‘And Saturday,’ said Leaf.
‘Saturday don’t count now,’ said Suzy scornfully. ‘Anyhow, that ain’t why I dropped in. I got some of my Raiders to stick ’emselves to the ceiling with a telescope, and one just dropped down to say they reckon they’ve seen Arthur—’
‘Arthur’s here!’
‘And the old Captain, wot came down in that big fireball—’
‘What big fireball?’
‘You might ’ave missed it. Anyhow, they’re heading to the same place where we’re all going, this Highlisium or whatever it’s called, though Jonty says it don’t look like much—’
‘Suzy! Why are you telling me this? Is there something I need to do?’
‘Wot? Nah,’ said Suzy with a slightly amazed look. ‘I thought you’d want to know. Course, it might not be Arthur and the Mariner, but if it is them, we’ve at least got a fighting chance.’
‘Does Dame Primus know Arthur is here?’ asked Leaf. ‘You should tell her straight away!’
‘She knows,’ said Leaf. ‘Fred went to tell her. I’d better get back to the lads and lasses. Here’s hoping Arthur can sort out Sunday before he sorts out all of us.’
‘Suzy! Wait!’ Leaf called out. But it was too late. Suzy was already gone, straight up like a rocket, with only one beat of her wings.
Leaf looked ahead again. If only she could see what was happening! The sky ahead was full of Legionaries and Regimental soldiers now, as well as the Horde. Try as they might, the Borderers couldn’t keep the transport sling up with the forward line, and they were falling behind.
‘Arrgh,’ Leaf groaned in frustration. Everything was happening up ahead, and she was going to miss out!
Daisy made a strange noise. Leaf looked down at her unusual steed. The beastwort suddenly lashed out with a tentacle, cutting a massive gash in the material of the sling.
‘No, Daisy! Don’t!’
A human-size insect looked in through the rent. It was spiked all over, and had very, very long limbs that were lined with hooks or burrs. It began to climb into the sling, till Daisy lashed out again, smashing it off into space.
‘’Ware attack from below!’ shouted the Wingmaster. ‘Escorts ahoy! Hold her steady!’
Borderers not holding ropes dove down from above, bows and savage-swords ready. But even as they descended, they met an inverted rain of the spiky insects, which had no wings but were being shot up from below. As the insects passed through the ranks of flying Denizens, they stuck out their hooked legs, and whenever they hit someone, they pulled themselves into them and made both fall.
Falling seemed very likely to happen to Leaf and Daisy as well. Even though the beastwort kept batting away any insects that got inside the sling, the material was slowly tearing. Soon Leaf and her companion would fall through the hole.
‘Put us down!’ shouted Leaf. ‘You have to get us on the ground!’
Twenty-six
WELL MET, ARTHUR,’ said the Mariner gravely as he strode over to meet the just-stopped boy. ‘I see you do not need my aid to be freed from that cursed clock.’
‘No,’ gabbled Arthur. ‘I need you to open the cage that’s got Part Seven of the Will in it. Before Lord Sunday gets back.’
‘Aye,’ said the Mariner. ‘I thought it might come to this. But then all journeys must end somewhere, sometime. Lead on.’
He gestured with the harpoon, and his sailors marched forward, following close behind the Captain. Arthur thought two of them looked familiar, but he had no time to waste figuring out who they were. He turned around and began to run again.
But the Mariner did not run. He lengthened his stride, but even so, Arthur was a dozen yards ahead when the boy looked back and halted.
‘Come on! There’s no time!’
‘There will be time enough,’ said the Mariner with a well-gauged look out at the distant aerial battle, the smoke, and the nearing dragonfly. ‘Provided we do not stop to gossip. I’d best let that old wormsnake know we’re coming up.’
He lifted the harpoon above his head. Arthur heard its crackling paper noise and tensed for the toothache and joint pain that would strike when it flew. But as the shaft of light leaped from the Mariner’s hand to flash up the hillside, Arthur experienced no more than a passing twinge.
Within a second, the harpoon, moving too fast to see clearly, slapped back into the Mariner’s open hand.
‘Did you kill it?’ asked Arthur. He had to force himself to only walk fast, rather than run.
