Dom walked out of the safe house, happy
to be doing something useful. He scanned
the area, checking that no-one was moving around. Everything was quiet, and the
city looked eerie in the early evening light, as the green shadows of the
foliage began to grow over the red buildings. He stopped for a second and
uncurled his fingers. He half expected the pebble to glow or buzz, but it
didn’t do anything, it just sat there smooth and shiny. He looked up, concerned
that he might have heard something. Kath’s fears came back to him – their
enemies could appear at any time.
He broke into a trot,
trying to find the wall as rapidly as possible. At first he was confused by the
tangle of brick and vegetation, and he worried that he would get lost and he
would have to carry his burden for who-knew how much longer. He forced himself to look at the sun – he knew
that they had entered from the south and that if he doubled back that way he
would be close both to the wall and to the gate that Potentilla was guarding.
He turned sharply left from where he was standing and threaded his way through
a cluster of silvery trees back to the city wall.
By the time he got to
the wall his hands were so sweaty that he feared he would be unable to throw
the pebble effectively. He wiped them on his shirt and the he stared up at the
wall – it was higher than he had remembered and there was a tangle of trees and
shrubs clinging to its surfaces. He wondered if he could throw it over the wall
at all. One way or another, however, he needed to get rid of the stone.
He drew his arm back
and threw the stone as high as he could. It was hard to see its trajectory in
the fading light. For a moment he thought that it had sailed clear over the
wall, passing through two small bushy trees, but then the bush on the left
shuddered as the pebble hit it. Dom screwed up his eyes, but he couldn’t see it
at all; it could equally well be on either side of the wall, or stuck in the
bush. He rushed over to the base of the wall and scrabbled around to try to
find it. He even cast a phoratos – a
simple mage spell to detect magic – but he could see nothing except the endless
diffuse dwimmer of the ancient wall. He hoped fervently that the stone had gone
over the wall, but he felt that he could waste no more time looking for it in
any case. Sighing, and cursing his incompetence, he set out to find Potentilla.
He knew that she must be close by.
When the she saw Dom approaching, she
rushed over to him and kissed him. For some reason it was a long time before he
was able to break free. When he had managed it he took a step back and put his
hand up to his gratefully-bruised mouth. He was panting – it must have been all
that running.
‘The major said that
we shouldn’t do that’ he spluttered
Potentilla’s face
fell. She turned back to the big black
doors, as if expecting a host of the enemy to have sneaked in as they snogged.
‘Oh no’ she said,
‘I’m so sorry. It’s just that I find danger exciting’
He didn’t say
anything but he grabbed her hand and placed it against his chest. His heart was
beating very fast. She grinned.
‘And I can feel that
you find it exciting too!’
The only that he
could think to say to that was well, you are a fantastic kisser but that
seemed a bit redundant. All he really wanted to do is check one more time that it
was still true. They stood there grinning at each other. He kept hold of her
hand.
‘What have you been
doing?’ she asked.
Dom’s mind, which had
temporarily become completely discombobulated, reformed with a thud. He
disentangled their fingers.
‘They put a special
teleport device into Viola’s pack, but I’ve got rid of it now. They could have
just ambushed us wherever we were’
Potentilla didn’t
seem to be concentrating very hard on what he was saying – she was staring down
at where their hands had been entwined.
‘Is it all safe now?’
she asked, shaking herself.
Don nodded. The
practical and sensual parts of his mind were in conflict. The first part vowed
not to bring any important messages to her again. The second part, however,
really wished that they were home in Gorodnikov, with no quest, no Viola and with
a large flagon of red wine.
‘How are things here?’
he asked, ‘any sign of intruders’
She jumped up on to a
tree bole and clambered up into it, with the dexterity of a lithe monkey, until
she was standing on a horizontal bough. This was clearly from where she kept
watch, with the help of the parrots, who Dom could just about make out in the
canopy of trees overhead. She signalled to him and he climbed up, judging each
foot and hand hold with precision. The tree grew up over the high gate and
there was a perfect view down into the parkland around the city. Most
importantly, if anyone came near the gate they would be spotted immediately.
