The Purple Emperor

CHAPTER SEVENTY

They were seated around an oval table in a corner of the living quarters. Chalkhill was keeping a wary eye on Cossus Cossus's golem, which was clumping around serving drinks. He'd never seen anything so frightening in his life. The creature stood nearly seven feet tall and its skin was as grey as the clay Cossus had used to make it. Chalkhill didn't like its teeth – God alone knew what Cossus had used to make them: they glinted like obsidian spires.

But the teeth weren't the worst of it. Every so often the golem twitched. That was a fearfully bad sign. Chalkhill avoided black magic whenever he could, but he'd read in a magazine somewhere that a twitching golem was usually on the point of going berserk. Golems frequently went berserk and strangled their creators – one reason why making them had been illegal for five hundred years. Once freed from their creator, they typically went on a blood rampage, killing anything they could get their enormous hands on. The same magazine had claimed their favourite form of attack was dismemberment – tearing people limb from limb.

Cossus had dressed his golem in a frilly apron. The man was clinically insane.

The creature served Hairstreak first, of course. His Lordship drank pimento juice, as, in imitation, did his Gatekeeper. Chalkhill needed something stronger and had asked for gin. The golem set a brimming half-pint glass in front of him, stared into his eyes and twitched.

The truly dreadful thing was, Chalkhill knew the golem was not the most dangerous entity in the room. He took a gulp of his gin and turned his eyes on Lord Hairstreak. The little creep smiled at him, his teeth stained by the pimento juice, then lifted the glass in a toast and said, to Chalkhill's horror, 'Here's to the Wangaramas Revolution!'

Nymph, who was lying beside Pyrgus, wriggled closer to him, then leaned across to hiss in his ear, 'I still think we should have stopped off for reinforcements, Crown Prince!'

Pyrgus turned his head. Nymph had a charming little nose, tilted upwards at the end. He came within a fraction of brushing his lips across her cheek as he placed them beside her ear. She had a very nice cheek, very smooth and inviting.

'Element of surprise,' he whispered back. 'We agreed about that, right at the start.'

She pulled her head away, waited until he turned his, then put her lips back to his ear again. 'That was a different situation. You might expect to have help at the palace – from friends, people who know you. This is Lord Hairstreak's mansion. All enemies here. And you don't know your way around it like the palace. We've no idea what we might find.'

'We're all wearing Hairstreak uniform,' Pyrgus said. 'Except Ziczac and Comma, and we can pretend they're our prisoners if we have to.' The Silk Mistresses had stayed back at the palace on Pyrgus's order. They weren't fighters, and besides, he liked the idea that they might stir up some trouble for Hairstreak's people. Everyone else had travelled directly to Hairstreak's mansion.

'We could have stopped on the way,' Nymph said, ignoring him. 'We practically walked through Queen Cleopatra's camp.'

It was news to Pyrgus, who still couldn't spot the Forest Faerie if they didn't want to be spotted. 'Too late now,' he said, a little gracelessly. The trouble was, Nymph was distracting him. He needed to keep his mind firmly focused on the job ahead. He didn't even want to think about it, but he was terrified of what was going to happen once Blue and he found their father.

'I could go back,' Nymph offered promptly. 'It's not far. The rest of you could stay here, keep an eye on what's happening. I could bring back enough people for a frontal attack if you want. I know the Queen would agree – she wants those pits closed.'

For a moment Pyrgus was tempted, although not by the prospect of a frontal attack. He had his own agenda here and it was different from that of the Forest Faerie. But if Nymph did go back to her people, he could send Comma with her. Pyrgus suspected he would be much happier with Comma out of the way, preferably under lock and key. And they could certainly do with some reinforcements: not for a frontal attack, but simply because they were heading into real enemy territory now.

He opened his mouth to put it to her about Comma, then shut it again abruptly. Hairstreak's guards were marching off towards their barracks in fine order. Within a moment all of them disappeared, leaving the way to the mansion clear. Pyrgus made a snap decision.

'No time!' he hissed. 'We go now!'

Then, without waiting for her reaction, Pyrgus rose and, bent double, raced towards the mansion.

Chalkhill suddenly stopped worrying about the golem. He swallowed, tried to stop himself speaking, then heard his voice gulp, 'You know about the Revolution?'

Black Hairstreak shrugged and grinned a little. 'The worms have been revolting for years. Every generation their stupid plan gets more desperate.'

'Every generation?'

'Short-lived species,' Hairstreak said, smiling now. 'As soon as they get anything in place, half of them die off and they have to start again.' His smile disappeared abruptly and he looked shrewdly at Chalkhill. 'You didn't take it seriously, did you, Jasper?'

'Not for a moment,' Chalkhill told him.