The Dark Flight Down (10 page)

2

The room was small, though still every bit as opulent as the rest of the palace. Boy could see closed doors leading off at every side, but on one wall a set of double doors lay tantalizingly open.

Boy moved into the room beyond. In it he found a huge four-poster bed, with mattresses so deep their top was chest height from the floor. Swags of midnight blue and yellow velvet hung from the bed’s canopy. It looked incredibly inviting. Who was lucky enough to sleep in such a wonderful thing?

He stepped toward it. Then he heard water splashing. Turning, he saw a small door leading out of the bedroom. Cautiously he pushed it open with his fingertips.

The door swung lightly away from him.

“Hello?” he ventured quietly.

He took a step inside.

A woman turned to face him.

Boy was shocked to see she was blind, like his jailer. She was an old woman, and yet Boy could see that her blindness was from some awful accident, not due to her age. With disgust he wondered if many servants close to Frederick’s secrets were made blind.

“Oh!” she said. “You’re here sooner than they told me. Your bath isn’t quite ready yet.”

She carried on with her work. Boy took a step farther into the room. It was every bit as large as the bedroom, but in the center of it stood not a bed, but a large marble bath, carved to look like a porpoise breaking the surface of the sea. The bath itself was hollowed into its back.

The woman was busy pouring buckets of water into the tub. She had two, one with cold and one with steaming hot water. When they were empty she took them to the side of the room, lifted a hatch and placed them on a shelf inside. She pulled a bell-rope beside the hatch, and immediately the shelf dropped from view. A minute or so later, the shelf rose back into view, jerking slowly to its former position. She hoisted the buckets off deftly, and Boy saw that once again they were full of water, one hot, one cold.

He had never seen such sophistication. Bathing was something he did only very rarely. When he had lived on the streets he had only washed in summer, just to cool down, by running through one of the City’s cleaner fountains. At the Yellow House, Valerian had made him wash once a week, “whether you need to or not.” But this had meant a cold slosh of water in a basin, a thing as far removed from the elaborate display before him as was possible.

“You—you must have the wrong idea . . . ,” Boy stammered. “You can’t mean me.”

“This is your bath, these are your rooms,” said the woman. “Couple more buckets should do you.”

“I don’t understand,” Boy said. “I’ve been in the dungeon. They had me locked up in the dungeon. This can’t be for me.”

“The emperor wants to see you. You can’t appear before an emperor smelling like that.”

She didn’t smile, or indeed betray any emotion, merely poured the last of her buckets into the vast bathtub.

“The emperor?” asked Boy. “What does he want to see me for?”

The woman didn’t answer.

“Well, anyway, I don’t want to see him. If you’ll excuse me. I don’t mean to be rude . . .”

Boy turned to leave. The woman made no effort to stop him, but he ran from the bathroom back through the bedroom. Choosing a door at random, he burst from the room, and ran straight into a guard who was almost larger than the doorway. Boy bounced off, and landed on his backside.

The guard, who barely seemed to have noticed, turned and looked down at Boy menacingly.

“Sorry,” said Boy, “wrong door.”

He got up, and shut himself back into his magnificent prison.

The old servant was waiting for him.

“The other doors are exactly the same,” she said. “Have a bath. Go to bed. In the morning you’re to go before the emperor.”

“And food?” asked Boy. “Can I have something to eat? I’ve only had—”

“It’s on its way. But bath first. You could smell better, that’s for sure. Take your clothes off.”

Boy gave up. He started to pull his shirt off, and the woman left the room. He shook his head. She was kinder than the old blind man but nonetheless she was just as much his jailer.

As soon as Boy was naked he stepped into the water. It was very hot, and he had to lower himself slowly into the tub, bit by bit. He thought he had never felt water so hot. He got as far as putting his legs in, and noticed they were turning pink from the heat. Eventually he got all of himself into the bath, and lay back. He watched the steam rising all around him, and felt his eyelids begin to droop.

In another few seconds, he was asleep.

