The two ships banked in a wide arc round the area Richards indicated, a circular area of brown vegetation, as if it had been starved of sunlight by a giant tent.
Richards nodded. "What was there?"
"Whatever it were, 'tis there no longer," said Piccolo. He put his telescope to his eye. "And if it is there no longer, where did it go?"
"That way," said Richards. The massive tracks started up again, leading away from the dying reeds. "Follow those prints."
Three hours later, the city came into view.
Secret was a city like no other; gaudy on a plain of sere grasses, a citadel of brass and filigree; its iridescent buildings bolted to a double circular platform carried like a palanquin by a dozen brazen herms of immense size, halted now and kneeling. Four bridges arched upwards to meet in the centre of the city where they formed the base of a tower, directly above a large circle of shadow. The Kylie and the Flan flew over Secret's spires, its flags fluttering beneath their keels. But though the city was a blaze of colours, the centre of the circle was an altogether different kind of place. Out of the light was a twilit world of cages. Dark shapes moved within them.
Gracefully the ships descended, drawing level with the burnished giants' heads. An extravagant jetty jutted out into the air from a mounting tucked away behind the lead giant. With a series of loud commands bellowed through a candied bullhorn, Piccolo directed the Kurvy Kylie out away from the city, there to sit in vigil. His new flagship he steered towards the jetty. There was a loud clang, a slight start, and the Flan O'War came to a stop. Pirates shouted as they leapt onto the polished metal decks of Secret, calling to their colleagues for rope. Piccolo ordered the boilers extinguished. One by one, the blackbird chimneys ceased to smoke. The pie dish slowed its rotation, until the Flan O' War hung in the air, motionless and silent.
"Gentlemen," said Piccolo to Richards and his friends, "let us prepare ourselves. Bosun Mbotu!"
"Yes, sir!"
"Send word that we have arrived, and that we seek an audience with the queen."
Half an hour later Richards stood by Bear at the main entrance to the Flan O'War. He was dressed in a high-necked officer's uniform Piccolo had insisted he wear.
"Stop tugging at the damn thing, man!" said Tarquin from where he hung, cleaned and golden, across Richards' chest.
"I can't help it. It's this damn brocade. It itches like hell."
"Have you no sense of decorum? Leave it be. And put your gloves back on, we're going to meet royalty. One simply cannot greet royalty without one's hands covered."
Bear and Piccolo were likewise well attired, both being decked out in outrageously flamboyant clothes. Bear sported a hat with a gigantic orange feather upon it that dusted the ceiling of the Flan as he moved. Piccolo, too, had outdone himself, and his pirates had ironed their best baggy trousers and polished their golden teeth.
The clamshell doors opened, jets of steam hissing from the rams. Richards, Tarquin, Bear, Captain Del Piccolo and an honour guard of six pirates led by Mbotu stepped out of the ship and onto the jetty of Secret.
A figure stepped out to greet them. He walked deliberately, the precise placement of a silver-topped cane accompanying every step. His clothing was that of the late seventeenth century: a large periwig, short breeches, long coat, lacy cuffs and high-heeled buckled shoes. A hobbit in a homburg hat accompanied him, smoking a pipe, staring at each of the visitors hard and taking notes.
The man had four arms, and a square head under his large hat, a different face on every side. Those away from them were still as porcelain sculptures, eyes closed.
That facing them matched the man's outfit, thick with powder and rouge, thin moustache and beauty spot. A face wearied by dissolution.
"Good day, gentlemen," said the man. "We are the Queen of Secret. May we bid you, as enemies of our enemy, welcome to our fortress-prison, the most hidden, and perhaps last, city in all of the world." He flourished a bow. Piccolo returned one but seemed clumsy before such finesse. Richards settled for a brief nod. "We apologise for the environs. We have to move the city quite often. The current locale, is, we admit, unpleasant, but one is running out of places to hide."
"Good day to you, sir. I am Captain Percival Del Piccolo, pirate swordsman of wit and occasional gentleman. May I introduce my excellent friends Sergeant Bear and Mr Richards?"
"We are honoured, Sergeant, Mr Richards."
"Just Richards," said Richards. "Your majesty."
"This," said the queen, indicating the hobbit, "is Herr Doktor Freudo. Our chief psychiatrist here." Freudo clicked his heels together and rose up on his toes. "I take it you heard our message. Tell me, are there others coming?"
Richards looked to Bear who looked to Piccolo. "I am sorry, your majesty," said Piccolo. "We sought you out. We heard no message."
The Queen sighed. "Ah. The end is nearer than I thought, then. Come, come, follow me. We will be ready to make way in the morning. Until we are ready to depart, one recommends you take rest in the accommodation one has provided."
They walked off the jetty, under the upper ring, and into the world under Secret. Through the mesh of the floor they could see the boggy plain underneath. The walkway the Queen led them along took a long, circuitous route through a forest of bars, a jarring mix of the ornate and utile.
The cages were full of strange, mewling creatures: half-men, phantoms and disturbing females of overtly pornographic character. An emaciated waif raked at the air, almost catching Freudo's hat with its long and dirty claws. The tiny psychiatrist leapt back and chuckled nervously.
"There, there, Ameline!" he chided.
"Although this is a prison," said the Queen, "we do attempt to rehabilitate our inmates. Think of us, perhaps, as a secure hospital." His eyes closed, head rotated and a new face awoke. A stern matron looked out at them, and the Queen's clothes rippled to be replaced with those of a Victorian nurse.
"What are these things?" asked Richards.
"Why, Mr Richards, these are secrets. Secrets from the world over, exiled here for safekeeping. I am being somewhat fanciful, of course. They are not secrets in and of themselves, but the people that used them would doubtless prefer that they remain hidden from their friends. The Grid is such a poisonous place; from its very beginning it has been a breeding ground for sexual perversity. The Flower King attempted to keep many of these poor, tortured creatures out of his creation, but some, those truly desperate, got in."
"These are all sex toys?" said Richards.
The Queen nodded sadly. "Bots, near-I, even one or two early examples of strong AI, all here, all made to enjoy whatever carnal horror their owners could not take into the Real. Or not enjoy it, as so many of these poor things were made to suffer for others' enjoyment. Naturally, these are all minor confidences, we keep the more dangerous ones away from the path."
An icy tingle ran up Richards' spine as he looked into a cage. "Now that's something I wouldn't admit to a psychiatrist."
"You may not vant to," said Freudo, "but ve are only here to help, if you vant to talk."
"Er, right. Let me guess," said Richards. "The Flower King wanted to keep this place pure. For the Queen — the other one, I mean."
"Yes," said the Queen with surprise. "Every unpleasant, repressed urge, repulsive to polite society, let free on the Grid rather than locked up in the darker corridors of the mind and safely repressed. Why would he allow them here to sully the creation he sought to perfect? Some of course, are more substantial, actions, deeds vile or not, but all shameful to the doer. This city, for all its finery, is a cellblock, an oubliette of horrors stemming from the mind of man." The Queen looked at Richards piercingly.
"And why are you here?"
At this the Queen laughed. It was a gentle sound that abruptly transformed into a ragged series of bitter snorts as a third face rotated into place, the face of a bearded roustabout, clothes shimmering to match. "Why indeed? For ourselves are here a convict; we are gaoler and prisoner both. We were made as playthings for the vices of others."