T know about the filter,' Blue cut in quickly. 'The portal may have shrunk him, but he's clever. I know some people get killed, but Pyrgus can look after himself, no matter what size he is. And it won't last for ever – the Chief Portal Engineer told me himself he'd come back to his normal size and he can always hide until – '
Her father gestured her to silence. 'It's not the filter, although clearly that was part of a broadly based assassination attempt. But the critical factor was never the portal. I believe that was tampered with as back-up to make sure Pyrgus could get no help when he discovered he'd been poisoned.'
'Poisoned?' Blue exclaimed, eyes wide. Comma looked up from his shoe inspection and even Tithonus seemed stunned.
The Emperor said tightly, 'The Senior Medical Priest has just informed me that the vaccine ampule used on Pyrgus was tampered with. There are traces of triptium on the syringe.'
'What's triptium?' asked Comma, speaking for the first time.
The distress was evident on the Emperor's face. Tithonus put in softly, 'It is a drug sometimes used by Darkside assassins.'
The Emperor said, 'Thank you, Tithonus, but they deserve to hear the whole truth.' He turned back towards Blue and Comma. 'Your brother has been injected with a slow-acting toxin. The substance reacts with natural agents in the bloodstream and spreads almost like a bacterium. There are no symptoms at first, but after a period of time – it can vary from a few days to about two weeks – the triptium collects in the brain and begins to ferment. As the pressure builds, the person experiences nausea and increasingly severe headaches. Eventually – ' He swallowed.' – eventually – ' He stopped, unable to go on.
'What?' Blue demanded, terrified. 'You must tell us what!'
The Emperor closed his eyes. 'Eventually his head explodes,' he said.
Eleven
Pyrgus watched Henry leave with a feeling close to nausea. He'd moved on to Mr Fogarty's shoulder now and the old boy smelled a bit, but that wasn't the problem. The problem was… the problem was… well, there wasn't just one problem. There were so many problems he hardly knew where to start thinking about them.
He didn't like being small and powerless, for one thing. All his life he'd been able to do things for himself, even as a kid. Now he couldn't even talk without the magical pack strapped to his back. And it wasn't magic he understood. This was his first trip to the Analogue World and its magic was completely different from the magic of his own.
But that was just the immediate thing. He kept thinking of the Chalkhill and Brimstone glue factory and the kittens that would drown for every day he stayed here. He kept thinking of his father and the negotiations that were going on with the Faeries of the Night. Most of all, he kept thinking about the comment Mr Fogarty had made when Pyrgus told him how the filter on the portal had failed. Sounds to me like you were sabotaged. It sounded to Pyrgus like he was sabotaged as well, and the more he thought about it, the more he believed it. The question was, who had sabotaged him?
It had to be somebody who wanted him dead. Pyrgus had no doubt at all about that. Sending you to a strange location without preparation or guards was asking for trouble. He hadn't mentioned it to Mr Fogarty or Henry, but all the history books told how hundreds, even thousands, of early visitors to the Analogue World had lost their lives within an hour of arrival. In time, of course, the Faeries learned to take precautions – and the greatest precaution of all was the filter -but until then, the Analogue World had been a death trap. It had come very close to killing him inside the first hour as well. If Henry hadn't happened along, the cat would have crunched him like a mouse.
But his biggest problem was how would he get back? That thought came crashing down on him like storm waves on a rocky shore. Natural portals existed in both worlds at once. You went through, you turned round, you went back. About as easy as it got, assuming the portal didn't open at the bottom of the sea. But the modified portal in his father's palace worked differently. Because you could aim it to open anywhere in the Analogue World, it had no permanent existence in the Analogue World at all. It appeared where you aimed it once you switched on the power and closed again once the power went off.
Pyrgus tried to collect his thoughts. If he'd been sent to the South Sea island as his father planned, the gate would have stayed open long enough for his guards to report everything was shipshape, then closed again. After that, the palace technicians would probably have reopened it at an agreed time every day to make sure no problems had arisen.
'What's the matter?' Fogarty asked.
Pyrgus realised he'd started at the thought. They may reopen the portal,' he said.
