Prologue: Iron Knights
1489
Predjama Castle, modern-day Slovenia
Dawn broke over Predjama Castle, the cool air tinged with smoke drifting up from the campfires in the valley below. A blacksmith’s hammer rang out upon the anvil, shattering the watchful silence and startling birds into the air. Swords were being sharpened, steel polished. The army of Emperor Frederick III was preparing for battle.
High up on the battlements, Matthias stood and looked out over the enemy. The castle was built into the mouth of a cliff face, a stern fortress in a yawning natural cave. Even up here among the tower tops, pennants fluttering in the wind around him, Matthias could feel the cave’s shadow settling round his shoulders like a cloak. He was fourteen years old, with a messy nest of brown hair and skinny limbs hidden beneath his robes. His master, Gauer, leaned on the gnarled staff beside him, the chief scribe’s bare skull gleaming in the morning sunlight.
‘The Emperor’s men are ready for an attack,’ Gauer declared.
‘Let them,’ Matthias said. ‘I’m not scared.’
The Emperor had been laying siege to Predjama for over a year now, but the castle showed no sign of falling. It never would, Matthias thought proudly. Predjama’s walls were sheer, its doors hewn from thick oak. Eagle-eyed archers manned the battlements, ready to unleash a hail of arrows at anyone foolish enough to try to cross the open ground to the castle gates. In desperation, the Emperor had tried to starve the defenders out, but despite the passing months Predjama’s pantries still overflowed with grain, berries and meat.
Almost as if by magic.
Glancing over at the next tower, Matthias saw Lord Erazem step out on to the parapet. He was a burly man in a fur-lined cape, a broadsword strapped to his side. His advisor Cavelos accompanied him as usual. A graceful figure with a cropped beard and sallow complexion, Cavelos’s soft footsteps followed Erazem’s heavy tread round the castle passageways like night upon day. In the kitchens and stables of Predjama, it was whispered that the advisor was a sorcerer who drew on arcane powers to help protect the fortress from Frederick’s men. Now, as Matthias stared, Cavelos turned round and gazed coolly back at him. Matthias looked away.
A discordant trumpet blast echoed round the valley: in reply, banners bearing the imperial coat of arms – a black, two-headed eagle, tasting the air with its long tongues – were hoisted proudly into the air. With a furious cry, the Emperor’s soldiers swarmed forward. Predjama’s bowmen replied with a volley of arrows, felling men in their tracks. Matthias’s hand closed round the hilt of the dagger in his belt.
‘You should have let me stand with the archers, master,’ he told Gauer. ‘I have been practising with my bow, and can hit a target from twenty paces.’
‘You will see more of the battle from up here,’ the scribe said calmly.
‘I don’t want to see!’ Matthias retorted. ‘I want to fight!’
Gauer chuckled, a sound like rustling parchment. ‘Wait until you get to my age,’ he said. ‘You will learn the wisdom in avoiding battles wherever possible.’
Frustrated, Matthias could only watch as the Emperor’s men continued to die under the sharp-tipped rain. Screams filled the air. As the sun climbed in the sky, something glinted on the ridge to the east. Matthias frowned. Five knights arranged in the shape of a letter V were running on foot towards the castle. Their armour was tarnished with rust, and they carried neither flags nor pennants to identify themselves. As Matthias looked on in amazement, the knights drew their swords and charged into the flank of the Emperor’s army. Cries of alarm went up from the horrified soldiers as they were cut down where they stood.
‘Look, master!’ Matthias cried, grabbing Gauer’s sleeve. ‘Knights have come to lift the siege! They must be allies of Lord Erazem!’
The scribe said nothing, his face grim. Matthias felt unease slosh around inside his belly as the knights drew closer. They were a head taller than any man he had ever seen, their faces hidden behind their visors. Killing with terrifying ease, they carved a bloody path through the Emperor’s men, trampling over the dead and wounded.
‘Who are these knights?’ Matthias asked Gauer.
‘I do not know,’ the scribe said quietly. ‘But I have never seen men kill like this before.’
