Chapter fifty-seven

Ortia                                

 

Julia’s body lay on the charred and blood stained ground for over an hour. No-one dared to go out to get it as none could be convinced that the knights had really moved on.  Eventually Aurelian summoned a squad to recover the body under a white flag of truce, but before he could send anyone out a small figure had appeared at Julia’s side, a young priestess dressed in white and carrying a long roll of cloth.

The priestess stared down at the body for a few minutes; her face showed no sign of emotion. She stepped out of her own clothes and lifted the now greying toga from Julia’s body. Still naked, she unrolled the cloth and carefully bound Julia’s body in it. Only after she had completed this task did she wrap Julia’s toga around her own body. As she dressed the garment lit up, the grey fading into pure white. 

For all the time that she had been tending to Julia the priestess had had her back to the city, but now she turned to address the crowd of elven archers who were now creeping out of the gate towards her.     

‘I need assistance’ she said, quietly.  A stream of soldiers moved forward in a wave towards her.

‘Help me to carry Julia’s body back to the Lady’ she ordered

One of the soldiers hesitated before the white-clad priestess.

‘Who are you?’ he mumbled

The priestess looked at him rather blankly, but then smiled.

‘I am Aquilegia, High Priestess of the Lady of Ortia’ she said wrapping her pristine toga tightly around herself.

‘We are weak’ she continued, ‘but we have survived’

 

***

Hardacre appeared in the middle of the Crimson Knights’ camp. It was approaching dusk and all but a few guards were in their tents. He whispered dywyllwch, and a dark shadow fell over him – he slipped through the forest of tents and out into some shrubby land beyond. He had no exact idea where he was, but he could easily recognise the banners of the knights, and so that narrowed things down to somewhere between Amansk and Monurbis. Now was not the time to wonder about that – it was time to find somewhere to shelter for the night.

He walked along a row of hawthorn bushes for about half a mile until he came to a little hollow. He whispered the opening words for his bag and put his hand in to pull out a blanket. It would be a cold night, but he had survived worse. He wrapped the thick blanket around himself, lay down, and fell asleep.

 

They had huddled together in the utter darkness wondering what to do next. This wasn’t much of an adventure so far, both of them had to admit, as they could see nothing and it wasn’t really very warm.  However, it was apparently only a few seconds later that the bag had opened and the cold winter wind had whistled in. The two teenagers had a whispered conversation, during which they had agreed not to reveal themselves yet, and then Hardacre had removed the blanket from in front of their noses and they were in blackness again. It was then they both realised that they had no idea what they were doing and that there would never be an obvious time to reveal themselves.  They decided, after some debate, that they’d shout out when it was either obviously indoors or, when the bag was opened for a third time.

Time began to drag on inside the bag during the few hours that Hardacre was asleep in the hollow. Lily’s mind began to go round in stultifying circles.  

She was now deeply regretting her rashness, but there was no way that she would reveal that to Erik. She began to worry about how Mr Hardacre would react when he found out that two minor human princelings had stowed away in his magical bag. They were probably triggering some awful diplomatic incident at this very moment, and getting the poor man into big trouble, and he seemed really nice…

Lily was the sort of person who would act on sheer instinct and then feel the consequences of her actions keenly at her leisure. Here, in the dark, she had nothing to distract her from a long inner refection on her foolishness. She started to wonder why she had dragged Erik along: now he’d be cross with her too, and he might as well be an enemy… And her father – he’d be so worried and angry. In fact, maybe the whole world would be absolutely furious with her, and with jolly good reason.

She felt that awful butterfly feeling of guilt in her stomach. Erik seemed to not be saying anything now and she instantly knew this was because he hated her and what she’d forced him to do. She sobbed as quietly as she could; she was so far from home and she had no friends at all  She pulled away from where Erik and she had been curled together and groped around for the cage. Once she found it she fumbled it open, not considering any of the possible consequences of letting the tupaia out. Boo buzzed happily and bounded into her arms.

‘What was that?’ asked Erik, clearly waking up from a deep sleep.

‘Nothing at all’ said Lily, ‘you must have been dreaming’

‘Sorry’ said Erik, ‘ever since I was a child I have fallen asleep instantly in the dark. I know that I should have stayed awake to await the bag opening again…’

Lily smiled an invisible smile of relief – maybe he didn’t hate her that much after all.

