All down the corridor people were coming out of the offices, freeing prisoners out of their captivity. Some walked out, some had to be dragged, some were carried and some were pushed but the moment they stepped free of the doorways all of them were elated, free of the terrible curse of the White Tower.
"What in Hel's name do you think you're doing?" The voice was clear and strong in the otherwise deadening silence of the Tower and everyone stopped in their tracks and turned. A middle-aged man in Knight's watchman uniform was standing by the lifts, staring astounded at the scene before him.
"We're ending decades of cruel and unnecessary punishment, what are you doing?" Thursby was defiant.
"I'm putting a stop to this nonsense right now," The Knight Watchman lifted his black staff.
"And how do propose to do that?" Thursby started walking towards him, slowly, and everyone fell into step behind him, the freed prisoners included, so that they now made quite a crowd, filling up the corridor. The Knight Watchman looked at them all, advancing towards him, and wavered. Then he noticed Ridley amongst them.
"Ridley?" he said, astonished.
"Stand down, Sir Edward," she said, in a calm voice, "I'm warning you."
"This is treachery, Mistress Ridley, you'll pay for this."
"No, she won't," said Thursby, "But you might."
"He's the one who arrested me," said a voice, "He put me in here."
"He has to be punished..." said another.
"Lock him up..."
"No!" Ridley rounded on them, "We can't. Stop, all of you, and think. That's how they act - that's what they do: lock people up. I'm a Watchman, aren't I? Are you going to lock me up? If we're going to do this, then we have to be better than them, we have to show we're right."
"Alright, Ridley's right," Thursby was grudging, "But we need to keep an eye on him anyway. Everyone else, let's get a move on, we need to get as many people out as possible."
Two of the prisoners stayed to watch the new Knight Watchman, who turned out to be called Edward Harker. The rest hurried off to rescue more people from their cells. Harker was persuaded to show Maggs were there was a coffee machine and she and Oscar were just fetching coffee for the freed prisoners when Murray came running up to them.
"Maggs," he was breathless, although Oscar couldn't tell whether it was with fear, excitement or simple exercise, "Can you come with me, he's asking for you?"
"Asking for me? Who's asking for me?"
"One of the prisoners," Murray seemed reluctant to say who.
"One of the... who is it?"
"It's..." Murray hesitated and leaned in closer, "It's Hopkins..."
Murray's voice tended to carry, even when he was trying to be quiet and Cuddy, who was passing nearby, stopped dead at the name.
"Hopkins?"
Harker turned, astonished "Hopkins! You're trying to let that madman out? I knew you were fools, but this is beyond foolishness."
"Hopkins?" Harrison looked up from his cup of coffee, "But wasn't he... he was a... a necromancer... I mean, they said..."
"Who said, precisely?" interrupted Murray, "Lord Skelton, perhaps? Did he say he was a traitor, that he practised dark magic, that he was dangerous? Skelton said that you were dangerous, Harrison, and we can all see how right he was about that."
"Murray," Cuddy seemed nervous, "The last thing we need now is someone with a reputation like Hopkins..."
"But he's asking for me," interrupted Maggs, "He must know... have known me - he might know anything - I can't not see him, Cuddy, I have to know..."
"Then this way, Maggs," Murray waved her on after him, "Follow me."
"Oscar, wait here for me," Maggs shot over her shoulder as she trotted after Murray.
Maggs didn't even stop to see whether Oscar was obeying her, so he followed her anyway, and, he noticed, Cuddy followed him.
They trotted down several identical corridors until they came to a corner where the corridors stopped. The walls here were covered with slats of a dun coloured material that Oscar could only assume were some kind of blind or curtain. At the corner, yet another identical office. Inside sat a tall, thin man, whose yellowing skin was drawn tightly over his skull and whose long, bony fingers were white where they gripped his knees. His face, however, was tipped forward and thrown into shadow so that Oscar could barely make out his features.
Murray and Maggs didn't pause but walked straight in and Oscar and Cuddy followed them.
And found himself in the courtyard of a castle. All around them was activity, servants scurrying here and there, cavalry detachments jingling out through an archway, soldiers patrolling the battlements. In front of them was a stone stairway leading up to a pair of huge, ornately carved double doors. Murray started up the stairs and Oscar followed without thinking, bumping into Maggs as he did so. She didn't even look surprised to see him, but instead just snorted a little in disgust and then smiled, as if she was glad he was there after all. No one seemed to be bothered that Cuddy was bringing up the rear.
When they got to the top of the stairs, Oscar noticed that each door had in its centre a carving of Hopkins' face. They were met at the door by a herald in a bottle green velvet coat and extraordinary facial hair, carrying a long black staff with a complicated silver tip to it.
"I have returned to speak with His Majesty," said Murray, raising an eyebrow at Maggs as he spoke.
"His immensity is expecting you," said the herald and ushered them through the door.
Beyond the doors was an enormous hallway whose walls disappeared into shadow above them and whose tiled floor rang under their feet. Halfway down they turned and climbed a carpeted staircase, this one lined with portraits of Hopkins. At the top was another hallway, this one made lumpy and treacherous by the vast number of fine rugs all laid one on top of the other under foot. As the herald led them up a succession of staircases, long and short, spiral and straight, and down a never ending series of hallways, luxurious and thick with decoration, austere and bare, Murray talked to them in a whisper, filling them with Hopkins' story.
