‘The Old One?’ Dawn shivered. Her voice was bright and loud, and her tongue was golden. ‘We should not meddle with him.’
‘He is chained.’ Dusk shrugged. ‘And he has never interfered with any of the workers in the Cellar.’
‘But if he can gain the Key?’ asked Dawn. ‘He might free himself –’
‘Never,’ said Dusk. ‘All the Seven Keys together could not free him from that chain.’
‘There are often Nithlings in the coal cellars, even in the Deep,’ said Noon. ‘If one of them should gain the Key –’
‘How, when we cannot?’ whispered Dusk. ‘I have studied the Keys and I tell you, now it has bonded, it can only be given, not taken. It will protect its wielder from serious harm, though not entirely from pain, and not at all from discomfort. I say put the boy into the darkness and the damp. He will soon see that his only way out is to give us –’
‘Me,’ interrupted Mister Monday, suddenly straightening up. ‘Give me the Key.’
Dawn, Noon, and Dusk smiled and bowed to Mister Monday before Dusk continued.
‘As you say, sir. The boy will soon come to realise that he must give Mister Monday the Key.’
‘Delays! Difficulties!’ complained Mister Monday. ‘But I see sense in your plan, Dusk. Take care of it. I am going back to take a nap.’
‘What about me, sir?’ Suzy suddenly piped up. ‘I didn’t mean to do it, sir. It was that Will that made me.’
Mister Monday ignored her. He slowly stood up, left the shooting stick where it was, and ambled towards the open elevator. The Commissionaires and Sergeants saluted as he passed, and Dawn, Noon, and Dusk bowed once more. The elevator door closed, then almost immediately opened again. There was no sign of Monday inside.
‘Honest, sir! It wasn’t my fault,’ Suzy continued, to Noon. She knelt down and bowed her head so low it touched the grass, her fingers scrabbling into the dirt in her distress. ‘Don’t send me to the Coal Cellar. Let me go back to work!’
‘Where is the Will?’ asked Noon. He strode over to Suzy and lifted her up by the hair till she stood on tiptoe, grimacing at the pain.
‘It left when the dinosaur came,’ Suzy cried. ‘It knew a weirdway out, a small one, too small for us to use.’
‘What shape has it assumed?’ asked Noon. ‘Where was this weirdway?’
‘The Will . . . the Will looked like an orange cat, but with long ears,’ sobbed Suzy. ‘It went up that tree and then . . . it was gone. I didn’t want to do what it said, but it made me –’ Noon dropped her in disgust.
‘Do you want this?’ he asked Dawn and Dusk, indicating Suzy, who was once again prostrate. This time she had managed to get dirt all over her face, mixing it into mud with her tears.
Dawn shook her head. Dusk did not answer immediately. Then a slight smile flitted across his face, so slight Arthur wondered if he had imagined it.
‘You are one of that irresponsible Piper’s children, are you not?’ asked Dusk. ‘Once a mortal?’
‘Yes, Your Honour,’ sobbed Suzy. ‘I’m an Ink-Filler now, Sixth Class.’
‘An honourable occupation,’ replied Dusk. ‘You may return to your duties, Suzy Turquoise Blue. But first wash your face and hands. This stream looks convenient for that.’
Suzy stared up at him suspiciously as she heard her name, then bowed once more and stood up shakily. Only Dusk and Arthur watched her as she went over to the stream and bent down to wash. Arthur had been surprised by her wailing and begging, but now that she had gone to the exact point in the stream where the Will had dived in, he thought differently. She had her back to everyone, using it to block the view of what she was doing with her hands in the water. Which, Arthur hoped, was retrieving the Will. Not that he expected the Will to do anything, not with Monday’s three powerful servants at the ready.
‘Destroy this office,’ Noon instructed a Sergeant. He took out a notebook, scribbled something in it with a pen that appeared out of the air, tore out the page, and gave it to the Sergeant. ‘Use this to close the picture window.’
‘My Midnight Visitors and I will take Arthur to the Deep Coal Cellar,’ announced Dusk. He gestured to his funereal followers, and they stepped forward.
‘No, they will not,’ countered Noon. ‘This is my duty. I still hold our Master’s plenipotentiary powers.’
