Chapter fifty-five

The White Temple at Klethropolis

 

Viola woke at first light. She woke everyone else up with a minimum of noise. They ate a breakfast of figs and dry bread and drank a little water. Their rations were dwindling but they still had several days’ supply.

After that they packed and prepared to leave. Kath was in the front with Viola, who had said almost nothing during their meagre breakfast.  They were waiting at the door for the others.

‘Where are we going Vee?’

‘To the centre of the city – to the fire snake’

Kath looked at her friend. She appeared exactly as always but Kath knew that she was being driven by a compulsion. What worried her most was that Viola had stopped recounting dreams. Maybe she wasn’t having them anymore, but that seemed unlikely. 

‘Do you know exactly where the naga is?’

‘No – not yet. But I think that I will’

‘How?’

‘I’m going to follow my nose’

Kath frowned at her, but she didn’t notice. She’d opened the door and was ushering Potentilla and the birds out. She gave them their orders.

‘We will be heading for the big white temple in the centre of the city – the one with the long colonnade’ 

Potentilla took this is her stride.

‘Of course, ma’am’

‘So go back to your guard post and... if you see anything – retreat slowly and quietly to our position and warn us. Don’t let them see you!’

‘Yes, ma’am’

Potentilla sprinted off. The parrots prepared to follow her.

‘And you three’ Viola whispered to them, ‘look after my lieutenant’

 ‘Yes, my lady’ they tweeted together.

They fluttered off. Viola stood with her arms folded, watching them until they disappeared behind some buildings. Kath waited until she turned back towards her again and until Viola nodded that they should move off.

‘What big white temple?’

Viola looked puzzled.

‘The one that we saw yesterday’

‘Really? Where did we see it?’

Viola turned a half circle and pointed with her whole hand in roughly the opposite direction to the main gates.

‘Don’t you remember?’

‘And when did we see it?’

Viola’s voice, which had been crisp and certain, began to falter.

‘Yesterday… when we entered the city; wasn’t it then?’

Kath frowned and shook her head very slowly.

‘We came through the gate, went round a few blocks of houses and found the safe house. All we saw were the green silos and the brick buildings’

‘I was sure…’ Viola stopped herself.

‘Vee , I don’t think you’ve been there with me’

Viola’s head drooped, she looked tired and drawn.

‘Of course – I’m being foolish – it was in a dream.’

Hardacre caught up with them. He touched Viola’s shoulder and she turned around.

‘May I say something, madam?’

Viola paused, and although it was not her intention, her reply was hesitant.

‘Of course you may… I always value your advice’

‘I am concerned that we may be walking into a wilderness of snares, and that not all of them have been set by our enemies’

A wave of discomfort passed over Viola’s face; she narrowed her mouth until her lips were thin lines.

‘I know that all too well, Envoy Hardacre, but what do you propose that we do, now that we have come so far?’

 Hardacre frowned. He let go of her shoulder.

‘Be very careful. It is surely dangerous to allow a god to give you commands’

Anger ignited in her.

‘Or a witch lord. We all owe service to someone’

She walked off towards the centre of the city. They trailed after her; none of them had anything more to say. Hardacre’s face was as impassive as ever but his step was heavy.  Dom had long ago given up working out exactly what was going on, they were being carried forward by some compulsion that he couldn’t hope to understand.

Kath hurried to catch up with Viola again.

‘What now?’ she asked

‘Who knows? I’m half hoping that the white temple won’t be there’

 

***

 

But it was there.  The temple stretched half way along a street that was lined with a more imposing set of buildings than they had seen in the other parts of the city. The white temple, though, was the largest of them all. If this was what they had come to find, no-one had tried to hide it.

They walked round the building cautiously. The outside was entirely without decoration, but it was whitewashed and stuccoed and no bricks were visible. The whole structure was built on a raised area; whether natural or built it was impossible to say.  At the front there were steep steps that led up to a long white-walled building with two rows of large columns topped by a v-shaped roof. Along three sides was a colonnade with many, far smaller, slender columns and a flat, vaulted, roof.

Hardacre stood on the bottom step and looked up at the temple. He couldn’t see very far inside the inner part of the building, but he could see enough. He turned to the others, who hadn’t even dared to climb a single step.

‘This is an almost exact copy of the Temple of All Gods in Kinspit.’ He paused for a second, ‘or more probably, the other way around’

Viola found the courage to join him on the step.

‘What’s that temple for?’              

