by Webb, Holly
The boy was lying on the flagstones in front of the door, and Gus was standing on his chest. He was no longer any sort of cat, but rather a huge mastiff dog, although he had kept the tabby coat. His sleek brindled fur covered hulking shoulders, and he growled in the boy’s masked face with enormous,slavering jaws.
‘Oh.’ Freddie sounded rather disappointed. ‘I don’t think he needs any help at all.’
‘Did you want to be heroic?’ Bella giggled.
Freddie went red, and Rose patted his arm. At least he had tried – she had still been summoning up the courage to move.
‘What are we going to do with him?’ Bill stared down at the boy. ‘If we let him go, he’ll tell the whole palace, like as not.’
‘We could drop him in the river.’ Gus nosed at the boy’s ear thoughtfully, and then growled as the boy yelled in terror.
Rose crouched down and looked at him. Something about that yell had sounded familiar. She stood up quickly, feeling sick at the sight of the battered fox mask. ‘That’s the boy from the alleyway.’
‘Really?’ Bella squeaked, inspecting him. ‘Yes, you’re right. He works for Gossamer. Oh, surely this must be where Papa is!’
The boy had clearly recognised Rose’s voice, for he snarled something unintelligible and spat on the floor. Gus set up a low, steady growl, so deep it made the floor shake, and the boy shook too, muttering what sounded like most heartfelt prayers.
‘There’s a boat in here,’ Bill suggested, looking back from the doorway. ‘And some spare rope. I say we tie him up and dump him in the boat. We can untie him when we come back.’
No one said if, but there was a strange little silence aseveryone thought it.
In the end they gagged him with Bella’s sash, too, as he was very inclined to shout. Then they set off in single file down the narrow bank of the underground stream, led by Gus, his white fur shining in the thick darkness. It was lucky that Freddie still had the strange glowing marble he had made in Miss Sparrow’s cellar, all those months ago. But it was still mostly dark, and the water was so horribly close. Rose could feel itsucking at the side of the bank, almost as though it waswaiting for her to overbalance and fall in.
Suddenly it was even darker, as Gus mewed loudly and bounded further ahead.
‘Is it Papa?’ Bella gasped, and tried to run forward, sending Rose lurching perilously close to the water.
‘Oh! Oh, help!’ She teetered on the edge until Bill hauled her back, and grinned. ‘You owe me again. See. Told you that you needed me along.’
‘No-o-o!’ An unearthly wail rose ahead of them, and they stumbled anxiously along the path, almost falling over Bella and Gus. Bella was crouched by her father’s side, chafing his hand. Mr Fountain lay on his back, sprawled across the path, the other hand almost trailing in the water. As Freddie lifted the glowing marble above them, its light caught on the silver hilt of a knife, dug deep into his chest.
‘I’m sorry… You must have been so worried…’ Mr Fountain’s voice was a painful whisper.
‘Why didn’t you come back?’ Bella scolded him, but her voice was wobbling.
‘I saw Gossamer, you see.’
‘We saw him, too.’ Rose kneeled down by his side, hardly able to look at the wound – the knife had plunged in so deeply, it looked wrong.
‘I followed him – down here…but then he slippedaway…there are so many tunnels and streams, I was lost before I realised it. The magic down here? Can you feel it? This part of the palace is so old, it does have a life of its own, and it seems to deaden my magic, as though it senses that it’s foreign. I couldn’t use it to find my way out, and I couldn’t send you a message. I had to just keep trying all the different paths. Gossamer has the mask, of course, so the magic doesn’t try to stop him…’ He wheezed to a stop, gasping for air.
‘We saw Gossamer with Signor Girolamo, yesterday. We came looking for you, but the duke said you had gone.’ Freddie was staring at the knife, his fingers twitching as though he wanted to pull it out. Rose put her hand on his.
‘Don’t pull it,’ Bill muttered. ‘He’ll bleed to death…’ He looked apologetically at Bella, but she only nodded, her eyes so wide they seemed to fill her face.
‘We were right,’ Mr Fountain wheezed. ‘He is under a spell. But I couldn’t get close enough even to see what it was. No…private audiences. Gossamer’s got him.’
‘We saw Lord Venn, too,’ Rose whispered. ‘In a horrible sort of chair that stuck to him like those masks.’
