The dark blue water suddenly became lighter, interrupting Arthur’s panicky thoughts. He saw Denizens all around, some doing powerful strokes and kicks, some barely dog-paddling, a few just floating.
Then, before he could begin to think that the light must mean the surface was close, he was suddenly there. His head broke through, light and air welcoming him, and he gasped and laughed and water ran out of his nose all at the same time.
Denizens bobbed everywhere, as far as he could see, gently lifted by the small swell. Arthur’s gaze moved across each survivor superfast, looking for the faces he most wanted to see — and there they were. Suzy, about ten yards away. Leaf somewhat closer. And there was a jam jar moving mysteriously across the water, into Arthur’s hand.
‘You can let me go now, Sunscorch,’ said Arthur. ‘Thanks.’
‘I might have lost the ship, but I still ain’t lost a passenger,’ said Sunscorch. He released Arthur, who promptly sank and had to be hauled up again till he got his treading-water action going properly.
‘I have summoned Drowned Wednesday,’ said the Carp. ‘She is on her way and will be here shortly.’
‘You what? She’ll eat us! I thought we’d get on some dry land first!’
‘I am sure she won’t eat us,’ said the Carp. ‘Have faith, Arthur. . .’
Arthur wasn’t listening. He craned his head out of the water to look around, hoping to see some sign of solid ground, or a ship, or something. But all he could see were thousands of floating Denizen snacks looking tempting for one crazily hungry Leviathan.
‘How did you communicate with her?’
‘I am the Will. She is the Trustee. Now that I am back in the House, I am able to speak into her mind, much as I did into yours, Arthur.’
‘Well, tell her to transform into her human shape,’ said Arthur. ‘And tell her to order her Dawn to get here with as many ships as she can. Can you do that?’
‘I can speak the message into her mind,’ said the Carp. ‘Whether it will totally penetrate is unclear. It is done.’
‘Can you speak with your mind to anyone else?’ asked Arthur. ‘The Raised Rats, for example?’
The Carp shook its moustache-like growths back and forth.
‘No. I am connected to you as the Rightful Heir, and to Wednesday as the Trustee.’
‘Land ho!’
The cry came from some Denizens to Arthur’s right. He paddled himself around, but even before he looked, he was pretty sure what he would see.
It wasn’t land, though it looked like it.
It was Drowned Wednesday, bearing down on them. Still vast and almost certainly still hungry.
‘We made it!’
That was Suzy, splashing over backstroke.
‘Stop saying that!’ said Arthur. ‘We haven’t made it. We’re probably going to get eaten. Wednesday won’t be able to help herself if she sees all these Denizens floating about. It’ll be like three thousand pretzels waiting to get munched.’
‘Is that her?’ asked Leaf, whose swimming style was very economical and practised. She leaned back and floated easily, making circular motions with her hands. ‘Wow! Talk about huge!’
‘If anyone has any bright ideas, now is the time to spit them out,’ said Arthur, spitting out some seawater himself as his mouth was splashed midsentence.
‘Pity the Captain’s not here,’ said Suzy. ‘It’d be real interesting to see what his harpoon could do to a whale that big.’
‘No way!’ said Leaf. ‘I’m not letting anyone harpoon any whale. I’m a member of Greenpeace —’
‘She doesn’t mean it, Leaf,’ said Arthur. ‘And the Mariner wouldn’t do it anyway. I think. I wish he was here. In a ship.’
‘The Mariner?’ asked the Carp. ‘That would be the Architect’s adopted son? The middle one?’
‘Yes,’ said Arthur and Suzy together.
‘I might be able to talk to his mind,’ mused the Carp. ‘Seeing as he is of the Architect’s kin. I suppose I could talk to the Piper for that matter too, or Lord Sunday.’
‘Lord Sunday!’ exclaimed Arthur. ‘What? Is he —’ ‘The eldest child of the Architect and the Old One. Their first experiment together, when the Architect inhabited a mortal woman —’
‘Okay, we don’t need a history lesson now!’ interrupted Arthur. Drowned Wednesday was looming larger and larger, and the glad cries of ‘land ho’ among the Denizens had been replaced by cries of fear. ‘See if you can communicate with the Mariner! Maybe he can get here with a ship and pick us up before Wednesday —’
‘It’s not as simple as that,’ said the Carp. ‘I haven’t seen him for millennia, and it’s not as if I’m charged with making him do anything. I’ll have to try and recall what he looked like to begin with. Besides, I’m sure that Wednesday won’t eat us up —’
‘Why not use the Mariner’s charm you wear?’ Sunscorch asked Arthur. ‘Or is it worn out?’
