Chapter seventy-two

Inside a folded space, sort-of in Monurbis

 

After the strange apparitions of the twins had finally disappeared complete darkness had returned to the inside of the bag.

‘What was that, Mr Hardacre?’ asked Lily, sitting against the inner wall of the bag, her voice rather frightened. Hardacre’s calm reply floated out of the darkness. 

‘It was two of my colleagues attempting to communicate with us’

‘Why did they look so strange?’

‘Because of this space that we’re in – it distorts time – and that’s why it was so dangerous to hide away in here… as I was trying to say before the communication, your highness’

There was a moment of silence as Lily considered this. Now that she was stuck here in this weird space her adventure began to seem very foolish indeed.

‘Yes..’ she muttered, despite herself, ‘I’m sorry…’

‘These bags were never tested for human occupancy – who knows what danger you were in’

Lily felt a cold fear grip her - what did he mean ‘were in’ – weren’t they still in the same danger?    

‘I think these folded spaces are becoming more dangerous by the day…’ murmured Hardacre, mostly to himself.

Lily shivered again and waited, hoping for something more positive from the witch. The only good thing that she could think of was that her eyes were becoming accustomed to the darkness, and she thought that she could see the vague outlines of objects in the bag. This at least gave her some sense of size and space, and comforted her slightly.

‘Where did you learn spells, your highness?’ continued Hardacre’s patient voice.

‘I have a friend who is an apprentice mage. He has started to teach me a few tricks’

‘Really? A human mage in Amansk? That must be rather rare ’

‘His name is Dominic Shavosky, he’s my brother’s best friend – he’s from Gorodnikov originally; he had an elven mage mentor there; his gods-father’

 ‘Oh, I see – for an apprentice mage he seems to know a lot, though – the aid spell that you cast is quite a powerful one…’

‘He says I’m a quick learner’

 ‘Was it you who moved those branches on the beach?’ asked Hardacre, in a measured tone.

There was a moment’s pause.

‘Yes’ said Lily, ‘I’m sorry about that, too’

‘Hmm’ murmured Hardacre, ‘nothing that we can do about all of that now, of course, but I’m sure your parents will have a lot to say about all of this when you get home…’

Lily considered this: home was too far away to worry her very much at the moment.

She could see, very dimly, Hardacre’s shape get up from where he had been sitting.

‘I’m going to have to go out and have a look around’ he said, ‘you stay here while I’m gone and, please, your highness, do not do anything, or touch anything, while I’m away’

‘What will you do?’ asked Lily, terrified at the prospect of being left alone.

‘I want to see if there is any way that we can escape,’ explained Hardacre,

‘Don’t leave me’ whimpered Lily, momentarily cowed

‘I have to, but if you really need to get out then I suppose you must. But don’t do it unless you’re in obvious, mortal, danger’

‘But what if you don’t come back?’ she sobbed

‘I’ll have to make sure that I do come back’ he said, frowning, ‘whatever happens. So – just stay put!’

He thought for a second.

‘Iy might help to count – so you know how long I’ve been away...’

With that he was up and gone before Lily could say anything else – a brief flash of daylight showed his departure. She started counting – there was nothing else at all to do.

 

                                                                    ***

Hardacre crawled out from the bag and peered into the alleyway. The bag had at least not been moved and he assumed that this meant that it hadn’t been discovered. He briefly wondered whether they were still looking for him in the city, but then shook himself, picked up the bag and instantly whispered ‘ddifanna’.

The spell started to work almost immediately. His image began to bleed out, so that the colours faded. Then only his outline was visible and after that it looked, very briefly, like he was made of clouds.  Finally, he disappeared completely as did everything that he wore and the bag that he was now carrying. He made his way as best he could towards the centre of the city, hoping, above all else, that he wouldn’t bump into Kratos again.

It was clearly morning now and horses, men and equipment were being moved rapidly out of the city, forming long snaking lines through the streets. Hardacre could only assume that this meant that the Crimson Flame army was marching east, into Tlaxaca. And if that were so, then Kratos would presumably be travelling with them.

Moving when invisible is fine when the surface is flat and no one else is in the space. On uneven surfaces and in a milling crowd it could become exceptionally hard to avoid slipping up or bumping into someone. The best that Hardacre could hope to do was to find a passing cart and jump in the back.

He pressed himself against a wall at the edge of the road and waited, trying to peer inside the tarpaulin-covered open waggons. He couldn’t make out what was being carried in any of them. Having concluded that, he ran across to the next cart that went past and clambered up its side, struggling up through the cover and then dropping inside.

 

The chickens packed inside the waggon couldn’t see the human who had just jumped in on top of them, but they could definitely smell him. They all began to scrabble around and squawk, some of them even trying to do the best that they could to take off, constantly bumping into an invisible object and then tumbling off again. Hardacre dropped to his knees and tried to fend off the chickens by waving his hands above his head. The noise that the hens were making was almost unbearable and he was certain that they would attract someone’s attention if they carried on squawking for much longer.

He cancelled the spell and pulled the bag on to the floor. He opened it fully and crawled into it. He was followed by a dozen chickens.

 

***

Lily waited for a long time in the near darkness, counting softly, but she was comforted by the ever increasing acuity of her vision. Bit by bit she could see more and more of the room that made up the inside of the bag. Clearly, despite what she had thought when Erik and she had first got into the bag, the interior was illuminated by a very faint blue light, seemingly arising from some strange torch, or flame, in one of the walls. It was odd that she hadn’t noticed it before, but there it was.

There was Boo’s empty cage, there were piles of clothes and shoes, and there were books, paper and rations. It really was an extraordinary device. She wondered how it was possible to make one, and whether, one day, she would be able to do it.  She suddenly had a vision of Dom and her in some beautiful green kingdom where she was queen and Dom was her consort and where they were the most powerful mages in the world, and they ruled absolutely everyone, and everyone loved them.

She jolted up from her reverie. Wasn’t she meant to be counting? But if that were so – what was it that she should count? It would be easy to count anything that she wanted in this strange bright blue light. Maybe she was meant to count the thin blue tentacles that were now protruding out of every inch of the wall. They looked so pretty, like the waving arms of a sea anemone in a deep dark rock pool.

She smiled and thought of kissing a young man who she loved, but whose name seemed temporarily to have slipped her mind.  Still he had nice looking eyes and one day she was certain that she would marry him; if she could remember anything more about him. How strange how things slipped away, so far from friends and from home.

The Outer Void worms had found their way to the thin partitions of folded reality and were now, one by one, slithering through the walls and converging on the delicious princess. In their way they were quite cunning. They attacked from the back initially, quietly and without disturbing the flesh, and they slowly wore their victim down.  Now that Lily was numbed by the worms attached to her back and neck, the other worms were emboldened to move towards her and to find other nerve endings, the ones on her head, on her lips and on her eyes.

Lily was still counting, even though she now had no idea why. Several times she got to eight, but no higher, before she began again. Eventually she just had to close her eyes – the blue was too bright and she was far too tired.