The Faerie Lord (13 page)

‘Yes, Madam.’

She took a deep breath. ‘But it is equally important that the discovery of our escape be delayed as much as possible.’

‘To give us a greater head start, Madam?’

‘Precisely, Kitterick. To that end, I have instructed our captors that I shall not be requiring breakfast this morning.’

‘Very self-sacrificing, Madam.’

‘They will, of course, attempt to feed us lunch, but by then, if all goes well, I shall be long gone.’

Kitterick missed nothing. ‘You, Madam – not
we?’

‘I, Kitterick. I expect you to remain here, confuse our captors and, if necessary, create a diversion.’

‘Of course, Madam.’ He looked at her fondly. ‘Will you be requiring me to murder the guards, Madam?’

‘Nothing so crude, Kitterick,’ said Madame Cardui. Bad enough she had to break her word to the Queen without adding slaughter to her sins. She sighed. ‘You’ll find a doppleganger in my mattress.’

This time Kitterick’s look was one of open admiration. He went to the mattress, extruded a talon to slit it open, then fumbled inside until he drew out a desiccated package about the size of a building brick. ‘I presume this is she, Madam?’

Madam Cardui nodded. ‘It’s freeze-dried, so we only need add water.’

‘After you have gone, Madam?’

‘No, I think we should activate it now – just to be sure. You can use the decanter on the bedside table.’

‘Of course, Madam.’ Kitterick set the brick on top of the counterpane and poured the contents of the decanter over it. There was a slight sizzling sound as the package began to enlarge.

Kitterick moved back sharply when the arms and legs appeared, floppy at first, then uncurling and expanding into three dimensions. After a moment, it was possible to discern a body threshing and writhing. A moment more and a living, breathing replica of Madame Cardui was lying on the bed. Madame Cardui stared down at it. The thing had cost a fortune, but she had to admit the investment had been worth every penny. The resemblance was uncanny, right down to that unfortunate mole on the buttock.

‘How would you prefer her dressed?’ asked Kitterick, not at all phased by the creature’s nudity.

‘A simple nightgown will suffice,’ said Madame Cardui. ‘Then tuck her into bed. When the servants arrive with lunch, tell them I am indisposed – unwell. You might even hint at the possibility of plague.’

‘Queen Blue is likely to order a medical examination,’ Kitterick said.

‘The doppleganger can withstand that, so long as they don’t expect it to speak. All internal organs and systems are faithfully duplicated. With luck, they will assume its silence is due to the illness. They will discover the truth in time, of course, but by then I will be long gone. I shall leave now. Divert them as long as you can, then go to my city quarters.
You
are not a prisoner, of course, so there will be no difficulty. But I shall expect you to be discreet, make sure you are not followed and so forth.’

‘Of course,’ Kitterick murmured. ‘Will you be hiding in your city quarters?’

‘Oh, no -I have several urgent things to do: best you know nothing of them. But I shall return eventually, I hope. In the meantime, I rely on you to keep them clean and look after Lanceline.’ Madame Cardui returned to the window and threw it open. ‘Au revoir, Kitterick.’

‘Au revoir, Madam,’ Kitterick replied.

She drew a reel of wire from the pocket of her armour and expertly attached one end of it to the windowsill. She clipped the other to her belt and jumped from the window to abseil down the outside wall like a spider on a silken thread.

Kitterick watched until she was safely on the ground, then detached the wire and closed the window.

There was a savage sun beating down and no shade except leeward of the crumbling tomb. It was so very, very … hot. But Henry needed to get away from the tomb. He didn’t think the thing would follow him into the sunlight, but he couldn’t be sure. Besides, the sun would not stay up for ever. When night fell the creature might emerge.

Which way to go?

Henry looked around in something close to panic. The desert was featureless – a rock here, a flat slab there, a sea of spreading, shimmering sand but no landmark other than the ruin. In a landscape like this, one direction was as good as any other.

All the same, he hesitated. He was beginning to pour sweat. It stung his eyes and soaked his underarms. He would need water soon and he had no water at all. How long could you survive in a desert without water? Days? Hours? He thought maybe days, if you were lucky, but he was fairly sure it wasn’t more than a week. So if he walked the wrong way, went deeper into the desert instead of out of it, he could be walking to his death.

