Chapter sixty-eight

The Trilithon at Hipparia

 

They walked in silence.  It wasn’t a very long walk, perhaps taking no more than two hours, through the woods that bordered the town to the south, but it required several stops so that the Archon could find secret ways and magically hidden paths. At some of these places John was fairly sure that he had seen unidentifiable creatures of the forest, dressed in green and brown but of uncertain size and shape, retreat before them. He couldn’t ask the Archon what they were; he feared that if he said anything else then the ancient, irascible, elf would simply leave him there, stuck in a labyrinth of oaks. He plodded on, taking in as much of the surroundings as he could.

Eventually the path climbed up a hill and the trees became more scattered. After that, the track opened up into an area of grassland, climbing some distance above the forest. When they had left the Archon’s buildings the sun had been shining strongly and during the walk through the forest the sunlight had constantly dappled the floor where there were gaps in the canopy. Somehow, however, the sun had disappeared by the time they had climbed into the open, and it was several degrees cooler. John also noticed that the scattered trees that were clinging to the slopes of the hill all had russet brown leaves upon them, some of which were falling. It seemed that he had walked out of summer into autumn.

The path levelled off and in front of him he could make out, in the gloom, a massive rock structure on the centre of the hill.  It was a trilithon – a three stone structure made of two upright stones with a stone lying on its side balanced across them. It was very big, but that wasn’t the most striking thing about it: in the centre of the trilithon was an intense blue sphere. The sphere was visible from far further away than the structure within which it sat, and it was a familiar blue; it was the blue of the disc, the ray and the place from which he had teleported. He broke into a sweat, although he had half-suspected that this would be what he would have to travel through.

They walked on until the blue seemed to perfuse everything and the real world became blurry and indistinct. The Archon stopped a hundred yards away from the trilithon. He turned to look at John. They were both starkly outlined in the blue light.

‘Welcome to the Helios Portal to the Folds’ said the Archon. He waited to allow John to stare into the sphere. John remembered the endless vertigo of the blue clouds with things swimming in it and shuddered. In response, the Archon grinned broadly, his rheumy eyes almost twinkling.

‘A bit scary isn’t it?’ he said.

‘This is the only way through the Outer Void’ the Archon continued, ‘here is the weakness of the worlds, the one place where a way can be picked through the chaos that sunders  two of the parts of the Triple World’

John said nothing. He had decided to wait as long as he could bear before he spoke.

 ‘The way is reserved for the Elves of the Twin Worlds, those of us that are permitted to live in both realms. We are few and becoming fewer. Your Gods do not approve of us and they aim to disrupt us at all times. But, nonetheless, we keep the link intact, we make contact possible’

The Archon stopped and looked at John.

‘Do you understand, Human?’ he asked

John nodded emphatically but still said nothing.

‘The Folds are usually safe to pass through as long as the route is certain. However, there have been strange shifts in the Void and now the way has become unclear. The risks involved in such a journey are very large, I am afraid.’

The Archon stared at John again, waiting for some reaction.

‘Do you have no questions, human?’ he asked, ‘you seemed excessively full of them before’

John watched the pulsing blue of the gateway. He knew that he was staring into another universe. His heart was filled with terror and wonder.

‘How will I find the path?’ he asked

The Archon smiled.

‘At last – you ask a good question; I will show you’

The Archon walked slowly towards the trilithon, and John followed. As they got closer John could see that the portal entrance shifted and wavered, as if at any one time there were a number of corridors to choose from, each one like a tunnel in the fabric of space. He had no idea which one would be best to choose.

‘Somewhere in your mind you know the way, like a swallow migrating back to its winter home. You have to trust yourself. However, one error can trap you in the Folds forever and eventually they will find you’

John looked up at the Archon, eyes wide with apprehension.

‘Who are ‘they’?’

‘The creatures of the Outer Void – they love the energies from our dimension – they love to feed on the exotic plasma at the edge of their existence – and they particularly love the psychic energies from sapient beings’

John was now shivering from cold and fear.

The Archon began to walk away from him – he was clearly not intending to give him the option to return to Helios with him.

After about ten steps the Archon turned to say a final word.

‘Stay on the path, Ismay of the Hybitor, and you will get home’ he said, ‘and keep your mouth shut more often – you’re a lot easier to deal with when you’re not blabbering’

Despite this admonishment, John tried one more question.

‘What are the Triple Worlds?’  

The Archon rolled his eyes.

‘You really don’t know do you!’ he sighed ‘It’s easily told – Helios, Nux and Skiophos:  daylight, night and twilight in your vulgar tongue.  Now I must go, I have far more important things to do than to educate barbarians’

The Archon turned around abruptly and then returned to his plodding walk. He had soon made his way down the hill far enough to be beyond John’s sight.  John turned back to the Trilithon and stared into the depths of the strange blue world.

