Peter and the Sword of Mercy (47 page)

W
HOLE
A
GAIN

H
ERDED BY A HALF-DOZEN GUARDS
, James and the other three prisoners followed the Skeleton down the familiar tunnel to the excavation site. James noted the two black cables running along the ground; he had not seen them before.

They passed the cells that held George and Molly. The Skeleton led them into the last chamber. The prisoners knew it well; they had excavated it themselves, at the cost of much sweat, exhaustion, and pain. The chamber was considerably larger than the rest of the tunnel, its ceiling ten feet high, braced by beams and planks.

Von Schatten stood with his lackey Revile next to a workbench that had been set up at the center of the room. Next to them was the Skeleton’s assistant, Scarlet Johns; next to her were his henchmen, Coben and Mauch. The two men were kneeling on the ground near the bench, doing something with the ends of the two black cables; both wore rubber gloves. James noted that both also had ugly deep scratches on their faces and arms, as though they had been attacked by an animal.

At the far end of the chamber was the strange vault that had been the apparent goal of the excavation project. It was a massive thing, its front face eight feet square. It was made of a mysterious metal, smooth and silvery, creating an odd sensation of warmth when touched. Neither rocks nor shovels scratched it. The face of the vault had a seam running around the perimeter a foot from the edge, forming what appeared to be a tight-fitting square door, although there were no visible hinges. In the center of this door was a vertical slot about three inches long.

When the vault was first uncovered, James and the others had watched as the guards had tried for hours, using crowbars, hammers, chisels, and other tools, to open it. Their efforts had been utterly futile; the vault’s gleaming surface was unmarked, the door still precisely in place.

Next to the vault stood a sturdy-looking dolly with a flat bed and four thick rubber tires. James assumed this would be used to transport something—presumably something that was now inside the vault. Something heavy. He further assumed that he and the other prisoners had been brought to the chamber to play some role in this process. But how did they intend to open the vault? His eyes went back to the workbench.

On it lay a sword, its handle golden, its blade shining. The tip was missing.

Next to the sword, on a blue velvet cushion, was what appeared to be the tip. Next to it, gleaming in the electric light, was a lump of silvery metal.

Von Schatten was examining these objects when the Skeleton approached. He pointed to the silvery metal and said, “You are certain this will work?”

“Miss Johns is the authority,” said the Skeleton, gesturing toward Scarlet. Von Schatten turned to her.

“All my research suggests it is heavenstone,” she said. “It should work.”

“It had better,” said von Schatten. He turned back to the Skeleton. “And these prisoners?”

“They will retrieve the chest,” said the Skeleton.

Von Schatten examined them, his gaze lingering for a moment on James. James felt the familiar, awful coldness creeping into him.

“Appropriate,” said von Schatten, “that you should be here to witness this.” Then he turned toward the Skeleton and said, “Get on with it.”

“Are you ready?” the Skeleton rasped to Mauch and Coben.

“We are,” said Coben. He and Mauch put on leather welding goggles with thick dark lenses. Then they bent and, with rubber-gloved hands, carefully picked up the black cables. The rubber insulation had been peeled back from the ends of the cables, revealing thick copper wires. Affixed to the end of each wire was a metal clamp. Keeping the clamps well apart, Mauch and Coben approached the workbench. Mauch carefully attached his clamp to the middle of the sword blade. When it was in place, he lifted the sword tip from its velvet cushion and positioned it at the end of the blade, fitting the two broken edges together. He stepped back.

Coben picked up the piece of silvery heavenstone, studied it for a moment, then attached the clamp to one end. Holding the clamp, he announced to the chamber, “If you don’t want to be blinded, you’ll want to look away.”

Everyone turned away except the two goggled men and von Schatten, who kept his dark lenses fixed on the sword.

Coben bent over the bench and slowly brought the heavenstone down directly over the crack between sword and tip. With a sharp buzzing sound and a brilliant burst of light, electricity arced across the gap, almost instantly heating both to more than 6,000 degrees. The lower end of the stone melted, and the molten metal flowed down along the arc, fusing sword and tip together. It was done in seconds. Coben pulled the stone away; the arc stopped instantly, leaving an acrid smell in the air.

Mauch detached the clamp from the sword; he and Coben set the cables down on the dirt floor, keeping them well apart.

“May I lift it?” asked von Schatten.

“By the handle, yes,” answered Coben. “The blade is still hot.”

Von Schatten grasped the handle and lifted the sword so it gleamed in the light. The weld was perfect, the seam barely visible.

The Sword of Mercy, broken for so many centuries, was whole again.

Holding it in front of him, von Schatten turned toward the vault.

T
HE
W
OMAN
L
OOKING
B
ACK

K
ARL, PADDING ALONG JUST BEHIND
Magill in the tunnel, emitted a low growl. Magill stopped and signaled for the others to wait. He then crept ahead, disappearing into the darkness past the next dangling light. Several minutes passed, and he returned.

