Lord Sunday (9 page)

T
he dragonfly swooped down to the third terrace that was cut into the hill, about halfway up, and Arthur was dragged over rough green turf for twenty feet before the flying creature came to a stop and went into a steady hover. The rope ladder tumbled down and the two tall green Denizens descended. They unhooked Arthur’s chains from the dragonfly’s tow rope and, as he had feared, dragged him over to the clock.

Lord Sunday followed close behind, directing the power of the Seventh Key against Arthur while
Arthur’s own Keys struggled to break out of the silver net. The force of Sunday’s power pushed Arthur’s head down and made him feel weak and unable to resist the two Denizens. One of them held him while the other fastened the chains to the tips of the clock hands. Arthur felt the chains grow shorter, like elastic returning to its normal length, and they dragged him across the clock face till he had to sit on the central pivot, next to the trapdoor.

Arthur craned his neck to check the position of the hands. The hour hand was on the twelve and the minute hand just past it. Then he looked at the trapdoor. It was shut, but he could hear a faint whirring noise behind it and something like a low, unpleasant chuckle.

“This is like the Old One’s clock prison,” Arthur said to Lord Sunday, who stood by the number six, gazing down at his captive. He still held the Seventh Key close in his right hand and the silver net in his left. “Are there puppets within that will take out my eyes?”

“There are,” confirmed Lord Sunday. “But you have almost twelve hours before they will emerge,
and you will have a chance to be spared from their ministrations.”

“How?” asked Arthur.

“You may surrender your Keys to me,” said Lord Sunday. “And
A Compleat Atlas of the House
. If they are freely given, I will return you to your Earth.”

“And my mother?”

“Yes, she shall go with you.”

“And you’ll leave us alone? I mean, leave the Earth alone? And you’ll stop the Nothing from destroying the House and the Secondary Realms?”

“I do not interfere unnecessarily beyond these Gardens,” said Lord Sunday. “It is unfortunate that events have so transpired that I must take a hand, to impose order where others have failed to do so.”

“So you won’t promise to leave us alone,” said Arthur. “Or anything else.”

“You have heard my offer,” Lord Sunday replied coldly. “You and your mother will return to your world, if you give me the Keys and the Atlas.”

Arthur slowly shook his head. “No. I don’t trust you.”

“Very well,” said Lord Sunday. “Consider that allowing the puppets to take your eyes is only one
of many things I can do to make you reconsider. While I will not stoop to menace mere mortals, I do hold your mother prisoner. Your friend Leaf has also been taken. If you wish to see either of them again, then you will give me the Keys and the Atlas.”

Arthur shut his eyes for a moment. He was tempted by Lord Sunday’s offer, but not because he was afraid for his mother or Leaf, or of the puppets that would tear out his eyes, but simply because it would mean he could lay down the impossible burden he had been given. Everything would just go back to the way it was before.

Except it’s too late for that,
Arthur thought as he opened his eyes.
I can’t trust Sunday to do the right thing, for the House or the Universe…or for me. I don’t even know what his plans really are, or why he has let Saturday destroy the House. There’s no way he could leave me alone, not now. I have come too far, and I have changed too much to go back. I have to see this through. I’ll use the medal to call the Mariner and hope he gets here before the clock strikes twelve…

Arthur’s hand fell to the pouch at his waist as he thought this and he saw Lord Sunday’s eyes follow
the movement. Instantly Arthur lifted his hand to scratch his nose, the chain clanking as he moved. But it was too late. Sunday’s attention was on the pouch. The Trustee lifted his hand slightly and Arthur’s belt broke apart, the pouch sailing across the intervening space to land at Sunday’s feet. Waterless soap, a cleaning cloth and brush, several nuts and bolts, and the all-important silver bag fell out.

Sunday gestured again and the silver bag spewed out it contents:
A Compleat Atlas of the House
, the yellow elephant toy and the Mariner’s medal. The Atlas disappeared as it touched the grass. Arthur jumped as it reappeared a moment later inside the front of his coveralls.

