His father's voice remained soft. Tm not really blaming you,' he sighed. 'The man is a reptile. He treats everyone abominably, servants, animals, followers -- it doesn't matter. I expect at your age I'd have done exactly what you did. But the fact is, you've rather handed them your head on a plate. They don't have to kidnap you now -- Hairstreak can hold you legally. And if you think he treated his golden phoenix badly...' The Emperor paused briefly, then continued, 'He knows I know this. He will use it to try to wring concessions.'
'But they must know you couldn't put me before the welfare of the Empire,' Pyrgus protested.
'Of course I could,' his father said. 'I love you.'
They walked together along the broad corridor that was the spine of the Imperial palace. For the first time in his life, Pyrgus noticed the maroon carpet underfoot was a little threadbare in places. 'What -?' He hesitated. He'd been about to ask, What are you going to do to me?, but decided to phrase it differently. 'What do you want me to do?'
Servants bowed as they passed, like waves on a beach. 'I want you to go away for a little while,' his father said.
'I understand,' Pyrgus said.
They turned off into the private quarters. A permanent spell of silence meant they could talk freely without risk of being overheard. 'There's nowhere really safe for you within the kingdom,' Pyrgus's father said.
Pyrgus said nothing.
'I've made arrangements for you to translate,' his father said.
'The Analogue World?' Pyrgus had suspected as much.
The Emperor nodded. 'Of course you won't be going alone. Tithonus is too old, but Lulworth and Ringlet will be with you as servants and bodyguards. Blue wanted to go as well, but I told her it was out of the question: I expect you're quite relieved. We're targeting a remote Pacific island with no other inhabitants. Good climate, quite a few exotic fruits, although we've laid in our own stores, of course.' He smiled wanly. 'Lots of wildlife -- you'll feel right at home. Once the negotiations are over, you can come back. Should be no more than a month at most. You can look on it as a little holiday.'
After a moment, Pyrgus said, 'When do I go?'
His father put a hand upon his shoulder. 'Lulworth and Ringlet have already translated. They're waiting for you on the island. The portal's been established in the chapel. I'd like you to go at once.'
'For a month?'
His father nodded.
Pyrgus took a deep breath. 'Don't get angry, but there's something I really have to do ...' His father waited, watching him. Pyrgus swallowed. 'There's a factory -- '
The Emperor nodded again. 'Chalkhill and Brimstone. I wondered how long it would take you to discover it.'
Pyrgus felt his anger rising again, but for once it wasn't directed at his father. 'They're killing animals! They're killing -- '
His father held up a hand. 'We know about it. We're trying to do something about it. The trouble is, what they're doing isn't strictly against the law. Glue has been made from slaughtered animals for generations.'
'But -- '
T know, I know. This goes beyond humane slaughter. Our problem is proving it.'
'I can prove it!' Pyrgus said. 'I saw it! I saw what goes on!'
'Your word against theirs, I'm afraid. But don't worry, we will do something about it. I have lawyers working hard to find a way to close the factory down. That's the only real solution. I know how you feel, Pyrgus, but you're going to have to leave this one to me. Will you trust me to do the job?'
'Yes, of course,' said Pyrgus quietly. He felt a great deal older than he had that morning.
His sister Blue and stepbrother Comma were already in the chapel. She ran across to fling herself into his arms. 'I thought that dreadful Hairstreak must have killed you! It was nearly three days before I could get any word of you at all!'
Pyrgus disentangled himself gently. 'Hairstreak never got near me. It was someone else who nearly killed me.' He regretted the words the moment they were out of his mouth.
His father fortunately hadn't heard -- he was engaged in conversation with the technician priest who worked the portal. But Blue picked it up at once. 'Who nearly killed you?' she asked fiercely. 'If you don't want to tell Father, I can do something about it, you know.'
