Fantom chapter 4, part 3.

   Ruth stared out through a window slit.  Dawn was coming, a grey and damp morning.  Light but soaking rain had begun to fall and she wished the castle still had a roof.  Neither the adjudicator nor her creations were visible, and the castle ruins looked deserted.
   Something attracted her eye.  She saw Tom emerge from a gap in the tumbledown walls, followed by Adam and Agnes.  They looked around, obviouslt unsure where they were.  Ruth’s heart sank.  So they hadn’t escaped, as she had hoped.  The adjudicator couldn’t be far away.  Was this a trap?
   She shouted through the gap in the stones.  “Tom! Adam!”   Outside the keep Tom and the others stopped and looked round to see who was calling them.  
   Behind her Patrick stood up and looked round anxiously, unsure whether he would get into trouble for letting her make noise.  
   Ruth shouted again.  The others were already running towards the keep.  “Agnes!  Get out of here, it’s the adjudicator, she’ll-”
   Ruth was pulled away from the window by the strong fingers of the adjudicator, who had suddenly appeared behind her.  She struck her again with the baton.
   “Come with me,” she hissed.  “You-” turning to Patrick- “Make sure she does what I say.”  She handed him a gun.  “Use it if necessary.”  She turned and led the way up the steps.
   Ruth stared at him for a moment.  He was looking at the gun in his hands, hesitating.  Then he looked up.
   “Go on,” he said.  "Don't make me use this."  Ruth turned away from him and followed the woman up the steps, her heart lower than it had been even during the darkest part of the night.
   The sky was almost red now, as the sun rose through the cloud and remains of the fog.  The adjudicator stood at the top of the steps, looking down on the castle bailey.  Tom, Agnes and Adam stood looking up at her, trapped by the two Fantoms, who, looking just like stone, had been perfectly camouflaged against the walls and had come forward to cut off their escape.  
   “Welcome,” the adjudicator said.  “I was hoping you would join us.  You see I have your friend here.”  She indicated Ruth with her gun.  “So I suggest you do as you’re told or she’ll regret it.”  
   Ruth, surrounded by guns and with the menace of the Fantoms in the background, was terrified.  The heroic thoughts she had had of telling her friends to run, to abandon her and save themselves melted away.  Her only thought was for her own safety.  She looked at Patrick out of the corner of her eye.  He was not looking at the others, but only at the adjudicator, and the gun was in his hands and aimed at her.  Now she knew- she was no better than him.
   “What do you want?” Tom asked.
   “You,” the adjudicator replied.  “I can’t let you go wandering across the countryside telling people what I’m doing.  You’re going to have to stay with me.”
   “Why are you doing this?” Agnes asked.  “What do you want those- things- for?”
   “The Fantoms?” the adjudicator said, patting one on the shoulder.    “They are loyal, practically indestructable, and obedient to whoever has the power to control them.  Which I do.  Nor do they require payment, although they will be rewarded once I have gained power over this land.  Yes,” she had caught their expressions of shock; “That is my plan.  This land was once great, but we have sunk.  We forgot the importance of Art in all its’ forms to our national life.  I shall restore it.  When Art is at the centre of our leaders’ thinking, it will be clear how to solve our problems.  And then this country will be great again.”
   The adjudicator looked at Ruth and then down at Tom, Adam and Agnes who were staring in disbelief.  “You helped me create the Fantoms,” she said.  “So I will offer you a choice- the chance of a lifetime.  Join me.  You will be well rewarded.”
   The others looked at one another.  Ruth looked at Patrick.  He would not meet her eye but was still holding the gun, not quite pointing at her, but enough to be a threat.  
   “Put the guns away and stop threatening our friend, and then maybe we’ll consider it,” Tom said.  
   “Oh no,” the adjudicator laughed.  “If you’re that squeamish you won’t be much use to me.  No.  Join me, and then perhaps I’ll put the guns away.”
   “You force us to help you, take our friend prisoner and chase us all night through rain and fog, and then expect us to say ok, fine, we’ll join your insane plan to take over the country with stone monsters?”  Adam said.  
   “You will when you see the alternative,” the adjudicator said, raising her gun again.  “Oh, and there’s one other thing I want- your time capsule.  Where is it?”
   They looked at one another in confusion.
   “Why do you want it?” Tom said, playing for time.
   “I’m not stupid enough to tell you all my plans,” the adjudicator said angrily.  “This isn’t a Bond film.”
   “Then we’re not telling you,” Adam said.  “It’s not to be used for evil.”
   “Tell me or your friend dies.”  The adjudicator put the gun to Ruth’s head.  
   Ruth felt sick, frozen with fear.  And yet- at the same time she knew that this woman should be prevented from getting the TTC at all costs; whatever her plan was it could be nothing good.  She wanted to tell her friends to keep their secret- but she did not have the courage to say it- or perhaps not the courage to mean it.
   In the chill of the earliest dawn on that lonely hill she felt the cold metal pressed against her skin, not moving or trembling in the slightest.  She clutched at the rail on the stairs in front of her and stared at the ground, desperatly afraid but trying not to sway her friends’ decision by showing it.
   It seemed an eternity before Tom shrugged.  “All right,” he said.  “We left it back in York.”  He gave the adjudicator the details of where they had first found the TTC.  Ruth did not look up, afraid that her expression would betray his lie.  She admired his acting, more convincing than she had imagined he could be.  She hoped none of the others would give him away, by accident or not.  She looked sideways at Patrick.  But he too was staring at the ground.  She realised that her friends would only now be realising that he was there willingly, not as another prisoner.  They probably didn’t know he had stopped her escaping from the cavern.  
   “Good,” the woman said.  “Now, get inside the castle.  You too,” she turned back to Ruth.  “And you, boy, keep an eye on them.  Any attempt to escape, you know what to do.”  She moved away from the steps and Ruth and her friends had no choice but to obey. 

The story continues...