The Emperor’s army was scattering in terror, but there were no cheers from the defenders on the battlements. Lord Erazem appeared to be arguing with Cavelos – pushing his advisor to one side, the gruff warrior drew his broadsword and stormed back inside the tower. For the second time that morning, Matthias’s and Cavelos’s eyes met. Gathering his robes about him, Cavelos followed his lord off the parapet.
Below them, the knights had butchered their way to the gates of Predjama. At an unspoken signal they stopped and sheathed their swords, craning their necks up towards the battlements. As their gaze passed over him, Matthias shivered. Suddenly the knights ran forward and began to scale the castle walls, climbing with astonishing agility, like huge metal spiders.
‘Impossible!’ Gauer gasped. ‘What sorcery is this?’
Warning shouts went up around the towers. Archers turned their bows upon the clambering knights, only to see their arrows bounce harmlessly off rusty armour. Further along the battlements, Matthias caught sight of a mailed fist gripping the top of the wall. A knight hauled himself up on to the parapet, his shadow blotting out the sun. Drawing his sword with an icy scrape of steel, he jumped down into the terrified bowmen.
Gauer’s bony hand fastened round Matthias’s wrist, drawing him back from the walls.
‘The castle is in danger!’ Matthias protested. ‘We must stand and fight!’
‘With what?’ Gauer said pointedly. ‘Five knights have defeated an entire army – do you think they will cower at the sight of my staff and your dagger? Come, my apprentice. We have work to do.’
The scribe marched Matthias through the doorway into the tower, where they descended a set of steps into the innards of the castle. Wide-eyed servants ran by, wailing about devils in armour. Matthias could smell burning – looking out through the window, he saw smoke rising up from the keep. A fire had started somewhere within the fortress. But Gauer didn’t break stride.
‘Where are we going?’ Matthias panted.
Gauer ducked through an archway and climbed the steps into the east tower, stopping outside an oak door with a pair of stag’s antlers carved into the wood. It was Lord Erazem’s private library – the most jealously guarded room in the entire castle. Gauer drew a key from within his robes and unlocked the door, gesturing at Matthias to enter. With a gulp, Matthias crept inside.
He found himself in a vast chamber, thick stone columns supporting a roof that disappeared up into shadow. Frowning portraits hung from the walls, beside tapestries telling tales of battles fought and crowns won. Bookcases crammed with volumes stretched in all directions. The air was thick with the smell of musty parchment. After the din of battle outside, the silence inside the library throbbed in Matthias’s ears.
Gauer was already hurrying away down an aisle, the base of his staff rapping against the flagstones. Matthias hastened after him, following the scribe along a bewildering path through the bookcases.
‘What are we doing here, master?’ he called out.
‘We must save what we can,’ Gauer replied over his shoulder. ‘Some of these manuscripts are the only ones of their kind – if the fire takes hold, they will be lost forever.’
At the end of the aisle he stopped at another door, which he unlocked with a second smaller key. The door led through into a star-shaped antechamber with no windows. Torches flickered in a mirror hanging upon the wall, outlining two figures standing before it. One was a slender, dark-haired woman whom Matthias recognized as Mara, a servant from the kitchens. She held a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes in her arms, shushing it gently. Beside her stood Cavelos. The advisor glanced round as Gauer and Matthias entered the chamber, his mouth creasing into a smile.
‘Ah, scribe – I should have guessed,’ he said to Gauer. ‘Like a proud father, you rush to protect your precious books.’
‘What are you doing here, Cavelos?’ Gauer’s voice was level. ‘Where is Lord Erazem?’
‘Lost,’ Cavelos replied shortly. ‘And the battle with him. I warned Erazem the knights were more powerful than he, but he was too proud to listen. He challenged their leader in battle and was cut down like a stalk in the wind. His blood now stains the cobblestones of the keep.’
Matthias gasped. ‘Lord Erazem is dead? He can’t be!’
‘More will join him before this day is out,’ Cavelos said matter-of-factly.
‘And so you came here,’ said Gauer.
‘As did you,’ the advisor replied. ‘But, while you try to save your beloved library, there is only one book I care about.’
He made a gesture with his hands and the surface of the mirror on the wall shimmered, as though turning from glass to water. Now, when Matthias looked into it, he could see a bound volume resting on top of a stone pedestal on the other side. The breath caught in his throat.
