Fantasy

Herein lies a tale.

There will be a quest and there will be discord and ruin but we shall also find valour in an unexpected place.

It is a tale of one palace and, within it, two towers.

The palace is the home of the Queen Empress and her Court. It is the hub of her global empire and as such it has expanded until it takes up the entire land area of Main Island, coast to coast. It has many towers and so many have been constructed by competing courtiers and noblemen it can be fairly said to be bristling with them. We are concerned with the two on opposite sides of this vast island-palace.

On the western seaboard, and constructed entirely of black basalt, is the Dark Tower. Its counterpart (if we may call it that) on the east coast is known to most non-inhabitants, as the Forbidden Tower or, by some, La Maison de Dieu.

The imperial palace goes by the name of Nonsuch and our tale takes place (as one might reasonably expect) once upon a time.

 

The quest at the heart of our tale begins in the Dark Tower, demesne of the formidable Spymaster of the Queen Empress, the most feared of all her ministers. Cryptographers abide here as do assassins, counterfeiters and disguisers. There are scryers here, occultists and tame necromancers too, for the Spymaster is a member of the esoteric Society of Awakened Ones.

While most aristocrats build upwards towards the light the Spymaster’s tower has as many floors below ground as it does above. Here are the dungeons, the oubliettes and torture chambers thought so necessary for the defence of the empire.

The toppermost room of the Dark Tower was itself dark for it was a camera obscura. Mirrors allowed the Halfen Lord, Spymaster and Privy Counsellor, to watch a 360 degree projection of his immediate surroundings spread out before him on a large round table.

To the east he could watch any activity on the patchwork of roofs, balconies, gantries and galleries below him. To the west he could watch the waves crashing against the cliffs upon which the tower was perched. If he wished he could wait for the tide to turn and take out to sea the bodies of outcasts who had been defenestrated from one of the floors below. In the skies around him he could watch for approaching birds, both friends and foe.

What he couldn’t see was the Forbidden Tower on the far coast of Main Island. For that he had to descend the ladder (with great difficulty) to the chamber known as the Observatory.

And that is where we find the Spymaster, his human eye at the eyepiece of the most powerful spyglass in the empire. His gaze travelled over the rooftops and gables of Nonsuch towards the stone walls and battlements of the tower of his adversary. But however powerful the optics, no matter what spells he cast, he could not penetrate its mystery.

“Whatever they’ve got in there, I want it,” he muttered to himself.

The Halfen Lord had known of his great adversary for some time. In an earlier incarnation the enemy had rendered one of the Spymaster’s intelligencers dumber than any animal and incapable of the meanest communication. To do this he must be a master of the dark arts and a very dangerous wizard. The Spymaster had glimpsed his enemy’s power and it was a power he coveted for himself (all the better to serve Her Glorious Majesty).

But the adversary had slipped away and hidden himself in the secret places of the great palace. After many years of searching his new lair had been painstakingly tracked down to this tower at almost the furthest point of Main Island. But that was about all that was known of him. No name had ever been attributed to him, nor a likeness. No one knew what went on within the tower’s walls, its purposes were obscure. To remain so inscrutable the wizard within must have great cunning. He had to be dangerous both to the Spymaster and the security of the empire.

Frustrated, he pulled away from the ’glass and turned to face the room. This involved swinging his arm to gain momentum and pivoting on his remaining leg. He found a cat licking itself in the middle of the floor. He recognised Consuelo, back from her mission and waiting to make her report.

“Well?”

Consuelo stopped her grooming regime and shook her head.

“Impossible, my Lord. The runs do seem to continue into the Forbidden Tower but some enchantment prohibits entry. There is no physical barrier to the secret ways but my whiskers come up against an invisible wall. You can see where you want to go but…”

The Spymaster gestured for the cat to be silent. He understood completely. He thought he knew all the man-sized secret passages, hidey-holes and hidden rooms of the labyrinthine palace but this far-off tower was a complete mystery to him.

He trusted Agent Consuelo as far as it went but cats were duplicitous creatures. One ne’er knew quite whose side they were really on. Consuelo, for instance, he suspected of serving two masters. She reported to him (and her reports were probably accurate, he thought) but once or twice a Viceroy had seemed to know what he (the Spymaster) was going to report even before he reported it. And sometimes Consuelo was more knowledgeable about goings-on at Court than he would have thought possible.

