The hours passed, or perhaps it was days. It was hard to tell how time
was progressing in the dark cupboard. For a long while no-one came near her and
she could catch nothing more than a few snatches of conversation among her
guards. They seemed unsure as to what to do with her; although every now and
then they would knock on the door – apparently to check that she was still
alive. She tried to talk to them then but they didn’t respond. Once they opened
the door a crack and pushed through a half loaf of bread, a jug of water and a
bucket. They didn’t seem to be very experienced jailors, which cheered Kath up
a little. It was also clear that they were waiting for orders from their
superiors. Their voices came and went in the dark until she was so used to them
that they became just background noise. She waited – and hoped, although for
what she did not know. She lay against the wall of the cupboard and imagined
that she was back in her cosy little study at ECU[1]
and that helped a little. She was cold, miserable and felt ashamed of her
stupidity.
Something fluttered down in the darkness. For a horrible second Kath
thought it was some sort of insect – she’d always hated moths, particularly in the
dark. She put her hand out to fend it off but then she realised it was made of
paper. Then she knew exactly what it was; but trapped in the dark she had no
hope of being able to read it. She carried it to the very edge of her little
cell and tried to read it by the tiny light that crept under the door frame. It
was impossible and she had no other source of illumination. She crumpled on to
the floor; was this from Viola? And what use was it if she was blind? Perhaps
when they opened the door she could read it then? But if she did try to read it
wouldn’t they see it and take it from her? It might say anything and she really
didn’t want it to fall into their hands. She rapidly realised that there was
only one thing to do with it – send it back. She waited as long as she could,
hoping for some miracle burst of light, but then, fearing that she would be fed
soon, she acted.
She bit as hard as she could on the end
of her little finger. The pain was sharp and she had to suppress a moan. She
put her finger up to her face and was ghoulishly pleased to feel the blood
oozing from it. She pulled the crumpled paper out of her pocket with her clean
left hand and flattened it on the floor.
She couldn’t see a thing and so it was a struggle to write anything with
her bloody finger. All she managed was a single word scrawled across some
uncertain part of the already fragmented paper. She just hoped it would work
again; the mail paper fabric became frayed after multiple translocations. She
tapped the paper three times with her left hand and waited. A few agonising
seconds later there was a faint smell of sulphur and the mail paper was gone.
All that was left behind was the painful throb of her injured finger.
Once the pain had subsided there was nothing to do but doze, bobbing fitfully
in and out of sleep. She had a recurrent
dream where she was looking for Viola in all sorts of places – on moors and in
forests, in hamlets and cities, along dark corridors but when she found her she
was always dying; slumped on the floor with a wound in her chest. And she was
always trying to tell her something. Kath would kneel by her and try to catch
what she was saying, but it would always be too quiet to hear.
After a while she forced herself to stay
awake, listening for any sound that might give her a clue about what the elf
guards were doing. For a long time she heard nothing. Then there was a soft
female voice outside the door – she could only just hear it. The voice was addressing
her. It spoke the Old Tongue perfectly, as if an actor in an antique play, but
with a sibilance that was not entirely humanoid. She had heard this sort of
voice briefly before, in another moment of extremis.
She stood and shuffled close to the voice, navigating by the tiny rectangular
strip of light around the door.
‘Naga’
she whispered, ‘I am not your enemy...’
There was a moment of silence.
‘Who are you then?’ asked the naga
‘I’m Katherine Fielding – I want to help
you...’
There was more silence, but when the
naga spoke again Kath was certain that there was amusement in her voice.
‘How could you possibly help me?’
‘I know about the primes... I know that
you must guard one. I know that this city is one of the Eopoli and that it was called Anthemodendropolis
by the Architects ’
‘What of it? You know then what the enemy knows.
That is no reason to trust you’
‘I have seen another naga – the one that was known
as three-of-nine’
Kath could hear the snake-elf pull the bolt on the
cupboard door back. The door opened a crack. The naga’s elf-form face was now
just visible as she brought it as close as she could to Kath’s face.
‘How could you have seen her?’
‘In Klethropolis – she was destroyed – by the enemy
named Bea’
‘How do you know this?’
‘Because I saw it with my own eyes’
There was a moment when the naga considered this.
She seemed to accept that it must be true.
‘And what has happened since? Have there been reports
of strange perturbations of time and space, of flux and matter?’
Kath’s heart jolted. What did the serpent mean by
that?
‘Not that I have heard...’
The snake-elf stopped for another moment. Her head
disappeared from Kath’s view and then immediately reappeared.
‘Why were you at Klethropolis?’ she asked
‘I was there with Major Viola Ortiensis of the
Imperial army’
The
snake-elf’s forehead furrowed.
‘The Lady Iona is known to us...’
Kath was confused for a moment – and
then she realised ‘ιωνα’ was Archaic
Eleven for the Visneorian name ‘Viola’ – they both referred to the brief blue
spring flower.
‘How do you know Viola?’ she asked
‘I do not know her, but I was instructed
about her...’
‘But why – why were you instructed?’
‘If
you do not know then I am not permitted to tell you...’
‘But not even Viola knows...’
‘In which case, sadly, I am not
permitted to tell her either’
Kath decided that she had reached a dead
end.
‘Who are my captors?’ she asked, ‘are
they working for you?’
Seven-of-nine shook her head
‘They are intruders from Helios; the
Basilieus’s troops. I do not know why they are here.’
‘Can’t they see you now?’
The naga shook her head. ‘
Only one of them is here and he has
drunk too much wine. He would not notice me even if I were encircling him in my
coils...’
Kath grasped at sudden hope.
‘You can help me escape, then...’
The naga shook her head.
‘I have not revealed myself to them...
And I do not want to. I assume that they know I am here, but I stay safe behind
my portal. Also, I have no idea why they have imprisoned you – perhaps they
have some good reason. And I am under instruction never to interfere in the
general life of the world – I am here only to guard the prime’
Kath was reduced to pleading.
‘Please help me...’
The naga’s face was briefly troubled. ‘I
cannot help you, I am sorry...’ she whispered and turned away. Kath rushed to
push at the closing door, but the snake-elf was stronger than she. She heard
the bolt slide back.
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