The Purple Emperor

'Ochlodes,' one told him.

'Palaemon,' said the other.

'Ochlodes, Palaemon,' Pyrgus said, 'you have already proved yourselves fine fighters on this mission. We may well be called on to fight again before we get out of this maze, but it's even more important to use your head and take care – most of the dangers here are from traps.' He looked at Nymph, Blue and Comma. 'That goes for you three as well – think before you do anything, take it slow and never assume anything is what it seems.'

After a moment, Blue said, 'I'd suggest we spread out. Spread out, but keep an eye on each other. That way if one of us does get caught in a trap, the others aren't likely to get caught as well, so we can help one another.'

'That's good strategic thinking, Princess Royal,' Nymph said with sincerity. Blue favoured her with a frosty little smile.

They separated out as far as space would allow, then cautiously began to move north up the corridor. They had gone no more than fifty yards before a swiftly spinning blade emerged from a side wall to slice the lobe from Palaemon's ear.

If he hadn't had the preternatural reflexes of a Forest Faerie, it would have cut his throat.

CHAPTER SEVENTY SEVEN

'I'm worried about the kid,' Fogarty said suddenly.

'Henry?'

'No – Pyrgus. I'm worried about him,' Fogarty said. 'It's taking too long.'

'You think so, deeah?'

'The theory was they slip into the palace, grab their father and slip out again. How long does that take?'

'Perhaps longer than one might imagine,' said Madame Cardui. 'The palace is a substantial building. Pyrgus has to find his father before he can rescue him.'

'I'm not sure they're still at the palace,' Fogarty said. 'I'm not even sure the Purple Emperor is at the palace.'

'Pyrgus said he saw his father at a window when they were forced to leave.'

'Pyrgus said he thought he saw his father at the window,' Fogarty corrected her. 'But even if he was right, that doesn't mean his father stayed there.' He leaned, forward. 'In a case like this, you have to figure out what your enemy is thinking. Emperor Apatura isn't himself now. He's under orders from Hairstreak. On his own, the Emperor would stay at the palace. But would Hairstreak want him to stay at the palace?'

'Well, don't keep me in suspense – would he?'

I don't think he would,' Fogarty said. 'I wouldn't.

I'm trying to tell the world the old Emperor is sound of body and mind, but just happens to want me to take over ruling the empire. People will never buy that if they see Apatura wandering about like a zombie. If I were Hairstreak, I'd hide him away at my own place.'

After a moment, Madame Cardui said, 'Lord Hairstreak has two places: a home in the city and the other -' She stopped, looking at him.

'The other one's somewhere in this forest,' Fogarty finished for her. 'He'd never take the Emperor to the place in the city – far too public'

They looked at one another.

'Why didn't you say this before?' Madame Cardui asked.

'I didn't think of it before,' Fogarty said sourly.

'What are you going to do about it?'

Fogarty said, 'I think I'll go and talk to the Queen.'

CHAPTER SEVENTY EIGHT

The short taxi ride turned out to be a long taxi ride, but the driver took American Express. Brimstone stared up at the church he'd just bought with a rising feeling of delight. It was perfect. Derelict. Isolated. Surrounded by trees to guarantee a little privacy. And, as Mr Ho had promised, an ancient graveyard all around it. One or two of the graves had fresh flowers, which suggested there might be recent corpses available. Not that he was likely to need them. According to his grimoire, you could do without them in the Analogue Realm.

'Be so good as to carry my bags inside,' he told the taxi driver grandly.

'Bug off,' said the taxi driver, scowling. He was sweaty and overweight with an offensive body odour.

Brimstone grinned at him benignly. He opened the bag Beleth had given him and extracted one of the ridiculous pieces of paper that served as coinage in this world. (They passed paper around and pretended it was money! That was even sillier than the little plastic card.) The number 100 was printed on the front, which meant people believed they could exchange it for one hundred… for one hundred

… for one hundred what? Brimstone actually wasn't sure. Sheep? Cows? Gold bars? The weird thing was it didn't matter. People just kept collecting them to pass around again.

Brimstone waved the paper under the taxi driver's smelly nose. 'Be so good as to carry my bags inside and I shall give you this!'

The driver's surly look disappeared and he scrambled from his cab. 'Why didn't you say so?'

The church had been deconsecrated according to Mr Ho, but otherwise left to rot. There were rows of broken wood wormed pews, broken stained-glass windows, broken statuary in mouldy niches, broken floor tiles and, best of all, a dusty altar. There was even a threadbare altar-cloth in silver and gold.

Brimstone dragged his luggage from the vestibule where the driver had left it, locked the front door again and settled down to unpack. The job he had to do for Beleth could take some time, so best to get started as soon as possible. He checked the grimoire, then walked up to the altar. He understood what he had to do. It was a mental preparation, designed to put him in the proper frame of mind.

Standing alone before the altar of the broken-down, deconsecrated church, Silas Brimstone began to confess his sins aloud.

It would, he thought, take quite some time.

They said it was a preparation room, but Chalkhill wasn't fooled for a minute. The furniture was minimal, the door was locked. He was in a holding-pen – a cell by any other name – to keep him safe until the hideous surgery. Worse still, Cyril had woken up again.

The worm was in a frenzy. He knew he'd been chemically sandbagged, but the lethe meant he couldn't remember what had happened. Now, having failed to extract the information directly from Chalkhill's mind, he was trying to nag it out of him.

'But we're friends! Cyril exclaimed mentally. 'At least I thought we were. You know what happened, don't you? Why don't you tell me? I'm the one who's going to make you Purple Emperor. Have you forgotten that? Don't you have any loyalty? To me? To the Revolution?'

'Your Revolution's a joke,' Chalkhill told him sourly. Then, echoing something Hairstreak said, 'You haven't been able to make real headway for centuries.'

There was a sudden mental silence. Then the wan-garamas said, 'How did you find out? Who told you that?'

'Not you, anyway.'

''It's not relevant any more,' Cyril shrieked mentally. 'We're not going to fail this time!'

'No you're not,' said Chalkhill tiredly, 'But it doesn't matter. What's happened is that our friend Lord Hairstreak has decided to have you surgically removed from my bottom and transplanted into the body of Emperor Apatura.'

The wangaramas gave the mental equivalent of a screech. 'The old Purple Emperor? But he's been resurrected!'

'That's the whole point,' Chalkhill said. 'Apparently with you inside him he'll appear a lot more lifelike.'

'You know this will kill me, don't you?' Cyril said.

Like that mattered to anybody. Chalkhill said, 'Don't be silly, Cyril. Of course it won't kill you. You wouldn't be much good to Hairstreak if you're dead.' A thought struck him and he mused aloud, 'I wonder why he doesn't just stick a new wyrm up the Emperor's nose, though…'

Cyril picked up on the question. 'Won't work with a resurrected host. Has to be a transplant.'

'Well,' said Chalkhill piously, 'I feel for you, Cyril, I really do. I think Lord Hairstreak is being beastly and not for the first time, I might add. If it was in my power to help, then help I would, but regrettably it isn't – I'm as much a prisoner of that vile little man as you are.'