‘Wait a minute,’ Mella said. ‘Whoever was in charge, Haleklind would never have stood a chance of invading the Realm. Not successfully anyway. They only have a smallish army: even I know that. The whole country is just one big magic industry. All they’ve ever thought of for centuries is selling their spells.’
‘Quite right,’ said Mella II. ‘But Lord Hairstreak’s idea was for them to develop a magical army. He wanted them to breed manticores.’
‘Manticores?’
‘They’re great mythic beasts, half lion, half scorpion, half -’
‘Yes, I know what manticores are. But you can’t breed magical beasts. You have to make them one at a time. Everybody knows that.’
‘And apparently everybody is wrong,’ Mella II told her emphatically. ‘The plains of Haleklind are swarming with manticores now and that’s Lord Hairstreak’s secret army.’
After a long moment Mella said, ‘So the Haleklinders attack the Realm with manticores and kill Mummy and Daddy…’
‘… then Lord Hairstreak steps in and negotiates a truce, hero of the hour, applause, applause, and you become Queen, only you’re dead so it’s really me, and Lord Hairstreak runs the Realm through me because, of course, I’m his sweet little creation so I’ll do what I’m told and then, when I’m old enough, he marries me and -’
Mella almost choked. ‘He does what? ’
‘Marries me,’ Mella II repeated. ‘He can do that quite legally because I’m supposed to be you, remember, and he’s not a blood relative, so he marries you and becomes King. He’s wanted that for years and years.’
‘I think I need to sit down for a minute,’ Mella said. She propped her back against a thick tree trunk and sank down to the mossy forest floor. ‘What a pervy pervert! ’
Mella II sat down beside her. ‘He hired an assassin to get you, but you ran away and that spoiled his plans.’
Mella held her head. Between the flood of memories and the fresh information, she felt as if it might explode at any minute. ‘But then I played into his hands by ending up in Haleklind.’
‘Yes, you did,’ Mella II confirmed. ‘The original idea was for us to be swapped at his Keep, but when the Table told him they had you in their Kremlin, that was even better. He packed me into his ouklo at once. I was supposed to wait until he’d confirmed it really was you, then he was going to kill you and make the switch. Or make the switch and kill you, I forget which. I was trying to figure out a way to save you when you made the escape yourself – I should have known you’d manage perfectly well: you’re very resourceful, just like me.’
‘Why is Aunt Aisling helping him?’ Mella frowned. Nothing Aunt Aisling did was making much sense.
Mella II glanced at her in surprise. ‘I didn’t know she was. What can she do in the Analogue World?’
‘She’s not in the Analogue World: she came here with me and now she’s helping him for some reason.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ Mella II repeated.
Mella pushed the mystery from her mind – there were obviously far more important things to think about. She pushed herself abruptly to her feet. ‘We have to get back to the Palace and warn everybody what’s going on.’
‘I was going to say that,’ Mella II told her. ‘The only thing -’
‘What? What’s the only thing?’
‘The only thing is how we’re going to do it. We’re lost in a forest somewhere in Haleklind, probably being chased, and even if we find our way out we won’t know how to get to the Realm, and even if we find out how to get to the Realm I know there are all sorts of guards and security spells at the border because Hairstreak once told me. So how do we do it?’
‘Perhaps I can help you with that,’ said a weird, growly voice behind them.
Forty-Four
‘How did this happen?’ Lord Hairstreak demanded. Normally he would have strangled the messenger: one had to have some compensation for bad news. But it was Aisling who brought him word of Mella’s escape, so he strangled his emotions instead and put up with the frustration. And to be fair, now he thought about it, the news wasn’t all that bad. Because Mella, it seemed, had foolishly run into the forest, which was infested with the fiercest manticores as part of Kremlin Karcist security, so her chances of survival were slim. It would be only be a matter of time before one of the beasts found her and carried her off to feed its young. And even if she somehow avoided the forest manticores, there was no way of avoiding the herd on the plains beyond. The perfect way of getting rid of her. The manticores would leave no bone unchewed, no trace of her at all. Such an unfortunate accident. He couldn’t imagine why he hadn’t thought of it before. With Mella out of the way, the substitution of her clone became child’s play.
