Rupert eyed Reg askance. 'I'm sure it'll all work out fine. I mean, I know Mel doesn't wear her heart on her sleeve but I'm her brother and I can tell: inside, she's very excited.'
'That's nothing to what the academies going to be when it finds out madam can't tell the difference between an etheretic transductor and her own right foot!'
Gerald gave up and shoved her under the blankets. 'Well, Rupert,' he said.'Is that it? We just… go on?'
Rupert ignored the strangled squawking emanating from under the bedclothes and nodded gently. 'Yes. We do. After all, my friend… what other choice is there?'
He stared at the foot of the bed, feeling… suspended. As though he was waiting for the other shoe to drop.'So,' he said, almost to himself.'It's over.'
Rupert stood. 'Ah… well… I wouldn't precisely say over, Gerald. Not quite yet.'
He crossed to the bedroom door and opened it. On the other side stood a man. Average height. Average build. Average hair of an unremarkable brown. His nose was neither thin nor fat, straight nor aquiline. It merely occupied the centre of his face. His eyes were a nondescript shade of grey. His suit was plain. His shirt was cotton. He was bland. Ordinary. Average. He looked like a shopkeeper.
'Good morning, Mr Dunwoody' he said in a clipped, precise voice. 'My name is Sir Alec… and we need to talk.'
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
As the mysterious Sir Alec entered and Rupert left, closing the bedroom door behind him, Reg erupted shrieking from under the blankets.
'Gerald Dunwoody! Just what do you think you're — ' She saw the stranger and stopped. 'Oh for the love of Saint Snodgrass. Not you again. I thought we'd ditched you back at the Department.'
Gerald could've wrung her neck. 'Would Polly like a cracker, then?' he said, teeth gritted. it's all right, Mr Dunwoody,' Sir Alec said calmly. 'Reg and I have met.'
'Yes we have, mores the pity,' said Reg, glowering. 'Gerald, pay no attention to him. He's nothing but a stooge.'
Ignoring Reg, he looked at Sir Alec. 'You work for the Ottosland Department ofThaumaturgy?' Sir Alec nodded, i do.'
Something about the man's beige blandness was getting on his nerves. Thinking of Monk and his undeserved disgrace; of himself, and how Scunthorpe's cowardice had started all this; and no longer caring about his career, he sneered. 'As a stooge?'
Sir Alec's expression underwent a slow alchemy. Grew older. Colder. The nondescript blandness melted like wax, revealing the true face beneath. Hard, with lines suggesting experiences beyond those found in an ordinary life.
Staring at the man with his one good eye Gerald felt an answering chill. Felt his own face remould and reveal, starkly, the fingerprints left behind by the last few weeks.
So long as he lived, he would never be bullied again.
Sir Alec nodded, a salute like the one fencing opponents gave each other before crossing swords, and the air around him crackled with a ferocious leashed power.
So. The man was a First Grade wizard. And a sneaky one to boot.
Well, 1 can be sneaky too, Sir Alec from the Department. I can do a lot of things. I think I might surprise you.
With a blink, Sir Alec calmed his thaumic aura. 'As I said, Mr Dunwoody, we need to talk. It won't take long, I do realise you're convalescent… and in any case I am needed elsewhere. You've kicked up some dust both at home and abroad; ruffled feathers require tactful soothing.'
Gerald considered him. 'Maybe they wouldn't if you lot had been doing your jobs. Five minutes after I made Lional his dragon you and your counterparts from the UMN should've been crawling all over New Ottosland. Why weren't you?'
Sir Alec's pale eyes were cold and calculating, the brain behind them summing him up…i'm sorry if you felt… abandoned, but I'm afraid politics both domestic and international raised their ugly heads at precisely the wrong moment. Valuable resources were… diverted. May I sit down?' if you must,' said Reg, before he could answer, and relocated to the bedrail behind the pillows. 'But don't get too comfy. Gerald's been through a terrible ordeal so talk fast and leave faster, sunshine, because — '
One hand raised, Sir Alec moved towards the bed, a thin smile curving his lips. 'Yes, yes, Reg. Or should I say: Your Majesty? Seeing as you are, beneath that quaint disguise, Queen Duketta of Lalapmda, born in the year 1216, only daughter of King Treve and Queen Amyrl, who ascended the Lalapindian throne in 1234, foolishly married the warlock Vertain in 1235 and apparently drowned soon thereafter. In reality Vertain ensorcelled you, trapping your soul in the body of a bird and dooming you to wander the world ever after… provided the enchantment placed upon you is not touched.' He cleared his throat. 'Did I leave anything out?'
Reg closed her gaping beak with a click. 'You nosey bugger! How did you find out?'
Another sardonic smile, it's part of my job description.'
'And what job is that?' said Gerald. He wasn't at all sure he liked where this was heading…
Sir Alec seated himself in the armchair by the bed. 'All in good time, Mister Dunwoody.'
So. Here was the other shoe dropping with a vengeance. Gerald scowled. 'That's Professor Dunwoody to you.'
Sir Alec nodded. 'Certainly. At least for the moment.'
'All right, all right,' said Reg, rallying. 'That's enough with the cut glass repartee, sunshine. Why are you here?'
'Why do you think, Reg? He wants to find out how I did it,' he said tiredly. 'How I made the dragons and all the rest of it.'
'On the contrary,' said Sir Alec. 'I know precisely how you did it.' 'So?'
'So the question is: what are we going to do with you as a result?'
He made himself meet Sir Alec's cold, grey gaze. Here we go. 'You're saying I'm dangerous.'
Sir Alec smiled. 'Everyone is dangerous, Mister Dunwoody. In their own way, in their own time. All it takes is the right catalyst, the right circumstances. The perfect confluence of events.'
He shook his head, rejecting the cynicism. 'No. Not — '
'Everyone, Mister Dunwoody' Sir Alec flicked a speck of dust from his knee. 'Shall I tell you how you're feeling, sir? Yes, I think I shall. You're feeling… betrayed. As though the world has betrayed you. And do you know why you feel like that? It's because you've lost your innocence. Like the vast majority of people, Mister Dunwoody, until New Ottosland came into your life, you bumped along happily enough. Oh, you had dreams that didn't seem likely to come true, but they were comforting and you dreamed them. You'd had career disappointments, yes, but you trusted they were temporary. Your faith was a little battered, perhaps, but you still believed. You looked upon the world with a benevolent eye. Oh yes, of course you knew there were scoundrels among us, certain gentlemen whose company you preferred to avoid, but on the whole you found the world good. And then you came here. With the best of intentions — eager and anxious and so terribly naive. Without ever meaning to, you kicked over the rock of New Ottosland… and from under it crawled Lional.'
Deep inside, Gerald felt himself shiver. 'You make me sound like a fool.'
'A fool?' said Sir Alec thoughtfully. 'Not at all. Before this… adventure… you were no more foolish than any other ordinary man. You saw the sunlight, not the shadows. The trouble is, Mister Dunwoody, the shadows exist. And if we're not very careful, very vigilant, they will swallow us. And our good world will be plunged into darkness.'
Gerald watched his fingers clench, his knuckles whiten. Sir Alec was right. And I hate it. I never, ever wanted to know this. 'All right. Say I agree with you. So what? What has any of that to do with me?'
Another flick of manicured fingers, banishing dust. 'In the time that's passed since the incident with the two dragons and the late King Lional,' said Sir Alec, 'certain of my colleagues have been conducting an exhaustive search into your ancestry. Also your medical, educational and various employment records, the results of your
