Chapter thirty-nine

Kinspit

 

The mail paper appeared high up above the apple trees and floated down in a long arc. Hardacre knew what it was immediately, but he’d never seen one behave quite like this before. It dropped almost exactly in to his hands.  Something told him to read it quickly. It was very short and had been scrawled in a great hurry. The ink was streaked and smudged and it was clear that the writing of the message had been interrupted.

 

To Lawrence Herdaker, Kinspit  

Please rescue us. I am a friend of V…

 

And that was it. 

‘How can that have worked?’ thought Hardacre, marvelling at the strangeness of mail paper. He knew that it was clever in the way it found people but that represented a truly feeble attempt at spelling his name. Could mail papers read phonetically?

He forced himself from his brief reverie – who could possibly need his help who also didn’t know how to spell his name? He walked over to his garden workbench and dropped the paper on to it. It blew off immediately.  That was strange – it was an almost windless day. He bent over to pick it up and then put it down on the bench again. It blew off again, but this time he wasn’t really surprised. Someone had cast a little spell on the mail paper.  However, it was a very feeble spell. Hardacre guessed that it must have been a mage.

He scooped up the paper and sat on the bench. Somebody was in trouble but he had no exact idea who, and more importantly he had no idea where they were.  A semi-literate mage? He didn’t think there were any of those. Semi-literate witches, though – there were far too many of those.

He got up and placed the paper on the ground.  Perhaps it would lead him somewhere? He followed it as it blew erratically round the garden: there was no pattern or direction to it. It seemed that the magic user had just cast a little breeze spell on the mail paper, but why? He folded up the note and put it in his pocket.  He made his way into the house.

He went straight to his room. He wanted to examine the spell on the mail paper in more detail. There was a spell to do that – diagnostikos – and it was one of the few mage spells that witches ever felt it was worth learning.

He cast the spell and sifted through the cluster of data that it produced. He was surprised to see that it had an open trace, which was very unusual. Most spells that were cast on objects had a closed trace so that one’s signature was hidden – it was among the first things that any spell caster learnt to do. He looked closely at the signature – he didn’t recognise it at all. Then he committed it to his trace memory so that he would be able to see any spell cast subsequently by that person.

He put the paper in a draw and sat down in his armchair to think. ‘A friend of V…’ most probably meant a friend of Viola’s, but this person was clearly not someone that he knew. It could all be a hoax or a trap. The open signature left him with a dilemma – if he saw the trace again then he would be able to teleport to the mage’s position. However, that might be exactly what an enemy wanted him to do.  He waited, scanning his mind map. As he did this he wrote a note on a piece of paper.

A few minutes later the trace reappeared and he had to make a decision.  He needed to teleport now or wait for another trace, and that might never come. He already knew what the answer had to be – if there was any chance that Viola was in trouble then he had to go to help her.  He hurried down stairs, slipped the note into an envelope, and put it on John’s desk in clear sight. Then he blinked away.

Chapter forty

Milestone Forty-seven

 

He landed right next to the tents but was able to duck away into the undergrowth. He had no idea where he was fortunately there were an awful lot of trees to hide behind. He needed to find out was what was in the tents, but he had very little spell energy left, so first he’d have to rest for an hour or two.  He looked up at the sky; it was early morning, and so he knew that they were somewhere on the western continent, at least eight hours behind Kinspit, where it was about four in the afternoon. That could be somewhere in Oket, he concluded, so it might well be Viola and her team. He backed away very carefully into the forest.

There was a tangle of ivy dangling down from a small oak tree that provided an almost perfect place to rest.  Hardacre sat with his back against the tree and listened. He could hear voices away beyond the tents and although he could not hear what they were saying it was very obvious what language they were speaking. Rhylic here, so far east, strongly suggested the CRS.  If this was Oket and if the voices really belonged to the CRS then this must be Viola’s team who were in trouble. The problem now was how he could help.

After about ten minutes of thinking and resting he heard a tiny noise at the entrance to the ivy den. There was something trying to get in. He was sure, at the same time, that he heard a voice saying ‘who art thou? Art thou a servant of our lady?’  A very small drab green parrot was standing, shivering, on the floor in front of him, talking in a very old dialect of Archaic Elven.

‘I believe that I am’ he whispered, ‘if thou meanst by our lady the elf named Viola Ortiensis’

The parrot nodded her head solemnly. She spoke with a very soft, but rather brittle, voice

‘I am Akenopteryx, one of our lady’s scouts’

‘Viola; is she captured?’ asked Hardacre

‘She is and so are her companions. Their captors are rough speakers with strange voices – I think they are not Kaths’

‘Kaths?’ Hardacre asked, and then smiled, ‘Oh, I see. Thou speakest truth – they are not of that tribe, but I am, most certainly’

‘Can thou helpest us to rescue them?’

‘Well, I will certainly try’

Akenopteryx jumped on to his hand.  She looked up at his face.

