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’
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