Lady Friday

  A picnic throne, Leaf thought. And no points for guessing who that’s for …

  She slowed again and looked once more for a hiding spot. Harrison was fussing around with the last of his sleepers, tilting an old woman’s head back so that, like the others, she was looking at the spire in the lake.

  Leaf saw a crack in the stone, a shadow that might be just wide enough for her to climb into. She ran over to it and knelt down. It was a very narrow crevasse, but she thought it was a little wider than she was at the top, and it was broader below. It was also only four feet deep, but it looked like there was a hole in one corner that might lead deeper.

  She took a breath and climbed down. It was a tight squeeze and she grazed her hip as she twisted around, but then she was in. Leaf sighed and crawled to the hole. As she’d hoped, it led farther into the stony ground – it was impossible to say how far, as the purple sunlight only lit up the first part of the hole and it clearly went much deeper. Deep into darkness.

  She was about to crawl in anyway when she smelled something familiar. Familiar yet repulsive, an odour that made her instantly flinch, even though she didn’t immediately recognise it. It was a damp, rotten kind of smell and it made the gorge rise in her throat, and that was what made her remember when she’d smelled it before.

  The mind-control mould she’d thrown up had smelled just like what she was smelling now … Leaf recoiled, this time scraping the skin off her elbows as she tried to squirm out of the narrow crack even faster than she’d gone in. As she hoisted herself up, a thin tendril of grey fungus came quivering out of the dark and slowly felt around the spot where her feet had been only a few seconds before.

  Leaf threw herself back and landed badly, hurting herself. But she didn’t stop, scuttling back with a sobbing cry to find herself at the feet of Harrison. He helped her up as she cried out.

  ‘Fungus! The mind-control fungus!’

  ‘The grey creeper?’ said Harrison. ‘The spores do get in occasionally and root in the cracks. It’s not so bad, that one. It’ll only give you nightmares. Still, I’ll report it. One of the guards will burn it out. Come on – we have to get back a safe distance.’

  Leaf followed him meekly. The smell of the grey fungus was still everywhere in her nose and mouth. She could taste it and she could remember the terrible pressure in her head when it was establishing itself—

  She stopped to dry retch for a moment, but Harrison came back and pulled her along by her wrist.

  ‘Come on! They’ve put the chair down. She’ll fly down any minute and we have to be back almost to the door or we might get caught up too!’

  The two of them scrambled back to the door and Leaf collapsed, coughing. Her legs ached and her mouth felt horrible, made no better by the loose threads that stuck to her tongue as she dragged the sleeve of her robe across her face. Leaf spat them out, in the process looking up and out across the lake.

  The silver chair was on the pillar of dark stone. The four Denizens hovered in formation around it; the lake roiled underneath from the downbeat of their wings.

  High on the balcony, a star flashed into being, or so it seemed to Leaf. A light too bright to look at, that leaped into the air and then slowly descended towards the pillar and the chair.

  The light dimmed as the star fell, and through scrunched-up eyes Leaf saw that it was Lady Friday, her long, radiantly yellow wings stretched out for ten feet to either side, tip feathers ruffling as she glided down to alight on the silver chair. The radiance came from something she held in her hand, the same bright object she’d held before when leading the sleepers to the hospital pool.

  The twelve sleepers raised their arms as Lady Friday settled on the chair. Leaf heard Harrison suck in air and hold it with a kind of choking noise, and she felt her own breath catch. Lady Friday languidly lifted the shining object in her hand and the light from it dimmed, then suddenly flashed, lighting up everything in the crater as if it were a giant camera flash. In that instant, the lake turned silver, like reflective glass, as did the dome above.

  It felt like time stopped. Leaf was motionless, held in that light, as if caught in a still photograph. Nothing moved and she could hear no sound, not even her own beating heart. Then, very slowly, in the slowest of slow motions, she saw something coming out of the mouths and eyes of the sleepers. Tendrils of many colours, twining and twisting as they stretched across the water to the bright star in Friday’s hand.

  It was as if the Trustee was drawing coloured threads out of their bodies. As the tendrils reached her, the light in her hand changed, the white giving way to a rainbow cluster of red, blue, green, and violet.

