Ruler of the Realm

Ninety

Pyrgus was getting a bit tired of approaching places crawling on his face, but he had to admit it was better than being spotted by demons. He raised his head cautiously.

The Great Cliff towered above him like the central spine of the wasteland, a sheer sandstone massif that climbed so high it created its own mini-climate, whipping up dust and sand from the desert floor in confined swirls that looked like whirling djinn.

He turned his head slightly and his jaw dropped. Set at intervals no more than a yard or two apart were the portals he was expecting. But there were more of them than he could have imagined in a nightmare. There were portals by the score, by the hundred, by the thousand and more. They stretched like sentries along the base of the cliff as far as the eye could see. There was no way so many portals could have been constructed in the time since the standard portals had closed down. Beleth must have been secretly building these gateways for years.

There were no visible guards. But perhaps Beleth felt none were needed. Destroying so many portals would need an army of men and even then would certainly take days, maybe weeks. Besides, his secret had been safe for so long he probably thought the work would never be discovered. No one ventured this far into the deep desert: even the Trinian nomads avoided it as much as possible. It was the perfect base for a demon invasion.

Pyrgus allowed his eyes to travel desolately along the line of portals. ‘So much for sabotage!’ he muttered between clenched teeth. Even if they managed to close down one or two, thousands would remain. The effect on Beleth’s war effort would be a gnat’s bite.

‘Wouldn’t be so sure,’ remarked Nymphalis, stretched out on the ground beside him. She turned to Woodfordi, who was lying beside her. ‘What do you think?’

‘Distance apart you mean, Miss?’ Woodfordi asked.

Nymph nodded silently.

‘Tricky to say from here,’ Woodfordi frowned. ‘But they could have been set too close together…’

‘What are you talking about?’ Pyrgus asked.

‘Chain reaction,’ Nymph told him. ‘Portal technology is inherently unstable. Basically you’re creating a hole in reality, so it has to be. Inside any given portal the instability is under control, but it’s still there. You see what that means?’

‘No,’ Pyrgus admitted. He hated it when Nymph lectured him.

‘If we were to sabotage one portal – blow it up, that is – we would trigger the portal’s own instability,’ Nymph said. ‘So our sabotage explosion causes the portal itself to explode; and that’s a much larger explosion. But if there’s another portal nearby, another portal that’s close enough, the explosion in the first portal will cause that one to explode as well.’ She glanced towards the row of portals underneath the cliff. ‘If those are close enough together, we only have to blow one up for the whole lot to go off like firecrackers, one after the other.’

Pyrgus was staring at her in astonishment. ‘How do you know all this technical stuff?’ he asked. ‘Forest Faeries don’t even use portals.’

Nymph just smiled at him.

Pyrgus said, ‘Pity we don’t have anything to blow up the first portal.’ When he’d suggested sabotage he’d been thinking of blocking them up with rocks, an old guerrilla trick that would have left transported demons locked inside the stones.

‘Think we might have, sir,’ Woodfordi said. He rummaged in his kit and brought out a length of painted willow about nine inches long.

‘What’s that?’ Pyrgus asked.

‘Exploding wand, sir. You snap it in half to distress the spell coating, then leave the pieces beside the thing you want to blow up. You’ve got eight seconds to get out of range.’

‘I thought CCs were non-combatants,’ Pyrgus said.

Woodfordi smiled. ‘Still issue you with the kit and give you the basic training,’ he said. ‘Just in case.’

Nymph, who was looking at Woodfordi, said, ‘What’s the problem?’

Pyrgus glanced at her in surprise. ‘Why should there be a problem?’

Woodfordi said, ‘Thing is, Miss, eight seconds is plenty of time to get out of range of the wand explosion. But if the wand triggers the portal, that’s a much bigger explosion. Much bigger…’

‘So whoever blows up the first portal might not get away in time? Might be caught by the larger explosion?’

‘Might be killed, Miss, yes,’ Woodfordi nodded soberly.

‘I’ll do it,’ Pyrgus told them promptly.

‘No you won’t,’ said Nymph at once.

‘I’m the soldier,’ Woodfordi said. ‘Has to be my job.’

‘You’re our Communications Channel,’ Pyrgus told him fiercely. ‘We need you to get word back to the palace.’

‘Can’t get word back from here,’ Woodfordi pointed out. ‘Orion isn’t answering.’

‘That’s only because we’re in the deep desert. We can use you later.’

‘I’ll do it,’ Nymph said. ‘I can run faster than either of you.’

‘No you can’t!’ Pyrgus bristled.

‘Oh yes I can,’ Nymph told him confidently. ‘Besides, I know what a portal explosion is like and I think I can be out of range within eight seconds.’

‘How do you know what a portal explosion is like?’

Annoyingly, Nymph only smiled at him again.

The argument went on until Nagel crept up beside them and suggested, ‘Ace or aht.’

Pyrgus blinked. ‘Race for it?’ He’d understood Nagel this time and it sounded like a good idea. He didn’t think he’d have any problem beating a girl and Woodfordi had only little short legs.

‘From here to that rock,’ Nagel said, pointing. ‘I’ll count you down from three.’

They raced and Nymph won easily. ‘You can help me set the wand,’ she told them reassuringly (and without the good grace to breathe heavily). ‘I’ll let you get clear before I set it off.’

‘We need to be sure the portals are close enough together for any of this to work,’ Pyrgus said a little sulkily.

Nymph beamed at him. ‘Then let us go and inspect them properly,’ she said. ‘Coming, Nagel?’

The Trinian shook his head. ‘If you’re going to blow things up, I have to get my people out of the area. They hate explosions.’ He moved away to disappear between some rocks.

‘I’ll come with you,’ Woodfordi said. ‘I’ve got a measure and I know the distance we need.’

The three of them were on their way to the nearest portal when a group of rocks transformed themselves into a Goblin Guard.