Chapter fifty-five

A Strange and Limited Place

Celia had been asleep for a long time. They had appeared in a wide grassy plain and almost immediately she had had to stop to sleep; the combined effect of the translocations and the adail had taken their toll.

Owen had tried very hard to stay awake; he thought it unwise for them both to be unconscious at the same time, but he too was too weary to prevent himself from dropping off. They lay together in the sea of grass.

   It seemed like only a second later that he woke with a start. Something was wrong. What was it? He stood up and peered across the plain. All he could see was grass. He wondered whether there was really anywhere in the world where there was only grass and absolutely nothing else to see. He scanned the horizon in vain for a boulder, a hillock, even a cow.

He bent down and looked at the sward. The grass was fine, just typical green blades, but under it there was nothing; just a glassy top, like the surface of a billiard ball. The grass just lay over that surface – there were no roots at all. Owen found it hard to believe that there was any grass that could grow without roots and without soil. He sat down and whispered ‘chlytiau’; he conjured a thaumic square out of the air. It was completely colourless, jet back and yet somehow totally transparent. It was a logical impossibility. That had never happened before. But he knew what it meant. They had gone through the wrong portal.

As if on cue, Celia woke. She sat bolt upright and shouted out.

‘A piece of paper, quickly…’

Owen was startled into action. He dropped the square into his shoulder bag, then scrabbled around in it.  He fished out a notebook and a pencil. He lunged it towards her. She shook her head wildly.

‘No – you write this down…’

He nodded his head equally vigorously.

‘Make for the Green Isle of Hoy. Sail to it from the east, round it twice anticlockwise on the north side, and then bear due south for a day. Don’t be distracted by anything’

His hand was a flurry as he copied her words. She stopped for a second and then blurted out

‘Kratos’s hidden island – that’s where it is’   

‘What?’ .

‘Viola told me – in our dream’

Owen glanced down at the grass – he was desperate to tell her what he had just found out, but now was clearly not the time.

‘Who’s Viola?’ he asked instead.

‘She’s from Ortia – she’s a friend of Laurence’s…They were in Melloreis together’

‘The Proconsul’s spy?’

‘Yes…’

Owen looked into her eyes. Was she cracking up? There was no clue in her stare, which was bright and eager.

‘But how?’

She quailed under his gaze.

‘I’m not sure. It seemed so clear a few moments ago. But the dream is escaping from me. She was there and we had to find… something…’

He took hold of her hands.

‘Where is this meant to be...?  I mean, the Green Isle of Hoy? I’ve never heard of it. Perhaps it was just a bad dream?’

He could see her struggle with the receding spring tide of her memory.

‘It’s in…’ she began, ‘…No, that’s too far back; the trickster told me. But who can believe him?’

‘C. I think it was just a restless dream. I can’t make sense of what you’re saying’

She sighed deeply and burrowed her face in his shoulder. Owen held her, unsure of what to say next.

‘Just don’t lose the notebook’ she muttered, ‘even if it you think that it is nonsense’

They remained entangled for a long time, but slowly the need to tell her his news grew in his mind.

He pulled away from her.                

‘We’ve not gone home’ he whispered.  She smiled hopefully.

‘Well, this could be Eth, couldn’t it?’

He shook his head sadly.

‘This is some sort of approximate space, an experiment perhaps. All there is here is four dimensions and some grass.’

He knelt down and pulled some grass out of the ground. It came away as easily as toy grass stuck in a block of wood.

‘Look’ he said

She knelt next to him and placed her hand on the bare patch.

‘That’s really odd’

‘It’s not real’ he said, ‘something very strange is going on. I think it’s an exceptionally boring sort of parallel universe’

She looked up at him, admiration and doubt mingled in her gaze.

‘How can you know that?’

He slipped his hand inside his bag and pulled out the thaumic square.

‘There’s no colour’ he explained

She studied the square blankly.

‘Now you’re the one making no sense…’

His hand dropped to his side. He attempted to explain.

‘It’s like Katy’s water trees. Every part of the real world has a thaumic colour – a hue; often, as you’ve seen, a shade of grey or green – this is nothing; just a blank space’

He handed the square to her and she turned it over in her fingers. There was something strange about it, something vaguely revolting.

