The Dark Flight Down by Marcus Sedgwick Read Free Book Online

coat.
    Willow smiled as he went, took another sip of the drug and put the bottle in her pocket. She found Kepler in the hall, wrestling with a long winter coat. By his feet was a canvas shoulder pack, which he picked up and swung onto his back.
    “Well?” he said.
    “Let’s go, Mr. Kepler,” Willow said brightly, and led the way to the door and out into the snow-swirling night.

The Dungeon
The Place of Deceitful Histories

1
    Boy’s first view of the Imperial Palace of Emperor Frederick III was not welcoming.
    The cart trundled wearily uphill toward the palace walls for ages, but when almost at the gates, turned onto a path that wound back down around the outskirts of the mound on which the walls were built. This path reached an end at a solid iron gate right at the base of the palace hill. Behind it a long, low tunnel led deep into the earth under the palace buildings.
    Boy looked up at the moldy ceiling of the tunnel as the cart was manhandled along it by torchlight, being too small for the horse to make it down. Every now and again the tunnel was pitted by defensive openings, through which arrows or crossbow bolts could be fired should anyone try to attack the palace by this particular route.
    Far above Boy’s head, through the bedrock of the palace hill, perched the magnificent, sprawling splendor of the palace itself, but Boy saw nothing of this. Up in the dark night sky, the palace burned like a precious jewel, torches and lights flaring from every ornate window, picking out a gleam here and there from the gilded dome of the palace chapel, or the spire of the bell tower. The palace was a place of wonder, made to impress the onlooker with the greatness of the imperial line, and to dwarf the ordinary mortal. It had been built over many years, each emperor adding something new, trying to find a way of outdoing his predecessor, with a more elaborate spire, or a more preposterous tower. The result was a vast, heaven-reaching concoction of architectural hallucination, all teetering on a low hill south of the river. The palace faced in on itself; the wonder was not, after all, for the rabble in the City to admire. They were impressed enough by the high walls and battlements that marked its perimeter. The true splendor of the place was only visible from inside; from the Great Court or the Emperor’s Green or the Royal Gardens. Then one could stop and stand and stare openmouthed at the acres of gilded rooftops, copper-topped cupolas and sculpted marble embellishments.
    Much of its finery was presently hidden under several feet of snow, but Boy saw none of it anyway. He was shuffled down the tunnel into a wider, higher space deep underground, where the cart was upended and he, along with all Valerian’s other possessions, fell out onto the cold, unforgiving flagstones.
    He heard the squeak of a door or gates, and then the sound of a heavy lock being secured. Footsteps led away, and then all was quiet.
    Boy tried to wriggle onto his backside, and having achieved this, managed to sit up and lean against the wall.
    All around was blackness. His wrist still hurt from the fall in the house, and he was cold and tired.
    Straining to see anything at all, he suddenly became aware of something.
    A noise.
    It was faint at first, then got a little louder, coming nearer to him. The sound was a shuffling, a scraping, soft but heavy, and with it there seemed to be a low, rasping breathing, like a creature half throttled. But almost as soon as Boy was convinced it was not mere imagination, the sound receded and then disappeared entirely, leaving something else behind. A smell.
    The smell of fresh blood.

2
    Willow and Kepler stood on the doorstep of the Yellow House, and knew something was wrong. Neither of them had a key to the house, but they didn’t need one. The snow on the porch and outside the house was a confused mess of footsteps and the tracks of cartwheels. The door was ajar.
    “Thieves?” whispered Kepler.
    “They could