‘Nay,’ chuckled the Mariner. ‘It is one of the first things, not readily slain. I have encouraged it to become steps on the hill again, and make the way easy, lest my companion touch its stony hide in earnest.’
‘You’ve been here before?’
‘Of course. We climb to the Elysium, the beginning of All. The very point where Mother emerged from the primordial Nothing.’
‘Part Seven of the Will is trapped there inside a gilded cage,’ said Arthur. He had to keep turning his head to talk to the Mariner, because try as he might to slow down he was always ending up yards ahead. ‘I think your harpoon will break the lock, and then I can get the Will to make Sunday give me the Key and then—’
‘Indeed,’ said the Mariner. He looked up again. Sunday’s dragonfly was less than half a mile away. ‘I said we’d not need to run—’
‘Yes?’
‘I was wrong. Swiftly now!’
The Mariner broke into a sprint, taking the wormsnake steps three at a time. Arthur outpaced him, running fast ahead.
They were both on the next terrace when Sunday’s lightning lashed down behind them. Arthur was blinded for a moment, and deafened by the crash of thunder that drowned out the screams of the sailor Denizens. He looked back, but could only see the Mariner, who was himself looking back, though only for a second, before he began to run again.
‘Use your Keys to shield us!’ commanded the Captain. He ran close to Arthur, so close their shoulders touched.
Arthur raised his Keys above his head as he ran, and thought of shields. He remembered illustrations of Roman testudos, the tortoise formation, and that made him think of tortoises themselves, and their thick shells. He felt the mirror and the pen twitch in his hands, and the now-familiar pain of sorcery. Then the lightning came again, and he was briefly blinded, catching the fading afterimages of the great arc of electricity as it bounced off him and into the hill.
Three times the lightning came as they climbed the last slope, and three times Arthur’s shield deflected it. But it was not without cost. Arthur felt like he’d been carrying a vast weight above his head, and he could barely make the last ten feet to the Elysium and the paved area with its gilded cage. He staggered and would have fallen, but the Mariner held him under the arm.
‘Sunday will not strike from the air against us in this place,’ said the Mariner after a swift look upward. ‘But here he comes! Now, is it truly your wish that I should break this lock and open this cage?’
Arthur lowered his arms. He looked up too. The dragonfly was coming in to hover, and he could see Sunday running towards its tail.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘This is the third of three times that I swore to aid you,’ said the Mariner. ‘There will be no more.’
‘Please! Open it!’
Sunday didn’t wait for the ladder. He jumped from the dragonfly, fifty feet up, without wings, as the Mariner touched the very tip of his harpoon to the lock of the cage.
Arthur put his arm in front of his face, expecting an explosion, or at the very least a cascade of white-hot sparks. But there was only a gentle click. The door sprang open. The Mariner took a step back and let the harpoon fall from his hand. The weapon turned into water as it fell, becoming a dark, white-crested wave that broke on Arthur’s feet, the smell of salt strong in the air as the wash sank into the ground.
‘All journeys end,’ said the Mariner. He inclined his head to Arthur, then turned to his left and nodded. ‘Farewell, brother.’
r /> Lord Sunday caught the Mariner as he fell, and laid him down. Then the Trustee clapped his hand to his chest, his fingers reaching for the gap between the top two buttons of his shirt, just above his waistcoat, where something gold gleamed against his skin.
But before Lord Sunday could touch whatever was inside, one of the branches of the tree snapped out through the open door, and finger-twigs gripped his arm. At the same time a root exploded out of the ground and wound around Sunday’s legs. Tiny words and letters thronged and wriggled on the branch and root, flowing off the tree and onto Sunday. These words multiplied, becoming more branches and roots, all of them spreading across the Trustee’s body, all struggling to keep his hand away from the Seventh Key.
Arthur! You must act now! came the urgent voice of the Will. Now!
The voice seemed distant and far away to Arthur – as, in fact, did everything else. He knew he was speaking, but even his own voice felt as if it came from some distant, faraway place.
