Down Station

24

‘I can get through the window, if I can get up there.’

Stanislav thought hard, chin on chest. Then he raised his head. ‘If you fall, you will alert the guards. But it is our best option. Otherwise, we will have to face them anyway, and the geomancer will know we are coming.’

Dalip had never climbed anything more complicated than gym equipment. There was a parapet he could stand on, and then a rough stone wall to ascend. He’d have to traverse to the window. He had no idea if he could actually accomplish what he’d just said he’d do.

‘I’ll do my best,’ he said. He looked up at the tower, at its shadows and shapes, and he felt sweat prickle his fingertips.

‘Go, if you are going,’ said Stanislav, pushing him back out the door.

‘Good luck,’ whispered Mama, and Dalip caught her nervous smile. He nodded, then did the crouching run back across the bridge. In the darkness of the recess, he peered over the parapet at the fire in the courtyard below.

It was bright, bright enough to rob anyone near it of their night sight. A couple of benches had been dragged out of the squat building near it, and there were three, no four, men sitting, drinking and talking. If he was careful and quiet, he’d not be seen. How was he going to carry the knife so that it wouldn’t drop out? He thought about the waistband of his kachera, and a pocket in his boilersuit. Neither of those was certain. He looked at the blade, and lifted it to his mouth. He closed his teeth on it, and now the taste on his tongue wasn’t his own blood.

He climbed up on the parapet on the far side from the fire. It was wide enough that he could get both feet side-by-side on the top. The drop to his left was precipitous, though, and perhaps he shouldn’t think about that.

His hands, resting on the wall, explored its surface. The blocks were big, but there were gaps between them. With boots on, he’d have no chance, but because he was barefooted, he could squeeze his toes into the holds.

There was nothing else for it. He’d run out of reasons to delay, and he reached above his head to feel for a crack. Once he was as confident as he was going to be that he could maintain his grip, he slid the inside of his foot up the cold face of the wall and turned his big toe into a piton.

He straightened his leg at the same time as pulling with his arm. He was up, clinging to the wall like a spider. He took his time to find the next foothold and handhold, and when he’d pulled himself up on those, his initial arm was sore with effort. He was trying too hard: he needed to be more instinctive, climb it like he would a ladder.

Smoothly then, foot and fingers, up, drawing level with the bottom of the window. Again, and now he was halfway up. The wind pulled at him. The loose grit in the gaps needed brushing out in case it caused him to slip. He didn’t need to look down, so he didn’t.

Part of him was aware that what he was doing was dangerous, outrageous, ridiculous. The other part told him he was doing something good and brave, and his grandfather would have argued against Dalip’s parents for him to be allowed to do it. That this was his duty, his honour, his right, to risk everything to help his friends.

He was at the same height as the window. He stretched out with his foot, found his next foothold, and slid across the wall, turning his head to the direction of travel. Below him, across the courtyard, the men were still drinking. If they’d looked up and away from the fire, they’d have spotted him, an orange figure spreadeagled against the side of the tower. But they concentrated on the dancing flames and their conversation, and Dalip carried on.

Another move closer. If he reached out now, he could stand on the window ledge. It’d also make him visible to anyone in the room beyond. He listened for voices, and decided that he’d just have to risk it. He eased himself across and got a good handhold on the other side.

There was a curtain over the window, hanging down inside from a rod on the lintel, obscuring him from view◦– a stroke of luck. He listened again, and when he heard nothing, he quickly slipped through, still behind the curtain, turning sideways and searching for the floor with his foot. He found it. The effort of the last few minutes burned in his muscles, but he’d done it. He made sure he had firm hold of the knife before unclenching his jaw.

He peeked around the side of the heavy curtain. It seemed to be a dimly lit room, and after a moment’s hesitation, he stepped out, knife ready.

There was no one there. He quickly crossed the bare floor to listen at the only door, and only then took notice of what else was there. He was in some sort of store room, with floor-to-ceiling shelves on the walls holding jars and boxes of all sizes and shapes. A table was covered with clutter, things that looked like the results of a primary-school nature ramble: stones rough and smooth, mottled leaves and snapped twigs, the bleached white bones of small animals long-since passed.

He wasn’t there to poke around, though. He lifted the latch on the store-room door and opened it a sliver. The curtain behind him rustled and lifted in the draught, and the wind moaned through, carrying with it the unmistakable tap-tap of someone on the staircase beyond. He eased the door shut and waited for them to pass.

The tapping got louder, and against his expectations he recognised it as the sound of the steward’s silver-topped cane on the stone floor. Dalip held his breath. The tapping stopped with a scratch, and the latch clacked up on its own.

He had nowhere to hide but behind the opening door. He squeezed himself in the angle and stayed utterly silent as the steward, dressed in his customary black, entered and went straight to the table with its collection of dead things.

The steward had a tray with him. He pushed it on the table and began to arrange some of the items on it. His gloved hand hovered over some, rejecting them, and plucking others up as worthy.

