Chapter seventy-seven

Hardacre’s pentangle, Ortia

Hardacre waited.

The tentacle reached up through the portal and hauled its body into the room. Once it was inside completely it righted itself, its large gas-filled head   floating up towards the ceiling. Its twenty or so tentacles anchoring it, using flat round suckers, to the floor. It had large, dinner-plate sized eyes, with which it stared directly at Hardacre.  Its body changed colour constantly – cycling through green, red, purple and blue.

Hardacre stood and waited. He had no idea what this thing was but he had no intention of encouraging it, or, for that matter, attacking it.

It approached him, floating across so that it could feel for him with its tentacles. There were three that seemed to be tactile. One had a blunt tip, one a toothed edge, and the final one was covered densely in white hairs, it looked a little like a lavatory brush.  First it rubbed the hairs over his hand, then his wrist and then his face. Hardacre did all of his shuddering inside; his outside didn’t even twitch. After a few seconds the creature attached its blunt tipped tentacle to his neck. There was a strange feeling, a mixture of a suck and a slurp and then the creature turned away. Hardacre watched as it made its slow way back to the pentangle and descended back into it.

‘It seems I am not edible’ Hardacre muttered, ‘or perhaps not interesting enough’. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and spent at least five minutes carefully cleaning his neck where the creature had attached itself. He shivered decorously while he completed the task. Anyone watching him might well have concluded that he was a little cold.

He waited.

Elizabeth materialised. She was wearing spectacles, and she took them off carefully when she saw Hardacre.

‘Laurence’ she said, ‘what is going on?’

Hardacre bowed low. Although they shared many character traits, they had never got along.

‘Councillor Jenkins, may I first apologise for interrupting you?’

‘You may’ she said tartly, ‘you know that I don’t approve of you having Mae angen rights…’

‘Of course, madam, I understand; I never sought them’

She glared at him

‘Yet you’re quite happy to use them…’

He stood to attention; a good soldier accepting a dressing down.

‘On this occasion, madam, yes’

‘So what is so pressing that it requires the whole council?’

‘The Lady of Ortia is under threat’

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows theatrically.

‘I somehow doubt it…’

‘Kratos has vowed to destroy her’

Elizabeth’s thespian face collapsed under the weight of the horrible truth. She spoke without thinking.

‘Then we are all in dreadful danger…’

Hardacre nodded, but without more than perfunctory sympathy.

‘Yes, but not in as much danger as the Lady’

Elizabeth, a naturally courageous person, but one who knew the limits to her abilities surprisingly clearly, reconfigured her face. She removed all the terror from it.  She smiled icily.

‘Of course…’

She changed tack slightly.

‘Who among us is already here?’

‘Councillors  Llewellyn, Ockham, and Williams’

Elizabeth began to respond to this but was suddenly distracted by his appearance.

‘What’s that on your neck, Laurence?

Hardacre put his hand up to his neck reflexively.

‘I had an encounter…’

Elizabeth’s lips tautened. Disapproval radiated from her face.

‘That’s not like you’

‘I’m sorry, Councillor, I have no idea what you mean’

‘Have you seen it?’ she asked

‘I have not – it happened no more than thirty minutes ago’

‘Really?’ said Elizabeth, her incredulity growing.

She whispered ‘drych’. A square of the air in front of her solidified. Hardacre come over and looked at himself in the temporary looking glass. His neck had a purple-blue bruise on it.

‘It was some sort of extradimensional creature…’ he said flatly.

‘That gave you a love bite?’

Hardacre shook his head, and groped around for something suitably dignified to say that would refute this misinterpretation. Fortunately, he was saved by events.

John appeared in the pentagram, feeling flustered and ill-prepared. There were numerous things that he had thought to say to Hardacre, but he forgot them when he saw the look on his servant’s face.  He also hadn’t expected to see Elizabeth there.

‘Mr Ismay – sir; why are you here? I haven’t called you yet’

John nodded apologetically. At least this was familiar ground.

‘I had another call’

‘Really? From whom’

John shook his head.

‘It doesn’t matter – let’s just say a “reliable source”’

‘Gwyneth, sir?’ Hardacre ventured, ‘I cannot imagine that you have any others’

‘No time for that’ gabbled John, ‘another prime is under attack’

Hardacre nodded, but somehow it looked like a shake.

‘If you say so, sir’, he paused for a moment, ‘my understanding was that it was the Lady of this city that was threatened’

John wondered for a second if he was mistaken. He pulled Lily’s paper out of his pocket.

‘Can you show me, sir?’ asked Hardacre

John frowned

‘If I have to…’

‘Of course you have to, Mr President’

Hardacre took the paper from him in one deft movement.

‘Princess Lily…’ he said, his voice as dry as bran.

‘Yes…Laurence… Lily’

John could see Hardacre selecting his words carefully from a dangerous pile. 

‘And what is the basis for you believing that Lily knows anything about what is going on?’

John shrugged.

‘I trust her’ he said

‘And I don’t’ muttered Hardacre, ‘but we had better check, anyway…’

‘Check where? Do you have any idea where the naga is?’

Hardacre shook his head.

‘No – but the Proconsul will…’

John turned to Elizabeth.

‘You stay here…’ he said

‘I’m sorry – what did you say, Mr President?’

‘I need you to stay here and help the others when they come through…’

She put her hands on her hips.

‘So, you are taking Laurence and not me?’

Hardacre moved rapidly to defuse this little crisis.

‘I will have to go with him. I am his valet – I have no choice’

John nodded a little too vigorously.

‘Yes, it’s etiquette – of course…’

Elizabeth glared at him.

‘Of course’ she muttered

‘And it is more appropriate that a council member should be in charge of the pentangle’ suggested Hardacre. Then they were gone, too concerned about the need to hurry to worry too much about her reaction.

She waited.