Sagaria (86 page)

There was a shout of laughter from the passageway.

“I'm not done yet!”

“Can you walk?” asked Sir Tombin. Under Melwin's guidance, he'd been able to free the old man from the machine's ghastly embrace.

Grandpa Melwin gave a wry smile. “Barely.”

“What did they do to you?”

Although the man was clearly very weak, his body seemed to bear no bruises, cuts, burns or other signs of torture. Cheireanna produced an only slightly bloodstained robe from somewhere and Sir Tombin wrapped it round Melwin's shoulders. It was cold down here, but the cold wasn't all that was making Sagandran's grandfather shiver.

“Physically, hardly anything at all,” said Melwin. “Oh, they slapped me around a bit for fun, but they weren't really serious about it. No – what Arkanamon perfected in this accursed device is a far more potent source of agony than that. What the machine is designed to do is deceive the mind.”

Sir Tombin courteously waited while Melwin summoned the words to continue.

“I witnessed all my loved ones meeting the most hideous deaths that human ingenuity could ever contrive. My dear wife, may her soul rest in peace. My daughter. My friends, young and old. Worst of all, my beloved grandson, Sagandran. They showed me these terrible scenes again and again, each time ratcheting the horror up a further notch. The vilest thing the machine did was deceive me into believing that I was tearing Sagandran apart with my bare hands, and in a way that was what saved me. It was too vile, too hideous. My mind rebelled against the very possibility of it. I started remembering being out in a boat with him, fishing peaceably, chewing the fat about whatever came into our heads. It was at that point I realized that I could always beat the machine. After that, whatever the images it tried to plant in my mind, I just put myself back in that rowing boat with Sagandran, and Arkanamon and his henchmen were powerless to hurt me. Not that I let them know that, of course.” The old man chuckled. “I howled and howled like it had only just been invented.”

“You love Sagandran very much, don't you?”

“More than life itself.”

“He's here, you know.”

“Here?”

“Yes.”

“Here in the Shadow World? In the Palace of Shadows?”

“Yes. I'm not sure exactly where, but he's being looked after by friends – or he was when I last saw him.”

“Is he safe?

“I can't tell you that for sure, not with Arkanamon still on the loose. He's no longer a sorcerer, but there's nothing to stop him seizing a weapon and—”

“Then why are you wasting time with me?” The old man pushed Sir Tombin away almost angrily. “I can make my own way out of this hellhole. Go after my grandson!”

Sir Tombin looked at him intently. At last he nodded.

“But leave me that morning star when you go,” said Melwin. “I have a mind to destroy this machine as best I'm able, so that no one else will ever be put through what I was put through. Besides, it will seem like revenge.”

With Cheireanna in tow, Sir Tombin rushed up the stairways. Along the way to the open air, they picked up Samzing, Memo and Flip. It was difficult to move rapidly through the throng of escaping prisoners, but they did their best. Many of the people they pushed past had been crippled by the torturers, and were being helped by their fellow prisoners. All of them wanted to see the meager light of day again as soon as they could, even if it was only the sallow, subdued light of the Shadow World's day.

At last, Sir Tombin and his friends were out in the open air. Off to the right was the grim wall of the slave mines and behind it they could hear, instead of screams and whipcracks, the roar of people cheering their new-found freedom.

Sir Tombin put a webbed hand up to his forehead and scanned the sky. “I can't believe they'd have gone far. They must have seen the minions of the Shadow Master dying and thought there was nothing more to fear. Unless—ah, no, I see them now.”

Following his old friend's gaze, Samzing could just detect, pale against the grimy-looking clouds and growing swiftly larger as it came toward them, the shape of the flying horse. Two darker blobs on the horse's back must be Sagandran and Perima.

Cheireanna uttered a guttural cry.

What in the world could the girl be wanting now?
Samzing turned as she pulled at his robe.

One hand still held the sleeping Flip. With the other, once she was sure she'd attracted his attention, she pointed along the frontage of the Palace of Shadows. Beside a door there, a tall thin man was mounting a horse that was as black as the robes he wore.

“Look,” she said, struggling with a word her throat was unaccustomed to forming. “Arkanamon.”

“I see them! Samzing and Sir Tombin and Cheireanna!” cried Perima, pointing at the distant figures clustered beneath the castle wall.

Sagandran, chin on her shoulder, saw his three friends. His heart felt suddenly heavy. There was no sign of Grandpa Melwin. Had the companions arrived at the Palace of Shadows too late to save the old man, whatever the Shadow Master might have claimed?

“Oh, look,” continued Perima, bubbling happily. “They're waving at us. Waving quite a lot, actually. I wonder why?”