‘It’s fine – I’ll keep watch’

A few minutes later Erik was snoring. By stroking Boo at the same time she could produce a sort of low pitch counterpoint between the buzzes and the snores. It was a soothing combination and soon Lily was asleep too. Boo nestled on Lily’s chest and slept as well. Boo could no longer smell Balliwick’s scent, but once she sensed it again she would ready to go: he was much nearer now.

 

At the earliest hint of dawn Hardacre jumped up, wrapped the blanket around himself like a big fur coat and began to make his way uphill. He wanted to see if he could spy any landmarks, so that he would no longer be travelling blind. He followed the contours up a sizeable hill that led away north from the knight’s camp. Huddled on the top of his hill, he could see the snowy expanse of mountains in the far north, and so he could guess quite easily what would be behind him. He turned to see a white city on the edge of the horizon. He was surprised to find how pleased he was to glimpse it. Then he wondered if the city had been taken. He made a plan – he would make his way down to Ortia and see what was happening. As for his quarry, whoever it was must have some connection with the Crimson Flame Knights and one of his Ortian friends might throw some light on who it might be, if they weren’t all dead or in custody.

He scouted down the eastern side of the hill, travelling further and further away from the knight’s encampment while still approaching the city. He used what cover he could to travel unseen and then waited until he spied an elf; for once he could be fairly certain that an elf would be a friend and a human an enemy.  The small group of mounted Ortians that he came upon about half an hour later, recognised him and led him back to the city walls.

Along the way the soldiers were able to brief him on what had happened, about the brief siege and the death of Julia. In any case, he could see for himself the depressing signs of yet more bloody fighting around the old imperial city. Human bodies were strewn across the battlefield, some of them burnt beyond recognition. He was deeply impressed by the destructive power of the lady, even when she was at the nadir of her powers; he was, however, saddened by what she had been forced to do.

They travelled on until they reached Ortia at about noon. It was much warmer now and several times he had considered taking off his blanket and putting it into his bag. However, every time he began to do it, the wind whipped up a cold breeze that blew through him and he stayed wrapped up. As they walked he pondered darkly what some powerful member of the CRS was doing in the middle of all of this strange racial politics, and he came to no clear conclusions.

By the time Hardacre walked through the north gate he was in a grim mood, wondering what his next step should be. The proconsul, however, had never been more pleased to see anyone in her life and she had to resist, with all the diplomatic acumen at her disposal, her strong desire to give him a very big hug.

Chapter fifty-eight

Inside the Great Wall

 

The Wall was opened and the vanguard of the Emperor’s army marched through it. The handful of Portalians who had been guarding the wall were scattered or captured and a space was found just beyond the east gate for a camp to be set up. Colonel Valerian posted guards at regular intervals around the encampment and sent out several reconnaissance parties. His conversation with Viola and her team was brief: he didn’t seem very interested in how they had opened the gates – he was now more concerned with how he could defend them.

Messengers were sent back immediately to Visnea, where General Titanius waited with the rest of the expeditionary force. It would take a couple of days for them to march to the gate and it was essential that the vanguard could keep control of the Wall at least until the Emperor came.

Kath had now negotiated an agreed point when she could go: when the Emperor relieved them, then she would make her way back to Visnea and then onwards to home, reversing the route she had taken to get to the Empire, more than six months before. There had been raised voices and emotional blackmail, both overt and covert, but Kath had stood her ground. She pointed out that after the Wall there would be no need for a Dwarven Magic scholar. From then on, she would be redundant. She was free to go home at last.  

Viola, however, did have one more thing that she wanted Kath to help her with. She wanted to enter the sphere and check that the taint was safely imprisoned. Kath agreed, with great reluctance, that she would do this last thing before she left them.

After a long discussion with Valerian, he let Viola have the space inside the wall evacuated, but only for a short time and if they left the gates open.

The guardian sphere sat on the floor, white and motionless.  Potentilla stared at it suspiciously, while Viola shooed away the few remaining troops.

‘Do you think that the Wall can go on making these for ever?’ asked Potentilla.

Kath walked round the sphere, thinking.

‘Well, it couldn’t do it forever… I would have thought that the time distortion magic alone must be amazingly costly. We only know of three though, so we might be close to capacity, I suppose, but I have no idea ’

‘Do you think that they can be shut down?’

