Something powerful is drawing Ward back to Devil's Island. Something he thought he had forgotten. He must evade vicious lighthouse keeper George Jaggles in order to rescue it, but Jaggles will soon be the least of his worries. Because an assassin is...
The assassin paused. Something had caught his attention.
Ward opened his eyes.
The Brother was not looking at him, but over his shoulder. The hissing sound Ward had thought was the lanthorn had now become too loud to ignore.
The Brother behind him barked a warning and released one of Ward's arms. Ward saw the light jerk and shadows leap away as the man picked up the lanthorn with his free hand. Perhaps he was peering into the darkness of the Vault to see what was making the noise. A sudden gust of cold air flew out of the Vault, flapping the Brothers' cassocks like sails, and blowing out the lanthorn. The tunnel floor shivered.
Ward suddenly realised what was happening. "It's coming!" he shouted.
The assassin gave no indication that he had heard. He continued to stare over Ward's shoulder into the darkness of the Vault.
The hissing sound rose, and with it the wind. Pieces of paper torn from banned books flew past Ward like leaves, cartwheeling away down the tunnel towards daylight, plastering themselves across the tessellated bars of the gate that blocked it.
"You released it?" one of the Brothers said in a horrified voice.
The assassin seemed finally to wake from his trance, and lowered the knife. The Brother who held his hair relaxed his grip enough for Ward to lower his chin.
The steam doesn't cook us all like lobsters, he thought. For he had realised what that hissing sound was. The Corpusant had fixed its gaze upon the flooded section of tunnel, superheating the water, evaporating it in seconds. And now a cloud of boiling hot steam was rushing towards them, seeking whatever exit lay beyond.
The hissing sound was now deafening. The Brother holding his hair finally loosened his hold, and Ward felt the Brother behind him release his other hand. He tore himself away. His scalp burned with sudden, excruciating pain. He had time to see the hank of his bloody hair in the Brother's hand, before he threw himself into a tumble, feeling the skin graze off his hands as he hit the floor. He bounced back onto his feet and ran, the skull of Jean Deville bouncing against his chest, his still-wet clothes grinding against his chafed skin, the wind from the Vault pushing him forward like a hand between his shoulder blades. It was like flying.
If the Brothers were pursuing him he couldn't hear them. He could hear nothing but the steam's terrible hiss.
He threw himself at the gate. There was a handle to his left, above a keyhole. He wrenched it down, then up. It didn't budge.
He saw a flash of red cloth through the bars.
"Help! We're going to die in here!"
The red cloth moved. Ward saw the handle turn, and the gate opened. A red stood before him. Ward tried to dash past, but the opening was too narrow, and the man caught him by the arm.
Ward looked up into his face.
"Corvus?"
"What's that sound?"
"Corpusant!"
The old man's eyes widened. "Come."
His staff was leaning against the wall nearby – he snatched it up and set off up the slope towards daylight, not quite at a run, but faster than Ward would have thought possible. Ward squelched along beside him.
The semi-circle of blue sky ahead widened, sunlight shafting down through the opening. Ward had no time to admire it. Even as they emerged from the mouth screams rose from the tunnel behind them.
Corvus had only just pulled him down onto the flagstones beside the tunnel mouth when a tremendous blast of steam shot out of the tunnel. "Stay down!" he cried. Ward could barely heard his shout over the roar of the steam. It poured out of the tunnel like a great white snake, rising into the sky in a column, shedding water from its sides as it went. The water was warm, like summer rain. In seconds the column of steam was taller than the tallest spire in Bareheep. It would have been visible from the countryside all around, from far out to sea. So much for a quiet exit, Ward thought, and had to stifle a strange, hysterical laugh. He could still hear the Brother's screams in his ears.
As to where they had emerged, it was a place Ward didn't immediately recognise: a small, flagstoned courtyard, surrounded by high walls, beyond which towered buildings that looked vaguely familiar. A mighty gate was set in one of the walls. He could see fields of tall grass through the gate; beyond that a meandering line of willows that suggested a river, and in the distance a range of purple mountains. He suddenly realised where he was. The Courts. They were on the inside of the legendary Postern Gate, through which prisoners were brought for trial. It made sense when he thought about it. The Postern Gate was heavily guarded, the courtyard forbidden to civilians. Brothers and Reds went in and out of the gate all the time, as did prison wagons. If occasionally a wagon carrying not prisoners, but items destined for internment in the Vault, was driven in, nobody would have suspected anything. It was perfect. Still, Ward wondered how they had managed to keep it secret for so long.
Corvus knew about it, he thought.
This all went through his head in the space of seconds. What brought him back was the silence.
The steam had finally stopped rushing out of the tunnel. The white column it had formed drifted upwards and northwards, the breeze from the sea twisting it into a shape that reminded Ward of a seahorse, teasing it apart, dragging it away towards the Wall of Nod. Soon it would be gone, condensing in the cold air and falling over the city as a drizzle.
There was no sound from the tunnel now. Only a familiar light, growing stronger and stronger. The tunnel mouth glowed a hellish red. The damp stones around its lip glistened like rubies.
Two Reds were running towards them from the guard house beside the Postern Gate. Ward shouted out to them to stay back, but they ignored him of course.
The Corpusant rose from the earth like a sun.
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