Ruler of the Realm

by Herbie Brennan

  ‘I’m afraid he’s still with Queen Cleopatra.’

  ‘Have him come to see me as soon as he returns,’ Blue commanded and stood up. ‘I think I’ll visit our Generals in the Situation Room. After I cancel the Countdown, we need some urgent talk about our Hael strategy.’

  ‘Perhaps not so urgent,’ Madame Cardui murmured gently. ‘The demons’ plans for you have failed abysmally.’

  Blue looked at her directly. ‘Henry said if they didn’t succeed with me, they would invade the Realm.’

  Madame Cardui blinked. ‘The portals are closed.’ She hesitated. ‘Aren’t they?’

  ‘That’s what I said,’ Blue told her. ‘Henry says they’ve opened new ones.’

  After a moment, Madame Cardui asked, ‘Where?’

  ‘That’s the problem,’ Blue said. ‘We don’t know. What I do know is we need to contact Uncle Hairstreak and accept his offer of a treaty. We can’t afford to squabble amongst ourselves with Beleth at the gates.’

  ‘I agree entirely,’ Madama Cardui told her. ‘If you really feel strong enough, we can get that under way at once.’

  But as they left the room, a military messenger arrived with news that turned their situation upside down.

  Seventy-three

  Pyrgus stood up cautiously.

  He and his men – his men! – were at the rendezvous spot, a small ornamental grove on the far side of the lake from the main house, but there was no sign of Nymph or any of her Forest Faerie. It was a worrying development. If she was late, she was late, but if she wasn’t coming at all, how long was he supposed to wait? By now Ogyris would know about the shattered glasshouse. There’d be new security in place – a contingent of crack guards at the very least. Which meant a fight. One Pyrgus would rather tackle with the Forest Faerie at his side.

  There was something at his back. Pyrgus jumped half out of his skin when a hand fell on his shoulder.

  ‘Nymph!’ he exclaimed. He fought down an almost overpowering urge to throw his arms around her and kiss her. Instead he simply stood there, grinning like an idiot.

  ‘What’s that thing on your head?’ Nymph asked curiously.

  Seventy-four

  Somehow it all went far more smoothly now the Forest Faerie had arrived.

  Nymph seemed to have an instinct for where they should be going. She gently herded Pyrgus in the right direction when he got lost again, which wasn’t all that often now since he was spending a lot less time crawling on his stomach.

  In five minutes they were back on the lakeside path, heading in the general direction of the boathouse. Pyrgus should definitely have been feeling good about the mission. But he wasn’t. It was much too quiet.

  Actually it had been much too quiet all along, Pyrgus thought suddenly. For Light’s sake, Ogyris was a Faerie of the Night, the most ruthless breed in the Realm. The crystal flowers were his big thing. He might have relied on secrecy and spells at first, but Pyrgus had knocked his entire glasshouse down. The whole estate should have been crawling with guards by now. New securities should be in place to protect the flowers. He remembered what they’d faced when they called on Hairstreak, and that was just a routine system. Ogyris should have had a thousand trackers heading for them by now.

  But nothing.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Nymph whispered.

  ‘It’s so quiet here,’ said Pyrgus. ‘Much too quiet.’

  ‘That’s just nerves,’ Nymph shrugged. ‘Are we close yet?’

  ‘It should be over the next rise.’ Pyrgus frowned. He was still uneasy.

  Then they topped the next rise and he discovered why Ogyris hadn’t ordered more security. The shattered remnants of the glasshouse had been cleared away.

  Not a single crystal flower remained.

  Seventy-five

  Fogarty hit the palace like a whirlwind, issuing orders. ‘Change of clothes – can’t see people with loam on your backside. Get me an appointment with the Queen. Find somebody to brief me on what’s been happening. Send a formal thank-you to the Forest Faerie. Have those bloody Generals come and see me. See if you can find out where Madame Cardui is hiding. Take –’

  ‘Ah, sure, these were fresh on last month and not a pick of loam on any of them,’ Nyman said.

  Fogarty stopped to glare at him, frowning in bewilderment before it dawned on him the Lep was talking about clothes. ‘Not for you, you idiot – for me!’

