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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