Kathleen
fell, feet first, down into the middle of the glacial lake. The cold of the
water took her breath away and she dropped through the thin layer of ice and
into the clear blue water without a struggle. Her mind was too confused to
handle such a sudden shock and so it shut down.
Fortunately she had fallen from about ten
feet above the water and so she had made a massive crash as she had broken the
ice. The sound had attracted a group of
Orbiverdi, the green-eyes, who had been ice fishing at the side of the lake. They
were shocked, but fortunately they had a strong swimmer among them, a young well-built
male who was used to traversing the icy cold waters of the mountains. His arms
were long and he could hold his breath for an age and so, in fairly quick time,
he had scooped the tiny witch up and pulled her to the shore.
They wrapped her in some furs and then stood
over her anxiously while they waited for the healer to hurry up from the
village just below the lake. When he arrived he ordered them all to move aside
and poured a light green liquid into her mouth. After a few seconds she
spluttered and looked up at the long limbed folk who had rescued her.
‘Hello, strange creatures’ she said, in
Ethian, between chatters of her teeth, ‘I’m looking for Mr Hardacre – is he here?’
None of the villagers could understand this
at all, so the healer frowned and started to talk to her, very slowly and
clearly, in Visneorian.
‘Who
are you, stranger human? Did you fall from the sky?’
Kathleen shook her head and laughed through her
coldness.
‘You’re
not elves are you?’ she said accusingly, switching languages, but her tone
was not unpleasant.
‘No’
explained the healer patiently, ‘but we
are Imperial subjects’
Kathleen had heard all about the green eyed
mountain people at the council meeting but in her present state, ill and frozen
stiff, she could remember nothing about them at all. Beneath everything,
however, she felt unbearably tired.
‘Are
you sure?’ she said, ‘it seems a bit
unlikely….’
They all murmured their assent; it was a strangely
formal and very proud sound. But it was lost on poor Kathleen; the mixture of
the elixir and the warm furs was dragging her down once again into healing
sleep.
‘I need
to find Mr Hardacre, as soon as possible’ she murmured and shut her eyes, ‘he must be close by, he must be’. That
was the last thing she said for a long while.
***
They
carried her to the village rather reverently. Many of them had heard of
‘Hardacre’, of course; he was the leader of the group who had defeated
Whitecloak, their deadliest enemy. However, this far away from Ortia the
stories, though very recent, were rather garbled.
They took Kathleen to the wise woman of the
village. They carried her very carefully on a hastily-constructed stretcher,
making sure that she wasn’t unduly shaken up on the uneven path. She, however, was too far gone into her
deepest possible sleep to notice anything. The Orbiverdi laid her down in their
seer’s tent.
The wise woman listened to their account of
what had happened and came to an immediate conclusion – they would have to take
her down into the foothills of the mountains and find their leader’s hideout,
just above Monurbis. Euphorbia would know what to do.
They wrapped Kathleen’s body in softer and warmer
furs. A better stretcher was located and four strong bearers found to take her
down the spiralling path. Their progress was slow; it took two days to make the
steep descent, particularly because they stopped frequently to attend to their
patient, to moisten her lips and tuck her back in to her blankets. At no point
did they bump her unduly and at no point did she utter any sound.
Eventually they found their way to Euphorbia’s
hideout, hidden on a cliff face that looked straight down into the pass. There
was one narrow way into it, completely unsuitable for carrying across an
unconscious person. However, using ropes and ingenuity they hoisted Kathleen
across the slender path and into the safety of the cavern.
***
Euphorbia
had no idea what to do with her. She had a bed made up for her in a secluded
part of her cave complex. This was a massive hidden system of limestone caverns
that had been used in times of danger by the Orbiverdi ever since they had
escaped from the Cloaks’ clutches. She had her healers ensure that she was not
in mortal danger, and then she went in search of Bellis, the exiled proconsul
of Monurbis.
Ten minutes later they were stood over
Kathleen’s slumbering body, both perplexed and bewildered.
‘Do you know who she is, my lady?’ asked
Bellis, studying the human’s face very carefully.
‘No’ said Euphorbia, shaking her head, ‘but I
suppose that she must be a witch’
‘A colleague of Mr Hardacre’s, I assume…’
suggested Bellis, wondering whether a female witch might look somehow different
from other women.
‘… and so probably on some important
mission…’ continued Euphorbia
‘Yes, most probably…’ agreed Bellis
Euphorbia stared down at Kathleen kindly, but
with a steely determination on her face. Bellis couldn’t tell what Euphorbia
might think of her.
‘We have our orders’ she said, ‘we’re to keep
out of the way’
Bellis looked pained. This was an interpretation of Marthian’s
instructions that he did not accept, but which it was hard to contradict.
‘For our own safety’ he said, ‘it wasn’t a
judgement on our value’
‘Was it not?’ murmured Euphorbia, ‘that’s how
it seemed to me’
The proconsul was concerned for his co-ruler.
She had been stung by Marthian’s apparent rejection and she now seemed to
Bellis to be in a sort of spiritual sulk. He tried once more to raise her
morale.
‘But we acted in Monurbis, and the result was
a great success’ he pointed out.
‘That is our territory – we needed no
permission to act. And what is Monurbis compared to Ortia? The hand of Quiena
is all over the white city…’
‘We will return to both cities, my lady, I am
sure’
‘When we receive our summons, perhaps…’
Bellis
folded his arms and frowned, but this was a conversation that they had many
times, and there was nothing much else left to say.
‘Nonetheless’ he insisted, ‘we need to do
something about this woman’
‘I agree’ said Euphorbia, ‘we will heal her
and she can remain here until the war is over’
Bellis sighed and coughed. He suddenly felt
very old. How sad it was to have got to this point – when the best lacked all
conviction. Whatever reason this witch had to find Hardacre, it must be
important and it almost certainly would be for the commonweal.
‘I will take her’ he said, ‘to find Envoy
Hardacre’
Euphorbia’s
green eyes flashed. She had not been expecting this at all.
‘You cannot mean that, proconsul’ she said,
her voice much louder than she had intended, ‘that would be extraordinarily
dangerous…’
Her voice trailed off.
‘…for someone of my age’ he said, ‘is that
what you were meaning to say’
Euphorbia’s face changed. Her eyes now glowed
with a deeper, less vivid green. She reached out to touch his shoulder.
‘It would be dangerous for anyone, my lord –
the chances are high that Mr Hardacre is fighting against the Crimson Flame
knights in some way or another as we speak’
Bellis looked at her. His face was stern. He
nodded and then turned to leave.
‘And that is why I must go, if you will not
change your mind. I am the only one who you cannot order to stay’
The proconsul left before Euphorbia had a
chance to respond. She waited for a second, checking Kathleen’s breathing and
that she was warm and not distressed. Then she walked out of the cave, full of
even more doubts and fears than before. As she left the chamber she snuffed out
the lantern on the wall. Darkness engulfed the space. The only light was from a few glow worms
clinging to the walls.
Kathleen slept deeply, but by now restless thoughts
were forming inside her. Her mind was
healing fast and part of her brain was now desperate to awake, to be away and
to find Laurence. She had a spell burning a hole in her dreams and she needed
to teach it to someone.
No comments:
Post a Comment