Richards nodded. "You have a composite personality?"
"Yes. Four made one. The Flower King tried to make me stable, and he succeeded, in the main, although we have our own cage here for when such scruples as he instilled in us break down. The Flower King brought us here because we understand these tragic children." He sighed sorrowfully. "We have tried to leave, naturally, but one cannot. The city moves with one. Where we are, there is also to be found our prison. We can never escape. It is a beautiful cage, but it remains a cage for all that." The first head rotated back into place. A tear trickled from the Queen's eye, and the scent of lavender filled the air. "Forgive me. I forget myself. Come, we must go on."
As the last of the party filed after the Queen, something heavy threw itself against the bars of a cage scant feet from the Captain and the Doctor.
"What in all the seven skies is that?" said Piccolo, staring.
Freudo peered in analytically. "Somezink to do with somevun's mutter," he said, stroking his beard.
They walked into the black heart of the gilded city, passing many things that disturbed them all. Richards tried to stop looking, but could not help himself, staring at a parade of unpleasantness that shocked him. I really have no idea at all what goes on in the heads of meat people, he thought.
They stopped and the Queen spoke again.
"We are here," he said, his diffident manner restored. They stood by the circular hole at the centre of the city, about fifteen metres across. It was dark there, so far from the edge of the circuit. Richards and the others had bars of shadow tattooed across their faces by what light broke through, making jailbirds of them all.
The Queen raised a lazy hand. Chain clanked and a large iron cage rose up from the pit below. It was once spherical but was now buckled, the metal discoloured where it had been exposed to great heat.
"Here, at the very centre of our city, we housed the Great Secret, the most awful and blackest secret in all of creation," said the Queen. "So terrible it was, no one could approach it without the very flesh being blasted from their bones. But guard it we were commanded to, and guard it we did, and diligently, for over three thousand years."
Richards wondered what that meant in Real terms. All the old Reality Realms had a system of time dilation that enabled users to live out years over the course of a few weekends. He doubted this motley pseudo-Realm ran to the strictures of the Real or the old Realms. He had no idea how long he'd been in there — could have been seconds, could have been weeks. By the looks of the place, he doubted whoever had made it had fully integrated all its time zones. Qifang had said that k52 had been manipulating the time flow of the place, but he reckoned now that it was a side-effect of the place's unorthodox construction. It was, in all probability, temporally as well as spatially instable.
"Then, exactly six years ago, the secret within this cage became enraged. All through the night it roared, then it escaped, a roaring column of pure night, bursting through the deck of our city with much loss of life. But worse was to come, for days later the Great Terror began."
"You had the Terror in this cage," said Richards.
"Yes. The Great Terror — Lord Penumbra was in that cage."
Richards looked at the sphere. He leaned upon the railing surrounding it and tapped upon it with the fingers of his left hand. "Tell me, the Queen, the other Queen, Isabella. Did she disappear around this time?"
The Queen was quiet for a moment, and put his hand to his chin in contemplation. "Yes. The news came later. We thought Penumbra had killed her."
"Don't count on that," said Richards.
"What do you mean?" said Bear.
"It means I'm thinking."
"Do tell," said Tarquin.
Richards shook his head. "No. I'm not one hundred per cent sure yet, but I will be. Once I've seen Hog, I'll know."
"You seek that secret, the way to his lair?" said the Queen.
"Yes," said Richards.
"A foolish request, but very well. If there is one place that will endure to the end of this affair, it is the black Anvil of Lord Hog. Come with me."
Richards followed the Queen as the others waited nervously for him. He led the AI to a small cage, a box with airholes punched into it. The Queen gestured towards it. Richards hesitated. "Open it," said the Queen. So Richards did.
The door squeaked on unused hinges. He flinched. Nothing happened.
"Closer," said the Queen. "Put your face to the door."
"Oh, OK," said Richards. He moved toward the door, pushing his hat back onto his head so the brim was out of the way and his nose was in the rank air of the box.
Something moved at the back.
"Do not pull away!" commanded the Queen. "Let it come to you."
Richards held his breath. A shape rushed out of the dark. Oily feathers flapped in his face and he felt something sting and enter his mind.
Knowledge. Secrets. The right pylon to approach, the right black box to board, the right stairs to climb.
The right question to ask.
The right thing to tell.
He fell to his knees and vomited on the floor, the liquid slipping through the grate to the ground far below.
"You OK?" asked Bear.
"No," said Richards, wiping his mouth. "Not really. But I do know the way."
On cue, the city lurched to one side, then the other. The giant cage of the Great Secret clanged on the decking. Metallic tolls of bells and other cages rang across the city, causing the secrets to chitter angrily and bang upon the floors of their cells. When the last of these had faded, the city was moving forward at speed, the ground rushing along beneath them.
"Do not be alarmed," said the Queen. "You have set Secret in motion. Our bronze giants carry us forth." The Queen looked sad, but resolute. "Those of you who wish to leave may do so. Hog is a creature of despicable evil, yet a creature who knows the fates of all."
"We all go to seek the advice of Lord Hog," said Piccolo resolutely.
"The Great Bear's hairy knackers we are!" said Bear.
"Vot about the other varriors you have called, my majesty?" asked Freudo. "Ve should vait for them."
The Queen smiled fondly at his companion. "About that, you need not trouble yourself, Herr Doktor. There are no others." He looked at them all solemnly. "Between oblivion and life for all that remains in this sphere, dear Freudo, stand only we unfortunate few."
They made their way down to the Flan, and the Queen had lackeys re-equip the band, giving them fresh shot and powder for their guns.
"A small secret of yours arrived a while back. You enjoy the fighting, and you enjoy your gun," said the Queen to Richards as a servant presented the AI with a box of ammunition.
"No, I hate fighting," said Richards.
"If you say," said the Queen. A mirthful twinkle, for a moment, sparked in his eye. "Do not be ashamed, for there are worse things in life than to fight for a just cause.
"And now, my bold adventurers, you must be away." He smiled sadly. "I suppose, if you are successful, then one will know, for one's punishment will be unending. Ah! Such irony! But imprisonment is preferable to death, so you go with my blessings."
The Flan 's clamshell doors began to shut. "Remember! Do not trust Hog, yet do not fear him either. We know that there is only one thing in all the world he does not know, and he covets this information above all else. It is what he has been searching for his entire long existence. And you, Richards. You can tell him what it is."
"Eh?" said Tarquin. "How come?"