"You remember what I was telling you earlier about the Magi keeping secrets from each other?" They were standing on a windy hillside looking up at the dark building from the photograph. Even though it was surrounded by suburbs and University buildings there was something indescribably lonely about the hilltop. The grass was grey and sickly and what trees there were huddled close to ground in scrubby clumps and their lefless branches were festooned with ragged plastic bags.
The building squatted in the middle of all this like a large child's toy that had been left in the garden to get mouldy and weather stained. Even in shape it was like a toy, a simplified sketch of a castle, lumpy and shapeless with four squat towers and worn down nubs of battlements. Oscar could see it wasn't a real old castle, though - it was made of dark grey concrete and had a television aerial on the roof.
"I think this place might be one of those secrets." Ridley walked away and peered round the corner of the building.
"I haven't seen anything that looks like a door in, have you?"
"No," Oscar admitted.
"I suspect the roof is probably the best bet," she has walked back towards him and now held out her hand, "Here, take my hand."
Oscar took hold of her hand and immediately felt himself being pulled upwards. Ridley seemed to be stepping up through the air, as if she was on some kind of invisible escalator, climbing non-existant steps but rising faster than she was stepping. Oscar found himself being pulled easily up behind her, rising up towards the top of the tower. As they drew level with the top, Oscar could see that the roof was flat and largely featureless, apart from a couple of large puddles and some odd little bumps and hollows.
Ridley stepped down onto the roof and neatly swung Oscar down after her. To Oscar's surprise he heard a small thump and found the black cat winding itself around his legs again. He was sure that Ridley hadn't carried it up with her, but had it just jumped all the way up here on its own?
Ridley was already pacing about the empty expanse of roof, stopping here and there to examine any odd bulges or dips. The cat set off after her, sniffing at her tracks. Oscar followed.
"It's more of a tradition really, these days," Ridley was saying, "But everyone does it. Even I've got a little garret no one knows about. It comes from the old days, before the Royal Order, when Magi kept their methods and knowledge secret - and key to keeping those things secret was keeping where you kept them secret, if you see what I mean - your laboratory, your house, your... tower. Every Magi has one - a secret tower - a place that no one else knows about, where they can come and work without being disturbed. And I suspect that this here 'mysterious castle' is, in fact, Maggs' tower."
"You mean Maggs used to live here?"
"I mean I think she probably still does, technically, it's just that, like everything else, she's forgotten it. But someone knows now - Hopkins must have worked out that Maggs came from York and he... they, I suppose, him and the Erl King, must have discovered that the family were..." She suddenly stopped and looked up at Oscar, "You have to know, I'm afraid, you ought to... the people in that house, they were a family, I think... I think they were Maggs' family... you see... he killed them, Oscar, the Erl King, your... your Uncle... he killed everyone in that house. I'm sorry."
Ridley stood, looking at him, her hands hanging by her sides, her face sad and lost. Oscar didn't know what to think. He couldn't quite figure it out, put it together. He tried to remember his Uncle's face in the Great Hall, when he had tried to stop Cuddy and even later when they had unmasked him. He tried to see there the face of a madman and a murderer, but somehow he couldn't. The face of his Uncle Rufus kept getting in the way. He just couldn't, literally couldn't - was not able to - believe it. The black cat wound itself round his ankles in a reassuring manner. Unable to think of anything else he could do, he walked up and took Ridley's hand.
"We better stop him, then, shouldn't we?"
She looked down at him, solemnly, "Yes, yes we should. Here - I think there might be something here."
She bent down where she had been standing and tugged at a piece of pipe sticking out from the plain grey of the roof. To Oscar's amazement a line appeared in the asphalt, then three, making three sides of a wide square. Then the side Ridley was pulling lifted up and he saw that it was a trapdoor. Ridley swung it all the way up and flung it back so that the dark entrance gaped open before them. They peered down into the shadows. Oscar could just about make out some stairs leading down out of sight. It was far darker in there than it ought to be.
"Why wasn't it locked?" he asked.
"Magi don't need locks," said Ridley, grinning, "Their belongings have ways of protecting themselves. Ready?" And without waiting for an answer she stepped down into the darkness.
Inside, the steps led down into shadow. The light from the trapdoor faded far quicker than seemed normal, but Oscar realised that it was not completely dark. The walls were panelled with solid, dark wood but dotted all over them and the ceiling were small points of bluish light, each one of which was far too faint to make any difference on its own, but all together they spread a sort of dim twilight, letting them at least vaguely make out where they were going. When he looked at the lights more closely Oscar discovered that they were little bugs, something like bumblebees, crawling slowly over the walls, their bodies glowing feebly. Every so often one of them would take off and float gently and aimlessly through the air around them. The corridor was full of these wandering sparks. It was a magical place, something like waking through a teeming galaxy full of tiny dim stars, as confusing as it was illuminating. The cat seemed to find them extremely entertaining.
