Saving Thanehaven (16 page)

Noble winces. Filing is what he does to his own weapons and fingernails; he can’t imagine a more lingering or painful torture. “Good,” he growls. “We don’t want to be filed.”

“We just want you to show us the way out,” Lorellina tells the old woman. “If there is one.”

The old woman frowns slightly. When she speaks, she sounds puzzled. “The way out is the
way you came in. You
did
come in, didn’t you?”

“Yes, we did,” Noble admits. “But we don’t want to go back the way we came. Isn’t there another portal of some kind? A door or a window or a staircase?”

The old woman stares at him. It’s as if she can’t quite process what she’s hearing. “Another portal?” she echoes.

“Yes.” Noble addresses her politely, ignoring the princess (who’s rolling her eyes). “We’re looking for an exit that will take us from your Archive to another place. A different place.”

“Like the trapdoor, you mean?”

It’s Noble’s turn to frown. “The trapdoor?” he says.

“What trapdoor?” Lorellina pounces on this bit of information eagerly. “Where? Show us!”

If the old woman dislikes being ordered around, she doesn’t say so. Instead, she shuts the top drawer of the cabinet and sets off, clumping along in thick-soled shoes that look too heavy for her thin ankles. “It’s in here,” she explains, as she disappears into the next room. “I don’t know what it’s for. It appeared one day, out of nowhere. Here it is—see?”

She’s referring to a small hatch that’s set low in one dim corner. It’s just a hole in the wall, with rough-hewn edges and no latch. The panel wedged into it isn’t even hinged.

“I wonder if it’s supposed to be here?” says Noble.

“It
is
here,” the old woman points out.

“Yes, but—” Noble begins, then stops and sighs.
He doesn’t believe that she’s going to understand, even if he explains himself more fully.

Lorellina, meanwhile, has joined him. “Where does it go?” she asks.

The old woman says, “I have no idea.”

“It doesn’t matter where it goes. Just as long as it doesn’t lead back where we came from.” Noble begins to tug at one of the cabinets, dragging it away from the wall so that he can squeeze past it.

The old woman goggles at him, appalled. “What are you doing? Don’t do that! You mustn’t move the filing cabinets!”

“You can push it back when we’re gone,” Noble retorts. “Or, no—I’ll
pull
it back. So you won’t hurt yourself. How does that sound?”

“But you don’t have permission! This is all wrong. This is against the rules.”

Noble decides to ignore her. “I’m afraid you’ll have to go first,” he sheepishly informs the princess. “These cabinets are too heavy for you to move.”

Lorellina seems to accept this. Her only concern is the width of the hole. “Are you actually going to
fit
through there?” she asks, while the old woman wrings her knobbly hands in distress. “It looks very small.”

With a shrug, Noble says, “We’ll soon find out.” Then he addresses the old woman. “You can return to work, if you want.”

“The cabinet—”

“I told you. I’ll shift it back.”

By now, Lorellina has edged past him. She hunkers down in front of the hatchway, her gown a puffy green puddle, her gleaming ringlets cascading over her narrow shoulders. When she inserts the tips of her fingers between the edge of the hatch and the wall, Noble tries to stop her. “Wait,” he warns. “I’ll do that.”

But she’s already lifting the rough-cut panel clear of its matching hole. “Oooooh,” she murmurs. “Look! A tunnel!”

“What’s in there?” Noble ducks down to inspect the tunnel just as Lorellina thrusts her head into it. “Princess! Be careful!”

By this time, however, he’s talking to her backside. “I can see the end of it!” she reports, her voice muffled. “I can see a light!”

“Wait. Let me go first.” Noble has had second thoughts. He doesn’t want her in the vanguard. “Princess? Come out. Please.”

“But the cabinet! You said you’d tidy up!” The old woman’s tone is becoming shrill. “You have to move the cabinet before you leave!”

“In a minute.” Noble grabs Lorellina’s foot before it can disappear into the hole. “Princess! Let me!”

It’s no good, though. Lorellina pulls against Noble’s grip, jerking her foot and twisting her slender ankle. She’s so determined to shake him off that he finally has to let go, for fear of hurting her.

She immediately vanishes down the tunnel.

“You promised!” the old woman cries. “That filing cabinet has to go back where it was!”