 

***

John knew that he could probably run and catch up with the Archon if he made his way back soon. He knew, too, that the Archon would probably, even if reluctantly, take him back to Hipparia too. But he imagined the walk back, each heavy step taking him further away from his home. If he went back now he sensed that he would never be able to return. 

By the time John had had those thoughts, however, he knew that it was too late anyway. The Archon would have climbed back into the secret ways of the forest by now. He was trapped.

The gateway had a single path that lead into a matrix of shimmering ways that appeared and reappeared in an unpredictable fashion. Each pathway was different from every other, mostly distinguished by breadth and hue, but there was no obvious way of choosing between them.

John stepped back from the entrance of the portal. He’d at least try one thing before he resorted to instinct.

He sat on a rock and concentrated on a spell. He had in mind to cast a simple orientation spell, which would normally allow him to find his way to a particular destination. It was unlikely to work but still worth a try. He picked up three twigs from the base of a nearby tree and formed an arrow with them. He chanted ‘llwybr’  and the crude arrow rose in the air and rotated until it pointed to the trilithon. John got up and walked in that direction and the arrow floated in front of him, showing the way. He approached to just in front of the entrance path and the arrow drifted into it. As it entered the portal the arrow collapsed, the three twigs dropping to the floor. To his horror the twigs began to move slowly outwards into the Folds, each twig being channelled off into a different direction, like logs floating in a delta. Presumably the same would happen to him if he didn’t keep moving.   Ortia and Laurence were in deadly danger – there was no way that he could give up now.

He racked his brains for a while, wondering what else he could do, but at the back of his mind he knew that this was just procrastination. There was no other way, he had to try and work out how to find a path through.

He stepped through the entrance way. This bit was easy. As he entered The Folds he could feel a force pushing him on towards where the paths multiplied. His body also seemed lighter than in the normal world and so the force pushed him harder. He tried to walk backwards and found that he could stay in one place, with some effort. Anyway, he didn’t intend to go back. 

He allowed the force to push him towards the multiplicity of ways. The alternative pathways flickered in front of his eyes. He left all thought behind and made a choice. He stepped into the gap between the worlds.

Chapter sixty-nine

Quiena’s Vault at Melloreis

 

‘You’re bonkers’ said Kath, ‘there’s no way we can get into there’

Viola was being very insistent. Kath and she had been arguing for quite a while, ever since Viola had told them about her dream.

‘You’re absolutely certain that the dream was a message, Captain?’ asked Hardacre.

Rem held up some green leaves.

‘These the sleeping herbs – will often cause bad dreams’

‘Yes, hallucinations…’ murmured Hardacre.

‘Quiena spoke to me’ Viola insisted defiantly, ‘I know’

 ‘How can you possible know?’ asked Kath

‘I can feel it’ said Viola, ‘I know that I am right’

Potentilla sat on the vault floor eagerly paying attention, but not saying anything.  Only she and Fred were sitting, the others were on their feet, deeply engaged in the discussion.

‘Dreams can be useful pointers to action, I’m sure’ said Hardacre, ‘but your proposed actions seem very unlikely to succeed’

Viola, who was able to remain on her feet only because she’d propped herself up with her sword, was red in the face and desperate. Kath was standing bolt upright, her hands on her hips

‘I’ll sneak up – they won’t even see that I’m there’ she said loudly.

Kath stared at her.

‘How will you sneak? You can barely walk’ she said.

‘My spying skills are still the best of everyone here’ insisted Viola

‘Maybe’ said Kath vehemently, ‘but your dying skills are just about at the same level as the rest of us’

 Hardacre put his hand up to quieten things. The two arguing friends were briefly silent.

‘How can you be so sure that is was Quiena?’ He asked.

‘She was a southern elf, just as we remember her in Ortia, and she spoke in perfect Archaic Elven, a language of which I only have a very primitive knowledge’

‘Or so it seemed in the dream’ said Kath, ‘you can’t be certain that that wasn’t just your mind playing tricks on you’

‘Quiena was telling me to sound the bell’ said Viola

Hardacre allowed himself a half-frown. His voice had the character of someone picking their way through a field of broken glass.

‘I can’t see how it can be done. They’ll probably have guards posted twenty thick behind the vault door’

‘But it was a message – I’m sure it was’ muttered Viola, beginning to sag with the emotional effort.

‘Of course, herb used by seers, at times’ said Rem, still holding up the plants ‘they say use to see things beyond. But I not trust seers much…  Just saying’

‘I don’t believe it’ said Kath, frowning and shaking her head,  ‘I’m sorry Vee’

‘I don’t think it can be done’ agreed Hardacre, ‘although I do not doubt at all what you saw. If Quiena was telling us something, it might be too late to act upon it’

Viola took a step back from all of them, as if repelled.