He didn't doubt she could. Not for the first time he wondered what his little sister would be like when she grew up. Already she was one of the most formidable people he knew. Even Tithonus treated her with respect. He shook his head. 'It's nothing, Blue. Just a joke.'
She stared at him suspiciously and he knew as soon as he was on his way she would be putting out feelers about where he'd been and what he'd done before his father's guards caught up with him. But Comma broke the moment. 'Our brother likes his little jokes, Blue -don't you, Brother?' he said with his sly twisted smile. 'But now perhaps we should let him get on with his trip. The sooner he goes, the sooner he'll be safe ...' His eyes sparkled like Jasper Chalkhill's teeth.
The portal had already been established between the pillars by the altar, for all the world like a raging blue fire. If Pyrgus hadn't known better, he'd never have believed anyone could step into that fire and live. But despite appearances, the flames were not really there. If they existed at all -- and philosophers were far from sure about that -- they had their being between the worlds. As such, they were nothing more than a visible separator, a demarcation line that indicated the transition between one dimension and the next. The real power of the portal lay in its enhancements by the hideously expensive machines that distorted space and time in this one spot. Everyone in the Faerie Empire knew this technology existed -- it had been the stuff of legend for centuries -- but only the Imperial Family could afford it. Thus the Analogue World, where the portal led, was the ultimate escape route for threatened royals. No one could find them there.
The Emperor joined them in time to catch the last remark. 'Comma's right,' he said. 'The sooner you go, the sooner I'll know you're safe. Have you had your vaccines?'
One of the medical priests bustled over with a hypodermic needle. 'We're ready for that now, Majesty.' Pyrgus pushed back one sleeve and looked away as the needle slid underneath his skin. It stung slightly, then subsided.
'Ready to go?' his father asked.
T think so,' Pyrgus said.
'There's nothing you need to take,' his father reassured him. 'We've equipped the island with everything you're likely to want and Lulworth and Ringlet will have it all set up and ready waiting for you.'
'Thank you, Father.'
Blue threw her arms around him and kissed him soundly on the cheek. 'I shall so miss you!' she whispered. 'Be safe.'
Pyrgus grinned weakly and gave her a brief peck in return.
'Aren't you going to kiss your little brother too?' Comma said. 'It could be such a long time before we see each other again.'
Pyrgus ignored him and stepped into the portal.
Eight
For a moment Henry Atherton just stood there, mouth open, eyes blinking furiously, as he tried to decide what he was looking at. Hodge had caught a butterfly, of course, but it wasn't a butterfly Henry was seeing. He was seeing a tiny winged figure. The wings were like butterfly wings, but the figure ...
Henry shook his head. He was looking at a fairy!
The trouble was he didn't believe in fairies. He didn't even know anybody who believed in fairies. Except, a voice said in his head, Mr Fogarty. Mr Fogarty believes in fairies! For some reason it brought him up short. Mr Fogarty believed in fairies. Along with ghosts and flying saucers. Mr Fogarty believed the world was run by a secret conspiracy of bankers based in Zurich, Switzerland. Just because Mr Fogarty believed in something didn't make it real.
But Henry was looking at a fairy. In a lunatic moment he wondered if Mr Fogarty had somehow created it. Then his paralysis broke.
'Hodge, you idiot!' he screamed. He threw himself on the tomcat and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, the way mother cats do with kittens. Hodge howled in protest and dropped the ... d
ropped the ... Hodge dropped whatever it was he'd had in his mouth.
Then Henry dropped him. He glared at Henry accusingly and stalked off no more than a yard or two before stopping to sit down. Henry snatched the fairy between cupped hands, taking care not to crush the wings.
As Hodge washed himself to regain his dignity, Henry cautiously opened his hands to take another peek. The creature looked dazed. Its head was twisted to one side, possibly as a result of being chewed by Hodge. There might have been blood on one shoulder, but it was difficult to tell.
