by Garth Nix
The static rose up, cutting the call off. The twins sagged, feeling emotionally drained. Their father must have been under incredible pressure to speak to them like that. Whatever was going on out there in the fight against The Evil, it was their job to help their father, as well as Custer, and whoever else was involved.
‘You write the note,’ said Jack, leaping to his feet, grabbing the phone and the death mask, and putting both in his pack. ‘I’ll get torches and – is there anything else we’ll need, Professor Olafsson?’
‘Perhaps some rope,’ he said. ‘The way through the portal may not be in the same horizontal plane.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Jack.
‘It might be the top of a hole, for example. Or you might come out on the side of a wall, a hundred feet up a tower.’
‘Okay. Rope.’
Jack opened the door to find Ari and Cornelia exactly where he had left them. Ignoring them, he ran downstairs to the ground-floor cupboard, a dark and cobwebby space full of all sorts of domestic odds and ends. Coiled up at the back was a length of slender, green nylon rope, which he scooped up and stuffed into his bag.
Jaide looked for a piece of paper on which to write the note telling Susan that they would be going to Tara’s house for dinner, and found the note the phone had been sitting on. She started to read the message from Susan explaining that, on further thought, maybe Jack and Jaide were old enough to be entrusted with a phone, provided they understood that it was a responsibility . . .
Jaide’s eyes crossed. There wasn’t time. Turning it over, she wrote: Going to Tara’s for dinner Thanks Mum Love J & J.
Running downstairs, she left the note on the kitchen table where Susan was sure to find it. When that was done, she turned and found Ari watching her.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
She didn’t have the heart to lie to him. He was their grandmother’s Warden Companion. He was one of the protectors of Portland. He deserved to know at least part of the truth, didn’t he? The only thing stopping her was the promise she had made to her father.
‘Find Custer,’ she said. ‘He’ll tell you.’
‘Mmm-hmm,’ he said. ‘Like how he told me how useful I was yesterday?’
‘Forget about that,’ she said. ‘This is a whole different thing. This is important.’
‘My feelings aren’t important?’
She threw her hands in the air in frustration. ‘I don’t have time for this!’
Jack was already outside, untangling their bikes. ‘All okay?’ he asked when she appeared.
‘I hope so,’ she said.
They put their heads down and rode furiously up the lane.
As they turned into Parkhill Street, a blue blur whizzed overhead in a flurry of feathers and wings.
‘Rourke!’ cried Cornelia, settling onto Jack’s shoulders.
‘Yes,’ he said with a grin. ‘This time we’re going to the estate. Are you sure you want to come with us?’
The macaw bobbed her head up and down. ‘All parrots on deck.’
‘Okay. Let’s go!’
Behind them, the weathervane turned against the wind to point north-east, directly at the Rourke Estate.
Clouds gathered overhead as they neared the castle. Sunset was still some way off, but the light failed steadily, until it seemed more like twilight than late afternoon. There was no rain yet, but Jaide had no doubt that it was coming. There was a thick, heavy feeling to the air, as though a storm was brewing. Somewhere nearby, Jack was sure, The Evil and the Wardens were doing battle.
They rode cautiously up the long drive past the lake, watchful for Rodeo Dave or Kyle and Tara, but the only person visible was Thomas Solomon. He held up a hand as they approached and drove the golf buggy out to meet them.
‘You’ve missed him,’ he said as he came alongside them. ‘Rodeo Dave just left.’
‘I know,’ said Jack, thinking fast. ‘We saw him, and he said he’d left something behind.’
‘We volunteered to get it for him,’ said Jaide. ‘It might take us a while to find it, though.’
‘Okay, I guess. But I’ll be closing the gates at six, so don’t take too long.’
‘We won’t,’ said Jaide. She hoped that this was true.
Barely a minute later, they reached the moat and trundled their bikes over it. A rising wind whipped around them and made Cornelia grip Jack’s shoulder tighter. Apart from that she was quiet and still, looking all around her as though nervous. The shadowy courtyard appeared to be empty, but that was little consolation.
