It reminded me of a cruel and tragic story I had read of bitter love and the spirit of a heartbroken and abused woman lost on the moor. I felt a bit like her, lost and lovesick.
The mists seemed to call to me, inviting me to lose myself forever in their cold embrace.
A figure stepped out of them, the white tendrils of fog curling around his legs and face.
“Will?” My heart stuttered to life, then leapt as fear claimed me. The man didn’t walk like Will. As he came closer, my gaze fixed on the pistol aimed at my heart.
“Good evening, Margaret.” He had a raspy voice, as if he hadn’t used it for years. A fine black coat covered his figure, while his creased face bore a heavy Hungarian mustache. A single shock of white streaked the front of his shaggy black hair.
Rathford.
I didn’t know how I knew it exactly, but I did. He looked like a physical manifestation of his house, outwardly elegant, inwardly mad.
“Good evening, my lord.” I lifted my chin, keeping calm. He wouldn’t shoot me. He needed me. He always had.
“I would trouble you not to scream.” He tilted his head, his eyes fixed on the key around my neck. “You see, I already ran into young William out on the moor.”
Had Will given me away to Rathford? He wouldn’t. No matter what he said, he wouldn’t do that.
“Regrettably, William wasn’t as cooperative with my plan as he should have been. I’m afraid I had to discipline him.”
A new shot of fear sliced through me. Rathford’s eyes gleamed. “If you do as I say, no one will be hurt. But should you disobey me, poor William might end his life as he began it: quite tragically.”
My heart squeezed and I feared I would be ill. “What did you do to him?”
“Nothing that can’t be undone if you do as you’re told. Now go fetch the plates.” He waved the triple barrel of his pistol toward the coach. “We’re going for a walk, just you and I.”
I swallowed the heavy lump in my throat. What choice did I have?
CHAPTER THIRTY
I BACKED INTO THE COACH AND LET THE DOOR SHUT behind me. For only a moment I considered setting off in the coach. It would do no good. I couldn’t wind it or set it in motion without angering the baron and possibly hurting Will.
I opened the trunk, my mind racing through the possibilities. I had to alert Oliver and Lucinda. They were probably sitting by the fire in the little cottage, unaware of the peril I found myself in. But whatever I did, I had to do it quickly while under Rathford’s scrutiny. I had to think like an Amusementist.
What did I have?
I opened the satchel slumped against the trunk and rifled through the contents. The pigeon, Simon’s book, a lump of coal . . . There had to be more. I rummaged through the rest of the sack and the contents of the trunk.
I needed the others to know what happened. I had to leave some sort of message. The black dust of the bit of coal coated the tips of my fingers.
That was it!
My hands shook as I tore a blank page from Simon’s book, then pulled the plates from the trunk. I hastily rubbed the etching from the plate that marked the castle to give Oliver and Lucinda a map. My fingers blackened with coal, I turned the nub and used it to scratch, “Rathford. Will’s hurt on moor.”
I rolled the page and folded it, grabbing the tiny silver dove from the sack. He rested his head on the gears of his breast with his soft gray wings pressed tightly against his body. I turned the bird over and tucked the note into the embroidered pocket sewn to the belly.
Twisting his feet, I wound the bird. His beady eyes blinked at me. I squeezed his tiny silver beak together hoping he wouldn’t peep.
“It’s up to you,” I told the small mechanical bird as I tucked him into the satchel, leaving the flap open. The heavy leather weighed him down, and I watched the lump move around inside the satchel, searching for a way out.
It didn’t give me much time. I stacked the plates in my arm and held them against my heart. I had gone through so much to find them. I didn’t want to let them go. But as soon as the bird worked free of the leather, he would fly around the interior of the coach, causing a racket.
I hoped it would be enough for Oliver and Lucinda to hear. At least they would see the pigeon if they bothered to look for me in the coach. With a fortifying breath, I opened the door and stepped out, then closed the door securely, trapping the pigeon inside.