Dalip realised that he was going to be spotted the instant the man turned. He wondered if he could sneak out while the steward was busy, but he was scared even to move. The heavy boilersuit wasn’t the stealthiest of clothing, and he was certain to be heard.

There was only one possible course of action. He raised the knife and took the two short steps up behind the bent black back. He snaked an arm around the man’s neck and pressed the knife hard into his side.

‘Don’t,’ said Dalip. ‘Whatever it is you think you can do, I can kill you quicker.’

The steward stiffened. The hand that was resting in the top of his cane flexed, and Dalip tightened his grip.

‘Put it on the table. Slowly.’

He lifted the cane and gently slid it in amongst the discards, next to the tray.

‘You’re not the Slav. The little Sikh boy, then.’

Dalip didn’t respond. The cane safely out of the man’s hand, he dragged him back a couple of steps so that it was out of reach too.

‘If you’re hoping to escape, it’s not going to work.’

Dalip thought they seemed to be doing all right so far, but kept it to himself.

‘We’re going down the stairs.’ He thought of all the hackneyed phrases he’d seen in films during situations just like this, and decided that his captive was intelligent enough to know what was required of him.

He steered him out of the door. The staircase was a spiral, stone steps that were wedges around a central column. It was going to be difficult to keep in close contact down them, but his prisoner’s comfort wasn’t his concern. There were noises off: the creak of wood from above, a more metallic clatter from below. He couldn’t hope to deal with everyone◦– what was important was letting the others in so they’d have a chance at getting to the geomancer.

Dalip and the steward descended awkwardly, the knife an ever-present inducement to good behaviour, Dalip’s bare feet gripping the narrow steps better than the steward’s booted ones, which slipped on occasions, stretching his neck in the crook of Dalip’s bent elbow. There were other doors off the staircase, but they hadn’t descended quite enough.

‘That one. Open it slowly.’

The steward reached out and twisted the ring, pushed at the door. It swung open. Two women in drab dress looked up from the collection of stone bottles they were refilling and froze in place. Dalip quickly scanned the room, spotted the door he needed to undo on the far side, then looked back at the women.

Were they slaves, too? Could he enlist them or at least get them not to give the game away?

‘If you make a sound, he dies. If you don’t, you get to do whatever it is you want. You can join us, or not, as you choose.’

They glanced at each other, at the steward, at Dalip, but mainly at the floor, their hands, the bottles on the table. Dalip eased the steward into the room and knocked the door closed with his heel. It didn’t look like he was going to get either co-operation or defiance from them.

‘The door over there, the one that leads to the bridge. Can one of you open it?’

Again, they looked everywhere but at each other. Then, the older one’s head came up, and she brushed a strand of grey hair away that had fallen loose from her tightly tied knot. Despite the hesitant restraining hand of her companion, she walked deliberately around the barrels and racked bottles, and lifted the first of two heavy bars blocking the door.

‘Don’t,’ managed the steward before Dalip cut him off with a tightening of his arm.

She put the bar to one side, then heaved the other from its hasps.

‘Open it, and step away. I don’t want you to get hurt.’

She rested the other bar next to the first, and put her shoulders to dragging the door open. The outside blustered in, and she walked back to Dalip.

She spat in the steward’s face, then she walked out.

Dalip felt the steward stiffen, smelt their sour smells of sweat mingle.

‘You can go too, if you want,’ he told the other woman. ‘But don’t do anything that’ll stop us.’

She nodded. She looked young and scared, not just of the steward, but of him. He’d always thought of himself, on the rare occasions that he did, as a quiet boy, a good boy, dutiful and diligent. Certainly not someone to be frightened of, yet there he was, ready to drive a knife into someone’s side if they so much as spoke out of turn.

Luiza poked her head around the opened door, and waved the others on. They crept in, doubled over, then stretched out. Stanislav was last in and pushed the door firmly shut.

‘Where is she?’ asked Stanislav.

‘Up, I think,’ and he had the presence of mind to ask. ‘The geomancer’s at the top of the tower, right?’

The serving girl was watching them all with amazement, her hands clutched over her mouth. Then she nodded.

‘Why is he still alive?’ said Stanislav. He barred the door behind him, pushing the thick wooden bars back into place.

‘Because he’s useful.’

‘His use is at an end. Finish him.’

‘He can get us close to the geomancer.’ Still, despite everything, Dalip was reluctant to be ruthless, even though he knew it was costly and he wasn’t the only one paying.

‘He will get us all killed.’ Stanislav held his club low and squared up to the steward. ‘I have met his kind before: the ones that are more vicious, more cruel than the generals they serve. They are not driven by any ideology, only by the desire to do evil and the permission to do so.’ He leaned forward into the man’s face. ‘Am I not right?’

If he was, the steward didn’t offer an opinion.

‘Gag him, tie his hands. Elena, keep a watch on the stairs. Mama, check the room for anything we can use.’

