Potentilla
climbed inside the metal tunnel and began squirming her way along it on her
hands and knees. Viola, who was next, briefly worried that she’d get stuck, but
she found that, in fact, there was plenty of room for her to wriggle down the
tube. Kath was incredibly reluctant to follow them, but she knew that she would
have to. She counted to ten and then pitched herself awkwardly into the tunnel.
The tunnel went straight ahead into pitch
darkness, which Potentilla was able to reduce only slightly by a small torch
that she lit and carried in front of her. This meant that she could see about
five feet in front of her nose, but that the other two could see almost nothing
except dark shadows. Progress was slow and made more difficult by the amazingly
slippery surface of the metal lining the crawl-way.
Kath knew, from the maps that she had pored
over during her two visits to Visnea, that the main metal gates were huge and
repeated on both sides of the wall, with a defensive space in-between. Any
enemy caught between the two sets of gates could be picked off by archers hidden
in the walls within the complex and by whatever else Quiena had devised for
their torment. The whole area was a structure about two hundred yards square
and so she assumed that they would only have to clamber about one hundred yards
in in order to reach the centre. What
they’d find there she dreaded to think.
They crawled on a little further and then
Potentilla turned to gesture to the left with her torch. Viola threw herself
backwards violently to avoid getting a face full of fire and soot.
‘Lieutenant!’ she whispered, ‘be careful!’
She could see Potentilla’s excited face – it
hadn’t changed at all after her caution. She marvelled at the constant joy that
came with such unchallengeable optimism.
‘Look!’ said Potentilla, really rather
loudly. She pointed to a hole in the side of the walkway, They all recognised
it as identical in form to the tunnel that ran at right-angles to the corridor
through the Quienimon Gate.
‘I’m thinking you could crawl all the way
down this and back to the northern gate’ said Potentilla, in wonder
‘Maybe you
could…’ said Kath
‘What?’ asked Potentilla
‘Nothing, Tillie’ said Kath, ‘we’ll explore
this a bit later’
‘Yes, let’s get on’ insisted Viola
Potentilla turned back to face down the
tunnel. It was hotter and more stuffy the further that they penetrated into the
wall. At least another ten minutes of extremely slow progress passed before
they came across anything else. This time it was a hatch in the right hand side
of the tunnel, through which very diffuse light was visible.
‘Do you think that’s daylight?’ whispered
Kath
Viola peered through the murk.
‘Too hard to say’ she hissed back.
‘Shall I try the rod on it’ asked Kath, in
her softest possible voice.
‘It’s worth a try’ answered Viola, ‘assuming
that it will work on this metal’
Kath considered this.
‘You mean given that this part seems to have
shut down?’ she asked
‘Yes, exactly’ agreed Viola, ‘let’s just be
really careful’
They heard a loud grinding sound ahead of
them and a crashing. The light suddenly became a lot brighter.
‘There’s a room here’ shouted Potentilla, ‘I
couldn’t hear a word you two were saying so I decided just to yank off the
hatch’
Viola crawled forward a few feet and looked
down through the hatch. Potentilla was standing in a small room, about the size
of a walk-in larder. It was packed with metal pipes with valves and stopcocks.
It looked like a plumber’s heaven.
‘Don’t touch anything!’ whispered Viola
loudly
‘And keep quiet!’ said Kath, in an
exasperated voice.
Potentilla looked quite shocked and put her
finger up to her lips.
‘Yes, we should keep quiet – there may be
enemies about’
Viola and Kath jumped down as carefully as
they could and ended up standing in a space that would have been cramped for a
single dwarf.
Kath looked around the small space; the
tangle of bronze pipes was bewildering. She wondered what substance was flowing
round them, but could see no simple way of finding out. The light that softly coloured the tiny room
was coming from about half way up the wall on the opposite side from where
they’d climbed in. There seemed to be a sliding panel there.
‘What’s this?’ asked Viola, pointing at the pipes
and valves. Kath shook her head and shrugged. She rapidly realised, from the
look of disappointment on both Potentilla’s and Viola’s faces, that she was
expected to know everything about the workings of the Great Wall. Oh the burden of being a bloody expert!
she grumbled inwardly. Kath tried to
distract her deflated friends.
‘Look at this’ she said, pointing to the
metal panel, ‘shall we see if we can shift it?’
Kath didn’t wait for a response. She grabbed
the panel by a raised edge and attempted to slide it sideways. It was stiff,
but it moved about an inch and revealed a large space filled with diffuse, but
bright, sunlight. All three of them tried to peer out of it at the same time.
