Many work tables jutted from the side walls, each one stretching about a third of the way across the room, each one fitted with a set of broad leather straps. Lief’s mouth went dry as his imagination suddenly peopled the room. The helpless victims strapped to the benches. The cold, white-clad figures working over them, carrying out their master’s orders.
Doing… what?
The broad strip of floor in the middle of the room was bare, but scars on its hard surface showed that it had not always been so. Something heavy, large and square had once stood in the exact centre. Shallow ruts, like the tracks of cartwheels, showed that the object had been pulled out of the room by way of the double doors.
There seemed nothing to fear, yet Lief’s whole body quivered as he moved towards the marks on the floor. He knew without question that evil itself had been in this red-lit room.
The others felt it too. Emlis seemed to have shrunk within his cloak, his small face pinched, and his teeth slightly bared. Barda was breathing hard, as though he had been running. Jasmine’s face had paled. Filli had disappeared beneath her collar, and Kree was like a black statue on her shoulder.
Instinctively they all avoided stepping on the marks on the floor. They edged past them, pressing against the ends of the work tables, their eyes turned away.
They reached the double doors and, after listening carefully and hearing no sound, ventured through.
A surge of evil power hit them full in their faces, stopping them in their tracks.
They were in a dim, red-lit space with double doors on every wall. The space was completely bare except for a huge, square metal box which stood in the centre, where the dented tracks in the floor ended. The box was as tall as Jasmine, and had wheels on its base and a trapdoor at one end. Its hinged lid was open, hanging flat against one of its sides. Clearly, it was the object which had been moved from the workroom.
Evil radiated from it like heat. But the feeling was cold, a deathly cold that seemed to chill their blood, freeze their very bones to ice. Emlis began to whimper.
Lief forced his hand upward and grasped the Pirran Pipe. A little warmth stole through his fingers. He took a step forward.
‘Stop!’ hissed Jasmine, clutching his arm. ‘Lief, no! Do not go near it!’
But Lief had to know. He had to see what was inside the box. Clutching the Pipe more tightly he moved forward, Jasmine stumbling behind him, trying to hold him back.
He reached the box, and, gritting his teeth, looked over its edge.
At first all he could see was a squirming, pinkish mass. Then his throat closed as he realised what he was looking at—thousands upon thousands of long, pale worms with scarlet heads, thrashing and writhing in a bath of red slime.
And the worms sensed him. They began rearing, trying to reach him, their wicked scarlet heads straining upward, their tails lashing.
With a choking cry Lief jerked backwards, crashing into Barda and Jasmine, who were directly behind him.
He did not need to ask them if they had seen. Their appalled faces told him that they had.
‘We have to get out of this place,’ Barda hissed. He pointed at the double doors to their right. ‘That way! By my reckoning, the rubbish mounds are on that side. There may be another door…’
‘No!’ Jasmine was shaking her head, pointing to the doors ahead. Barda glared at her, and her pale face flushed scarlet. ‘We must go on!’ she cried desperately. ‘There must be prisoners here.’
Lief looked from one to the other—and at Emlis, cringing behind them.
Jasmine wanted to come here, all along…
The thought drifted into his mind, stuck there. He knew it was true.
‘Jasmine, who—?’ he began bluntly. He had just enough time to register Jasmine’s startled, guilty expression when a noise from the workroom made him break off.
It was the sound of voices and ringing footsteps. Tira and her companion had finished their inspection far sooner than he had expected.
‘… it cannot be helped!’ Tira was exclaiming. ‘You heard the message. We are needed at once! The Conversion Project is about to be put into action.’
The companions glanced around frantically. There was nowhere to hide. Barda grabbed Lief’s arm and made for the right-hand doors, with Emlis shuffling after him. After just a moment’s hesitation, Jasmine followed.
They swung into chill darkness. The doors had no sooner closed behind them than they heard someone entering the room they had just left.
‘Ah, my beauties!’ Tira’s voice cooed. ‘Your time has come! I have just had word of it.’
There was a creaking sound, then a slam and four clicks, as the lid of the box was swung closed, and locked into place.
‘What is happening?’ Jasmine whispered in panic. ‘What are they going to do with those… things?’
‘Ssss!’
The hiss was startling in the dark silence. Lief, Barda, Jasmine and Emlis jumped violently and spun around.
Behind them, its roof covered by a tangle of heavy cloth, was an iron cage on wheels. Inside the cage, something moved.
‘Help me!’ croaked a voice. ‘Free me, for pity’s sake!’
The companions darted silently to the cage. Its door was fastened with a heavy padlock. Peering out through the bars was a gaunt, wild-eyed Dread Gnome, his face just visible in the darkness. ‘I am Pi-Ban,’ the gnome gabbled. ‘Pi-Ban, once of Dread Mountain. Are you the cause of the panic? Did Claw send you? Where are Brianne and Gers?’
Barda grasped two of the cage bars and heaved with all his might. But even his great strength was not enough to bend the thick, rigid iron.
Wordlessly, Jasmine held out her dagger. Lief snatched it and began trying to use its point to open the heavy lock. ‘Claw did not send us, exactly, Pi-Ban,’ he whispered. ‘But we know your name. We know you are one of the people who were taken from the Resistance cave to the east of this place.’
‘Where are your friends?’ Jasmine asked urgently, as Barda began to work on the bars again. ‘Where are the prisoners kept?’
The gnome groaned, his eyes fixed on Lief’s hands. ‘The dungeons are below ground level,’ he said, his lips barely moving. ‘But they are empty now. Moss, Pieter, Tipp, Alexi, Hellena… one by one they were taken away. It began the day we were captured, with Moss. It ended yesterday, with Hellena. Only I remain.’
‘But… but surely there are other slaves here?’ Jasmine’s voice was tense.
‘There were others, at first,’ said Pi-Ban. ‘Many, many others, young and old. Some in the dungeons with us. Some—the quieter, more obedient ones—used to clean and carry. But they too are gone now.’
‘These—these quieter ones,’ Jasmine said quickly. ‘Were there any young girls among them?’
‘A girl called Tira, for example?’ Barda panted, pausing for a moment in his struggle with the cage.
The gnome raised his haggard face. ‘Is Tira the one you came for?’ he asked tiredly. ‘Yes, I knew her. A gentle creature, with eyes like the sky. She was one of the Noradz—strange, timid folk dressed in black who cleaned the hallways and brought food and water to the dungeons. At first we thought they served the Shadow Lord willingly, but it was not so. They were prisoners, as we were.’
Barda nodded grimly and attacked the bars again, as though his enormous hands were tearing at the Shadow Lord himself. Lief was frowning over the lock, lost in concentration.
As if unable to bear watching them any longer, Pi-Ban turned and paced to the back of the cage. He grasped the bars and sank to his knees, staring out into the darkness.
Jasmine edged towards him and kneeled down so that she could talk to him face to face.
‘I heard of another girl who might be here, Pi-Ban,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Younger than Tira—a child—with black hair and green eyes, called Faith.’