In the case of the Forbidden Tower he was sure Consuelo was telling the truth. The moles had been unable to tunnel up inside it. The ravens had circled around it but without finding an open window. The boars, hapless as usual, had blundered around banging their heads. Even the dolphins, usually so eager to please, had taken one look and swam out to sea. Curtly, he dismissed Consuelo who wandered off, tail in air.

There was only one thing for it: he would have to send a human agent and it would have to be his best. Whoever he sent on this important quest would have to be able to secretly traverse Main Island, west to east, break the enchantment to enter the Forbidden Tower, find out the whos, whys and wherefores and return safely with the precious intelligence. They would have to be able to fight and do powerful magic in their own right.

Using his wand and a primitive spell he summoned the Hooded Woman.

 

It took her just over a turn of the glass to reach the Observatory but at last she was standing before him. She was tall and cloaked. Wherever he stood and whatever the light he had never been able to see her face. It was always in impenetrable shadow inside her cowl. He could tell by her stance she was displeased. And it was true. As usual she had been asked politely but forcibly to surrender her sword, crossbow, knives, daggers and wand before she was allowed into his presence. She felt vulnerable without the tools of her trade and the appearance of the Halfen Lord could only inspire fear, the kind of dread felt even by the bravest warrior in the face of the uncanny.

Really the Halfen Lord should not have been able to exist. The Spymaster and Privy Counsellor was literally half a man. He had been hewn in half by an ancient foe so that he was half human and half ghost. The left side of his ‘body’ was pure phantom: a smoky miasma through which no light was allowed to pass. The phantom limb that was his left leg gave him enough support to stand but he could only walk with the assistance of strong magic and even then with a pronounced limp. His left arm was not under his control and waved its ghostly gestures in such a way as to grab the attention of whoever he granted an audience. The spectral side of his face, well, it was so fell few could bear to look upon it.

The Hooded Woman was one who could. The Spymaster would never know this because her face was hidden from him but she would stare fascinated at the way the non-verbal communication of his ghost half would usually contradict whatever the human half was saying.

In this instance the Halfen Lord was droning on about some mission he wanted to entrust to her. He was speaking, of course, out of the (human) side of his mouth: blah, blah, Queen Empress, yadda yadda, dangerous Quest, blah, blah, Forbidden Tower, jibber-jabber, safety of the entire empire, etc. etc. But how could she concentrate on what he was saying while all the time his left (ghost) arm was saluting, waving, making lewd gestures and doing that chimp impersonation with arm and armpit which the chimpanzees she knew found particularly offensive. The left (ghost) side of his face winked and gurned and grimaced.

He finished his spiel. The Hooded Woman stood in silence, seeming to consider.

“And,” he added, eventually. “You will be richly rewarded for your trouble.” He named a price.

“Double it,” she said and it was the first thing she’d said. Her voice came out of the hood slightly muffled.

“Agreed.”

“Guineas.”

The Spymaster agreed to that too before rolling out a chart of Main Island on his table, holding down the corners with human skulls he kept in a drawer.

“Let’s get down to business, shall we?”

 

And let us use the Halfen lord’s production of a map as a good excuse to pause and get our bearings. This is a new land to most of us after all.

We are looking (do not look at the skulls) at an island roughly 30 miles long and, with the exception of a few parks, completely built-up. But it is not an island-city; the island is one huge palace, called Nonsuch in the ancient tongue.

It is possible to make out, in the central uplands, the original triform palace. There are the three golden stupas built by the first King Emperor and still occupied by the Imperial family. From each stupa a spectacular aerial walkway leads to a triangular citadel containing a large audience chamber surmounted by a dome. The King Emperor would spend four months in each of the three wings in turn seeing petitioners and issuing decrees. From here were dispatched the navies and armies that would conquer two-thirds of the land surface of the globe and command every ocean.

As the empire expanded and wealth poured into Main Island so Nonsuch grew. The vassals of the King Emperor leased land from him and built their own halls onto existing royal apartments. The nobles competed amongst themselves for the favour of the imperial family with lavish parties, extravagant masques and ceremonies of grovelling obsequience. Their towers grew in height as they tried to outdo their rivals. None dare rival the height of the magnificent golden stupas.