  Then the tendrils snapped off at the sleepers’ end and the trailing pieces whipped and curled as they crossed the lake into Friday’s hand. The sleepers slowly crumpled to the ground, so slowly that Leaf felt as if it took seconds for them to fall.

  Friday raised the glowing rainbow concoction to her mouth, tipped her head back, and drank it down. Most of the brilliant, multicoloured threads went in, but she was a careless drinker and some short fragments fell and splashed on the rock before trickling down to the lake.

  As Friday drank, the world returned to its normal state. Leaf heard her heartbeat come back, felt her breath rush in through nose and mouth, saw the purple sunlight wash down through the dome.

  Lady Friday flexed her wings and launched into the air. Her cohorts descended to lift the chair by its straps.

  ‘What did she do?’ asked Leaf, very quietly. The sleepers were lying on the stone. Whether they still lived or not, they were still.

  ‘She experienced them,’ said Harrison. His tone was flat and hollow as if he too was shocked by what he had seen, though he had seen it many times before. ‘Absorbed their lives, their memories and experience. The best parts, that’s what she wants. To feel how they lived, how they loved, all their excitements, triumphs, and joys.’

  ‘What happens to the sleepers after … afterward?’

  ‘They never really wake up,’ whispered Harrison. ‘They used to be returned to Earth. Now, with so many, I don’t know … oh, no! She’s coming over here …’

  Harrison bowed his head and knelt down. Leaf stood up and tried to look at the Trustee who was flying towards her, but once again the object in Lady Friday’s hand was shining, and it was too bright. Leaf had to look down and then shield her eyes with her hand as Lady Friday landed in front of her, the rush of air from her wings cool on Leaf’s face.

  ‘So, you’re the small troublemaker who foiled Saturday’s Cocigrue,’ said Lady Friday. Her voice was soft but very penetrating, and it demanded attention. ‘Leaf, friend of the so-called Rightful Heir, this Arthur Penhaligon. How kind of you to visit.’

  Ten

  THE WIGHT LOOKED askance at me,’ said Ugham, referring to his brief conversation with Saturday’s Dusk. ‘I hazard he feared some ploy or contrivance, and it is certain he is wary of your power. He has agreed to wait upon you, Lord Arthur, at the appointed half-hour – yet I misdoubt it is an honest answer. More likely he awaits the arrival of more doughty warriors before ordering the assault.’

  ‘Like more of whatever was making that noise before,’ said Fred with a shudder.

  ‘I just hope the Fetchers – or something worse – aren’t watching the canal side,’ said Arthur. He pushed the shutters open wide and shivered as the wind blew in, spraying him with wet snow. ‘Wait till I’m down safe, then follow me one at a time.’

  ‘Hey!’ Suzy protested. ‘I should go first, so when you fall in the canal I can get you out.’

  ‘Or me,’ said Fred. ‘I should go first. You’re too important.’ ‘I’m going first,’ said Arthur. ‘Remember what Sergeant Helve said about leading. Follow me!’

  With that shout, he leaped across the gap between the window and the huge wheel, timing it so he would land on the spoke as it was almost level with the building. But he was a second off, and the ice-sheathed spoke was already tilting down. Arthur landed on it but he immed
iately started to slide, his fingers clutching frantically at the frozen timber as his legs went over the far side. The canal side.

  His fingers slipped, unable to get a hold. Arthur swung his legs as he fell and managed to get his knee back on the spoke. Then with an effort that felt as if he might have wrenched every muscle he possessed, he hurled himself up, slithering across the spoke to the other side just in time to half-roll and half-fall off onto the snowy bank of the canal. Behind him the lower end of the spoke he’d been on entered the water with the crackle of broken ice and a threatening gurgle.

  Arthur wanted to lie in the snow, no matter how cold and wet it was, but he knew he couldn’t. He forced himself up and looked around to make sure there was no danger of attack. When he was sure no Fetchers or anything worse were nearby, he looked back up at the turning wheel.

