by H. L. Dennis
And then, with an ominous creak, the trapdoor swung back once more on its hinges.
It was hard to know how far she’d climbed, how near she was to the bottom, when the rope began to sway erratically, side to side. Hands half seen through the light high up near the trapdoor scratched at the fixings above her, tugged at the metal claw, attempting to loosen the rope on which they hung.
Brodie couldn’t see the ground. She couldn’t breathe. The weight of the silver box cut a line against her side. Through the darkness a voice sliced the air.
‘We’ll find you. This isn’t over.’
Colours kaleidoscoped. And Brodie fell, tumbling and sprawling, winging the air like a newborn bird tossed from the nest.
The ground came up to meet her.
Way above her, Hunter hung like a weight on a plumb line as the rope swung and twisted. Then the rope tumbled free of the claw. Hunter crashed to the floor, his arms splayed. And the unloosed rope coiled like a snake across his body.
Brodie blinked and the space she was in flickered into focus. A long white-walled corridor, stretching towards the light.
‘Hunter?’
He was still.
She scrambled to her knees.
‘Hunter?’
‘Have I died?’ His eyes flickered open.
‘No. Not quite,’ Brodie laughed in relief.
Miss Tandari knelt beside them. ‘We’re going to get you out of here, just as soon as we can.’
Hunter tried to smile and failed. He tried to sit and swooned back down against the ground, the red feather bent and crumpled beneath his arm.
‘A bit wobbly,’ he mumbled. ‘From that height, I reckon there was slightly more than a fifty-three per cent chance of death. Seems I came off lightly, BB.’
Brodie rubbed his arm reassuringly.
‘The phoenix?’ he said at last.
‘Safe,’ she said. She held up the box still tucked in the sleeve of her blazer.
This time Hunter managed a glimmer of a smile.
‘Do you think you can manage to stand?’ Miss Tandari asked, casting a nervous look up above her.
Hunter grimaced. ‘Not sure my foot should be stuck at that angle.’
Brodie tried not to look.
‘I think I’ve sprained my ankle,’ Hunter moaned, sinking his body back to the ground.
Brodie’s stomach turned. ‘So what do we do?’
‘You’ll have to try and escape with the phoenix, Brodie,’ said Miss Tandari.
‘What?’
‘I’ll need time to get Hunter out of here, and time isn’t something we have. Any moment, Vernan and the others’ll work out where we’ve fallen. Hunter and I can stall any guards here and spin some story to keep them back, but you,’ she said and her eyes were steely, ‘you’ll have to take the phoenix.’
Brodie tightened her grasp on the precious container.
‘The work you do now’s important, Brodie,’ said Miss Tandari. ‘It’s what all the training and the learning was for.’
Brodie tried hard to smile in return but her mouth wouldn’t move to make the shape she wanted.
‘Now,’ said Miss Tandari, ‘we’ve obviously landed in some sort of servants’ corridor. You need to follow the corridor till it leads you back into the state rooms. Then you need to make for the music room.’
‘The what?’
‘The music room. To the north of the palace. According to what I’ve read, there’s a secret tunnel there that leads out under the gardens and to the building that used to be the Prince’s stables. If you make it through the tunnel you’ll be free. And,’ she added seriously, ‘the phoenix will be safe.’
Brodie nodded weakly.
Hunter stretched out his hand. ‘You can do it, Brodie,’ he whispered, and the way he said her name as if he might never see her again made her want to cry.
The corridor was narrow, lined with large white tiles, cold and spartan. Brodie counted them as she passed, as she knew Hunter would’ve done. To make the walk easier and escape more certain. It didn’t help.
At last she came to a small anteroom and the colours of the state rooms of the Pavilion blazed ahead of her. She hurried into another gallery lined with high cream marble pillars with golden snakes curled round them. A sign told her it was the ‘music room gallery’. Her heart thumped. It was difficult to breathe.
At the end of the gallery was a door.
The door was open.
Brodie clutched the phoenix close to her chest and stumbled inside.
And then, the door swung closed behind her.
‘Well, well, well.’ The voice was slow and metered and accompanied by loud, rhythmic clapping. ‘Then there was one.’
