Sir Thursday (13 page)

Fred started to whip up a lather in his bowl. Arthur shook his head, then splashed his face with the water from the basin, which was warm and filled up again immediately, though there were no visible taps or spout.

Fred applied the lather to his face and began to shave, at the same time whispering to himself. Arthur wondered if it was some kind of prayer that Fred might not cut his own throat. He’d just gotten his own razor out and it was incredibly sharp and dangerous. Then he saw that Fred was using the blunt back instead of the blade.

“What’re you whispering?” Arthur inquired.

“My name,” said Fred as he carefully scraped some lathered soap off his chin. “And my favorite color.”

“Oh,” said Arthur. “I forgot…”

He stared at the mirror, looking at his familiar—though not very satisfying—face. He couldn’t believe he might not know himself soon.

“You’d better shave, or you’ll get put on defaulters,” Fred warned. “That means get punished.”

“Even though my skin is perfectly smooth?” Arthur
ran his hand over his chin. “I won’t have to shave for years.”

“They’ll know you haven’t shaved,” said Fred despondently. “Just because we’re going to get washed between the ears doesn’t mean they’ll let us off shaving, or anything else.”

“Okay,” said Arthur. “Okay!”

He put some soap in his lathering bowl and started to whisk it with the brush, as he’d seen Fred do. Then, following the other boy’s lead, he slapped the frothy soap on his face and shaved with the back of the razor. It was completely pointless, just putting on soap and scraping it off. Arthur thought about what he was going to do as he scraped, flicked, and rinsed.

“Let’s not go back,” he said as they were washing their necks and under their arms. “Let’s stay here.”

“Here?” squeaked Fred. He was obviously unnerved by the idea. “I’m not sure this place even
exists
after morning ablution time. The weirdway closes…”

“If we stay by these basins, I reckon we’ll be okay,” said Arthur. “They’re real to us, so they must be somewhere.”

“But we’ll be absent without leave,” mumbled Fred. “Not on parade. The Bathroom Attendants will come looking for us.”

“If the weirdway’s closed till tomorrow morning, they
won’t be able to find us, will they?” asked Arthur. “How long do they hang around?”

“They come, do the washing, and go,” said Fred. “Just as long as it takes to do all the Piper’s children in the area.”

“So we wait here, then go back tomorrow morning,” said Arthur. “Take our punishment and get on with the training.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” said the recruit who’d just finished packing up next to them. Arthur vaguely recognized her as being from his platoon. Florimel—the one Fred had said to watch out for. “You will report as ordered.”

“No, we won’t,” said Fred, all his despair of a moment ago vanishing. Apparently all it took to encourage him was someone like Florimel telling him he couldn’t do something.

“I’m ordering you back to the barracks!”

“Who made you High Lady Muckamuck?” asked Fred. “You’re just a recruit, same as us. We’ll do what we want and you keep your mouth shut.”

“I’ll report you,” said Florimel, drawing herself up to her full height.

“No, you won’t,” said Arthur sternly. “You won’t say a word.”

Though Florimel was tall, for a moment Arthur
appeared taller still, and his hair suddenly moved as if it had been swept by the beat of unseen wings. There was something of Dame Primus in Arthur’s stance and voice, just for an instant. Then he was just a boy again, but Florimel had already looked down and backed away.

“Yes, sir,” said Florimel. “Whatever you say, sir.”

She half-saluted, did a clumsy right turn, and marched away through a couple of green-clad Borderers who were also leaving, but in the opposite direction.

“How did you do that?” asked Fred, openmouthed. “I thought for sure she’d put us in a pickle. Someone like that…”

He stopped talking as the moon above their heads suddenly lurched towards the horizon. At the same time, a rosy glow fell on them from the east. Arthur turned to look. He couldn’t see the sun, but the light was the first hint of the dawn.

With that hint, the remaining soldiers hurriedly left in all directions, evidently disappearing back through their own weirdways to their respective places in the Great Maze. Within a few minutes, Arthur and Fred were alone in the vast, lonely washroom, with nothing but mirrors and basins to see in all directions, the mirrors beginning to reflect the morning light.

“I hope this turns out to be a good idea,” said Arthur.

“So do I,” said Fred with a shiver.

