Faerie Wars 03 - Ruler of the Realm (14 page)

Henry watched with horrified fascination. His hands were crumbling into tiny sparkles like a special effect. He felt a growing nausea. He raised his eyes to look at Anais's face. It was fading to white. And suddenly Henry was fading too.

He thought he must be dying.

The Imperial Suite was spacious and luxurious and Blue hated it. The chairs were too large, the bed was too soft, the tapestries were too rich.

The memories were too painful.

Everything reminded her of her father. She kept thinking she could catch a hint of his smell, the sound of his movements. Once, in the night, she thought she heard the low gurgle of his laughter.

She could see the bloodstain on the carpet, even though the servants had scrubbed out every particle, then, at her insistence, replaced the floor covering completely. But tradition dictated the replacement was the same colour and pattern and the bloodstain was still there, spreading liquidly in her mind.

The Queen must live in the Imperial Suite: that was tradition too. But she needed to think. How could she be expected to think when she saw her father everywhere she turned? She had to get away.

On impulse she triggered the secret panel Comma discovered during the few days he played at being Emperor. It opened on to a passageway that had offered an emergency escape to Emperors down the generations. In the old days they'd been fleeing for their lives. She was running from a ghost. Blue stepped inside and the panel closed behind her.

The passageway emerged on the edge of the Imperial Island beside the broad sweep of the river. It was growing dark now and she sat on some rocks watching the lights come on across the city. Closer to hand, torchlit traffic was milling over Loman Bridge. There were tens of thousands of her subjects out there and she'd never felt so alone. A wrong decision could leave so many of them dead. What was she going to do? What was the
right
thing to do?

A large patch of moss slipped off the rock beside her and splatted on the ground with an audible
thump.
'Damn!' it muttered crossly.

Blue was on her feet in an instant, one hand scrabbling in the folds of her dress for the lethal little stimlus she kept as her last line of defence. It was stupid, stupid, stupid not to have alerted the guards where she was going, but she still wasn't accustomed to being Queen.

'Is that you, Blue?'

She strained her eyes in the half-light. The voice was terribly familiar. 'Flapwazzle?' She blinked. 'Flapwazzle?'

'I cannot tell a lie,' Flapwazzle said truthfully. He began to undulate across the ground towards her.

For some reason the burdens of State responsibility fell away and she felt a small bubble of delight welling in her stomach. 'What are you doing out here?'

'Gathering the
omron?
It was something endolgs did at sunset. Blue had never really understood it. Flapwazzle said, 'When I was full, I fell asleep. Didn't think I'd find you here. Or anybody, really.'

Her problems came flooding back. 'I was trying to make up my mind about something.'

She thought he might ask her what - and wasn't sure she could tell him - but he only said, 'Must be tricky being Queen.'

It was almost funny. That was the very word for it -tricky. Not one of her courtiers or advisors would have used it, but that was the word exactly. For the first time in days she actually grinned.

'That's it, Flapwazzle. As tricky as it gets.' How did you decide what your uncle was up to? Tricky. How did you choose between war and peace? Tricky.

A thought occurred to her and flared into a rising excitement. 'Flapwazzle, would you do something for me?' she blurted. She couldn't order him - not that she would have anyway. Endolgs weren't strictly speaking her subjects, which may have been why she hadn't thought of something so obvious before.

'Sure,' Flapwazzle said at once.

Some of her initial excitement died, replaced at once by worry. 'It could be dangerous.'

Flapwazzle had draped himself over one of her feet, keeping it so warm she wished he'd move on to the other one as well. 'Danger is my middle name,' he said. Then added quickly, 'Just a metaphor, of course. Something I picked up somewhere. I don't actually have a middle name and if I did it certainly wouldn't be anything as pretentious as
Danger.'
He wriggled slightly. Endolgs lacked the capacity to lie, so metaphors were difficult for them.

Blue said, 'Would you pay a visit on my uncle?'

'Lord Hairstreak?'

'That uncle,' Blue said sourly. 'I want you to get close enough to use your truth-sense.'

'He won't like that,' Flapwazzle said.

Which was the understatement of the century. Blue had started to feel guilty - this really
was
a dangerous assignment - but the more she talked, the more her idea felt like a solution to all her problems. And Flapwazzle could do it. In fact, Flapwazzle was the only endolg she could trust with the job. He'd already proven himself several times over.

She took a deep breath and told him everything.

'You want me to find out if it's a genuine offer?' Flapwazzle asked.

Blue nodded. 'Can you?'

'If I can get close enough. I might have problems sneaking past his guards.'

'I can get you into his mansion,' Blue said, thinking furiously. She could make a State visit, except the formalities would put Hairstreak on his guard. If she turned up with her bodyguards, that might encourage him to increase his security precautions. But if she just turned up ...

