She was so startled she jerked back, but when nothing else happened, she bent forward again. The old man gave another wink. She shifted her head back and forward and discovered that, in a certain position, the portrait always seemed to wink. But why? You might attach a wink spell to a child's toy, but it was hardly the sort of novelty that would make anybody money in an adult portrait. So why had a wink spell been attached to this one? A growing suspicion almost made her smile.
Blue moved her head until the portrait winked at her, then winked back. At once there was the distinctive scent of an illusion breaking and the gloomy, fly-specked glowglobes flared into full, bright light. She straightened up and looked around. The room was transformed. The clutter of ancient furniture had disappeared to be replaced by a tasteful selection of stylish – and costly – antiques. The bare floorboards had given way to thick imported carpeting wall to wall. Brimstone's chair had turned into a modern recliner with an extendable tray for cocktails and cushions sculptured to the exact shape of his skinny bottom. But her attention was drawn at once to one of the antiques, a beautifully preserved roll-top desk.
She expected it to be locked, but Brimstone must have relied on his illusion spell for security since she opened it up easily. There were cubbyholes packed with papers, and more papers in the drawers. Blue ransacked them systematically, looking for anything that might provide a clue to what had happened to Pyrgus. Her hopes quickly faded. All the papers referred to Brimstone's business interests, most of them concerned with the Chalkhill and Brimstone company. To her surprise, the papers themselves seemed to be completely in order. There was not the slightest hint of underhand activities or shady deals. There wasn't even a suggestion of anything unethical, let alone illegal.
Blue made a cursory search of the rest of the room, then returned to the stairs. There were two doors on the second-floor landing as well. One led into a neat little kitchen. Since she was determined not to be caught twice by an illusion spell, she inspected it carefully, but after five minutes decided it was exactly what it seemed. She came out again, crossed the landing and opened the second door.
The demons were waiting for her on the other side.
She heard them before she saw them, a distinctive insect-like chittering underlaid with a click-clack of lobster claws. Then the glowglobes flared.
She had the impression of a library, but the place was infested. She saw at least five demons. They were the familiar greys – small and thin with large heads and enormous jet-black eyes. Four were male, one female. All dressed alike in one-piece silver jump-suits and thick-soled silver boots. Blue knew at once what they were – a grouping technically known as a Goblin Guard. You conjured them, then contracted them to guard whatever it was you wanted guarding. It cost you the occasional sacrifice, but they did their job. Goblin Guards were lethal.
Blue jerked her head round – everybody knew you mustn't look a demon in the eye – and slammed the door. It was a reflex action. She knew perfectly well it wouldn't do any good, yet it made her feel safer. But not for long. Within seconds, a beam of blue light penetrated from the inside of the door and the first of the demons slid out along it. Blue ran for the stairs.
She was back on the first landing before she realized the demons weren't following. She stopped, heart pounding, and looked back up the stairs. Nothing there. She caught her breath and chanced climbing a few steps. Still nothing. This was very odd. Once Goblin Guards had their sights on you, they nearly always kept coming until they killed you or something stopped them. But there was nothing to stop them here. The whole Guard should have been tumbling down those stairs like an avalanche. She climbed another step.
By the time she was in sight of the second landing, she knew for sure the demons were no longer there. Where had they gone? This was not usual demon behaviour. Had something frightened them off? After a moment she decided she didn't need to know. If they'd gone, it was all to her advantage – she could search the library room now. She pushed the door open cautiously and discovered to her horror they were all back inside.
This time she didn't even bother to slam the door, simply took off down the stairs as fast as her legs would carry her. She knew she wasn't going to get lucky a second time. She also knew that before demons killed you, they had a very gross habit of carrying out some particularly painful medical experiments on – They weren't following now either! She stopped halfway down the stairs and there was absolutely no doubt about it. The Goblin Guard, which had begun to pour out of the room when she opened the door, had disappeared again.
It hit her like a thunderbolt. It was another illusion! Illusions seemed to be one of Brimstone's magical specialities. It was cheaper than conjuring up a real Goblin Guard and a lot easier on maintenance. You didn't have to sacrifice to an illusion or make sure it wasn't sleeping on the job. You just set it up, switched it on and allowed it to do its work.
She went back very cautiously until she was just a step from the landing, then stopped. She had to be extremely careful here. The library door was still open and, if the Goblin Guard caught sight of her, it would be on to the landing in seconds. An illusion demon could kill you just as dead as a real one. For as long as the illusion lasted, the creature was real enough – it just couldn't step outside the boundaries of the illusion spell. It looked as if Brimstone had set this one to guard the library room and the landing outside, but possibly not the staircase.
With the door open, she daren't step on to the landing. Once the demons saw her they would come after her again. But demons were tricky at the best of times and illusion demons trickiest of all. There was no way of making them intelligent. You set your illusion so they'd attack anything that opened the door but you couldn't set it so they would recognise you and leave you alone – illusion magic just wasn't that good. Which meant there had to be an easy way to switch the illusion off. Brimstone had to be able to get rid of the Goblin Guard before he used his library.