‘So, your plan is that we just rot in here is it?’

‘No – we’re still trying to fix the Autelephas and Mr Ismay may have got my message. There’s still hope’

Kath nodded at this, slightly unconvincingly. She had spent the last several hours tinkering with the automaton and she had found several things that needed adjusting or mending.  However, without the scroll it was pretty certain that the thing would never work.

Viola sat down; she started rubbing her foot. She hadn’t given up but standing had become unbearable.

‘How are you going to get Mr Ismay in here, anyway?’ she asked, ‘we already know that he can’t teleport into the Vault and if he teleports randomly into Melloreis then however powerful he is he’ll eventually be killed. Maybe if I can get into the Bell Tower I might find that it’s a better bolt hole for us’

‘In theory…’ said Hardacre, ‘…perhaps…’

‘…but not in reality, I suspect…’ said Kath, ‘unfortunately…’

Potentilla stood up and turned to address Hardacre.

‘Can’t you turn her invisible?’ she asked.

Hardacre was taken aback – he found direct references to his spell abilities very discomfiting.  He was slow to respond.

‘Well, yes’ he replied eventually, ‘I suppose that I could. But why would I?’

‘So she’s not seen by the Tlaxacans’ said Potentilla

‘How’s that going to help?’ grumbled Fred

‘Yes, what on earth would that achieve, Tillie?’ muttered Kath

Fred and Kath shared a look that told them that they both had the same sort of feelings about Potentilla.

‘Then she can sneak past them’ persisted Potentilla.

Hardacre was momentarily lost for words.

‘They’ll still be able to feel her!’ said Kath, ‘Laurence can’t cast an immaterial spell, if any such thing exists’

Hardacre shook his head.

‘Sadly that’s true, as Dr Fielding said. I’m not sure that any such thing does exist’

Potentilla wasn’t put off at all.

‘So we clear a path for her’ she suggested, ‘we open the door, make the guards run away and then Viola sneaks past them. Once she’s up on the surface she’ll be able to get to the Bell Tower easily’

 ‘How would we clear the stairs?’ asked Kath

‘A stink bomb, perhaps’ suggested Fred sceptically.

‘What that?’ asked Rem

‘Something that you throw in a room and smells so disgusting that everyone has to leave’ explained Fred

‘Like powdered stinky mushroom, you mean?’ asked Rem vaguely

‘What are you talking about, Rem?’ demanded Kath

‘Mushroom that grows like male organ, smell like rotting flesh. Concentrate into powder, add water, or even better burn, smell sure to empty room’ Rem laughed as if remembering something.

‘Ah, a sort of stinkhorn’ said Hardacre, slowly being sucked into this conversation despite his misgivings, ‘that is an interesting idea. That fungus really does have a disgusting smell. Do you have some with you, Master Healer?’

Rem nodded.

‘I carry many things, most of them of no probable use. That thing good against rat bite’ he said, ‘I don’t have much though’

‘Enough for the stairwell?’ asked Potentilla eagerly.

‘I do not know, It very strong though’ said Rem

Kath stared at Hardacre, unbelieving.

‘So, we could open the door a crack, get the stink bomb into the stairwell and then Viola could sneak out’ Potentilla explained

‘Honestly, Tillie, this is a bit stupid’… said Kath

‘How would we get it into the middle of the stairwell?’ asked Hardacre a little more reasonably.

Potentilla reached for her bow.

‘Leave that to me…’ she said

***

 

‘How long will I be invisible for?’ asked Viola. She was ready to go.

‘Twenty minutes at the most’ said Hardacre, ‘that’s very little time’

‘Enough time, though’ said Viola weakly

‘You’ll know when it’s running out’ said Hardacre, ‘you’ll start to flicker’

‘They’ll know too...’ pointed out Kath

Potentilla had attached a small bag containing the powdered stinkhorn to one of her arrows. The bag had been dipped in lamp oil and Rem held a lit taper to set fire to it at the crucial moment.

Fred and Kath still couldn’t believe what was happening. They felt betrayed by their fellow Ethian into utter folly. 

‘How is she going to walk?’ muttered Kath, as a final shot.

‘I can walk well enough’ said Viola.

Fred made a sour face.

‘What can we do if she sodding well wants to kill herself?’

Rem had smeared her foot with a special root that reduced the pain but in some ways this had made it harder to walk as she now had very little feeling in it. Hardacre had insisted that she prove that she really could walk a reasonable distance, asking her to walk five times round the perimeter of the Vault. She hadn’t exactly passed with flying colours but they all agreed that she could just about do it.

