Oscar had gone off the whole "let's set a trap for the Wild Ride using someone as bait" plan when Maggs had been snatched away. He was no keener on it now that he was standing on the stage of the Great Hall with Cuddy and Murray, being the bait once again.
He might have felt better about it if Ridley had been with them, but she was out there in the Temple with a group of volunteers, trying to drive the Erl King towards them and into their trap.
He knew that there Magi hiding all around them, outside the hall, ready to come storming in at the first sign of danger, but it was the thought of what might happen in those few brief moments before the storming started that gave him pause.
It was then that Oscar realised that it wasn't just him, Cuddy and Murray in the hall. There, coming down one of the aisles through the shadows, was the little black cat. Oscar suddenly realised that the cat hadn't been with them all through their adventures in the British Museum and he wondered what it had been up to.
It jumped up onto the stage and sauntered over to him and wrapped itself round his legs, purring. Once again he immediately felt a little braver. After all it had been the black cat that had helped him face the Wild Ride last time, perhaps he could do it again, if it stayed with him this time, too.
The silence in the Great Hall was astonishing; especially given the uproar it had been filled with last time he had been in here. Now he could even hear the faint sounds of traffic from outside of the Temple and Murray's uneven footsteps as he limped back and forth across the stage. He had wanted to go with Ridley but she had worried that his injured leg would slow him down and he had been flattered by her suggestion that they needed someone trained to wait with Cuddy and Oscar.
Now he was evidently anxious for the action to start, which made him, Oscar reflected, the only one who was. Cuddy looked as bad as Oscar felt, almost green around the edges, staring blankly around him with a slack-jawed terror.
Cuddy seemed to come to himself suddenly and opened his mouth to speak, when Murray held his hand up.
"Hear that?"
They all listened. Was that someone shouting, somewhere away in the distance? Then a dog barked, two loud, deep, belling barks that echoed down through the empty corridors of the Temple.
"A Wish Hound," said Murray.
There was, somewhere, the sound of running feet and incoherent shouting and then someone screamed, a wild, terrified scream that was cut off suddenly in the middle.
Cuddy jumped like a fish on a line and turned around wildly, as if trying to decide which route to take to escape.
"My Lord..." Murray took hold of Cuddy's arm in a manner that was anything but deferential, "I'm listening..."
"Let go... let go of me..." Cuddy's voice was faint and he plucked ineffectually at Murray's hand.
There was more running, more barking, a shout away in the distance, then close by, but on the other side of the building - then somewhere low down, away to the right, echoing in a stairwell, and then clearly, through one of the high windows, as if coming down to them from the roofs, they heard Ridley's voice, clear and commanding:
"To the north - the kitchens! We have to stop him getting to the Great Hall - at all costs! He mustn't get in there!"
"No," whispered Cuddy, "Yes, keep him away... don't let him in here..."
"Clever," hissed Murray, he was talking to Oscar, completely ignoring Cuddy "A bluff, you see: She's hoping the Erl King will do the opposite..."
There was a sound of feet on tiles and then Ridley's voice came again, further away now and somewhere lower. Oscar strained to hear what she was saying and glanced across at Murray to see if he could hear, but Murray didn't seem to be listening. He was looking up at the ceiling and his mouth was hanging open.
Oscar didn't want to look up but he couldn't help himself. It was dark and shadowy there, above the hanging lights and dusty chandeliers, but there seemed to be something moving in the darkness, a knot of blacker shadow that tensed to and fro across the ceiling like a great spider.
And then that terrible feeling came stealing over him again, the feeling he recognised from earlier, the panic and the fear rising in his throat. He felt suddenly cold and as much as he didn't want to watch, he couldn't stop, as the dark shape on the ceiling suddenly turned its blank, white face towards them and then dropped, straight down out of the darkness, into the pit of the Great Hall.
It dropped horribly, agonisingly, slowly, its long coat flapping about it, its arms outspread, and the shadows seemed to drop with it, gathering about it like a cloak as the Hall became dimmer and dimmer.
Oscar's brain was suddenly full once more of frightening thoughts - he thought of his godfather all alone in his study, of his parents and brother at home, of Maggs, defenceless in the museum, of fire and of ice, and stone walls and dark dungeons.
He tried to shout out to Murray but somehow he couldn't make any noise, he tried to move but he couldn't. He realised that he was completely frozen to the spot, half by fear and half by magic, as the room grew dimmer around him and the Erl King dropped out of sight into the orchestra pit below the stage.
This was far worse than before, worse than any of the attacks by the Wild Ride - then he had been scared, but this was more like being caught up in something, being picked up by a great wave of fear and darkness and carried along, no longer able to control where you went or what was happening to you as you were swept along, swept along to some terrible end.
