The Purple Emperor

'And what do I do for it?'

'Pardon?'

'You said it was a symbiote. Mutual admiration society. Tit for tat. You scratch my back, I scratch yours.' Chalkhill understood symbiote all right – it was the way he'd functioned most of his life. 'What's the quid pro quo?'

'The worm takes a little of your pigmentation to use in its mating ritual.' He caught Chalkhill's expression again. 'Apparently female worms prefer male worms to have white spots. This one doesn't, so it will extract some of your skin colour to make them.'

'What effect does that have on me?' Chalkhill asked suspiciously.

'You'll look a little pale.'

'Is it painful?'

'Not even slightly.'

It didn't sound too bad to Chalkhill. 'What do I do? Keep the worm with me in my pocket? Something of that sort?'

The Facemaster hesitated. 'Ah… not exactly. The symbiote must be absorbed into your body.'

Chalkhill's jaw dropped. 'I have to swallow it?'

The Facemaster shook his head. 'Human saliva is toxic to the species, I'm afraid. Consequently the insertion must be made in one nostril. The worm slides down your throat, crawls through the stomach into the large intestine, thence to the small intestine and, ultimately, the bowel, where it takes up permanent residence in your bottom.'

Chalkhill stared at him in horror. 'Are you out of your mind?' he asked incredulously. 'You want me to stuff that thing up my nose and let it crawl down through my guts?'

'It's no fun for me either,' said the worm.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

Despite everything, Pyrgus slept late next morning. The others must have been exhausted too, for none of them came to wake him. He woke to sunshine and a feeling of dread. After a moment he knuckled the sleep from his eyes and climbed out from under the layer of woolly endolgs who acted as both inner guards and eiderdown. 'Morning, Boss,' they chorused cheerfully.

'Morning,' Pyrgus grunted. He grabbed the towels someone had laid out for him and headed for the cleansing cubicle. He was never very good first thing in the morning, but this morning was much worse than usual. Last night's discussions had lasted almost until dawn and produced nothing in the way of a solution.

'Good morning, Your Royal Highness,' purred the soft, spell-driven voice of the cleansing cubicle. Pyrgus groaned. Even this damn thing must have heard the latest developments: it had been calling him Emperor Elect since his father's murder. The news had to be all over the palace by now.

The cubicle filled with hot mist as he stepped inside and pseudo pods extended to scrape sweat and impurities off his back. Small streams of perfumed water oozed up around his feet, insinuated themselves between his toes and began to curl around his legs. Soothing music crept along the edge of audibility, extracting stress from his shoulders and neck.

What to do? There was another meeting scheduled in -

'Seventeen minutes and thirty-eight seconds,' the cubicle told him. It wasn't sentient or even really telepathic, just expensive. He often felt guilty just using it. Life was hugely simpler when he had hidden among the people and had nothing more to worry about than fights with his father.

– seventeen minutes and thirty-eight seconds and something had to be sorted soon. There was no way he was going to let Lord Hairstreak get away with this, not now, not ever, even if he had to… had to

… had to what? It was no use waiting for the others to supply him with a plan. He had to come up with one himself. Something swift, decisive and utterly ruthless. He had to take the initiative!

The trouble was his mind just wouldn't function.

The cubicle sensed his dilemma and slammed a blast of ice-cold water against his naked body. Pyrgus yelped and leaped outside. But as he reached for the towels to dry himself off, he had to admit his head was clearer now. Perhaps he could refuse to acknowledge the pact, claim his father was still dead and Hairstreak had forged his seal and signature. What could Hairstreak do about it?

He could produce the Purple Emperor, Pyrgus thought. His father was a slave to Lord Hairstreak now.

He dressed slowly as depression seeped over him like grey-black ooze. In situations like this, there was only one consolation:

Things couldn't get any worse.

Pyrgus walked into the meeting to discover things were getting worse.

'What are you doing here?' he asked at once.

It was Gatekeeper Fogarty who answered. 'Your half-brother has something to tell you.'

Blue said, 'I explained you had important things to do, but he insisted. He won't tell us what it is.'

Pyrgus glared at Comma, who seemed to be growing fatter lately. 'Well, what is it?' He noticed Madame Cardui wasn't present. Perhaps Blue had sent her off somewhere. And there was still no sign of Henry. He'd have liked Henry to have been here. Somehow he felt better with Henry around.

Comma said, 'That's no way to talk to your Emperor Elect.'

'Apparently I'm not Emperor Elect any longer,' Pyrgus told him drily. 'That's why I don't have time -'

'I know you're not Emperor Elect,' Comma said. 'I'm Emperor Elect – that's what I just said.' He glared at Pyrgus as fiercely as Pyrgus had glared at him. 'You never told me Father was still alive, you big pig!

'Comma -' Blue tried to put in. Suddenly she was looking at Comma more sympathetically than she had done in months.

But Comma was not to be diverted. He looked angry and tearful at the same time. 'You pretended to me he was dead. So did you, Blue. You ganged up on me and told me my father was dead!

'Nobody ganged up on you, Comma -' Fogarty began.

Comma ignored him. 'Well, he isn't dead!' he shouted at Pyrgus. 'He was never dead. And now he wants me to be Emperor.'

For a long moment Pyrgus could do no more than look at him. Then he said, 'So you've been told already.'

'He wants me to be the next Emperor. Not you, Pyrgus – me! Father doesn't want to be Emperor any more because of his deformity. He wants me!'

Suddenly there was too much going round in Pyrgus's head. How had Comma found out so soon? The Duke of Burgundy had undertaken there would be no announcement until Pyrgus formally stepped down. And beyond the immediate questions there were others. What was he, Pyrgus, going to do about it? What was he going to do about -? He couldn't even think about it properly.

It was Blue who asked, quite gently, 'Who told you about Daddy, Comma?'

And Comma said triumphantly, 'Lord Hairstreak!'

Mr Fogarty tried to rescue the situation. 'This isn't the way you think it is,' he said. He glanced across at Pyrgus as if wanting him to explain.

But Pyrgus couldn't explain, not properly. How could he explain a spiritual abomination to somebody Comma's age? How could he explain the animated shell that was now controlled by Lord Hairstreak? How could he explain all that to a boy who just wanted his father to be alive? After all, it was what Pyrgus wanted too.

Blue said, 'Lord Hairstreak tells lies.'

Comma rounded on her, eyes blazing. 'Is he telling lies about Father being alive?'

Blue shook her head. 'Not exactly. What he -'

'What do you mean, Not exactly} Father's either alive or dead. He can't be not exactly alive. I used to think you were better than Pyrgus, Blue, but you're not. You're just as bad as he is. Father is alive. You didn't want me to know that because you didn't want me to be Emperor. But your rotten scheme didn't work. You're not my friends. You've never been my friends. But Lord Hairstreak's my friend now.'

'Hairstreak isn't your friend,' Mr Fogarty said shortly. 'Hairstreak isn't anybody's friend.'

But Comma ignored him. 'Look,' he said excitedly. 'Look at this!' He pulled a parchment scroll from the pocket of his jerkin. It looked eerily like the scroll the Duke of Burgundy had carried with the details of the pact. Comma pushed it towards Pyrgus, waving it underneath his nose.