Cuddy staggered back from his lectern as the terrible darkness plummeted towards him, tipping over the edge of the stage and down into the arrangement of flowers beneath. Skelton landed gently on the stage, the shadows boiling out around him. The robes coiled up and around the lectern and swept it from the stage. He stepped forward to face the Magi as Cuddy pulled himself out of a clump of ferns and started back up a set of steps into the safety of the crowd.

“You stand at a crucial moment in your history,” Skelton’s voice was amused, taunting them, “The fate of the country… the world… rests with you…”

“Yes! Yes, it does!” Cuddy scrambled into view up on a chair and the white dragon came clattering down to hang in the sir beside him, “And we will seize our moment.”

“Not if someone stops you.”

“Who? You? You’ve challenged the Magi before in this very Hall, and have been defeated before, too, by only a few Knights… and now, now, you face an army of Magi who have been preparing for this very moment: how exactly do you think you are going to stop us now?”

Skelton raised an eyebrow: “How else, but with an army of my own?” and he raised his arms up and spoke into the air, “Now! You are free! Free to fight our last battle!”

And with his words the Erl King’s robes suddenly exploded outwards in a great rustling wave of shadow. Tattered ends of cloth twisted free, coiling up into the air, spreading threadbare wings and opening baleful, dim eyes, tendrils of threads wove together into black bundles of spiders on thin twining legs, climbing over each other to the front of the stage. Where Skelton had stood, wreathed about in his coat of dark blood there was now a whispering army of shreds, a swirling crowd of creatures that scuttled and batted around him.

The assembled Magi cowered back as the Erl King’s horde massed before them and Skelton, in the middle of it all, smiled to himself and leant on his umbrella.

“Dark Spirits,” Maggs whispered to Oscar, “All the Dark Spirits that gave the Erl King his power - he has set them free: and given himself an army to fight with…”

“Well,” Skelton looked around the hall; “Let’s get this over with, shall we?” and the army of Dark Spirits broke like a wave of shadow into the hall beyond. The Magi in the stalls disappeared momentarily under the whirling cloud of spirits, but then a bright light burst through the shadow as the White Dragon came rushing up from below, scattering the Dark Spirits like smoke in the wind.

The Dragon rattled round the hall above the heads of the Magi, glittering and flaming with light, before dropping back to Cuddy.

“This is our moment!” The Dragon coiled round Cuddy in a stream of rushing, shining armour, “This is where we strike! Strike now, Magi! For the Brotherhood, for the future, strike!”

And all around the Magi the furniture of the hall reared up, an implacable army of iron limbs and unflinching wooden backs, forming ranks around their masters. The Dark Spirits gathered again behind Skelton, who advanced slowly to the front of the stage.

“Oh, don’t worry, Master Cuddy,” said Skelton, “I’ll come to you,” and he twisted the handle of his umbrella, pulling away and casting up the black cloth, revealing, hidden inside, a long, thin rapier that gleamed in the hall lights. Skelton smiled and flourished his sword.

“En garde, Master Cuddy,” and he leapt from the stage into the Magi, the cloth of his umbrella unfurling into life behind, great bat wings that drove the enemy from around him as the Dark Spirits followed his charge up the aisle towards Cuddy.

“Stop him!” shrieked Cuddy, scrambling back over the Magi behind him, and the White Dragon threw itself forward at Skelton. He swiped at it with his sword but it swung its head up at the last moment, coiling back on it self, to fill the aisle between Skelton and Cuddy. It rattled its scales and bared its teeth.

“Hand to hand against the greatest Spirit in Britain,” Skelton’s smile widened, “This ought to be interesting,” and he threw himself at the Dragon as the ranks of spirits closed in around him and the Hall exploded in battle.

“Oscar, get down!” Maggs grabbed hold of Oscar’s collar and dragged him back as a chair came hurtling up and crashed through Sir Isaac Newton’s head.

“The Dragon’s helping them,” Oscar fought against Maggs’ grip, “We’ve got to do something!”

“We are!” Maggs hauled him round the back of the pedestal the Charter sat on, “You stay here, out of the way - I’m going to carry on looking for… Ah! Get off, you awful thing!”

Oscar turned to see Maggs kicking out against a small stained glass boar who doggedly hanging on to the toe of her shoe with its little lead teeth. Before he could do anything, the little black cat leapt down from a chair straight into the boar, shattering it into pieces. Maggs staggered back into a chair while the cat batted the pieces of glass around the floor. Oscar was just about to go to Maggs when he realised something: just out of the corner of his eye he could see a word carved into the pedestal he was hiding behind, and that word was: ‘King’.

He turned and looked at the carving:

‘This stone was laid by His Majesty the King, George I in the year 1717′

“Maggs!”

“I’m alright, Oscar, I’m just a bit… out of breath…”

“No, no! I mean, good, I’m glad you are, but… Look! The King!”

“Oscar! That must be it!” Maggs scrambled over to join him on the floor under the table, “The King must have laid the stone that sealed the great work: this is it! This is what the rhyme meant!”

“But what do we do now?”

“Well, if I’m right and this is the key to the Great Work, then all we have to do is remove it.”

“It’s been there for hundreds of years Maggs - how are we going to move it?”

“We need a tool or something…” Maggs stood up, looking around, “Aha! Perfect!” She leaned over Oscar head and then stepped back hauling one of the candlesticks from the table up over her head. “Look out, Oscar!”