  ‘Ah, I get you now, sir. You leave that to me: I’ll have something brought up from your Lodge and you can change here.’ Nyman drew a notepad from the pocket of his jerkin and licked a stub of pencil. ‘Now what was the rest of it, sir …?’

  It brought Fogarty up short. He’d been so energised by good news that he’d been going off inside his head like a firecracker. His rejuvenation treatments must be affecting his hormones.

  ‘You’re not as stupid as you look, are you, Nyman? All right, let’s see … Clothes first. And a sonic shower. Then find me Madame Cardui – she can fill me in on what’s been happening. After that the Queen, then the Generals.’

  ‘She’ll be in the Situation Room, sir,’ Nyman said. He looked at Fogarty’s blank expression. ‘Herself, sir. Situation Room, sir. That’s where she told me to bring you.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Fogarty.

  The guards stopped Nyman at the first checkpoint – he’d insisted on accompanying Fogarty even though he had no security clearance whatsoever. Fogarty went on alone. His earlier ebullience had been replaced by a curious feeling of unease. For a palace that was no longer on Countdown, there were a lot of military personnel in the corridors and he even had to wait his turn at the suspensor shaft listening to stiffly apologetic guards as a stream of messengers took priority over the Realm’s Gatekeeper.

  But when he did step into the shaft, his build allowed him to sink so quickly that he caught up with one group that had gone down before. They wore the armbands of reconnaissance messengers.

  ‘What’s all the activity about?’ Fogarty asked at once.

  ‘Wouldn’t know, sir.’

  ‘Couldn’t say, sir.’

  ‘Brass never tell us anything, sir.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Fogarty growled shortly, his head now on a level with their ankles.

  ‘You’re welcome, sir,’ the messenger’s voice floated after him.

  What the hell was going on? With Blue back, the Countdown would be stopped at once. Unless there was some other factor he didn’t know about. It looked as though he’d come back only just in time.

  He’d know soon enough.

  At the bottom of the suspensor shaft, the lead corridor to the Situation Room was a bustle of activity as well. Fogarty used his elbows vigorously to push through the throng. Then the door guards spotted him and moved to clear a way. He pushed through the door and took in the scene at a glance. The war preparations had ratcheted up to high gear. Everybody was moving at the double. All three Generals were shouting orders. Every viewglobe in the place was live. Cynthia was reclining near the door issuing instructions to several of her agents.

  ‘Ah, there you are!’ she exclaimed as she caught sight of him. She must have been using some sort of suspensor technology on her gown for she floated towards him in the reclining position before rising gracefully to her feet.

  Fogarty looked around him. ‘What the hell’s going on, Cynthia? Hasn’t Blue cancelled the Countdown?’

  ‘The Countdown is no longer relevant, dahling. Our friends the Faeries of the Night have launched a preemptive strike.’ Madame Cardui looked at him soberly. ‘I’m afraid the Realm is at war.’

  Seventy-six

  Hamearis Lucina, the Duke of Burgundy, projected a bluff, down-to-earth demeanour, but he had a romantic streak that showed in his taste in architecture. His keep was a Gothic nightmare, full of gloomy towers and turrets, pointed arches, flying buttresses and a host of gargoyle guards poised to spring down on the unwelcome. The whole structure clung to the edge of a remote, lonely cliff, constantly buf
feted by the breakers of an angry sea.

  Since a lifetime of military campaigns had collected loot aplenty, alongside several interesting scars, Hamearis could well afford the weather spells he needed to enhance the eerie atmosphere. Where others sought the sunshine, his lavish outlay brought perpetual fogs and rains, with frequent thunderstorms and howling winds.

  It all meant his keep was the least visited of all the Great Houses … and the perfect place to hide a military secret.

  Hairstreak’s black ouklo followed the cliff road, jerking erratically in the grip of the prevailing wind. His feeling of unease had nothing to do with the storm outside. The Faeries of the Night were united again. The war was under way. Burgundy was a staunch ally once more. In theory everything was going exactly as he’d planned and, with the element of surprise, victory was all but guaranteed.

