Chapter sixty-one

The White Temple at Klethropolis

 

They returned to the temple. They posted the parrots as look outs while the rest of party began searching for any clues to the whereabouts of the naga. They’d all hoped that Viola would know what to do once they were inside the temple, but this time it was clear very quickly that she didn’t.

Hardacre was able to confirm that the rest of the temple matched very closely the Temple of all Gods at Kinspit, except for the caryatid and the other ‘statues’.  In the niches where, in the Kinspit temple, exquisite statues of the gods sat, here there were only untouched blocks of marble, eighteen of them. They inspected one closely, but it refused to be anything but plain pure stone.

‘Unfinished?’ asked Dom, squinting up to the top of the niche.

‘More likely, not started’ said Hardacre, glancing up. He had taken a piece of paper out of his pocket and he was studying it.  He pulled out a stubby pencil and wrote something on it, using one of the big pillars to lean the paper on.

‘I think this whole temple is a testament to what was to come’ whispered Kath, running her fingers over the surface of the marble block ‘it seems that this is one of the places where our world was fashioned’

‘They made the whole world?’ asked Potentilla, ‘how did they do that?’

Viola gestured towards the Quiena statue. Her voice was strained with fear and haste. 

‘With a bit of help from her and some extraordinary mage-craft, I suppose. Maybe they are one and the same thing’

‘Nineteen gods and only one of them identified’ said Dom, looking at Viola, ‘is that significant?’

‘…and nineteen steps…’ said Kath

‘And that inscription on the ruined building mentioned “Prime Nineteen”…’ said Dom

Viola nodded, realising that she had forgotten all about the inscription. She supposed this wasn’t surprising given the events that had crowded around her subsequently, but she was annoyed with herself. Hardacre permitted himself a fleeting smile. He held up his piece of paper and showed it to the others. It was the paper that he had scribbled his Macrocephalos notes on. Under the circle labelled ‘nineteen’ he had, just a few seconds earlier, written ‘Klethropolis’ in his neat hand.  

Viola took the paper from him and stared at it for what seemed to be an age. Then she handed it back.

‘So, the naga here guards prime nineteen, but I’m not sure that takes us any further. We still don’t know what the primes are or where the guardian serpent is…’

‘Except’ said Dom, eagerly, ‘it almost certainly has something to do with the number nineteen…’

There was a murmur of agreement.  Potentilla raced over to the caryatid.

‘The nineteenth big pillar is here… Maybe that’s what it means?’

‘It can’t just be the caryatid’ said Kath, making a sceptical face, ‘wouldn’t that be too obvious?’

Potentilla pushed it and prodded it, tried to twist it and tapped it all over. All she got for her trouble was her friends tutting and murmuring, ‘don’t damage it’. She looked mildly pained.

‘I think it was worth a try’ she said, folding her arms. Dom murmured his support. He placed his hands on her shoulders and guided her away from the caryatid. Her body was pleasantly hot from her exertions and her irritation.

‘I wasn’t going to damage it’

The others couldn’t help but share a silent moment of amusement.  Even Potentilla could sense their gentle ridicule.

‘I’m sure there’s something odd about that statue…’ she muttered

Viola smiled at her. The lieutenant couldn’t help but smile back, even though Viola was, in effect, telling her to shut up. Her annoyance flooded out of her. She shrugged and gave Dom a squeeze. Viola could clearly see this but decided to let it pass.

They had all had enough of the temple and so they walked out to the top of the steps leading up to it. Viola sat down on the top step and stared back down across the city. One by one the others sat down next to her, first Kath, then Hardacre, Dom and finally Potentilla, furthest away.  

‘Perhaps it is somewhere obvious, though’ suggested Dom, ‘perhaps no-one cared about covering things up in those days?’

‘If that were the case then there’d just be a door somewhere, I suppose’ said Hardacre, ‘I’m guessing that the one hand they had no desire to hide the entrance explicitly, because it was no great secret,  but that on the other hand they were happy if it remained concealed from merely casual visitors’

Dom got up and walked along the step.

‘Could there be something here on the nineteenth step?’ he asked

They searched for a little while but there was nothing obvious. Progress was slow, however, as Hardacre was very wearied and could only cast the simplest diagnostikos spells. After that the most logical thing seemed to be to search the pillars along the colonnade that ran around three sides of the outside walls of the temple.

They counted from the first pillar on the left hand side. They stopped at the nineteenth pillar and were surprised and delighted to find that it was less robust than the others and that it rang faintly hollow. Potentilla pushed against it from all possible directions and it shifted slightly. She pushed a lot harder but it didn’t seem to want to move. She glanced quizzically up at Kath who came over and inspected the pillar very closely. Eventually, having combed every inch of it that she could reach, she found something. She pointed at a tiny hole at breast height.

‘It’s a key hole, but I don’t think we have the key.’ She couldn’t help but stare at Viola, who frowned and shook her head emphatically. 

‘I don’t have it.  Where would I have found it?’ Realising that these seemed a bit peevish, she continued, ’ Perhaps you could try your Dwarven Magic rod?’

Now it was Kath’s turn to be mildly irritated. Her hand had gone automatically to her bag, but she stopped herself with a little sigh.

‘What do you think it is… some sort of all-purpose cosmic screwdriver? All this stuff pre-dates Dwarven Magic by thousands of years ’

‘Same fabricator, though…’ said Hardacre, ‘so maybe…’.

They all waited for Kath’s next move. After some more wordless grumbling she opened up her bag and fumbled for the rod. Once she had found it she held it up in front of the keyhole. She knew what they wanted her to do next, but she really didn’t want to do it. She feared the effect of saying those names in this ancient place.

