The Faeman Quest

by Herbie Brennan

  Take my place? Aloud, Mella asked, ‘Is he really our uncle?’

  ‘He’s really your great-uncle by marriage, once removed. His sister was married to your mother’s father before he married your mother’s mother. I suppose you could say he’s my father, since he made me, but he’s always encouraged me to call him uncle. Besides, if he’s my father, I think that would make you my mother.’

  ‘Your mother?!’

  Mella II shrugged. ‘It was your hair.’

  ‘I don’t want to be your mother.’

  ‘Neither do I. I’d rather you were my sister.’

  Mella said, ‘I don’t understand this; not any of it.’ Part of the problem was her missing memory, but she suspected she would still have problems understanding even if she remembered everything. But at least her fear had nearly gone now.

  ‘You don’t have to understand. You just have to trust me. But I’ll try to help you understand.’

  They had begun to walk slowly, hand-in-hand along the side of the lake. Now her initial panic was dying down, Mella discovered she trusted Mella II. It was an instinctive thing, like her mistrust of Uncle Hairstreak and Aunt Aisling.

  ‘Is Aisling really my aunt?’

  Mella II nodded. ‘You do have an aunt called Aisling. She’s your father’s sister.’

  ‘I don’t like her.’

  ‘Neither does he, apparently.’

  ‘Do you know my father?’

  Mella II shook her head. ‘I’ve not met him yet. I’ve not met anybody of importance yet, except Uncle Hairstreak and some servants and now you. But I know a great deal about everybody because Uncle Hairstreak thinks I’m stupid.’

  ‘Why? Why should he think you’re stupid?’

  ‘Because I was stupid when he made me. I didn’t grow up the way you did. He cloned me – cloned you, I mean – then used a growth spell. So I had no childhood. I jumped from birth to teens. I looked like you, but I was just a shell. He used an educational enchantment programme to give me the formal information I needed – about our mother and father and the Palace and so on – but that didn’t amount to life experience. It was difficult because he had to keep me secret, so he couldn’t turn me loose in the world. But he let me roam through his estate and deal with servants and so forth – people he really trusted – so I would be at ease. He never thought I’d read his private papers and find out what he was planning.’

  ‘I’d have done that,’ Mella said.

  ‘Yes, I know you would. You’re me. And I’m you. Sort of. That’s the other thing he never thought of. I was always nice to him and he always thought I was just a silly clone who’d do what she was told when he needed her to. He never thought I’d identify with you once I knew about you. He never thought I’d be horrified at what he planned to do to you. But I was, because it was like he was going to do it to me.’

  Frowning, Mella asked, ‘What did he plan to do?’

  Frowning, Mella II said, ‘This is all so complicated. Listen, I said you had to trust me. Do you trust me?’

  Without the slightest hesitation, Mella nodded. ‘Yes, I do. I don’t know why, but I do.’

  ‘I know why. It’s because you’re sort of me and I’m sort of you. It’s almost like being the same person in two bodies. If you can’t trust yourself, who can you trust?’

  ‘Yes, who?’ Mella agreed. She found herself agreeing with a lot of things Mella II said. If she only understood what was going on, she might enjoy being the same person in two bodies.

  Mella II said, ‘I’ve always spent a lot of time wandering in Lord Hairstreak’s grounds and reading books in his library. There are berries that counteract the effect of lethe. More or less. I read about them in a book on herbs. There were some growing on a tree in his garden so I was curious.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you brought any with you?’

  Mella II shook her head. ‘No, but I saw some growing in the forest. We could go back …’

  There was something she wasn’t telling. Mella knew it at once. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’

  Mella II looked pained. ‘Actually, the book doesn’t recommend the berries as a lethe cure – the usual thing is to inject elementals into your bloodstream and let them dig the crystals out of your brain with little spades. People used to use these berries, but nobody does any more.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘The dosage is a bit tricky. If you take too few berries, it doesn’t work. But if you take too many, they poison you.’

  ‘You get sick?’

  ‘You get dead.’