They had a long discussion about the need for Kath’s rod, but Viola insisted that she knew how to get into the tower without it and anyway Kath was equally insistent that she wasn’t going to let the rod out of her sight.

Hardacre prepared to cast his spell. 

 ‘Once you start to flicker, you must come straight back’ he insisted, ‘and bang as hard as you can on the door when you return’

Kath looked sceptically at the door, but didn’t say anything.  She lifted up the rod and prepared to open the door.

Hardacre put both of his hands on the top of Viola’s head. Viola half crouched, with her eyes closed. She was breathing very heavily.

‘ddifanna’ chanted Hardacre.

Viola began to fade, slowly and uniformly – she was like an art exhibition. First she was rendered in water colours, then in sepia, then black and white, and finally as the most preliminary of charcoal sketches. Then she was gone.

Kath summoned up the musical triad from the door. After a brief pause it swung open. The midday sun poured into the vault. Six human guards stood in the pool of sunlight that now connected the two groups of enemies; they were armed with scimitars and dressed in white armour. They turned and shouted in their harsh tongue.

Potentilla shot the arrow with its burning payload into the centre of the group, purposely missing all of them. It landed flat on the ground, there was a little fizz and then the stairwell filled with a smell like a hundred rotting carcasses. Everyone coughed violently and reached for their throats and mouths – the guards staggered back behind the arrow and up the stairs. By now the smell was so horrible, even inside the vault, that Kath pushed the door closed reflexively, without waiting to check if Viola had left the vault. Fortunately, she had.

Chapter seventy

The Siege of Ortia

 

They came again – the desperate hordes of spindly misshapen creatures appeared from over the horizon and engulfed the landscape. The noise – a cacophony of shrieks, shouts and stomping feet – was loud beyond bearing. They were herded by groups of humans dressed in white armour that shepherded them to where they could eat. Everywhere surrounding Ortia was shattered – many who could not flee were torn apart and fed upon. The kinaam were like as an endless herd of pigs that could eat anything – flesh, blood, bone, crops and timber. There must have been more than a million across the entire plain and more came pouring in.

As soon as there was any advance warning of the invasion Perclivius had pulled almost everyone back into the city. He knew that any rear-guard action was essentially pointless; it became entirely a matter of the survival of the ancient city walls. As they retreated, defining the edge of a box of desperately fleeing refugees, the soldiers burned everything; they knew that nothing would ever survive the onslaught. By the time the troops had retreated finally into the city the air was filled with the smell of blood, burning flesh and smoke. The armour-clad humans in every Tlaxacan group stood in the burning remains and danced a grim, black, dance of death, clanging their shields against their swords, each one standing on a pile of bodies. They cared not if the corpses were enemies or friends. 

Perclivius arranged for the old iron cauldrons to be filled with burning tar and twelve of them were set up around the walls. Every half an hour or so they were tipped over the side and hundreds of kinaam were fried alive.  Meanwhile, the archers held their fire for any human who strayed near; they did not waste their fire on the kinaam.  The old hands in the Ortian army could remember all this from nine hundred years ago and they resumed their stations without satisfaction, but with a degree of quiet pride in their resilience. 

Perclivius was happy with the result of the first assault, he felt that it had been handled as well as could be expected. Now it was time to go away and devise new ways to facilitate the mass slaughter of the enemy. The elves are rarely a bloody-thirsty species but for the Tlaxacans, they made an honourable and reasonable exception. They had never shown the elves any mercy, so the elves had little choice but to reciprocate with equal hatred.  The main subsidiary beneficiaries were the giant kites, who circled in ever larger numbers and waited patiently for each day’s fresh supplies of carrion. Even the desert vultures, habitually hunting for camel meat far to the south, were spotted in the whirling thermals.  

 

***

Aurelian sat patiently while Marthian washed his face with a large towelling cloth. He had cuts on his cheek and two black eyes. His beard was caked with congealed blood. She tended to him as he sat on her big proconsular chair and she sat opposite him on a small wooden bench. Her face was still and pale.

‘They beat you up’

Aurelian sighed.

‘Of course they did. It’s soldiers’ stuff’

‘Of course – that’s how grown up soldiers act’

‘Let it go, Marth’ said Aurelian, wearily, ‘I’m still alive’

 ‘Perclivius must have had a good reason for that – too popular to kill outright, I assume. Unlike me…’

Aurelian said nothing to this. He was happy to be in the light and healing.

‘I can’t believe that Julia acted’ he said, ‘I really can’t’

Marthian’s face warmed up a few degrees.

‘Well, we should both be grateful that she did’

‘But why did she?’ asked Aurelian, a blood and water mixture dripping from his chin on to the Proconsular floorboards.