Oscar flung himself to one side as Maggs half fell, half threw herself at the pedestal, swinging the candlestick wildly. It struck the stone under the table at an angle, striking off sparks. The sound of the candlestick seemed to ring through Oscar like the tolling of a great bell, impossibly loud and deep, making the whole room tremble and rock. The stained glass cracked and shattered, spraying the room with shards of colour. Maggs stumbled away from the table, dropping the candlestick as Oscar dived under the chairs, covering his head with his arms against the glass.

As the echoes of the strike died away, Oscar became extraordinarily aware of the terrible silence that they left behind. For a moment he wondered whether the noise had made him deaf, but then he realised he could hear the tiny noises of crumbs of glass dropping to the floor. All the noise of battle from the hall beyond had stopped.

“The Charter Room!” Cuddy’s voice cut through the silence, “They’re doing something in there! Stop them!”

Oscar scrambled out from under the chairs just in time to hear the dreadful clashing and rattling of the White Dragon as it came roaring through the empty space where it had once stood, its stained glass lit from within by a pale, flickering fire. It wound through the window frames whirling up into the roof of the Charter Room and then dropping down, its mouth open wide, its teeth glinting and clattering in its head, dropping straight to towards Oscar…

And then the little black cat leapt up, over his shoulder and landed a paw full of claws right on the Dragon’s nose.

Once again Skelton set the ornithopter hurtling through the streets as low as he dared, rushing down towards the dome of the Cathedral and then beyond, where the skyscrapers dropped away and they were forced lower, in between the roofs of the Victorian buildings, just above the street lights below, between chimney pots and aerials, rustling the leaves of the trees as they whooshed past.

“The Temple’s not far away now, are we ready?” Skelton looked back over his shoulder at them.

“What’s the plan?” Maggs pulled herself forward to see where they were.

“The Erl King’s power can hide us from being detected - I’ll set us down on the roof, we’ll be able to get inside from there… Now hang on…”

The ornithopter banked sharply and wheeled round the outside of a round barrel of a building and then it turned and there it was: The Temple, right ahead of them. They dove straight down towards the roof, the ornithopter spreading its wings wide at the last moment to bring them to a juddering, skittering stop on the tiles.

Skelton was at the door before they had stopped moving, opening it wide to reveal the roof glistening with recent rain.

“You gnomes stay here and guard Ridley, no one is to get in, understand? Flee if you have to… Maggs, Oscar, hang on to me…” without waiting for a reply he reached over and scooped Oscar up into his coat and then, taking Maggs’ outstretched hand, he leapt out of the hatch into the night.

They skittered down a slope of tiles to a low parapet that Skelton swung over easily, dropping through the cool air to a shallower roof. He ran up to the ridge and then along it to where it met a gable wall that rose up above them. In one fluid motion, hand over hand, they swarmed up the wall, although Oscar could see no handholds as they passed over.

Then they were up on the ridge of a high gable, looking down on the roofs of London stretched out around them. Maggs craned round to look behind.

“The Great Hall and the Charter Room are back that way.”

Oscar turned to look - behind them he could now see the tower over the main entrance to the Temple and, below it, a round area of roof that must be the Great Hall.

“It is,” said Skelton, “But we’re going to my chambers first…”

And with that he ran down the slope of the roof and dropped off the edge…

…onto a balcony two floors below.

Oscar recognised it now - they were outside the windows through which he had seen the Erl King in his uncle’s chambers - before he had even known that his uncle was the Erl King.

“Damn,” Skelton had gone to open the windows but then had stopped himself.

“What?”

“I forgot. I’m not the Lord Protector anymore - and no one can enter here without the Lord Protector’s permission.”

“Then allow me,” said Oscar, wriggling out of Uncle Rufus’ grasp and laying his hand on the window. It creaked open at his touch. “You may enter…”

“How did you do that?” Uncle Rufus was evidently stunned.

“They made me Lord Protector,” his Uncle’s amazement made him a little shy, “I don’t know why…”

“My fault really,” said Maggs, climbing through the window, “And no offence to you, Oscar, but I now think Cuddy felt it would be a popular gesture that would make the position simply symbolic and no threat to his plans.”

“Ye gods and little fishes,” said Skelton, following them into the room, “It’s age discrimination. Fired in favour of a younger man. A much, much younger man. I’d say congratulations, Oscar old chap, but what we’re about to do is either going to get you fired or render the entire concept of a Lord Protector null and void - still, good work, all the same - best man for the job, if you ask me…”

“Thanks.”

“Now, can anyone see my umbrella?”

“Your umbrella? We’ve broken into the Lord Protector’s chambers to look for an umbrella?” Maggs was aghast.

“Well,” said Skelton, with a sly little smile, “You never know when you’re going to need one, do you. Ah, there it is.”

He reached down behind a chair and pulled out his tightly rolled black umbrella, brandishing it happily. It looked ridiculously incongruous in combination with the furious robes of the Erl King.

“Now,” he said, “I think I ought to hand over the reins to my successor properly and introduce you, Oscar, to some of the tricks of the trade. You see that bookshelf behind you - could you fetch me that copy of ‘A Beginner’s Guide to Secret Passages’?”

