Grim Tuesday Part 16

Arthur looked at the telegram blank. It was a simple printed form, headed the elevated and wors.h.i.+pful TELEGRAPHIC, TELEPHONIC, AND MESSAGE SERVICE OF.

the house. Under that, there was to and a line of seven word boxes, message and five lines of seven boxes, and from with its line of seven boxes, plus a red-inked circle in the corner about the size of the blood-dappled gold coin Arthur held. There was also a very small box with the words reply paid under the circle.

Dipping the quill in the turquoise-blue ink, Arthur somewhat blobbily wrote Dame Primus. He had to re-ink for the -mus, ignoring Suzy's unspoken but evident scorn at his clumsiness with the quill.

He thought for a few seconds, then with several refills, numerous splotches, and some scratching, wrote: IN TREASURE TOWER GOT WILL IT WON'T RECOGNIZE ME SAYS NEEDS OFFICIAL FORM SEND FORM OR HELP HELP!.

He hesitated at the from boxes, then simply put Arthur and ticked the box next to reply paid.

As soon as he'd ticked the box, the red-lined circle began to glow with a silver light, and the handwritten annotation 12R appeared.

"Lob the coin down," Suzy instructed.

Arthur placed the gold coin on the circle. The whole form immediately vanished. In its place were four silver coins of varying sizes and designs.

"Lucky you got the change," said Suzy, sweeping the coins off the table and into her pocket. "They embezzle it half the time."

"We'd better find that weirdway next door," said Arthur, suddenly conscious that he couldn't hear any shouting outside.

"Which side?" asked Suzy.

"Forgot to ask," Arthur shouted as he made his way to the door. "Come on! You too, Will."

"If you must call me anything, you may address me as Most Excellent Testamentary Clause," said the sun bear.

"Claws?" said Suzy, as she tilted the chair to speed the bear on its way. "Orright, Claws, hop to it."

"No, no, no," protested the sun bear. "Most Excellent"

"Claws it is," said Suzy loudly. "After you, Claws."

"I said oh just don't speak to me," huffed the Will as it waddled after Arthur.

Out on the walkway, Arthur was already trying the door on the left. It opened easily enough, but the cell beyond was completely empty and quite dark, illuminated only by the spill of light from the walkway lanterns. Arthur dashed in, quickly scanned the room, and dashed out again.

"The other one!" he said. He tried to keep his voice down, but it still echoed.

The echo was answered by a shout from below. A harsh, powerful voice that was not Tom's. It echoed up from a point not as far below as Arthur would have hoped. Perhaps only three or four levels down.

"Captain! Did you hear that?"

"What?" came the reply from Tom, while Arthur and Suzy crept along to the next door, gently slid back the bolt, and pushed open the door. There was a light inside this cell, and Arthur immediately felt more hopeful. They would find the weirdway quickly and get away, at least for the time being.

"That was no Nithling! It must not have eaten the other intruders!" the voice continued.

"Let us deal with the Nithling, Lord Tuesday," said Tom. "It is strong, and grows stronger. We must find it first."

"Come here, Nithling!" roared the voice, which Arthur now knew must belong to Grim Tuesday. "I do not have time to waste searching for miscreants!"

He growled out something else, then more clearly shouted, "By the power of the Second Key, all intruders stand before me!"

Arthur felt unseen hands tug at him, dragging him back towards the nearest steps down. Suzy also took several steps back, a look of surprise on her face. Only the Will appeared unaffected. It stood to Arthur's left, watching him struggle as his Immaterial Boots slid backwards across the woven iron floor.

Arthur grimaced and threw himself forward. But he just fell face-first onto the cold iron and began to slide back, as if dragged by invisible captors. He tried hooking his fingers through the mesh of the walkway floor, but had to let go before they were broken or torn off.

Flailing wildly for some other handhold, Arthur touched the Will's tail. As soon as he did, the dragging force disappeared. Arthur immediately gripped the tail hard.

"How dare you!" squealed the Will, its high-pitched voice echoing out into the central void.

Arthur didn't reply. He reached out and grabbed Suzy's hand as she was dragged past. She stopped too and started to crawl back.

"Unhand my tail!" squealed the Will. It turned on Arthur and tried to scratch him, but he kept his grip and jumped behind it.

"I'm not letting go until we go through the weirdway in that cell," gasped Arthur as he jumped again, Suzy jumping with him. She managed to get a grip directly on the Will's tail as well.

"This is outrageous behavior. I protest!"

"Who is that?" bellowed Grim Tuesday. His shout was followed by heavy footsteps ringing on the iron steps.

"Hurry up!" snapped Arthur to the Will. "You don't want to meet Grim Tuesday either, do you?"

The bear turned again and sped into the cell far faster than Arthur had seen it move before. The two children barely hung on, both running hunched over and sc.r.a.ping the door frame.