'Who?'
'The people who sent me.' He'd decided to keep unnecessary details from Mr Fogarty until he knew him better.
'When?'
'I don't know. I'm not sure they will. I was just thinking what would have happened if I'd gone where I was supposed to go. Once I'd got there safely, they'd have opened the portal maybe once a day to check up on me.'
'How would they know you'd got here safely?' Fogarty asked.
Pyrgus glanced at him admiringly. Fogarty might be old, but he certainly wasn't stupid. His father must know something had gone wrong by now. The priests and wizards would be trying to find out exactly what. They'd be trying to locate him and get him back. That should have been reassuring, but somehow it wasn't. He'd no idea how you traced somebody who'd been translated to the wrong place – or even if you could.
'In this case they wouldn't,' Pyrgus said, answering Mr Fogarty's question. 'I mean they wouldn't know I'd got here safely. But they would know I hadn't got to the Pacific island safely.'
It sounded confusing even to him, but Fogarty seemed to get the hang of it because he said, 'Your people will know something's gone wrong and they'll start looking for you?'
'Yes. Almost certainly.'
'So they'll reopen the gate if we hang around here long enough?'
'I'm not sure. I suppose so. It depends if they can figure out where I went. I'm not supposed to be here.'
'So you said,' Fogarty said shortly. 'Listen, if they did open the portal again – suppose they figured out where you'd gone and opened the portal again – would it open at the same place you came through?'
Pyrgus thought about it. They'd try to trace the coordinates -that would be the only thing they could do. He nodded. 'Yes.'
'We'd better keep an eye on that circle,' Fogarty muttered. He turned and strode towards the house with Pyrgus on his shoulder.
'I thought we were already keeping an eye on it,' Pyrgus protested.
'Can't watch it twenty-four hours a day,' Fogarty said. 'I'm going to rig up something that will trigger an alarm if your portal reopens.'
Henry caught a bus at the end of Mr Fogarty's road and sat near the front staring into a bleak future. He felt… peculiar. Now he was away from Pyrgus and Mr Fogarty, everything suddenly seemed unreal. There were no such things as fairies. Even though he'd just had one sitting on his shoulder… and talking to him through a microphone strapped on with rubber bands. Ha-ha, single to the Funny Farm, please!
Whatever he looked at seemed to have black edges. The business with Pyrgus had distracted him, but now everything was crashing in. He felt the bus seat was suspended in space. There were flurries of darkness beyond the window. He could hear his own breathing. Every time he moved his head he seemed to be floating. Above all, he felt sweaty and afraid.
He still didn't believe it. Mum had two children, for heaven's sake!
Henry found himself standing up and walking down the aisle of the bus. He hovered by the door, holding on, until it reached his stop. If it was his stop. He was feeling so confused he hardly knew any more. Not that it mattered. Nothing could make him feel much worse than he did already.
Stupidly he left the bus before it had quite finished moving, tripped on the kerb and ran to keep his balance. Before he could stop himself, he'd crashed into a woman climbing from a taxi.
'Sorry,' Henry
said. 'So sorry. Are you – are you all right?' He felt his face flush with embarrassment, but at least he hadn't knocked her down.
'Henry?' said the woman hesitantly. She stared at him as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing.
Neither could Henry. The woman was Anais Ward.
Everything snapped into sharp focus, but Henry, without knowing why, suddenly felt very much afraid. He stood there looking at her and all he could think was that Anais Ward just couldn't be a lesbian. She was far too feminine, too pretty.
'It's Henry, isn't it?' she said.
Henry nodded dumbly. He was still trying to figure out what he was going to say. He looked at Anais. She was younger than his mum. In fact she wasn't really that much older than Henry himself.
So what was he going to say to her? What could he possibly say to her? Keep your hands off my mother? He caught the first hint of his face flushing again and offered a silent plea to God not to let him blush. To cover his embarrassment, he came up with something really stupid. He took a deep, rattling breath and said, 'How are you?'
Anais glanced around nervously, at Henry, at the street, at the taxi driver waiting for his fare. Then she got caught up in it and said, 'Fine, Henry.' She looked almost stricken. 'How are you?
