‘Great!’ exclaimed Arthur. ‘And they’ll take me out again too, right? With the Will.’
‘Yes, if at all possible, the Balaena will stand by to take you off the worldlet again and return out to the Border Sea. But the crew will not be able to help you against Feverfew in the worldlet itself. That is too great a risk.’
‘What about taking on extra passengers, as well as me? I’ll need to get some help.’
‘There is limited space aboard the Balaena. It was built for us Rats, but there is room for you and perhaps another six normal-sized Denizens, if no one minds being a little cramped. There might be some bumped heads too.’
‘Great! I’d better write a message to Dame Primus to get that power canister delivered. Do you have someone in Port Wednesday with one of your bottles, so I can send it to them to pass on?’
‘Certainly,’ said Longtayle. He opened a drawer and offered Arthur a thick sheet of paper, a quill, a bottle of ink, and a small pot of sand. ‘We shall consider our next question while you write.’
Arthur dipped the quill in the bottle and wrote quickly. The smooth black ink ran a little too freely, causing blots and blotches along the way.
Dear Dame Primus,
I don’t know if you got my other letter. Anyway, I’m in the Border Sea and I talked with Lady Wednesday and she explained how she got turned into a whale by the other Trustees and how she wants to release the Will and give the Key to me. But the Will got stolen by a pirate called Feverfew who works for the Morrow Days. I’ve done a deal with the Raised Rats and they’ve told me that Feverfew’s secret harbour is inside her and they’ll let me use their submarine to go there so I can try to get the Will and fix everything up. Only the Rats need a power canister from the Far Reaches for the submarine, so can you please hurry that up so they get it straight away. I mean reallystraight away, not next year or whatever. Immediately. Right now.
Also can you send Suzy to help me out? And if you can get in touch with the Mariner, can you ask him to come and help me out too?
Regards,
Arthur
P.S. Send a reply via the Rats at Port Wednesday and their simultaneous bottles, so I get it quicker.
P.P.S. Can you check what’s happening back on my world? I want to know what the Border Sea did to the hospital.
Thanks.
Arthur finished by spreading some sand over the paper to dry up the ink, as he’d seen done in the offices of the Lower House. He lifted the page to pour the sand back into the pot, then folded the paper, wrote Dame Primus’s name on it, and sealed it with his thumb. As before, his thumbprint shone and rippled like a rainbow and became a proper seal, showing Arthur’s laurel-wreathed profile.
‘If the power canister is delivered quickly, how long will it take before we can get going in the submarine?’ asked Arthur.
‘Well, the Balaena is at Port Wednesday, so we will have to get there first,’ said Longtayle. ‘Under full steam, that will be five days. The Balaena can be readied in that time, so we would be able to depart in her immediately.’
‘Five days!’ exclaimed Arthur. ‘I guess there’s no choice . . . I hope I still get back home just after I left, like I’ve done before. I suppose I might need the time to get in touch with the helpers I need. . .’
‘Our simultaneous bottles are at your service,’ said Longtayle. ‘I presume we can send the bill for their use to Dame Primus?’
‘Yes,’ said Arthur. ‘But no jacking up the price or anything — we’ll only pay the regular fee.’
‘That is understood. Are you ready for our second question?’
Arthur nodded.
‘What has the Will told you about the disappearance of the Architect?’
Arthur was surprised by the question, but tried not to show it. He wondered if he was supposed to be repeating what the Will told him. But a deal was a deal — and in this case, he didn’t think giving out the information would hurt. ‘I think it just said she went away,’ he told the Rats, ‘leaving the Will behind.’
‘Are you sure of the exact words?’
‘Pretty sure. Yeah, it was back when the Will was a frog in Suzy’s throat. It said something like “The Great Architect went away” or “The Architect then went away.”’
‘It never said that She was killed or slain by her own servants, the Morrow Days?’
Arthur dropped the cup he’d just picked up, the cranberry juice spreading like spilt blood towards the papers, till the liquid was hastily blotted up with a cloth by the Steward.
‘What?! No! The Will said something about choosing to go away or it was her own choice. It never said anything about her getting killed . . . Do you think the Morrow Days killed her? The Architect of everything? How would they do that?’
