Chapter five

Gorodnikov

 

Viola slept deeply but yet she still dreamed.

She was standing on a hill above a hollow grassy bowl, which filled the space in front of her, like the performing area of a huge amphitheatre which stretched out almost as far as she could see.  The grass seemed to shimmer as she watched it, as if a uniform breeze were blowing through the stalks. She felt compelled to look inside the bowl and concentrate only on the empty grass. Nothing else could distract her.

Without any warning trees began to grow, preternaturally fast, out of the grassy ground. They were apple trees at first, growing straight out of the dry earth. Then there were orange trees, and then birches and then tulip trees. They appeared in clusters, in no obvious pattern, and they all grew to their full height and then blossomed. The smell was intoxicating – it filled her up until she felt overwhelmed. She could not help but breathe it in.   

The patterns that the trees made were in the form of lines and curves, forming two large enclosed areas of differing shapes. They looked very familiar, but what they showed was for ever nudging into her mind and straining to flower into clarity. But it never did, like the name of an acquaintance that you can’t quite recall, even when she is standing right next to you.   

Then suddenly, as if from nowhere, there were green serpents, wriggling up out of the turf in different parts of the bowl, turning their giant heads and tasting the air through their forked tongues. They were massive, wide and bulky, and were all apparently identical. They waited for just a moment and then new trees began to grow around them; nine copses that hide the nine snakes from view. Somehow she knew what species each tree belonged to, even though she had almost no knowledge of the names of plants. Everything seemed complete:  fruits began to form on the trees, birds sang from the canopies, insects called from every bough.  Viola watched transfixed, but she had no idea what any of it signified, if it indeed it signified anything.  

A whirlwind appeared in the centre of the bowl, swirling the air around it viciously and withering the grass as it swept along. Dust flew up into the air, and the sky above darkened but there were no clouds. The air began to smell of smoke.

The whirlwind came upon the copses, one by one, and one by one the hidden snakes came out to combat its power. Each time there was a brief struggle, but the snakes could only delay the end for a little while. One by one they were slain. Every time that a snake was killed the copse began to burn, the trees crackling like discarded paper.  The grass around every copse also began to smoulder and then the trees that defined the boundaries of the two areas began to turn brown. This was the brown of death not of autumn.  And there would be no renewing spring.

Eventually the fire spread and consumed everything. Once it had stopped there was a great roaring and the bottom of the bowl fell away. At first Viola thought it had collapsed into a lake or an ocean. But then she saw, coming out from the bland surface below, strange blue clouds that fed on themselves, like rats biting their own tails. She knew exactly where that was.   

Viola felt a presence beside her. She looked up from her bewilderment - it was Ophia. Once again she was in her southern elf form: dark and small and grave. She nodded solemnly in greeting. Viola turned towards her.  

‘What was the meaning of that, my Lady’ she said, in perfect archaic elven  

Ophia smiled, but she looked somewhat bemused.

‘I have no rank in your world, and I have no desire that you should call me that. It is not a suitable title at all’

Viola could think of nothing to say; her dream state seemed to make everything so very fuzzy. 

‘Did you see it all?’ asked the god

Viola nodded, her face screwed up with concentration.

‘I did, but I could make nothing of it’

‘Good – it is not yet meant to be clear. Clear knowledge can be dangerous, so I have given you hidden knowledge, which at times can be more useful. Clarity will come when it is required’

‘When will that be?’

‘When you know what needs to be done…’

‘Why can you not tell me now?’

‘Because our enemies want to know it as much as you do’

Ophia looked puzzled. Her pale green eyes darkened a little.

 ‘It will be a race, I suppose’ she said gently, ‘but you will just have to be faster’

 Fear gripped Viola, even in her vague dream reverie.

‘How can I do anything on my own?’

Ophia laughed softly.

‘You can’t, foolish elf – but you know that already, don’t you… look to your companions, past and future…’

Viola head buzzed, she heard the harsh cry of a seagull in the real world – the dream was about to end. She struggled to find the right questions in the time that remained.

‘Why can’t you help me directly?’ she asked, feeling the pull of the real world very strongly.

Ophia’s eyes, as green as a forest, shimmered slightly, as if she were finding it hard to see.

‘I have left and gone on into darkness’ she said, ‘I no longer have a part in… your reality’

Once again Viola understood none of this, but nonetheless she knew that right now she had assumed a great responsibility, and she had no idea why.

‘Why do you trust me with this knowledge?’ she asked, ‘how do you know that I will ever know what it means? Or even if I do that I will use it wisely?’

Ophia smiled and touched her hand

‘Because it is you, my dear, and… who else could I possibly trust?’

She bent over and kissed Viola softly on the top of her head. Then she was gone. Everything else disappeared along with her and collapsed back into the formless black. It was time to stop sleeping and to go and act.

 

 

***

Viola woke with a start. She had to write all of this down. She jumped out of bed so fast that she banged her head on the edge of the rather pretentious four-poster bed that Arbutus had kindly provided for her. She pulled on a dressing gown and ran into the sitting room that she shared with her friends.

Kath was in an armchair making notes in a large notebook. She had started working again.

She looked up, rather sourly.

