Chapter twenty-six

The Quienimon Gate

 

Kath couldn’t believe her eyes – how could anyone do something so stupid and so dangerous?  She watched as her friend ran on towards the gate. Intense irritation surged through her and she used the only thing she had available to block the way; she swung the rod so that the sphere fell down in front of Potentilla. The elf tried to swerve to avoid it, but it was too late. There was a faint plopping noise and Potentilla was sucked in. She made no sound as she disappeared, but did have time to stare back at Kath. Kath, however, couldn’t tell what the look was, as Potentilla was upside down and the moment was too fleeting.

Kath let out a terrible wail. The others gasped and Viola ran forward towards the sphere. Without giving it a moment’s thought she raised her hands, palms outwards, to nose height, crossed them at the wrists and then turned them inwards so that the palms now pointed in towards her face. The air filled with a crackling energy, rather like the smell in the middle of a thunderstorm. The sphere stopped its constant rotation and it turned white. It had only been a foot or two in the air, but now it gently floated down and nestled on the ground.

‘How did you do that, Ma’am?’ asked Craetegus, staring open mouthed at the sphere.

Kath let out another wail. She dropped to the floor with her hands on the back of her head.

‘What have I done?’ she sobbed, ‘I think I’ve killed Tillie!’

Viola looked once again at the now stationary sphere. She had no idea how she’d disabled it, but she knew who had taught her: how or when she couldn’t even begin to imagine. She made a split second decision.

‘Corporal – go and see if you can help Till… the lieutenant’

Craetegus hesitated in front of the sphere. He peered at it as if looking for a door.

‘Do it now, corporal! That’s an order!’

The young elf breathed in deeply and then threw himself into the sphere. This time there was no plop, just a faint buzz as he disappeared.  There was complete silence except for the continuous hum of the Wall.

Viola walked over to Kath and helped her up. Kath’s eyes were wild and her cheeks wet. She seemed incapable of speech; she clung to Viola and stared at the sphere.

They waited in tense silence for what seemed like an hour, with the purr of the wall behind them. Viola’s tunic was soaked with Kath’s tears and she could hear her mumbling, ‘no, no, no…’ over again against her shoulder. Viola’s heart was beating very fast and her mouth was dry. She began to fear, with a sickening feeling, that she had sent a second soldier in to die in exactly as the first.

Craetegus’s head appeared out of the sphere, as if in mid-air. He looked unharmed but puzzled.

Kath broke free of Viola and ran towards him.

‘Is she alive?’ she shouted, ‘Is Tillie alive?’

Craetegus looked up at them all and then looked even more surprised. He was about to answer Kath when an arrow flew through the air and struck him in the face. He fell into a pool of his own blood.

The squad turned to face a volley of at least twenty arrows coming from a copse to their right, where one of their guards had been posted. Viola looked round and made a split second decision, based on instinct rather than logic.

‘Into the sphere’ she ordered, running on towards it.

Kath had staggered up in front of the prone body of Craetegus and as Viola rushed on she pushed the human forward violently, so that they both fell into the sphere.  They tumbled through what felt like cotton wool and then tripped, as if they had missed the bottom two or three stairs of a staircase. Everything was suddenly bathed in a bright green light and they were in what looked like a vast chamber. The walls looked like clouds, but this was not the most unusual thing about the space. They were lined with green pods, each about seven feet high and three feet wide, and apparently made out of green light. They stretched on for as far as they could see along both sides of the structure.

Viola pivoted to see if any of the rest of her squad had made it through. Sedum was there, and three others, but that was it. She moved back to where they had come, and pushed her head very slowly through the entrance wall. As expected, she could now see hazily through the sphere and back into the real world.

She could see at least thirty Portalian elves standing in front of the sphere. She pulled her head back, but fortunately they didn’t seem to have seen her. Pulling her bow off her back she notched an arrow.  She nodded to the other elves and they copied her, rapidly preparing an arrow in each bow. She nodded again. They fired through the white, curved, entrance. As soon as the arrows had disappeared, Viola ran forward and pushed her head out through the entrance again.

