He could see Kavka well enough. The old magician was lying faceup on his tilted sink with a dozen sheets of paper floating down upon him in a makeshift shroud. Even from a distance, Nathaniel could see that he was dead.
The weight of the sofa pressed heavily upon one of Nathaniel’s legs, pinning it to the floor. He dearly wanted to shift it off, but knew it was too risky. He lay quiet, watched and listened.
A footstep; a figure coming slowly into view. The mercenary paused beside the body on the sink, inspected it for a moment, uttered a quiet curse, and moved on to rummage through the scattered furniture near the window. He went slowly, legs tensed against the gradient of the floor. He no longer held his sword, but something silvery shone in his right hand.
Finding nothing among the debris, the mercenary began to climb back across the room, head swinging methodically from side to side, eyes squinting in the darkness. In horror, Nathaniel saw that he was drawing ever closer to the sofa. Nathaniel could not retreat: the sofa that protected him from view also trapped him. He bit his lip, trying to recall the words of an appropriate summoning.
The mercenary appeared to notice the upturned sofa for the first time. For two seconds, he stood very still. Then, silver disc in hand, he bent his knees and crouched down to lift the sofa from Nathaniel’s cringing head.
And Bartimaeus appeared behind him.
The Egyptian boy was floating above the tilted floor; its feet hung limp, its hand was outstretched. A silver nimbus played about its form, flashing upon the white cloth around its waist and shining darkly in its hair. The djinni whistled once, a jaunty sound. In a blur of movement the mercenary spun; the disc left his hand; it whistled through the air, cut through the radiance at Bartimaeus’s side and looped out across the room.
“Nah-nah, you missed,” the djinni said. An Inferno erupted from its fingers and engulfed the mercenary where he stood. A gobbet of flame enveloped his upper body; he cried out, clutching at his face. He stumbled forward, casting a red-yellow radiance on the room, glaring through his fiery clutching fingers.
The whistling disc reached the farthest point of the room; with a change of timbre, it doubled back, shooting toward the mercenary’s hand. En route it sliced through the Egyptian boy’s side. Nathaniel heard the djinni cry out; saw the boy’s form flicker and shake.
The disc returned to the burning hand.
Nathaniel pulled his leg clear of the sofa; he pushed it frantically from him and, stumbling on the uneven floor, clawed himself to his feet.
The Egyptian boy vanished. In its place, lit by the flames, a limping rat scurried into the shadows. The burning man stalked after it, eyes blinking in the heat. His clothes were blackening on his body; the disc glinted redly in his fingers.
Nathaniel tried to command his thoughts. Next to him was the loft ladder, which had toppled to lodge diagonally against the ceiling. He steadied himself against it.
The rat hurried across an aged parchment. The paper cracked loudly under its feet.
The disc sliced the parchment in half; the rat gave a squeak and rolled to the side.
Burning fingers moved; two more discs appeared in them. The rat scampered away frantically, but was not fast enough. A disc embedded itself in the floorboards, snaring the rat’s tail beneath a silver barb. The rat thrashed weakly, trying to pull itself free.
The mercenary stalked over. He raised a smoldering boot.
With a furious effort, Nathaniel dislodged the loft ladder, causing it to fall heavily upon the mercenary’s back. Caught off-guard, the man lost his balance and fell sideways in a shower of sparks. He landed on the cottage floor, setting light to manuscripts all around.
The rat gave a great heave, pulled its tail free. With a jerking leap, it landed by Nathaniel’s side. “Thanks for that,” it gasped. “Did you see how I lined him up for you?”
Nathaniel was staring wide-eyed at the lumbering figure, who was hurling the ladder from him in a spasm of rage, seemingly indifferent to the surrounding flames. “How can he survive?” he whispered. “The fire’s all over him. He’s burning up.”
“Just his clothes, I fear,” the rat said. “His body’s quite invulnerable. But we’ve got him by the window now. Watch out.”
It raised a small pink paw. The bearded man turned and saw Nathaniel for the first time. He snarled in rage, lifted a hand; something silver sparkled there. He reached back—
And was met with the full force of a Hurricane head on: it rushed from the rat’s paw, lifted him off his feet, and sent him backward through the window, surrounded by a glittering cascade of broken glass and burning scraps of paper that were whipped up with him off the floor. Out into the night he fell, outward and far away down the hill into the night, his descent marked by the flames still licking up from his body. Nathaniel saw him bounce once, distantly, then lie still.