Except that he was looking into an empty ouklo. There was no sign of the Mella clone.
‘I don’t know,’ Aisling said.
If he was brutally honest with himself, she sounded as if she didn’t really care. But he could hardly expect her to grasp the devious intricacies of his plan, or its overriding importance, come to that. After all, they’d only just met and he’d scarcely had time to tell her more than the bare bones of what he was doing. ‘What exactly happened?’
Aisling’s face had taken on a bored, petulant expression. She examined her fingernails and spoke without looking at him. ‘The girl got into the carriage then ran out the other door.’ She looked up at him. ‘It wasn’t my fault.’
‘No, of course not,’ Hairstreak muttered. Actually, she was right. He should never have given her responsibility for Mella at this early stage of their relationship. Not that it would probably have been much different if he’d escorted the girl himself. Who’d have thought that Mella with her memory wiped would run away? Why on earth should she? Her actions were quite unpredictable and he would not have predicted them. But that was water under the bridge. He had to be careful now. Ysabeau and the other Table members could appear at any moment. None of them knew all the details of his plan and he wished to keep it that way. In particular, he preferred to keep the existence of the clone secret. ‘Was there anyone else in the carriage at the time?’
‘I don’t know,’ Aisling said.
Hairstreak considered his position. Mella might have run away – although for the life of him he couldn’t think why – but the Mella clone never would: she’d always been a model of obedience. She’d probably just got bored waiting and wandered off. Which meant she was in the grounds somewhere, possibly even in the house. But he needed to find her before anyone else did. It was important she didn’t go on public display before he was sure the original Mella was dead. He looked around him.
‘Where are my guards?’ he demanded.
‘I sent them off after the girl when she escaped,’ Aisling said. ‘They followed her into the forest.’ She hesitated. ‘So did the other girl.’
‘What other girl?’
‘I saw another girl creep out of the bushes and follow them in. I don’t know where she came from.’
It was the Mella clone. It had to be – there simply wasn’t any other girl about. Now the two Mellas were in the forest. This was turning into a nightmare. What if he lost the clone? What if she was savaged by a manticore? He’d trained her perfectly for the job she had to do, but that training had taken time. He couldn’t possibly start over with another one.
‘Lord Hairstreak -’
Hairstreak groaned. This was all he needed. Ysabeau was headed down the path towards them with other members of the Table of Seven straggling behind her.
‘Is everything all right, Lord Hairstreak?’
Hairstreak came to a decision. ‘Companion Ysabeau,’ he said firmly, ‘how do you control the forest manticores?’
Ysabeau looked at him blankly. ‘Control?’ she frowned. ‘Manticores?’
‘The forest manticores,’ Hairstreak snapped impatiently. ‘They’re part of your security system. There must be some way you control them to allow free passage through the forest when you need it.’<
br />
‘Oh, I see,’ Ysabeau exclaimed. ‘Yes. Yes, of course. You mean, as when our technicians need entry to the forest to check the system overall. We use a manticore repellent.’
‘Is that a spell?’
Ysabeau shook her head. ‘It’s a whistle. You hang it round your neck and when you press the button it emits a sound the manticores don’t like.’
‘So they keep away?’
‘Single manticores, yes.’
‘What about a herd?’
Ysabeau shook her head again, more violently this time. ‘You mustn’t use them near a herd. When they’re clumped together manticores can’t get away from the sound quickly enough, so they usually panic and trample each other. But it works well enough in the forest.’
‘I’ll need two whistles,’ Lord Hairstreak told her. ‘Can you arrange that?’
‘Yes, of course, Lord Hairstreak.’ Ysabeau glanced around her in bewilderment. ‘But… why?’
‘The Lady Aisling and I are going for a little walk,’ Hairstreak told her. ‘In the forest.’