Chief among the nobility were the three Viceroys who administered the empire on behalf of the imperial family. Some territories were ruled openly as colonies but some were part of the empire clandestinely, duped into believing themselves to be sovereign states in their own right. Whatever form their domination took, tribute flowed from the subjugated peoples into the coffers of the royal family who, over generations, undertook bigger and more ambitious construction projects: the Royal Dockyards, the Menageries, the Libraries, Gardens of Utter Delight, the mighty Mausoleums of the King Emperors.

Residences had to be extended for the growing retinues of servants and they needed artisans to clothe and equip them. Forges, armouries and barracks, shops, taverns and kitchens were needed for the growing population. The island-palace spread its jumble of roofs and galleries from coast to coast and everywhere there were towers.

But it was to one tower in particular that the Halfen Lord kept pointing to on the map.

“You can get here to the Forbidden Tower without drawing the attention of its inhabitants?”

“That’s what you’re paying me for.”

“And then get inside?”

“If there’s a way – and there always is – I’ll find it.”

“And get back here to report on what’s going on?”

“If you don’t think I will succeed in this quest, why not accompany me?”

“I rather think I would draw too much attention, don’t you?” and the ghost half of his face grinned. It was true: he didn’t get out much.

“You must know more about this tower?”

Half a head shook. She realised this powerful lord was embarrassed by his ignorance of what was, supposedly, just another part of the palace.

“All right, I’ll discover what they’re up to.”

Without more ado she turned on her heel and left the Observatory. She took up her arms and wand and descended seven floors until she was two above ground level. Here there was a gantry that soared over some roofs into another part of the palace and a set of state bedrooms that had fallen into disuse. In the third one she twitched aside an arras and dived into a series of secret passages and stairwells to emerge in a small dank courtyard. Here, she knew she was out of the Halfen Lord’s sight, even with all his optical assists, so she pulled back her hood while retaining the veil. A cat was sitting on a doorstep. The Veiled Woman sniffed.

“No need to ask what this yard is used for.”

“You’re very familiar,” said the cat.

“No, Consuelo, you’re familiar.”

Veiled Woman and cat laughed together in their own fashion. The woman

removed her cloak. With the exception of the veil she was dressed completely in heavily studded black leather. Behind her back was slung a crossbow. Her sword swung by her side and her belt contained two sheathed daggers. Her bandolier held throwing knives. She was Warrior Woman and it would have been very rash for anyone to challenge her.

“He’s getting worse,” she said.

“You mean with his obsession?”

“Yes, now it’s my turn to trek out there and have a look at that so-called Forbidden Tower of his. But, Consuelo, he really doesn’t seem to know much about it. Can you tell me what I may expect?”

“I’m sorry, but even my friends in the Right Worshipful Companie are in the dark. But you could try Baron K.”

“Is he still Master of the Guild of Victuallers?”

“They can’t get rid of him. The Baron lives quite close to the tower and probably supplies the tower himself.”

The Warrior Woman nodded and fingered the pommel of her sword. Baron K owed her a favour after she’d taken care of that spot of unpleasantness two years ago. And he was easy to find. All she had to do was look up the engagements of the Queen Empress and her Viceroys and if there was a good party, he’d be there.

“Thank you, Consuelo. That’s a good idea. See you when I get back.”

“Good luck,” said the cat doing that beckoning gesture with a raised paw to reinforce her words.

Smiling, the woman draped her cloak over her shoulders and strode through the nearest door into a long corridor which would lead her someway towards the centre of the palace complex.

Few parts of the palace were very old. Some of the courtiers fell on hard times (from the loss of imperial favour or gambling) and couldn’t keep up appearances but much of Nonsuch was in a constant state of rebuilding and redecoration. Architects, craftsmen and interior designers were much honoured and some had risen into the ranks of the nobility themselves. Towers inched upwards, basements sank deeper and the halls of the great palace got ever grander. The wooden cranes operated by human treadwheels were everywhere.

The constant state of flux meant it was difficult to plot a course through the palace using only the secret paths. Many passages and covert conduits were discovered when walls were knocked down. Hidey-holes were redeveloped into garderobes. Spy-holes in floors, ceilings and panelling were filled in as assiduously as mouseholes.