‘The Lady panicked’

Aurelian looked up at her to see if she was being serious. He couldn’t tell.

‘That’s my guess, anyway’ said Marthian, ‘after our conversation Julia went back to the Lady and was told very firmly that she had to act’

‘What conversation?’

‘One I had with her yesterday, a very unsatisfactory one’

‘So, she came up here and rattled some feathers’

Marthian laughed, despite herself.

‘”rattled feathers” darling? I wouldn’t hold out for that speechwriter’s job’

Aurelian hated it when this happened, even under these circumstances.

‘Ruffled’ he mumbled and glared. Marthian forced herself to stop grinning. 

‘Anyway’ he said sternly, ‘she sorted it all out’

Marthian nodded. She had no intention of describing to Aurelian exactly what had happened.

‘We went from aristocracy to theocracy via gerontocracy in just two days. Expect an avalanche of political historians – as soon as the roads clear’ she said.

‘Dictator’ said Aurelian, ‘that was a surprise’

‘Not really; the City has a traditional right to appoint one, but I think that was more Julia panic’

Aurelian looked a bit shocked.

‘Are you a bit disappointed that she didn’t choose you, darling?’ asked Marthian dead pan.

Aurelian growled. 

‘Keep cleaning Marth, I think your brain needs a rest’

Marthian completed his clean up and gently probed all of the sore bits. She kissed his two bruised eyes, lingering on each one.

‘Poor thing’ she said.

He squirmed a little but didn’t pull away at all. She looked quizzically at the black smudges.

‘Steak’ she said, ‘is that what’s needed for black eyes?’

‘Forget the black eyes’ he said, smiling, ‘we need to work out what to do next’

Marthian reluctantly moved away from her ministrations.

‘Let’s start by swapping seats’ she said.

 

After an hour of bittersweet disputation, Citizens Marthian and Aurelian had completed their bilateral discussions. The newly re-appointed Proconsul of Ortia had gathered together those of her staff that she could find – some of them had been rescued from the Citizen Perclivius’s dungeon – for a more traditional meeting. It was at this point that Marthian realised just how much she missed Viola.  She resisted, however, worrying about her – she had enough concerns just inside the City walls.

Gaius had been induced to return as Aurelian’s aide-de-camp. He had required some persuading as it wasn’t clear what role Aurelian would have, particularly as there was no sign that Marthian would talk directly to Perclivius or vice-a-versa. Gaius was rather concerned about names and etiquette. 

‘Does it matter what I’m called?’ asked Aurelian, ‘I really want to fight’

‘Fight?’ exclaimed Marthian, repeating in committee what she had already said in camera ‘aren’t we all fighting now? We’re under siege’

Aurelian shook his head.

‘Fight, directly, I mean’ he explained, ‘at the city wall’

‘In other words, fight for Perclivius’

‘For Ortia – not for him’

‘As you want it’ she said, sadly, ‘I guess that you’re needed’

‘With your permission, Proconsul’ he said quietly

Marthian looked straight across at him with a withering stare.  

‘Go on then’ she snarled, ‘throw yourself back on his mercy’

‘I have to fight’ he insisted, ‘what else am I going to do?’

He stood in front of her with his arms folded, back straight, head thrust forward.

Marthian shrugged.

‘You soldiers are all such fools. But I should have known that you’d do this’

Aurelian sagged a little, tired and hurt as he still was. He nodded at Marthian vaguely

‘If you knew it, then you shouldn’t punish me for it’

‘Don’t expect that, soldier…’

Aurelian bowed low, with only the slightest hint of irony. He made to leave.  Marthian knew that this was the point to shut up but she couldn’t help herself.  

‘Just don’t let yourself be bundled into prison again and don’t let him give you a really demeaning job, and…’

She stopped herself with an effort. 

‘He won’t’ said Aurelian, ‘he’s too canny for that’

‘Yes – at least we can rely on him for that’

Aurelian marched out in a suitably military manner and the others in the room were left wondering exactly what it was that they had just witnessed.    

 

The Proconsul spent the rest of the day organising the healers, the victuallers, the cleaners and the menders; in fact all of those who would keep the army and the rest of the city functioning. She knew where all the stores of medicines were, where all the preserved foods were kept in deep vaults, and where the mechanics and labourers could be conscripted to scurry across the city making good and botching. She also got together a small staff to look after Julia during her twice daily peregrinations round the City. Then she set out to reassure the families, the old and scared that order had returned to the city – she confidently predicted business as usual. She realised, grimly, that this was the job that her father had trained her for, and that she was very good at it. It only took a few days before Perclivius was absolutely reliant upon her.

