Young Sherlock Holmes 6: Knife Edge

by Andrew Lane

  His foot caught on a rock projecting from the tunnel floor, and he stumbled backwards. Kyte was on him in a flash, right arm extended like a spear. Sherlock rolled sideways and the blade sparked as it hit the rock that had, just moments before, been beneath him. He scrabbled backwards on hands and feet, still somehow holding on to the halberd, hearing it clatter against the tunnel floor. Kyte followed, lunging time after time with his blades but just missing Sherlock as the boy jerked from side to side.

  Glancing quickly over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t going to bump into anything that might halt his progress, Sherlock noticed the lantern that had been silhouetting Kyte earlier. Like the previous one, it was balanced on an old crate. Without thinking it through, Sherlock reached out over his head with the halberd and caught its handle with one of the curved spikes on the back of the axe blade. He jerked it hard, pulling it over the top of his body and flinging it towards Kyte.

  The big man jumped backwards, but too late. Instead of hitting him, the lantern smashed against the tunnel wall, sending oil splattering over him. The wick, still alight, caught his shirt.

  And set it alight.

  Flames flashed across Kyte’s chest and beard. Sherlock heard the hairs crackling as they burned. A horrible smell filled the tunnel. Kyte flapped at the flames with his hands, trying to put them out, but the blades came perilously close to his eyes and he had to stop. Instead, he threw himself to the tunnel floor and rolled around, using the sand and the dirt that had drifted in over the years to smother the fire.

  Sherlock rolled over, pushed himself to his feet and ran down the tunnel in the opposite direction to the cave mouth. The halberd in his hands seemed heavier than ever, dragging him down, but he wasn’t going to abandon it now. Lanterns attached to hooks in the walls now lit his way. Presumably Maupertuis’s thugs had kept them going, for their own convenience. Either that, or smugglers were still operating there, and Sherlock had a feeling that the Paradol Chamber would have cleared them all out. Or paid them off.

  The tunnel twisted and turned, but he kept pounding away. He thought he could hear Kyte’s heavy footsteps behind him, but that might just have been the pounding of his heart. He wasn’t going to stop to find out. He wasn’t even going to look over his shoulder, just in case he stumbled and fell again. If he was caught, then it was all over. He was dead.

  If Kyte was still chasing him.

  Dark openings started appearing in the tunnel walls: caves leading off in other directions, deeper into the cliffs, or towards the beach. He was so tired and so disoriented that he couldn’t tell. The breeze was still in his face, though, so he kept following the main tunnel.

  It came to an abrupt end, far ahead, in a curved wall of dark stone, just like the one he had seen a few days before. Patches of moss were spread across the tunnel walls and ground in front of it, like the marks of some terrible disease.

  He kept running, but there were no tunnel openings off to either side between him and the wall. He could turn around, he supposed, and go back, but he was worried that Kyte was only a few yards behind him, blades extended towards his back.

  He knew where he was. The wall was the wall of the pumice-stone folly, continuing underground. He’d seen it from the other side, when he investigated the cellars beneath the castle.

  He heard a grating noise behind him. It was the sound of Kyte’s blades banging against the tunnel wall as he ran, arms swinging wildly. There really was no way back, but there was no way forward either.

  His frantic gaze caught sight of something – a darker patch on the wall of the folly, half disappeared beneath the floor of the tunnel – one of the window openings. It got smaller as he watched. The folly was actually sinking into the ground! Somehow, someone was operating it!

  He knew what he had to do.

  Still holding the halberd, he raced towards the wall, so fast that if he ran into it he would knock himself out. Breathing was like inhaling fire. In some strange optical illusion caused by tiredness and pain, the door at the far end seemed to be receding rather than getting closer. He forced himself to a final burst of speed, feet thudding into the patches of moss and squishing them before he could slip on them.

  This was just like the race to the tower door against Niamh, up on the castle battlements. In his head he started to count down ten seconds again.

