Few Are Chosen_K'Barthan Series_Part 1

by M T McGuire

  The Pan counted to ten in his head so that he wouldn’t say anything he’d regret. He could sympathise with the old man on this one but there was a time and a place for everything, and the middle of a high-security alert was not it. He could see the old boy was the type of person who strolled through life turning other people’s worlds upside down without the faintest notion of the ramifications of his actions. Then again, he was a religious leader so presumably that sort of behaviour was all part and parcel of his job.

  “I appreciate your viewpoint but if you don’t mind me saying, your timing sucks. You might have held back on the soul tonic until you’d picked up your loot—which we have, by the way—and paid up for the robbery. Frank and Harry are dead and to be brutally honest, we were quite chuffed to have survived until we discovered that, to top it all, we’d have to come here looking for you. In case you haven’t noticed, nobody’s ever come out of here alive before.”

  “You did,” said the old boy.

  “Oh come on! I hardly count. They kicked me out again, pretty much at the gate, certainly before I got this far in.”

  “Oh, well, of course I have. Before the Grongolian invasion I used to come here a lot. Did you see the quadrangle?” asked the old boy. “It’s rather splendid. Very historic.”

  “Yes, it’s wonderful,” The Pan cut in, hoping to hurry him up. This was all very interesting but now wasn’t the moment for historical reminiscences.

  “Lord Vernon lives in the Architrave’s old apartments up at the far end.”

  “Oh, marvellous,” said The Pan. Except it was more of a croak. Fear taking its usual effect. Lord Vernon was bound to be an early riser. What if he’d looked out of his window and seen them coming in, or what if he decided to leave his apartments for a bit of fresh air at the precise moment they were walking out again? No, it didn’t bear thinking about.

  There was a loud snort from the bed as the old man’s cellmate turned over in his sleep. He might wake up. That didn’t bear thinking about either. The Pan and Big Merv exchanged glances. Yep, time to move.

  “Look, if you don’t mind, I think we’d better hurry this along,” he told the old man. He paused. He had to explain about them all holding hands and for some reason it was embarrassing. There was bound to be a simple, straightforward way of using the portal which was less awkward and he was going to end up looking like an idiot again, just for a change. Oh well, here went nothing then. He held up the thimble.

  “Ah yes,” said the old man making to take Big Merv’s hand without demur, “you didn’t use that to get in did you?” he added. His voice was flat and neutral but the anxiety behind it was obvious.

  “From outside? No,” said The Pan, “I’m not a complete idiot.”

  “Quite, of course not.” The usual tone with its underlying ‘yes you are’. The old boy nodded at Big Merv. “Is this one of your men on the inside?”

  “No. It’s Merv.”

  “Big Merv.” Big Merv corrected him.

  “Er yes, Big Merv.”

  “But he’s Grongolian.”

  “Nah. ’S a disguise,” said Big Merv, “from the bank heist.”

  “Good heavens! It’s absolutely capital! Really. First class. No wonder you did such a splendid job! I’d love to learn how you do that. When we get out, will you show me?”

  The Big Thing nodded. “Yeh, if you like, if we get out.”

  The old boy turned to The Pan. “I hope you’ve the sense not to try and get us out using that either.” He waved a hand at the thimble.

  “Well, yes. I thought we would. I really want to die tonight and I thought it’d be nice to take you all with me.” By The Prophet The Pan wished his mouth would wait for his brain sometimes. That wasn’t the right thing to say even if he felt better for saying it. How did the old man manage to be so irritating and so likeable at the same time? He reminded The Pan so much of his father. Maybe it was just a personality clash. No, the guard at the Central Police Station had called him ‘well annoying’, so it wasn’t just The Pan he irritated, it was everyone.

  “Sorry, forget I said that. We’re only going to use it to get near the door because neither of us knows the way from here. Then we’ll go out the same way we came in. Big Merv will escort us. He’s going to pretend to be setting you free and taking me back to one of the suburban police stations.”

  “Why not have him set both of us free?” asked the old man.