‘I see’ she murmured, ‘this has no power at all’

‘It’s  a simulacrum’ he said, ‘a mock-up; a model of magic’

She handed it back to him and he put it back into his bag carefully. She watched him for a moment and then stood up.

   ‘Perhaps we should have a walk around’ she suggested, ‘Maybe there is something else here other than grass…’

They wandered around for a while, with no sense of direction, as there was no way of assessing where they were; there wasn’t even an obvious source of sunlight – just a general, diffuse, lighting.

‘Let’s put your bag down’ suggested Celia, ‘and see how far we can walk away from it’

Owen put his weaver’s bag down and they walked as far distant from it as they dared. Then they walked back and tried a direction at right angles to it. The result was the same. In whatever direction they walked there was artificial grass as far they could see. Celia stood looking over at the bag from the last cardinal distant point that they tried. She pointed out further across the green plain. 

‘I’ll stand here, where I can still see the bag, and you walk as far away as you can from me. Let’s see if we can get to the end of this bloody grass’

Owen nodded. Celia pointed away from the bag and he walked in the direction that she indicated. He stopped when he could only just see her. He really didn’t want then to lose each other again.

‘All exactly the same’ he shouted. There was a short pause and then his voice repeated, but this time she heard it from the opposite direction. Celia was puzzled.

‘Say something else’ she shouted.

There was another pause. Then she heard her voice repeating, as if from a long way off. She turned and looked back on beyond the bag.

‘Why are you repeating yourself? He yelled

‘I’m not’ she whispered, smiling to herself. It was like they were in some strange acoustically-challenged cave.

‘Keep walking in the same direction’ she yelled. She didn’t wait for the echo this time. She stood still and looked backwards and forwards along the line that he had been walking.

After about a minute she could see two Owens – both almost dots, but both clearly him. She sighed, partly satisfied with her application of logic, and partially appalled by what it meant.  She walked back to the bag. They met a few minutes later.

‘Bounded space’ he concluded, ‘not only boring but also tiny. This isn’t looking good…’

‘Stupid place to get stuck, O’ she said, gently. She kissed him on the forehead.

‘Why aren’t you worried?’ he asked

She laughed.

‘Compared with where I’ve been this looks like a doddle. And, we’re together’

He smiled, but was unconvinced. He sat down next to his bag.

‘Someone has made this’ he said,

‘Someone?’ she asked, ‘how? I mean, who? A god?’

‘I don’t know’ he said, uncertainly, ‘can the gods make space and time?’

She shook her head and frowned.

‘I have no idea…’

They sat in silence for a while. Owen’s eyes were on the ground. She took his hands in hers. She looked down at his worried face.

‘If someone made this then they probably have a way in and out. I just have to find it’ he said

She nodded. She still didn’t look all that concerned.

‘Well, if you’re stupid enough to get us into this, my love, then you’re surely clever enough to get us out again’

‘Fingers crossed…’

‘All I know is that we absolutely have to get out of here’ she said, ‘and do you know why, in particular?’

‘Why?’ he asked.

She gripped his hands very tightly.

‘Because we have a dream girl to make’ 

Chapter fifty-six

The Southern Plains

 

The healed man woke up suddenly – as if he had been disturbed by a loud noise or the contents of a bucket of water. He looked down at the rug on the floor of the tent. He had no idea where he was. He had been woken by an idea. Or maybe it wasn’t even an idea  – perhaps it was a concept: a concept, maybe, of a world that had never existed and never would exist. He was cured of madness but he was not how he had been before. The taint had distorted his mind and the old grey god had wiped it clean. What had now filled it were his most fantastical hopes.

Dawn was beginning to colour the sky and the guards, set there by Rem and who had no clear idea of who their captive was anyway, were fast asleep – they had given up waiting for him to awaken. It was simple for him to walk past them, and, of course, he had no idea that they had been set to guard and protect him. The rest of the settlement was still slumbering and no-one else was about. 

It was cold in the open air but he wandered anyway. His mind was resetting and re-evaluating, but with almost no information to process. It knew, though, that it needed a plan.

Eventually it devised one. He had to go home, although he only had the vaguest idea where that was. What was the name of his home city? He searched around in his now almost emptied mind: what was it called? The answer came to him in a rush – Claria, the city of teak. He could see it so clearly in his mind’s eye, although he had never been there and the image of it that he carried in his mind was from a beautiful book, an old book of engravings that had been written more than a thousand years before.

