The Purple Emperor

by Herbie Brennan

  ‘You now,’ said another green-uniformed soldier, nodding encouragingly to Fogarty.

  Fogarty didn’t hesitate—he was far too curious to learn the secret of the tree. He stepped quickly towards the massive trunk, headed for the point the soldier had indicated, reached it, felt the wood rough and solid, yet somehow passed right through it. The sensation, oddly enough, was of sliding sideways.

  He was in a shaft. It was metal-lined and wide enough for him to stand, both arms outstretched, without touching the sides. There had to be some sort of dimensional shift. Probably not much, but enough to move the shaft out of phase and allow the tree to keep its heart. Fascinating technology. These people were a lot more sophisticated than they looked.

  He felt himself beginning to float upwards and recognised the familiar sensation of suspensor spells at work. In a moment he emerged on to a broad wooden platform high up in the branches of the tree. The young soldier who’d gone ahead—with a start Fogarty realised it was a woman—took his hand to steady him. He looked around and gaped in sheer amazement.

  There was an entire roadway system in the upper reaches of the forest.

  It was absolutely invisible from the ground, but here it snaked from tree to tree, its main arteries as broad as any motorway and served by scores of side roads, loading bays, parking bays, promenades and avenues. It was a monumental feat of engineering, created from a mix of wood and metal along with something else he didn’t even recognise.

  Blue was already on the platform, staring around her with studied nonchalance. Madame Cardui and Pyrgus emerged a few seconds later, apparently none the worse for their little disagreement.

  ‘Did you know this was here?’ Fogarty asked her at once. You could move an army down those roadways. He tried to calculate how far the forest stretched, but his Realm geography was still too weak to make the estimate.

  Madame Cardui nodded. ‘Oh yes. I’ve known about it for some time.’

  ‘You never told me,’ Blue said, with just the barest hint of sharpness in her voice.

  ‘Need to know, my deeah,’ said Madame Cardui, voicing one of the basic principles of espionage. ‘You didn’t need to know.’ She flashed a tiny smile at Fogarty. ‘Besides, at our age one must always keep a little something back. As insurance, you appreciate.’

  Fogarty doubted if Blue did, but he appreciated the principle all right. ‘Who are these people?’ he asked Madame Cardui.

  ‘My deeah, they’re called the Feral Faerie—can you imagine it? We’ve always believed they were primitives. Primitive forest-dwellers. What a camouflage! They have their own culture, their own social structures, their own governing system, their own defence forces. I was astonished when I learned about them.’

  ‘Are they Lighters or Nighters?’ Fogarty asked.

  ‘Not relevant,’ Madame Cardui said. ‘They don’t hold allegiance to either side. Sorry, Pyrgus.’

  Pyrgus, who was staring along one of the great treetop roadways, hardly seemed to hear her. ‘You could move an army down here,’ he murmured, echoing Fogarty’s earlier thought.

  ‘Do they have treetop cities?’ Fogarty frowned.

  Madame Cardui shook her head. ‘Just this communications network. They’re nomads—urban life would stifle them. They congregate in small communities actually within the living trees.’

  One of the green-uniformed soldiers now swarming on the platform murmured something in her ear.

  ‘They want us to move out now, deeahs,’ she announced.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Fogarty asked.

  Madame Cardui smiled broadly. ‘To meet the Faerie Queen.’

  The transporter was a large wooden raft that floated some six inches above the surface of the roadway. It bobbed slightly, like a boat at sea, as Pyrgus stepped aboard. A green-uniformed soldier manned the single control, a large joystick set near the front. The craft was big enough to take almost the whole contingent, but by the time it was full, they were pressed shoulder to shoulder except for a small courtesy space around the pilot.

  ‘Brace!’ the pilot called.

  Pyrgus was wondering what that meant when the raft jerked forward and sped off at a furious rate. He was thrown backwards and would have fallen were it not for the pressure of those around him. He noticed that everyone in green uniform was leaning forward to counteract the motion of the raft.

