Faerie Lord

Seven

The fear was back and this time it was much worse than it had been when he was worried about Pyrgus. ‘He can’t be!’ Henry said. But he knew Mr Fogarty could very well be. He might look tough as old boots, but he had to be nearly ninety. The reality was a lot of old people fell off their perches long before that. Not that reality would stop Henry going into denial. ‘He can’t be,’ Henry repeated. ‘What about his treatments?’ Mr Fogarty was getting rejuvenation spells from Palace wizards in the Faerie Realm. They were supposed to rebuild the vital organs. At the time they started, Henry frankly hadn’t noticed much change in Mr Fogarty’s appearance, but Madame Cardui had once remarked the treatments made him ‘frisky’.

Pyrgus ignored the question. ‘He’s caught the disease, Henry. He’s got TF.’

‘You said humans couldn’t get it!’ Henry snapped accusingly. He pushed his chair away from the table and began to walk nervously around the kitchen, his eyes suddenly moist.

‘I said the disease goes dormant in the Analogue World: it doesn’t seem to exist here,’ Pyrgus told him patiently. ‘That’s not the same thing.’

‘You see,’ Nymph said gently, ‘TF uses up your future. Young people have a lot of future to use up. But Mr Fogarty hasn’t. At his age it can’t be more than a few years, even with rejuvenation treatments. It’s what Pyrgus told you, Henry – bouts of fever, except the fever burns up time. When you’re young, you can afford several bouts. When you’re eighty-seven, like Mr Fogarty…’

‘How many has he had?’ Henry demanded.

‘Just two,’ Nymph said. ‘But they’ve left him very old and very weak. He can’t get out of bed.’

‘But he could recover,’ Henry said desperately. ‘I mean, he’s basically very strong and with spells and things…’

‘Another bout will kill him,’ Pyrgus said bluntly. ‘Even without one I don’t know how long he can last.’

Henry stared at them. He hadn’t laid eyes on Mr Fogarty for the past two years, but somehow that didn’t matter. Just as it didn’t matter that Mr Fogarty was difficult and cranky and paranoid and awkward. He loved the old man and it was only at this moment he realised just how much. ‘Then you must get him here!’ he said suddenly.

Pyrgus, the older, mature, greying Pyrgus, stared at Henry almost sorrowfully.

‘Come on,’ Henry said eagerly. ‘It’s obvious. You bring him back home, back to the Analogue World. Then he won’t have any more bouts. He can do what you’re doing and just wait here for a cure.’ Some of his eagerness died down. It was obvious – too obvious. They must have thought of it already.

‘He won’t come,’ Nymph said.

‘Then make him!’ Henry shouted. ‘What’s wrong with you? Just send him back!’

‘Have you ever tried to make Mr Fogarty do anything he didn’t want to do?’ Pyrgus asked.

Henry jerked his chair out and sat down again. He leaned across the table. ‘Wait a minute. Why won’t he come back? He’s still got his house here. He’s still got his cat. I can look after him.’ And bog university, he thought.

‘We don’t know,’ Pyrgus said. ‘It’s not somewhere to live, that’s for sure. Even if he didn’t want to come back here -’ he glanced around the gloomy kitchen ‘- he could stay with Nymph and me. Or we could buy him a mansion if he wanted. Gold goes a long way in your world, Henry. But he won’t come and we don’t know what’s going on inside his head.’

‘Have you tried to find out?’ Henry demanded.

For the first time, Pyrgus showed signs of losing patience. ‘Of course we’ve tried!’ he snapped. ‘Don’t you think I care about Mr Fogarty? If it hadn’t been for him, I’d have been dead years ago.’

‘Pyrgus delayed leaving the Realm himself to try to persuade Mr Fogarty to come too,’ Nymph said. ‘It cost Pyrgus another five years of his future.’

Henry seemed to collapse in on himself. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Pyrgus – that didn’t come out the way I meant it to. Of course you’ve all done your best.’

‘We have,’ Pyrgus said. ‘The thing is, he might pay more attention to you.’

He never has in the past, Henry thought. Aloud he said, ‘You want me to go back to the Realm?’

Pyrgus nodded. ‘Yes. I can’t go with you – once I get back to my world the disease reactivates. But Nymph will make sure you get there safely.’ He looked at Henry expectantly.

And there it was, all laid out in front of him. Return to the Realm. It was something he’d thought about dreamed about – for the past two years. But how could he go back? How could he face Blue? He could feel the hideous embarrassment rising in him even now and prayed his face had not gone crimson. He wondered if Pyrgus knew that Blue had wanted to marry him. He wondered how Blue felt about that today. He wondered how he’d been such an idiot, such a coward, to run away. He couldn’t go back, not if it meant seeing Blue again; and it had to mean seeing Blue again. There was no way he could go back.

‘The other thing is,’ Pyrgus was saying, ‘he wants to talk to you.’

‘Mr Fogarty,’ Nymph said, as if Pyrgus’s words needed clarification. ‘He’s been asking for you.’

‘Has he?’ Henry asked foolishly. It tumbled through his mind that Mr Fogarty might want to sort out legal stuff. His will, or what to do with the house or whatever. Except he’d already done all that; and besides, there was absolutely no need for Mr Fogarty to die now, not when he could just come back and wait for a cure the way Pyrgus was doing. Surely even Mr Fogarty couldn’t be batty enough not to realise that?

‘There may not be a lot of time,’ Pyrgus said soberly. ‘Is it possible for you to go straightaway?’

Of course it wasn’t possible to go straightaway. He had school and exams and his mother and the business with Charlie, such as it was, and besides, there was absolutely no way he could ever face Blue again, not after what had happened.

Henry squeezed his eyes closed. ‘Yes,’ he said.