“Princess! Wait!”

“You
have
to move it!”

“No I don’t!” Noble barks. He stands up and rounds on the old woman, flustered and fuming. “It
doesn’t
have to go back!
You
don’t have to go back! You don’t have to stay here—you can leave anytime!” He stops suddenly, aware that he’s sounding just like Rufus. Then he thinks,
Why not?
and gruffly concludes, “This is an awful place. It’s dark and gloomy and hopeless. There are better places than this. You should get out. You
can
get out. We did.”

He’s hoping that his words might strike a chord with the old woman. It even occurs to him that if she joins him on his quest, she won’t be able to talk to the man in the white coat.

But all she does is gape at Noble, her expression stunned. And because he doesn’t have time to waste, Noble admits defeat. Instead of launching into an argument, he maneuvers the displaced cabinet back to its original position. Then he drops down and follows Lorellina.

Inside the tunnel, it’s very dark. Lorellina is blocking the light up ahead with her voluminous skirts—and Noble’s own bulk is like a cork in the neck of a bottle. It’s such a tight fit for a broad-shouldered warrior that no light can seep past him from the room he’s just left. He can’t see a thing.

If this gets any narrower
, he thinks as he squirms along,
I’ll never be able to get out
.

At that instant, however, light floods into the darkness. “Princess?” he asks. “Are you all right?” Though the glare is making him squint, he can just discern a vague silhouette framed in the tunnel’s mouth. Then a hand reaches toward him—a familiar hand.

He seizes it gratefully.

“Would you like me to give you a pull?” offers the princess, somewhere beyond his line of sight.

“Not if you’re in danger. Are you safe out there? Is anything amiss?”

“Oh, no,” she says. “It looks quite calm.”

Before Noble can ask her
what
looks calm, she wraps her other hand around his wrist and begins to haul at it with all her might. He’s amazed at how strong she is. Next thing he knows, his head has popped out of the narrow shaft into a space that’s not much brighter.

“This isn’t much better than the other place,” Noble remarks softly as he scrambles to his feet. He’s found himself in a dingy hallway lined with metal doors. There are no windows. Bundles of pipes are attached to the ceiling, where glass tubes full of light are flickering on and off in a sickly kind of way. The walls are made of painted brick, though here and there they’ve been patched with sheets of wood.

One of these sheets has been punctured by the
very hatchway through which Noble and Lorellina have just emerged.

“We should block that up.” Lorellina points at it. “To stop the man in the white coat from following us.”

“I suppose so,” Noble concedes. “What should we use? Something heavy. Like one of those cabinets we saw back in the basement …”

Unfortunately, there are no cabinets in the corridor. There’s no furniture of any description. Even a small metal box full of switches and cables is firmly attached to the wall on which it’s hanging. And when Lorellina starts trying to open doors, they all prove to be locked.

“Look!” she says, pointing at an intersection at the far end of the hallway. “Maybe we should try up there.”

“Maybe …”

“Come on! Quick!”

“Princess, let
me
go first.” Noble is convinced that he’s better equipped to deal with any lurking dangers, even though he’s unarmed and practically unclothed. But Lorellina doesn’t seem to share this opinion. She bolts down the corridor, and by the time Noble catches up with her, she’s turned the nearest corner into another long, gloomy hallway.

“Locked again,” she advises him, scowling at a door handle that won’t budge no matter how furiously she jiggles it. “There
must
be an open door
somewhere
.”

“Maybe this is why Rufus wanted keys,” Noble remarks.

“We could be here all day,” says Lorellina, releasing her grip on the uncooperative door handle. “This is fruitless. We need help. We need to find someone like that old woman. Someone who can tell us what to do.”

“We
could
use some help,” Noble cautiously admits. When she shoots off again, however, he raises his voice in warning as he hurries to catch up. “Princess, it’s not always that easy. There are things in this computer that don’t
want
to help. They just want to eat people. Or kill them—”

“Or toss them in a trash heap. I know,” Lorellina finishes. She doesn’t sound too concerned. “Have no fear. I can always spot a mortal foe when I see one.”

The words have barely left her mouth when she freezes—so abruptly that Noble nearly collides with her. After regaining his balance, he peers over the top of her head, looking for whatever it is that’s causing her to stand rigid, like a startled deer.