He shivered again as some of the farther mirrors began to fade away, as if they had dissolved in sunshine. He backed up to his own basin. Arthur found that he too had unconsciously backed up to make contact with the solid porcelain.

Slowly, as the sun rose and became an identifiable disk above the horizon, the sinks and mirrors around them faded away. Arthur and Fred drew closer together, till they were standing shoulder to shoulder. They could see nothing around them save sunlight, but their own basins remained solid, and their mirrors shone.

“Maybe it’s going to be all right,” Fred whispered.

“Maybe,” Arthur said.

That was when everything went black. Just for an instant. Arthur and Fred blinked and saw that while they were still shoulder to shoulder they were no longer leaning against a basin, nor were they surrounded by sunlight.

They were back in the barracks, leaning against Arthur’s wardrobe, and the only light came from the hurricane lantern above their heads and the others like it, all of them now lit.

In the dim light, Arthur saw three shapes standing ten feet in front of him. They were Denizen-sized and -shaped but clad in all-concealing daisy-yellow robes with long,
pointed hoods. Their hands were gloved in flexible steel mesh and their faces too were hidden—this time behind masks of beaten bronze.

One mask had a smiling mouth. One had a mouth turned down in somber reflection. The third mask had a mouth twisted in agony.

There was no sign of anyone…or anything…behind the mouths or the eyes of the masks. There was only darkness.

“B…B…Bathroom Attendants,” whispered Fred. “Fred Initial Numbers Gold, Manuscript Gilder’s Assistant Sixth Class, favorite color green, tea with milk and one sugar, shortbread but not caraway biscuits…”

The Bathroom Attendants glided forward, robes whispering on the floor. Two of them reached into their broad sleeves and pulled out strange crowns of sculpted blue ice, all spikes and shards that crackled and sparkled with dancing light. The third produced a length of golden rope that moved in his hand like a spitting cobra, rearing up to spit its venom.

But it did not spit poison. Instead the golden rope leaped through the air and fastened itself around Arthur’s ankles, bringing him down even as he turned to run away.

Arthur hit the floor hard. The golden rope swarmed over his legs, wrapping them tight, then the loose end fastened
itself on his left wrist and started to draw it behind his back. Arthur resisted as hard as he could and scrabbled desperately in his pouch with his right hand, trying to get the silver crocodile ring. It wasn’t a coin, but it was silver, and Arthur wanted it under his tongue.

He had it in his grasp and was bringing it up to his mouth when a coil of the rope lashed itself around his right wrist and pulled it back. Arthur snapped his head forward, got his fingers in his mouth, and pushed the ring under his tongue, cutting his lip in the process.

Blood trickled down his chin as he was hauled up onto his knees, the golden rope securing his arms behind him and his ankles together.

Arthur looked up and saw the fizzing, sparkling crown coming down.

I’m Arthur Penhaligon,
he thought desperately.
Arthur Penhaligon, my parents are Bob and Emily. I’m the Master of the Lower House, the Far Reaches, the Border Sea—

The crown was wedged tight upon his head—and Arthur fell silently screaming into darkness.

L
eaf got herself in a good position near the top of the ladder and pushed up the manhole cover. It was steel-reinforced concrete and very heavy, but she got it up far enough to admit sunlight, and then with an additional heave managed to slide it half off the manhole.

Peering up, Leaf could see the sky and the tops of some buildings. Strangely, she couldn’t hear any traffic, though the manhole had to be in the middle of a road and, as far as she could work out, about a mile from the hospital. It was the third ladder she’d come to, crawling down the tunnel—she had decided not to climb the earlier ones in case they were still inside the quarantine perimeter. Since she had no idea which direction the tunnel went in, she wouldn’t know for sure where she was until she climbed out and had a look.

Hoping that the lack of traffic noise meant she wouldn’t be run over as soon as she popped her head out, Leaf hauled herself up and quickly looked around. As she’d thought, she was in the middle of a city street. There were rows of old terrace houses on either side, behind a line of
parked cars. But there were no moving cars or other traffic. The street was unnaturally quiet.

Leaf took a deep breath and pulled herself out. That took most of her strength, so it was a few seconds before she could crouch and then stand up. She had an idea of where she was, but to check she looked back towards where the hospital ought to be.

