Chapter fifty-eight

Melloreis

 

Viola’s foot began to hurt a lot. She sat down on the ground and gingerly removed her boot. Potentilla helped her to pull the boot off and then grimaced. She lifted the boot up and tipped it theatrically – a good cupful of blood spilled on to the ground.

‘You’ll need new boots, then’ observed Fred.

Potentilla pulled some bandages out of her bag. She stared at Viola’s foot through one half-closed eye as she wrapped it up roughly. Viola smiled weakly at her.

‘Don’t worry’ she said, sweating with the pain, ‘we have a healer with us. I’m sure that he’ll be able to fix it’

‘An elven healer?’ asked Potentilla

‘Not exactly’ replied Viola, wondering what the newcomers would make of Rem.

Viola’s foot was now swathed in bandages and although it hurt almost as much, taking off the boot made her feel a lot more comfortable. The fact that she was no longer bleeding was comforting too. It was time to try to stand up again.

She staggered up with some help from Potentilla. Then Potentilla let go and she fell over. It really didn’t look like she’d be able to walk again for a while.

‘Where’s Kath then?’ asked Fred, as he and Potentilla helped Viola up to her feet again.

‘I’ll take you to the vault’ said Viola, ‘if you’ll help me get there’

She put her one arm around Potentilla’s shoulder and one around Fred’s. They made their way towards the Armoury Vault. The sun had now set and the going was slow; partly because of the terrain and partly because Fred was a little too tall to provide very effective help. They muttered, moaned and groaned their way across the rubble.  

‘You’re from Visnea?’ asked Viola, only half-believing it.

‘Yes, I am’, said Potentilla, ‘although originally I’m from Veralia, on the eastern fringes of the Desert’ 

‘Ah – that explains the camels’ said Fred

‘I meant’ said Viola, wincing with every assisted step that she took, ‘you’re from the west’

‘Oh yes, of course’ said Potentilla, ‘wasn’t that what I just said?’

Potentilla looked across to Fred.

‘Leave me out of this’ he said, looking away.

Viola struggled on, both with her walk and with the conversation.

‘You’re the first official visitor from the west for nine hundred years’ she explained.

Potentilla thought about this for a second.

‘Am I?’ she asked

Viola nodded.

‘That’s so great!’ she said, smiling broadly at Viola, ‘and I’m really glad to be here!’

Fred looked across the strewn, violated rubble and sighed.  As soon as he had entered the ruins he had felt like something had begun to wither inside him. And, of course, there were no intact buildings above ground and so no architecture. He was going to have nothing useful to do. 

‘She always like this’ whispered Fred, staring down at Viola, ‘it’s unbearable’.

Viola breathed in – she could taste the stink of death. 

‘Don’t you feel it?’ she said

‘Feel what?’ asked Potentilla, wrinkling her nose.

‘The Tlaxacan curse!’  exclaimed Viola, astonished.

‘Oh that’ laughed Potentilla, ‘yes – of course – but it’s best ignored, don’t you think?’

That was the end of that discussion, so they stumbled on to the armoury in silence, Fred’s lantern lighting the way. Viola shouted down, but there was no answer. Eventually Potentilla went down to see if they were there, but there was no-one.  

‘No sign of them’ she said.

‘I know where they’ll be’ said Viola, realising that she’d have to hobble another long way in the dark to find them.

 

***

‘I can’t see how to open it’ said Kath with her ear pressed against the metal door.

‘Neither can I’ said Hardacre, standing nearby.  He had reluctantly cast a light spell above them, only because he knew that time was running short.

They’d tried everything that they could think of: Kath’s Dwarven Magic tools, Hardacre’s opening spells, half-remembered folk incantations, and a really hard kick.

Rem sat thoughtfully on the bottom step of the stairs. He hadn’t said much since he’d found out that Viola had left. His earlier grumpiness seemed to be mutating into gloom. He’d been asked to keep guard but had shown no interest in actually doing it. Kath and Hardacre had been too busy to notice that he was still sitting.

‘So, what next?’ asked Hardacre.

Kath strained to hear any vibrations in the door that could be tapped into using one of her tools, but there was nothing, just the distant pink noise of an extraordinarily complex set of sound frequencies all pinging together. This was clearly beyond her.

‘This needs some kind of filter’ she said, ‘something to reduce all of these conflicting signals into a frequency that will open the door. It’s fiendishly clever’

‘Yes, I can see that. I can’t open it or disrupt it’ said Hardacre, ‘at least we can be fairly certain it really was made by Quiena’s team’

‘And that’s useful because…?’ Kath asked.

Hardacre nodded at her, acknowledging her point.

‘It isn’t, Dr Fielding. I fully realise that it isn’t’

Kath had been listening to the door for about half-an-hour and there wasn’t much else she could do. Eventually she sank down against it, defeated.  Hardacre joined her. For the time being they had run out of ideas.

They sat in glum silence for what seemed to them to be an age.  Neither Kath nor Hardacre bothered to remind Rem that he should be on guard.

There was a noise at the top of the stairs. Rem stood up anxiously and turned to see what was going on. He began to climb the stairs very rapidly.  

‘It’s just us’ shouted down Viola.

‘Us?’ shouted back Kath, confused.

‘Yes, the three of us’ replied Potentilla, ‘we’re here!’

Kath froze in disbelief. Surely not she thought, the hairs rising on the back of her neck.