Mr Fountain laughed, painfully. ‘Not any more. Venn is dead.’ He lifted a hand, trying to point, but he couldn’t raise his arm. ‘Along there, somewhere. I’d worked my way back as far as this door, so close, but then Gossamer came back. With Venn – in that foul chair. How he ever got him down here, I don’t know, but I think he needed Venn’s magic to draw on. It was still there, however little else of him was…’
‘You killed him?’ Rose whispered. She and Freddie had once set a strange spirit on the evil Miss Sparrow, and she supposed they’d known it would kill her. But they hadn’t actually touched her, or so Rose had always told herself, as though that made it better. Venn was – had been – a murderer, and a kidnapper – but still. It was hard to think of Mr Fountain killing people. She knew him – he was ridiculously fussy about his moustache, and liked Lancashire cheese. He didn’t kill people.
‘I was trying to kill Gossamer. But they were linked, he was pulling Venn’s magic out of him, using him up. And the spell stopped Venn’s heart, I think. He was very weak.’
‘And then Gossamer did this to you?’ Bella let out ahate-filled breath.
Mr Fountain nodded, his hand groping blindly for the knife. ‘It’s got a spell. See the snowflakes on the hilt? It’s icing me up, from the inside. I can hardly feel my fingers.’
‘We have to pull it out!’ Bella reached for it, but Billgrabbed her. She wriggled in his arms, fighting and biting, and then opened her mouth to scream.
‘Don’t!’ Rose yelped. ‘Bella, we still don’t know where Gossamer is. Do you want to bring him down on us? Don’t scream!’
Bill shook her. ‘You want to kill him quicker?’ He growled it in her face, and she glared back at him with dazed, angry eyes. ‘Whatever spell it’s got on it, it don’t change a knife that much! He’s still going to bleed to death if you pull it out!’
‘What can we do?’ Rose looked at him hopefully, but Bill only shrugged.
‘Magic? He’s got no hope, else. That’s deep. It won’t stitch. It’s in his vitals.’
‘Sir, how did Gossamer stab you?’ Freddie soundedconfused. ‘I would have thought…’
‘You are very kind, Frederick, to think I can’t be beaten… But yes, for the sake of my pride – he had the mask, you see. After he’d used up the power he was drawing from Venn, he put it on. He hadn’t wanted a straight fight, he hoped to catch me unawares down here.’
‘He’s using the mask?’ Rose’s heart seemed to race, and she stumbled over her words as she tried to explain. ‘Sir, Miss Fell told us that tonight’s ceremony will bind him and the mask together, and she said we mustn’t let that happen. But – but we don’t know what strange spells are on that mask already. What if he doesn’t even need the ceremony? What can he do, if he has the mask on?’
Mr Fountain sighed. He sounded even weaker than he had a few moments before. ‘Who knows? This is why we had to chase him all the way here. We have no idea what it can do… Except that on him, it will be nothing good…’ Mr Fountain seemed to rally slightly. ‘Gossamer didn’t want to put it on, Rose. I could see it in his eyes, as he was holding it. He doesn’t know how to control it, and he’s frightened of what it might make him do.’ He pawed helplessly at the knife again, and there was a thread of frustrated anger in his voice. ‘Sostupid of me! We must stop him! Now, before the ritual makes the mask a part of him, and we can never get it away. If only I hadn’t let him taunt me. It worked… He’s clever, the devil…’
‘Taunt y
ou? What could he taunt you about?’ Rose frowned. ‘We beat him last time!’
‘You, Rose. All of you. You and Freddie, and my little Bella…’
Bella tightened her grip on his hand, and he smiled faintly at her.
‘He told me he’d taken you all. Even you, Gus. I didn’t know whether to believe him or not. I hesitated, lost concentration for a moment – and he stabbed me to the heart.’
Rose stood up, fury burning inside her. Gossamer was doing it again. Using Mr Fountain’s love for them, the same way he had counted on England’s love for Princess Jane. ‘I’m going to stop him. I’ll kill him, if I have to.’ She shuddered at the thought, remembering how shocked she had been, only a few moments before, at the idea of killing someone. But surely Gossamer deserved it…
‘You won’t.’ Gus had walked away from Mr Fountain, and was now sitting at the water’s edge, staring into the gleaming blackness. ‘Because I will.’ His yowling voice echoed eerily across the water. He turned back to look at her, and purred, very quietly. ‘But you may come with me, if you like.’