Rathford held his gun on me, a potent reminder that he meant very real harm. The hand holding the gun shook as he held the other out to me. His hooded eyes remained fixed on the plates, the way a starving man ogles roast pig.
I was tired of his manipulative games. I had lived in fear of this man’s scrutiny for months. I didn’t want to play them any longer. “Will you put that away? We both know you aren’t going to kill me. You can’t, or you’ll never unlock your machine.”
I clung to the plates, but he held out a sack. He waved the gun at it and I reluctantly slid each of the plates carefully into the coarse burlap, not wanting to damage the gears on their faces.
He smiled but I could barely see it under his heavy mustache.
“You always were a clever girl.” He swept his hand out with a short bow. “After you, my dear.”
We trudged through the soft mud as the mist and darkness swallowed us. I could see the shadowy line of one of the many rock walls that cut across the moors, but nothing else as the mist enclosed us in a chilling haze.
“I hope you know the way.” One wrong turn, and we could end up wandering the moors forever.
“I’ve been here waiting for you for a long time.” He flicked on a lamp, which did little more than light the ground just before our feet.
“So you knew I had the key.” I could hear my frightened heart pounding in my ears, a steady drumbeat across the silent moors.
“Yes, but I didn’t know if you could use it,” Rathford admitted. This was my chance for answers, and if he was going to abduct me, I felt entitled to them. “No one else knows the song. And so, you are unique.”
“You sent me out to find the plates, didn’t you?” I needed to know it was true.
“Yes.” The baron’s mustache and his morose eyes gave him a heavy, serious expression. “And the plan worked quite well, though I didn’t expect William to forsake gainful employment for your modest charms. I had hoped for more compliance from him on the moor.” He rubbed his jaw. “But then, love makes a man do irrational things.”
“Like murder?” I stopped and he did as well. I expected him to grab me, force me along, instead he blinked, his eyes so very much like a bloodhound’s. I needed to know the truth. “Were you the one who set the fire that killed my parents?”
“No. I did not.” He took a step closer to me. “I saved your life by taking you in. There was no one else who could have protected you from the one who wants you dead.”
Dear Lord, Will could have been right all along. Somehow the thought didn’t make me feel any safer in Rathford’s presence. He could be lying.
But protect me? Rathford made my life miserable for six months, working me night and day until my bones ached. He didn’t do it to protect me. He took me in for the key. He had just admitted it. He must have noticed defiance in my expression because he gave me a superior scowl and continued walking.
“I’m not a rash man. I only ever wanted to make things right.” He turned to avoid a soggy patch of mud. The plates clanked together in the sack.
“If you didn’t murder my parents, who did?”
“You should ask your grandfather.” He lifted the lamp as we continued on.
I felt as if he had just struck me. Was he implying that my grandfather had killed them? That didn’t make any sense. He was only toying with me as a cat does a mouse. “Do you know where he is?”
He chuckled. “Alas. I did, but I’m afraid he somehow escaped even my sight. That is no small feat, my dear.”
“Where was he?” I demanded.
“As I said, I no
longer know. So what I do know is irrelevant. I don’t like to waste time.” His eyes gleamed.
That was it. I wouldn’t let him manipulate me any longer. I refused to ask any more questions. But it only infuriated me more when I realized that had been his aim.
We must have walked an hour, two? I couldn’t know for certain, but my legs shook with fatigue. On the one hand, confirmation that my grandfather might indeed be alive lightened the burden on my heart and mind, but they were still weighed down by the knowledge that I was no closer to finding him than I had been when I first found his letter.
Rathford was taking me to unlock the machine. I knew I had to stop him.
I just didn’t know how.
I didn’t even know what the machine did; I only knew it was dangerous. Yet I didn’t feel fear. My curiosity outweighed any fear. I had to keep my wits, but there was something in me that needed to know what could possibly cause so much pain and suffering.
