Chapter forty-five

Visnea

 

‘Why should I co-operate?’ asked Kath, as soon as they had got back to their rooms, ‘that stupid elf is planning to remove our friend from her position. Why would I want to help make that happen?’

They had only just entered the central living room in their imperial apartment when this argument had started. Kath was determined to get it all out in the open as quickly as possible.

 ‘Because the city is clearly in peril,’ answered Viola, ‘and because we cannot disobey a direct order from my lawfully empowered monarch’. 

‘You’re just trying to be brave and noble’ sneered Kath, ‘and it doesn’t suit you. I think I preferred you before you became Quiena’s representative on earth’

‘What do you plan to do, then?’ asked Viola, astonished at the tone of Kath’s attack.

‘Go home’ said Kath, ‘I’ve been planning to do that for the last several months, but you haven’t let me’

‘You can’t go home’ insisted Viola, ‘you’re an integral part of the plan’

‘Am I wearing a uniform?’ snapped Kath, ‘am I am elf? Can I live for a zillion years?’

‘You can’t abandon us now’ said Viola, hardly able to believe what she was hearing, ‘you can’t just walk away. Doesn’t the fate of the city and our friendship mean anything to you?’

‘Don’t try and persuade me with that Hardacre mind games crap. It’s all got too messy and difficult, and I need to get away. I’ve had enough’

Viola looked around to try to get moral support from Potentilla, and realised that for the last five minutes she had been sitting on a bench and staring out into space. Kath couldn’t help but follow Viola’s gaze. They were both astonished to discover that the western elf hadn’t been listening to them at all.

Potentilla looked up at them with big, grave, eyes. She frowned at Viola.

‘I’d like to prove that it’s deserved, ma’am’ she said, ‘I really would’

Viola stared at her blankly.

‘What?’ she said, with an edge of irritation.

‘You said that I had been promoted, but I’m sure that I wasn’t.  I think that you lied to the Emperor to try to help me.  That was very kind, but…’

Potentilla stood up and shuffled to her version of attention.  She looked very determined.

‘I want to do something that would really make me worth a commission, ma’am’

‘You really do deserve promotion, Lieutenant; surely you’re aware of that?’

Potentilla shook her head; she looked upset. Kath’s heart sank – she knew exactly what was coming next.

‘I don’t think so’ she said in a slightly quavering voice, ‘I need you two to help me’

Kath held her hands up in a gesture of repudiation.

‘No, Tillie, don’t do this to me! I need to go home’

Potentilla looked at Viola uncertainly.

‘What did she say? How can she be leaving? We can’t open the gate without her, can we?’

Viola shrugged. She rested her hand on the table and waited.

Kath felt the whirlpool sucking her down again. How was it possible to get so tangled up in the big things that none of the small things mattered anymore. The ruined city, the war against evil, the relief of the white city, these were all things way beyond her abilities, and yet, here she was expected to contribute, not just once, but over and over again.

‘You can open the gate without me’ she said, ‘Viola and Quiena seem to know what to do…’

‘But you’re the one who knows all about Dwarven Magic – who knows what problems we might need to solve…’ said Potentilla

‘I’ve really had enough Tillie – I’m way out of my depth!’

‘We can all use that excuse, I think’ Viola murmured

Potentilla came over to look at Kath very carefully. The she put her hand on the top of her head, as if she were a spiritual healer trying to find out what was wrong with someone’s brain. In fact, she was attempting to examine a phenomenon that she had seen many times before but had never comprehended.

‘So, are you giving up?’ asked Potentilla, ‘just when everything is really difficult?’

‘Everyone had to go home at some point, Tillie. After all, Rem did, didn’t he?’

Potentilla breathed in sharply; her face was like thunder.

‘Only after he’d done everything that he could – only after all of his work was done’
All that Kath wanted to do was run away, but it looked like she wasn’t going to be allowed to.

‘I have no moral obligation to you, or to the Empire, or even to Ortia and the Proconsul. I’m a scholar, a citizen of Eth and a human. None of this has anything to do with me’

Kath sighed – it was a valiant rearguard action that she was fighting but it was doomed to failure. The law of amicable contracts was stronger and harder than the written laws of nations.

Potentilla turned to Viola, looking very confused and upset. Having failed to find anything she could understand in Kath’s behaviour she was now hoping that her leader’s face might give her some clues.  

‘If she wants to go, we can’t stop her’ said Viola, wearily

‘Is this a human thing, Ma’am?’ asked Potentilla of Viola, ‘do they do this even when they know that they are really needed?’

Kath had had enough. She turned and waved her left hand at them both.

‘Shut up, both of you. I’ll come at least as far as the wall. I don’t want to. But I will’

Kath hurried out of the room before she could catch a glimpse of Potentilla’s infuriatingly happy little face.

 

***

Three days later the expeditionary army, a scratch force of twenty thousand elven cavalry mostly drawn from the Emperor’ household troops, was ready. Viola was astonished at the speed that the imperial military machine had sprung into action.

The ‘Great Wall Action Team’, as Kath had sarcastically renamed them, went on with the vanguard of the army, two thousand strong. They set out half a day before the main body, and were led by a colonel Valerian. He was an old fashioned, but apparently exceptionally capable, very quiet, man. Proconsul Antonius travelled with Valerian, and the GWAT had avoided him completely, even refusing a chance to meet him after their planning session with Titanius and Valerian. Major Viola claimed that they had ‘far too much planning of their own to do but she hoped that they would be able to meet soon’.

