The Faeman Quest

PART TWO
Twenty-One

‘Pyrgus?’

Nymphalis found him in the vineyard, on his knees, talking softly to a vine. He was so focused on the plant that he obviously didn’t hear her. ‘Pyrgus!’ she repeated more sharply.

Pyrgus Malvae turned his head slowly with the familiar, trance-like look he frequently got while he was tending to the grapes, then smiled his old, fond smile when he registered who it was. They’d been married seventeen years and the chemistry between them was as strong as ever. Except now wasn’t exactly the time for a romantic interlude or even a short walk down memory lane.

‘The manticore has escaped,’ Nymph said.

‘What?’ he gasped. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure. I’ve just been up to the sanctuary.’

‘Nymph, she can’t have! How?’

‘Does it matter?’

Pyrgus suddenly tuned in to the reality of what she was telling him. ‘Anybody at the sanctuary now?’

She shook her head. ‘No.’

‘Make sure it stays that way, Nymph. Nobody within a hundred yards – two if possible. We have to keep this quiet at all costs.’

‘If we can.’

‘I’m on my way,’ Pyrgus said.

The sanctuary was a low-slung wood-frame building with special light panels in place of windows. Pyrgus, who’d lived in the Analogue World for a time, liked to think of it as Scandinavian in design, but any actual resemblance was slight. He’d built it as a home for rescued animals and since he was prone to rescuing any disadvantaged animal he came across, their needs were varied. At the moment the sanctuary housed the usual contingents of stray cats and dogs, a mountain llama, a rare desert haniel, two porkines, a herd of apts and a niff colony. The spell costs needed to provide suitable safe and separate environments for each were substantial, but fortunately Chateau Malvae wines were proving popular so that the vineyards funded the sanctuary, with enough left over to provide a modest living for Nymph and Pyrgus.

He could see the problem at once. An area of the south wall had been smashed outwards, leaving a gaping hole that even now still crackled with spell energies. Through the gap he could see the pillared environment that seemed to calm the manticore, but not, apparently, enough. Despite everything, Pyrgus felt a surge of admiration.

He moved cautiously towards the building. He might admire the manticore, but he respected her even more. While Pyrgus loved animals, he was far from sentimental about them. The wilder ones could kill you or leave you maimed for life; and there was no wilder, more unpredictable beast on the face of the planet than the manticore. More to the point, his manticore was one of the early prototypes, created before the Halek wizards realised the need to build in safeguards. The beast had proven so troublesome, so uncontrollable – even with magical restraints – that they’d been about to destroy it when Pyrgus intervened. Not that he got any thanks for the rescue – or theft, as the wizards insisted on calling it – but once he’d transported the poor thing across the Haleklind border they hadn’t wanted to risk an international incident by following. Especially since he’d taken a problem off their hands.

And now, if his guess was correct, they were about to get it back.

He used his portakey to kill the securities – they’d proved useless anyway – and stepped warily through the gap. He was sure the creature had escaped – Nymph had told him it had escaped – but there was still a deeply ingrained part of his mind that warned him to be careful. The manticore was intelligent: he constantly reminded himself there were faerie genes in there along with lion and scorpion. She was quite capable of faking a breakout as bait for a trap. But as he peered around, there was no sign of the beast and few places where she might be hiding. To his right, half hidden by a pillar, was the creature’s feeding table with a wooden bowl of half-chewed leaves. Pyrgus frowned, then went across and sniffed.

The smell confirmed his suspicions at once. The leaves were St John’s wort, a mild euphoric for a human, a strong ecstatic for a faerie, but a berserker hit for a Haleklind creation like a manticore. No wonder she had found the strength to smash through the wall. Who fed her the wort? Not Nymph, a Forest Faerie skilled in herbal lore; not any of the sanctuary staff, who had strict instructions about the diets of their charges; not any of the vineyard workers, most of whom avoided the sanctuary like the plague; and certainly not Pyrgus himself.