  Suzy was already on it, sliding down the descending spoke like a surfer down a wave. She jumped across to the shore with perfect timing, sending a spray of snow over Arthur as she touched down.

  ‘That was fun!’ she declared. Arthur scowled at her and scraped some snow off himself while he waited for Fred or Ugham to come down next.

  It was Fred, who while lacking Suzy’s style nevertheless did a workmanlike job of riding the spoke down on all fours, jumping like a dog at the end to land in a crouch near Suzy and Arthur.

  Ugham chose an entirely different method, benefiting from having observed the others. He jumped with a dagger in his hand, thrusting it into the timber to give himself a secure handhold. He used that hold to position himself square in the middle of the spoke, then worked the dagger free, slid down to the wheel’s inner rim, stood up, and stepped off onto the canal side as easily as Arthur might have stepped off an escalator back home.

  ‘Let’s go!’ declared Arthur. He waved his hand and pointed west along the canal before pushing through the waist-high snow. He only went a few paces before Ugham overtook him.

  ‘It were best I forge a path,’ said Ugham. Lowering his charged spear to the snow ahead, he twisted the bronze grip to activate it. The spear point glowed with sudden heat, the snow melting away to create a channel that Ugham widened by the simple method of pushing through. The three children followed in his wake, their way made much easier.

  ‘It’s a lot faster,’ said Arthur. ‘But we’re leaving a completely obvious trail, not to mention the light.’

  ‘We’d leave a trail anyway,’ said Fred. ‘It’s not snowing enough to cover any tracks.’

  ‘Uggie’s keeping the spear point down,’ added Suzy. ‘Not that much light is showing.’

  ‘It’s the only light around, though,’ said Arthur, glancing about. Strangely, it didn’t seem any darker than it had been when he’d first looked out from the tower. He felt much colder, though, chilled through to his bones despite the heavy aprons he wore, and every few minutes a shiver would pass through him that he couldn’t suppress. ‘But I guess we haven’t got a choice. We need to find this Paper Pusher wharf quickly. I hope they’ve got somewhere we can shelter for the night.’

  ‘I don’t think there’s going to be a night,’ said Fred as he stopped for a moment to squint up at the snow-clouded sky. ‘I reckon the sun’s stuck again. There won’t be no morning either, though. It’ll stay like this till someone fixes it.’

  ‘Great,’ muttered Suzy. ‘Perpetual twilight and freezing snow. I thought the Lower House was managed badly enough …’ ‘It’s not that bad,’ said Fred. ‘It’s nice enough inside the workshops or the town.’

  ‘I bet,’ said Suzy. ‘Freezing out here, though, ain’t it?’

  ‘We’d better be quiet,’ ordered Arthur. It was freezing, and he was already greatly tempted to use the Key to warm himself … and the others, though they were probably better able to cope, being less mortal than himself. If they didn’t find shelter, he would have to use the Key.

  They slogged on through the snow in silence. As Fred had predicted, the sky grew no darker, a dim twilight prevailing. The weather remained much the same too, with scattered showers of snow that never really got started properly but also never really stopped.

  After they had gone at least a mile, Arthur called a brief halt. He was very tired, mostly from the cold. The four of them huddled together around Ugham’s spear point, warming their hands. Arthur could barely feel the top joints of his fingers, and his nose and cheekbones didn’t feel much better.

  ‘You need a hat, Arthur,’ said Suzy. She took off her own New Nithling–issue fur hat and pulled it down on Arthur’s head before he could protest. Then as he feebly tried to lift it off, she whipped a handkerchief out of her sleeve and tied it over her head and ears.

  ‘I can’t take your hat,’ said Arthur, but Suzy skipped away as he tried to hand it back. Recognising the futility of trying to get her to do something she didn’t want to do, Arthur put the hat back on. He had to admit he immediately felt warmer. He remembered reading somewhere that people lost most of their heat through their head and kicked himself for not thinking of it before. He couldn’t afford to make simple mistakes like forgetting to wear a hat.

  Any more simple mistakes, Arthur thought.

  ‘How far is this wharf?’ asked Suzy.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Arthur confessed. ‘Half a parsang, whatever that is. Do you know, Fred?’

