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  ‘No, thank you,’ said the officer stiffly. He glanced at the papers again, then nodded to the coachman. ‘Crate them up again. You’re free to go on.’

  ‘Thank you, Officer,’ said Brimstone unctuously.

  The coachman pushed the wooden side back onto the crate and secured it roughly before drawing the tarpaulin over it again. In the darkness, the nants began to settle and their high-pitched whine died down. The Customs Officer stepped aside and waved them onwards with large, sweeping motions of his arm, as if he was suddenly anxious to get rid of them. The coachman climbed back into his seat. Brimstone made to join Chalkhill inside the carriage.

  From somewhere deep inside the covered crate, a voice called, ‘Help!’

  The scene froze for an instant; then the Customs Officer slowly turned his head towards the trailer.

  ‘Just my little joke,’ said Brimstone quickly. ‘I’m a ventriloquist.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said the Customs Officer. ‘Get it opened up again.’

  Forty-Two

  ‘Go!’ screamed Brimstone at the coachman.

  The man whipped the horses at once and the coach sprang forward, hurling Chalkhill backwards to fall heavily on a none-too-well-padded seat. ‘Squeak!’ he gasped.

  ‘Guard!’ shouted the Customs Officer. ‘Halt that coach!’

  Armed men began to pour in a steady stream from the Customs Houses. Brimstone leaned out of the coach window and tossed a multi-coloured ball towards them. As it struck the ground, it began to belch a rolling, rainbow smoke.

  ‘Look out!’ called one of the men. ‘It’s a screamer!’

  On cue, the ball emitted a blood-curdling shriek. Chalkhill clapped his hands over his ears. The running guards split into two streams like a river striking a stone. The screamer bounced between them, gathered speed and hurtled towards the open door of the Customs House building. As the smoke rolled over the men, they too began to howl. Several of them broke ranks, dropped their weapons and ran off in sudden panic.

  Brimstone struggled to close the window of the coach as it hurtled towards the archway. Behind him, the jolting motion disturbed the nants again and they set up a discordant wail that echoed the screamer.

  The screamer itself clicked loudly and metamorphosed into a score or more of smaller, multi-coloured spheres, which bounced, scattered and finally flew with unerring aim towards the windows of the Customs House.

  ‘Evacuate!’ someone shouted.

  Each of the smaller spheres was shrieking now, filling the air with a manic howling that scrambled thought and chilled the blood. The horses leaped forward as if stung, then thundered through the archway en route for the tunnel. Brimstone had the window closed now so that the noise outside was muted to a bearable level. All the same, Chalkhill could hear the sound of shattered glass as spheres crashed through windows.

  All went black as the coach plunged into the tunnel. From behind came the clump-clump of regular explosions. Then the coach emerged into the sunlight. Chalkhill dragged himself to his feet and opened the window again. He leaned out and craned to see behind. The massive structures of the Customs Houses were collapsing one after another in a pall of rising dust and smoke. The shriek of the screamer was replaced by a wailing siren. Flames leaped towards the sky as billows of black smoke rolled across the ground. Men were running everywhere, their faces grey with panic.

  The coach picked up speed as it drew away from the scene of destruction.

  ‘That went well,’ Brimstone remarked.

  Chalkhill said nothing. All he could think of was that he hadn’t managed to stop payment on his bank draft.

  Forty-Three

  ‘Where are we going?’ Blue asked as the flyer soared above the treetops.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Pyrgus said. He was seated at the controls, wrestling with the unfamiliar instrumentation rather than using spell-driven voice commands like any sensible pilot. She wondered why he always liked to do things the hard way.

  ‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’ Blue demanded. ‘You’re supposed to be flying this thing.’

  Pyrgus sighed, ‘I mean I don’t know where we’re going ultimately. I don’t know where we’re going to try to find Henry.’ He risked a glance away from the instrument panel so he could glare at her briefly, ‘I told you that.’

  ‘I know you told me that, but you’ve been telling lots of lies lately. How am I supposed to spot the rare occasion when you’re moved to tell the truth?’

  The flyer started to lose height and Pyrgus returned hurriedly to his controls. ‘Well, I really don’t know where Henry is,’ he muttered sourly.

