The Skeleton Clock

by Justin Richards

  They were soon back at the junction with two floodgates and another tunnel.

  ‘That’s the one we came through,’ Revelle said, pointing to one of the flood gates. ‘And the tunnel heads in the direction of the White Tower, so that must be where Mandrake’s gone.’

  ‘And this one?’ Jake said, pointing to the second flood gate.

  ‘Let’s find out.’

  The dim electric lights cast a multitude of shadows across the flood gate. Revelle and Jake examined it, working out which latches and bolts to open. Checking for any sign of a leak that might suggest there was water the other side.

  ‘Seems all right,’ Revelle decided at last. ‘Here goes.’

  But Jake was watching the shadows that fell across the door. Watching how one of them moved, darkened, approached. Slowly, nervously, he turned. And saw a figure step out of an alcove in the tunnel behind them. Wet feet slapped against the damp floor. A dark shape hurled itself at him.

  Jake could only stand and stare in astonishment as damp arms wrapped round him.

  Chapter 18

  Jake didn’t resist. He let her hug him tight, and after a moment he hugged her back although she was dripping wet.

  ‘Sarah – what happened?’ He stepped back to look at her. ‘I thought… After the Phibian dragged you out of the diving bell…’ He shook his head, no longer sure what he thought, or what he felt.

  She was alive. Her fair hair was so wet it clung to her scalp and hung straight over her ears down to her shoulders. Her clothes were soaked, like she’d just climbed out of the water.

  ‘I thought you’d drowned,’ she said. ‘I saw the diving bell fall. I managed to swim to a building.’

  ‘This building?’ Revelle asked.

  ‘Not at first. there were those Kraken creatures all round. But I found a way inside the basement of an old building. There was no way out, but there were pockets of air. I was so scared.’

  Jake put his arm round her shoulder. He could feel her trembling. Revelle was taking off his coat, draping it over Sarah.

  ‘This is becoming a habit,’ he said. ‘I should just wear two coats in future.’

  ‘I had to go back into the water and try to find a way out,’ Sarah went on. ‘I got into this building, but it was full of Krakens. I managed to swim past them, they seemed to be asleep or resting or something. I found the way into these tunnels, and then I heard someone coming. So I hid.’

  ‘Mandrake and Miss Patterson?’ Revelle asked.

  Sarah nodded. ‘I think that tunnel leads to the White Tower, from what they were saying.’ She pointed back down the sloping tunnel where she’d been hiding. ‘While he’s gone, we can get out through the shop.’

  Jake and Revelle explained why that wasn’t possible. ‘We could follow them down that tunnel,’ Jake said, ‘But we’d probably meet Mandrake coming back again.’

  ‘And the White Tower may not be the best place right now,’ Revelle said. ‘Though whatever they’re planning seems to depend on the golden Head. If we could get that maybe we can stop them.’

  ‘It wanted to be rescued,’ Sarah said. ‘It asked for help. Maybe it knows what they’re planning.’

  ‘First things first,’ Revelle decided, turning back to the flood gate. ‘Let’s see if we really can get out this way.’

  He released the first clamp, and they all waited, half expecting water to start seeping round the door. But nothing happened.

  ‘So far so good.’ Revelle released another clamp. With each clamp he got more confident, and soon they were all open. ‘Here goes. Get ready to help me force it shut again if there’s water the other side.’ He turned the large locking wheel in the middle of the metal gate. Then slowly, very slowly, he pulled the gate open.

  Jake was holding his breath, waiting for the gate to be forced open and a wave of water to crash through, sweeping them off their feet.

  But the gate opened smoothly, and revealed only a further section of tunnel the other side. The floor was damp, and the curving brick walls were slick with condensation, but the tunnel certainly wasn’t flooded. There were piles of books stacked close to the walls. They stood under strips of plastic sheeting, slightly away from the walls to keep the damp off them. The books stretched into the distance, uneven piles of varying heights.

  As soon as they were through, Revelle swung the gate shut and spun the locking wheel. Then he closed the clamps. They were on rods that ran through the fame, so closing or opening them on one side had the same effect on the other. No one would be able to tell they’d been through.

