Lady Friday (The Keys to the Kingdom 5)

Arthur came awake with a cry and a jump that almost tumbled him out of the chair. He felt terrible, stiff and sore all over. His joints hurt from the flight up from the canal, and his muscles hurt from escaping the press. Suzy was standing next to him, plucking his sleeve.

"Friday's Dawn is coming in! He's accepted your offer!" Arthur blinked, wiped his eyes, and sat up straight. "Is Fred-"

Fred waved at him from the chair opposite and gave a rueful smile.

"Sorry I drank the tea, Arthur. It was stupid of me-"

"Don't worry," said Arthur. "I almost drank it too. Uh, how long have I been asleep?"

"Around an hour," said Suzy. "That right, Jakey?"

Jakem reached into his robes and pulled out a pocket watch, flicking open the case with his thumb. He studied it intently for a few seconds, then replaced it.

"Fifty-three minutes, milord," he said. "Friday's Dawn is waiting. Do you still wish to speak to him?"

"Send him in," said Arthur.

Friday's Dawn was, as Arthur expected, a tall and handsome Denizen. But he had not expected to see one in golden plate armor that extended from ankle to neck, including a cuirass shaped with more muscles than even a Denizen could have. Long daisy-yellow wings were folded at his back, pinions rising above his head and tail feathers reaching almost to his armored ankles. He carried his visored and plumed helmet in the crook of his left arm, above a curved sword on his hip, which was balanced by some kind of short bow in a leather case on his right. A bandage around his forehead was stained with blue blood, indicating a recent wound and harsh fighting, presumably with Saturday's forces.

Dawn bowed stiffly before Arthur, who stood and inclined his head in return.

"Greetings, Lord Arthur." Dawn's voice was gravelly, not at all as pleasant and melodic as most senior Denizens.

"And to you, Friday's Dawn," said Arthur. "I trust you heard my offer correctly? That if you will obey my orders, I shall place you in command of Binding Junction and the Top Shelf?"

"I did, Lord Arthur, and ... reluctantly ... I accept," said Dawn.

"Reluctantly?" Arthur asked. This Denizen was a straight talker, which made a pleasant change after Jakem.

"Yes, milord," Dawn replied stiffly. "However, I see little choice. Lady Friday has abandoned us, as have my compatriots, her Noon and Dusk. Since I am not one to partake of her ... amusements ... she clearly chose to leave me behind. My loyalty is thus not to Friday but to the Middle House and those in it. That is why I have resisted the invasion by Saturday's forces. The choice, as I see it, is between Saturday and yourself, Lord Arthur. I choose your service."

"I am the Rightful Heir, you know," said Arthur. "Yes, sir, if you say so. Are you ready to accept my allegiance?"

"I am." Arthur's mind flashed back to the treach­erous Pravuil, in the coal cellar, so long ago-or so it seemed. Pravuil had offered allegiance, but he'd never actually sworn it, probably because he'd been working for Saturday or someone else all along.

I'm not making that mistake again, thought Arthur. I know better now.

"You must swear to serve and obey me upon this, the Fourth Key," he said, holding out the rapier so the blade touched the floor in front of Friday's Dawn.

Dawn was unfazed by this. He knelt down, clanking and creaking, and took the blade in his gauntleted hands.

"I, Friday's Dawn, do swear allegiance to Lord Arthur, and shall serve and obey him until I am extinguished or until the end of all things."

Dawn looked up at Arthur expectantly, waiting for an answer.

"I accept your allegiance, Friday's Dawn, and confirm you as commander of Binding Junction and the Top Shelf and defender of the Middle House overall."

"Thank you for your trust in me, milord," said Dawn as he stood up.

"Good," said Arthur. "Now, Dawn, we need three ..."

Arthur paused to look at Ugham.

Now is the time to leave him behind, if I'm going to, he thought. But he has been faithful. I have the Key, and allies .... He will look after Fred and Suzy ....

"No, four sets of wings. I have to go find Part Five of the Architect's Will, and I think it's up in Friday's Scriptorium."

"Immediately, Lord Arthur. Do you want wings such as my Gilded Youth wear? They would size themselves bet­ter to you, I think, than the ones the High Guild use."

"Sure. Only Ugham will need bigger wings from the High Guild. Strangely, Jakem said they didn't have any."

"I meant of the sort suitable for your excellency," Jakem blurted out. "It is true we have a moldy selection of some old, ridiculously large wings-"

"Who is next in precedence to Jakem?" inter­rupted Dawn.

"Milka is, sir," replied Digby. "But she is away with Lady Friday. I suppose I'm next, after her."

"Then you are presently promoted above Jakem, who is now in your place," Dawn proclaimed. "I shall expect you to organize matters more efficiently than the former Pressmaster-beginning with the procurement of wings for Lord Arthur's ... soldiers."

"I protest!" Jakem screamed to Arthur. "Surely, Lord Arthur, you cannot allow such a travesty of-"

"Dawn is in charge," said Arthur. "Go away."

Jakem went. A few minutes later, several Denizens returned carrying a set of wings for Ugham. A few seconds after them, two Gilded Youths arrived carrying three more sets of smaller, but still equally yellow, wings.

The Gilded Youths wore the same armor as Friday's Dawn, but instead of visored helmets they had golden masks, which completely covered their faces, save for thin eye, nostril, and mouth slits. They were much shorter and slighter than the Denizens, about the same size as Arthur. Seeing them, he suddenly exclaimed, "They're Piper's chil­dren, aren't they?"