Meanwhile, Aurelian had gone to Perclivius to ask for a role, any role, which would use his talents. He feared that the Dictator would give him the most unlikely and difficult job possible, and so he did. After keeping him waiting for three hours, Perclivius finally found him a suitable task.  He reinstated him as commander-in-chief.

Chapter seventy-one

Inside the Folds

 

At first it seemed to be easy. At each multiple-choice junction John just waited until the lightest blue corridor appeared and then walked in to it. Bit by bit he turned the corridors paler and paler and clearer and clearer.  The darker corridors seemed more cloudy, as if they had things suspended in them, like little corks floating in a blue wine. It was only after a while that John realised that the floating things moved all on their own – they were more like fish than corks, although had no very obvious shapes. Avoiding the strange swimming things seemed like a reasonable first rule of thumb.

John wondered what this network of shimmering tunnels was. If it was gluing together, or at least connecting, two parts of what seemed to be the normal worlds, what were the normal worlds?. ‘More or less normal’ would be a better term: worlds with sunlight, trees and buildings. This wasn’t normal in any sense; it appeared to be threads of one form of reality laced through another. He was assuming that where the laces were bluer then they were closer to the other reality, and that the things (were they actually living creatures?) that swam within the blue matrix, were from that reality. The Archon had called it the Outer Void and, from what he’d seen of it, that seemed like an apt enough name.

John still wondered why he’d never heard of any of these places before. He had never heard the names Belenor, Skiophos, Nux, Helios, or the Outer Void. He knew enough archaic elven to know what Nux meant – it meant ‘night’. But that didn’t take him very far. Then he remembered something else. An elven tutor of his, a long time ago in Kinspit, would often say that a student was so stupid that he deserved to be banished to the Perikenoma. He was fairly certain on thinking about it that ‘Perikenoma’ meant the ‘outer void’. He’d taken no notice of it at the time, but the professor was very old and very exotic. He might well have come originally from Helios. It was looking increasingly like an Elven conspiracy. Oh well, now he knew something, and was determined to find out a lot more.

John turned round and looked behind him. He could see nothing except the same shimmering walls, floors and ceilings.  He pressed on moving as fast as he could into paler and paler corridors but as he did he began to distrust himself. Were there still things moving within the walls? His flesh crawled. He stopped for a second and the ebb of forces pulled him along as he stared into the edges of the tunnel upon which he walked. Yes, there seemed to be things even here. What were they? He tried to look more closely, his face pressed against the walls. They were flat, slightly rounded things, the size of a saucer, wriggling in the stream of blue. They look a little like jellyfish, but they had no tentacles, just one surface with a rough rasp-like structure, and no obvious sensory processes. They clung to the interface between the worlds, all the while with their raspy surface contracting and expanding as if scraping reality off the wall.  As he watched the creatures move, fascinated and disgusted, one of them squirmed out of the wall and attached itself to his face, before he had any time to react. He felt no physical shock, but it was if someone had very cautiously rubbed a coarse piece of sandpaper against his mind. He leapt back from the wall, clutching madly at the creature, terrified and revolted in equal measure. 

He instantly wondered what he’d been doing. Why did he have his hand on his face? In his mind he retraced his steps. Slowly the memories came back. Did he have something on his face? He reached up again and brushed against something, like a jelly. What was that? He knew that he had to walk on. As he walked, by now just slightly confused, he failed to see the drifting organisms which were now diffusing out of the walls and joining their hive companion on his face. He grinned, unaccountably, and then moved on.

There were more choices as he surged forward. This seemed so easy, just follow the bluer way. He paused for a second – no the paler way. He chuckled to himself, how could he be so silly? Paler, of course. Was that right? Wasn’t that where he’d seen those jelly things? He was momentarily flustered. Jellies everywhere – how could one get away? What was the right way then, if everywhere led to jelly and ice cream? He laughed. That was a silly thing to think. Which was better, anyway, jelly and ice cream or jelly and custard? Perhaps Laurence and he could have a tasting one evening. What wine would go well with that? Red, white, or blue..?

He fell forward. He had no idea where the insidious stream had been taking him or how long he’d been like this, but now he was in a deep blue section of the Folds. He felt up to his head. On his left forehead was a sort of jelly plug, and from it extended a blue cord, stick and slimy, which led behind him to the tunnel barrier. Through the cord an eager stream of jelly creatures were pouring into the plug. John gagged and then vomited, the shock bringing up the stewed tea in his guts.

‘Dhorri’ he screamed, summoning up a spell entirely by instinct,  and bringing his left hand up to strike the cord. There was a flash of incandescent cobalt and the cord snapped, whipping back into the wall and disappearing.  John ran on wildly, clawing at the jellies on his face. It was as if they had fused to him, forming a malleable but un-removable platform. His mind was tattered. Where was he? He fell on to the floor and looked down. He stared with vague interest at the creatures slowly flapping up to him from the depths. These were a little like the jellies, but an awful lot bigger.