“Like the Keys, the Atlas must be given freely,” said Sunday. “I hope you will do so before too much time passes. As for your sentimental possessions, I do not care to give you the comfort of them. Noon, take these things and throw them from the hill.”

Arthur could only watch as the slightly taller of the two green Denizens scooped up the elephant and the medal and threw them away. The items separated
as they flew through the air, the elephant on a high arc that ended suddenly as it landed in the high branches of a tree, the medal going lower and further, travelling several hundred yards before it disappeared below the level of the terrace.

Arthur watched every moment of the medal’s fall and with it the loss of his only hope of escape.

“I have a garden to tend,” said Lord Sunday. “I will return in a few hours when I trust you will have thought further about my offer.”

He stepped off the horizontal clock face and walked away, but not to the dragonfly’s rope ladder. Instead Arthur watched him cross to the rear of the terrace, where a line of steps wound up the hill. The two Denizens followed. All three were on the steps when a bright blue-and-red bird shot past Arthur and flew in front of Lord Sunday, hovering in place, its wings beating so fast they were a blur. Sunday held out a finger, the bird hopped on to it and was carried to his shoulder, where it spoke into his ear in a high-pitched voice that Arthur could almost hear, but not well enough to make out more than a few key words.

“Saturday…not…Drasils wilting…more…”

The bird finished talking. Sunday nodded once and it flew away, back down the hill. Sunday turned around and looked at Arthur.

“It seems you are not the only recalcitrant who cannot acknowledge the realities of their position,” said Lord Sunday. “As always, it is left to me to personally take charge of matters.”

With that, he handed the silver net to Sunday’s Noon, who held it with both hands. It obviously took a lot of effort to keep it relatively still as the Keys jumped around inside, straining to reach Arthur.

“Distance will make them less restive,” said Sunday. He placed his hand just above his breastbone, touching the Key that hung from a chain around his neck, hidden inside his shirt, and closed his eyes for a moment in concentration. “They will be completely quiescent when they are locked away. I have opened the cage, but it will soon close, so attend to that at once. Dawn, come with me.”

Sunday retraced his steps back down to the clock terrace, with Sunday’s Dawn following, and climbed back up the ladder to the dragonfly. But Arthur didn’t watch Sunday climb and only saw the dragonfly
depart from the corner of his eye. He was intent upon Sunday’s Noon, and watched him as he carefully carried the silver net and the Keys away up the steps that led to the next terrace and out of Arthur’s sight.

A few minutes later, the dragonfly was away, turning to climb up and over the hill. Arthur was alone, chained to the clock. He could see only as far as the nearest hundred-foot-high hedge below the hill, and the slope of the terrace behind him.

The clock ticked – a sound like the sharp stroke of an axe on very hard wood. The minute hand swept forward and the chain on Arthur’s left wrist rattled as it too moved.

Arthur bit his lip and tried to think. The medal was gone, but there had to be something else he could do. There was the chance that Dame Primus or Dr Scamandros might be able to rescue him, but even as he thought that, he dismissed it. His only real chance would be if he could do something himself. He had to regain the Keys, or free Part Seven of the Will, or somehow retrieve the Mariner’s medal.

The clock ticked again, the hand moved and the
chain rattled. Arthur stood up and looked around. He couldn’t see where the medal had landed. The only thing he could see was his yellow elephant, stuck in the upper branches of a tall tree that reached up from the next terrace further down the hill. The elephant looked like a strange fruit, the bright yellow a stark contrast against the tree’s pale green leaves.

I wish you could help me,
thought Arthur.
Elephant, you were always there to help me out when I was little, even if it was only in my imagination…

Arthur looked away from Elephant, down at the clock face, and then at the green grass of the terrace.

The Old One conjured stuff out of Nothing when I first met him,
Arthur thought.
He said I’d need a Key to do it, but that was ages ago, before my transformation. I might be able to make things from Nothing here.

He laid his hand on the clock. He couldn’t feel any interstices of Nothing lurking somewhere underneath, as was usual in other parts of the House, and it was likely the Incomparable Gardens were completely armoured against the Void, but it was worth a try. Anything was worth a try.

