The Purple Emperor

by Herbie Brennan

  Blue said, ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ She turned to Mr Fogarty. ‘Would you leave us, Gatekeeper—I’ll be fine.’

  Mr Fogarty nodded. ‘I’ll be just outside if you need me.’

  Chalkhill’s smile returned and this time it actually reached his eyes, which glittered with a sort of pleased malevolence. ‘You can go, Clutterbuck,’ he said.

  As soon as they were alone, Blue said, ‘The chances are you’ll be a guest of Asloght for a long time, Mr Chalkhill, perhaps even for the rest of your life. But if I were to have a word with my brother, it’s possible your term of sentence might be shortened. Do we understand one another, Mr Chalkhill?’

  ‘Perfectly, Serenity,’ Chalkhill said with a peculiar flash in his eye. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Just tell me what happened in the operating theatre.’

  Chalkhill looked at her blankly.

  ‘Why were you there and what happened—’ she hesitated, but only for a heartbeat, ‘—what happened to my father?’

  ‘Ah,’ Chalkhill said.

  After a moment, Blue said, ‘Well … ?’

  Chalkhill licked his lips. ‘This, ah, reduction of my sentence … You say you would be willing to speak to your brother—your brother Pyrgus—about it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you think he would be … sympathetic?’

  ‘I can’t give you guarantees, but I think he might.’

  ‘What happens if he isn’t?’

  Blue turned and knocked on the door. ‘I’m ready to leave!’ she called.

  ‘No, just a minute,’ Chalkhill said quickly. ‘There’s no need to be like that. Of course I’ll tell you. Why wouldn’t I? If I can be of any help, any help at all, to any member of our illustrious royal —’

  ‘Get on with it,’ Blue warned.

  He seemed to come to a decision. ‘Very well. The operation. Lord Hairstreak found he could not control your father as effectively as he wished. The Purple Emperor was—is—was a man of strong and noble will. Even in death he was too much for Lord Hairstreak. The operation was an attempt to increase the level of control by interfering with your father’s brain.’

  ‘How?’

  Chalkhill licked his lips. ‘He was going to—he tried to—to reconnect the neural pathways in a different order.’

  Blue stared at him with distaste. ‘Why did he cut my father’s head off?’

  ‘That was a mistake,’ Chalkhill said. ‘Entirely a mistake — a ghastly mistake. Lord Hairstreak hired this … primitive to carry out the operation. Mountain Clouded Yellow. Can you imagine a more ridiculous name? Dreadful man, but a very powerful psychic surgeon. I gather he came well recommended, despite his failings. The trouble was, he had too high an opinion of himself—too cocky by half. The most important connections were at the brain stem and he decided to access them through the neck. He believed he could reconnect the head afterwards.’ Chalkhill’s face took on a sorrowful expression. ‘But he couldn’t. Lord Hairstreak would have killed him, if your people hadn’t done it first.’

  ‘So it was this … this Mountain Clouded Yellow who cut my father’s head off?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No one else?’

  ‘No, Serenity, of course not. Who would want to?’

  Blue said, ‘One final question. What was your part in the operation? Why were you there, Mr Chalkhill?’

  ‘Blood donor,’ Chalkhill told her promptly. ‘I happen to be the same blood type as your illustrious father. I was on hand simply in case of an emergency; and delighted to be of any possible help to your father, of course.’ He looked at Blue earnestly. ‘But in the event he was beyond my help.’

  Blue stared at him for a moment, then said, ‘Thank you. Thank you, Mr Chalkhill. You’ve been … helpful.’ She knocked behind her on the door and it opened at once.

  As she moved to leave, Chalkhill called out, ‘You’ll tell your brother what I said, won’t you? You’ll tell him exactly?’

  He was lying. She was certain of it. The question was why? Except she had a feeling she already knew the answer — or at least knew somebody who knew the answer.

  Mr Fogarty asked curtly, ‘Satisfactory?’

  ‘In a way,’ Blue said.

  ‘Where are we going now?’

  ‘Back to the palace,’ Blue said. ‘I want to talk to Pyrgus.’

  Ninety-Seven

  ‘Don’t lie to me!’ Blue screamed. ‘I’ve been up all night and I’ve talked to that beastly Chalkhill and I can’t take any more!’

