with doorways. Beside each panelled door stretched tall blue marble columns topped with wooden statues of fierce mythical beasts which Brodie sensed were keeping guard.

  Miss Tandari stopped, panting, and pressed her hand to her side.

  ‘The doors,’ said Hunter urgently. ‘Maybe one of these doors leads to the secret stairs.’

  Miss Tandari looked along the line of wall. Above each doorway, painted in scarlet, were Chinese characters. Snatches of Chinese writing. She rubbed her temples, her eyes narrowed in concentration.

  ‘So which one?’ Brodie hissed, wondering desperately if Tusia’s distraction was still holding Vernan back. ‘How d’we know which door?’

  ‘We try them,’ said Miss Tandari, lurching forward.

  ‘Hold on,’ called Hunter, grabbing her arm. ‘Wait. Look.’ He pointed up at the Chinese writing above the doors. ‘It’s wrong,’ he muttered, ‘like the phoenix flying too high.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ asked Brodie, hopping from one foot to the other and not at all encouraged by the look of concentration on Hunter’s face.

  ‘My parents made me study Chinese writing once, in an attempt to distract me from my maths obsession. It didn’t work,’ he said proudly. ‘Do you have any idea how many different figures there are in ancient Chinese writings?’ he said.

  Brodie’s hopping was getting rather vigorous. ‘Ermm. If this reminiscing isn’t going to get us up to the roof room then …’

  Hunter nodded an apology. ‘Yep. Sorry. Anyway, I didn’t learn much but I picked up enough to know the characters are wrong.’ He wrinkled his forehead.

  ‘You’d expect the phrases above the doors to say something clever or suggest a good luck wish, but these don’t.’

  Miss Tandari widened her eyes in understanding but Brodie still had no idea what he meant.

  ‘You said the designers just copied Chinese writing they saw on boxes down at the docks,’ he blurted in Miss Tandari’s direction. ‘Phrases they saw which actually meant things like “be careful” or “don’t drop this”.’

  Brodie pushed her fingers into her hair in a wave of frustration. ‘Both of you, please. We don’t have time for this. Which door?’

  Hunter stumbled forward. ‘Not that one,’ he said decisively. ‘The phrase above it says “This Way Up”.’

  He led the way down the corridor in an awkward run.

  ‘That one says “White Tea” so not that one.’

  He rejected others and kept running. Then he stopped and Brodie crashed into the back of him. ‘This one,’ he said purposefully.

  ‘You’re sure?’ Brodie pleaded, stepping over the viewing rope that kept visitors back and making for the door.

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Hunter, following Brodie over the rope. ‘It’s because of the numbers.’

  ‘What?’ Brodie was sure she couldn’t be more confused.

  ‘The “handle with care” numbers. We never worked out why he put that, did we? Why Van der Essen put that phrase above the list of numbers we needed for the code. Well, now we know. Handle With Care. That’s exactly what that Chinese writing says above that lintel.’

  Once behind the door Miss Tandari leant against it in an obvious attempt to catch her breath. It was dark and the lack of vibrant colours after the opulence of the gallery took a moment to get used to.

  ‘This is it,’ whispered Brodie, stepping forward. ‘This is really it.’

  In front of them a spiral wooden staircase twisted upwards, curling out of sight. The walls were bare, unpainted plaster, and the stairwell was cold. Brodie drank in the smell of damp and neglect.

  ‘Certainly not a public staircase,’ whispered Hunter, reaching out for the chipped wooden handrail. ‘No wonder it was a secret. We’re going up, right?’

  Miss Tandari looked a little nervous.

  Brodie led the way, stepping cautiously on the rickety treads, each creaking footstep ringing out in the silence. ‘How high do you think these stairs will take us?’ she called to Hunter behind her.

  ‘Just higher than the phoenix,’ he said.

  Hunter counted the steps aloud and when they reached the top, Brodie pushed cautiously against a closed door that barred their way. It swung open with a groan.

  Beyond the door was a small room. The walls were papered with thick brown patterned paper torn and stripped away in places to reveal the bare and crumbling plaster. There was a rough opening for a fireplace but no mantle or surround. The ceiling was low and covered in clumpy patches of mildew and there was no sign at all they were standing inside the dome of an elegant royal palace. ‘The guard was right about it not being finished,’ Hunter said, making his way across the room to where a tarpaulin covered a stack of used and broken planks of wood. ‘What a complete mess. What’s this all for?’ he said, prodding the stack of wood with his toes. ‘Looks like they’re about to build a fire.’

  ‘We should be careful,’ mumbled Miss Tandari, who was still catching her breath. ‘
I’m not sure how safe the flooring is.’