Ducking and diving the Warrior Woman kept to the remaining hidden ways, catacombs and sewers as much as possible but in her journey across the island she had occasionally to venture out in the open.

She surfaced in Execution Square to find news of Baron K. Only five bodies were swinging from the great oak this day but she had to pass beneath them to reach the trunk where public notices were pasted. Here was affixed the Court Circular. Two nights hence the Eastern Viceroy was throwing a grand ball in his halls. The Queen Empress would be certain to attend (albeit briefly) and so the hospitality would be lavish. The Baron would be there. If she hurried she could make it to that part of the palace in time…

 

The grandly named Hall of Creation was, for the moment, the most beautiful of Nonsuch’s many ballrooms. Its painted ceiling was famous throughout the palace and beyond. Like anyone else entering the room for the first time she was forced to look up and marvel. The detail and use of colour were astonishing. It depicted the creation myth: how the divine remote ancestor of the first King Emperor had created Main Island and from various odds and sods left over had thrown together the other land masses of the globe.

At the far end of the massive hall was a press of people: uniformed Yeomen Warders and richly-dressed guests. She recognised their host, the eastern Viceroy, and with him the diminutive figure of the Queen Empress herself. Impressively old now and the longest reigning monarch of the long reigning dynasty, she had put in an appearance purely to support her Viceroy. She would not be dancing.

Neither would the agent of the Halfen Lord. She was dressed in the livery of the Eastern Viceroy and was carrying a tray of drinks. Her long black hair was pushed up into a cap. Her apron was heavily starched. (Not by her, she’d robbed a waitress of her uniform. The girl was now lying gagged, bound and unconscious in a cupboard with the stash of leathers and weapons.)

For once in this kind of guise none of the cups were poisoned and she passed them around the guests indiscriminately. There was no one here to kill tonight.

On her forth visit to the room she saw her contact holding forth to a gaggle of admirers. She fixed his face with her gaze as she approached with her tray. She saw him recognise her, straighten up and halt his anecdote mid-sentence.

“Excuse me,” she was near enough to hear him drawl, “but I need a drink from this sweet young thing.”

The sycophants dispersed, laughing. One of them even clapped him on the back. Baron K had quite a reputation as a ladies’ man. His hand hovered over the drinks as he looked at her quizzically.

“It is information I need tonight,” she whispered. He took one of the cups and drank deeply.

“See how I trust my Angel of Mercy? What do you want to know?”

“Not here. The Buttery at dawn.” Without waiting for an answer she glided off. Like all servants she was here to pretend to serve.

 

By sunrise she had the Buttery to herself. The guests had returned to their quarters or were still swaying drunkenly in the ballroom. The servants were having their own party somewhere with stolen wine. The Warrior Woman was back in her fighting gear and waiting impatiently. She had ditched the veil and the cloak: she and the Baron had history.

When he finally arrived he looked seriously worse for wear. His cheeks were flushed, his nose luminous. His massive red-bearded chin hung slackly over his wine-stained ruff. His lips, always too big for his face, were drawn back in a desperate attempt to appear friendly and sober but managed to produce the opposite effect. His feathered cap had been lost during the revels and his hair looked to have been tousled by an expert.

“Ah, the Destroying Angel. How are you my dear?” he slurred but without waiting for an answer looked around for a fresh bottle. He found one, opened it and filled two cups. She took one but got straight down to business:

“You have a contract to supply a certain tower I’m interested in.” She had been asking around.

“Oh, ho, I wager I know just which one that’ll be.” He clinked cups with hers, his big grin fixed again in place. “On the coast, closed to outsiders, sealed by powerful spells, am I right?”

“Yes, we are calling it the Forbidden Tower.”

“We? Are you working for the Spymaster? I hear he’s not all there.” He chuckled but she did not join in and said not a word. He took another drink before continuing. “The Forbidden Tower sounds about right but around here they call it La Maison de Dieu.”

“The House of God?”

“Well not God exactly, but the rumour is a very powerful wizard lives there. They say…” and here he leaned in closer and spoke in a stage whisper. “They say he practises the darkest of all the dark arts: he is the master of all the iconographies. He has at his command the interpretations of symbols, runes, signs and even the sigils of the demon kings of yore.” He straightened up and took another drink. Almost apologetically he added: “Well, that’s what they say.”