  Pyrgus looked a little better. His arm was bandaged and there were more bandages wrapping his chest and stomach underneath his shirt, but his colour was good except for the dark rings around his eyes. Maybe he hadn’t had much sleep either.

  ‘Blue, I—’ Pyrgus said. ‘Listen, it was all very confused. I don’t think any of us will ever find out what really ’

  ‘Comma has been making up stories about you,’ Blue said. ‘I don’t believe him, but I don’t believe you either. I just want to know the truth?

  ‘What’s Comma been saying?’ Pyrgus asked sharply.

  ‘That you cut—that you cut off—’ She just couldn’t finish. Suddenly she was so tired she could scarcely stand up.

  Pyrgus turned away from her. ‘Do you believe that?’

  ‘No, of course I don’t. But I talked to Chalkhill and he lied to me—I know he lied to me. What I don’t know is why!’

  Pyrgus said very softly, ‘He lied to you because I told him I’d arrange his freedom if he did.’

  ‘You told him that? Why would you want to arrange his freedom?’

  Pyrgus sighed. ‘It was bribe him or kill him, and I couldn’t do any more killing.’

  Blue was looking at him open-mouthed. ‘I don’t understand you, Pyrgus. I don’t understand any of this.’

  Pyrgus said, ‘It wasn’t Hairstreak who resurrected Father. It was me.’

  Blue stared at her brother in stunned disbelief. They had retired to the garden chamber where their father had once tended his orchids and the room was heavy with their scent. Spell reinforcement made it one of the most private places in the Purple Palace. ‘You did what?’ she gasped.

  Pyrgus looked physically ill. ‘I was afraid to become Emperor,’ he said.

  ‘Afraid?’

  ‘You know how useless I am at that sort of thing politics and negotiations and diplomacy. I’d even be useless trying to run the Army. The Realm would fall apart with me as Purple Emperor. Worse, it would fall to the Nighters. There would be wars and chaos and —’

  Blue said incredulously, ‘So you resurrected our father?’

  Pyrgus nodded miserably. ‘I didn’t know what else to do.’

  ‘Have you any idea how illegal that is? How dreadful that is? How … how … forbidden that is?’

  Pyrgus nodded again. He was seated hunched over on a bench and looked as if he might be sick on the floor.

  ‘How could you?’ Blue asked. ‘How could you?’ A thought occurred to her and she added, ‘How did you?’

  ‘Went to a necromancer,’ Pyrgus muttered.

  ‘A Nighter?’ It had to be a Nighter! No Faerie of the Light would touch the dark magic involved in raising the dead.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you no sense?’ Blue demanded. Pyrgus looked almost suicidal and in any other circumstance that would have made her want to comfort him, but there was a feeling of panic in her now that ran away with her tongue. ‘Didn’t you know a necromancer could control anyone he raised? That’s what went wrong. It was bound to go wrong. You had to know it would go wrong!’

  Pyrgus shook his head helplessly.

  Her anger had carried her this far, but now the enormity of what Pyrgus had done was really beginning to dawn on her. She’d never made a profound study of magic, but she knew enough to realise that necromancy — sorceries involving the dead—was something ten times worse than the techniques of demonology that Faeries of the Night employed so often.

>   ‘You’d better tell me everything,’ she said.

  Pyrgus took a deep breath and told her.

  Ninety-Eight

  Pyrgus had slipped away from his royal bodyguards somewhere between Cheapside and Northgate. He entered the teeming warren of narrow alleys that led into Pushorn, a hand on his newly-purchased Halek blade. This was one of the roughest districts in the city and, while he’d never had much concern for his own safety, it would be a nuisance to lose his purse at this point. He’d a feeling he was going to need every scrap of gold he was carrying.

  With the long dusk gathering into darkness, the torches were lit in Pushorn. No glowglobe streetlamps here. The local council claimed poverty, but the truth was glowglobes never survived long, even with magical protections. The inhabitants were an opportunist mix of Nighters, the scum of Lighters, Violet Trinians, half-civilised Glaistigs, semi-feral endolgs and a sprinkling of addicted Halek wizards who found simbala music cheaper here than in the licensed parlours of Northgate. Every one of them preferred to hide in shadows than have their activities examined by the lawful authorities.

  The smell was distinctive: a mix of sweat and pitchblende. Pyrgus felt his nose wrinkle as he pushed through the throng that emerged after dark in search of illegal entertainments.

