The Ghosts of N-Space - Barry Letts [64]
A murmur of dissent. Sarah peeped cautiously round the doorpost. It was the same room and – oh God, it was. It was Guido and his father who were arguing.
‘Be silent! Would you have me content that I have been dishonoured? You tell me we should own our land in freedom? I tell you that we were fortunate indeed that your mother and I were not turned from the door to beg the streets! I hold the land, the island, the estate in Cefalu in fealty to my Lord the King; and send my knights in love and duty to his Grace whenever he has need of them. And shall my son deny him?’
Sarah could see them standing near the fireplace with the small portrait of the younger Guido (of course, that was where she’d seen him before) in pride of place above it. If she crept past, on the other side of the gallery, she stood a good chance of getting by unseen.
‘My Lord and father,’ Guido was saying, ‘I owe you my duty, under God. I owe none to the tyrants who oppress our land. I know not how to serve the one and not the other. In all humility, my lord, I ask your pardon for my transgression and beg for your forgiveness.’
The voices faded into the background as Sarah hurried down the gallery, telling herself that this all happened 225
nearly five hundred years ago. Or did it? Surely the Doctor was right to say that this was the only reality. Here. Now.
And this reminded her of the reason why she was running up the next flight of stairs.
The glow of light was becoming more steady now and growing to a shape not unlike the curve of an arch. Was the radiance which came from the mouth of the goblet merely a reflection? The potion itself looked to be aflame.
The giant form held the cup aloft for a long minute. His eyes were closed and his lips were moving as if in prayer.
When he opened his eyes once more and saw the arch of light complete before him, he gave a great shout of triumph and lowered the goblet to his lips.
But before he could drink, the door of the workshop crashed open. A wild-eyed figure with a shock of wind-blown white hair stood in the opening, his black robe whipping round his ankles. ‘No!’ he cried. ‘You shall not!’
and darted forward to dash the cup from the alchemist’s grasp.
With a cry of rage, Maximilian snatched at the empty air. The clink of the silver cup as it landed on the flagstones mingled with a hiss as of fire being doused. The fiery contents ran in a living stream from the goblet and vanished into the cracks between the stones.
226
Vilmius turned, his eyes blood-red. ‘You! I should have had you hanged! Nicodemus! Hold him!’
The Doctor was grabbed from behind by two immensely strong arms. He was evidently wrong about the powers of ghosts – at least the powers of a ghost in the service of an adept such as Maximilian Vilmius. There would be no escape from this grasp.
Maximilian was feverishly gathering together the ingredients of his potion. As he retrieved the silver cup he snarled, ‘You seek to stop me; but you are too late: The ritual is complete, the incorruptible tincture is distilled and time enough remains to compound the elixir once again before the clock doth strike the hour. Doctor you have failed!’
By the time Sarah reached the top of the tower, her legs were refusing to run any more. She struggled up the last turn of the stairs and almost fell into the clock chamber.
Gazing wildly around, she tried to get her bearings. On her left, she could see the back of the clock’s face with two duplicate hands – obviously used for altering its setting. For a shattering moment, she thought she was too late, for it seemed to read one minute past twelve. But then as it ticked a couple of seconds away –
227
Of course! It was back to front! It would go the wrong way round from this side. She was just in time.
But how to stop it? She had thought she would just be able to stop the pendulum from swinging; but this clock didn’t t seem to have a pendulum. There were heavy loops of chain disappearing through a hole in the floorboards.
That must be where