Forty-Five
The creature, on four legs, stood higher than Mella’s shoulder while she was standing on two. It was far and away the most terrifying thing she’d ever seen. Its body was that of a giant lion, tawny and heavily muscled with great clawed feet. It might even have been a giant lion, but for two things. The first was that its rear end was nothing like the hindquarters of a lion. Instead, it tapered and curled upwards into a vicious scorpion sting the size of an ogre’s spear. The second – and Mella really couldn’t get her mind around this one – was that in place of a lion’s mane and jaw was the broad, reddish-brown head of a man. Or perhaps not quite a man, for the nose was flat, the teeth immense and the tongue lolled from the mouth like the tongue of a dog.
‘Oh my Gods!’ whispered Mella II.
Mella took a small step backwards. Instinctively, she kept herself between the creature and her newfound sister. Not that she could be any real protection. A single leap and the thing would be upon them. A single slash of one paw and they’d be dead.
‘What is it?’ gasped Mella II.
‘It’s what you’ve just been talking about,’ Mella told her quietly. ‘That’s a manticore. Haven’t you ever seen one before?’
Mella II was staring at the thing with eyes like saucers. She shook her head. ‘No. Have you?’
‘No, but I’ve seen pictures.’ She hesitated, then added, ‘I never thought they were so big.’
‘Do you think we should run?’ Mella II asked her.
Mella had been wondering the same thing herself. The truth was, she didn’t know a lot about manticores, despite seeing pictures and reading a bit about them. Some wild animals chased you if you ran, and killed you when they caught up. Some ate you if you stood still. The trick seemed to be figuring out which was which, and nothing she’d read ever seemed to give a hint how. Besides, she wasn’t sure she should think of a manticore as a wild animal. Didn’t magical creatures fall into a different category? She wasn’t sure, but she did know they were unpredictable. But the bottom line was that this magical creature wasn’t growling like a lion, wasn’t pawing the ground like a bull, didn’t have its ears flattened like a cat or its lips curled back in a snarl like a wolf. In short, it was making no threating gestures. It wasn’t moving at all, in fact: not stalking them, or chasing them or creeping up on them or anything.
She wondered who’d spoken. Maybe they weren’t facing a wild manticore. Maybe this manticore had a keeper. After all, if Lord Hairstreak planned to use them as an army, there must be some way of training them.
‘Best not to startle it,’ she told Mella II.
She looked around for the animal’s keeper. ‘Hello…’ she called, but quietly so as not to startle the beast. ‘Can you come out and show yourself?’
‘Who are you talking to?’ asked Mella II. Despite her previous question she didn’t look ready to run.
The manticore rolled its tongue back into its fearsome mouth. ‘My guess is she thinks she’s talking to my keeper,’ it said, a little thickly.
Mella felt as if a claw had clutched her heart. ‘Manticores can talk?’ There was nothing about that in the literature.
The manticore shook his head so that leaves rustled in his mane. ‘Just this one. I have a special dispensation and a bit of extra magic from our leader.’
Who was their leader and how could he get a manticore to talk? But before Mella could ask, Mella II said, ‘We don’t mean you any harm.’
The manticore stretched: he was actually bigger than both the girls put together. He raised one paw and extended claws that looked like sabres. He grinned slightly, showing fangs that would have done justice to a shark. ‘I was a bit worried about that,’ he said.
A manticore with a sense of humour! The creature could swallow their whole heads with a single gulp, but somehow Mella started to feel at ease. ‘Did you say you could help us?’ she ventured.
‘If you’d like to come with me…’ the manticore told her. ‘My name is -’ It was even thicker than his usual speech, but sounded something like Aboventoun, ‘- by the way.’
Mella glanced at Mella II. ‘Excuse me,’ she said to the manticore. The two girls clumped together for a hurried conference.
‘He wants us to go with him.’
‘Yes, I heard.’
‘What do you think?’
Mella II stretched around Mella to look at the manticore. ‘He’s terribly big.’
‘Yes, isn’t he? I don’t suppose you know what they eat?’
‘You mean, like, people?’
‘We’re vegetarian,’ the manticore said helpfully.
