The Brigadier stared at her thoughtfully. “You can get us to the Princess, past the guards?” he said.

     “Past most of them. I’ve been here before, once. I had to leave Paisley Palace for two weeks to attend my sick sister. I never had a sister. I’d been summoned here, to be briefed by Lord Krell. I took the opportunity to get to know the place a bit, just in case I ever needed the information.”

     The Brigadier nodded. He suspected that such behaviour came as easily to her as breathing. “So, which way do we go?” he asked.

     “Wait,” said Grey. “You trust this woman? How do you know she won't lead us into a trap?”

     “There are palace staff not too far away. If she wanted us captured or dead, all she’d have to do is shout. There's no need for elaborate schemes or traps. I think she’s telling the truth.” Darniss nodded vigorously.

     “So,” said the Brigadier to Darniss again. “Which way?”

     “There's a linen cupboard just down the corridor from here. It has a secret door leading into the next room, a storage room full of tables and chairs for the Venus banqueting suite. I ‘persuaded’ a maid to tell me about it, and then I killed her.”

     The Brigadier nodded, not surprised by her admission. They knew what kind of woman she was. There was little point trying to deny it now.

     The Brigadier turned to Tweed. “Do you know about this secret door?” he asked.

     “No. I've spent my time here trying to learn political secrets, not secret passages.”

     The Brigadier turned back to Darniss. “This secret door takes us past the guards?” he asked.

     “Past most of them. The ones guarding the way from the main body of the palace, but there are sure to be more guards further on. There’ll be no avoiding them.”

     “I never expected there would be. Very well, lead on.”

     The door was right where she'd said it would be, hidden behind a cupboard full of sheets and blankets. They pulled it aside and the Brigadier listened at the door. “Sounds quiet on the other side,” he said. He turned the handle and opened the door a crack.

     There was only darkness on the other side, so he opened it the rest of the way. A pile of stacked tables blocked their way, but Grey and the Brigadier pushed them out of the way until they could squeeze past. The room had two other doors, one of which, they presumed, led to the banqueting suite, but Darniss led them to the other door. Once again the Brigadier opened it a crack, and when they were sure the way was clear on the other side they went through.

     Tweed led them the rest of the way, and a few moments later they came to a door guarded by a serious looking man armed with a sword and a pistol. “This is it,” said Tweed as they came to a halt. “No-one goes further than this without authorisation from the King.”

     Grey moved the wheelchair in front of one of the portraits that lined the corridor. Some ancestor of the King, they supposed, and they pretended to study it while glancing at the guard out of the corners of their eyes. “He's an adoptee,” said the Brigadier, who had immediately noticed the layer of powder on his face and hands. “He's probably in continuous telepathic contact with other adoptees. Maybe with the Radiant as well. The moment we take him out, the alarm will go up. Everyone beyond this point will be waiting for us.”

     “Unless we take him out so quickly that he doesn't have time to send a warning,” suggested Grey. “A shot to the head. Instantly fatal.”

     “The others will still notice that he’s dropped out of communication.”

     “Yes, but they won’t know why. They might waste a moment or two wondering about it, and that'll give us time to take out the next guard. Maybe even the one after that.”

     “How many adoptees are there in the palace?” the Brigadier asked Tweed.

     “I've only seen a couple. A guard, not that one. Another guard, and a maid. There may be others.”

      “All this time you've been in the palace and that’s the best you can tell us?”

     “I had to be careful! I couldn’t take risks!”

     The Brigadier turned away to prevent the man from seeing the contempt on his face. Twenty years he’s been here, he thought, and so far a woman who spent a few days here several years ago has been of more use to us. He didn't say this, though. They would need the man on their side for the fighting ahead. He sighed. “All right, we’ll just have to take it as it goes.” He reached a hand down to where his pistol was hidden, inside his jacket, and took it by the hand grip. “Move me closer,” he said. “The moment I kill him, you, Tweed, take his weapons. Then we go through that door and we kill anyone who isn't the Princess. We just search around until we find her. Understood?”

     Tweed still had a fearful look in his eye but he nodded. “Then there's just the small matter of getting out of the palace again, with fifty palace guards on our tail.”

     “Hopefully, we can stay ahead of them long enough to make it to the city, where we can lose ourselves. This is the one chance we get. Sooner or later someone's going to find that maid we left tied up.” He rather hoped it was sooner. The guilt of what he’d done to an innocent woman, the memory of pulling the strips of cloth tight around her wrists, still ate at him. She'll be okay, he told himself. Someone will find her soon, and she’ll have an exciting story to tell.