‘How is this possible?’ he whispered.
It was Gauer who answered. ‘Magic,’ he said. ‘Cavelos has been using his power to protect the castle since the siege began. Do you really think we could have repelled the Emperor’s men for this long with swords and arrows alone?’
If anyone else had spoken, Matthias would have thought they were joking. But his master did not joke about anything. And hadn’t Cavelos turned the glass mirror into water before his very eyes? Matthias peered through the shifting surface at the book. It was a heavy volume, bound in black leather. There was no title or clue as to its author, but on the cover he could make out the shadowy design of an ankh, a cross with a loop at the top.
‘The Book of the Apocalypse,’ Gauer said in a reverent tone. ‘The secrets of magic are stored within its pages, passed down through the ages from one generation of wizards to the next.’
Cavelos raised his eyebrows. ‘Will you share all our secrets with this boy, scribe?’
‘Not all of them,’ Gauer said pointedly. ‘Some secrets are more shameful than others. But only by standing together can we hope to save anything.’
‘And yet you stand there bickering while the castle burns!’ Mara said impatiently. ‘This book may be important, Cavelos, but it is not more important than your son. You promised you would take us to safety!’
‘And I will,’ Cavelos replied. ‘No harm will come to my flesh and blood, especially not with the Book of the Apocalypse in my grasp.’
‘What about the rest of us?’ Matthias said. ‘If you’re such a great wizard, why don’t you stop these knights?’
‘They draw on a magic of their own that I do not understand,’ Cavelos replied. ‘I cannot be sure I can stop them.’
‘But people are dying!’
‘Humans are dying,’ Cavelos corrected him. ‘And I am not a human.’
A piercing scream came through the library walls – Mara drew her baby closer to her chest, hushing it gently as it cried. The sounds of battle were drawing closer.
‘Your words shame you, Cavelos,’ Gauer said.
‘Careful, old man,’ the wizard hissed. ‘You of all people should know the extent of my power.’
‘Don’t threaten him!’ Matthias said angrily, pushing forward and showing the dagger tucked into his belt.
Mara let out a scream – whirling round, Matthias saw a shadow loom in the doorway behind him. It was a knight, its rusted armour splattered with blood. As it strode into the antechamber, Cavelos made an intricate gesture with his fingers. A jet of fizzing light shot out from his ring, striking the knight in the breastplate and sending him flying back into the wall. Matthias’s heart leaped, only to see the knight shake his head and silently pick himself up from the floor. Cavelos muttered something under his breath, pulling Mara behind him.
The knight raised his sword and charged at the wizard, the antechamber echoing to the clash of magic and steel. As Matthias looked on in amazement, Gauer reached inside the mirror and snatched the Book of the Apocalypse from its pedestal. He bundled Matthias through the door back into the library.
‘What about Mara and the baby?’ Matthias said.
‘Cavelos can take care of them,’ the scribe replied. ‘Quickly, boy!’
Gauer hurried over to a portrait of Lord Erazem and reached up to take down a volume from the nearest bookshelf. There was a loud click, and a section of the wall slid back to reveal a dark portal.
‘This passageway leads out to the top of the mountain,’ Gauer explained. ‘It is how Erazem kept supplies coming in during the siege.’ He thrust the Book of the Apocalypse into Matthias’s hands. ‘Take this and run as far and as fast as you can. We cannot risk it falling into the hands of these knights of Hell.’
‘What about you?’ Matthias asked. ‘What will you do?’
The elderly scribe drew himself up proudly, gripping his staff. ‘Hold them off for as long as I can,’ he said.
‘But, master …!’
‘Go, boy!’ urged Gauer, pushing Matthias into the passageway and pulling the lever. As the wall rumbled back into place, Matthias caught a glimpse of another knight clanking towards Gauer. He cried out, and his master raised his staff to protect himself. Then the secret door slammed shut.
Matthias ran for his life, his sandals slapping against the stony floor. The mountainside swallowed him up, the ringing steel and wounded shrieks growing fainter with every step. The Book of the Apocalypse weighed heavily in his grasp. In a handful of bloody, terrible minutes, the once-impregnable fortress of Predjama Castle had fallen. It felt to Matthias as though a part of him had crumbled with it. His master was gone, and soon everyone he knew would be dead. He was utterly alone.
