After a few minutes watching the crew, the boy climbed down from the quarterdeck and made his way through the working crowd of Denizens, equipment, and cargo that was being rigged or moved above or through the hatches in the waist of the ship. Eventually he found his way to the forecastle at the front of the vessel. There were several broad rope ladders over each side. Arthur waited for a space in the line of Denizens climbing down with their loads, then carefully lowered himself over the side and climbed down.
It was quite difficult with his leg immobilised by the cast, but he made it. There was still water around the ship, so he splashed into it, and was relieved to find it was very shallow. The blue sand seemed much the same as sand back home. Difficult to walk in, even without a leg in a cast. Arthur found himself imitating one of the Denizens with a wooden leg, not so much walking as stumping his way up the beach.
One of the things the Denizens had brought ashore already was the chest from Feverfew’s trove. Arthur walked over to it. It looked ordinary enough, just a big wooden box with bronze reinforcement at each corner and bands of bronze across the lid. He wondered what was inside. What would Feverfew the Pirate value so much?
Arthur sat down and leaned back against the chest. He felt very tired, but he didn’t want to go to sleep. He had to work out what to do next. Not that there seemed to be many choices. He felt that he should do something to make sure Leaf was okay, but he couldn’t think of anything. And he should try to contact Dame Primus or Suzy. And he should try and get home as soon as possible, but Leaf was right, he ought to sort out Lady Wednesday first and that meant finding the Third Part of the Will, claiming the Third Key . . .
Arthur’s thoughts trailed off into a confused mishmash of different problems and unlikely solutions. His body was too tired, and it had finally got its message through to his brain.
The boy slid farther into the sand and his head slumped down. As the Denizens toiled to lighten the ship by removing cargo and prop her up with spare yards and topmasts, Arthur slept.
He awoke at sundown. At first, he was totally disoriented. Not only was he lying on a blue beach, but there was an enormous vermilion sun sinking into the sea on the horizon. Its weird light mixed with the violet hues of the sea and the blue of the sand sent alarming messages to his brain.
The reason he’d woken was instantly obvious. Doctor Scamandros was sitting next to him, peering at his leg through what looked like a very short telescope. He also had a small bellows with him, a leather-lunged apparatus that looked to Arthur like the original ancestor of an airbed pump.
‘What are you doing?’ Arthur asked suspiciously. He sat up and glared at Scamandros. The doctor looked quite different, though it took Arthur a second to work out why. His animated tattoos were gone, and he was wearing a woolly cap with a long tassel that hung down next to his neck.
‘Your leg has been recently broken,’ said Doctor Scamandros. ‘And set.’
‘I know,’ Arthur replied. His leg was hurting again. He wondered if Scamandros had been prodding it. ‘That’s why it’s in a cast. Or was . . .’
He added the last bit because the ultra-high-tech cast had almost completely fallen apart. There were only thin strips of it remaining, and Arthur could see his pale and puffy skin in the gaps between.
‘Usually, I could fix that leg for you,’ said Doctor Scamandros. ‘But my examination reveals a very high and unusual level of magical contamination that would resist any direct action to repair the bone. I could, however, equip you with a better brace and exert some small magic that would lessen the pain.’
‘That would be good,’ said Arthur hesitantly. ‘But what do you want in return?’
‘Merely your goodwill,’ said Scamandros with a halfhearted chuckle. He tapped the bellows at his side and added, ‘Though I understand from Ichabod that you might have a cold? If so, I should like to harvest any sneeze, nose-tickle, or phlegmatic effusion that you feel coming on.’
Arthur wrinkled his nose experimentally.
‘No, I haven’t got a cold. I just thought I might.’
Scamandros was looking through his short telescope again, this time at Arthur’s chest.
‘There is also a disturbance in the interior arrangement of your lungs,’ he said. ‘Most interesting. Again, there is magical contamination of a high order, but I think I could probably lessen the underlying condition. Would you like me to proceed?’
‘Uh, I’m not sure,’ said Arthur. He took a breath. He couldn’t completely fill his lungs, but it wasn’t too bad. ‘I think I’ll wait. It’ll be all right when I get back in the House.’
‘Just the leg brace, then,’ said Doctor Scamandros. ‘And amelioration of the pain.’
He slid his stubby telescope into one pocket of his greatcoat and, reaching inside, took out a flat tin labelled with the picture of a bright red crab. It had a key stuck to it, which Scamandros now broke off, connected to a tab, and used to wind back the metal lid. There was a whole small crab inside, but the Denizen only broke off one of its legs. He put the leg on the sand and passed his open palm across the tin, which disappeared.