Jaide put the skeleton key into the lock, despite the serious mismatch in size, and turned it as hard as she could. She needed both hands but eventually the door groaned open, and Jack and Cornelia slipped inside.
As Jaide stepped over the threshold, a ginger shape darted out of the shadows and leaped onto her shoulders, clinging tight to her with what felt like hundreds of pinprick claws.
She fell forward with a scream that made Cornelia lift off Jack’s shoulder in a flurry of wing beats and squawks. Jack spun around to drive off the thing that had attacked Jaide, his Gift turning the dim light inside the castle even darker than before.
Ari rolled free of Jaide’s flailing limbs and stood upright with his legs apart and hair raised along his back.
‘I knew you were up to something,’ he said. ‘The note said you were going to Tara’s. What are you doing here?’
‘Something important,’ Jaide said, getting up and dusting herself off. ‘For Dad. You have to believe us, Ari. We wouldn’t sneak around like this without a reason.’
‘What counts for a reason among troubletwisters is notoriously unreliable.’
‘But this is different! We’re looking for a golden card – the Card of Translocation. Remember? You helped us look for it on Wednesday.’
‘Not intentionally! If it’s so important, why don’t I know about it already?’
‘Maybe Grandma just hadn’t got around to telling you about it yet,’ said Jack. ‘Young Master Rourke had only just died. And then she had the accident. And then Kleo was busy keeping you away from Cornelia – it’s been a mess, but I swear this is all we know!’
‘We can’t stand here arguing, Ari,’ said Jaide, feeling desperate. ‘The Evil is just outside the wards, trying to get in. We have to do this now.’
‘How are you going to find it if no one else has been able to?’
‘Everyone’s been looking in the wrong place.’ Jaide grinned triumphantly. ‘Come with us and we’ll show you.’
‘Oh . . . all right,’ he said, cat curiosity winning in the end, as it always did. ‘I’m all eyes. And nose and whiskers and tail.’
Jack called Cornelia back to him and together they walked up the corridor to the library for the third time that week. A wide line of footsteps marked the way through the dust. Jack took out the flashlights and gave one to Jaide, but they didn’t turn them on just yet. There was still enough light coming through the high windows to show the way.
The library was half empty. Many of the books had been cleared, and a stack of boxes rested behind the door, tagged with labels in Rodeo Dave’s handwriting. Whatever else he was up to, he had been genuinely busy.
‘So,’ said Ari, walking around the base of the boxes and emerging with his tail high, ‘where is it?’
‘There,’ said Jaide, pointing at the painting. It was still leaning against the wall where Rodeo Dave had cleaned it. The resemblance of the Lady in Yellow to a young Grandma X was more striking than ever, despite the old-fashioned clothes.
‘Behind the painting?’
‘Inside the painting,’ said Jack, putting down his backpack and taking out Professor Olafsson and the rope. ‘Tell us where you saw that constructor thing and I’ll go get it.’
‘On the second floor, two doors along on the left from the main flight of stairs,’ he said. ‘It’s a long, brass tube that looks a bit like a telescope. You’ll need both of you to carry it.’
/> ‘Okay,’ said Jaide. ‘We’ll be right back.’
The twins hurried through the castle, past all the chests they had uselessly searched before, the stiff-limbed suits of armour that contained nothing but wooden frames and cobwebs, and door after door of abandoned rooms full of dusty antiques. The room Professor Olafsson had identified was little different from the others, except for a tubular shape lying on a desk, six feet long and not tapered as a telescope would be. The sheet covering both tube and desk had pulled away, revealing one brassy end, capped with a smoky glass lens.
The twins uncovered it completely and took one end each. It was too heavy to be hollow, but not so heavy that they couldn’t lift it. Treading carefully, taking turns going backwards, they retraced their steps to the library, where Cornelia, Ari and Professor Olafsson were waiting.
‘Now what?’ asked Jack, mopping his brow.
‘Make two stacks of books three feet high,’ Professor Olafsson said. ‘Put the constructor on top of them so it’s lined up with the centre of the painting.’