Which way to go?

Henry shivered. His arm and leg were burning up now and the shivering made him wonder if he was starting a fever.

There was a sound from the tomb, a rodent rustling. The creature was moving about inside. He didn’t think it would venture out into the sunlight, but the noise unnerved him so much that he moved despite his pain, stumbling away from the ruin. With no landmarks, no pointers, nothing to guide him, one direction really was as good as any other.

He made a decision. He would walk until he was out of sight of the tomb. That way, if the creature did come out, it wouldn’t find him. When he was out of sight, he would sit down and examine his wounds and try to think. Take stock of his position. That sounded like the proper thing to do.

There was a great deal of rock close to the ruin and a section, half-exposed, of what looked like man-made pavement. But all of it gave way to featureless sand, flat at first, then drifting into dunes. It was hell to walk on. It sucked at his feet and drained the little energy he had left in his legs. He had to rest even before he lost sight of the tomb. He squatted on the sand, looking back nervously. The ruin shimmered through a heat haze, as if it were under water. After a while, he climbed painfully back to his feet and started off. He felt better when he lost sight of the tomb completely.

But now there were no landmarks at all.

Henry sat down again. The wound on his arm had stopped bleeding and closed over, but it was rimmed with a greenish thread and pulsed pain in time with his heartbeat. But the pain wasn’t too bad and so far, luckily, there didn’t seem to be much swelling.

The wound on his leg was another matter. His trousers were torn and soaked with matted blood so that the material stuck to the flesh. He gritted his teeth and tried to peel it away, but the skin seemed to be coming too and the pain was almost unbelievable. Eventually, in desperation, he unbuckled his belt and eased the trousers down to get sight of the wound.

He wished he hadn’t. The wound on his arm was a claw slash. The wound on his leg seemed like the result of a bite. Even in so short a time, it had swollen dramatically, stretching and discolouring the skin while the site of the bite itself oozed a foul-smelling, yellow pus. That one was going to need medical attention, and soon. He poked the skin cautiously and was rewarded by a wave of agony so extreme that he almost threw up.

Henry pulled his trousers up again and buckled the belt. There was nothing he could do about his injuries yet, so the only thing to do was ignore them and concentrate on …

On survival.

How did you stay alive in a desert?

Henry squeezed his eyes shut and tried to remember anything he’d read or seen on TV about survival. What would the S.A.S. do in a situation like this? Strangely, information started to trickle through from foggy corners of his memory. Find shelter from the sun … preserve your energy … travel only at night … drink your own urine if you can’t find water …

He opened his eyes again. The desert stretched endlessly in all directions, barren and bare. Not a tree, not a rock, no shelter of any sort. How did you find shelter when there was no shelter to be found? But the business about travelling by night was a good idea. It would be cooler at night. He could get further with less energy and he’d sweat less so he’d need less water.

But he’d still need some. Without water he would die in days.

He began to think about drinking his own pee. The idea sounded gross, but he could probably live with that. The problem was … the problem was …

The problem was
bow?

He couldn’t pee in a bottle and drink from that because he didn’t have a bottle. He couldn’t pee in a hollow on a rock, because there were no rocks any more. He couldn’t pee on the ground: the hot sand would soak up the precious fluid in a second. So how …?

Henry bent forward in the sitting position and considered angles. It was a fairly batty thought, but he might just be able to do it. Although only if he managed a strong jet – a trickle wouldn’t hack it. He straightened up and decided to shelve the problem for the moment. He wasn’t
that
thirsty yet.

So what did he do now? Rest until nightfall, then move off again? It had to be the sensible thing, but something kept telling him not to do it. Nightfall was still hours away. The sun was hotter than anything he’d ever experienced. If he sat here without shelter he’d be a baked husk by dark. And God knew how bad the wound in his leg might be by then. Maybe it was best to move on now, while he still had some energy left, trust to luck that he was going in the right direction, trust to luck that he’d find help before it was too late.

Trust to luck he wouldn’t die.