‘What is it now, Vee?’ she asked in Ethian.

‘I had another of my dreams’ Viola replied, in her own tongue.

Kath rolled her eyes and didn’t try to disguise her impatience. She really wasn’t in the mood to talk in the imperial language.

‘Whatever it is, I’m still going home…’ she said, in Ethian

Viola’s eyes darted round the room, startled.

‘No – I need your help’ she said, shifting back to barbarian’s speech

Kath waited a beat.

‘Really? Why haven’t you mentioned that before? I didn’t realise that you wanted help…’

Viola ignored this; perhaps she didn’t even really hear it.

‘About this I mean…’

‘Ah right – so – was it another Quiena dream?’

‘Yes – it was really odd – I couldn’t make any sense of it’

Kath sighed and gestured for Viola to sit down in the chair next to hers.

‘I know I’m going to regret this, Vee, but you better tell me all about it…’

 

‘That’s the worst recounting of a prophetic dream that I ever heard’ muttered Kath, ten minutes later.

Viola looked shamefaced – she’d tried to remember what had happened but the dream had faded even faster than usual. Kath had tried to write everything down in her notebook, but it had been hard work.

‘What have you got?’ asked Viola, hopefully.

Kath read her notes back very slowly.

‘Trees, snakes, Quiena, a big fire, something about the outer void…  Quiena kissed you?’

 Viola hurried to explain this.

‘On the top of my head – on my hair… it was an affectionate kiss, nothing romantic…’

‘That’s a shame’ said Kath, ‘it might be useful to know a god who has a crush on you’

Viola wrinkled her face in embarrassment.

‘It wasn’t like that at all’

Kath glowered at her.

‘I was just teasing…’

Viola shook her head. It seemed to dislodge some cobwebs in her muddled brain.

‘It was more like someone showing affection to a child, to be honest’

Kath had a thought, a very brief extraordinary one, which she immediately dismissed as totally ridiculous.

‘Well, to the gods we must all seem like children…’ she said, going off on another tack

Viola nodded

‘But she clearly likes you well enough…’

Viola shook her head.  She sat in silence, lost in the memory of her rapidly fading dream. Eventually she came to a decision.

‘We need to save the serpents’ she said

‘What?’ spluttered Kath

‘I don’t know why, but I think they are really important. But I have no idea how to even start’

Kath shook her head.

‘No, no, Vee, don’t do this to me again. Don’t suck me into another stupid and dangerous thing…’

Viola’s eyes were as wide and as imploring as Kath had ever seen.

‘But I think the fate of the world may be in the balance’ she said

‘But that’s what you always say!’ groaned Kath

‘Don’t blame me…’ said Viola plaintively, ‘blame my dreams… blame Ophia’

Kath nodded

‘I’ll give her a piece of my mind the next time that I bump into her’

Viola looked puzzled for a second and then grinned.

‘Me too…’

Kath rather theatrically blew air out of her mouth in a huge sigh.

‘Let’s try again, then. Are sure you remember nothing more about the dream?’

Viola thought very hard for a second and then took the notebook from the table. She picked up Kath’s pencil and began to write, slowly but without hesitation. When she had finished Kath took the notebook from her and read it out aloud.

‘Oak, mahogany, date palm, alder, magnolia, walnut, redwood, teak, hemlock’

She put the notebook back down on the table and looked up enquiringly at the elf.

‘What on earth does that mean?’

 ‘I thought you might know’

Kath smarted slightly

‘Since when did I know anything about trees?’

Viola looked very downcast.

‘We need Marthian here…’

‘Yes, very true… but hard to arrange’

They sat in silence for a little while, with Kath wishing that this whole odd thing would just somehow go away. Then Viola smiled unexpectedly.

‘Marthian isn’t the only one who knows about trees, of course…’

Kath shrugged. She really had absolutely no interest in arboriculture.

‘Who do you have in mind?’

‘Mr Hardacre’

‘Laurence? Really? Why would he know anything about trees?’ asked Kath, genuinely bemused.

Viola, who had worked for Marthian for a long time, was used to gardening and plants being exceptionally common topics of conversation. That Kath might not have noticed an equal enthusiasm in Hardacre was astonishing to her.  She stared her impatiently.

‘Maybe you should just go on off to Eth, after all…’ she muttered, almost under her breath

‘You should write to him then’ said Kath, feeling abashed, and trying to be a bit more helpful, ‘do we have any mail paper?’

‘No’ replied Viola, ‘but I know that there are some old mages living in the elven part of the town. They’re sure to have some paper’

Kath was astonished at the insouciance of this remark.

‘That’ll cost twenty elfrounds a sheet at the very least’ she said, wide eyed.

‘I have a budget…’ explained Viola, equally breezily, staring round at her empty office, ‘and I’m not doing much with it at the moment

‘Right…’ said Kath, unconvinced, ‘and this would be a good use of the money, would it?’

Viola nodded. Her smile was unusually steely. She did, however, lower her voice considerably, even though she was the only Imperial subject in the room.

‘Of course it would be.  It seems appropriate that the Emperor should pay; considering the mess he’s made. I’d say that it’s the least he can do’