by Liam Perrin
Bane slammed the door shut behind him.
Tuttle was furious. He shuffled his parchments and rocked from one foot to the other, muttering well-I-nevers and in-all-my-days. Finally, he picked up a quill and spoke the words through clenched teeth as he wrote them:
Rule XIII: Sit when it is time to sit. Stand when it is time to stand. And above all, leave when it is time to go.
The meeting only lasted another five minutes. Tuttle was apoplectic, and it was all he could do to simply hand out wedding assignments. Thomas and Philip drew ushering detail. Ox got a special assignment: Find and sit in front of Arthur's half-sister Morgan.
"Won't that rather block her view of the proceedings Sir?" asked Dedric.
Tuttle fixed him with a cold stare that said, among other things, 'That's pretty much the point.'
"Oh," said Dedric.
A thought struck Thomas.
"I've got to find out where Bane went," he said as he and Philip made their way out of the cathedral.
"What makes you think he was going anywhere other than away from here, where I'm sure, we'd all liked to have been?"
"Bane's a lot of things, but purposeless isn't one of them. He's up to something. Did you see when he changed seats in the middle of the meeting?"
"I did notice – odd that, eh?"
Thomas stopped walking and pointed at one of the laborers carrying wedding props into the cathedral.
"Bane moved because the wedding decorators had blocked his view of the clock. He moved to a spot where he could see it better, and he kept his eyes on it."
"As if he had somewhere else to be?"
"As if he had somewhere else to be," said Thomas nodding. "Now come on, let's find him."
Neither of them moved.
"Er," said Philip, "how exactly do we do that?"
"I haven't got a clue," said Thomas.
CHAPTER XV
Machinations
Thomas the Hesitant and Philip the Disadvantaged of the Table of Less Valued Knights scanned the crowd for any sign of their fellow Less Valued Knight, Bane the Appropriately Named. With King Arthur's wedding to Lady Guinevere fast approaching, it seemed the whole world had flocked to the streets and shops of Camelot. Shoppers needed gifts, and those gifts needed pretty packaging, and the shopping and the packaging took time, and the shoppers grew hungry and tired. So, food and drink were sold, and places to sit were provided, and when there's food and drink and places to sit, talking happens. When talking happens amidst all the shopping and packaging and eating and drinking, a hubbub brews. Amidst the hubbub, people get excited and start to feel good and look at their gifts and their pretty packaging and think to themselves, 'Why shouldn't I buy something for myself?' And they think, 'While I'm at it, why don't I pick up something for Aunt Sarah?' And the well-fed and mostly rested shoppers get back on their feet and do more shopping, and so it goes.
The net result for Thomas and Philip was that in all the hubbub – which from any high vantage point would look like it was mainly constructed of fancy hats – there was little hope of spotting Bane. They were also being jostled quite a bit, because standing still in a hubbub is rather asking for it.
Someone slammed into Thomas, nearly knocking him over.
"Oh excuse me sir, I didn't see you there."
"It's alright m'Lady," began Thomas in a way that he hoped conveyed that it wasn't entirely alright. "It's my fault for standing so close to this wall and out of the – Marie!"
Marie peeked out from under a giant hat fitted with several large birds-worth of blue feathers and topped with a tiny palace made to look like it was resting on a fluffy white cloud. She giggled, and she handed Thomas three packages she was apparently tired of holding.
"How are the dancing lessons going?" she asked.
Two girls behind Marie giggled.
Thomas straightened up. "They're going just fine. Madame Rhapsody says I'm a natural."
"A natural what, exactly?" said Philip.
Marie's friends giggled some more, and Philip blushed.
"Oh, where are my manners," said Marie. "Sir Thomas, Sir Philip, may I please introduce Lady Chastity and Lady Virtue. They serve with me in Lady Guinevere's entourage."
"Pleased to meet you," said Thomas and Philip simultaneously.
"Charmed," smiled Chastity.
"The pleasure is ours," said Virtue, and gave a little curtsey.