He pushed the puzzle aside. The fact was he had a maddened manticore on the loose and a sinking feeling about exactly where she might he headed.

Pyrgus climbed back through the gap and almost bumped into Nymph.

‘Definitely gone?’ she asked, frowning.

He nodded. ‘Yes. Some idiot fed her John’s wort.’

‘Bloody Hael!’ She hesitated. ‘You don’t think…?’

‘I think she might. And can’t say I blame her after what those bastards did.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Make sure, for a start.’ He leaned over impulsively and gave her a kiss on the cheek. ‘Do we have any glowdust left?’

‘I’m ahead of you,’ Nymph said. She handed him a small packet. ‘Go easy with it. There’s more on order, but that’s the last we have until the shipment comes.’

‘Thanks,’ Pyrgus murmured. He slit the packet with his thumbnail, squeezed and blew. The dust fanned out in a stream, ignoring both Pyrgus and Nymph, and began to glow almost immediately. Then it settled to leave a trail of luminous manticore padprints leading from the ruined wall towards the copse across the field. They set off to follow it together, quickly breaking into a panicky run.

‘Where do you think she’s heading?’ Nymph asked. She seemed to be able to avoid obstacles by instinct, for she never took her eyes off the trail.

Pyrgus, who found himself struggling to keep up, said breathlessly, ‘Haleklind for sure.’ He slowed slightly and Nymph slowed with him. ‘She was created in Haleklind. You might say that was her birthplace.’

‘Maybe she just thinks she’s going home,’ Nymph suggested. ‘You know, to live in a forest or something.’

But Pyrgus shook his head firmly. ‘No such luck. This is trouble, Nymph. Big trouble.’

The vineyard’s southernmost fencing marked almost four miles of the border with Haleklind. From one point it was actually possible to see the towers and checkpoints of an official crossing post. Outside of such posts, the wizards maintained the integrity of their borders with magical protections – usually force fields – the most extensive and sophisticated in the known world. Indigenous wildlife could cross and recross without hindrance. Anything else was repulsed. The force fields extended deep beneath the earth and high above the skies of Haleklind. Without the necessary papers, nothing could enter the wizards’ country.

Nymph and Pyrgus trotted through the copse, then stood side by side staring at the point where the manticore’s luminous trail crossed the final limits of their estate. The high fencing was smashed as if it were matchwood, little problem for a creature that had burst through a solid wall. The trail continued deep into Haleklind, passing through the invisible force field as if it did not exist.

‘The spell must have categorised her as wildlife,’ Nymph murmured with a trace of awe in her voice.

But Pyrgus shook his head. ‘She was made over there,’ he said. ‘All the component parts are Halek. As far as the spell is concerned, she’s practically a native. ’

They continued to stare gloomily for a moment. As the glow of the trail began to fade, Nymph said, ‘What are we going to do?’

‘I’ll have to go to Haleklind.’

‘We’ll both go,’ Nymph said at once.

‘There isn’t time to arrange your documentation,’ Pyrgus told her. ‘As a Prince of the Realm, I have automatic entry.’ It was one of the few perks of royal birth, maintained even after his abdication. ‘Besides, one of us has to stay here to run the place.’

The marvellous thing about Nymph was she never argued about the inevitable. Still staring at the vanishing trail, she said, ‘Do you think she can find the laboratory?’

‘Given time,’ Pyrgus said grimly. ‘They’re amazing creatures.’

‘How much time?’

‘Hard to say. I’m hoping I can head her off.’

Nymph licked her lips. ‘If you can’t, are you going to warn them?’

‘I don’t know,’ Pyrgus told her honestly. ‘There’s part of me thinks they deserve anything they get.’

‘But the manticore might be killed. Or hurt.’

‘The manticore certainly will be killed. That’s a given. But not before she takes a few of her old tormentors with her.’

‘You can’t let her die,’ Nymph said. ‘Not like that. You’re going to have to head her off and bring her back.’

‘If I can find her,’ Pyrgus said.