T
he snakes were unpleasantly warm, almost hot against Arthur’s bare legs and feet. He flinched as he lowered himself completely into the writhing mass, and they started to coil around his calves. Their scales, or whatever their skin was, was also raspy, like sandpaper, making the experience even worse.
Arthur tried not to think about it and began to wade across the trench to the sunken door. Bibliophages wound around his waist and were all around his legs and under his coat. Some of them started to hang off his arms as well, and one slithered up and around his neck. But even when they were wound quite tightly, they didn’t constrict, and so far they hadn’t bitten. Arthur supposed the Key would do something if they did. Or try to.
By the time he was halfway across, Arthur was simply covered in snakes. They were everywhere, even around his head, hanging down his face, and there had to be dozens of them around his legs. There were so many it was hard to walk, and Arthur stumbled a couple of times, allowing even more snakes the opportunity to climb on board.
“Avert! Foul snakelings!” cried out Suzy behind him. Arthur didn’t reply, as he was afraid a bibliophage would get in his mouth. He didn’t turn to look either. He would overbalance for sure, and he didn’t think he would be able to get up if he fell. Even though the bibliophages weren’t biting, the sheer weight of them would keep him down. He concentrated on pushing his way through.
At last he came to the door. A simple wooden door in the side of the trench, half-buried in bibliophages. It had a silver handle. Arthur tried to turn it, but it was locked. Shaking his arm to remove some bibliophages, he touched the handle with the Key and said, “Open!”
The door shivered. The handle turned of its own accord, and then the door slowly groaned inwards, letting out a blast of heat and the very unpleasant smell of rotten eggs. The bibliophages that had been piled against the door didn’t fall inside as Arthur expected. They stayed suspended, as if there was some invisible barrier as well as the door that kept them out.
If there was, it didn’t stop Arthur. Holding his nose against the smell, he stepped inside. As he did so, all the bibliophages fell off him like leaves from a tree suddenly struck by a high wind.
The inside of Monday’s lounge was not the interior of a Roman villa. It bore no resemblance to the building outside.
Arthur stood on a platform of old black-brown cast iron, an island in a sea of steam. Through the open diamond weave of the floor, he could see boiling mud about fifteen yards below. Dark yellow mud that bubbled and popped like burning porridge, sending up wafts of stinking steam.
An extremely narrow one-person bridge led out from the platform into the steamy interior. It was iron too and had the monogram
MM
cast into the diamond weave every few yards. Arthur couldn’t see where it led. There was too much steam, and the bridge was simply smothered in billowing clouds.
“The stink of the match factory,” said Suzy slowly. “I remember it. Father said it was the stench of the—”
“Sulfur dioxide,” said Arthur quickly. “From the hot mud. Like in Yellowstone National Park. There’ll probably be geysers too.”
The words were barely out of Arthur’s mouth when a geyser fountained up nearby, spattering droplets of hot mud everywhere. Suzy folded her wings over her head to protect herself, and Arthur found the Key took the heat out of the mud that hit him.
“Come on,” said Arthur. He started along the iron walkway. But Suzy didn’t follow. Arthur didn’t notice at first, but after twenty yards or so, he turned back. Suzy was staring up into the clouds of steam.
“There’s something up there,” she said quietly, drawing her knife.
Arthur looked up just as a shadowy figure dipped out of the steaming clouds. Not Mister Monday, but someone shorter. Dressed in pink, with yellow wings that shed feathers as he hovered above them.
“Pravuil!”
Arthur’s shout of recognition was answered by a crossbow bolt that whistled straight at him. Without conscious effort from its wielder, the Key struck the bolt out of the air, cutting it in two, the separate halves passing to either side of Arthur.
“Nothing personal, sir!” called out Pravuil, hidden in the steam above. “Simply a commercial priority. Now I must sound the alarm. Fare—arrgh!”
The clouds had parted for a moment, and Suzy had thrown her knife. It hit Pravuil in the left foot and stuck there, quivering. The Denizen dropped his small crossbow and hunched over to try to pull out the knife, his wings laboring.
Before Pravuil could do anything else, Suzy launched herself up at him.
“Go on, Arthur!” she yelled as she flew. Like a small bird attacking a larger one, she spun in circles around Pravuil’s head, kicking and scratching. He hit back, forgetting the knife. They flew higher as they fought, disappearing into the clouds completely.