Henry forced himself to consider what he was holding, even though he knew it was more or less impossible. It was a little winged man of sorts. Well, actually a little boy. Or not a little boy exactly -- he looked somewhere around Henry's own age -- more of a young man, but tiny. He was wearing clothes: a jacket and breeches that might be dark green -- the actual colour was difficult to tell. The wings were dun, marked like a grizzled skipper butterfly.
Henry swallowed. 'Who are you?'
The fairy -- it had to be a fairy -- clapped his hands to his ears and tried to launch himself out of Henry's grasp. Henry slid his thumbs across quickly to block the exit. He opened them again a slit and asked again more softly, 'Who are you?'
It occurred to him suddenly that he was assuming an awful lot. In all the storybooks, fairies could talk. But what happened in real life? What was a fairy anyway? It looked like a little person, but since it clearly wasn't human, maybe it was some sort of animal. It was weird thinking of fairies as animals -- or insects, an errant thought intruded: they had wings like insects - but maybe that's what they were. Just poor dumb creatures. Very rare poor dumb creatures ...
And if they weren't, who said they spoke English?
It was kind of dark inside his cupped hands, but he thought he saw the fairy's mouth move. No sound came out. Henry decided to assume it understood English and said very softly this time, 'I'm not going to hurt you. I rescued you from the cat.' He had a sudden inspiration and added, 'Nod your head if you understand me.'
The fairy's head poked out between Henry's hands and nodded.
'Will you promise me you won't try to fly away if I open my hands?'
The fairy's head nodded again enthusiastically. Henry started to open his hands and the fairy tried to launch himself out again. Henry snapped them shut. 'Oh no you don't!' He carried the fairy into the shed and looked around until he found an empty jamjar. Carefully he dropped the creature inside and covered the mouth with one hand while he manoeuvred the lid. He screwed it tight and held the jar up for inspection. The fairy was gripping his throat and writhing in a pantomime of suffocation. 'Oh, all right,' Henry said. 'You keep well clear.' There was no way he was going to loosen the lid, but he did punch a few air-holes in it with his penknife. The fairy watched and kept well clear. Obviously he was no dumb animal.
What now? What did you do when you caught a fairy?
A thought occurred to him. He pushed it away, but it came right back. After a moment, feeling really stupid, he asked softly, 'Do you grant three wishes?'
The fairy cupped his hand around his ear.
Henry licked his lips. 'Do you grant three wishes?' he asked again, more loudly this time.
The fairy nodded vigorously, then pantomimed unscrewing a lid.
'Oh, no,' Henry said firmly. He had the feeling he was being got at. Only little kids believed in three wishes. But then only little kids believed in fairies. He scratched his head. What was he going to do?
Maybe Mr Fogarty would know. Mr Fogarty had one big advantage over Henry: he actually thought fairies existed. That probably meant he'd studied them. Maybe he'd never seen any, but if you read enough books, one of them usually told you what to do. The more Henry thought about it, the more it seemed sensible to show the fairy to Mr Fogarty. Before he could talk himself out of it, he grabbed the jamjar and dropped it into the pocket of his jacket.
He found Mr Fogarty in the kitchen, making a mug of instant coffee. 'You finished?'
Henry shook his head. -'Haven't really started yet.'
'You want coffee?'
'No. I -- '
'Good,' Fogarty said, 'because this is the last. Goes on the supermarket list tomorrow. Instant Crap with Toxic Additives, one jar, large. Food stores? Should close those places down.'
Henry didn't want to get into that. He said, 'Can I show you something, Mr Fogarty?'
For some reason Fogarty became instantly alert. 'Did you find it in the shed?'
'No, not in the shed exactly. Outside actually.' The jar caught in his pocket as he tried to drag it out, but he freed it eventually.
Fogarty bent over, frowning, to look through the speckled glass. 'Some sort of kid's toy?' The fairy moved. 'Good God!' Fogarty exclaimed and jumped. Then he grinned. 'That's good. That really got me going for a minute. What is it -- radio control?'
