The Purple Emperor

CHAPTER FIFTY FIVE

It was very, very cold. At first, Henry thought it might just be the contrast with the sewers, which had been hot as well as smelly, but his breath was steaming from his mouth now and there was a rime of frost on one wall near a door. Where was this place? He was obviously in the lower reaches of the palace, but where exactly? Some sort of food store? The room above the sewer inspection trap was a stone-lined chamber with two doorways and a window so high on one wall that it touched a corner with the ceiling. Otherwise it was empty. No cupboards, no tables, no shelves, no hooks or rails; nowhere you would store food.

Why so cold? A temperature this low could not be natural. He couldn't see any coolant pipes, but the Realm might have some sort of magically-based refrigeration – a special spell-coating maybe.

Henry's fingers started to go numb and he realised he could freeze to death while he was trying to work out why he was so cold.

He made for the nearest doorway. The door wasn't locked. But his breath still frosted in the next chamber, which was just as cold and much more gloomy: the only illumination came from a dim, cobweb-encrusted glowglobe at the bottom of a flight of steep stone steps leading upwards.

Those steps intrigued him. He might be in the palace cellars – a likely place to be in the circumstances – and if so, the only way to go was up. He could get out of the palace and -

And what? Follow Blue and Pyrgus to Haleklind? He didn't even know where Haleklind was, but he'd worry about that once he had managed to get away from the palace and the loony old plud.

Henry climbed the steps. The door at the top was firmly locked.

Henry sat down on the steps to think. Why hadn't he brought something useful with him? There was a toolkit in the house with a large wooden hammer (languishing on a shelf in the garage). There was

… but what was the use? Even a penknife would have come in handy, but he no more had a penknife than he had a key.

The door behind him opened.

Henry twisted round to find himself looking at a group of women wearing the most fantastic gowns that shimmered and clung as they moved.

'Hello,' Henry said, scrambling to his feet. He felt suddenly embarrassed. He was wearing combat trousers and his BABE MAGNET T-shirt and everything, including his face, was filthy from the sewers. He stared at the women, wondering if they worked for Queen Quercusia, wondering if they'd guess he was an escaped prisoner. Eventually he swallowed and said stupidly, 'I'm a bit lost.'

'Then we'd better help you find yourself again,' one of them smiled at him.