Time of Breath Read online

“With Vole, it can be hard to tell.”

  We restored Goat to his feet and he trudged with us through the burning sand in silence.

  No one tried to stop us climbing the block steps of the pyramid. It seemed that apart from the female police officer, we were the only ones showing any interest in the ancient structure.

  “I would have expected more tourists,” I said, making it look like I had stopped to observe the view, rather than trying to catch my breath halfway through the climb.

  “Why?” Eade asked, and then added, “No. Don’t answer that. Of course you would expect tourists. It’s the off-season. Tourists are forbidden to set foot in the area of the pyramid between sunset and evening on days ending in y.”

  “Used correctly, sarcasm can cut like a scalpel wielded by a skilled surgeon. Slicing through the preposterous and the stupid. Revealing truth in previously unseen perfection. From you, Eade, it’s more like being slowly lowered into a vat of rancid milk. Tedious and unpleasant for everyone involved.” I gave her a moment to respond and then turned to see her expression. Eade and Goat were still climbing, and had left me out of earshot.

  “You’re right, Charlotte. I am a terrible person,” I muttered, and resumed the climb.

  “We were about to report you missing and send out a search party,” Eade said when I reached them near the top of the pyramid.

  “Sorry, I took a wrong turn, ended up on a different pyramid.”

  “It is easily done,” Drakeforth said.

  “Now about this entrance you found?” Eade asked.

  “I’m waiting for the key,” Drakeforth replied.

  “The key?” I asked.

  “She wrote me a poem. It didn’t rhyme,” Goat said.

  “What key?” Eade asked.

  “That key.” Drakeforth pointed down at the ground. A freight litter was making good time across the sand, the team of bearers kicking up dust as they ran.

  “It seems like a lot of people to deliver a key,” I said.

  “It is a lot of key,” Drakeforth replied.

  We watched in silence as the litter bearers came to a halt at the bottom of the pyramid. From up here they looked like grotesq­uely large and hideously deformed ants. They flipped a cover off the litter, revealing a carved block of stone.

  The crew lifted it, and under the direction of the litter-leader, they started up the pyramid.

  None of them were breathing hard when they set their burden down in front of us. It was an impressive example of human endurance, dedication to fitness training, and the effectiveness of good athletic shoe sponsorship.

  Drakeforth patted his pockets and retrieved a notepad and pen. With a flourish, he scrawled something on a sheet and handed it to the team leader of Kitteh’s Litter Services.

  He glanced at the paper, did a double-take and then hastily tucked it into a small bag fastened around his waist.

  “Thanks, man,” the man said, and grinned. With a whistle and a gesture, he started the long jog down the pyramid, his fellow carriers falling into step behind him.

  “While not the weirdest thing I have ever seen, it’s in my top ten,” Eade said.

  “Top ten?” I managed to vocalise a slight sneer. “It barely regist­ered on my Well That’s Odd, scale.”

  Drakeforth swept the accumulated sand away from a depression in the carefully fitted blocks. We stood and watched in silence: it had been a long time since anyone tried to sweep the sand off a pyramid in the middle of a desert. After a minute, I could understand why.

  “Can we help?” I asked.

  “Do you have a vacuum cleaner with you?” Drakeforth replied, without looking up.

  “No.”

  “Brush and dust pan? Broom? A leaf-blower?”

  “No…” I hated sounding as if I was whining.

  “Didn’t Galfyn Ortiz make a career studying rhetorical quest­ions?”1 Eade asked casually.

  “Goat, give me a hand with this.”

  Drakeforth and Goat lifted the carved block. They moved it into position, wriggling the block until it grated into place with an audible clunk.

  With a sound like an arthritic knee shaking something odorous off a shoe, a heavy stone panel ground open and revealed a very dark tunnel.

  “Make yourselves comfortable,” Goat said.

  “Hang on, how did you organise all this from the airship?” I demanded.

