She was up high, among the heavy wooden beams of the open ceiling. She looked down at the tables thirty feet below her. Directly ahead was the enormous central rafter, running the length of the hall. This beam was crisscrossed with horizontal rafters every five feet, which ran out to the walls on both sides. All the rafters were elaborately carved, and cross-braced at intervals.
Without hesitation, Kate stepped out onto the central beam. Everyone below was looking up; they gasped when they saw her, pointed upward. She heard Oliver cry loudly, "Saint George and damnation! The assistant! We are betrayed! The Magister!"
He pounded the table, and stood, glaring up at her.
She said, "Chris. Find the Professor."
She heard a crackle. " - kay."
"Did you hear me? Chris."
Just a static crackle.
Kate moved quickly down the center rafter. Despite the height above the floor, she felt perfectly comfortable. The beam was a foot wide. Nothing to it. Hearing another gasp from the people below, she glanced back and saw Sir Guy step out on the center beam. He seemed frightened, but the presence of an audience emboldened him. Either that or he was unwilling to show fear at so public a moment. Guy took a hesitant step, found his balance, and came directly for her, moving rapidly. He swung the sword loosely in his hand. He reached the first vertical brace, took a breath, and, holding on to the upright post, maneuvered his body around it. He continued on down the center beam.
Kate backed away, realizing that this center beam was too wide, too easy for him. She walked laterally along a horizontal rafter, heading toward the side wall. This horizontal rafter was only six inches wide; he would have trouble. She clambered around a difficult cross-braced section, then continued on.
Only then did she realize her mistake.
Generally, open medieval ceilings had a structural detail where they met the wall - another brace, a decorative beam, some sort of rafter that she could move along. But this ceiling reflected the French style: the beam ran straight into the side wall, where it fitted into a notch some four feet below the line of the roof. There was no wall detail at all. She remembered now that she had stood in the ruins of La Roque and had seen those notches. What was she thinking of?
She was trapped on the beam.
She couldn't go farther out, because the beam ended at the wall. She couldn't go back to the center, because Guy was there, waiting for her. And she couldn't go to the next parallel rafter, because it was five feet away, very far to jump.
Not impossible, but far. Especially without a safety.
Looking back, she saw Sir Guy coming out along the beam toward her, balancing cautiously, swinging his sword lightly in his hand. He smiled grimly as he came forward. He knew he had caught her.
She had no choice now. She looked at the next beam, five feet away. She had to do it. The problem was to get enough height. She had to jump up if she hoped to make it across.
Guy was working his way around the cross-beam bracing. He was only seconds away from her now. She crouched on the beam, took a breath, tensed her muscles - and kicked hard with her legs, sending her body flying out into open space.
Chris came up through the stone trapdoor. He looked through the fire and saw that everybody in the room was staring up at the ceiling. He knew Kate was up there, but there was nothing he could do for her. He went directly to the side door and tried to open it. When it didn't budge, he slammed his full weight against it, felt it give an inch. He shoved again; the door creaked, then swung wide.
He stepped out into the inner courtyard of La Roque. Soldiers were running everywhere. A fire had broken out in one of the hoardings, the wooden galleries that ran along the top of the walls. Something was burning like a bonfire in the center of the courtyard itself. Amid the chaos, no one paid any attention to him.
He said, "Andre. Are you there?"
A static crackle. Nothing.
And then: "Yes." It was Andre's voice.
"Andre? Where are you?"
"With the Professor."
"Where?" Chris said.
"The arsenal."
"Where is that?"
00:59:20
There were two dozen animals in cages in the laboratory storeroom, mostly cats, but also some guinea pigs and mice. The room smelled of fur and feces. Gordon led him down the aisle, saying, "We keep the split ones isolated from the others. We have to."
Stern saw three cages along the back wall. The bars of these cages were thick. Gordon led him to one, where he saw a small, curled-up bundle of fur. It was a sleeping cat, a Persian, pale gray in color.
"This is Wellsey," Gordon said, nodding.
The cat seemed entirely normal. It breathed slowly, gently, as it slept. He could see half the face above the curve of the fur. The paws were dark. Stern leaned closer, but Gordon put his hand on his chest. "Not too close," he said.
Gordon reached for a stick, ran it along the bars of the cage.
The cat's eye opened. Not slowly and lazily - it opened wide, instantly alert. The cat did not move, did not stretch. Only the eye moved.
Gordon ran the stick along the bars a second time.
With a furious hiss, the cat flung itself against the bars, mouth wide, teeth bared. It banged against the bars, stepped back, and attacked again - and again, relentlessly, without pause, hissing, snarling.
Stern stared in horror.
The animal's face was hideously distorted. One side appeared normal, but the other side was distinctly lower, the eye, the nostril, everything lower, with a line down the center of the face, dividing the halves. That's why they called it "split," he thought.
But worse was the far side of the face, which he didn't see at first, with the cat lunging and banging against the bars, but now he could see that back on the side of the head, behind the distorted ear, there was a third eye, smaller and only partially formed. And beneath that eye was a patch of nose flesh, and then a protruding bit of jaw that stuck out like a tumor from the side of the face. A curve of white teeth poked out from the fur, though there was no mouth.