The silence in the underground corridor was quickly growing oppressive, even for Mrs. Macready who was used to keeping her own company. As an excuse for talking she thought she might further Denis's education in the history of witchcraft. "The lodge must date back to the days of the great witch persecutions. I don't mean the present building that you see on the street, I mean the location. If it's long been a gathering place for witches and wizards then it must have secret entrances and hidden chambers. That would explain this passage."
"The witch persecutions you mention, they're the ones in the history books, right?" Denis offered hopefully.
"That's the one part of witch history that you should be aware of."
"Yes," said Denis uncomfortably, "but I always assumed they were innocent old women who were burned at the stake."
The passage turned right, then immediately left again. Mrs. Macready thought it wouldn't be surprising if the route to the Lamplighters' Lodge not only had a secret entrance but was also designed to lead astray those outsiders who did manage to get in. She scanned the stone walls for hidden doors but here she did not find any. They continued on.
"There were many innocent people swept up in the tide of hysteria of that time. The public wanted scapegoats, the fanatics saw danger everywhere. Many that confessed under torture had no involvement in witchcraft at all. Others were Cunning Folk, practitioners of the Old Magic. They were inheritors of folk beliefs passed by word of mouth from generation to generation. They were fortune-tellers and advisors on various matters of country life, from which pig should be sold to when a marriage should take place. They provided remedies for illness and stirred up love potions. Some had no magical talent at all, others were real witches that had no training."
"That sounds pretty harmless. But what about witches of your kind?"
"On the other hand, we, the learned scholars of the esoteric arts, were seldom threatened. Oh, of course, we hid away our activities and our paraphernalia. But few of my predecessors were arrested. Those who were accused defended themselves as scholars and scientists.
"You have to understand that my predecessors, the founders of the Ministry of Magic, were rich and powerful men. They were nobles or had the protection of nobles. Some had influence over the Royal Court and the reigning monarch himself or herself. You might not believe me if I told you that they encouraged the witch hunt. They fed the fires of anti-witch hatred."
"How could they do such a thing?" Denis was genuinely appalled.
"The Cunning Folk were mostly rural people. They had little in common with the men of property who formed the Ministry. They were loyal to their local leaders, those who taught them their magic or performed it with them. The Ministry could not gain their allegiance. To consolidate power they had to destroy them, and what better way than through the civil authorities?"
"That's close to cold-blooded murder," Denis muttered.
"Make no mistake. The Ministry is built on foundations of blood and ashes." As soon as the words came out Mrs. Macready realized that she had never put it in such a blunt and cynical way before. She immediately felt a need to soften her statement. "That was a long time ago, you realize. I'm sure if you dig through the history of any organization you'd find episodes they wouldn't be very proud of." For some reason she couldn't raise her voice and she knew she didn't sound very convincing.
In the unchanging gloom Mrs. Macready's thoughts soon drifted back to Gerald. Of course she had been a positive influence on her husband's life. She didn't know why she had doubts about that. Gerald was always easily influenced by his friends. He needed her to give him some backbone. Goodness know what his life would have been like without her—aimless mucking about until he suddenly hit middle age, no doubt. Oh, he had to put up with the gentle ribbing of their friends about having a domineering wife. She knew of course when she had pushed too far and he felt genuine resentment.
If Gerald didn't share her sense of moral propriety he more than made up for it with a sort of positive goodness that expressed itself in action. She felt a thrill of pride to think of it. She remembered the time when Gerald, without a car at the time, had carried old Mrs. Newcombe through the streets to her doctor's house after she had had some sort of seizure. She was thinking of whose telephone she could use to call the doctor when Gerald simply lifted the woman off the curb and walked off with her. Mrs. Macready realized she was moralizing and judgmental, and not terribly tolerant, whereas her husband acted instinctively. At those times he would never explain his thinking to her.
There was a loud crack. At their feet the floor of the passageway fell open like a trap door. Denis teetered on the edge of the opening until Mrs. Macready shot out her arm to pull him back by his jacket. Standing more securely at the edge, Denis peered down into the pit below but could not quite make out what awaited him in its dark depths. "Thank you," he managed to murmur.
Mrs. Macready levitated the two of them over the opening. Landing on his feet, Denis hesitated a moment but glancing back at the determined face of the witch he decided he better step forward, only more slowly. Mrs. Macready kept a watch for any spells written on the stones of the walls or floors. She could also probe for any irregularities in the material which might indicate a mechanical trap.
Both she and Denis were thoroughly disoriented by the turns in the passage. She was convinced, though, that they had walked a much greater distance than they would have in a straight line between the pub and the lodge.
Denis heard a soft humming before he knew what the sound belonged to. Then he saw metal balls flying around the corner, like the working end of a medieval mace, with sharp spikes protruding in all directions. "Look out!" he cried and ducked as one whizzed by where his head had been. He would never have had the chance to dodge another two that came at his legs. Mrs. Macready immobilized them with her wand, leaving them hovering in mid-air, like stymied hornets. Another two she deflected with a wave of her left hand, sending them crashing against the wall where they threw off sparks before skittering on the floor and coming to a stop. The one that had missed Denis's head turned around and came back. There was nothing Mrs. Macready could do but dive to the floor to avoid it while trying to maintain her control over the other four. Denis took off his jacket. When the ball made another attack he somehow managed to dive in front of it and catch it with his jacket. The force was enough to knock him over as if he was tackling a rampaging rugby player. Mrs. Macready changed her spell and the suspended mace heads ceased their constant humming and crashed to the floor, apparently lifeless. Mrs. Macready was surprised that the mace balls could so easily have their internal workings disabled.
"That was quick thinking, Denis. I hope you're not hurt."