  After a moment, Mella said, ‘These berries – do you think you can find them again?’

  They walked together back into the forest and it was really, really nice having a sister. Mella thought of Mella as her sister: clone seemed cold and impersonal, and twin, for all they were twins and absolutely identical, was somehow wrong as well. Having Mella beside her was like finding a long-lost sister, finding someone who would always be on your side. It was … comforting. Even the forest seemed less threatening.

  ‘There,’ said Mella II. She pointed.

  They were growing on a bush rather than a tree, bright yellow, with a speckle of red. ‘Are those them?’ Mella asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s a bush, not a tree.’

  ‘I know. I must have forgotten.’

  ‘But you remember the right dosage.’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Five berries,’ Mella II said. She hesitated. ‘Or was it four?’

  ‘I’m not taking them if you don’t remember.’

  ‘I do. Honestly, I remember. I think it was five. Unless that was the overdose that poisons you and you die in agony … No, it’s not the overdose. Five is definitely the right dose. For an average bodyweight.’

  ‘What’s an average bodyweight?’ Mella asked desperately.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Mella II plucked five berries off the bush. ‘I tell you what – I’ll take these to test them. If they work for me they’ll work for you.’

  ‘How can you test them?’ Mella asked. ‘You’ve still got your memory. Either they won’t work at all or they’ll kill you: that’s no test. Besides, there aren’t many more berries on the bush. We can’t afford to waste them.’

  ‘So you’re prepared to risk it?’

  ‘What risk?’ Mella demanded. ‘You said you remembered.’

  ‘Yes, I do. It’s five berries. I’m nearly sure.’ She handed five across and Mella swallowed them.

  ‘Nothing’s happening,’ Mella said after a moment.

  ‘It takes a bit,’ Mella II told her. ‘You have to digest the berries for the active ingredient to get into your bloodstream. That’s what makes them so dangerous. Once there’s an overdose in your bloodstream, there’s no way of stopping it. You can puke up the berries but they’ll still kill you.’

  ‘How long does it take?’

  ‘What, for you to digest them? Five minutes? Ten? I don’t know. It didn’t tell you in the book. Do you want to sit down? You look a bit … funny.’

  After five minutes, Mella suddenly glanced at Mella II with an expression of trepidation. She licked dry lips, convulsed, then gasped. ‘Something’s happening,’ she said.

  Forty-Two

  ‘I’m not sure I like this,’ Blue said.

  ‘We’ve run out of alternatives,’ Henry told her firmly. He was helping Pyrgus into his invisibility suit, an extraordinarily difficult business since neither of them could see where the arms were. In a moment, Pyrgus would be helping Henry into his, which would be even more difficult since both Pyrgus and Henry’s suits would be invisible.

  They were standing, all three of them, in the Situation Room, a modified cavern deep in the bedrock beneath the Purple Palace. Banks of crystal spy globes surrounded the huge Operations Table where segments of the Realm landscape were available – in three dimensions – once someone voiced the proper sonic trigger. Just now, the visible segment
was a stretch of the Haleklind border. Vast herds of manticores were massing on the Haleklind plains. A faerie army faced them on the other side. So far, no one had made a move to cross the vital boundary, but young women moved briskly between the globes and the table, constantly rearranging the display, so that the position might change at any moment.

  Although the Situation Room was a bustle of activity, with uniformed operatives scurrying in all directions, there was a rectangle of empty space to the right of the table avoided even by the most hurried. This was, Henry knew, the space occupied by his SWAT team, hideously efficient, finely honed, muscular commandos who’d had no difficulty at all climbing into their suits and now stood (presumably to attention) waiting for their leaders to get a move on.

  ‘The manticores aren’t in any particular formation,’ Blue said, staring at the table.

  ‘No, but they’re there,’ Pyrgus said with much more obvious impatience than Henry would ever have dared. ‘They’re ready. And if we wait for the wizards to make a move, it will be too late.’

  ‘What worries me,’ Blue said, ‘is that this operation might spark off the very war we’re trying to avoid. We haven’t come anywhere near exhausting the diplomatic alternatives yet.’