The rat was already racing up the sloping floor toward the cottage door. “Come on,” it cried. “Think that’ll stop him? We’ve five minutes, maybe ten.”
Nathaniel scrambled after it, over piles of smoldering paper and out into the night, triggering first one nexus, then the other. The drone of the alarms rose up into the sky and roused the inhabitants of Golden Lane from their melancholic dreams, but rat and boy were already beyond the ruined tower and racing down the castle steps as if all the demons ever summoned were clamoring at their heels.
Late the following morning, wearing fresh clothes and a milliner’s wig, and flourishing a newly stolen pass, Nathaniel crossed the Czech border into British-controlled Prussia. Hitching into the town of Chemnitz in a baker’s van, he went straight to the British consulate and explained his position. Phone calls were made, passwords checked, and his identity verified. By midafternoon he was aboard a plane departing the local aerodrome for London.
The djinni had been dismissed at the border, since the stress of the prolonged summoning was wearing Nathaniel out. He had had little sleep for days. The aircraft was warm, and despite his desire to puzzle through the mercenary’s words, his weariness and the hum of the engines had their effect. Almost before the plane left the ground, Nathaniel was asleep.
An attendant woke him at Box Hill. “Sir, we have arrived. A car awaits you. You are requested to make haste.”
He emerged onto the exit stairs under a light, cold drizzle. A black limousine was waiting beside the landing strip. Nathaniel descended slowly, still scarcely awake. He half-expected to see his master there, but the backseat was empty. The chauffeur touched his cap as he opened the door.
“Ms. Whitwell’s compliments, sir,” he said. “You are to come to London immediately. The Resistance have struck in the heart of Westminster, and—Well, you will see the results for yourself. There is no time to lose. We have an unfolding disaster on our hands.”
Wordlessly, Nathaniel climbed into the car. The door clicked shut behind him.
30
The flight of stairs kept to the contour of the pillar above, circling down clockwise into the ground. The passageway was tight and the ceiling low. Even Kitty was forced to stoop, and Fred and Nick—who were practically bent double—had to descend sideways, in the manner of two awkward crabs. The air was hot and faintly foul.
Mr. Pennyfeather led the way, his lantern set to its strongest illumination. Everyone else did likewise, their spirits rising with the renewed light. Now that they were safely underground, there was no chance that anyone would see them. The dangerous part was over.
Kitty followed the scuffling Nick, with Stanley treading close behind. Even with his lantern at her back, the shadows seemed intent on closing in; they darted and leaped incessantly at the corners of her vision.
A goodly number of spiders had made their homes in crevices on either side of the stairs. From Mr. Pennyfeather’s curses, it was evident that he was having to clear his path through a hundred years of choking cobwebs.
The descent did not take long. Kitty counted thirty-three steps, and then she was stepping through a hinged metal gri
lle and out into an open space, ill defined by lantern light. She stepped aside to allow Stanley to exit from the stairwell, too, then pulled her balaclava off. Mr. Pennyfeather had just done likewise. His face was faintly flushed, his ring of gray-white hair spiky and disheveled.
“Welcome,” he whispered, in a high, hoarse voice, “to Gladstone’s tomb.”
Kitty’s first sensation was of the sheer imagined weight of ground above her. The ceiling had been constructed from neatly carved stone blocks; with the passing years, the alignment of these stones had shifted. Now they bulged ominously in the center of the chamber, pressing down against the weak light as if they wished to snuff it out. The air was full of taint, and smoke twirled from the lanterns and wreathed thickly against the ceiling. Kitty found herself clutching instinctively at each breath.
The crypt itself was fairly narrow, perhaps only four meters wide at its broadest point; its length was indeterminate, extending away into the shadow beyond the radiance of their lights. Its floor was flagged and bare, except for a thick carpeting of white mold that, in places, had extended halfway up the walls. The industrious spiders of the stairwell seemed not to have ventured through the grille: there were no cobwebs to be seen.
Cut into the side wall of the chamber; directly opposite the entrance, was a long shelf, bare except for three glass hemispheres. Although the glass was dirty and cracked, Kitty could just make out the remnants of a circlet of dried flowers inside each one: ancient lilies, poppies, and sticks of rosemary, dotted with brackish lichen. The burial flowers of the great magician. Kitty shuddered and turned to the main focus of the company’s attention—the marble sarcophagus directly below the shelf.