“A telephone, connected to the Citadel in the Great Maze,” said Arthur firmly. At the same time he visualised the telephone Dame Primus had given him long ago, in the red box. He tried to picture it in his head as solidly as possible, but he felt none of the symptoms of House sorcery. Though these aches and pains were always unpleasant and sometimes extraordinarily intense, he would have welcomed them if it meant his attempts to make a telephone from Nothing were successful.

“A telephone, connected to other parts of the House!” he said again, snapping his words as if he spoke to some recalcitrant servant. But still he felt no sorcery and no telephone appeared.

Arthur tried to call up the rage he’d felt in his house, when he’d smashed the table, hoping that energy might somehow fuel his attempt to draw something out of Nothing. But he didn’t feel angry and he couldn’t recapture the emotion. He just felt drained and defeated and small. All of his triumphant, powerful feelings were completely gone, lost the moment he was chained by Lord Sunday and his servants.

“Maybe a telephone is too tricky,” Arthur said to himself. “Or the connections are difficult…but what else could help now?”

He thought about bolt cutters, or a hacksaw, but they would be useless against the sorcerous metal of the manacles. In fact, apart from the Mariner’s harpoon or the Keys, Arthur couldn’t think of anything that would have any effect upon his bonds.

What I really need is some way to get the medal back. It’s only down the slope. I need a retriever dog, or something…a smart animal who will do what it’s told. I wish Elephant was real, just like I thought he was when I was four…

Arthur smiled to himself, remembering how real Elephant had been, and the conversations he’d had with Emily, recounting what Elephant had done that day, sometimes adopting Elephant’s voice and manipulating his trunk to make him talk.

A sudden jab of pain ran through Arthur’s joints from ankle to shoulder, and something touched his arm. He yelped and sprang to his feet, thinking of a puppet woodcutter and his axe or, even worse, the old woman puppet with her corkscrew. But the trapdoor was shut, and the touch, when it came again
to his knee, was light, a gentle tap that came from the trunk of a small yellow elephant whose twinkling, jet-black eyes looked up at Arthur with wisdom and affection.

Arthur crouched down and cradled his lifelong friend, biting his lip to hold back the sobs that were so near to breaking out. Elephant waited patiently till Arthur had composed himself enough to sit back. The boy looked up at the tree where the toy had lodged. It was gone, and the elephant next to him was definitely a living, breathing version of his childhood companion.

I’ve made a Nithling,
thought Arthur, and he supposed he should be afraid of what he’d done. But he wasn’t. He was happy. He was no longer alone and, even better than that, now he had an ally.

“I’m so glad to see you, Elephant,” he said. “I need your help really badly. There’s a silver medal, about this big, somewhere down the slope of the hill in that direction. I need you to go and get it, please, and bring it back to me. But be careful. Even the plants can be dangerous – we have many enemies here.”

Elephant nodded sagely and raised his trunk to blow a soft trumpet blast of affirmation. Then he jumped down from the clock face and strode off through the grass, towards the edge of the terrace.

F
ortunately for all concerned, the tile did take Suzy, Dusk, Giac, Part Six of the Will and two score artillerists to a position adjacent to the Citadel. There they met one of the rearguard guides, who led them quickly past a gaping hole of Nothing that was slowly and inexorably spreading like ink across blotting paper, and on to the Citadel itself, through the abandoned trenches and firewash-blackened ground left by the Newniths’ siege.

The great fortress was strangely quiet, its buildings abandoned. A winding column of black
smoke rose from the lakeside bastion, which had been set on fire to destroy the last of the stores that could not be taken up to the Middle House.

The guide took them to the central keep by the shortest path, one that would normally be blocked by sealed gates, portcullises and heavy doors. But all the Citadel’s portals and defences were open now, and the few sentries remaining left their posts to join the party as they passed, though they kept a wary eye out to the rear, watching for any of the old-fashioned type of free-willed Nithling that might try to follow, as many of these creatures were beginning to emerge from the pools and pockets of Nothing that were bubbling up all around the Citadel.