  When he got to eight, and the dark shape of the window had reduced to a third of its normal size, he leaped and, when he landed, let his feet skid on the moss, shooting him towards the gap, the halberd clutched to his chest with its shaft running down to his knees and the blade dangerously close to his face. He slipped over, taking the impact on his shoulder, and started sliding on his back. His feet passed through the gap and inside the tower room, and for a terrible moment he thought his hips or his chest would stick and the descending folly would cut him in half, but he grabbed the edges of the tower window with both hands and pulled himself through, falling into the tiny circular room. His back hit the floor hard, knocking the wind out of him for the second time in three seconds. He twisted to look at the gap, which was now no bigger than a plank of wood. A dog would have problems squeezing through. As he watched, the gap narrowed to the height of a clenched fist, then a wooden ruler, then . . .

  A sharp blade slid through the gap, heading straight for his right eye.

  It stopped an inch away, the hand behind it – Kyte’s hand – having hit the top of the window outside. The tower continued to drop, and with an echoing chink the blade snapped at the far end, and fell into the room with him.

  He was alone, in total darkness.

  He knew he couldn’t afford to waste time recovering. He seemed to remember that the next set of windows were set at right angles to these, meaning that there was likely to be another set of corridors coming in from the sides, but eventually another window would line up with the tunnel that Kyte was standing in, and he would enter the tower. There were gaps in the floors between the tower rooms – he had used the gaps the day before in order to climb up to the top. He wasn’t sure if Kyte would be able to squeeze through the gaps, but he wasn’t going to wait around to find out. He had to get moving.

  Down.

  Before the thought could even complete itself he was scrabbling across the invisible floor, looking for the hole. He found it by almost falling in, then turned around, threw the halberd through and heard it clatter on the stone floor below, slipped his legs through and slid down into the next room, and then the next, and the next.

  The fourth room had no hole in the floor, and it took him a moment to see that there was a faint light coming through the two windows. He crossed to the one opposite the one he had slid through, and looked out . . .

  Into a circular natural cavern, illuminated by beams of diagonal light that had filtered their way through cracks in the rock from the surface.

  He climbed out of the window, and on to a narrow, circular platform of pumice stone on which the tower had been built. The platform floated on a calm underground lake of sea water. The beams of faint sunlight reflected off the surface of the lake and cast rippling turquoise shadows across the rock. Cave mouths around the edge of the cavern had been plugged with thick doors of wood. The doors could be pulled up or lowered using ropes that led up and vanished inside holes that had been cut into the roof of the cavern. These must be the dams that he had theorized about earlier. By raising or lowering them, the water entering the cavern from the sea could be contained or released, raising or lowering the level of the lake and thus raising or lowering the folly.

  Several of the doors had already been raised, and Sherlock could see that water was pouring out of the lake and into the caves, where presumably it would rejoin the sea. Someone, high above, had obviously decided to lower the tower. He wondered who. It seemed like an odd time to do it, given that Quintillan and Maupertuis were dead, the Baron’s thugs were presumably in custody, and Mr Kyte was here, with Sherlock. Who else was there?

  He gazed up in won
der, to where the folly was still dropping out of a perfectly circular hole in the ceiling of the cavern with only inches to spare around its circumference. How that hole had been created he would probably never know. It was a miracle of engineering. The whole thing was a miracle – an unseen, unsung wonder of the world hidden beneath the soil and rock of Ireland.

  Before he could marvel too much at the work that had gone into creating the tower, something fell from a higher window and hit the surface of the lake, entering with an almighty splash!

  Mr Kyte, it appeared, had given up on trying to get through the holes in the floors of the tower rooms and had dived from one of the windows.

  Sherlock backed away from the edge of the platform. He still had the halberd, and he clutched it in both hands now, holding it in front of him like a protective barrier. Not that it was going to be much use against the unstoppable force that was Mr Kyte.

  He was tired. No, he was exhausted. He had used up all his reserves of energy, and he knew that he couldn’t fight any more. There was nothing left to fight with.

