The Faeman Quest Read online

  Batty pushed the barrow on relentlessly. They were on grass now, following a path that led eventually through a screen of trees concealing the silver river that marked the boundary of the inner gardens. Here the path split, one branch following the river, the other leading to a hump-backed bridge. Since he didn’t trust Batty on the bridge, Hairstreak ordered him to follow the river. They reached an open gateway and the cube circuitry pinged audibly as it detected the spell field that stretched space, leaving the inner gardens substantially larger than the outer.

  Here the real exotica began. Multicoloured fronds reached out to caress them as they passed. (‘Geroff me!’ Batty muttered.) Large, tubular danceflowers gyrated gently to attract their attention. Spiroform trubongs bounced sedately through the undergrowth. Tiny ground cover plants – Hairstreak couldn’t remember their names – burst into song as the barrow wheels passed over them. The pathways meandered kinetically to show as much of the environment as possible without trying a traveller’s patience: the very words Celadon had used when explaining his plan. And to be fair, they seldom tried Hairstreak’s patience, since the moving pathways meant every visit produced its quota of surprises. This one, for instance, revealed a heroic marble statue of Hairstreak himself (still equipped with his original body) half hidden in a stand of fanferns.

  Hairstreak smiled benignly as the tropical plantings gradually gave way to the forest arboretum that concealed the home of his great-niece. While Celadon had been given full rein where the tropical exotica were concerned, this area was Hairstreak’s own little whimsy, worked out by him in some detail and specially commissioned as the centerpiece of the whole plan. The forest path, which followed a static meander so that the approach never varied, eventually opened out into a clearing; and in the precise centre of the clearing was the dearest, sweetest, rose-covered country cottage it was possible to imagine. A water butt stood by one corner, a pile of newly cut logs by another. There was a roofed well just yards from the front door, close by the endolg kennels. Around the back, Hairstreak knew, was a vegetable patch and herb garden. Woodsmoke curled lazily from the chimney while a delicate little spell ensured the welcome smell of home-baking wafted gently from the kitchen.

  The building was an exact reconstruction, researched down to the smallest detail, of a cottage that featured in one of the most popular pieces of humorous folklore ever passed around the Faerie Realm. The story was that of Red Robina Hood, a young girl about his great-niece’s age, who had the misfortune to be descended from werewolves on her mother’s side. The gene was regressive and only showed up fully in Red Robina’s grandmother, who was banished by the family to the forest cottage for her own safety and that of others. Red Robina was quite fond of the old girl and called on her often. But – and this was the part of the story that always sent faerie listeners into paroxysms of laughter – one night Red Robina quite forgot there was a full moon and arrived at the cottage to find her grandmother’s bed occupied by a timber-wolf that promptly ate her.

  What gave the story a special twist – and brought even more laughter from listeners – was that Red Robina’s boyfriend, a woodsman twice her age called Pieris, hunted down the wolf and killed it … only to discover after the fact that he’d really killed the poor old grandmother. The incident started a feud between the families of Pieris and Red Robina that resulted in several more deaths until survivors on both sides were wiped out by plague. Ah, the hilarity of it all.

  When the gardens were laid out, Hairstreak had arranged for the original cottage to be demolished and transported, stone by stone, to be rebuilt as their centerpiece. And now, he thought, his own dear, sweet great-niece was enjoying the precise facilities of a famous piece of faerie history. She must have heard the trundle of the barrow, for she was emerging from the doorway of the cottage now.

  ‘Good morning, Mella!’ Hairstreak called cheerfully. ‘Come and give your uncle a kiss.’

  Mella beamed and ran towards him.

  Ten

  The restaurant was owned, run and staffed by orange Trinians, which meant the food was good, the service fantastic, and the prices astronomical. Fortunately Chalkhill would be paying. Brimstone ordered steak with a side order of teeth, served on a bed of deep-fried potato batons, with grilled tomatoes and inkcap wafers. It was a lot more than he usually ate, but he hadn’t had a thing since his morning rat and, besides, he felt like celebrating. He was free of the asylum, reconnected with his old source of income and, best of all, very much in control.