‘It’s the bit in the middle’ exclaimed
Potentilla.
She was right. They were looking out into the
defensive space between the western and eastern gates.
‘Careful’ hissed Viola, ‘let me look’
No-one could argue with this, as it had been
long established that Viola could see much further and more clearly than anyone
else; in fact more than anyone either of the other two had ever known.
Viola gently squeezed past Potentilla and
pulled the panel across another few inches and peered out for several minutes.
‘One of the sections of the eastern door is
open and it’s guarded,’ she said eventually
‘Guarded?’ asked Kath, nervously.
‘Well, sort of…’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Kath impatiently,
‘who is it?’
Viola turned round and grinned at her.
‘There’s a single Portlian elf, sitting in a
deckchair – he’s fast asleep in a pool of sunshine’
‘Really?’ asked Potentilla, slightly
disappointed, ‘just one elf?’
‘In my opinion that’s excellent news’ pointed
out Kath, ‘would you have preferred a thousand?’
Viola narrowed her eyes and pulled the panel
back fully. She measured its approximate width and length with her hands.
‘Lieutenant’ she said, ‘do you think you
could squeeze through that gap?’
Potentilla nodded enthusiastically without
even looking at the panel. Viola sighed quietly but pressed on anyway.
‘I want you to clamber down, as quietly as you can, walk to the
entrance, and poke your head out to check no-one else is nearby. If you find
anyone, come back immediately – is
that clear?’
‘Of course, ma’am’
‘If the sleeping sentry is the only elf
nearby then capture him – as gently as
you can – and then we’ll join you’
‘Understood, ma’am’ said Potentilla and
pulled herself through the hole in the wall and jumped down. She wasn’t
particularly quiet, but they were at least a hundred yards away from the guard.
Potentilla disappeared from view for an
agonisingly long time, and then Viola saw her tiptoe up to the sleeping
Portalian and clamp her hand over his mouth. There was a brief struggle, which
was very one sided. It’s hard to counterattack when you’re lying in a deck
chair. Soon, Potentilla had rolled the guard on to the floor with her sword in
his back.
Viola and Kath scrambled their way awkwardly
down to the floor and ran over to their companion. Viola looked down at the
terrified guard; this clearly wasn’t a very professional guarding operation,
but then no one had come through for nine hundred years – even for an elf that
was a lot of waiting.
Viola made her way, very carefully, to the
open door section and peered round it. There was a small camp with a few tents
about ten yards from the entrance and there was smoke coming from a fire behind
it. She beckoned Kath towards her. Kath came over with obvious reluctance.
‘Can you hear the music again?’ whispered
Viola
‘Yes’ said Kath, ‘this bit must be working…’
Viola pointed towards the open door section.
‘Can you close this?’ she asked
Kath took out her rod. She examined the open section of the entrance;
it was only about twenty feet across, roughly one tenth of the total length of
the whole metal gate. She lifted the rod up and chanted ‘Quiena, Ophia’. The green
tendrils of power grew out of the rod and played on where the surface of the
door would have been, but nothing else happened.
Viola looked mildly irritated.
‘Say the ‘close’ word’ she said, impatiently.
Kath glared at her.
‘What word do you mean? You mad elf!’
‘karpon´
explained Viola, as it was utterly obvious. The section of the door
shimmered in the green web and then solidified.
‘The password is “fruit”?’ muttered Kath, ‘what
sort of secret code is that?’
‘Ophia’s I assume’ sighed Viola.
Kath drew the rod away from the door and the
green branches disappeared from both the door and the rod. She looked over to
the other side of the space, to where the west gate was.
‘Perhaps we can run over there, open the
other doors and let the army through!’
Viola had had exactly the same thought. They
rushed back towards the western doors, but something was wrong. There was an
oddly familiar odour in the air.
‘What’s that?’ asked Kath, stopping in her
tracks, ‘what’s that metallic smell?’
Viola was a few steps ahead of Kath, but she
stopped too. She had seen something stretching across the western gate. It looked like a huge skin, or a deflated
bubble, that had been pulled across the entire length of the gate.
‘You really can’t remember that smell?’ she
asked, grimly, her lips and throat suddenly very dry. She paused to let her
terror subside slightly.
‘It’s blood’ she said, very quietly.
She pointed up to the dark red membrane
between them and the gate. Kath strained to see it in the faint light, but she
knew well enough exactly what it was. It seemed to pulse and glow.
‘It’s a taint’ Kath whispered again, her face
pale in the half light.
‘Yes’ said Viola, ‘and I have absolutely no
idea how we will ever be able to destroy it’
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