"So what are two of Camelot's finest up to this afternoon? Shopping?"
"In this madness?" said Thomas. "No, we're trying to find Bane. Have you seen him?"
Marie shook her head. Thomas frowned and scanned the crowd again.
"What's this about?" said Marie.
"He's up to something," said Thomas, "and I need to find out what it is."
"So you're going to do what? Spy on him?"
Thomas looked at her. "Er, something like that, yes... Why?"
"Well, Sir Thomas of Fogbottom, I never thought a knight of your noble stature would stoop to such shenanigans. Next you'll tell me you're off to consult with that allegedly-former evil wizard friend of yours to see if he could, somehow, locate your quarry.
"I'm sorry, sir, but I just can't be a party to such devilry, especially when you should be practicing your waltz. Come on girls."
She winked at Thomas and marched off.
"Hmpf," said Virtue, tossed her hair and marched away, then returned to drag away Chastity who was still giggling and batting her eyelashes at Philip.
"Where are we going?" said Philip, who was himself being dragged now through the crowd by his arm.
"Didn't you hear any of that? We're going to find Pyralis."
"What do we need him for?"
Thomas stopped and looked Philip in the eye.
"Oh!" said Philip. "Right. Well then, what are we waiting for?"
§
Pyralis had leased an apartment at the top of a very long set of rickety stairs overlooking the cemetery behind St. Stephens. He'd told Thomas that he'd finished his experiments of the more pungent persuasion, and now that his work would draw less attention, was moving into town to "keep an eye on things."
Thomas knocked hard on the door at the top of the stairs. On the third knock, an explosion from inside the apartment shook the building. Black smoke poured out of the windows and between cracks in the walls. The door burst open and a coughing Pyralis stepped out of a dark, sulfurous billow.
"Oh! Hello, there."
He wiped his hands on his apron, which seemed to do little more than smear the already soot-covered garment with more soot. His hair looked like it had been caught and frozen in the act of trying to escape his head.
Someone banged on a pot from down below, and a woman screamed, "That's it! I'm calling the guard!" A stooped old woman rounded the corner beneath them and spotted Thomas and Philip. Thomas had grabbed Pyralis's shoulder to steady him on the swaying platform. The sight of two knights, such as they were, laying hands on Pyralis brightened her up immediately.
"Good show! Arrest that fool. Myrtle was just saying the other day 'Where's a knight when you need one?' and here's two!"
"Um, right, we've got it under control ma'am," said Thomas in a deeper than normal voice. "We're just going to, er..."
"Check the premises," said Philip.
"Right. In you go then," said Thomas, and they followed Pyralis into the apartment.
Inside, Pyralis gave Thomas a sheepish grin.
"What happened to lying low? Sticking to work that drew less attention?" asked Thomas.
"What? Widow Haypenny? She's harmless. Nothing a nice batch of turnovers won't fix."
Smoke was still pouring out of something on a table in the corner and wafting across the floor. Pyralis clamped a lid on it and leaned on the table.
"So, what brings you here, boys?"
"We need to find someone," said Thomas, "fast."
§
"It's a compass," said Pyralis.
"I can see that. What's it do?" said T
homas.
"The needle spins as you move and tells you what direction it thinks you're heading."
Thomas laughed. "I know how a compass works Pyralis. What's this one do?"
Pyralis raised his eyebrows. "The needle spins as you move and–"
"–tells me what direction I'm heading, I get that–"
"No, no. It tells you what direction it thinks you're heading."
Thomas stared at Pyralis blankly. Philip furrowed his brow.
"Here, look at the markings," said Pyralis.
Where there should have been indicators for the cardinal directions, there were tiny phrases. Where North should have been, the compass read Right. At South, it read Wrong. Instead of West, the compass had Early and at East, Late. The needle was pointed southeast.
"Wrong," said Thomas.
"And Late," said Philip.