  He wanted to be left alone because there was something he still wasn’t telling her – Blue recognised the signs from childhood. ‘If we’re not going to find Henry,’ she said firmly, ‘where are we going? Or did you just decide to take a little pleasure jaunt in the middle of the night?’

  ‘There’s no need for sarcasm,’ Pyrgus told her firmly, it’s not ladylike and it’s not regal and it doesn’t suit you.’

  ‘Just answer the question, Pyrgus.’

  Pyrgus lowered his head. ‘Going to mut mam dwee,’ he muttered.

  ‘What?’

  Pyrgus punched a console button fiercely. ‘Going to meet Madame Cardui,’ he said. ‘She knows where Henry is.’

  ‘Madame Cardui’s in jail.’ Blue frowned. ‘At least she’s under house arrest in the Palace. By my orders.’

  ‘She’s escaped,’ Pyrgus said.

  Blue stared at the back of his head. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘She told me that’s what she was going to do. I expect she’s done it by now.’

  ‘She told me she wasn’t!’ Blue exclaimed, openmouthed. ‘She promised me she wouldn’t even try to escape.’

  ‘She lied,’ said Pyrgus shortly. He threw a switch that put the flyer on autopilot and turned to look at her. ‘Blue, you mustn’t be cross. Not with her, not with me, not with any of us. We’re all trying to do the right thing, because if we get this wrong, the Realm’s at stake. And so are some of us personally, come to that. If we’re in the wrong future, Madame Cardui catches time fever and dies. So do Comma and Nymph. I’ve already got it and I don’t recover.’ His voiced dropped. ‘You get it too. Blue.’

  ‘Mr Fogarty saw all this?’

  ‘In bits and pieces, yes. But it all comes from us getting into the wrong future. All of it.’

  ‘I get the fever and die?’ Blue said.

  Pyrgus shook his head. ‘Mr Fogarty didn’t see that. Didn’t see your actual death. But you turn into an old woman, all weak and feeble and crabby with arthritis and you’re trying to rule a Realm where everybody’s dying and it spreads to animals and it just gets worse and worse.’ He looked at her earnestly. ‘Blue, we couldn’t let that happen – we just couldn’t. Maybe we were wrong not to tell you everything, but Mr Fogarty just didn’t see where you came in, so we thought it better not to take the risk.’

  After a long moment, Blue said, ‘I understand.’ Her eyes flared briefly, ‘I think you were all wrong what you did, but I understand.’ She came across and put a hand on Pyrgus’s shoulder. ‘All right, now where are we meeting Madame Cardui?’

  Pyrgus hesitated for just the barest second, then said, ‘Myphisto Manor.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Blue said.

  Forty-Four

  At the height of his popularity, Madame Cardui’s late husband, the Great Myphisto, accumulated enough gold to build himself a country retreat in the most fashionable sector of Wild moor Broads, tantalisingly close to the Nikure Barrens. True to his nature, he used no spells in its construction, yet the place was not at all what it seemed.

  On the face of things, it appeared to be a small, charming manor house set in wooded grounds beside a running stream. But the woods were a stage set, a combination of cunningly painted forest backdrop fronted by stands of artificial trees. The brook, for all its babble, contained not a single drop of wrater. It was a mechanical contrivance const
ructed from shreds of metallic paper.

  Nor did the whimsy stop there. Myphisto’s visitors reported that the imposing entrance door was painted on a blank wall. Should you look through any of the picture windows, you would see rooms that did not, in fact, exist. The ghost that haunted the manor’s long gallery was created by a calculating placement of sheet glass and mirrors. Certain guest chairs in the banquet hall wailed horribly when sat upon. There was a revolving staircase that led the unwary to a different floor each time it was used. There was a great bird, a masterpiece of papier mache, that swooped down from the rafters on hidden wires. The music room had a clockwork orchestra. There was a booth in the hallway containing the top half of a turbaned automaton that played chess.

  From the air, the gardens were cunningly laid out to represent the grinning face of a circus clown, with clumps of dahlias as its eyes. ‘Are you going to land in the grounds?’ Blue asked a little anxiously.

  ‘Are you out of your mind?’ asked Pyrgus. ‘We’re going to have a hard enough time just walking through them.’