Where was Claria? He had no clear idea, except that it must be east of where he was now, because it had always been east of everywhere that he had ever been. Without hesitation he walked towards the rising sun.

 

***

In the days that followed he drifted on an erratic path from one tented settlement to the next. All the Plains Dwellers that he met thought him a mad Algharian beggar – they were unaware of how rare such a pale skin was among the desert nomads. They gave him food and shelter and he was very grateful. He asked everyone that he met to show him the way to “Claria” but no-one had heard of it, and that was because it had long since ceased to exist. 

Beyond the plains he came hard against the Spina Montes, which separate East Visneoria from Tlaxaca. Unpassable and unbearably cold in late December, he could go no further that way and so he made north, as some instinct told him that to the south was only the endless sea.

It wasn’t long before the Orbiverdi found him and gave him shelter. They remembered Baron von Eisen well in this part of the Empire and had no love for him, but now he was unrecognisable, his hair long and his beard unkempt. And he had no memory of his earlier life with which to remind them of his evil deeds. Just like the Plains Dwellers they assumed that this poor man was mad; which had been true, but, in fact, was no longer. All he was now was emptied and filled. Filled with old hope. This was his reflex, like a homing pigeon released into the unknown but still able to find its way home.

They didn’t try to keep him in their mountain fastness. They let him wander on to the wide pass over which their new city overlooked. He was scarcely different from a beggar by then, asking every person that he met for food and water. No-one turned him down. At the end of the pass, however, the help faded away – all there was the  sub-tropical grassland that led down to the old city of the White Devil.

He followed the road for day after day, learning to find and ambush the little antelopes that wandered across the plain. He was still a strong man and he learned to wield a rough-hewn club as well as his grandmaster’s sword. He discovered how to make a fire from the dry acacia kindling. And he learned to skin, gut and cook an animal using a flint blade. He carried on walking. Occasionally the fragments of his old memories tried to surface, but he learnt to push them back down. He had no interest in his past; he could all but taste its bitterness on the tip of his tongue.

 

***

 

It was his newly-developed hiding and sneaking skills that saved him. The army appeared out of nowhere; a sea of red, thousands of them, all human soldiers; cavalry and infantry. And with them huge siege engines – rams and ballistae. And scattered among them were the Summoners, who, if he had remembered anything at all, he would have known were able to call forth creatures of fire from the earth itself.  It was a much bigger force than before, but he had no idea where it might be heading. He only knew that they were undoubtedly enemies. He hid under his newly acquired impala skins in a hollow under a huge banyan tree. They passed him by without even looking properly, he was just a heap of fur and rags: sometimes it was better to be weak.

He waited for a long while after their tumult had passed, shivering with fear under his makeshift shelter. The sound and fury of the army had been too much for him; he feared the trampling of their implacable feet and the thud of their stamping hooves.  He wondered where they were going and who they went to fight. What was west of here, he wondered, but all he knew of were the gentle plains and kind mountain creatures who had helped him. Who would want to hurt them?

After that he travelled mostly at twilight, just after dawn and just before dusk. He passed a strange pyramidal city at a distance, crawling through the long dry grass where there were many of the red army. Leading straight away from the deadly city he found a road, an old wide road. He knew enough now to avoid these structures, if seemed that humans were warlike and foul. He had not seen his reflection for a long time, but he could guess how similar he looked to those soldiers. He pushed that thought away – he was another sort of creature, surely, a hunting thing; a wolf perhaps. 

He knew that it was too dangerous to use the wide road, and he had no idea where it led. He was a long way away from anywhere that he knew and there were enemies everywhere. He began to wonder if he should go back to wherever it was that he had come from. He should perhaps retrace his steps back to safety.

He had turned and begun to plod westward when the black coyote appeared. The scraggy wolf began following him, a few yards behind. Every time he stopped the beast would stop too, patiently waiting. Its eyes were unsettlingly blue.  He tried to ignore it but it kept running up to him and yapping, and then running back the opposite way to where he was walking. He stopped.

‘What do you want?’ he asked, glaring at the creature. He half expected an answer.

The coyote looked at him, expectantly.

‘Do you know the way, dog?’ he asked, ‘do you know where Claria lies?’

