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‘This is all rather cloak-and-dagger,’ remarked Nick as he headed down the steps with Hodgeman close behind him.
Hodgeman didn’t answer, but Nick was sure a disapproving glance had fallen on his back. The steps went down quite a long way, equivalent to at least three or four floors. They ended in front of a steel door with a covered spy hole. Hodgeman pressed a tarnished bronze bell button next to the door, and a few seconds later, the spy hole slid open.
‘Sergeant Hodgeman with Mr Nicholas Sayre,’ said Hodgeman.
The door swung open. There was no sign of a person behind it. Just a long, dismal, white-painted concrete corridor stretching off some thirty or forty yards to another steel door. Nick stepped through the doorway, and some slight movement to his right made him look. There was an alcove there, with a desk, a red telephone on it, a chair, and a guard—another plainclothes policeman type like Hodgeman, this time in shirtsleeves, with a revolver worn openly in a shoulder holster. He nodded at Nick but didn’t smile or speak.
‘On to the next door, please,’ said Hodgeman.
Nick nodded back at the guard and continued down the concrete corridor, his footsteps echoing just out of time with Hodgeman’s. He heard behind him the faint ting of a telephone being taken off its cradle and then the low voice of the guard, his words indistinguishable.
The procedure with the spy hole was repeated at the next door. There were two policemen behind this one, in a larger and better-appointed alcove. They had upholstered chairs and a leather-topped desk, though it had clearly seen better days.
Hodgeman nodded at the guards, who nodded back with slow deliberation. Nick smiled but got no smile in return.
‘Through the left door, please,’ said Hodgeman, pointing. There were two doors to choose from, both of unappealing, unmarked steel bordered with lines of knuckle-size rivets.
Hodgeman departed through the right-hand door as Nick pushed the left, but it swung open before he exerted any pressure. There was a much more cheerful room beyond, very much like Nick’s tutor’s study at Sunbere, with four big leather club chairs facing a desk, and off to one side a liquor cabinet with a large, black-enameled radio sitting on top of it. There were three men standing around the cabinet.
The closest was a tall, expensively dressed, vacant-looking man with ridiculous sideburns whom Nick recognized as Dorrance. The second-closest was a fiftyish man in a hearty tweed coat with leather elbow patches. The skin of his thick neck hung over his collar, and his fat face was much too big for the half-moon glasses that perched on his nose. Lurking behind these two was a nondescript, vaguely unhealthy-looking shorter man who wore exactly the same kind of suit as Hodgeman but in a much more untidy way, so he looked nothing like a policeman, serving or otherwise.
‘Ah, here is Mr Nicholas Sayre,’ said Dorrance. He stepped forward, shook Nick’s hand, and ushered him to the centre of the room. ‘I’m Dorrance. Good of you to help us out. This is Professor Lackridge, who looks after all our scientific research.’
The fat-faced man extended his hand and shook Nick’s with little enthusiasm but a crushing grip. Somewhere in the very distant past, Nick surmised, Professor Lackridge must have been a rugby enthusiast. Or perhaps a boxer. Now, sadly, run to fat, but the muscle was still there underneath.
‘And this is Mr Malthan, who is … an independent adviser on Old Kingdom matters.’
Malthan inclined his head and made a faint, repressed gesture with his hands, turning them toward his forehead as if to brush his almost nonexistent hair away. There was something about the action that triggered recognition in Nick.
‘You’re from the Old Kingdom, aren’t you?’ he asked. It was unusual for anyone from the Old Kingdom to be encountered this far south. Very few travelers could get authorisation from both King Touchstone and the Ancelstierran government to cross the Wall and the Perimeter. Even fewer would come any farther south than Bain, which was at least a hundred and eighty miles north. They didn’t like it, as a rule. It didn’t feel right, Sam had always said.
But then, this little man didn’t have the Charter Mark on his forehead, which might make it more bearable for him to be on this side of the Wall. Nick instinctively brushed his dark forelock aside to show his Charter Mark, his fingers running across it. The Mark was quiescent under his touch, showing no sign of its connection to the magical powers of the Old Kingdom.
Malthan clearly saw the Mark, even if the others didn’t. He stepped a little closer to Nick and spoke in a breathy half whine.
‘I’m a trader, out of Belisaere,’ he said. ‘I’ve always done a bit of business with some folks in Bain, as my father did before me, and his father before him. We’ve a Permission from the King, and a Permit from your government. I only come down here every now and then, when I’ve got something special-like that I know Mr Dorrance’s lot will be interested in, same as my old dad did for Mr Dorrance’s granddad—’
‘And we pay very well for what we’re interested in, Mr Malthan,’ Dorrance interrupted him. ‘Don’t we?’