  ‘Wine, sir?’ asked their sommelier, addressing the words to Brimstone as the obvious senior of the dining duo.

  ‘Two flagons,’ Brimstone told him promptly. ‘One red, one green.’

  ‘May I recommend a Malvae for the red?’ murmured the sommelier. ‘A pretentious little vintage, quite new on the market, but with some interesting characteristics.’

  A Trinian’s recommendation would never be anything other than excellent. ‘That will do very nicely,’ Brimstone told him. ‘And you can bring a half bottle of something cheap for my friend.’ He smiled smugly at Chalkhill, who scowled but failed to protest, yet another indication of how badly he needed Brimstone’s services.

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  As the dwarf disappeared in the general direction of the kitchens, Brimstone said briskly, ‘I’ve been out of circulation for a long time. You’d better bring me up to speed on what’s been happening.’

  Chalkhill shrugged. ‘Blue’s still Queen, you know that. Queen of Hael as well, although she’s had to face two challenges. Last one was very nasty, damn nearly killed her, but she survived to rule another day. You know she married that human friend of her brother?’ Brimstone nodded. Out of the corner of his eye he could see food coming, so the nod coincided with a stomach growl. Chalkhill went on, ‘Iron Prominent. Now Consort Majesty King Henry, an empty title if ever there was one.’ He glanced around as if worried the other diners might have overheard the treasonable utterance, but presumably decided they hadn’t, for he continued easily enough, ‘You had a run-in with the brother, didn’t you?’

  Brimstone blinked slowly, his eyes closing like the nictitating membrane of a serpent. ‘Young Pyrgus? We both did, as I recall. He closed down our glue factory.’

  ‘Nice little earner, that,’ Chalkhill said thoughtfully. ‘Pity you tried to sacrifice him to the Prince of Darkness.’

  This time it was Brimstone’s turn to shrug. ‘We all make the occasional mistake.’

  Chalkhill said, ‘He’s running an animal sanctuary somewhere down south.’

  Brimstone sniffed. ‘Waste of space, that boy. Can you imagine wanting to devote your life to the welfare of smelly animals?’

  ‘Maybe not a complete waste of space. He has a vineyard down there as well. That red you ordered is one of his.’

  ‘I’ll toast to his good health,’ Brimstone remarked sarcastically. ‘Any other news of the royals?’

  Their table was suddenly surrounded by Trinians bearing groaning trays of food. Beyond the inner circle hovered the sommelier and his minions with their flagons of wine. Brimstone found himself staring at his steak, a massive cut of meat with its side order of teeth trembling beside it. He realised suddenly he was hungry enough to eat a camel and popped the teeth into his mouth. Gum contact triggered the spell and they began to gnash and chatter in anticipation. He speared the entire steak and allowed them to bite off a piece. They began to shred it very satisfactorily.

  As the Trinians withdrew, Chalkhill said lightly, ‘The younger brother, Comma – half-brother, I should say – is off on some heroic maritime mission. Madame Cardui is still in charge of the Secret Service. Apart from that, not much else is going on. Oh, and Fogarty’s dead, but you probably know that.’

  The great thing about being mad was that people tended to underestimate you. In the old days, Chalkhill was the one with the money and Brimstone the one with the brains. Chalkhill was still the one with the money, but now he thought himself far cleverer than his
old partner. Far cleverer, far more dangerous, far more talented, far more insightful, wise, shrewd, prudent, sensible and astute, no doubt. Which was why he thought he could divert Brimstone’s attention, tell him nothing of significance, avoid the one important subject. Brimstone poured himself half a glass of red, then added some of the green and watched the wine turn sludgy.

  ‘Did Blue and Henry have any children?’ he asked innocently.

  Chalkhill contrived to look distracted. ‘Children?’ he echoed. ‘Not sure faeries and humans can actually interbreed, can they?’