"He's got a whole castle in here, a whole country - for all I know, it could be a whole world," Murray was breathless.
"And he rules it all?" Maggs had guessed what was coming next.
"Oh yes, the whole thing," Murray sounded amazed, "The absolute and undisputed ruler. It's quite incredible - when I came before they were having a ceremony in the courtyard, all pomp and circumstance, you know. According to one of the servants they have it everyday: it's a coronation - he gets crowned King every morning. A megalomaniac," Murray barked a short laugh, "Still we shouldn't be surprised, I suppose," he went on, "If you believe half the stories about him: conjuring with Darklings, challenging The Three Wise Lords, he was probably half way crazy before they even put him in here."
"Some might have called him crazy," said Cuddy, "Others might have called it greatness."
"Greatness?" Maggs sounded unconvinced.
"At least he stood up to them," insisted Cuddy, "He didn't just do as he was told, like everyone else."
"Until Skelton got him, that is," interrupted Murray.
"Then lets hope Skelton doesn't get any of us, either," said Maggs.
They had come to another, smaller, pair of double doors, again with Hopkins' face carved into them. The herald threw them open and ushered them in. On the other side was a huge library, with shelves that stretched up to the distant ceiling, filled with books of all shapes and sizes. Only the opposite wall didn't have any books on it and that was because it was, instead, nothing but windows. Standing silhouetted against the windows, so that Oscar could see nothing but a black shape in the glare of the sunlight, was a figure who could only have been Hopkins.
"Maggs, Maggs, is that you...? Have you come?"
"Hopkins... um... I'm not sure..." Maggs began.
"Maggs, I have something..." Hopkins stopped suddenly, his dry, thin voice floating away into nothing, "...I had something... something I had... The King, Maggs, I had to..."
Murray was looking about him at the books on the shelves.
"The Uses of Alchemy..." he whispered, half to himself, half to Oscar, "My Family and Other Monsters... How to Win Fiends and Influence People...Blimey," Murray sounded amazed, "There are books here I've never even heard of..."
"Master Hopkins," said Cuddy, "Do you have something to say to us?"
"I... No!" Hopkins' voice suddenly changed, becoming harsher, "What would I have to do with you?"
"You asked for me," Maggs was bewildered, "I thought you..."
"Listen," interrupted Murray, "This is our moment, Hopkins, we're finally doing it, we're rising up against Skelton and the Wise Lords, we're freeing the prisoners, we're taking over..."
"Congratulations," Hopkins sounded unimpressed, "I offer you best wishes on your venture, but I have a revolution of my own to see to..."
"A revolution of your own?"
"Oh yes," Hopkins was trying to sound light-hearted but there was an edge of hysteria to his voice, "I have to go and organise a revolution. Against myself. Isn't it marvellous? Every morning a coronation, every evening a revolution. You must go now - leave me to my kingdom..." His voice suddenly became serious, "...to my library. Go!"
Hopkins turned on his heel and stalked away into the bright glare of the sun.
"Hopkins..." Maggs called out to him, but the herald had reappeared and was now ushering them back across the room - not towards the door but towards a set of shelves.
"Good luck, and good evening..." Hopkins' voice came floating back across the library as the herald opened the bookshelves and pushed them through, back out into the strip light hum of the White Tower.
Cuddy was shaking his head. "I don't understand it, I just don't."
"I do," Maggs was grim, "It's sent him mad and that's all there is to it."
"Just what I said," agreed Murray.
"Ah, there you are..." it was Thursby, "You better see this: They've arrived."
Thursby led them over to the windows and lifted the curtain to one side. Oscar peered past. They were looking down on a junction where two wide roads met, only you couldn't see the junction any more: all the roads now just disappeared into a thick fog that completely obscured the crossroads. Through it Oscar could vaguely make out the glow of streetlamps and car headlights and the muffled sound of horns being furiously blown. The fog was spreading, too, creeping up the roads and up the side of the buildings, even up the side of the White Tower itself. Greeny grey tendrils of smoke coiled up from it, reaching to them.
There was a black movement on the roof of a theatre opposite but when Oscar looked at it he realised that what he had thought was a raven was nothing of the kind. It was shiny and black and had wings, but that was where the similarity ended. This thing was some kind of reptile, whose scales had a green iridescence, like a beetle. It had a long, strong tail with a barb at the end, which it had wound round a gargoyle. It gripped the edge of the building with two wicked claws and flapped its leathery wings. Then it turned at looked at them, its head narrow and pointed, like a dog's, but covered in curling barbels and curving horns, its teeth sharp and yellow, its eyes like fire.
"Wyverns..." breathed Cuddy.
A figure climbed up onto the roof by the Wyvern and laid a hand on its head. The figure was wearing the uniform of a Knight Watchman.
Something moved on a roof opposite. Another Knight Watchman, another Wyvern.
"Oh yes, they're here, all right," said Thursby - he sounded pleased about the whole thing. "Come on, we better get ready."
Thursby turned and started walking back towards the lifts. The rest of them followed.
"Why's it so foggy down there?" Oscar asked Maggs.
"The fog will hide what happens from the people below - the Knights Watchmen still think they can keep us all a secret - from each other, from the Wild Ride, from the world..."
As they approached the lifts Harrison came running up towards them.
"One of the lifts is coming up!" He was shouting, "Someone's coming!"
"Stay calm," Thursby was firm, "We're an army now - there's nothing we can't deal with, together."