‘When they’re empty maybe, because I think then they are pure energy, but I’m not sure what would happen if you collapsed folded space with something solid inside it…’

Potentilla mimed a big explosion, her legs splayed and her arms stretching up above her head.  She said ‘boom!’ rather solemnly.   

‘Possibly’ said Kath, sighing, ‘but I don’t want to find out’

Viola came over to join them, paying no attention to the strange position that Potentilla was now in.

‘We need to enter this very carefully’ she said.       

‘Really?’ muttered Kath, ‘I’d never have thought to do that…’

Viola ignored her and glanced sharply at Potentilla. There was a very brief pause and then Potentilla stepped confidently forward.

 ‘I’ll go first this time’ indicated Viola, ‘and we must be prepared to get out as quickly as possible’

Potentilla looked disappointed, but lined up behind Viola, as if queuing for a pie. Kath hung back, hoping that she wouldn’t be needed.

‘And then you Kath’ said Viola, ‘we’ll need you to have a look around’

Kath smiled sourly and mumbled ‘of course we will…’ under her breath.

Viola had one more look at the outside of the sphere, but could see nothing strange about it. She jumped up into the hollow hidden space behind the sphere, closely followed by her two companions. There was a buzz and then they disappeared from the view of anyone in the Wall.  

 

The inside of this sphere was exactly like the guardian’s further north except that it was much smaller. There was a room, barely twenty foot square, with just five green empty pods, each one created as before, apparently entirely of light.  There was room for a sixth pod, but no sign of it. Instead there was a strange red-green puddle on the floor about the size of a small ornamental pond. Its surface resembled an oil slick from which all but two of the spectrum colours had been removed. The red and the green smears circled each other in an extremely unstable way. They were all convinced that the puddle was getting bigger. Certainly, no-one wanted to go anywhere near it.

‘Well’ said Viola, ‘it looks like we know the fate of the taint…’ 

 Kath peered at the puddle with a mixture of fascination and revulsion.

‘This is what happens when blood mixes with sap, I suppose…’ she said

‘I wonder if it’s safe?’ asked Viola

‘It doesn’t look very stable, certainly’ mused Kath, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck rising.

‘Now would be a good time to turn off the sphere…’ suggested Potentilla

Viola nodded and took a step backwards towards the sphere’s exit.

‘We can only do that from outside, though’ she explained

Kath looked away from the puddle and up at Viola.

‘What?’

‘Do you know how to switch it off, then, ma’am?’ asked Potentilla, looking a little shocked.

Viola looked very pale, as if she were in pain, but didn’t reply. Then she jumped back out of the sphere, without even looking at her companions. Kath and Potentilla shared a moment of alarm and then leaped out as quickly as they could.

They found Viola standing rather forlornly in front of the sphere.  She had her arms folded, fortunately, and didn’t look as if she was about to do anything.

‘That was scary, Vee’ remonstrated Kath, ‘we thought you were about to turn the bloody thing off!’

‘Why do I know these things, Kath? How do I know them?’

Kath shook her head and her anger evaporated. She held on to Viola’s hand, squeezing it gently.

‘I think that it’s got something to with that dream – you know, the one you had in Melloreis’

Viola shook her head and stared down at the ground.

‘Maybe’ she said, ‘but I didn’t tell you the whole truth – I’ve been having dreams like that for all my life’

Kath could think of nothing to say: she could think of no explanation for either Viola’s insights or her dreams. She fumbled for some suitable words. There was silence for several seconds.

‘I think you should switch it off, ma’am’ said Potentilla, ‘if you can’. She was looking decidedly queasy.

Viola turned to Kath.

‘Do you think it’s safe?’ asked Viola

This seemed to Kath to be an ambiguous question: did she mean was it safe to keep it on? or was it safe to switch it off? Either seemed extremely dangerous.

‘I have no idea, but if we cancel the sphere at least we stand a chance of destroying the taint completely. And, if we don’t then who knows what will happen if that puddle gets any bigger’

‘I agree’ said Viola, ‘but you two had better stand back, just in case’

Kath retreated as far as she could, while still being able to see what was happening; Potentilla, however, had to be shooed away to some sort of reasonable distance.

