The trolley trundled down the corridor and into a busy kitchen. Through a thin patch in the fabric The Pan could see there was no chance to leave his hiding place yet without being discovered. He could hear the gentle scrapes and taps as the porter laid things on the surface above his head. A place setting, perhaps? Breakfast for somebody? Maybe.
Another Grongle arrived and began to complain at length about how fussy Lord Vernon was about his scrambled eggs and bacon.
“Relax,” said the one laying up the trolley cheerfully, “you won’t be getting it wrong.”
“I hope not,” said the complainant, “I don’t want my head kicked in like the last bloke he sacked.”
“Yeh well,” said the first, “that sort of thing’s more to do with his mood than your eggs.”
This worrying conversation finished, The Pan felt the trolley being wheeled into a service lift, which ascended a few floors before they were on the move again. As they rumbled along, the tablecloth flapped in a gentle breeze and he caught the glimpses of a chequerboard stone floor, an upper cloister then? Probably. Soon, the trolley came to a stop.
He peeped out from under the cloth. Good. No-one around except the Grongle who had originally collected it, and he was standing with his back turned, knocking on a door. There was no time to lose. Breakfast with Lord Vernon was a no-no!
The Pan slid out from his hiding place and tiptoed silently back to the lift. Through the arches of the cloister he could see Big Merv leading the old man across the quad. No! They couldn’t leave him here! He wanted to shout for them to wait but he knew it was impossible. He had to get down there and join them. Please Arnold let the lift still be there. He might be able to open the door and get in without being seen, but if he had to wait, he was dead.
The door was open. Thank the Prophet! He crept in, closed it and pressed the down button. Big Merv and the old man were walking slowly, they wouldn’t have gone far. If he ran and was lucky with the human – or at least, Grongolian – traffic in the quadrangle, there might still be time to catch them up. The double-crossing scummers! That had never been ten minutes, had it? He consulted his wristwatch. Oh. It’d been twenty.
With a gentle hum the lift came to a standstill. Before he could open it the door was wrenched open from the other side and The Pan was face to face with one of the largest Grongles he’d ever seen. A general. Using the service lift. Why? Why would a member of the Grongolian Imperial Guard have to decide the service lift was the way upstairs this morning, of all mornings? His luck had run out, disastrously. The Pan reacted first, slamming the door shut again and leaning all his weight on the up button while the general was still standing pointing, with his mouth open. The lift began to ascend again.
What next? No using the thimble, that’s for sure. Something must have brought such a high-ranking officer to the kitchen area; could it have been over-enthusiastic portal use? Almost certainly. Arnold’s pants! What now? More to the point, where? The lift was still ascending. There was no way out unless he could get far enough away from the building to use the thimble in safety, but there was only one gate and it was heavily guarded. He needed to think of another way across the moat.
“Wait a second!” whispered The Pan in the empty lift.
There was a plan!
Yes! Like all The Pan’s plans, it was, at best, hit and miss and at worst ... hmm. It was the most rubbish plan of all time, almost certainly.
As soon as the lift came to a halt he opened the door and leapt out. There was no-one around, but to his right was a flight of stairs. The sound of shouts and running footsteps rose up from below. He peeped over the banisters to see if he could find out where his pursuers were.
“I see him! He’s on the stairs!” shouted a voice. There was a pinging sound and a volley of laser gunfire hit the wall behind him, melting the plaster. Eek!
“Hold your fire!” bellowed someone else, “Lord Vernon wants him alive.”
Oh no. No way. He’d met Lord Vernon once, and that was enough for anybody. The Pan could feel his legs start to shake as a huge burst of adrenaline pumped into his system. Right then. Better start running it off. He hurtled up the stairs two at a time. Three more flights up and he found himself on a landing at the bottom of a ladder. His pursuers were getting closer as, heart pounding, The Pan began to climb. He wasn’t moving fast enough; they would catch up with him soon and then they’d start shooting. Not to kill, of course, just to wing him so he’d fall. Lord Vernon might have wanted him alive, but that wouldn’t exclude ‘wounded’ and presumably any subsequent questioning would involve further injury. His breath came in gasps and he swore as he struggled to climb faster. At the top, a trapdoor. He fumbled with the latch, held onto the ladder with one hand, and thumped it with his free fist. Finally it opened.
“There he is!” came a shout from below and a volley of laser fire melted the brickwork near him but he was already on the roof. A large, flat lead roof surrounded by a two-foot red brick crenellated wall, high above the city.
“After him!” shouted somebody below, and The Pan kicked the trapdoor closed, casting about him for something heavy to drag over the top of it. Nothing there. Never mind. He was ahead of them now. Far enough ahead. He ran to the edge and peered over. Below him the walls of the building dropped sheer into the moat.
This was it. The last thing he did. The end, or, if he was lucky, the beginning. A new identity, a real life, a fresh start. He walked calmly back to the far wall, checked he had a firm grip on the thimble and thought about his bedroom at the Parrot. He peered in. There it was, most specifically, that lovely soft bed. Yep, this might work. Arnold knew, nothing else would. He removed his hat with the other hand – he didn’t want it to fly off – took three deep breaths and ran. The trapdoor began to open as he passed, but it was too late now, they weren’t going to catch him. He leapt up onto the wall, and with all his strength, dived off into the void. For a moment he was flying, arms and legs kicking as if to propel him further. Everything depended on how far he could get over the moat. The world slowed down and his thoughts came with calm, cool precision. He was as far out from the wall as he was going to get and was plunging rapidly downwards.
Was it safe to use the portal now? Who knew? But the ground was getting closer very quickly.
Time to choose. Take a gamble that his plan had worked or wait another millisecond and end it. No. He could never end it. He had always wanted to live. That was the trouble.
He concentrated his mind on the Parrot, his room and the bed and squeezed the thimble over his thumb.
There was a loud sucking sound and the three fittest members of the pursuing Grongle squad reached the edge of the roof just in time to hear a loud pop and see The Pan of Hamgee vanish into thin air.