  “Because they won’t buy that, not with the excuse we’re making.”

  “Which is?”

  “Dodgy paperwork.”

  “Yeh, administrative error,” said Big Merv.

  “I see.” A pause for thought. “Will that work?”

  “As you appear to know, it’s happened before.”

  The old man gave The Pan a long, appraising stare which he wasn’t able to return for more than a few seconds. He sighed, partly in annoyance and partly in resignation, as his head turned away first, contravening the stern, direct orders from his brain to glare the old boy down.

  “Didn’t you ever wonder about that?” asked the old man.

  The Pan bit his lip. Of course he had, he wasn’t that dumb. He would let this one go, though. He couldn’t be bothered to spend the entire conversation explaining, repeatedly, that he wasn’t completely stupid. Especially when the old gimmer so patently refused to take it in.

  “Yes I did,” he said. At the time he’d thought it might be a rescue, but no-one had owned up to it afterwards and anyway, why would anyone bother with a small-timer like him?

  “And?”

  “And what? I escaped and nothing happened. I have an anonymous benefactor or I’m drop-dead lucky; either way the only thing to do is be thankful and get on with it. Which reminds me,” he held up the thimble.

  “Ah yes, of course.” The old man held up his hand, still clutching Big Merv’s. The Pan, in turn, took his hand, while Big Merv picked up the old boy’s ball and chain. He imagined the inside of the linen cupboard, and after a brief glance to check it was there, put his finger in the thimble. With a gentle rustle they tumbled into a pile of dirty tablecloths.

  Phew! Once they had scrambled up, the old man pointed to the thimble.

  “Are you likely to be using that again?” he asked.

  “Not in here,” said The Pan. The old boy nodded.

  “Good. You never know who might pick up on it.”

  That was ominous.

  “I thought it was marginally safer than our having to ask the way to your cell.”

  “Are you saying you didn’t know where I was?”

  “We hadn’t a clue. Or rather, we knew you were in a cell and once we’d been to the Central Police Station we knew it was here, but not your exact location. That was the whole point. I’d never use this thing otherwise.”

  “So you found me by ...?”

  “Imagining you and using this,” he gestured with the thimble, “how d’you think we did it?”

  A beat.

  “Not like that—it would be unusual, to say the least.”

  Uh?

  “Well, how else would I find you?” A longer pause and that look again, the appraising one with the dash of pleased surprise, or was it pride? Who knew? As usual The Pan cracked first. “Oh come on. You do it, at least, I assume that’s how you knew so much about me, either that or ...” No, Gladys and Ada wouldn’t blab.

  “I watched you, my boy, and that makes running into you perfectly straightforward—a simple matter of listening and ensuring I wait in the place mentioned at the time stated. Transporting oneself to the proximity of a person one knows without any visual idea of the place they are in is fiendishly complicated and not to be undertaken lightly.”

  “But I’d looked at you in there, once I’d found you, I looked at your palatial accommodation and imagined myself in there with you.”

  “But even if all the cells are the same, how did you know to imagine the right one?”

  “Because you were in it.”


  “Exactly my point. You didn’t imagine the cell, you imagined me. A place is still and fixed, a person is moving.”

  “You were only moving a little bit and lots of other things move; trees, the sea ...?”

  “That is not the same. What you have just done is most remarkable.”

  “I bet you’ve done it, though, haven’t you?”

  The old boy seemed taken aback.

  “Only with the help of several other pieces of specialised equipment and I am not an ordinary person, while you, my boy—”

  “While I am.”

  “Indeed,” the old man smiled benignly, “except that it would seem, perhaps, that you are not.” Loaded with unspoken meaning, the words hung in an uncomfortable – but mercifully short – silence. “Well then, shall we crack on?” He’d chickened out of something there, or had he decided there wasn’t time for it? Never mind. Maybe he’d open up later. If they all survived that long.