Blue liked the idea of just turning up. It was the sort of wild thing she used to do before becoming Queen. She'd have to put precautions in place, of course, do it by the book. She'd order a Countdown, the way the old Emperors did when there was a risk of war. And she'd carry her stimlus. Actually, no, she wouldn't carry her stimlus - her uncle's security spells would detect the weapon at once. Best to appear innocent and empty-handed. The Countdown would be all the security she'd need. But she had to find some way of hiding Flapwazzle.

'He mustn't know you're with me. It's important he doesn't realise we're checking him out.'

'Besides which, he might kill me,' Flapwazzle said.

Blue nodded. 'Yes, he might.' It was impossible to keep anything from an endolg.

But clearly this endolg was prepared to take the risk. 'Whatever,' he shrugged cheerfully. 'When do we go?'

Now would be good,
thought Blue. Once she instigated the Countdown and figured out a way of smuggling Flapwazzle.

As they walked together through the passage, Flapwazzle remarked conversationally, 'You know when I was asleep back there? Before I fell off the rock?'

'Yes,' Blue nodded.

'I was dreaming about Henry,' Flapwazzle said. 'He was in a lot of trouble.'

'I do that sometimes,' Blue told him.

Henry was in a lot of trouble.

He seemed to be hallucinating. There was a figure bending over him. After a moment he recognised it as Mr Fogarty.

'I thought you were in New Zealand,' Henry said dreamily.

'Don't be stupid,' said Mr Fogarty.

'What's the matter with him?' The voice, from somewhere to the left, was Pyrgus's.

'Bit disoriented, that's all. He'll be fine in a minute.'

'I want to talk to him. About Blue.'

'In a minute. He's had his atoms ripped apart and reassembled. You can't expect him to come out fighting.'

Henry tried to stand up and fell down. The ceiling looked very nice. It was vaulted like a church, only lower. The wood floor smelt of vanilla. His body ached a bit. Or quite a lot, actually.

'Perhaps I could be of assistance, sir ...?'

A woman's voice said, 'He's really quite good at first aid, deeah.'

'Be my guest,' said Mr Fogarty.

An orange thumb dug into Henry's sternum. There was a sudden racking pain and everything snapped into focus. He jack-knifed into a sitting position, clutching his chest. The grinning face of Madame Cardui's dwarf was beaming at him.

'There, that's better, isn't it?' said Kitterick.

Henry felt as if he'd been run through a mincer. Everything ached, including, he noticed curiously, his hair. But worse than the ache was the confusion. He'd been in his bedroom a second ago.

He looked around. He was now in Mr Fogarty's shed. Or a Paramount Pictures version of Mr Fogarty's shed. It was huge and filled with really creepy stuff. There was a workbench scattered with equipment. There was a smallish portal full of blue fire that hovered briefly above his head, then popped out, shedding droplets like a bubble.

Pyrgus was grinning at him. Madame Cardui was smiling at him. Kitterick was looking at him. Mr Fogarty was frowning at him. He was back. Back in the Realm! It wasn't his imagination after all!

Henry pushed himself painfully to his feet. Through the window he could see the distant outline of the Purple Palace with its huge cyclopean stones weathered nearly black with age. It felt a bit like coming home. He took a step and nearly fell.

'Just aftermath,' said Mr Fogarty shortly, to no one in particular.

Henry put one hand out to lean on the bench. He found himself looking at Pyrgus, so he smiled at him.

Madame Cardui said, 'We can't bring him to the Queen in this state.'

Pyrgus said briskly, 'I know something that will perk him up.'

'What is this place?' Henry asked. Although it was his third visit to the Realm, he'd never actually been in the city before. It was a peculiar experience, like stepping back in time. He kept thinking of drawings he'd seen of Elizabethan London and the movie
Shakespeare in Love.
The city seemed to be entirely composed of narrow, dirty streets, tiny windows and overhanging buildings. The river might have been a wider version of the Thames. But despite the similarities, there were some spooky differences. This was definitely one of them.

'It's a Fizz Parlour,' Pyrgus said.

The frontage was decidedly garish. Spell coatings caused luminous bands of colour to crawl and intertwine with no concession to good taste. Above the door was a spinning spiral that had an hypnotic effect on passers-by. Henry noticed it was attracting a steady parade of insects and small birds.

'It's not some sort of tavern, is it?' Henry asked. 'Only I'm not allowed in pubs.' Even if it wasn't a tavern, he wasn't sure he wanted to go in. He was feeling a whole lot steadier now, but his muscles still ached and all he really wanted was to lie down somewhere and sleep. Somehow he doubted this was what Pyrgus had in mind.

'No, it's not a tavern. We can go to a tavern if you like, but I thought this might be better for you.' Pyrgus frowned. 'Why aren't you allowed in taverns?'

'I'm too young.'

'You're the same age as me.'

'Yes, I know,' Henry said, and let it go. He eyed the entrance suspiciously. 'It's not ... an opium den, is it?'

'I don't know what opium is,' Pyrgus said. 'But if you want a den, we can go to a saturation den. They're stimulating too.' Then he added brightly, 'But this is completely organic'

'This'll be great, Pyrgus,' Henry said tiredly, belatedly remembering his manners.