"Emberbees," said Ridley, who didn't seem quite as impressed with them as Oscar, "Not the most efficient lighting system. Wait."
She held up her hand and stopped, cocking her head to listen. Oscar stood quite still in the deathly silence, straining to listen. His attention was caught by a picture on the wall. It was a drawing of a view of York Minster, but he could just make out, in the background, an immensely tall man leaning against a buttress with his arms folded. Oscar got the definite impression that the man was glowering out the picture right at him. Oscar jumped. From somewhere far below came the distinct sound of something being knocked over and glass smashing.
"Someone else is in here," said Ridley, "Either that or some of the furniture isn't too pleased to have visitors. Come on."
Ridley snatched out her hand and grabbed an Emberbee out of the air. She passed her black rod over her closed fist, muttering something under her breath. The light leaking out from between her fingers grew stronger and warmer. She opened her hand and a fierce orange glow staggered out. It shook itself and then started off down the corridor in front of them, much brighter than before. Ridley, Oscar and the cat followed at a jog.
They trotted down the corridor to a junction. Ridley listened for a moment and then turned left. After a few moments the corridor turned right and then right again, so they were now going in exactly the opposite direction. They came to another junction. Ridley chose carefully again. The corridor seemed to go on forever - there were no doors or windows, just endless panelled corridor, lined with pictures, turning and meeting, back and forth in the shadowy, drifting dark, round and around in a bewildering maze. Ridley stopped suddenly and Oscar ran into her. This part of corridor seemed dimmer than the others - there were fewer Emberbees here.
"It's trying to lose us, confuse us..."
"It's working," said Oscar. Then, suddenly, he jumped as a sharp knife of fear thrilled through him, drilling him to the spot. Ridley reached over and grabbed his arm.
"It's him!" she hissed, "Isn't it? It's the Erl King!"
Oscar nodded, dumbly, suddenly feeling sick as that now familiar sense of dread that accompanied the Erl King everywhere became to seep over him. All around them the Emberbees were starting to go out and the shadows were creeping in, but Ridley ran on, heedless of the gathering darkness, and Oscar scrambled after her, suddenly panicking that she would leave him alone here in the darkness. But the little black cat came scampering up between his legs, turning to look at him as she passed, her eyes flashing in the darkness, beckoning him on.
They chased helter-skelter through the endlessly dividing corridors. It was a confusing pursuit - impossible to keep track of. Blundering through the shadows with Emberbees swirling around them, unable to concentrate because of the fear that the Erl King spread in his wake, they ran down the endless wood panelled corridors after the cat, barely aware of where they were going and what they were doing.
Suddenly Ridley pulled up sharply, but this time Oscar didn't run into her. He had stopped in his tracks, too, frozen there by a sudden wave of panic - they were lost! They had come too far, run down into the heart of the tower and now they would never escape: it would wind its labyrinth around them, tightening its grip like a spider wrapping up its prey. They would wander forever in these dim, sparking passageways, first going mad and then fading away entirely, becoming nothing more than anxious whispers in the darkness, forever searching, never finding, eternally lost in Maggs' castle...
Of course: Maggs! She had been behind all this, right from the beginning! She had tricked Oscar into following her, she had spurred on Thursby and Cuddy, humiliated first Ridley and then Skelton... it all made sense now. She must have faked her loss of powers, she must have been planning this all for years and years, moving all her pieces into place, master minding this great coup to finally put herself in power and crush her enemies: It was Maggs! She was the evil genius, she was the mysterious power behind it all, she was the Erl King, she was... nothing of the kind!
What on Earth was going on? How could he be thinking such things about Maggs? It was ridiculous! Oscar reached out and grabbed hold of Ridley as she stumbled along through the darkness ahead of him.
"Ridley, wait, something's up... I've been thinking... mad things... about Maggs"
"It's... it's the Erl King... the fear..."
"No, no, you don't understand - it's different... this is different to before - that was other things... things I was already afraid of... this is... this is made up stuff..."
"You're getting confused... it's getting stronger... we've almost got him..."
"What if something's got us?"
"Here!"
Before Oscar could stop her, Ridley threw herself sideways against the wall. As she hit it, a section of the panels swung away in front of her and she plunged through into the darkness beyond. Her flailing arms caught Oscar and he tripped after her, falling into the shadows.
