The Purple Emperor

by Herbie Brennan

  Pyrgus suddenly noticed there was a woman leading them and wondered how he had missed her before. She was the strangest creature he’d ever seen. She was not merely dressed in green—a fur-trimmed cloak over a loose shirt and tight knee-britches—but her skin colouring was green as well, enhancing her enormous golden eyes.

  ‘What is she?’ he whispered. He couldn’t take his eyes off the woman. Even her hair was green, interwoven with a garland of tiny forest flowers. There was a green man riding a little behind her, naked to the waist beneath his cloak, powerfully muscled, a strung bow carried across his back. But his eyes were almost black and his hair was a golden blond.

  The woman rode directly towards Pyrgus, then reined in a few feet away and slid gracefully from her horse. Close up, her colouring was even more disconcerting than it had been at a distance. She stared into Pyrgus’s eyes as if attempting to read his thoughts, then said soberly, ‘Crown Prince Pyrgus Malvae, I am Queen Cleopatra.’ She half turned and gestured towards the green man, who had remained mounted. ‘This is my Consort, Gonepterix.’ Gonepterix nodded a brief acknowledgement. He had an open face, but his expression was wary.

  ‘Queen Cleopatra?’ frowned Gatekeeper Fogarty. ‘Did you say Cleopatra?’

  The woman favoured him with a slow, sidelong look. Her face took on an expression of mild amusement. ‘That is my name. And you are the Gatekeeper from another world—the Painted Lady told me of you.’

  Queen Cleopatra? Queen of what? Or where? It was dawning on Pyrgus that Forest Faerie were not at all what everybody thought them to be. They were very skilled at hiding themselves—and hiding what they had achieved. These were people who could live inside trees. They were practically a separate kingdom within his kingdom.

  Queen Cleopatra turned those disquieting gold eyes back on to Pyrgus. ‘I wish to bid you welcome—and meet with your sister. Is she with you?’

  ‘I’m Princess Blue,’ Blue said, stepping out. She’d been masked to some degree by Mr Fogarty.

  Cleopatra smiled at her warmly. ‘The Painted Lady has told me a very great deal about you—more even than about the Gatekeeper here.’

  It seemed a warm enough welcome, but there were a great many questions Pyrgus needed answered. Before he could ask any of them, Blue said, ‘Where is Madame Cardui? She was with us a little while ago, but she seems to have disappeared.’

  ‘She went ahead,’ the Queen told her. ‘She will be waiting for us in the Great Hall. We should go there now—there is much we need to talk about.’

  ‘I don’t do horses,’ Mr Fogarty said at once. He looked at the Queen’s own horse sourly.

  Cleopatra glanced at him again. She looked puzzled, but her face cleared almost at once. ‘Oh, for the journey?’ She smiled. ‘Gatekeeper, the Great Hall is closer than you think.’

  Forty-Four

  ‘Hairstreak’s sister?’ Henry exclaimed. ‘Why would the Purple Emperor go off and marry Hairstreak’s sister?’ Quercusia was quite good-looking for an older woman, but not that good-looking. A thought struck him. ‘She’s a Faerie of the Night, for heaven’s sake.’

  The endolg made that curious rippling movement that seemed to be a shrug. ‘That’s exactly why he married her—because she was a Faerie of the Night. And Hairstreak’s sister. Politics, pure and simple. Apatura Iris thought an arranged marriage with somebody in Hairstreak’s family might help bring the Faeries of the Night and the Faeries of the Light closer together. She might be a bit of a wagon, but it was better than civil war. Besides, he didn’t know she was bonkers when he married her.’

  This was bad. This was very bad. This was very, very bad. Things had happened in the Realm that were almost impossible to believe, all of them bad for Pyrgus, all of them bad for Blue. (And all of them bad for Mr Fogarty, now Henry thought of it.) But at least they were still alive, although it sounded as if they’d only just survived; and if there was ever a time they needed him it was now. He couldn’t quite get out of his head the vision he’d seen of them lying on a forest floor.

  ‘There must be some way out of this cell,’ Henry moaned helplessly.

  ‘Oh, there is,’ said the endolg.

  The creature had climbed halfway up one of the walls and was clinging there like a tapestry. Henry looked across at it. ‘Pardon?’

