Herbie Brennan - The Purple Emperor

'No, I mean is it functioning properly? You fixed it after the sabotage attempt -' the successful sabotage attempt, carried out on Lord Hairstreak's orders, although they'd never prove it,'- the, ah, business with my brother?' She didn't really want to spell it out, didn't really want to remember. Pyrgus had almost died when he went through it then.

Peacock looked bewildered. 'Ages ago, Serenity.'

'And it's working…? It's working… well, properly… no problems now, are there?'

'No, Serenity.'

'How long does setting it take?' Blue asked.

'Setting the directional indicator? For where you want to go?'

'Yes.'

'Not long.' He was staring at her now. 'You just feed in the coordinates. Ten, fifteen seconds, say. Less. Less, probably. Do you want to use the portal, Serenity?'

There it was, all laid out in a single question. Blue said tightly, 'Yes.'

They walked together into the main chapel. The place was full of uniformed guards armed with stun wands and there was a charged security fence surrounding the House Iris portal, both grim reminders of the sabotage that had nearly cost her brother his life. The portal itself had been reinforced – there were heavy metal casings on the pillars, while the nearby controls had been rehoused in impermeable obsidian. The whole chapel had a sombre, military-camp appearance. The blue flames between the pillars seemed like an inferno.

Blue frowned. 'It's in use?'

Peacock shook his head. 'We keep it running permanently now.' His face softened. 'Orders of your poor father after… after the business with Prince Pyrgus. Makes it easier to detect any interference. Not that there could be any now,' he added hurriedly.

'I see,' Blue said. She licked her lips again. 'How long will it take to set it to translate me to the Analogue home of Gatekeeper Fogarty?'

'Known coordinates,' Peacock said. 'Can have it ready for you any time you want to go, Serenity.'

Blue said, 'I'd like to go now, Mr Peacock.'

He looked around, clearly searching for her entourage. When he didn't find one, he said, 'You're not going alone, are you, Serenity?'

The trouble was – she was. Mr Fogarty would want to know what was happening and she had no intention of talking in front of servants. Best to find him, brief him, bring him back, tell no one else anything they didn't need to know.

'Yes, I am.'

Peacock said uncertainly, 'This is your first time, isn't it, Ma'am? Your first translation to the Analogue World?'

'Yes.'

'Would you like me to go with you?'

'No, thank you,' Blue said firmly. She moved towards the security fence and one of the guards hurried to unlock the gate and let her through. 'I take it I simply step between the pillars, Mr Peacock?'

Peacock had entered the enclosure immediately behind her. Now he walked quickly towards the controls. 'Once I've made the settings, Serenity,' he said. 'I'll tell you when.'

Blue waited, a step away from the pillars. Her heart was thumping wildly, but she held her face impassive. It would never do to let anyone see how a princess of House Iris felt about something as simple as translating. It was perfectly safe – everyone knew that. She couldn't feel so much as a hint of heat, which was what it said in all the reference books: cold flame.

'The portal's ready now, Serenity,' Chief Engineer Peacock told her.

Sweating with fear, Blue stepped between the pillars without a moment's hesitation.

Brimstone hoped Graminis would get him to the church in time. 'Can't we go any faster?' he asked testily.

They were travelling in a clapped-out ouklo that looked older than God. It was an open carriage in funereal black with upholstery that smelled of grave mould, probably because Graminis was too mean to hire a proper wedding carriage. The spell charge was almost gone, so that instead of floating at a respectable height, the ouklo kept sinking lower and lower until it scraped on the road; at which point it shot up again like a startled rabbit to begin the sinking process all over again. The movement was making Brimstone positively seasick.

But at least the traditional wedding notice was displayed prominently across the back:

This Man Is Getting Married.

Pray for Him.

Graminis giggled. 'Don't you go upsetting yourself, Silas – Maura will wait. Waited for the last five, didn't she?' Brimstone blinked. His bride-to-be had gone through five previous husbands? He knew she was a widow woman, but five was ridiculous. Perhaps she ate them after mating, like a spider. Or murdered them for the insurance money. He'd have to watch that. Watch what he ate or drank in particular. Chances were she'd poisoned them.

The ouklo scraped and bobbed its way through narrow streets until the church spire hove into sight. The vehicle reached the graveyard and stopped. 'Have to walk the rest of the way,' Graminis said. 'Sorry about that – it's set for funerals.'

The church was as small as he'd expected – wedding hire was costed by the square foot – and built to the traditional squaring-the-circle design. Tiers of pews looked down on the altar. The carpeting was moth-eaten and threadbare.

There was a scattering of down-and-outs in the pews, doubtless hoping for a witness hand-out, and the central fire was already lit. As he and Graminis entered, half a dozen skinny nymphs began to dance listlessly around it.

The priest emerged from a trapdoor in the floor, which suggested things might get underway before too long. He was a squat, toad-like Faerie of the Night wearing the elemental yellow robes called for by the occasion. He favoured Brimstone with a bleak smile and Brimstone favoured him with a bleak smile back.

'The bride's here!' Graminis hissed.

Brimstone looked up towards the entrance arch that now framed the scrawny figure of his bride-to-be. She was wearing a tight black mini-dress split up one side and carrying a cactus.

Her legs looked like second-hand pipe cleaners.

Bright sunlight caught Blue unawares, so that it took moments for her eyes to adjust. She seemed to be in an enclosed space, a cramped little garden of some sort. Quickly she reached around and felt between her shoulder-blades. No wings! At least the filter had worked properly. She gave a sigh of relief. All the safety texts told you to check for wings. If you shrank, you grew wings – that always happened. It's what happened to Pyrgus when the House Iris portal was sabotaged. And while it was sometimes difficult to decide on your size in a strange environment – the question of scale was always relative, the texts insisted – you either had wings or you hadn't. She hadn't, therefore she hadn't shrunk either. One hurdle crossed.

The next hurdle was whether or not the portal had remained open. She glanced behind her and there it was, a smaller area of flame at this side and no sign of the pillars, but definitely there. She didn't want to think about going back through that blue inferno, but at least the way was open.

Now, was she in the right place? Everybody said the portals never varied. You set the Analogue coordinates and that's where they took you. But there was always the possibility of sabotage or human error. She didn't think there was much chance of sabotage now, not with all the security in place, but human error could happen any time. So was she at Gatekeeper Fogarty's Analogue World home?

The shrivelled little lawn was a far cry from the lush gardens that surrounded his lodge at the Purple Palace, and the house beyond looked mean and gloomy -somebody had actually stuck brown paper to the lower windows. But she remembered both her father and Pyrgus remarking on the peculiarities of Mr Fogarty's Analogue lifestyle.