Oscar, a little confused, although rather flattered that his Uncle seemed to be taking him seriously as the Lord Protector, crossed to the bookcase and reached up to pull the book down. Only, instead of coming away from the shelf, the book simply pivoted up on the base of its spine and, with a little click, the whole bookcase began to swing away from the wall towards him. It was a door to a secret passage!

“Sorry,” his Uncle was grinning from ear to ear, “I’m getting a little nervous and can’t resist being melodramatic. These passages only open for the Lord Protector, you see, they run all through the Temple - that’s why I wanted to come in here: we can get straight to the Charter Room without being seen. If we may, Lord Protector.”

“Of course, be my guests,” and Oscar followed his Uncle through the door, with Maggs following. The bookcase swung shut behind them softly.

It wasn’t quite what Oscar had expected of a secret passage. It was dry, warm, clean and lit by dim bare bulbs at irregular intervals. And when something brushed against his leg it was not a rat but the little black cat instead.

“Hello,” he said, stopping to scratch it between the ears, “How did you get in here?”

“Ah,” said Skelton, without turning round, “The proverbial bad penny. This way.”

They turned a corner then climbed a short flight of stairs. On one side was bare stone work, on the other bricks and wooden walls. They came to a place where the passage divided and Skelton turned left and led them under an arch into a narrow room. Narrow, but high - far above Oscar could see a thin bridge crossing in the other direction - another part of the secret network.

“But how do you keep this all secret?” He wondered aloud, “Are we inside the walls? It seems too big to fit…”

“This is the Temple, Oscar, headquarters of magic in Britain. Not all of it fits and yet it’s all inside. Ah, here we are…” And Skelton opened a small door in the wall.

Oscar stepped through to find himself coming out from behind one of the wooden seats that lined the walls of the Charter Room. He let it swing shut behind him. Oddly, even though the last time he had seen the room it had been full of people, it seemed somehow smaller now. The room was dim and shadowy - the only lights on were small flickering ones set in niches high up on the walls. This meant that the stained glass that made up the whole of the opposite wall glowed with the light from the room beyond - the Great Hall itself.

The Hall was evidently fully lit and Oscar could hear a great murmur filtering through the glass - it must be full of people.

“No lights, I’m afraid,” whispered Skelton, “And keep your voices down - they’re having some kind of meeting in there - we can’t risk being discovered.”

Oscar looked round at the high wooden stalls and the blood red tiles flickering in the wavering light. Shadows kept darting across the walls, making the place seethe with suggested movement. He could hear a voice the other side of the stained glass - a cold, clear voice: Cuddy’s, it had to be. Just there, the other side of a thin pane of glass, the man who had tried to kill them all.

“Can you see anything?” he whispered to his godfather - he was suddenly anxious to be out of there.

“Lots of things,” Skelton grinned back at him, “But nothing useful.” His Uncle Rufus was evidently finding this a lot more exciting than he was.

“By the King’s own work shall be brought to naught,” Maggs was impatient, “They key must be the Charter…”

“But it might not be,” Skelton tried to sound more serious, “So Maggs, you check it, Oscar, have a look at the stained glass, look for any Royal crests or portraits - I’ll check the walls, since I’m the only one of us who can get up there…” and he stepped up into the air, rising into the shadows above them.

Oscar turned and looked at the stained glass. It was odd looking at it from the other side - it all looked slightly unnerving somehow - it wasn’t just that all the writing was the wrong way round; somehow all the figures looked twisted and uncomfortable. Here, closest to him, was a man in a long wig that he now knew to be Isaac Newton. His head was turned to look over his shoulder and it made him look as if his legs were on the wrong way round.

Around the figures the glass was a mass of decorations, leaves and bits of buildings - there could be anything hidden in there. Already he could see two odd looking faces peeking out at him from by Newton’s nose. Then, in the middle, was the white dragon. That was already twisted round several times into all kinds of odd shapes: it was even holding its own tail in its mouth…

…and as Oscar looked, with a small ‘chink’ sound of glass tapping, the white dragon winked at him.

Had he really seen that? He turned to look at the others. Maggs was absorbed in the Charter and Skelton was somewhere high overhead, examining the roof. He looked back - perhaps he had been mistaken - the dragon looked exactly as he had first seen it.

Then, with a grinding, cracking sound, it dropped its tail from its mouth and smiled at him.

“Look…” he only had time to get the first word out before the dragon pulled itself backwards away from the lead surrounding it, and, with a great rending of metal and clattering of glass, swooped out into the centre of the Great Hall behind it, leaving Oscar standing in front of a dragon shaped hole in the window, looking down on the assembled Magi below.

“We stand at a crucial moment in our history,” Cuddy was shouting at the tiers of excited Magi, “The fate of the country… the world… rests with us…” he stopped and turned at the sound of the dragon, as the rest of the Magi raised their heads to look.

The light from the Great Hall filled the Charter Room, illuminating perfectly Rufus Skelton hanging calmly in the air in full view of everyone.

There was a great gasp from the crowd below.

“You two keep looking,” hissed Skelton, “and I’ll distract them.”

“How…” began Maggs.

“I’m sure I’ll think of something,” and the Erl Kings robes seethed and stretched around, gathering a skein of shadows that momentarily blotted out the light as he plunged through the gap in the stained glass and dropped down onto the stage of the Great Hall.

