Faerie Lord

Seventy-One

There was an emergency team waiting as Madame Cardui and Nymph stepped out of the Palace portal. Two of its members moved into the flames at once and reemerged seconds later carrying the prostrate Pyrgus on a stretcher. ‘Place him in stasis immediately,’ Madame Cardui ordered.

‘One moment,’ said Chief Wizard Surgeon Healer Danaus pompously. He was dressed, as always, in the formal robes of his profession. The stretcher-bearers stopped.

‘What is it?’ Madame Cardui snapped. She disliked Danaus. He was one of the old guard at the Palace, hugely experienced and very good indeed at his job. But he was officious and arrogant and had a grossly inflated idea of his own importance.

‘The placement of a living Prince of the Realm in stasis requires an executive order from the ruling sovereign,’ Danaus said.

Madame Cardui glared at him. ‘The ruling sovereign isn’t here.’

‘Precisely.’

The body on the stretcher was no longer that of a young man, not even the maturing adult who had sought refuge in the Analogue World. Pyrgus looked positively shrunken now, wrinkled and old, as if the illness that had seized him was accelerating.

‘This is an emergency,’ said Madame Cardui.

Chief Wizard Healer Danaus favoured her with a patronising smile, ‘I’m afraid there is no provision in the legislation for emergencies.’ He adjusted his robes. ‘Perhaps – ’ He stopped abruptly, eyes wide.

Nymph was by his side now, her dagger pressed into his throat, ‘I am the wife of Prince Pyrgus,’ she said icily. ‘Perhaps it would be sufficient if I signed the executive order?’

Danaus swallowed visibly. ‘Yes,’ he said, his voice scarcely more than a squeak. ‘Perhaps it would.’

Stasis magic was normally used for preserving corpses, so Pyrgus was taken directly to the mortuary. Madame Cardui shivered, and not simply because of the cold. She had no personal fear of death – strange how it faded as one grew older – and she accepted its inevitability among the old. But Pyrgus, for all his elderly appearance, was not old. Although he would never have thanked her for saying so, he had been scarcely more than a boy when the time fever struck. To see him now, wizened, shrunken, clearly close to death, was an abomination.

Although her dagger had disappeared now, Nymph stood close to Chief Wizard Healer Danaus. But he seemed to need no further encouragement and his team worked with silent efficiency. Nonetheless, Nymph watched each move closely. Pyrgus had already been left in his coma too long. She was not prepared to take the slightest chance of any further delay.

There was an exclusion cabinet already set up, looking for all the world like a transparent coffin. But it had to be prepared and activated before it was any use to Pyrgus. A nurse began to apply the spell coatings using a broad brush. While she worked with cool efficiency, Nymph felt a rising tide of frustration. She was far more angry with Danaus than she cared to show. The man had been warned of Pyrgus’s condition. He should have had everything ready instead of cavilling about legal niceties.

The coatings were tricky since different spells were required on different surfaces, but they were finished eventually.

‘Why aren’t they putting him inside?’ Nymph demanded, as the nurse was replaced by a different member of the team.

‘We require the catalyst,’ Danaus said, watching her warily. He risked adding, ‘This is difficult work.’

It probably was. Nymph noted it was being carried out by a Faerie of the Night. There were more Nighters working in the Palace since Blue became Queen. It was official policy now, but Nymph still felt vaguely uneasy. She watched as the man laid an adhesive strip along the bottom of the cabinet. He attached a small jewel to one end and what looked like a metallic fuse to the other. Nothing he did seemed particularly difficult to Nymph, but she supposed there was not much tolerance in the placements. Certainly the Nighter seemed to work with as much caution as speed. He glanced at Danaus and nodded as he finished.

Danaus nodded back. ‘Trigger,’ he said quietly.

The Nighter clicked his fingers and a small spark jumped from his thumb to the end of the fuse. There was a spluttering sound and a sudden smell of burning as the fuse ignited. The adhesive tape vanished in a silent flash and the tiny jewel began to pulse and glow. Seconds later it too exploded silently in a burst of greenish light.

Danaus walked over to inspect the cabinet. He sniffed several of its surfaces and bent over to examine the interior closely. After long moments he straightened up. ‘Put His Highness inside,’ he said.

Nymph said quickly, ‘Chief Wizard Healer, is it true there is a risk with this procedure?’

Danaus glanced at her without affection. ‘Yes. Stasis is normally used to preserve dead bodies or inanimate objects. There is a negligible risk when it is applied to living systems.’

‘Negligible?’

‘Statistically measurable, but small.’ He hesitated, then added, ‘Certainly your husband would be in far greater peril if we did not place him in stasis now. Were I smitten with the fever, it is what I would want for myself. The process of the disease must be stopped until we can find a cure.’

‘Good,’ Nymph said. ‘Proceed.’ She made a silent decision to kill Chief Wizard Surgeon Healer Danaus if any harm befell Pyrgus.

If he sensed her thought, Danaus didn’t show it. He nodded to his team and seconds later Pyrgus was sealed inside the cabinet. He looked disturbingly like a corpse now, although Nymph could see the gentle rise and fall of his breathing. But even that would stop when the cabinet was activated. Everything would stop. Pyrgus, who was being eaten by Time, would halt in Time.

Danaus took a tiny six-inch wand from a pocket of his robe and snapped it over the cabinet at the level of Pyrgus’s throat. The ark hummed for a brief second, then was silent. Pyrgus’s breathing stopped, it’s done,’ Danaus said.

Perhaps it was the sheer stillness of Pyrgus that Nymph found upsetting. His face began to blur, as if tears were clouding her eyes, yet strangely she did not cry – she never cried. There was a knot of nausea in her stomach that almost certainly came from worry. She turned away and felt herself sway.

‘Nymph deeah?’ Madame Cardui said.

There were too many people in the room. They appeared and disappeared and busied themselves in hordes that ebbed and swelled like some strange tide. There was something wrong with the light, for it flickered incessantly.

‘Nymph?’ Madame Cardui said again.

She needed to get back to the fresh air, away from the death smells. They would take Pyrgus away, now they had placed him in stasis. They would carry the cabinet to his Palace quarters and post guards to ensure he was not disturbed. They would continue their search for a cure. There was nothing more she could do here.

‘Nymph, what’s the matter?’ Madame Cardui asked in sudden alarm.

Nymph took a step forward and the world spun around her.

‘Nymph!’ It was close to a shout now.

Then came the plummy voice of Chief Wizard Healer Danaus, confident and firm. ‘Stand back, Madame Cardui,’ he said. ‘She has temporal fever.’