Viola turned to the sphere and held her hands up to her lips as if in prayer. Then, with the palms still held together she flexed her arms slowly so that her tips of her fingers pointed away from her and directly in front of her body. She separated the palms and moved her hands out to the left and right as if an invisible force were pushing them apart. ‘katasbennumi’ she shouted, clapping suddenly.

The sphere blinked out without any fuss, but where it had been it was replaced by a strange whirl of green and red vapours, like a sublimating rose.  The cloudy smudge began to rotate, propelled by the savage contrary motion of the two colours. As the whirl speeded up it began to pull air in from the atmosphere, then dust and finally anything that was not bolted or tied down.

Viola cried out and lurched forward, as she was dragged towards the vapours. Kath rushed forward, desperately trying to grab hold of Viola’s arms.  

As the twin colours spun round and round a greyish plug appeared in the centre of the whirl, almost like a scab trying to grow on a wound. At first it grew slightly bigger, but then, quite suddenly, it split open and a ragged blue tear opened where the plug had been. The vapours rapidly began disappearing into the rent, and Kath was certain that beyond the tear she could see an infinitely deep sky full of strange restless blue clouds.  

Kath caught Viola’s arm just above the elbow and held on grimly, not completely stopping her but at least slowing her down a little. Kath looked out frantically for help. Potentilla was only a step behind but she had stopped, as if she were looking down on the ground for something. For some unaccountable reason, she unsheathed her sword.  Kath was now terrified that they would all be pulled into the pulsing blue fissure; what on earth was the stupid elf doing now? Did she think that she could fight the entire Outer Void? 

Potentilla grunted and rammed her sword into the large crack that she had just seen in the floor. It was where two plates of metal had been bonded together. The sword lodged itself tightly in the join with a loud screeching sound. Potentilla held on to the hilt of her weapon with one hand and tightly on to Kath with the other. She smiled fiercely.

‘Hold on!’ she yelled

The blue rupture had now swallowed up all of the red vapour and was spinning faster and faster. Meanwhile, the three friends were pulled ever more violently towards the other world. Potentilla’s sword bent further and further over and Kath closed her eyes, quite certain that it must snap.  She just hoped that the end would be quick and not too weird.

The green vapours now slipped into the blue rent and as they did the blue hole began to shrink, like a plug hole closing as water descended through it. There was a sound like a great exotic chord and the green disappeared; with it the blue blinked out. All that was left was a shimmering in the air, blackish and blueish like an aerial bruise.

The winds stopped and the three companions were left lying on the floor, bedraggled but whole. Potentilla jumped up and pulled her sword out of the crack. She inspected it carefully and then looked up, rather sadly. The sword was bent completely out of shape. She banged it on the hard surface beneath her and it split into  two – the shards clanged onto the floor.

‘Ma’am’ she said, ‘I think this sword must have been faulty. Can I requisition another one?’

Viola and Kath stared up at her in incredulity and relief.  

‘You saved our lives’ panted Kath, ‘you mad elf’

Potentilla grinned from ear to ear and came over to embrace her friends. She looked intently at Kath.

‘Does that mean that you owe me a favour?’ she asked.

Kath shrugged, ‘well, yes, of course’ she said, not really thinking very straight.

‘Good’ said Potentilla, ‘here’s the favour that I want…’

‘What?’  Kath asked, confused and exhausted.  

‘Don’t go’ said the elf, and, of course, after that, she knew that she couldn’t.

Chapter fifty-nine

On the Road to Amansk

 

Victoria had never felt angrier or more upset.  After she had realised that Lily and Erik had gone she had forced Otto to send a large force of his troops to sweep the area to look for them, but all to no avail – they had disappeared without trace.

At first she blamed herself, deeply regretting that she hadn’t kept a better eye on them.  After that she blamed Hardacre, who she very briefly suspected of kidnapping them. However when she considered this a bit more carefully she realised that she had no reason to doubt his truthfulness: why would a Hybitor spy set on a secret mission kidnap two random princelings? So, if it wasn’t Hardacre then perhaps it was Erik, who was such a strange boy. Who knows what odd ideas he might have put into silly Lily’s head? On the other hand, however, he didn’t seem like a very assertive person and certainly not the kind who could persuade a wilful soul to run away. In the absence of a really good culprit all she could do was blame the person closest by and so she took it all out on Otto.