‘Art thou Viola’s principal helper?’

For some reason Hardacre found this question perturbing – what was the correct answer? He wasn’t sure that he should be helping Viola at all.  

‘I have helped her a little, but no, I have another who I help more’

‘Is she another Old Elf?’

He shook his head, wondering exactly what the parrot meant; he was sure that Viola was not an Ancient Elf.

‘No, he’s a human…’

Akenopteryx cocked her head. ‘Is he a Kath?’

‘Yes, but humans are not just Kaths – the evil men are also human’

‘Oh’ she said, ‘I am sorry for that’ 

‘We are too’ sighed Hardacre, ‘particularly for those humans over there’

‘What shall we do?’

‘We can only decide that when I know exactly what is happening, Can thou tellest me who is in the tents?’

 So the little scout told him about her Micropsitta companions and about the three elves and Kath and briefly how they had all met. She also described in as much detail as she could the humans who had captured them and how the Micropsitta had avoided being seen at all by their enemies.  She then went to get the other scouts and they huddled together in the hide away.    

 ‘How is it that thou knowest them?’ asked Hapalonyx, who had the softest voice of all.

 Hardacre considered this. He sensed that these birds needed complete honesty – they were creatures of duty just like himself. And for now his duty was to the greater good.

‘We have worked together before – in very trying circumstances – and they among my closest friends’

‘So, are we to rescue them?’

‘Yes, we are, but the odds are against us; eight to one’

The scouts looked puzzled and briefly twittered among themselves. Akenopteryx jumped forward as their spokesbird. 

‘How hast thou made that calculation, sire? We see four of us and that four of ours are captured. Is that not even odds?’

‘Well’ mused Hardacre, ‘I suppose that it is’

‘In that case, sire – let us act’

‘Yes we will,’ he agreed, ‘but first let me explain something about myself that may come as something of a surprise.  And after that – let’s see if we can scare our foes right out of their skins’

 

***

 

Hardacre made them all invisible. This was easily done with a single spell: the difference between his weight and the weight of the parrots was in the margin of error for the incantation. He just used the left over scraps of thaum to make the birds invisible too. He was still weak and he was relying on freeing his friends without much additional magic. He would have rested for longer, but it was clear that the CRS thugs planned to move their captives very soon.

The eight humans were sitting or standing in the small clearing in front of the tents. They were clearly low-ranking hoodlums, probably recruited for their brutality and taught just the rudiments of witchcraft – Bea and Kratos liked to keep their darkest, most powerful, skills mostly to themselves. On this occasion that could be turned to Hardacre’s advantage – they might well be susceptible to some simple trickery.

The parrots flew off to the top of the tree canopy and began pulling off whatever they could find; twigs, moss, bits of bark, and strands of mistletoe. Hardacre did ask them to do this, but they also added some little deposits of their own, just to help it all stick together. They formed these into spiky balls and flew off with them over the heads of the captors, but high up enough so that the balls weren’t seen. They swooped over their enemies and then dropped the little bombs on to their heads. Even from a short distance this was very painful and, of course, shocking. The kidnappers looked up immediately, but by then the payloads had gone and there was no sign of what had dropped them. The parrots did this several times, until the thugs were running around and throwing rocks at what, to them, might as well have been imaginary targets. 

Hardacre walked as quietly as he could into a stand of oaks with one enormous very ancient tree. He stood in front of it, breathed in and then whispered ‘utgana’. This was a spell he normally disapproved of strongly (suitable only for students and conjurers) but, for once, he could see a use for it. It amplified his voice and made it reverberate through the whole space in front of him. He declaimed in his best Rhylic:

‘Foolish humans – you have broken the law of the forest; you have cut my branches and burnt them; you have defiled this holy place; you have brought evil into a refuge of the sylvan spirit’

The thugs turned towards the great oak and saw nothing. A murmur of terror seemed to rise among them.

‘Who is there?’ asked their leader, ‘who is speaking’

‘That is none of your concern. Care only that I have power over you’

‘The tree’s talking, boss; it’s the tree that’s talking’

The leader looked around at his companions and then back at the big tree.

‘It’s just a tree’ he said, ‘it can’t harm us’. He gestured that they should move towards the voice. 

Hardacre walked forward three long slow paces to behind where he had seen a particularly deep accumulation of leaf litter under a small hat of hollies. There he whispered ‘chwthwm’. The hollow erupted into a wave of spiky debris and it swept over the approaching thugs; rushing through the air and lacerating everything in its way. The thugs, although not badly hurt, were thrown backwards, each one lifting their hands up to their cut faces.  Three of the them ran off into the undergrowth, but their leader, a slightly braver and more resourceful man, shook off the leaves and twigs and came forward, brandishing a sword.

