The Faeman Quest

Ten

The restaurant was owned, run and staffed by orange Trinians, which meant the food was good, the service fantastic, and the prices astronomical. Fortunately Chalkhill would be paying. Brimstone ordered steak with a side order of teeth, served on a bed of deep-fried potato batons, with grilled tomatoes and inkcap wafers. It was a lot more than he usually ate, but he hadn’t had a thing since his morning rat and, besides, he felt like celebrating. He was free of the asylum, reconnected with his old source of income and, best of all, very much in control.

‘Wine, sir?’ asked their sommelier, addressing the words to Brimstone as the obvious senior of the dining duo.

‘Two flagons,’ Brimstone told him promptly. ‘One red, one green.’

‘May I recommend a Malvae for the red?’ murmured the sommelier. ‘A pretentious little vintage, quite new on the market, but with some interesting characteristics.’

A Trinian’s recommendation would never be anything other than excellent. ‘That will do very nicely,’ Brimstone told him. ‘And you can bring a half bottle of something cheap for my friend.’ He smiled smugly at Chalkhill, who scowled but failed to protest, yet another indication of how badly he needed Brimstone’s services.

‘Of course, sir.’

As the dwarf disappeared in the general direction of the kitchens, Brimstone said briskly, ‘I’ve been out of circulation for a long time. You’d better bring me up to speed on what’s been happening.’

Chalkhill shrugged. ‘Blue’s still Queen, you know that. Queen of Hael as well, although she’s had to face two challenges. Last one was very nasty, damn nearly killed her, but she survived to rule another day. You know she married that human friend of her brother?’ Brimstone nodded. Out of the corner of his eye he could see food coming, so the nod coincided with a stomach growl. Chalkhill went on, ‘Iron Prominent. Now Consort Majesty King Henry, an empty title if ever there was one.’ He glanced around as if worried the other diners might have overheard the treasonable utterance, but presumably decided they hadn’t, for he continued easily enough, ‘You had a run-in with the brother, didn’t you?’

Brimstone blinked slowly, his eyes closing like the nictitating membrane of a serpent. ‘Young Pyrgus? We both did, as I recall. He closed down our glue factory.’

‘Nice little earner, that,’ Chalkhill said thoughtfully. ‘Pity you tried to sacrifice him to the Prince of Darkness.’

This time it was Brimstone’s turn to shrug. ‘We all make the occasional mistake.’

Chalkhill said, ‘He’s running an animal sanctuary somewhere down south.’

Brimstone sniffed. ‘Waste of space, that boy. Can you imagine wanting to devote your life to the welfare of smelly animals?’

‘Maybe not a complete waste of space. He has a vineyard down there as well. That red you ordered is one of his.’

‘I’ll toast to his good health,’ Brimstone remarked sarcastically. ‘Any other news of the royals?’

Their table was suddenly surrounded by Trinians bearing groaning trays of food. Beyond the inner circle hovered the sommelier and his minions with their flagons of wine. Brimstone found himself staring at his steak, a massive cut of meat with its side order of teeth trembling beside it. He realised suddenly he was hungry enough to eat a camel and popped the teeth into his mouth. Gum contact triggered the spell and they began to gnash and chatter in anticipation. He speared the entire steak and allowed them to bite off a piece. They began to shred it very satisfactorily.

As the Trinians withdrew, Chalkhill said lightly, ‘The younger brother, Comma – half-brother, I should say – is off on some heroic maritime mission. Madame Cardui is still in charge of the Secret Service. Apart from that, not much else is going on. Oh, and Fogarty’s dead, but you probably know that.’

The great thing about being mad was that people tended to underestimate you. In the old days, Chalkhill was the one with the money and Brimstone the one with the brains. Chalkhill was still the one with the money, but now he thought himself far cleverer than his old partner. Far cleverer, far more dangerous, far more talented, far more insightful, wise, shrewd, prudent, sensible and astute, no doubt. Which was why he thought he could divert Brimstone’s attention, tell him nothing of significance, avoid the one important subject. Brimstone poured himself half a glass of red, then added some of the green and watched the wine turn sludgy.

‘Did Blue and Henry have any children?’ he asked innocently.

Chalkhill contrived to look distracted. ‘Children?’ he echoed. ‘Not sure faeries and humans can actually interbreed, can they?’

‘Of course they can,’ Brimstone told him. ‘They produce faemans.’ He smiled quizzically. ‘Didn’t Blue and Henry have a faeman child?’

Chalkhill frowned. ‘Think I may have heard something of a faeman. Not sure whether it’s a boy or girl. Don’t pay much attention to these things.’

Brimstone managed to hold his face expressionless. Chalkhill was lying through his teeth. Even in the asylum, Brimstone had heard about the royal faeman, a girl named as Culmella Chrysotenchia, but more familiarly known as Mella. It was beyond belief that someone of Chalkhill’s interests should not know everything there was to know about her. So why was he pretending not to? The obvious answer was that he wanted to channel Brimstone’s attention away from the creature. And why would he want to do that?

All this clearly led back to the hankie now residing in Brimstone’s nether pocket. When he’d sniffed it, at Chalkhill’s insistence, he’d known at once it had never belonged to a faerie, Lighter or Nighter. But nor did it seem to belong to a Trinian, Halek wizard, endolg or any of the other races currently inhabiting the Faerie Realm. The possibility of a human had crossed Brimstone’s mind, but the vibrations hadn’t seemed to fit there either. But now they were talking faeman… He would have to check again to be sure, but he would have bet his new-found freedom that the handkerchief was the property of a faeman; and not just any faeman, but the very faeman Chalkhill was now desperately trying to avoid discussing.

It was an interesting development. Had the brat gone missing? Had Chalkhill been hired to find her? Most importantly, how could Brimstone turn this situation to his own advantage?

He took a short pull of his sludgy wine to wash down the shredded steak and turned his teeth on automatic as he allowed his mind to expand. Chalkhill thought he needed to sniff the hankie, or at least hold it in his hand, in order to contact its owner, but that was nonsense, of course. He closed his eyes, as if in ecstasy at the taste of his wine, listened in for a moment to the conversations in the kitchens, gave a brief nod to George, who was sitting at a table in the corner, then focused on the hankie in his pocket.

The mental image opened up like a doorway. He peered through cautiously and found himself looking into one of those ridiculous little kitchens so favoured in the Analogue World. There were two people inside, both female. One was a mature human, a little overweight and somewhat sly. The other was the owner of the handkerchief, a faeman girl for certain – the pointed ears and green eyes were a dead giveaway – and almost certainly the child of Blue and Henry: she had her mother’s determined jaw and her father’s gormless expression. So still in the Analogue World then – something Brimstone had known from the moment he first touched the hankie – although he was in no hurry to pass that information on to Chalkhill. He didn’t know exactly where in the Analogue World. The focus was too tight at the moment, but he would probably get a clue when she moved outside. Once he had an accurate location, he could decide what to do about it. He might tell Chalkhill, or he might not. He might decide himself what to do with the girl. (Kidnapping could be profitable, or selling her into slavery.) It all depended what was best for Brimstone.

He opened his eyes again, vaguely wondering who had hired Chalkhill and for what.