The Faeman Quest

Sixteen

Suddenly he’d lost her. One minute she was there, in that peculiar little Analogue kitchen, the next she was gone. As was the human with her and the kitchen itself. Brimstone extended his senses to their fullest limit. He could hear the hum of the city, listen to the eager sucking of a flea on Chalkhill’s bottom, even catch the primitive, angry feelings of the prickleweed far below them, but the girl Chalkhill wanted him to track was gone without trace.

Instinctively, he reached for the handkerchief in his pocket, then stopped. The last thing he wanted was to give Chalkhill any hint that something was wrong. They hadn’t agreed a deal yet and if Chalkhill found out he’d lost the girl, they never would. Best to keep him in the dark for the moment and try to pick up the girl’s scent in private later. Assuming she hadn’t died. That sort of now you see it, now you don’t business used to happen when he stomped on cockroaches. One minute you were hearing their scritches and their scratches and their roachy little thoughts, the next… stomp-squish… nothing. Just the way it happened to the girl, except for the stomp-squish, of course. What a tragedy it would be, if she had died: the Queen’s own daughter, finest flower of the Realm. All that potential ransom money gone. A tragedy. It was making him feel quite emotional, so that he had to suppress the urge to sniff.

But perhaps she wasn’t dead. After all, there’d been nothing to suggest a threat. Perhaps she was just lying dreadfully injured somewhere. That would hardly affect her value at all; in fact in some ways it might enhance it. Actually, now he came to think of it, even her body might be worth a bob or two. People were so sentimental about corpses and where they should be buried, especially the Royal Family. It would be well worth trying to find out what had happened, even if she was dead.

They were back in the stretch ouklo, Brimstone, George and Chalkhill, on a course to Chalkhill’s family estate on Wildmoor Broads. Chalkhill had drunk too much with the meal and was now nodding as if finding it difficult to stay awake. George was quiet too, having eaten two steaks and, apparently, a waiter, although in the rush at the restaurant, no one had seemed to notice. Perhaps he might risk using the handkerchief briefly, just to refocus himself.

With a quick glance towards the nodding Chalkhill – his eyes seemed to be closed at the moment – Brimstone slid the hankie from his pocket and sniffed it surreptitiously. At once he tuned in to a scene of utter desolation. A building lay in ruins, little more than a pile of dusty rubble. There were uniformed humans crawling over it, so this was presumably an Analogue World building, perhaps the same Analogue World building that had housed the Analogue World kitchen he’d seen earlier. Yes, that was likely; that would make sense. But if the building that housed the kitchen had fallen down and the faeman child was in the kitchen at the time, then young Mella was certainly dead – the uniformed humans were presumably searching for her corpse, probably in the hope of looting her jewellery. But that would be a good thing, because they wouldn’t be interested in the body itself, which meant Brimstone might still have a chance of getting hold of it.

He stuffed the hankie in his pocket and sat back to have a little think. If he could figure out exactly where the house had collapsed, the trick would obviously be to persuade Chalkhill to fund a trip to the Analogue World. Just for Brimstone, of course – or Brimstone and George, to be exact: always safer with a bodyguard. The sooner they got shot of Chalkhill himself the better. But if Chalkhill had any inkling that Brimstone knew Mella was in the Analogue World, albeit not necessarily breathing, Chalkhill would want to come too. Which was back to square one. So…

Brimstone thought.

Brimstone thought.

Brimstone thought.

So… what he needed to do was persuade Chalkhill that he didn’t know exactly where Mella was, but that he’d narrowed it down to two possibilities, one in the Analogue World, one in the Faerie Realm. No, belay that. Both in the Faerie Realm – the more he diverted Chalkhill’s attention from the Analogue World the better. After that, it would be a small step to persuade him that they should then split up for the sake of speed and efficiency, with Chalkhill searching vainly in the Faerie Realm while Brimstone secretly visited the scene of the disaster in the Analogue World.

So where had the house collapsed?

Brimstone was familiar with parts of the Analogue World. He knew the more disreputable bits of New York quite well, for example. But the style of architecture around the collapsed building didn’t look at all American. If anything…

The ouklo banked and swooped suddenly. Chalkhill opened his eyes. Brimstone stared through the window. They were over Chalkhill’s family estate, a pretentious, spell-encrusted manor with manicured parkland far enough away from the city to be both comfortable and private, close enough to be worth a fortune. (How had an idiot like Chalkhill managed to keep hold of his money? Gods knew Brimstone had tried to take it away from him often enough.) A permanent fair-weather spell added to its value as well as its attraction.

