Lady Friday (The Keys to the Kingdom 5)

Arthur looked quickly around at the workers and the odd sight of the papered Denizens, but didn't waste any time in asking what they were doing. He had more impor­tant things to worry about.

"Who's in charge here?" he asked. He had to shout to be heard over all the noise of the hammering, the Denizens calling out to one another and the gurgle and hiss of mol­ten gold running along the gutter. "And is there any way to look outside to see what's happening?"

"You're really, truly not going to kill everyone?" asked Marek.

"No!" shouted Arthur. "Why do you keep asking? Do I look like some kind of crazy murderer?"

"No ...." Marek sounded as if he did still think that but didn't want to upset Arthur. "Forgive me. These are strange times ... and I saw what you did to those Nithlings."

"Speaking of Nithlings, a whole lot more will be attack­ing here soon," Arthur warned. "I need to talk to whoever is in charge."

Marek said something, but Arthur couldn't hear it. Frustrated, he retreated back to the antechamber, gestur­ing to Marek to follow him. With the door half-closed, in the relative quiet, Arthur repeated his question yet again.

"I don't know who's in charge," said Marek, cringing so low that his head was almost level with Arthur's. "None of the telephones work. We had a letter this morning say­ing Lady Friday has gone away and Friday's Dawn, our Guildmaster, went up the canal to find out what's happen­ing. After he left we got a letter from Superior Saturday saying she has taken over the Middle House and we are all to keep at work, that a new Guildmaster will soon come to oversee us."

"Who's next in precedence within the House after Friday's Dawn?" asked Arthur. He was getting anxious about an imminent attack by Fetchers. "And is there any way to get a view from the tower of what's happening outside?"

"Elibazeth Flat Gold is the Master Foiler," said Marek. "But she is far too busy with the foil to interrupt. I am third, after Elibazeth, and responsible for collecting letters. Kemen is second, but he is experiencing and won't be back for weeks. To look out from the tower, it is a matter of opening this inner door differently. However, if you are not going to kill us or destroy anything, why don't you just leave? We have work to do!"

Arthur blinked. Marek had switched from cowardly groveling to strangely aggressive in the space of a breath.

"I'm Lord Arthur, Rightful Heir to the Architect, Commander of the Army of the Architect, and a whole lot of other stuff, and I'm taking command here, not Superior Saturday or anyone else. Understand?"

Marek immediately went back to cowardly groveling, sinking down on one knee as he answered, "Yes, Lord."

"Go and interrupt Elizabeth-"

"Elibazeth, lord."

"Elibazeth, then. Go and tell her I want any Denizens who have served in the Army to gather near the door here, with whatever weapons you have or can improvise. And open this door the 'different way' so I can take a look out of the tower."

"Yes, lord."

Marek showed Arthur how to pull out the door handle, rotate it ninety degrees, and push it back in. This time what lay beyond the open door was not the antechamber and the outer door, but a dim, cold, and very damp stairway, none of these conditions much relieved by the thin bands of light that came in through the gaps in the slats of the shuttered windows above.

Arthur bounded up the stairs as Marek shut the door behind him. Reaching the first window, the boy unbolted the shutters and opened one a few inches, enough to look out without being too obvious.

Through the narrow gap he saw the snowy plain and not much else. Visibility was still very limited, with snow falling steadily and the clouds almost low enough to touch from the tower. Arthur had half-expected to see massed ranks of Fetchers or other Nithlings, so he was relieved by the absence of enemies, even if it was only for the time being.

Then it occurred to him that he was looking out only one side of the tower. The Fetchers could be forming up on one of the other two sides, the fourth side being the canal, and thus probably safe. Unless the Fetchers had wings, or boats. Which was entirely possible, Arthur thought. So he would have to check that side as well.

To look out other windows he had to go up and look out at the next three levels. Each landing had a single win­dow, to either north, east, south, or west-not that Arthur knew which one was which.