They waited, with no-one willing to say anything. Bit by bit the suspense became unbearable; Kath held the rod next to the dark hole and whispered as softly as she could the trigger words: Ophia, Quiena.  She was right about the words –even here, on the outside of the temple, they filled the space like a huge yell.  Dom jumped involuntarily. However, nothing happened.

‘Wow, that was amazingly loud!’ he said, ‘is that part of the trigger spell?’

Kath shook her head sadly, and slid the rod back into the special pocket that she had had sewn into the bag. She took three steps away from the pillar. Her voice was back to normal.

‘We need to find the key’

‘But where should we look?’ asked Hardacre

Potentilla grinned. She gestured back into the temple.

 ‘It must be in that Quiena statue’

Before anyone could stop her she rushed back into the temple. No-one moved; they had all felt slightly discomforted by the force of Kath’s incantation and seemed to be temporarily rooted to the spot. Before they knew it Potentilla had returned clutching something and grinning even more widely. She gave her discovery to Kath.

‘I did try to tell you – I knew that there must be something hidden somewhere inside it…’

There was a collective noise that could have been interpreted as contrition. Potentilla was too delighted to notice such unimportant things. 

Kath held the object up to inspect it closely. It was a green straw, less than a half a finger’s width in diameter and no more than two inches long. It was hollow in the middle and it felt to Kath like a tiny stub of a bamboo pole. On its side was written, in a substance of a much darker green than the rest of the straw, the Archaic Elven numeral ith. It looked like an extremely easy thing to lose.  It was obvious that it would fit snuggly in the keyhole.

‘Shall I?’ she asked, but didn’t wait for an answer.   

Chapter sixty-two

Neman Forest

 

By the time Gwyneth had returned from the font the air in the council chamber had begun to spark with little blue electric charges. They were like miniature fireworks that danced from one patch of space to another.  She did not immediately know what this might mean, but she was terrified.

The council chamber was now almost empty – the healers had taken away all of the unconscious witches. Only Myfanwy and Owen were there, wide awake and standing facing each other. Their eyes were closed and their hands interlocked. Myfanwy was wearing her new bright green patchwork robes and she was chanting. Sweat was pouring from her brow.  Owen was pale and ragged but his concentration was total. She was casting the adail spell, the incantation that gave information about the state or structure of a thing.  This was a spell that the entire coven knew, but most of them thought it slightly feeble mage-ish stuff. In this case Gwyneth assumed that Owen, who cast the best adail of any of them, was assisting Myfanwy, who probably cast the worst. They had to do it that way round because the spell required one to cast and one to interpret; the information was passing from the space around them through Myfanwy and into Owen, where he then made sense of it. Gwyneth knew not to interrupt them, even though she was all too aware that she would do a better job than the nature witch.

She ran to the entrance of the chamber and looked for a servant. A young woman ran up to her when she saw her mistress and Gwyneth gave her instructions to bring any awakened covener to her in the council chamber as soon as she could. The servant nodded and scurried away, fear filling her rapid steps.

As she re-entered the chamber Owen and Myfanwy separated and turned to her. Owen spoke, his voice quiet and cracked.  

‘They are probing us. They must have sensed the power surge and are now trying to find our exact location in the hidden space. There’s something strange about the probing though – it’s unlike anything that I’ve felt before’

Myfanwy shook herself, as if she were shaking off a drenching.

‘What is the hidden space?’ she asked, staring across at Gwyneth.

‘The space that Bron and I have fashioned out of magical energy; it contains the complex and is invisible to all conventional means of detection. It takes magic almost as powerful as that used to complete the concealment to reveal it’

 Owen nodded grimly. He carried on.

‘Probe, verify, lock on, synchronise, destroy. Those are the critical stages. At the moment they are still probing – that’s what the blue sparks are for’   

‘How do you not know these things, Myf?’ growled Gwyneth.

Myfanwy ignored her. Owen breathed in deeply; there was no time for this.

‘What can we do Gwyn?’

Gwyneth answered immediately – she had been training for an attack like this for years.

‘We can try to put an extra shield up to hide the space or we can set up a decoy space. However, with only three of us here it will be almost impossible to create anything worthwhile’

‘Perhaps we should wait then…’ muttered Myfanwy, ‘…until we can do something’

Owen turned to Gwyneth. All around him the little electric blue fireworks filled the air in their thousands. Each one took a little packet of hope away with it.

‘No – we must try something’

Gwyneth shrugged, ‘follow the pattern then...’

‘And..?’ asked Myfanwy

‘If we can work it out then we may be able to lay a false trail to an enchanter’s snare’

They stood and watched the progression of the sparks, back and forth through the council chamber.

‘We need to count’ said Owen, ‘Myf – take one and four, I’ll take three and five, Gwyn – you take two and six’. He waited for the next spark and shouted out ‘two!’

They counted the sparks, one at a time, their wavering voices echoing in the empty chamber. They repeated it for time after time, struggling to follow the structure of the discharges in the area close to them.  The witches varied the number of the repetitions – five, seven, eight and finally eleven. They found the pattern at last: a spiral beginning on its outside edge and repeating ten times to end in the centre and then moving sideways by just a few inches.  Everywhere else the sparks followed this pattern, like dancers synchronised by wild music. 

Gwyneth knelt and lifted her arms up, closed her fingers and pointed her hands towards the sparking pattern.  