‘You’re no bloody tree, you’re a coward – come out from wherever you’re hiding and fight fair’

Hardacre smiled grimly – he wasn’t exactly hiding, was he. He looked up into the tree canopy and located something. He kept his eyes fixed on it as the man approached him. When his enemy was standing just under the right place Hardacre murmured ‘thor’ and the branch broke with a sharp crack – it fell down right on to the leader’s head with a sickening crunch.   He fell and lay moaning on the forest floor.

Hardacre began to flicker as his invisibility spell wore off, but this just made the overall effect more unearthly.  He lifted his hands up and walked towards them, a black and pulsing spectre shouting, ‘leave now, you fools!’. He fervently hoped that none of them had ever seen an invisible person re-materialising before.  Clearly they hadn’t as they were all gone, tumbling through the trees, within a second of him speaking.  By the time the others appeared, freed by the scouts, the tall witch was entire but sepia.  He could have been purple with green spots as far as they were concerned, they were just so delighted and relieved to see him.

‘You must be Mr Herdaker’ said Dom, grinning. 

 ‘And you must be the illiterate mage with the quick brain’ said Hardacre brandishing Dom’s mail paper.

‘I’m not really a mage’ said Dom

Hardacre stared and him for a few seconds, as if he couldn’t quite work out what it was that he was looking at.

‘Not a mage – ah, that explains a lot’ he said.

‘I’m sure that it does, sir’ said Dom, bowing low, ‘anyway – let me introduce myself – my name is Dominic Shavosky and I am forever in your debt’

‘Well, thank you for that, Master Shavoksy. But for future reference’ Hardacre said, pointing at the mail paper, ‘that’s not how you spell either ‘Laurence’ or ‘Hardacre’

‘I will bear that in mind, sir’ Dom said, still smiling. He wanted to explain what had happened, but by then, Hardacre had been engulfed in hugs by his relieved friends and the moment had passed.

‘We’re so glad you’re here!’ said Viola, ‘you’ve saved us again!’.

‘You’re a marvel, Laurence’ said Kath, ‘a bloody marvel ’.

Potentilla, however, was too busy kissing him repeatedly on the cheek to say anything at all.

Chapter forty-one

Neman Forest

 

The twins called for the coven and they came. As soon as Gwyneth had heard what had happened from Bronwyn she set up the pulse beacon that said ‘Danger! Come together now’

Those that were able came as quickly as they could. First there were John, Kathleen, Bronwyn, George, Stephen, Gwyneth and Owen, directly from The Anchor and then almost immediately after, Myfanwy and Dai. Elizabeth arrived an hour later, full of apologies; she had been dealing with some domestic problems. Despite repeated efforts neither Huw nor Angharad could be reached.  By then, anyway, the spell array had been formed and they would have to join in as best they could if ever they came.

The eight witches sat on the ground in the Council Hall with Owen in the middle. He was the conduit for their spells of assistance, while all the while he sought Celia’s trace, even though she had gone on into another world. They sat in the spell array circle – the place in the world where their combined skills could be pooled most effectively.

Owen was in despair but he kept trying. He wasn’t sure whether a trace would be visible from the Outer Void but what else could he do? The others waited, in an agony of expectancy, also trying to spot the trace.

‘I have something,’ Owen whispered, a few long minutes later, ‘it may just be noise but it’s something.  I have no idea what her trace would look like through the veil’

‘It’s there – I can see it…’ said Kathleen, who was concentrating so hard that the veins in her temple were visible, ‘…she’s alive. ’

There was a babble of relief, muted cheers and chatter. Then there came a hail of tense conversation. No-one could hear what anyone was saying.

‘One at a time’ barked Gwyneth, ‘we need to think fast’.  The comments came just as quickly, but at least they were now more digestible.

‘Was that thing sent by Kratos?’ asked Dai, his deep voice cutting across the others’ words.

‘Yes’ replied John, ‘but it was intended for Owen. Celia fought it and it pulled her back into the Outer Void as it expired’

There was a murmur of shock that reverberated through the group. Everyone wanted to know why.

‘Because he wants to punish Celia’ John explained, ‘he hates her because she defeated him, but is too fearful to take her on directly. But we must hurry or he’ll get his wish in a way that he may not have intended’

Most of the coven was baffled by this, but now at least they all had enough information to start making plans.

‘Could we just teleport her out of there?’ wondered Stephen.

John frowned.

‘That’s hard enough to do when you know where someone is in our world and you have a really strong trace – we might catapult her into Helios or Jones knows where’

‘Wouldn’t anywhere be better than where she is now?’ asked Bronwyn

‘It’s not doable’ muttered George, ‘It would be a huge waste of time and energy. And we might well kill her’

John could see the disappointment in everyone’s face

‘Well, she’s still alive – so that means she’s worked out a spell that will help her’ he said

Kathleen broke her concentration for a second.  Her pale face was full of resolve.

