Herbie Brennan - The Purple Emperor

As she moved to leave, Chalkhill called out, 'You'll tell your brother what I said, won't you? You'll tell him exactly?'

He was lying. She was certain of it. The question was why? Except she had a feeling she already knew the answer – or at least knew somebody who knew the answer.

Mr Fogarty asked curtly, 'Satisfactory?'

'In a way,' Blue said.

'Where are we going now?'

'Back to the palace,' Blue said. 'I want to talk to Pyrgus.'

'Don't lie to me!' Blue screamed. 'I've been up all night and I've talked to that beastly Chalkhill and I can't take any more!'

Pyrgus looked a little better. His arm was bandaged and there were more bandages wrapping his chest and stomach underneath his shirt, but his colour was good except for the dark rings around his eyes. Maybe he hadn't had much sleep either.

'Blue, I -' Pyrgus said. 'Listen, it was all very confused. I don't think any of us will ever find out what really -'

'Comma has been making up stories about you,' Blue said. 'I don't believe him, but I don't believe you either. I just want to know the truth!'

'What's Comma been saying?' Pyrgus asked sharply.

'That you cut – that you cut off -' She just couldn't finish. Suddenly she was so tired she could scarcely stand up.

Pyrgus turned away from her. 'Do you believe that?'

'No, of course I don't. But I talked to Chalkhill and he lied to me – I know he lied to me. What I don't know is why!'

Pyrgus said very softly, 'He lied to you because I told him I'd arrange his freedom if he did.'

'You told him that? Why would you want to arrange his freedom?'

Pyrgus sighed. 'It was bribe him or kill him, and I couldn't do any more killing.'

Blue was looking at him open-mouthed. 'I don't understand you, Pyrgus. I don't understand any of this.'

Pyrgus said, 'It wasn't Hairstreak who resurrected Father. It was me.'

Blue stared at her brother in stunned disbelief. They had retired to the garden chamber where their father had once tended his orchids and the room was heavy with their scent. Spell reinforcement made it one of the most private places in the Purple Palace. 'You did what?' she gasped.

Pyrgus looked physically ill. 'I was afraid to become Emperor,' he said.

'Afraid?

'You know how useless I am at that sort of thing -politics and negotiations and diplomacy. I'd even be useless trying to run the Army. The Realm would fall apart with me as Purple Emperor. Worse, it would fall to the Nighters. There would be wars and chaos and -'

Blue said incredulously, 'So you resurrected Our father?'

Pyrgus nodded miserably. 'I didn't know what else to do.'

'Have you any idea how illegal that is? How dreadful that is? How

… how… forbidden that is?'

Pyrgus nodded again. He was seated hunched over on a bench and looked as if he might be sick on the floor.

'How could you?' Blue asked. 'How could you?' A thought occurred to her and she added, 'How did you?'

'Went to a necromancer,' Pyrgus muttered.

'A Nighter?' It had to be a Nighter! No Faerie of the Light would touch the dark magic involved in raising the dead.

'Yes.'

'Have you no sense?' Blue demanded. Pyrgus looked almost suicidal and in any other circumstance that would have made her want to comfort him, but there was a feeling of panic in her now that ran away with her tongue. 'Didn't you know a necromancer could control anyone he raised? That's what went wrong. It was bound to go wrong. You had to know it would go wrong!'

Pyrgus shook his head helplessly.

Her anger had carried her this far, but now the enormity of what Pyrgus had done was really beginning to dawn on her. She'd never made a profound study of magic, but she knew enough to realise that necromancy – sorceries involving the dead – was something ten times worse than the techniques of demonology that Faeries of the Night employed so often.

'You'd better tell me everything,' she said.

Pyrgus took a deep breath and told her.

Pyrgus had slipped away from his royal bodyguards somewhere between Cheapside and Northgate. He entered the teeming warren of narrow alleys that led into Pushorn, a hand on his newly-purchased Halek blade. This was one of the roughest districts in the city and, while he'd never had much concern for his own safety, it would be a nuisance to lose his purse at this point. He'd a feeling he was going to need every scrap of gold he was carrying.

With the long dusk gathering into darkness, the torches were lit in Pushorn. No glow globe streetlamps here. The local council claimed poverty, but the truth was glowglobes never survived long, even with magical protections. The inhabitants were an opportunist mix of Nighters, the scum of Lighters, Violet Trinians, half-civilised Glaistigs, semi-feral endolgs and a sprinkling of addicted Halek wizards who found simbala music cheaper here than in the licensed parlours of Northgate. Every one of them preferred to hide in shadows than have their activities examined by the lawful authorities.

The smell was distinctive: a mix of sweat and pitchblende. Pyrgus felt his nose wrinkle as he pushed through the throng that emerged after dark in search of illegal entertainments.

"Oo do you think you're pushing?' growled a bruiser in a cracked leather jerkin.

'Sorry,' Pyrgus muttered, hurrying past. He kept his head down, but at least he hadn't been recognised. A minimal illusion spell distorted his features and changed his hair colouring.

He'd memorised directions, but the narrow streets were confusing and he dared not ask the way, so that it took him almost an hour to find Gruslut Alley. While the rest of Pushorn was dimly lit, Gruslut wasn't lit at all beyond the flickering light that seeped through cracks in shuttered windows. He stopped, allowing time for his eyes to adjust, and after a while was able to see reasonably well.

What he saw was not encouraging. Like much of Pushorn, the houses were three- and four-storey buildings that had seen better days. Now they were all cracked plaster and peeling paint. Some seemed to have shifted foundations: their walls bulged alarmingly as if threatening to fall into the street. He still wasn't absolutely sure he was in the right place – part of the sign-board had rotted so that the first three letters were missing – but he moved into the alley all the same.

Gruslut was known as a street where certain commodities and services might be bought, but there were no shops here. A few of the wooden doors had discreet nameplates, but nothing that gave a clue to what might be on offer. He had almost given up hope when he stumbled on the blue door he'd been told to look for.

Pyrgus licked his lips nervously. As he reached across to knock, he realised what he was about to do wasn't merely illegal, but hideously dangerous. Whatever – he still had to do it. Despite the brave front he put on with Blue and all the rest, Pyrgus knew he could never become Emperor. He wasn't suited and he didn't want the job. He'd never wanted the job. That was why he'd fought with his father so much when he was alive. His father had always insisted he should behave like an Emperor in Waiting when all he'd really wanted to do was lead an ordinary life. Pyrgus knocked.

For a long time nothing happened. He was reaching out to knock again when he heard the first footfalls inside. Someone was approaching at a slow, deliberate pace. Pyrgus withdrew his hand and waited, his heart suddenly pounding. The door swung partly open. Two glittering black eyes stared at him from the gloom.

Pyrgus swallowed. 'Are you -' he began. 'Are you… Pheosia Gnoma?'

The voice that answered was like the rustling of dead leaves. 'Come in, Your Majesty,' it said. 'We've been expecting you.'