Jaide hurried off to get some books from a pile that didn’t look particularly valuable.
‘How do we switch it on?’ she asked.
‘Switch what?’
‘You know, make it work, like a machine.’
‘This isn’t a machine in the usual sense of the word,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t require activation. In the right environment, with the right operator, it simply does what it’s supposed to. Now, let’s make certain we do, in fact, have the portal before us, first of all. Jack, did you bring the witching rod?’
After a flicker of panic during which Jack thought he had left it behind, he discovered that it was indeed still inside his backpack.
‘Yes, Professor.’
‘Please direct it at the painting and tell me what you feel.’
Jack did so, and was rewarded by an immediate tremor through the wire. When he lifted his hand, the wire bent noticeably down, striving to reach the painting.
‘It’s pulling me,’ he said. ‘Pulling me closer!’
‘As expected. Good. Jaide, can you make absolutely certain that the constructor is aligned with the centre of the frame?’
‘Yes, Professor.’ She bent over the tube and sighted along it, shifting it an inch to the right. That was better, but it still needed a book or two under the end closer to her to make it perfectly level. Once she had done that, she nodded.
‘Now, Jack, tie the rope around your sister’s waist. I trust you can tie a good bowline?’
‘A what?’
The professor explained how to tie the knot, and Jack quickly caught on, making a secure loop around Jaide.
‘Now wind the rope around that column a few times and hold the end.’
Jack wound the rope around one of the columns that supported the balcony above them and busied himself with another knot. Two of them, to be completely sure. Perhaps three.
‘Are you sure this is safe?’ asked Ari, peering out from behind the stack of boxes as Jack did as he was told, keeping a tight hold on the other end as he did so.
‘Is a door safe?’ asked Professor Olafsson.
‘Of course it is,’ said Ari, ‘unless it slams shut on your tail. It’s what might be on the other side that worries me.’
‘There’s no reason to be fretful. This is a hiding place, nothing more. Were we attempting a journey to the Dimension of Evil, on the other hand . . .’
‘What?’ asked Ari nervously.
‘The Dimension of Evil,’ said the professor calmly. ‘Where The Evil comes from.’
‘So this doorway could go there?’
‘Oh no, very little chance of that!’ chuckled the death mask. ‘No Warden would hide a gold card there. You might as well just hand it over to The Evil.’
‘Little chance – that’s still a chance,’ said the cat. ‘Maybe we should think about this. Jaide?’
Jaide wasn’t listening to him. She had got the tube almost perfectly in alignment. It just needed a nudge back to the left. She checked again. Perhaps a touch more . . .
The moment her fingers touched the brass, she was wrenched off her feet and fired along its length like a cannonball down a cannon. The shelves of the library blurred around her. Jack, his mouth open in an O of shock and the rope whipping through his hands, flashed past in an instant. The canvas ballooned ahead of her, and the frame swept by, flashing gold all around.
She jerked to a halt, wobbling in space as though she’d landed on an invisible trampoline. Gasping, she looked around her.
Jaide was inside the painting. There was the woman playing cards just a step or two away, as three-dimensional as life, albeit frozen into immobility under the spreading branches of the tree. There were the fields, rising and falling in golden waves to the distant hills, and there was the brick path that snaked between them.
Funny, she thought. They had never noticed that the path was made of yellow bricks.
Follow the yellow brick road, she thought, and raised her right foot to walk further into the world of the painting, where the sky was smudged and the hills were blurry, as though painted in a hurry.
‘Jaide!’
The voice came from behind her, wobbly and distant, as though it had travelled through miles of water.
‘Jaide, come back!’
It was Jack. She turned to look behind her, and saw his face in the frame, as though he was now a painting. A moving painting, hanging against an endless sunset-hued sky. He was banging against the invisible boundary separating them, calling her name. The rope around her waist pulled insistently at her, vanishing into thin air like the brass tube did where it entered the real world.
‘Jack, what’s wrong?’