 ‘So maybe we should give aid only and not try to second guess her needs’

There was a murmur of agreement; they would help her to help herself. The entire coven except for Owen and Gwyneth grasped each other’s hands to form the circle; Owen remained sitting in the exact centre of the group. Gwyneth stood slightly outside it and began to chant the metacathexis[1] spell; the spell that linked up each witch with every other, and which was a mantra that had to be repeated until all the witches were linked. This formed a criss-cross pattern of lines of force with Owen at the focal point – he would act as the conduit for all the magical energy.  One by one they whispered their personal unlocking words and one by one they fed their energy into the array.  

The witches contributing to the array were now locked into the system – it was as if they were asleep or under sedation.  The spell shut off everything except the accumulation and distribution of the magical energy and their most basic physiological processes. A participant could struggle out of their half-paralysed locked-in state, but only with difficulty. The original mantra chanter, in this case Gwyneth, had to stay out of the array or it could neither be completed nor guarded.

Owen, free to act but burdened with an excess of power, murmured ‘chyfnertha’ and probed Celia’s trace in his mind map. The energy that would assist her spells was now building up around him, visible as a rainbow aura around his body. He concentrated the colours together into a ball of crackling white light and then tried to force it into the trace. In the physical world the light ball thinned into a cord and then poured through space connecting, they assumed, to where Celia had disappeared. There was a cacophonous hum, like a thousand violins tuning up at once.  The hall was filled with the pungent smell of rotten apples; by this stage, however, only Gwyneth noticed it.

A neat hole had been seared into their world and through it the white light entered the blue world. Gwyneth could see nothing on the other side as the hole was only just big enough to allow the light through. She could only wait and hope that it was doing some good. 

She gasped. Her voice cracked with tension.

‘What are we doing? It seems such a long shot’

 ‘Whatever it is’ shouted Owen, ‘I think it’s working’

---

[1] A mage spell, but try as witches have they’ve never made it any better.

Chapter forty-two

Milestone forty-seven

 

Hardacre gently shook them off. The three huggers were concerned for just a second that he was going to admonish them, but instead, and perhaps despite himself, he broke into a small, quietly satisfied, smile.  He turned to Viola.

‘At your service, as always, madam’ he said, nodding slightly, ‘but I think we need to get away as quickly as we can. Can you lead the way?’

They bundled up as much of their stuff as possible and disappeared into the forest. Viola took them north, scrambling through the undergrowth, until they had put several miles between them and the defeated kidnappers. At that point the light had failed and they had had to stop.  They stood round in a rough circle, checking that everyone was there and unhurt. As they caught their breath, Viola had a moment of panic.

‘Where are the scouts?’ she shouted, ‘what happened to them?’

Akenopteryx appeared almost immediately from the undergrowth, hopping on to Viola’s hand.

‘What art thy command, my lady?’

‘You’re safe’ said Viola, ‘thank the gods’

‘Mayhaps’ said Akenopteryx, with a soft laugh, ‘but I think that thou shouldst thank citizen Hardacre first’

‘I know’ said Viola, smiling, ‘but if we started doing that we’d be here a very long time’

Hardacre frowned at her. He wasn’t a man who relished praise.  

‘To take a step back’ he said, ‘I think it would be helpful if you would tell me everything that has happened’

They sat in a circle under a large yew tree, the hanging branches protecting them from prying eyes. They lit no fire and their voices were hushed. An observer who did not know their full story would have found them an odd group – two elves, one hybrid, two humans and three small parrots. 

Viola explained the whole story from start to finish, from the dream through to their capture. She left nothing out – this was their old companion and they trusted him completely.  For his part, Hardacre asked very few questions. After Viola had finished he told them the story of his encounter with the naga in the KU library, and so they were all up-to-date. There was a brief pause while they all digested what they had heard, and then they all waited for someone to suggest a plan of action. Hardacre frowned again.

‘Did you receive my most recent mail papers, major?’

Viola’s hand went instinctively to her inner jacket pocket, where she had hidden his mail papers. The gesture made it impossible for her to pretend that she hadn’t received it.

‘Yes, I did’ she said slowly.

Hardacre narrowed his eyes very slightly as he looked at her.

‘I’m wondering, then, why you failed to reply to it?’

A struggle was going on inside Viola. On the one hand she wanted to be as honest as possible with her friend and helper, but on the other she burned to find the ancient city and to talk to the fire snake. Neither side, however, had won their battle quite yet.

‘I never had the time’ she said feebly.    

‘Well, that is unfortunate’ murmured Hardacre, ‘given what has occurred’

His expression changed not one jot but Viola still felt the thunder head of judgement above her.  She found nothing to say.

‘All I can do now’ he continued, ‘is reiterate my advice – I think we should all go home’

No-one demurred, even though something within Viola was muttering I can’t – I really can’t.

‘How are we going to get home, though?’ asked Dom, ‘The sea route is closed until Captain Boris comes back at the end of June– if he comes back at all’

Hardacre considered this.

