The
Old North Road
It took a little time but between themselves
the parrots managed to find and disable the dragonfly. The biggest problem was
to persuade them that none of them should try to eat it. Barysomos squawked
instructions and finally it was dropped gently into Viola’s hand. It was about
three inches long and clearly wasn’t a standard insect.
‘It’s ridiculously
heavy’ she said, weighing it in her palm. She turned it on to its back and
examined it carefully.
‘It’s made of metal,
and…’ she fiddled with something at the base of the dragonfly. A small
compartment opened and then something rolled out and fell on to the floor.
Potentilla went down on to her knees, scrabbled around for a few moments and
then let out a little squeak of disgust.
‘What is it?’ asked
Viola. Potentilla looked up at her.
‘I think it’s an eye,
ma’am’ She said, holding up something very squishy. All of the humanoids
repeated Potentilla’s squeak. The eye was about two-thirds the size of a human’s
and it had a green iris. Its pupil was a vertical slit. They all knew that it
had once belonged in a head with whiskers and pointed ears.
‘Can it still see?’
asked Viola, turning to Kath
‘How am I meant to
know?’ said Kath, her face screwed up in revulsion.
Potentilla dropped
the eye on the floor and stamped on it with all her might. There was a popping
sound as it burst. Viola shook her head and sighed.
‘Well, we won’t be
able to find out any more about it now, will we, lieutenant?’
Potentilla bowed her
head, briefly contrite. The others looked down at the flat streak of tissue and
fluid that was all that was left of the eye. Dom shivered and whispered
something that no-one else could hear.
‘What did you say?’
asked Viola
‘Necromancy’ said
Dom, only slightly more audibly.
‘What’s that?’ asked
Potentilla
‘Magic that employs
death or dead things’ said Dom, obviously reciting something from memory, ‘it
is one of the forbidden types of magic…’
‘Well’ said Viola,
‘looking at that, I’m not surprised’.
Potentilla looked
puzzled.
‘If it’s forbidden
then who did this?’
Viola, Dom and Kath
all looked at each other simultaneously. Kath was satisfied to see how quickly
Dom had got the hang of things.
‘Umm’ she said,
‘Tillie- you know just because something is forbidden doesn’t mean that nobody
ever does it – for example, like, well… you know, stealing’
Potentilla nodded
wisely.
‘So, bad people have
sent this thing to track us?’
‘I’m sure of that’ Kath said softly.
‘But who would want
to track us?’ asked Viola.
‘Someone who wonders
what the Deputy Governor of Gorodnikov is doing heading towards the middle of
nowhere, perhaps?’ suggested Dom
‘Good point’ muttered
Viola, ‘and I’m wondering that too’
‘Perhaps it’s that
group of witches that Laurence and John are struggling against?’ said Kath
Dom was very
interested to hear this - he had heard all about the Ethian witches from Potentilla
and was keen to learn more.
‘Who are they?’ he
asked .
‘I’m not entirely
sure’ said Viola, lying. She shot a glance at Kath, who knew as much about the
CRS as she did but fortunately she showed no inclination to say anything
either.
‘Well, whoever it is’
said Dom, ‘perhaps we should move on as soon as possible. I’m guessing that
that they’ll soon be wondering what happened to their flying eye’
Viola realised that
Dom was right – they’d been standing in this one place discussing things for
far too long.
Kath picked up the
remains of the dragonfly where it had dropped from Potentilla’s hand. She dug
around inside the metal insect.
‘I’ll have a better
look at this later’ she said, slipping it into her bag, ‘I can’t make out much
in this light’
Without another word
they picked up their packs and struggled further up the densely wooded slope, until
they could no longer see the curve of the shoreline. As they moved Viola
instructed the parrots to fan out and try to find some sign of the road – they
had clearly had had little interest in it for a very long time. They squawked
and chattered very loudly; if anyone really was tracking them in a conventional
way then they would be easy to find.
‘Let’s find the road
and then see if we can get the parrots to quieten down’ whispered Viola to the
others.
‘How are we going to
do that?’ asked Kath
‘I’ll think of
something…’
‘They are very nice,
though’ said Potentilla, ‘I like the noises that they make’
Everyone ignored her.
***
The only clear things that seemed to remain
of the road were milestones. They discovered two in the first hour or so of
searching. They were half buried in the soil, after so many centuries of busy
earthworms turning over the ground. They were also covered in moss and lichens
that they had to scrape off carefully. Beneath the encrusted flora however were
clear markings of the old road:
Klethropolis 157 miles
Tamarix 2 miles
‘So’ said Viola, after
she’d examined the milestone carefully, ‘we’re trying to find a two thousand
year old road?’