It was eight feet long and five feet high, plainly carved without ornament or inscription of any kind, except for a bronze plaque that had been affixed to the center of one side. Its lid, also of marble, sat on top, though Kitty thought it looked slightly askew, as if it had been dropped into place hurriedly and left unadjusted.
Mr. Pennyfeather and the others were crowding around the sarcophagus in great excitement.
“It’s in the Egyptian style,” Anne was saying. “Typical grandiosity, wanting to follow the pharaohs. No hieroglyphs, though.”
“What’s this say?” Stanley was peering at the plaque. “Can’t make it out.”
Mr. Pennyfeather was squinting, too. “It’s in some devilish tongue. Hopkins might have read it, but it’s no good to us. Now—” He straightened and tapped his stick against the sarcophagus lid. “How can we get this thing open?”
Kitty’s brow furrowed with distaste and something approaching apprehension. “Do we need to? What makes you think the stuff’s in there?”
Mr. Pennyfeather’s nervousness revealed itself in his brittle irritation. “Well, it’s hardly going to be lying about on the floor—is it, girl? The old ghoul will have wanted it close by him, even in death. The rest of the room’s empty.”
Kitty held her ground. “Have you checked?”
“Ah! A waste of time! Anne—take a lantern and check the far end. Make sure there aren’t any alcoves in the far side. Frederick, Nicholas, Stanley—we’ll need all our strength to shift this. Can you get purchase on it, your side? We may need the rope.”
As the men gathered around, Kitty stood back to watch Anne’s progress. It immediately became obvious that Mr. Pennyfeather was correct. After a few steps, Anne’s lantern illuminated the far wall of the chamber, a smooth surface of clear stone blocks. She swept the light across it a few times, checking for niches or the outline of doors, but there was nothing to be seen. Shrugging at Kitty, she returned to the center of the room.
Stanley had produced his rope and was assessing one end of the lid. “It’s going to be hard to loop it,” he said, scratching the back of his head. “Can’t wind it around anything. And it’s too heavy to lift.…”
“We might lug it sideways,” Fred said. “I’m game.”
“Nah, it’s too heavy. Solid stone.”
“There may not be much friction,” Nick pointed out. “The marble’s smooth enough.”
Mr. Pennyfeather wiped the sweat from his brow. “Well, boys—we’ll have to try. The only alternative is igniting a sphere on it, and that might damage the goods. If you, Fred, set your boots against the wall, we’ll get extra leverage. Now, Nick—”
While the discussion proceeded, Kitty bent down to inspect the bronze plaque. It was thickly covered in neat little wedge-shaped marks, arranged together to form what were evidently words or symbols. Not for the first time, Kitty regretted her own ignorance. Knowledge of obscure scripts was not something you were taught at school, and Mr. Pennyfeather had refused to allow his company to study the spell books they had stolen. She wondered idly whether Jakob’s father would have been able to read this script, and what it would have told him.
“Kitty, shift out of the way, will you? There’s a good girl.” Stanley had taken hold of one corner of the lid, Nick was on another, and Fred—who had an end all to himself—had braced a foot against the wall, just beneath the shelf. They were readying themselves for the first effort. Biting her lip at Stanley’s facetiousness, Kitty got to her feet and moved away, wiping her face against her sleeve. Sweat was beading her skin; the air in the crypt was very close.
“Now, boys! Push!” With snarls of effort, the men set to. Anne and Mr. Pennyfeather held lanterns up around the three to illuminate their progress. Light glistened on contorted faces, grinning teeth, dripping brows. Just for a moment, a faint grinding noise could be heard above their groaning.
“All right—rest!” Nick, Fred, and Stanley collapsed with gasping cries. Mr. Pennyfeather hobbled around, clapping them soundly on the shoulders. “It moved! Definite movement! Well done, my lads! No sign of the interior yet, but we’ll get there. Take a breather, then we’ll try again.”
And so they did. And yet again. Each time, their gasps grew louder, their muscles cracking with the effort; each time, the lid moved sideways a little more, then stubbornly stopped again. Mr. Pennyfeather urged them on, dancing about them like a demon, his limp almost forgotten, his face contorted in the bouncing light. “Push—that’s it!—our fortune is inches below your noses, if you just’ll put in the effort! Oh—push, damn you, Stanley! A little further! Break your backs for it, boys!”