“But you don’t know?”

“Never been inside. None of my men have. All deliveries are winched down into the cellar or sent down a chute.”

“You must have a contact on the inside. How do you get the orders and get paid?”

He refilled his cup and shook his head.

“Magic Mirror.”

Despite herself the Warrior Woman was impressed. These were rare and precious artefacts usually reserved for royalty wishing to monitor their personal attractiveness relative to the general population.

“How did you get one of those?”

“Left on the Guild’s doorstep one night with instructions. It tells us what to do, their needs and when to deliver. We send the stuff down and they send the coin up. Every once in a while the mirror says the magic words and we send that down too and another one is sent up.”

“What magic words?”

“Low bat, Terry.”

“Right.” It meant nothing to her. “Do you ever deliver things in a big crate?”

Baron K spluttered in laughter.

“Oh, a sort of woman-sized crate you mean? No, everything is delivered in non-human sized packages. No Angel-in-a-Box surprise for them.”

The Warrior Woman was starting to get dangerously annoyed and the Baron was too drunk to notice. She put down her cup and stood over him fixing him in the eye.

“Now, Baron, I want you to think very carefully. How can I get inside that tower?”

He managed to catch her change of tone and struggled to compose himself. “You’re a woman aren’t you? You can surely use the oldest magic of all?”

The Warrior Woman grinned. She couldn’t help herself. She had that magic all right. Wasn’t she the mistress of the honey-trap?

 

She left Baron K disappearing deeper into his cups but not before insisting no more supplies be delivered to the tower. Whatever other stratagems she employed could only be helped by her enemy being in a state of siege. The Baron had agreed in view of a promise of future compensation. A contract spell ensured compliance.

Still dressed in her fighting apparel she continued on her journey eastwards. As far as possible she used the secret paths but sometimes alterations forced her to enter the more public spaces of the great palace. As before her weaponry usually meant free passage.

Once she emerged through a secret panel into a noble’s drawing room and had to traverse the room in full view of the shocked family before exiting through the opposite door. She grabbed food where she could in kitchens and pantries.

A tricky moment arrived when she found herself at the Menagerie of Exotic Beasts. The passage she was using came up through a secret door in the Basilisk House but luckily they were looking the other way. She by-passed the next enclosure altogether (‘Do NOT feed the Manticores’) and plunged back into the catacombs in the rather scary Vampire Vivarium.

After another day of erratic subterranean and surface travel she reached the part of the palace containing the Forbidden Tower. She found a chamber near its base from which she could study the tower for herself.

With one exception it looked like any of the other towers constructed by the courtiers of Main Island. There was a door (but in all the time she watched she never saw it used) and windows. The stone walls were sheer but not special in any way.

What did make it distinctive was a strange blue cube mounted on the battlements. She wondered about this. Had it occult significance? Was this the chamber from which the Wizard cast his spells? Whatever it was it drew her attention to the roof and roofs, in her experience, were often a weak spot.

If the siege did not force anyone outside to be seduced she would have to find another way inside and the roof might be the answer.

All she needed was a good grimoire with a workable levitating spell…

 

Inside the silo of the British Extracting Co Ltd and on the second day of Fantasy, Feyderbrand called a meeting. He was worried. Ever since he’d been notified of the genre change he’d been pacing the floors of the Institut seeking reassurances from everyone he met. Still dissatisfied he summoned all his department heads and top theorists for them to tell him once again he had nothing to fear.

In the conference room on the top floor he surveyed his team from his seat at the top of the table. He was wearing his roll-neck sweater and glasses. His head was newly shaved. It could almost have been Foucault himself sitting there.

“You keep telling me not to worry,” he said. “But I can’t help it. Rationally we should be perfectly safe. We are still outside of genre. But Fantasy isn’t rational…”

“Sir,” Pierre Brodeur spoke up trying to keep the impatience out of his voice. “That’s out there. Here inside the Institut we are perfectly immune from any irrationality inherent in the genre.” His tone managed to suggest some irrationality on the part of the Chief Semiotician. Many of those assembled looked like they agreed with him. “We have our dream suits. We are totally protected from the machine’s latest perverse genre selection.”

