“Good morrow, gentlemen of the City Watch. Your visit’s a rare pleasure. What can we do for you?”
Klosterheim pointed at me. “That girl. She’s the one you kidnapped. Kill them all, guards, if they resist. You are safe now, fräulein. I am here to take you home.”
I looked from Kushy to the guards. For a moment I was confused. “He’s the one wants to kill me,” I said.
Then, instinctively, I raced for the back room and slammed the door behind me, bolting it as Lord Renyard had taught me. From the other side came the firing of shots.
I felt fairly certain that Klosterheim, having somehow got the city authorities on his side, would win this round. At any moment they’d come bursting in. With my heart pounding, I opened the window of my bedroom and hopped out onto the tiles of the roof below. I slid down it, grabbed a drainpipe and shinned down into the little paved yard at the back of the tavern. I was hoping to hide somewhere nearby until they were gone. I took the bar out of its lugs, opened the gate and slipped into the alley. By the time I had found a dark doorway in which to hide I heard shouts from the courtyard. Men raced towards me. I had no choice. I crept into the yard behind me and hid among some stacks of crates and barrels. Fortunately their feet pounded past in the alley. Only when it was dark did I risk sneaking out and making my way back to the tavern, just to find the gateway closed again. I would have to risk going out into the street and entering through the front door.
As I slipped into the street leading to the square I saw a glint of armor. The city guards were still there, maybe left behind by Klosterheim. I kept walking, dodging in and out of shadows with no clear idea where I was going. Eventually I came to the unstable black marble that was the river, rows of deserted warehouses, and scuttling rats. I felt comparatively safe by the water if I kept in the dark. Across the river the new town didn’t seem so full of soldiers. Sparks and flames gushed up in the black factory smoke. I could smell that smoke from here. A weird hard-boiled-egg smell; it reminded me of Guy Fawkes Night fireworks.
I thought I recognized the nearest bridge, the one Kushy and the others had shown me how to cross. A narrow walkway, used by builders to make repairs, ran underneath. You could get onto it, if you were nimble and small enough, by climbing up some ornamental ironwork and wriggling through a pipe.
Very slowly and carefully I made my way to the base of the bridge. I could hear the rumble of carts, horses’ hoofs, marching soldiers. But nobody bothered to look down as I quickly shinned up the ironwork, squeezed through the short section of pipe. I climbed over the protective metal roof and swung down to drop on the walkway on the other side of a locked gate.
Then it was nothing to run softly over the wooden slats until I got to the other side, repeated the operation and found myself beside more rows of warehouses, whose stink, I should add, was not any more attractive than that of the first. I had been right. There were no soldiers on this side at all. They were all concentrating on the far bank.
I kept to side streets. The heat increased as I got closer to the great walled factories. Here Mirenburg made the steel for which, in my own world, she was famous, producing a well-known make of East European car, the Popp. Now she was probably making pikes and swords and cannons and stuff, more suitable for the customers of this age!
And then, as luck would have it, a squadron of mounted soldiers galloped along the thoroughfare ahead of me, just as I reached the middle of a factory wall, with no street I could easily dodge into. They weren’t looking for me, I was sure, and were probably on their way to the bridge, but they would recognize me if they saw me. There was a small door in the factory wall, which I fully expected to be locked or jammed; to my astonishment, the handle turned. Without even a squeak of hinges I stepped into the overheated darkness and closed the door behind me. I began to wonder if some goddess had her benevolent eye on me.
The door led into a bleak passage, at the end of which were three more doors. Rather than waiting for the soldiers to go, I let curiosity take me down the passage. Had I been sensible, I would have just hidden for a moment and then gone back into the street. But I walked down the corridor, then opened the middle door a crack. I saw a turnstile and, behind that, people doing various kinds of office work. Apart from their clothes, they could have been in any ordinary office from my own time. Beyond them came the noise and bustle of the factory itself. I saw an occasional bright tongue of flame leaping into the air.
