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.”

“Really? I could have sworn it was some kind of whistle.”

Nonce stared at me with an adze-worth of flint in his glare. “Erksine, we are leaving,” he announced, and vanished up the passageway to the surface.

Uncouth hesitated as if he wanted to apologise, explain, or invite us to a kitchenware buying party; instead, he gave a whimper and scuttled after Nonce.

“Well, that was unpleasant,” I said. Drakeforth was now on his hands and knees, seemingly measuring the floor with his fingers and blowing dust from the fine gaps between the heavy blocks of sandstone.

“We should get out of here, immediately.” Eade stood and in an ultimately futile gesture, she dusted the dust from her knees.

“Agreed.” I started for the door and the lights went out.