Dom was relieved to see that his ardent would-be seducer was now back
concentrating on her job. He stood watching for a few minutes, kissed her on
the top of her hair without really thinking about it, and then climbed back
down the tree. He made his way, as
quietly as he could, back to the safe house.
***
Kath and Hardacre read through the
papers with growing fascination, while Viola and Dom watched them. They were
architectural plans, but not for buildings or bridges or temples – they were
plans for animals and plants. Each bundle contained plans for a different sort
of living creature, a fern, a shrub, a rodent and so on. They were laid out on
transparent paper, so that the whole structure of each given organism was only
apparent when all of the sheets were laid on top of each other. Along with them were copious design notes in
Archaic Elven.
Hardacre looked up
from a set of plans for a stag beetle; he had spent several minutes fitting the
sheets together in the right order.
‘Blueprints for an
entire flora and fauna,’ he murmured, ‘from the smallest to the largest’
Kath looked down at
her pile of papers – she thought it was a plan for a big daisy, but she was
struggling to put the papers together properly.
‘I wonder how they
used these to make the creatures, though? These are obviously magical sheets,
so they must be used to create what they depict, but how?’
Hardacre nodded and
gestured round the room.
‘I’m fairly sure that
it’s nothing in here. It must be something in another building’
‘Wouldn’t eggs and seeds
have been easier?’ asked Viola, who had been standing over them while they went
through the papers.
Kath looked up at her
and shrugged. She shifted into a more comfortable position on the floor.
‘I think these are
designs for new animals. I think this was a creative exercise’ she said
‘Create a new world,
with wonderful new things’ said Hardacre, his voice as dry as a desert bone.
Viola frowned and
walked over to another container, pulled some more bundles out of it and
flicked through the pages without untying them.
‘So – we live in a
world where the plants and animals were refashioned by the whim of the
creators’
Hardacre pulled his
beetle bundle together and tied it back up with infinite care. He nodded
politely at Kath who found herself beginning to do the same thing, without even
giving it a thought. Hardacre didn’t seem to think that Viola’s comment needed
any response. They began to pile the
binders back in the containers.
Viola looked out of
the window. Dusk had nearly fallen.
‘Where are Potentilla
and the scouts? I told them to come back before nightfall. The parrots can’t navigate
in the dark’
They waited while the
last dregs of sunlight slid under the horizon. Viola became more and more agitated, moving
repeatedly from window to window, peering out. Dom was about to volunteer to go
and find them when there was a soft knock on the door.
Viola whispered
through the door. Once she was satisfied that it was Potentilla she opened it
and let her in. The little parrots flew in just behind her. They were all relieved to hear that there was
still no sign of their enemies.
While they had been
waiting Hardacre had been sorting through a number of the binders in the
containers. Eventually he found one that she was happy with and he slipped it
into his bag. No-one noticed his actions except Kath, who caught her eye for a
fraction of a moment. There was no explicit conspiracy, but they were both
happy that Viola had not seen what had happened. Kath had no idea what the witch had in mind, but she
trusted him enough to let this be.
Viola stood in the
middle of the group to address them. The light had now completely failed.
‘No lights’ she
commanded, ‘I think it will be safe to sleep in here tonight. Have some rations
and then we’ll take it in turns to listen against the door. No-one is to go
near the windows.’
There was a murmur of
assent, but none of them felt able to talk above a whisper in the dark. The
room seemed old and strange now, with no light and no sign of any plants. Now there
was no ambient sound and every noise that they made seemed to fill the whole
space. As she caught the others’ mood, Viola’s voice dropped.
‘In the morning we
will seek the naga and discover what she guards‘
In the blind and mute
night, this seemed an impossible task, but somehow, despite their fears, they
all fell asleep eventually.
Outside somewhere, in
the cool distance, but getting ever closer, impossible panthers were on the
prowl.
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