Chapter twenty-seven

In Mammy’s Queen-cell

 

Celia had to catch Boo as she fell through the air; it was like a sharp slip catch made with a furry ball. Mammy was still beckoning her in and she was moving as slowly as she dared towards the entrance to Mammy’s silk-fringed boudoir. She wasn’t sure whether Mammy could really make out what was happening at first, given the strange half-light that they were in.

Boo could sense an enemy in a single sniff. She looked up at Mammy and didn’t like what she saw at all. She opened her mouth, perhaps with the intention of yelping or yapping, but instead she belched. The build-up of magic, perhaps at that point greater than she had ever accumulated before, turned the belch into a coruscating sheet of blue sparks. The thin mass of thaums careered into the silken wall of the queen cell and shredded them like a scythe through long grass. The smell of burning silk was horribly acrid and a pall of white smoke filled the area. Celia had no idea what to do – this could only surely make things worse,

Two strong hands grabbed her arms and she was bustled away. She dreaded what they were going to do with her now, but it could be no worse than her fear of stepping into the dwarf-queen’s lair. Her flesh still crawled from the thought of it.

The smoke cleared slowly as they careered along. Celia could finally make out who her captors were. They were two dwarves, as she had expected, but she could see immediately that they were not of Mammy’s clan. Hope sparked inside her again. 

The dwarves were as short as all of the other miners, but instead of the profusion of facial hair owned by every other miner she’d ever seen, these two sported handlebar moustaches but were otherwise shaven. The moustaches wouldn’t have looked out of place on some of her brother’s huntin’ and fishin’ friends. On dwarves they looked decidedly odd, but strangely becoming – they absolutely suited their faces. She had never seen two people with brighter eyes.

They let go of her arms. All around them there was a chaos of running hive dwarves, some carrying buckets, some running forward with weapons. For a moment no-one seemed to care about her or her new companions.

 ‘Who are you?’ asked Celia, wondering if she’d swapped the frying pan for the fire.

‘I’m Archibald MacDonald’ said one of them, ‘and this is Bryndon Menzies. You can call us Archie and Binky, if you want’

‘Everyone else does...’ added Binky.

They both bowed low, which meant that their long hair brushed against the floor. Celia was surprised to find that there was nothing comic about this; they somehow managed to make it look just right, in fact quite courtly, almost, one might say, elegant.

‘We’re with the resistance’ said Archie. Binky nodded like an eager puppy.

‘And we’ve come to get you out of here’ Archie continued.

‘Although...’ noted Binky, drily, ‘...that thing with the mammal weapon suggested that you might not need too much help’

‘Good thing you did that, in fact’ said Archie, laughing as they ran, ‘we had no idea what we were going to do next!’

‘Close our eyes and hope for the best... as usual’ said Binky.

They ducked into an empty birthing chamber. Binky stood guard at the entranceway while Archie slid back a large pot that covered up a trap door. He pulled up the hatch

‘This is the way down to the ventilation tunnels’ he explained, ‘usually its only air that moves around down there – so it should be safe. It’s fine for us but it may be a bit hairy for someone who has...’

He hesitated and his face coloured up slightly.

‘...someone who has a rather higher centre of gravity than we have...’

Celia really didn’t care. Anything was better than this hive. Within a few seconds all three had crawled through the trap door and escaped.

 

***

Archie shut the trapdoor. They were in a tiny cramped crawl way far too small for Celia to stand up in. She had to put Boo down on the ground and let her run ahead. Celia was reduced to crawling along on all fours. Binky gestured towards a leather bag that he was carrying.

‘We may have to carry the little mite in this...’ he murmured

Celia wondered whether this would work. She shook her head quizzically.

‘I don’t think she’ll like it in the bag...’

Archie had waited to push back the pot over the trap door above using a sliding lever that connected to the pot through a concealed slit. They all heard a click as it slid back into place. Archie lit a lamp and then hurried to catch up with the others. The light, which had been poor before, suddenly became slightly more bearable.

‘I think that little fella will have to go in the bag, you know...’ Archie said, redundantly, ‘...unless he has mountain goat affinities...it’s very... vertical’

Celia felt momentarily panicked – what about her lack of any mountain goat affinities? She tried not to think about that.

‘She’s some sort of tree shrew’ she mused, ‘so she may be fine...’

It was clear that neither of the dwarves had any idea what a tree shrew was.

‘Climbs around in trees in hot wet places’ she explained

‘Jolly good’ said Archie, ‘we’ll just let her run ahead then, shall we?’

‘Not too far ahead’ insisted Celia

The dwarves nodded.

‘We’ll keep a beady eye on her’ said Binky, who was in the front and in the best position to do that.

They moved slowly along the corridor, Boo running backwards and forwards, happy to be awake again. The dwarves moved patiently with Celia, who wasn’t at all used to crawling around anywhere.

‘Where are we now?’ she asked

‘Service tunnel’ answered Archie, ‘allows access to the ventilation conduits. Very useful when making a raid, you know’

Celia was astonished by their accents. They really did sound just like her brother’s poshest friends. She wanted to blurt out how on earth did you end up speaking like that? But she knew that this was neither the time nor the place.

