Chapter thirty-seven

In a hideout close to Hyperborea

 

Celia woke up irritated, but she had no idea why. There was an elf standing over her, which she had not been expecting and so her anger spilled over at the stranger.

‘Who are you and what do you want?’

She struggled up. She had a brief problem working out where she was – her sleep had been very deep and her dream (all memory of which was fading fast), very strange.

The elf, seemingly untroubled by Celia’s demeanour, bowed low. His voice was crisp and every ounce an educated Ethian.

‘Captain Jay your service, ma’am’

Celia’s anger evaporated – she had never been addressed like that before. She rather liked it. 

‘As for what I want… That’s a long story’

Celia waited for a second for her confusion to abate slightly.

‘I think you have confused me with someone else…’ she said

‘From what my colleagues have told me I have formed the impression that you are a high ranking VIP, with a…umm… magical disposition. That’s enough to seriously outrank me…’

‘I’m a civilian’ said Celia

Jay nodded gravely.

‘As you wish, ma’am, but you still outrank me’

This elf had the most clipped, patrician Ethian accent that she had heard for a long while. She was baffled by this odd meeting.

‘Outrank me in what military structure?’ she asked, ‘I have no standing in the Visneorian army…’

‘Of course not – and neither do I’

‘What army do you represent then?’

It was his turn to look uncertain.

‘The High Lord’s army… who else’s?’

It began to dawn on Celia.

‘Are you from Hinter?’ she asked

‘Low Border’ he replied, ‘so you’re close enough’

The area around Hinter was the only part of Eth that had a significant Elven population; stranded there after the Empire faded in the east. This was an Ethian elven soldier – a very rare thing.

‘What are doing here?’ she asked

‘Deep undercover work’ he said, ‘all very hush, hush’  

‘Why did they choose you?’ she blurted out, immediately realising that this might be interpreted as a bit prejudiced, ‘I mean… why someone… from… Low Border?’

He seemed, once again, to be untroubled by any hidden meaning.

‘Who else but an elf would you send on a long term deep cover mission?’ he asked, ‘I’ve been here for some time’

Celia felt her face burning with embarrassment and a sense of her own foolishness. Fortunately she didn’t need to reply to this – her rescuers interrupted them. Archie and Binky came bustling up.

‘Sir!’ they said almost in unison, ‘Craig reports patrols nearby – time to move on…’

Jay nodded his agreement. He began to pack up his things.

It was only now that Celia realised that they were in a cave. They were close to the entrance, but it was undoubtedly a cave. She stared outside at a white world. They seemed to have wrapped her up in even more furs than she had had in Nux. That was a fortunate thing as she could feel that the air outside was bitterly cold.

The group that Captain Jay led was an incongruous one – the elven captain, his two lieutenants, a handful of standard-looking short, squat dwarfs and then perhaps half-a-dozen of the thin, slight, helper dwarves. Celia wanted to ask about them, but there was no time.  

Archie handed Celia a pack – stuck out of the top of it was a bedroll with the embroidered insignia of High Lord Raymond, the Supreme Power in the land, and the nominal command-in-chief of the Ethian army. It was so strange to see it here, but there was no time to ask any other questions. She picked up the pack and followed Archie out of the cave and into the hard, northern winter, sunshine.

 

They made their way across the white plain and rapidly found a sheltered path. They tracked alongside a frozen stream, surrounded on all sides by birch trees. This was evidently a well-trodden route for the group as they seemed to know every step of the way. Beyond the stream the landscape opened out and they sent three of the younger dwarves to check for enemies. All the time Archie and Binky were restless behind Captain Jay, but he insisted that they stayed with him. ‘I’m sorry about them, ma’am – they’re a little overeager’ he whispered to her at one point. All she could do in response was nod politely.

Celia soon learnt that elves and dwarves could move much faster than humans. She was puffed within a few minutes of them getting the all clear from the forward scouts. She also went very from very cold to sweltering hot in the same time period. Meanwhile the little group kept a tight formation over the hard ground with the Captain leading and Binky gently encouraging her along at the back. The helper dwarves, flimsy and wrapped up extravagantly, were sweeping along in the middle, making almost no noise.  

After about fifteen minutes of this progress they came to a ruin. The house was no more than a shell, covered on one side by a thick drift of snow. Celia wondered how this could possibly be a good place to hide.

Binky slipped through a gap in one of the walls and was gone for enough time for Celia to begin to worry. He returned, gave a very Ethian thumbs-up sign, and they all went inside, in steady single file.