  Brodie followed Hunter to the centre of the room and then towards a doorway in the left-hand corner. It creaked open as she pushed. ‘Look,’ she gasped. ‘You can see the rest of Brighton.’ The doorway opened on to a small section of floorboards and, set into the flaking curved wall, a large petal-shaped window through which Brodie could see the tall towers of the minarets and the other domes of the roof. Beyond the palace she could see the city.

  Hunter joined her at the window. ‘Great view,’ he said, peering closely through the mottled glass.

  ‘But be careful not to be seen,’ Miss Tandari called. ‘We’ll make things worse.’

  Brodie stepped back from the window and, turning to the left, pushed open another doorway. ‘Look. There’s loads of doors all leading from each other and circling the room.’ The others joined her as she led the way around, past the petal-shaped windows and back towards the stairs. ‘What a crazy layout. I suppose the builders intended to extend outside to make a terrace which went round the dome,’ she suggested. ‘Until the Prince got too fat and they gave up on that idea. Instead all they have is a corridor around the edge of the room, broken up with lots of doors.’

  Miss Tandari considered this as they searched.

  ‘There’s nothing here, is there?’ said Hunter at last, as if choosing the words none of them wanted to use. ‘No furniture, nothing except doors and wood.’ He drew in another breath. ‘There’s certainly no phoenix.’

  Brodie stood once more in the central room. They couldn’t be wrong. They’d read the clues and everything led them here. Everything.

  ‘I’m confused,’ she said slowly. ‘There must be more.’

  ‘But we’ve tried every door on the circuit and all they reveal’s a fantastic view of the palace and the town.’

  Something about what Hunter said grated in Brodie’s brain. Wasn’t this whole search about looking beyond the obvious? Turning away from the spectacular? Wasn’t it about the practicality of the scabbard and not the splendour of the sword?

  ‘Try again,’ she said. ‘Try again. We’re missing something.’

  They circled the room once more, pushing one door after another, and then Brodie stopped. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘This one.’ The last doorway, out of the loop of the others, set back to the right of the main room. One door untried.

  She reached out for the handle and then the air exploded with noise.

  There were footsteps on the stairs. Heavy. Fast. And getting nearer.

  Brodie pushed open the door and the three of them bundled into the room beyond. The room was crowded with furniture. Two chairs. A packing-box containing a broken headless statue, and a cast-iron surround for a fire propped precariously against the wall. Stretched across the ceiling was a thick wooden beam and from the beam hung a rusty metal pulley.

  ‘Quick,’ gasped Brodie, hardly able to breathe. ‘She’ll find us. We need to hide.’

  ‘But there is nowhere,’ yelped Hunter. ‘The only way out’s back down the stairs and that means being seen.’ He rubbed his face with his hands. ‘What do we do? Just wait here for her to open each door in turn until she finds us?’

  ‘OK. Don’t panic,’ Miss Tandari said briskly. ‘Think of your strengths.’

  Well, no numbers were going to help them out of this mess. And there were no stories to turn to. Brodie tried to breathe and wondered what use Tusia’s special awareness would’ve been to them if she hadn’t flung herself down as a sacrifice.

  Then it hit her. Special awareness. Spatial awareness. Awareness of space.

  Why was there a pulley hung over the floor in a rooftop room? Why would it be there if not to lower something down?

  The stairs were not the only way out.

  She sank to her knees and ran her hands across the dusty floor.

  The footsteps were getting closer. Whoever it was had almost reached the top of the stairs. In seconds they’d be close enough to see them.

  It was nearly over. The code-cracking and the searching wasted. All for nothing.

  ‘Brodie,’ hissed Hunter, aghast at her crouched position on the floor. ‘This isn’t the time for praying.’

  ‘I’m not praying. I’m looking,’ she whispered urgently. ‘Help me look.’

  Miss Tandari and Hunter fell to their knees beside her. ‘What are we looking for?’ begged Miss Tandari.

  ‘A trapdoor,’ said Brodie. ‘There must be an opening. To get things up and down on the pulley.’

  Her hands scratched through the dust. Her nails digging into the wood.

  And then she found it. A small metal ring sunk into the boards. The handle of a hidden door.

  She swung the door open and the three of them tumbled through the opening, pulling the trapdoor shut behind them. She could feel her blood pounding in her ears. The air was cold around them. Icy cold. And the fall below them stretched unseen into unbroken darkness.