“But Pierre,” Feyderbrand’s voice was querulous. “You know as well as I that the worst security breaches have occurred in the, shall we say, less realistic genres. Spy necessitated a complete change of location. Pirate and Western eventually gave the other side our new choice of city. The Americans know we’re in Hull but thankfully not whereabouts…”

“I’m not so sure,” said Charles Renard, head of Security. “Questions have been asked in the Wilmington Café around the corner…”

Pierre Brodeur shot Renard a glance. Feyderbrand groaned.

“So what can I look forward to? Hordes of elves, dwarfs and goblins attacking us?”

“No, sir,” said Pierre patiently. “We’re not in Fantasy even if out there…”

Renard interrupted him: “Let’s just say one of them, or even a horde…” and he did that thing with his fingers to indicate inverted commas, “…manages to get inside here using some spell…”

“Open sesame?”

“Abracadabra, whatever, then unprotected their exposure to the machine will drive them cuckoo, like that American spy back in Paris.”

“They could still do a lot of damage before that happens.”

“What with?” Renard was being assertive. “They’ll have nothing in the way of weapons more advanced than mediaeval and they’ll believe in magic which, in here, won’t work.”

Demi Leather weighed in: “They’re right, sir. Charles has us in lockdown. Selective personnel are armed. No pixies can get in. There will be no low-flying dragon attacks. We mustn’t be complacent but I think we can ride this one out until a more sensible genre comes along.”

“We have science on our side and they have hocus-pocus,” added Pierre.

But Feyderbrand wasn’t finished yet: “Remember what happened in Monster. Poor Pierre was in serious danger and now some Hull teenagers know far too much.”

‘Poor’ Pierre resented the inherent criticism. He was getting frustrated with Feyderbrand. His boss was losing it.

“Any progress shutting down the machine?” he shot back.

This was Feyderbrand’s weak spot. The machine was his raison d’être. Ever since it had so seriously malfunctioned he had been holding back from sending in the demolition crew in favour of what many perceived as half-hearted tinkering. Pierre had spoken at length to the Chief Engineer who agreed they were no nearer a solution.

“Fine, fine,” said Feyderbrand hastily changing the subject. “How long should our supplies last?”

This last was directed at the head of Housekeeping, Gerwine Huber, who looked worried.

“We’re running low,” she said, “even with the rationing. With the lockdown our entire staff is within the Institut putting greater pressure on limited resources. Our emergency supply procedures have all inexplicably failed. I can’t order anything online, no one is responding.”

“And the water?”

“Levels are falling and in this dry spell…”

Feyderbrand had failed to get the reassurance he’d sought and suddenly brought the meeting to a close.

“I’m sure we’ll have enough food and water. You’ll see, Fantasy will soon be over.”

 

But it wasn’t. Barely a week had passed before another meeting had to be convened. This time the mood was different. The people of the Institut were losing faith in Feyderbrand and the project. They were asking themselves what it had ever accomplished. Even when the machine was working properly it hadn’t brought about the better world they’d imagined at the outset. What was the point of it? Here they all were, hungry and hiding in a disused old silo in Hull. Technicians, theorists and I.T. whiz kids were muttering in small groups, bad-mouthing the Chief Semiotician who had got them into this mess. Tempers were fraying as food stocks fell.

Pierre Brodeur was Feyderbrand’s most vocal critic.

“My family are locked in here and starving. What have you got to lose?” he railed against Feyderbrand’s inaction in the meeting.

“The machine will switch genres soon.”

“You keep saying that but it’s stuck. You’ve got to do more than wishful thinking. Out there wishes may come true but not in here.” He paused and furrowed his brow. “But maybe…”

“Maybe, what?” asked Demi Leather with raised eyebrow although she knew what was coming having rehearsed this whole scenario with Pierre.

“Maybe there is a way out of this mess. Someone goes outside, tears their dream suit like I did, then they’ll be in Fantasy and their wishes can come true.”

“And bring us miraculous provisions,” said Demi.

“Or a magic self-replenishing Fairy cup,” said Gerwine Huber.

“Manna from Heaven,” said Charles Renard.

“It’s far too dangerous,” said Feyderbrand growing alarmed.

“Not necessarily,” Demi countered. “We don’t seem to be in any immediate danger from out there. The problem is no food in here.”

Feyderbrand looked to his security chief.