Arthur watched with both curiosity and anxiety as Scamandros picked up the tiny crab leg and held it high in his left hand. A thick carpenter’s pencil appeared in his right hand, and he used this to lightly sketch several lines and asterisks on Arthur’s leg. Then he clapped his hands, still holding both pencil and crab leg.
The two objects disappeared and at the same time, the remnants of Arthur’s modern cast were instantly replaced by an armoured section of red-and-white-speckled crab exoskeleton, jointed at the knee and ankle.
‘As for the pain,’ Scamandros said, scribbling on a piece of paper with a pen that trailed glowing crimson ink, ‘take this prescription.’
Arthur took the page of heavy, deckle-edged paper. It was very hard to read, but he made it out eventually:
Apply pain-lessening paper to painful area once
Dr. J. R. L. Scamandros, D.H.S.
(Upper House, Failed)
‘What does D.H.S. stand for? And . . . excuse me . . . why do you put ‘failed’ on it?’ Arthur asked as he touched the paper to his leg, directly above the break, where it hurt most. The paper crumbled as he spoke, paper-dust forming a miniature tornado that appeared to go straight through his new cast and into his leg. A moment later, the dull pain there started to ebb.
‘It stands for Doctor of House Sorcery,’ said Scamandros. ‘A very high degree, which I so very nearly possess. Honesty necessitates me to reveal my failure, but it was only in my final year. Seven hundred and ninety-eight years of successful examinations, only to fall at the end. Politics, you understand! But I do not wish to speak of that.
‘Let us talk of you instead, Arth. You hold a magical book of great potency in your pocket, too potent for me to even touch without your leave. Your very flesh and bones reek of past magics. You are found on a buoy of the infamous pirate Feverfew, in the Border Sea of the House. Yet you are a mortal, or mostly so. Tell me, on what world in the Secondary Realms do you make your home?’
Arthur almost answered ‘Earth,’ but restrained himself just in time. Scamandros had certainly helped him, but there was something about the look in his piercing brown eyes that made Arthur think the fewer secrets he knew the better.
‘Passenger Arth! The Captain’s compliments, and you are to join him for a beachside supper!’
Ichabod’s call was very welcome. Arthur struggled to his feet, pleasantly surprised to find that his leg was well supported by the crab armour. Scamandros helped him find his balance.
‘We shall speak more, and soon, Arth,’ the Doctor said. Arthur noticed that his tattoos were starting to crawl across his face again, emerging from the skin like a blush. The Denizen leaned in close as Arthur started to step away, and added, ‘Or should I say Arthur, Master of the Lower House and Lord of the Far Reaches?’
ARTHUR FELT AS I F Doctor Scamandros was watching his back the whole time it took to stomp across the beach to an open-sided tent, where he could see Captain Catapillow, Concort, and Sunscorch sitting at a long, white cloth-covered table. Lanterns hung at the tent’s corners, their soft yellow glow in stark contrast to the strange scarlet twilight.
As he walked across the beach, Arthur was thinking furiously. Was Scamandros threatening to reveal his real identity? It hadn’t sounded like a threat, but he couldn’t be sure. What did the sorcerer want? Who did he serve? He was trained in the Upper House . . . or so he said. He could easily be a servant of one of the Morrow Days, who would do anything to stop Arthur from liberating any more of the Will.
‘Mind the barrels,’ said Ichabod, leading Arthur between two pyramids of different-sized barrels. There was a huge amount of stuff on the beach, all of it very carefully stacked and ordered. Barrels and boxes and crates and bags. And there in the tent, in front of the table, was Feverfew’s chest. Arthur wondered how they’d taken it away without waking him up. Perhaps he’d already slid forward into the sand by that point.
‘Bring the passenger forward, Ichabod,’ ordered Captain Catapillow. He had a writing book open in front of him, and a pen and inkwell, as did Concort. Sunscorch had a huge, thick, leather-bound tome the size of several bricks.
It looked more like a court bench than a dinner table. And ‘passenger’ had sounded awfully like ‘prisoner’.
‘Stand in front of the Captain and bow,’ whispered Ichabod, nudging Arthur forward. The boy complied, inclining his head not just to the Captain, but also to Concort and Sunscorch. Catapillow and Concort gave the slightest nods back, and Sunscorch winked, which Arthur found encouraging.