  They’d landed on a thin wooden ledge inside a void. Below they could see the curving roof space of the saloon. Beside that, as Brodie’s eyes grew accustomed to the lack of light, she could just make out, right in front of where they crouched, a rope hanging freely down towards the ground, its end disappearing out of sight. It was attached to a sharp claw-like hook and Brodie supposed when the pulley was used the end of the rope was unleashed from the claw and tied to the pulley.

  ‘Do you think the rope goes all the way to the ground?’ she whispered, the breath catching in her throat as she spoke.

  ‘If it does, that’s about fifty foot down,’ said Hunter and there was a tremor in his voice.

  Miss Tandari sat silent, hunched between them, her knees pulled tight against her chest as if she were preparing to perform some sort of forward roll, yet her head was pressed back hard against the wall, her eyes cast upwards. When she spoke her words were barely recognisable as human. ‘What we must not do is panic,’ she said. Beads of sweat on her brow showed she was finding it difficult to take her own advice. ‘Not very good with heights,’ she mumbled at last, and Brodie tried to shuffle closer to her.

  Above them, Brodie could hear Vernan’s footsteps. And she was obviously not alone. At least two other people were with her. With every footstep, a cloud of dust leaked through the cracks in the floorboards and covered their heads. Brodie’s nose twitched. She tried to swallow a sneeze and her eyes began to burn.

  ‘Please don’t let them find us,’ she pleaded silently in her head.

  There was a scraping noise. Metal against wood. Brodie guessed Vernan was dragging a chair across the room. Then the sound of china breaking. A shattering of porcelain on the floor above them – the broken statue, she presumed – and new clouds of dust rained between the cracks. Brodie pressed her fist into her mouth as the urge to sneeze grew stronger.

  Would it end like this? In a roof space, in the half-light. Hidden and afraid.

  She reached out her free arm to steady herself against the ledge and her hand brushed something cold.

  She ran the tips of her fingers across it. Metal? A metal box? And then something else. Something warm.

  A single feather. Glowing in the half-light. A warm scarlet glow.

  Brodie ignored the pacing footsteps above her and scrambled along the ledge. The rope for the pulley caught on her leg. But she didn’t stop. She reached out her hand again.

  Her fingers curled around the feather.

  Then, with the other hand, she lifted the metal box from the ledge and blew the coating of dust from the surface.

  The box was the size of a book. Tarnished silver with golden engraving on the top and each side. Her heart pushed against her ribs. Her fingers trembled.

  Engraved on the lid of the box, difficult to see in the half-light, but as welcome as a familiar friend, she could just make out the shape of a bird. A firebird.

  Hunter and Miss Tandari smiled silent understanding.

  Brodie closed her eyes and drew the feather and the box in tight against her chest. Sh
e’d found the phoenix.

  Her breathing slowed. Her muscles loosened and as she lifted her head she was aware of a shaft of light, bright and strong and bathing her in a delicious warmth.

  It took Brodie several seconds to realise that, above her, the trapdoor had swung open wide.

  The feather tumbled from her fingers and fell down into the void.

  A hand reached into the half-light, feeling for connection. Brodie tried not to breathe; not a single breath to give away their location. The hand stopped moving. The fingers long and still. A scrabbling sound above. Then a face filled the hole of the trap, and violet eyes pierced the gloom.

  Brodie’s breath burned in her chest.

  She could feel Miss Tandari trembling beside her.

  There was only one way out, and that was metres beneath them, at the end of a rope. They were simply seconds away from being seen.

  What happened next became a blur, a confusion of noise and movement and fear. More voices in the room of the tower. Shouting and the sound of scuffling. A woman pulled back from the opening as if rescued from her impending fall. ‘Madam. Madam. You must leave now. This part of the building is strictly prohibited.’

  Then an angry shout. ‘You don’t understand. You don’t understand!’ Next, a struggle. A fallen chair. The crash of the trapdoor, closing.

  ‘We’ve got to use the rope,’ Hunter hissed.

  ‘Are you sure it’ll take our weight?’ asked Miss Tandari.

  ‘We’ve got no choice. Either we get down to the bottom, or we’ve got to hand over what we’ve found to the Pavilion guards or whoever followed us from the Chamber.’

  ‘The rope then,’ said Brodie. ‘There’s nothing for it.’

  Leaning back into the recess of the shelf, she took off her blazer and pushed the silver box into one of the sleeves. Then she tied the end of the sleeves together around her waist, like a belt.

  ‘Is the phoenix secure?’ Hunter whispered.

  Brodie tapped her waist to check.

  ‘You two go first,’ Hunter said. Brodie made as if to argue. ‘Come on. My parents raised me to be polite.’ He waved his hand elaborately. ‘After you.’