‘It’s where the population of the city worship their many gods; those considered sacred by elves, by humans or by both. Along the long walls of the building are niches. Each niche has a statue depicting the god, and a small area where the faithful can pray, light candles, sing religious songs or whatever their god requires. It can be a noisy place… although’ he bowed his head, ‘I rarely find time to visit’ 

They were all dying to ask him what god he would visit, but this was not the time. In fact, they all guessed that there would never be a good time.

‘Which gods are there?’ asked Dom

‘There are thirteen of them. All the normal, relatively wholesome ones; no cloaks, no Rhopadon, no unstable desert godlings, there are a couple of southern gods in there that I know little about…’

Viola peered up into the gloomy interior.

‘I see niches along the long walls of the temple, but it’s too dark to see what’s in them’

‘Perhaps we should go and have a look?’ suggested Kath, feeling the scholarly itch again, despite the fear that sat in the back of her mind. Viola nodded, but Hardacre signalled that Kath should stay where she was.

‘We should have a look first’

He turned to Dom. ‘I would be honoured if you would assist me, Mage Shavosky’ Dom smiled broadly. That was the first time that anyone had called him by any title, and that was the one he coveted more than any other.  After that, caution seemed churlish.

The two magic-practitioners walked slowly up the steps, casting simple diagnostic spells as they went. Halfway up, Hardacre spoke softly to Dom.

‘I must be frank, young mage. My diagnostic skills are rudimentary, and yours, although already more refined than mine, are perhaps not sufficient for us to discover any sophisticated traps or curses of the kind that we might reasonably expect to have been set up here’

 ‘Then why are we doing this?’

‘Because if we find nothing then we can report that we think everything is safe, without lying, and everyone will feel a little safer; perhaps, somewhat counter-intuitively, even you and I.’

Dom smiled. This was the sort of way that his gods-father spoke and thought.  And Hardacre was right, he did feel a little safer.

They reached the top of the steps and found nothing unusual. The temple radiated a stronger version of the general enchantment that the rest of the city held, but it was much more focused. No plants grew here on the bright white marble. They went down to get the others.

Viola walked slowly up the steps:  she counted them, nineteen steep steps leading to the flat area in front of the temple entrance.  Kath followed a little way behind.  Every step that she took made her eyes a little wider and brighter. This wasn’t Dwarven Magic – it was something older and more diffuse, but closely related at some fundamental level.

Viola looked at Hardacre and Dom. They both nodded, radiating professional competence.  She walked cautiously into the temple and the others followed, Kath just behind, Hardacre on the right and Dom on the left.

They walked down the central aisle of the temple. The light shone down from some skylights high above

They reached the far end. The front of the temple was dominated by a single caryatid pillar, separate from the nine paired rows of plain square-headed pillars that made up the bulk of the building. The caryatid was in the form of an elf, naked except for vines wrapped around her body from neck to toe. Her hair was long and straight, her face showed an intense concentration of effort.  Her hands were held out from her sides with the palms open. All around her were statues of plants and animals, except that none of them had clear forms – it was as if the sculptors had begun each piece and then decided to leave them protean, ill-defined and ready to be transformed. There were vaguely mammalian forms, and approximate birds, shrubs with sketchy leaves, and butterflies that were no more than silhouettes.

‘All ready to be filled with life…’ whispered Viola. She pointed at the caryatid elf, ‘…by her’

No-one needed to be asked who she was. This was the paramount architect.  Viola knew her face so very well from so many dreams.

Kath was looking at the sculptures with great care. She ran her hands over the surface of a prototype cow cum deer cum antelope.

‘It feels strange –  it’s like a cross between putty and stone. Everything here seems half complete and partially thought through’

Hardacre scanned the tableau of sculptures; they filled the whole space between the caryatid and the back wall. He turned and spoke to Viola. 

‘We need to hurry. Major – Is the naga here?’

Viola shrugged and put her hands out to show her open palms. For a moment she was standing in exactly the pose of the caryatid Quiena. Viola looked up at the statue and then back at her companions. For a second they were puzzled and mildly spooked. Then they started to laugh, and for a short while the tension was broken.

In the noise, it took the little parrot, Psithuros, who had just flown pell-mell into the room, some time to make herself heard. Eventually, Dom noticed her and she hopped on to his hand. Once they had all seen the little bird the laughter stopped abruptly.

 ‘The enemy are here’ she squeaked

 

They hurried straight out of the temple to look for signs of their foes. There was nothing.  At least they had a bit of time.  

Viola’s heart lurched. She had only just realised that there was only one parrot with them.

‘Where’s Tillie?’ she asked, in a cracking voice.

The little parrot cocked her head.

‘Fighting panthers with my kin’ she twittered.  Her voice was bright and proud.