‘No!’ Mr Fountain struggled to sit up, but Bella scolded him in loving whispers, and he sank back again. ‘You can’t. It’s too dangerous.’
‘I will not be distracted.’ Gus’s voice was proud. ‘Rose and I can defeat him, Aloysius. He’s already weakened from the fight with you. He can’t control the mask properly. Now is the time! It must be almost midnight, he’ll be waiting with everyone else upstairs. We must fight him now, before the ceremony makes him and the mask even stronger. We would be fools not to.’ He prowled back to stand beside his master, his whiskers tickling Mr Fountain’s cheek. ‘Old friend, youknow I would never leave you otherwise.’
‘Don’t talk like that,’ Bella hissed. ‘He isn’t dying!’
But everyone knew that he was. And Mr Fountain sighed, letting his hands fall back to the ground, as though he was letting go, letting them go. ‘He stood over me, laughing. He’s been out there watching us, all this time. He has a ship, you know, out on the lagoon. But close in. We would have been able to see it, from outside the palace, if it hadn’t been for the mask. The city’s magic worked to hide its own creature. A ship with black sails…’
Rose sniffed. ‘That’s just showing off. A real magician wouldn’t need to make that sort of fuss. I feel better about fighting him, now I know he’d do something stupid like that.’ She looked over at Freddie. ‘Will you stay here with him? And Bella?’ Freddie glanced quickly at the little girl, and Rosenodded, a movement so tiny Bella wouldn’t notice it.
Freddie knew what she meant. When her father died, Bella was going to be distraught, and Bella, with her magic just starting to grow, might be almost as dangerous as Gossamer.
‘I’m coming with you.’ Bill stood up.
Rose shook her head. ‘You can’t! You won’t—’ She couldn’t say what she wanted to say, which was that he wouldn’t be any use. She couldn’t say something so cruel. But she wanted to, desperately.
‘I’m coming,’ he told her again, glaring, and Rose gave in. Bill might not have any magic in him, but he was clever, in a cunning sort of way, much more so than she was. They might need cunning. And she had a feeling that Bill was more ruthless than she was, too.
‘All right.’
‘We should go now.’ Gus’s tail was flicking back and forth in excitement. ‘The longer we wait, the more time Gossamer will have to recover from his fight with Aloysius.’ And he was off, running along the bank with the speed of someone who could see in the dark.
Rose and Bill followed by the gleam of his coat, and every so often he would double back to round them up.
The dancers in the hall were still going as they sped swiftly past, searching for Gossamer.
‘Look for Girolamo, too,’ Gus hissed. ‘He’s in league with Gossamer, poor fool, they’ll be together.’
‘Wait!’
Rose stopped, and a few seconds later, Gus came back, his tail swishing furiously now. ‘Why are you wasting time? We’re in a hurry! We have to find them!’
Bill gave him a dirty look, which Gus returned hard enough to make Bill take a step back. ‘Don’t do that! Look!’ He pointed out into the middle of the dance floor, where a couple were twirling gracefully, swooping and spinning and adding in odd courtly little bows to each other. The woman was a tiny, beautiful creature with red hair, and a primrose-yellow dress – and the masked man was Gossamer.
‘Is that the mask?’ Rose’s mouth felt swollen, she could hardly get the words out. It was white like so many of the others, but this was a strange shade of white, an absence of colour, which seemed to suck the brightness out of everything around it. Gossamer’s face looked oddly pale already. The mask fitted him horribly well, transforming the upper part of his face into a bleached, horned creature with strange holloweyes. Or perhaps his eyes were like that on their own?
Gus nodded. His whiskers were bristling with hate. ‘Yes. That is it. He has killed my master, and now he’s dancing.’
‘Well, he’s crazy, isn’t he? We know that,’ Bill muttered uncomfortably. He couldn’t stand Gus, but no one could hear that coldly miserable voice and not have sympathy.
‘Gus, come back!’ Rose hissed. The white cat was walking in a straight, determined line across the dance floor, and strangely all the drunken couples still managed to avoid him. Gus didn’t come back, and Rose moaned in fear, and followed him. The spell, or whatever it was, did not extend to her. A very fat man in a strange white-faced mask with tears painted on it nearly trod on her foot, and someone else kicked her.