This meant that they were right behind him when he crossed the threshold out of the Black Chamber, back into the Tower, and Oscar saw the sudden transformation as his Uncle stopped being just his Uncle in a funny outfit and became the Erl King, how he rose and stretched, becoming thinner, more angular, how the robes boiled and billowed, tendrils of smoke merging into the shadows of the room around him, until he seemed to fill the space. For a moment Oscar tasted the bitter tang of the Erl King’s shadow of fear against his back teeth, and then his Uncle remembered that they were with him and withdrew it, so that it receded away like a barely recalled nightmare.

The anteroom was now empty - the guard the Ridley had knocked out had gone. Instead there were now a group of Knights Errant clustered in the doorway. It was an odd sight - it was as if there were a glass wall in the doorway that they were all pressed up against, trying to get in but stopped by some invisible power. And there, in the centre of the room, sat the little black cat, staring at them all.

It turned as Skelton, Maggs and Oscar came through the door and Oscar could have sworn that it nodded at them in welcome. As the Erl King spidered out to fill the room the guards in the doorway drew back away from him in fear, but they still blocked the exit.

“Emergency exit, I think,” said Skelton, his voice rasping through the mask, and he gestured with his right hand. The stones of the wall burst outward, swooping up and away, revealing an empty patch of night sky.

“Come on you two,” and Skelton grabbed hold of Maggs and Oscar and Oscar felt the robes twine about him, at once silky and rough, like they were edged with tiny teeth. And then they were dropping through the gap and out into the cold darkness.

They fell down through the night with a great rushing and fluttering as the Erl King’s cloak spread out around them, its coils and shreds beating against the air. It had been raining while they were inside and drops still specked at Oscar face as they feel.

“Is that what you came here in?” Skelton was pointing down at the ornithopter, which was still sitting on the lawn, now with two Knights Errant standing guard over it.

“Yes, it’s an ornithopter…”

“You’re braver than I thought.”

The Shadow of the Erl King preceded them and the Knights Errant fled from the craft as they dropped towards them, scampering for the safety of the Tower. Skelton hit the ground running, bundling up the steps. Erik and Karl had rushed to the door to meet them, but now they fled from the terrible figure rushing towards them, leaping up onto the red leather benches on the far side of the cabin.

Oscar found himself and Maggs flung after them, onto the benches, as Skelton turned straight to the controls, the robes creeping out to explore all the knobs and dials with their thin black fingers.

“It’s him, it’s him,” hissed Erik, “We’ve got him cornered now…”

“Hasn’t he got us cornered?” whispered Karl.

“Hold tight,” the Erl King’s voice was a shocking interruption and the gnomes cowered back as the ornithopter creaked and juddered, preparing for take off.

Just at the last minute, just as the craft stretched its wings and the door was closing, the black cat leapt up through the thinning gap and into the cabin. It sauntered across to the benches and jumped up onto Oscar’s lap.

“Oh,” said Skelton, “decided to join us, have you?” and the ornithopter threw itself into the sky.

Sheer walls of lights and shining glass flashed past them as the ornithopter swooped up from the Tower and plunged into the canyons of the City. The streets followed a medieval maze between the shining monoliths of the skyscrapers and Oscar and Maggs had to cling on to the walls to stop themselves being thrown about the cabin as it twisted this way and that between the towers of office buildings.

Skelton wrestled with the controls, trying to keep them low and out of sight from watching spies, as they raced their own reflection along the walls of glass, wheeled round church spires and darted beneath the gaze of monumental statues.

Suddenly they climbed steeply and Oscar had a glimpse of floors of lights rushing down past them in the darkness. There was a sickening moment of weightlessness and then they dropped suddenly and stopped. There was the sound of claws scrabbling on stone and the creaking of the leathery wings as the ornithopter settled down.

Oscar scrambled to the window and peered out. They were perched on the pinnacle of some great skyscraper, high above the infernal orange glow of the streets, like an eagle on a crag. There in the distance below them he could see the clear pale bulk of St Paul’s Cathedral, shining up through the rain. The cabin rocked slightly as the ornithopter shifted the grip of its claws and the cross winds, confused by the narrow streets, buffeted against them.

Uncle Rufus had pulled off his mask, crossed to the benches and was now laying Ridley out flat, examining her wound with Maggs.

“What’s he done to her?” asked Erik, eyeing him nervously.

“I’ll deal with him,” Karl was trying to sound threatening, but was keeping his distance all the same, “We’ve dealt with him before…”

“You two pipe down,” said Maggs, “We need to concentrate.”

“Are we his prisoners?” whispered Erik.

“Lord Skelton just rescued us all from certain death, so I think you might be a little grateful,” The gnomes stepped back, abashed.

“But he’s bad,” complained Erik, “I can feel it, I can feel the dark magic…”

“It was him that took you away from us,” Karl was not going to be appeased, “He has to be dealt with.”

“That’s true,” Oscar hadn’t thought about that part of the story, “I still don’t understand that…”

“We don’t need to understand,” Karl was determined, “He just needs to be punished.”

“He could at least apologise,” Erik, however, seemed to be prepared to compromise, “If he was sorry, I mean, really…”

“Oh, don’t expect a villain like that to apologise,” Karl was undeterred, “Not him.”

“Little Gnomes!” Skelton whirled round angrily and they leapt back away from him, “I am sure I would be sorry if I had time to be but we are trying to save Mistress Ridley’s life so will you SHUT UP!”

