When the next mail paper arrived it was a ghastly thing, a message written
in blood. At first it was hard to decipher as its single word was spread across
the whole of the scrap of paper. It was clearly the eighth of a mail paper that
Kath had sent her original message on. Finally she got it. Naga – that was all it said. She stared at the paper, but it was
already crumbling away; it seemed that its third transit through magical space
had done for it. She wasn’t sad to see it go: it had made her flesh crawl.
Whose blood was it? Her first assumption
had been Kath’s but why would she write in blood? Could it be that someone was
torturing her and had forced her to write in her own blood? If so, why write that word of all words?
She paced round the deck trying to make
sense of the message. Could a naga be
torturing her? That seemed extremely unlikely given what she knew about nagas.
She stopped for a moment to try to calm her mind. She went back to her lonely
bench and forced herself to stare out at the now very distant pines.
She put to one side mad theories about
death-cult snake-elves and tried to think of why a person would write something
in blood. To scare someone she
thought, but it wasn’t an obviously terrifying message. So, for what other
reason would one do it? Her hand involuntarily grasped the blue laundry pencil
in her jacket pocket. Because there was
nothing else to write with, that’s why. So that deduction and the word she
had written pointed to a strong possibility: that she was with the naga in
Kinspit, but somehow stuck there. And, given that there were undoubtedly
numerous writing implements in the Exotic Stack Room it looked likely that she
had been imprisoned, by the naga or someone else. She had to get a message to
John and Laurence immediately to tell them where they might look for her.
She cursed the timing of the mail papers;
just a few hours earlier and she would have been able to send the information
back immediately, but now, who knew how long it would be before another mail
paper arrived.
Time, which had crawled before, now
seemed to stop altogether. She racked her brain to think of others ways to get
a message to Laurence, but none of the conventional methods seemed possible on
this wide, monotonous river. She even
considered what she might do with the magical shrew-like creature still
sleeping in her little basket. If the creature had moved instantaneously
through space once, couldn’t she do it again? Viola sat and watched her little
furry form for a long time, but she had nothing to go on. She had no idea what
on earth it was or where it had come from. She placed her hand gently on the
sleeping mammal’s head, half hoping that this would give her some clue.
She still had problems remembering the
details of when the little creature had come to her. It had almost been like it
was in a dream. She tried to reconstruct the events – first she had chased
after Bea back into Ith’s chamber; then there had been a confrontation over
Ith. Then Bea had cast a spell that had
sealed her in a box. And then... she had fallen asleep and dreamed – presumably
because sleep-inducement was an effect of the spell. So, it was a dream – there
had been a blonde-haired witch, a tall woman standing next to the box. Viola
struggled to remember exact details, searching inside her head for the
fragments of the dream. It was like trying to catch a hummingbird. A suspicion
began to grow inside her – perhaps the reason that she couldn’t remember the
dreams was because they were being blocked or interfered with. Ophia’s dreams
had a habit of being elusive but they were all stored up in there somewhere –
she had always guessed that that was how she knew how to open so many doors and
trigger so many Dwarven Magic objects. These other dreams, however, were more
than that; these were actively flitting from her – accidental inhabitants eager
to escape.
She concentrated just on the moment with
the blonde woman. Sweat broke out on her forehead. She put her hand up to her
head. It began to throb as she forced the dream to hover in her mind: stay still little dream. The woman had
tried to help her; she had broken the box with her fists... Viola wasn’t sure
how that could be possible, but she was certain that she had done it. Only magic
could break the box and that reasoning must be why she had been assuming that
the woman was a witch. She knew that only one witch could hope to counter
another. A witch as powerful as Bea, though: who could that be? She realised
that neither John nor Laurence had told her who any of the other members of
their coven were. Prudent behaviour she was sure but irritating right now.
And, what had happened after that down
in Ith’s cave? Bea had tried to kill her with some sort of dreadful force spell
– she could remember it coming towards her, like a rock at the head of an
avalanche. She was sure she would die, but then this strange shrew-like creature
had appeared and absorbed the spell energy. That was how she had been saved. There must be some connection between the
blonde witch and the little mammal she thought, but I have no idea what on earth it could be.
Her head was now hurting too much to
carry on thinking. The little dream birds flew back to their dark perches. She
sighed. The hand that still sat on top of the creature began to stroke her fur.
Viola smiled down at her unexpected pet. She was a bit of comfort in her lonely
journey – it was nice to have some company, even if all she ever did was sleep.
Boo woke, looked up at Viola and belched
a cloud of green sparks. She licked Viola’s hand gratefully and then blinked
away. Her mistress was in Skiophos again and so now it was time to go back to
her.
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