  What worried Henry was Blue’s guilt. She’d carried it since the Civil War, shortly after she became Queen, blamed herself for the deaths of thousands of brave soldiers. Because of the guilt, she had a horror of war that was almost pathological. It clouded her judgment in ways a Queen could not afford and sometimes made her swing to extremes. He opened his mouth to speak, but Pyrgus beat him to it. ‘If we wait, we may lose our best chance of rescuing Mella. Maybe our only chance.’

  Henry weighed in on his side. ‘We know where she is and we know she’s still safe. We know we can reach her and we have the element of surprise. All of that could change.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Blue said. She didn’t sound convinced. She turned to General Vanelke, the only surviving member of the trio who had run the Empire’s military operations at the time of the Civil War. ‘What do we know about Kremlin Karcist?’

  Vanelke tore his eyes away from the viewglobes. ‘Its defences, Ma’am?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s the former Tsarist palace, so it has all the securities you’d expect against direct attack. Old magic, not particularly sophisticated, but very reliable. They can be breached, of course, if we bring enough firepower to bear, but we’re not planning a frontal attack at this stage, so they’re not entirely relevant.’

  ‘But the Table of Seven have added their own systems?’

  ‘Of course they have,’ Vanelke said.

  ‘Including anti-infiltration spells?’

  ‘So Madame Cardui assures me.’

  ‘In your opinion, General Vanelke, what percentage success might we expect if an infiltration operation was attempted by professionals – your men, specially trained?’

  ‘Attempted and led by professionals, Ma’am?’ Vanelke asked, striking to the nub of the matter with irritating precision.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It won’t be led by professionals,’ Henry put in quickly. ‘The whole poi—’

  ‘Approximately eighty per cent,’ Vanelke said.

  ‘And led by amateurs?’

  ‘Come on Blue, we’re not exactly amat—’

  ‘Less than forty per cent.’ Vanelke managed to make it sound like Armageddon.

  Blue turned. ‘You see, Henry? I can’t think why you didn’t ask the General before you and Pyrgus hatched this … this …’ She shook her head helplessly.

  Because it was none of his damn business, Henry thought crossly. Aloud he said, ‘General Vanelke doesn’t have enough information to answer your question accurately. Your figure was based on standard infiltration techniques, was it not, General?’

  ‘Yes, sir, it was.’

  Henry looked severely at Blue. ‘Our plan isn’t based on standard infiltration techniques. We’re going to get into Kremlin Karcist the same way Mella did.’ He didn’t spell it out for the sake of security. There were a lot of people wandering past in the Situation Room.

  ‘The same wa—?’ Blue, who was sharp as a tack, got it almost at once. ‘Oh, I see.’ After a moment, she added, ‘Suppose the Table of Seven have closed that loophole?’

  Pyrgus had disappeared. At once Henry felt hands on his leg and noticed that his foot had vanished. ‘If they’ve closed it we’ll have to find another way. But with luck they won’t have discovered yet how she got there. Either way, it argues for us moving fast.’

  To give Blue credit, she never argued for the sake of it. What he said made sense and she knew it. All the same, she looked directly at Henry. ‘I’m missing a daughter,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to lose a husband and a brother as well.’

  ‘You won’t,’ Henry assured her. ‘And you can stop worrying about an international incident that will trigger war. These suits are the latest technology. We’ll be quite undetectable. Once we’re in and find Mella, we’ll have her out of danger in minutes.’ He glanced at Vanelke. ‘And that’s guaranteed one hundred per cent.’

  Most of Henry’s body had disappeared now, but Blue leaned across and kissed the floating head. ‘Just be careful,’ she whispered.

  ‘I will,’ Henry promised. He turned away, wondering where Pyrgus was, and discovered they’d been joined by Madame Cardui.

  ‘You can take the suit off,’ she said gravely.

  He’d known her long enough to realise at once something was badly wrong. ‘What’s happened?’ he asked.

  Pyrgus’s head reappeared, floating in the air a few feet from Henry’s. ‘What’s wrong?’ he echoed.