They sat together by the swimming pool while Chalkhill’s butler served them coffee cocktails. ‘Any luck with the hankie?’ Chalkhill asked on the first sip.

‘Not easy,’ Brimstone muttered. ‘Even when you’ve been goosed by a cloud dancer.’ He noticed George was dangling his enormous feet in the pool. George had always liked water.

Chalkhill followed the sip with a gulp. ‘Well, if it’s not going to work, it’s not going to work. I’ll have to find another way. Androgeous, perhaps you’d organise transport to the workhouse for Mr Brimstone.’

‘No need to be like that, Jasper,’ Brimstone said hurriedly. ‘I only said it wouldn’t be easy. I didn’t say it wouldn’t be possible.’ A sly look crossed his features. ‘Besides, we haven’t talked terms yet.’

‘Oh, so that’s the problem,’ Chalkhill said. ‘Here’s the deal. You find me the girl – you don’t have to do anything to her, don’t have to catch her, just find her. Five hundred up front – should give you a float after your little stay in the asylum, buy you a bar or two of soap; you could do with a bath – and five thousand if you find her.’

Five thousand? That was an enormous sum of money: enough to buy a town house and live without working for a decade. ‘Ten,’ Brimstone said instinctively.

‘Seven and a half,’ Chalkhill countered.

‘Done,’ Brimstone said. And Chalkhill certainly had been. Seven thousand five hundred, plus the five hundred up front: eight thousand altogether. That was more than they’d payed to ransom Scolitandes the Weedy. Chalkhill clearly wanted the girl very badly indeed. Which meant she was worth much more than eight thousand. An interesting situation.

But Chalkhill was talking. ‘You’ll have the five hundred before you leave here today, but you only get the rest after I get hold of the girl. It’s yours once I have her in custody.’

‘That’s not fair!’ Brimstone protested. ‘Suppose I find her and you’re too clumsy to catch her or so stupid you let her go? I’ve kept my part of the bargain. I should get paid.’

‘That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.’

‘You’ll have to cover my expenses,’ Brimstone said.

‘What expenses?’ Chalkhill demanded. ‘All you have to do is sit there, sniff and concentrate. I’m already paying for the cocktails.’

Brimstone treated him to a knowing smile. ‘It’s not as simple as that, Jasper. The cloud dancer made me sensitive and the sensitivity gives me a mental picture of the thing we’re looking for. But I may not recognise the place. I mean, I could tell you she’s standing under an oak tree looking at a sheep, but I wouldn’t necessarily know where the tree was growing or who owned the animal.’

‘Is she standing under an oak tree looking at a sheep?’

‘No, that was just an example.’

‘Do you have any idea where she might be yet?’

It was time, Brimstone thought, to dangle the bait. ‘I do have a picture – not an oak tree or a sheep – but I’m not at all sure where it might be.’ Which was a truthful lie. He wasn’t quite sure where Mella was now, whether she was alive or dead, but he was convinced he knew where she’d just been. From his experience of the Analogue World, the scene he saw was never American, but it might be British. It had occurred to him that Mella’s father – Consort Majesty King Henry – was a human, brought up in the Analogue World. What more natural for a girl of Mella’s age than to want to visit her father’s old home? Zero in on that and chances were you found the girl.

‘Where do you think it might be?’ Chalkhill demanded.

‘Buthner,’ Brimstone said promptly. He hesitated, then added, ‘Or Haleklind.’

‘Which one?’

‘I don’t know. But it shouldn’t be too difficult to find out. The place I’m sensing is very distinctive: an escarpment with an enormous natural stone pillar that’s been carved into the representation of a smiling dragon with emerald eyes. I’m surprised it’s not known as a tourist attraction, but it’s bound to be known in its own country.’ He set his cocktail to one side and went on enthusiastically, ‘I thought what I would do is take a trip to Buthner and make some enquiries. Then, if the place I’m sensing isn’t there, I can visit Haleklind and do the same.’ He nodded soberly. ‘That’s why I’ll need expenses.’

Chalkhill said, ‘I don’t have time to send you traipsing around two different countries.’

‘Has to be done, I’m afraid,’ Brimstone told him piously. ‘What alternative do we have?’ He waited.

Chalkhill swallowed the bait. ‘You could describe what you’re sensing and I can check one country while you check the other. That would halve the time.’

‘So it would,’ Brimstone said. He looked at Chalkhill with admiration, as if the thought had never occurred to him.