  ‘There’s a way out,’ the endolg repeated.

  Henry sniffed. ‘Yes, through the door, except they forgot to leave us a key.’

  ‘I don’t know why you’re taking that sarcastic attitude,’ said the endolg airily. ‘I assumed it was a straightforward question and I gave you a straightforward answer.’ It anchored itself more firmly to the wall and closed its eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Henry said at once. ‘Is there really a way out? Where? How?’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll tell you,’ said the endolg. ‘I don’t react well to sarcasm.’

  If it had had a throat, Henry would have strangled it. ‘Sorry,’ he said again. ‘No, honestly, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m sorry. Sorry. It’s just—well, you were here before me. I’d have thought if there was some way out, you’d have taken it, that’s all. Sorry.’

  ‘I said there was a way out. I didn’t say I could use it. I’m not strong enough. But you are. At least I think you are—you look a sturdy boy to me. Sturdy and sarcastic.’

  Henry contained himself with a superhuman effort. ‘Won’t you please tell me? You’ve been a huge help up to now.’ A thought occurred to him and he added, ‘If I get out, I’ll take you with me. If it’s somewhere you can’t go, I’ll carry you.’

  The endolg’s eyes opened again. ‘This is one of the oldest dungeons in the palace,’ it said. ‘Hasn’t been repaired for centuries and wasn’t all that well-made to begin with. See that little grating in the middle of the floor ...?’

  The grating was the one prisoners peed into. There was a smallish, brown-stained hole beside it. Henry’s nose wrinkled involuntarily. ‘Yes ...’

  ‘Comes up if you pull it hard enough.’

  Henry stared at the grating. It was six inches across at most. ‘I couldn’t get through that.’

  ‘The flagstone comes up with it,’ said the endolg patiently.

  ‘What’s underneath?’ Henry felt the first hint of a mounting excitement. He didn’t want to get his hopes up, but ...

  ‘There’s a drain. It’s a bit mucky and it’ll be a tight fit for somebody your size, but you’ll probably get through.’

  ‘Probably?’ Henry echoed.

  ‘Well, if you lift the flagstone, you can judge for yourself,’ the endolg said. ‘If you’re not prepared to take my word for it.’

  ‘OK, OK, you think I should manage it. Where does the drain lead?’

  ‘My guess would be the palace sewers,’ the endolg said. ‘Don’t take that as truthspeak, but I once saw a map that showed the whole underground system. I think that must be where it drains to.’

  ‘What about the sewers?’ Henry asked. ‘Could I get through them all right?’

  The endolg snorted. ‘Get through them? You could hold a party in them if it wasn’t for the smell. They’re enormous.’

  ‘What happens if I can’t find my way out? Out of the sewers?’

  ‘Oh, come on!’ said the endolg. ‘I’m telling you how we can get out of here—you want a scale map and a signed guarantee as well?’

  ‘Sorry,’ Henry said again.

  ‘If it makes you feel any better, I’ll be sticking with you. Don’t fancy facing the bilgerats on my own.’

  ‘There are bilgerats down there?’ Henry shuddered. He’d only ever seen a live rat once, but they gave him the creeps.

  ‘Big as horses, according to some reports. But I wouldn’t take that as truthspeak either.’ The endolg started to climb down slowly off the wall. ‘With luck we won’t meet any, but if we do, it’s still better than rotting in here, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Henry said uncertainly.

  ‘Well, what are you waiting for? Get the
grille up.’

  Henry walked hesitantly to the middle of the floor. The stench seemed stronger than it had been, and not just the smell of pee now either. The grating was stained by years of use and had some unpleasant encrustations. ‘Are you sure you couldn’t get this up yourself?’

  ‘Definite. Endolgs are smart, but we’re not that strong. You should do it easily.’

  Henry looked at the grille. ‘I don’t have any gloves.’

  ‘Just my luck,’ sighed the endolg. ‘Twenty million people in the Realm and I get locked up with a wuss.’

  Henry took a deep breath, reached down to grip the grille (with his bare hand—yuk!) and pulled. He felt it move slightly and discovered the endolg was right—the surrounding flag moved too. But it was a long way off coming up easily.

  ‘Use both hands and brace yourself,’ the endolg suggested.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Henry asked it quietly.