Arthur craned his head and stood on tiptoe, looking up, the Key held ready. But all he could see were clouds of steam and a single pearly-white feather that came spiraling down. Arthur caught it and saw it was stained with blood. Red blood, not the blue blood of a Denizen.
Arthur stared at the feather. Then he opened his hand and let it fall. Suzy was gone. But her sacrifice would not be in vain. Even if she lost the aerial battle…or had lost it already…she had gained Arthur precious time. He would not waste it.
He held back his fear and ran along the bridge, into the swirling steam, the geysers, and the raining mud. He ran faster than he ever had, his footsteps ringing on the iron, until he pointed down with the Key and said, “Silence!”
The bridge went for a very long way, much farther than he expected. There were platforms every hundred yards or so, but apart from that, Arthur saw nothing but steam, boiling mud, and the occasional geyser that was close enough. He heard a lot more geysers than he saw, and boiling mud fell so often it was like rain, coating Arthur completely. The Key stopped it from doing him any harm., but every now and then he had to slow down to wipe it off his face.
As he ran, Arthur repeated the Will’s instructions over and over in his head. Beneath that there was an undercurrent in his head that thought the Will’s plan was all very well, but it was unlikely to work. He had to be prepared for anything.
Finally, the bridge changed. It widened a little and inclined down. Arthur slowed, peering ahead into the steam, the Key clutched hard in his hand, ready for action.
There was another platform ahead. A low, broad platform that must be only a foot or two above the mud. Someone was standing there next to a table. Arthur crouched down and crept closer, his heart hammering in his chest. Was this Mister Monday, awake and waiting for him?
The figure turned and Arthur’s heart seemed to stop in his chest. He took a breath and opened his mouth to start the incantation. But he didn’t speak it, because the steam eddied apart and he saw who it was.
Sneezer. Mister Monday’s butler. He looked exactly the same as he had back in Arthur’s world, with one very noticeable change. His left wrist was chained to a table leg, which Arthur saw was also cast iron. It was an extremely long chain, coiled up under the table. On top of the table was a silver tray, a methylated spirit burner, two bottles of cognac or whisky or something similar, a saucepan, and a large decanter of colorless fluid, probably water.
Sneezer was mumbling to himself and fiddling with his fingerless gloves. As Arthur watched, he turned around, and the boy saw that his coat and shirt were cut into strips on the back. There were ugly red weals on the jaundiced-looking skin beneath. Given that all House Denizens healed quickly, Arthur knew that no ordinary whip could have inflicted those wounds.
Arthur thought about that. He had to get past Sneezer without the butler giving the alarm. Mister Monday probably wasn’t far away. There were steps down from the platform to yet another lower bridge, at the level of the mud. Monday could well be only yards away, concealed by the steam.
Arthur kept watching. Sneezer rearranged his gloves, then aimlessly shifted the bottles and the decanter. After a minute of this, Arthur crept closer, while Sneezer’s back was turned. When he was only a few feet away, he could make out Sneezer’s mumblings.
“Not my fault. I was only visiting for a card game. How was I to know that the Will would crawl up my nose? I never thought to look in a handkerchief. Who would? Used that handkerchief since Time began, never had anything in it before I sneezed. Not my fault. Always strived to give the best service. Never had the training. Not ray fault. I mean, a handkerchief? Not my fault, ulp—”
Sneezer stopped in midsentence as Arthur pressed the sharp point of the Key against his throat and whispered, “Freeze!”
Arthur was quite unprepared for what happened next. Sneezer
did
freeze, but it was a
literal
freeze. Ice flowed from the Key in a softly crackling rush, moving swiftly down Sneezer’s body and arms and up over his head. In a few seconds, the butler was completely encased in shiny blue ice. Frozen solid.
Arthur slowly pulled the Key back. While he hadn’t expected it, this was a good result. But would the ice last in this incredible heat? Just to be sure, he touched Sneezer with the Key again and said, “Double freeze!”
More ice gushed from the Key, flowing steadily till it wasn’t so much Sneezer that stood in front of Arthur, but a man-sized icicle, the ice so thick that the butler was just a dim shape at its core.