‘The Mariner’s charm?’ Arthur asked. He pulled it out, sank below the surface yet again, and came spluttering back out. ‘You mean it can actually do something?’
‘So legend has it,’ replied Sunscorch. ‘Doctor Scamandros would know, but he is gone now, like our late Captain Catapillow.’
‘I hope Scamandros is still alive,’ said Arthur. ‘The Balaena probably just had to leave for some reason . . . oh! You don’t know. The Doctor survived the battle with Feverfew. He escaped to me, and . . . I’ll tell you later. How exactly does legend say this disc worked?’
‘You speak into it, and the Mariner hears you,’ said Sunscorch.
‘I’ve already done that!’ protested Arthur. ‘Heaps of times when I first got swept up! Carp, you have to contact the Mariner!’
‘Did he have grey hair or was it more white?’ asked the Carp.
‘I reckon that whale is shrinking,’ said Suzy.
Everyone swam around to look.
‘I don’t know,’ said Arthur. ‘She looks just as big to me.’
‘Keep watching,’ said Suzy. ‘She’s getting smaller.’
‘Aye, she’s shrinking,’ confirmed Sunscorch. ‘But will she shrink enough?’
‘Okay,’ said Arthur. ‘Even if she is shrinking, we don’t want to tempt her with lots of Denizens to eat up. So I’m going to take the Carp and swim towards her, and everyone else can swim off at a right angle. Okay?’
‘No way,’ said Leaf. ‘I’m sticking with you, Arthur. You’re my ticket home.’
‘I want to see what happens,’ said Suzy. ‘Besides, if she’s normal size we might be able to help fight her, if we have to.’
‘Sunscorch, can you at least start organising all the Denizens to swim away?’ pleaded Arthur. ‘I really do think Wednesday might not be able to resist temptation.’
‘Aye, aye, sir,’ said Sunscorch. He touched a knuckle to his head in salute and dived under.
‘That’s what you two are supposed to do,’ said Arthur. ‘Say ‘aye, aye’ and swim away.’
‘Yeah, as if we would,’ said Leaf. ‘You don’t have to do everything by yourself, Arthur.’
Arthur didn’t answer. He just started swimming towards the approaching Leviathan. But secretly he was glad not to be alone. And Wednesday was getting smaller, so perhaps it would all be straightforward after all.
‘Does this mean I don’t need to try to reach the mind of the Mariner?’ asked the Carp. ‘Have you regained your faith in me?’
Arthur spat out some water and said, ‘Yes. You could say that.’
He paused to tread water for a while and rest, and looked behind. The Denizens were very slowly beginning to swim away in the other direction. But that wasn’t all that caught Arthur’s eye.
‘Is that a ship on the horizon?’
‘A three-masted brigantine, under full sail,’ said Leaf, shading her eyes with one hand. ‘See, I didn’t waste my time on the Mantis. Albert . . . Albert was a good teacher too.’
‘The ship’s boy,’ said Arthur, suddenly horror-struck. ‘I have
n’t seen him! We couldn’t have left him behind, could we?’
‘No,’ said Leaf in a very small voice. Her eyes grew red, though Arthur could see no tears on her sea-washed face. ‘He . . . Albert got . . . Albert got killed when Feverfew attacked the ship. I’ve been trying not to think about . . . that’s why I want to go home . . . I . . . I don’t want any more adventures.’
Arthur was silent. He didn’t know what to do or say.
‘He lived a long time,’ said Suzy. ‘I reckon he would have had a lot of good times, even if he couldn’t remember a tenth of ’em, cos of the washing between the ears. And like all of us Piper’s children, he would’ve died long ago if he’d been back on the old Earth. Remember what he taught you and he’ll always be with you. That’s what we say, when one of us goes.’