  He found his own balance in a moment and watched the upper branches of the trees flash by. He was finding it difficult to gather his thoughts. Too much had happened in the last few hours. The coup by Hairstreak. Comma on the throne. His exile along with Blue and Gatekeeper Fogarty. The attack on the ouklo, which everyone had thought was carried out by Hairstreak’s men, but which turned out to be the work of the Forest Faerie. And now rescue. At least he supposed it was rescue. He needed to talk to Madame Cardui.

  Pyrgus half turned to find someone at his shoulder. It was the girl who had stunned him during the fight.

  ‘I want to apologise,’ she said quietly. ‘I didn’t know you were the Crown Prince.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Pyrgus said. For some reason he felt embarrassed.

  ‘Well, I’m not sure it is,’ the girl said. ‘But when you came at me with a dagger, I had to do something.’

  ‘Unh,’ Pyrgus nodded. He wanted to talk to her properly, but something was making him converse in grunts.

  The girl stared into his face for a moment, then gave a little resigned shrug. ‘Well, that’s all I wanted to say.’ She turned away.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Pyrgus asked quickly, his vocal paralysis breaking at last.

  She turned back again and her expression was pleased. ‘Nymphalis,’ she said. ‘Nymphalis Antiopa.’ She hesitated, then added almost shyly, ‘My friends call me Nymph.’

  ‘I’m Pyrgus Malvae,’ Pyrgus said because he couldn’t think of anything else.

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  The green uniform suited her, even though it was cut for a man. It certainly didn’t make her look like a man. He couldn’t imagine anything that would make her look like a man. It made her look … it made her look elegant. But then she had the sort of figure that would look elegant in a sack.

  ‘The, ah, the business with the, ah, wand in the ear and knee in the—the knee … and the knee: that really is all right, you know. I mean, I understand. Heat of battle and all that.’ She just stood there, smiling at him. He wondered if she was a professional soldier. He wondered if she had a boyfriend. ‘Do you ha— do, did, wha—’ He started again. ‘I was wondering why you attacked the ouklo?’

  Nymphalis looked surprised. ‘You don’t believe all that nonsense about the Forest Faerie being brigands, do you?’

  ‘No, no,’ Pyrgus said hastily. ‘Actually I thought you were Hairstreak’s men.’ It occurred to him she mightn’t know who Hairstreak was, but pressed on. ‘No, but I was really wondering why. Why you attacked us?’

  The platform lurched beneath their feet.

  ‘Ah,’ said Nymphalis, ‘we’re here already.’

  Forty-Two

  Henry had been in the palace dungeons once before briefly—when he had tried to rescue Mr Fogarty, who’d been thrown in jail when everybody had believed he’d murdered the Purple Emperor. But that experience had been civilised compared to this. Now they’d thrown him into a dank, subterranean cell that smelled of someone else’s pee and had no facilities for his own except a small grating set into the worn, cracked flagstones on the floor. The walls were stone as well, and the whole chamber had an ancient feel, as if it had been built at the same time as the original palace Keep. There were no windows. The only light came from a single rush taper that looked in danger of flickering out with every errant draft.

  The door was extraordinary. It was nearly a foot thick and banded in metal for extra strength as if the designers had expected to lock up a dinosaur. It had some sort of spell coating that made a sound like fingernails across a blackboard every time he went near it. He didn’t think the guards
had literally thrown away the key, but he suspected he might be here for a very long time indeed.

  Henry set his back against the wall and slid down to the floor to think. What had happened to Blue? What had happened to Pyrgus? And who on earth was Quercusia?

  He had to find Blue and Pyrgus, had to find out what had happened. He had to get out of here.

  Henry looked around his cell. There must be something he could use to escape, something he could break apart for digging or picking the lock or beating up the guard like they did in the movies. But the chamber was empty. No furnishings. No table, no chairs. Not even a mattress on the floor. Nothing but a moth-eaten rug thrown into one corner.

  He stopped his eyes roaming and stared. Why would they give him a rug and nothing else?

  Henry pushed himself abruptly to his feet. That was no rug!

  ‘You can stop skulking in the corner now,’ he called.

  ‘I’m not skulking,’ said the endolg. ‘I was asleep. You woke me from a lovely dream.’ It started to crawl towards him. ‘Oh, it’s Henry. Hello, Henry—or do you prefer "Iron Prominent" these days?’