When he woke, he felt terrible. He had no idea how long he had been asleep, but the water was still warm, so it couldn’t have been too long.

“Your food’s here,” said a voice.

He jerked upright to see the old serving woman sitting on a chair at the far side of the room.

“You better eat it and get to bed,” she said. “What’s this, by the way?”

Boy saw what she was holding in her hands; his lockpick, the old metal tendon.

“I found it in your clothes,” she said, needlessly. “I was going to throw it away, but then I thought maybe it’s something valuable, or important. Is it important?”

Boy struggled for an answer.

“Yes,” he said. “Well, no. It’s only important to me. It’s . . . a lucky charm. Had it for years.”

The woman considered this. A frown crossed her face.

“I’m not supposed to . . . ,” she began. “But I don’t see it can do any harm. You can keep it.”

And with that she left the room. A moment later she came back carrying a large towel and a nightshirt.

Boy grabbed the towel and pulled it around him.

They moved into the bedroom, where a table had been laid so that it was overflowing with delightful, delicate things to eat. Once again Boy was amazed, having never seen such things in all his life.

“Don’t eat too quickly,” the woman said, but Boy ignored her. He sat down and began to devour everything he could, not even stopping to ask what some of it was.

The serving woman sat quietly on a chair, half a smile flickering across her face all the time, listening to Boy eat.

“My!” she said, when he began to slow down. “You were hungry, weren’t you.”

For a moment, Boy felt like shouting at her. How stupid was she not to know the kind of slop he’d been given to eat for days? Of course he was hungry.

“Are you going to hang around while I do everything?” he asked, instead.

“Sorry,” she said. “Only it’s been a while since we’ve had anyone up here in the Winter Rooms.”

Boy wondered who “we” was.

“And your guests?” Boy asked. “Are they always prisoners? Like me?”

“Don’t say that. We try to make things as good as we can for our guests while they’re here. . . .”

She trailed off, then stood to go.

“Eat up and go to sleep,” she said.

Boy looked at the bed. It was so tall there was a little ladder to take him up onto it.

He slipped under the sheets, but something was not right. As he had had trouble adjusting to the comfortable yet small bed in Kepler’s house after the rotten cot he’d had at Valerian’s, he could not feel comfortable in this enormous bed.

He got up, and standing on the bed, pulled at the swags of velvet and drew them together like curtains, so that he was enclosed on all sides. It was immediately a dark and much smaller space, and feeling more at home, Boy shut his eyes, thoughts of Valerian drifting through his mind as he made his way down to sleep.

Despite the late, late hour, not everyone in the palace was asleep. The old serving woman made her way wearily to her own modest room on the floor above the one where Boy was dozing. In the kitchens in the North Wing, servants were still scrubbing and scraping at pots, and farther down into the palace’s guts, a tall figure robed in red made his way back from the dungeons. Once again there had been difficult work to be done down there, and there was more ahead.

3

Boy was pulled from his bed by a hand at his throat before he was even awake. He fell to the ground and lay spluttering on the thick, soft carpet that surrounded the massive four-poster.

“No more lying!” Maxim shouted down at him.

Boy didn’t even have time to think, let alone answer, before Maxim snatched him up from the floor and flung him across the room. Fortunately almost all of the bedroom floor was covered by one plush rug or another, and he was not hurt.

Now at some distance from Maxim, he had time to think before another blow came.

“Wait!” Boy cried. “What are you talking about? I don’t even know what you’re talking about!”

Maxim stopped halfway across the room.

“Then let me remind you,” he said. He ran one hand over the top of his smooth head. “You recall our last conversation?”

Boy frowned.

“You were asking me—”

“About a book,” Maxim spat. “About
the
book. Yes?”

Now Boy panicked. He couldn’t remember exactly what he’d said. He needed to lie consistently if he was going to bluff his way out of this.

“Oh. Yes,” said Boy. “Yes, you were asking about Valerian’s books. Have you found what you needed?”

Boy realized as soon as he said it that it was a mistake. Maxim closed the distance between them, and though Boy flinched, he still took most of a blow to the side of his head.