Brodie’s heart was forcing itself against her ribs as if it was trying to make its escape without her.
‘At the very end I must take my prize from a child,’ the voice continued from behind her. ‘I think the Director would like that.’
Brodie turned and there, blocking her escape through the now closed door, was a woman dressed in high black boots and a short pleated skirt. Her tight-fitting red blouse was the same colour as her polished fingernails. Her dark hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, straining the skin around her eyes. Thin blood-red lips cracked into a smile and on her hand a diamond ring glinted.
She stopped clapping and moved further into the centre of the room, her arms stretched wide as if welcoming a guest to her home. ‘Magnificent, don’t you think? Of all the rooms in this palace, this must be, of all of them, the most impressive.’
Brodie’s heart was still jumping in her chest. Yet she couldn’t help but look up at the splendour around her.
The room was huge and even more ornately decorated than the Banqueting Room. A golden domed ceiling held nine lotus-shaped chandeliers. Painted dragons supported scarlet canvases against the walls. Carved, silvered, flying dragons carried blue silk satin window draperies, fringed with golden tassels. A blue carpet was spread with dragons. On the far wall, pipes of an organ were set against red and gold, while on the wall facing the windows a mirror stretched above a marble fireplace, bouncing the light around the room, catching the dragons in flight.
‘One hundred and eighty-five dragons,’ laughed the woman. ‘Your friend Hunter, with his ridiculous obsession with numbers, would like that fact.’
‘You know about Hunter?’ Brodie said slowly.
‘My dear child. I know everything. I’ve the power to read your mail, scrutinise your computer use and watch you from cameras in the sky. I’m all-seeing. It’s my job to know.’ Her violet eyes flashed in the light. ‘I’ll agree it took us a while to catch on. A crafty old thing, Smithies. Deception of the very best sort. Right beneath our noses. But it hasn’t taken us long to catch up.’ She flexed her hands and her knuckles cracked. ‘I know about Tusia and her glorious chess wins. I know about Miss Tandari and her complicated family. I know about the washed-up has-been Smithies recruited to work alongside him.’ She waited. ‘And I know about you.’
Brodie looked away.
The woman’s voice was measured. ‘All that happened to your mother. So sad. Such a shame with you not even knowing your father. Cruel to be without both parents. Still,’ she paused, ‘I suppose there was always your granddad. Him and his romantic love of the code. I expect he was glad to get rid of you, that’s why he let you leave and be part of the madness.’ She laughed. ‘Such a burden you must’ve been to him. I bet he could hardly wait to see you go.’
Brodie clutched the silver box closer to her chest. She felt her pulse racing in her ears.
‘But your little tussles with danger are over now, Brodie. Code-cracking is no pursuit for has-beens or children. There are rules. And rules need to be obeyed. It won’t be long before the guards arrive and by then you’ll have handed me what you found and the whole sorry mess will be over. That,’ she added sharply, ‘is how this story will end.’
The woman began to pace, the heels of her black boots leav
ing impressions in the carpet. When she spoke again her voice was almost gentle. ‘Hand me whatever precious gift Van der Essen left hidden here and I’ll let you go.’
Brodie tried to breathe.
The woman spoke again. ‘Give it to me, Brodie.’
Brodie’s breath burned at the base of her throat. Then in a voice she wasn’t even really sure belonged to her, she said, ‘No.’
The woman’s violet eyes flashed wild. ‘You seem to think there’s a choice.’ Her smile was thin. ‘Give it to me.’
Brodie reached up and grasped the locket from her grandfather in the cup of her hand. Things looked bad, but it wasn’t over yet. Somehow she knew she shouldn’t give in. She’d stand her ground as her granddad had done, as her grandmother had done, and as she knew her mother would’ve done. Whoever this woman was, and whatever she stood for, Brodie knew deep down that passing Van der Essen’s phoenix to her would be wrong. Smithies had explained how much Van der Essen had done to protect the secret of MS 408. He’d saved the code-book from the fire of war; he’d protected the phoenix under a cloak of code. And he’d wanted worthy code-breakers to find her. Over the last few weeks that’s what Brodie hoped she’d become. A worthy alchemist of codes. And she had the phoenix in her hands. Now nothing would make her give it up. She let the locket fall free against her skin. ‘I’ve got to look after the phoenix,’ she said. ‘You can’t have it.’
