The Masked City (The Invisible Library 2)

‘No, look there,’ Irene said, pointing, her voice equally low. ‘They’ll be sitting on top of the entrance, just waiting for us to come to them.’

‘It was all too likely,’ Vale agreed. ‘Now, as we planned, Strongrock.’

Kai nodded. Leaving wet footprints behind, he sprinted to the edge of the bridge and threw himself into the lake below in a running dive, vanishing beneath the surface. The water began to swell into a growing wave, sweeping forward and upwards, growing higher with every moment.

The arched length of bridge shook beneath them.

If they went forward, they might be running into an ambush. If they stayed where they were, she and Vale could end up crushed. ‘Stone, hold together!’ Irene shouted as loudly as she could. Her voice wouldn’t carry to the ceiling, but if it could just keep the bridge together for long enough, Kai could deal with the soldiers.

Screams carried over the noise of falling rocks from ahead of them. Beneath Irene’s feet a long crack ran through the bridge, black against the white marble, tracing across it like a child’s scribble. The bridge groaned underneath them in a long roar of fracturing stone, but it stayed in one piece.

Irene and Vale exchanged a glance, then decided that an ambush was the lesser danger. The marble paving was a heaving surface under them as they ran, still holding together but trembling against the forces threatening to shake it apart. It was barely possible to hear anything now, above the shuddering tumble of stone and the screaming wind.

‘Over here!’ Kai roared in a voice almost too loud for human lungs. ‘I’ve cleared our path!’

There was a clear ping as something rang against the marble rail beside Irene. At first she thought it was a fragment of stone, then she recognized it as a bullet. ‘Oh no, he hasn’t,’ she muttered.

‘It may be the best he can do,’ Vale shouted through the wind. He had paused at the sound of the bullet, like her, and was looking around desperately. ‘Winters, there’s no other way out of here, we must risk it. Come on!’

It was quite true. But a Librarian couldn’t speak fast enough to stop a bullet. They were about halfway across, so the considerable remaining length of bridge was downhill, but that wasn’t much help …

Oh yes, it was. ‘Kai, get ready to catch us!’ she screamed. ‘Marble bridge surface, become a hundred times more slippery!’

She launched herself into a desperate skid, and the next tremor tumbled her onto her rear. That only speeded her velocity. Like a child coasting down a hill, she skimmed helplessly and unstoppably down the curve of the bridge, far quicker than if she’d been running. The shuddering stone also pitched her unpredictably from side to side. She hoped that would foil the snipers as she shot forward. From the curses behind her, Vale was just as unable to control his motion, and a scatter of bullets cracked against the stone a few yards behind them.

Kai was standing on the now-ruffled surface of the sunken reservoir, where the end of the bridge met the paving. And he was surrounded by a moving coil of water, which had formed itself into a shield around him. Half a dozen guards were strewn unconscious on the ground, or groaning in the aftermath of being hit by the giant wave. No doubt their gunpowder was as soaked as they were. And twenty yards further on their goal was in sight at last: the metal stairway that had brought them here from Venice, standing upright within the yawning dark chasm that became the Campanile. The metal bridge that spanned that abyss to join the paving lay before them. Kai nodded as he caught sight of them, his posture braced and ready, and as Irene and Vale came skidding towards him, he flung his arms high in the air.

The water came shooting upwards around him, encasing him in a rising pillar of water. Like an unnatural tornado, the water moved upwards towards the far-distant ceiling with a roar that was audible even against the falling stone. Then it stopped, its power harnessed on the edge of breaking. Within its grip, Kai’s hair floated around his head as if blown back by a wind, and the sleeves of his shirt rippled from the strength of the flow. A wave reached out to engulf Irene and Vale, sweeping them off the ice-smooth marble and holding them in its grasp. Those of the soldiers who could move scrambled for cover, abandoning their guns. Irene screamed as the waters boiled up around them and struggled to keep her head above the wave, her skirt a constricting mass around her legs.

‘Get ready!’ Kai’s voice rang in her ears, even through the tumbling water. ‘I’ll be able to control the beginning of the descent down the Campanile, but probably not the end, so hold your breath!’

The thought This is going to hurt stood out in the chaos. She emptied her lungs and then took in as much air as possible, trying to store as much oxygen as she could. She and Vale were several feet off the ground now, being dragged by the waters towards Kai’s water-spout. Hanging above the ground, she felt a new sense of awe. The immense waves Kai had raised were still dwarfed by the immensity of this prison, which was for much larger, much more powerful entities than them. Things that, even if they won free, could scarcely fit down a tiny staircase - she hoped.