The gnomes said nothing, apparently frozen with fear and Skelton snorted and returned to Ridley.

“Of course,” it was Karl’s voice and Skelton’s back stiffened in anticipation, “If you hadn’t wiped away the mistress’ old life, she’d still remember that she gave us all kinds of healing abilities. It was part of our training. Very important she said.”

Maggs turned slowly to look at them but Skelton just cast his eyes upwards, “Spirits preserve us,” he muttered.

“Can you help us?” Maggs asked.

Erik craned past her to look at Ridley, “I think now the bleeding’s stopped we can - better than dark magic could, anyway.”

“If I let you help, will you shut up?” asked Skelton.

“If we help you, you’ll have time to explain and apologise, won’t you?” said Erik as he ran down the bench and climbed up onto Ridley’s unconscious form, Karl following.

Skelton barked a short, sharp laugh and stepped away, back to the control panel.

“Alright, alright, well, perhaps you’re right, since I still haven’t even apologised to Maggs, yet:” Skelton grimaced and looked uncomfortable, “I’m sorry for what I and the Wild Ride did to you, I really am, Maggs, you didn’t deserve that…” He looked genuinely contrite and Maggs patted his arm.

“It’s not really that much to lose, if you can’t remember what you lost,” she said.

“So that was you?” Oscar was still trying to work the whole thing out, “You were the one who attacked Maggs?”

“I’m afraid so, yes…”

“But why?”

In response, his Uncle gestured at the window.

“Look down there, Oscar - what can you see?”

Oscar looked back out of the window. Far, far below was a narrow street, a clear valley of orange light between the dark buildings. It was empty. Then a small figure emerged from one side, stepping out tentatively on to the pavement. A moment later it retreated again. A dark, angry glow began to fill the pit below, a great, churning of fire and smoke. And a glittering something came weaving down the road, dark and gleaming: a dragon, its claws sparking on the asphalt, his head questing as it tested the pavements for life. And then it was round the corner and gone.

“An early winter’s evening not long before Christmas and the streets are empty,” Uncle Rufus was looking over his shoulder, “Only the servants of the Magi are abroad, searching for the disobedient. Where is everybody? They should be out, celebrating, preparing for the holidays, having fun. Instead they’re hiding inside, locked up with dragons and knight mares stalking the streets.”

“And quite right, too,” interrupted Karl, “With maniacs like you on the loose.”

“Yes, that was my mistake,” Skelton shook his head, wearily, “You see, Oscar, this was what I was afraid of, when Maggs and Hopkins first formed the Knights Errant all those years ago - at least I was right about that, I suppose…”

“But Maggs wasn’t Cuddy - they were trying to help people,” protested Oscar.

“And you don’t think that’s what Cuddy believes he’s doing? Good intentions are no guarantee of good people, I’m afraid. If you think you know what’s best for people and you find you have the power to overcome any objections, then you will do what you like, how you like, no matter what anyone else says: and that is very, very wrong indeed.”

“So you decided to summon the Wild Ride and make everyone do what you wanted instead,” said Erik, looking up from his work. He appeared to be binding up Ridley’s wound with what looked to Oscar like spider’s webs.

“Yes,” said Skelton, ruefully, “Touché. That’s precisely what happened. I tried to warn them, both the Knights Errant and the Three Wise Lords of the time, but no one would listen to me - I was a lot younger then, and my beard wasn’t nearly as frightening.

“I wanted to make them understand, to show them what it would be like for ordinary people under the rule of the Magi, to be governed and ordered by such frightening things, so I learned the Old, Secret magic, made pacts with the Darklings and conjured the Wild Ride…

“Except that it worked slightly too well - I realised that I could do more that just make a point, I could actually stop them, I could drain Maggs’ power, lock up Hopkins, drive the Order underground… I got, well, I’m afraid I got carried away… I controlled the Wild Ride and, through them, I could control the Magi - I became Lord Protector, created the Knights Watchmen and the Veil and hid magic away for twenty years.

“Until, that is, the whole thing turned upside down.”

“Thursby and the new Knights Errant?” Oscar felt he knew where they were now.

“That daft lot? Moons and Circles, no - at least not at first - no, it was the Darklings - Darklings that I knew full well weren’t any part of my Wild Ride - appearing out of nowhere, attacking Magi unsuspected, undetectable and completely unbelievable. I’d become too confident, I think, too sure of myself - I was caught completely off guard and I messed it up, frankly, I didn’t take your Knights Errant - and I’m including you in that, young man -I didn’t take them seriously at all, until it was too late, and then all I managed was to get this poor young lady in trouble.”

“Ridley?”

“Who do you think gave the promising young Knight Watchman the mission of infiltrating the Knights Errant? I should have guessed that she’d find them more exciting than being a boring old Watchman, and perhaps she was right at that, too.”

“But you think that Cuddy is behind all this?”

“Oh yes - I can’t quite see how, yet…”

“I think I can fill in that bit,” Maggs interjected, “If Hopkins and I were really reserking Darklings before, then he must have already known a lot about the Old magic, and then all that time in the White Tower and his library…”

“Library?” Skelton was taken by surprise, “What library?”

“In the tower,” continued Maggs, “We saw it, didn’t we, Oscar? Amazering place, books I thought had vanished hundreds of years ago - Cuddy must have disuncovered it and realised he could use it, he could use Hopkins’ knowledge and power to create his own Wild Ride, to use that fear of the Darklings to pull his new Knights Errant together.”

