here.'
'Then let's stop wasting time arguing and look for the other two rooms,' said
Hawk, cutting in quickly to head off the row before it got out of hand. 'Jamie,
is there a tool cupboard, or something like that up here?'
'Of course,' said Jamie stiffly. 'Why?'
'Well, it just occurred to me that we might not be able to find the hidden
mechanisms for the other two rooms, and we might have to get into them the hard
way—with sledgehammers and crowbars.'
'Good thinking,' said Alistair, nodding approvingly. 'Well, Jamie?'
'This way,' said the MacNeil. He stepped out of the room and started off down
the corridor. 'Leave the door open,' he said over his shoulder. 'We might need
to find the room again in a hurry.'
They found the tool cupboard easily enough, but sorting through the contents
took some time. Jamie had never actually looked into it before—that was what
servants were for—and he found the contents fascinating, discovering all kinds
of things he didn't know he had. He rummaged away happily, while everyone else
helped themselves to what they wanted. Alistair and Marc both chose crowbars,
hefting them with obvious unfamiliarity, while Hawk went straight for a
short-handled sledgehammer with a large flat head. He liked the feel and weight
of it. It reminded him of his axe. He swung it easily a few times, and stuck it
through his belt. Everyone then had to wait while Jamie searched for a hammer
just like Hawk's. He swung it a few times, raised an eyebrow at the weight, and
then led the way back down the corridor to the next hidden room.
The hallway grew darker as they moved along. The Tower's architects had seen no
reason to waste expensive glass windows on a storage level used mainly by
servants, and had mostly made do with arrow slits. There were lamp brackets on
the walls at regular intervals, but with all the servants gone, none of the
lamps was lit. The group moved from one pool of light to another, plunged
occasionally into gloom as clouds passed before the sun, cutting off the
daylight. Hawk peered watchfully about him, his free hand resting on the hammer
head.
The second stretch of brickwork Jamie indicated looked just as innocuous as the
first. Hawk tried all the lamp brackets in the vicinity, but nothing happened. A
thorough search of the bricks and mortar failed to turn up any other hidden
catches or levers, so they did it the hard way. Hawk and Jamie rolled up their
sleeves, Jamie clumsily following Hawk's example, and then they set to work with
their sledgehammers on what looked like the weakest spot. The old brickwork gave
way surprisingly easily, and they soon opened up a hole big enough for Alistair
and Marc to work on with their crowbars while Hawk and Jamie took a rest. When
the hole looked big enough, everyone stepped back to let Jamie peer into the
gloom beyond.
'Well?' said Mark. 'What's in there?'
'Looks like a… writing desk,' said Jamie. 'There are papers on it. I've got to
get in there. We'll have to widen the hole some more.'
He stepped back, and between them the group knocked and levered away bricks
until the hole was big enough for Jamie to squeeze through. Hawk clambered
through after him, and then quickly turned to stop Marc and Alistair following
him.
'You'd better stay where you are; this looks like a really bad place to be
cornered in. Watch the corridor. We'll yell out if we find anything
interesting.'
Alistair sniffed and turned away, his back radiating disapproval. Marc just
nodded and turned away. Hawk moved over to join Jamie, who was leaning over the
desk, shuffling through a sheaf of papers and squinting at them in the meager
light from the slit window. There was a lamp on the desk. Hawk picked it up and
shook it, and heard oil gurgle. He raised an eyebrow. Someone had been in the
room recently. Which meant there was a way in that they'd missed. He shrugged
and lit the lamp, holding it over the papers. The crabbed handwriting was
difficult to read, even with the additional light, but Hawk was able to make out
enough of it to give him goose flesh. The author had to be the freak's father.
Jamie swore softly as he struggled with the handwriting.
'These are old, Richard, really old. I need to study them. This bit here seems
to have been written directly after the freak was walled up and left to die;
something about its…
unnatural appetites. There are hints here about what the freak actually is, and
how to deal with it; all the things Dad never got around to telling me. Richard,
we've struck gold!'
'Don't get too excited yet,' said Hawk, keeping his voice low. 'Here's something
else for you to think about: Someone was in here before us, not long ago.'
Jamie looked at him sharply. 'How can you tell?'
'There was fresh oil in this lamp. What worries me is how he got in.'
'Presumably there's a secret mechanism here somewhere, and we missed it.'
'Maybe. And maybe there isn't, and our visitor used magic.'
They looked at each other for a long moment. 'What are you saying?' said Jamie
finally.
'I'm not sure. But if there is a secret magic-user here in Tower MacNeil, that
could complicate the hell out of things.'
Jamie frowned. 'Dad was the magic-user in this Family; I never had much of a
gift for it myself. He could have been here while he was putting together his
notes for me.'
'That's a possibility,' said Hawk. 'But we can't bank on it. Let's keep this to
ourselves for the time being. If there is a secret magic-user among us, we don't
want to spook him. Or her.'
Jamie started to say something, then stopped as Alistair leaned in through the
hole in the wall. 'What are you two muttering about?'
'Nothing,' said Hawk. 'We've just found some old papers, that's all. We'll check
them out downstairs.'
'Right,' said Jamie. He went quickly through the desk drawers, and gathered up a
few more papers. He rolled them all up and stuffed them inside his shirt. 'Let's
go. We've still got to find the third room.'
They found it sooner than they expected. They rounded a curve in the corridor,
and stopped dead in their tracks as they saw a great hole in the wall and debris
scattered across the floor. Jagged half-bricks jutted from the sides of the hole
like broken teeth, and the wall itself bowed slightly outwards into the
corridor, as though there'd been an explosion in the room beyond.
'That's not possible,' said Jamie. 'We passed this way less than half an hour
ago, and there was no trace of this then!'
'It's here now,' said Hawk. He knelt down among the rubble and examined it
closely in the light of the lamp he'd brought with him from the last room. 'This