“Men ahead, in a locked cell. Two guards. We took care of them.”

They moved forward, walking past the guards, who lay bound and gagged next to the tunnel wall. They arrived at the cell, little more than a cramped cage. Seven filthy, haggard men huddled together on the dirt floor eyeing the visitors warily, saying nothing.

“Who are you?” said Patrick.

No response.

“Who is keeping you prisoner?”

Still no response. Patrick turned to the others. “They’re too weak or too scared to answer,” he said. “We’ll have to tend to them later. We need to move on.”

“Agreed,” said Ted.

“Can’t we at least let them out?” said Wendy.

Magill examined the lock, then the bars. “Might be able to,” he said. “But we’d have to pull this wall out, and that might collapse the tunnel.”

“Wendy, we’ll get them out,” said Patrick. “But for now we need to keep going.”

They started forward again. After about a hundred feet, Karl growled again, and the group stopped. Magill crept forward to check, returning quickly.

“A woman,” he said.

Before anyone could stop her, Wendy had brushed past the others and was running ahead.

“Wait!” called Ted. But Wendy wasn’t listening. Reaching the cell door, she grabbed the bars and pressed her face against them. She gasped at what she saw—a gaunt, dirt-smeared face, framed by filthy, matted hair. Wendy would not have recognized the woman looking back at her except for the brilliant green eyes—eyes identical to her own.

“Mother!” she cried, reaching through the bars.

“Wendy! Oh, Wendy,” sobbed Molly, grabbing her daughter’s hands and clinging to them to keep from collapsing to her cell floor. “But how…how did you …”

“There’s a group of us,” said Wendy. “Peter is here.”

“Peter?”
said Molly.

Peter’s head appeared in the window next to Wendy’s.

“Peter!” Molly exclaimed. “Oh my…It’s been so long!”

“Hello, Molly,” said Peter, hoping his expression didn’t betray his shock at Molly’s appearance.

Molly peered through the bars at the others. She knew Ted and Neville, and vaguely remembered Magill. Ted introduced her to Patrick. Surveying the group, she said, “But…what are you all doing here?”

Wendy quickly explained the group’s search for the starstuff Cache, and how their visit to Westminster Abbey had led them to the Underground and the secret tunnel. Molly listened intently, occasionally interrupting with questions.

When Wendy was finished, Molly said, “Von Schatten is going after the starstuff tonight. They’ve gathered farther down the tunnel, the whole lot of them. They’ve got James.”

“James!” said Peter.

“Yes,” said Molly. “He’s one of the prisoners they’ve been using to dig the tunnel.”

There was an insistent tapping sound from farther on in the tunnel. Hearing it, Molly said to Wendy, “That’s your father. He’s in the next cell, that way. Go and see him, but come back. We’ve got to make a plan.”

Wendy dashed down the tunnel and found her father. His condition was as shocking as her mother’s had been: The strapping, well-dressed George Darling was now a skeleton of a man in rags, his face covered by a thick beard. Tears spilled from his eyes as he held her hands through the bars.

“Wendy,” he said, his voice breaking, “I’m so sorry to have doubted you. Can you ever forgive me?”

“Oh, Father …” began Wendy, but when she tried to say more her words turned into sobs. For a few moments they simply clung to each other through the bars. Then, willing herself to be strong, Wendy wiped her tears and, as quickly as she could, explained the situation to her father, as she had for her mother. When she’d finished, she said, “We’re making a plan. I’ll be back in a moment.” Reluctantly, her father released her hands, and she ran back to the others, who were deep in discussion.

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

It was Peter who answered. “We’re going to go down the tunnel and try to stop them,” he said.

“How?” said Wendy.

Peter looked around at the others, then said, “We’re going to figure that part out when we get there.”

“Neatly summarized,” said Patrick.

“What about my parents?” said Wendy. “We’ve got to get them out.”

There was an uncomfortable pause, then Molly said, “That will have to wait for the moment, Wendy.”

“But why?” said Wendy.

“We’ve no key, for one thing,” said Magill, pointing to the lock on the cell door.

“Karl could pull the door off its hinges!” protested Wendy.

“Indeed he could,” said Magill. “The problem is, your mum and dad have been weakening the tunnel walls.” He pointed to the support post next to Molly’s cell door. “If we pull their doors out, the tunnel will collapse.”

“We were planning to bring it down tonight,” said Molly. “We were going to wait until von Schatten was coming back out.”

“But it would collapse on you, too!” said Wendy.

Her mother said nothing, and suddenly Wendy understood that her parents had been planning to sacrifice themselves to stop von Schatten.

“No!” she cried. “You can’t! You—”

She was silenced by the massive right hand of Magill, clamped over her mouth.

“Not so loud,” he said, politely. “All right?” Wendy nodded, and he released her.

“You can’t…” she began again, but Molly—now in the role of mother—raised her hand, and Wendy stopped instantly.