He fell to the ground, holding his head, feeling for blood, though there was none. Maxim yanked Boy to his feet and pushed his face close.

“Listen, Boy. Listen!” he snarled. “I know you are lying. I know you have the book somewhere. So make an end to your foolishness.”

“N-No . . . ,” stuttered Boy. “No, I don’t. . . .”

“Yes, you do. You have the book. Or maybe it is your friend Willow who has it now?”

Boy’s face betrayed him immediately.

“Willow!” he cried, and then knew that Maxim somehow knew the truth.

“Yes, your friend Willow,” said Maxim, smoothly. He dropped Boy back to the floor, went to fetch a chair and brought it back to sit on. “Let’s have a little talk, shall we? Now that we understand each other. And now that you see it is pointless to lie anymore.”

“Willow’s got nothing to do with all this. You don’t—”

“I decide what is important here. Understand me! Your conversations with your friend Bedrich were very helpful. You were much more forthcoming with him than you have been with me so far.”

Boy’s thoughts whirled as he struggled to understand, but it was obvious that Maxim had somehow been listening to them. He tried to remember what he and Bedrich had talked about, but he knew it was not good.

Everything. They had talked about everything.

“Yes, it was good of you two to become such friends after I had you put next to each other. And when you saw the chance to get a message out, you kindly took it. . . .”

Maxim laughed, and Boy saw that the whole of his imprisonment had been a trick to get him to talk to Bedrich. It had seemed strange that the old doctor had been moved in next to him.

Sickeningly Boy realized that in talking to Bedrich he had exposed Willow to danger too. He cursed himself.

“What have you done to Bedrich?” Boy asked.

“He is well enough, for the time being.”

They needed him alive, Boy realized, to look after the Phantom. That was something else about Bedrich’s release that hadn’t made sense, but the prisoners had been too preoccupied with their own thoughts to see it at the time.

“What’s going to happen to me?” Boy asked, miserably.

“Silence!” Maxim shouted. “Just tell me this: Where is the book? Does your friend Willow have it?”

“No!” cried Boy.

“You’re lying again! You will die if you persist. Are you that stupid? The girl has the book! Where is she?”

“No, no, she doesn’t!” cried Boy. “Really. Please believe me.”

Maxim said nothing, obviously trying to weigh up the truth or otherwise of Boy’s words.

“Why should I believe you?”

“It’s the truth, I swear it’s the truth,” Boy said, hurriedly. “I don’t know where the book is. I don’t know where Willow is. . . .”

“Come now,” said Maxim. “You know your friend Willow is at the orphanage.”

Boy felt sick again.

“Yes,” said Maxim. “You are right. I do have my men going there right now. So maybe we’ll find the book sooner than I had hoped.”

“No!” cried Boy. “She doesn’t have the book!”

“Then who does? If your girl doesn’t have it then who does? Tell me that!”

“I don’t know,” said Boy. He dared not mention Kepler.

“Then maybe Willow will be more helpful than you have been,” Maxim said. “And believe me, I am in no mood to reward unhelpful people, so think carefully about what you choose to say from now on. In ten minutes we are due in court, where you will confirm everything I say to the emperor. About the book, about the magician, about your friend. If you make the slightest mistake, I will have you back in the dungeon, but not for long. Perhaps you have seen a certain dark stairway, a flight down to the very depths of Hell? That is where you will be headed, my lying little Boy, if you make one more mistake. And your stay there will be a short one, believe me. Believe me.”

He pointed at another chair, on which some new clothes lay.

“Get dressed,” he said. “I will come back for you in ten minutes. And remember, your first mistake in court will be your last.”

4

Once more Boy was simply awestruck by what he saw around him.

He had never seen anything like the court before, never even imagined that anything so beautiful, so majestic, so elaborate could exist. How could he? He whose life had been spent on the streets, whose only contact with wealth had been on those occasions when he relieved some careless rich person of their purse.