The woman merely smiled. Then she folded her arms across her chest and waited. ‘I think it’s time, Brodie, I filled you in on a few details you appear not to grasp. Once I’ve finished perhaps you’ll see things my way.’
She looked down at the ground, tracing a circle with the toe of her boot.
‘As soon as we join the Chamber they tell us about MS 408. They warn us about its pull, its power. It works like a drug, a virus, you know, that gets into your blood and before you know it, it’s taken over. The need to read the unreadable. The need to make sense of madness.’ She hesitated for a moment. ‘And that’s the only place MS 408 can lead, Brodie. To madness. The manuscript destroys all who touch it. That’s why we wrote the rules. I’m simply here to protect you from working on a mystery that can only lead to unhappiness.’ She paused as if allowing time for her words to run through a filter. ‘Smithies was wrong to involve you. Children. Vulnerable children. Selling you a dream. A promise of discovery. It cost Friedman his job, Ingham his health. And for your mother,’ she waited for a moment, ‘the cost was her life.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Brodie gasped.
The woman’s brow was furrowed, feigning concern. ‘Brodie, your mother wouldn’t leave the lure of the code behind. She travelled to Belgium to pursue a worthless dream, the stuff of fairytale and myth. Have you never wondered how she lost her life?’
‘She was killed in a car crash.’
The woman looked the way teachers do when a child offers an answer so badly incorrect they’re unsure how to respond.
‘It had nothing to do with MS 408,’ Brodie blurted. ‘It was a terrible accident.’
Still the woman said nothing. She traced a circle once more with her toe. Then she looked up. ‘The manuscript offers nothing but false dreams, Brodie. Now it’s time to give it up.’ Her voice tightened. ‘Pass me Van der Essen’s phoenix so we can end this.’
Brodie could barely breathe.
‘Pursuing a solution for MS 408 can only end in sorrow, Brodie. You’ve been tricked into thinking there’s some great secret to discover. That’s a lie. The book’s a fake. Whatever you’ve found is just another playing piece in the game. An elaborate game. One that’s already cost your mother’s life.’ She stepped forward and Brodie could feel her breath against her skin. The heavy scent of lotus flower swirled around her. ‘Hand me what you found.’
Brodie’s mind was in free-fall. The manuscript a fake? Tricked? Fooled into caring? Into trying? All for nothing. The ground was sliding like wet sand under her feet but something kept her from falling. She felt the picture of the castle inside the locket burning against her skin. As if the castle built of sand was standing tall in the waves as they lapped around it. The castle refused to fall. And she was holding on to it.
‘Perhaps it’s all a terrible game,’ she said. ‘But I’ve got the phoenix.’ She swallowed. ‘I’m not going to give it to you.’
‘Nice speech, little girl,’ the woman laughed and a bead of spit bubbled on her blood-red lip. ‘But this is no time for bravery. The game’s over and this time I’ve won. I’ve got what Smithies wants and he’ll walk away the loser.’
She lunged towards Brodie and the silver box she clutched to her chest.
Brodie stumbled backwards. The long metal box tumbled from her fingers as her arm grazed against the jagged wing of an ornate dragon that reared up beside the window. And like a bell ringing out in the silence, there was the sound of metal on stone as the box crashed against the wall.
It bounced on the ground, its lid flung open.
There, resting in the folds of fabric lining, inside the box, was what the search was all about. The codes, the secrets, the quest.
Brodie knew what it was as soon as she saw it.
Ash.
Tears of blackened scraps lay like petals on the fabric and the smell of ancient burning rose in the air. A piece drifted on to the woman’s hand. She reached with the fingers of her other hand, pale ghost letters from the kiss of the ash still visible against the skin. At her touch they turned to dust and blew away.