Arthur inspected the icicle. There were a few drops of water sliding off it already, but it should hold for a few hours. Hopefully Arthur would only need a fraction of that time to do what he had to.
Arthur left the platform and trod as quietly as he could down the steps to the low bridge. It was barely above the mud and, in fact, in places the steaming mud flowed across it. Protected by the Key, Arthur had no trouble walking through it.
The steam was even thicker this close to the surface. Arthur slowed down even more and waved the Key in front of him to send the steam swirling apart so he could see. Mister Monday had to be somewhere close, surely?
He was. Steam parted, and Arthur saw that the bridge stopped. Ahead there was a pool of bubbling mud that had several iron posts sticking out of it. Hung between the posts was a hammock of silver rope, and in the hammock was Mister Monday.
Arthur stopped, his mouth dry despite the steam. Monday looked asleep. He was wrapped in a thick white bathrobe and had something on his eyes. For a moment Arthur thought they were slices of cucumber like his mother used sometimes, then he saw they were coins. Gold coins.
Arthur edged closer, right up to the end of the bridge. The top rungs of an iron ladder went down from there into the mud. Arthur looked at the ladder, then at Monday again. What was that glint in his pocket on the right-hand side? Was it the Hour Hand, the Greater Key?
Monday moved slightly. Arthur flinched, then calmed himself. It was only a small movement, and Monday’s chest continued to rise and fall with the steady motion of a sleeper.
Recite the incantation. The Hour Hand will fly to you.
The words of the Will echoed in Arthur’s head.
Recite the incantation.
Arthur raised his own Key and pointed it at Monday. Then he swallowed twice and in a soft voice, little more than a whisper, spoke.
“Minute by minute, hour by hour, two hands as one, together the power!”
T
he gold coins screamed into the air as Monday’s eyes flashed open. He made a grab for his pocket, but it was too late. The Hour Hand rocketed away, flying across the mud towards Arthur, a gold-and-silver streak almost too fast to see.
Somehow, Arthur caught it. One moment it was a flash in the air, then it was in his left hand, the Minute Key in the right. He held both Keys, the attraction between them making his arms shiver with the effort of holding them apart. Now all he had to do was prick his thumbs—
But before he could move, a great gust of wind knocked him back and sent him sprawling across the bridge, almost into the mud. As Arthur scrambled to get up he saw Mister Monday hovering above him., his too-handsome face distorted in rage. Huge golden wings stained with rust spread from his shoulders, and he used them to buffet Arthur with another gust of wind, sending the boy rolling along the bridge.
“Foolish mortal! Come to me, my Key!”
Arthur felt the Hour Hand leap in his grip as it tried to return to Mister Monday. He clenched his fist, but his fingers slowly opened and the Hour Hand began to slip free. To stop it, Arthur pressed the Minute Hand against it and pushed both Keys against his chest. At the same time he struggled to his feet and began to run back along the bridge.
“Come to me, my Key!” shouted Monday again, and he flew up above Arthur, into the steam. The Hour Hand wriggled against Arthur’s chest. It almost got free, but at the last second Arthur pushed the point of the Minute Hand through the circle of the Hour Hand and held them together, shouting himself.
“Hold fast!”
He kept running as he shouted. If he could just get outside, then the Will could help him, hold Mister Monday off somehow so Arthur could prick his thumbs. But the Hour Key kept trying to break free, and then Arthur found himself losing traction on the bridge. The Hour Hand was rising up to where Mister Monday flew above—and was lifting up Arthur with it!
“Key, make me heavy!” shouted Arthur as he lifted off and only his toes were touching the ground. He could hear Monday shouting something too, but didn’t know what. Then he was crashing down again, crashing so hard that his feet dented the iron bridge. He felt the jar through his bones and knew that ordinarily they would have broken.
Making himself heavy worked for a few minutes. Arthur sprinted like he had never sprinted before, holding both Keys tight. The Hour Hand kept pulling up, but Arthur could hold it down.
At least till it tugged suddenly to the left. Surprised, and going full tilt, Arthur hit the railing of the bridge and went straight over. As he fell, he took a death grip on the two Keys and shouted, “Key, make me fly!”