  ‘Right then, let’s see where we are.’

  The tunnel was lit with oil lamps that stood out from the wall on brass brackets. from the way they spluttered and spat, Jake guessed that the oil was cheap and mixed with fat. There were no books stacked beneath the lamps, Jake noticed. He could imagine that if the burning oil dripped onto the old, brittle paper it would ignite in an instant.

  The tunnel curved gently into the distance. It sloped steeply downwards. Revelle led the way, Jake and Sarah following close behind. With the books down either side there wasn’t room for all three of them to walk together.

  Jake was holding Sarah’s hand – it felt damp and cold, but he didn’t dare let go in case he lost her again. He felt as if she might just fade away, like a dream. She seemed to sense how he was feeling, and squeezed his hand gently.

  The further they went, the colder it got. The walls ran with moisture, like they were sweating. The books were not stacked so high, and the piles became fewer and further between. Jake could see the pages curling with damp. Some were fused together from being in the water, many books had lost their covers. Loose pages were jammed between the books, waiting to be reunited with their fellows.

  ‘These must be waiting for Mandrake to restore them,’ Jake said.

  ‘Father told me that Mandrake buys up whole crates of books. Whenever they repair or clear out a building, he gets the books. They send divers down to collect them from under the floods. Any book, any condition, Mandrake will pay for it.’

  ‘And then he stores them down here.’ Jake wondered if these were really the books waiting to be restored, or were they simply abandoned. Surely some of the books Mandrake bought were of no use or interest to him.

  ‘I think we’re below the water level again,’ Revelle said as they moved on.

  The tunnel levelled out again, and almost immediately the lights stopped. The walls extended into the darkness.

  ‘Why light it just this far?’ Jake wondered.

  ‘Perhaps he ran out of lights, or oil,’ Revelle said.

  ‘Maybe it doesn’t go anywhere,’ Sarah suggested. ‘Maybe it’s just for storage, and this is as far as he needs. There are no more books along here.’

  But in front of them, Revelle was staring at the tunnel wall. ‘I think this is where the tunnel leads,’ he said.

  Jake and Sarah hurried to join him, and saw that they had reached a door. This one was set into the curving wall. It was back from the wall, so it was almost invisible until you reached it. It was a square, heavy metal door. A keypad like the ones Jake had seen in the White Tower was mounted on the wall beside the door.

  ‘Wonder what Mandrake keeps in there,’ Revelle said.

  ‘Books, probably,’ Sarah said, looking round.

  ‘He mentioned an archive,’ Jake remembered. ‘Could this be it?’

  Revelle typed 1078 on to the keypad. A red light flashed, but that was all. The door remained locked.

  ‘Worth a try,’ he said.

  ‘I wonder where this leads,’ Sarah said, looking along the tunnel. ‘I don’t fancy going far in the dark.’

  ‘From the depth and the direction,’ Revelle said, ‘and the patches of red paint near the top of the tunnel – like there…’ He pointed to an area just above the nearest light where the flaking remains of a dark red line were just visible. ‘… I’d say it connects to the Central Tunnels.’

  ‘Why red paint?’
Jake asked.

  ‘The tunnels used to be colour coded,’ Revelle told them. ‘They were painted with strips the same colours as on the map. So Circle was yellow, Northern was black, the Dilly was dark blue…’

  ‘And Central was red,’ Sarah finished.

  ‘Let’s see if you’re right,’ Jake said.

  Before Revelle could reply, there was a loud metallic clang. It echoed down the tunnel from the direction they had come.

  ‘Mandrake,’ Revelle said. ‘That was the flood gate closing. He’s coming this way.’

  *

  Mandrake walked with his head down, his shadow flickering over the walls. He typed the access code into the keypad beside the entrance into his Clandestine Archives and heaved the door open. If he had glanced back, if he had peered into the darkness along the tunnel, he might have seen the three figures standing silent and still, watching him. But he did not.

  He left the door open, and bright white lights flared into life inside the room. Less than a minute later Mandrake emerged with a sheaf of papers. He turned off the lights and closed the door, listening for the satisfying click of the lock. Then he turned and walked quickly back down the tunnel.