‘Now, due to, ah, the irregular nature of the last day, we have not been able to, er, keep up-to-date the log of our good ship
Moth
,’ said Catapillow, leaning forward to fix Arthur with his unsteady stare. ‘Wishing to be, ah, beforehand with such records and intending to inscribe you as a passenger has reminded me that we do not, ah, know who you are, where you are going, or what fare you should be charged. There is also the matter of this treasure.’
He leaned back when he’d finished talking and folded his hands together.
‘You want to know who I am?’ asked Arthur. He wasn’t sure whether Catapillow’s speech actually needed to be answered.
‘Indeed,’ said Concort. ‘That is of the essence. Who are you? Where are you from? Where are you going? How did you come to be on Feverfew’s buoy? Why did you remove the telltale red pitch from the marker so that we didn’t know whose treasure it was below? Do you claim the treasure yourself?’
‘Well . . .’ said Arthur slowly, stalling as he tried to think of some answers that wouldn’t get him into trouble. Clearly, Scamandros already knew or strongly guessed who he was. Would it be any worse if the others knew as well? He needed help — to find Leaf, for a start.
It would be a big gamble. Sunscorch would support him, he thought, because he had the Mariner’s disc. Ichabod seemed to like him. Catapillow and Concort were kind of stupid, even if they were technically in charge, so perhaps they didn’t matter too much. Doctor Scamandros . . . Arthur really wasn’t sure about that Denizen, but after he’d recovered from having his fingers burned by the Atlas he’d been nice enough. The crab armour on Arthur’s leg worked really well . . .
‘Speak up!’ ordered Concort. His voice suddenly squeaked, which removed all authority from it.
‘My real name is Arthur Penhaligon,’ Arthur said slowly. ‘I am a mortal from Earth. But I am also Master of the Lower House and of the Far Reaches, though I have given up my Keys in trust to Dame Primus, who was once Parts One and Two of the Will of the Architect.’
Catapillow’s mouth curled up at one end as Arthur spoke. Then he broke out in uproarious laughter, followed a second later by Concort. Sunscorch neither smiled nor laughed, but looked down at the huge book in front of him.
‘Very good, very good,’ Catapillow chortled. ‘Master of the Lower House and the Far Reaches! Arthur Penhaligon! Most amusing!’
‘But I am Arthur Penhaligon!’
‘Yes, yes, you’ve had your joke,’ said Catapillow. ‘Now you must answer our questions.’
‘Most specifically, do you intend to claim this treasure?’ added Concort.
‘No, I really
am
Arthur Penhaligon! Why don’t you believe me?’
‘Don’t be silly,’ replied Catapillow. ‘Everyone knows Lord Arthur is a mighty fighter! Why, he defeated Mister Monday in personal combat and wrestled Grim Tuesday to the ground and broke both his hands. Besides, I’ve seen a picture of Lord Arthur. Huge, broad-shouldered chap, carries a bag full of magical apparatus he invented himself.’
‘Not to mention he always travels with his giant half-bear, half-frog assistant,’ said Concort. ‘And an assassin girl who used to be the Piper’s bodyguard.’
‘What?’ asked Arthur. ‘You mean the Will and Suzy Blue?’
‘It’s all here, you know,’ said Concort, pulling out a tiny book from his sleeve. It expanded into a large hardcover, bound in red, with the title embossed in enormous gilt letters on both the spine and front cover,
The Epic Adventures of Lord Arthur, Hero of the House
.
‘Look, the frontispiece is a portrait of Lord Arthur.’
Concort held the book open to show a colour plate that had been stuck in next to the title page. It showed a very tall, handsome man who looked and dressed rather like Monday’s Noon. He was posing next to an open carpetbag that was glowing with rainbow-coloured light. A bizarre, hunched-over monster that had the legs of a frog and the upper body and front paws of a bear crouched next to him, and in the background an Amazon woman in silver armour was cutting the head off a misshapen semi-human creature that was clearly supposed to be a Nithling.
‘So, who are you?’ asked Concort again, snapping the book shut. ‘And let’s be clear this time, what about the treasure?’
‘What about the treasure?’ asked Arthur as he tried to gather his thoughts. It hadn’t even occurred to him that they might doubt his identity. But it was clear that both Concort and Catapillow’s main concern was the treasure. ‘I don’t even know what the treasure is. Do I have a claim to it?’