‘Drowned Wednesday is almost upon us,’ boomed the Carp suddenly. ‘The time has come to release me from my bowl! Lord Arthur, please unscrew the cap.’
Arthur wiped his eyes, kicked hard with his legs, and picked up the jar.
‘Feverfew is dead, and his bindings with him,’ said the Carp. ‘I have grown used to the bowl, but no more shall I be imprisoned in any way!’
Arthur unscrewed the lid as he sank, getting it off just as Leaf and Suzy helped him back up. They could kick much more efficiently than he could, and he appreciated their help, even if every now and then one of their kicks connected with him rather than a vacant patch of seawater.
The Carp swam free. A tiny goldfish that turned to face the onrushing whale.
‘Wednesday!’ roared the Carp. ‘I, Part Three of the Will of Our Supreme Creator, the Ultimate Architect of All, do summon thee to fulfill thy duty as Trustee of the said Will!’
Drowned Wednesday slowed, and shrank faster, though she still came forward. When she was thirty feet away, she was the size of a misshapen dolphin. It leapt into the air — and when it came down, it was a woman who stood upon the sea as if it were land.
She was not the misshapen, lumpy thing Arthur had seen before. She was beautiful, impeccably dressed in a gown of shimmering mother-of-pearl, the trident of the Third Key glowing in her hand. Only the uncontrollable trembling of that hand and the blue blood flowing down from her bitten lip indicated the difficulty she had keeping such a presentable shape.
‘I, Wednesday, Trustee of the Ultimate Architect of All, do acknowledge the Third Part of the Will, and ask into whose hands shall I place that which was entrusted to me?’
Arthur knew what came next. Without prompting from the Carp, and held up by Leaf and Suzy, he spoke quickly but clearly.
‘I, Arthur, anointed Heir to the Kingdom, claim this Key and with it Mastery of the Border Sea. I claim it by blood and bone and contest, out of truth, in testament, and against all trouble.’
The trident flew from Wednesday’s hand to Arthur’s. As his fingers closed around it, he felt himself rise out of the sea, Suzy and Leaf letting go.
At the same time, Drowned Wednesday cried out in pain, and doubled over, sinking into the water. She clutched her stomach and rolled, her arms and legs ballooning.
‘Be as you were,’ commanded Arthur, pointing the Third Key at her. ‘When you were never hungry, when the Architect was still here.’
The puffiness retreated, but Wednesday remained hunched over, still sinking.
‘Float!’ commanded Arthur. He felt the trident hum in his grasp, and the sea around Wednesday momentarily shone a deep, rich blue. Wednesday bobbed to the surface, clawing at her stomach.
‘Too late, Lord Arthur,’ croaked the Denizen. ‘I am poisoned within. Nothing eats at my flesh and bone, and soon I shall be no more. But I thank you, for I did not wish to end as I was, a vast thing, near mindless in hunger. Rule my Border Sea well, Lord Arthur!’
Something small and jewel-like sparkled in her mouth as she spoke. It trembled on her lip long enough for Arthur to see what it was, and in the instant that it fell, he directed the power of the Third Key upon it.
‘Balaena,’ he said, naming it so his directions would not go astray. ‘Float over there, and stay small until you do.’
He waved the trident, and the tiny metal cigar-shape that was the Balaena floated through the air and over to a clear patch of sea. Arthur dipped his trident and it slowly fell. As it hit the sea, there was a huge eruption of water, from which the full-sized submersible emerged, looking battered but intact.
Arthur looked back at Drowned Wednesday, but all that was left was a horrid, oily slick of Nothing that was moving against the wind towards Leaf and Suzy.
Arthur pointed the trident at it, relishing the feel of power flowing through it and into him.
‘Return to the Void!’ he ordered. The sea flashed gold in answer, and all that had been Drowned Wednesday vanished.
Thirty–one
ARTHUR HARDLY MOVED for at least a minute after he’d banished the Nothing. He felt stunned. It had happened so quickly, and now one of the seven Trustees of the Architect was not only defeated, but dead.
And the Third Key to the Kingdom was in Arthur’s hand.
‘How about helping us all walk on water?’ asked Suzy finally, when Arthur continued to just stand there staring at the trident in his hand.
