The Empire of Glass - Andy Lane [102]
"You mean, let them escape?" Braxiatel snapped.
"That is exactly what mean I."
"What do we do now?" Vicki hissed.
"A very good question," the Doctor replied. Vicki watched as his gaze flickered around the torch-lit Great Hall, taking in all the pertinent details. On the stage at the end of the room actors were entering, shouting their lines and exiting again as fast as they could. The whole thing seemed to her to be taken at breakneck speed. Vicki was used to more refined entertainment: she knew that Shakespeare was meant to be a great playwright, but she couldn't follow what was going on at all.
The Doctor's gaze seemed to have halted on a figure sitting on a dais nearby; a tall, cadaverous man who wore black robes.
"Is that the King?" she asked.
"No," the Doctor murmured, "the man wearing what looks like a large eiderdown is the King. I don't recognize the man in black, but I have a terrible feeling that I should." He shrugged and glanced towards the stage. "No matter. I am familiar with this play, and they appear to be coming to the end of act four. We have to get that amnesia pill into Mr Shakespeare soon. The longer we leave it, the greater the chance that he will spill the beans, as it were."
"I'm surprised he hasn't already." Vicki looked at the stage, where Shakespeare"s face could just be seen peeking at them through a gap in the curtain at the back. "If I was him, I'd have made a bee-line straight for the King."
The Doctor shook his head. "Interrupting the King's entertainment is as good a way as any to obtain a long-term room in the Tower of London. James was never noted for his tolerance. And, as I recall, there was a story put about by a writer somewhat after Mr Shakespeare's time that Shakespeare was called on stage to replace a dying actor during the first performance of this very play."
He beamed. "A fortuitous coincidence, and a provoking thought. It gives me hope that somebody up there likes me."
Vicki glanced up at the empty gallery above the stage. "Somebody up where?"
The Doctor didn't reply. Vicki turned, and found that she was alone. The Doctor was striding down the aisle along the side of the hall towards the stage, for all the world as if he intended to get up on stage himself.
Steven watched on the skiff's viewscreen as the island of Laputa grew slowly larger. Whoever had piloted it had set it down in the middle of a wide stretch of river, and from above Steven could see the river's currents building up silt around the island as they tried to force their way past its bulk. By the light of the full moon the landing pad was a grey circle in the middle of green trees and bushes, and to one side of it a series of impressive buildings cast pointed shadows across the banks of the river.
A small shape was flying up towards the descending skiff. Its powerful wings beat mercilessly at the air, and Steven could tell that it was tiring. He had never seen a creature like it before, but he recognized Marlowe's description. It was one of the creatures that had attacked the colony in New Albion, although Steven assumed from Braxiatel's words that it was on their side. There was a lot about this whole situation that he did not understand.
As the creature laboured towards the skiff, close enough now that Steven could see the ruff of hair around its eyestalks flattening in the rush of air, he opened the hatchway. The skiff rocked slightly as the airflow around it changed, but continued on its stately course. There was something terribly preordained about the slowness of that descent. Steven knew that it was probably a preprogrammed speed set for safety reasons, but it seemed to him that the skiff knew about the coming explosion, knew that there was no way of stopping it, and was deliberately prolonging the tension.
He moved back into