Herbie Brennan - Ruler of the Realm

There was something at his back. Pyrgus jumped half out of his skin when a hand fell on his shoulder.

‘Nymph!’ he exclaimed. He fought down an almost overpowering urge to throw his arms around her and kiss her. Instead he simply stood there, grinning like an idiot.

‘What’s that thing on your head?’ Nymph asked curiously.

Somehow it all went far more smoothly now the Forest Faerie had arrived.

Nymph seemed to have an instinct for where they should be going. She gently herded Pyrgus in the right direction when he got lost again, which wasn’t all that often now since he was spending a lot less time crawling on his stomach.

In five minutes they were back on the lakeside path, heading in the general direction of the boathouse. Pyrgus should definitely have been feeling good about the mission. But he wasn’t. It was much too quiet.

Actually it had been much too quiet all along, Pyrgus thought suddenly. For Light’s sake, Ogyris was a Faerie of the Night, the most ruthless breed in the Realm. The crystal flowers were his big thing. He might have relied on secrecy and spells at first, but Pyrgus had knocked his entire glasshouse down. The whole estate should have been crawling with guards by now. New securities should be in place to protect the flowers. He remembered what they’d faced when they called on Hairstreak, and that was just a routine system. Ogyris should have had a thousand trackers heading for them by now.

But nothing.

‘What’s the matter?’ Nymph whispered.

‘It’s so quiet here,’ said Pyrgus. ‘Much too quiet.’

‘That’s just nerves,’ Nymph shrugged. ‘Are we close yet?’

‘It should be over the next rise.’ Pyrgus frowned. He was still uneasy.

Then they topped the next rise and he discovered why Ogyris hadn’t ordered more security. The shattered remnants of the glasshouse had been cleared away.

Not a single crystal flower remained.

Fogarty hit the palace like a whirlwind, issuing orders. ‘Change of clothes – can’t see people with loam on your backside. Get me an appointment with the Queen. Find somebody to brief me on what’s been happening. Send a formal thank-you to the Forest Faerie. Have those bloody Generals come and see me. See if you can find out where Madame Cardui is hiding. Take -’

‘Ah, sure, these were fresh on last month and not a pick of loam on any of them,’ Nyman said.

Fogarty stopped to glare at him, frowning in bewilderment before it dawned on him the Lep was talking about clothes. ‘Not for you, you idiot – for me!’

‘Ah, I get you now, sir. You leave that to me: I’ll have something brought up from your Lodge and you can change here.’ Nyman drew a notepad from the pocket of his jerkin and licked a stub of pencil. ‘Now what was the rest of it, sir…?’

It brought Fogarty up short. He’d been so energised by good news that he’d been going off inside his head like a firecracker. His rejuvenation treatments must be affecting his hormones.

‘You’re not as stupid as you look, are you, Nyman? All right, let’s see… Clothes first. And a sonic shower. Then find me Madame Cardui – she can fill me in on what’s been happening. After that the Queen, then the Generals.’

‘She’ll be in the Situation Room, sir,’ Nyman said. He looked at Fogarty’s blank expression. ‘Herself, sir. Situation Room, sir. That’s where she told me to bring you.’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Fogarty.

The guards stopped Nyman at the first checkpoint – he’d insisted on accompanying Fogarty even though he had no security clearance whatsoever. Fogarty went on alone. His earlier ebullience had been replaced by a curious feeling of unease. For a palace that was no longer on Countdown, there were a lot of military personnel in the corridors and he even had to wait his turn at the suspensor shaft listening to stiffly apologetic guards as a stream of messengers took priority over the Realm’s Gatekeeper.

But when he did step into the shaft, his build allowed him to sink so quickly that he caught up with one group that had gone down before. They wore the armbands of reconnaissance messengers.

‘What’s all the activity about?’ Fogarty asked at once.

‘Wouldn’t know, sir.’

‘Couldn’t say, sir.’

‘Brass never tell us anything, sir.’

‘Thanks,’ Fogarty growled shortly, his head now on a level with their ankles.

‘You’re welcome, sir,’ the messenger’s voice floated after him.

What the hell was going on? With Blue back, the Countdown would be stopped at once. Unless there was some other factor he didn’t know about. It looked as though he’d come back only just in time.

He’d know soon enough.

At the bottom of the suspensor shaft, the lead corridor to the Situation Room was a bustle of activity as well. Fogarty used his elbows vigorously to push through the throng. Then the door guards spotted him and moved to clear a way. He pushed through the door and took in the scene at a glance. The war preparations had ratcheted up to high gear. Everybody was moving at the double. All three Generals were shouting orders. Every viewglobe in the place was live. Cynthia was reclining near the door issuing instructions to several of her agents.

‘Ah, there you are!’ she exclaimed as she caught sight of him. She must have been using some sort of suspensor technology on her gown for she floated towards him in the reclining position before rising gracefully to her feet.

Fogarty looked around him. ‘What the hell’s going on, Cynthia? Hasn’t Blue cancelled the Countdown?’

‘The Countdown is no longer relevant, dahling. Our friends the Faeries of the Night have launched a preemptive strike.’ Madame Cardui looked at him soberly. ‘I’m afraid the Realm is at war.’

Hamearis Lucina, the Duke of Burgundy, projected a bluff, down-to-earth demeanour, but he had a romantic streak that showed in his taste in architecture. His keep was a Gothic nightmare, full of gloomy towers and turrets, pointed arches, flying buttresses and a host of gargoyle guards poised to spring down on the unwelcome. The whole structure clung to the edge of a remote, lonely cliff, constantly buffeted by the breakers of an angry sea.

Since a lifetime of military campaigns had collected loot aplenty, alongside several interesting scars, Hamearis could well afford the weather spells he needed to enhance the eerie atmosphere. Where others sought the sunshine, his lavish outlay brought perpetual fogs and rains, with frequent thunderstorms and howling winds.

It all meant his keep was the least visited of all the Great Houses… and the perfect place to hide a military secret.

Hairstreak’s black ouklo followed the cliff road, jerking erratically in the grip of the prevailing wind. His feeling of unease had nothing to do with the storm outside. The Faeries of the Night were united again. The war was under way. Burgundy was a staunch ally once more. In theory everything was going exactly as he’d planned and, with the element of surprise, victory was all but guaranteed.

Yet for all that, he had a feeling in his gut that the situation was somehow slipping away from him. It was a feeling that had been with him since the young Analogue boy had killed his vampire and disappeared with Blue. How had he managed that? There were aspects of the situation Hairstreak didn’t understand; and what you didn’t understand you couldn’t control.

The ouklo pulled into the keep’s cobbled courtyard – Hamearis kept horses because a horse had once saved his life and he’d been superstitious about the stupid creatures ever since. Hairstreak waited until his guards arrived to surround the carriage before getting out. He pulled his cloak around him and ran through the freezing rain to the great entrance door where Burgundy was already waiting for him.