The darkness seemed to well out of the orchestra pit, up over the lip of the stage as the Erl King rose up to their level, his awful white face luminous in the dim light.
Oscar could see that Murray was trying to shout for the others, dragging a collapsed Cuddy after him as he tried to spring the trap, but a suffocating, muffled hush had wrapped itself around them, as if the shadows were soaking up all the sound. Everything seemed to be happening with an agonising, glacial silence.
The Erl King stepped onto the stage, advancing evenly, inexorably, towards Cuddy, when something bumped against Oscar's leg. Before he knew what had happened, the shock of the touch made him jump in fright and stumble forwards, tripping over the black cat - for that's what had brushed against him - pitching him directly towards the Erl King.
The tall, thin figure turned with a surprising speed and, equally quickly, suddenly reared back away from him, stumbling backwards itself now, back towards the edge of the stage. The shadows seemed to recoil too, rushing in around him like the gathering up of cloth.
Suddenly there was a feeling as his ears had popped and all the outside sounds came rushing in at him and he fell backwards, staggering up against the wooden panelling at the back of the stage.
He turned and hammered on it desperately, unable to think of anything else to do.
"Quick! Quick!" he shouted, "He's here! He's here! Quick! Quick!"
The Erl King started towards him, as a secret door in the panelling banged open and a gang of Magi came tumbling through, all on top of each other, spilling out onto the stage.
The Erl King recoiled again, caught off guard once more and turned away, back towards the front of the stage, the shadows rushing in to cover him.
And then all the doors were open and Magi were rushing through, all shouting, and every chair in the Hall, in one movement, suddenly reared up on its back legs and came galloping down the aisles towards the stage.
The shadows around the Erl King seemed to bunch together into a column and through them Oscar could see the thin red figure start to climb upwards, stepping up through the air towards the ceiling.
At this the chandeliers above stretched out their great, glowing arms and reached down through the shadows towards him on great tentacles of chain. At their touch, the shadows boiled away into nothing and, wrapped about in light and fire, the figure fell back onto the stage.
Murray was suddenly beside Oscar, grabbing him out of the way as the Erl King hauled himself to his feet, clawing at the fierce chains around him, thick ends of shadow trying to extinguish the glaring lights.
And Murray dragged Oscar from the stage as the first wave of chairs, conjured into life by the Magi, leapt up past them and were instantly flung back again as the Erl King screamed a terrible, unearthly scream of rage.
But the next row of chairs were on him before the first had even landed, and then the third and fourth. Magi scrambled for cover as chairs flew to and fro, and the Erl King struggled to throw them off, crashing back and forth across the stage from end to end.
Then Oscar suddenly realised that Ridley had arrived and was standing next to them, speaking in a high, clear, incomprehensible voice, with other Knights Watchmen joining her in her incantation. And, as Oscar followed their gestures upwards, he saw the great, glittering figures of the stained glass above the back of the stage detach themselves from their leading and leap down onto the stage. Now four, now five of them - gentlemen in ceremonial robes and long white wigs, knights in armour with thin swords of glass and the dragon, completely white but for its shining golden eyes.
All of them became lit with the spreading glow of the chandeliers as they closed upon the Erl King, burning with their bright, translucent colours, catching hold of him and bearing him down to the floor in a great blaze of light.
A great silence fell over the hall and Oscar could hear the assembled Magi breathing hard around him, exhausted by the excitement and the effort of the magic. The glowing, stained glass figures bent and lifted up the Erl King, now tightly bound by the fiery chains of the chandeliers and held him, suspended, over the middle of the stage.
The crowd gasped, Oscar included, for they could suddenly see that, with the shadows burnt away and his magic gone, the Erl King was not the huge, distorted figure of their nightmares, not a Goblin King or fearsome demon, but a man, a man in a long, dark scarlet coat and gloves, with a mask of white bone over his face.
Ridley moved forward past Oscar to stand next to Cuddy, who was staring, like the rest of them, at this extraordinary revelation.
"Take the helmet off," she whispered.
Cuddy turned to look at her, repeating, dully:
"Take the helmet off..."
Ridley spoke more loudly, addressing the stained glass giants:
"Take the helmet off. Show us his face."
The dragon reached forward with its long, slim, glass claws and hooked the helmet back and off. For a moment the head dropped backwards, out of sight as the helmet came off, but then he lifted it and stared back at them all, sweaty and bloody but still defiant in defeat.
And once again Oscar was surprised by the face of his godfather, Uncle Rufus.
