Faerie Wars 02 - The Purple Emperor (11 page)

'Sorry, Mum,' Henry murmured. He visualised himself again, then cracked the second cone beneath her nose.

He had a moment of panic when she went blank too. Aisling was still sitting frozen, her mouth slightly open, her chest unmoving as if she'd stopped breathing. Now his mum had turned into a statue as well. He couldn't have killed them, could he? He wasn't used to working magic - in fact this was the first time he'd actually done it himself. Maybe he'd done something wrong.

He reached out cautiously and touched her arm. 'Mum ... ?'

She couldn't be dead. Not even Mr Fogarty would give him a box of cones that killed people.

Or would he? Mr Fogarty did strange things sometimes.

Suddenly they were talking again, his mother and Aisling, something about Aisling's ghastly Pony Club. They ignored Henry, as if he wasn't even in the room. Or as if ... as if they'd forgotten him completely.

Cautiously, Henry began to back out of the kitchen. An unfamiliar feeling was bubbling in his stomach and after a moment he recognised it as joy. He'd done it! He'd worked the magic. He was a forgotten man and that meant he was free! He could go to the Realm. He could see Blue again. He could go to the Realm now!

He took the stairs two at a time. Mr Fogarty's portal control was in a shoebox pushed back on the top shelf of his wardrobe, along with the ornamental dagger he'd been given when Pyrgus had made him Iron Prominent, Knight Commander of the Grey Dagger.

He pulled the shoebox down and opened it. The portal control was no longer there.

It was Aisling! It had to be Aisling! She was the only one who'd sneak into his room and steal something. His mother was perfectly capable of going through his things - she had no sense of private property except when it came to herself - but she wouldn't have taken the control: it looked innocent enough for her to think it was something to do with his computer. Besides, if it had been his mother, she'd have found the dagger, and that was still there. It had to be Aisling, little cowl

Henry stormed down the stairs, but neither his mother nor his sister was in the kitchen now. He turned, heading for her room and bumped into Aisling coming out of the downstairs loo.

'You stole my control!' he shouted furiously.

Aisling blinked. 'Who are you?' she asked dreamily.

Hamearis Lucina, the Duke of Burgundy, was a big man who liked to accentuate his bulk by wearing padded armour and, in the winter, furs. In place of a sword, he habitually carried a war axe with an inlaid silver handle, the sort of weapon that was too heavy for a lesser man to wield.

The ferrymen kept giving him curious, furtive glances. He was well known throughout the Realm, and not just in his native Yammeth Cretch, but beyond that he was an individual with presence, a type who oozed charisma as well as strength - characteristics that had helped make him Black Hairstreak's closest ally. He would have attracted attention even as a complete unknown.

He stepped off carelessly as the ferry docked on the Imperial Island. Belatedly, one of the sailors moved to help him, then pulled back. They were wondering, he knew, why he travelled without an entourage, but the move was deliberate. Lesser men would have needed a host of followers to impress. Hamearis, on this occasion, was accompanied by a single cloaked and hooded servant. But he knew his message would have all the more impact for that.

There were no guards on the torchlit pathway that took him to the Purple Palace and he expected none. He had been questioned and searched thoroughly (twice!) on the river bank before being permitted to enter the ferry. He had been allowed to retain his axe, a badge of rank as much as a weapon, only after it had been clipped and sealed to his belt so that he could not draw it easily. But he gained a little satisfaction from the fact that both searches had missed his assassin's dagger strapped to the inside of his left leg - an elaborate misdirection spell had diverted the attention of the probing hands: the same spell that ensured his cloaked companion was not searched at all. Not that he planned to assassinate anyone today, but it was always nice to know Imperial security could be beaten.

The path curved, emerged from a screening belt of ornamental trees and the Purple Palace swung into view, illuminated from the base of its walls by enormous, half-buried glow globes. It was a forbidding building, raised in the old cyclopean style and designed as a massive fortress rather than an aesthetically pleasing residence. The ancient purple stone had weathered almost to black (although he was told it still shone purple in certain lights) and crouched like some great squat beast on the little hilltop in the centre of the island. Hamearis approved. Such a fortress was designed to strike terror into an enemy, and he admired good military psychology wherever he happened to find it.

As he expected, guards emerged to meet him once he approached the entrance gate to the garden surround. It was a guard's duty to be suspicious at any time, but especially after dark. Their Captain recognised him, of course, but treated him no differently from any other visitor.

'Your business, sir?'

'To meet with the Purple Emperor Elect.'

'To what end, sir?'

'I carry a message for him from Lord Hairstreak.'

'In written form or verbal?'

'Verbal.'

'May I convey this message for you?'

Hamearis said, 'It is for the ears of Prince Pyrgus alone.'

The Captain shrugged, as if this was no more than he'd expected. 'Are you armed, Your Grace?'

Hamearis gestured towards his captive axe. 'As you see.'

The Captain leaned over to inspect the seal, then took a small device from his pocket and added a second seal of his own. 'Please remove your belt and walk through the archway to the left side of the main gateway, sir.'

Removing his belt meant removing his weapon. T am the Duke of Burgundy,' he said formally and firmly. 'I may not be deprived of my axe without due cause.'

'You'll get it back once you're inside,' the Captain said mildly.

Glowering, Hamearis wondered what was going on, but this was not an occasion to make trouble. He unbuckled his belt, complete with the sealed axe, and handed it across.