With a massive effort, he pushed himself to his feet.

Lord Hairstreak looked around his seedy office and wondered where his life had gone.

The rot had set in after the brief Civil War. Too many bad decisions, too many gambles. But most of all, the collapse of the market. Demon servants were a thing of the past since his niece became Queen of Hael. Hard to believe anybody could be so stupid as to free the slaves, but Blue had done it. Lost herself an almost unimaginable source of income at the stroke of a pen. More to the point, lost Hairstreak his percentage.

He closed his eyes briefly. Such a sweet, sweet deal while Beleth was alive. Five per cent of earnings from every demon placed in servitude.
Five per cent!
He’d never lacked for money then and never thought he ever would. Even when Blue killed Beleth it didn’t occur to him things might be different. He’d simply assumed the old arrangement would continue with a new name on the contract. The worst he expected was that she’d try to cut back a little on his percentage. But only a little. Blue needed Hairstreak as much as Beleth ever had if the market was to continue: he was leader of the Faeries of the Night after all and only they used demon servants. He never thought, not for an instant, that Blue would stop the trade altogether. Even now her decision made no sense to him. If he’d lost millions when his five per cent disappeared, imagine how much Blue herself had lost. As Queen of Hael she would have harvested every penny of the remaining ninety-five per cent.

But pointless to dwell on the past. What was done was done and nothing he could do would change it. The trick was to replace his former source of income. And now, thanks to that old goat Brimstone, it looked as if it just might be possible.

The only problem was he didn’t trust Brimstone.

Hairstreak opened his eyes again. The cloud dancer was pretending to sit on the chair, but had miscalculated slightly and seemed to be hovering an inch or two above it. Not that it mattered since the dancer wasn’t truly there at all. Its home was a wholly different dimension. But now the strain on the fabric of reality was making Hairstreak nauseous and he decided to conclude the business as quickly as possible.

‘Can you do it?’ he asked. The question was, of course, rhetorical. Cloud dancers could track down anybody anywhere. And their unique access to the faerie brain made them more efficient at extracting information than a torture chamber. Brimstone’s secrets wouldn’t stand a chance against this thing.

‘For the standard fee,’ the cloud dancer told him. The voice was as bizarre as everything else about the creature. It reverberated through the air and through your mind, but not quite synchronised so everything produced a weird mental echo.

‘Yes, yes,’ Hairstreak said impatiently. Of course for the standard fee. Everybody knew about cloud dancers and their standard fees. It was the one aspect of this transaction he had not been looking forward to. But at least the thing wouldn’t ask for money. Money was in short supply.

‘I can do it,’ the cloud dancer confirmed.

And that seemed to be that. After a moment, Hair-streak said, ‘Well, get on with it.’

‘The fee is payable in advance,’ the cloud dancer said.

There was silence in the little room. The thing remained not quite sitting on the chair, gazing patiently at Hairstreak.

‘Oh, very well!’ snapped Hairstreak. He rolled up the left sleeve of his jerkin.

The cloud dancer floated towards him, curling itself sensuously into a foetal ball.

‘What is it?’ Chalkhill gasped.

‘You know what it is,’ Brimstone told him shortly.

That was true enough. Although he’d never seen one before – or imagined he ever would – there was no possibility of a mistake. Chalkhill swallowed painfully. ‘How did you get it?’

‘That’s none of your business,’ Brimstone said. He walked through the doorway.

The chamber was lined with lead and the floor sparkled with inlaid quartz. Bowls of rotting offal had been set at the cardinal points. All the same Chalkhill hesitated. ‘Is it safe?’ he called in after Brimstone.

The man is an idiot,
Brimstone thought.
But a necessary idiot.
‘Safe as houses,’ he called back. Which was hopefully the truth, otherwise they were both dead and half the country with them.

Chalkhill approached cautiously, sidling through the doorway like a crab. Not once did he take his eyes off the cage. ‘Are you sure?’

‘The bars are reinforced titanium,’ Brimstone said. ‘Nothing could break through them.’

‘But what about… you know … its powers?’

‘The lead should take care of any of that nonsense,’ Brimstone said. ‘Besides, it’s crippled.’