The room must have once been a kitchen of some sort, but there was nothing there now except four crumbling walls and a floor of snow. In the middle of the floor, however, there was a trapdoor. Celia sighed with relief – there would be somewhere to rest for a while.

A narrow stepladder led down to a basement area. Old barrels had been pushed to one side to make room for a grid of mattresses. None of them were long enough for her, she noted.

‘This must have been a pub’ she said to Binky, who was still beside her.

He nodded sadly, ‘and a very fine one, too, I’m told’

‘What happened to it?’ she asked

‘Hive wars’ he whispered, ‘blighters get everything eventually’

Celia looked up at the hatchway in fear.

‘So, are you all that’s left?’

‘A few hundred in the remote places’ said Archie, from the top of the stepladder, ‘perhaps more in scattered settlements in the far south…’

‘It’s this Mammy’ explained Archie, ‘she doesn’t play fair’

Archie closed the hatch, taking great care that the seal let in no light. They were in darkness for a second and then the helpers lit the lamps.

Jay counted the members of his squad and then came over to where she was standing.

‘We need to talk’ he said.   

 

‘Who are you?’ he asked, once he had settled down on the floor next to her.

Celia had no intention of dissembling.

‘I’m Celia Franklin, a Hybitor council member. I was captured by your enemies, and they put this on me’

She held up her arm and shook it, so that the band was obvious. He stared at it uncertainly.

‘What’s that?’

‘An anti-magical device… It means that I can’t cast any spells’

He looked at it closely but didn’t touch it.

‘Have you had Binky look at this?’  

Celia frowned and shook her head.

‘There wasn’t time’

Jay stood up and walked over to get Binky. The dwarf was eager to investigate. He lugged over his bag of tools and opened it up. He took out a magnifying lens, rather like the sort that are used by jewellers when examining diamonds, and pushed it into his puckered eyelid. He then took out a small silver hammer and struck the band softly. He stared intently down at the band, and then shook his head.

‘What is it?’ she asked

Binky looked up at her with bright eyes.

‘Dwarven Magic’ he said, ‘it must be from their cache…’

‘What were you trying to do?’

Binky pulled the eye piece away from his eye. He smiled wryly.

‘I don’t really know. We only liberated these engineer’s tools recently; everything else has been rather guesswork…’

He pulled out a little booklet and showed her the front cover. It was Dwarven Magic – A Primer by KJ Fielding.

‘… the Captain managed to get this smuggled in from the University in Eth City, but I can’t make much sense of it. Some of it is a breeze, but some other bits are complete bunkum…’

  ‘It’s a tough subject’ agreed Celia, ‘I never really bothered with it when I was at ECU, but I’m happy to try to help you interpret it…’

Binky nodded eagerly. The Captain settled down next to them.

‘We’ll try to get you out of here as soon as we can; with or without removing the amulet’

If you remove the bloody amulet then you won’t see me for dust thought Celia, but then felt ashamed of her strong desire to cut and run. She knew that it was because she ached for Owen and she would do anything to get back to him. Love changed everything after all, she realised, but not always for the best.

‘Where are we now?’ she asked

‘We’re still deep in enemy territory…’ explained Jay ‘A few mile south west of Hyperborea. We can smuggle you down to one of the free ports and then get you on a boat to Seerport and home’

Celia murmured her thanks for this, but she felt confused. She needed a bit more information.

‘So – who exactly are the enemy?’ she asked

‘The Hive’

‘Where I was imprisoned, you mean?’

‘Yes. Something has happened to the city of Hyperborea that has changed their social structure. It’s like they are a wasp’s nest now, with a queen and workers and soldiers’

Celia considered this.

‘When did all of this happen?’ she asked

‘Hundreds of years ago’ said Binky who had finished packing away his tools.

Jay nodded vigorously. Celia wondered how long he’d been there; it could also have been several centuries.

‘We’ve been fighting them on and off for years’ Jay explained, ‘but they are so much more organised than the Free Dwarves, so bit by bit – they wear us down…’

Celia wondered why the government in Eth had been so interested for so long and also whether anyone in the coven knew what was going on. However, this wasn’t the time to ask these politically sensitive questions. They would have to wait until she could talk to the Ethian elf alone.

Celia took the Dwarven Magic primer from Binky; he was pleased to have someone else to try to make sense of it. After that, he wandered off to attend to his other duties. She found a corner of the cellar close to a light, sat down against the wall, and started to read.