  It was time they left the relative safety of the airing cupboard and put their escape plan into action. The Pan glanced down at the old man’s ball and chain. “Big Merv is officially releasing you, so we should open that before we leave. They normally unlock it and kick you out of the door, but we don’t have a key. If Big Merv marches you out of sight so he can get his chisel out it’ll look a tad suspicious.”

  Big Merv took Trev’s chisel from a pouch on his belt, turned the shackle on the old man’s ankle this way and that until he found a suitable point to position it and then, using the ball as a hammer he broke the lock with his usual speed and aplomb. The three of them were so engrossed in what they were doing, they didn’t notice the sound of footsteps until the door handle began to turn. Luckily, whoever was outside wasn’t alone and they paused with the door ajar to finish a protracted conversation in Grongolian.

  “Quick!” whispered The Pan. He put out his hand, the one with the thimble in it and in his haste rapped his knuckles on one of the shelves, knocking the thimble from his grasp. It arced into the air, as if in slow motion, and landed in a plastic hopper full of dirty linen table napkins.

  Arnold’s pants!

  “Hide!” he told them as he leapt after it. It had disappeared down to the bottom and after what seemed like minutes of impotent fumbling he got it and stood up, just in time to see that the Grongle outside had finished talking and was pushing the door open. Where to hide? Big Merv and the old man had climbed up to the top shelves and moved to the back. From the ground they couldn’t be seen. Big Merv leaned his arm down and beckoned to The Pan but there was no time to join them now. He glanced round for another place to conceal himself. The only thing large enough was a trolley with a cloth over it. Good. That would do. He barely had time to climb underneath before a Grongolian kitchen porter came into the room. The trolley had a shelf on the bottom and The Pan crouched there, praying the porter would finish up quickly and leave. He did, which was good news, but he took the trolley with him out into the corridor, which was not.

  Never mind, he would have to make his escape when it stopped. The Mervinettes had a rule for this type of thing, wait ten minutes and go. It should be long enough for him to sneak away. Or perhaps he should risk using the thimble.

  No.

  Not after the old man had warned him like that. He shifted carefully so he was kneeling rather than crouching. It would be harder to run away but it was more stable; easier to stay still and avoid discovery.

  Chapter 58

  The trolley trundled down the corridor and into a busy kitchen. Through a thin patch in the fabric The Pan could see there was no chance to leave his hiding place yet without being discovered. He could hear the gentle scrapes and taps as the porter laid things on the surface above his head. A place setting, perhaps? Breakfast for somebody? Maybe.

  Another Grongle arrived and began to complain at length about how fussy Lord Vernon was about his scrambled eggs and bacon.

  “Relax,” said the one laying up the trolley cheerfully, “you won’t be getting it wrong.”

  “I hope not,” said the complainant, “I don’t want my head kicked in like the last bloke he sacked.”

  “Yeh well,” said the first, “that sort of thing’s more to do with his mood than your eggs.”

  This worrying conversation finished, The Pan felt the trolley being wheeled into a service lift, which ascended a few floors before they were on the move again. As they rumbled along, the tablecloth flapped in a gentle breeze and he caught the glimpses of a chequerboard stone floor, an upper cloister then? Probably. Soon, the trolley came to a stop.

  He peeped out from under the cloth. Good. No-one around except the Grongle who had originally collected it, and he was standing with his back turned, knocking on a door. There was no time to lose. Breakfast with Lord Vernon was a no-no!

  The Pan slid out from his hiding place and tiptoed silently back to the lift. Through the arches of the cloister he could see Big Merv leading the old man across the quad. No! They couldn’t leave him here! He wanted to shout for them to wait but he knew it was impossible. He had to get down there and join them. Please Arnold let the lift still be there. He might be able to open the door and get in without being seen, but if he had to wait, he was dead.

  The door was open. Thank the Prophet! He crept in, closed it and pressed the down button. Big Merv and the old man were walking slowly, they wouldn’t have gone far. If he ran and was lucky with the human – or at least, Grongolian – traffic in the quadrangle, there might still be time to catch them up. The double-crossing scummers! That had never been ten minutes, had it? He consulted his wristwatch. Oh. It’d been twenty.