The Portalis troops were in disarray, running back towards the copse from where they had clearly advanced. Viola was not in a mood to let them escape.

‘Let’s get after them’ she shouted, ‘now’

‘And Kath’ she added, ‘I need you too! Follow me!’

Viola jumped out of the sphere with her bow still in her hands. The Portalians had run no more than a hundred yards away. She looked back to check that all of her team was with her and then turned to the sphere.

‘Kath’ she yelled, ‘use your rod’

Kath looked completely startled but she lifted the rod up anyway. Viola reversed the gesture that she had made earlier. The sphere instantly lit up with its dark green light and began to rotate.

‘Now’ barked Viola, ‘suck them all up!’

Kath was overcome by the strangeness of the moment and the vehemence of the command. She sent the sphere out across the plain with a savage flick of her hand. It swept off towards the fleeing elves like a huge catapult shot which never left its giant netted sling. As the sphere bounced against the closest of the runners there was a familiar plop and they disappeared. It was an easy job to manoeuvre the sphere so that it captured all the Portalians that they could see; it moved very much faster than the elves could run.

Finally, Kath brought the sphere back to the gate. She was flushed and her eyes were still wide with shock. She didn’t look as if she was fully aware of she was doing.

Viola lifted her hands up again and repeated the actions that stopped the sphere. She looked over at her remaining troops.

‘I’m going to go in and try to find Tillie’ she said, ‘the rest of you – look for any survivors and render any aid that is needed. If I don’t return in an hour, retreat back to Ortia as best you can. Don’t follow me in!’

She plunged back into the sphere, half expecting to find a horde of angry Portalians, all with their sharp blades drawn. However, all was as before – there was just the big white cloudy space and the green pods.

Kath appeared next to her. She was shaking, but now looked slightly more composed.

‘Where did they go?’ she asked, ‘where on earth did they all go?’

Viola pointed to the pods.

‘In there’ she said confidently and then halted, looking suddenly perplexed.

‘Possibly…’ she continued, falteringly.

Kath stared at her, mystified.

‘How do you know that...?’ she began, but Viola was already away, walking over to the pods.

Kath followed, realising that she wouldn’t get the answer to any of her questions yet. More pressingly, they needed to find Potentilla.

They stopped in front of the first pod on their left. As they approached it Viola tapped the palm of her right hand on her chest three times and then made a fist in the air. The green substance of the pod instantly became translucent. They could see a figure through the misty barrier. 

‘How on earth did you know how to do that?’ gasped Kath. Viola ignored her – she had no explanation that she could give her anyway: it just came naturally.

Inside the pod they could now see a tall human dressed in white robes standing, apparently frozen to the spot. They both recognised the clothing immediately. This was one of Whitecloak’s acolytes.

‘What’s he doing here?’ asked Kath

‘I don’t know’ replied Viola

She looked carefully at the Tlaxacan human. He showed no sign of injury or ageing. Who knew how long he had been there.

‘He has a gate key, Vee’ said Kath.

There grasped in the human’s frozen hand was an unmistakeable green pebble.

‘There’s the answer’ said Viola, ‘he was trying to get in’

‘And then he got zapped…’ suggested Kath, peering in again.

‘…Is he dead?’ she asked, her face creased up with worry.

‘No’ Viola answered emphatically, shaking her head vigorously. Then she thought again.

‘I really don’t know’ she said, correcting herself hurriedly.

Kath took a step back.

‘You’re making my flesh crawl, Vee – stop doing that’

Viola held up her hands and shook her head.

‘I’m sorry. I don’t really know what’s happening to me’ 

Kath stomped off down the row of pods.

‘Whatever it is’ she said, ‘you’d better use it to find Tillie’

They worked their way down the pods, uncovering each one and noting who was inside. The next eight after the man with the key were all humans dressed as Whitecloak adherents. In the tenth was an elf, but it wasn’t Potentilla.

‘I wonder who that is?’ whispered Viola, ‘and how long he’s been there’

Kath stood staring into the pod. She seemed transfixed by what she saw.

‘About six months’ said Kath.

‘What?’ asked Viola – it was clearly her turn to be perplexed.

‘That’s Lucius’ said Kath.