‘Your security is unbelievably bad’ she yelled at him when they had looked everywhere that they could think of, ‘how could you let two foolish children out of your sight?’

Otto stood by their coach and smarted from her attack. Since she had come back into his life his world seemed to have swung back and forth from sunlight to darkness.

‘I’m so sorry Vicky’ he said, his lips wrinkled into a line, ‘I thought that they were in the coach with you…’

‘Well’ said Victoria, glaring at him, ‘they obviously weren’t, were they… I asked you to do this simple job…’

Otto suddenly realised that they were surrounded by his knights: this was embarrassing and uncomfortable.

‘Perhaps we could have this talk in the coach…’ he half-pleaded, looking round at the gathering group of his men most of whom had found something really important to do near where they were standing. Victoria’s face darkened with storm clouds.

‘No we cannot have this talk in the coach, grandmaster, I think that it would be useful for your knights to see the extent to which you default on your promises’

‘You are not being entirely fair, Miss Jenkins’ he said, now aware that he had to put on a show., ‘I simply promised to take you to Amansk, I cannot be held entirely responsible for their disappearance. It seems that the Ethian witch has fooled us all and spirited them away’

‘So, you’re blaming Mr Hardacre, are you?’ said Victoria, with a measured softness, ‘I suppose this horde of Formish soldiers were unable to deal with the deadly threat of a man servant with a tree shrew’

‘He’s a witch’ said Otto, forlornly, ‘he has all sorts of powers…’

Victoria shook her head and for a second Otto worried that she was about to wag her finger at him and send him to his room. Her head was still shaking when Gerard came running up to them.

Gerard had been searching by the lake shore.  He had examined the trails in the sand carefully and had come to his own conclusions. However, he wasn’t planning to give his findings up before he was ready.   

‘Have you found any sign of them?’ asked Victoria

‘They went down to the lakeside – I followed their tracks down there – after that it isn’t very clear what happened’

Victoria felt her stomach churn. She really needed to know what had happened – but she dreaded to find out the truth. 

‘What do you mean by that? Explain yourself!’

‘There are three sets of tracks in the sand there.  One of them was smaller than the other two. They all lead to a place where something was lying on the ground, I think – then they seem to stop. It’s hard to tell though; the bigger footprints are all over the place ’

‘Are you a tracker?’ asked Otto, ‘do you really know how to interpret such vague marks on the ground?’

Gerard and Victoria ignored him. Once again he felt like a naughty boy. How was this happening? He was grandmaster. He had fasted and meditated, learned how to withstand extremes of heat and cold, and now he commanded an elite force of highly trained knights. How could this all be to no avail? How could he have got to this place? How did he get to a place where he was being snubbed by a mercenary scoundrel?

Victoria had more pressing things to worry than Otto’s state of mind. She thought that she could interpret what Gerard had seen.

‘I think they must have teleported away with Hardacre – but if so then he must have done it deliberately. But why would he have teleported them away?’

‘Isn’t it obvious?’ said Gerard, smiling, ‘he’s a kidnapper, just like me…’

Victoria didn’t believe this for a second. Wasn’t it obvious to everyone that Hardacre was a completely honourable man?

 ‘I very much doubt that’ she said, ‘and anyway, how did he get them down to the beach?’

‘Well, he is a witch…’ murmured Otto, ‘they can force people to do all sorts of things, I’m sure…’

Victoria shot him a scornful glance.  

‘I’m going to assume that they went voluntarily’ she said, now looking entirely at Gerard, ‘until I get compelling evidence otherwise’

Gerard grinned and bowed slightly. He looked straight into Victoria’s eyes, unblinking.

‘You are a fine judge of character, Miss Jenkins’ he acknowledged, ‘and I think you are right. Erik and Lily were hiding in some trees – I think that they must have been watching whatever Hardacre was doing. After that, judging the tracks, I’d say that they ran over to him’

‘How does that make sense?’ mused Victoria, ‘If he’d seen them hiding and then called them over, they wouldn’t have run would they?’

‘Perhaps he ordered them to run to him?’ suggested Otto very softly. He was desperate to be involved, particularly as it hurt him physically to see Gerard staring so intently into Victoria’s eyes.   

