The Masked City (The Invisible Library #2)(88)
‘Vale!’ Irene screamed, dropping her hold on Kai’s shoulders to reach for him.
Vale spat out sea water. ‘I can manage,’ he gasped, kicking to raise himself in the water and push himself into the carriage. ‘See to Strongrock!’
Irene tugged frantically at Kai. He was a dead weight, his eyes closed and his body limp, but she managed to drag him fully inside the carriage just as Vale finished pulling himself in too. From the corner of her eye, she could see the crowd banging on the platform-side doors. She ignored them. She didn’t think the Train would let them in.
The interior of the Train was silent, and they found themselves in a luxurious carriage, all ivory velvet and fittings, which made their soaked, dishevelled clothes seem even more inappropriate. But the challenge now was to flee this Venice before the Rider, or the Ten - or anyone else - could stop them.
It was time. Irene took a deep breath, rose to her feet and said firmly, ‘Train, Steed, Horse … or whatever I should call you, I am here to free you, so that we can escape together. Show me how.’
A scream shook the carriage, too loud to be human, and Irene clapped her hands to her ears before she belatedly recognized the Train venting steam. The noise settled down to a barely tolerable shudder, the wheels trembling in place, but not quite moving yet as the pistons shook in their housings.
‘Why isn’t it moving?’ Vale demanded. He pushed back wet hair from his face.
‘I don’t think it can, until I’ve freed it,’ Irene said. She looked round for any obvious indications and hoped it wouldn’t involve going outside again.
Vale frowned. ‘What did you try before - telling a story?’
Irene suppressed a moment of irritation at Vale telling her how to use the Language, and nodded, assembling a narrative. Right, that was it. ‘And the princess returned from her quest, with the prince with her,’ well, on the floor, ‘and her knight by her side.’ She couldn’t risk leaving Vale out of the story, in case the Train left him behind. ‘And the princess said to the horse, “Where are your bridle and reins, that I may free you from them?”’
Their carriage door swung open into the corridor. And, with a sigh, Vale swung Kai onto his shoulder again, staggering under the weight.
Irene was first through the door - and it slammed shut behind her, nearly catching her fingertips. She could see Vale and Kai on the other side through the carriage windows, but couldn’t prise open the door, however much she wrenched at the handle. ‘Let them go!‘ she shouted, seeing faces in the darkness behind Vale, on the platform outside the Train.
The humming of the engine steadied into a regular shook-a-shook, a trembling eagerness to depart. Maybe in this story the princess had to free the steed on her own. She’d trusted it so far - she’d just have to keep on trusting it.
With a hopefully reassuring gesture through the window, Irene headed down the corridor.
The door at the end of the passage led into darkness. Not the kind of darkness where you could just about see your way, but total pitch-darkness of the sort that suggested underground abysses or hidden cellars. She didn’t think a demand to turn the lights on would be much help.
With an inward sigh, Irene stepped through.
She was abruptly in the Train’s engine car, which was dark too, but she could now see a little further. It was filled with complex dials and levers, a coal-powered boiler to supply steam and a lot of gleaming oily pistons. She looked around for any obvious clues to take things forward.
There. A heavy silver padlock and chain were fastened around one of the largest levers, holding it in an upright position. It looked more ornamental than functional, something that anyone could easily lift off the handle and remove. But, she reminded herself, the symbolism might be important here. The memory of another chain months ago, and the trap that had been woven into it, made her hesitate. That time she’d been infected with raw chaos, and she’d only survived because Kai had broken her free. He wasn’t here now.
The machinery hummed around her. Then another scream was ripped from the steam whistle, as if - no, she was sure of it - the Train was impatient with the delay. But how was she supposed to protect herself in a high-chaos environment, when anything she might do could infect her with the stuff?
Well, perhaps she might try protecting herself in advance this time …
She scooped up a fingerful of oily grease and hastily scribbled her own name in the Language on the palm of her left hand, then repeated the process on the right. Hopefully defining herself in this way would help keep the chaos out. It had better: she was out of ideas.
‘And the princess saw the horse’s bridle and reins,’ she pronounced, flexing her fingers. The words hummed in her mouth and echoed in the engine car as she spoke them. ‘And she said to the horse, “Now I shall free you from your captivity, and you in turn will help me and those with me to escape.”’
The hum around her rose, throbbing loud enough to hurt her ears. ‘And the princess took the bridle and reins …’ She was having to shout now to hear herself over the sound of the engine. The Language tore at her throat and weighed on her lungs. Her body was moving as she spoke, and she could not, even for the sake of her sanity, be sure if she was moving of her own volition or because the Language was forcing the movements from her.
Her hands closed on the chain, and the bracelets that Silver had given her shattered, flying into fragments and cascading to the floor in a scatter of links. The mask covering her face dissolved, crumbling into dust that clung to her wet skin. She could feel her own name in the Language burning into her skin, but the metal of the chain itself was cold and as normal as anything here could be. ‘And she drew it from the horse’s neck …’ Her arms rose upwards, dragging the chain from where it hung over the metal handle like a noose. For a long moment it seemed to cling to the top of the lever, dragging against it as if unwilling to be released.