She held her breath as Pi-Ban frowned thoughtfully.
‘Faith. How strange that you should mention that name,’ the gnome murmured at last. ‘I heard it for the first time only a short time ago, when Guards brought me up here. They were Baks, and in worse tempers than usual. Three of their pod had just been slaughtered by a vraal, which was pursuing a fourth into the desert. They had been ordered to abandon him in order to escort me. I told them I was pleased to hear it. That earned me a bruise or two.’
A savage white grin shone briefly through the tangles of his matted beard, then he sobered once more. ‘They told me I was to be taken to the Shadow Arena, and that Faith had gone before me,’ he muttered. ‘They seemed to think this would torment me, because I knew this girl. But I do not.’
He looked at Jasmine shrewdly. ‘She is of great importance to you, however, that is plain. Who is she, this little girl with black hair and green eyes like your own? And why do you take care to ask of her while your friends cannot hear? ‘
Her mind whirling, Jasmine turned quickly away from him.
‘I cannot do it, Barda!’ Lief muttered from the front of the cage. ‘The lock is too strong. We will have to find another way.’
At that moment there was a loud sound from the room they had just left. Doors were being thrown open. There was the pounding of marching feet.
‘Guards!’ growled Barda.
‘Go! Make haste!’ Pi-Ban hissed. ‘There is another pair of doors behind the cage. I think they are a way out.’
‘No!’ Jasmine whispered desperately, standing fast. ‘We cannot go now!’
‘You must!’ The gnome raised his tousled head proudly. ‘If I am to die, I wish to die as a Dread Gnome, not as a coward who drags others down with him. Get out! Save yourselves!’
But already it was too late. The double doors heaved. Dull red light shone through the gap. The Guards were coming through.
13 – The Tunnel
Like lightning, Lief, Barda and Jasmine leaped for the cage roof, swinging Emlis up behind them. They burrowed under the layers of cloth and lay still, peering out cautiously, their hearts pounding.
‘Time to go, scum!’ jeered one of the Guards. He approached the cage and jabbed a heavy stick through the bars. There was a shower of sparks, and the companions heard Pi-Ban groan and fall heavily. The Guards bellowed with laughter.
Two white-clad figures strode through the doors—Tira and the Ol called 3-19. The Guards fell abruptly silent.
‘You are to go with the cage, 3-19,’ Tira said crisply. ‘I will follow with the Project.’
‘There is only one prisoner,’ 3-19 objected. ‘He can walk in chains. The cage is not necessary.’
Tira’s eyes narrowed. ‘It is not for you to say what is necessary,’ she said in a low, dangerous voice. ‘This prisoner has been kept especially for this moment. We cannot risk escape. He is not to be harmed, so watch the Guards carefully.’
3-19 nodded, his thin face sour.
‘We Baks do not need an Ol to tell us what to do,’ mumbled one of the Guards.
‘Silence!’ Tira shouted. She spun around and returned to the red-lit room where another pod of Guards stood, five on each side of the metal box.
3-19 cleared his throat. ‘You heard!’ he said to the Baks. ‘Take your positions!’
As the Baks sulkily spaced themselves around the cage, he strode past them and threw open the second set of doors. Faint light flooded into the room, bringing with it the foul smell of the mounds.
Lief lay rigid, fearing that at any moment they would be seen, but there was no cry of alert. The Guards were staring resentfully at 3-19, whose eyes were fixed on the way ahead
‘Forward!’ shouted Tira from the other room.
‘Move!’ 3-19 muttered to the Baks.
‘We must pull down the covers first,’ one growled.
With a sickening thud, Lief realised that the pieces of cloth beneath which he and his companions were hiding were flaps designed to be pulled down over the sides of the cage.
‘There is no need for the covers, you fool!’ snapped 3-19. ‘It is night! The prisoners will see nothing.’
‘A travelling cage must be covered,’ the Guard said stubbornly. ‘Those are the orders. We Baks always…’
‘You Baks are overdue for the scrap heap, and the sooner you are there the better!’ spat 3-19 in fury. ‘Move!’
Muttering darkly, the six Baks put their shoulders to the cage and heaved it into the foul-smelling night. Behind them rumbled the great metal box.
Pi-Ban lay dazed and mumbling. Lief, Barda, Jasmine and Emlis were clinging desperately to the lurching cage roof. Each of the Shadow Lord servants was occupied with his or her own thoughts of resentment or triumph.
And so it was that no-one saw three shadows creep from the shelter of the mounds and follow.
At first, all Lief could hear was the rattling of the cage, but after a while he began to pick up voices from below.
‘We deserve more respect,’ a Guard was grumbling. ‘We gave the alert! We were the ones outside, fighting the vraal. We were the ones who heard those wrecks on the scrap heap calling.’
Lief felt his scalp prickle. He listened intently.
‘The Ol said we should be on the scrap heap ourselves, Bak 3,’ another Guard said.
‘The Ol is a fool!’ snarled Bak 3. ‘You know we don’t have a fail date like other pods, Bak 9. We were told that from the first, and warned not to boast of it to the others. Have you forgotten?’
‘No,’ Bak 9 mumbled. ‘But the Ol said—’
‘Forget what it said!’ Bak 3 snapped. ‘The master would never dispose of us! Why, we gave him the news he was waiting for—the news of the girl and the black bird. Why else are we going to the Arena now?’
Lief’s heart thudded violently. The Shadow Lord had been waiting for Jasmine. He had been expecting her. It was news of her that had caused this haste.
The suspicion Lief had been fighting ever since they arrived in the Shadowlands reared its head once more, and this time he faced it squarely. Jasmine had a secret—a dangerous secret. She had led them to the Factory. She had refused to escape, when escape was still possible.
He burned to turn his head, to whisper to Jasmine, ask her to explain. But he did not dare. The slightest sound or movement might betray them.
Through a gap in the cloth he could see that the cage was rounding the hill he had seen from the Factory. The Guards panted as they hauled the grating wheels into the curve.
Then, all at once, the road had straightened again. Now it was running right beside the mountains. Ahead was a vast, lighted Arena. There was the sound of a great, murmuring crowd.
‘Faster!’ shouted Tira from behind, her voice sharp with excitement. ‘Stop in the tunnel, 3-19! The Project is to go into the Arena first. Do you hear me?’
‘I am not deaf!’ barked 3-19. ‘Guards! More speed!’
‘We are not deaf either, Ol,’ growled Bak 9.
The cage began to move faster. The noise of the crowd grew louder. Then suddenly the light dimmed, and the cage creaked to a halt. Lief saw dark stone and guessed that they were in the entrance tunnel that led through the walls of the Arena.
He felt a wave of sickness, heard the sound of heavy wheels, and realised that the metal box was being moved past the cage so that it could enter the Arena first.
‘Wait here until you are summoned, 3-19!’ Tira’s voice echoed from somewhere ahead.
‘Is the woman in red the slave Faith?’ 3-19 asked curiously.
Lief felt Jasmine tense.
‘Of course not!’ Tira snapped. ‘She is the way of the future, as I am. The slave is chained below the platform. Perns! Forward!’