It was not only the setting, but the people, dressed in magnificent clothes, with sculpted hair, or in some cases flamboyant wigs, and more jewelry than Boy had seen in his whole life.

Boy had scratched at his new clothes as Maxim had walked him down to court. They were stiff, heavy, formal clothes for a young man of the palace, and Boy did not like them, but as he stood in court for the first time he forgot all about them. His jaw dropped as he stared at everything, from the shining stone floor covered in thick rugs, to the arched ceiling far above his head, painted with heavenly scenes, rich in blue and gold. Boy was so busy staring at everything that he didn’t even notice that everyone else was staring at him. Hushed conversations flurried around the room.

“Shut your mouth, Boy,” Maxim whispered as Frederick arrived.

Frederick was brought into the court on a low chair carried by four men. They placed him at the foot of the dais on which his throne stood, and they and everyone else in the room bowed as the small, old, thin man climbed up into his seat of power like a toddler climbing onto his father’s lap.

The proceedings began.

“Where is the boy?” Frederick drawled.

Maxim grabbed Boy by his elbow, holding it so tightly it hurt, then marched him forward. Boy felt the eyes of everyone in the room fixed on him alone as he approached the throne. Everyone except the emperor, whose face was turned to the ceiling.

“Why do we have to do everything so early?” he whined.

“Sire, it is nearly midday . . . ,” Maxim said, in as gentle a tone as he could muster.

“When will you learn that this palace exists to operate around the hours I wish to keep? And not any other way?”

Boy was almost embarrassed by the old man’s bickering in front of all the nobles, but the emperor was oblivious. Maxim was so used to these debates that he paid little attention, yet Boy found it utterly strange.

“This is the brat?” Frederick asked, still not actually looking at Boy.

Maxim nodded.

“Indeed, sire. He goes by a rather strange name. His name is Boy.”

There was a titter around the court and Boy felt himself flush with shame, and anger too.

Finally Frederick seemed to be interested in something.

“His name is Boy? How peculiar. Did the magician not give him a proper name?”

“Apparently he did not see fit to do so,” Maxim intoned slowly.

There was another giggle around the room, and Boy could stand it no more.

“That’s not—” he began, but Maxim grasped his neck. The wind was plucked from his throat, and though Maxim let him go almost as fast as he had grabbed him, for a moment Boy was unable to speak.

“Very well,” Frederick muttered. “It matters not. What news is there? Does he have the secret?”

“Things are proceeding very well,” Maxim declared. “As Boy will testify. The book will shortly be in our possession, and when it is, we will be able to attend to your immediate situation, just as you desire.”

Frederick did not seem impressed.

“Even now,” Maxim went on, “my men are closing in on the book. The boy has informed me of its whereabouts. It will be here before the day is out!”

Boy wondered how Maxim dare take such a risk. Did he really believe it? Maybe he was playing for time.

Where was Willow? He hoped to God it was nowhere near the orphanage. One thing was sure, the men of the Imperial Guard would not find the book there. At least it was safe with Kepler, and it seemed Maxim knew nothing about him. If Maxim got hold of the book, not only would he wield terrible power in the palace, putting all their lives at risk, but Boy’s chance of using it would be gone too.

Boy snapped out of his musings. He realized the whole court was staring at him again. He looked at Maxim, who was glaring down at him.

“Is that not so?” Maxim asked, meaningfully.

Boy understood that this was his moment, when he had to confirm everything Maxim had claimed.

“Yes,” he blurted out, almost shouting. “Yes. The book. Yes.”

Frederick nodded, and smiled mirthlessly.

“Very well,” he said. “For both your sakes I hope you’re right. Now let us get on with the day’s business. . . .”

Maxim moved round to the side of the dais and motioned for Boy to follow.

There were a small commotion and a short fanfare, and then someone called out.

“Applicants for positions in the royal palace!”

Maxim hissed to Boy where he stood at his side.

“Be quiet. Watch and say nothing. You have done enough for one day.”