  “It’s a complex plan, years in the making. Simply put, I firstly checked that the key was still under the bed at the hotel, where I had hidden it years ago. Then, when paying off the litter bearers for their previous services, I arranged for them to deliver the stone to the top of the pyramid at this time.”

  “You had no idea we were going to be here,” I said. “So how could you know when they should bring it?”

  “It was a simple deduction,” Drakeforth continued. “I told Mr Kitteh at such time as the tourist creates a spectacle of rare curiosity so completely bizarre it defies the senses, gather your carriers. Retrieve the block of stone, and bring it here.”

  “The tourist would be you, Charlotte,” Eade said.

  “Clearly,” I replied.

  “Is it possible that Charlotte, flying past the city at the bow of an airship being towed by two murrai while barking at them like sled-dogs, triggered the delivery?” Eade continued, in the same mocking tone.

  “It’s possible. Should we follow them?” I walked past her and vanished into the darkness on the heels of Drakeforth and Goat.

  The darkness was close and warm like wearing socks in a sauna. With no light source, except for the reluctant glow of the outside world behind me, I walked forward with a resigned air of acceptance. The gloom parted as if it were a theatre curtain, and I stepped into a room filled with softly glowing light.

  “The acoustics in here are fascinating,” Drakeforth was saying. “The softest whisper can carry great weight.”

  “We’re still in the pyramid, right?” I asked Drakeforth. Goat looked around with equal parts bemusement and nervous tic. The stone walls were bathed in a shimmering luminescence. I turned around slowly until I found the source.

  “Is that…?”

  “Yes,” Drakeforth said.

  My legs went weak and I started to sit down, only to realise that there were no seats. I slid down the wall and let my jaw sag in surprise.

  * * *

  1 In one of his many volumes on the subject, Ortiz noted: While it is a subjective conclusion that there are no stupid questions, it is determinable through observation and analysis of verbal interactions that there are not only stupid answers. Furthermore: statistically, moronic responses make up 97% of all replies.

  Chapter 31

  “What is that doing here?” I managed.

  “A question for the ages,” Drakeforth replied.

  “The bathroom is upstairs,” Goat said. “Make yourselves at home.”

  Eade lacked the sense to remain silent. “More importantly, what is it?”

  “A Godden empathy engine,” I whispered. “An actual engine of empathy, right here in the one nation in the world that has sworn off empathic energy for a very long time.”

  “Really?” Eade moved closer, “I’ve never seen one.”

  “It must be old.” I tried to remember what I had learned about Godden empathy engines. “The oldest one still in use is a model seven. It runs the Python Building back home.”

  “How quaint,” Eade replied.

  “Quaint? It’s not quaint. It’s evil. It’s confusing and worst of all it makes no sense!”

  “Technically, confusion means it makes no sense.” Eade’s single-minded commitment to being annoying was inspiring.

  “It’s been a while. I’m not sure I remember how to uhh… Still, nothing like a proper Pathian tea ceremony to celebrate new… frien
ds…?” Goat trailed off and waved half-heartedly.

  I stood. This soulless corporation had always seemed deter­mined to make my life a series of inconveniences, and the sense of frustrated fury it engendered had given me strength. “Consider what we know,” I said.

  “Oh joy, another recap,” Eade muttered.

  “This is a Godden empathy engine. A working generator using double-e flux as a power source. Which means someone is topping it up regularly. Which means someone has a use for it. Which means… Well, I don’t know what it means. But I’m sure it is important.”

  “We could just walk out of here, close the pyramid and act like we never discovered this…thing,” Eade said.

  “Yes we could.” Drakeforth stirred from his silent musing. “Though, walking away right now would lead to a lifetime of wondering what is really going on. That would lead to regret, and regret is a cancer for the soul.”

  “Drakeforth, that was both profound and somewhat bland.” I regarded him with a raised eyebrow.

  “Something I read on a greeting card once,” Drakeforth shrugged.