Friedman looked closely at the map in the guidebook and tapped his hand nervously on the front desk. The Dome, a building set behind the Royal Pavilion, had been built by the Prince Regent as a stable for his horses. Now the building was a museum and the exhibitions on Chinese art and Brighton’s picture postcards were drawing many visitors. Friedman had no interest in the exhibits though.
‘Excuse me,’ he said in hushed tones to the rather bored-looking tour guide who was staffing the front desk. She turned her head sharply to the side, her lips pursed. ‘Erm, would you be so kind as to show me the entrance to the secret tunnel?’
The tour guide continued to frown, the ring through her nose wobbling a little, and the tattoo of a mermaid on her neck creasing so it looked as if she were swimming. ‘I’m sorry, mate. Tunnel’s strictly out of bounds. Health and safety issues regarding the structure so it’s closed to the public.’
Friedman clenched his hand into a fist yet tried to make his voice sound relaxed. ‘Yes. I appreciate it’s closed to the public. I was just wondering if you could show me where it is.’ He smiled what he hoped was his most enthusiastic smile. ‘The other guide over there wouldn’t show me either but I thought you looked so much more daring.’ He cast his gaze in the direction of a fairly elderly-looking guide wearing a matching lemon skirt and jumper and a choker of pearls. He turned back again and winked, but feared it may’ve looked merely as if he’d something in his eye.
The tour guide softened. ‘OK,’ she said coyly. ‘As you asked so nicely.’
Friedman was sure it’d nothing to do with his manner of asking and much more to do with annoying the other guide. He’d watched them for at least ten minutes and the level of tension between them was palpable.
‘I bet you take risks and walk through the tunnel all the time,’ he continued, trying desperately to push home his advantage. ‘I mean you have to take some risks in life, don’t you?’
The guide was smiling now, her metal-heeled shoes clipping against the tiled floor. ‘It’s here,’ she said, motioning towards an unassuming green doorway, ‘but don’t tell the old bag I’d anything to do with it. She’s on my case as it is.’
‘Understood,’ Friedman answered. ‘Your secret’s safe with me.’
She smiled and it was just possible to see her tongue stud glinting in the opening of her mouth.
‘By the way,’ he added as his hand pushed against the door. ‘Where exactly does the tunnel lead to?’
‘Pavilion Music Room.�
�� She smiled. ‘It comes out in the Band Room and there’s a secret door that leads through to the Music Room.’
‘Splendid,’ he said, pressing his weight against the door. ‘And thank you.’ And with that he winked again and opened the door.
Vernan’s laugh cut through the air as she lowered her hand into the open box and lifted the ashen fragments of manuscript. She let them fall like confetti. ‘So, who’s the loser now?’
Brodie looked down as the dust and stench from the burned papers lifted in the air like a cloud. It was ruined. Van der Essen’s code-book destroyed by the fires of Louvain all along. What sort of joke was this? Why’d a man go to all the trouble of hiding this under a cloak of code and cipher?
The palms of the woman’s hands were blackened by the soot. ‘Not a phoenix after all. Just a fraud.’ She stood up, suddenly tall again, her violet eyes dulled.
‘Whatever Van der Essen left you is useless, Brodie. And so whether you like it or not, you and Smithies and the whole irresponsible team have to accept that.’
Her eyes narrowed.
‘Now, Brodie, lover of puzzles and riddles and codes. Here’s a puzzle for you. A puzzle of dragons.’ She waved her hands around again as if conducting the dragons in flight. ‘Of all these beasts there’s only one king. Only one Pendragon, the ruler of them all.’
Brodie scanned the room.
‘Can you guess? Which of those you see is the true ruler?’ The woman stamped her feet dramatically. ‘This one,’ she said, pointing down at the ground and the huge dragon woven into the pile of the carpet. ‘See how the other dragons fly on outstretched wings? Except this one. This wingless dragon is the true ruler. The lowest,’ she stamped her foot again, ‘and yet the highest. The Pendragon. He has no need to fly, for his power is greater than flight. He’s invincible. Indestructible. All power is his. You do well to remember where true power lies, Brodie. Not in flights of fancy, ideas and dreams. In reality. And facts.’