Arthur kicked the door shut with his foot, jarring his bad leg. He could hear Grim Tuesday's shouts reverberating outside as he hastily looked around the room. It was mostly empty, but there was an armchair sitting opposite two exquisite clocks on the wall: an ornate cuckoo clock made of finely sculpted gold, and a very simple, small ivory dial set in a walnut frame.

"Let go, let go, let go!" whined the Will. "I insist that you let go."

Arthur looked at Suzy, then tentatively loosened his grip. When they weren't struck by invisible forces, they both let go completely and stepped well back to get clear of the Will's claws and to look at the two clocks.

"If you've rumpled my fur, I shall send you the cleaning bill," said the Will as it curled around to inspect its tail.

Arthur ignored it. Instead he stretched up and touched the door of the cuckoo clock. It was solid gold, with an emerald-set door handle. Arthur opened it and was not surprised to find the door expanding as he pulled it, stretching down and across till there was no sign of the clock. Instead there was a normal-sized doorway in the wall, leading to a dark corridor whose walls, floor, and ceiling rippled as if they were made of stretched cloth rather than the solid stone they otherwise appeared to be.

"Come on!" Arthur held the door open for Suzy. Strangely, it still felt as if he was reaching up to hold a tiny clock door. "Claws, come on!"

"How many times must I repeat myself, you may address me as " the Will started to say. It made no move towards the weirdway.

Before he could finish, Arthur suddenly slapped his hand to his mouth and groaned, as the now-familiar ache struck. Tom had used his harpoon, a fact confirmed by a shriek of agony from Soot and another inarticulate bellow from Grim Tuesday. It sounded like they were all very close.

"Go through!" screamed Arthur in frustration as the Will turned around to inspect its tail again.

Then Grim Tuesday shouted again, from right outside the door.

"Finish the Nithling, Captain! I'll fix the other thieves!"

Chapter Nineteen.

Grim Tuesday's shout finally galvanized the Will into action. The sun bear shot into the weirdway and Arthur dived after it. He had a momentary glimpse of the cell door opening and the shadow of Grim Tuesday falling on the armchair. Then the cuckoo clock rea.s.sembled itself, closing the weirdway.

Arthur s.h.i.+vered. He did not want to meet Grim Tuesday without the Will's help. He needed to be taught the spells or incantations he would need to wrest the Second Key from the unfaithful Trustee.

The Will had already caught up to Suzy. Arthur ran after them both, steadying himself with his hands as he wobbled from side to side. This weirdway was even more fluid underfoot than the one he'd used in the Lower House to get to Mister Monday.

It was a lot shorter too. Arthur came to the end and ran straight out without even realizing that the darkness was the exit, not another turn. He stumbled against Suzy and the sun bear, then fell over a waist-high palm tree.

"Tuesday's in the cell," gasped Arthur as he pulled himself up on the palm, shredding most of its fronds. He could still see the weirdway exit, a strange inky doorway standing between two twelve-foot palm trees. "How do we shut the weirdway?" he asked.

"Blood ought to do it," said Suzy. She got out her knife and then, before Arthur could do anything, suddenly gripped his hand tight and stuck the point of the blade into his thumb. "A Day's blood, that is. Yours. Sorry about that. Bung some in."

Arthur flicked a few drops of blood at the dark doorway. Instead of going through, they splattered as if on gla.s.s. The weirdway gave a strange, cooing sigh that made Arthur step back as it closed in on itself, leaving only air between the palm trees.

Arthur looked around. The air was clean and bright, and they were surrounded by healthy-looking palms and carefully tended shrubs with pale pink trefoil flowers. For a moment he thought they were out of the Far Reaches altogether. Then he saw the wall of the Treasure Tower and the sparkle of the pyramid gla.s.s.

"Yep," said Suzy, noting his look. "We're in the garden around the Tower. Still inside the pyramid."

"We'd better find somewhere to hide," said Arthur. "What's that?"

He pointed up at the pyramid wall. It was hard to see through the s.h.i.+ning gla.s.s, but somewhere in the distance Arthur could just make out big red-bursting flares that had to be very bright to make it through the smog. They were exploding near the ceiling of the Far Reaches and then drifting back down.

"Rockets," said Suzy. "Ooh, that was a good one!"

"Why who would be firing rockets?" Arthur asked. He tilted his head to catch a distant, m.u.f.fled noise. "I can hear bells too. Electric bells, like the elevator bells. Lots of them, all going off at once. Like the fire alarm at school"

He looked at Suzy and said, "Those rockets are distress signals. The bells are alarms."

"Grim Tuesday's problem," said Suzy, with a shrug. She started to push through a line of thick bushes to see if there was a good place to lurk.

"It must be Nothing," said Arthur. "That's what everyone's afraid of."