The pseudo-tornado’s waters curved in a high arc over the iron bridge, to rest poised above the staircase where they had originally entered the prison. Then it fell down into the chasm, a twisting stream of liquid darkness that centred on the staircase, making the whole structure shudder and thrum as water hit iron. The sound was so loud that Irene raised her hands to cover her ears, trying to block it out. She could imagine the gush of water as it followed the spiral of the staircase. Jets would spout in all directions through the gaps in the panelling, but the main force of it would surge ever downwards. And as the dark shaft around the staircase narrowed and drew back to the dimensions of the Campanile below, there would be even less room for the water to escape. There would be nowhere for it to go, except down and out.

She hoped that anyone in the way had the sense to run.

Then Kai gestured towards her and Vale, and the waters pulled them towards him, like mere straws caught in an undercurrent. She took a last deep breath, her stomach knotting in pure terror, and then the rush of water swept all three of them giddily up through the air within the water-funnel. She was relieved, because if there was air, Kai was keeping them safe as he’d promised. They swung up and over the chasm in a single smooth arc, like an arrow’s flight, and then they plunged down into the stairwell.

At first the momentum was surprisingly smooth. She curled up instinctively, folding her arms over her head and tucking herself into a ball. The light was gone within moments, as the water swept the three of them round the first couple of curves in the stairs. It wasn’t as nauseating as it might have been. It felt more like the guided sliding of a helter-skelter than anything else, and Kai clearly had it under control. She clung to that thought like a talisman. She was going down an extremely high staircase underwater at high speed in the darkness. But she could trust Kai. He has it under control, she repeated to herself.

Then abruptly it was colder, and the water was no longer cradling her, but simply carrying her along like a fragment of straw. We’ve crossed the boundary into Venice, she thought grimly as she held on to the last of her air. Kai can’t function here, so we’ll just have to get through the rest of it.

The water now thumped her into the outer side of the staircase, banging her downwards like flotsam, spinning her round faster and faster. She hit the staircase again, the panelling, the stairs below her and the bottom of the stairs above her. Most of the blows were to her hips or shoulders, and she kept her head tucked in tightly, her breath burning in her lungs. There was no room for thought, just sheer panic as she crashed downwards in the darkness.

Abruptly it spat her out. The gush of water threw her out through the Campanile’s elegant portico and open gates and into the square beyond. Irene tumbled across the paving for several yards before she came to a halt. She lay there in the draining water, still curled up, the parts of her body that had banged into the staircase aching. Cold water washed past her cheek as she gasped for air. Her head was still spinning and she vomited, throwing up the little in her stomach onto the freshly washed stones.

‘Winters!’ Vale was shouting at her, his voice penetrating the general uproar. ‘Over here!’

She looked around, disorientated. It was full night. Lanterns flashed as they swung madly in the wind, and the square was a churning mess. Like her, others were sprawled in the water as the last of it flowed out across the Piazza. It drained into the shops and public buildings that bordered it, or ran over the paving and into the sea beyond. Uniformed guards around the Campanile’s entrance were also struggling to their feet. The size of the crowd suggested a near-mob - or would have, before one added an almighty flood in the near-darkness. It was definitely a mob now. The dim municipal lighting, combined with the masks most people were wearing, turned the scene into a nightmare.

Kai was lying on his face, groaning. Vale, looking battered but mobile, had one of Kai’s arms over his shoulders and was trying to haul him to his feet. It said something about Vale’s own condition that he hadn’t managed it yet. His arm was bleeding again. Irene pulled on her own mask as she staggered across to join them, her joints protesting with every step, and wedged her shoulder under Kai’s other arm. ‘Get - get to the Train,’ she coughed, tasting bile with every word.

‘You need not belabour the obvious, Winters,’ Vale snapped.

‘Get them!’ Lord Guantes shouted from somewhere in the darkness, his voice furious beyond any semblance of control. e reached out to engulf Irene and Vale, sweeping them off the ice-smooth marble and holding them in its grasp. Those of the soldiers who could move scrambled for cover, abandoning their guns. Irene screamed as the waters boiled up around them and struggled to keep her head above the wave, her skirt a constricting mass around her legs.

‘Get ready!’ Kai’s voice rang in her ears, even through the tumbling water. ‘I’ll be able to control the beginning of the descent down the Campanile, but probably not the end, so hold your breath!’