Oscar and the Magi: The Prisoner
“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?”