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We enter a dimly lit corridor and Dermot, Maiko and Oleg start banging on doors and shouting names. Within seconds the doors open and confused, tetchy members of the acting troupe sleepily emerge, wanting to know what all the fuss is about.
Dermot doesn’t waste time on a long explanation. Instead he shouts, “Urszula has sworn to kill us all. We have to make for the boreholes at the top of the cliff. Flee and don’t look back.”
The thesps don’t need any more information. Leaving behind any possessions or spare clothes, they race for the end of the corridor, banging on other doors as they go, rousing those who are still asleep.
Soon everyone has assembled. There are thirty or more thesps. If we all go the same way, we’ll slow to a crawl, so Dermot divides the group into three. One heads up, one down, while the third forges straight ahead.
Inez and I end up in the group that heads down. Cal is with us, Baba Jen riding high on his shoulders, and although there are more people in our group than the others, most aren’t much bigger than me, which means Cal can throw a lot of us across the gaps, allowing us to keep pace with those higher up.
We make steady progress and exit the complex sooner than I’d feared. My spirits lift as I slide down the pole of the final pod to the ground – maybe we’ll outpace the evil empress after all – then drop when I find myself facing the rising cliff wall in the near distance. I study the path cut into the mountain from its base all the way to the top. It’s going to take a long time to climb.
We discuss our next move — we’re the first to get out of the city, and we’re not sure whether we should wait for the others or head for the cliff.
“I’ll stay,” Cal says, “but the rest of you should run.”
“I don’t need telling twice,” Baba Jen says, and hops down. She sets off as fast as her chubby little legs will carry her, and her fellow thesps follow close behind, most of them swiftly overtaking her.
“I’m staying too,” I tell Cal.
“No you’re not,” Inez says and tries to drag me away.
I stand firm. “I got us into this mess. I should be the last to flee, so that I’ll be the first Urszula catches if she runs us down.”
Inez groans. “You’re a noble fool,” she says, then punches my arm. “Lucky for you, I like noble fools.”
I rub my arm while we’re waiting, and keep looking at the pods for any sign of Urszula. The forty-three minutes must have elapsed, and if she can cross the city as quickly as Inez believes, she could be on us any moment.
Oleg’s group comes tumbling out of a pod to our right and the agitated thesps shimmy down the pole. They glance at us and Cal points towards the cliff. The actors hasten after their colleagues.
Dermot and Maiko appear a couple of minutes later, but hold back while their charges descend, then bring up the rear and come to join us.
“We think we got everybody,” Dermot says, still worrying that they might have left some of their troupe behind.
“If you missed anyone, they’ll hear about what’s happened and slip away while Urszula’s focused on us,” Inez says.
“Hopefully,” Dermot sighs, then looks at the cliff, trying to spot the boreholes nestled in the trees at the top, but you can’t see them from here.
“The gliders can be cranked across from the upper pods to the trees,” Maiko says. “Maybe Urszula will travel over in one of those and be there waiting for us.”
“A cheery thought,” Dermot growls.
Maiko shrugs. “We might as well prepare for the worst.”
They set off for the cliff and I fire a shaky grin at Inez. “Last one to the top’s a rotten egg,” I joke.
“If Urszula catches us, we’ll be scrambled eggs,” she replies with an edgy laugh.
Then we hightail it after the others.
We soon catch up with a panting Baba Jen. Without slowing, Cal grabs her by the scruff of her neck and lifts her up onto his shoulders.
“What took you so long?” she wheezes, then crosses her arms over his head and buries her face in them as she fights to control her breathing.
A lot of the thesps are already on the narrow path and climbing when we reach it. It looks impossibly steep from this angle, cutting back and forth on itself, like a series of Z’s carved into the cliff.
“How long will it take to ascend?” I ask Inez as we start up.
“I haven’t a clue,” she says. “The main boreholes are on the other side of the city, at ground level, and I’ve always used them when leaving.”
People begin to naturally slot into position as we wend our way up. Those who are fleet of foot steal ahead, while the slower ones trickle towards the back of the line. It’s everyone for him– or herself at this stage.
I’m near the rear, just ahead of a thickset woman called Jola. Inez has hung back to assist me, and Cal has stayed to keep an eye on her. Baba Jen leapt down to run ahead of us when the giant slowed, but she wasn’t able to go any quicker than me, so she returned to her perch and growls at him every so often, “Giddy up, you slow-moving wreck of a bull.”
Jola pauses to wipe sweat away. She’s a large woman and this is difficult for her. “I should have stayed in the pods and taken my chances,” she says.
“If there’s anything I can do to help...” I offer.
“Give her a piggy back ride,” Baba Jen cackles.
“I’ll hop on you if you keep talking to us like that,” Jola threatens, and that wipes the smirk from the small actress’ face.
My calves are aching and so is my lower back. I looked up every minute or two when we first started up the path, to gauge how much further we had to go, but I’ve stopped that and keep my head down, not wanting to depress myself.
Since Baba Jen is letting Cal do all the hard work, she’s free to keep watch for our pursuers, so she’s the first to spot the incoming empress.
“We have company,” she says flatly, and we stop to look back.
Urszula is coming, not with a troop of guards, but alone. She’s on some sort of a vehicle, but it’s only after several seconds, as she smoothly wheels towards us, that I peg it for a unicycle.
The empress looks calm and composed, peddling steadily, not a grey hair out of place, arms crossed. It wouldn’t surprise me if she was humming a little tune. She has the appearance of someone on her way to a picnic.
I was hoping she couldn’t pose as much of a threat as I’d been led to believe, but now that I see her by herself, I know we’re in deep trouble. A woman who doesn’t bring support to deal with a group of thirty or so enemies is a woman who clearly believes it would take an awful lot more people than that to trouble her.
The top of the cliff is still a long way off — even the quicker thesps who are out in front of everyone else aren’t anywhere near the summit.
Nowhere to run.
Nowhere to hide.
And here comes Urszula, hell-bent on revenge.
It’s dying time.