Barysomos, who was
hopping about next to her, tweeted and nodded his agreement.
‘How can we do that?’
she asked.
‘Thou now hast eyes
in the trees’ said the fat parrot
Viola shivered, after
their recent discovery this didn’t seem to her to be the best way to put it.
She stood up and
Barysomos jumped into her palm.
‘You are very useful
indeed’ she said, ‘but I fear that your suggestion might put all of us at risk’
‘Why is that?’
‘Because we are being
pursued – probably by very dangerous people and because you are numerous and
noisy and will make us easy to find’
The little bird
puffed up his feathers and, probably quite inadvertently, dug his claws into
Viola’s hand. The elf winced slightly.
‘Thou thinkest that
we are forever clamorous and indiscreet? It is not always and inevitably true
for all of my cousins’
Viola realised that she had sounded excessively
critical. It was just that she didn’t want to have to take responsibility for
the care of who-knew-how-many parrots – she had neither the resource nor the
time. She backtracked rapidly.
‘No – of course it
isn’t’
‘I will send
Akenopteryx, Hapalonyx and Psithuros with thee. They are the best spies among
us – they can fly through the canopy without being easily seen. They are rather
drab, as thou canst see, and they will go wherever thou goest. They will surely
find a way along the road’
On cue, three rather
scrawny, exceptionally pale green, parrots appeared on a branch above them.
‘At thy service, my
lady’ they all twittered at one. Their voices were low and sweet.
‘You are very welcome – but we may not need
you – I’m not yet convinced that we should carry on… I must talk to my
colleagues’
***
They found two walls of an old building next
to the ancient road in which to shelter while they discussed their predicament.
As it was, any excitement that they had felt when leaving the boat and making
dry land had now disappeared. Even
Potentilla seemed a little edgy, staring up every now and then into the boughs
of the trees as if looking for another enchanted dragonfly.
‘We should go home’
said Dom, ‘This is surely far beyond our capabilities, isn’t it? Whoever made
that automaton must be very powerful’
Viola nodded vaguely.
She had really wanted to continue but this now did seem like suicidal folly.
No-one said anything for a long while. Whatever sunlight that had managed to
penetrate through the tree canopy was now becoming feeble. It cast long
finger-like shadows. Viola started to
remove the items from her pack, re-organising them in groups in front of her.
There was no real sense to what she was doing, but she sometimes found that she
just needed to do something with her hands.
‘How though’ said
Kath, ‘how will we get back home?’
They all stared at
Kath as if she had revealed a horrible family secret.
‘There’s no boat
waiting for us’ she continued, ‘except perhaps for a big black enemy one. And I
don’t really like the idea of walking home across country from here…’
Dom waited for Viola
to speak, to reassert common sense, to devise a clear way back home. She
seemed, however, intent on something other than what was being said; she had
laid out her pack and was now staring up the hill through the ranks of oak
trees to where they had uncovered one of the milestones. She tipped her head as
if she heard something calling to her.
‘Can you not hear them?’ she said, very softly, in archaic elven, ‘Can you not hear the serpents’ cry?’ The
others heard nothing but the birds and the rustle of mice. They said no words,
all dreading the sound that none of them could hope to hear.
‘We could find a way
home’ said Dom, rallying, but finding that he was strangely reluctant to break
Viola’s reverie, ‘there must be other roads that we can find, roads that lead
south and west’
‘There’s only one
road from here’ Viola whispered, ‘and we’re on it’
‘Viola’s right’ said
Kath, ‘it is the only way to get away from anyone who is still following’
‘We can’t go on’ said
Dom, ‘that would be crazy – who knows what’s beyond here?’
Viola whispered,
‘exactly’ and began to load her stuff back into her pack.
‘So, what is this?’ asked Dom, ‘Are we stuck
here until someone captures us? Is this some sort of trap?’
‘Well, it may be that’
said Viola standing and putting on her pack, ‘but that’s not all it is’
‘What do you mean?’
asked Dom
‘I think that this is
my destiny’ she said
She stood up and bid
them follow. No-one refused. Kath was just behind her with Potentilla running
to catch them up. Dom came behind them steadfast but shaking his head. The three pale parrots leapt up into the
trees above them and were soon invisible.
Viola trudged off along the tangled road. They
started on their long walk north.
