Herbie Brennan - Faerie Lord

Madame Cardui took a deep breath. ‘Your diagnosis of my condition is based on early warning signs, is it not?’

‘There is no doubt in my mind,’ said Danaus grimly. ‘You have the fever. To try to convince yourself otherwise would be a grave mistake.’

Madame Cardui shook her head, ‘I understand I have the disease, but the fever has not actually manifested yet.’

‘It could do so literally at any minute.’

‘But until it does, my future is not in peril?’

‘Technically no. But -’

‘Chief Wizard Healer,’ Madame Cardui said with a note of finality in her voice, ‘there can be no question of placing me in stasis now. I have far too much to do. I would suggest you put a stasis chamber on standby. When the fever manifests, you have my permission to place me in it immediately.’

‘That assumes I, or some other healer, will be with you when the fever manifests,’ Danaus said.

Madame Cardui said nothing.

Danaus said, ‘Madame Cardui, I cannot stress strongly enough the risk involved in what you are asking me to do. At your age, the fever could burn up your available future within an hour or so at most, probably less and possibly a great deal less. If the fever strikes while you are asleep tonight, you will be dead by morning. If the fever strikes while you are alone, you could be dead before anyone arrives to help. Even if the fever strikes while you are surrounded by people and I am miraculously standing by your side, you might be dead before we got you to the stasis chamber.’

‘That’s a risk I’ll have to take,’ said Madame Cardui.

Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn – the catsite was wearing off! Blue couldn’t believe it. Of all the foul luck. That creature, that clown, that disguised charno person had snatched her filament and disappeared, leaving her to find her way out of the maze of passages unaided. She might have managed it too – she had a good sense of direction and a fine visual memory – but without the catsite in her system she was blind. Already her eyesight was fading. Where once she could see for yards along the rocky corridor, now only a few steps ahead were visible. Beyond that everything faded into a thickening fog.

Dare she take more catsite?

Fortunately the creature had left her backpack. She rummaged in it now, found the catsite and felt her heart sink. The remaining crystals had clumped together and were in the process of fusing. Catsite did that sometimes if you failed to separate out the crystal structures in advance, which – dammit – she hadn’t. She could break off a portion – she could still do that – but not a small portion. All the fused crystals were far larger than the originals. What it meant was she would have to take a massive second dose… or no dose at all.

Blue forced herself to stay calm. There was a good side and a bad side. The good side was that a massive dose of catsite would last a very long time, probably far longer than she’d need to explore these passages, rescue Henry if he was here, and make her escape. The bad side was a massive dose of catsite would almost certainly kill her.

After a long moment she decided to see how far she could get with the remains of the catsite in her system. No sense risking any more until she absolutely had to. After all, she could still see, if poorly, and she had no way of knowing how long it would be before the catsite cleared her system completely. Enough of it might hang around to let her do what she needed to do.

An hour later, Blue knew it wasn’t enough. She was on her knees in a narrow passageway, near blind now, inching forward more by touch than sight and very much aware she was completely lost. For a moment she experienced a massive sense of desolation. Did it matter if she took more catsite? Even with full vision again she would still be lost. When the creature stole her filament, he took away all hope of orientation. How could she hope to find Henry? How could she hope to rescue him? And if, miraculously, she did, how could they hope to find their way out?

The moment passed and something of her old self-confidence reasserted itself. She was no worse off now than she’d expected to be. If she risked another dose of catsite, there was every chance of doing what she’d set out to do.

She was reaching for the crystals when she saw a pinpoint of light ahead.

It was too good to be true. If there really was a light, it had to be another patch of the luminous fungus she’d seen earlier. But there was no greenish hue. The light was clean and clear, like sunlight. She began to crawl cautiously towards it. Minutes later she knew for certain this was no fungus patch. Minutes more and she was able to stand upright, able to move forward without reliance on the fading catsite. She began to run. She knew she should exercise more caution, but the light was a beacon now; her heart was pumping. This might even be a breakthrough to the surface, a way out, a means of starting again.

Blue ran from the passageway into a vast subterranean cavern. It was well lit, but not from any surface sun – the light was pouring from an opening into a second, smaller chamber. It was too bright to be sunlight, although where it came from she had no idea. There was a heady smell of magic in the air. She could have sworn it was the potent stench of summoning.

She stopped, confused. The floor of the cavern looked a little like an angry ocean, a grey turbulence with flecks of green and blue and white. She could make no sense at all of what she was seeing; then something moved and the scene resolved itself abruptly. The cavern was filled with the blue-green coils of a massive serpent, a creature so huge it could never have been the product of the natural world. The head that slowly turned to gaze at her was larger than a peasant’s cottage. Seated between the serpent’s tree-trunk horns was the clown who’d tracked her earlier. A small loop of filament dangled from his fingers.

He smiled at her brightly. ‘What kept you?’ he asked.

‘Who are you?’ Blue screamed. She felt suddenly furiously angry. With the Abbot and the Purlisa who had sent her here. With their charno, who had transformed into this clown (or this clown who had disguised himself as a charno – she wasn’t sure which). With Madame Cardui for transporting Henry. With Mr Fogarty for dying just when she most needed his advice. With Pyrgus for getting ill. Most of all with herself for somehow walking into this incredible, bewildering, nonsensical, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid situation. Then, because it was all she really cared about, she shouted, ‘Where is Henry?’

‘Ah, Henry,’ said the clown. ‘The hero of our tale.’ He looked around ostentatiously. ‘Henry?’ he called. ‘Where are you. Henry?’ Then, ‘Henry, Henry, Henry’ as if calling to a cat. He turned back to Blue and smiled again. ‘No one of that name here.’

Blue opened her mouth, then closed it again. The clown hadn’t said, Who’s Henry? or Who do you mean? Instead he’d done his stupid clown act, playing games with her as if he knew exactly who Henry was. This had to be a set-up. The clown had been sent by the Purlisa, disguised as a charno, to… to… to what? Lure her into the cavern? She’d already agreed to go into the cavern. Make sure she did? The reverse psychology business? But why a disguised charno? Or a disguised clown? And why send her into the cavern in the first place if Henry wasn’t here? The more she thought, the more confused she became. What was going on here?

It occurred to her suddenly that in her confusion, she was missing out on the biggest, most obvious puzzle of the lot. The clown was sitting on the head of the most massive reptile she’d ever seen in her life. Was this the Midgard Serpent the Purlisa had talked about? Had he been telling the truth about that at least? But if it was the Midgard Serpent – or even if it wasn’t – why didn’t it attack the clown?