Herbie Brennan - Ruler of the Realm

In the carpeted corridors with their heavy curtains, night staff flattened themselves against walls, bowed and curtsied as she passed. But she soon passed into the old quarter of the palace where carpeting gave way to stone flags and the velvet curtains turned to cotton pennants, then nothing at all. The air grew noticeably chill away from the central furnaces. There was condensation on the walls. She’d need to do something about that later. No part of the palace should be cold. But for the moment she had other things on her mind.

She turned a corner, hesitated for a moment – even she was not familiar with much of this wing – then saw what she was looking for. The doorway was oak, banded in iron and so small a grown man would have had to bend almost double to pass through it. The wood smelled of ancient spells. The lock looked rusted and disused.

Blue produced a heavy key, but knew better than to use it. The protections might be ancient, but they were still lethal. She was dealing with something crafted in the olden times, long before any faerie acceded to the Peacock Throne. This entrance was forbidden even to a Queen. She would never have dared to use it without help.

From the same pocket as the key, Blue fished out a scrap of parchment and squinted at the runes that squirmed across its surface. The light here was not good. The old quarter of the palace drew its illumination from the stonework of the walls, which contained a residual luminosity nobody quite understood. It was cheaper than glowglobes and perfectly adequate for an area that had been disused for generations, but it was an irritation now when she wanted to be certain of the shapes she was seeing. To help, she traced them with the tip of her finger, feeling the warm tingle of the magic they contained. She whispered the words beneath her breath and almost caught their meaning.

After a moment, something inside told her she was safe. Without hesitation she inserted the key in the lock. There was no howling, no spell-driven outrage, no attack. But the lock itself was stiff with age so that it took all her strength to turn it.

The little door swung slowly open. Blue bent her head and stepped across the threshold. She licked her lips. She was standing at the top of a narrow, spiral, stonework staircase that wound its way downwards into darkness.

Pyrgus struck the cliff-face with such force that he dropped his weapon, winded. Then Nymph careered into him, followed immediately by Woodfordi. All three went down in a tangle of arms and legs. Nymph recovered at once and was on her feet again in an eye-blink, spinning a defensive sword. Pyrgus jumped up gasping, blood steaming from scratches on his face and hands.

The Goblin Guards were gone. Not just the demons who’d been close to them, but all the others. The rocks were just rocks.

‘Where did they go?’ Pyrgus asked.

‘They have gone into hiding,’ Nymph told him confidently, her eyes wary.

‘Why?’ Woodfordi asked. He climbed carefully to his feet, feeling his arms and legs for broken bones.

‘Yes, why?’ Pyrgus echoed. ‘They had us. They were right there, just behind.’ But it wasn’t the goblins that concerned him. ‘That portal didn’t work,’ he said.

They were still in the desert, caught in the long rays of the dying sun. No blue fire, no gut-wrenching translation. The portal was inert. Cautiously he reached out to where the force field should have been. It was a dangerous move that might have cost him a fingertip, but there was nothing.

Nymph said sharply, ‘Pick up your weapon, Pyrgus. The demons will be back!’

‘I haven’t got a decent weapon,’ Pyrgus told her crossly. He was getting fed up with losing expensive Halek knives. Woodfordi’s dagger was just no substitute.

‘What’s wrong with it?’ Woodfordi asked. He was looking at the portal.

Something was totally weird. ‘Guard me,’ Pyrgus said to Nymph. He wiped blood from his eyes and trotted to the next portal in line.

‘Careful,’ Nymph called. She was moving nervously, her head jerking around as she searched for the attacking demons.

The second portal was inert as well. Close up he could see something clearly he hadn’t seen before. The portal looked genuine enough from a distance, but now it was obvious the thing could never work. There was no control technology at all.

‘The demons don’t exist,’ he whispered. He spun round. ‘This is an illusion!’ he shouted to Nymph.

She glanced in his direction, but did not drop her guard. Woodfordi was still at the first portal, examining it closely.

‘That wasn’t a real Goblin Guard,’ Pyrgus said, his eyes wide. He shook his head.

‘I cut its arm off,’ Nymph snapped.

‘We should have known when they survived the explosion. Nothing could have survived that explosion.’

Woodfordi stepped back and looked along the line of demon portals. ‘Reflective spells,’ he said.

‘Blue told me about it. She was attacked by a Goblin Guard when she broke into Brimstone’s lodgings, but it was an illusion.’

‘Who’s Brimstone?’ Nymph asked annoyingly.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ Pyrgus said. ‘An illusion can kill you. It’s real enough as long as it lasts. But it’s still an illusion. You set them up as securities.’

He must have started to get through to her because she relaxed a little. ‘What were they guarding?’

‘The portals,’ Woodfordi suggested. ‘Except they’re some sort of an illusion too.’

‘There has to be a real one somewhere,’ Pyrgus said, staring at the portal in front of him. ‘Should we look for it?’

Woodfordi shook his head. ‘It’ll just be a framework. This doesn’t even have works.’

‘What are you two talking about?’ Nymph asked, irritated.

‘This is all a set-up,’ Pyrgus said excitedly. ‘The portals are a fake. Somebody built one, then set up a reflective spell so it looks like thousands. It’s like standing between two mirrors, except there aren’t any mirrors.’

‘Then set up a Goblin Guard illusion to stop anybody finding out,’ Woodfordi put in. He looked around. ‘It’s all you’d need. The most you get out here are a few wandering Trinians.’

It hung together nicely, but it made no sense. Why go to the trouble of setting up elaborate – and costly – illusions in an area of desert where, as Woodfordi said, the only people around were a few wandering Trinians?

‘This doesn’t make any sen-’ Pyrgus stopped as a new thought struck him like a thunderbolt. ‘Wait a minute,’ he said. ‘If these portals are all fakes, how did Beleth bring in his army?’

The three of them stood looking at each other blankly.

‘Perhaps -’ Nymph said; and stopped.

‘Maybe he used -’ Woodfordi said; and stopped.

They continued to look at one another in silence.

Pyrgus said thoughtfully, ‘Unless Beleth’s army is an illusion too.’

‘It doesn’t make any sense,’ Henry said. ‘You just told me Beleth’s implant actually turned me into a demon. Like I became a demon, then shape-shifted back so I looked like Henry – something like that?’ He was staring intently at Mr Fogarty.

Fogarty said, ‘ Exactly like that. At least that’s what you told Blue and she thought you should know.’

Henry took a nervous sip from his mug of tea and found it cold. He licked his lips. ‘The idea was I should… you know… with Blue.’

‘Yes, breed with her,’ said Fogarty harshly. He seemed to be losing patience with Henry’s sensibilities.

‘And that was so the demons could get a demon child – or a half demon child anyway – into the Purple Palace?’

‘That was the plan, yes.’