‘Here
she is!’ yelled Kath from the pod next to Lucius’s.
Viola had stared at the frozen elven scholar
for a bit longer, wondering what Dwarven Magic had done to him. Kath, however,
had been more aware of the need to find their friend.
Potentilla stood stock still in her green
shell. She looked perfectly well, she didn’t even look surprised. It had
obviously all happened in an instant.
Kath was breathless.
‘Can you get her out?’ she asked
Viola wondered whether she would suddenly get
some unconscious instruction again, but none came. Kath looked impatiently at
her.
‘I’ll try the rod’ she said, lifting it up
and pointing it vaguely at Potentilla.
‘No!’ exclaimed Viola, ‘we don’t know if it’s
safe – try it on one of the others’
Kath hesitated and looked down the row of
pods.
‘One of the Tlaxacans, you mean?’ she asked
Viola frowned and walked back past all of the
frozen occupants.
‘Probably not’ she answered, ‘I’m not sure
we’re ready to deal with an angry acolyte’
They had both gravitated back to Lucius’s
pod. They stared at him for a second and then, in soundless agreement, Viola
cleared the pod again and Kath raised her rod. She murmured the trigger words.
The green light played over the pod, just as
it had done over the sphere. It wrapped round the vague outlines of the
structure like a honeysuckle creeper climbing up the branch of a tree. The creeper squeezed and the pod disappeared.
Lucius fell forward. His eyes, which had been
open but unseeing, suddenly focused.
‘…with singing green stars as our guide…’ he
said to no-one in particular, fell down gracelessly on to the floor and was
instantly asleep. A few seconds later he
was snoring.
Viola bent down to examine him – she looked
very concerned.
‘Is he alright?’ she asked, looking up at
Kath.
Kath shrugged.
‘If you ask me, it’s an improvement’
Kath turned abruptly away from the sleeping
elf.
‘Let’s get Tillie out. She’s only been in
there a few minutes; he’s been trapped for months’
Viola jumped up, still concerned about Lucius
but happy to agree with Kath’s priorities.
Kath repeated the process that they used for
Lucius’s pod. Potentilla’s eyes had been closed and as she opened them she
smiled at them.
‘Ma’am, Kath’ she said, ‘thank you!’
She stepped out of the pod and rubbed her
eyes.
‘Those were good dreams’ she giggled, ‘very
good indeed!’
Kath
and Viola glanced at each other. Both of them made a silent agreement never to
ask Potentilla about the dreams.
Kath hugged Potentilla. Viola looked on
warily.
‘How are you feeling, Lieutenant?’ she asked. Potentilla smiled a slightly crooked smile.
‘Rested – how are you two?’ she responded
brightly. Then her gaze fell on the body slumbering on the floor.
‘Good gods – it’s Lucius!’ she said, ‘where
on earth did he come from?’
***
They
tried to wake Lucius up, but this turned out to be a difficult task, as he kept
falling asleep again even when Potentilla poked him repeatedly. He was
muttering strangely, but seemed quite happy. They managed to prop him up
between Potentilla and Kath, despite him being quite a bit taller than either
of them. They staggered out of the sphere once Viola had looked out and given
them the all clear.
There was nobody to be seen, neither friend
nor foe. Viola ordered Kath and Potentilla to put Lucius down somewhere safe
and then they did a very quick scout round. Viola and Kath returned to where
Lucius was propped up, dozing, and Viola looked puzzled.
‘Where did they go?’
Kath stared out across the landscape. Every
gust of wind that blew a bush or branch made her think of ambushes and
enemies. She had had enough of battles
and deaths.
‘They’ve either been captured or have gone
home’ she said
Potentilla walked up from where they had set
up camp earlier. She was holding a note that she had just found. She handed it
to her captain and Viola read it out.
‘We
waited for four hours and then obeyed your instructions. We will return to
Ortia as ordered. Lieutenant Sedum’
Viola re-read the note several time. She
looked up at the sun, which was now very low on the horizon.
‘How did we lose four hours?’
Kath thought for a moment and then pointed at
the sphere.
‘We were in an extra-dimensional fold’ she
explained, ‘time can behave very strangely in those spaces. Sometimes time
dilates and sometimes it shrinks. It’s the price you pay for messing with the
other dimensions’
She put her hand up to her head and sighed.