Chapter seventy-two

The Bell Tower at Melloreis

 

It smelled revolting but the way was clear. Viola was able to sneak up the stairs and look out across the ruins of the city. The entire area, with the exception of the space around the Tower was covered in the tents and constructions of the Tlaxacan army. It was as if, having destroyed the city once they’d come back to have another go at doing it properly.  The sound of hammering and the smell of smoke rose up from everywhere. The curse on the surface was, if anything, now worse, and Viola felt as if a massive weight had suddenly been placed back on to her shoulders.  She wondered then again for a moment how they had ever functioned up here in the open with the curse upon them, but then she heard in her head the sound of Ophia’s bell.

She briefly surveyed the forces ahead of her. The organisation of the troops was clearly based on a large number of labouring kinaam (who Viola couldn’t help but notice, with a pang of guilt, did look a lot like Rem) and a few scattered supervising humans. The humans grunted at the kinaam in a language that Viola didn’t understand and they moved around like slaves doing exactly as they were told. What they were being told to do appeared to be to clear out all of the remaining vaults. Whatever fear they had had of the minor vaults before they had obviously lost now. Food, clothes and weapons lay scattered about the rubble, destroyed or defiled. It was very hard to look at. The relics of Viola’s culture were being burned away.  

She knew that she didn’t have long to look at this and so she rapidly turned to consider a possible route to the Tower. From the top of the Vault to the safe area around the base of the Tower was a good fifteen minute walk at the best of times and it was clear that she’d have to take a very long route round to it. Would she have enough time?

She climbed up onto a boulder. She immediately discovered that it was surprisingly hard to move when invisible, mostly because you couldn’t see where you were putting your feet.  It took a good minute of scrambling to get to the top. Once she was there she realised that if she had hadn’t been invisible then it would be an easy job to half-jump from boulder to boulder above the heads of the Tlaxacans for at least part of the way. As it was, and her gammy foot didn’t help, each leap would carry a large risk of injury. It was, however, still worth a try – anything to avoid being too close to these creatures who made her feel physically sick.

The row of closely positioned boulders led from the Vault to the main street that bisected this part of the city. Viola crossed them easily, moving almost soundlessly past several dozen Tlaxacans who had been displaced by the commotion in the Vault. She stepped down on to the road, in an area free of any enemies. This road was fairly sparsely occupied, but she really didn’t feel like taking the risk of brushing past someone too closely and giving herself away. Avoiding people is tricky when you don’t know exactly where you are yourself.

Viola spotted a low wall that ran alongside the road for about half its length. If she could get up there then she could get within a few minutes of the exclusion zone around the Tower.  Perhaps from there she’d be able to sprint to the edge.  She looked down at her foot to judge whether it looked up to a run, and then realised that this was futile.  She made a mental note never to volunteer to be invisible again.

The wall was about as high as Viola might normally be happy to climb, but she was unsure whether she could cope with it given her present double disability. She moved to the edge of it and examined it. It did look dauntingly tall, but then a group of humans came round the side of a nearby ruin and she was spooked into scrambling up without any problem. She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, half expecting the sweat to be visible as little beads of water suspended in mid-air, but was quietly satisfied to see nothing at all. There was no doubt that this was a very well-crafted spell.

The wall was wide at its top, although it was only about six feet above the ground. It had obviously been too low to be worth destroying the first time around.  She ran along it for as far as she could, hobbling slightly but still without making any appreciable sound. She reached the end of the wall and jumped down into a space between it and a large boulder. She studied herself briefly – no sign of flickering yet. She also wondered how loud a really rapidly beating heart and the sound of rasping panting would sound to anyone nearby. 

The road to her left stretched on a few hundred yards more and then a right turn would take her within a dozen hurried steps of the exclusion zone. Between her and there, however, were about two hundred kinaam. She gulped and her heart quailed momentarily.  She would have to make her way as well as she could, looking for places to climb up if anyone came too near.

She wormed her way through to the very edge of the street and slowly crept down its length, keeping as close to the accumulated marginal debris as possible. Progress was slow and every passing group of enemies was terrifying. The horde might look a bit like Rem, but the few that she dared to look at in any detail had strange white eyes that contrasted horribly starkly with the deep grey of Rem’s. Either something had been ignited in Rem’s eyes or something had been extinguished from theirs.

Wherever possible she walked on loose rubble, anywhere that she thought would look or feel unattractive to anyone else.  This, however, was taking forever.  It was quite safe, but every now and then, when she looked down, she worried that she could see the hint of a smudge, like a pencil mark lingering in mid-air. She was going to have to hurry. The only option appeared to be to try to run for it.