     “Okay, let’s do it.” He looked at the guard out of the corner of his eye, noting his exact position, calculating the movements he would have to make to pull the gun from the tangle of clothing within which it was hidden. If it snagged on anything and spoiled his aim, that would be bad. Very bad. He rehearsed the action in his mind, making sure he'd gotten it right, and then, before anything could happen to spoil the moment, he drew and fired.

     A small red hole appeared in the middle of the man's forehead, and the wall behind him was splashed with red. “Go!” he yelled as the man fell, leaping from the wheelchair and throwing the door open. There was a female scream from somewhere behind him. He ignored it and ran through the door, searching for enemies.

     They found themselves in a wide, empty passageway with large, landscape paintings on the walls and small chairs on which people could sit to admire them. There was another guard standing beside the door at the other end. The Brigadier shot him as well, then ran, Grey just a pace behind him. There was a door on the left hand side, but he didn't bother checking it. He just ran and threw open the far door the moment he reached it.

     Some instinct made him duck his head as he ran through, and it saved his life as two bullets tore holes in the wood panelling where his head would have been. He brought his gun up, his finger already tightening on the trigger before he saw where his opponent was shooting from. An open doorway in the side of another wide passage, ten yards away. He aimed while the hammer was already falling on the bullet and a third guard was thrown back as five grams of lead tore through his shoulder, while another bullet from Grey's gun tore through the wooden doorframe behind him. The Brigadier kept running, and as he passed the injured guard he shot another bullet through his head.

     On the other side of the door was a narrow corridor running at right angles to them, on the other side of which was a large, open courtyard that they could see through windows in the wall. In the courtyard were small flower beds, a fish pond, park benches and, hanging from the open sky, the dangling tentacles of a Radiant. The creature was dropping, they saw. Bringing its body down into the courtyard so that it would be able to see them with the eyes that ringed its body. The Brigadier ignored it and turned left, into the narrow corridor.

     The corridor completely circled the courtyard. It had doors in its left hand side, each of which, the Brigadier guessed, led into a suite of guest rooms, one of which would contain the Princess. Hopefully, she would have heard the gunshots and would know that rescue was coming...

     “Brigadier!” came a distant, familiar voice. The Brigadier searched around and saw her in a doorway on the other side of the courtyard. He ran towards her and she ran towards him, but there was another woman just behind her, dressed as a maid, and another guard, standing where the corridor turned a corner. He was pulling a gun from its holster, and from his position he had a clear shot at the Princess, a dozen yards from him. He aimed his gun at her...

     “If you kill her, I'll kill you!” roared the Brigadier, still running. The guard stared at him, still aiming at the Princess. The Brigadier aimed his gun at him, but there was no way the bullet would travel in a straight line as it passed through two windows. One as it entered the courtyard to pass across it, the other as it left. When he reached the corner, though, he would lose the shot altogether. He continued to run nevertheless. There was nothing else he could do.

     The Princess skidded to a halt and the maid caught up to her, grabbing her by the arm. The Princess tried to shake her off but then stopped, a look of peaceful acceptance on her face. The Brigadier had to look away as he reached the corner, and then the glare reflected from the glass blocked his view of the scene. He bounced off the wall as he took the corner, to save himself from losing speed, and ran even faster, a sense of despair coming over him. He knew what that look of peaceful acceptance meant. The maid was also as adoptee, and she had parent bonded the Princess. She might be cursing the Princess back to her animal form even now.

     He heard two gunshots behind him. Either Grey or Tweed, trying to shoot the maid, but the glass would deflect the bullets. They might hit the Princess instead. Perhaps the first shot had just been to break the glass, he thought, after which whoever it was would have a clear shot. He heard a scream from behind him, and more rapid gunshots. He risked a sideways glance and saw the Radiant reaching through the windows with its luminous tentacles to twine around Private Grey. He dropped the gun as he was pulled through the window and drew his sword, but before he could use it another tentacle wrapped around his arm. There was a spray of blood as his arm was pulled from its socket, and then it threw him up and out of the courtyard to land on the roof somewhere.

     There was no time to grieve, so the Brigadier just kept running towards the next corner, his gun in his hand. The guard's head and gun arm came into view and the Brigadier threw himself to the ground just as bullets flew over his head. He fired back, to make the guard pull back and give himself time to scramble back to his feet. He was out in the open, while his enemy had cover. His only chance was to close the distance as quickly as possible. Reach the corner and level the playing field.