"No, only bruises, I think." He brushed himself off and they continued forward. "I'd like to get to the end of this obstacle course sooner rather than later. These endless underground corridors are starting to make me feel claustrophobic."
Suddenly, as they were walking, the light at the end of the wand went out and they were in complete darkness. "It's all right," said Mrs. Macready in a calm voice. "No need to panic."
"What is it?"
"I saw something incised on the wall just before the light went out. I think it must be an anti-magic charm, like the ones at Ludovico's apartment building."
"But that leaves us completely helpless! What if those infernal metal balls come back at us? Or something worse?"
"Oh, I wouldn't say completely helpless." She couldn't help but be pleased by the progress Denis had made. She deserved to take some credit. "We're both still able-bodied. I don't suppose you have an electric torch with you, or matches?"
"If I had, don't you think I would have mentioned it by now? Wait, I have an idea."
Mrs. Macready was delighted to have Denis's participation. She heard him walking and then crawling on his hands and knees back the direction they had come.
"Do you suppose," Denis asked, "you could hum something, or sing, so I don't lose my sense of direction?" Mrs. Macready started to hum La donna e mobile. It was an aria Gerald often sang when he went on walks in the park, often to the surprise of their neighbors.
Denis came back quickly. "Now, where do you think that inscription of the spell is?"
Mrs. Macready worked her hands along the walls until she found it. "It's lightly chiseled into the stone here. It's a fairly long spell; it takes up, oh, three feet going across and two feet vertically, but it's coarse rock."
"All the better," announced Denis with relish. He had gathered one of the mace heads and proceeded to smash it against the stone. "Sometimes the simple approach is best, and we can forget all that learning."
Mrs. Macready smiled. The idea worked very effectively. The stone crumbled and once many of the words became unintelligible the spell ceased to work.
They went around two more turnings in the corridor. With everything looking so much the same they were losing their sense of time as well as direction. It was obvious they were being led on a highly circuitous path, perhaps in completely the wrong direction. Mrs. Macready wondered if she had missed something, a hidden passage, a fake section of wall, an opening in the floor or the ceiling. They could only hope that she had not made some dreadful mistake and the passage would eventually take them to the Lamplighters' Lodge. There was nothing to do but to plod forward.
Neither spoke much now. The darkness seemed to stifle any notion of easy conversation. Perhaps Denis had become accustomed to the witch's silences. Mrs. Macready was thinking that there had to be vents to the surface or the air down here would become unbreathable, but the passage had been constructed so that no light filtered down.
Denis stopped in his tracks. On the floor he could see the reflection of a dancing green light. He was puzzling over what this could mean when into the corridor ahead of them slithered a massive snake with a body thick as a sewer pipe. Its body looked like it was made of glass in which a green light glowed and scintillated with a living pulse. With every movement the body gave off flashes of green flame. The head reared up. Dark gleaming eyes stared at Denis. Around its head was a hood of scaly skin like the circular halo of saints in medieval illuminations. Green fire seemed to pour out of the serpent's body and engulf it without consuming it. It opened its jaws to reveal shining fangs long as steak knives. Denis could imagine that the jaws would open wide enough to swallow his body whole. The worst thing to Denis was that the snake emitted a terrible sound like a screeching roar that bounced madly between the stone walls. Denis clapped his hands to his ears in anguish but this scarcely helped. He was seized with fear. It was as if the sound had engulfed his body like a flood. It penetrated through his body, dissolved his body, leaving only the fear.
Mrs. Macready put a hand on Denis's shoulder. "Denis, steady on. I'm sure it's only an illusion."
Denis could barely hear her but her presence brought him back to reality. "An illusion?" The beast looked like nothing real, but then there was the flaming head, and the eyes, and the din.
"In the center of its body, see that black patch. It's like a heart. Jump for it and grab it!"
Denis turned to Mrs. Macready with wide eyes. "Are you sure?"
"Yes. Go!"
Denis blotted out everything of the serpent and focused only on the black shape at its center. He thought of nothing except his belief in the witch's certainty. He set off at a sprint towards the serpent, making a quavering sound that might have been a primitive war cry. He dove into the green fire until he was immersed in it. There was no heat, no sensation at all. He closed both hands around the black object. Rolling on to the floor he felt the object smooth and round like a polished stone in his hands. It took him a couple of seconds to look up and realize that there was no snake, no flames and no sound.
Mrs. Macready stood over him. "There's no snake, real or magical. There isn't even a magician casting the spell of a snake. There's only this device, generating the illusion of a fiery creature." Denis sat dumbfounded on the stone floor. He no longer had any interest in the magical artifact. It was doubtless much like the metal mace heads or Ludovico's mechanical dog. Mrs. Macready, seeing him dazed and speechless, patted him reassuringly on the back and offered him a hand to get back on his feet.
"I think I understand now," Mrs. Macready concluded. "The obstacles that we've faced were not intended as defenses to kill us. They were intended as challenges to test us. Of course, if we had failed we would have had an unpleasant fate."
With Denis still feeling numb and having nothing to say, Mrs. Macready continued. "Our presence in these corridors is surely well announced by now. Let me shine a little more light down here." They had come to what appeared to be a straight section of corridor. The wand threw out a powerful beam of light. At the end of the passage was a staircase up. They were both surprised how relieved they were to have reached the end. Their steps were quick and lively as they found renewed energy.
There was a trapdoor in the ceiling above the stairs. Mrs. Macready extinguished her wand light and lifted the door. It was a darkened room. Denis climbed up behind her.
"Our uninvited visitors have arrived," a man's deep voice said. Wands were pointed at the heads of Denis and Mrs. Macready. Two men in the familiar maroon garb of the Brotherhood had been waiting for them. Their faces were hidden by silvery masks. "You are to come with us."