The door to the left was a disused office by the look of it, with a dusty desk and filing cabinets. But there was another interior door beyond it. I had no light once I closed the door behind me, and had to fumble my way across the room until I got to the other side. Again I expected this door to be locked. It was. But as I groped down its face, I felt a big key still in its lock. With difficulty I turned it. Unlike the door in the wall, this one had been badly kept. I twisted the handle, hearing a high-pitched sound. It cut through my eardrums and yet wasn’t completely unpleasant. There was a strangely thrilling note to it. Then the noise died away. Something rumbled. Something raced and gushed. Something hissed.
I opened the door wider. It led out onto a gantry overlooking a busy factory. Molten steel splashed like lava from huge buckets hauled on chains by sweating half-naked men, overseen by shouting foremen and other specialist workers, who helped guide the buckets and tip them over a series of molds. The light was glaring, and the heat was like a wall against my body. Flaming liquid steel gushed and splashed.
Through squinting eyes I saw the blind albino boy. He stood in a pulpit made of metal. His head was raised and set to one side, as if he was listening keenly. At a certain moment he raised his slender white hand in the air. All work stopped. He listened again, his crimson eyes reflecting the red-hot metal around him. Overhead more buckets rumbled and hissed; more molten steel flowed down gullies. It was a very hectic factory, but I couldn’t really work out what was being made. The molds were at most three inches wide and about three feet long. Were they forging rods of some kind?
I managed to wriggle into a space behind rolls of unused chain and get a better look at what was going on below me. As I watched, one of the workers yelped. A tear of boiling steel had fallen on his shoulder. A medic came from the side of the room and put a patch on him. He went back to work. I noticed that several workers had more than one patch. This had to be a dangerous occupation. Why, I wondered, didn’t the factory supply them with protective clothing? I had a poor grasp of economics in those days.
The blind boy fascinated me. He was about four years older than me. Like Monsieur Zodiac, he had long, milk-white hair, while his skin had the sheen of bone. Unlike the workers, he had few patches. Even at that distance I could tell he was sweating. His glaring crimson eyes seemed completely sightless. Had the glowing metal blinded him? His hearing, however, was unnaturally sharp. For it was his hearing, I realized, they were employing.
The men paused so that a bucket of boiling metal was near him, and he listened. Then he spoke to them and pointed in the general direction of some of the molds. The workers finessed the bucket to their molds and again poured liquid metal. Occasionally some kind of boss came along and spoke to the men. They kept their distance from the boy. They carefully avoided touching him.
I watched for over an hour as the albino paused, listened carefully, almost always rejecting the steel, very occasionally pointing and giving directions. As the steel cooled in the molds, the lengths were brought to him, and again he would hold them close to his ears, listening intently. Some of them he accepted, but most were rejected. This seemed to be the norm, judging by the way the workers treated the routine. He was listening for some flaw, I was sure.
There wasn’t much doubt in my mind that the boy was related to my grandma and Monsieur Zodiac. Even the way he held himself was familiar. Was he a prisoner in the factory? I couldn’t be certain. There were no guards about.
He worked constantly, listening, directing, listening, rejecting. Eventually I realized they
were forging sword blades, which would no doubt be polished, honed and decorated by other hands. But he didn’t pass many of them. I could tell he was listening to the music within the steel. The blades spoke to him, and he accepted almost none of them, rejecting most.
Suddenly a klaxon sounded throughout the factory. Work was stopped, and men moved away to open packets of sandwiches and eat. The blind boy was led to a spot only a yard or two below where I was hiding. As the men ate, the boy merely drank from a large cup handed to him by a guard. The guards were not rough to him. In their own way they seemed to like him, but they treated him very much as an alien creature, not one of their own. Now I had my chance. When the space was deserted around him I risked calling to him, barely lifting my voice above a whisper.
“Boy! Blind boy?”