‘You have to come back!’
‘But I’m perfectly safe here. See?’
She indicated the calm world around her with a sweep of one hand. What could be safer than a painting of a woman playing cards? All she had to do was find the gold card, and she could go.
‘Jaide, quickly! We’re under attack!’
There was an edge of panic to his voice that couldn’t be denied. She took one step towards him, and was instantly snatched up by the cross-continuum conduit constructor and whisked back to her world in a breathtaking rush.
She staggered. Jack grabbed her arm and stopped her from falling. Before she could ask what was going on, there came a booming crash at the library door. Cornelia took off from the head of the Mister Rourke statue and flew squawking up to the landing. Ari stood between the twins and the door, staring up at the shivering wood with his fangs bared.
‘What is it?’ asked Jaide.
‘I don’t know,’ Jack said. ‘But I don’t think the door’s going to hold.’
Another crash shook the door, then another. The wood splintered inwards, making a gaping hole. A metal-clad hand reached through the hole and twisted around to grab the handle.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Booby Trap!
‘QUICK!’ SAID JACK, WHO HAD let go of the rope and was lifting a box of books. ‘We’ve got to barricade the door!’
Jaide was frozen for a second by a glimpse through the hole of a domed, metallic head. She thought it was a monster of some kind, but then she realised it was actually a suit of armour – the suit of armour that normally stood right outside the library, now moving on its own!
She ran to help Jack pile boxes against the door but was pulled up short by the rope catching on something. Quickly stepping out of the loop, she pushed a box up against the door. The armoured gauntlet couldn’t quite reach the doorknob, so it was making the hole larger, pulling off splinters of solid mahogany the size of Jack’s hands as easily as he might snap a matchstick.
‘What’s making the armour move?’ shouted Jaide. ‘Is it The Evil?’
‘It can’t be. We’re inside the wards!’ exclaimed the professor. ‘I don’t . . . ah . . . It must have been you!’
‘Me?’ exclaimed Jaide. ‘I didn’t do anything.’
‘You went into the painting. That’s what woke them up. They’re guards!’
‘We triggered a booby trap?’ said Jack, thinking of his father’s old adventure novels. That was what criminals used when they really wanted to keep something hidden. ‘How do we switch it off?’
‘I don’t know, dear boy.’
‘There must be a way,’ cried Jack. He threw another box on the makeshift wall in front of the door, just as another hand punched through the wood, emerging just above his head. The jointed metal fingers lunged at him, snapping open and shut like the jaws of a metal mouth. Jack staggered back, the hand missing the collar of his T-shirt by a fraction of an inch.
With a deafening crash, the doors burst open, sending the twins and boxes of books flying everywhere. One metal figure thrust through the jagged splinters with arms outstretched, closely followed by a second. The visors on the second one flipped open, revealing that the space within contained nothing but a startled spider.
‘Back!’ shouted Jack.
He retreated, snatching up Ari, who looked as if he was prepared to stand up to an army of magical armour but was more likely to get squashed before they even noticed him, and ran to join Jaide, who had fallen back near the painting.
A breeze was beginning to whip up around Jaide, as she raised her hands and called upon her Gift. Jack’s Gift was also stirring, reaching out to the shadows cast by the setting sun, which was painting dark lines down the walls and bookcases. Jack could hide in them, but that wouldn’t do the others any good. Although maybe, he thought, if he held on very tight, he could take Ari with him . . .
The leading suit of armour bulled through the hanging remnants of the door and the fallen boxes, and clanked towards them. As it reached the first line of shadow, Jack had another idea. He reached out with his Gift towards the shadow, and it responded by twitching like a snake, the clear line from the window now rippling under his invisible hand.
Jack focused upon it, dragging it up the suit of armour, and then wrapping it around the helmet like a scarf of darkness. Even though the armour was nothing but metal and there were no eyes within the helmet to be confused or blinded, it still stopped and clutched at the veil of darkness that grew thicker and thicker around its head. Its strong metal fingers found purchase on nothing more substantial than air.