     The guard fired again, lower this time, and more gunshots rang out from where Grey had been. Tweed! he thought with new hope. The man had summoned up the nerve to take part in the fight, but what was he shooting at? The guard, the maid or the Radiant? Whatever was of the most direct threat to himself, he guessed, which would be the Radiant, but he had to know that bullets were useless against it with so much fresh air blowing around from the courtyard. The guard would be in a panic, though, not knowing if it was he who was coming under fire, and he would hesitate. Look around trying to see where his other enemy was. That would give the Brigadier a chance, if he was fast enough. He ran, therefore, all thought of evasion forgotten. If the guard looked around the corner again and fired another shot at him, he was dead.

     Tweed fired more shots, then screamed, followed by the sound of something heavy hitting the floor. The Brigadier feared the worst, that he was alone now, with no-one left to back him up, and the corner of the corridor was still far away. He shot at the windows to break them, hoping it would give him a glimpse of his enemy, but he wasn't aiming properly and the wrong windows broke. He was given a sight of the Radiant instead, Tweed’s upper body in its tentacles, his eyes open and staring at him accusingly. Its main body dropped below the level of the ceiling and a row of primitive eyes fixed on him. Even without telepathy the Brigadier sensed its anger, its fury. It was going to come for him now, and he had no way to stop it.

     He put it out of his mind, therefore. Fright the battles you can win, he thought. He was still running, and suddenly he was at the corner. The guard was just coming back to take another shot at him. The Brigadier shot him in the face, then looked down the corridor at the maid and the Princess.

     The maid had pushed the Princess’s sleeve up and was holding her pale, slender arm in both hands. The Princess had a dreamy expression on her face but still looked fully human. As the maid saw him coming for her, though, the Brigadier saw a look of determination come over her face, the look of a decision being made. She was beginning the curse.

      She was using the Princess’s body as a shield. The Brigadier could only see her arms and the top of her head, almost hidden behind the Princess’s long, golden hair. The Brigadier raised his gun to fire anyway, but then the maid’s head exploded in a shower of blood. She fell, and the Princess, still held firmly in her grasp, fell as well, landing on top of her. The dreamy look vanished from her face, though, as she became fully aware and alert once more. Behind her, Darniss, who had circled the courtyard in the other direction, lowered her gun. Either Tweed’s gun or Grey’s.

     Then glass shattered as the Radiant reached through with its long, luminous tentacles. The Brigadier dropped his gun and drew his sword instead, slicing through the tentacle even as it began to twine around the Princess’s leg. It fell to the ground where it writhed like an agonized earthworm. The Princess stared at it, a slightly dazed expression on her face, and the Brigadier saw that blood was seeping through her hair. Darniss's bullet must have creased her scalp after passing through the maid's head.

     The Princess was recovering rapidly, but not rapidly enough and the Brigadier had to reach down and grab her arm to pull her back to her feet. He shoved her through the nearest door just as more tentacles reached in through the broken window. He began closing the door, but Darniss squeezed through after him, glaring at him accusingly. The Brigadier let her through, then slammed the door closed behind them. The tentacles of the Radiant were more than dextrous enough to turn the doorknobs and it was strong enough to throw the door open against the Brigadier’s full weight, throwing him to the deeply carpeted floor. The creature’s hideous piping filled the air as he scrambled away from it on his feet and elbows, and the Princess grabbed his arm to help pull him away.

     “Get back!” he shouted. “Save yourself!”

     Instead, the Princess snatched up the sword that had fallen from his hand and used it to slash at the tentacles. Several were severed, but the stumps, gushing green ichor, continued to reach for the two of them. Some of the creature's blood splashed over her face and she gave a little yelp as it stung her eyes, but by then the Brigadier was back on his feet and pulling her away from the doorway. Darniss shot at the tentacles until the gun was empty, then threw it at the creature. Ardria stared at her, noticing her for the first time, but there was no time for conversation.

     More tentacles reached in, but the suite of rooms was huge and they couldn’t reach them as Darniss and the two Helberians huddled against the far wall. The creature's main body squeezed up against the door, but was far too big to squeeze through, and the castle was made of solid stone. There was no way it would be able to tear the walls down. They were safe, for the moment.

     “We killed three guards and the maid,” said the Brigadier. “How many more adoptees are there? Maybe I got them all. The creature has no-one left to communicate with...”

     “The King’s an adoptee,” gasped the Princess, still wiping green gore from her face. She blinked a couple of times as she got her vision back. “He'll be calling the guard out. Every guard in the palace and in the city beyond. It's over! There's nowhere left to go!”