“That’s true, sir. All quiet hereabouts.”

“Then who should go?” Feyderbrand was still looking at Charles.

“I think you should, sir” he said.

Feyderbrand, startled, looked around the table to see all heads nodding. It was then that he realised he had been well and truly ambushed.

“Don’t you see, sir,” said Pierre. “It will be an important part of your whole experiment. You will see for yourself the power of the machine. As I did in Monster but I was taken by surprise. You will be fully prepared.”

“I have just the costume, sir. As the Wizard King you can have nothing to fear,” said Jean Flaneau, head of Wardrobe.

With everyone looking at him Feyderbrand felt he couldn’t ask anyone else to do this. And he knew it was his last chance to protect his precious machine from the sledgehammer squad. He had to play the hero to save the project.

“You have persuaded me, all right, I’ll do it. When?”

“We need food and water. There really is no time like the present,” said Pierre Brodeur with a sweet smile.

 

And so we soon find Feyderbrand in Wardrobe with Jean and Pierre. They have already had a spat over the grey long-hair wig and beard which the Semiotician refused to wear under any circumstances. In a placating gesture the Wardrobe Master gently placed the Wizard’s robe around his shoulders. Feyderbrand made a last-ditch effort to get out of the mission.

“I’m not cut out for this,” he pleaded. “I’m an ideas man.”

His dark blue robe was covered in signs of the zodiac.

“Then, sir, I have to say you are wearing the perfect outfit,” said Pierre.

“Not yet he isn’t,” said Jean plonking the conical Wizard’s hat on the shaven head of his long-time boss. Feyderbrand suspected a certain undercurrent of glee at his predicament. He looked at himself in the full-length mirror. He looked ridiculous but he knew he could no longer hide in his office. He had to go out there and soon.

“And now some key accessories,” said Jean.

First he strapped a belt around his waist with a sword in its scabbard. It was heavy and got in his way.

“Don’t tell me, it lights up when imps are about?”

“Once your dream suit isn’t functioning who knows what it will do. That’s even truer of these.”

A staff was placed in his hands. It was of sturdy but knobbly wood and was topped by a cloudy jewel. A ring containing a similar stone was put upon his finger. He was given an amulet to wear and a talismanic pendant. A golden crown was lowered over his pointy hat. Perhaps, he thought, once I am in the genre these things will do something but until then… He shuddered.

Pierre saw his misgivings. Giving Jean a nod he guided Feyderbrand out of Wardrobe and into the lift. On the floor immediately below the roof they got out to be met by Charles Renard. He was wearing knight’s armour over chain mail. The Semiotician wondered if his security chief knew something he didn’t.

“Right,” said the head of Security from inside his helm. “I’m going to take you up on the roof and give you a pinprick to puncture the dream suit. And soon you will be in Fantasy.”

“The last place I want to be.”

“C’mon, Feyderbrand, you were born to play this role.” Pierre offered his boss his hipflask and Feyderbrand took a stiffener before he was led by Renard up the rickety stairs to the trapdoor and out onto the roof.

There, in the shadow of the water tank above them, Charles Renard unsheathed his sword.

“A pinprick you said?”

“It’s got to look right. Don’t move.”

Renard lunged. He had judged it well and merely scratched Feyderbrand’s thigh.

“Ow,” he said but it didn’t hurt much.

“Bon chance, mon brave,” said his companion-in-arms as he scuttled back to the trapdoor and, shutting it behind him, disappeared below.

There was no immediate change in Feyderbrand’s surroundings but his memory started to play tricks on him. His time at the Sorbonne was becoming fuzzy whereas recollections of his posh wizard-only boarding school were so vivid they felt like yesterday. He could clearly picture his beneficent old headmaster and the colourful characters who had been his professors. He had made friends for life at the school and learnt the techniques and rituals of High Magick. He could remember the classes they had attended in the ancient lore of Nagoth. He could still recite the protective spells first set down by the High Priestesses of Churta. He could read the Tarot. He could talk to animals.

He could emit light. From the scratch on his thigh the light poured forth. As the dream suit disintegrated light flooded out and eclipsed, if only for a moment, the light of the sun. He was illuminated.