  He brought the flyer down (with surprising skill) to one side of a lane way flanking the estate. They followed the wall until they reached the entrance gates.

  ‘Careful,’ Blue warned.

  ‘I’ll have to try it,’ Pyrgus told her. ‘His tricks cycle through a random sequence. Sometimes what you see is what you get.’ He pushed the gates, which sprang open at once.

  ‘Well, go on,’ Blue urged.

  Pyrgus stepped through the gates and vanished. The gates themselves slammed shut. Blue waited. After a while, Pyrgus approached on the laneway, looking perplexed. ‘What happened?’ Blue asked.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Pyrgus frowned, ‘I think I was grabbed by mechanical arms and there may have been a trapdoor of some sort. It all happened very fast. How did it look to you?’

  ‘Like an invisibility spell, but without the shimmer.’

  ‘Well,’ said Pyrgus with no great enthusiasm, ‘the good news is I came out through a door in the wall we can use to get back in. I examined it carefully and it doesn’t seem to be gimmicked.’

  He was right about the door, but when they entered the grounds they couldn’t find the house. At first they wandered through an artificial forest with paths that changed and changed again each time they retraced their steps. Then, when they solved the maze eventually, they emerged into an open space where the perspectives were all wrong. They could see the house all right, but it kept receding as they walked towards it. It took them almost fifteen minutes to realise they were actually walking towards a series of reflections. Even then, they might have wandered confused for another hour had not a uniformed butler emerged from the undergrowth and offered to show them the way.

  ‘Do you think I should tip him?’ Pyrgus asked Blue quietly.

  Blue gave him a withering look. ‘Don’t be silly – he’s a machine. The Great Myphisto had dozens of them made.’

  They found Madame Cardui poring over an enormous map scroll spread out across a dining table. She half turned as they entered. ‘Pyrgus deeah, just in –’ She stopped. ‘Ah.’ There was a long pause; then she said, ‘Your Majesty.’

  ‘Never mind my majesty, Madame Cynthia,’ Blue said, ‘I had your word you wouldn’t try to escape.’

  ‘Indeed you did, deeah, and I would break it again if I thought it would help the Realm.’ She looked across at Pyrgus. ‘Why did you bring your sister?’

  ‘Didn’t have much option,’ Pyrgus muttered.

  Madame Cardui turned back to Blue. ‘My deeah, you have my apology, for what it’s worth. Can I assume Pyrgus has explained why we failed to involve you?’

  Blue nodded, a little grimly. ‘He explained. I’m not sure I accept it.’ Or quite understand it, for that matter, but she decided not to complicate things.

  ‘Well, it is complex,’ Madame Cardui said sympathetically. ‘And perhaps we were wrong in what we did. Poor Alan didn’t see you in the future we are striving to bring about, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you aren’t there. In fact I’m sure you are. Nonetheless, we took what we thought to be the safest course. But it may not have been the correct course, or, indeed, the only course. In any case, we will soon know.’

  Something in her voice alerted Blue at once. ‘Why do you say that, Madame Cardui?’

  ‘Alan saw this meeting, here in this room. It took place between Pyrgus and myself. You were not present. Now you are. The future has already been altered.’

  ‘Oh,’ Blue said. She glanced at Pyrgus, who was ostentatiously studying a mechanical canary in a golden cage, then looked back at Madame Cardui. ‘For the worse?’ she asked.

  Madame Cardui said seriously, ‘That depends on why you did not show up in Alan’s visions.’ She smiled bleakly, ‘In any case, we shall soon find out.’ She turned back to the map. ‘Since you are here and the future has been changed, I see no reason to continue blocking your involvement. Frankly, I felt uncomfortable with what we were doing, but as I say, we believed it to be the safest course. I hope you will forgive us.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Blue said in a voice that gave away little. Then she stepped forward and her old assertiveness surfaced abruptly. ‘Even if the future really has changed, that doesn’t mean we have to forget about Mr Fogarty’s visions. Some of them may still be helpful.’

  ‘That had occurred to me,’ said Madame Cardui quietly.

  ‘Pyrgus says he doesn’t know where Henry is now,’ Blue said, ‘but you do – is that right?’

  Madame Cardui nodded. ‘Yes. Alan told me.’ She pointed to a segment of the map.