  With a gentle hum the lift came to a standstill. Before he could open it the door was wrenched open from the other side and The Pan was face to face with one of the largest Grongles he’d ever seen. A general. Using the service lift. Why? Why would a member of the Grongolian Imperial Guard have to decide the service lift was the way upstairs this morning, of all mornings? His luck had run out, disastrously. The Pan reacted first, slamming the door shut again and leaning all his weight on the up button while the general was still standing pointing, with his mouth open. The lift began to ascend again.

  What next? No using the thimble, that’s for sure. Something must have brought such a high-ranking officer to the kitchen area; could it have been over-enthusiastic portal use? Almost certainly. Arnold’s pants! What now? More to the point, where? The lift was still ascending. There was no way out unless he could get far enough away from the building to use the thimble in safety, but there was only one gate and it was heavily guarded. He needed to think of another way across the moat.

  “Wait a second!” whispered The Pan in the empty lift.

  There was a plan!

  Yes! Like all The Pan’s plans, it was, at best, hit and miss and at worst ... hmm. It was the most rubbish plan of all time, almost certainly.

  As soon as the lift came to a halt he opened the door and leapt out. There was no-one around, but to his right was a flight of stairs. The sound of shouts and running footsteps rose up from below. He peeped over the banisters to see if he could find out where his pursuers were.

  “I see him! He’s on the stairs!” shouted a voice. There was a pinging sound and a volley of laser gunfire hit the wall behind him, melting the plaster. Eek!

  “Hold your fire!” bellowed someone else, “Lord Vernon wants him alive.”

  Oh no. No way. He’d met Lord Vernon once, and that was enough for anybody. The Pan could feel his legs start to shake as a huge burst of adrenaline pumped into his system. Right then. Better start running it off. He hurtled up the stairs two at a time. Three more flights up and he found himself on a landing at the bottom of a ladder. His pursuers were getting closer as, heart pounding, The Pan began to climb. He wasn’t moving fast enough; they would catch up with him soon and then they’d start shooting. Not to kill, of course, just to wing him so he’d fall. Lord Vernon might have wanted him alive, but that wouldn’t exclude ‘wounded’ and presum
ably any subsequent questioning would involve further injury. His breath came in gasps and he swore as he struggled to climb faster. At the top, a trapdoor. He fumbled with the latch, held onto the ladder with one hand, and thumped it with his free fist. Finally it opened.

  “There he is!” came a shout from below and a volley of laser fire melted the brickwork near him but he was already on the roof. A large, flat lead roof surrounded by a two-foot red brick crenellated wall, high above the city.

  “After him!” shouted somebody below, and The Pan kicked the trapdoor closed, casting about him for something heavy to drag over the top of it. Nothing there. Never mind. He was ahead of them now. Far enough ahead. He ran to the edge and peered over. Below him the walls of the building dropped sheer into the moat.

  This was it. The last thing he did. The end, or, if he was lucky, the beginning. A new identity, a real life, a fresh start. He walked calmly back to the far wall, checked he had a firm grip on the thimble and thought about his bedroom at the Parrot. He peered in. There it was, most specifically, that lovely soft bed. Yep, this might work. Arnold knew, nothing else would. He removed his hat with the other hand – he didn’t want it to fly off – took three deep breaths and ran. The trapdoor began to open as he passed, but it was too late now, they weren’t going to catch him. He leapt up onto the wall, and with all his strength, dived off into the void. For a moment he was flying, arms and legs kicking as if to propel him further. Everything depended on how far he could get over the moat. The world slowed down and his thoughts came with calm, cool precision. He was as far out from the wall as he was going to get and was plunging rapidly downwards.

  Was it safe to use the portal now? Who knew? But the ground was getting closer very quickly.

  Time to choose. Take a gamble that his plan had worked or wait another millisecond and end it. No. He could never end it. He had always wanted to live. That was the trouble.