‘We could summon a ship to come and pick us up, surely?’ he said, ‘Aren’t you the deputy governor’

‘Theoretically’ said Viola, softly, ‘but I’m not sure what the Governor or the Emperor will make of my actions’

‘So’ asked Hardacre, arching an eyebrow slightly, ‘what was your plan before you were captured?’ 

 ‘Go to the ancient city and have a look…’ said Kath. She hesitated – ‘not much of a plan on reflection. I admit’

Dom made an attempt at self-defence.

‘I think that’s as much because we feared the enemy behind us and so we thought it best to just keep going…’ he said

‘They didn’t seem like a very terrifying band to me’ said Hardacre

‘They had weird panther creatures with them’ said Viola, shivering, ‘like panthers, but with strange blue insides’

Hardacre’s skin pricked with apprehension.

‘They weren’t there when I arrived’ he said, ‘which is very fortunate. I would have not known how to defeat them’

‘They were pretty creepy’ said Kath, ‘and they didn’t look like they were from around here’

‘I’m sure they weren’t’ agreed Hardacre, ‘I think they probably had to be summoned, and by someone with more power than any of those thugs who captured you’

‘Summoned?’ asked Dom

‘Yes – from somewhere a really long way from around here, Master Shavosky – from the Outer Void’

Viola and Kath breathed out at the same time, each giving their own little cry of alarm. The parrots looked up at Viola expectantly. She didn’t attempt an explanation.  Dom had only a vague idea about what Hardacre was talking about, but thought it prudent to say no more.

‘That’s what I feared’ said Kath, ‘I remember John’s description of it…’

‘…and what happened inside the Wall’ said Viola, remembering the rift that had formed when they tried to destroy the guardian taint.

Hardacre nodded.

‘So who summoned them?’ he asked, almost to himself.

‘They said that their mistress would come at noon the next day’ said Dom, ‘maybe it was her?’

Hardacre looked across at Dom. The fading light made it hard to see either of their expressions, but Hardacre’s tone was unmistakeable – it was finely edged with fear.

‘That will almost certainly be Bea – one of our two great enemies, and I’m guessing that she gave your captors a device that summoned those pseudo-panthers, but only for a while’  

‘Who is Bea?’ asked Viola, not really wanting to know. Hardacre’s answering words were chilly in the summer dark.

‘That is a very long story. But in short, she is a necromancer, one of the witches who are willing to use magic to remain alive at any cost. They drain the life energy from living creatures and redistribute it into their own bodies and minds. They stay forever young while they force those around them to wither. She was once in a coven, a malevolent one; the coven that the Hybitor was formed to counter. There was a long war and it was won in the end. But she and her companion, who now calls himself Kratos, escaped. Their only interest now is revenge and destruction, oh, and, I suppose, to survive as long as they can’

‘Why would they want to do that?’ whispered Dom

‘Because they both loathe the elves and want to emulate them. They have lived more than one hundred and thirty years, but that is not enough for them’

‘What should we do?’ asked Viola, ‘can we resist them?’

 ‘No’ responded Hardacre,;’ but there’s no reason why they should find us again. This is a big forest and they don’t have the sort of scouts that we have’

 ‘We should stay in the forest and try to take the long way home’ suggested Dom, ‘if we go back to Tamarix then they’ll probably find us, and we can’t hang around here for another three weeks’

‘What do you mean by the long route?’ asked Viola

‘Turn north-west at the old crossroads, at about milestone ninety and then up to the Hinter – Amansk road. There was a road linking up to there once, I’ve seen it on Kath’s map. There are milestones here so we might find them all the way back to the main road’

‘How long will that take?’ asked Hardacre

‘Three weeks to get to the new road and after that we should be able to get transport back to Gorodnikov in quick time’

Kath pulled her blankets around her. It wasn’t cold but she needed the comfort. She felt their quest slipping away from them and she regretted it very much. 

No-one even considered asking Hardacre if he would teleport home – they knew that he would never abandon them before they were totally safe. In addition, he would need a day’s rest, and it seemed very unlikely that he would get that for some time.

The conversation wandered around the practicalities of the route – food, water, terrain, etc.  One by one they all chipped in. Eventually only Viola had said nothing. 

She sat in the dark considering her options. After only a few seconds of hearing Dom’s plan she knew that she wouldn’t follow the route. She had to go to the naga’s city, even if it was on her own. However, this route would take her in the right direction for another few days, and seemed to be the safest for the others. She sighed softly and spoke.

‘I think Dom’s idea is the best we have. It takes us away from the enemy and is under cover for most of the way. Once you get on to the main road I’m sure everything will be fine’

‘You?’ asked Kath, suddenly suspicious, ‘what do you mean? Where will you be?’

Viola took a deep breath.

‘I’m going to Klethropolis – the rest of you should go on home’

There was a moment of horrible silence. Hardacre had to break it.