  "Oo do you think you’re pushing?’ growled a bruiser in a cracked leather jerkin.

  ‘Sorry,’ Pyrgus muttered, hurrying past. He kept his head down, but at least he hadn’t been recognised. A minimal illusion spell distorted his features and changed his hair colouring.

  He’d memorised directions, but the narrow streets were confusing and he dared not ask the way, so that it took him almost an hour to find Gruslut Alley. While the rest of Pushorn was dimly lit, Gruslut wasn’t lit at all beyond the flickering light that seeped through cracks in shuttered windows. He stopped, allowing time for his eyes to adjust, and after a while was able to see reasonably well.

  What he saw was not encouraging. Like much of Pushorn, the houses were three- and four-storey buildings that had seen better days. Now they were all cracked plaster and peeling paint. Some seemed to have shifted foundations: their walls bulged alarmingly as if threatening to fall into the street. He still wasn’t absolutely sure he was in the right place—part of the sign-board had rotted so that the first three letters were missing—but he moved into the alley all the same.

  Gruslut was known as a street where certain commodities and services might be bought, but there were no shops here. A few of the wooden doors had discreet nameplates, but nothing that gave a clue to what might be on offer. He had almost given up hope when he stumbled on the blue door he’d been told to look for.

  Pyrgus licked his lips nervously. As he reached across to knock, he realised what he was about to do wasn’t merely illegal, but hideously dangerous. Whatever—he still had to do it. Despite the brave front he put on with Blue and all the rest, Pyrgus knew he could never become Emperor. He wasn’t suited and he didn’t want the job. He’d never wanted the job. That was why he’d fought with his father so much when he was alive. His father had always insisted he should behave like an Emperor in Waiting when all he’d really wanted to do was lead an ordinary life. Pyrgus knocked.

  For a long time nothing happened. He was reaching out to knock again when he heard the first footfalls inside. Someone was approaching at a slow, deliberate pace. Pyrgus withdrew his hand and waited, his heart suddenly pounding. The door swung partly open. Two glittering black eyes stared at him from the gloom.

  Pyrgus swallowed. ‘Are you—’ he began. ‘Are you … Pheosia Gnoma?’

  The voice that answered was like the rustling of dead leaves. ‘Come in, Your Majesty,’ it said. ‘We’ve been expecting you.’

  The blue door opened into a narrow corridor that plunged almost at once down a flight of rickety wooden steps. Pyrgus followed the stooped figure into a poorly-lit basement room smelling of dust and mould. There were no glowglobes here either, just rushlights and a smoking, fly-specked lamp. Books of arcane lore lined the whole of one wall. An open cupboard displayed a collection of skulls. There was alchemical equipment on a bench in a corner. Beside it Pyrgus noticed a kangling trumpet carved from a human thigh bone.

  ‘You know who I am?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course, Majesty. Your illusion spell has all but worn off.’

  It was impossible to guess Gnoma’s age. He had the eye folds and cat’s pupils of a Faerie of the Night. His head was completely shaven and he seemed to have filed two of his front teeth into points, giving his face an odd, vampiric look. He was wearing a tattered brown monk’s robe that looked a shade too small for him.

  ‘Who else is here?’ Pyrgus asked.

  ‘No one, Majesty.’ The soft dry voice scarcely rose above a whisper.

  ‘You said "We’ve been expecting you." Who did you mean by we?’

  ‘My spirit helpers,’ Gnoma told him.

  Gnoma was nothing like Pyrgus had expected. The man had a hungry look that was deeply disturbing. He never took his eyes off Pyrgus’s face. Pyrgus pushed his nervousness aside. Best get down to business, then get out of here.

  Pyrgus said, ‘Pheosia Gnoma, I want you to raise my father from the dead.’

  They sat facing one another across a lightweight wooden table. Gnoma placed a small glass before him and filled it with blue liquid from a swan-necked bottle. Pyrgus eyed it uncertainly.

  Gnoma smiled, showing his weird serpents’ teeth. ‘Libatrix wine. A simple herbal tincture that prolongs life and clears the mind.’ He produced a second glass, filled it and drank it down in a single swallow. ‘See,’ he said, ‘quite harmless. I have no interest in poisoning my clients.’

  Pyrgus watched him for a moment, then took a sip from his own glass. The liquid was cool, sharp and slightly sweet.