‘Given for the Secondary Realms, I believe,’ said Dusk mildly.
‘That detail was omitted,’ replied Noon with a bright smile. He turned to Arthur and said, ‘Get up, boy. If you come along in a docile manner, I will not be forced to hurt you. Remember that much pain can still be visited upon you, provided we do not try to take the Key.’
Dusk looked at Dawn, who shrugged.
‘Noon has the right,’ she said. ‘I will accompany him.’
‘As you say. Sister, brother,’ said Dusk. He clicked his fingers and pointed up. The Midnight Visitors bowed slightly and wrapped their capes around themselves. Then they all slowly rose into the air, standing at attention as they levitated towards the ceiling. At the height of the treetops, they disappeared.
Arthur watched them go, then looked back. Dusk had disappeared and Noon and Dawn were staring back at Arthur.
‘Well, boy?’
Arthur sneaked a glance at Suzy. She had stepped back from the stream but would not look at him. He couldn’t tell whether she had picked up the Will and was struck by sudden doubt. What if she did only want to wash her hands, both of dirt and any responsibility to him? Or what if she did want to help, but the Will had already gone?
‘I guess I don’t have a choice,’ Arthur replied slowly. He got up and lifted his chin to show that he was not afraid. ‘I’ll go with you.’
Arthur surreptitiously looked again at Suzy as he spoke. She was still crouched above the stream, but was half-looking back at him. Arthur gave her a very slow, sly wink. Suzy tapped her throat and coughed. She clearly had the Will, and Arthur took some small comfort from that. Only a small comfort, but at least there was a chance of help somewhere along the line.
Noon gestured again, and the Sergeants bellowed orders. A dozen metal Commissionaires marched up around Arthur, boxing him in. They were so close together, and so tall, he could barely see out between them.
‘Commissionaires escorting the prisoner, by the left, slooooow march!’ shouted a Sergeant. The Commissionaires stepped off, and Arthur had to start marching too, to avoid being crushed or trodden on. Somehow he doubted the Key would protect him from a bruised foot or rib.
Arthur expected at least some of the entourage to peel off before they got to the elevator. In fact he couldn’t understand how so many of them had come out of the elevator in the first place. But as they continued to march in, he realised that it was not the elevator he and Suzy had used, though it was in exactly the same place. This elevator was many times larger. It was the size of the school assembly hall and was much fancier too, with highly polished wood panelling on the walls and a parquetry floor.
There was a brass-railed rotunda in the centre of the elevator. Noon and Dawn strode over and climbed up into it, while everyone else arrayed themselves in front of the rotunda, as if they were on a parade ground. Arthur had one last glimpse of Suzy talking to the Sergeant who was going to destroy the office. Then the doors slid shut and a bell sounded.
Now Arthur felt truly a prisoner. Alone among enemies.
Noon touched the air in front of him, and a speaking tube appeared. He pulled it to his mouth and said, ‘Lower Ground twenty-twelve. Express.’
Someone or something said something back. Noon frowned.
‘Well, reroute it! I said express.’
The lift suddenly lurched and fell, hurling Arthur into one of the Commissionaires, who remained rock-steady at attention. Noon and Dawn were thrown against the railings of the rotunda. Noon scowled and pulled the speaking tube towards him. Then he reached in with one long, slim finger and tugged at something. There was a stifled scream from the tube, then Noon slowly pulled
out a nose he had twisted in his white-gloved fingers, followed by a mouth and chin, then a whole head complete with a battered hat – all of which was impossible for Arthur to believe, since the tube was no wider than a can of soup.
A few seconds later, Noon had dragged an entire man out of the tube, dropping him on the floor next to the rotunda. The extracted fellow was short and fat. His coat was too long, its badly mended back brushing the floor.
Noon glowered down at him.
‘Elevator Operator Seventh Grade?’
‘No, Your Honour,’ said the little man. Arthur could see he was trying to be brave. ‘Elevator Operator Fourth Grade.’
‘Not anymore,’ replied Noon. His notebook appeared in his hand and he wrote in it quickly. Then he tore out the sheet and let it fall.