‘Some authorities claim She is dead, or returned to Nothing, which is the same thing,’ said Monckton. ‘We wanted to know what the Will had said to you, because the Will probably knows, and it would not lie to the Rightful Heir.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ said Arthur. ‘I reckon it would lie if it suited it. And the First Part of the Will used to say it didn’t know enough because it was only one-seventh of the whole Will. Though I have to say since it became Dame Primus it acts like it knows everything.’
‘You really think the Will might lie to you?’
Arthur thought for a moment. He couldn’t think of any time when the Will had told him an outright lie, but he still had the feeling that it would if it thought it might help its cause. It would certainly lie by omission, choosing not to tell him things if he didn’t ask for them.
‘Yes, I think it would, but only if it thought it needed to. You know, to make me do something the Rightful Heir should do.’
‘That is interesting. We had hoped to learn definitively what has happened to the Architect, but clearly that is not yet possible. Thank you, Arthur. Do you have your third question?’
‘I might save it for the time being, if that’s all right.’ Arthur didn’t want to waste his last question and he needed to think things through.
‘You may do so,’ said Monckton. ‘Of course that means we will also still have a question for you.’
‘That’s fine,’ Arthur agreed. He sat quietly for a moment, going over a rough plan in his head. ‘I want to send some other messages as well,’ he finally said. ‘Do you have a bottle on board the Moth? The salvage ship I was on.’
‘I don’t think so,’ replied Longtayle. He pulled out a small book from his pocket and started to flick through it. ‘I’ll check the list.’
‘Is there any other way to get a message to them?’
‘There are numerous ways,’ said Monckton. ‘But most rely on sorcery, and we do not practise House sorcery, save for navigation. If Wednesday’s Dawn is still here, she might send a message for you. She has many powers within the Border Sea.’
‘I’d like to talk to her,’ said Arthur. ‘But she told me she had urgent business to attend to.’
‘We don’t have a bottle or anyone on the Moth, but I’ll send someone to check if Wednesday’s Dawn is still over at the Triangle,’ said Longtayle. He opened the door and spoke quickly to the Rat who stood at attention there.
‘Sorcery . . .’ said Arthur. He suddenly remembered Scamandros had put something in his pocket. Arthur had meant to transfer it to his boot so it would be safe, but he’d forgotten. Was it still there? He reached into the deep pocket and for a moment thought it was gone. Then his fingers closed on something cool and metallic in the corner.
He realised then that Longtayle and Monckton were looking at him curiously, so he hastily pulled his hand out. The Rats were probably trustworthy, but they didn’t need to know everything, particularly if they were going to be trading information with him. Arthur needed to keep some secrets in reserve.
‘Would you care to be shown to your cabin?’ asked Longtayle. ‘It will take an hour or so to build up steam, then we will be on our way. Earlier, if the wind shifts and we can sail. The breeze
is against us for Port Wednesday at the moment, but it may change.’
‘Thanks,’ said Arthur. He thought he could take a look at whatever Scamandros gave him in the cabin, and maybe use the shell and mirror to check out how Leaf was doing.
‘You shall have my cabin, which is opposite,’ said Longtayle as he opened the door and indicated another one across the passage. There was already a replacement sailor Rat on sentry outside, who stood aside and saluted. The Rats ran a much more disciplined ship than the Moth, Arthur noted.
Arthur bowed to the sentry, crossed the passage, and went into his cabin. It was smaller than the room he’d been in, no more than fifteen feet long and twelve feet wide, with a folded-up bunk on one bulkhead and a folded-down desk and chair on the wall.
Arthur sat down and pulled his boots off as part of the process of retrieving the Atlas, Wednesday’s invitation, the shell, and the mirror. He put all these things into his inside coat pockets, then took out the metal object Scamandros had given him.