‘Fagla’ she commanded. A coil of force, like silver string, appeared in her hand. Owen rushed over to take it from her. He twisted his hands until the string was formed into the shape of the spiral. He then traced the eleven points of the sparking pattern onto the string.  The points began to glow, one following another. He studied this, made two changes to the position of the glowing points with his hands and then threw the string up into the air.

‘Good’ murmured Gwyneth.

There was a faint cascade of sound, like a glissando on a mutant harp. All of the sparks in the room flashed on at once – the brief pulse of light was so intense that it made them see black spots before their eyes. There was a moment’s break and then the sparks began their sequence again. This time, however, they began to drift as they pulsed, moving in towards the snare. As each pattern of pulses hit the snare they disappeared and the string began to thicken. Owen looked at Gwyneth.

‘Wait’ she said, ‘both of you. I’ll tell you when...’

The snare filled with tiny fireworks. It swelled from gossamer cotton to shipwright’s cable. Owen’s face was distorted by concentration – his forehead was creased into deep furrows.

‘Soon, Gwyn, or we won’t be able to close it’

‘Not yet!’ she hissed, ‘it’s not full’

Sparks still careered into it. They waited, desperate for all of the energy to be trapped, so that they could close the snare and snuff out the spells. The coil began to flex in the air like an unruly serpent; the dwimmers inside made it seem almost as if it were aflame. 

Owen could wait no longer. ‘We must do it now’ he shouted, ‘we have so little strength’

Myfanwy and he stood shoulder to shoulder; Gwyneth joined them, if reluctantly. They shuddered as their magic conjoined. They opened their index and middle fingers so that they made a ‘v’ and then pointed them at the snare. A pale green light sprung up from their hands and connected them to the cable. Owen counted up to three and then they closed their fingers in a single snipping motion. The coil rose up several feet and then twisted into a knot. The knot tightened and all of the magical energy in the sparks was compressed inside it.  The watchers held their breath. For a moment it seemed that the sparks would be quenched out entirely, but then the rope bulged convulsively. It struggled for a little while to contain the forces within, but then it split, spilling little crackling lights. They marched back into their positions; the necromancers’ obedient sappers. 

John appeared behind the exhausted witches and Jacantha materialised a moment later. She stood examining the reforming pattern of sparks with her hands on her hips; following the path of last shreds of the snare that were crumbling into the air. The witches in front of her did not see her before she spoke.

‘Too weak a snare, I’m afraid, or was it the enchanters?’

 Owen turned round instantly; he did not recognise this person at all. For the other two, however, there was a long moment during which they were shocked into stillness.

‘What a surprise – it’s my old comrades, Gwyn Preece and Myfy Williams! It’s a pity that you are still a bit of a shambles, but that can’t be helped. However, I can see exactly why you need me so badly...’

Gwyneth felt as though the present had opened up a pit into the past. Her face was illuminated by the incessant sparks but standing where she was no-one was able to see it. She was so grateful for this – she knew that she must look like a woman with broken ribs who had just been told an irresistible joke.  She forced her mind into stillness. This is not my pain – this is my sister’s pain; I have no reason to despair. She turned around. Her face was a grim mask, but it was Myfanwy who spoke first.

‘Why have you brought that woman back here, John Ismay?’

John stared out at the sparks. One by one they flickered on and then failed to go out. The room was full of tiny, pure white stars.

‘Not now’ he hissed, ‘please – not now!’

Chapter sixty-three

The Inner Portal

 

Kath slipped the straw key into the keyhole on the pillar. It slid in with a small satisfying click. After that it was easy for Potentilla to slide the pillar across. It was made of ply wood or plaster, or something similar, and was set up with a wheel inserted into its base so that it could be moved easily.

They all crowded round to see what was below. It was slightly disappointing – there was a hole with a ladder attached to one side of it, leading down into the darkness. They lit a torch and held it against the hole, but all they could see was what looked like a dark floor about ten feet below.  Potentilla climbed down it before Viola had a chance to tell her she shouldn’t.   

They all followed the lieutenant into the hidden floor below. It was an exact copy of the colonnade above, running along from the ladder onwards. It even had pillars in what seemed like exactly the same places as those above. The only difference was that it only ran one way, further down the colonnade in the direction that they had come.

Kath climbed back to pull the pillar back across – it had a key hole on its underside where it locked into place. She pulled it to from the ladder and it clicked shut. She checked that it could be opened again with the straw key and then she left it closed and locked. She wondered how long their enemies would take to work out where they had gone.

 They moved slowly forward in single file. They extinguished the torch as it made far too much smoke in the enclosed space. Hardacre, weary though he was, had enough energy to force light on to the end of Potentilla’s sword. It was enough to see the way ahead. She led the way, squeezing past the pillars, which sometimes left only a foot or two’s gap between them. This way was clearly not intended to be used very often.

No-one said a word and they travelled on as quietly as they could, given the mixed nature of the party. After about twenty more pillars the pillars stopped and the corridor was just plain and white. Hardacre extinguished the light on the end of Potentilla’s sword.

‘There’s a glow’ he whispered, eyes straining in the half-light.  Viola focused on the faint orange patch of light.

‘It’s some sort of gateway – an arch filled with light’

 ‘Is it a boundary light? Is that what you mean?’ Hardacre was now standing right next to Viola and their voices were barely audible to their companions.    

‘What’s that?’

‘A light that triggers a magical effect if it is breached’

Viola shrugged.  ‘I have no idea, but I think it could be...’