The mists retreated as we climbed a hill, leaving the fog that lingered in the vales. It seemed so solid and thick as the moonlight shone down on it. I prayed Oliver and Lucinda were helping Will to me, before it was too late.
We reached the top of a plateau where the moonlight bathed the dried heather and round tufts of dead grass in silver. My breath swirled before my eyes.
At the crest of the hill, the ruins of a castle clung to the barren earth. The moon shone through what remained of the arched windows of the keep. The once mighty stronghold had become nothing more than crumbling walls reaching toward the heavens. Time was slowly destroying this old warrior standing in silent guard over the moors.
Something moved near a gap in the outer wall. I stifled a gasp as two enormous beasts walked toward us with a jerking gait. Their eyes glowed green, reminding me of Oliver’s goggles. They must have been the size of small horses, easily five feet tall at the shoulder. As they drew closer, I realized what they were.
The lions from the gate had come to life before me.
We passed between the beasts, and I stared in awe and horror at the gears spinning in their shoulders and turning steadily in the centers of their chests. It was as if the outer shell of stiff brass had been stripped away, revealing their inner workings. There was a raw power in these creations and the same awareness that had been so unnerving in the Minotaur and the sea monster.
“Stay close, they do bite,” Rathford warned, leading the way into the castle. The one nearest me turned his massive head. One bite from those metal jaws could crush a man’s skull. I didn’t want to think what it could do to me.
Shadows from the outer walls stretched over the uneven stones that had once been a paved courtyard of the keep. Now weeds and tufts of grass grew from between the buckled stonework.
“Welcome to Heverdon,” Rathford said, winding through the maze of deteriorated walls and piles of fallen stone. It was hard for me to tell where we would have stood in the original building, but as we reached a long wide ramp leading down beneath the tallest section of remaining stone, I knew exactly where we were going.
The walls of the dungeon rose up around us as we walked down the ramp and passed beneath an archway with a heavy iron portcullis hanging like jagged teeth in a jaw of stone.
Cool, stale air that smelled of dust and mildew enveloped me as the light from Rathford’s lamp cast our shadows on the walls. Behind us, the metal paws of the lions clanged against the stone.
I swallowed my fear, holding my key like a talisman as we passed by what looked to be old storerooms. The lamplight glinted off gears and tools, tucked into the various nooks. A bed of straw lay in the corner of one of the thick stone cells. Rathford had slept here, like a common prisoner.
The clatter of the lions halted behind me. If they had been alive, I would have felt their hot breath on the back of my neck. I didn’t know what unnerved me more, the thought of them that close, or the fact that they didn’t breathe.
Rathford lit a torch, the firelight blazing to life in the deep chamber. Flickering orange light played over an immense iron gate. Like the plates, the sides of the iron framework were made up of a tight web of cogs and wheels.
In the center, a large brass rectangle had been fixed to the iron bars. Rathford placed the lamp on the floor and pulled the plates from the sack.
With the grim austerity of a medieval monk, he placed the plates on the floor in a line, inspecting each of them. He chose one from the middle and fit it into the top left corner. It struck the lock with a bell-like tone, then the gears embedded in the face of the plate came whirring to life.
One by one, each in sequence, Rathford fitted the plates with an expert hand. With each new plate, the gears on the others shifted, some extending toward us on delicate pins. Others slid out, locking together with the plates around them.
If any plate had been placed out of order, the gears would have snapped and broken as they tried to fit together in unintended ways.
I never would have been able to open the door.
As the last plate fit into place, all the gears that had emerged from the plates eased back in, locking with the other whirling mechanisms.
A resonant hum filled the chamber, like the sound that lingers after a grand chord is played on a pipe organ.
Counterweights sank down through the iron gears, bringing the entire gate to life with motion.
“I’ve waited so long,” Rathford whispered. The light caught in his eye as the gate opened inward.