It was egg-shaped and made of gold, and there was a small curved catch on the side. Arthur flicked this up and the egg opened. One side was a watch, with an ivory face and ornate numbers picked out in tiny emeralds. The two hands were made from some kind of faintly glowing blue metal. The other side had a miniature portrait of Doctor Scamandros. It was very lifelike. As Arthur looked at the painting, the tattoos on his face began to move, and the pale blue sky behind him changed to show a background of dark smoke and dimly lit figures that were either fighting or dancing. At the same time, the Doctor’s head turned away, as if he was looking behind him.
Arthur gasped, and Doctor Scamandros looked back. His wild eyes met Arthur’s.
‘Arthur!’ shrieked the tiny figure, barely audible over the sudden din of screams, shouts, explosions, and clashing metal that came through as well. ‘Help! Give me your hand!’
Without even thinking about it, Arthur touched the miniature with his finger. It was instantly seized and drawn in somewhere, along with Arthur’s other fingers and then his whole hand. He felt someone — or something — grip it fiercely. Panicked, Arthur pulled back as hard as he could.
It was like trying to pick up a very heavy weight — Arthur felt his elbow and shoulder joints stretch and almost crack. He leaned back and put his feet against the wall, pulling with all his strength. Then suddenly he was lying on his back and Doctor Scamandros was sprawled next to him on the floor.
‘Shut the watch!’ squealed Scamandros. ‘Shut the watch!’
Arthur leapt up. Just as he reached for the watch, he heard a strange zinging sound, and a long, oily flame shot out of the open watch and struck the iron ceiling, the flames burning off the paint and sending billows of choking smoke everywhere.
Arthur, thankful he was still wearing gloves, swiped at the watch, shutting it with one blow. The oily flame disappeared as the watch shut, but there was still lots of smoke. Arthur, coughing and rubbing his eyes, opened the door and the porthole to let it out, then turned to Scamandros, who was still lying on the floor.
‘Are you all right? Where did you come from — and how?’
‘Just recovering my strength,’ gasped Doctor Scamandros. ‘You called at an opportune time, Lord Arthur. Thank the Architect I had the foresight to give you my transfer watch!’
‘Is that what it is?’
‘Yes, one of my graduation projects.’ Scamandros tried to get up, but got tangled in the tails of his yellow greatcoat, till Arthur gave him a hand. ‘I had thought I might need to merely talk with you again, but the transfer was most fortunate.’
‘Why? What’s happened to the Moth and everyone?’
‘The Moth has been taken,’ said Scamandros, his eyes downcast. ‘By the pirate Feverfew.’
‘What —?’
Arthur was interrupted by shouts of ‘Fire!’ from outside, followed a few seconds later by several seaman Rats bursting in with buckets and a hose, fortunately not yet fully up to pressure so it only dribbled water.
‘Where’s the fire?’ shouted the first Rat into the room.
‘It’s out,’ said Arthur. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
‘Who’s this?’ asked the Rat suspiciously, looking at the bedraggled, yellow-overcoated, surprisingly short Denizen who had so mysteriously appeared. Doctor Scamandros bowed, but this didn’t help. The Rat looked around, made sure there really was no fire, then nodded to Arthur and backed out.
‘Stay here, please, sir, while I fetch the officer of the watch,’ the Rat said as she shut the door.
Arthur wasn’t sure what would happen next.
Eighteen
NO MORE THAN a minute later, there was a knock at the door. Arthur opened it and found Lieutenant Longtayle standing there, now wearing a sword. Behind him were half a dozen Rats wearing steel cuirasses and helmets, and carrying short crossbows or cut-down boarding pikes.
‘You have a visitor, Lord Arthur?’ asked Longtayle politely, but his eyes were cold and did not stray from Doctor Scamandros, who was sitting in the chair mopping his forehead with a yellow silk handkerchief.
‘It’s Doctor Scamandros, from the Moth,’ Arthur explained. ‘He came through a transfer watch.’
‘Are you sure it is Doctor Scamandros?’ asked Longtayle. ‘It could be a Nithling masquerading as him. Transfers can be intercepted or redirected.’
Arthur looked at Scamandros more carefully than he had before. The Doctor certainly looked the same. . .
‘I am Doctor Scamandros!’ the Denizen protested weakly.
‘Prove it,’ said Longtayle.
