Five minutes into the talk Hardacre realised that he had understood almost nothing that Macrocephalos had said. His exposition was in a strange amalgam of languages – mostly Ethian, but with large dollops of Archaic Elven, Rhylic and Visneorian. It seemed designed to appeal to the most sophisticated of audiences. Perhaps this was the only sort of lecture that the old scholar knew how to give.
What was all of this
about? He took a surreptitious look at the other members of the audience,
expecting to see a lot of emptying seats. Well, there were a few people who had clearly
left, but most of the audience were still in their positions. However, they
seemed to be paying no attention to the talk at all. Instead they all seemed
very tense, looking around as if for a signal of some kind. Hardacre smiled
inwardly – this might well be some sort of trap, but if it is was it really
wasn’t looking like a very effective one. He assumed that the intention was to
lure Mr Ismay here, but the chance of achieving that seemed exceptionally low. One thing was certain – this wasn’t the CRS. However, there were definitely CRS people
here, skulking at the edges of the room.
What was going on?
He briefly considered
teleporting home, but he realised that this would achieve nothing. He had to
hang on, at least for the time being. He wondered whether either the CRS or
these other people knew that he was here? Who were the Radical Numerologists
anyway? It rang a vague bell, but he
seemed to remember more as a joke than anything else. Wasn’t this the group
that Owen had once described as ‘a bit bonkers’? He now wished that he’d paid a
bit more attention to the obscure politics of western nationalism. He was
fairly certain, however, that the Numerologists were not a group that were
directly connected to the CRS.
Macrocephalos finally
managed to say something entirely in one language, but it wasn’t very helpful.
‘The shape of primes
is vital here, as are their colours and their flavours. As we climb among them,
we see that they are the fabric from which the sea and the stones are woven. It
is at the primes that all attacks might be directed, if any such attack, which
would be utterly unwise, were it to be contemplated’
‘But which primes are
the strongest, and which may have been used by the architects, or should we
call them eschatologists, or ontologists , or perhaps even, if I might permit
myself a small academic joke, mere
engineers? Of course, words always fail in a barbarous tongue, so you will
forgive me, perhaps, for lapsing back into my own as I lay out my axioms’
He continued in
archaic elven.
‘We come, therefore, to the vexed questions of primes. Let us start by putting
aside beh, deh, ge, eh, ze, and ia, as
these are asthenic primes, with power only to anchor unsophisticated and
anaemic things. Let us also exclude the higher, immalleable primes, those above
and including nug, which not even the Uchbenoi have power to use. This leaves
us with the Enneic Numerals: Ig, iz,
ith, kyg, kith, lah, lith, mah, and myg. These
are the tectononomes for Skiophos and none now residing in the tetrageos know
how they might be employed. And if they did, they should not, one must almost
certainly say, be encouraged to use them. All we can say is that that was how
Skiphos was constructed, and , unfortunately, therefore might well be the mechanism by which it might be
dismantled, prime by prime. So, any defence against that eventuality must start
with safeguarding the enneics… ’
Hardacre struggled to
write some of this down. He was reasonably fluent in archaic eleven, but he had
never heard this sort of thing before. It seemed like a sort of counting scheme, but
nothing like they used at Kinspit, where they had, quite reasonably, switched
to using Algharian numerals. What was clear was that if Macrocephalos was
really talking about numbers then these also had names and powers.
The elf scholar’s presentation
became ever more abstruse as he wandered deeper and deeper into his
numerological labyrinth. Hardacre’s attempts to write down anything became more
and more desultory and he began to wonder increasingly whether this had been a
waste of time. It would have been better for Mr Ismay to be here, but, of
course, completely out of the question.
Hardacre saw the
beginnings of a struggle out of the corner of his eye. One of the shadowy
figures at the periphery of the room was attempting to move into the
centre. A sudden spark of white light erupted
among the people who were attempting to restrain her. They fell and back and
she strode, now unhindered, into everyone’s view. She was short and pale, with
cropped dyed black hair, and every knot in her body seemed to prickle with
anger. A hundred heads turned towards her all at once.