'OK,' Henry said. He blinked.
She looked terribly, terribly pretty. She was wearing a tailored suit with sheer black tights and high-heeled shoes. She had big brown eyes and long brown hair. She wore make-up, but nice make-up, not tarty or anything. She smelled good, some sort of perfume. He liked the shape of her nose. He liked the shape of her mouth. He wondered how she would look with butterfly wings.
If he was older, he could imagine falling for a girl like Anais, asking her to come to a movie or something. He could imagine his dad falling for her, although his dad was older than his mum which meant his dad was plenty older than Anais. But then older men often fancied younger women and younger women sometimes fancied older men. Except it hadn't happened that way.
'Are you having an affair with Anais, Dad?'
'I'm not having an affair with Anais,' his father had said. 'Your mother is.'
Pyrgus Malvae had to be around Henry's own age. It was hard to think of him like that, an ordinary boy like Henry doing whatever things they did in his world, but that had to be the way it was. Except he'd come through a portal and now he wasn't an ordinary boy any more. He was a grizzled skipper butterfly with a tiny human body. A cat could kill him and he didn't know how to get home. How did you help somebody like that? How did you help somebody whose wife was in love with somebody else? How did you help somebody whose mum fancied women?
Henry's eyes filled up and he began to weep.
Twelve
'There's good news,' said Grayling.
'And bad news,' put in Glanville.
Brimstone watched them, scowling. He wanted to nail them to the floor and saw their feet off, but he knew from bitter experience that nothing would divert them once they started talking. It was what made them so devastating in court. Innocent men confessed to murder when subjected to their relentless double-act. But at least they were on his side.
'The good news is, we have a case,' said Grayling, smiling.
'No doubt about it,' Glanville said.
'The boy may be our Crown Prince,' Grayling went on, 'but in the eyes of the law, he is a common felon.'
'Trespasser.'
'Cat burglar.'
'In that he burgled a cat.'
'Or, more precisely, burgled you and stole a cat.'
'The law dislikes that,' Glanville said. 'Indeed, the law will not tolerate it. We have seen the judge – '
'Indeed we have.'
'And she has ruled the boy may be seized and held awaiting trial.'
'By us or our officers, acting as your agents in your capacity as director of Chalkhill and Brimstone, the injured body corporate.'
'She has issued a warrant. I have it here.' Glanville extracted a piece of parchment from his briefcase and waved it in the air.
'How long can we hold him?' Brimstone asked.
'Oh, a very long time,' Grayling told him. 'Six months without court intervention. Then, when we bring him to trial, we may request a further six-month continuance to prepare our case. A year in all. It seemed sufficient.'
'Ample!' Brimstone exclaimed. He rubbed his hands and grinned. This was turning out to be one of his better days.
'The bad news,' said Glanville, 'is that all this good news has become quite academic.'
'Useless information. Unsupportable judgment.'
'What are you talking about?' Brimstone asked them irritably. His grin had turned to a frown.
'The warrant cannot be executed,' Glanville said. 'As matters stand it is a worthless piece of paper.'
'Worthless,' Grayling echoed.
Brimstone leaned forward. 'Why?' he growled.
Glanville put the parchment back in his briefcase and closed it with a snap. 'The boy – or defendant as we must now call him – is no longer in the jurisdiction. He has left this world.'
'He's dead?' Brimstone asked in sudden panic. It wasn't enough that Pyrgus died. He had to be sacrificed to Beleth. And by Brimstone. Nothing less would satisfy the terms of the demonic contract.
'Not to my knowledge. The Royal Household -on whom we sought to serve the warrant, you appreciate – claims he has been translated.'
'To the Analogue World,' Grayling put in helpfully.
'The Courts of Faerie have no jurisdiction in the Analogue World. While he remains there, he is beyond legal redress.'
'Are you sure that's really where he is?' Brimstone asked suspiciously.
Glanville looked shocked. 'We have a formal statement to that effect bearing the Emperor's official seal. These are Faeries of the Light. They would never put a lie in writing. I think we may safely assume that if they say he's in the Analogue World, then that is where he is.'
