Oscar could feel the unfamiliar shape of the Knight Errant fob digging into his leg as he ran. Ridley had given up her keychain so that it could be clipped on and now it hung down from his belt loop into his trouser pocket. They were running through dark, rainy streets in the orange glow of streetlamps and with each step Oscar could feel the fob twisting and turning.
Three more Magi had joined them as they were leaving Maggs' old study, and Oscar could see that all of them were carrying the Errant fob on them, too - this then, was the company he had joined, desperate, passionate and embarked on a mission of impossible danger, but all of them, all of them including him, Magi, casters of spells and masters of spirits.
It was all so extraordinary, so exciting that Oscar could barely the resist the temptation to shout it out at every Christmas shopper they passed. But there was no time, no chance. He was picked up and swept along by the Magi, galvanised by their excitement as they weaved through the crowds and dodged the traffic. Excitement and something else, excitement and fear...
"What is the White Tower?" He panted at Maggs, "Is it like a castle? A dungeon? Cuddy said it was terrible."
"Oh it is, but not how you're thinking - the terrible thing about the White Tower is that no matter how afraid you are to go there, once you're there you'll never want to leave."
"I'm not sure I understand."
"It's hard to explain - but I'm afraid you're probably going to find out for yourself tonight, one way or another."
They came out of an alleyway round the back of a theatre and stopped. There, ahead of them on the other side of a busy junction, was not a grim castle or an ancient, crumbling prison, but a huge, pale tower block, stretching up into the rain. There were lights on here or there but towards the top the windows were black and endless, divided into dark squares of night by a network of grey concrete. Shoppers and traffic milled here and there around its feet, but there was something immense and distant and lonely about the tower itself that seemed to isolate it completely from the life all about. Maggs' hand found Oscar's.
"The White Tower," she said, and her voice trembled as she spoke.
The security guard in the lobby looked like any other security guard in any building in London, except that, Oscar noticed, he had the same silver emblems on his shoulder flashes as the men in Hammages had worn on their uniforms. He was no ordinary night watchman, then.
"Inspection delegation," said Cuddy and Ridley flashed her Watchmen fob as they passed and trouped into the lifts. The guard barely stirred.
"Floor thirteen," said Cuddy. Oscar looked at the panel of buttons for the floors. There was no button thirteen; it went straight from floor twelve to floor fourteen.
"Press buttons one and three at the same time," said Cuddy, "Normal people think that floor thirteen was just left out for superstitious reasons. They don't know it's really there."
Thursby pressed the buttons and the lift started up.
"Be warned," said Cuddy in a low voice, "And be ready, its not... nice..."
The doors opened to a dead silence.
Beyond was a completely empty corridor. It was neutral, bland, the sort of corridor that you might find in any large office building. Gray carpet and off white walls and above, the glare of fluorescent strip lighting. The corridor stretched away into the distance ahead of them. At intervals, Oscar could see, there were junctions where other corridors ran off to the left and right.
All the way down the corridor there were doorways. There were no actual doors, just an opening with a chain slung across and a notice reading 'Keep Out'. As they all filed quietly out of the lifts, no one daring to speak, Oscar could see that each doorway opened into a tiny, undecorated, windowless office. Each office was completely bare but for a single red plastic chair and on each chair sat a person.
The people were all different - young, old, well dressed, shabby, men and women, but each had the same look on their faces. Sitting there, hands folded in their laps, staring straight ahead, glassy eyed, as if not actually seeing anything. And there, at the back of their eyes, was just the glimmering of an expression, just a hint of an awful quiet desperation and terror.
"Stars and Night..." whispered Thursby.
"I told you," said Cuddy.
"Its awful," whispered Maggs.
"Then it's a good thing we're here, isn't it?" Thursby ushered everyone out of the lift, "It'll take two people for each prisoner, you'll have to carry them out, right?"
"And you'll have to be quick," added Cuddy, "You mustn't let the Tower capture you, too..."