“That sounds about right,” Skelton shook his head, “That’ll be why he possessed Hopkins, poor chap.”

“So Cuddy planned everything?”

“I’m pretty certain - everyone else: Thursby, you, even Hopkins, have just been pawns in his game.”

“But what’s he trying to do?”

“Rule the world, I think, or something like it. Sounds rather silly when you say it out loud, doesn’t it?” Skelton laughed a little, “And I’m not sure even he would think about it like that, but I’m fairly sure that he thinks that the Magi should be in charge and that he should be in charge of the Magi and if making that happen means burning down the whole of civilisation around him, he would gladly light the fuse.”

“Very well, then,” said Karl, jumping down from the bench, “What are you going to do about it?”

“How is she?” asked Skelton, ignoring him for the moment, “Is she alright?”

“I think so,” Erik was wiping his hands with cobweb, “The wound is cleaned and bound and the bleeding’s stopped. She’s strong and we’ve woven what charms we can.”

“Good,” Skelton turned back to the controls of the ornithopter, “Then we can get on with answering your question, Master Gnome. I can tell you precisely what we’re going to do about it: we’re going to destroy him by destroying the Magi, and we will destroy the Magi by destroying the Great Work.”

The gnomes stared at his back, open-mouthed.

“But… how?”

“Oh details, details,” Skelton grinned at them over his shoulder, “Hold on tight: going down!”

And the ornithopter folded its wings and plunged towards the street.

“I’m afraid,” said Maggs, “We weren’t actually looking for you…”

“It was in Maggs’ notes,” explained Oscar, “She had all the notes about the Black Chamber and Cowper. We thought she might have found out away to beat the Wild Ride and the secret might be here.”

“Cowper?” Skelton was confused, “Why would he have known anything about the Wild Ride?”

“But I must have been trying to discover a way to stop them,” protested Maggs, “I mean, that’s why they attacked me, isn’t it?”

“Not at all,” Skelton was struggling with Hopkins’ boots, “You were researching the Great Work, trying to find a way to complete it, so the Darklings tried to stop you…”

“Complete the Great Work?”

“Of course, that was your plan, all those years ago - you and your Knights Errant: complete the Great Work and make the power of the Magi unassailable. Naturally the Darklings weren’t so keen on that.”

“Then why was I making notes about Cowper?”

“Well, Cowper tried to destroy the Great Work, didn’t he? Perhaps he discovered something about how it worked, something that would help…” he suddenly stopped and stared away into space, “Stars and spirits…”

“Rufus?” Maggs prompted him.

“Undo the Great Work!” Skelton dropped the boots in his excitement, “We don’t stand a chance against Cuddy and the rest of the Magi now, but if we could finish Cowper’s work…”

“…if we could undo the Great Work,” continued Maggs, “It would remove their power competeley…”

“…and we could stop Cuddy in his tracks!” Skelton bent down and started trying to pull on a boot while hopping ungainly round the room, “It’s perfect!”

“Perfect…” Maggs shook her head, “There’s only one niggling niggler: it can’t be done. The secret of the Great Work died with Lord Newton: Cowper failed and was locked in here for the rest of his life.”

“Precisely,” Skelton was struggling to push his foot into the high boot, “Those notes that you were following: you must have discovered that Cowper had left some clue in here.”

“Of course!” Maggs was smiling again, “Oscar, check the door round the corner…”

“Any thing with Cowper’s name on!” shouted Skelton after him, “Anything that looks like a notebook. In fact, just bring anything…”

Oscar ran out of the cell and down the corridor, past the entrance and through the door at the other end. On the other side was a small, bare room, obviously meant simply for guards or for waiting visitors, which had nothing in it except an old table, a couple of battered looking chairs and a small bookcase hanging on the wall.

He pulled the chair out from under the table and climbed up onto it so he could see the bookshelf properly. He didn’t know what he had been expecting, but it hadn’t been a whole row of thick books with big shiny letters and pictures of explosions and guns on the front. These were following by more thick books with spaceships and knights on them. It wasn’t quite the reading he might have expected of a Magi, but then, perhaps, they tried to keep books of magic out of the Black Chamber.

But there, at the end, were a small bundle of papers and notebooks. He grabbed them all and dropped them down on the table, then jumped down and started going through them. Some of them were evidently letters, there were a couple of address books where tiny notes filled up all the space between the names, there was even an apparently rather monotonous diary. And there was a black notebook bulging with loose papers, tied up with ribbon with a scrap of paper pasted to the front: “Thos. Cowper. Commonplace Book.”

He ran back to the cell to discover his Uncle Rufus standing in the middle of the room, with the Erl King’s coat, the colour of dried blood, wreathing round him, the tails twitching and swaying in a breeze that only they could feel. The coat made an odd shape in the middle, as if his godfather had suddenly put on a lot of weight, and Oscar suddenly realised that he could see Ridley’s blonde curls sticking out of the collar of the coat. The rest of her must be buttoned up inside. Skelton saw him staring.

“The coat can carry her, and it should help stop the bleeding, once we get outside… what have you got there?”

“It says it belonged to a Thos Cowper, is that the same person?”

“Thomas,” said Maggs, “The ‘Thos’ stands for Thomas: it’s him - let’s have a look.”