Picking up a discarded lantern, Kitty idled about the empty crypt, scuffing her sneakers in the thick white mold, marking time. She dawdled to the far end of the chamber, almost to the wall, then turned and dawdled back.
Something occurred to her, a half-perceived oddity waving vaguely at the back of her mind. For a moment, she couldn’t pin down what it was, and the cheer that came from the others after a particularly successful heave provided further distraction. She spun on her heels, looking back toward the far wall, and raised her lantern.
A wall—no more, no less.
Then what was it that …?
The mold. The lack of it.
All around her, underfoot, the white mold stretched; scarcely a single flagstone remained free. And on both sides, the walls had been subjected likewise. The mold was gradually extending up toward the ceiling. One day, perhaps, the whole room would be swathed in it.
Yet on the far wall, there was not a single scrap of mold. The blocks were clean, their outlines as sharp as if the builders had departed that very afternoon.
Kitty turned to the others. “Hey—”
“That’s it! One more turn’ll do it, lads!” Mr. Pennyfeather was practically capering. “I can see a space now in the corner! Another heave and we’ll be the first to see old Gladstone since they tucked his bones away!”
No one heard Kitty; no one paid her the slightest bit of attention.
She turned back to the far wall. No mold at all … It didn’t make sense. Perhaps these clean blocks were made of a different kind of stone?
Kitty stepped across to touch the blocks; as she did so, her shoe caught on the uneven floor and she fell forward. She raised her hands
to brace herself against the wall—and fell right through it.
An instant later, she crashed hard against the flagstones of the floor, jarring her wrists and knee. The lantern bounced from her outstretched hand and clattered down beside her.
Kitty screwed up her eyes in pain. Her knee was throbbing badly, and all her fingers tingled with the shock of the fall. But her strongest sensation was one of puzzlement. How had it happened? She was sure she’d fallen against the wall, yet she seemed to have passed through it as if it wasn’t there.
Behind her came a fearsome grinding, followed by a terrific crash, several whoops of triumph and also, somewhere amid it all, a cry of pain. She heard Mr. Pennyfeather’s voice. “Well done, my boys! Well done! Stop sniveling, Stanley—you’re not badly hurt. Gather around—let’s take a look at him!”
They’d done it. This she had to see. Stiffly, painfully, Kitty raised herself on hands and knees and reached out for the lantern. She got to her feet and, as she did so, the lantern light illuminated a little of the space she was in.
Despite herself, despite the time she had spent out on campaign, despite all the narrow escapes, the traps, the demons, and the deaths of her friends, the shock of what she now saw set her gasping and trembling again like the child she’d been on the iron bridge so many years before. Her pulse thudded in her ears; her head swam. She heard a long, high, piercing wail echoing across the chamber, and jumped, before realizing that it came from her own mouth.
Behind her, the eager celebrations went suddenly silent. Anne’s voice. “What was that? Where’s Kitty?”
Kitty was still staring straight ahead. “I’m here,” she whispered.
“Kitty!”
“Where are you?”
“Drat the girl—has she gone up the stairs? Nicholas, go and look.”
“Kitty!”
“I’m right here. At the far end. Can’t you see?” She could not raise her voice; her throat felt too tight. “I’m here. And I’m not alone.…”
The true end of the chamber was not much farther than the illusory one through which she had fallen, perhaps only three meters away from where she stood. The white mold had disregarded the false barrier and marched straight through: it clad the walls and floor and what lay on the floor, and shone with a sickly radiance in the cold light of her lantern. But despite its thick coating, it did not obscure the objects that lay arranged in a neat row between the walls; their nature was all too clear. There were six of them lying packed together, side by side, their heads flung out toward Kitty, their legs pointing away toward the back wall of the chamber, their bony hands resting quietly on their chests. The sealed conditions of the crypt had ensured that their flesh had not entirely rotted through; instead it had shrunk about the skeletons, so that the jaws of the skulls were drawn downward by the tightening skin, giving them permanent expressions of unbridled terror. The skin itself was blackened like fossil wood or tortured leather. The eyes had entirely shriveled away. All six were clothed strangely, in old-fashioned suits; heavy boots rested on their lolling feet. The ribcage of one poked through his shirt. Their hair remained exactly as it had been in life; it flowed from the dreadful heads like river weed. Kitty noticed that one of the men still had a mop of beautiful auburn curls.