He looked up. He had heard me. He did not reply in a loud voice himself, but murmured.
“Girl? Overhead? Yes, she lies on the walkway above, hidden by chains, and—”
“I’ve seen how clever you are,” I told him. “But I’m not here to admire you.”
“Why are you here? Did McTalbayne send you to find me?”
“I don’t know who that is. I’m lost. This is an accident. I have relatives who look like you. Does the name Beck mean anything?”
He shook his head and finished his drink. The klaxon sounded again. The boss approached him to guide him back to his station.
“You must get me away from here,” whispered the boy suddenly. “If you are a friend, you must help set me free. What’s your name?”
“Oonagh,” I said.
“That’s like my mother’s name! Do you know Tufnell Hill?” A desperate expression crossed his face. “Those two brought me here, but…”
“What’s yours? What’s your name?”
“They call me Onric here,” he said. “My father—”
The guard came too close. He stopped whispering.
“I’ll try to free you,” I said, “but I’ll have to get help. I’m only a little girl.”
“You have given me more hope than anyone else,” he said, his voice dropping so low that I could scarcely hear it. Then the foreman was beside him and leading him back to his post.
I was confused. How could I be related to this boy I had never seen, who dwelled in a different age, in a different part of the multiverse? I stepped out from behind the chains. Somebody shouted. Had they seen me? I bolted for the next door, entered into the darkness behind it, remembered to turn the key and then tiptoed to the door into the corridor, which was still deserted. Where could I get help for this Onric, I thought ironically, when I couldn’t even get help for myself!
I returned to the street. Maybe Lord Renyard would find someone to help me rescue Onric and get us both out of harm’s way! Were we really related? Was this who Klosterheim and von Minct were searching for? Were they hoping I would lead them to the boy? Did I, after all, have some sort of affinity with him?
In a daze, I managed to reach the bridge and return the way I’d come. Where was I going to find help? Raspazian’s seemed the only likely place. I had to hope the Sebastocrater’s guards had left, as there was still a fair amount of activity on the bridge.
I crossed over into the warehouse district, found a street I recognized and began to make my way up it. I heard the marching feet of guardsmen behind me. I was so exhausted, I was almost ready to be captured.
Stepping back into a doorway, I felt sick with fear as a hand covered my mouth and an arm encircled my body and lifted me. I struggled until I heard Kushy’s murmur in my ear. “Hush, little mort.” When we were back in the alleys he let me go. His face was badly battered, and he had a wound in his left side. He seemed ashamed of himself and kept apologizing to me. “His Lordship’s still not returned. There’s talk he’s captured.”
I was horrified. “What can we do?”
“Get you away from here,” he said. “Get you somewhere safe. I’ve no idea how Klosterheim has the guards on his side. It probably means he’s persuaded the Sebastocrater that you’ve been kidnapped by us.”
“Herr Lobkowitz and Lieutenant Fromental were supposed to be at his palace. They wouldn’t have let him do it!”
“We don’t know what’s happened, missy.” He was leading me into the tangle of twitterns running between the buildings. “We need to find the chief. Meanwhile you can hide out here.” He opened a door, and we slipped into a poorly furnished room. There was a cot in the corner, a table and some crudely made chairs. “Get some sleep,” he advised. “I’ll bring you some food in the morning.”
I lay down to rest.
When Kushy still hadn’t returned by noon the next day, I became sure he was dead or captured. If they tortured him, they’d learn where I was. The plight of the blind albino boy was still on my mind. I couldn’t just leave him. He had asked for help. Taking the blanket from the cot, I left the hovel and made my way out into the creaking, tottering streets. First I must find food. Then I must find the Sebastocrater. At least I would be able to tell him that Klosterheim had tricked him, and maybe I could find and recruit Lord Renyard to help save the boy.