Dalip forced the steward to his knees. Luiza grabbed a scrap of cloth from the bottling table, wodging it into a damp ball and presenting it to the steward’s mouth. He resisted, and Dalip had to make him open his mouth by twisting the knife-point through his close-woven clothing and into his skin. When he gasped at the pain, Luiza jammed the cloth in. His breathing became noisily nasal, and he tried to cough it out. She slapped him hard, once, twice. He glared at her, and she raised her hand for a third time. He flinched, and her lips twisted into a smile.

She tied the gag into place with length of cord, and since she seemed to know what she was doing, Dalip forced him to the floor and made him offer his hands for her to bind behind his back. It looked to Dalip that she was cutting his circulation off, the bonds digging deep into his wrists as she twisted and wound. But she was taking some degree of pleasure in doing so, and the steward was in no condition to complain.

The man was going to die soon, and it didn’t really matter how tightly he was tied: Dalip still couldn’t accept that, though, and tried to imagine a scenario where he didn’t have to kill everyone in order to make them leave him alone.

Mama had found nothing much useful, but she’d dragged a crate of stoneware bottles containing a sharp, clear spirit into the open space. She unstoppered one of the bottles and held it up for Stanislav, who sniffed at the open neck. ‘That will burn. Bring some of them.’

Dalip dragged the steward upright. Since being bound, he had become more compliant.

‘Is there anything we should know before going up the stairs?’ Dalip asked the serving girl. ‘Anything that’ll make it difficult for us?’

‘Are you going to kill her?’

‘That depends,’ he said. Stanislav narrowed his eyes at him, but said nothing. ‘We need to know how to get past the dragon, so we’re guessing we need her alive for that.’

The serving girl blinked.

‘We must go,’ said Stanislav. ‘Strike now, while we still can.’

‘No, wait.’ Dalip held the steward’s coat by his collar. ‘What are we missing?’

The serving girl was shaking with confusion. ‘The mistress and the wyvern.’

‘Yes?’

‘She is… she is the wyvern.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Dalip.

‘She changes between woman and beast.’

‘You have got to be joking.’

‘No.’

No wonder the steward had been so confident, so arrogant. They burst into the geomancer’s room at the top of the castle, and within seconds they’re facing a massive, angry dragon. And not some animal, either, but human intelligence and guile.

‘What the hell do we do?’

After a few moments, Stanislav said: ‘Nothing has changed, and now that we know, we can use it to our advantage. If we can get the geomancer before she changes, then we kill both her and the dragon at the same time. We go in hard, all of us. Bring her down. Stop her any way we can.’

‘What if she changes first? What if she’s already changed?’ Dalip looked at his knife. It didn’t seem very big now.

‘Then we have to kill a dragon instead.’

Stanislav had only seen the creature in the distance: he didn’t understand quite how fierce it was, nor how large it was. Some of them were going to die in the fight, and the thought made Dalip hesitate.

‘What does she value most? If we got hold of that, would she negotiate with us?’ He shook the steward. ‘What about him? Does he mean anything to her?’

The serving girl looked as if she was about to faint. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know. She keeps all of her treasure with her.’

‘This discussion is over,’ said Stanislav. ‘We must attack, kill her, escape. It is all we need to understand.’

‘I’m trying to do the right thing here!’ Dalip’s voice started to rise, and he clamped back down on it. ‘There has to be another way.’

‘There is no other way. That much is clear.’

‘Give me some time with her. Ten minutes. Quarter of an hour. I can talk our way out of this, and no one has to fight.’

‘This is foolishness. She will kill you, and she will be warned.’ Stanislav shrugged off Luiza’s hand. ‘I did not think you a coward.’

‘I’m not… Look, she’s not going to kill me if she thinks you’re going to burn her tower down with all her treasure in it. Even if she turns into a dragon and flies away, she can’t carry it with her.’

‘Once she has turned into a dragon, then killing her becomes so much more difficult. She can keep us trapped here until we starve. Or make another mistake such as this one.’

‘I’m not making a mistake. If we rush her, we might win, but we might all get eaten and we’re smarter than that. None of us wants to face a dragon, not if we can help it.’ Dalip pushed the steward in Luiza’s direction. ‘We were told, right at the start, that we could be whatever we wanted to be. We still can. Let me talk to her, tell her we’ve taken her steward and the tower. She’s not stupid.’

‘Evil and intelligent is worse.’

‘Killing her is not our only option.’

‘For God’s sake, Stanislav,’ hissed Elena, ‘let him try.’

Mama nodded. ‘We can fight, but if we didn’t have to…’

‘Make it good,’ said Luiza, and Stanislav could only growl in frustration.

‘This is not the plan.’

‘The plan went out the window when you decided we’d not wait for the next fight. So don’t complain.’ Dalip wrapped his fingers around the knife handle and stepped to the door. ‘I’ll, well. Do my best.’