  As soon as he was out of sight round the slight curve of the tunnel, Jake, Sarah and Revelle stepped back into the light.

  ‘What was he doing?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘Getting something for Marianna Patterson, I would think,’ Revelle said. He was tapping his finger against his chin thoughtfully.

  ‘What is it?’ Jake asked.

  ‘If we go that way, we should connect with Central. But I think speed is important. If we’re to have anything to bargain with, any hope of finding out what’s going on and stopping it, I think we need that Head. The only way I can see that’s going to happen is if I get to the White Tower as soon as I can, and persuade Albright – my boss – that we should impound the thing.’

  ‘Then it’s obvious what you have to do,’ Sarah told him., ‘Mandrake will be back in his shop. So you can get down the tunnel to the White Tower.’

  ‘Provided you can avoid that Patterson woman,’ Jake added. But he could guess what was really worrying Revelle. ‘We’ll be fine,’ he assured him. ‘I’ve taken care of myself for long enough. I can look after Sarah.’

  ‘I can look after myself,’ she told him.

  Revelle was nodding. ‘I suppose so. But I feel responsible. I got you into this.’

  ‘You didn’t,’ Jake said. ‘Mandrake got me and Sarah and Geoff into this. And now Geoff’s dead.’

  Sarah turned away, her hand to her face.

  ‘Killed by one of those Kraken things.’ It seemed obvious now. ‘He must have gone to Mandrake and told him about the figures – the chess pieces. Maybe he recognised Mandrake at Whispers.’

  ‘He was behaving oddly,’ Sarah admitted quietly. ‘He went to Mandrake to sell him his figure, and Mandrake killed him for it. I think…’ she said slowly, ‘I think Mandrake made sure I saw the chess table. He wanted to know if I had any of the figures, or knew where they were. Because of Geoff.’

  ‘He showed me too,’ Jake said, ‘when I went to ask about you.’

  ‘They came up from a wreck, in a fishing net,’ Revelle said. ‘What’s the betting that’s what Mandrake’s got Miss Patterson’s Phibians looking for?’

  ‘I don’t see what the Head has to do with it,’ Jake said. ‘What it is, or how it works.’

  ‘If you two are sure you’ll be all right,’ Revelle said, ‘I’ll go and find out.’

  ‘We’ll be fine,’ Jake said again. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Since the Head has decided to talk some sense, I’m going to ask it. You two go straight to the Toymaker’s, you hear me. You wait there until I come and find you.’

  They were happy to agree. Jake couldn’t wait to get out of the tunnels, and he was sure Sarah would be desperate to see her father again.

  *

  The lamp brackets were firmly fixed to the walls. Jake examined several, but none of them was going to be easy to remove. So instead he gathered a pile of large books with thick pages that weren’t all stuck together.

  ‘You carry these,’ he told Sarah, who was watching him curiously.

  ‘Why? You short of reading?’

  ‘Short of light. I don’t know how far we have to go down that tunnel, and I want to see what I’m doing. Especially if there’s a hatch or door or something at the other end. I can’t imagine Mandrake will have left it open for anyone using Central just to wander in.’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  Jake had found a pile of large, loose pages. He rolled them into a long tube, and reached up to push the end of it into one of the lamps. The paper caught fire at once, burning with a smoky, uncertain flame. It crackled as the damp paper dried and sputtered.

  ‘That won’t last long,’ Sarah pointed out.

  ‘Which is why you have those books. We can tear pages out as we go.’

  ‘Clever,’ she said, smiling.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘If there’s enough paper to last the journey.’

  They walked quickly, afraid that they might have to finish the journey in darkness. The makeshift torch lasted for about a minute, then Jake had to put it down on a dry bit of floor before it burned his hand. Sarah tore pages from the largest of the books she was carrying and rolled them into another firebrand. Jake managed to light it from the smouldering remains of the first before it went out.

  ‘How far do you think we have to go?’ Jake wondered.

  ‘Can’t be too far now. It feels like we’ve been walking for ages.’

