AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A hand took hold of my shoulder.
Oh, no. What was that stupid password? Qua thingummy thingsitis. “Is that you, Gideon?” I whispered.
“Who else?” he whispered back, and let go of my shoulder. “Well done, you didn’t fall over!” A match flared, and next moment, the room was lit by a burning torch.
“Cool. Did you bring that with you?”
“No, it was here already. Hold it for a moment.”
When I took the torch, I was glad I wasn’t wearing that ridiculous hat. The huge nodding feathers on it would have caught fire in no time at all, and then I’d have been a pretty, blazing torch myself.
“Hush,” said Gideon, although I hadn’t so much as squeaked. He had unlocked the door. (Had he brought the key with him, or had it already been in the lock? I hadn’t been watching.) Then he peered cautiously out into the corridor. Everything was pitch-dark.
“This place smells kind of like something decaying,” I said.
“Nonsense. Come along!” Gideon closed the door behind us, took the torch from me again, and went down the dark corridor. I followed him.
“Aren’t you going to blindfold me again?” I asked, only half joking.
“It’s dark, you’d never remember the way,” replied Gideon. “One more reason to stick close to me. We have to be back down here in three hours’ time.”
One more reason for me to know my way around. How was I going to manage if anything happened to Gideon, or if we were separated? I didn’t think it was such a great idea not to let me know anything. But I bit back the words on the tip of my tongue. I didn’t want to pick an argument with Mr. High and Mighty just now.
It smelled musty, far worse than in our own time. What year had we traveled back to again?
The smell really was pungent, as if something was decomposing down here. For some reason, I suddenly thought of rats. In films, long, dark, torchlit corridors always had rats in them! Hideous black rats with their beady little eyes glowing in the dark. Or dead rats. Oh, yeah, and spiders. There were always spiders in this kind of place. I tried not to touch the walls and pushed the thought of fat spiders clinging to the hem of my dress and slowly crawling up my bare legs out of my mind.
Instead, I counted the footsteps to every bend in the corridor. After forty-four steps, we turned right, after fifty-five, we turned left, then left again, and we reached a spiral staircase leading up. I held my skirt up as high as I could so as to keep up with Gideon. There was a light somewhere up there, getting brighter as we climbed, until finally we were in a broad corridor with many lighted torches along its walls. There was a large door at the end of the corridor, with two suits of armor standing on either side of it. They were just as rusty as in our own time.
Luckily I didn’t see any rats, but all the same I had a sinking feeling that we were being watched, and the closer to the door we came, the stronger that feeling was. I looked around, but the corridor was empty.
When one of the suits of armor suddenly moved its arm and pointed a dangerous-looking spear or whatever it was at us, I froze, gasping for air. Now I knew who’d been watching us.
The suit of armor also, and totally unnecessarily, said, “Stop!” in a tinny voice.
I felt like screaming with terror, but once again not a sound would come out of my mouth. Pretty soon I realized it wasn’t the suit of armor that had moved and spoken but whoever was inside it. The other suit of armor also seemed to be inhabited.
“We have to speak to the Master,” said Gideon. “On urgent business.”
“Password,” said the second suit of armor.
“Qua redit nescitis,” said Gideon.
Oh, yes—that was it. For a moment I was genuinely impressed. He’d actually remembered it.
“You may pass,” said the first suit of armor, and it even held the door open for us.
There was another corridor beyond it, also lit by torches. Gideon stuck our torch in a holder on the wall and hurried on. I followed as fast as my hooped skirt would let me. By now I was out of breath.
“This is like a horror film. My heart almost stopped. I thought those things were just for decoration! I mean, suits of armor aren’t exactly modern in the eighteenth century, are they? And not much use either, if you ask me.”
“It’s a tradition for the men on guard to wear them,” said Gideon. “They do in our time as well.”
“But I haven’t seen any knights in armor in our time,” I said. Then it occurred to me that maybe I had seen some after all. Maybe I’d just thought they were empty suits of armor.
“Get a move on,” said Gideon.
Easy for him to say. He wasn’t carrying a skirt the size of a tent around with him.