It was there all right, but that wasn’t what made Leaf gasp and sit back down as if she’d been punched in the guts.

Looking over the rim of her special glasses, she didn’t just see the white bulk of the hospital’s three towers, all concrete and glass, about a mile and a half away. She could also see another building, hovering in the air directly
above
the hospital. A vast, crazy building of weird turrets and towers, houses and halls, outbuildings, underbuildings, overbuildings, and battlements. One small part of it rested directly on top of the hospital and Leaf could just make out a shining gate that she knew instinctively was the Front Door.

It was the House. Not manifested where Leaf had expected it to be, near Arthur’s home, but above the hospital. She had just managed to escape from the only place where it might have been possible for her to reach the Front Door.

Leaf lowered her head and gripped her hair, ready to pull some of it out. How could she have assumed the House would manifest itself where Arthur said it had before? Clearly it appeared wherever the last Denizen or Nithling to use the Front Door had gotten out—in this case, the hospital.

“Get off the road, girl! You’ll get shot!”

Leaf jumped at the voice and looked wildly around.

“Come on, then! Get in here!”

It was a woman talking. An old woman, standing in the doorway of one of the terraces, gesturing at Leaf to come inside.

Leaf groaned, rolled over, pushed herself up with her hands, and walked slowly over to the woman’s door.

“Hurry up!” the woman called. She glanced up the street. “I can hear something coming.”

Leaf heard it too: the low, ground-vibrating growl of very large vehicles. She quickened her step, getting into the house just as a tank came around the corner at the far end of the street, its left track locked, the right bringing it around. Leaf stared through the window in the door, surprised by how loud the tank was and how much the house around her shook as it passed.

Six more tanks followed the first, all of them fully buttoned up, no one sitting up out of the turret or peering out
through open driving hatches. Leaf had never seen real tanks before. These were twice the size of the light armored vehicles she’d seen the Army and FBA using.

“What’s your name, then?”

Leaf turned around. The old woman was very old and quite hunched over, but she moved deftly and was very alert.

“I’m sorry,” said Leaf. “I was distracted. Thanks…thanks for warning me. My name’s Leaf.”

“And mine is Sylvie,” said the woman. “You’ve been in the wars, haven’t you? You’d best come into the kitchen and I’ll clean up your head.”

“No, I have to…I have to…”

Leaf’s voice trailed off. She didn’t know what she had to do now. Get back into the hospital? Even with full-on tanks heading there now?

“A cup of peppermint tea, some cleaning up, and a bandage are what you need,” said Sylvie firmly. “Come on.”

“What’s going on?” Leaf asked as she obediently followed Sylvie down the hall and into the kitchen. “Those were tanks…”

“There’s been some sort of biological attack at the hospital.” Sylvie got a first-aid kit down from the top of the fridge and reached over to flick on an electric kettle. “Though I haven’t really been keeping up with all the developments. They re-established the city quarantine this
morning. We can go and watch the television in the lounge room, if you like. Just sit near the window, so I can see what I’m doing with your head.”

“Thanks,” said Leaf. “I would like to know what’s happening. You said they re-established the city quarantine?”

“About two hours ago, dear. This way.”

“But you let me in,” Leaf pointed out as she followed Sylvie into a small but comfortable living room. There was a screen on the wall. Sylvie clicked her fingers and it came on, the sound too low to hear, but Leaf could read the scrolling type across the bottom. It said
RED LEVEL QUARANTINE IMPOSED ON CITY
.
ARMY AND FBA SEAL OFF EAST AREA HOSPITAL
.
PSYCHOTROPIC BIOWEAPON BELIEVED TO BE BEHIND FIRST ATTEMPTED BREAKOUT
,
ANOTHER IMMINENT
.

There was a picture of perhaps a dozen people coming out of the hospital doors. They weren’t walking properly, with their legs trailing in weird ways and their arms flailing about. The camera panned away from them to the soldiers and FBA agents, who were shouting and waving their hands and then lowering their weapons, the turrets on their armored vehicles traversing. Then they started shooting. It took Leaf a moment to realize that she could hear
that shooting, the sound coming in distantly from outside, not on the television.