  ‘I’ve never gone far from Letterer’s Lark, but I don’t think a half parsang is that far,’ said Fred. ‘I’ve seen the canal, but never a wharf. The Paper Pushers don’t have a good reputation, though.’

  ‘I don’t care about their reputation, so long as they have a fire,’ said Suzy.

  Arthur nodded. He knew that if he kept talking, his teeth would chatter, and he didn’t want to show the others how cold he really was. Instead he stood up and pointed west. Ugham immediately rose and started out again, once more melting the snow. Arthur followed, with Suzy close behind and Fred bringing up the rear.

  They hadn’t gone very far when Ugham stopped and turned back to face the others.

  ‘Something ahead,’ he whispered. ‘Lying in the snow.’

  ‘Spread out,’ Arthur whispered back. He drew the Key, and for the first time he heard it make a slight humming noise as it transformed into its sword shape. If it had been a human noise it might have been something like a soft, expectant aaahhh. Whatever it meant, Arthur didn’t like it, but he had to ignore it for the moment. He waved the sword forward, and the quartet advanced.

  The something in the snow turned out to be the bodies of two Denizens, who were lying almost on top of each other. Two shabby, short Denizens who had huge holes where their hearts used to be. Blue blood was frozen all over their long coats, which were made of paper and, though different in detail, were of the same design, both being a patchwork of paper records, neatly sewn together with yellow thread.

  ‘They’re Paper Pushers,’ said Fred. ‘They wear clothes made of printed papers, in case they fall in the canal. The textually charged water repels and moves text, you see—’

  ‘I know about that,’ interrupted Arthur. He looked around nervously, the cold and his weariness momentarily forgotten. ‘What I want to know is what could have done that to both of them? I mean they’re dead. I thought Denizens could survive all kinds of things that would kill mortals.’

  Ugham walked around the corpses, then bent down to sniff around their wounds.

  ‘They were slain in the blink of an eye, sliced through as readily as I have parted the snow, and there is the stench of Nothing upon them. Betide these unfortunates were slain by a sorcerous weapon. Something akin to the sword you bear, Lord Arthur.’

  ‘What?!’ exclaimed Arthur. ‘A Key?’

  ‘Something most sorcerous,’ said Ugham. ‘No mere steel, nor even the weapons of your Army or mine own charged spear could spit two Denizens in a single thrust. Nor make a wound a full handspan wide.’

  He held up his left hand and spread his seven fingers to illustrate the point, before adding, ‘Whoever did this would be a foe to
face indeed.’

  ‘Saturday herself, maybe,’ said Arthur nervously. ‘I don’t think her Dusk could do that. He would have skewered me down in the Pit ages ago if he had that kind of weapon.’

  ‘Nah,’ said Suzy. ‘Saturday wouldn’t come here herself. This is Friday’s neck of the woods. They have that agreement, remember?’

  ‘Lady Friday has abdicated,’ replied Arthur. He was looking all around, peering out into the twilit snowscape. ‘Or so she said in her message. I guess all the usual restrictions on the other Trustees are off. Though I suppose …’

  ‘What?’ asked Suzy.

  ‘Maybe Friday killed these two,’ said Arthur. ‘Oh, I don’t know! I’m too cold and tired to think straight. Let’s find the wharf – but be careful.’

  For once Suzy didn’t comment. She just nodded, as did Fred. Ugham’s answer was to stride off again, this time choosing not to activate his spear, instead just pushing through the snow and making a path with his body.

  The wharf was soon in sight, a dark rectangular bulk lacking all detail in the twilight. It could be a low, long hill for all Arthur could tell, but as they drew closer, Arthur saw that while the wharf itself was a simple wooden pier that thrust out fifty or sixty feet into the canal, its construction was obscured by the sheer bulk of ribbon-tied papers, stone tablets, papyrus bundles, stacks of hides, and other written records that were piled all over it, in places up to thirty feet high. It all looked extremely shaky and likely to fall down. If anything did fall down, it would probably crush any poor unfortunates who happened to be underneath. Some of the stone tablets, in particular, were larger than Arthur himself.