  No, he told himself. If you give up, you die. If you want to see Virginia again, if you want to see Matty, and Rufus Stone, and Mr Crowe, and Mycroft, then you will fight. Somehow you will find the energy.

  He straightened his shoulders, brought the halberd up so that it was parallel to the ground, and waited.

  He could hear splashing from the lake as Mr Kyte swam back to the pumice platform.

  Pumice. Something in his brain had latched on to the word ‘pumice’ and wouldn’t let go.

  Pumice. It was less dense than water, thanks to the minute holes filled with air that ran through it, and so it floated. It was brittle, fragile. He still had shards of it in his pocket.

  Brittle. Fragile. That was it!

  He only had a few seconds to act before Mr Kyte swam to the edge of the platform.

  Whirling around, he grabbed the halberd by the axe head and used the spear point at the top of the wooden shaft to jab at a pumice block in the tower – one that was about chest height. The tip of the spear began to gouge out splinters of pumice. He kept at it, hacking away as fast as he could.

  He glanced over his shoulder desperately. A large hand appeared on the edge of the platform, and then another. They rested there for a moment, as if gathering their strength.

  Sherlock redoubled his efforts. He had carved a hole – a tube – going deep into the pumice-stone block. Fortunately he hadn’t gone deep enough to go through to the other side. That would have ruined things.

  Glancing over his shoulder again, he saw the top of Mr Kyte’s head appear above the edge of the platform.

  Sherlock only had a few seconds.

  He turned the halberd around and shoved the far end of the wooden staff into the hole. It hung there at chest height, spear end pointed outward, bending slightly with the weight of the axe head.

  Sherlock moved in front of the halberd. He stood, facing the place where Mr Kyte was hauling himself out of the underground lake, with the point of the spear pressing into his back.

  This was going to require split-second timing, otherwise he was going to run himself through with his own weapon.

  Shaking, partly with cold and partly with fear, he waited.

  Mr Kyte pulled himself on to the platform and straightened up to his full, bear-like height. His red hair was plastered down over his scalded head and his shoulders. His eyes were like little red sparks in the twisted mask of his face.

  He had retracted the remaining blade attached to his arm, but with a quick knocking together of his wrists he activated the spring mechanism and the blade slid out to its full, lethal length.

  ‘There are countries in this world that have caused us less trouble than you,’ he said in a deep, rumbling tone. ‘But now, finally, there is nowhere else to run. Just accept your death, Sherlock Holmes.’

  With that, he began to run at Sherlock, blade extended before him. His mouth opened and he howled a deep, guttural war cry, obviously intending to pin Sherlock against the tower, flattening him and running him through at the same time.

  Just before the tip of the blade touched his chest, Sherlock dropped to the ground and rolled beneath the horizontal halberd.

  Mr Kyte, with his unstoppable momentum, ran straight on to the point of the spear. It embedded itself deep in his chest. Only the axe head and the two curved horns on the other side stopped him.

  Sherlock stood up shakily. Mr Kyte’s head turned, and his eyes stared deep into Sherlock’s soul. There was rage in them, but there was also surprise, and there was an increasing sadness.

  ‘The only person who decides when I die is me,’ Sherlock said quietly.

  Mr Kyte opened his mouth to answer, but all that came out was a thin trickle of blood that mixed with the red of his burned beard. One moment he was alive, a vital force in the world, and the next moment he was dead – nothing but a slab of unresponsive, unfeeling flesh.

  It took Sherlock a full half-hour before he felt able to move, and a half-hour more for him to laboriously climb up through the darkened rooms of the folly, floor after floor. Eventually one of the windows in the rooms opened out into fresh air and bright sunshine. He climbed out into the vividly green Irish countryside, almost falling, to find Mycroft, Rufus Stone, Matty, Amyus Crowe and Virginia standing waiting for him. Virginia took a step forward, hand to her mouth, but stopped before she reached him.

  ‘You took your time,’ Mycroft said. His tone was acerbic, but Sherlock could see concern and relief in his eyes. ‘Do I take it from your leisurely arrival that Mr Kyte has been dealt with?’

