Herbie Brennan - Ruler of the Realm

The altar dwarfed her. She had to stand on tiptoe to reach the book, but that, while large, was at least of manageable proportions. She pulled it down, taking care not to lose the place where it had opened. The pages were crafted from the skin of some unfamiliar animal and smelled of grave dust and dank earth. The binding was of heavily tooled leather.

For the barest moment she experienced a pang of panic. The book was handwritten in an ornate and unfamiliar script, delicately illuminated around the edges with scenes and creatures so alien they almost twisted the mind. How could she read from this? There was nothing about it that she understood.

But then, as if the book had a life of its own, the words began to rearrange themselves subtly. Nothing really changed character, but now, with an effort, she found a degree of comprehension:

Micma Goho Mad Zir Comselha Zien Biah Os Londoh Norz Chis Othil Gigipah Vnd-L Chis ta Pu-Im Q Mospleh Teloch…

The words were in a language so archaic she could not even guess its roots. It bore no resemblance to anything she had ever known, yet somehow the meaning resonated in her mind:

Behold, saith your God, I am a circle on Whose Hands stand Twelve Kingdoms. Six are the Seats of Living Breath. The rest are as Sharp Sickles or the Horns of Death…

Carrying the open book carefully in both hands, Blue took a step backwards, then another. In a moment she was standing just outside the brazen circle with its inlaid pentagram and altar. Her chest felt tight, but she ignored it. She took a deep breath. Although she had never heard the words spoken before, Blue commenced to intone the evocation on the page before her:

‘ Micma Goho Mad Zir Comselha Zien Biah Os Londoh Norz…’

The flame of her lantern flickered wildly and the background hum rose noticeably in pitch and volume.

‘ Chis Othil Gigipah Vnd-L Chis ta Pu-Im…’

In a moment the brazen pentagram began to glow.

It was fully dark by the time Pyrgus and his two companions managed to retrace their steps to the rise from which they’d spied on Beleth’s army, but the moons rose early at this time of year so they had light enough to see.

The demon encampment stretched below them.

Pyrgus lay propped on his elbows with Nymph to his right and Woodfordi on his left. He could see the flickering campfires and the rigid, robotic movements of the sentries.

‘Looks real enough to me,’ Woodfordi murmured, echoing Pyrgus’s very thought.

‘As I understand it,’ Nymph whispered formally, ‘such illusions are meant to look real.’

‘Well, all illusions are meant to look real,’ Pyrgus said. ‘But there are illusions and illusions.’ When Nymph gave him a long-suffering look, he added, ‘I mean, the Goblin Guard is an illusion that can kill you. When it’s triggered, the goblins might as well be real for as long as the illusion lasts. They can attack you and cut you up and react in every way as if they were really there except you can’t kill them. But you couldn’t do that with a whole army.’

‘Why not?’ Nymph asked.

‘Costs too much,’ said Pyrgus simply.

‘Beleth’s hardly short of money.’

Pyrgus shook his head. ‘It’s not just money – it’s the energy cost. All spells need energy. You can’t just keep making them bigger and bigger. After a while the spell needs more energy than your technology can handle. An illusionary army that could actually fight is way beyond anybody, no matter how much money they have.’

‘Excuse me, sir, this is all very interesting,’ Woodfordi said, ‘but it doesn’t help us figure whether that army down there is real or not.’

‘No,’ Pyrgus agreed. He began to climb to his feet. ‘Only one way to find out…’

The arguments started at once. ‘You can’t go down there,’ Nymph said. ‘It’s too dangerous.’ She glanced towards the demon encampment and added, ‘I’ll go.’

‘My job,’ volunteered Woodfordi. ‘I was trained in espionage.’

Pyrgus looked at him in surprise. ‘Were you?’

Woodfordi shook his head. ‘Not really, sir. But the lady’s right – can’t have a prince taking that sort of risk.’

They bandied it back and forth for a while, then reluctantly agreed they’d all go, but only on the strict understanding there would be no heroics.

In the event, none were needed. Beleth’s entire army proved to be as insubstantial as a moonbeam.

Woodfordi passed his hand right through a patrolling sentry. ‘What’s going on here?’ he whispered, half to himself.

‘I don’t know,’ Pyrgus told him. ‘But I do know we need to tell the palace about this. Are you still out of communications range, Woodfordi?’

‘Afraid so, sir.’

‘Then we have to get back to the flier right away.’

Henry said, ‘I don’t think I can be hypnotised, Mr Fogarty.’

Fogarty was scrabbling about in one of his tin boxes. ‘What makes you say that?’ he asked.

‘I went up on stage once when I was a little kid. The Illustrious Svengali couldn’t put me under.’

‘The Illustrious what?’ Fogarty snorted.

‘I don’t think it was his real name,’ Henry said.

‘Ah!’ Fogarty exclaimed. He dragged an old pocket watch out of the box and began to free its chain from a tangle of electrical wiring. To Henry he said, ‘Little kids aren’t all that easy – attention spans of goldfish. Might do better with you now.’

Henry watched with trepidation as Mr Fogarty liberated his watch. Despite his negative experience with the Illustrious Svengali, he had a nervous feeling Mr Fogarty might just manage it. ‘You won’t… make me do things?’ he asked.

‘Christ sake, Henry!’ Fogarty exclaimed impatiently. ‘We’ve a war on, the demons are invading, you got implanted by the Prince of Darkness and you’re worried I’ll make you stick your finger up your bum and bark like a dog? This is serious.’

‘Sorry, Mr Fogarty,’ Henry said. It didn’t matter. It probably wouldn’t work. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Just sit there and watch the watch.’ Fogarty began to swing the ancient timepiece on the end of its chain. ‘Let your eyes follow the watch.’

The Illustrious Svengali hadn’t used a watch. He’d just stared into people’s eyes and made peculiar hand movements. Henry hoped Mr Fogarty knew what he was doing. What happened if he did put Henry under, but couldn’t wake him up again? All the same, he did let his eyes follow the watch, which was swinging like a long, slow pendulum.

‘Heavy,’ Mr Fogarty remarked. ‘Your eyes are getting heavy…’

Henry’s eyes actually were getting heavy, but that wasn’t exactly surprising. If you kept swinging your eyes back and forth, they got tired and when they got tired, they felt heavy. Didn’t mean you were being hypnotised.

‘So heavy you can hardly keep them open,’ Mr Fogarty intoned.

Henry found his eyes were sliding shut and jerked them open wide. He knew if he let his eyes close he was in trouble. He’d watched Paul McKenna on television. They didn’t show you how he did it – probably to stop people at home getting hypnotised by accident – but his subjects always ended up with their eyes shut doing stupid stuff. When you had your eyes shut you were putty in Paul McKenna’s hands. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be putty in Mr Fogarty’s hands.

Then he remembered why they were doing this in the first place. It was important to find out what Beleth and his demons were really up to. Because there was definitely something wrong with the story they’d told Blue.

‘Heavy,’ Mr Fogarty repeated in a heavy sort of voice.

Heavy, Henry thought as his eyelids slid south again. He felt really comfortable. He’d always thought of hypnosis as a battle of wills, but it wasn’t like that with Mr Fogarty. Interesting that he’d never noticed Mr Fogarty had such a nice voice before.