‘Sorry,’ he mumbled. He waved the trident and visualised Suzy and Leaf rising out of the waves. This happened, but they shot up about twenty feet, then splashed down again up to their waists, before getting a proper footing.
‘What happens now?’ asked Leaf.
‘We must commandeer that ship and get swiftly to Port Wednesday,’ said the Carp, who had suddenly grown up to a similar size it had been when they first met. ‘There will be a tremendous amount of work to see to. Ha-ha. Pardon me. There will be a great deal of work. A new Noon and Dusk will need to be appointed. I shall have to meet with Dame Primus, with a view to . . . ahem . . . consolidating my paragraphs into the greater whole. I believe the Border Sea has spread where it should not, so the bounds will need to be re-established. Judging from Feverfew’s loot, considerable unauthorised and dangerous trading has been going on between the House and the Secondary Realms and this must be regulated . . .’
The Carp continued, but Arthur wasn’t listening. There was a whole lot of stuff popping to the surface just near the bow of the Balaena. Salvage, floating up from the depths. One item had caught his attention. Something small and round, in a particular shade of yellow. He walked over to it, ignoring the Carp’s indignant call.
The object was a fluffy yellow elephant. A sleeping elephant, curled into a ball. Its head and trunk were bare, the yellow fluff worn down to the cloth underneath.
Arthur picked it up. It was his elephant. The one toy his birth parents had been able to give him before they died. He’d had it for years and years, but had lost it on his fifth birthday when he took it to a picnic that had been suddenly abandoned due to rain. Bob and Emily had hunted for it the next day, and his older brothers and sisters had as well, several times, but Elephant had never been found.
Arthur slowly put Elephant in his pocket and turned back to where the others were waiting. As he did so, the hatch in the conning tower of the Balaena sprang open behind him. A Rat, his head swathed in bloodied bandages, climbed out, then reached back in and helped Doctor Scamandros emerge.
‘Lord Arthur! You did it! You defeated Drowned Wednesday!’ the Doctor called.
‘She helped me,’ said Arthur. ‘I’m glad you’re okay. What happened?’
‘Uh, the full story may have to wait,’ said Scamandros hurriedly. He climbed down onto the hull as more Rats came out of the conning tower and deployed an inflatable raft. ‘I fear this vessel is held together merely by my own poor sorcery, and that is rather coming adrift as well. In fact, if you wouldn’t mind, Lord Arthur?’
Arthur pointed the Key at the submersible.
‘Don’t sink!’
His hand trembled as he gave that directive, and Arthur was surprised to find that it took an effort to hold the trident up. It began to
shake in his hand and grow unpleasantly warm.
‘Nothing contamination,’ gasped Scamandros as he was helped into the raft. ‘As soon as everyone’s out you’d best let it go.’
Arthur nodded. He had to grab the Key with his other hand — it took all his strength to hold it level. It felt like the Key was some kind of lever, propping up a very heavy weight.
There was no movement at the conning tower. The Key began to slip down, then when Arthur thought he couldn’t hold it up any longer, Longtayle popped out. The Rat jumped from the conning tower straight into the sea, as the raft pushed off. As it did so, Scamandros fell back in a faint. Large parts of the Balaena crumpled or fell off as he did.
‘Go,’ said Arthur. ‘Return to the Void.’
The submersible collapsed in on itself, becoming a small, dark star for just a second. Then it too was gone.
Arthur put his left hand in his pocket and felt the soft synthetic fur of Elephant, weighing it up against the heft of the Key in his right hand. He could feel the power of the Key still, flowing gently through his arm. Changing him, making him into a Denizen. Making it impossible for him to be human.
If he kept using it.
‘Ho, Arthur!’
The hail was not from the Carp. It was as loud or louder, but far deeper in tone. Arthur jumped and looked around.
The three-masted brigantine was heaving-to only a hundred yards away, and its Captain was calling from the quarterdeck, without the aid of a speaking trumpet. He was tall and craggy, and cradled a harpoon that glittered and shone with unearthly light.
‘I came as fast as the winds could carry me across a dozen worlds,’ shouted the Mariner. ‘Yet it seems you do not need my help at all, for now you walk where others must swim or stand upon a wooden deck!’
Arthur shook his head. All that fearful time pleading for help, hoping the Mariner’s disc would do something, and now he came!