  ‘Of course they can,’ Brimstone told him. ‘They produce faemans.’ He smiled quizzically. ‘Didn’t Blue and Henry have a faeman child?’

  Chalkhill frowned. ‘Think I may have heard something of a faeman. Not sure whether it’s a boy or girl. Don’t pay much attention to these things.’

  Brimstone managed to hold his face expressionless. Chalkhill was lying through his teeth. Even in the asylum, Brimstone had heard about the royal faeman, a girl named as Culmella Chrysotenchia, but more familiarly known as Mella. It was beyond belief that someone of Chalkhill’s interests should not know everything there was to know about her. So why was he pretending not to? The obvious answer was that he wanted to channel Brimstone’s attention away from the creature. And why would he want to do that?

  All this clearly led back to the hankie now residing in Brimstone’s nether pocket. When he’d sniffed it, at Chalkhill’s insistence, he’d known at once it had never belonged to a faerie, Lighter or Nighter. But nor did it seem to belong to a Trinian, Halek wizard, endolg or any of the other races currently inhabiting the Faerie Realm. The possibility of a human had crossed Brimstone’s mind, but the vibrations hadn’t seemed to fit there either. But now they were talking faeman … He would have to check again to be sure, but he would have bet his new-found freedom that the handkerchief was the property of a faeman; and not just any faeman, but the very faeman Chalkhill was now desperately trying to avoid discussing.

  It was an interesting development. Had the brat gone missing? Had Chalkhill been hired to find her? Most importantly, how could Brimstone turn this situation to his own advantage?

  He took a short pull of his sludgy wine to wash down the shredded steak and turned his teeth on automatic as he allowed his mind to expand. Chalkhill thought he needed to sniff the hankie, or at least hold it in his hand, in order to contact its owner, but that was nonsense, of course. He closed his eyes, as if in ecstasy at the taste of his wine, listened in for a moment to the conversations in the kitchens, gave a brief nod to George, who was sitting at a table in the corner, then focused on the hankie in his pocket.

  The mental image opened up like a doorway. He peered through cautiously and found himself looking into one of those ridiculous little kitchens so favoured in the Analogue World. There were two people inside, both female. One was a mature human, a little overweight and somewhat sly. The other was the owner of the handkerchief, a faeman girl for certain – the pointed ears and green eyes were a dead giveaway – and almost certainly the child of Blue and Henry: she had her mother’s determined jaw and her father’s gormless expression. So still in the Analogue World then – something Brimstone had known from the moment he first touched the hankie – although he was in no hurry to pass that information on to Chalkhill. He didn’t know exactly where in the Analogue World. The focus was too tight at the moment, but he would probably get a clue when she moved outside. Once he had an accurate location, he could decide what to do about it. He might tell Chalkhill, or he might not. He might decide himself what to do with the girl. (Kidnapping could be profitable, or selling her into slavery.) It all depended what was best for Brimstone.

  He opened his eyes again, vaguely wondering who had hired Chalkhill and for what.

  Eleven

  Henry blinked, rubbed his eyes and looked again. The girl – woman really: he’d have to stop calling her a girl since it only seemed to make her cross – sitting at the dressing table was Blue. She looked like Blue. She was dressed like Blue. She spoke like Blue. Her reflection in the mirror was Blue’s reflection. But she couldn’t be Blue, because Blue was standing beside him.

  ‘What do you think?’ asked the Blue beside him. Despite her worry about Mella she was smiling a little.

  Henry looked at Blue a third time, then at the girl – woman – beside him. She was the one who’d accompanied him to their private quarters. Actually she was the one who’d demanded he stop what he’d been doing and accompany her to their private quarters, which sounded like the real Blue all right. But it would also be like the real Blue to try to trick him – she had a wicked sense of humour.

  ‘Which of you …?’ he asked helplessly.

  ‘I am,’ said the Blue beside him.

  ‘I am,’ said the Blue at the dressing table.