No sooner had he said that than the wolf sprinted away from him, back down the way he had come. It stopped a little way away and howled softly.

‘How can you know the way?’ he asked.

For a moment the man thought the howl sounded like laughter.  Then the wolf was away again. The emptied human had no other plan, so he followed. The coyote kept up a fast pace, but the man had never been leaner or fitter. Whatever lay in his past, locked away somewhere deep in his mind, was becoming harder and harder to recover. He didn’t mind that at all.

The coyote led him far from the road, far from all named places. Soon all that he could see was the tree-lined savannah, dotted with giraffes and termite mounds. It was a long route and with no certain destination.  For the time being, however, he was content. He would keep moving.

Chapter fifty-seven

Ortia

 

Marthian knew that something was wrong. There was nothing specific that she could put her finger on, but a series of unexplained events were worrying her.  

‘So – you’re sure there are no reports of intruders or anything else suspicious?’

Lieutenant Campanula, Viola’s successor as the proconsul’s intelligence officer, was seriously out of her depth. She shook her head unconvincingly. She was still waiting to be told she could sit down.

‘Just some odd illnesdses, winds where they shouldn’t be, objects moved in strane ways. I’m not sure it amounts to much…’

‘Well, I don’t want anything moving without me finding out about it…’

Campanula’s face fell.

‘Umm…’ she started

Marthian laughed and nodded.

‘Not everything… ‘she admitted, ‘…that is a bit of a tall order…’

Campanula smiled in relief.

Without warning the double doors that led into the garden sprung open and a thin, long-haired young man with a surprisingly luxuriant blonde-white beard came rapidly through the door. He was dressed in a rustic smock and grey trousers and carried a scythe. Neither elf even looked up at him.

‘Just grabbing some secateurs’ he mumbled. He proceeded to rummage around in a cupboard. Marthian looked across at him.

‘You’re meant to knock, Erik’ she said half-heartedly. He turned to her and smiled and then he was gone again. He closed the door with exaggerated care.

Marthian sighed.

‘It’s hard to take security seriously, I accept, when Formish princes wander around the proconsular residence unchallenged…’

Campanula looked alarmed.

‘You don’t think that he’s a spy, do you?’

Marthian lifted her fingers up to her forehead. A headache was forming there like a thundercloud.

‘Of course I don’t. The threat will not come from strange young barbarians with a love of horticulture…’

Campanula relaxed.

‘Where will it come from then, ma’am?’

The proconsul shrugged.

‘From the east, as always, I suppose, but it’s hard to tell’ 

‘I’ve doubled the guard under the city, as you requested…’

‘Good. But I suspect you could quadruple it and it still wouldn’t be safe’

There was a knock on her inner door. Campanula went to the door and opened it. Lieutenant Gaius was there and with him, what looked like an old man wrapped in a grey cloak. His head was cowled.

‘I have a visitor for you ma’am’ he announced

‘Who is it?’

‘It’s me’ said Rem, in Ethian, lowering his cowl. Campanula looked up at Marthian, who nodded, and then the lieutenant scurried out. Gaius closed the door as soon as she had left. The Plains Dweller and the Ortian were left alone together.

Marthian studied him. She hadn’t seen him since he had left the city more than a year before and she was surprised to see him now. Surprised and worried, as this was unlikely to be a social call. The storm of her headache had now broken. A vein was throbbing.

‘Please sit, Master Healer’

Rem shook his head.

‘I will stand. Your chairs are not comfortable for my legs…’

Why hadn’t she remembered that? She tried to look beyond the awkwardness of their relationship, but it was hard. Rem just didn’t like Elven civilisation; although there were at least some elves that he was fond of. Marthian doubted very much that she was one of them.

‘Of course…’ was all she managed to say. Rem stood with his arms folded.

‘I have spoken to the High Priestess, and now I have come to talk to you’

Marthian was astonished by the improvement in his spoken Ethian. She suspected that now his was better than hers.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, abandoning all formalities.

He looked round her office. 

‘Is it safe to speak here?’  

She shrugged.

‘Who can tell? Our enemies are clever and have great resources…’

Rem nodded, which was a step forward. At least he seemed to acknowledge that they shared some foes.

‘…but this must be as safe as anywhere, I suppose…’

Rem moved close enough to her to whisper in her ear. 