The soldiers who had already departed for the Middle House had left a lot of nonessential items behind, for there were packs, bags, chests and boxes pushed to the sides of many of the rooms and corridors. Along the way, Suzy snagged a Regimental Brigadier General’s coat for herself, and a Horde staff officer’s blue tunic with chain mail epaulettes and a curious hat called a shako for Giac, who adopted both with enthusiasm.

The elevator in Sir Thursday’s study had been expanded to its maximum size, about a hundred feet wide and a hundred and twenty feet long, with a tall arched ceiling some sixteen feet high. Even before Dusk and Suzy and their troops arrived, it was packed with the rearguard, including a dozen Not-Horses, a wagon loaded with Nothing-powder and more than a hundred soldiers from the Legion, the Horde, the Borderers and the Regiment, with various officers and NCOs from the different units all trying to assert their authority in order to ensure their soldiers had the best and most comfortable placements.

This bickering ceased when Dusk arrived and took charge. Suzy left him to his organising and wove her way through the crush to join three Piper’s children who were sitting on a barrel. They were wearing the peculiar mishmash of uniforms favoured by herself and adopted by the irregulars who’d now formed Suzy’s Raiders. Suzy knew these three, though not well, since she hadn’t had much time to meet all the other Piper’s children in the Army.

“Have a biscuit, General,” said one of the children,
reaching into the barrel, which was stuffed to the brim with biscuits. Since neither Denizens nor Piper’s children needed to eat, but liked to do so anyway, it was surprising that the barrel was marked
ESSENTIAL GOODS FOR EVACUATION
.

Suzy took the raisin-filled biscuit with glee and, between mouthfuls, introduced everyone.

“Bren, Shan, Athan. This ’ere’s Colonel Giac,” she said. “He’s my new aide-de-camp.”

“Colonel?” Giac beamed, repeating his new rank to himself with great satisfaction.

“And the bird is Part Six of the Will,” added Suzy. She swallowed and said, “Who’ll be joining up with Dame Primus soon, I expect, so don’t tell ’im nothing about you know what.”

“What?” asked the raven.

“It don’t concern you or Dame Primus,” said Suzy. “Or anyone but us Piper’s children.”

Part Six of the Will looked at her with one beady eye. “I will be charitable and presume you have good intentions,” it said. “But you be careful, Suzy Blue.”

“Anyhow, what’s the news?” asked Suzy.

Athan shrugged. “The Maze is falling apart, we’re
all off to the Middle House, Sir Thursday’s snuffed it. Don’t know anything else.”

Suzy was about to ask another question when the elevator juddered into movement and everybody stumbled into everyone else, which was very painful in the case of the Denizens who got trodden on by the Not-Horses’ steel-clad toes.

“We’re away,” said an artillerist in the crowd as the elevator began to accelerate upward. She sounded relieved and there was a general lessening of tension among all the Denizens, and a sudden rise in the volume and extent of conversation.

Unlike Suzy’s elevator descent from the Upper House, the ascent to the Middle House was quite a steady and civilised journey. It was much slower, taking several hours, but there were raisin-filled biscuits, and though the bandstand was empty to begin with, various soldiers produced instruments and soon there was a scratch quartet of musicians playing typically soothing elevator music not very well.

Suzy, in her usual fashion, did not dwell on the bad news or think much about what lay ahead. Instead she set her Piper’s children to looking around
the transported stores, to see if there was anything that they might want to “borrow”, as she put it. But there was nothing of any great interest to Suzy, though she did procure a savage-sword for herself and got Giac a brassbound shooting stick that he said would be a fine replacement for his umbrella. He even thought it would be easier to cast spells with it and, in his newfound confidence, was going to give it a try before Part Six of the Will dissuaded him.

Their arrival was also smooth, with hardly a bump and the merest chime to announce the fact. The doors slid open and at once Marshal Dusk strode out, with Suzy, the raven, Giac and the Piper’s children close behind. Suzy recognised the courtyard the elevator had appeared in. It was the central bailey in front of the main keep of Binding Junction, the fortress on the Top Shelf of the Middle House. Suzy shielded her eyes with her hand as she looked around. It was very hot and bright on the Top Shelf, a consequence of there being two suns in the sky above, one smaller than the other.