The group split quietly up into pairs. The whole place had a chilling, dead feel. Sound was dulled, no one wanted to speak too much or too loudly, everything was too quiet.
"I don't understand," Oscar sidled up next to Maggs, "Are those the prisoners? Why don't they just walk out of the rooms?"
"Because they can't," said Maggs, quietly, "That's the thing about the White Tower - it makes you your own jailer: you imprison yourself. Once you're put into one of the rooms, you fall under the influence of the spirits of the Tower and they show you, well, things, visions - they seem real to the prisoners, though - it might be anything, your heart's desire or your most terrible nightmare, but it will be the one thing you can't tear yourself away from. Anyone of them could stand up and walk out of those rooms right now, but they can't quite bring themselves to do it. And you know what the truly awful thing is? They know it. Every one of them knows that all it would take is the tiniest bit of will power and they would be free, but they can't quite do it and so there they stay, locked up for the rest of their lives by themselves."
Cuddy appeared at one of the doors and beckoned to them. Maggs put her hand on Oscar's shoulder to hold him back, but Cuddy beckoned again.
"It's alright, it's not an awful one," he said in a low voice, "It's not frightening - not in that way anyway, but I think everyone should see at least one. You have to know."
Oscar stepped away from Maggs towards the door and, after a moment, she followed him.
Inside the room Cuddy and Murray were standing next to a pale man sitting on the chair in the centre.
"His name is Harrison," whispered Cuddy, "He wrote a book the Lord Protector disapproved of..."
As Cuddy was speaking Oscar became aware that his voice was fluttering, like a radio with poor reception. In fact the whole room was flickering and juddering - it was like there were two rooms superimposed over the top of each other, one the little white office, the other a boy's bedroom in an ordinary house, covered with posters, with toys scattered under foot. First one room would be there, then another, jumping in and out and then the rooms blurred and, all of a sudden, they were standing in the bedroom.
The pale man was sitting on the edge of the bed, reading a comic on his lap. A voice came from somewhere downstairs:
"Jonathan! Tea!"
The man looked up and saw them.
"It's always tea," he said, "Sunday afternoon tea. It's my favourite. I can't stand it any more. I always loved my mother's Sunday afternoon tea, but I hate it now. Tell the Lord Protector that I'm sorry, that I didn't mean it." The man was crying now, "I just want to go, but I can't. It's teatime. My mother died years ago. I think it was years ago. It's always Sunday in here. It's always teatime. I want to leave, but I'm afraid I'll miss tea time."
"Jonathan! Your tea's ready!"
"I've got to go, its time for tea," Jonathan stood up.
"Grab him!" shouted Cuddy and he and Murray leapt on the man, each grabbing an arm, and started pulling him away from the door, towards the wardrobe.
"No! Let me go, I have to go down to tea! My tea's ready!" Jonathan was shouting, drumming his heels on the carpet. They were trying to drag him towards the wardrobe but he dug his heels him, pulling them to a stop.
"Come on, man!" Cuddy was desperate.
Maggs grabbed hold of Oscar. "Come on," she said, "If we stay here any longer we'll get caught up in it too."
"Wait," Oscar wriggled free and ran to Harrison, "Listen;" he said urgently, "I've got a game."
Harrison stopped shouting and turned to him, "Are you my friend?" he asked, eagerly.
"Yes," said Oscar, "Listen, lets hide in the wardrobe, and then, when your mother comes to get us, we'll jump out at her - that's a good game, isn't it?"
"It's a great game - it'll be great!" Harrison was suddenly enthusiastic. He shrugged off the startled Cuddy and Murray and hustled Oscar to the wardrobe. The others crowded in behind him and he wrenched it open and hurried in, right through to the corridor beyond.
For a moment Oscar was bewildered, not quite sure where he was, then Harrison collapsed on the carpet beside him, sobbing.
"I'm out, I'm out!" he was laughing and crying at the same time, great tears rolling down his cheeks. He grabbed hold of Oscar's legs, which made it difficult to stand up, "Oh, thank you, thank you, I can't believe I'm finally free!"