The walls narrowed, the passageway closing in around him. Up ahead the way was completely black – it looked as though the roof had fallen in. Matthias skidded to a halt, breathing hard, and glanced back over his shoulder. All it needed was for one knight to find the secret passageway from the library and he would be trapped. He had to find a way through.
But, as Matthias took a step forward, there was a movement in the darkness, and he realized that the roof hadn’t fallen in after all. A hulking shape was blocking the passageway, a dull gleam of metal in the darkness.
A knight was waiting for him.
Matthias turned to flee, but a mailed fist reached out of the darkness and seized him by his robe, lifting him into the air with contemptuous ease. The Book of the Apocalypse fell to the floor. Fumbling, Matthias pulled the dagger from his belt and drove it into the gap between the knight’s rusting breastplate and arm guard. He was expecting to feel his blade sink into soft flesh, but instead he hit something hard, jarring his wrist. Matthias cried out, his dagger clattering to the floor. He stared in disbelief at his attacker.
It was impossible. The knight was not flesh and blood but fashioned from some kind of iron.
‘W-what are you?’ Matthias gasped.
The iron knight said nothing. It didn’t even move. When Matthias reached out and pushed up its visor, he gasped in horror. The knight had neither eyes nor mouth nor ears, just a smooth steel plate and a thin bar of red light that burned brighter and colder than any fire Matthias had ever seen. The blood drained from Matthias’s face, and he realized that he had failed Gauer. He would not be able to protect the Book of the Apocalypse after all. The world was doomed.
The iron knight closed its fist round his throat and began to squeeze. The last thing that Matthias saw was the red light in the iron knight’s face, pulsing mercilessly.
01: The Ghost
2052
Scott Memorial High School, Gainesville, Florida, USA
The sec-drone made a choked whirring sound as it rose into the air, training its lens on the students pouring out through the gates of Scott Memorial High School. From a distance, it resembled a giant blue-and-white bumblebee with a scratched Gainesville Police Department logo on its underbelly. None of the chattering students paid it any attention.
Except one.
Ada Luring leaned against the side of the bike dock, brushing her hair out of her eyes as she watched the drone stutter through the air. The other students didn’t even glance at her as they went by, laughter breaking around her like waves on an island. Ada fished her phone out of her backpack and aimed it at the sec-drone, zooming in to capture the ident number beneath the police logo and taking a photo.
An excited voice called out Ada’s name. She looked up to see Pri elbowing her way through the crowd towards her.
‘There you are!’ Pri said breathlessly. ‘I’ve been looking absolutely everywhere for you since math, but it was like I was asking about a ghost because no one had seen you, and I was about to give up when I saw you here and –’ Pri stopped. Following Ada’s upward gaze, she waved her hand in front of her friend’s face. ‘Hello? Earth to Ada?’
‘Sorry,’ Ada said. ‘I’m listening.’
‘Sure you are. What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ Ada replied slowly, her eyes still fixed on the drone. ‘But someone needs to fix the engine on that thing before it falls out of the sky.’
Pri shrugged. ‘So? It’s only a sec-drone.’
‘I know. I’m just saying.’
Pri linked her arm through Ada’s, pulling her away from the bike dock.
‘We’ve got something much more important to discuss than silly sec-drones,’ she said. ‘I was thinking that we should do something together tonight.’
‘Like what?’
Pri glanced around conspiratorially before answering in a whisper: ‘Han’s parents are out of town, and he’s having a party at their lake house. There’s a live DJ feed from a club in New York and a light show over the lake. The guest list is très exclusive – anyone who even mentions it on R8 won’t be allowed in, because Han doesn’t want anyone lame trying to crash it. But that’s OK, because your good friend Pri has been invited and she can get you in.’
‘I don’t know, Pri. I think if you asked Han he’d say I was pretty lame.’
‘What is it, a year since you guys broke up?’
‘Eight months,’ Ada replied automatically.
‘People move on! Han’s not a bad guy. I’m sure he’d be cool if you came.’
‘You’d be even surer if you actually asked him.’