Rem was now facing the group that were coming down the stairs. He immediately recognised Viola as she was slowly helped down. He relaxed slightly.

‘Where was your watch, then?’ asked Potentilla, tut-tutting.

Rem coughed but then thought better of it.

‘Fred! Potentilla!’ shouted Kath running up the stairs. When she reached the top she embraced both of her friends, rather awkwardly as Viola was between them.

‘Mind my foot’ Viola howled.

‘How on earth did you manage to get here? Are you all okay? Where have you been?’ babbled Kath, refusing to let go of them. Viola slumped down on to the stairs to avoid the extended, rather painful, embrace.

‘Don’t ask’ said Fred, who was manoeuvring himself back up the stairs to avoid the physical contact.

Potentilla hugged Kath long and hard. They were both laughing and crying at the same time.

Hardacre waited for a little while and then came up the stairs. He looked at the newcomers with a wary eye.  Very quietly he asked:

‘And these people are…?’  

***

There was a lot of talking all at once, but bit by bit the stories were woven together. Fred noticed that Potentilla didn’t mention her dalliance with Al-Ham, and he didn’t enlighten the others – it was none of his business. Hardacre was very interested in the blue spectral bird, although he was clearly completely mystified as to what it actually was.

It took a long time to explain to the newcomers who Rem was, partly because none of them really knew. However, as neither Fred nor Potentilla had any bad racial memories of Tlaxacan hordes they were happy to take him as he was. They just thought that he looked odd and awkward; which was like judging an iceberg from the visible bit, but they soon got the hang of him.

The other person who didn’t say a lot was Viola, whose foot was being treated by Rem.  However, eventually they pieced together what had happened earlier in the ruins. None of them thought it sounded very good.

‘It sounds like self-defence to me, Vee’ said Kath. Despite herself, and despite the fact that she knew all the stories were really important, she couldn’t help sneaking a longing look, every now and then, at Potentilla’s backpack. 

‘It was self-defence, Kath’ said Potentilla, ‘she was provoked completely’

Hardacre was listening intently but hadn’t yet said anything.

‘I wish it hadn’t happened though’ said Viola, sobbing gently, ‘she didn’t deserve to die’

‘No-one does’ muttered Rem, ‘yet all do ’

They were sitting on the steps now, in two rows, as if they were talkative children waiting for a theatre performance to begin.

‘Why on earth did Marthian send her out to arrest us?’ Viola asked, ‘it was such a shock’

‘Perhaps Flavia was lying’ suggested Kath.

‘Why would she lie?’ asked Viola

‘To trick us’ said Kath, rolling her eyes, ‘why else?’

Hardacre frowned.

‘There are a lot of possibilities here’ he said calmly, ‘but there is no way of knowing which applies until I hear back from the Proconsul’

‘You wrote to her?’ asked Viola with surprise.

‘No, not yet, said Hardacre, ‘but I will as soon as I am able’.

‘Have you heard anything yet?’ asked Viola in excitement.

Hardacre twitched very slightly, but no-one noticed. 

‘No, not yet, Captain –as I indicated, I haven’t written it yet…’

He wondered if Viola had actually been listening to him at all.

‘When I have written it and when I have received a reply, then, you’ll be the first to know’ he explained, as patiently as he could.

Viola wilted with disappointment.

‘Let’s get on with what we have to do here and worry about the consequences later. We have to try and open this vault’ said Hardacre.

Kath leapt up, unable to contain herself any longer.

‘Where is it?’ she asked Potentilla.

Potentilla reached inside her cloak breast pocket. She pulled out the rod and handed it, carefully and with a solemn expression, to Kath. Kath cradled it for a second and held it up, a little like an athlete holding up a trophy. The others all held their breath.

‘Let’s hope after all that that it bloody well does something useful’ moaned Fred.

Kath walked the few steps to the door, illuminated by the cold light of Hardacre’s spell.  The sun, which during the day sent a few useful rays of light down the stairwell, had long since set.

‘Shall I try it?’ Kath asked, in a breathless whisper.

She held the rod against the door. It burst forth with a green light. Then they heard, as if spilling out through the rod, the sound of a thousand notes playing all at once. It wasn’t really random noise, more like a host of instruments tuning up. Kath lifted up the rod and the green light engulfed the door. Slowly as she moved the rod around the notes began to drop out one by one. The process seemed endless, but eventually a muddy chord began to appear, ugly at first but then increasingly pure and still. Finally just three notes remained, a perfect major triad, playing high in the air.

The door began to move – oh so slowly at first, but then it started to swing easily on its hinges and opened to reveal the vault beyond. They all crowded round to peer in.

It was slightly wider and much higher than the other vaults that they had opened. Completely filling it was a huge silver elephant, with enormous red tusks and a trunk raised threateningly. It stood facing the door, far too wide ever to fit through it. At its front feet lay four withered corpses, with a variety of strange tools and papers scattered about them. The hum of the opening chord still seemed to fill the air.

‘That’s was an A major chord’ whispered Viola, very softly to herself, ‘triagmos elpis’. She shook herself, irritated – ‘where did that come from? I can’t remember ever learning that’. No-one else heard her.  

Hardacre stepped into the room, Kath followed right behind him. They approached the elephant cautiously, almost reverentially, with innumerable questions in their heads.  They would have to wait to answer them, however.

‘Enemies! Enemies!’ Potentilla shouted from behind them, and then they had no choice but to turn and fight.