The Dark Flight Down by Marcus Sedgwick Page B

and beautiful family they were. So beautiful.”
    Suddenly footsteps sounded along the corridor outside the dungeon.
    “They’re coming to take you!” Boy whispered. “To let you out! You won’t forget about Willow, will you? And the book?”
    “I will have nothing to do with that book. I refuse.”
    “But it is my only chance. . . .”
    “If that is your only chance, you have no chance,” Bedrich said. “But I will find the girl. Willow.”
    The door began to rattle and creak open.
    “All right,” said Boy, “all right. But quick! Tell me what happened to the Beebes. What happened to the book’s prediction?”
    The jailer approached. This time two flunkeys accompanied him.
    “Tell me,” whispered Boy. “What happened?”
    Bedrich shook his head.
    “It was not to be,” he said. “The prediction was . . . awry. The Beebes were disgraced. The emperor blamed them for what had happened. Stripped them of almost everything. The book ruined them. It will ruin you too, if you let it.”
    The jailer was at the cells.
    “Getting friendly, are we?” he said, blankly. “That’s a shame. Time for you to go.”
    Bedrich stood up. Boy could feel the tension, the anxiety in him. After so long, to be nearly free was almost too much.
    But the jailer walked to Boy’s cell and stuck his key in that lock instead.
    “You,” he said. “You’re to go with these men. Any trouble and you’ll be back down here before you can breathe.”
    Boy didn’t move.
    “But what about me?” Bedrich said.
    The two men moved into Boy’s cell and started to walk him out of the dungeon.
    “Maxim’s coming to see to you,” the jailer said to Bedrich.
    “To set me free?” Bedrich cried, desperately. “He’s coming to set me free?”
    As he was taken away, Boy looked back at Bedrich.
    “Bedrich . . . ,” he began, but there was nothing to say, and he was roughly dragged forward.
    The door swung shut behind him, and he heard Bedrich call out to the jailer.
    “He’s going to let me out—isn’t he?”
    The echoes of his voice were cut short by the door clanging back into its iron frame.
    “Right,” said one of the men to Boy. “Upstairs with you. One stupid move and I’ll break your neck.”
    Bedrich sat down on the cold stone floor of the cell. His gilded cage had been taken from him, and the promise of release too. His head was so full of this misery that he didn’t even notice a small spyhole swinging shut in the ceiling just above his head.

The Palace
The Place of Treacherous Artifice

1
    Boy was hurried through the dark and twisting corridors of the dungeons once more, so cramped in places that even he, with his skinny frame, was forced to hunch up. One of the men walked in front, the other behind, prodding him in the back if he showed any signs of dawdling.
    But Boy had no wish to dawdle. After one twist they came to a section of passage that Boy realized he knew. Just as in his dream, he was walking down the passage that went past the top of the steep and foul stairway down to nothingness. The smell rushed toward him, like a beast itself, assaulting his senses. He hesitated, and felt another shove in his back. Boy forced one foot after the other, and the opening to the passageway drew closer, until, holding his hand to his mouth and nose, he saw with relief that unlike in his dream, the iron gate across the opening was shut.
    His captors seemed to be hurrying too.
    “Is that—” he began, but was shoved again.
    He stood his ground, and turned to face the man behind him.
    “Is that where it lives?”
    The man seemed taken aback.
    “Is that where it lives?” Boy asked again.
    “You shouldn’t know anything about that,” the guard said. Boy failed to read the meaning in his voice. Was it fear? Or surprise? It certainly wasn’t anger. Boy had expected to be hit for his question, but no blow came.
    The other guard had now noticed that Boy had stopped and rushed back to see what was going on.
    He grabbed Boy by