Oscar handed her the book and she undid the ribbon as she crossed to the table under the window. The sun must have been coming up outside because a dim, silvery glow was starting to filter through.

Maggs emptied all the loose papers onto the desk, spreading them out. The she started leafing through the notebook. Skelton started unfolding bits of paper, laying them out flat. Oscar picked one up. The handwriting was cramped and small and… not handwriting at all.

“Symbols…” he said

“Cipher…” said Skelton

“It’s all in code…” Maggs threw the notebook down, “We don’t have time for this: Ridley said she called reinforcements - they’re bound to check in here when they can’t find her…”

The notebook had fallen open on the table, the broken spine flopping back to reveal the first page. There was something written on it in plain English. Oscar bent over to have a look:

“Thos. Cowper Fecit 1811.

The terrible work the King hath wrought,

Shall by the King’s own hand be brought to naught.”

“That must be where you got it from, Maggs,” he said, pointing to the verse.

“Oh yes…” Maggs looked puzzled, “But I always thought it must be something about the Wild Ride…”

“But it wasn’t,” Skelton finished her thought, “And yet it was so important that you remembered it even after what I did to you…”

“So,” asked Oscar, “if it wasn’t about the Darklings, what is it about?”

“That,” said Skelton, “Is a very good question… well, if Cowper wrote it then it must have been about his researches, about the Great Work…”

“He certainly thought of the Great Work as a Great Terror…” said Maggs, “But why would that be the King’s fault?”

“Of course!” Skelton clapped his hands, “It is the King’s work - it was done in his name: his seal is on the Charter in the Temple!”

“I’ve seen that!” said Oscar.

“So we need the King’s own hand to break it?” Maggs was incredulous, “What do we have to do, catnap the Prince of Wales?”

“Hm… seems unlikely, doesn’t it?” Skelton stared at the rhyme, “Unless…”

“What?”

“The King’s Seal and signature are on the Charter in the Temple…”

Maggs was staring at him open-mouthed.

“I don’t understand,” Oscar was bewildered.

“The work of the King’s own hand… his own handwriting?” Rufus was thinking out loud.

“It’s something to do with the Charter… we need to get into the Charter Room” the light was beginning to dawn on Maggs, “That’s going to be interesting…”

Skelton suddenly looked around him.

“What happened to the cat? The one that was with you in the Temple when you caught me? What happened to him?”

“He was with us when we came here,” Oscar suddenly realised that he hadn’t seen the little black cat the whole time they had been in the Black Chamber.

“Of course,” said Skelton, “He wouldn’t come in here - too dangerous for him… Come on, we’ve got to find him…” he picked up the Erl King’s white mask and started strapping it on.

“The cat? Why?”

“Aha: you’ll see…” and he ran from the room, with Oscar and Maggs hot on his heels.

“Forgive me for not coming to meet you, but I’m a little tied up at the moment.”

The room was plain and stone walled like the others. It had a small window high in one wall that was letting in a little light, beneath which was a solid antique table, with some food and an old-fashioned oil lamp on it. And on the far wall, chained with his arms above his head, dressed only in a shirt and ragged trousers was the last person they had expected to see: one time Lord Protector of the Magi and now the country’s most wanted man, Oscar’s godfather, Rufus Skelton.

Maggs and Oscar stopped in the doorway and stared, open mouthed, at precisely the last person they expected to see. What was Skelton doing locked up in the Black Chamber? And if he was here, who was this figure dressed as the Erl King who now stepped forward into the room and threw Ridley’s body onto the ground, where she lay, moving feebly?

“Silence.”

Skelton started forward, pulling the chains taught.

“What have you done to her, you monster?”

“Silence, or… the boy… the woman…” The figure gestured at Oscar and Maggs with an inept sweep of the sword.

“If you’re going to kill us,” Skelton’s voice was cold, “You could at least face us… Master Cuddy.” He produced the name triumphantly, and Maggs gasped at it, but the dark figure just shook at him with what Oscar realised was silent laughter.

“No,” it rasped and then an awkward hand reached up and jerked off the bone white mask that covered the face, revealing the thin, drawn face of Laurence Hopkins. His narrow mouth crawled up one side of his face in what it took Oscar a while to recognise as a smile, but there was something in his eyes that looked a lot more like panic.

“Are you sure?” Skelton leant towards him, pulling on his chains, “Is that really you? Are you really here, Hopkins? Or is someone else here with you? In your head?”

“I… Hel…” Hopkins suddenly swayed, the awful bleak smile dropping from his face, then he pulled himself back upright, “Silence!”

“He’s not there now, you know, Hopkins, not in here,” Skelton was trying to look Hopkins in the eye, to fix him with his stare, “This is the Black Chamber, he can’t reach you in here…”

Hopkins seemed to be struggling to speak and then he suddenly jerked upwards, flinging out a hand that caught Oscar roughly by the neck, choking him and hauling him up onto his tiptoes, while the sword flailed around dangerously.

“I can’t… stop it…” Hopkins’ voice was strangled, broken.

“Maggs!” shouted Skelton as she scrabbled at Hopkins’ arm, trying to get him to release Oscar.

“He’s too strong,” she was almost crying with the effort and the terror of the situation, “I’m just an old woman…”

“No!” Skelton was straining at his chains as Hopkins twisted Oscar back and forth, the sword glinting in the dim light, “Talk to him - you were friends, close friends…”

“Hopkins,” Maggs tried to pull herself up to look into his face.