‘You Rats! Never prepared to take anyone’s word for anything,’ Scamandros complained. ‘Well, if you must insist upon proof, here are some documents for you.’
He reached inside his greatcoat and pulled out a thin leather document case tied together with pink legal ribbon. He undid this and pulled out a parchment, which he handed over to Lieutenant Longtayle, who carefully looked it over. Arthur couldn’t see what was on it clearly, but he caught a glimpse of a kind of three-dimensional portrait of Doctor Scamandros that moved and turned, with flowing type scrolling underneath the picture.
‘This is merely a student accreditation from the Sorcery Scholar Assistant Registrar of the Upper House,’ said Longtayle. ‘If it’s a true document, what are you doing here in the Border Sea?’
‘Up until very recently I have been the Navigator-Sorcerer of the ship Moth,’ said Doctor Scamandros. ‘A post I have held for several thousand years, giving complete satisfaction, I may add. I have a letter here to that effect from Captain Catapillow.’
He handed over a folded sheet of paper. Longtayle read this one too.
‘What brought you to the Border Sea in the first place?’
Angry storms rolled across Scamandros’s cheeks and his fingers twitched.
‘That’s none of your affair, young Rat!’
‘You’ve come aboard without permission,’ said Longtayle grimly. ‘If you don’t answer my questions we shall have to —’
‘He’s my guest!’ interrupted Arthur. ‘I kind of . . . I guess I brought him aboard.’
Scamandros waved his hand weakly. The storms on his cheeks dispersed and the ships tattooed there rode gently at anchor. A sun shone on his forehead, turning green as it slowly sank towards his right ear.
‘Never mind, Lord Arthur. It’s well known that these Rats never rest without prying out everyone’s secrets. I came to the Border Sea to find my final exam papers, which were supposedly lost before they could be marked. I thought that if I could find them and have them properly assessed, I could gain my degree and once more be admitted into the halls of learning in the Upper House. A foolish hope, I now acknowledge. I suspect my papers were never truly lost, and so will not reappear in the Sea.’
‘That confirms your identity,’ said Longtayle. He bowed and added, ‘We like to be sure who we have aboard, Doctor. As it happens, your ‘secret’ was already known to us. If Lord Arthur wishes to confirm you as his
guest, we are happy to welcome you aboard the Rattus Navis IV.’
‘I do confirm him as a guest,’ said Arthur. ‘I was hoping to enlist Doctor Scamandros for my . . . my expedition anyway.’
‘Expedition?’ Scamandros asked. ‘Well, if I could have a cup of tea and a biscuit first, I daresay I could manage a small expedition . . .’
‘We have to get to Port Wednesday before we really get started,’ said Arthur. ‘So you’ll have a few days to recover —’
‘Excellent!’ Doctor Scamandros beamed. He cast his eyes about the cabin. ‘Perhaps I might lie down on that bunk over there? I feel a little weak.’
‘Uh, I guess you can,’ said Arthur. ‘But I want to know what happened with the Moth! Was . . . was anybody killed? Is Sunscorch all right?’
‘They’ll all be slaves now,’ said Doctor Scamandros gloomily as he climbed into the bunk. He looked down at his stomach, then pulled his greatcoat closed. ‘Those that survived. Sunscorch? I don’t know. Everything was confused. There was smoke everywhere, and Feverfew cast a spell that made the planks bite at our ankles. The Captain and Mister Concort retreated to the main cabin, while Sunscorch led the defence. The Shiver fired a broadside of grapeshot as she closed, raking the deck, then suddenly there were pirates everywhere, all around. I ran to the forepeak, thinking to jump, when I heard the chime of my transfer watch . . .’
‘But how did Feverfew know where you were? Was the Moth still on the beach?’
‘On the beach? No, no, we were only there for two weeks, though of course that was a week too long for Sunscorch. After the ship was fixed up we started back for the Border Sea. That was when Feverfew got us. The Shiver was waiting, right where we came through the Line of Storms. I don’t know how Feverfew knew where we’d cross. Though one naturally loathes and detests him as a pirate, one must admire his sorcery.’
‘You were on the beach for two weeks? But it’s only been hours for me since I left.’