Iron lamps lit themselves, the sparks showering onto them from flint wheels spinning along the walls. A long ramp continued down to the floor of a large open room. Two stone pillars supported the arched roof, like a cathedral had been pressed into the ground.
At the far end, the machine waited.
The brass egg rested on elegantly curved arches of metal, an enormous framework of rings surrounding it in a loose sphere.
It was beautiful, more magnificent than anything I could have imagined when I had looked at the drawings.
“What is it?” Caught in the moment, no warnings came to mind. This elegant creation was a thing of marvelous invention, not destruction.
Rathford grinned. “That, my dear, is the key to time itself.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
TIME? IT WASN’T POSSIBLE. DEAR LORD IN HEAVEN, NO man could make a machine that could control time.
Rathford patted one of the lions on its hard muzzle. “You see, Margaret, I’ve discovered time is like a fabric, woven with many loops. If you find the right thread, and have enough power to open the portal, it’s possible to go back and reweave the tapestry.”
My heart thundered to life as Rathford twisted a dial on each of the lions’ chests. They bowed and walked up the ramp, exiting the dungeon with their tails twitching like cats on the hunt.
My resolve found new strength. There was no way he could make me unlock that machine. No man should wield such power. I needed to escape, to find the others. “You have what you want. Let me go.”
“Now, Meg.” Rathford grabbed me by the arm. His grip tightened, holding my elbow in such a crushing way, I couldn’t escape him. “I have been waiting for this moment for eighteen years. Don’t you wish to see the glory of my greatest triumph?”
“No.” I glared at him.
“Of all people, I thought you would.” He shrugged. “No matter. Your grandfather made it clear he disabled my key. I’m afraid I still need your aid. I have some work to do. If you don’t mind, I’ll have you stay put until I need you.”
I stumbled backward, jerking away from him, but I couldn’t pull free. His iron grip caused an aching burn in my arm. I beat him with my fist. “Let me go!”
He pushed me hard, and the floor dropped out from beneath my feet.
I fell.
Screaming, I grabbed on as tightly as I could to Rathford’s coat, but he shook me off. I landed hard on the stone floor of a dark, cramped little room.
My legs crumbled beneath me. The pain of hitting the stone burned thro
ugh my shins. I looked up as a heavy iron grate closed over the small opening above my head.
Rathford’s face appeared above me, the only thing I could see in the pit I found myself in. “Enjoy the oubliette. The rats find it quite agreeable.”
“Rathford!” I screeched, but he disappeared, leaving me alone in the dark. I felt the walls close in around me, as if I had just been lowered into my grave. Oubliettes were for the forgotten, tombs that kill their victims slowly through despair and neglect.
I couldn’t let my panic take hold. I concentrated on my breathing. I wasn’t forgotten. The others were out there. They would find me. I knew it. I just hoped it wouldn’t be too late.
I stood, staring at the flickering torchlight through the square grate only four feet above my head. I reached for the squares of light, cut into neat rows and columns by the grate. I jumped to see if I could reach it, but it was no use. Blackness surrounded me. As the stale air choked me, I listened for the scuttle of rats.
Only the relentless ping of a hammer striking metal echoed in the chamber above. With my hands outstretched, I took a step forward. I didn’t have to move far before my fingertips brushed the cold wall.
I felt the rough stone, testing every crack of the tiny prison. It didn’t take long. The room was barely big enough to lie down in.
The only way out was up.
I was trapped.
Stepping into the checkered square of light shining through the grate, I hugged my arms and sank to the floor.
What was I going to do?
I had to stop Rathford. My grandfather, Simon, they all were right about the danger of the machine. This was a horror beyond my imagining, and now I was helpless. There was no way to determine how one small change in the fabric of time would affect all events thereafter. Rathford wasn’t going to reweave the tapestry. He would unravel it. I could hear the slow grind of metal turning against metal. How long would it take Rathford to finish?
Legacy of the Clockwork Key Page 23