They walked towards it as slowly as they could. As it got closer they could see that it was a plain arch thrown across the corridor. It seemed to be no barrier to their progress, except that it was covered in a skin; a membrane that shone with a shimmering pink-orange light.  Kath’s stomach jumped – this looked like something that no-one would want to walk through without considerable preparation. She could see out of the corner of her eye that Hardacre and Dom were putting their heads together, while Viola had stood stock still examining every part of it with her extraordinary eyes. For a moment she felt proud of their collective skills.

Sadly, no-one had communicated this sense of caution or competence to Lieutenant Potentilla who simply continued walking until her still outstretched sword hit the membrane.

A huge dissonant chord bounced out of the entranceway and sent them all flying backwards. It was the most musical explosion they had ever experienced, but it still hurt a lot. Viola, relatively unhurt, scrambled up and ran over to where Potentilla was lying. Viola’s voice was stern but concerned.

‘Are you injured?’ she asked. Potentilla mumbled, put her hands on her back and rubbed.

‘Only a bit...’

Viola wondered briefly whether this might be a good moment to give her lieutenant a piece of her mind, but she knew it would be a total waste of both of their time.

‘Just stay where you are until you’re sure you’ll be steady on your feet’

The party brushed themselves down and stood up. The witch and the ‘prentice mage returned to their ruminations. Everyone else retreated a little way back down the corridor.

Hardacre and Dom walked right up to the membrane. Both of them were now weary and neither of them could think of any useful spells, but they did the best that they could and scraped something together. They had a brief discussion and then walked back to the others to report. 

‘It’s not a fatal trap...’ said Dom

‘...which is a good thing’ continued Hardacre, glancing for only the smallest possible fraction of a second at Lieutenant Potentilla.  ‘It is powerful magecraft, but neither of us has any idea what it is for. It appears to be a membrane that will yield to someone or something, but we have no idea what or who. So, we discussed the possibilities and then Dom came up with an excellent idea, which I will let him describe’

Dom’s smile was thin lipped. He tilted his head to one side as if inviting acquiescence.

‘We should try walking through it one at a time, just in case it might let one of us through’

Without a word they all glanced up at Viola. She frowned and took a step back, further away from the arch.

 ‘Well, perhaps I should go first, then’ she said, her frown showing no sign of fading from her face.

Hardacre shook his head.

‘No, madam’ he said, ‘you should only go through when we are sure that it’s safe. Let me go first ’

The others murmured their support for this idea, except for Potentilla, who looked for a moment as if she going to ask for another try. Everyone else was grateful for Hardacre’s bravery.   

He approached the arch very slowly, scanning every inch of it as he moved forward. He could see the passage way behind the membrane quite clearly; it appeared as plain as the way behind him. He stopped just in front of the arch, looked round to ensure that no-one had any final words of warning or advice, and then pushed his left hand into the membrane. It felt very strange. At the first touch the membrane pushed back against his hand. The harder that he pushed the harder the membrane responded.  He turned to his companions.

‘That explains why the lieutenant was pushed backwards so hard; the membrane seems to counter any attempts to penetrate it with an equal force’ He thought for a second, remembering some schooldays physics, ‘in fact with the double the force...’

  He stepped back and nodded at Dom.

‘Mage Shavosky?’

Dom nodded back. He breathed in deeply and then crept forward. He repeated exactly Hardacre’s approach, pushing his hand gingerly into the membrane. He braced for the force to push his hand backwards but no force came. He stared quizzically at his hand and then down at the membrane. To him it looked like diffuse orange smoke.  He turned back to the others.

‘Something’s happened to it’ he said, ‘it’s started to dissipate...’

Hardacre scanned at the membrane intently. He looked puzzled.

‘It looks the same to me’ he said, stepping forward. He pushed his hand in again, but with the same result – his hand was pushed back. Dom glanced backwards and forwards from his own hand to Hardacre’s.  One hand was pushed through the smoke, while the other remained stuck outside it. He knew what he had to next – he took a step forward. And then he was on the other side; the membrane had no power over him at all. 

‘Stay just there’ commanded Hardacre – Dom had no plan to move at all.

‘That’s really strange’ said Kath, walking forward, ‘why would it do that?’

She peered at Dom through the orange gloom. She tried to reach him through the membrane but her hand bounced off its surface.

‘Can you put your hand through?’ she shouted through the archway. He extended his hand and it pushed back through the fog. Kath held on to it. ‘Try pulling me through’

He rocked backwards and tried to drag her through. As he pulled the pressure pushing her away from him increased, until it was too much and he had to let go. She fell backwards on to the floor. They stared at each other, wide eyed and bewildered.

‘Come back through, Dom’ said Viola, ‘this is all too strange...’

Dom strolled back across the threshold as easily as he had gone in. Potentilla came over and held his hands in hers, as if checking that he were still corporeal. 

Viola shook herself, sighed deeply and walked straight through the archway. She never had any doubts that this would happen, but the fact that she had been right did not bring her any satisfaction. At least the naga must be near.

‘Can you disrupt it?’ she asked, looking back through the portal.

Hardacre shook his head.

‘I can’t, and if I could, l surely wouldn’t’

Viola stood in the glow with her hands immersed in the orange smoke.  She was torn between looking forward to the past and looking behind to the future.  She was in equal parts terrified and elated – it felt very strange.

The others all turned to confront Dom. He blanched under their prying eyes.

‘I don’t know why’ he said, ‘I really don’t’

‘Are you an archaic elf?’ asked Kath, ‘and if you are, is Viola one too? Is that it?’

Dom shook his head and then a sudden fear struck him. He looked through the arch; there was no sign of Viola.  She had gone on without him.