‘Ada! This isn’t any old party. It’s the party. Han’s throwing it for Ben’s seventeenth birthday. Remember Ben, with the strong arms and the blue eyes that make you just melt when he looks at you?’
‘I don’t have to remember him,’ Ada said drily. ‘He’s in my poli-sci class.’
‘Perfect! You can introduce me.’
‘I don’t know, Pri …’
‘C’mon, you know I’m right! It’ll be me and you, just like old times. Forget your computer and come hang out with some real people. Dance to awesome tunes and flirt with some really hot guys. Go skinny-dipping in the lake. Switch off that big old brain of yours and do something dumb for once!’
She gave Ada a winning smile.
‘Me and you,’ Ada repeated. ‘At a party at Han’s parents’ lake house.’
‘Me and you and Kit,’ Pri corrected her. ‘How else do you think I got on the guest list?’
‘Did somebody say my name?’
Right on cue, Kit Somers appeared at Pri’s shoulder. Dressed in a cream jumpsuit that left her slender arms bare, with matching heeled strappy sandals, she was attracting glances from every boy who walked past. Her hair was tied up in an elaborate chignon that must have taken hours to fix. Ada was suddenly conscious of her scruffy jeans and sneakers, the chipped polish on her bitten nails. Kit had a habit of doing that to her.
‘I was telling Ada about the party,’ Pri told her.
‘You should come!’ Kit said brightly, looking down to check her R8 feed on a sleek watch.
‘I can’t,’ Ada replied. ‘I haven’t finished my project for the Science Fair, and it’s due in by the end of the week.’
‘The Science Fair?’ Pri groaned. ‘What about Ben with the strong arms and the melty blue eyes?’
‘What kind of grade would I get for him?’
‘I’d give you an A.’
Ada laughed. ‘And, if you were grading me, I’d come to the party,’ she said. ‘But I think Mr Pirelli is more interested in particle physics than Ben’s melty blue eyes.’
‘That’s his loss,’ said Pri.
‘I’ve been reading up on particle physics and it’s kinda cool actually,’ Ada told her.
‘Really? Tell me more.’
‘Well, it’s –’
Pri slumped her head on Kit’s shoulder and closed her eyes, snoring loudly. Kit laughed.
‘Fine,’ said Ada. ‘Forget about it.’
‘Ignore her, Ada,’ Kit said airily – as though she was the one who had been Pri’s lifelong friend. No matter that Kit had only joined Scott Memorial at the start of the semester. ‘I’m sure that particle physics is cool. You know scientists, always looking for new toys to keep themselves amused. Though, if you ask me, we’ve got all the technology we need.’
Pri grinned. ‘Ada’s always been the Queen of Tech. When we were little kids, she always used to fix my holo-pet when it got sick.’
‘Sorry, excuse me?’ Kit raised an eyebrow into a perfect semicircle. ‘Holo-pet?’
‘Don’t tell me you don’t know what a holo-pet is! Everybody had one!’
‘I didn’t,’ said Kit. ‘I had an actual pet. A beautiful tortoiseshell cat called Serenity.’
Of course she did, thought Ada. And it was probably the most perfect cat in the history of pets.
‘Listen, I really gotta go,’ she told Pri. ‘Have fun tonight.’
Pri nodded, resigned to defeat. Ada slipped her backpack over her shoulders and pulled up her hood. Immediately the soft material moulded round her skin, forming a rigid mesh that protected her head like a helmet. She deactivated the micro-computer security block on her bike and climbed on to the saddle.
‘Good luck with your science project!’ Kit called out.
Ada smiled half-heartedly back. Weaving a path through the other students, she cycled out of the school gates, leaving the malfunctioning sec-drone behind her. As the crowds thinned out, she picked up speed, the wind whipping past her face. Maybe Pri was right: maybe she should go to the party. A year ago, Ada wouldn’t have thought twice. But that was before. Before her dad died and her world came crashing down around her. Before the bleak aftermath and her break-up with Han. Now Kit was on the scene with her expensive clothes and trips to shopping malls, threatening to take Pri away, too.