Where was the switch? What was the switch? In the room below, the trigger was the winking picture. That gave some clue to the way Brimstone's mind worked. Not that she thought it was another picture, but she did think he might disguise the switch to make it look like something else.
There were no portraits beside the stairs, no pictures of anything else. The walls were smooth, no ornamentation, no panelling, nothing that looked at all – not looked: sounded! One of the stairs squeaked. She'd noticed it vaguely on the way up and it had squeaked again when she ran down. She'd paid no attention, of course. Lots of stairs and floorboards squeaked, especially in a house this age. But suppose it wasn't a natural squeak? Suppose it was a specially built-in signal?
Blue retraced her steps down the stairs. She was still within sight of the landing when she reached the tread that squeaked. She trod on it a few times and the squeak never failed. It wasn't so loud you'd pay much attention, but loud enough so an old man would hear. Was this the illusion trigger? Did it switch the demons on when you climbed up? Or were the demons always there and the squeak just a way of marking the place to switch them off?
Frowning, Blue tried to work it out logically. If this really was the switch, then it couldn't just be a question of pressure on the tread. She'd made it squeak coming up, which might well have switched on the demons, but she'd made it squeak again running down, which certainly hadn't switched them off. Or had it? Maybe she'd switched them off running down, then switched them on again when she climbed back up?
It didn't seem right somehow. Mainly because it didn't do the job well enough. Brimstone wanted his house secure. He'd want to be sure that his illusions were all working. If this one was just a question of a pressure switch, anybody climbing the stairs two at a time would never trip it at all. She frowned. Couldn't be a simple pressure switch.
She thought of the winking picture. The illusion disappeared when you winked back. Maybe… maybe… maybe the Goblin Guard disappeared when you squeaked back. Blue trod on the step to make it squeak, then imitated the squea
k as an answer. She waited, then, when nothing happened, climbed the stairs again. The door on the second landing was still open, but from this angle she couldn't see if there was anything inside. She'd have to take a chance and go right on to the landing.
She did it fast before she lost her courage. The library was empty.
Blue breathed a sigh of relief. Although he was someone she'd never met, she had a very strong picture of Brimstone in her head now. He was a dangerous and crafty old man, somebody who didn't care much what he did to people. Pyrgus was lucky to get away from him with a whole skin.
But she still didn't know what had happened between them. The library was packed with books on sorcery, wizardry, witchcraft, necromancy and magic -some of them rare tomes – but though she searched it thoroughly, there was nothing at all to show how Brimstone might have tried to kill her brother.
She left the library and climbed the stairs to the third floor. This time she listened carefully for squeaks and examined every inch of the way for another illusion trigger. She spotted none, but even so she was caution itself when she reached the final landing. It was laid out exactly like the others and it proved a complete anticlimax. One door led to a bathroom, the other a bedroom. There were no more Goblin Guards, no more illusions of any sort as far as she could discover. It seemed as if Brimstone was happy no intruder was likely to get past the second floor.
But she still hadn't discovered anything about Pyrgus.
Twenty-two
Pyrgus stepped into choking darkness. For an instant he thought he'd somehow wandered into one of the portals that opened at the bottom of the sea. Then he realised he was breathing air, not water, although it was air mixed with something sulphureous that caught violently in the back of his throat. He stumbled forward, arms outstretched, until his hands touched rough rock, then fumbled his way along, coughing furiously, in a desperate attempt to find fresher air.
It seemed an eternity, but eventually he reached a place where the worst of the choking fumes were behind him and a dim light appeared far ahead. He slowed down and made his way cautiously towards it. He'd already bruised a knee and grazed his ankle and it was still so dark in here (wherever here was) that he could easily fall to his death down some subterranean pit. So he edged forward, one hand still on the rock wall, testing each step before he took it. This was always the problem when you used a portal for the first time: you could never be really sure where it would come out. Mr Fogarty had reckoned he should emerge in the palace chapel – something to do with locking on to ion trails – but even he'd admitted there was a margin of error. Besides which, Pyrgus knew he'd been just the tiniest bit impatient. He'd used the control before Mr Fogarty had adjusted it completely.
The light ahead grew brighter and eventually resolved itself into an opening. As Pyrgus approached it, he was able to confirm what he already knew. He was in some sort of underground passageway. It seemed to be a natural formation, possibly part of a cave system. As the light level increased, he could see rock walls and floor. At one point where the passage widened, there was a single stalactite.
Now he could see the source of the light, he realised it was an opening to daylight high up in a rock wall. It wasn't very large, but he thought he should be able to squeeze through. The problem was reaching it.
Pyrgus examined the rockface. It was sheer, but rough, which meant there might be enough handholds for a climb but also meant that if he fell he would be dead. For the first time, he missed his wings. He stared up at the opening for a long moment, then wiped his palms on his breeches to dry off any excess sweat and tackled the wall.
It wasn't as hard as it looked, but he climbed slowly all the same, taking great care to establish firm footholds before reaching for the next handhold. By the time he reached the narrow ledge in front of the opening, his muscles were aching and he was breathing heavily. He sat on the ledge for a moment, allowing himself to recover, then turned to tackle the opening. It looked like a fissure in the rock and up close there was no doubt it was wide enough for him to squeeze through. He could see sky beyond, but nothing else, so he had no idea whether he was going to come out at ground level or high up on some cliff face. But no sense worrying until he found out. He wiggled through the crack.