CHAPTER FIVE
HEAVING IN DAYLIGHT was a risk, but I really needed to eat. At least I was no longer conspicuous. Dirty and poorly dressed, I slipped out into the streets with no idea how I would find food. The Deep City was crowded with frightened people unused to the presence of the city guards, even though the guards kept their distance according to ancient tradition. With Lord Renyard gone, there was no one to demand a return to those old agreements. The guards, in their peculiar antique Greek armor, did not look comfortable. Most of them wore strings of garlic around their necks. Apparently they thought it warded off disease. Only Klosterheim carried pistols. They were armed with swords, lances, shields and bows, while the Deep City’s denizens had plenty of guns. Any uprising would be hard to control.
Eventually I applied the bad lessons I’d learned from Kushy and his friends. Feeling rather guilty, I easily pinched a loaf and a pie from a distracted baker in the market. Ravenously I ate them in a quiet doorway. I think anyone as hungry as I would have done the same. But I was very glad my mum hadn’t been there to see me! I wondered if I should try to find Mrs. House again. She had foreseen some sort of future for me, and she had mentioned the boy. Then I reminded myself that the best thing to do was to go into the Shallow City and try to find out what had happened to Lord Renyard or Herr Lobkowitz, so I took one of the spiraling alleys, intermittently hiding and walking slowly, getting closer to the wide basalt boulevards.
By midnight I had reached the black marble avenue which ran roughly from east to west with a huge Greek palace in the middle, at the top of which burned a massive single light, illuminating much of the city around it. From a new perspective I was looking at the Sebastocrater’s monolithic home.
I had better sense than to walk out into the open, but I kept that great dark dome, glinting with lacquer, gold and silver, in constant sight. Using trees and buildings for cover, I avoided patrols and got much closer to the palace, which was surrounded by black walls lit at intervals by blazing braziers, their flames flowing and guttering in the night air. Overhead the ancient ochers, yellows, browns and deep greens of the Autumn Stars looked down on me.
I heard a sound behind me and smelled something familiar. I retreated into the shadows. Turning, I saw, to my astonishment, that same black panther I had first encountered beneath Ingleton common. I guessed she meant me no immediate harm, because she narrowed her eyes in what, for a domestic cat, would have been a smile. The panther’s whiskers twitched, and a heavy rattling sound came from her throat—something which could have been a purr. Her friendly posturing was somewhat at odds with the beautiful ivory saber fangs which grew from the top of her mouth. She lay down in front of me. Somehow I knew she wanted me to climb onto her back so that she could help me escape.
“I can’t,” I whispered. “I have to get to the palace to see if I can find Lord Renyard.”
The cat’s purr became a noise of inquiry. Then she stood up and waited expectantly for a moment. I shook my head again. Then, since I would not ride, looking back at me from time to time, she began to lead me through the darkness, closer to the palace. Thinking she might know a secret way in, I followed her until we stood in dense shrubbery beside the great obsidian wall. It was apparently unclimbable, however, and I could see no other way in. Again the panther lay down, clearly indicating that she wanted me to jump on her back, and this time I did what she demanded, wrapping my arms around her powerful neck just in time, before she made a terrific spring. Air rushed through my hair, and I felt suddenly exhilarated as her incredible muscles moved under me. We landed on a broad lawn. A short distance away I could just make out a fountain playing near a summerhouse built like a miniature Greek temple. Not far from the fountain I saw the stiff outlines of about a dozen men, probably guards. The panther loped across the lawn towards the summerhouse. Another leap and we jumped out of the night, into brilliant day!
It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. Then I saw them. Inside the bright summerhouse stood not only Lord Renyard but Herr Lobkowitz and Lieutenant Fromental. I think I was only slightly less astonished to see them than they were to see me. I tumbled off the back of the panther and ran to embrace Lord Renyard, who looked delighted and troubled at the same time. I turned to stroke the head of the big black cat, but she had gone. In her place stood a woman who was my grandmother’s exact twin, though much younger. She was an ivory-haired, pale-skinned albino with unusually brilliant crimson eyes.
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