  ‘Flapwazzle,’ said the endolg. ‘Why?’

  ‘Shut up, Flapwazzle,’ Henry said. He reached down with both hands and braced himself.

  ‘Use your legs,’ Flapwazzle told him. ‘Your legs are stronger than your arms.’

  Henry locked his grip and pushed hard to straighten his legs. For a moment he was certain nothing was going to happen, then the flagstone came up smoothly and fell over with a crash on the floor.

  Henry peered into the foul-smelling hole below. ‘I’ll never fit into that,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll go first in case you get stuck,’ Flapwazzle volunteered. ‘That way, at least one of us will escape.’

  Forty-Five

  Henry had an unhappy decision to make. He didn’t fancy getting stuck head first down a narrow drain, especially one that people had peed in … and worse. But if he went down feet first and didn’t get stuck, he was going to have to negotiate backwards all the way to the main sewers with nothing better to guide him than touchy Flapwazzle, who might, or might not, decide to go off on his own at any time. So which was it to be—head first or feet first into the dark?

  ‘Hurry up!’ called Flapwazzle, who had already plunged into the pipe. ‘I can’t hang about all day—it’s smelly down here.’

  Henry took his second deep breath of the afternoon and plunged head first through the opening left by the uprooted flagstone.

  He got stuck almost at once.

  ‘Push hard,’ suggested Flapwazzle.

  Henry was loath to take the advice. He could still wriggle backwards and return to the comparatively fresh air of the cell, but each time he pushed forwards, he jammed solid. Pushing harder might get him stuck completely. Even a few feet in, the smell was appalling. He could think of absolutely nothing worse than starving to death while stuck in this ghastly puke-pong of a drain.

  ‘Stop holding your breath!’ Flapwazzle advised. ‘You’re all swole up—no wonder you get stuck.’

  ‘It’s my shoulders!’ Henry hissed into the foul-smelling darkness. ‘It’s my shoulders that are stuck. They’re not all swole—swollen up.’ All the same he released his breath and tried, tentatively, to push forward again. There was a tiny movement, then he stopped.

  Somewhere deep in his heart he knew he wasn’t pushing hard enough; or at least wasn’t pushing as hard as he could. He was terrified of getting stuck fast, but on the other hand the endolg was quite right: there was absolutely no point in wriggling back to rot in a gloomy cell at the mercy of the lunatic Queen.

  The thought of the cell gave him an idea. ‘I’ll just go back and get the taper,’ he said. ‘We could do with a bit of light down here.’

  ‘Bring a flame into the sewers and you’ll set off the methane,’ said Flapwazzle calmly. ‘Probably take out half the palace.’

  ‘All right,’ Henry said sourly. Since he couldn’t put off the moment any longer, he pushed forward with all his strength. And was stuck fast, stuck for ever, doomed, choking on the fumes, already dying in the darkness, before he suddenly shot forward like a cork popped from a bottle and found he had actually enough room to work his elbows and propel himself slowly forward.

  ‘Gets wider down here,’ said Flapwazzle’s voice encouragingly.

  ‘Glad to hear it,’ Henry muttered. ‘Any idea where we’re going?’ He’d only moved a yard or two and already it was so dark he could almost touch it.

  ‘Just follow my voice,’ said Flapwazzle. ‘I’ll keep talking.’

  Henry frowned. ‘Can you see in the dark?’

  ‘No, but I can whistle,’ Flapwazzle said bewilderingly. ‘It’ll be all right in the main tunnels. There’s a luminous fungus grows on the crust of you know what. It’s dim, but your eyes get used to it.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’

  ‘Been down here before.’

  Henry wondered why, but before he could ask, Flapwazzle said, ‘Here we are. Corner coming up, Henry.’

  Henry had already discovered it by crawling into a wall. He rubbed his head. There was a faint glow to his right. He crawled quickly towards it and fell nearly four feet into a main tunnel just as Flapwazzle said, ‘Careful!’

  He fell face down in water—at least he hoped it was water—and scrambled to his feet, coughing and spitting wildly. The endolg was right: the tunnel was huge and he had no trouble standing upright. Flapwazzle was also right about the fungus. It grew in bilious green patches on the roof, casting an eerie glow that allowed him to see a yard or two ahead.

  ‘Where are you?’ he asked, and listened to his words echo far into the distance.