‘This is a private conversation,’ Mella told him firmly. ‘Please don’t listen in.’
But Mella II said to him directly, ‘You’re vegetarian with those teeth?’
‘They’re for fighting, not eating,’ said the manticore. ‘My ancestors didn’t evolve: they were created. ’
Mella II placed her mouth close to Mella’s ear and whispered, ‘What if he’s one of Hairstreak’s manticores?’
Mella had been trying not to think about Lord Hairstreak, who was presumably tracking them by now. She looked at Aboventoun, who looked back at her blandly. ‘Why do you want us to go with you?’ she asked bravely.
‘Well, not to eat you, that’s for sure. Our leader wants to meet you.’
The girls looked at one another, then back at the manticore. ‘How did your leader know we were here?’ they asked in unison.
‘Our leader knows everything. ’
Mella had the uncomfortable feeling that leaders who knew everything were usually megalomaniacs. This manticore seemed friendly, but he still looked deadly dangerous. Did she really want to meet another one?
Suddenly, without the slightest warning, she realised that she did. She trusted the manticore and she knew exactly why. The creature was a mixture. Haleklind wizards had taken bits of lion, bits or scorpion, bits of man and bits of heaven knew what else (those teeth!) to make its first ancestor. For the wizards, the result was a war machine. For the creature itself, the result simply had to be confusion. It was an extraordinary mixture, a prey to strange thoughts, and perplexing emotions. Mella knew this because she was a mixture herself, human and faerie. She and the manticore were two of a kind.
She turned to Mella II. ‘I vote we go with him,’ she said.
‘So do I,’ said Mella II without the slightest hesitation.
They were deeper in the forest than they thought and reaching the manticore’s companions – he called them his herd – took longer than Mella had anticipated. By the time they emerged from the trees, her feet were sore and she was exhausted and breathless from trying to keep pace with a creature who tried to move at her pace, but whose long legs covered an enormous amount of ground even at an amble. She stood stock still, wondering if she had made the right decision. Mella II stepped out of the forest to join her. Together they stared out across the open
plain.
‘Oh my Gods!’ Mella whispered.
It was a spectacle drawn directly from a madman’s dream. The entire plain was black with manticores – hundreds, perhaps even thousands, stretching as far as the eye could see. They were grazing as the girls emerged, but now, like a vast wave on a giant ocean, heads came up and turned to look towards them. The eyes of the beasts glowed in the sunlight.
‘Which one’s the leader?’ Mella II murmured.
‘I’ll take you to him,’ said their guide. ‘Just follow me.’ Aboventoun strode forward and the edge of the herd parted to allow him through.
‘I’m not going in there,’ Mella said decisively. Following a single manticore was scary enough, but walking into a herd of thousands took courage of a whole different kind.
‘We have to,’ Mella II told her.
‘Why? Why do we have to?’ Aboventoun might be able to talk (by special dispensation) but these were wild beasts, dangerous and unpredictable.
‘Because we don’t know what else to do,’ Mella II said firmly (as firmly as Mella herself might have said if she had anything to be firm about). ‘We have to get to the Palace and we don’t know how and Aboventoun is the only creature who’s volunteered to help us.’ She glanced at the waiting Aboventoun. ‘Sorry to call you a “creature”,’ she added.
‘That’s all right,’ said Aboventoun. ‘It’s exactly what I am. Now, are you coming before our leader gets impatient?’
Mella hesitated a second longer, then moved forward with her sister. Mella II was right: they simply didn’t know what else to do.
The herd opened a pathway to allow them through. Aboventoun ambled along it without looking back. The smell of the great beasts enveloped them. It was by no means unpleasant and after a few paces became actively comforting, as if they too had become part of a protective herd. A few of the creatures stretched out their heads to sniff them as they walked past. None showed any sign of aggression.
With the manticores all around them, they could see nothing but Aboventoun’s great swinging scorpion tail. Mella was beginning to wonder how long it was going to take to meet the leader when, without warning, the manticores scattered, leaving a large circular open space in the middle of which stood…
The Faeman Quest fw-5 Page 24