Thomas shot up and moved around the room. The needle danced and spun. Thomas froze when it pointed toward Right. He shifted carefully sideways so he could see out the window. He was facing the palace.
"Before you go rushing off, you should know–" started Pyralis.
"It still says Late," said Thomas in a panic. He grabbed Philip by his arm and pulled him out the door. "Come on!"
"It's not exactly a moral compass," shouted Pyralis after them.
"What do you think he meant by that?" said Philip to Thomas between breaths as they raced up the alley toward the palace.
"Well," said Thomas, "there's right, I guess, and then there's Right. I suppose you can be one without being the other. But it's all moot if we miss the thing to be right or wrong about altogether."
"Good point," said Philip in a way that made it clear he had no idea what Thomas was talking about, but ran harder anyway.
§
Every important building has someone whose job it is to make sure people stay out of where they shouldn't be. In Camelot, at the palace, that someone was Horace Felrigger. Horace was known simply as the Watchman.
Horace was having a bad night.
§
"I really don't think this is a good idea," said Philip.
"Nonsense," said Thomas eyeing the compass. "We'll be fine."
"I've heard that before..." said Philip.
"Seriously, what can go wrong?" said Thomas waving the compass at him.
The compass needle was pointing solidly in the Right direction. Thomas was standing at the top of a narrow set of dark stairs that spiraled down underneath the palace.
"What can go wrong? What can go wrong? Thomas..." Philip blustered, but the question was apparently too preposterous to answer.
"I think we're even on time," said Thomas.
"What do you suppose we're on time for, exactly?"
"Stop worrying," said Thomas. He stepped around a sign reading "Authorized Personnel Only." "We're knights of the court, investigating reports of unauthorized personnel in unauthorized places. Tuttle would be proud."
They began climbing down into the darkness.
"You do remember my epithet?" said Philip.
"Sir Philip the Disadvantaged."
"And, you remember what it means?"
"Unlucky?"
"Just checking."
Darkness closed in around them.
CHAPTER XVI
The Undercroft
"What does the compass say?"
"I don't know. I can't see it."
Thomas made his way along the narrow corridor by holding his hand out and feeling the damp, rough wall. At one point, he'd stopped and Philip had kept going, smacking right into him. Since then, Philip had kept his hand on Thomas's shoulder. Passages branched frequently, and Thomas had decided to follow each right hand branch reasoning that if they had to go back they could just keep making lefts until they were back where they started. Their footsteps crunched on the corridor's floor and echoed louder than footsteps had a right to.
"Another door. You know," said Thomas, "these things are better armored than most of the LVK."
"Doesn't take much," said Philip.
They'd passed several doors. All of them massive constructions of heavy wood with iron plates and bars riveted into them, and all of them locked. They'd heard a scuttling behind one, and since then had passed them all by as quickly and quietly as possible.
"There's a light up ahead," said Philip.
"Good, we can check the compass."
A thin line of something so dull it could only be called light because it was something other than complete black suggested the shape of something that might be another passageway up ahead.
"I think for Christmas I'm going to get you a compass that says 'wrong way' in every direction so there's nothing to do but stay put somewhere safe."
They passed another armored portal, and Thomas heard something metallic and heavy slide along something else similar. He stopped. Philip took a sudden step to the right to avoid bumping into Thomas and smacked his temple hard on a torch sconce mounted on the wall.
"Ow," he said in a normal tone of voice. It was probably the loudest thing that had happened in this part of the castle in a hundred years.
"Oh I think I'm bleeding."
Thomas sucked his breath in. "Shh," he said as quietly as he could, but it was too late.
The heavy, metallic sound happened again, only quicker. This time it sounded clearly like some piece of the door being operated on the other side. Then a light flared from underneath. Compared to the pitch black they'd been in, the hall seemed to blaze. Thomas could see Philip clearly: he stood frozen with a terrified expression on his face and his hand on his head where he'd knocked it against the sconce.
The door flew open, faster and more quietly than something that size should, and two large, muscled, and tattooed arms grabbed Thomas and Philip and pulled them into the room.
