Porcelain Princess (23 page)

‘
Neris!’ Carey exclaimed when she had finally gotten over her
shock.

‘
Look, sorry,’ Neris said, ‘but we’ve come a
long
way
for this, haven’t we?’

*

Out in the
corridor, it dawned on them that no one, not even Carey, knew the
way around the palace.

‘
So,
which way to this Illuminator’s gallery?’ Neris asked as, like the
others, she pondered whether they’d be better going left or
right.

The floor
started moving, taking them all off towards the left.

‘
Hah,
all you had to do was
ask
!’ Dougy said with obvious
satisfaction as they were swiftly carried along the long
hallway.

It was a journey
every bit as astounding as all the ones Carey had been on so far,
taking them through colourfully tiled courtyards, overgrown
cloisters, and seemingly endless rooms, usually decorated in some
particular way, such as purely in wondrously grained wood, or
entirely of glass.

Eventually, the
moving floor came to a halt outside a door that Carey immediately
recognised.

‘
Wait!’ she declared urgently, holding out her arms on either
side to stop everyone from heading towards the beckoning door.
‘Beyond this door, there’s a long hallway guarded by
soldiers!’

‘
Soldiers?
Now
you tell us!’ Durndrin breathed
nervously.

‘
Soldiers? Now
that
sounds more like it!’ said Peregun,
stepping forward, rolling up his sleeves.

Carey held him
back.

‘
Heavily
armoured
soldiers, who just pop out of the
wall as anyone enters.’

‘
Ahh!’ Peregun grinned doubtfully as he studied his stage
sword.

‘
Now
this is where a small dog
always
comes in handy,’ Dougy said
brightly. ‘I’m too fast and too small for them to catch; let me in
first, and I’ll lead them away from you. Carey, are there any doors
I should head for?’

Carey wanted to
ask Dougy if he was sure about attempting this, but she could see
from the determined look on his face that there wasn’t any point
trying to talk him out of it. Besides, what other option did they
have?

‘
On
your left, Dougy.
We
head to the right, a door leading into
the Illuminator’s tower.’

‘
Got
it; exit, stage left,’ Dougy said, preparing himself. ‘Let me at
’em Carey!’

Carey threw open
the door and Dougy rushed in, barking and yelping the loudest he
could manage. Whenever he passed one of the flaming lights on the
walls, it would instantly slip out of its alcove and smoothly take
the shape of an armoured knight that, raising its spear, would
chase after Dougy. With a chaotic clattering of iron plates and
clumping boots, the soldiers sprinted along the hallway, with
little hope of catching the far faster and playfully weaving little
dog.

Glancing over
his shoulders with a taunting bark, Dougy ducked through the doors
on the left, the much more cumbersome armoured men tearing after
him as fast as they could manage. In a moment, the hallway was as
silent as it had been only moments before.

‘
Was
it just me, or did Dougy seem to be enjoying that?’ Peregun asked
mischievously as he peered around the door to make sure the way was
clear.

Everyone rushed
towards the door that opened up into the Illuminator’s tower,
clambering up the stairs as quickly as they could. It should have
been dark on the spiralling staircase, but every so often a blazing
flame lit their way.

‘
Er,
I might be being overly anxious here,’ Durndrin admitted a little
anxiously, ‘but didn’t you say it’s the lights that change into
soldiers?’

On the stairs
behind them, they heard the heavy clanking of armoured men rushing
up after them. Whirling around, they all saw the light just behind
Peregun coming from out of the wall and transforming into one of
the small knights.

‘
I’ll
take care of them!’ Peregun declared confidently as he withdrew his
sword once more. ‘You go on; but blow out the flames in front of
you!’

Neris, who was
leading the way, had already figured that out and was swiftly
blowing out each flame as she came across it. Carey and Durndrin
each blew out the flame nearest to them, catching each of the
soldiers in mid transformation. The little knights instantly froze,
partially remaining as a part of the wall.

‘
Peregun, do you need any help?’ Durndrin shouted back down
the tower through the cacophony of clashing swords and
armour.

‘
Never better, my friend!’ came the reassuring
reply.

Although he was
using the flat of his curved blade so he wouldn’t cause the little
men any permanent injuries, Peregun was using all the tricks he’d
learnt in his many swashbuckling roles. Every now and again, he’d
kick out at the lead solider, sending him flying back into and
knocking over his own men in the stairwell’s cramped
confines.

‘
I’ve
got the blood of pirates, of musketeers, flowing through my veins!
No one can – ooopppss!’

As he kicked out
once more, the knee of his other leg locked. Completely out of
balance, he tumbled forwards down the stairs.

He crashed into
the oncoming men, bowling them over. They all tumbled down the
stairs, the horrendously loud noise of falling knights mingling
with Peregun’s own cries.

‘
Ouch!’

‘
Oww!’

‘
Ouch!’

As they finally
reached the bottom of the stairs, a slightly dazed Peregun looked
about him at the tangled pile of groaning men he’d landed
on.

‘
Hah!
Works
every
time!’

‘
You
sure you’re all right down there?’ one of his friends called out
from somewhere higher up the tower.

‘
Fine, fine! You go on!’ Peregun yelled back in-between
swiftly blowing out all of the flames that had been powering the
knights.

‘
Opps!’ he said, as every one of his limbs locked in position,
leaving him stranded on top of the lifeless knights.

*

Neris was
fiercely gasping for breath by the time she reached the top of the
stairs.

‘
I’m…I’m all…all right,’ she breathlessly reassured a
concerned Carey, standing aside to wave Durndrin through towards
the great doors. ‘Though
goodness
…knows…what I’d…be like…if
I…I didn’t do…my ex…exercises – ohh!’