 They set off on horse and in carriages at first light in the middle of the last week of November, with the three companions in one of the officer’s coaches. This method of travel would take them to the wall in just under a day and they were grateful that it would take them so little time, as Kath was still very sulky and resentful.  The only conversation they had was a very brief one about the main gate. They knew that it should open on the Emperor’s secret commands, which Viola had been told in absolute secrecy, but also that they hadn’t done what they should do for over nine-hundred years. Kath kept pressing Viola about ‘recent messages from Quiena’ until it got really annoying. After that they travelled on in silence.

The direct route to the main gate was along a road that started out optimistically and then slowly petered out dismally. For the first few hours there were substantial settlements and then the road turned into a track through dry scrub, full of holly, gorse and broom.  They already knew that they could only take the coaches as far as the wall, but even getting to the wall turned out to be a struggle.

Eventually, however, the vanguard arrived at the huge sweeping metal gates that blocked their way. Here the wall was much wider, it could take an army marching one hundred abreast, and they knew that there was a deep enclosed tunnel area on the other side of the gate, which acted as a defensive stronghold when the gate was open.

Viola ordered the army group to stop and got them to wait a few hundred yards back from the gate entrance. Viola, Potentilla and Kath then walked forward to the gate. About fifty yards from the edge of the metal doors Viola went on alone. She had memorised the passwords.

The doors were clearly of the same material as they had found at the Quienimon Gate, but there was vastly more metal and the walls were higher. Viola craned her neck to look up, and the uniform height of the shining surface meant that she felt quite dizzy. She knelt down and put her ear against the gate, gingerly at first, and then with growing confidence. There was no music; all she could hear was the deep human of machinery and, further in, the sound of faint voices and footfalls. She couldn’t quite work out where those noises were coming from – that was one disadvantage of her acute hearing; it was not always possible to tell how far away a sound really was.

She immediately knew, although she did not know how, that the password wouldn’t work – something had clearly gone wrong. She went through the motions of whispering the words, but nothing changed. They would have to get inside the wall and fix whatever was wrong. She worked her way round the ends of the gate, listening there too.

Viola returned to Kath and Potentilla. They looked at her expectantly, but with very little hope.

‘It’s not working, is it?’ said Kath, a little breathlessly, ‘do you want me to have a look’

‘There’s no music’ said Viola, ‘something has turned it off here at the gate’

Kath tilted her head.

‘Something?’ she said, cold sweat prickling on her brow.

‘Alright – it could well be somebody…’

‘But who?’ asked Kath, shivering

‘I have no idea’ replied Viola, ‘but I can sense the music either side of the gate and then there is just silence here in the middle’

Potentilla looked up at the left hand side of the gate and pointed over to it.

‘There’s a ladder going up the wall’ she said, eagerly, ‘perhaps we can get inside there and have a poke around’

‘Looks like we have very little choice’ sighed Kath.

 

The ladder was bolted to the wall; it was narrow and steep and its rungs were very closely spaced. It was clearly designed for humanoids who had much shorter legs than either elves or humans. At the top of the ladder, two thirds of the way up the wall, was a small service area surrounded by low iron barriers. There was a hatch at about stomach level, made out of a darker, almost greenish, metal. This seemed to be some sort of service entrance.

They climbed up to the top and Viola inspected the hatch. She pushed and pulled it but it didn’t open. She was slightly surprised, but also relieved, to find that no gesture, word or music came unbidden into her head.

Kath was watching her closely.

‘Picking up any messages from the great beyond, Vee?’  

Viola glared at her.

‘I think the Wall is dead here – I don’t think that Ophia has any control over this bit for some reason’

‘Shall I hit it really hard with a hammer, ma’am?’ asked Potentilla, rather redundantly as they didn’t have a hammer to hand, but certainly showing willing.

‘No’ barked Viola, ‘I suggest that you just leave it alone’

Potentilla took a step back, toppled, and nearly tripped backwards over the safety barrier. Fortunately both Kath and Viola struck a hand out at the same time and they were able to steady her.

‘Lieutenant’ hissed Viola, ‘stay still’

 Kath inched forward so she was standing right next to Viola.

‘Shall I try?’ she said, softly.

Viola nodded.

Kath reached inside her coat and pulled out the Dwarven Magic rod, the same rod that they had used to control the green spheres ten days before. She lifted it up and whispered the trigger words: “Quiena, Ophia”.

They waited, each half hoping that the rod wouldn’t work and fearing what they would find behind the entrance if it did.

A red glow formed at the edge of the hatch near its base. Slowly it spread up along the outline of the darker metal and as it did so there was an odd smell, rather like the odour of a kettle which had been left to boil dry on a stove. They all shuffled back uncomfortably. The glow spread from both sides until the two worms of red glow met. Then the hatch, without any warning, simply fell out of the wall and almost on to Viola’s foot. There was a clang and then silence.

‘I think that’s the emergency opening procedure’ whispered Kath.

After a very short pause, they crept forward and looked into the open hatchway. Inside there was a narrow crawl way that disappeared into the depths of the wall. It looked forbidding, but it was the only way forward. Viola’s heart started to beat faster and she began to feel claustrophobic. What if there was something down there that attacked them? Whoever was at the front in the tunnel would have no way of escaping. Exactly the same thought, but amplified several times in terror, was going through Kath’s mind.  

‘Let me go first’ said their lieutenant, eagerly, pushing her way through to the entrance.  It was then that they remembered, once again, what an invaluable member of the team Lieutenant Potentilla really was.