itself. Then there was the matter of who lived and who died. Because more often than not, when a castle fell, its inhabitants were massacred. There were several hundred people inside La Roque. If they all survived, their thousands of descendants could easily make a different future.
'We may never know,' Johnston said. 'How many hours have we got left?'
Marek looked at his bracelet. The counter said 05:50:29. He bit his lip. He had forgotten that the clock was ticking. When he had last looked, there were almost nine hours; there had seemed to be plenty of time. Six hours didn't sound quite so good.
'Not quite six hours,' Marek said.
'And Kate has the marker?'
'Yes.'
'And where is she?'
'She went to find the passage.' Marek was thinking that it was now late afternoon; if she found the passage, she could easily make her way inside the castle in two or three hours.
'Where did she go to find the passage?'
'The green chapel.'
Johnston sighed. 'Is that where Marcel's key said that it was?'
'Yes.'
'And she went alone?'
'Yes.'
Johnston shook his head. 'No one goes there.'
'Why?'
'Supposedly, the green chapel is guarded by an insane knight. They say his true love died there and that he lost his mind with grief. He's imprisoned his wife's sister in a nearby castle, and now he kills anybody who comes near the castle, or the chapel.'
'Do you think all that's true?' Marek said.
Johnston shrugged. 'No one knows,' he said. 'Because no one has ever come back alive.'
05:19:55
Her eyes squeezed tightly shut, Kate waited for the ax to fall. The knight above her was snorting and grunting, his breath coming faster, more and more excited before he delivered the killing blow-
Then he was silent.
She felt the foot in the middle of her back twist.
He was looking around.
The ax thunked down on the block, inches from her face. But he was resting it, leaning on it while he looked at something behind him. He started grunting again, and now he sounded angry.
Kate tried to see what he was looking at, but the flat blade of the ax blocked her view.
She heard footsteps behind her.
There was someone else here.
The ax was raised again, but now the foot came off her back. Hastily, she rolled off the block and turned to see Chris standing a few yards away, holding the sword that she had dropped.
'Chris!'
Chris smiled through clenched teeth. She could see he was terrified. He kept his eyes on the green knight. With a growl, the knight spun, his ax hissing as he swung it. Chris held up his sword to parry. Sparks flew from clanging metal. The men circled each other. The knight swung again, and Chris ducked, stumbled backward, and got hastily to his feet again as the ax thunked into the grass. Kate fumbled in her pouch and found the gas cylinder. This foreign object from another time seemed absurdly small and light now, but it was all they had.
'Chris!'
Standing behind the green knight, she held up the cylinder, so he could see it. He nodded vaguely, continuing to dodge and back away. She saw he was tiring fast, losing ground, the green knight advancing on him.
Kate had no choice: she ran forward, leapt into the air, and landed on the green knight's back. He grunted in surprise at the weight. She clung to him, brought the canister around to the front of his helmet, and fired gas through the slit. The knight coughed and shivered. She squeezed again, and the knight began to stagger. She dropped back to the ground.
She said, 'Do it!'
Chris was on one knee, gasping. The green knight was still on his feet, but weaving. Chris came slowly forward and stabbed the sword into the knight's side, between the armor plates. He gave a roar of fury and fell onto his back.
Chris was on him immediately, cutting the laces of his helmet, kicking it away with his foot. She glimpsed tangled hair, matted beard, and wild eyes as he swung the sword down, and severed the knight's head.
It didn't work.
The blade came down, crunched into bone, and stuck there, only partway through his neck. The knight was still alive, looking at Chris in fury, his mouth moving.
Chris tried to pull the sword out, but it was caught in the knight's throat. As he struggled, the knight's left hand came up and grabbed his shoulder. The knight was immensely strong - demonically strong - and pulled him down until his face was inches away. His eyes were bloodshot. His teeth were cracked and rotten. Lice crawled in his beard, among bits of discolored food. He stank of decay.
Chris was revolted. He felt his hot, reeking breath. Struggling, he managed to put his foot on the knight's face, and he stood up, forcing himself free of the grip. The sword came free in the same moment, and he lifted it to swing down.
But the knight's eyes rolled upward and his jaw went slack. He was already dead. Flies began to buzz over his face.
Chris collapsed, sitting on the wet ground, trying to catch his breath. Revulsion swept over him like a wave, and he started to shiver uncontrollably. He hugged himself, trying to stop it. His teeth were chattering.
Kate put her hand on his shoulder. She said, 'My hero.' He hardly heard her. He didn't say anything. But eventually he stopped shivering and got to his feet again.
'I was glad to see you,' she said.
He nodded and smiled. 'I took the easy way down.'
Chris had managed to stop his slide in the mud. He had spent many difficult minutes working his way back up the slope, and then he took the other path down. It turned out to be an easy walk to the base of the waterfall, where he found Kate about to be beheaded.
'You know the rest,' he said. He got to his feet, leaned on the sword. He looked up at the sky. It was starting to get dark. 'How much time do you think is left?'
'I don't know. Four, five hours.'
'Then we better get started.'
The ceiling of the green chapel had fallen in at several places, and the interior was in ruins. There was a small altar, Gothic frames around broken windows, pools of stagnant water on the floor. It was hard to see that this chapel had once been a jewel, its doorways and arches elaborately carved. Now slimy mold dripped from the carvings, which were eroded beyond recognition.
A black snake slithered away as Chris went down spiral stairs to the crypts below ground. Kate followed more slowly. Here it was darker, the only light coming from cracks in the floor above. There was the constant sound of dripping water. In the center of the room they saw a single intact sarcophagus, carved of black stone, and the broken fragments of several others. The intact sarcophagus had a knight in armor carved on the lid. Kate peered at the knight's face, but the stone had been eroded by the omnipresent mold, and the features were gone.
'What was the key again?' Chris said. 'Something about the giant's feet?'
'That's right, so many paces from the giant's feet. Or gigantic feet.'
'From the giant's feet,' Chris repeated. He pointed to the sarcophagus, where the feet of the carved knight