The corridor has ended at the threshold of a large, low, octagonal space. At least half a dozen more corridors open onto this space, which contains nothing but a very small, detached room with glass walls.

Inside the glass-walled room is a middle-aged man sitting at a desk shaped like a horseshoe. All around him are banks of screens with moving pictures on them. He’s drinking from a ceramic mug, sipping
brown liquid through his mustache. His olive-green shirt has embroidered patches sewn onto it.

When he spots Noble and Lorellina, his brown eyes open wide in utter astonishment.

“What the—” he begins, his voice muffled by the glass screen encircling him. Then he leans across his desk and seizes a curious instrument like a roll of coins wrapped in black felt, which is attached to a silver stand.

When he speaks into the instrument, his question rings out like the blast of a trumpet.

“How on earth did
you
get in here?” he asks.

“U
m …” Noble doesn’t know what to say. He’s not sure if he should say anything.

It’s Lorellina who finally answers. “We used a trapdoor,” she explains as the man behind the window struggles to his feet.

“A
trapdoor
?” he echoes. “What trapdoor?”

“It’s over there.” She points. “Down that passage.”

“Show me.” He maneuvers his large belly out of the cramped little booth, which is brightly lit and cluttered. Strewn around the desktop are screws and screens and torches and spools and keys and dusters and glass globes and mechanical parts of every description. Tucked beneath the man’s ample stomach is a belt hung with all kinds of tools.

His hands are scarred, and his bald head is
gleaming. There’s a smear of oil on his pants, which are the same shade of green as his shirt.

“We’re looking for our friend,” says Noble. “He’s young and skinny, with hair like a sheep’s fleece—”

“Oh,
he
hasn’t got in yet,” the man interrupts. “Though he might if there’s a back door around here. Where is it? Down that way?”

He gestures at the passage behind Lorellina, who nods.

Noble can’t help adding, “It’s more like a hatch than a back door.”

The man shrugs. “Back door, trapdoor, it’s all the same thing. It just means that some sneaky piece of malware has managed to install a secret access route.” Hitching up his pants, he bustles off down a corridor, his tools jangling. “Must be in a bit of a dark spot. Normally, I wouldn’t miss a thing like that.…”

Noble hesitates for a moment, glancing back toward the little glass room. He’s fascinated by all its glowing, flickering screens, which look like windows onto a dozen different worlds.

But when Lorellina sets off after the man with the tool belt, Noble decides to follow her. Having already lost most of his other friends, he’s not about to let the princess out of his sight.

“We should cover the hole,” Lorellina suggests. “So that no one else can get in.” She’s addressing their new acquaintance, who unhooks some kind of machine from his belt. It looks more like a weapon
than a tool, with a handgrip, a trigger, and a silver barrel.

“Oh, I’ll take care of that,” he assures the princess. “Don’t worry.” The tool that he’s holding gives a sudden, high-pitched squeal. “Now where’s this back door? I can’t see it anywhere.…”

Lorellina brushes past him. She hurries along until she reaches the sabotaged panel, which is set low on a dimly lit stretch of wall. “Is there another way out?” she inquires as he bends over to inspect the damage. “Because we need to find our friends.”

Instead of replying, the uniformed man shakes his head and clicks his tongue. “Well, I’ll be,” he mutters. “How’d this one get past me?”

Lorellina sighs. Then she glances at Noble, prompting him to remark, “One of our other friends is a little boy. Did he come through here?”

“I doubt it.” Before Noble can ask him another question, the man with the tool belt observes, “This is quite neatly done for a hack job. And it looks like it’s been here a while. You came through the mailbox, didn’t you?”

“Uh …” Noble hasn’t the slightest idea. It doesn’t matter, though, because the man doesn’t seem to expect a response.

Straightening up, his face damp and his knees cracking, he rumbles, “Yeah—I don’t think this was done by a rogue programmer. This is definitely hack work.
Old
hack work. Your friend with the long hair didn’t do this.”

“Of course not!” Lorellina snaps. “You just
said
he hasn’t been here!”

“But we have other friends you might have seen,” Noble interjects. “There’s that little boy I mentioned, and a bearded mage, and a blonde girl, and a pink unicorn.…”