Gossamer had seen them coming, she realised. There was a strange glitch in the music, as though half a dance tune had suddenly been played very fast, and then everyone was suddenly bowing and curtseying all around her, and Gossamer was leading his partner swiftly across the floor back to her chaperone.
Gus veered after him, carving a strange channel through the dancers, as Gossamer made for the door, and Rose and Bill ran stumbling and apologising in his path.
‘Why’s he running away?’ Bill panted after Rose. ‘Why doesn’t he just squish us with this mask?’
Rose shook her head, still running, her breath coming in gasps. ‘Perhaps he can’t. No ceremony – yet. First time – he’s worn it. He’s not – strong enough.’ She didn’t add that Gossamer might be scared of Gus, she didn’t quite like to say it out loud. There was a burning light in the cat’s eyes, the orange and the blue shining like jewels. He looked ready to tear Gossamer to pieces.
‘Don’t let him out of your sight,’ Gus hissed over hisshoulder, but it was difficult – the night outside the palace was dark and moonless, lit only by huge burning torches that were set in brackets around the walls. In the flickering circles of orange light, odd faces jumped and peered, and Rose saw that the streets were full of dancers. Their costumes were ragged imitations of the satins and velvets inside the palace, and their masks had no jewels, but they danced with wild excitement. There was a faint echo of the music from inside the palace, and here and there someone played a flute or a violin, but many of the whirling figures seemed to be dancing to the insistent lapping of the sea against the quayside, or a tune that only they could hear.
‘This is no good. Can’t see a blasted thing.’ Bill scrambled onto the base of a statue, and snatched one of the tar-soaked torches, leaping down again with it flaring above his head.
Gossamer had forced his way through the crowds, leaving the dancers staring after him in bewilderment, as though they did not know quite what had happened. Gus bounded after him, and Rose caught Bill’s hand and chased them both. The torchlight wavered in the night wind as they ran, and here and there a startling angel appeared, as the fire lit up the mosaics along the cathedral walls.
‘He’s doubled back – he was trying to lose us in the crowds, so he could get back to the palace.’ Gus stared up at them, his eyes sparkling wickedly. ‘If we can keep him away, he’ll miss the ceremony. Look, there! He’s seen us. No
w he’s making for the quayside again.’
Gus leaped into Rose’s arms, the fur rising along his spine as he stared out over the water. ‘Yes. In that gondola. It’s hard to see, but that must be his ship they’re rowing out to.’ His eyes glittered. ‘Good, good, we’re driving him away from the palace.’
‘How are we going to follow him?’ Bill looked around. There were hundreds of gondolas and other craft tied up at the elegantly carved blue-and-gold mooring poles. But they had no money.
Gus sprang to the ground and stared at them, and Rose could have sworn he was smiling. Then his eyes grew even larger, the dark lines around them darker, and his whiskers glimmered. He gazed up at them tragically, and managed to look several pounds thinner.
‘Yes, well,’ Bill muttered reluctantly. ‘Creature of the devil, you are, Mrs Jones always said so. Oh, don’t look at me like that!’
Gus snorted with laughter, and trotted purposefully along the edge of the water, looking for a hopeful victim.
He pattered out along a wooden causeway, and mewed plaintively at a young gondolier, hardly older than Rose and Bill, who was sitting on the end of his gondola eating a hunk of bread and ham. Rose, waiting in the shadows a little way behind, felt sorry for him, shivering in his black and gold jacket. A cold wind was biting as it cut across the water.
The boy laughed at the sight of Gus, and held out a piece of his bread and ham invitingly. Gus took it delicately between his teeth, and purred, then he climbed onto the boy’s lap, and rubbed his whiskers lightly down the thin brown face. The boy trembled slightly, and rubbed his hand over his cheek in a bewildered fashion.
‘He will do what he is told,’ Gus said to Rose in a low voice.
‘Except he won’t understand a word we say!’ Bill pointed out.
‘Get into the boat. Rose will tell him.’
Rose and Bill scrambled into the gondola, and the boy, who looked dazed, untied the mooring rope, and began to pole them out away from the causeway.