‘I, Arthur, anointed Heir to the Kingdom, claim the Seventh Key and with it sovereignty over the Incomparable Gardens, the House, and the Secondary Realms. I claim it by blood . . . and bone . . . and contest. Out of truth, in testament, and against all trouble.’
There was silence when Arthur spoke the last word. The sounds of battle were muffled and far away. Arthur felt like he was alone with the tree-wrapped Lord Sunday, just the two of them on the hill.
The silence stretched into long seconds, before Sunday finally spoke.
‘You have doomed us all.’
The tree retreated from Lord Sunday, words slipping back to branch and root, these limbs shrinking back to the tree inside the cage.
Lord Sunday reached behind his neck.
Where is the Key? Arthur thought frantically. He looked at the tree in the cage. It wasn’t doing anything now.
Is Lord Sunday reaching for a weapon? What does he mean that I’ve doomed us all?
Sunday lifted a chain from around his neck, pulling it over his head to reveal a small, shining object on the end of the chain, the object that had been hidden under his shirt.
It was a key. A tiny golden key, the length of the smallest joint on Arthur’s little finger.
Lord Sunday let the chain fall. It hung in the air for a moment. Then, with the jangling noise of a falling harp, the Seventh Key flew to Arthur.
The chain briefly rested around his head like a crown before it slipped down to lie about his neck, the Key itself coming to rest upon his chest. As it settled there, Arthur felt a titanic infusion of certainty and confidence.
I’ve done it, thought Arthur. I am the Master now!
The tree inside the cage shook its branches, rustled its leaves, and, one by one, began to draw its roots out of the earth. Lord Sunday turned away from Arthur, as if by not seeing him he could deny his existence.
Arthur let him. Sunday was of no account now. He simply didn’t matter. Arthur could feel the glorious power of the Seventh Key filling him up, a power that would soon be augmented by all his other Keys, as soon as Dame Primus could get there and deliver them.
‘You must stop the fighting,’ said the Will, speaking aloud. ‘It is delaying matters, which is annoying after so long a wait.’
It turned its trunk sideways and leaned through the door, reaching out with several branches and some of its taproots, like a contortionist coming out of a box.
‘How?’ asked Arthur. He had the power, he knew, but he wasn’t sure how to use it.
‘Why not slay them all, myself included?’ suggested Lord Sunday bitterly, without turning around. ‘You hold three Keys directly, and all by acclaim, you have the power.’
‘Yes,’ said Arthur. He knew that he could. ‘I suppose I could kill you all.’
It seemed like a reasonable suggestion for a moment, perhaps even a useful exercise of his newfound power. Arthur’s hand crept to hold the Seventh Key, but even as his fingers closed around it, he was distracted by something. The lingering scent of sea spray; a glimpse of the body of a small yellow elephant; an old man dead on the ground with a far-travelled smile still on his face . . .
‘No . . . what . . .’ said Arthur. He groaned and snatched his hand away. ‘I am Arthur Penhaligon! I’m not killing anyone!’
He let his arms rest at his side, and reached past the anger and the pride, past the arrogance of power, to that small inner core of his being, where he was still a quiet, thoughtful boy who had been brought up in kindness and peace.
‘Whatever else I may have become, I am also Arthur Penhaligon,’ he repeated. ‘I am not going to kill anyone.’
‘It would be a mercy, in many ways,’ said Lord Sunday. ‘I still find it hard to comprehend that I have failed. How could a mortal have defeated me?’
Arthur didn’t answer, which made Lord Sunday look even haughtier, and at the same time more defeated.
Instead, Arthur gazed out at the battle that was being fought across the Incomparable Gardens. He didn’t need a telescope now, for if he wanted to, he simply focused his attention and saw as closely as he wished. His mind worked faster too, processing the images, taking in everything almost instantaneously.
He saw the Horde charging home against a flying hedgehog of umbrella-armed sorcerers; the Legion locked in vertical combat with Newniths in a battle two miles high; jewel-winged insects and Border Sea sailors in a confused, circling melee that moved like a tornado, sucking in combatants and spitting out the wounded and the dead; he saw Suzy’s Raiders, though without Suzy, the Piper’s children valiantly attacking the most powerful foes; and finally he saw Leaf and Daisy, falling through the torn-apart sling, still a thousand feet above the ground.