'Are you carrying any other weapons, Your Grace?'

'No,' Hamearis lied.

'Through the archway, sir.'

Hamearis strode through the archway. A howling alarm sounded at once. In seconds he was surrounded by soldiers, their swords drawn. Hamearis raised his hands and backed off, smiling. His instinct told him what had happened, and if he was right it was truly remarkable. He knew of absolutely no magic that would produce such a result.

The Captain approached him again. 'Perhaps Your Grace has forgotten a weapon ... ?' he said politely.

It was exactly as he'd suspected: some sorcerous coating on the archway had detected his dagger. He unfastened the hidden buckle and handed the dagger across.

'Thank you, sir,' the Captain said. 'This will be returned to you when you leave. Your servant now, please.'

The hooded man walked through the arch without triggering the alarm. Hamearis smiled slightly to himself, then walked towards the palace. He suspected the enchanted archway had been created by young Malvae's new Gatekeeper, the Analogue World wizard Fogarty. If so, the man had proven his worth with a single invention. Weapon-detecting magic was an incredible development, something of inestimable value. Perhaps it was something he would not mention to his old friend Hairstreak. Hamearis might see if he could keep the new technology for himself when the Faeries of the Night took over the Purple Palace.

And see if Wizard Fogarty might be persuaded to work for House Lucina.

Fogarty held his right hand out in front of him, palm downwards, and noted it was trembling. What a pain that was! Even when his arthritic fingers were playing hell he'd always prided himself that he could hold it steady as a rock. It was ridiculous to start shaking at his age when it wasn't even his age that had caused the shake.

He didn't know what had caused the shake.

Except he did know what had caused the shake. It was just that what had caused the shake was impossible at his age.

He hadn't felt this confused since he was an adolescent.

Which was how he felt generally - like an adolescent. He wanted to hum a little tune and go out and pick flowers and all that sort of damn-fool nonsense. A thought struck him. Maybe it was the start of senile dementia. They used to call that 'second childhood'. You ended up drooling like a baby and wetting yourself, but maybe you went through an adolescent phase first. At eighty-seven, he was certainly old enough for senile dementia.

He wondered if the healing wizards might have a cure.

The trouble was he didn't want a cure. Apart from the shaking hand, he felt wonderful. He felt excited and strong and confident and full of energy. He felt like going to a concert and ripping up the seats. He'd never heard dementia made you feel like this. Nobody ever told him senility made you want to see Led Zeppelin.

It couldn't be senile dementia.

But if it wasn't senile dementia, it had to be ... Fogarty shook his head. It couldn't be that either!

He walked from the master bedroom of his Gatekeeper's lodge into the bathroom, where there was a full-length mirror. His reflection didn't look like him at all. It looked like his grandfather. The odd thing was he didn't feel old. He'd never felt old, not even when the arthritis burned in his hands and he discovered he couldn't run any more without his chest paining and his lungs heaving. But he'd never felt this young either. Most of the time he thought of himself, inside, as somewhere around thirty-five - maybe forty on a bad day. That was a long way from feeling seventeen, which was the way he felt just now.

The weird thing was the way it had happened. One minute he was worrying about Pyrgus, listening to Blue, trying to figure what might be going on. The next, there was a claw gripping his guts, his heart was pounding and his brain had turned to mush. All because. Madame Cardui walked in.

He'd heard about Madame Cardui, of course - she was one of Blue's agents - but nothing had prepared him for the reality. She was the most exotic creature he'd ever seen - tall for a woman, nearly as tall as he was, in fact. She dressed in shudderingly flamboyant gear - a matching gown and headdress in bright, ever-changing colours with jewelled floaters on her feet that held her an inch or more above the floor and made her even taller.

They called her the Painted Lady, he seemed to recall, and he could see why. She was heavily, almost theatrically, made-up: had she once been on stage? He thought he'd heard that about her too. She was accompanied by an orange dwarf, who carried a fat, translucent Persian cat asleep in a gilded cage. But for all the trappings, the most striking thing about her was her eyes - dark, liquid and penetrating.

Those eyes transfixed him like javelins as Blue made the introductions. Madame Cardui reached out a slim hand writhing with serpent rings, smiled to show fine scarlet teeth, gripped his hand firmly and said, 'It is such a pleasure to meet you, Gatekeeper Fogarty. Deeah Princess Blue has told me much about you. May I present my servant Kitterick?' She nodded benignly towards the orange dwarf.

Fogarty, thunderstruck, said nothing. And continued to say nothing as she repeated the story she'd told Blue about the threat of assassination facing someone in the royal household. In fact, the only thing he did say before she swept out of the room at the end of the audience was, 'Madame Cardui, what is your given name?'

She had fixed him again with those wonderful eyes and said in that wonderful voice, 'Cynthia, Gatekeeper Fogarty. My given name is Cynthia.'

Then she was gone and Fogarty stood trembling in her wake. Thank God he'd hidden that from Blue and Pyrgus.

It was ludicrous to have that sort of reaction to a woman at his age. It was ludicrous to have that sort of reaction to a woman at any age. He didn't recall having had it before. Not when he was a kid mooning over some pimply first love he couldn't even remember now. He didn't have it when he met Miriam, the woman he married in his twenties. Admittedly Miriam had been a bit of a moo, but still ...