‘I should have thought of that’ she said,
‘it’s a well-established phenomenon’
Viola shrugged and smiled gently.
‘Oh well – don’t blame yourself, it’s just
one of those things’
Potentilla finally looked confused, which was
a relief to the others, as she had seemed completely oblivious to what had
happened. Now she wandered around a
little aimlessly as if she were looking for a lost puppy.
‘What
happened to the sphere? I was running towards the tunnel and then…’
Potentilla looked at Kath, with almost a hint
of admonishment in her face, then she shook her head and the expression flew
away like a little bird.
‘Never mind’ she said, ‘you can explain
later. Shouldn’t we get out of here before we get attacked again?’
Viola folded the note rapidly and realised
the danger of their position. Then she looked on past the sphere into the guts
of the wall.
‘Kath – I think we can get through!’ she
said, ‘and I think we should try to do it as soon as possible’
Kath
walked very carefully past the sphere and stared into the tunnel. It was just
as she remembered it, dark and metallic.
She realised now that the metal was the same kind as had made up the
Autelephas, the Dwarven Magic automaton that they had used to destroy
Whitecloak. It was all beginning to make sense.
This metal appeared to hold a vast magical charge for a very long
time.
‘What are you waiting for?’ she said, and
gestured for them to follow her.
Viola and Potentilla struggled to lift up
Lucius and then half-dragged him to the tunnel, as if he were a drunk. Once
they got to the entrance they hesitated.
‘We can’t leave it open’ said Viola, looking
out over the open plain and imagining the Portalians following them through.
‘And we have to reactivate the sphere’
pointed out Kath
‘I think’ she continued, ‘that if we get the
other side of it that it won’t attack us’
Kath remembered her awful struggle through
the tunnel in the dark going the other way. She fervently hoped that this time
it would be a bit easier.
‘I need a light’ she said. Potentilla reached
inside her bag and pulled out a half-burnt stubby torch wrapped in an old piece
of cloth.
Potentilla lit it and Kath shuffled into the
darkness holding it up. There was a large space behind the door within which
the sphere sat. Other than that the tunnel appeared completely uniform and
stretched out into darkness towards the western gate. Kath knew from her
earlier experiences that the other entrance was only a few dozen steps away. She
turned round to face the others.
‘Come in’ she hissed, ‘let’s see if we can
get through’
Viola and Potentilla pushed Lucius into the
tunnel. Viola stood next to Kath and waited for her to get her rod ready. Then
she made the gestures to reactivate the sphere. It began to rotate slowly and
rose into the air. It waited just outside the gate for a few seconds and then
it slowly retreated. As it slid in past
the entrance the metal door reformed, instantly.. The grassy expanse of East
Visneoria disappeared and they were in the dark except for the flickering
torchlight. The green sphere now sat in
front of the door, oblivious to their presence behind it.
None
of them dared to speak as they tiptoed along the tunnel, wincing every time
Kath made a noise. She was the only one who did make a noise of course; even
Lucius seemed to be able to move silently, even when half-asleep.
Kath could now see that the tunnel wasn’t
completely smooth; about twenty steps in there was a translucent green circle
on the left hand side. It looked very like the colour of the pods when they had
been made see through. It was clearly a hatch or a portal. She knelt down and
looked at it more carefully. It had no lock or handle, but she could guess how
it might be opened. She held the torch up so that she could look at Viola.
Viola shook her head and pointed at the
western door and then at Lucius. Kath looked pleadingly at her, but she knew
this was not the right time to explore. Still, beyond the hatch might be
apparatuses or mechanisms that would give them great insights into how the Wall
worked. For the first time in a long period she felt her scholarly instincts
kick in. There was so much still to learn.
The other three had now walked past her, so
she knew that it was too late. She took one last longing look at the strange
door and then slowly made her way to the end of the corridor. By the time she
arrived Viola had already deactivated the other sphere.
‘Key!’ Viola mouthed. Kath fished it out of
her pocket.
A flash of red light formed on the key again;
there was an answering hum within the wall and the door disappeared. Beyond the
plains stretched out just as on the other side.
Viola switched off the sphere and walked out
into the Imperial twilight. For the first time in nine hundred years an East
Visneorian elf stood on the Emperor’s side of the Wall. Viola felt that she
should say something to mark the occasion, but then her friends came over to
hug her in triumph. Any historic words were lost for ever.
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