‘Captain Viola – are you sure you are well? That seems on the face of it to be a rather extravagant idea’

‘No-one else need come with me but I am, I am afraid, compelled to go’

‘I’ll go with you, Vee – I haven’t got anything else planned’ said Potentilla, without a hint of apprehension.

Hardacre tried to ignored this and pursue the path of sanity.

‘What is compelling you, major? I don’t understand what you mean’ he said, irritation and anxiety colouring his voice.

‘I have no idea’ said Viola, ‘my dreams, perhaps, maybe Ophia? It’s all unclear; but my instincts are not. I need to find out about the fire snakes and discover what they are guarding. I am convinced that it is of paramount importance’

‘And I am too’ whispered Kath.

‘Really Dr Fielding’ said Hardacre, ‘are you sure that is the best course if you think about it really carefully?’

‘I am’ said Kath, now much louder, ‘when will we get another chance?’

Hardacre took in a deep breath and had one more attempt at speaking sense.

‘It’s potentially so very dangerous’ he said, as emphatically as he could, ‘and not just for you – it may risk everyone and everything. It is, to be totally frank, an immensely foolish plan and I can’t let you go…’

Viola noted that the end of this sentence was hanging in the air – it wasn’t an order. She smiled in the darkness. 

‘…alone’ she suggested gently, ‘is that the word you were looking for? Are you saying that you won’t let us go without you?’

Hardacre searched for a suitable answer to this that allowed him to persuade them to give up their quest but which did not break his unspoken vows of friendship. He knew, however, that in the end there was no way to stop them from going, and his duty flowed from that, however foolhardy he thought they were being. He had no idea what John would say when he found out, but for once he was grateful for his master’s general laxity and indulgence. He was sure he’d forgive him his desertion in time.  

There was silence again and this time no-one felt the need to speak. Their path was now decided, of course, for good or ill. After that Hardacre could do no more than calculate the horrendous risks ahead and wait impatiently for sleep.

Chapter forty-three

Visnea to Ortia

 

The Emperor was proud of his boast that now he could send a letter from Visnea to Ortia in just over two days. He could, of course, send messages by mail paper, but that would only make economic sense if orders needed to be acted on immediately and they seldom did.  It was cheaper to put a messenger on a fast horse and send him along the long straight road to the eastern capital. There were now changing posts all the way along the route, where an old horse could be left and a new one acquired.

The messenger was off on the road as early as possible the next day after the Emperor’s meeting with Senator Antonius. He rode off alone, as the way was now as safe as any in the civilised world. In any case, this was a brave and resourceful rider, too swift to be caught, on the army’s fastest and most agile horses. He carried an important message.

The long hours of June daylight allowed the rider to make excellent progress from post to post during the day, always choosing the fastest horse; and now there were small military encampments allowing him to rest that night in reasonable comfort. He spoke to hardly anyone, however, and the few that saw him couldn’t help but notice that he seemed to have some skin condition. Every now and then it made him lift his hand up to his face as if to scratch it. Every time, though, he forcibly stopped himself. Anyway, before they knew it he was gone again in the glow of the earliest morning.

He arrived outside the white city at daybreak on the third day, long before the day guards had taken up their positions.  The night watchman at the western gate welcomed him in with a yawn – visitors from West Visneoria had become quite commonplace and so he gave it almost no thought. He directed the messenger to the General’s headquarters and then happily went back to complete the rest of his shift.

The messenger passed on the detailed message cum orders from the Emperor to the Dictator of Ortia and then retired to rest in the officer’s barracks.

 

***

He slept for four or so hours and then got up to continue his mission. He had one more job to do before he could leave Ortia; he needed to talk to the high priestess.  She wasn’t expecting him but he was sure that she would talk to him.

The messenger found his way to the network of streams and ponds that made up the edges of the temple complex. He found a small pond near the main temple building and knelt by it, gratefully lowering his face in the water. He rubbed off the mage-elixir disguise, which had been burning his face for two days, and lifted his head up into the fresh bright air.

‘My lord’ said Aquilegia, who had sensed his presence at the moment he had entered the city. She had been waiting for him.

Pallatian stood up and smiled at her, the front of his hair dripping. He neither bowed nor nodded to her, but then neither did she to him.

They stood in silence for a while, neither friends nor enemies, just the separate embodiments of ancient establishments whose paths were temporarily entangled.

‘The Lady is concerned’ said Aquilegia

‘I know’ said the Emperor, ‘that is why I am here’

Aquilegia nodded.  Pallatian continued.

‘I need some explanations of her behaviour – it has caused me considerable trouble’

This fact seemed of little interest to the High Priestess.

‘You know what is required by you?’

‘Yes, I do – but I cannot see why? What is so important about Citizen Marthian?’

‘She may save us all’

Pallatian tried to grasp how this might be so – Marthian was just a young elf-wife[1]; capable, clearly, but not strikingly so. He began to wonder if this was something to do with gender. This was a difficulty for him as he had spent his whole life surrounded by males, most of whom were secure in their sense of superiority. The empire permitted their citizens, of either sex, to try almost anything, but most leaders were male and built from ancestry and money.