  ‘Ahead and a little to your right,’ Flapwazzle said. ‘I’m floating. Try not to step on me.’

  Henry peered into the gloom. There was something dark floating on the water that might have been Flapwazzle or might have been something a lot less edifying. ‘Are you sure you can find our way out of here?’

  ‘Fairly sure. I’ve a good memory for maps. Thing is, there are lots of ways out of sewers—garderobes, privies, drains. And if you miss them all, you just follow the flow and you come out in the river. The whole system drains into the river. Which would probably be our best bet for getting away from the plud. You can swim, can’t you?’

  ‘Not very well,’ Henry said.

  ‘Mmm,’ said Flapwazzle thoughtfully. ‘That could be a problem before we reach the river.’

  There was something in his tone that stopped Henry dead. ‘Why before we reach the river?’

  ‘They flush the system every sixteen hours. Seven billion gallons of recycled water under pressure. Even strong swimmers don’t usually survive that. In fact, I can’t remember hearing anybody’s ever survived that.’

  ‘Yes, but if it’s only once in sixteen hours, we’ve lots of time to get out before it happens,’ Henry protested.

  ‘Depends when they last did it,’ said the endolg.

  Forty-Six

  ‘The Wangaramas Revolution,’ wyrm Cyril announced inside the mind of Jasper Chalkhill, ‘is potentially the most important political development within the Realm in the past five hundred years; indeed —’

  ‘Can’t we just cut to the chase?’ Chalkhill asked a little desperately. It was curiously companionable sharing one’s mind with a worm, but the creature did tend to drone on.

  ‘Yes, perhaps that would be best, since time is of the essence. If we’re agreed the Realm is in a mess — and from a glance at your thoughts I can see we are—then the Wangaramas Revolution is the way to clean it up.’

  ‘Doesn’t tell me what it is, Cyril.’

  ‘I was coming to that—you’re extraordinarily impatient. You’ve no doubt heard of the world-famous Wangaramas political theorist Munch en — ?’

  Chalkhill reached tiredly for the clinic’s bell.

  ‘Wait! Wait!’ shrieked the worm. ‘I have to tell you this so you’ll understand our offer. I’ll be quick, I promise. We Wangarami have been the superior species on this planet for more than two point eight million years. Wangaramas philosophers have struggled with this question for generations, creating, exa
mining and dismissing one theory after — DON’T TOUCH THE BELL! The thing is, a contemporary Wangaramas philosopher —’

  ‘Look,’ said Chalkhill, ‘I’m sure this is all very interesting, but frankly, my dear Cyril, I have better things to do just now, like getting on with the rest of my life, which does not, however, include any input from you whatsoever. So if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just set up the operation and get our little divorce underway. I’ll try to see that you’re not harmed, of course, and since you seem to have managed your life perfectly well without me in the past, I imagine you —’

  ‘We’ll make you Purple Emperor!’ Cyril shouted.

  Forty-Seven

  The Great Hall was huge and Fogarty had not the least idea how they’d reached it. He was beginning to feel real admiration for these Forest Faerie: they had tricks up their sleeves nobody else seemed to have dreamed of. Besides, you had to admire a tribe that could hide away for generations without anybody suspecting they existed. Anybody except Cynthia, that was. He threw a fond glance in the direction of Madame Cardui, who was seated almost opposite him across the conference table. She threw a fond glance back.

  To the right of the Painted Lady sat Cleopatra, the Faerie Queen. Pyrgus was seated on the Queen’s right, the traditional place of honour. To his right was Blue, her face expressionless. Then a pale Forest Faerie named Limenitis, who’d been introduced as Queen’s Counsel, then Fogarty himself and finally the muscular Porcellus Hawkmoth, who’d led the assault on the ouklo and was obviously a military man. Fogarty noticed with some surprise that the Queen’s Consort, Gonepterix, had no place at the table at all, although he was in the room. He stood near a window that presented an illusory view of an angry sea and was the only person in the room permitted to bear arms—the familiar hunting bow of the forest people. He was watching the Queen intently and, from his expression, warmly. Fogarty guessed they had a good relationship, although there was no doubt who was boss.

  ‘What now?’ asked the Queen, to no one in particular. It was an interesting opening, Fogarty thought.