Hardacre knew exactly
who this was. This was Vala ferch Llyr – Beas’s number one assassin. She came with a formidable reputation.
‘Time to stop this charade’ she said in Rhylic, ‘you know that he is ours’
Macrocephalos looked
up, mildly displeased at being interrupted. He nodded politely at the pale
woman in reluctant recognition. Meanwhile, the sandy-haired man who had
introduced him jumped up and interposed himself between the scholar and the
sudden threat. He looked terrified, but steadfast. His voice wavered.
‘No – he is with us
now. He wants to stay with us! You have no right to claim him’
He took two very
hesitant steps towards the assassin.
‘Chymyla’ he shouted, and
breathed in.
Vala sniggered and cried
out ‘ Brydia!’ in the split second
before he had time to exhale.
The sandy-haired man ignited
and burned in a white flame from head to toe. He flared and screamed, very
briefly, but then turned to ash.
Vala flicked her head
at Macrocephalus, dismissively.
‘Barlys’
The scholar froze in
place, as if someone had switched off a clockwork toy.
The woman twirled on
the spot, searching the faces of the audience.
‘Anyone else?’ she
dared them. The sound of the room emptying was deafening, like a classroom on
the last day of term. Toppled chairs were scattered everywhere.
Hardacre stood up,
and swallowed hard.
‘Well…’ he said,
‘actually… yes’
He knew he couldn’t
just let Vala abduct Macrocephalos, even though he had no idea at all what he
would do next beyond surviving for a little longer. He ducked down, whispering
‘gwrthladd’
‘Brydia!’ came the cry again.
Hardacre felt the
blistering fire spell envelope him, but the fire did not catch, as his
defensive spell absorbed all but the smallest amount of its energy. The skin on
his face only blistered slightly, but his disguise melted away completely.
‘You!’ shouted Vala,
gleefully.
Hardacre declined to
respond. This wasn’t good at all. Vala was incredibly strong and utterly
ruthless. He had no doubt that she would keep trying to kill him for as long as
it took. Sadly, though, the old elf was
still in danger.
‘What an excellent and
unexpected opportunity’ snarled Vala, taking two steps towards him. She pulled out a short sword – she tended to
like to finish off her biggest prey in visceral, conventional ways.
Hardacre ducked to
the left and ran towards the immobilised Macrocephalos. At the very least he could free the scholar
and give him a chance to escape. After
that, things might get a bit more difficult.
Vala jumped forward
and slashed at Hardacre’s back – she was astonishingly quick and agile. The
blow would have crushed Hardacre’s shoulder, but it never arrived.
Vala disappeared. An
absurdly thin red headed woman, who looked as if the breeze could pluck her up
into the trees, was standing beyond where Vala had been. She smiled vaguely.
‘I’ve sent her home’
explained the woman, ‘I think that she was going to hurt you’
‘Who are you?’ asked
Hardacre, astonished.
‘I am Braith…’ she
said, very quietly, looking rather dreamily at the ashes where the sandy-haired
man had died. ‘…and I am now, I believe, the Archon of our order’
Hardacre had no idea
who this strange slip of a woman was, but she had an extraordinary physical
presence. She seemed to look right through him, as if she had observed
everything within him in a split second and was now analysing the space beyond.
And more than this, she seemed familiar in a way that was both disturbing, and
yet strangely comforting.
Braith whispered
something under her breath and Macrocephalos started forward. She hurried over
to him, grabbed him by the arm and then closed her eyes. The elf was still dazed and merely nodded, in
clear relief. Hardacre looked up at
them. He knew exactly what Braith intended to do, but he had to try to talk to
her before she did it.
‘Why did you take
such an extraordinary risk?’ he asked, breathlessly.
Braith shook her
head, rather sadly, opened her slate grey eyes and stared straight at him. Then
she tugged at Macrocephalos’s arm, and they disappeared into the ether.
Hardacre was left in
a room filled with the smell of fire and the carcasses of strewn chairs. He
sighed softly. All in all, he didn’t really feel that his field research had
got off to a very good start.
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