  I walked round the chamber. The dimensions were weird in here. I couldn’t say for sure if the room was round, spherical, square, or some casual mix of the various shapes.

  “Feel that?” Drakeforth asked. I nodded. I was feeling many things in that moment. I hoped that one of them was what he was referring to.

  It hit me three steps later: a sudden flare of empathic energy coming up through my feet. The generator was humming away, but this felt like the entire floor had turned to lava.

  “Whoa…” I swayed and held my arms out for balance.

  “We’re quite high up in the structure,” Drakeforth continued, “which means there is a chamber beneath us of incredible proportions.”

  “It does?” I narrowed my eyes at the floor. “It seems solid enough.”

  “It does seem solid enough. If you were to dig down a few feet, you would agree that seeming is not the same as believing.”

  “If the Pathians haven’t used empathic energy in forever, then why is all this here?” I stood as still as possible while the room pulsed around me. Closing my eyes didn’t help.

  “Someone has found a way to gather and store empathic energy. This generator is only using a fraction of the double-e flux stored down there.”

  “Which means it’s intended for some other purpose?” I asked.

  “Which means something that we haven’t determined yet,” Drakeforth corrected, and started walking around the chamber.

  Eade had fallen silent, though she still lurked on the edge of my consciousness like a panic attack or a nest of angry wasps.

  “Nothing to add, Eade?” I asked.

  “I was just wondering what Professor Bombilate would have made of this.”

  “A soufflé probably,” Drakeforth suggested.

  “More than likely,” Eade replied. “Why would someone put this…thing, in here?”

  “To hide it, clearly,” I snapped.

  “They would have gotten away with it, too,” Drakeforth said, and continued his careful pacing around the room.

  “They did get away with it.” I waved at the room. “Look around you.”

  “Medallion,” Goat said, and slapped his head as if the word had been on the tip of his tongue for a while.

  “It’s probably just kids.” A voice came from up the tunnel.

  “You said that about Bombilate,” a second voice said.

  “Undoubtedly.”

  “I know that voice,” I whispered. “It’s the man you were arguing with at the museum.”

  “Erskine Uncouth,” Eade whispered. She half-crouched in the realisation that there was nowhere to hide in the chamber.

  “What?” I rushed to the empathy machine and determined that we couldn’t fit behind it.

  “Erskine Uncouth. The curator from the museum,” Eade whisp­ered.

  “Indubitably,” Uncouth said to his unseen companion.

  “Irregardless,” his companion replied. “We must get the chamber sealed again.”

  “That is not a word,” Uncouth said.

  “What are you talking about, Erskine?”

  “Irregardless. It isn’t a word.”

  “Of course it’s a word. I just said it, did I not?”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t make it more a word than dord, or…or knirf.”

  “What are you babbling about?”

  “I am explaining to you, my dear Nonce, that utterance does not a word make.”

  “Utterance? I do not utter. I speak plainly,” Nonce said with an indignant tone.

  “Your gums flap like fresh linen on a clothes line,” Uncouth replied.

  “My gums? You dare insult me? Listen carefully, Uncouth. You are a mere librarian. I-”

  “I am a librarian.” It was Erskine’s turn to speak angrily. “But do not forget that my life has been dedicated to something very tangible. Very real. Very useable. You, on the other hand, are a purveyor of fantasy dressed as indisputable facts.”

  “That might be true,” Nonce replied. “But who has the real power here?”

  “If you are speaking literally for once, then the answer is obvious.” Uncouth had that petulant tone I last heard when he lost his argument with Eade.

  “Exactly.” I could hear the smirk in Nonce’s voice. “Now, go down there and find out who is interfering in Knotstick business.”

  “We should wait for one of those engineers.” Uncouth sounded like he wasn’t keen on descending the sloping tunnel on his own.

  “Why? Afraid of ghosts?” Nonce’s smirk was like a shout.