‘Or perhaps they teleported with him but without his permission…’ said Victoria, seeing no real point in not telling the truth, ‘and maybe that happened when Boo blinked away’

‘What?’ both men cried out simultaneously.

‘Hardacre has a magical animal that is tracking some powerful mage or witch. She can follow a scent through space by teleporting… apparently’

‘What?’ repeated Otto, a little more softly this time. Gerard waited for more explanation.

‘I know it sounds mad but it seems to be how Mr Hardacre got to the Castle in the first place – following the magical creature. They call it Boo’

 ‘Who are “they”?’ asked Gerard, with a glint in his eye.

‘Hardacre’s employers…’ said Victoria, beginning to regret her candour.

‘Oh really…’ said Gerard, ‘now that’s very interesting. Are his employers witches as well?’

‘That’s not relevant’ barked Victoria, ‘the main important thing is that we have established that the princelings are with Hardacre, and that he probably didn’t want them to come. So, we have to work out where Hardacre might have gone and try to follow him’

Victoria pulled herself away from Gerard’s cobra gaze and looked directly at Otto.

‘Otto, do you have any idea who the powerful witch was who was staying recently at Castle Uberwald?’

Otto looked bemused. He was completely at sea.

‘I don’t know of any such person. Why would a witch be at the castle?’

‘Well…’ sighed Victoria, ‘I wouldn’t know, will I. I’ve been locked up for the last several weeks…’

 Otto looked pained. He really would have liked to have a useful answer to this question.

‘I’m sorry, Vick… Miss Jenkins, I really don’t know…’

Victoria raised her hands up in despair.

‘But aren’t you meant to be the Baron’s equal? Don’t you share his counsel?’

‘Up to a point…’ said Otto, ‘but we didn’t discuss magic’

‘Well, is von Eisen a powerful witch?’ asked Victoria, impatiently.

‘I don’t… think… so’ said Otto, trying hard to stop himself staring down at the floor.

‘Well, who is it then?’ demanded Victoria

Otto looked blank. Despite himself his gaze wandered down to the floor. He could feel his face flushing.

‘I know’ said Gerard.

Everyone there turned to look at him. Otto had a brief mental vision of a peacock.  There was a theatrical beat.

‘And I’m very happy to tell you’ Gerard continued.

‘Who is it then?’ asked Victoria, rubbing her temple with her fingers.  She could feel a splitting headache coming.  Gerard tilted his head slightly, in mock sympathy.

 ‘Ah, yes, but all information comes at a price’ he said ‘shall we say twenty elfrounds?’   

Victoria took a step towards Gerard and he thought for a moment that she was considering throttling him, but then she drew away. She really was a refreshingly strong woman.

‘You know that I don’t have twenty elfrounds…’ she said

‘Well, of course you don’t’ said Gerard, kindly, ‘but your boyfriend does’

Chapter sixty

Fanemouth

 

Kathleen covered sheets of paper with sketches, drawings and formulas. She wished that she knew a bit more about botany, but she thought she understood enough to work out what might be done if she found the right kind of seeds.   However, she had very little blue essence left and so she had to be sure about which seeds she would use.

There was a little spell than Laurence used when he was trying to coax a seed into geminating and that he had used a far more powerful, but extremely exhausting, version of the same spell when he had regenerated the Zymena tree in the battle against Whitecloak. What she needed was something in between those two in strength, which would generate a mass of growing stems inside a ray. This required some very careful calibration, however, if she were to avoid the twin pitfalls of being too feeble for the ray to notice or too powerful to allow more than a single attack at any one time. 

Soon Kathleen’s sitting room and kitchen were full of tangled webs of green shoots, none of which were quite big enough.  She had been using every bowl and pan that she had in her kitchen and was beginning to dread the eventual washing up. Finally, she fixed on the winged seeds of lady’s bedstraw, Galium verum, which grew into a massive tangle of sticky tendrils.  It was all a bit hit and miss, but it was a start.