  It probably wasn’t as long as it seemed, Jake thought as they stopped to make a third torch from the rest of the first book. As Sarah rolled up the paper, he stared out into the blackness ahead of them. It seemed even darker than it had just a moment ago. The dying light from the torch lying on the ground illuminated the pitted concrete of the floor for several yards.

  Then nothing. Blackness. The light didn’t peter out or fade away. It just stopped.

  ‘How odd,’ Jake murmured. But then Sarah was handing him the roll of paper, and he touched it to the fire burning hesitantly at his feet. It caught easily, and their shadows flickered and stretched across the tunnel walls – warped and stretched as the tunnel walls curved.

  Jake turned. As he moved, his foot caught a loose stone or piece of cement, sending it skidding away in front of him.

  ‘You ready?’ Jake asked, turning back for Sarah.

  The faintest rattle of the stone as it rattled against something. The distant splash.

  Jake stepped into the darkness. Despite the light, the floor was oily black emptiness. He felt Sarah take his free hand as he moved forward. And his foot came down on…

  … Nothing …

  The floor was gone. Jake’s foot continued downwards. He gave a cry of surprise, toppling forwards, held back only by Sarah’s hand. Then they were both struggling to keep their balance.

  He dropped the torch. It fell… and fell. Illuminating the ragged tear across the floor of the tunnel where the ground was sheared away. The torch was still falling – its reflection in the shimmering water coming up to meet it. So far down.

  Sarah was holding Jake tight, close to the edge as they watched the torch fall.

  Then something else. A massive tentacle broke the surface and slammed into the torch, breaking it into a shower of fiery paper fragments. The last thing Jake saw before the sparking fragments hit the water was a huge pale eye glistening wet as it emerged from the depths. And a mass of tentacles reaching from the abyss towards them.

  ‘Can it get out?’ Sarah gasped?

  ‘Don’t know. But we can’t get across, that’s for certain.’

  ‘We’ll have to go back.’ She was already tearing pages from the next book, frantically rolling them up, desperately reaching for the last glowing embers of the torch lying on the ground.

  An unearthly shrieking echoed round them. B
y the uncertain light of the new torch, they saw the tip of a tentacle extend from the broken tunnel floor. It curled and probed and felt its way across the ground towards them. The circular suckers were pale and bloodless as they contracted and expanded.

  ‘We’ll have to follow Revelle.’ Jake was already running back along the tunnel, pulling Sarah with him, holding the last book in the other hand. The flames spat and popped, smearing through the air as they ran.

  ‘The light won’t last,’ Sarah said. ‘And if that thing’s after us…’

  ‘We can’t stop,’ Jake agreed.

  The unearthly shrieks and screeches were still reverberating round the tunnel. Was it Jake’s imagination, or was something squelching and sliding after them? How fast could the thing go out of water? How long were its tentacles?

  The torch had burned down so low that Sarah was forced to drop it. Jake flung the last book down after it, and kept running. He glanced back to see the book was burning, filling the tunnel with dark smoke as the leather cover caught fire.

  They ran on into the darkness. Behind them, the fire was dying. A dark shape rolling towards it… But in front of them Jake could make out the tiniest glimmer of light.

  By the time they reached the lit part of the tunnel, they were both exhausted.

  ‘If we can get to the flood gate, we can lock it behind us and keep that thing in here.’ But Jake could barely walk.

  ‘We’ll never get it open in time,’ Sarah gasped. ‘All those clamps.’

  Jake nodded. ‘Then we have to hide. wait till it’s gone.’

  ‘We’re in a tunnel!’

  ‘There is one place.’ They were right outside the door into Mandrake’s archives.

  ‘It’s locked,’ Sarah said. She heaved on the door to prove it.

  ‘But I know the code,’ Jake said. ‘It’s 1100. I watched him type it in.’

  A slimy tentacle hurtled out of the darkness. It slammed into the nearest light, sending burning oil flying. Another tentacle was curling across the floor towards them like a snake.

  Jake pressed the numbers, hoping he had seen properly what Mandrake was doing, hoping he was right.

  Sarah heaved the door again, and this time it opened. Opened painfully slowly, even with Jake pulling with her.