  Yet for all that, he had a feeling in his gut that the situation was somehow slipping away from him. It was a feeling that had been with him since the young Analogue boy had killed his vampire and disappeared with Blue. How had he managed that? There were aspects of the situation Hairstreak didn’t understand; and what you didn’t understand you couldn’t control.

  The ouklo pulled into the keep’s cobbled courtyard – Hamearis kept horses because a horse had once saved his life and he’d been superstitious about the stupid creatures ever since. Hairstreak waited until his guards arrived to surround the carriage before getting out. He pulled his cloak around him and ran through the freezing rain to the great entrance door where Burgundy was already waiting for him.

  ‘Darkness’ sake, Hamearis, don’t you ever switch off this bloody weather?’ He threw his sodden cloak to a footman.

  Hamearis looked at him in genuine surprise, then said, ‘Know what, Blackie – I hardly notice it any more.’ He placed a friendly hand on Hairstreak’s shoulder. ‘Come in and we’ll dry you off at the fire with a hot toddy before we get down to business. If you send your guards to the kitchens, the girls will entertain them. Last time I looked they had an ordle stew in the cauldron.’

  Hairstreak ran his fingers through his hair and scowled when they came away wet. ‘I’d as soon we went straight to the tower.’

  Hamearis shrugged. ‘As you wish.’

  The tower was a remnant of the original keep. Some experts believed it dated to the time of the original Purple Palace. It certainly featured the same cyclopean stonework, on a larger scale by far than anything a modern spell could handle. Hairstreak always thought of it as one of those structures that would stand for ever, resisting everything that men and time could throw at it. He sometimes found himself wondering about the forgotten culture that built it. What sort of faerie had they been?

  Small ones by the look of it. The only entrance to the tower was through a tiny oak door that gave access to a narrow spiral staircase. He wasn’t a particularly tall man himself, but even he found it cramped. Hamearis, who’d gone ahead, had to bend almost double and turn sideways. But at least it kept them safe from attack. An army would have to tackle those steps one man at a time.

  He was sweating and his hair had steamed dry by the time they reached the turret room. Despite his discomfort, Hairstreak felt a tingle of anticipation. This was the real nerve centre of the Nighter attack. And what a contrast to the Situation Room beneath the Purple Palace.

  Once, years ago, Apatura Iris, the late lamented Purple Emperor, had taken him to see the Situation Room in a misguided attempt at intimidation. Such scurry. Such bustle. So many people … soldiers on guard, women in uniform, messengers with bits of paper, aides to aides and aides to the aides of aides. There were three Generals, who looked old even then, and God alone knows how many wizards. There were viewing globes – scores of them – and cabinets full of elemental engineers. There were signallers and code-breakers, winter-makers and spell-breakers. There was a running armament tally. (What a mistake it had been to let him have sight of that!) There was a strategy table. There were seventeen communications consoles. All this and not even a war on. What folly! What incredible folly, exactly the sort of brute-force overkill the Faeries of the Light had always favoured.

  How different to the turret room.

  It was pleasingly spartan. It was pleasingly empty. There were no guards on the door to constitute a security hazard, no staff to listen in on every decision. None were needed, none were wanted. None could have gained access – the spirit guardians set along that exhausting staircase would strip the meat from the bones of anyone who set foot on it, excepting only Hamearis and himself. Thus Nighter secrets were kept to the Nighters.

  But the real joy of the turret room was its equipment. The messengers, the communications consoles, the view globes, the signallers, the code-breakers, the spell-breakers and all the other fractured nonsense were replaced by a single sphere of polished crystal set in an amethyst bowl. Just two spell-driven pieces and they took the place of everything – and everybody – you might find in the Lighters’ Situation Room.

  The entire war effort of the Faeries of the Night could be controlled, absolutely, by a single man.

  Hairstreak pulled up a chair and sat down, placing his hands, palm downwards, on the mount of the amethyst bowl. The moment contact was made, the crystal sphere began to glow, the bowl itself began to hum.

  ‘Access granted,’ murmured the bowl in a soft, feminine voice.

