We struggled up an icy slope, skidding, gasping; and all at once plunged down a steep hollow into a thicket. Black thorns stabbed my spirit-cape, intertwining with the silver, snaring it in several places. I was pulled back, trapped and twisting. As I struggled, the spirit-cape ripped. It tore in two. I screamed. A piercing cold like death stabbed me like a knife driven between the shoulders. I couldn’t breathe. I fell to the ground. Feathers scattered on the frost beside me like smoking drops of blood.
I couldn’t breathe….
Then Lockwood was beside me, pulling me to him, dragging me beside him under his cape. Its softness enfolded me. The desperate cold lingered for a moment. It drew back painfully, like clawed fingers being withdrawn. I took a wrenching breath. I could feel Lockwood’s warmth against me, and mine against him. We crouched together, side by side, his arm around me, my right knee pressed tight against his left. Our faces were very close, mine lower, his higher, leaning together as we peered out from under the burning hood at the swirling grayness all around.
Our descent into the thicket had been abrupt. Our pursuers were somewhere above us. Nothing was near.
“Are you all right, Lucy?”
I nodded, blinked ice out of my eyes. In that second in which my cape had fallen away, a coating of frost had adhered to my face.
“Am I pressing too close?”
“No.”
“Say if I am.”
“I will.”
“We’ve got to go on, into the mist. But we have to stick together like glue. The cape’s not very big. You’ll have to stay really close to me, Luce. Can you do that?”
“I’ll try.”
“Quick, then. They’re coming.”
Up on our feet, out of the hollow and up a final rise. Dark shapes converged on us, bursting out from beneath the trees. We were almost at the brow of the hill. Gunner’s Top was what it had been called; or something very like that. The name didn’t seem appropriate here. Nothing under that flat black sky had a name.
The mists below now lay thicker on the fields than when we’d left them. The buildings of the institute were barely visible; their roofs rose above the murk, as dark and dead as standing stones.
We skittered and skidded down the slope, arms around each other, plowing up clouds of ice crystals at every step. Every movement was jerky, hard to take. We started out across the field. “No good,” I gasped. “I’ve got to rest.”
“Me, too.” We stopped, turned stiffly together beneath our hood—just in time to see a tide of figures surging over the hillcrest, pouring down the slope behind us.
“Okay,” Lockwood said. “Maybe a rest’s not such a good idea.”
Onward, in silence, through the mists; and now those mists parted, and we saw a tall bearded man, picking himself up off the ground, turning his head as we passed by. He carried a great sword. Both blade and skin were glimmering with frost.
Stumbling, almost falling, we ran on. The mists closed up again. Behind us we heard footsteps shuffling on hard ground.
“A Viking’s all we need,” I gasped.
“Like moths to a candle,” Lockwood said. “Our warmth, our life—it draws them all. They followed the Shadow just the same. Last push, Lucy! We’re almost there—”
We could see the fence of the institute, open, blank, and empty. Beyond, the doors of the central building hung wide and black.
“I’m never going to make it,” I said.
“Keep going. We’re there. We’ve done so well.”
Through the fence, across the frosted gravel. We reached the double doors. The interior of the hangar was filled with mist. There was ice on the ground here, too. We paused, panting. We were almost worn out. Beneath the smoking spirit-cape, our gloves sparkled with ice. Our breath echoed like it was reverberating off our bones.
“How are we doing?” Lockwood said.
I looked back. “They’re still coming. They’re at the fence now.”
“Better get on with it, then.”
We stumbled through the open doors.
It was the same place—no doubt about that. The soaring roof, the metal walls. Far off through the mists, I saw the stacked crates. But the light was still odd, so that everything was layered, gray and grainy, as if with scales. That mist played tricks with my eyes. Nothing seemed quite straight, neither floor nor ceiling, hatch nor door. It looked as if everything was made of wax, and had been heated so that it swelled and softened, and was just about to melt. But everything was brittle with cold; thin cracks ran across the floor at my feet, and our boots rang out like iron.
The mist in the center of the hall was very thick. We couldn’t see through it.
“The chain…” Lockwood gasped. “Where is it, Luce?”
“I don’t know….” Looking behind, I saw the shapes of our pursuers clustering at the doors.
“Oh, God. Where is it?”
“We’re almost at the other end. We must have gone too far….”
We circled in a panic, around and around. Lockwood wanted to go one way, I another; we almost tore his cape, tugging it between us.
We stopped, spent and despairing. I could hear many footsteps on the earth behind. All around us, just the swirling mists, the mist and melting wall….
And there, slouching in a corner by the sidewall, a thin and rangy youth, hair spiked, hands in pockets, staring at me. He stood amid a pile of discarded jars and boxes. He was as gray as the inhabitants of the dark village, except for his grin, which gleamed sardonically even in the swirling dusk and was somehow most familiar. He stretched out an arm, pointed behind me. I turned, saw the post and chain.
“There it is!” I pulled Lockwood around. “Look!”
Lockwood cursed. “Why didn’t we notice it before? Are we blind? Come on!” We circled toward the post. When I glanced back, the mists had closed in once more and the grinning youth was gone, and we were alone beside the post and its icy iron chain.
“Hold on to it,” Lockwood said. “We go together. You first. Follow it right through. Don’t stop for anything.” He had drawn his sword, was staring all around us. The mists, swirling like stage curtains, grew darker with approaching forms. I caught a flash of Hetty Flinders’s bright blue dress.
It probably wasn’t very far we had to walk before stepping back into the circle. But it seemed to go on a bit, what with the awkwardness of being clasped together, so that we could only shuffle like penguins, and with the people of the village now erupting from the mist, and with us both swinging our rapiers to keep them at bay. When the vortex of Sources in the circle came into sight, it was a positive relief. I was almost ready to greet Solomon Guppy and Emma Marchment as old friends. Without regrets we threw ourselves over the chains, through the wall of whirling, shrieking spirits, and found ourselves again in the still heart of the iron circle.
The man in iron armor was nowhere to be seen. We inched our way along the chain toward the other side.
“If Rotwell’s out there,” Lockwood said, “we’re just going to have to deal with it. I’d rather be killed by him than have something…happen to me back there.”
I glanced behind us. “Think they could follow us through?”
“The iron will hold them up. But why not? It’s a hole, and there are a lot of them. I only hope Steve Rotwell and his friends get to meet them, too. Got your sword ready, Luce?”
“Yep, and if I don’t stab someone’s backside with it in the next five minutes, I’m going to be sorely disappointed.”
“Let’s see if we can surprise them, then. Come on.”
Again, just for an instant, the rushing ghosts were all around us. And then we were over the chains, and we stepped out together into the warmth, noise, and joyous, blinding light of the real world.