The palace trolls were armed with ray guns and dressed in green and gold. Liala recognised some of them. They were the tough sort who worked in the boatyards. Today, they were standing guard outside the royal apartments.
There was none of the elaborate bowing and stomping that usually went with the job. The new guard snapped to attention as they mounted the steps leading to her mother's chamber.
Mother was there to greet them. She embraced Liala and clasped Bryn's hands as if he was a long-lost son. The show of affection was startling. Liala wondered what had come over her. Then Balduur poked his head around a corner and the expression on mother's face told all.
Mother had fallen in love.
Crispin leant forward and whispered.
'She has had that operation to reactivate the primary response mechanisms of the inner mammalian brain.'
'You mean the bit we got from the reptiles?'
'That's right ... I had it too.'
'You had it!' Liala could hardly believe her ears. 'How?'
'Father ordered it.'
'But he's a prisoner ... he can't order anything.'
'Yes. He can. He's here in the royal apartments. He wants to speak to you and he wants to meet Bryn.'
Crispin signalled to Mother and she released her hold on Bryn. From the smile on her face, Liala concluded that she approved of her choice of young man. Now it was Father's turn to meet him.
They followed Crispin into the basement. Liala had never been there before. It was where the servants kept cleaning materials and things like that. A palace troll with a ray gun stood beside a green door. He opened it and they went inside.
Father's jar hung on a rack between a battery charger and an electric pump. Both looked as if they had come from a museum. A man in a brown coat was checking fluid levels. He turned and she received another surprise.
The chancellor looked different without his blue wig and his face was remarkably alive and animated for someone of his advanced years. The perpetual scowl had gone and his fingers were moving deftly over the controls that regulated the supply of liquids to the jar.
She heard Father's voice.
'I said you would find friends in strange places.'
'I had no idea, Father.'
'That is because our good friend, the chancellor, was very skilled at pretending to be one thing when he was the exact opposite. We owe our lives to him. If, in the past, he seemed heartless and vile then that was the burden he had to bear. It was the cloak he wore to hide his true nature. With other friends he worked tirelessly for this moment. They are now dead. The man you call the professor killed them together with all the other immortals. They will thank him for letting them die.'