  Henry frowned. ‘Do I know you?’

  ‘Sure you do. I was the one shopped you to the guard upstairs. Fat lot of good it did me.’

  For a moment Henry continued to stare at the creature. Then it came to him. The endolg was referring to Henry’s attempt to free Mr Fogarty from the dungeons on their first visit to the Realm. Henry had tried lying to the guard and an endolg in the outer office had spotted it at once.

  ‘That was you?’ he asked.

  ‘In the fur.’

  ‘They sent you here to spy on me?’ He couldn’t imagine why. But then he couldn’t imagine why he was here in the first place.

  ‘Ah, the self-centred certainties of youth!’ the endolg exclaimed philosophically. ‘It’s nothing to do with you. That loony old plud had me jailed.’

  Somehow Henry knew the loony old plud was Quercusia. ‘Why?’

  ‘Why did she have me jailed? Didn’t like the look of my pelt. Didn’t like the colour of my eyes. Who knows why that barm-brack does anything? She’ll have the dungeons full in a month—and Asloght Jail as well, if she keeps on the way she’s going. It was a bad day for the Realm when Comma let her out.’

  Comma let her out? The endolg mightn’t be much use in smashing out of here, but it suddenly occurred to Henry that it could give him an awful lot of much-needed information. ‘I’ve been away for weeks,’ he said. ‘What’s been happening?’

  For a horrible moment he thought the endolg wasn’t going to answer, but then it sighed deeply. ‘Where to begin? You know Prince Pyrgus has been sent into exile?’

  Henry nodded. ‘Is Blue with him? Princess Blue?’

  ‘Princess Blue and Gatekeeper Fogarty. All history now.’ The endolg sighed again.

  ‘How did this happen?’ Henry asked. He could hardly believe it. The last thing he’d heard was that Pyrgus was getting ready for his Coronation.

  ‘Orders of his father,’ the endolg said.

  Henry stared at it. ‘His father’s dead,’ he blurted.

  ‘He was alive and kicking last time I saw him,’ said the endolg. ‘Well, alive, anyway: he didn’t look so good.’

  ‘Last time you saw him? When was that?’

  ‘Couple of days. Before the loony old plud had me thrown down here.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘You don’t know much about endolgs, do you?’ remarked the endolg. ‘We can’t lie.’ It wriggled slightly as if it had an itch. ‘Seventy-eight brain cells missing. Doesn’t sound like much, but it means we just can’t do it. Any time an endolg says something definite, you can take it that’s the truth. If we’re not sure about something, we say "maybe" or "perhaps" or "somebody told me" or whatever. I saw the Purple Emperor alive, couple of days ago, in this palace. I’m sure. You can believe it.’

  Henry couldn’t believe it. Pyrgus’s father had been shot at close range with a shotgun. But maybe the blast really hadn’t killed him. Even in his own world there were people who fell into a coma and the doctors thought they were dead.

  ‘Comma’s on the throne now—or will be when he’s crowned and confirmed. Purple Emperor Elect and Royal Pain in the Ass. Comma. Can you imagine it? First thing he did was let his mother out.’

  ‘Out of where?’ Comma’s mother had to be the old Emperor’s second wife. Henry had vaguely thought she was dead.

  ‘The West Wing. They kept her locked up there for years.’

  It suddenly struck Henry who the endolg must be talking about. ‘Comma’s mother is Quercusia, isn’t she? Why was she locked up?’

  ‘Because she’s mad, of course. You know that. They’re all mad in her family.’

  ‘Who’s her family?’ Henry asked curiously.

  ‘Quercusia is Lord Hairstreak’s sister,’ said the endolg.

  Forty-Three

  Pyrgus was finding it difficult to believe what he was seeing.

  Close on a thousand faeries had poured into the forest clearing and more were joining them at every minute. They seemed to be emerging out of the very trees, as Pyrgus himself had emerged from a tree only moments before, along with Nymph and others on the transporter. The spells that allowed them to do so had to be related to the portal technology that translated you to another dimension, but he’d never seen anything like this before. The thing was, you didn’t translate to another dimension. You went into a hollow shaft in the tree. At least that’s what he’d done. But to do that, you passed through the solid trunk of the tree itself. Which was some spell. He’d never even heard of a Halek wizard who could do it. He wondered how the Forest Faerie managed it.