 ‘How do you know that she will save us?’  

‘I do not – only the Lady knows these things’

Pallatian waited for something a little more helpful.

‘Do you seek an audience with her?’

‘Is it safe?’ he asked, wishing immediately that he hadn’t.

‘Yes, unless you are wilful enough to anger her, my lord’

Pallatian seemed very small standing close to the presence of the Lady. He imagined the wrath of a god as an unbearable, uncontrollable, energy, and realised that despite his temporal powers, he had no defence against it. However, he was Emperor of all the Visneorians and that would surely be enough.

‘I will endeavour not to be wilful, High Priestess’ he replied and then he surprised himself by saying, ‘although some have said that I am’. He was finding the atmosphere of the temple strangely enervating.

Aquilegia nodded distractedly – she took his comments to be an agreement.  ‘Follow me, then’ she said, and they entered the temple.

She ushered him through the corridors and rooms to where the Lady dwelt; the lake that contained her, or perhaps was her, it was hard to tell. The lake was flat and calm, but it was hard to look into it – its colours shifted continuously. The Emperor looked up – expecting to see a glass roof of some kind, but there was nothing, just a few white clouds in the sunny sky. He knew this couldn’t really be literally true – he had looked down from the city walls on to the complex, and there was no opening in the roof at all. It seemed this was a spiritual truth.

Without warning Aquilegia embraced him and dropped with him into the water.  He noticed, with interest and without any fear, that the water was not wet or cold. Then he lost all sense of the present.

The Lady gave him a vision of the net that is the future and the river that is the past. She guided him through the reticulating tomorrows – and so many of them had a dusty plain where Ortia had been, and beyond that there was fire and death and the end; and somehow at the end of every evil way there was a vision of a green snake burning; and despite his power and knowledge he had no idea what any of it meant. Hard as he tried, however, he could discover no details of his own life or of those dear to him, as the Lady hid all of those things from him. All he saw was the broad outlines of future worlds, an in all the better ones Marthian was Ortia’s proconsul.  The Lady allowed him just long enough with her to reveal this version of the truth and then she let him go.

Aquilegia pulled him out of lake and dropped him from her embrace. He found himself gasping for air even though now he was on dry land.  He said nothing more to the High Priestess – he was too immersed in his own thoughts. She led him out of the temple and then left him by the little ornamental pond where she had found him. He hastily reapplied his mage-elixir mask. It was time to go.

He recovered his horse, and slipped out of the northern gate. No-one cared where he was going; to the few that asked he said that he was delivering a message to Amansk.  Where exactly he planned to ride to he hadn’t in fact quite decided. That’s the problem with the future, even when you’ve been shown its general shape: it’s like a tangled ball of string –no-one knows from which knot to start unravelling it.

---

[1] Used in the Old Ethian sense of elf female, as in midwife.  In Visneorian it would be rendered as femina

Chapter forty-four

To milestone one-hundred-and-thirty-three

 

They struggled on for day after day, watching the milestones slowly click by. It was uphill all the way and they all found it trying, but especially Viola, who lagged behind constantly. This began to made her feel more and more of a burden to the others. She kept thinking to herself, if you want to lead them then you should do it properly    

The path was not only steeply uphill but also boring – the pattern of oak and holly woodland was repeated endlessly, like a child’s potato print. They began to crave a flat path or an open sky.

On the tenth day  They passed the place where the road diverged north and west, there was a clear split by one of the milestone but no-one even suggested that they looked for the western path. They just plodded on up northwards towards the Tumbrel Massif above them.  Hardacre and Viola spent a lot of time discussing the nagas, primes and Macrocephalos, but they didn’t make a lot of progress – there were still so many unanswered questions.  They agreed, however, that whatever they found out in Klethropolis would be shared between the Hybitor and Marthian – there was no mention of the Emperor.

As they laboured their way uphill the canopy became more and more open, and perhaps because of this they were able to see the milestones more clearly. The oaks were now interspersed with other smaller trees, in places hazels and birches, but also brownish-black barked slender trees with exceptionally tiny leaves. Hardacre didn’t recognise them at all, and he found this disconcerting – he prided himself on knowing all of the woody plants that grew in the temperate part of the western continent.  As a younger man, when he had had more time to consider such things, he had voraciously consumed floral guides and conspectuses, in the hope of finding suitable new plants that might be coaxed into his master’s garden.   

He requested that they might camp among a cluster of the unusual trees that night and before the light failed he made copious notes on the unknown plant and took cuttings and specimens of the bark and fruits. He also had a long discussion with the parrots, but they had never been anywhere near that area before.  They were, however, excited by the prospect of trying the fruits when they reached maturity, later in the season.

