The Masked City

Even the boatmen in the gondolas were turning to stare …

She was moving before she could think twice, pulling up her skirts and jumping into the nearest gondola. The gondolier wasn’t expecting it, and she rammed her shoulder into his stomach, shoving him overboard while he tottered and struggled for breath. Vale was right behind her and was already hauling Kai into the gondola.

The entire crowd was still staring at them in dead silence. It was paralysing. Irene choked, trying to get her mouth and tongue to work as she struggled with adrenaline mingled with fear, but the words finally came. ‘Mooring rope, undo. Gondola in which I am standing, move towards the Train.’

The gondola was moving before the rope (and all other ropes within earshot) came fully undone. For one terrifying moment it strained against its moorings, still tied to the quay as the crowd came rushing forward with a single, multi-voiced scream of fury. She could see the whites of their wide, expressionless eyes. Seagulls rose shrieking from the rooftops and eaves, bursting into motion in a flurry of pale wings in the darkness.

Then the rope snapped, lashing free as it broke, and the boat jolted into motion. Vale collapsed in a pile with the semi-conscious Kai, and Irene went down on her hands and knees, as the gondola cut through the water like a motorboat towards the Train, the impression so convincing that she could almost believe she smelled smoke.

A nasty suspicion flared in her mind, and she turned to look at Kai. The wood of the gondola was indeed charring and smoking where his flesh touched it, and a matching discoloration was spreading like a rash on his skin. He’s as allergic to this place as it’s allergic to him. There was no way I could have hidden him here and escaped later. She turned back to the approaching Train, with a feeling of mingled dread and irritation at yet one more obstacle - how were they actually going to get into the thing? Still, climbing into a train from a burning gondola, at sea level, was a minor problem, considering what they were leaving behind.

The gondola crashed into the side of the Train and bobbed there crazily, pitching up and down. In mute invitation, the nearest Train door immediately swung open and Vale caught hold of it, steadying the gondola against the side of the Train while Irene scrambled into the carriage. Other gondolas, full of wild-eyed Venetians, were surging through the water towards them, in a dead silence that was almost more horrifying than screams or threats. She pulled Kai by the shoulders as Vale pushed, dragging him into the Train with adrenaline-fuelled strength. She’d barely levered him partway in, when the burned gondola gave way under Vale. He threw himself forward, clutching at the lip of the doorway as the planks sank beneath him.

‘Vale!’ Irene screamed, dropping her hold on Kai’s shoulders to reach for him.

Vale spat out sea water. ‘I can manage,’ he gasped, kicking to raise himself in the water and push himself into the carriage. ‘See to Strongrock!’

Irene tugged frantically at Kai. He was a dead weight, his eyes closed and his body limp, but she managed to drag him fully inside the carriage just as Vale finished pulling himself in too. From the corner of her eye, she could see the crowd banging on the platform-side doors. She ignored them. She didn’t think the Train would let them in.

The interior of the Train was silent, and they found themselves in a luxurious carriage, all ivory velvet and fittings, which made their soaked, dishevelled clothes seem even more inappropriate. But the challenge now was to flee this Venice before the Rider, or the Ten - or anyone else - could stop them.

It was time. Irene took a deep breath, rose to her feet and said firmly, ‘Train, Steed, Horse … or whatever I should call you, I am here to free you, so that we can escape together. Show me how.’

A scream shook the carriage, too loud to be human, and Irene clapped her hands to her ears before she belatedly recognized the Train venting steam. The noise settled down to a barely tolerable shudder, the wheels trembling in place, but not quite moving yet as the pistons shook in their housings.

‘Why isn’t it moving?’ Vale demanded. He pushed back wet hair from his face.

‘I don’t think it can, until I’ve freed it,’ Irene said. She looked round for any obvious indications and hoped it wouldn’t involve going outside again.

Vale frowned. ‘What did you try before - telling a story?’

Irene suppressed a moment of irritation at Vale telling her how to use the Language, and nodded, assembling a narrative. Right, that was it. ‘And the princess returned from her quest, with the prince with her,’ well, on the floor, ‘and her knight by her side.’ She couldn’t risk leaving Vale out of the story, in case the Train left him behind. ‘And the princess said to the horse, “Where are your bridle and reins, that I may free you from them?”’

Their carriage door swung open into the corridor. And, with a sigh, Vale swung Kai onto his shoulder again, staggering under the weight.

Irene was first through the door - and it slammed shut behind her, nearly catching her fingertips. She could see Vale and Kai on the other side through the carriage windows, but couldn’t prise open the door, however much she wrenched at the handle. ‘Let them go!‘ she shouted, seeing faces in the darkness behind Vale, on the platform outside the Train.

The humming of the engine steadied into a regular shook-a-shook, a trembling eagerness to depart. Maybe in this story the princess had to free the steed on her own. She’d trusted it so far - she’d just have to keep on trusting it.

With a hopefully reassuring gesture through the window, Irene headed down the corridor.