  An errant thought occurred to him. With a spell like that, no castle was safe. You could take an army right through its walls.

  The Forest Faerie were organising themselves in ranks even though not all of them were wearing the green military uniform. Perhaps the rest were off-duty soldiers, or perhaps they were just naturally disciplined. He looked round for Nymph to ask her, but she was nowhere in sight now. Nor was Madame Cardui. He felt a flash of embarrassment at his attempt to strangle her.

  Blue emerged from the tree trunk frowning a little. Mr Fogarty came out behind her and turned at once to look at the tree.

  ‘Do you know how they do that?’ Pyrgus asked him quietly.

  ‘No, but I’d like to,’ Mr Fogarty said.

  Blue said, ‘Pyrgus, what’s happened to —’ Then stopped as the entire throng in the clearing suddenly went quiet. Heads began to turn in the direction of a forest path. Distantly, Pyrgus could hear a sound like the tinkling of temple bells.

  Two horsemen rode into the clearing and separated either side of the path. Although nobody said anything, the crowd flowed—there was no other word for it—to make space, then flowed again to open up an empty circle in the middle of the clearing. Pyrgus found himself on its edge, along with Blue and Mr Fogarty, isolated from the main body of Forest Faerie. He wondered if he should step back, but decided against it. At least he’d have a good view here of whatever might be going on, and if anybody wanted him to move, they could tell him. He noticed neither Blue nor Mr Fogarty looked much like moving either.

  A party of mounted archers was approaching down the path. The armament looked primitive to Pyrgus, but he was quickly learning not to underestimate these people. Their elf-bolts had proven capable of piercing the adamantine silver armour of the ouklo cabin, so perhaps their arrows had special spell coatings as well. An arrow might not be the latest in weapons technology, but if —

  A thought struck him. The elf-bolts must have made use of the same magic that allowed Forest Faerie to pass into their own trees. If their arrows had the same coating, there was no armour in the world that would protect against them. They might even be able to shoot through solid stone!

  The sound of bells came nearer. Pyrgus turned his attention back to the path. There was an even larger mounted party following the archers. ‘
They use horses,’ he murmured to himself, frowning. It was clear from their overhead transporter—and their foo discs that they had levitation spells. Why not use them here?

  ‘More efficient among trees,’ Gatekeeper Fogarty murmured back. ‘You don’t have to guide a good horse—it finds its own way around obstacles. Lot safer than a flying disc, and probably faster when you take everything into consideration.’

  The second party had a ceremonial look about it something in the stately way it moved. Pyrgus craned his neck to try to catch more details, but the forest surrounding the clearing was dense and a leafy canopy arched over the path, leaving it in gloom.

  The archers entered the clearing and followed the example of the first two horsemen, splitting apart to form a mounted circle. To Pyrgus’s surprise, and just a little alarm, they rode behind him, leaving him isolated with Blue and Mr Fogarty inside the circle. He glanced behind, decided there was nothing he could do, and waited.

  A weird processional came into view. Riders on horseback were attended by runners who gambolled and leaped and waved their arms like madmen, keeping apace with the horses with no apparent difficulty. Both riders and footmen were costumed, wearing a curious assortment of clothes that were a full five hundred years behind the current fashions. There was a preponderance of pointed hats and soft, velvet pointed slippers.

  ‘Good God,’ said Mr Fogarty abruptly, ‘it’s the Wild Hunt!’

  Pyrgus glanced at him.

  ‘Old folk superstition in my world,’ Mr Fogarty explained. ‘At least I thought it was a superstition until now. Back in the Middle Ages, they used to believe that on certain nights of the year witches and other supernatural beings rode through the forest hunting for … I don’t know … souls, I suppose. It was called the Wild Hunt, and sometimes the Faerie Hunt. The myth must have been based on this—look at those costumes, the descriptions are identical: pointed hats, archers, horses, and the woman leading them.’