 

Within an hour of setting out the next morning, the landscape began to flatten off. Now the vegetation was even stranger – Hardacre began to count plants that were new to him, there were ten in two hours and then he stopped counting: this was an entirely different habitat from any that he’d been in before. He wondered what habitats there were in Helios, and regretted that the last thing that John would have thought about when he had been trapped there would have been phytosociology.  It seemed very likely to him, however, that these were plants that the architects had brought with them, and that they had decided, for whatever reason, not to plant them anywhere else.

The way seemed much clearer now. Here at the top of the slope there was finally a hint of where the road might have once have been; just the faintest suggestion of the outlines of the edges of a wide track way.  Everyone was pleased to see a clear way forward, but Hardacre was concerned.  He stopped and got down on to his hands and knees. He felt the ground where the road seemed to begin and then murmured some spells.  He looked up at the others, who had begun to gather round him

‘Something isn’t quite right’

He got up from the worn road and brushed off the accumulated dust. His voice was uncertain.

‘The road doesn’t want us here’

 Viola, who had been wandering just a little way ahead of them quite happily, looked surprised and, perhaps, slightly miffed.

‘I don’t feel that at all…’

Hardacre came up beside her. Their faces were a study in concentration. Logic and instinct collided.  

‘There is a strong misdirection spell here, major, a mage enchantment – it’s very powerful. But you obviously do not feel it…’

‘No I don’t’ she shook her head.

‘I think it would be inadvisable to follow the path as it appears…’ he cautioned.

Viola was deeply unconvinced.  But as far as Hardacre was concerned she was now walking in the wrong direction, anyway. She was not on the path that he saw at all.  But maybe she knew something that he didn’t.

‘To me the way seems very clear’ she said, ‘I can smell it’

‘Smell it? Really?’ muttered Kath

‘Yes… really…’

By now everyone had stopped and they were all sniffing the air, with varying amounts of conviction.

‘I really don’t think there is anything to smell’ murmured Hardacre, in a tone that gently hinted that they might be wasting their time. Doubts were crowding into his mind, however.

Potentilla, always keen to take a direct approach, dropped to the ground and did a passable impression of a hound trying pick up a rabbit’s spoor. Simultaneously Dom made a small, startled noise, but then strangled it. No-one paid him much attention; they were all distracted by Potentilla’s pantomime dog act.

Hardacre tried to ignore the lieutenant and concentrate his attention on Viola. He knew well, and from bitter experience, that it was never sensible to doubt her intuitions.  

 ‘Dr Fielding’ he said, gesturing to Kath, ‘I wonder if you’d help us in a little test’

Kath shrugged and walked towards them. Hardacre took this as an agreement.

‘I want you to blindfold Major Viola’

Viola frowned, ‘whatever for?’ she asked

‘Please bear with me, madam’

Dom searched inside his bag and pulled a strip of cloth. He handed it to Kath, feeling a little like a stage magician’s assistant.  Kath wrapped the strip around Viola’s head.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Dom.

‘Wait a moment, Mr Shavosky’ said Hardacre. He put a finger up to his lips.  

He walked to where he believed that the track was most obvious. He turned and opened his hands and nodded questioningly seeking silent support. Kath, Potentilla and the parrots nodded enthusiastically. For a moment Hardacre thought Potentilla might be about to clap, but a glance stopped her dead. He walked further down where he imagined the path continued, looking back every now and then to check that they agreed. Only Dom looked uncertain, but four out of five seemed good enough.   

He returned to the group. He removed the blindfold from Viola, who still had very little idea what was going on.

‘Would you be so kind as to show us the path, please, major’

Viola was puzzled, but she also felt a tight knot of concern balling up in the centre of her stomach. No, not another test? She really didn’t relish it. She took a deep breath and walked down the faintly, but as far as she was concerned clearly defined track.

She had walked about fifty yards when she heard a collective murmur behind her. She turned.

‘Where are you going?’ asked Kath, her face screwed up with puzzlement. Viola’s heart sank. She now knew exactly what was going on.

‘Where do you think I’m going?’ she barked, ripping off the blindfold, ‘down the stupid enchanted road that none of the rest of you can even see!’

Hardacre beckoned for her to come back. There was a buzz of surprise, mixed with relief, throughout the party. Kath was delighted.

‘This is doubly good’ she said, ‘first, it looks like your Quiena senses are coming up trumps again, and, second – no-one will be able to follow us unless they can overcome the enchantment’

‘And it’s a very strong enchantment’ chipped in Hardacre, ‘it will take a long time to counter, if it can be countered at all’

Viola looked unconvinced, but she knew that what they were saying was true; but it really didn’t explain why this had happened again.  She picked up her pack and forged on – knowing that she had no other choice

Dom was the last to gather up his stuff and follow her. In all the commotion, no one had thought to ask him directly what he thought about the route, and he was very glad of it. He would have also known the way, he wasn’t really sure why, but he could think of one possible reason. But if he was right –and the idea was almost too strange to countenance – was Viola like him? What could they have in common? Was she a mule too?