Arthur ran up the stairs and quickly looked out in each direction, making sure he refastened the shutters. He knew that back in the Secondary Realms the Fetchers-winged or otherwise-couldn't cross a threshold without invita­tion but he wasn't sure if that applied in the House.

Thinking of that reminded him of two things. One was that he hadn't actually confirmed his location. He assumed he was somewhere in the Middle House. The second was that even though he didn't want to consult it, Dame Primus still had his Compleat Atlas of the House and he felt a bit funny about that. He'd rather have it with him, so if he absolutely needed to he would be able to check things out in it. He also didn't want Dame Primus to have it.

It's not that I don't trust her, he thought. It's just that ... I'm not sure if I should trust her.

Arthur shook his head and sighed. Thinking about the Will and its manifestation as the annoying Dame Primus wasn't helping the current situation.

Focus, he told himself. Focus!

There was nothing immediately threatening in any direction, or at least nothing that Arthur could see. He went back down somewhat slower than he'd gone up, but his mind was still running fast, thinking through the situa­tion and what he was going to do. At the bottom, he returned to the antechamber, turned the handle around, and opened the door back on to the chamber of molten gold and all its workers.

Arthur had hoped that he'd immediately see a sizable force of former veterans of the Army parading ready to receive his orders, but that was not the case. Only three Denizens stood in line, at ease. They were carrying the ten-foot-long gold-scooping poles, with no other, more effective weapons in evidence. Everything else was much as it had been ten minutes before, a hive of activity, except that the group of Denizens lying down with paper or parchment strips stuck on their foreheads had got­ten noticeably larger. At least another twenty or thirty Denizens had lain down in that area.

Marek was nowhere in sight, but a female Denizen who was wearing a ruffled green shirt, as well as a rather cleaner and more impressive apron than the others, was standing by the door, giving instructions to several work­ers. She turned as Arthur marched in, and bowed low.

"Elibazeth?" asked Arthur .

"Yes, lord."

"Is this all the Denizens here who have done Army service?"

"All who are not experiencing," said Elibazeth. She gestured to the sleeping, paper-stuck Denizens.

"What?" Arthur didn't think he'd heard her properly, over the noise of the hammers and everything. "Experiencing."

"Experiencing what? Being asleep?"

"No, lord," said Elibazeth. "They are not asleep. They are partaking of mortal experience. They will wake in a month or two."

"What!" exclaimed Arthur. "What are those papers they've got stuck on?"

"Mortal experiences," said Elibazeth stolidly. She did not appear to be so overawed by Arthur as Marek had been. She was simply matter-of-fact. "They are pieces of mortal experience that Lady Friday has discarded. As they are not explicitly forbidden, they are allowed."

Arthur stared at her, then shook his head. Obviously he was going to have to get a lot more information, and as quickly as possible.

"Wait here," he instructed Elibazeth before he strode over to the pitifully small line of former soldiers.

"Ten-hut!" called the Denizen on the right. The trio came to attention.

"Present ar-!"

"Thanks!" called out Arthur. "We won't bother with all that. Stand easy! I'm Arthur, Commander of the Glorious Army of the Architect. Um, are there really only three of you here who've done military service?"

"Yes, sir!" answered the Denizen who'd been about to give the order to present arms. "That is, the only ones not experiencing, sir. There's probably twenty among the 'spe­riencers. Sir."

"Right ...." said Arthur. "We haven't got much time. What are your names, with former rank and unit, please?"

"Lance-Bombardier Jugguth Flat Gold of the Moder­ately Honorable Artillery Company," replied the right-hand Denizen. "I've only been out fifty years. This 'ere is Private

Lukin Flat Gold of the Regiment and Trooper Serelle Flat Gold of the Horde."

"Okay, Bombardier Jugguth. There is a force of Nithlings-Fetchers and maybe worse-nearby, who will probably attack soon. I want you to take your ... ah ... section into the tower and keep a lookout in all four directions. If you see anything, send someone to report to me at once. I'll be here with Elibazeth. Got that?"