‘I need to help her’ he murmured, and, ignoring the protests of his friends, he let go of Potentilla’s hands, and hurried through the archway.  A second later they could see nothing but the impassable orange skin, and the empty corridor beyond it.

Chapter sixty-four

Ortia

 

They met in front of the main city gate on foot; General Titanius with his small personal guard and Dictator Aurelian with Gaius and two other members of his staff.  

‘Sir’ said Aurelian, standing stiffly to attention and saluting.

Titanius returned the salute and smiled as warmly as he could manage.

 ‘I’m not quite clear who outranks who here, to be honest, general... but I am assuming that I am still your commanding officer’

Aurelian nodded with relief. He felt far too worried to respond to Titanius’s smile.

‘Of course you are, sir – I’m just trying to avoid any further strife. I find myself in a difficult position...’

Titanius walked over and grasped Aurelian’s shoulder. The Ortian was shocked by the familiarity, but also strangely comforted.  He had a surprisingly gentle touch.

‘We must try to stop this spiralling out of control’ said Titanius.

‘And how will we do that, sir?’

Titanius took his hand away. He frowned, the still youthful flatness of his forehead creased into a series of ridges.

‘I’m not entirely sure, but I suggest that we have a number of meetings to discuss it; I really need to play for time until the Emperor arrives. Those were my explicit orders. I just hope that Senator Antonius doesn’t get restive too rapidly’

As if on cue, Antonius and Carolius rode up with a small band of adherents. Titanius was shocked – he’d given strict instructions that the senator should be invited to have breakfast with his colonels and that they should flatter and delay him for as long as possible.  During that time he had hoped to sneak away and make contact with Aurelian in secret.

‘I’m disappointed’ said Antonius as he rode up to them, ‘your attempts to keep me away, Commander, were a little...feeble’

 He stopped his horse and climbed down. Carolius dismounted too, along with the rest of their party. They evidently believed that it was time for Antonius to take charge. He pointed extravagantly at Aurelian.

‘Anyway, I see no reason not to deal with this turbulent ‘dictator’ according to his own coarse ways. Disarm him, Carolius!’

Carolius stepped forward and removed Aurelian’s sword before he had had time to react. Titanius was equally surprised – it felt like a coup. He recognised this young lieutenant, he was the youngest son of senator Cicero, Antonius closest political ally. He was certain that his name had not been on the officer’s roster.

‘Thank you General – you have delivered the traitor into my hands’ said Antonius

His smile was as cold as frozen river. He addressed Aurelian in a clear, oratorical voice.

‘Aurelian Ortiensis, I hereby exercise my right as Proconsul of Ortia under Section five of the Civil Unrest Statute to remove you from all your posts, actual and fictitious, and to make summary judgement of your crimes. I find you guilty of high treason’

Aurelian said nothing – this was far beyond him. He would accept whatever his superiors demanded. He could well believe that he was some sort of traitor, if you looked at it from the right angle. Titanius, however, could smell betrayal and spiteful hate. There was no way that he would stand for it.   

‘You exceed your authority, Senator’ He turned to the senator’s posse. ‘Stand down, all of you’

Every one of them except the two patricians took a step backwards, torn between the two conflicting poles of authority. Carolius dew his sword first and then Antonius. They moved together to attack Aurelian.

Titanius leapt out on front of the Dictator. He faced Carolius directly in front and Antonius at the side. Neither of them were proficient with their swords, but they were attacking an unarmed elf, so they seemed fair game.

Carolius lunged forward with his sword. Titanius, unusually agile for such a tall elf, bent backwards to avoid the blow. Carolius’s sword fell wide of its mark, Titanius countered – he brought his sword down firmly, but not quite with full force, on to his opponent’s sword hand. The bones crunched. Carolius screamed, a high pitch combination of pain and indignation. His sword dropped from his hand and he fell down.    

Titanius stepped forward. He brandished his sword at Antonius. The senator backed away with a terrified look on his face.

‘Take your useless assassin and go’ commanded Titanius

Something snapped in Antonius. He felt his world collapsing around him. He had always been taught that when one’s back was against the wall, one counter attacked.  His face became redder and redder.

‘I am the proconsul of Ortia – how dare you defy me! You were nothing before you seduced the Emperor and you’ll be nothing again – just a jumped up debaucher. Your family aren’t fit to be my family’s cobblers ’

Antonius words made his own terror retreat in the face of fury and his fury made him foolish. He ran towards Titanius waving his sword, without any control; an amateur gentle-elf assailing a professional scoundrel.   Titanius’s reflexes moved to parry the blow, but Antonius had no experience of running with a sword and he stumbled, pitching forward. His weapon slipped out of his hand.  His opponent’s sword, however, moving to block a blow that never came, struck him full across the temple. There was very little blood, just a sickening crunching sound as Antonius’s head caved in. The Commander’s sword was very heavy and the fall was grave. The seventeenth proconsul of Ortia, who had had the misfortune to be the Emperor’s favourite, died instantly. 

There was a silent commotion as Antonius’s elves ran to try to save him. But it was too late; whatever had been inside his body was now departed.

‘What an extraordinarily foolish man’ whispered Titanius, his face grim and tired. He looked down at Carolius who was still very much alive. He held his shattered right hand in his left. He was weeping.

‘My father will not let this rest’ he sobbed, ‘you will both pay for this’

‘Shut up, boy!’ shouted Titanius, ‘You cannot make things any worse with words; I know exactly what I have done’

Aurelian called for a healer and Carolius was carefully removed from the scene; his followers clustered round him as he went. There was no healing for Antonius, however.  Aurelian had his elves remove the body with as much dignity as was possible and take it into the city. Titanius cleaned his sword.