‘Yes, sir, you do. Only I don’t—’
‘Malthan has been very useful,’ interjected Professor Lackridge. ‘Though we must discount many of his, ahem, traveler’s tales. Fortunately he tends to bring us interesting artifacts in addition to his more colorful observations.’
‘I’ve always spoken true,’ said Malthan. ‘As this young man can tell you. He has the Mark and all. He knows.’
‘Yes, the forehead brand of that cult,’ remarked Lackridge, with an uninterested glance at Nick’s forehead, the Mark mostly concealed once more under his floppy forelock. ‘Sociologically interesting, of course. Particularly its regrettable prevalence among our Northern Perimeter Reconnaissance Unit. I trust it is only an affectation in your case, young man? You haven’t gone native on us?’
‘It isn’t just a religious thing,’ Nick said carefully. ‘The Mark is more of a … a connection with … how can I explain … unseen powers. Magic—’
‘Yes, yes. I am sure it seems like magic to you,’ said Lackridge. ‘But the great majority of it is easily explained as mass hallucination, the influence of drugs, hysteria, and so forth. It is the minority of events that defy explanation but leave clear physical effects that we are interested in—such as the explosion at Forwin Mill.’ He looked over his half-moon glasses at Nicholas.
Dorrance looked at him as well, his stare suddenly intense.
‘Our studies there indicate that the blast was roughly equivalent to the detonation of twenty thousand tons of nitrocellulose,’ continued Lackridge. He rapped his knuckles on the desk as he exclaimed, ‘Twenty thousand tons! We know of nothing capable of delivering such explosive force, particularly as the bomb itself was reported to be two metallic hemispheres, each no more than ten feet in diameter. Is that right, Mr Sayre?’
Nick swallowed, his throat moving in a dry gulp. He could feel sweat forming on his forehead and a familiar jangling pain in his right arm and chest.
‘I … I don’t really know,’ he said after several long seconds. ‘I was very ill. Feverish. But it wasn’t a bomb. It was the Destroyer. Not something our science can explain. That was my mistake. I thought I could explain everything under our natural laws, our science. I was wrong.’
‘You’re tired, and clearly still somewhat unwell,’ said Dorrance. His tone was kindly, but the warmth did not reach his eyes. ‘We have many more questions, of course, but they can wait until the morning. Professor, why don’t you show Nicholas around the establishment. Let him get his bearings. Then go back upstairs, and we can all resume life as normal, what? Which reminds me, Nicholas—everything discussed down here is absolutely confidential. Even the existence of this facility must not be mentioned once you return to the main house. Naturally you will see me, Professor Lackridge, and the others at dinner, but in our public roles. Most of the guests have no idea that Department Thirteen lurks beneath their feet, and we want it to remain that way. I trust you won’t have a problem keeping our exi
stence all to yourself?’
‘No, not at all,’ muttered Nick. Inside he was wondering how he could avoid answering questions but still get his pass to cross the Perimeter. Lackridge obviously didn’t believe in Old Kingdom magic, which was no great surprise. After all, Nick had been like that himself. But Dorrance had voiced no such scepticism, nor had he shown it by his body language. Nick definitely did not want to discuss the Destroyer and its nature with anyone who might seriously look into what it was or what had happened at Forwin Mill.
He didn’t want to dabble in anything to do with Old Kingdom magic, especially without proper instruction, even two hundred miles south of the Wall.
‘Follow me, Nicholas,’ said Lackridge. ‘You, too, Malthan. I want to show you something related to those photographic plates you found for us.’
‘I need to catch my train,’ muttered Malthan. ‘My horses … stabled near Bain … the expense … I’m eager to return home.’
‘We’ll pay you a little extra,’ said Dorrance, the tone of his voice making it clear Malthan had no choice. ‘I want Lackridge to see your reaction to one of the artifacts we’ve picked up. I’ll see you at dinner, Nicholas.’
Dorrance shook Nick’s hand in parting, gave a dismissive wave to Lackridge, and ignored Malthan completely. As Dorrance turned back to his desk, Nick noticed a paperweight sitting on top of the wooden in-box. A lump of broken stone, etched with intricate symbols. They did not shine or move about, not so far from the Old Kingdom; but Nick recognized their nature, though he did not know their dormant power or meaning. They were Charter Marks. The stone itself looked as if it had been broken from a greater whole.