‘
Neris? What’s wrong?’

Neris smiled
wanly.

‘
My…flame…fighting for ox…oxygen, I thi–’

She froze, her
eyes wide with surprise.

‘
Durndrin!’ Carey cried out as she dashed towards where he was
painstakingly inspecting the doors. ‘I need to take a light from
your flame–’

‘
Carey!’ Durndrin interrupted her urgently, having fleetingly
glanced back to see the motionless Neris. ‘She’s the ultimate
professional, who always insists the show must go on! And the show
this time is getting you through these doors before those soldiers
tire of chasing Dougy and head back here!’

Carey
uncertainly looked Neris’s way. Then she looked back to Durndrin
and nodded; yes, he was right.

‘
So
we need a code,’ she said, studying the door panels as closely as
he was, pressing on a piece of embossed coral in the hope that it
would set in motion some secret mechanism.

‘
It’s
not the coral even though, yes, that’s what sank the
ship.’

Durndrin spoke
disinterestedly, his focus still on working out how to open the
doors.

Turning his
head, he looked back towards the gallery.

‘
The
nail; according to the Illuminator, the weakness was a
nail.’

‘
A
nail?’ Carey moaned desperately, looking the doors up and down.
‘Have you seen how many nails there are in these doors?’

Bulbously-headed
iron nails formed a great deal of the design, giving a sense of
robustness to the general pattern. The huge iron hinges that
stretched across each door were also held firmly in place by thick
bolts and screws that could also easily be described as being
nails. Even worse, various types of smaller, less obvious nails had
been used to fix the copper panels within their decoratively carved
wooden frames.

‘
Besides,’ Carey added more hopefully, ‘these doors have
obviously been here long before he started thinking of his
story.’

‘
Hmn,
you’re sure of that are you, Carey?’ Durndrin was doing his best to
carefully check each nail. ‘What if he’s had his idea for the story
flowing around in his head for years?’ With a flick of his head, he
indicated the gallery lying behind him. ‘What if all this work’s
not meant to be published, but is just here as a clue to cracking
the code?’

‘
Why
give anybody a clue? And just how literally are we supposed to take
his tale anyway?

‘
Your
first question; who knows? A test? Your second; very literally, I
suspect. This
is
the
Illuminator
,
remember?’

Carey tried to
push on both doors at once, in a vain attempt to see if their
movement revealed anything that seemed slightly loose. The doors
didn’t even move.

‘
It’s
like trying to move aside
two
massive ships!’

‘
Two
?’ Durndrin repeated curiously, stepping back and
taking a fresh look at the doors. ‘There was only
one
ship.’

‘
Now
that’s
really
being too literal, Durndrin!’

‘
Hmn,
I’m not so sure,’ Durndrin answered, moving away from where the
doors came together and, stepping over towards one side of the door
frame, swiftly running his hands over every piece of wood, copper
or iron decoration he could see. ‘
One
ship,
one
door?’

He touched one
of the huge hinges that fixed this particular door to the
frame.

‘
Iron
,’ he whispered, deep in thought. ‘The
elemental
flaw.’

His fingers
moved lightly and quickly over the hinge’s elaborately ornamental
swirls.

‘
Iron’s an
element
; does that mean it has a
flaw
?’

He grimaced in
disappointment as, arriving at the point where the hinge was fixed
to the frame, he had to admit he hadn’t found any deliberate
weakness along its entire length.

‘
No
no; wait!’ he declared excitedly. ‘It’s a flaw which makes it
entirely
useless! The nail without its head
isn’t
a
nail!’

He ran his
fingers and his eyes over the area where the hinge flared out to
accept the iron bar holding both it and therefore the door in
place.

‘
So
for a
hinge
that would mean it isn’t
really
a hinge,
which would mean – yes!’

There was an
almost invisible gap between the great piece of iron that was fixed
to the door and the flared section that supposedly held it to the
frame.

‘
So
if I’m right that all this is really
one
great
door–’

Grabbing a
decorative swirl of the hinge and using it like a handle, he pulled
hard; and the hinge on his side cleanly snapped apart, the great
door beginning to swing open on the hinge fixed to the other side
of the frame.

‘
It
is
one
door!’ Carey gasped with relief.

Durndrin was
obviously struggling to pull the door open. Even though there
wasn’t much of a gap, he urgently groaned, ‘It’s got a really
strong spring – quick, Carey! Get through the gap!’

Carey slipped
through it, spinning around with the intention of pushing against
the door to allow Durndrin to follow her.

‘
Carey!’ Durndrin yelled in alarm. ‘I can’t hold it
anymo–’

The door slammed
shut behind Carey, leaving her last friend on the other
side.

*

Normally when a
door slams shut on you, you suddenly become aware of the
silence.

In Carey’s case,
she suddenly became aware of the clash of steel, the frightening
whinnying of a horse, and the aggressive snorting of some unknown
beast.

She whirled
around.

A knight and his
mount, both of whom were suffering the Fading, were desperately
fighting a ferociously taloned dragon. Carey had always thought of
dragons as being mythical creatures, but apart from the fact that
he was as faint and mirage-like as his opponents, this one seemed
real enough.

The thunderous
noise vanished in an instant as the knight and dragon disappeared,
an old woman feeding hungrily clucking chickens appearing alongside
in their place. She, too, seemed to be a victim of the Fading, and
she too suddenly vanished, replaced by sailors being uncontrollably
tossed across the angled deck of a storm-tossed ship,