He watched the body being stretchered away for as long as seemed decent. He knew that he would have to mobilise whatever of the troops were loyal to him, just in case the senatorial party attempted an instant coup against Ortia. Aurelian knew that too – he had ordered several squads of his troops out to protect their two generals. Archers began to swarm over the rebuilt city walls.  

Just as the corpse was being taken through the main portal of the city Titanius felt a jolt of power. It was as if a voice somewhere deep in his psyche was saying I am grateful, commander. He staggered slightly, but then in some odd way, felt stronger.

He turned to Aurelian and pointed at himself.

‘What was that?’

Aurelian studied him for a few seconds and then showed him the palm of his left hand. At the base of his middle finger was a series of small red dots. He pointed at Titanius’s left hand. Without thinking Titanius turned it over. He drew in a breath rapidly – he had the same pattern of spots at the base of his middle finger.  It had not been there when he had washed his hands that morning. He looked up accusingly.

‘What is that?’

‘it’s the Salvelinus, the mark of the Lady.  It is said that it represents the markings on the skin of the deep water char, the fish that are said to swim inside the sacred lake. All of the priestesses have it and so does Marthian. I acquired mine when I became dictator, and now you have one’

‘What does it do?’

‘It confers a special status on you, sir... You have won the favour of the Lady.’ He waited a second, ‘for better or worse’

Titanius looked back at the city, where they were just pulling the main gate to. A giant kite was drifting on the high thermals, its wings were utterly still; he briefly wondered if it had been sent to keep an eye on him. He shrugged off that strange thought and turned back to his general.

‘I serve no-one but my liege lord. I did not ask for this benison...’

Aurelian laughed a small, bitter, laugh.

‘Can I respectfully remind your, sir’ he whispered, ‘neither did I’

Chapter sixty-five

Neman

 

Owen stared at the new constellations forming in the council chamber.  He put his hand up to touch one of the small light-filled spheres. As he had suspected, his hand went straight through it.

‘They have a fix on us’ he said, calmly, ‘all we can hope to do now is to disrupt the corrosive force when it comes’

He looked across at Gwyneth.

‘Or we can shut the whole thing down and run, I suppose’

She shook her head.

‘I can’t do that alone – I would need my sister...’

There was no sign of Bronwyn: they assumed that she was still unconscious.

‘In any case’ Gwyneth continued, ‘it would take us years to rebuild...’

‘Better to die trying to save what we have’ growled Myfanwy, ‘than be reduced to outlaws’.

‘Speak for yourself’ murmured Jacantha. She scanned round the room clearly looking for something, ‘where’s that little Rhylic bastard?’

Owen was finding it hard to decide whether to stare at the spheres or this strange new phenomenon.

‘Who are you?’ he asked, but there was no time for an answer. A high pitched screech filled the air.  The white spheres, which had been rotating slowly, began to speed up, and from each one grew a white thread, like unpicked darning.  Owen was snapped back to pressing reality.

‘Verifying...’ he said, ‘...this is where they estimate the exact dimensions of the hidden space. This is tricky magic but I know of no counter spell’ He looked around, appealing to the others. John shook his head.

‘Wait, everyone’ he commanded, ‘conserve your energy’

The screech died down and was replaced by a silence that was, in many ways, even less bearable. They all watched as the threads searched for each other in empty space and then met and fused. The connected threads changed colour from white to black. Bit by bit their secret space was being covered in a lattice of black filaments.

‘What are they?’ asked Myfanwy

Owen answered without taking his eyes off the filaments.

‘The black threads are mapping the exact positions of our hidden space. Once that is complete they will use the threads to concentrate corrosive energy and dissolve our headquarters away’

‘And us with it?’ asked Myfanwy, without expecting or wanting an answer. 

‘Where’s Katy?’ shouted Owen, ‘we really need her right now’

‘I’m here’ said a small voice. Kathleen was there – she had been helped into the room by a student several minutes before, but she had been too weak to enter into the conversation. She was pale, and could only walk by putting her arm around her helper.  Behind her stood Bronwyn; she was the only one who wasn’t staring at the black network. It was fortunate that no-one could see her face as the reality sunk in – the woman who stole her child was here again. The shock was so great that she had told no-one that she was there.

Owen rushed over to his tottering friend.  As they whispered together the black reticulations began to move, as if they were rotating on a distant central pivot. Kathleen was listening to Owen’s instructions but her eyes were fixed on the enemy’s network.

‘Can’t we do something?’ shouted Jacantha, ‘how can there be no counter-spell?’

John glared at her and began to move towards Owen and Kathleen. Gwyneth was already there. She barked an order.

‘Stay where you are, Jac; you haven’t been trained to do this...’

Jacantha glared back but said no more. She still seemed to be looking for something. 

Owen was casting a series of little spells under his breath.  As he spoke each spell a pulse of light spread out slowly across the chamber and then on into the forest behind. As the light hit the black net it briefly stopped and flickered in a range of hues.  The colours followed the spectrum in reverse: purple, cobalt, azure, olive, yellow, rusty, crimson. At each pulse Kathleen and Owen looked at each other. Although it was unclear to anyone else why, they nodded to each other after the cobalt and yellow pulses.  

Kathleen opened up her bag and took out two small phials of liquid. She then removed a white pad, like a small ink blotter, and passed it to Owen. He held it out on the palm of his hand. She unstoppered each phial and placed a single yellow and indigo drop on to the blotter, then slid the phials back into her bag. There was a moment while the pad absorbed the liquid and then little specks of light floated up from the blotter. Kathleen cupped her hands and the specks began to congregate in the space that her hands had formed.   

