‘How kind of you to come,’ said Madame Cardui. She gestured to the guards, who withdrew at once, closing the door behind them, ‘I would ask you to sit down, Lord Hairstreak, but I seem to have neglected to provide a chair.’
‘No matter,’ Hairstreak said, ‘I imagine our business will not take long.’
‘That’s a matter of opinion,’ Madame Cardui told him. She gave him a hard stare. ‘Or cooperation.’
‘It’s all cooperation these days,’ said Hairstreak easily. ‘I was just thinking that on the way here.’ What he was thinking now was that, in an emergency, he might get away with killing her. The body search, while humiliating, had missed the stiletto implanted in his upper thigh. He could reach the weapon through a side pocket, drive its tip behind her ear and let the poison coating do the rest. With luck, the guards might imagine she was sleeping until he managed to get clear, and the poison, of course, was undetectable. It would be nice to have Cardui out of the way. But possibly not just yet. For the moment he needed to know why she’d had him brought here and what she wanted.
‘I’m delighted to hear it,’ Madame Cardui said. ‘In that case our business certainly will not take long.’
He waited. She had her hideous translucent cat with her, unhygienically curled up on the same cloud: the scabby creature must be nearly as old as she was and still refused to die. It glared at him malevolently, but at least it was too slow to act as her bodyguard now. Presumably she kept it out of habit or from some misplaced sense of gratitude. A great mistake. When something outlived its usefulness, you got rid of it.
‘Lord Hairstreak,’ Madame Cardui said gently, ‘why did you decide to start the time plague?’
So that was it. He’d wondered how long it would take her to become suspicious. To test how much she knew, he adopted his most bewildered expression and frowned. ‘The plague, Madame Cardui? I don’t understand …’
‘Of course you do,’ said Madame Cardui sharply. ‘This is no natural disease – we both know that. My Chief Wizard Healer confirmed it earlier today. It does not spread in the normal way, it does not react to any conventional treatment and it attacks its victims with an unprecedented ferocity. This is not a disease, Lord Hairstreak. It is a weapon. And I believe you are the one who is wielding it.’
Not bad, Hairstreak thought. Considerably less than the whole truth, but logical and pointing roughly in the right direction. Age hadn’t blurred her focus yet. But she was certainly less careful with her words than she used to be. I believe you are the one who is wielding it. Belief was not knowledge. If she had proof she’d have said I know you are the one…
So this was a fishing trip.
He spread his hands. ‘Madame Cardui, I appreciate that you and I have never been the best of friends, but where is the logic in your position? Time fever is an unconventional disease, I grant you that, but are you suggesting I somehow… manufactured it? And if I did, to what end? You use the term weapon. The plague has attacked Faeries of the Night and Faeries of the Light without distinction. What sort of weapon is that?’
‘A subtle one,’ said Madame Cardui. ‘This is not a direct attack on the Faeries of the Light; it is something designed to undermine the very foundations of the Empire, to create a crisis that will prepare the State for revolution – a bloody revolution led by you, Lord Hairstreak, in an attempt to regain the power you have lost.’
Rather a nice idea, Hairstreak thought. But considerably less efficient than the plan he really had in play. Clearly she had no idea about that as yet. So all that remained was for him to extricate himself from this little meeting and get back to more important matters. ‘An interesting notion, Madame, but one without the slightest foundation. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must – ’ He stopped. He had been about to turn on his heel and leave – she could not hold him without proof positive and he knew now she had no proof at all. But when he tried to move, nothing happened. He felt perfectly normal, yet his entire body was paralysed.
‘Lord Hairstreak,’ Madame Cardui sighed, ‘I don’t have time for this. None of us has time for this. The plague is increasing exponentially. Let me be frank with you. I have no idea about the details of your plan. I do not know how you started the plague. I do not know how to stop it. That’s why you’re here. Normally I would wait patiently for my agents to find out, but I no longer have that luxury. I need to know at once. And you will tell me.’
There was no scent of a cone, no indication of a magical field, so it had to be one of the newly developed techniques of mind magic. Who’d have thought Cardui could have mastered the disciplines at her age? He could possibly fight his way free, if he could muster sufficient concentration, but it might be easier to use the element of surprise. So best pick his time. Pretend he was unaware of the paralysis as yet, distract her, lull her into a feeling of false security, then jerk free. Once he’d broken the spell, it would take her minutes to lay it on him again. More than enough time to use his stiletto.
He smiled easily and shook his head, ‘I cannot tell you what I do not know. I assure you, Madame Cardui -’
She made a small hand gesture. The curtain at the end of the room swung back and Hairstreak felt his blood run cold. He was looking at an Aladdin mind machine. The chair was prepared, restraints at the ready. The helmet was already flashing green. The viewscreen was blank, but would not remain that way for long. Worst of all, he could see the dangling lead with its metallic card.
‘I told you we had run out of time,’ said Madame Cardui.
His paralysis broke, but not her power over him. He felt his right leg rise awkwardly then push outwards to set one foot flatly on the floor. He teetered, regained his balance, then felt his left leg follow suit. Jerkily he began to walk towards the Aladdin, manipulated like a puppet on strings.
‘You can’t do this!’ Hairstreak screamed. The device was normally used on Trinians – the metal card slid into their skull slots – where it was a relatively harmless way to recover memories. But for a Faerie of the Night, or a Faerie of the Light for that matter, it drained the entire mind, leaving the victim in a vegetative state. Inserting the card was notoriously tricky too. The metal was phase-shifted for ease of insertion and the brain had no pain receptors, but even a slight misplacement resulted in disaster. He had to break her hold on him and break it fast.
‘I’m afraid I can,’ Madame Cardui told him soberly. ‘When the future of the Empire is at stake.’
His legs jerked again and he took another staggering step forward. Once she placed him in the chair he was finished. The restraints would hold him automatically and from that point on she was freed to work the machine itself. His plan, his real plan, was near the surface of his memories. She would have everything on screen and recorded within minutes – half an hour at most. Not that it mattered. By then he’d be a vegetable or a lunatic, beyond caring.
Hairstreak lashed out at the mento-magical controls that held him. The weakness in the system was that it relied entirely on the mental discipline of the person using it. Surely an old hag like Cardui would be no match for a man like him.
But the old hag forced him to take another step forward, then another. Her control actually seemed to be strengthening. He was only feet from the chair now.
He stopped trying to fight the magic and concentrated instead on taking back control of his own body, forcing it to go elsewhere. The manoeuvre must have caught her by surprise, for he spun round so he was no longer facing the Aladdin and even managed a faltering step in the other direction. But then she had him again and he was headed back towards the chair. Should he tell her everything? Abandoning his plan was almost unthinkable at this stage, but at least it was better than ending up a mindless husk.