Twenty-seven
SUZY LIFTED LEAF off Daisy’s back just as the sling finally tore apart, holding the slighter girl under the arms. The beastwort flung its tentacles up, and Borderers grabbed hold of them, but with the barbed insects still being fired against them, and confusion everywhere, there were not enough Denizens to keep the creature airborne.
‘Try for that lake!’ shouted Leaf wildly. She pointed down at a large body of water, still some distance away. ‘Drop her in the lake! Hold on, Daisy!’
The beastwort let out a long, high-pitched cry and fell away, with too few Borderers holding on. Leaf took a breath to shout for more of them to chase and grab hold, but could not get the breath she needed, instead getting a stabbing pain in her chest. She coughed it out, but could not speak. The Gardens below went blurry, and for a moment she didn’t know where she was or what she was doing.
‘Daisy?’ she whispered.
‘I reckon she’ll hit the lake,’ said Suzy. She was flying upward as fast as she could, trying to get out of range of the spiked insects. The living missiles were being propelled upward out of strange bulbous flowers full of a pink gas, but the flowers could not send them higher than three thousand feet. ‘Very tough critter, that Daisy. Like as not, she’ll pick ’erself up.’
Leaf nodded and pressed her hands into her eyes, to try to refocus them and get her head together.
‘Where did you come from?’ she asked.
‘Saw your sling coming undone,’ said Suzy. ‘So I doubled back.’
‘Are we winning?’ Leaf asked. She couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t look out. It was easier just to hang in Suzy’s arms and ask the question.
‘Dunno,’ said Suzy. ‘But we’re making ground. Or air. Only a few miles from the Elysium now. But the Piper’s ahead of us.’
‘Keep lots of soldiers in between us, then,’ said Leaf. She was having trouble staying conscious, and the world kept slipping away, darkness alternating with flashes of confused light and sound.
‘Do my best,’ muttered Suzy. She was looking for her Raiders, but couldn’t see them. There was fighting everywhere, and it was difficult to work out where to go. The Elysium did lie ahead, the hill one of the few landmarks Suzy could easily spot. But the battle was especially heavy around it . . . though Suzy frowned as she realised t
hat there were no longer any insects or dragonflies defending the place. Instead, the air above the hill was packed with Newniths and sorcerers, who were desperately holding back multiple assaults by different units of the Glorious Army of the Architect.
‘The Piper must be there already,’ Suzy said to herself. ‘And it looks like something’s happened to Sunday. ’Oo would have thought? I hope you’re there too, Arthur!’
She tapped her ears, to check the plugs were in, and swooped down behind a cohort of Legionaries who were about to descend against the defenders of the Elysium hill.
Arthur had just decided how to make the fighting stop when the Piper and Saturday landed by the stream, their respective bodyguards flying back up to join the rearguard that was slowly being pressed back and down by the forces of Dame Primus.
Both of Arthur’s enemies wore black-lacquered leather wings, which looked odd against the Piper’s yellow greatcoat and fashionable with Superior Saturday’s new armour of reddish plates. But Saturday was no longer as tall as she had been, nor as astonishingly beautiful, and she remained a step behind her new Master, with her head bent.
The Piper lifted his gold-masked face to Arthur and spoke, his voice as mellifluous and charming as it had been before Part Four of the Will spat poison in his mouth, before the battle for the Citadel, which felt to Arthur so long ago.
‘So you have claimed the Seventh Key, Arthur. What now?’
‘That is my business,’ said Arthur shortly. ‘I give you permission to remove yourself and your army, and Saturday as well.’
‘To where?’ asked the Piper. He spoke as if to an old friend. ‘The House has been eaten up by Nothing, Arthur. Only the Gardens remain, and perhaps not even that, at least not for very long. Not unless you let me take matters in hand.’
‘I will force the Nothing back,’ said Arthur. ‘You have your worldlet. Return there.’
‘It too is gone,’ said the Piper mournfully. ‘Lost, all will be lost. Unless you give me your Keys. They are too great a burden for a mortal. Better I take them, and put everything to—’