The last word came out as he hit the mud. Arthur was so heavy that his impact was like a car going into a river. Mud exploded everywhere around them and Arthur went straight down. Mud covered his eyes and filled his nose and mouth. But he didn’t breathe it in and he didn’t seem to need to breathe. He kept sinking for a few seconds, but even as he sank, he felt a strange itching in his back. Then the muscles on his chest rippled and his shoulder blades got pins and needles. It reminded Arthur of something and in that same instant he knew what it was. The paper wings Noon had made for him.
His wings expanded in the mud and beat with incredible strength. Arthur burst out of the mud like a rocket, catapulting past the hovering Monday. Arthur’s wings were pure, pearly white. They shed the mud instantly as he flew straight up—up and up and up into the writhing steam.
A bellow of rage followed Arthur’s climb and Monday followed, his golden wings thrusting him up like an avenging missile.
Arthur didn’t wait. At the apex of his climb he dived forward, folding his wings for greater speed. Though he couldn’t see, somehow he knew exactly where the door was. He dived straight at it, the steam parting before him as he swooped down.
Monday met him halfway, a sword of black fire in his hand, thin as a rapier and much quicker. Arthur jinked sideways as Monday lunged. The black sword pricked him in the leg as they both tumbled down, Arthur twisting to get away, Monday trying to stab him.
They hit the platform together, both shouting, the iron screaming as it buckled. Blood fountained from the wound in Arthur’s leg, but congealed a second later as the Key healed him.
Arthur was the first to recover. He flung himself at the door, which was shut again. But before he could open it, Monday was upon him. The black sword stabbed down—
To be met by the Minute Key moving of its own accord in Arthur’s hand. The two blades met and drops of molten gold flew in all directions, many of them sizzling on Monday’s robe. Monday hissed and stabbed again, with the same result.
“Give me the Keys!” screamed Monday. He stabbed once more, couldn’t get through, and threw his sword away in disgust. Then he stepped back, raised his arms, and shouted something up into the air. Immediately his wings disappeared and Monday began to take on a dull red glow, like metal heating in a forge. Then he started to melt, his head flowing down into his neck and then into his shoulders.
He was turning into something else.
Arthur frantically tried to prick his right thumb with the Hour Hand, but every time he moved the Hour Key even a little, it kicked and bucked. It took all Arthur’s strength to drag it back and hold it against his chest.
Panicking, Arthur looked at Monday. He was stretching and thinning as he melted, but horribly his face stayed the same. He snarled at Arthur, his forked tongue flickering.
“Key, know your Master!”
The Hour Hand shook in Arthur’s grasp, cutting into his hand. Unlike the boiling mud or the black sword, this actually hurt. Arthur gasped and pressed the Hour Hand even tighter to his chest. It shook again and sliced into him just above his heart.
“Do you think a minute can withstand the hour?” sneered Mister Monday. “Strike, my Key! Strike!”
The Hour Hand leaped in Arthur’s grasp and the point drove into him, sliding between his ribs. It only got in half an inch before Arthur managed to twist it aside, but the pain almost made him black out.
Desperately, Arthur flung out his right hand and touched the door with the Minute Hand, screaming, “Open!”
The door flung open. Arthur pulled the Minute Hand back and used it to try to lever the Hour Hand off his chest. But the Greater Key took advantage of the momentary absence of its lesser half, its point sliding up along his ribs, heading inexorably towards Arthur’s heart. He tried to interpose his thumb, but the angle was all wrong, and he couldn’t let go of the Minute Hand or he would lose his leverage and be impaled.
Monday laughed. Arthur groaned and turned his head. Monday’s transformation was complete. He had turned into a huge snake, colored gold and red. The flat head of the snake had Monday’s face upon it, though it had another mouth underneath where a snake’s usually would be.
Monday laughed again. Then he slithered forward, pushed his head under Arthur’s legs, ignoring his violent kicking, and started to wind up and around the boy’s body.
“Help!” screamed Arthur. But there was no one to answer him.
Monday slithered under him again. Two coils were around Arthur’s legs. Arthur couldn’t strike at the snake, because he couldn’t move either Key. He was going to die. He was trapped. He’d be crushed, or impaled by the Hour Key. The Minute Key might keep him alive for a while, but it was less powerful than the Hour Hand.
