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.