Faerie Wars 02 - The Purple Emperor (28 page)

Beleth looked awful.

He'd appeared in his gigantic demon form, but one of his horns was crumpled, two of his fangs were broken and he had an ear missing. There was a fading bruise under his right eye, a pulsating lump on his head and a hideous scar that ran all the way down his left cheek, over his jaw and across his throat. Brimstone had always been terrified of the Infernal Prince, but at the moment the creature hardly looked capable of chewing off a baby's leg. His heart restarted and the colour flooded back into his face. 'What happened to you?' he asked. Beleth scowled. 'That's not important.' 'No, really,' Brimstone said. 'I'm concerned.' 'A bomb blew up in my face,' Beleth said shortly. 'Fortunately this form is virtually indestructible. But what's important -'

'How come all the Hael portals are closed?' Brimstone asked curiously. Beleth must have come by vimana: it was the only way. And since a transport vimana trip would take years, he had to have come alone in one of the fast single-seater saucers, which he'd never, ever done before.

Beleth covered the distance between them in three massive strides and caught him by the throat. Brimstone felt himself lifted up as if he were thistledown. 'Gaah!' he choked. 'Gaah!'

'What's important,' Beleth repeated quietly, his face close to Brimstone's own, 'is that the rest of the Hael Realm wasn't as fortunate as I was.' He released Brimstone, who dropped back to the ground with a spine-jarring thud.

'The Hael Realm was destroyed?' Brimstone gasped, massaging his throat.

'Don't be stupid. But it's in serious need of reconstruction.' He glared at Brimstone with blood-red eyes. 'The cost will run to billions.'

Brimstone swallowed painfully. 'Bit strapped at the moment, I'm afraid. I -' He caught Beleth's expression and ground to a halt. 'That's not what it's about, is it?' He wondered what it was about, but one thing was for certain: this had to be good news. If the Hael Realm lay in ruins, then Beleth would have more on his mind than a broken contract. Besides, that whole silly business about sacrificing Pyrgus was old news now, hardly worth even think--

'What it's about,' growled Beleth, 'is treachery! What it's about is ingratitude! What it's about is broken agreements, welching on bargains, turn-coating scumbags!'

Perhaps it was worth thinking about after all. 'I'm sorry about that contract business,' Brimstone said hurriedly. 'Circumstances beyond my -'

'Not you, you imbecile!' Beleth roared. 'That mealy-mouthed cretinous little upstart Hairstreak!'

Brimstone blinked. 'Hairstreak? Lord Hairstreak?'

Beleth and Lord Hairstreak had been allies in the last attempt to overthrow the Faeries of the Light.

'Yes. Lord Hairstreak! Crapulous crud-faced puke-mouthed sewage-headed little ... little ... little ... '

Beleth was losing it. His eyes were flashing seven colours and flecks of spittle were flying from his mouth. The bump on his head had started to pulsate and the scar across his throat seemed to be opening up to show a row of straining stitches. Brimstone wondered if he might actually have had to sew his head back on after the bomb exploded. But this was clearly no time for speculation.

'I thought you and Hairstreak were allies?' he said quickly.

'Were,' said Beleth sourly. 'Operative word. Past tense. Hairstreak was happy to accept my help when he thought it would put him on the Peacock Throne. Now I need his, he doesn't want to know.'

'That's dreadful,' Brimstone said sympathetically, wondering what Beleth had expected from a Faerie of the Night. 'He's betrayed you in your hour of need, is that it?'

'Exactly!' Beleth said.

Seemed like a good idea to Brimstone. Beleth was clearly weak now. On his knees, in fact. Perfect time to kick him. Except that demon princes always had their resources - they commanded some very nasty magic. Besides, Beleth now knew Brimstone had been burying a body. Perhaps it was safest to be more subtle.

'So,' he said cautiously, 'what do you want from me?'

Beleth told him.

It was weird to approach the Purple Palace as an enemy might, examining the terrain for cover, checking points of vulnerability, looking out for guard patrols. Pyrgus felt a mixture of nervous excitement and nausea. It was all so familiar - the river, the island, the palace itself.

He glanced at his companions. Blue, of course. Dearest Blue. He didn't think he'd have got through any of this without her. He'd always been better at doing than planning and since he ... since his fa-- and now he could hardly think straight any more. It was thanks to Blue they had a plan in place now. And it was thanks to Blue that with just a little luck, they might clear up this mess.

Next to Blue was a wizard engineer named Ziczac -a tiny, bearded Forest Faerie with brown eyes in a wizened face that made him look like a little woodland animal peering through a bush. He had the technical skills to penetrate walls.

Pyrgus remembered how lost he'd felt during that little discussion, although Mr Fogarty had obviously followed it. The bottom line seemed to be that while Forest Faerie were able to phase-shift into solid surfaces once the necessary magic was in place, setting it up for the first time was something that needed specialist skills. (And testing the set-up was always dangerous, Queen Cleopatra warned. It took only a small mis judgement and you could find yourself trapped in the middle of a solid rock, suffocating to death.) Ziczac was one of the few who had the skills. He carried the necessary equipment in a small backpack.

Protecting Ziczac, Blue and himself were three Forest Faerie soldiers. One of them, to Pyrgus's secret delight, was Nymph.