Snowmane came down for a perfect landing about fifty yards from where Sir Tombin and the others were standing, and trotted a few paces before coming to a halt. The big white wings folded themselves away easily, tucking into the horse's sides to leave just the “scars” showing. Sagandran promised himself that he'd examine the stallion more closely sometime soon to find out how this worked. When the wings were extended, there seemed to be more wing than horse, and yet Snowmane's body didn't seem any bigger with the wings stowed away than when they were unfurled.

It was then that Sagandran and Perima realized that their friends were waving not in greeting, but in frantic warning.

“Samzing's yelling something about Arkanamon,” said Perima, slipping easily to the ground despite being encumbered by the heavy lead crown, which she carried in one hand. Sagandran followed, wishing he could emulate Perima's grace. He supposed girls were naturally better than boys at anything to do with horses. Or was it something one learned as a matter of course during princessly training?

He staggered as he landed, and a sharp pain shot up his leg.

“Drat,” he muttered, not overly concerned. “Twisted my ankle.” Biting his lower lip, he began to limp toward the Palace of Shadows. Somewhere within its walls was Grandpa Melwin.

“Stop, Sagandran.”

He looked back at Perima. What was it this time?

“They're trying to tell us …”

She suddenly pointed to her right.

Arkanamon!

Astride a great black steed, the man who had dreamed of conquering worlds was charging toward them. Even from here, Sagandran could see Arkanamon's lips drawn back from his teeth in a snarl of vengeful fury. He
held a huge, black-bladed sword on high.

“Come back, Sagandran!” screamed Perima. “To Snowmane! He's our only chance!”

“But what about Grandpa Melwin?”

“You can't help him if you're dead.”

He started jogging back toward her as fast as his limp would let him. Then his ankle gave way. Letting out a high howl of pain, he sprawled on the black grass. The thud of the black horse's hooves was loud in his ears as he forced himself to his knees and then precariously to his feet. He was dimly aware out of the corner of his eye that Sir Tombin and the other two were running toward him as well, but all he was really conscious of was the black steed and its terrible rider bearing down on him.

Where was Perima? For an moment he couldn't see her, then he realized that she had leaped back up onto Snowmane's back. Already the silver stallion was moving.

“No!” cried Sagandran. If Perima tried to head off Arkanamon, she would surely pay with her life. All she had to protect herself against his sword was the crown. If Arkanamon gained the crown from her, who knew what might happen next?

But Perima wasn't riding toward Arkanamon. Instead, she was coming straight toward Sagandran, her hair flying.

Lurching awkwardly as his ankle threatened to betray him once again, he spread his arms, uncomprehending.

The crystal-adorned crown lopsided on her head, she was leaning sideways out of the saddle, one arm extended.

Oh, sheesh. She wants me to
…

Then the white stallion was upon him and Perima's wiry brown arm was around his chest, whipping him up off the ground and belly-down across Snowmane's back in front of her.

The breath driven out of him, Sagandran was nearly blinded by the immediate streaming of his eyes. The seared ground moved beneath him in a blur. He reached up and gripped Snowmane's neck, which was tilted forward as the horse moved into a full gallop.

“Stay where you are!” snapped Perima impatiently. “You can sit up later.”

Despite his instincts, he mustered the nerve to disobey her for once, and continued to struggle to right himself.

She let out a string of oaths that astonished him, before capitulating. “Oh, all right then, you jerk!” Showing little sympathy for his injured ankle, she grabbed his leg and forced it around in front of her.

Manipulating his way across the stallion's neck, at last he was able to push himself woozily upright.

At the same moment, Perima jumped off the horse. She rolled onto the ground.

“What are you doing?” Sagandran shouted as the distance between them increased. He tried to steer Snowmane around, but the stallion just kept going. He could see Perima struggling to get up.

She cupped her hands in front of her mouth. “You'll go faster without me,” she shouted. “Ride Snowmane. Ride!”

Her voice soon vanished in the wind. The landscape rushed toward him much faster than it had before, and he was filled with the certainty that at any second he was going to go crashing to the ground. He'd known fear many times since leaving the Earthworld, but this wild ride seemed more terrifying than anything that had gone before.

What made it worse was that he could hear Arkanamon close behind them on that vast black horse of his. The Shadow Master was letting out a long, continuous shrill – a sound that Sagandran could not have dreamed might come from human lips.

Then again, the vile path of magic the Shadow Master had followed had corrupted him into something other than truly human, hadn't it? Arkanamon could hardly be called a man any more. He had become a creature that was both more than and less than that. And a creature intent on slaying Sagandran before it met its own doom.

“Fly, damn you – fly!” Sagandran yelled into Snowmane's ear.

Taking to the air was surely the only way to escape the Shadow Master's eager blade.

Pursued by Arkanamon on the black horse, Snowmane was galloping at full tilt, parallel to the wall of the slave mines. A few straggling, pathetic, scarecrow-like figures staggered out of the way – released prisoners, Sagandran guessed. His friends must have reached the dungeons, at least, even if Grandpa Melwin was nowhere in evidence.