  Blue leaned forward. ‘Buthner?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘So you and Pyrgus planned to go to Buthner?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘With how many men?’

  ‘As an entourage? None.’

  ‘How did you expect to survive?’ Blue asked without irony or edge. ‘Buthner is one of the most dangerous regions in the world.’

  Madame Cardui shrugged, ‘I was simply following Alan’s visions. In the successful future he foresaw, we went alone.’

  ‘So you think we should still go alone? Without support or guards?’

  ‘Yes.’ Madame Cardui turned towards her. ‘Do you have a problem with that?’

  ‘No,’ Blue said without hesitation. ‘Not if it gets Henry – not if it helps save the Realm. Do we fly or go overland?’

  Madame Cardui said, ‘We can’t fly directly into Buthner. The natives have no understanding of modern spell technology. They think flyers are giant birds that have swallowed the people inside them. Any passenger who disembarks is believed to be cursed and killed on sight. The typical Buthneri is a simple, primitive creature I’m afraid, and very, very vicious. However, the Realm has friendly relations with the Government of Hass-Verbim, which borders on Buthner to the north. We can fly there, then cross the border on foot.’

  ‘Do you know exactly where Henry is?’ Blue asked.

  Madame Cardui shook her head. ‘No. We shall have to search for him.’

  Blue said, ‘What is it, Madame Cynthia? What are you not telling me?’

  Madame Cardui smiled. ‘How well you know me, deeah. Yes, there is something. At least there might be something. In the two futures that Alan foresaw – both the good and the bad – Henry was in Buthner. But your appearance here means we have now entered a third possible future, different from both the others.’ She sighed, ‘I’m afraid in this future there is no guarantee at all that Henry will be in Buthner.’

  ‘Or even still alive,’ Pyrgus put in helpfully.

  Forty-Five

  Henry’s leg still wouldn’t support his weight and it hurt worse than at any time since the vaettir bit him. But it was a clean pain and the swelling was way down and what came out when Lorquin squeezed the wound was good red blood, not the yellow-green slime that had oozed earlier.

  Lorquin had built him a crude shelter using branches of deadwood – where had he found
them? – and the batwing thing that had covered Henry when he was cold in the night. Lorquin had also given him water, a little more of the tart juice and fed him something white and bloated that Henry didn’t care to examine too closely. It tasted of roast garlic and satisfied his hunger remarkably well.

  ‘Lorquin …?’

  ‘Yes, En Ri?’

  ‘Your … ah … colour. Is it natural?’

  Lorquin looked at him blankly.

  ‘The blue colour,’ Henry said, half wishing he hadn’t started this, ‘Is it, like, your own skin colour, or do you use, you know, dye and stuff?’

  ‘I am Luchti.’ Lorquin shrugged, as if that explained something.

  ‘Luchti’s your tribe – right?’

  ‘My people,’ Lorquin said.

  ‘Where are they?’ Henry asked.

  Lorquin made a vague gesture towards the distant horizon. He looked impatient with the whole conversation. Or possibly just puzzled.

  Henry licked his lips. ‘How is it you’re alone in the desert? You are alone, aren’t you?’

  Lorquin nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why is that?’ Henry asked, ‘I mean, why aren’t you with your people?’

  ‘I seek the draugr,’ Lorquin said. To Henry’s surprise he smiled suddenly and broadly, ‘I find you.’

  Henry wondered what a draugr was, but thought he might come back to that in a minute. He had a shrewd suspicion what might be going on here. ‘You’re about to become a man, aren’t you?’

  Lorquin stuck his narrow chest out proudly. ‘Yes.’

  Bingo, Henry thought. He’d read about this sort of thing somewhere, or possibly watched a documentary on television. Lots of primitive tribes had puberty rites for young boys. They marked the transition from childhood to manhood. You were turned loose to fend for yourself in the bush or the jungle or the desert, and if you survived the ordeal, you became a man. Sometimes it got really heavy. Young Masai or Zulu or somebody had to go and kill a lion before they were allowed back in the tribe. He hoped Lorquin’s draugr wasn’t something like that, but there was a chance it might be. He opened his mouth to ask, but Lorquin beat him to it.