The courtyard had been empty when Suzy had
last passed through, but now it was full of Army wagons, all carefully lined up against the walls. The curious scaly-leaved trees were gone, not even their stumps visible. Soldiers were everywhere, moving about purposefully, either because they genuinely had work to do, or wanted to appear as if they did. There were a few High Guild Bookbinders wandering about as well in their velvet robes, carrying papers and pots of glue, or their long needle-like spears.

Marshal Dusk was met by several officers. After speaking briefly to them, he beckoned to Suzy.

“Dame Primus wishes to see you immediately, General Turquoise Blue,” he said. “She is on the battlements, surveying the camp.”

“Guess you’d better come too—” Suzy began to say to Part Six of the Will, but it was already in flight, flapping up to the top of the keep several hundred feet above them. Even at that distance, Suzy recognised the very tall and formidable figure who was looking down, straight at her.

Dame Primus raised her arm as the raven alighted on her hand. There was a flash of light, a disturbing
sound like the hum of a giant cymbal lightly struck, and the raven disappeared.

“Pity,” muttered Suzy. “It was the best part so far, if you ask me. ’Ope it has some effect on old grizzleguts.”

“I beg your pardon?” asked Marshal Dusk.

“Nuffin’,” said Suzy. “Just thinking aloud. Guess we’d better go up. Don’t s’pose you’ve got a decent pair of spare wings? Or a couple of pairs? I’ve only got some mangy grease monkey pinions and I don’t trust ’em.”

“Wings are strictly rationed for the moment,” said Dusk. “On the direct orders of Dame Primus. We will need every pair if we are to assault the Upper House, and the Incomparable Gardens thereafter. The stairs are over there.”

“Fair enough,” said Suzy. She looked back at Athan, winked and touched the side of her nose. The Piper’s child grinned and he, Shan and Bren melted back into the crowd, towards the line of quartermaster’s wagons.

“Come on, then, Giac,” said Suzy. “Last one to the top is a rotten sorcerer.”

She started off at a run, but paused after a few
steps when Giac didn’t immediately follow. He was looking puzzled.

“Come on!”

“But I already
am
a rotten sorcerer,” he said.

“No, it means…it’s a joke,” Suzy started to explain. “Oh, never mind. I’m just saying race you to the top. For fun, and also because it will annoy Dame Primus.”

“Annoy Dame Primus?” asked Giac worriedly. “Is that a good idea?”

“Well, no,” said Suzy. “It’s a stupid idea, that’s part of the…”

She stopped talking and took Giac by the hand.

“Never mind. We’ll just walk fast. I can’t expect you to take in everything at once. You remind me of Arthur.”

“I do?” asked Giac. One of his rare smiles passed across his face.

“Yep,” said Suzy. “I expect we’ll have to go and get him out of trouble as well, soon as we see what Dame Primus wants.”

The battlements were crowded. Marshal Noon, Marshal Dawn and Friday’s Dawn were there,
accompanied by numerous senior officers, their telescopes, aides and telephone operators. But even amid the throng, Dame Primus was easy to spot. She stood head and shoulders above even the tallest Denizen, and was now perhaps nine feet tall or even taller. She wore her armoured coat of gold scales, with its spiked pauldrons that threatened the safety of any neighbour when she turned around. In addition to her grey wings that were a legacy of Part Five of the Will, she now also had a plume of glossy raven feathers that appeared to grow directly from her head, testament to the recent absorption of Part Six.

She also had the First Key clock-hand sword thrust through her belt and the Second Key gauntlets on her hands. Interestingly, the Third and Fourth Keys had become a very large and uglylooking pendant of a crossed trident and baton, hanging from a chain of golden esses around her neck.