"Yes, sir," shouted Jugguth. "Only as there's only three of us, how can we look in all four directions, sir?"

"Swap sides," said Arthur, biting back a sharper retort. "Check the canal side every five minutes for a minute or two, then go back to whichever side you're covering. Understand?"

"Yes, sir," said Jugguth, but Arthur wasn't absolutely sure the Denizen had understood. While the Bombardier marched his section out the door, Arthur ran over to Elibazeth, who was inspecting a large sheet of gold foil that had been brought to her by another Denizen. She had moved closer to the pool of molten gold, and it was much hotter there, hot enough to make sweat start to run down the back of Arthur's neck.

"Elibazeth!" Arthur interrupted a technical discussion about how much more hammering the foil needed. "How do you normally protect yourselves against Nithlings? I

mean, the Lower House has Commissionaires and so on. What guards do you have here?"

"When Friday's Dawn is here, he is accompanied by a flight of Gilded Youths," said Elibazeth. She didn't sound very concerned about the prospect of being attacked. "They patrol the Flat and the First Ascent of the Canal, and dispose of any Nithling incursions. After sunfall, I believe the Winged Servants of the Night do likewise. However, the Gilded Youths have departed with our Guildmaster-that is to say, Friday's Dawn. I do not know if the Winged Servants will come with the night, or even if there will be a night. Day and night have been rather uncertain here since the weather has been broken. However, the mill itself is very securely built, the gate is much stronger than perhaps it appears, and we have other defenses. It would be very difficult for any Nithlings to get in."

Arthur wiped the sweat off his forehead and tried to gather his thoughts. It was good to hear that the defenses were strong. And he had sentries now, so at least he wasn't going to be surprised by a Nithling attack. What he needed to know now was ... pretty much everything.

"Right. Let's start with the basics. Where exactly are we?" Chapter Six

"An ambulatory seedpod," Milka told Leaf, gesturing to the smoking husk of the creature that had just been destroyed. "They get in from outside occasionally. If you're unlucky enough to see one again ..."

"What do I do?" asked Leaf.

"Count yourself lucky that you mortals die easily," replied Milka grimly. "Denizens can live for months while the bloom grows in them."

Leaf didn't answer, but crossed to the other side of the corridor, to keep as far away as she could, even from the scorched fragments of the seedpod.

"Come on," ordered Milka to Leaf. "Leave that, Feorin! You don't have to wear it here."

Feorin stopped struggling with his trench coat and sim­ply scrunched it under his arm. His wings turned in towards his spine and folded themselves flat, the tips withdrawing up from his knees to just below his waist.

Leaf wasn't sure how long it took to get to their desti­nation. Every time Feorin hesitated or slowed, she felt an overpowering urge to jump back. The immediate fear of encountering another seedpod overlaid the more general anxiety of her situation; the shock of the sudden encounter had intensified her already nervous state. Leaf felt incredi­bly jumpy, even on the brink of breaking down. Only the knowledge that this would do no good at all helped her keep herself together.

"Feorin ... stop," said Milka after a small, exasper­ated sigh. She pointed to a left-hand door Feorin had just passed. It had the number 18 above it, the numeral made of small blue stone chips. "This is it."

The room beyond the door was about as big as Leaf's living room back home. The far wall was dominated by a full-length window, the first Leaf had seen. It looked like frosted glass so Leaf couldn't see anything through it, though it did admit a great deal of purple-tinged sunlight that was bright enough to wash out the ubiquitous blue-flamed gas jets in the ceiling.

An old wooden table with one chair was in the center of the room; there was a bed in the corner, and a man-a normal mortal human from the look of him-was asleep on top of the covers, fully dressed in the same kind of green hospital uniform the cleaner back in the ward on Earth had worn.

"Is that her?" asked Feorin.

"Him," said Milka. "I told you they change them all the time. Wake up!"

The man sat up with a startled cry. He was quite old, Leaf saw. Older than her grandfather, his short hair white as paper.