  Gnoma placed both hands, palms down, on the table. ‘Resurrecting your father may prove difficult.’

  ‘I’ll pay whatever you want.’

  Gnoma smiled coolly. ‘It’s not a matter of money.’

  Pyrgus didn’t believe him. With Faeries of the Night it was always a matter of money. After a moment, he said, ‘But you can resurrect him?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Gnoma said. A drop had been forming on the tip of his nose and he sniffed suddenly to get rid of it. ‘There are methods. Unfortunately ...’

  ‘What?’ Pyrgus hissed. ‘Unfortunately what?’

  Silence stretched interminably. Eventually Gnoma said, ‘The most reliable method is not lawful.’

  ‘I am Emperor!’ Pyrgus told him firmly. ‘I’ll say what’s lawful!’

  ‘You’re Emperor Elect,’ said Gnoma, ‘but I take your point. However, I must warn you the method I have in mind runs contrary to spiritual law. That’s quite beyond your ruling.’

  Pyrgus pushed back his chair so quickly that it toppled over. ‘I must speak with my father!’ he shouted wildly. ‘As your Emperor Elect I order you to raise him!’

  Gnoma remained seated. He looked up at Pyrgus and smiled again, slowly. ‘Then bring me your father’s corpse,’ he said.

  Ninety-Nine

  Gnoma’s laboratory was a sterile, windowless subterranean cube that smelled of Chinese wash. There was an alchemical furnace in one corner near a blacksmith’s anvil and a selection of alembics in an open cupboard. Towards the centre of the room was a six-foot metal gurney underneath a set of high-powered glowglobes. Beside it was an instrument tray that made the Royal Herticord’s equipment look like toys.

  The crate was on the floor beside the gurney.

  ‘No one knows you brought it here?’ Gnoma asked.

  Pyrgus shook his head. ‘Except the coachman and he doesn’t know what’s in it.’ He was feeling so nervous he could scarcely keep still.

  Gnoma said, ‘I must ask you again, Pyrgus Malvae, if it is your wish to go through with this operation? Once the work begins, it cannot be stopped.’

  Pyrgus licked his lips. ‘Let’s get it over with.’

  Gnoma gave him a
glance that might have shown contempt. ‘There’s a floater on the crate and contents?’

  Pyrgus nodded.

  ‘Open it,’ Gnoma commanded.

  Pyrgus glared at him, but said nothing. He might be Crown Prince and Emperor Elect, but he was engaged in something so forbidden he could scarcely stand on ceremony now. He knelt by the crate and uttered a silent prayer for forgiveness. The lock was keyed to his touch and he pressed his thumb firmly against it. There was an oily click as the bolts slid back. Pyrgus looked up.

  ‘Open it,’ Gnoma repeated, more quietly this time. His eyes were gleaming.

  Pyrgus discovered he was holding his breath and released it explosively. He pushed back the lid of the crate which fell over on its hinges with an horrific and unseemly crash. His father’s body lay inside on a cushion of clean straw.

  The stasis spell held corruption at bay, so the only smell was that of fresh, cold meat, but not all the application of the embalmer’s art could repair the ravages to the face of Apatura Iris. Henry said the weapon used to kill him was something called a shotgun, which caused an explosive charge to propel several hundred violent beads of lead. It had been used at close range. Merciful tears swam before Pyrgus’s eyes to soften the image.

  ‘Place the body on the operating table,’ Gnoma said.

  He had expected something of the sort. Eyes still streaming, he reached inside the crate. It was the first time in years he’d put his arms around his father and the floater spell rendered him unreal, like thistledown. Pyrgus stood up, the corpse cradled in his arms. Shuddering with sobs, he placed it gently on the gurney.

  ‘Face downwards,’ Gnoma said.

  ‘Is that necessary?’ Pyrgus asked sharply. It was improper for a Purple Emperor to lie prone.

  ‘We must have access to the luz,’ said Gnoma firmly. Pyrgus turned the body.

  ‘Please stand clear,’ Gnoma said. ‘Your work is done.’

  Pyrgus stepped back. With a massive act of will he held himself steady, but emotions were pouring through him like a torrent. He could no longer understand why he had fought so long and so hard with his father. The disagreements seemed unimportant, even silly. The body on the table was so small, so helpless, so … empty. But perhaps he could make amends now. Perhaps he could make it all right.