It was all over. He had failed. He would die, and everyone else would too, from the plague, or suffer terribly—
Something hit the platform hard, making it ring like a bell. Yellow and white feathers flew everywhere, and out of the feather-storm came Suzy. Bloody, but triumphant, with Pravuil cowering and whimpering behind her.
“Hang on, Arthur!”
Suzy pulled her knife from Pravuil’s foot and plunged it towards Mister Monday’s scaly coils.
The Hour Hand twitched in Arthur’s grasp, momentarily turning away from him. At the same time, long crackling sparks of electricity arced out of the snake and hit the descending knife, blasting Suzy back against the railing. She dropped her blade, screaming. Pravuil stopped whimpering and attacked her once again.
Monday coiled around Arthur’s waist and squeezed, accompanied by a malignant chuckle.
Arthur shut his eyes. Nothing could hurt Monday. This was the end.
Nothing could hurt Monday?
Arthur’s eyes flashed open again. He bucked and wriggled, edging himself forward like a worm towards the doorway.
“Suzy! Ink! Have you got any ink?”
He was answered by a scream as Suzy tripped Pravuil and sent him over the railing into the mud. For an instant it looked like Suzy would go over too, but she regained her balance and in the same movement, drew out a bottle of ink from an inside pocket of her coat.
“Great!” Arthur yelled. “Now drag me across the door!”
“Fool!” hissed Monday. “Die here or there, it makes no matter!”
Suzy ran forward and grabbed Arthur under the shoulders. Monday lunged at her, but couldn’t reach without uncoiling from Arthur. He hissed in frustration and pushed his head under the boy, sliding quickly around to add another coil. Suzy used that moment to drag Arthur across the doorway, where they were instantly set upon by a writhing horde of bibliophages.
“Write something on Monday!” screamed Arthur. He could feel the Hour Hand biting into him again, vibrating its way into his flesh as Monday’s coils tightened.
Monday’s coils suddenly loosened as he heard Arthur’s shout. Desperately the huge snake tried to wriggle off, retreating back as the bibliophages coiled around him in turn.
Suzy poured ink across her finger and began to write on Monday’s tail. As she formed the first letter, all the bibliophages stopped moving, and everyone felt their sudden focus and concentration. Then, as Suzy completed a downstroke and the letter was complete, every single one of the thousands of bibliophages lunged forward, a tidal wave of snakes falling upon the Master of the Lower House.
“Key! Kill him!” shouted Monday before his voice dissolved into a wordless howl of pain.
The Hour Key struck viciously at Arthur, but he deflected it, so it drove into him below and to the left of his heart, straight into his lung. Arthur shrieked at the pain and staggered to his feet, the last coils of Monday releasing him as Nothing dissolved the snake’s nerves and muscles.
Suzy kept feverishly writing, though she couldn’t see what she was doing, there were so many bibliophages biting and attacking the greater snake. Monday was still trying to get back through the doorway and had in fact gotten most of himself through.
When there was nowhere left to write, Suzy jumped off and helped Arthur up. She stared aghast at the Hour Hand embedded in his chest, with the Minute Hand wedged under it so it could go in no farther.
“Has it come out the back?” whispered Arthur. The ditch was swimming around him and he knew only the power of the Minute Hand kept him from fainting. The Hour Hand was still shaking back and forth, cutting deeper into his body, despite all he could do.
“Yes, yes, it has!” sobbed Suzy.
Arthur sighed and barely managed to whisper, “Key…hold the Hour Hand for…a minute…a minute…”
He let go of the Hour Hand, reached behind his own back, and pricked his right thumb with the point of the Greater Key, though it was already slick with his own blood. Then he reached around again, held the Minute Key with his right hand, and pricked the thumb of his left hand with the Lesser Key. Then he smeared a drop of blood from his left thumb onto the Hour Key and from his right thumb onto the Minute Key.
Behind him, Monday managed to hurl himself back through the doorway, sending both Suzy and hundreds of bibliophages flying.
Arthur touched the bloodied circle ends of the Keys together and sobbed out, “I, Arthur, anointed Heir to the Kingdom…claim this Key and with it the Mastery of the Lower House…I claim it by blood and bone and contest…”
The Hour Key drove in again, at least an inch. Arthur screamed and the whole world darkened. But he only had a few words left to get out. Just a few words. He could do it. He had to do it.
“Out…out of truth, in testament, and…”