A loud bleeping interrupted her: it was the bike’s security block, alerting Ada to a car backing out of a driveway – a small blinking light on the map on her bike’s display. As she stopped and waited for the road to clear, there was a rustle in the laurel oak casting a shadow over the sidewalk. Ada looked up and saw a small drone hovering in the branches. She assumed it was just another sec-drone, but when she looked closer she saw that there was no Gainesville PD logo on the machine’s belly, and no ident number either. The unmarked drone’s lens was trained on her like a rifle sight.
That didn’t have to mean anything sinister, Ada told herself. Drones buzzed around all the time. Only a month ago, the school football team had sent out a drone programmed to bombard the crowd with fliers about their upcoming game. And if the football team could program a drone …
She pedalled away slowly. The leaves rustled once more, and out of the corner of her eye Ada saw a shadow inching along the sidewalk after her. The drone was definitely following her. Ada picked up speed, biking straight past the turning for her street. There was no way she was going to show the drone where she lived. Wait until she told her mom about this, Ada thought angrily. It was all her fault.
Ada’s mom Sara was a scientist at the University of Florida, and an expert in artificial intelligence. Over two years ago she’d entered the Rodin Challenge, a special new competition organized by Global Advancement Projects (GAPs) – a worldwide agency that funded technical and scientific research. Sara had warned Ada to keep a careful eye out for any kind of surveillance from rival teams, but she’d laughed it off, thinking her mom was just being paranoid. It didn’t seem quite so funny now. Had the drone been waiting for her outside the school gates? She’d been too distracted by her conversation with Pri and Kit to notice it.
Then, suddenly, she knew what to do. At the next intersection, Ada turned left, pedalling quickly down the street. Beyond the row of residential homes an arc of white light hovered like a giant halo above the Apollo Corp industrial park. She led the drone towards it, ignoring the locked front gate and veering off the street to a strip of wasteland that ran along the side of the solar-panelled factories and warehouses. When she and Pri were little, they’d discovered a rusted and broken section of the metal railings, with just enough room for them to squeeze through with their bikes. One of the factories had a door with a faulty ident panel, allowing them to sneak inside and make dens and play with their holo-pets while Apollo Corp’s automated machinery churned out electrical parts along the conveyor belt. They might have grown out of holo-pets, but Ada hadn’t stopped tinkering with the technology. And now she was going to play a game of a different kind.
Ada jumped down from her bike and wheeled it through the gap in the railings. The drone flew in low over the ground behind her – she took out her phone and snapped a quick picture before biking across the tarmac towards the warehouses. Banks of solar panels gleamed in the sun. Twisting round, Ada saw that the drone was weaving erratically in the air – as she had hoped, its visual sensors had been blinded by the brilliant glare. She had bought herself a few seconds’ breathing space.
Cycling down a narrow alleyway between two of the warehouses, Ada jammed on the brakes beneath an overhang. She climbed down from her bike, her helmet softening into a hoodie as she pushed it back, then she held her phone at arm’s length and took a selfie. Rifling through her backpack, she pulled out a cheap, pen-size projector she used for class and hooked it up to her phone. A couple of seconds was all it took to upload the selfie. Ada turned on the pen projector and found herself staring at a ghost. A shimmering image of herself stood in front of Ada – an identical fifteen-year-old girl, the same brown hair falling in front of her eyes, the same watchful expression on her face. It was like standing in front of a mirror.
Creeping to the corner of the warehouse, Ada carefully wedged the projector behind a drainpipe, aiming the pen so that her image was projected out into the middle of the tarmac. She caught her breath as a shadow darted out from above the shining solar panels – would the drone take the bait? If it had heat-seeking sensors, it would detect that the hologram wasn’t real, and it would be Game Over. All Ada could do was pray that the machine didn’t have that kind of tech.
The drone zoomed on over the hologram and paused in mid-air, its lens zeroing in on Ada’s ghost. Ten seconds passed, thirty, a minute. Nothing moved. A small smile of satisfaction spread across Ada’s face. Maybe having a holo-pet hadn’t been so bad after all – she would have liked to have seen how Kit’s precious Serenity could have helped shake off this unwanted admirer. Ada crept back to her bike and pedalled away, leaving the unmarked drone frozen in mid-air, hovering above her ghostly image.