The light faded but his sudden luminosity did not go unnoticed. Near the foot of the tower the Warrior Woman was watching from the shadows. She had spent a few days dressed as a scholar researching in the Great Library of Al-Khandril before finding a serviceable levitating spell. With the blinding flare-up on the roof she knew it was time to use it.

She genuflected towards the Golden Stupas (praise be to the Queen Empress) and using the exact form of words from the ancient grimoire she called upon the powers of the Ancient Ones (may they forever lurk just out of plain sight) to help her levitate up the side of the tower.

The first Feyderbrand knew was when a strange woman’s head appeared over the battlements on the other side of his tower. She had flowing long black hair and a fair countenance but Feyderbrand understood straightaway this was his foe. This was confirmed when her torso hove into view: she was dressed as a warrior and the first throwing knife whistled past his ear.

If she had popped up any nearer or faster he’d be dead. But by the time she had ascended high enough to stand on the battlements he had created a sphere of protection around himself. The crossbow bolts that followed the first knives bounced harmlessly off his charmed space. The elixir he had been given was speeding up his reactions.

Warrior Woman stared across the roof at her adversary. He had some variant of the Shield of Invulnerability about him and he’d conjured it without even raising his staff (the jewel at its top remained dull). There was a strong wind up here at the top of the tower and the magical robes were whipping about him. His crown glittered around his hat. He was clean-shaven which was odd in a High Wizard but his bespectacled face looked old and wise. This was a powerful wizard indeed and she had already seen enough to know a honey-trap was out of the question.

She was confident in her own abilities and pulled out her wand. She pointed it at him and it spat a blast of destructive power. (One of the Witch Duchesses had personally taught her this spell.) At first it appeared to have penetrated the charm-shield but then it was sucked into the talismanic pendant around his neck, intensified, and hurled right back at her. It was all she could do to raise her wand and deflect it far back over her head.

Next she conjured up a demon to do her bidding. She hadn’t the time to trace out a complicated sigil with her wand so had to make do with one of the lesser demons and the fissure duly opened to admit him. This one wasted valuable time by jumping up and down flapping his scaly bat wings. The Wizard simply peered at this display over the top of his glasses and the demon burst into flames.

For the first time the Warrior Woman was seriously worried. It might have been a lesser demon but it was from Hell but should have been fire-resistant.

So far, she thought, she might have been rather obvious in her attacks. She needed something more subtle and unexpected. To that end invisibility would be useful. Muttering the spell under her breath she felt the growing opaqueness and subsequent invisibility overcome her like a wave of coldness.

She moved towards a metal ladder which was mounted on the blue cube. She climbed up rung by rung until she was standing on its top. This gave her a height advantage over her enemy. But the Wizard’s gaze had not left her face. He could still see her. She noticed the radiant Ring of Power upon his finger. That explained the failure of the invisibility spell which she now countermanded.

Somehow she had to cancel his Shield of Invulnerability. She drew her sword from its scabbard. It had been forged in the underground smithies deep under the central uplands and was imbued with magical properties.

Feyderbrand drew his. He was feeling every inch the Wizard King. But there was no way he was going to be drawn into a swordfight. He couldn’t climb up to her level without injury. Why should he risk a duel of flashing blades when he could destroy her safely at a distance? He kept his sword unsheathed as a distraction as he raised his staff an inch from the floor.

It was daytime but getting darker as the black clouds came roiling in from the open sea. To all appearances a summer storm seemed to have come up from nowhere but Feyderbrand knew better. The storm was his. He had created it. Even the weather was at his command. To channel enough magical power to utterly destroy his enemy he collapsed the sphere of protection.

He raised his staff as high as he could reach and brought it fully under the control of his Will. The jewel in his staff glowed white and pulled a bolt of elemental energy down upon the head of his foe.

But in his pride Feyderbrand had over-reached himself. The bolt was poorly aimed and struck the base on which the blue cube rested. There was an explosion and the occult chamber, the crown of La Maison de Dieu, was sundered from the rest of the tower. As it toppled the Warrior Woman was taken with it but also Feyderbrand, who had moved closer to his adversary, was caught by the explosion and he too tumbled with the falling masonry of the shattered battlements.

The two antagonists were falling too fast for any protective spell. Nothing could save them now; not wishes, charms, lucky cats or magical paraphernalia. Nemesis, fate, call it what you will, was at work in this genre. And so was gravity.