‘The archwitch named Kratos is coming to destroy the Lady’

For a moment Marthian was unable to process this information. Who was Kratos? Then she remembered Mr Hardacre talking about him. He was one of two old witches who the Hybitor fought against. She had rather thought that their conflict was a purely human thing. Clearly she had been wrong.

‘Why?’

He stepped away from her. His grey eyes fixed on her brown ones. She felt an urge to look away, but she resisted it.

‘I was not told why. Does it matter? A threat is a threat whatever the reason behind it’

Marthian’s headache was gone. Sadly, it had been replaced by a physical terror. Her hands felt clammy and her heart was racing. Her mouth was almost too dry to speak.

‘Have you told the High Priestess?’ she croaked

‘Yes’

‘What did she say?’

‘That the Lady would resist, as always’

‘Well, that’s good – isn’t it?’

Rem shook his head.

‘She will fail’

The headache came back. She felt the strong urge to lie down and pull a blanket up over her head. A tiny part of her laughed drily at this – there’s no-one left to make things right but you, so get on with it.

‘How do you know that?’

‘My Master told me – Kratos is very strong’

But… How can a witch kill a god? Isn’t that against nature?’

Rem grinned savagely.

‘I think that is exactly why it is possible…It seems that Kratos has defeated nature’

‘What can we do?’

‘I am not sure, but my master told me that I must rely on my friends’

‘What did he mean by that?’

He shook his head but didn’t attempt to answer her question.

‘I need to find Kath… but I have no means to communicate with her. And perhaps no time to find her on foot’

‘Why do you need to contact her?’

‘Because it maybe that she will know what to do…’

‘I’m sorry – I have no idea where they are’

‘Then Mr Hardacre, I must contact him. Do you have a way to reach him?’

Marthian didn’t reply immediately to this. Instead she reached under her desk for a secret drawer. She pulled out a sheet of white paper.

‘Mail paper’ she explained, ‘I know how to use it’

Rem looked at it.

‘I remember Mr Hardacre using this. It has strong old magic on it…’

‘Magecraft’ she explained, ‘ancient magic from the beginning of this time’

Rem wrinkled up his face.

‘You mean elven magic… I do not trust it’

A spasm of irritation briefly overcame her fears.

‘Well, you’ll have to. I have no other way of reaching him’

Rem nodded slightly, acknowledging her point.

‘I’ll talk then and you write’

Marthian sat down at her desk. She took the small pot of squid ink out of the same secret draw and placed it on the table. Then, she unscrewed the top of the pot and dipped a fresh quill into it.  She wrote at the top of the paper, Mr Laurence Hardacre, Merchants’ Quarter, Kinspit, Paror.

‘I’m ready…’ she said.  

Chapter fifty-eight

Kinspit

 

Rem’s mail paper spoiled all their plans. Hardacre almost missed it in his hurry to get ready. It had fluttered down as he had been packing his new, now sadly conventional, bag. He sat on his bed and read it, with a sinking heart.

 

 Mr Laurence Hardacre, Merchants’ Quarter, Kinspit, Paror.

 

Dear Envoy Hardacre,

 

I am in Ortia and have been sent on a mission by my master. There is dreadful danger here and I need you to come at once. I can say no more. Can you also try to find Kath, as I think she would help, although I do not know how.  Please find her if you can.

 

Rem

 

Hardacre smiled the briefest smile as he considered how lucky he was that Kath was with them. He clearly couldn’t resist this call. Rem would only send such a message in extremis. Viola and Kath were still asleep – he had insisted that they have some rest before teleporting. Now they would have to change their destination. He decided to pack a few more clothes.

 

***

 

Viola woke with numbers in her head. They seemed to be really important numbers but she had no idea what they meant

She scrawled on a scrap of paper by her bed: secret history bound edition page fourteen-thousand-thirteen-hundred-and-three.

What on earth did it mean? It was something from a fading dream. It seemed very specific though.

She dressed rapidly in clean clothes, except for her military jacket. It seemed like tempting fate to wash that. It had become a tatty lucky charm. She was ready to go.

Hardacre pressed the mail paper into her hand as soon as she had made her way downstairs and into the kitchen. Kath was already up. She looked as pale as the mail paper. Viola knew then that something was very wrong.

Kath read out the contents of the short message.