  Hairstreak glanced up at Hamearis and smiled. The access setting, geared to his personal vibration, was his ultimate security. What political manoeuvring that had taken. But the agreement was in place now. Hairstreak and only Hairstreak could control their forces. Oh, he could delegate, of course – and had delegated to Hamearis and one or two other trusted underlings – but only for a limited time and with the option of his own remote override. He licked his lips and savoured the delicious taste of power.

  ‘Let’s see how our attack is going,’ he said aloud. ‘Sit down, Hamearis, dear fellow – this will take a while.’

  The system, linked to the thoughts behind his words, delivered a chair for Hamearis on the other side of the globe and expanded an aerial view of the Yammeth caverns within the globe itself.

  It was incredible how much had been done in the short time since he’d inspected the place personally. The vast caverns were packed full now with munitions: crates of concentrated foodstuffs, weaponry, cases of spells, stacked bottles of trapped lightning, lead-lined containers of imps, djinn and other military elementals, engineering equipment, advanced bivouac gear. And beyond it all the patiently waiting troops in their city of tents pitched in neat rows on the cavern floor.

  Well, they wouldn’t have to wait long. The front line was already pushing forward. These reinforcements would join it at the crucial time. Nothing could stop the Nighters now.

  ‘You know they have spy eyes in the caverns,’ Hamearis remarked. ‘Seven by our last count.’

  ‘Seven, is it?’ That was three more than when he’d personally inspected. Old Cardui’s people were getting better. ‘All neutralised, I take it?’

  ‘As subtly as you ordered, Blackie.’ Hamearis grinned. ‘Our magic boys crafted an evolving illusion – nicest one I’ve ever seen. They knew we were making preparations, all right, but slowly and largely defensive. They had absolutely no idea about our real level of readiness.’ The grin broadened to a smile. ‘Or our offensive capacity.’

  ‘Nicely done,’ Hairstreak murmured. ‘Let’s see what the opposition is doing,’ he told the amethyst bowl.

  ‘Connecting …’ said the bowl.

  The crystal globe flared briefly, then presented a scene of the Situation Room itself. Hairstreak felt a glow of pride. The idiots had assumed their Situation Room was impregnable because of the quartz-loaded granite that surrounded it. No spell could penetrate quartz – everyone knew that. And Cardui’s people combed the place hourly for smuggled spy eyes. Such foolishness. Someone had remarked to him just the other day that Generals always seemed to fight the last war, not the current one.
It was certainly true here. The Faeries of the Light took precautions against anything that had been used against them in the past and never once, in their arrogance, imagined their enemy could develop new approaches to be used in the present.

  Hairstreak bent forward. His stealth spy eye showed the Situation Room was busy, but then the Situation Room was always busy so far as he could see. Even when peace reigned supreme, it crawled with activity. But all three Generals were there, as they had to be when they were on a war footing. He concentrated and the globe took him closer to what he wanted to see; and there it was, view globe within view globe. The Lighter troops were engaged and they were losing!

  Hairstreak leaned back in his chair. Nothing worried him in what he’d seen. He didn’t underestimate the Faeries of the Light. It would be a hard fight but he was certain he could win it. And victory would bring spoils beyond imagining. Victory would give him the Realm.

  ‘Shall we sample our new toy?’ he asked Hamearis cheerfully. ‘Fully operational, I presume?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Hamearis confirmed. ‘Has been for almost a day.’

  Hairstreak murmured a codeword. At once the scene changed in the crystal globe. He was looking down on an area of forest, the same area where he had once built himself a mansion. The place was in ruins now, razed to the ground, with the forest itself already closing in to conceal the remains, like some giant animal healing a wound. But though there was nothing much to see any more, that scarcely mattered. The area was purely a reference point, of no strategic importance. As a reference point, it allowed him to explore …

  Everywhere!

  He was finding it difficult to contain his excitement. The technology was not as flashy as the surveillance system around his home – no illusion of flying, no sensation of movement: just a three-dimensional image within the crystal globe – but its extent was breathtaking. Until now, surveillance had always been limited by things like the placement of spy eyes or the establishment of area markers. But this device … this device gave him the Realm! What was he thinking? This device gave him the world!