  “Of course I’m not afraid. It’s more an instinctive aversion to going into dark tunnels where dead people have been lying about for centuries.”

  “Arthur’s underwear,” Nonce muttered. “Fine, follow me.”

  Chapter 32

  Embarrassment isn’t the sort of thing you normally consider as having a physical mass. It creates intense emotions and anxiety, sure. But to physically manifest as its own thing is not normal, no matter how much you wish the ground would open up and swallow you. Fortunately, normal and I had done little more than exchange Hibernian Season’s Greetings cards in quite a while.

  In a final moment of desperation, with nowhere to hide and Drakeforth bent over and staring at the floor while he paced up and down like a chicken with a dowsing rod, I leaned against the empathic energy engine and assumed an air of casual nonchalance, so cool you could have chilled drinks on my head.

  Erskine and Nonce came bustling into the chamber. Goat froze in place. Eade hunkered down beside the engine, while Drakeforth ignored the new arrivals. I gave them a nod, as if acknowledging the arrival of old friends at a bar.

  The two men gaped at us, harrumphed, bargled, and went several shades of punk, that mysterious colour between pink and purple.

  “Hey,” I said with an effortless attempt at a wave.

  “What…? Who…? What…?” Based on his facial contortions, Erskine appeared to be a man at war with himself, and casualties were mounting.

  “Eade Notschnott?” Nonce asked.

  “Possibly,” Eade said.

  “What are you people doing? This is a most sacred place. It’s forbidden to be in here!” Nonce exploded.

  “Well,” I said with an unaccustomed icy calm, “I’m a tourist. I was sightseeing.”

  “Forbidden!” Nonce squeaked.

  “I have some experience with vintage empathy machines,” I continued. “This little beauty—” I paused to pat the humming chrome cylinder as if it was a large, friendly dog, “—is a Godden Model Six.”

  “Model Four,” Erskine snapped.

  “Really?” I stepped away and studied the machine. “I could have sworn it was a six.”

 
“Nope, four. It has the original brass valve plating on the moderator housing and the three-quarter inch inlay pipe on the flux inhibitor.”

  “Yeah, of course. How did I miss that?” I nodded, with absolutely no clue what he was talking about.

  Nonce noticed Goat standing rigid against the wall. Both of them gave a start and then immediately looked away.

  “You cannot be here,” Nonce insisted.

  “I wonder why?” I asked no one in particular. “Could it be the unexplainable presence of a Godden empathy engine in the middle of a Pathian pyramid?”

  “There are no devices of an empathic nature in Pathia,” Nonce intoned.

  “Except the murrai?” I replied.

  “There is no evidence that murrai are empathically empow­ered,” Nonce shouted.

  “Of course they are!” I slapped my thighs in frustration. “They positively sizzle with empathic energy!”

  Nonce cleared his throat. “Erskine…” he said with the tone of a spouse warning their significant other that later there is going to be one Balkans of a row.

  “Oh yes,” Erskine flinched. “You need to explain yourself. Yourselves, all of you.”

  “Charlotte Pudding. Tourist,” I repeated. “This is my friend, Vole Drakeforth, his ex-wife Eade Notschnott, who I think you know quite well, Mr Uncouth. This ahh… fellow, is Goat. Our tour-guide and driver.”

  Goat gave a self-conscious wave.

  Nonce had been fingering a rod-like pendant around his neck. It looked old and inappropriate, which meant it had to be a religious symbol of some kind. He took a step back and put the end of the thing in his mouth, blowing until his cheeks puffed. I heard nothing and wondered if it was like a dog-whistle, except the silent blast of energy that echoed across the chamber rocked me on my feet.

  “It’s taken care of,” Nonce said. Uncouth flinched again and backed out of the chamber.

  “What did you just do?” I demanded, and Nonce raised an eyebrow.

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  “You blew that whistle thing, and something happened.”

  “This is a sibilus, a symbol of my esteemed position in the Knotstick Order.”