‘Why would Rem be in Ortia?’ was Viola’s first question.

Kath shrugged.

‘Only one way to find out’

Viola nodded; they would have to go there instead, even though she could not imagine what sort of crisis would require their intervention, or how they might intervene.  But in any case it was her home; if it was in danger then she wanted to be there.

‘Can you get us to Ortia as quickly ao s to Eth City?’ asked Viola

‘Theoretically’ admitted Hardacre, ‘there’s an old Imperial mage-beacon[1] just outside the city that I have used before. It’s not as powerful as the Hybitor ones but it should get three of us there’

‘Well, let’s go then’ said Kath, impatiently, ‘Rem needs us’

‘Put your hands on my shoulder’ commanded Hardacre. Viola stepped forward and put her right hand on his left shoulder from the back, Kath put her left hand on his right shoulder. Viola, who was quite a bit shorter than Kath, had to reach up slightly uncomfortably. Hardacre had strapped his bag over his shoulder. The others carried essentials in their own canvas bags.

‘Are you ready?’ he asked. They murmured their assent.

Hardacre murmured ‘amranta’ . They braced themselves for the blink, but instead there was a pull. The two passengers let go of their vehicle n surprise.

Viola, who had had her eyes tightly closed, looked up. They were still in Kinspit but something had come through from another place. It was larger than human-size, cucumber-shaped and it had blue tentacles that had reached out and grabbed Hardacre. It made a horrible gurgling sound. There was a smell of rotting apples.

‘Someone’s trapped the beacon’ he spluttered, ‘It’s sent something from the Outer Void’

The blue suckers pulled at Hardacre’s legs, rows of them working together, like the tube feet of a starfish.   The material of his trousers had already began to fray.

‘Get Bentley!’ he shouted. He struggled to pull away as two of the tentacles reached up for his face. He fell backwards on to the floor with a thud. The tentacles began to make their way up his body.

‘Kath ran towards the exit screaming for his deputy. She had clearly been waiting surreptitiously just outside the kitchen. She came into the room before Kath had even reached the threshold.

She ran in, took one look at the creature and shouted

‘Cadwa!’

A box of translucent amber light appeared around the blue cucurbit.  The organism stopped moving immediately – so did Hardacre’s legs. There was much huffing and puffing as they eased him carefully out of the box. The paralysed tentacles had no traction on him.    

As soon as he was free, Viola drew her short sword. Without a thought, or another word, she slashed at the translucent box. It shattered like window glass. Bits of strange petrified flesh flew everywhere. They all fell to the floor, hands over their eyes. Fortunately the creature seemed to vaporise in mid-air. All that were left were little piles of blue powder, like fancy sherbet.  

Hardacre was the first to rise. His trousers were ripped to shreds and his legs now a mass of red sucker marks. Fortunately none of them had done more than abraid the skin surface, but they all stared at him with a mixture of fear and concern. Added to this, Viola thought that he looked quite ridiculous.

‘I’m fine’ he said, his hands lifted up as if to fend them off.

Bentley frowned. She

‘At very least let a healer look at it’

A little signal smile leapt from Hardacre’s lips to Viola’s and Kath’s. He knew that they wouldn’t doubt him when he said.

‘I will, I promise you’

Bentley hesitated, clearly itching to give additional help,

‘This is CRS work…’ she began.

Hardacre nodded but wasn’t inclined to talk. He shooed her away.

‘Thank you, Miss Bentley, I am indebted to you…’

Bentley smiled warily. She retreated out of the room.

‘I’ll get a mop’ were her parting words.

 They all needed a rest, but Viola was frantic; there seemed to be so many problems and so little time to solve them.

‘There must be another beacon near-by…’

Hardacre shook his head.

‘The old imperial beacon was the only one. And no-one can use it now. It was only intended for emergencies…

‘What’s this then?’ asked Kath, ‘if it’s not a bloody emergency? Why didn’t you put one in the Proconsul’s palace?’

‘It’s an unfortunate mishap’ murmured Hardacre, weakly, ‘and etiquette really wouldn’t have allowed us to put one inside the city’ his voice trailed off, ‘it simply isn’t done…’

‘How are we going to get us there, then?’ asked Viola

Hardacre thought for a second.