Boy did as he was told. He had obviously slept late into the day, as Maxim had told Frederick it was midday. He had eaten far too much too quickly and his dreams had been strange affairs once more. Bits of them came back to him now as he vaguely watched what was going on in court. He had been crawling down a tunnel too low to stand upright in, and there had been something he had been trying to get to. He struggled to remember. Then it came back to him—not something, but someone. Willow. She had been at the end of the tunnel, but no matter how far he crawled, she remained as far away as ever.

In the court, a man in black stepped forward. Several other applicants had been curtly dismissed already, and Maxim was glad that the emperor was not in a murderously vindictive frame of mind on this particular day. The man in black announced, “Your Majesty, I am an alchemist.”

Frederick stared at the ceiling.

“Really?” he said. “Prove it! And quickly. My legs are beginning to ache sitting here all the time. . . .”

The man bowed.

“Of course!” he said. “My things!”

He called to the back of the room, where some flunkeys had been holding his equipment. In a few minutes he had set up a burner over which sat a tripod.

He began to rummage in a bag, and pulled out a little stone crucible.

“I will now turn a small quantity of lead into gold, in this alchemical wonder, the secret system, the torment of the metals, the genesis through the twenty-seven transformations . . .”

Boy, who had become interested in the goings-on, muttered to himself.

“It’s a trick.”

“Be quiet,” Maxim said, but Frederick leaned round in his throne.

“What did he say?”

“Nothing,” Maxim replied.

“I want to hear what the boy said,” Frederick said to Maxim acidly. “What did you say, Boy?”

Boy hesitated.

“What did you say? Tell me!”

“I said it’s a trick.”

“How do you know?” Frederick asked, carefully.

The man in black seemed to hesitate. He opened his mouth to speak, and Frederick, not even looking in his direction, held up his hand.

“One more word from you and I’ll have you killed right now.”

So, thought Boy, the old emperor was sharp when he wanted to be.

“Now, Boy. Tell me how you know it’s a trick,” Frederick said.

“It’s a stage trick. The crucible has a false bottom, made of wax. When it heats up, the wax melts and there’s gold underneath already.”

There was a gasp around court and everyone began to speak at once.

“The brat lies!” cried the alchemist, but before he could defend himself, Maxim snatched the crucible from the man’s hand. He scratched inside it rapidly with his fingernail.

He held the crucible in the air, turning it over, showing the insides first to the assembly in court, and then to Frederick. Flakes of wax fell to the floor.

From the base of the small crucible came the unmistakable glint of gold.

The room fell silent.

“Kill him,” said Frederick.

“No!” cried Boy. “You can’t kill him just for that, you can’t!”

But no one paid Boy any attention, except Maxim, who walked over and clapped his hand across Boy’s mouth.

Boy turned away as the man was led struggling from the room. He wrestled with Maxim, pulling his hand away from his mouth.

“I didn’t mean for that to happen. I . . . You can’t kill him.”

Maxim grasped Boy again and squeezed his throat.

“One mistake, Boy. Remember, one mistake.”

Boy fell silent.

The man had been an impostor, a trickster, but that was surely not reason enough to kill him? Boy had done much worse in his time. Much worse.

Frederick turned to Boy.

“Excellent Boy!” he cried. “Well done! You have proved yourself a worthy young man already! Don’t you think so, Maxim? Eh, Maxim? Clever Boy. We shall have to look after him. Eh, Maxim?”

Maxim forced a smile.

“Indeed,” he said.

“Worth keeping him after all, eh? You should take more notice of what I say, Maxim, then we might be closer to our goal!”

Maxim forced another thin smile, but in his eyes there was only anger, thinly veiled.

Boy said nothing, but watched the emperor grinning at him stupidly, nodding in appreciation. He felt wretched for the alchemist in black. If not for Boy, he’d be alive.

“Next!” called a footman, and the crowd parted as the last applicants of the day took the risk of applying for favors within the royal palace.

A man and a boy, both wearing hooded capes, made their way forward to the front of the court.

They removed their hoods and Boy saw that the smaller figure was not a boy but a girl. A man and a girl.

Kepler and Willow.