Thomas caught a fleeting look at the compass as he was hurled into the light and the door slammed shut behind him. It seemed to think they were in the right place, right on time.
§
Horace Felrigger wasn't tall, but he was thick. He had thick arms, a thick neck, and a thick trunk all stacked on top of a pair of thick legs. He was the most solid person Thomas had ever seen.
He picked up a pair of rickety wooden chairs from a pile of haphazardly piled furniture and sat Thomas and Philip down on them. A single torch burned near the door and glinted off a set of manacles dangling from an iron hook in the wall. The walls and floor were just as Thomas had imagined when they'd been creeping down the dark corridor: big, old, cut stone, dry, and crumbling in some spots, wet and slimy in others.
Horace grabbed a third chair, set it pointing away from Thomas and Philip, and sat it in backwards. He crossed his arms and leaned over the top.
"My name's Horace. What's yours?" His voice was gravelly and, like the rest of him, thick. A tattoo of a snake coiled around his forearm and seemed to stare at them. In the dancing torchlight, Thomas could almost imagine the tattoo flicking its tongue at them.
"Ph – Ph – Ph..." said Philip.
"I'm Sir Thomas the Hesitant, and this is Sir Philip the Disadvantaged."
"I'll say," said Horace, glancing at Philip and chuckling at his own joke. Philip gave a little experimental laugh and Horace's face fell immediately. Philip shut his mouth tight, and Horace growled, "...and what brings you to the Undercroft this fine evening?"
There was something alarming about the way Horace said the word "fine".
"We were..." Thomas trailed off. He'd found it much easier to be brave when Horace had been looking at Philip.
"Investigating–" said Philip.
"A disturbance–" said Thomas.
"There were some reports..." said Philip.
Horace raised an eyebrow. Philip swallowed. He looked pale.
"Investigatin' reports?"
They nodded.
"Of a disturbance, is it?"
They nodded a bit less certainly.
"Well, that's interesting, ya see, 'cause I'm what ya might
call the Chief Disturbance Investigator down here. I've been investigating some disturbances myself, and all I've found is the three of you."
Thomas blinked.
Philip looked around the room, puzzled.
"The three," said Thomas, "of us?"
Horace cocked his head. "Shh!" he said.
Thomas and Philip exchanged a look.
"I told that boy to stay put," said Horace. He stood up, kicked his chair aside and pointed his finger at them. "Don't move," he said. "I'll be back, and we're going to have a little chat about disturbances and investigations."
He left the room and slammed the door shut behind him. Thomas and Philip looked at each other. The silence of the Undercroft deepened around them as Horace's footsteps faded. In the quiet, they began to make out the faintest of sounds – voices drifting in from... somewhere.
Philip looked around the room, but couldn't spot the source.
"Do you hear..." said Philip.
Thomas was nodding and staring at the wall where a ventilation shaft opened onto the room near the ceiling. He got up, stood beneath the shaft, and checked the compass. The needle pointed straight in the Right direction, but slowly began to drift toward Late.
"You've got to boost me up," said Thomas.
"You're joking."
Thomas brandished the compass at him.
Philip rolled his eyes then stooped down and cupped his hands. Thomas put a foot into them, and Philip heaved. Thomas slid right into the opening. It wasn't uncomfortably tight, but there was no chance of Thomas turning around.
"Right. Have fun then," said Philip. He didn't sound too happy.
"Here," said Thomas. "Take the compass and get out of here." He tossed the compass down.
"It thinks I should go out the door," said Philip.
"Go. I'll be fine," said Thomas.
"Um," said Philip, "You mind if I take the..."
Thomas knew without looking what he was talking about. "Go ahead," he said.
He heard Philip lift the torch out of the sconce and saw the shadows dance on the walls of the shaft.
The door opened.
"Be careful," said Philip. Then the door shut, the room went black, and Thomas crawled forward through the darkness, following the voices.