Pyrgus tumbled out on to a rocky hillside and knew at once something was wrong. He wasn't near the palace portal, of course, or near the palace at all for that matter. In fact, he didn't even seem to be near the city. But it wasn't that. The air tasted foul. It still had a hint of the metallic sulphur that had nearly choked him underground. And the sky, now he was outside, looked the wrong colour. It had the dirty yellowish tint you sometimes got before a storm, except no storm was approaching – there was not a cloud in sight.
Pyrgus frowned. He still felt nauseous and wondered if there might be sulphur fumes venting from some volcanic source nearby. But now he was in the open air, fumes were no longer the first of his worries. He needed to find out exactly where he was; and then take the fastest route back to the palace. Although he'd been gone only a short time he was afraid of what might have happened. He'd never taken much interest in politics, but he wasn't a fool. Somebody had tried to kill him and for all he knew his father might be next. This latest attempt on his life was a political act and his father needed to know about it as soon as possible.
He climbed to his feet and looked around. The landscape was hilly, rocky and generally barren except for a few clumps of pod-like plants he didn't recognise. He was beginning to wonder if he was even within walking distance of the city – he knew the surrounding area well and none of this looked familiar.
The sun was low in the sky and the sulphur fumes, or whatever they were, had given it an angry, fiery hue. If he was to reach anywhere familiar before nightfall, he needed to get started. He made a brief check of his possessions, glad he'd taken up Mr Fogarty on his offer of a knife. The old man kept going on about how you never knew when you might need a weapon, and while Pyrgus hadn't expected to end up in the middle of nowhere, he knew from past experience his own world could be a dangerous place. The knife was no Halek blade – Mr Fogarty had found it in his kitchen – but it was better than nothing.
He also had a knapsack – Mr Fogarty called it a 'kit-bag' – with food. He hadn't thought he'd need that at all, but he liked the stuff you got to eat in the Analogue World and had packed the bag with crisps, Mars bars and a tin of baked beans. Things could be a lot worse. If he had a few miles to walk, it was no further than he'd walked before. Even if he was forced to sleep in the open for a night or two, it hardly mattered. He'd done that before as well.
He slung the knapsack over his shoulder and started down the hill.
He reckoned he'd walked for an hour before deciding something else was wrong. The landscape hadn't varied and the angry sun still hadn't set. By his calculation, it should be growing dusk by now, yet the sun hardly seemed to have moved from its original place in the sky. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he was convinced it hadn't moved at all. That wasn't possible, so he had to be mistaken about how long he'd been walking.
Pyrgus stopped. His surroundings still looked much the same as they'd done when he'd reached the surface. Were they actually the same surroundings? Was he wandering around in circles? He pushed the thought aside. It couldn't be that simple. The sun hadn't moved. Which meant no time had passed. He felt a little tired, as you might expect after walking for an hour. He remembered walking for about an hour. But if the sun hadn't moved, he couldn't have been walking for about an hour. He wondered if the fumes had affected his mind. It was a scary thought, but could he be hallucinating?
He started to move again, very much aware of placing one foot in front of the other. He was walking. Of course he was walking! He slipped his knapsack off his back and dropped it on the ground, then watched it as he took half a dozen backward paces. The knapsack stayed put and he moved away from it, exactly as he should. He walked back and retrieved the knapsack. He was walking. Of cour
se he was walking! He'd been walking for an hour or more. So why hadn't the sun moved?
He walked on, westwards, in the direction he'd been walking before. What else was there to do? But the mystery disturbed him. It was like the smell of sulphur – he still had that in his nostrils -and the yellow sky. Something was wrong, yet he couldn't figure out exactly what.
He topped a rise and found himself looking down on a ruined city.
The ancient buildings rose up out of the barren plain like rotten teeth. Collapsed walls left heaps of rubble, but enough remained standing to show this had once been a busy metropolis. He could see the remnants of a pylon gate and the foundations of stone towers. There was a central plaza, its paving split and cracked. Old roadways and streets were half hidden by patches of the same strange vegetation he'd seen earlier. Even in ruins, the city was impressive. The wall stones were enormous. Several must have weighed tons.
Pyrgus felt a sudden chill. He'd never heard of a city like this anywhere in the Realm of Faerie and certainly not anywhere near his palace. That meant it had to be undiscovered, probably in some distant country on another continent, which would explain the unfamiliar vegetation. How far was he away from home? It might take him weeks, even months, to reach his father and warn him about what had been going on.
If he could get back at all…
Pyrgus had an optimistic nature, but, all the same, he knew he needed to be realistic. He'd been walking across countryside so barren it was almost a desert, confused by fumes and with absolutely no idea of where he was. He had food – of a sort – in his knapsack. With care, it might last him two or three days, but after that he'd have to hunt and so far he hadn't seen so much as a gruntrat in this desolate terrain, let alone anything edible.
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