That was it. There'd been a brief discussion about sending more troops but Blue had overruled the idea without even bothering to consult Pyrgus. She said a full-scale attack might precipitate just the sort of civil war that had been so narrowly averted only weeks before. Far better to stage a small-scale commando raid and simply rescue their father. Once he was removed from Hairstreak's influence, they could decide what would happen next.

Pyrgus hoped they'd be able to find their father quickly - the operation relied on the element of surprise. But he felt fairly confident he could still command the loyalty of many in the palace building. They should have help once they were safely inside.

There was no question of using the ferry to get across to the palace. Neither Pyrgus nor Blue trusted personal illusion spells, and without them their faces were far too easily recognised for them to approach the island openly. Consequently they were now crouched in the shelter of reeds nearly two hundred yards downstream of the official crossing.

Pyrgus glanced at Nymph. 'Do I take your Queen at her word, or should we all get ready to swim?'

Nymph gave Pyrgus a basilisk look, softened by the hint of a grin. 'Today you keep your feet dry, Crown Prince,' she told him. He noticed she never used his given name, and his title was always granted with a tiny emphasis as if she found it ironic. She had really nice legs. The uniform of the forest army ended in green tights that showed them off wonderfully.

Pyrgus reluctantly dragged his gaze upwards. Nymph was pulling some sort of net from the pouch around her waist. As she drew it clear, she cast it outwards over the river as if trying to catch a fish. But somewhere between the movement of her wrist and striking the surface of the water, the net transformed into a smaller version of the raft-like transport the Forest Faerie used on their overhead roadways. It should have been swept away by the current at once, but instead remained as firmly in place as if it had been anchored.

Pyrgus blinked and tried not to show he was impressed. The Forest Faerie kept producing spell technology like nothing he'd ever seen before. Transforming the appearance of something was easy enough: all you had to do was coat it with an illusion spell. Changing what it did was more difficult, but still possible if you had the money for expensive magic. But nothing he'd ever seen changed the essential nature of anything. You could make a pandatherium look and act like an endolg, but it would still have the weight and mass of a pandatherium. Yet this raft, in different form, could be rolled up small enough and light enough to be carried in a slim girl's pouch. That simply wasn't possible, except that he'd seen it for himself.

'On to the raft!' Nymph hissed. 'I have to get us cloaked.'

There was something about her that reminded Pyrgus of Blue. Not that they looked alike, and Nymph was older, of course, but now he was getting to know her better he noticed a bossy streak emerging. Certainly she was a take-charge sort of girl. He wondered what she meant by getting them cloaked, but decided to trust she knew what she was doing.

Blue was less trusting. 'What do you mean, get us cloake"'

'Hide us so we shall not be seen by anyone in the palace,' Nymph said.

'Invisibility?'

Nymph shook her head. 'With invisibility you're still there.'

Which, as an answer, made no sense at all to Pyrgus. But he was anxious to get on. 'I think we should climb on, Blue,' he said softly. She glared at him, but stepped at once on to the raft.

Both Blue and the raft disappeared.

'It is invisibility,' Pyrgus said.

But Nymph was shaking her head again. 'Cloaking,' she insisted. 'You cannot feel the vessel or your sister unless I deactivate.' She caught the look on his face and added, 'Go on - try: we have time.'

Pyrgus stretched out his hands to the spot where Blue had been before she vanished. They encountered nothing. 'Blue?' he whispered.

'She can see you and hear you,' Nymph said. 'But you cannot sense her in any way. Nor our transport. Feel.'

Pyrgus knelt down and swept his hand along the segment of water in front of him. There was no invisible raft. Blue might have stepped out of reach, but the raft had been solidly moored, or so it seemed. Except now it was gone.

Nymph, who was clearly enjoying this, said, 'Now step on board, please.'

Pyrgus straightened up, frowning. 'It's not there any more.'

Nymph actually grinned. 'Just take a pace forward, Crown Prince. Did I not promise you would not get wet today?'

He knew it was a challenge and took it up without a second's hesitation. He stepped forward into what looked like the surface of the swiftly running river.

He was on the raft with Blue. The others were lined up on the river bank.

'What was all that about?' Blue asked.

'Could you see me?'

'Pefectly,' Blue sniffed.

'You could see what I was doing?'

'Right down to your simpering at little Miss Nymph Know-it-all,' Blue said.

Although there was no sign of a propulsion system and no distinctive scent of magic, the raft cut directly across the current.

'What's driving us?' Pyrgus asked quietly.

'No need to whisper,' Nymph told him. 'We can't be heard outside the cloak.' She glanced around as if to emphasise the fact there was nobody to hear them in the middle of the river anyway. She looked back at Pyrgus and smiled slightly. 'We have a standard magical drive. Forward thrust, directional controls, low-grade levitation to reduce the friction.'

'There's no smell,' Pyrgus said.

'Not much point in cloaking if they could still smell us,' Nymph said, without explaining how the Forest Faerie managed it.

Pyrgus was about to press the point when he noticed they were approaching their destination already. The Old Keep of the palace, built in deep prehistory using stones so large that modern technology could no longer handle them, hung over the rearward cliff edge of the island. The Keep itself was largely used for storage now, but it remained attached to the main body of the building. Guard posts were minimal, since it had long been believed that the Keep could not be breached from the river - an idea Pyrgus promised himself would be quickly laid to rest if their present mission succeeded.