The next stage was to create some sort of force bulb – a structure made entirely of energy within which the seed could be sheltered. The bulb would have to have an extraordinarily thin pin-like point, so that when it was thrown against the side of the ray it would pierce the membrane. Then the bulb had to be made to contract and expel the seed into the ray. However, the bulb would also have to hold the growth spell in check until the seed entered the creature’s blue interior. This was all very difficult, but, not, she was hoping, impossible.  Creating an anti-magical effect in a small area was fairly easy. As always, the smaller the scale, the lower the energy and the shorter the time, the easier the magic was to perform. The problem was the number of times she had had to practice the spell – over and over. Excessive multiple spell casting could be very debilitating.

Exactly how debilitating wasn’t really obvious to Kathleen until she staggered upstairs to get a drink of water after a long struggle with the bulb mechanism of her spell. She managed to get about halfway into the sitting room before the darkness began to engulf her. This wasn’t just tiredness – this was an overwhelming need to switch off that came with an excess use of thaumaturgical power. 

She staggered, partly righted herself, and then fell over on to a pot full of geraniums. She might as well have fallen into the deepest darkest pit in the world.  She lay still and for a very long time nothing could stir her.

 

***

She was finally awoken by a loud and repeated knock on the door. She was so groggy that she acted on reflex – she got up, with some effort, and opened the door.  It was Tom, looking stern and worried. She thought that he looked a lot more attractive when he was happy.

Part of Kathleen’s mind realised that she had kelemeia; the complete mental and physical shut down that occurred when a witch was foolish enough to use magical energy continuously for too long. What she needed now was rest and sleep – without them she might be vague and non-functioning for months.  

‘Have you seen yourself?’ asked Tom

She stared up at him, hearing him but having no idea what he was talking about.  She dared not speak as she did not trust her own words. Tom leant forward and methodically removed the shards of pots, the specks of soil and the bits of leaf from her hair.

‘What have you been doing?’ he asked, staring past her to the jungle of plants in her living room.

Kathleen found herself unable to follow what he was saying at all. But he did look very nice standing there, even if he did seem a bit cross about something.  Words returned to her, unfortunately, but not the ability to control them.

‘I like plants’ she said, grinning, ‘do you like plants?’

Tom looked even more concerned. He was still trying to work out what on earth was going on in the living room.

‘Plants?’ he asked, in a hesitant voice, ‘why are you asking me about plants?’

‘I can make them grow really big!’ she said, giggling, ‘do you like big plants more or little tiny wee ones? I think I like them all, I really do’

Tom grabbed her arms just as she began to fall. She nestled against him, burrowing her face in his chest.

‘You need to lie down, Katy – I don’t think you’re entirely well…’

She looked up at him and whispered as if it was a secret.

‘I like kissing you just as much as I like growing plants – did you know that? I really like kissing you very much…it’s your lips…they are very nice lips…’

 Tom smiled, despite his worries, and looked around for her coat. He spotted it on the coatrack just next to the door.

‘Never mind about that at the moment, old thing,’ he said, ‘let’s get you into a nice comfy  bed next door’

Kathleen’s mouth narrowed into a pout, but she didn’t object as he slipped on her coat and began to usher her gently out of the door.

‘I could make you kiss me if I wanted to’ she said, with a huge yawn, ‘I know those things… I really do… but I think we’re not meant to do those sorts of spells… which is a pity… do you like kissing me?’

Tom shook his head in wonderment and confusion. He didn’t really know what she was talking about, but that wasn’t his biggest worry.  He was keen to get her out of the house at quickly as possible for he feared for her physical and mental state.

‘Shush, silly woman’ he said, feeling slightly flustered as well as worried, ‘…not now, please! Anyway, you very well know the answer…’

He manoeuvred her out of the door and then leant over to shut it. He then realised that he wouldn’t be able to lock it and he could see no keyhole anyway.  

‘Damn’ he said, ‘where’s your front door key, Katy?’

. ‘No need for that stuff’ she said. She giggled again and waved vaguely at the door

‘Baria’ she shouted, triumphantly.  

The door shut with a loud bang and Tom heard a series of clicks and buzzes, quite unlike any noises that a closing door had ever made in front of him before. Kathleen tried to look up to gauge his reaction but sleep overcame her – she had been tipped over the edge by even that simple spell. Tom shook his head and gave her a big but gentle squeeze. She began to snore at a volume that totally belied her size. Tom picked her up in his arms and carried her away.

‘Well, my dear Kathleen’ he murmured, as he plodded towards the pub, ‘you have a lot of explaining to do’