Herbie Brennan - Faerie Lord

‘She’s in there with the Midgard Serpent,’ said the charno.

Henry stared. After a moment he asked, ‘What’s the Midgard Serpent?’

‘Big snake,’ said the charno. He glanced briefly at the sky and added, ‘Very big snake.’

Lorquin shook his head. ‘If the charno speaks the truth, we face one of the Old Ones.’

Henry didn’t like the sound of that. ‘How do you know this stuff?’ he asked almost angrily.

Lorquin shrugged. ‘The stories of my tribe.’ A sheepish look crept across his face. ‘Not a snake but a sea serpent. I listened well.’

Not a snake but a sea serpent said the boy who’d never seen the sea. Blue was in there with one of the Old Ones in the shape of a… big… monster… thing… sort of Old One god serpent snake, which was insane except he realised suddenly it didn’t matter. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. However scared he was, it didn’t matter. He had to get Blue out. He loved her, that’s what mattered. He turned again.

The charno sniffed. ‘You tackling it without a weapon?’

Henry stopped dead. For the first time since they’d set off from the deep desert, he realised he was unarmed. It was incredible, but until this very moment the thought of weapons had never occurred to him. He had been thrown by Mr Fogarty’s communication, then utterly focused on Blue and the fact she needed rescue. How stupid could you get? What did he think he was going to do – steam in and fight the serpent with his bare hands?

Lorquin said, ‘I have our weapons, En Ri.’

Henry looked at the boy and was swallowed by a wave of pure and utter love. Of course Lorquin had their weapons! Lorquin was the child-man who survived the desert, killed the draugr, saw the trails, saved Henry’s life and thought of things like that. Lorquin was his Companion in this bizarre ordeal, just as Henry had been Lorquin’s Companion the day he became a man. ‘Lorquin has my weapon,’ Henry told the charno proudly.

Lorquin pulled two short flint blades from his pouch and solemnly handed one to Henry. It was only inches long. Henry stared at it. ‘This is my weapon?’ he said softly, as much a question as a statement.

‘The blade I used to gain my manhood,’ Lorquin said. He smiled fondly.

‘Won’t work,’ said the charno.

Lorquin’s eyes narrowed as he turned. Henry caught his arm quickly. ‘No, it’s all right, Lorquin,’ he hissed. Then, to the charno, ‘He killed a draugr with this knife.’ He looked down at the blade, feeling considerable sympathy for the charno. Henry couldn’t help feeling Lorquin had got lucky – very lucky. The blade looked as if it would give problems killing a rabbit. But he had enough on his plate without a hassle between Lorquin and the charno.

The charno said, ‘Hammer’s the only thing that will hurt the Midgard Serpent.’

There was something about the flat certainty in the creature’s voice that stopped Henry dead. ‘You mean a war hammer?’

‘Something like that.’

Henry looked at Lorquin. ‘We don’t have a war hammer, do we?’

Lorquin shook his head.

The charno said, ‘I have.’

There was an uncomfortable silence. Was he waiting for an offer? After a long moment, Henry said, ‘Do you think we might borrow it?’

For an answer, the charno reached into his backpack and withdrew an ancient hammer. He handed it to Lorquin, who happened to be standing closest. There was a loud clang as Lorquin dropped it on the rock. ‘It is too heavy for me, En Ri,’ Lorquin said.

Henry stepped forward and tried to lift the hammer. By using both hands and holding his breath, he managed to move it an inch or two. He let it drop again. ‘Strewth, that’s heavy!’ he exclaimed. He looked at the charno accusingly.

The charno shrugged. ‘Special metal,’ he explained.

Henry looked at the weapon. He could probably carry it if the charno helped him get it on his shoulder, but there was no chance at all that he could actually use it in a fight. The thing was far too heavy. ‘This is no good to me,’ he said reluctantly. ‘I’ll have to stick to Lorquin’s knife.’

‘Serpent will kill you,’ said the charno with no particular inflection.

Henry turned towards the cave mouth. ‘That’s a chance I’ll have to take,’ he said.

Chief Wizard Healer Danaus could not believe it. He simply could not believe it. It went against all the laws of magic, all the laws of nature. And it was an unmitigated disaster. Unmitigated.

He could hardly wait to tell Madame Cardui.

He rehearsed his announcement as he bustled along the Palace corridors.

‘A spell failure, Chief Wizard Healer?’ she would ask.

‘Spell failures are rare, Madame Cardui.’

‘But not impossible?’

‘Not impossible, as you say. However, in this instance, we have checked for spell failure.’

It wasn’t spell failure. That was the incredible thing. Spell failure was the first possibility he thought of. Spell failure was the first thing he had checked, then checked personally, then checked again and rechecked. It wasn’t spell failure.

‘Then what is it, Danaus?’ asked Madame Cardui inside his head.

The trouble was, he had not the slightest idea. Nothing in his years of experience gave him a single clue. Stasis was reliable magic, tried and tested. The first stasis cabinet had been designed and constructed over seven hundred years ago, if memory served. There had been design improvements since then, of course, but the basic principle remained the same. And it was a fundamental principle, a basic law. Stasis couldn’t stop working. Except now it had.

He realised he was growing breathless and forced himself to slow down a little. He would really have to lose a little weight. But in the meantime, what on earth possessed Madame Cardui to set up an office in the old dungeons? So far from anywhere – especially the infirmary – in her condition. And if she didn’t care about herself, you’d imagine in a national emergency, she’d want to be close to the nerve centre, but no…

A servant girl emerged from an entrance and got in his way. Danaus brushed her aside impatiently without further slowing his pace. His mind was still on what he had to tell Madame Cardui. She would want details. She always wanted details. How had he discovered the problem? How had it manifested? When? Where? Who had noticed? What had drawn it to their attention?

The answers were simple enough, as it happened, and fortunately he’d been there to witness everything personally. He checked off the sequence of events. The nurse noticed the deterioration in Nymphalis’s condition and called him at once. He examined Nymphalis, confirmed the nurse’s observation (but why the acceleration of the disease?) and ordered her immediate removal to stasis.

And he had supervised the setting up of the stasis cabinet himself, placed beside the one that housed Prince Pyrgus – a humane touch that, he thought. Heaven alone knew what had prompted him to wait and watch after Nymphalis was placed inside. Some healer’s instinct, he expected, since there was absolutely no need and he had other urgent matters to attend to. But he had stayed and watched and that was when he noticed Nymphalis continued to deteriorate after she had been placed in stasis! Impossible. No one needed to tell him it was impossible, yet he saw it with his own eyes.

After that he’d checked on Pyrgus too. The problem wasn’t quite as obvious there, since Pyrgus had already aged so much and further changes were far slower. But a careful comparison with his medical records showed his deterioration was continuing. Which meant only one thing. Stasis, their only reliable treatment for temporal fever, was no longer working.