‘I can teleport to a trace, if I know the trace signature, but it’s a much more energy-hungry spell – beacons give off a constant steady signal; traces have a higher variance’

‘What does that mean?’ asked Viola

‘I can blink to where a magic user known to me has recently cast a spell, but I can’t tell where the spell was cast; and a large part of the spell energy is used to ensure trace stability’

‘So’ asked Kath, ‘who’s the closest council member?’

Hardacre shook his head.

‘Almost all of them will be in Eth or here…or who knows where... It’s too much of a risk….’

‘Don’t you know Marthian’s mage’s trace?’

‘Sadly not, major; I haven’t even met him’

‘There must be someone’ moaned Viola, ‘surely…’

Kath grinned suddenly. The others were momentarily spooked by her apparently inappropriate high spirits.

‘Dom’ she said, ‘he’s sure to be in Gorodnikov and that’s only a few days away from Ortia. I know you know his trace because you used it to before – when you saved us in Oket’

‘Yes, I did’ admitted Hardacre, reluctantly, ‘but I will need to use a lot of the energy stored in this house to get us there and there’ll be no returning quickly. It will tire me out… considerably. My reserves are comparatively meagre’

‘Well, you’ll have quite a while on the road to recover’ said Viola, knowing that the battle against his reluctance had already been won.

Hardacre knew that they’d have to go and that this was the only way to get there quickly. But he was still reluctant to go without consulting his master first, particularly now the plan had changed for a second time.  

‘Yes – I’ll take you there’ he said, ‘but permit me ten minutes to write to Mr Ismay, if you will…’

He hesitated

‘…and to find some more trousers…’

‘Take your time’ whispered Kath. Viola said nothing. She wanted to tell him to hurry up, but sensed that, at this moment, that would be entirely unhelpful.  

Hardacre retreated rapidly to reorganise his attire and write his mail paper. Viola and Kath were left in the kitchen, bewildered.

‘Do you think Rem is okay?’ Kath asked, rhetorically. Viola was deep in her own thoughts. Tension crackled through the air between them. As much to relieve this as anything else her hands worried through her pockets.

‘My dream note’ she said, hoiking out her hastily scribbled piece of paper.

‘What?’

‘It’s a message from my dream’

Viola handed the note over to Kath. She read it and then looked up quizzically.

‘Did you realise that this in AE[2]?’

‘What?’

‘In Elven, not Visneorian’

‘Look…’

Kath handed back the scrap of paper.

‘Oh – it is… that’s odd…’

‘Maybe not’ said Kath, ‘How many long histories in AE do you know that anyone has read?’  

‘Kalappos’ muttered Viola, ‘that’s who it was. I remember…’

‘His secret history…’ Kath mused, ‘I can well believe that there’s one hidden in that enormous book’

‘What book?’

‘Skiophographia – it’s his comprehensive history of the Visneorian Empire…’

Viola nodded enthusiastically.

‘That’s what it is… Skiographia, that was the name that Celia read out…’

‘Who?’

‘Celia…’ Viola voice hardly managed to utter that single word.

‘Eh?’

‘A witch in a dream…’

Kath waited for some additional explanation, but none came.

‘Where can we find a copy of the book?’ Viola asked

Kath scowled, as if briefly in pain.

‘In the library here – but there isn’t time to look at it now…It’s a ginormous tome…’

Viola nodded in agreement.

‘And it would probably be too dangerous to go to the library at all at the moment…’

She stopped for a moment, in an agony of indecision.

‘But what if that I need to do first?’ asked Viola, ‘what if I’m doing everything in the wrong order? The new Ith said that I needed to find out my secret history…’

‘Yes, I know – but Ortia is in danger; the Proconsul may be in danger; even Rem may be in danger… We can’t delay helping any longer’

‘What if my secret helps us to defeat our enemies? What if I am about to make a fundamental mistake?’

Kath touched her arm.

‘We can’t know’ she said, ‘we don’t have enough information. All we can do is react to the threats one at a time…’

‘I promise that I will help you find out what’s in the book as soon as we can…’

The conversation wilted. All they could do now was wait for Hardacre and hope that Ortia was safe.

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[1] These beacons were not for teleportation purposes as mages cannot teleport. Their role is uncertain but they are known to be very ancient.

[2] Archaic Elven; Kath is here showing the typical academic’s love of acronyms.