"I'm not afraid of Nothing," said the Will. "Or anything else. Nothing cannot divert me from my duty."

"You should be afraid," Arthur warned. He was sick of this part of the Will. It was all bl.u.s.ter and wind. "Dame Primus was afraid of Nothing. I'm afraid of Nothing, like anyone with any sense. What if it all breaks out and destroys the foundations of the House and the whole everything the complete universe?"

"The Architect's work is far too superior for that to happen," said the Will smugly. "You need not worry on that score."

"You've been locked up for ten thousand years," Arthur pointed out angrily. "Grim Tuesday has dug a huge great Pit into the foundations here in the Far Reaches, right into Nothing. The Atlas says it is a great danger to the House and I bet it knows more than you."

"The Atlas?" asked the Will, sitting up and losing its supercilious look. "You have The Compleat Atlas of the House?"

"Yes, I do." Arthur took it out and flashed it in front of the Will's nose like a police badge, then thrust it back in his pocket. "Because whether I like it or not, I am the heir to this whole mess!"

"Ah, perhaps I have been a little too rigorous in applying the principles laid down at my creation," the sun bear said with a couple of delicate coughs. "If I might make a closer examination of "

"Arthur! Take a look at this!"

Arthur pushed through the bushes. Suzy was standing on a long stone bench, looking out over a well-manicured hedge towards the eastern side of the gla.s.s pyramid.

"Get down!" Arthur called nervously. "He'll see us."

"Come and have a look!" answered Suzy.

Arthur glanced around, then jumped up, knowing from past experience that Suzy wouldn't get down until he took a look at whatever it was she wanted him to see.

"I think Grim Tuesday has got a whole lot of new problems," said Suzy, pointing to the border between the windswept clean air and the ceiling-high wall of smog.

Arthur stared. Through the swirling edge of the smog, he saw the fringe of a great crowd. Hundreds and hundreds, maybe even thousands, of Denizens were marching north, towards the station and the elevators. They were waving their leather ap.r.o.ns as they marched, throwing them in the air and trampling upon them.

Closer to the pyramid, a few dozen Overseers were running in all directions. A few ran towards the gla.s.s wall. Arthur could see they were shouting, probably to Grim Tuesday, for help, though he could only hear the ringing bells and the deeper, rough noise of the crowd.

"The register of indentured workers," he said. "It was destroyed by the sun!"

"Sure was." Suzy took out the indenture ticket from around her neck and looked at it. All the columns had reset to zero. Suzy took it off, bit it with her teeth to start a tear, then ripped it to pieces.

"I can make another register," said a harsh voice behind them. "The other Days will sell me more workers. It is merely an annoyance."

Arthur spun around. Even though the boy was standing on a bench, Grim Tuesday was taller. A hard-faced man with no eyebrows, his arms were corded with muscle, and his leather jerkin was torn near the heart with the telltale marks of a Nothing burn upon his chest. He wore gloves of flexible silver metal, bound with golden bands.

"I I am the Rightful Heir," said Arthur, though his mouth was suddenly dry. "I claim the Second Key and Mastery of the Far Reaches."

Grim Tuesday's eyes narrowed. "You are the boy Penhaligon."

"Yes. I am Arthur Penhaligon. Give me the Second Key and and I will be merciful."

"I do not recognize your claim," said Grim Tuesday with finality. He raised his right hand and made a chopping motion. Though he didn't come any closer, Arthur felt a savage blow strike his chest. He was knocked backwards over the bench, and crashed down to the gra.s.s behind.

Arthur lay there, stunned and wheezing.

I have to get up. I have to get up and get away. I have to Before he could get up, Grim Tuesday stood above him. This time he raised his left hand and made a claw.

Arthur covered his eyes with his arm and cried out.

I hope it's quick. I hope Dad and Mom will be okay and they keep the house and everything. I hope Michaeli gets to university. The plague had better not come back. Suzy should run right now, she might make it. If Nothing bursts out, everyone will die anyway. The Will should do what it's supposed to do. I tried my best. I tried to do the right thing and sometimes evil does win anyway no matter what you do "Before I extract your heart and gild it for my depleted store of treasures," Grim Tuesday said, "I want you to give me the Atlas. Take it from your pocket and hand it to me."

Arthur moved his arm and opened his eyes. His mind was racing furiously again, but his thoughts were more concentrated.

"No," he said.

The Atlas must be like the Key. Grim Tuesday can't take it, even from my dead body. It has to be given freely.

"Give it to me," Grim Tuesday ordered, without inflection. He might not have even heard Arthur. He clawed the air with his hand, and Arthur felt his heart stabbed all around by a thousand needles.

"No, I won't." Arthur raised his voice and half-shouted and half-sobbed out, "Will! I call upon you as the Bearer of the Atlas and the Rightful Heir to do your do your job. Just do do what you're supposed to do" he finished in a whisper.