  ‘You know the way that some men collect butterflies, pinned to cardboard?’ Sherlock asked wearily.

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘Because I think I’ve just started a collection of my own.’

  ‘Ah.’ Mycroft nodded. ‘The lesser spotted criminal, I see. There is obviously a whole story behind that, and one which I look forward to hearing – over dinner.’

  ‘Who was responsible for lowering the tower?’ Sherlock asked.

  ‘That was Niamh Quintillan. When she knew that you had gone into the caves, and that the ledge had crumbled behind you, she realized that your only way out was for her to move the tower so that a window was aligned with the tunnel along which you were running.’ He paused. ‘She knew all about the tower, and how to operate it. She was much more a part of her father’s plans than perhaps we had thought. She was, by the way, very concerned about your safety.’

  ‘What will happen to her?’

  Mycroft shrugged. ‘She was party to a rather large act of fraud. It is entirely a matter for the Irish authorities to deal with, although there are three Emperors, an Empress and a President who might wish to influence the result. Her act in saving your life will count in her favour.’

  ‘And what now?’ Sherlock asked. He knew that he should feel elated at his survival, but he just felt tired, and sad.

  ‘What do you want to happen now?’ Mycroft asked.

  Instead of answering, Sherlock walked across to where Virginia was standing watching him. She opened her mouth to speak, but he put a finger on her lips to stop her. Taking his finger away, he moved forward, slipped his arms around her, and kissed her.

  After what might have been a few seconds or a few minutes – he wasn’t sure – he broke off the kiss and moved back. He looked at Matty, who was gazing at him with a distinctly unimpressed look on his face.

  ‘Let’s go home,’ he said.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Usually, with these Young Sherlock Holmes books, I write a little afterword going through some of the research material that I gathered while putting them together (it’s really just a way of proving that I didn’t make it all up). The problem with Knife Edge, of course, is that it’s not set against a particular set of historical events, it doesn’t include any ‘real’ historical characters and it’s not set in a particularly foreign location (well, not if you’re British, anyway – if y
ou’re living in the Republic of Korea then Ireland is probably as unusual as the surface of Mars). This was a deliberate decision on my part. Having written five books in a row that placed Sherlock against a backdrop of real events, realistically described journeys and (some) real people, I thought it was probably about time to set something in a more ‘invented’ location and to let him spend some time there rather than keep moving around. So although Galway is real and I spent several very pleasant days there soaking up the atmosphere, I have taken several liberties with its geography. There is no castle with the same name or the same layout as the one in this book, and I may have underestimated slightly the distance between the town and the nearest set of high cliffs. If any of you are reading this in or around Galway (hello, Dubray Books!) then I hope you will forgive me. There is, sadly, no legend of a Dark Beast in or around Galway either. That would belong more properly in my other series of books – Lost Worlds.

  A great deal of this book involves spiritualism – the belief that it is possible to contact the dead. Victorian England went through quite a long and intense flirtation with spiritualism during the time that Sherlock Holmes is supposed to have been alive, probably because the period between around 1850 and 1900 marks the time at which the British started to move away from supernatural explanations for things happening and towards scientific ones. Spiritualism is, at its core, a pseudoscientific way of getting in touch with supernatural entities, so it hits both buttons at once. The trouble was that a large number of clever confidence tricksters took advantage of this flirtation, using tricks much like the ones Ambrose Albano and Sir Shadrach Quintillan use in this book, and which are described brilliantly in the book Servants of the Supernatural: The Night Side of the Victorian Mind by Antonio Melechi (Random House, 2009). I am not going to tread on anyone’s beliefs by saying whether or not I personally believe that the dead can be engaged in conversation, but Sherlock in this book maintains a properly sceptical attitude. In fact, in the short Sherlock Holmes story ‘The Sussex Vampire’ (which does not include real vampires), Arthur Conan Doyle had Holmes say, ‘The world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply.’