Suzy slowed down as she got closer to Dame Primus, and she motioned to Giac to stay behind her. Though she wasn’t scared precisely, for she prided herself on never being really scared, she had become
increasingly wary of Dame Primus, particularly when others were concerned. Suzy thought she was protected by Arthur’s orders to Dame Primus, but knew that didn’t apply to Giac.

The embodiment of Parts One to Six of the Will of the Architect turned as Suzy approached, a flange of her armour slicing off the sleeve of an unwary Regimental Major who had been holding a field telephone for her. The Major winced and stepped back as Suzy saluted.

“Suzy Turquoise Blue,” said Dame Primus. Suzy shivered as the Will spoke, for her voice was now even more powerful and laden with sorcery. “I am glad you survived the Upper House.”

“So am I,” said Suzy. “Uh, ma’am.”

“You have learned some manners, I see,” said Dame Primus. “Perhaps my lesson on the Border Sea was worthwhile.”

Suzy didn’t reply. She’d blithely forgotten that one of the things she actually was afraid of was being forced to behave like a lady again.

“Part Six is with me now, so I know much of what occurred in the Upper House and of the disposition of Saturday’s forces, but I would like to
know more. I have questions for you and this minion of Saturday’s you have brought with you.”

“Oh, to be a minion,” muttered Giac to himself dreamily. “I was a
sub
-minion.”

“You will speak when spoken to and not before, Colonel Giac,” said Dame Primus sharply. Giac bowed deeply. When he straightened up, each of his epaulettes had sprouted a crown inside a woven wreath, Dame Primus perhaps unintentionally having confirmed Suzy’s irregular grant of his rank.

“We have a great host here,” continued Dame Primus. “The survivors of the Far Reaches, the Lower House and the Great Maze, combined with the forces of the Middle House. Our fleet from the Border Sea will soon arrive here on the Extremely Grand Canal, and the sailors, scavengers, merchants and marines will join the Land Army, as the Piper and the ships of his cursed Raised Rats have blockaded direct egress for ships into the Upper House.

“Due to the work of myself as Part Six, we have access to one elevator shaft into the Upper House,” continued Dame Primus, pointedly ignoring Suzy’s and Giac’s contributions to that operation. “But that is not enough to land a sufficient force to engage
both the Piper’s troops and Saturday’s. We need to open more elevator shafts. After we have discovered what additional information you may have to offer, Miss Turquoise Blue—”

“General,” said Suzy, though it was difficult to get any words out against Dame Primus. “Lord Arthur made me a General.”

Dame Primus bent her gaze down to the Piper’s child. For a moment Suzy feared that she would blast her with words so potent they might as well be a death spell. Then the raven feathers on her head ruffled and the Will looked back up, above Suzy’s head, to the bright sky above that was the underside of the Upper House.

“After we have spoken,
General
Blue,” said Dame Primus, “I intend that you shall lead a strike force back to Floor 6879 of Saturday’s tower, to open more elevator shafts. To secure our beachhead, as it were.”

“Sure,” said Suzy. “But I get to pick who comes along, right?”

Dame Primus narrowed her strange, luminous pink eyes in thought.

“You may, within reason. You will, of course, take Dr Scamandros, who will be needed to open the
elevator shafts. There is also someone else I wish you to speak to, to enlist to our cause.”

“Who’s that, then?” asked Suzy.

“The Lieutenant Keeper of the Front Door.”

“Well, he’s right handy with a blade, but I never heard of him leaving the Door.”

“I am speaking of the new Lieutenant Keeper of the Front Door,” said Dame Primus. “Though she lacks the swordcraft, I suspect she may be of use. Certainly Lord Sunday thought so, enough to send his Dusk to fetch her.”

“Exactly who is the new Lieutenant Keeper?” asked Suzy. She had never felt a need to suppress her curiosity.

“A mortal,” said Dame Primus. “Arthur’s friend Leaf.”

“Leaf!” exclaimed Suzy. “I never!”

“It is a most peculiar and in many ways unfortunate circumstance. But if Lord Sunday wants her, then she must be secured. I believe we can get her out of the Front Door. What’s left of the Door, that is. Now, do you have any idea where Lord Arthur may have gone?”