“Laurence,” hissed Skelton, “His name’s Laurence.”

“Laurence, listen to me, it’s Maggs, it’s… Margaret…” Hopkins’ head snapped round to look at her, “Laurence, we were friends once…” Maggs was desperately trying to stay calm and reassuring despite her panic, “I… I can’t remember, but perhaps you can… please, Laurence, for me… let the boy go…”

Oscar felt Hopkins go suddenly stiff and begin shaking violently, as if he was trying to struggle against something wound tightly round his very bones. Then he gave a terrible guttural grunt and threw Oscar and Maggs away from him, the sword clattering away in the other direction, flinging himself across the room at the wall on the other side.

Maggs caught Oscar up before either of them had hit the ground, it seemed, and bundled him away from Hopkins towards his godfather.

“Oscar, Oscar, are you alright?” she peered down at him anxiously, but his throat throbbed too much to speak and all he could do was nod.

“Maggs, the sword, quickly,” it was Skelton, leaning out across the cell to try and reach the weapon. Maggs half scurried, half fell across the room to get at it before Hopkins could recover, but she needn’t have worried, all he did was give another, lower moan, and pull himself into a tight ball in the corner.

“Oscar, are you alright?” it was Skelton’s turn to worry.

Oscar nodded, gently, so as not to disturb anything important, “I think so,” he rasped, his voice still hoarse.

“Good man,” Skelton gave him a quick smile of encouragement, “Maggs, how’s Ridley?”

Maggs looked up from where she was already examining Ridley’s wounds, “She’s losing a lot of blood, I think.”

“Right, first things first, we deal with that,” Skelton immediately became calmer, more organised, “Try and bind her up, Maggs, put pressure on the wound - Oscar, fetch me those keys Ridley had, lets see if we can get me out of these chains.”

Oscar ran across, trying not to look too closely at the dark stain spreading on Ridley’s coat, and brought the bunch of keys over to his Uncle Rufus.

“Try that big black one, yes, that one - this arm, here…”

“I don’t…” The words caught in his sore throat and he coughed and had to start the sentence again, a little more slowly this time, “I don’t understand…”

“Alright, maybe not that one, how about that brown one, there…”

“I thought you were the Erl King…”

“So did I - seems I’ve got competition now, though, doesn’t it?… that’s got it, good work!” The lock at his wrist sprang open and Skelton shook his hand, rubbing the red welt the manacle had made around it, “Mind you, I only really ever got to be the Erl King once, and look where that got me…”

“Once? What do you mean?”

Uncle Rufus took the keys from Oscar and started undoing the other chains.

“That night you caught me in the Great Hall - oh yes, don’t think I don’t blame you for all this,” he flashed Oscar a quick grin, “Passed out in the Great Hall, came round in here…”

“So you didn’t kill those guards, or attack the Prime Minister, or Maggs’ family…”

“Kill? Prime Minister? Maggs’ family?… Hm…” Skelton stopped and started at the figure curled up on the other side of the room, “Poor old Hopkins…”

“If it was him that did those things,” Maggs looked up, “Then you can save your pity.”

“But that’s just the point,” Skelton picked up the sword and walked over to Hopkins, “I’m not sure it was him, not really…” Skelton looked at the huddled man and thought for a moment, then brought the butt of the sword down hard on his head. The bunched form suddenly relaxed and sprawled, quite unconscious.

“Oscar, give me a hand, will you, I want to try and get these robes off him, they are mine, after all, and only I know their real power” Skelton started unbuttoning the Erl King’s coat, and Oscar joined him, pulling at the gloves, “They should be able to help me deal with Ridley’s injuries,” Skelton tugged at the unresponsive body, trying to get Hopkins’ arms out of the sleeves. Close to, the robes felt strange: it was hard to keep a grip on them, as if they had a life of their own, shifting and squirming under your fingers. It was odd, too, being so close to his Uncle again, as if nothing that he had seen in the last few days had happened, which, he supposed, it hadn’t for his Uncle, locked up in here, with no knowledge of what was going on.

“Cuddy,” said Maggs, suddenly, “You said it before, I’ve only just realised what you meant: you think he… he’s responsive, don’t you? You think he… he…” her voice trailed off as she stared at Hopkins’ limp shape.

“Ah, yes, the most despicable crime of the Magi: Possession - letting a spirit control another Magi,” he added for Oscar’s benefit, “Darkest of all the dark magic - I’m afraid, Maggs, I rather do think that, yes - that Master Cuddy has been controlling poor old Hopkins all along - although I don’t have any evidence, mind you, except for, you know, cui bono.”

“Is that a spell?” asked Oscar.

“The oldest kind: Occams’ razor,” his Uncle seemed to find this funny, but Oscar had no idea what he was talking about, “It’s Latin,” he explained, “‘Who benefits’, you see - ‘Follow the money’, as the Americans would say… I rather sense a controlling hand in all this - the return of the Wild Hunt, the White Tower, our little revolution - a brain working away in the background and for some reason I keep thinking about young master Cuddy. Never really liked him anyway - because, I suspect, he’s rather too like me. I recognise the way he thinks: locking me in here, for instance, that’s what I would have done - too useful to dispose of, too dangerous to…” he stopped and looked up, “Just realised: what are you three all doing here, anyway? How did you find me?”