Herbie Brennan - Ruler of the Realm

Blue turned her head, blinking the tears from her eyes. Her surroundings swam slowly into focus. She was in a strange metal chamber, lit by a pervasive violet glow. As her eyes adjusted, she could see the light was coming from a bank of huge transparent tubes, filled with slowly bubbling liquid. Floating inside were scores of naked babies, mouths open, eyes tight shut. To her sudden horror, she realised they were breathing the liquid. There was no way she could tell whether the babies were faerie or human.

‘Neither,’ Henry said, reading her mind. He was floating through the wall on another beam of blue light. Two of the black-eyed grey demons were following behind him. All three landed like thistledown.

When she looked at Henry, she was no longer looking at Henry. She knew that now. There was something else behind his eyes.

‘What are they, then?’ she asked angrily.

‘Hybrids,’ Henry said. ‘Part of our breeding programme.’

Our breeding programme? The creature speaking through Henry was a demon. Keep it talking. Talk might distract it. Besides, any information could prove useful.

‘Your breeding programme?’ Blue echoed.

The thing dropped all pretence of being Henry now. Even the voice changed, dropping to a low growl that sounded even more frightening for coming from a boy’s mouth. ‘For stronger stock,’ it said. Henry looked at her with cold, blank eyes.

Blue looked back at the babies floating in the tubes. Some were plump, some looked pale and sickly. All moved slowly in the liquid. Their hands opened and closed. A horrid realisation dawned on her.

‘Those are -’

‘Part Analogue, part Hael,’ the demon said. Henry’s eyes stared at her. ‘Now we begin the second phase.’

The silence was so profound it was as if all sound had been sucked from the room. A sick fear rose in her stomach. She was afraid to ask but had to ask. Her voice sounded hoarse, scarcely louder than a whisper.

‘What’s the second phase?’

The thing inside Henry contorted his lips into a smile. ‘A child of Hael born of a faerie mother.’ His eyes flickered to Black John, who squeezed her hand.

Blue tried to pull away and scream, but the paralysis fell on her again.

Life was always so very difficult without Kitterick. Madame Cardui picked up Lanceline and stroked her translucent fur. The thing was, when one reached a certain age, one’s faculties atrophied. A little pain here, a little ache there… nothing that one couldn’t cope with, of course, especially now they’d developed those marvellous rejuvenation patches. But the woolly-mindedness was a different matter. There wasn’t a spell in the Realm would touch that. Which was why Kitterick was such a boon. Astonishing storage capacity. Lists… records… things to do… old photograms… new plans… he absorbed them all. Honestly, you’d imagine his poor head would burst. But no, in it all went and out it all came at exactly the right moment. Remarkable. Even for a Trinian. She would be quite lost without him. She was quite lost without him. But Pyrgus’s needs took priority.

Pyrgus. Such a bright young man. And so misguided, as young men often were. This involvement with a Faerie of the Night, for example. Quite dreadful. Alan was right, of course – the lure of the exotic. Forbidden fruit. Young men never thought of much else (except animals in Pyrgus’s case, which was quite odd). She sighed as the ouklo pulled to a halt. She’d been just as bad herself when she was younger. How Daddy squirmed when she told him about the Great Myphisto. A stage career had seemed such a scandal in those days. And Myphisto was so much older than she was.

She stepped down from the carriage and tapped the side to send it on its way. She was sure she should have emulated Alan and stayed in the palace for the duration of the emergency. But honestly, one craved one’s own bed in times of crisis. One’s own bed and one’s own home.

‘I shall find you some minced mouse when we get in,’ she promised Lanceline as she climbed the narrow staircase. The cat (who understood everything, absolutely everything, she said) began to purr.

Her Guardian triggered on the landing and she waved it away impatiently. Quite hideous how life had to be surrounded by so much security these days. She was quite sure things hadn’t been nearly so bad when she was young. But, of course, when she was young she hadn’t been involved in espionage. An occupation that brought its own risks. She sighed again as she reached the door of her apartment.

Lanceline growled softly.

Madame Cardui froze with her hand on the door. ‘What is it, darling?’ she asked.

Lanceline growled again.

With the cat still cradled in her arms, Madame Cardui retraced her steps and reactivated the Guardian.

‘Report,’ she demanded.

‘Full or synopsis?’ the creature asked.

‘Synopsis.’

‘Authorisation?’

‘Codeword: Painted Lady.’

The Guardian placed his right hand on his turban. ‘Accessing…’ Then, ‘No visitors, Madame Cardui. No attempted access. No incidents, no accidents. Safeguards intact. Securities intact. No repairs necessary. Last system initialisation, twenty-two hundred hours. Situation normal. Shall I reset, Madame Cardui?’

‘No,’ Madame Cardui said absently as she turned back to the stairs. As she reached her door, Lanceline moved uneasily in her arms.

‘It’s all right, darling,’ Madame Cardui told her.

Spell-driven securities were all very well, but even the most sophisticated system could be circumvented if one had enough resources. But Alan (dear Alan!) had taught her one very special trick – new to the Realm, although he claimed spies often used it in the Analogue World. She crouched down and felt for the invisible thread she’d stretched across the bottom of the door. It was intact. No one had come in this way.

Madame Cardui opened the door.

The apartment was in darkness. ‘Lights,’ she commanded. All systems activated at once, sending elaborate spell patterns crawling across the walls, switching on the soothing music, bringing up the soft pink lighting she favoured.

The killer was waiting for her in the middle of her living quarters.

He was dressed in black from head to toe and wore the dark glasses of a Faerie of the Night. Wrapped around his forehead was a sweatband bearing the insignia of the Assassins’ Guild. Like most assassins, he was small and wiry, but he carried Halek daggers in each hand. He had been waiting – heavens only knows how long – in the Death Crouch, preparing for the moment she returned.

‘Fang,’ whispered Madame Cardui.

Lanceline launched from her arms in a blur of light. She hit the assassin at the level of his knee and streaked up his body to his face, attacking with all four paws simultaneously. The lenses flew across the room and he screamed in shock as she shredded his eyes. Then she went for the artery in his throat.

As the corpse lay twitching on the floor, Lanceline walked daintily away to leap back into Madame Cardui’s arms.

‘Minced mouse,’ she murmured sensuously.

The pass was working! Pyrgus hadn’t really dared to believe it, but he’d been stopped by three different sets of guards now and each time he’d produced it, they’d waved him on with bows and smiles. Amazing the cultural differences with Haleklind. You’d never catch a Faerie of the Light letting a total stranger wander freely through his home, nor a Faerie of the Night, that was for sure.

Although it wasn’t exactly freely, of course. Some doors were locked. The door to Ogyris’s office, for example, and the door to Ogyris’s private study. In fact, quite a few doors were locked. You could wave the pass at them as much as you liked, but they stayed firmly shut. No question of breaking in either, with guards likely to turn up at any moment. He might be allowed to go anywhere, but no pass gave him burglary rights. Which was a pity. There might have been interesting documents in the office or the study.