SAPPHIRE AND STEEL: Traitor's Gate

Traitor's Gate: Part 3

Still staring through the window into nothingness, Steel spoke.

'How long?'

Sapphire momentarily closed her eyes.

'Minutes. Possibly less.'

There was a long moment of silence as though they were all paralysed like rabbits in headlamps. Tess had no clue who or what the expected visitors were but she could sense the fear in all three of the others.

Steel turned to face Silver. 'You said there's a key. How does it work?'

'Any Transient coming into close contact with the key will be destroyed. It will then destroy itself. The cell will then be open.'

'It won't harm us?'

'No.'

'And you have access to this key?'

Silver gave a sombre nod.

'Do they know you have access to it?'

'I don't think so.'

'Then we have a chance. When they walk in here, we use the key against them and simultaneously de-activate the trap, right?'

'Yes, but...'

Sapphire suddenly called out from across the room. 'Steel, there's something approaching. It's not here yet but it's close. And getting closer.'

Moving to her, he touched her arm. 'Them?'

'Yes.'

'How many?'

She looked into an invisible distance for a few seconds. 'More than one. I can't tell how many more.'

'Point of entry?'

Sapphire walked up and down the room, fingers outstretched. She honed in on a corner of the room near to the window. Steel began shifting furniture around, pulling tables and chairs into a kind of barrier between them and that corner. He urged them all to get back into the opposite corner as far away as possible.

Another tense silence fell. The wind, rain and tremors had died away to nothing now but the quiet was equally unnerving. The quaint, red and white chequered curtains hung limply across the window, framing a rectangle of black space and distant stars. Knives, forks, plates, cups, sauces and glasses lay motionless on the floor where they had fallen. The four of them stood behind the wall of furniture and waited.

Silver tugged at Steel's sleeve but got no opportunity to speak

'Are you ready to access the key?' Steel fired his question first.

'About that... there may be a slight complication...'

'We don't have time for complications.'

Abruptly, there came a kind of fizzing sound. Tess likened it to when she had visited air displays and colourful jet aircraft had streaked across the sky above her head. A patch of smoky light appeared in the opposite corner of the room. Within the illuminated haze, tiny pinpricks of white glittered and danced. A strong wind plucked at their faces and the floor beneath their feet began to rumble again. Tess wanted to hide her eyes in fear but could not tear them away from the scene. She could not imagine what it was she was about to see. Her heart bounced inside her body, sending blood pounding through her veins.

'It's them,' Sapphire called. 'I think there are many of them, Steel. Many more than before.'

Steel turned to look directly at her. For once, he appeared to have nothing to say.