'It's a fairy,' Henry said.
They sat facing each other, the jarred fairy on the kitchen table between them.
'You think it can talk?'
'The lips move, but I can't hear anything,' Henry told him.
'Could be pitch,' Fogarty said. 'That thing's vocal cords must be really short. Any sound he makes has to be in the high register, like a bat. Can you still hear bats?'
'Squeaking?' Henry asked. 'Yes, I can.'
'You lose it when you get older. Something happens to your ears. I haven't been able to hear a bat in fifty years.' He looked back at the fairy. 'Or it could be volume, of course. Not much lung capacity there either.'
'He can hear me,' Henry volunteered. 'And understand.'
'Oh, he'll understand all right. They're intelligent little scrotes, by all accounts. Dangerous too.'
Henry frowned. 'How can something that size be dangerous?'
Fogarty looked at him soberly. 'Animal cunning,' he said. 'They lure you into Fairyland and then they have you.'
He couldn't mean what Henry thought he meant. 'Like ... magic or something?'
'Weight of numbers,' Fogarty snorted. 'Some of them have poisoned stings, like African bees.'
'You really think there's such a place as Fairyland?' Henry asked. 'A sort of ... magic place?'
'Why do you keep going on about magic?' Fogarty asked him sourly. 'I'm talking about another reality. Don't they teach you physics at school?'
'Actually -- '
But Fogarty wasn't listening. 'Einstein -- you know who Einstein was?' Henry nodded. 'Einstein figured there were about a billion universes next door to this one. Quantum boys say the same thing, some of them. You never hear Hoyle's Different Spouse Theory? Every morning you wake up beside a different spouse because you've moved into a whole new universe, only you don't know it because now you've got a whole new set of memories.' He caught Henry's expression and added, 'Never mind that. I'd say that thing's from a parallel universe. Any sign of UFOs?'
Bewildered, Henry shook his head.
The fairy was sitting cross-legged in the jamjar, staring out at them. If he could hear their conversation, he gave no sign.
Fogarty said, 'Take the top off.'
'What? What happens if he flies away?'
'Where's he going to go? The windows are shut and the back door's closed. Besides, if he tries that I'll get my fly swatter.' Fogarty grinned suddenly. 'Heard that, didn't he? Sneaky little scrote's listening to every word. Look at his expression. Fly swatter for you, my lad, if you try anything stupid. Got that? Comprendez?'
Inside the jar, the fairy nodded.
'Told you,' Fogarty said to Henry. 'Take the top off.'
Henry reluctantly unscrewed the lid and set it on the table beside the jamjar. After a moment, the fairy reached up to the rim of the jar and pulled himself out. Henry noticed he didn't use his wings much. He dropped down on to the table, watching Fogarty warily.
'Now, listen,' Fogarty said. 'I think you and me need a little talk, boyo. Trouble is, you can hear me but I can't hear you. But I can fix that. If it's pitch or volume I can rig somethin
g. Won't be pretty, but it'll do the job. Now you can do this the hard way or the easy way. You can try running off or flying off or whatever it is you do, but you aren't going to get far. I won't use a fly swatter. That was just a joke -- you're far too valuable. But I can catch you, easy as pie, in a butterfly net and when I do, you're going back into that jar. So what's it to be? You going to be good?'
The fairy nodded.
'OK,' Fogarty said. 'This shouldn't take long.'
The fairy sat down with his back against the jamjar and watched while Fogarty took down an old shoebox from a top shelf. It was full of tangled wiring and dusty electrical components. Fogarty scrabbled through them, laying out bits and pieces on the kitchen table. Henry noticed they included a tiny speaker from an old transistor radio. He found a half-used tube of instant solder and unscrewed the top to inspect it. 'Nobody uses this stuff any more,' he remarked. 'All bloody microchips and circuit boards.'
Faerie Wars 01 - Faerie Wars Page 8