Owen smiled but only with the corners of his lips. He put the blotter on the floor and straightened up. John, Myfanwy and Gwyneth each placed a hand on his back. In unison they intoned ‘chyfnertha’, the witches’ aid spell.   

‘What is going on?’ asked Jacantha, looking increasingly perplexed.

Owen glanced at her briefly. He wanted to say ‘what is it to you, stranger?’ but he guessed that that would be unhelpful. In any case there was too little time.

‘Just watch...’ was all that he could bring himself to say. Then he accepted the aid that had been freely given and dipped his hand into Kathleen’s pot of yellow and cobalt light specks. He took out a single speck and threw it up into the air, so that it flew into the black threads. Where the specks touched the threads they began to wither. He threw up more and more, until an area about ten foot by ten foot had been cleared. He turned his head to look at Kathleen.      

 ‘Is that enough?’ he asked. She nodded.

‘As long as we can keep it clear then it will be fine – they can’t dissolve the space unless the network is intact’

For a moment there was no need for the chyfnertha spell and so the three connected witches removed their hands from Owen and stepped back. They breathed a collective sigh of relief. John was still cautious, however.

‘We’re only safe if they have less patience and available energy than we do.’

Owen considered this.

‘We must have more’ he said, ‘they are projecting a huge amount of power from a long way off; we have to wait for them to tire. We just need to keep our concentration...’

Bronwyn seemed to have heard none of this; while everyone else’s eyes were fixed on the battle between specks and threads she seemed unable to drag her eyes away from the tall woman who had just reappeared among them.  She walked into the centre of the room.

‘Where’s my child?’ she said, her voice choking with emotion, ‘where did you take him?’

 John glared at Gwyneth; she ran over to where her bewildered twin was tottering. She wanted to ask the same question, but now was not the time. She put her index finger to her mouth, ‘shush, Bron, please... not now’

Bronwyn shook her head slowly. She looked at her sister intently, as if she might read something comforting in her face.  Her voice was a low moan.  

‘But why is she here?’

Gwyneth swallowed hard, but John began speaking before she had a chance to explain.

‘I have asked her to re-join the coven...’ he waited for a moment, struggling with physical and emotional exhaustion, ‘...it was my decision alone – based on our desperate need’    

Jacantha said nothing. Her face was an unreadable mask; whatever she was thinking was to be kept to herself. Bronwyn, in contrast, was easy to read – she looked tired and old; her eyes filled with old unforgotten sorrow.

‘How could you?’ she whispered; it could have been meant for either her present leader or her former lover. She staggered forward and then stopped herself; closed her eyes for a second or two and then muttered something under her breath. When she opened her eyes again all trace of tears and pain was gone. She was a witch and her coven was in deadly danger; everything else would have to wait.  

‘Who are you?’ asked Owen of Jacantha.

Jacantha’s mask cracked into a grin.

‘Who am I? I am the witch who’s about to save your life, boy’

She stared out beyond the chamber. Owen’s gaze followed hers. Out in the woods a grey mist was forming and in the mist there were shapes emerging, thousands of shapes that refused to reveal their details.  Owen turned to the others with a thin smile on his face.

‘Now I see the flaw in my plan’

‘What flaw?’ asked John, who had not yet seen the amassing vague army.   

‘I think they may have devised a more direct way to break our concentration...’

Out in the forest the wind had turned cold and wild. Grey shapes of death flew towards them from the trees.

Chapter sixty-six

The wrong side of the orange membrane

 

They were left stranded in front of the portal. They could neither hear nor see anything through the membrane. They were at a loss. The minutes ticked on.

‘Where are they?’ asked Kath, finally dragging her gaze away from where her friends had disappeared.

‘Somewhere that we can’t reach’ said Hardacre, ‘for reasons that I do not even begin to understand’

‘Do you mean that you can’t understand why we can’t reach them?’ asked Potentilla, uncertain and morose, ‘or that you can’t understand why they would go on without us?’

‘Either would be applicable...’ Hardacre admitted. He turned to face the way that they had come, ‘but whichever, we can do no more good here, I think’

Kath gave a noncommittal grunt – she wondered what else they might be doing. Hardacre realised that he’d need some additional explanation.

‘There are enemies behind us. I propose that we go and see where they are and try our best to slow them down. The longer Viola gets to talk to the naga, the better’

Kath and Potentilla both looked unconvinced, but for different reasons.

‘I can’t leave Vee and Dom here’ said Potentilla, ‘they may need me at any moment’

Kath nodded.

‘And what can we hope to do against Bea and her cronies?’ she asked, ‘we’re too weak and you’re too exhausted’

‘We’ll see about that’ said Hardacre, softly, ‘but, anyway, we can’t just stay here’

Potentilla looked up imploringly. Kath had never seen her looking so careworn. There was a catch in her voice.

‘Someone needs to stay here and check that they’re alright’

Hardacre inspected her for a moment.  He made an instant decision.

‘I agree. You stay here. But – be prepared to retreat if necessary. Don’t take any risks’

Kath sighed. She guessed that her elven friend would only really have heard the first of Laurence’s three instructions. She turned and began to make her way back down the corridor. Hardacre gave Potentilla a final glance and then moved off after Kath.  He lit up a very weak illumination spell.

They wormed their way along the narrow corridor and back to the secret exit. Kath climbed up and inserted the key. She looked down at Hardacre seeking reassurance. He nodded and she turned the key and pushed the pillar to one side. Kath pulled herself up out of the tunnel very warily. Hardacre followed her. They stood in the colonnade and looked around.