  Henry looked from one to the other. They were absolutely, positively identical and he felt as if he were drowning. The thought passed through his mind that Blue might be one of twins. But why had she never told him this before? And anyway, the Blue at the dressing table claimed to be Blue as did the Blue beside him. That wouldn’t happen with identical twins. One of them would be called Lizzie or Maud or whatever. What he had here were two versions of Blue and he didn’t know which of them he’d married.

  The girl (woman!) beside him leaned across to whisper in his ear. ‘You have a little heart-shaped birthmark on your bottom; she won’t know about that. I like to kiss it when we’re –’

  Henry coughed. ‘Quite,’ he said quickly. He felt a flush rising from his neck. All the same, the resemblance was so uncanny, he thought he’d better make sure. ‘Can you tell me where I have my birthmark?’ he asked the Blue by the dressing table.

  She gave him one of Blue’s delightful smiles. ‘On your ear?’ she asked.

  Henry shook his head in slow amazement. ‘What is it – an illusion spell?’

  ‘Doppleganger,’ Blue told him, the real Blue by his side. ‘I couldn’t trust an illusion spell, not for this.’

  ‘I thought dopplegangers were dangerous,’ Henry said. Actually, what he really thought was that you died if you met yours.

  ‘They’re supposed to be bad luck, but that’s just an old superstition. Isn’t she great?’

  She was great all right, Henry thought. She was Blue down to the very finest detail. The way she held her head, the way she moved her hand, that look in her eye when she was weighing up a situation …

  ‘Where did you get her?’ he asked. ‘I thought dopplegangers just turned up, as portents of doom.’

  ‘I arranged it with Madame Cardui,’ Blue said. ‘I was with her earlier to talk about Mella.’

  Henry wanted to know how that meeting went, but he could ask her about it in a minute. At the moment he was even more interested in the doppleganger. ‘Where did Madame Cardui find her?’

  ‘I didn’t ask. But it’s all right: she’ll have taken all the necessary precautions. You know what she’s like.’

  Scary, that’s what Madame Cardui was like. As was Blue when the mood took her. Dopplegangers were dangerous. It wasn’t just an old superstition. And now this one was loose in the Purple Palace. The question was why.

  ‘What’s it all about, Blue?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, I can’t go off looking for Mella and leave the Realm to look after itself, can I?’

  ‘You’re going off looking for Mella?’ Henry echoed in his trademark turning-a-statement-into-a-question.

  ‘You don’t think I’d leave that to anyone else, do you?’

  Now she came to mention it, he didn’t. Even though they both knew Madame Cardui would leave no stone unturned in her search for their daughter, there was not the slightest chance Blue would leave something like that to anybody other than herself.

  ‘So you’re going to look for Mella and your doppleganger will …?’

  ‘Rule the Realm in my place,’ Blue said triumphantly. ‘Well, sort of. She’ll keep people from thinking I’ve
gone off and left the Palace unattended. Then, when I get back, I’ll get rid of her and take over again and nobody will be any the wiser.’

  That just raised so many questions he hardly knew where to start. Eventually he said, ‘She’s going – she’ll be – I don’t even know her name –’

  ‘Blue,’ Blue said. ‘Her name is Blue. Same as mine.’ She gave him a kindly look. ‘If you’re getting confused, you can call her Orange.’

  Henry looked at her, frowning. ‘Why Orange?’

  ‘Complementary colour.’ Blue grinned at him.

  ‘How?’ Henry asked. ‘How is she going to rule the Realm?’

  ‘She’s not really,’ Blue said patiently. ‘She’ll just be a figurehead until I get back. She’s perfectly fine for that job – she knows everything I do.’

  ‘She doesn’t know where I keep my birthmark,’ Henry muttered.

  ‘Not intimate things like that. She won’t know about birthmarks. But all the important things, how to wave from an ouklo, how to shake hands with visiting dignitaries – she knows those sort of things.’

  ‘How are you going to get rid of her?’

  Blue looked puzzled. ‘I don’t want to get rid of her. I’ve only just managed to get hold of her.’

  ‘When you’ve finished and you want to take over ruling the Realm again. How are you going to get rid of her then?’