‘Then what is it, Danaus?’ asked Madame Cardui inside his head.
The trouble was, he had not the slightest idea. Nothing in his years of experience gave him a single clue. Stasis was reliable magic, tried and tested. The first stasis cabinet had been designed and constructed over seven hundred years ago, if memory served. There had been design improvements since then, of course, but the basic principle remained the same. And it was a fundamental principle, a basic law. Stasis couldn’t stop working. Except now it had.
He realised he was growing breathless and forced himself to slow down a little. He would really have to lose a little weight. But in the meantime, what on earth possessed Madame Cardui to set up an office in the old dungeons? So far from anywhere – especially the infirmary – in her condition. And if she didn’t care about herself, you’d imagine in a national emergency, she’d want to be close to the nerve centre, but no…
A servant girl emerged from an entrance and got in his way. Danaus brushed her aside impatiently without further slowing his pace. His mind was still on what he had to tell Madame Cardui. She would want details. She always wanted details. How had he discovered the problem? How had it manifested? When? Where? Who had noticed? What had drawn it to their attention?
The answers were simple enough, as it happened, and fortunately he’d been there to witness everything personally. He checked off the sequence of events. The nurse noticed the deterioration in Nymphalis’s condition and called him at once. He examined Nymphalis, confirmed the nurse’s observation (but why the acceleration of the disease?) and ordered her immediate removal to stasis.
And he had supervised the setting up of the stasis cabinet himself, placed beside the one that housed Prince Pyrgus – a humane touch that, he thought. Heaven alone knew what had prompted him to wait and watch after Nymphalis was placed inside. Some healer’s instinct, he expected, since there was absolutely no need and he had other urgent matters to attend to. But he had stayed and watched and that was when he noticed Nymphalis continued to deteriorate after she had been placed in stasis! Impossible. No one needed to tell him it was impossible, yet he saw it with his own eyes.
After that he’d checked on Pyrgus too. The problem wasn’t quite as obvious there, since Pyrgus had already aged so much and further changes were far slower. But a careful comparison with his medical records showed his deterioration was continuing. Which meant only one thing. Stasis, their only reliable treatment for temporal fever, was no longer working.
He was negotiating stairways now, some of them so narrow they posed real difficulties for someone of his bulk – the original keep seemed to have been built by dwarves, and skinny dwarves at that. When he delivered the news to Madame Cardui, he planned to complain and complain bitterly – about her choice of office. What was the point of it? he wondered. What was the point of making a difficult situation just that little bit worse?
He met up with guards at the end of the corridor, but fortunately they recognised him and let him pass. All the same, he wondered. It did seem strange that Madame Cardui would post guards at the approach to her office. Or perhaps it didn’t. If the truth be told, Madame Cardui had always been a little… paranoid. Such conditions tended to get worse with age.
He reached the door and pushed it open without knocking. When on an urgent mission it was always as well to emphasise the urgency right from the outset, otherwise people wasted time on inconsequentialities. Burst in, state the problem, make an impact, that was the way to…
Madame Cardui was lying on the floor. A black-garbed figure was kneeling over her. It turned as Danaus entered and for just the barest instant he did not realise who it was. Then, ‘Lord Hairstreak – what has happened?’
Hairstreak pushed something into the folds of his jacket. ‘Your appearance is timely, Chief Wizard Healer,’ he said sharply. ‘Madame Cardui has collapsed.’
Danaus knelt quickly beside him. ‘What exactly happened, Your Lordship?’
‘We were discussing matters of state. The Spymaster was reclining on a suspensor cloud when she… lost consciousness. The cloud collapsed, but broke her fall – it’s dissipated now.’
‘When did this happen?’ Danaus asked. He reached out to place a hand on her forehead.
‘Just now. Moments ago – less than a minute, I think. I was about to raise the alarm when you arrived. Is she dead?’
Danaus shook his head. Her breathing was shallow, her colour bad, but she was definitely alive. For the moment.
‘I was not sure what to do,’ Hairstreak said.
‘There was nothing you could do, Your Lordship,’ Danaus told him. ‘Madame Cardui is in the grip of temporal fever.’
And a stasis chamber would no longer halt its ravages.
Eighty-Eight
‘Well,’ said Loki cheerfully, ‘can’t stand here all day gossiping. I have to get this place prepared.’
He had subtly altered his appearance again: no longer the darkly attractive young man and not quite the clown, but something between the two that was far more disturbing than either. Still wrapped in the serpent’s coils, Blue turned her head away and tried to think. To make sure all goes well for you and Henry. What did he mean by that? What did he know of Henry? What was he really doing here? She swallowed. ‘This thing is hurting me,’ she said.
Loki looked up at her and grinned. ‘No, he’s not. Gentle as a lamb, my boy. You just want him to put you down so you can escape.’
‘I give you my word I won’t,’ Blue said. It was half true. She desperately needed to find out about Henry.
‘Of course you will,’ Loki said, ‘I certainly would in your situation. But never fear. I’ll have my Jorm set you down in a moment.’ He smiled fondly at the massive serpent. ‘That’s what I call him, you know. My Jorm. So much more friendly than Jormungand, don’t you think? His mother picked that name because of its size. She likes big names on account of being a giant herself.’
This was driving her out of her mind. Straightforward villains she could deal with – she’d been doing that all her life – but this absurd creature was so frustrating she would cheerfully have strangled him had her arms been free. But the serpent itself tolerated him and he even seemed to have control over it. The question was, how did she get control over him? How to trick the Trickster?
Loki said, ‘Just let me make sure you keep your word…’
The cavern was immense with many exit passageways leading out of it. Loki gestured. One by one the passageways sealed themselves like sphincters, then smoothed into blank cave walls. Blue watched, astonished. There was no smell of magic, no fizzle of a spell cone: it simply happened. Escape route after escape route was cut off until only two were left – the archway into the cavern that contained the blazing light and a narrow passage a little to her right. But even as she watched, an iron grille slid down to seal the archway. Blue shuddered. The metal was lethal to faeries.
Loki glanced at the one remaining open passage. ‘For poor, dear Henry,’ he said, smiling.
Blue snapped. ‘What do you know about Henry?’ she demanded. ‘What are you doing here? Tell this brute to put me down!’
‘Put her down, Jorm,’ Loki said obediently.
To Blue’s surprise, the serpent released her at once. She slid down its body to the floor while the creature itself uncoiled and relaxed. She half imagined she could hear it grunt. ‘Thank you,’ Blue said tightly. She brushed at her clothing to give herself something to do and time to think. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the Halek knife where she dropped it. The blade was clear again and had begun to sparkle. The weapon had recharged itself.
‘Well now,’ said Loki, ‘time to get this place prepared. Dusting, cleaning, rearranging the ornaments – a Trickster’s work is never done!’ He stretched both arms towards the ceiling of the cavern and released a curious howling sigh. The contours of the cavern began to change.