Psithuros fluttered down from her perch in a nearby column. She flew without a sound.

‘The enemy are here’ she said, in low tones, ‘they have come in some force. My companions are tracking their peregrinations’  

Hardacre opened his palm and Psithuros flew up on to it. Kath carefully closed the secret pillar.

‘Let’s move away from here’ Hardacre whispered.

They padded towards the back of the temple, looking for a less obvious way down than the front steps. Fortunately at the rear of the building were two sets of steep steps, one on either side of the rear colonnade. They made their way down the steps closest to them. At the bottom they stopped for a moment, sheltered by the temple wall on one side and some tall buildings on the other.

‘How many enemies?’ asked Hardacre

‘Five score’ replied Psithuros

‘What?’ blurted out Kath, in Ethian, ‘that’s a bloody army!’

Hardacre frowned at Kath and pointed to his lips.  Kath mouthed ‘sorry’. She waited patiently for him to speak.

‘That is a large force, but then at the moment so would be a half-score...’ he sighed gently, ‘let’s go and look...’

They skirted round the edge of the temple, sending Psithuros ahead to scout the way. They could see no-one close by, but they could hear them: a host of a hundred could not help but make a din. It was easy enough to go safely to where they were stationed just by moving through the buildings relatively quitely. They hide behind a wall and watched.

Bea’s company were there – they had thrown up a makeshift tented camp in front of the main gates, which they had somehow contrived to pull down. It looked like they were a mixture of Rhylic mercenaries, or possibly rebels, and CRS witches.

The mercenary group wore ragged browns and greens, while the witches were in a range of more colourful tunics and cloaks. Kath recognised among the outlaws at least one of the kidnappers that had held them earlier. The fighters loitered around vaguely guarding the edge of the camp while the witches focused on a set of strewn objects in its middle. It looked at first glance to be a tangle of discarded scrap iron, until you looked closer. The iron was in the form of nine long rods wrapped in silver springs. They had been placed in the ground apparently haphazardly. Inside the rough perimeter the rods circumscribed an area of feverish activity. On the ground was a flat white structure made up of a series of squares and triangles – four triangles grouped together in the approximate centre of the structure so that their combined edges made four sides of an incomplete regular hexagon. From three of the triangles a single square extended, while from one of them there was a double square.  

As they watched the witches began to intone in Enchanter’s Rhylic. Hardacre had no idea what the spell was that was being chanted, but he could tell that it was very powerful witchcraft. His flesh crawled as he sensed the magical static in the air.  

The triangles began to rise , pulling the squares behind them. As the structure ascended the poles began to fizz into life, yellow sparks forming in the coils. A string of sparks poured through the air and connected with the point where the four triangles met. That point was pulled upwards and the triangles shifted to form a pyramid with a square base. The bottom of the pyramid was secured by four more spark strings, and then the squares were pulled into place below the pyramid with strings from the remaining four poles. This change in state took only a few seconds. The structure that now hung in the air was a pyramid with a long square base, held in place by streams of yellow sparks. Four of the nine faces were black and the other five were white. Nine faces, thought Hardacre, I can imagine what exactly what this device is for. 

Directing all of this activity was a young woman with long jet black hair, dressed in a burgundy cloak. Her face was hidden from the spying humans but Hardacre had no doubt who this was. He tapped Kath on the shoulder and pointed to her. Kath mouthed ‘Bea?’ and Hardacre nodded. The air around them seemed suddenly colder.

‘How can she be so young?’ muttered Kath, without intending to make any sound. Hardacre glared at her but nonetheless allowed himself a muted reply.

‘Necromancy’ he whispered, ‘what else?’

Vala ferch Llyr stood next to Bea; her dyed black hair cropped very short, but now with a hint of bright red at the roots. The last time that Hardacre had seen her she had tried to kill him. He had no doubt that were they to meet at this moment that she’d try to kill him again. Given that, it seemed prudent to keep out of her way.

Hardacre gestured to Kath that they should move away from the encampment. They scuttered from building to building until he stopped them next to a silo. They were far enough away now for talking to be relatively safe.  Kath was breathing heavily and her eyes were wide with fear.  

‘Why have they brought so many?’ she asked

Hardacre smiled a small, grim, smile.

‘Because they imagine that by now we might have recruited a more substantial force. And, because they have that device to construct.’

 ‘And why, exactly, haven’t we recruited any one?’ asked Kath, who was now so far hidden behind the building that she could see nothing except the curve of the silo wall.

‘I have tried, I promise you. My master is not responding to my mail papers...’

‘Please keep trying’ Kath muttered. She stopped for a second, taking in what she had just seen.

‘What was that device, anyway? I couldn’t make head nor tail of it’

 Hardacre scowled.

‘I think it’s an instrument for detecting primes’ 

‘Really?’

‘Undoubtedly’

‘That’s not good news at all... What can we do to stop them using it?’

Hardacre considered this – it didn’t look like he had come to any satisfactory conclusion. After a while, though, he seemed to find an answer of sorts.

 ‘I think that we will need those reinforcements, after all’

Kath gave him an exasperated look.

 ‘How on earth will we get them? As you just said, there’s no-one who can help us here...’

Hardacre nodded slightly, as if to acknowledge her reasonable scepticism. The he tapped his hand softly against the side of the silo.

‘You’re quite right, Dr Fielding’ he said, ‘we clearly can’t summon any reinforcements, so we’ll have to make them ourselves’