  ‘Mella is no longer in Kremlin Karcist,’ Madame Cardui told them. The effects of her recent head peel were beginning to wear off and she now looked increasingly like a mature woman. Somehow it suited her better than the girlish appearance created by the peel.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Blue asked at once.

  ‘I’ve just had word from my agent in the Kremlin. They were holding her captive, but now she’s disappeared.’

  Blue’s face turned to stone. ‘This isn’t some sort of cover-up? They haven’t … harmed her and are pretending …?’

  Madame Cardui shook her head. ‘Mella wasn’t killed,’ she said emphatically. ‘She seems to have escaped. They didn’t harm her, Majesty. At least …’

  ‘At least …?’

  ‘Apparently they erased her personal memories. I don’t know why. Possibly she saw something she shouldn’t.’ Madame Cardui shrugged. ‘If it was a standard lethe treatment, it will be easily enough reversed once we have her back. If not …’ She shrugged, ‘… we’ll just have to cross that hurdle when we come to it.’

  ‘Do we know where she is now?’ Pyrgus put in.

  Madame Cardui sighed. ‘No, deeah, we do not. But all my agents in Haleklind are now on highest alert. We’ll know it once she surfaces again.’

  Blue said, ‘But in the meantime our daughter is wandering somewhere in enemy territory with her memory erased …’

  ‘I’m afraid that is exactly the situation we face,’ Madame Cardui said grimly.

  Forty-Three

  ‘I’d never met Lord Hairstreak,’ Mella said. ‘Not before today.’ She looked at her sister, who looked back at her like a reflection in a mirror. The dammed-up memories were flooding in now, leaving her excited to the point of breathlessness. ‘My parents both said he was a very bad man. After the war, they thought he was dead to begin with: for a long time too – over a year, I think. Then, when they found out the only bit of him left was his head, they took pity and decided to forgive and forget and leave him alone.’

  ‘Big mistake,’ murmured Mella II.

  ‘We never visited him. At least I didn’t. I suppose Blue and Henry thought I’d be squeamish about talking to a head with all its veins and sinews and yucky bits dripping into a cube. They think I’m still a child. You wouldn’t believe how over-protective they can
be.’

  ‘You call your parents by their first names?’ Mella II exclaimed in obvious surprise.

  ‘Not usually,’ Mella told her. ‘Do you?’ She realised abruptly what she’d said and added hastily, ‘Would you? Might you? Will …?’ She tailed off.

  ‘I suppose your parents are my parents, sort of,’ Mella II said a little sadly. ‘If I had real parents, if I knew my real parents, I’d call them Mother and Father. Or Mummy and Daddy. I’d never call them by their first names, not even sometimes.’

  ‘So we’re not really so much alike,’ Mella said.

  ‘Yes, we are!’ Mella II told her fiercely. ‘We’re absolutely identical. It’s just that we were brought up differently. I miss having parents. I miss having a childhood.’

  To change the subject, Mella said, ‘You’d better tell me what Lord Hairstreak was up to. With you, I mean. Do you know?’

  ‘Of course I do.’ Mella II still sounded a little heated. ‘He talked to me about everything. He thought I was his obedient little creation, ready to do absolutely everything she was told. It never occurred to him that being you, all my sympathies would be on your side.’

  After a moment, Mella prompted, ‘Go on.’

  ‘It’s funny. I keep thinking you should know all this. But of course you don’t.’ Mella II reached out and took Mella’s hand. ‘Lord Hairstreak made me so he could have you killed.’

  ‘What?!’ Mella stared at her.

  ‘He came up with the plan before he got his new body; while he was still just a head on a cube. He knew the Realm would never accept him as King – he was just too creepy. The original idea was that he would kidnap you and have you killed in his Keep, then substitute me for you and send me back as you to take my place in the Purple Palace. I was supposed to do everything he told me, of course.’

  Mella stared at her. ‘But what about Mummy and Daddy?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, they were going to be killed too.’

  ‘Assassinated? Like me?’