The corridor was no more than a few tens of feet long. After that it opened up into a windy void. She could feel the air currents blowing as they approached the opening; it felt like a howling gale to her.

‘How does this work?’ she asked, tentatively sticking her head out of the service tunnel. They had now reached the exit together. Boo nestled against Celia’s legs.

‘Ask Binky – he’s more the technical chap...’ said Archie

Binky stroked his moustache. He nodded meaningfully down the ventilation tunnel.

‘It’s a cyclic air pulse generator with a double vent manifold, largely designed to transport hot air and respiratory products...’

Archie interrupted the flow. His voice was commanding but not at all irritated.

‘Binks, you old blatherer...  remember what we’re always chatting about... do try to keep it simple...’

A flicker of irritation did no more than stroke Binky’s face. He recalibrated rapidly.

‘There’s a bloody big magical pump down there that circulates air around the hive so that heat is taken away and so it doesn’t get too stuffy...’

‘...And we can climb down the shaft to the bottom and get out through the vents...’ continued Archie

Celia had been putting off looking down, but now she had no choice. Below her was a long curved wall with narrow steps carved into it. The way down was the steepest thing she had ever seen that wasn’t quite a cliff. The steps would have been better as a long ladder, she thought, but she’d give them a go – going back was impossible.

Archie lowered himself down, his leather bag strapped to his back. As soon as he hit the first step he began a fluid motion forward and down each step, more rolling than walking, a mixture of feet and hands. Boo scampered down after him. For her the steps were, if anything, a bit too broad.

Celia sighed – she had no idea how she was going to walk down the steps. She stared down at her feet; they looked enormous. She dangled  a foot over the lip of the service tunnel and then put it down, experimentally, on to the first step. Her foot just straddled the width of the step. She put the other foot down, just as tentatively, and then she was standing on the step. To her it felt much more like a ledge. A voice came from behind her.

‘I wonder if you could possibly move a little faster...’ asked Binky

Celia was irritated by this; couldn’t he see what problems she was having? She turned her head and snapped ‘Why?’ at him.

He bobbed his head apologetically.

‘Because there’s a group of people just behind us, probably trying to catch us’

Celia forgot about the narrowness of the stairs and the height of the staircase. She clattered down the stairs as fast as she could manage. She couldn’t even bear to look back. The idea of returning to the hive was too terrifying to even consider.

Archie came back up the steps a little way.

‘Come on past me...’ he suggested to Celia. His voice was still calm.

Celia was happy to comply; she squeezed her way past the dwarf. A few steps on past him, though, she turned round, briefly forgetting that she would not be able to zap any of their pursuers. Up above them, on the part of the staircase beyond their entrance tunnel more than a dozen of the pale helper dwarves were running down the stairs on impossibly nimble feet. They had looked creepy before but now they looked both creepy and scary. Celia shivered.

Binky hadn’t moved at all and was watching the incoming force with apparent fascination. He looked back.

‘We’ll never outrun them, Arch’ he commented

Archie nodded his head. Neither of them seemed particularly worried. Binky slipped his bag off his back and fumbled around it in. He pulled out a slender green rod, about six inches long, with three prongs on the end of it. It looked like an unwieldy fork.

‘What’s that?’ shouted Celia, as desperate to run as she was to puzzle out what was happening.

Binky shrugged. He looked down at the misshapen fork. His tone was that of a fisherman trying out a new fly.

‘I have no idea – I’ve never used it before...It was in the box marked “ranged weapons” though, so I thought – worth a flutter...’

‘What box?’ asked Celia, but she knew that there’d be no answer yet.

By the time Binky turned to face their enemies they were no more than fifteen steps above him. He pointed the fork at the nearest helper and squeezed something at its base, A green shoot, like the tendril of a honeysuckle, shot out of each prong of the fork, hit the helper and entangled her in an extravagant mess of green coils. She fell to the ground gasping. The helper behind tried to push past her, but this seemed to provoke the coils, which produced yet more growths. These wrapped round the second helper, then the third. Soon they could see nothing above them except a strange green thicket with the occasional arm or leg sticking out of it.

Binky relaxed his grip on the fork. Archie walked up to meet him. The two moustachioed dwarves stood admiring Binky’s work.

‘That’s a rather marvellous one, Binks, we’ll put that in the ‘use again’ pile...’

Binky nodded. 

‘Yes, indeed; quite useful’

The thicket began to writhe as the trapped helpers struggled to get free. The bonds were strong but clearly not unbreakable.

‘Can we run away now?’ asked Celia, tottering a few steps below them.

Archie and Binky looked at her as if seeing her for the first time.

‘Civilian non-combatant...’ murmured Archie, ‘...need to get her away pronto’

Binky nodded. Then they were off; skittering all the way down to the bottom of the stairs. Celia was swept along by their relentless forward motion. Suddenly the steps didn’t seem too tricky at all.