‘Oh, please, Your Lordliness,’ said the man miserably. ‘I’ve been in grade four a hundred years –’
The paper hit the little man’s shoulder and exploded into blue sparks that surrounded his head like a corona. The sparks ate away the man’s squashy hat, leaving him bald, then descended to destroy his coat, his shirt, his breeches, and his coat. Arthur shut one eye, not really wanting to see what might come next, particularly if the man’s skin started dissolving or something. But it didn’t. Instead the sparks formed into a simple toga-like robe of off-white that settled on the man in place of his former clothes.
‘You didn’t need to do that as well,’ said the elevator operator with considerable dignity. ‘They were hard-won, those fittings.’
Noon held the speaking tube over the man’s head.
‘Count yourself lucky,’ he said. ‘Do not cross me again – and get back to work.’
The elevator man sighed, rubbed one knuckle to his forehead in a perfunctory gesture of respect, and raised his hand. It went easily into the speaking tube, then somehow all the rest of him was sucked up as well, as if the tube were a vacuum cleaner and the man was collapsible.
When he was gone, Noon spoke into the tube again.
‘As we discussed. Express and smooth. Lower Ground twenty-twelve. The Upper Coal Cellar Entry.’
Arthur suppressed a shudder. That sounded like a long way away from anywhere he knew. With that thought came a wave of negativity. Everything was too difficult, too hard. He might as well give up.
How can I save everyone from the plague? the depressed section of his mind said. I can’t even save myself from imprisonment.
Stop it! Arthur told this part of himself. Suzy and the Will are free. I’ve still got the Key. There will be the chance to do something. There has to be . . .
Fourteen
THE UPPER COAL Cellar Entry was a rickety wooden platform on the edge of a blasted plain. A vast panorama of open space, dimly lit by the beams of only three or four elevators. As in the Lower Atrium, there was a ceiling above the platform, but unlike the Atrium the ceiling here was flat, not domed, and it was much higher up.
Arthur was marched out onto the platform within his box of Commissionaires. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he saw that the plain beyond the platform was not a totally featureless expanse as he’d thought. There was something in the middle.
A circular patch of total darkness.
A huge hole, at least half a mile in diameter and of a depth unseen and unknowable.
‘Yes,’ said Noon, who had been watching Arthur. ‘That pit is the Deep Coal Cellar. Sergeant! March the prisoner to the edge.’
There was a pathway from the elevator platform to the pit. It was paved with white stone that repelled the black dust that lay everywhere else, dust that billowed up as they passed. Coal dust, Arthur guessed it was. He hoped he wasn’t breathing it in and that it wouldn’t still be in his lungs when . . . if . . . he ever got back home. He’d really need the Key then, to keep on breathing. There was no way his poor lungs could survive coal dust along with everything else.
As the Commissionaires marched, their legs occasionally squeaking for want of oil, Arthur tried to stay calm. Suzy had retrieved the Will, and surely it would come looking for him. Though Dusk had said that this was one place the Will wouldn’t dare go, because it feared the Old One.
That doesn’t sound good, whispered the defeatist part of Arthur’s mind. Stuck in a prison pit with some creature called the Old One.
‘You will not be alone down there,’ said Noon. He looked at Arthur knowingly, as if he had just read his mind. ‘There are some House Denizens down there, demoted to the most menial of tasks, chipping coal to size and so forth. They will not dare bother you. But there is one other, who you should stay away from, if you value your life and sanity. He is called the Old One, and he is not to be trifled with. Keep away from him, and you will merely suffer from the cold, the damp, and the coal dust.’
‘How will I know the Old One if I see him?’ asked Arthur. He tried to sound defiant but it didn’t come out that way. His voice sounded squeaky and small. He cleared his throat and tried again, ‘And how am I supposed to get out of here, if I do want to give Mister Monday the Key?’
‘You’ll know the Old One,’ said Noon. He smiled his cold smile, white teeth gleaming. ‘He’s hard to miss. As I said, avoid him, if you can. As for getting out, just say my name three times. Monday’s Noon. I’ll come and fetch you. Or I’ll send someone to take care of the matter.’
They arrived at the edge of the pit as Noon finished speaking. The Commissionaires stopped right at the lip, with only inches separating their toes from the void. Arthur peered past them, down into darkness. He could not see how deep the pit was, or any lights below.