She started off in as straight a line as she could, given her bad foot, looking for gaps in the sea of bodies and hoping that no-one would grab an invisible presence that just appeared to brush past. The first few things that she interacted with seemed to hardly react at all, but as the number increased, she could sense a buzz building up behind her. People began to shout and she realised that she was now a barely visible grey haze. She ran on as fast as her injured foot would allow her; she bounced off walls and people, wriggling and struggling, as, finally, they began to grab at her. The sound of the harsh Tlaxacan language rose up everywhere around her, like a barbed wire fence. She had never felt so scared or so certain that she would fail.

Somehow she struggled to the junction. She now resembled a badly drawn cartoon flick book with monochrome sketches on every fifth page, but she could be seen clearly. Letting out a huge yell of despair she attempted to half-run, half-dive into the sea of fallen white bones that surrounded the Tower. For a moment she was suspended in mid-air, flickering uncontrollably. A kinaam had grabbed her as she had made for safety. It looked at the strange shape without interest and then bared its huge teeth. Viola was convulsed with disgust and terror. It was going to eat her! Oh no it’s not – she thought feverishly – not before I’ve had my go! She bent over and bit the hand that held her, as hard as she had ever bitten anything.  The Tlaxacan screamed and withdrew its hand in a spurt of blood. Viola struggled away and rolled across the gap that separated her from the shattered skeletons.

The noise behind her had now turned into an uproar. She staggered to her feet and glanced back. A sea of Tlaxacans were lapping against the side of the exclusion zone, desperate to get at her, but unwilling to move over the remains. Instead they started to throw debris at her. They threw anything that came to hand and they were fiendishly strong. A hail of bricks, wire and stones came careering towards her. Almost immediately a large pebble struck her on the shoulder. She smarted and began to run, a desperate, zigzag, hobbling, run to the tower door. Two more rocks struck her legs – she knew that a direct blow to the head would be the end of her.

She reached the edge of the tower and embraced the wall like a long-lost friend. The human guards had now arrived among the others and they were forcing their minions to cross the forbidden zone, shouting at them and prodding them viciously with their swords. They were moving slowly, but they would still be with Viola very soon.

She shuffled round to the door. Now she needed to remember Ophia’s Elven words.

‘Paraphonia’ she cried out, above the growing hubbub.  She heard the door click once.

Arrows began to fly around her. The humans had clearly found their bows.

‘Eleutheria’ she shouted. She heard the door click a second time.

Out of the corner of her eye she could see the sea of kinaam surrounding her. She could almost feel their heavy, extraordinarily hard, teeth. There was only one way to escape them.

 ‘Agape’ she shouted. The door clicked a third time, and glided open a hand’s width.

Viola kicked the door fully open and threw herself inside. The pursuing kinaam hesitated for a second and she just had enough time to push the door shut before they crowded into the narrow hallway. She heard three emphatic clicks. The door was locked again. She leant against the wall inside, blubbing with relief, her entire body screaming with fatigue and pain. By now she was cycling through washed out blue, red and yellow. She really didn’t care.

 

Viola turned from the door and looked up the stairs behind it. They were spiral and cast in iron but they were hard to see in the darkness of the enclosed space. She began to climb the stairs, and as her foot landed on the first step the braziers on the wall lit up. They lit up the stairwell, revealing dark green walls and an opening into a space about thirty steps up. Viola hurried on to this floor. It was apparently a communal or work area, with a desk, chairs and a small library. She really wanted to stop to have a look around, but she knew that she didn’t have the time.  She pressed on.

The spiral staircase continued from the centre of this room and climbed through two more similar-shaped rooms, one a cooking area and the second a dormitory with four beds. One of the beds had a skeleton of an elf lying in it. Again, Viola was desperate to examine all this more closely, but she felt utterly compelled to continue climbing the stairs5.

Finally she arrived at the space at the top of the tower.  It was open on two sides and capped by the conical peak of the tower.  The bell hung in the middle of the space, with a bell rope trailing from it to the floor.  Two skeletal, clearly eleven, figures lay at the bottom of the rope on the wooden floorboards. The bell was cast in bronze and was about three feet across. It was unadorned except for a single word engraved on its side.

 

ἠχέω

 

‘Ekeo’ she whispered, ‘ring!’

Viola picked up the bell rope and began to sound the bell. It was large and heavy, but it soon began to toll.  It filled the sky with the purest, clearest, sound she had ever heard. It sounded exactly like it had in her head – note after sonorous note. Down in the city a dreadful tumultuous wail began as if from every mouth in unison.  One by one the enemy below began to crumble, just as surely as they had done the last time that the bell had been rung, nine hundred summers before.