Brimstone glared. 'We have to get him back.'
'Ah,' said Glanville.
'Ah,' said Grayling.
'What?' Brimstone demanded. 'What? It's simple, isn't it? We send some bully-boys into the Analogue World and drag him back by the scruff of the neck. Not even illegal, from what you tell me – our laws don't extend there.'
'An admirable strategy,' said Glanville. 'But flawed.'
'Fatally flawed,' said Grayling. 'We have no way of knowing where to find him – in the Analogue World that is.'
'Unlike other portals, the portal of House Iris is multi-directional. They could have sent him anywhere they wished.'
'Can't we force them to reveal his destination?' Brimstone asked.
Glanville looked at Grayling. Grayling looked at Glanville. They turned together and looked at Brimstone. 'Possibly,' Grayling said. 'But if they resist, it could take some time. And time, we know, is of the essence.'
'House Iris has excellent lawyers,' Glanville said. He glanced down at the floor. They elected not to contest our warrant since they knew we could not execute it.'
'I've got spies in the palace,' Brimstone said. 'So has Chalkhill. Between us we should be able to find out his translation coordinates.'
'Possibly,' said Grayling. 'But even if we do find out, we cannot follow. House Iris owns the only multidirectional portal in existence.'
'Perhaps not quite the only one,' said Brimstone thoughtfully.
Even with Chalkhill's help, it took him days to get an appointment and then it was only with a lackey. Lord Hairstreak's representative was a big, unsmiling man named Harold Dingy. He wore a silver-grey suit and was accompanied by a bloodshot endolg. For some reason he'd insisted they meet at the zoo.
'It's nice to see you,' Brimstone said untruthfully, holding out his hand.
'The pleasure's all yours,' Dingy said, ignoring it.
His endolg rolled several times around Brimstone's legs before remarking, 'He's clean, boss. No weapons and just the routine spells and charms.' It spread itself out like a mangy rug and watche
d them both.
'Did Mr Chalkhill tell you what it was I wanted?' Brimstone asked, shouting above the noise of the parrots.
Chalkhill had long claimed to be Lord Hairstreak's friend, but if Dingy was impressed by the mention of his name he didn't show it. 'No.' He looked as if he didn't care.
This was the tricky part and Brimstone didn't really feel like shouting it out at the top of his voice. 'Can we get away from these damn parrots?' he asked.
'I like parrots,' Dingy said.
'He likes parrots,' said a parrot clinging to the wire mesh of its cage.
'So do I,' lied Brimstone, 'but what I have to say is confidential.'
'Doesn't want us to repeat it,' said the parrot smugly.
'All right,' Dingy said. 'We'll talk in the Reptile House.'
The Reptile House was hot and dry and played hell with Brimstone's sinuses. But at least it was quiet and lizards didn't play back what you'd said. The endolg climbed up one of the glass-fronted cages and embarked on a staring match with a cobra. Dingy glared at Brimstone.
Brimstone glanced around to make sure they weren't being overheard, then lowered his voice. 'I wanted to talk to you about-'
'Can't hear you,' Dingy interrupted.
'This is confidentia', l Brimstone hissed. He gestured Dingy closer and, when the man took a reluctant step forward, stretched to whisper in his ear. 'I wanted to talk to you about Black Hairstreak's portal.'
'What about Lord Hairstreak's portal?' Dingy asked suspiciously.
Brimstone looked around him again. 'I understand Lord Hairstreak may have a multi-directional portal,' he whispered.
'Who told you that?' Dingy sniffed.
Brimstone laid a finger along the side of his nose and tried to look knowing. 'I have my sources,' he said. His source was actually his partner Chalkhill, who'd once let the information slip while drunk. The trouble was Chalkhill let a lot of things slip when drunk that simply weren't true. Brimstone was praying this wasn't one of them.
'Somebody's been tickling your ferret,' Dingy said.
'You mean he doesn't?' Brimstone asked, then added slyly, 'It's just that if he did have a multi-directional portal, I should be prepared to pay a great deal of money for its use. A great deal of money.'
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