Noon took out his notebook and tore out a page. He quickly folded this page into the shape of two wings, serrating the edges with a small knife to give the impression of feathers. Then he wrote a word on each small paper wing and shook them slowly. With each shake, they grew bigger, until Noon was holding a pair of feathery wings as tall as Arthur. They were pure white and glowing, but where Noon held them, black ink trickled down from his fingers like blood.
‘Let me through,’ Noon instructed the Commissionaires. They stepped aside to let him pass, but the one closest to the pit thoughtlessly stepped out into nothing. He made no effort to save himself or grab the edge. He just fell into the void, without making a sound, save the sigh of the air parting. Arthur didn’t hear him hit the bottom.
Noon frowned, shook his head, and muttered something about ‘inferior merchandise’. Then he suddenly slapped the wings onto Arthur’s back and pushed the boy extremely hard – into the pit!
Arthur felt the wings attach themselves to his shoulder blades. It was a weird sensation. Not exactly painful, but not pleasant. Rather like having a tooth filled at the dentist, with an injection removing the pain but not the vibration. The shock of this sudden attachment and then the next shock as his wings spread and slowed his fall took Arthur’s mind off the fact that he had just been pushed into an apparently bottomless pit. By the time this had registered, his wings were beating hard, and he was falling very slowly, no faster than a spider leisurely descending on her web.
Up above, and far behind him now, Arthur heard Noon laughing, and then the tromp of the metal Commissionaires’ boots upon the white pavestones as they marched away.
‘I’ll never call you,’ whispered Arthur. He clutched the Key tightly in his hand. His voice came back, strong, angry, and loud. ‘I’ll find a way out. I’ll sort you out and Mister Monday and the whole lot of you!’
‘That’s the spirit!’ said a soft voice near him in the darkness. Surprised, Arthur lashed out with the Key, but the metal met no resistance. He was still falling slowly, and there was nothing around him but air and darkness.
Or was there? Arthur raised the Key and said, ‘Light! Shed light!’
The Key shone with sudden bright light, casting a globe of illumination around Arthur and his beating wings. In the light Arthur saw another winged figure, matching the speed of his fall. A man, all in black, his black wings as glossy and dark as a raven’s, wi
th not a touch of white.
‘Monday’s Dusk,’ spat Arthur. ‘What do you want?’
‘It seems the Key’s powers are not all unknown to you, as Noon would have it,’ whispered Dusk. Arthur could hardly hear him over the beating of both their wings. ‘As to what I want, I want to help you, Arthur. You have been chosen by the Will. You hold the Minute Key of the Lower House.’
‘What?’ asked Arthur. Surely this was some sort of trick. ‘Aren’t you like Monday’s right-hand man or something?’
‘Noon sits at the Master’s right hand, Dawn at his left. Dusk stands behind, in the shadows. Yet sometimes it is easier to see the light when you stand partly in the darkness. Monday was not always as he is now. Nor were Noon and Dawn. The Lower House was not the shambles it has become. All of this has led me slowly . . . oh so slowly . . . to come to the conclusion that something must be done. I helped the Will free itself, by giving an Inspector a box of snuff. Now I will help you by giving you some advice.’
Arthur snorted in disbelief. This was so obvious. He’d seen it a million times on television. Good cop, bad cop. Noon had done the bad cop act, now it was Dusk’s turn. He was pretty convincing at it, though.
‘You should talk to the Old One. The others forget that while he opposed the Architect, he does not hate Her work. You are one small part of that, and so he will be interested and will not harm you. Ask him about the Improbable Stair. Use the knowledge he gives you.’
‘Why should I trust you?’ asked Arthur.
‘Why trust anyone?’ Dusk replied, so quietly that Arthur could not hear him and had to repeat his question. Dusk flew closer, until his face was close enough to touch, the tips of his ebony wings almost brushing Arthur’s snowy ones with every forward beat.
‘Why trust anyone?’ he said again. ‘The Will wants its way. Monday wants his way, as do the Morrow Days. But who can say what those ways will lead to? Be cautious, Arthur!’
On the last word, Dusk’s wings beat more strongly and he rose, while Arthur continued to fall. Arthur had no control over the wings Noon had made for him. They merely slowed his fall, like a parachute, only better.