"Not exactly," whispered Fred. "They started out that way, but Grim Tuesday got hold of a bunch of them and made them into ... well, what they are ... for Lady Friday."

"What do you mean, 'what they are'?" Arthur whis­pered back. The three Gilded Youths put the wings on one of the empty chairs, saluted Dawn-who was talking to Digby-and left again.

"They're mostly armor," said Fred. "I dunno how much of the original child is left inside. Least, that's what I was always told."

"It could easily be true," said Arthur. "It's just the sort of thing Grim Tuesday would have done. By the way, have you used wings before?"

"Oh, yes," said Fred. "Only it was before we got washed between the ears .... Still I expect it will come back to me ...."

"I hope so." Arthur's own memory had completely returned, or at least he thought it had. But then he had only a fraction of experience to recall compared to Fred, who had lived for at least several hundred years by House time, maybe more . "Well, we'd better get on with it."

Suzy helped Arthur attach his wings, which grew to size. While he flapped them experimentally, she assisted Fred and Ugham. Arthur belatedly realized that Ugham might not know how to use the wings, but when he asked, the Newnith was already going through a series of exer­cises with his wings that displayed far greater competence than Arthur had himself. This was because Arthur had only flown once previously, in Grim Tuesday's Pit.

"Our lord the Piper was very thorough in our train­ing," Ugham explained. "We spent many decades in practice of all kinds, before the attack on the Great Maze."

"You'll need an escort," said Friday's Dawn, who left Digby to approach Arthur. "It has been reported that the Piper and a dozen soldiers, probably Piper's children, flew to the Scriptorium peak several hours ago, followed by Saturday's Noon and a force of Internal Auditors. Now that we have Binding Junction, I can spare forty or fifty of my Gilded Youths. I would that it were more, but far too many Denizens here are experiencing."

"I don't like this experiencing business," said Arthur. "I'm not sure I really get it. Where do these experiences come from?"

"Lady Friday takes them from mortals, Lord Arthur," Friday's Dawn explained. "She partakes of most of their good memories and leaves the bad. The Denizens who are with her in her retreat fix the discarded memories on sor­cerously charged paper and bring them back here to sell. Though they are usually sad and depressing memories, they are fascinating to many Denizens. You see, we do not dream, and our lives have a fixed purpose. The mortal experiences are very attractive."

"Takes them from mortals ...." Arthur repeated qui­etly. "What happens to the mortals?"

"I don't know," said Dawn. "I have never approved of the practice and Lady Friday never took me to her retreat."

"Do you know where it is?"

Friday's Dawn shook his head. "Somewhere in the Secondary Realms."

Arthur stood silently for a moment, his wings twitch­ing. Then he took out the crystal and looked at it again.

"First we find the Will," he said. "Then we get it to help us get the Fifth Key. Come on."

He started along the corridor with everyone trailing behind, then stopped.

"Uh, I don't know the way out of here. Digby?"

"Follow me, Lord Arthur," said Digby. He led the way along the corridor and out into a pleasant, open courtyard set with strange trees that had long, curled-up yellow leaves that looked almost like scales. From there they went back into another building, into a large hall that was full of small presses, workbenches, piles of documents, and at least a hun­dred Denizens who were lying on their backs experiencing, with pieces of sorcerous paper stuck to their foreheads.

At the end of the hall was the main gate, which was guarded by a mixed force of mutually suspicious Gilded Youths and High Guild bookbinders, the latter armed with nasty-looking spears in the shape of seven-foot-long book­binder's needles.

Arthur got his first proper look at the Top Shelf when he stepped outside. The mountain on which the Scriptorium sat was an imposing rocky peak some miles away. It com­pletely dominated the northern skyline and was about four or five thousand feet high, Arthur estimated. Or at least the bit that poked up from the second sky was. He knew the actual mountain extended all the way down below the Flat, and the Top Shelf was just a small plateau of the greater whole.

Apart from the fortress behind him, most of what he could see looked like a pleasant country scene. There were meadows and occasional copses of trees. Not trees that he recognized, but still identifiable as trees, even if the color and shape of the leaves and branches were a bit strange.

There were two suns in the eastern sky, which helped explain why it was so hot. Neither was particularly large, but one was much smaller than the other. Arthur knew better than to look at them directly, but the light they cast was of a similar color to that of his own Earth sun in summer.

"I have too much to attend to here and below," said Dawn. "But your escort will be commanded by Fifteen, who is one of my most experienced Gilded Youths. Fifteen, this is Lord Arthur."

"Lord Arthur acknowledged," said the Gilded Youth. His, or perhaps her, voice was soft and crackly and sounded weirdly remote, as if it came from farther away than from inside the mask. "Flight ready to launch."

"Thank you," said Arthur. He checked the crystal again. The arrow was definitely pointing to the mountain and up. "Thank you too, Friday's Dawn. Good luck with sorting out Saturday's Dusk. If all goes well, I will be able to send help soon."

Dawn saluted as Arthur flexed his wings, kicked off, and launched into the sky. The Gilded Youths launched at the same moment, all forty of them surrounding Arthur in a star formation, while his friends were a little slower, tak­ing off behind to fly beneath him.

It was fun to fly. Arthur enjoyed the exhilarating rush of air past his face and the powerful feel of the wings on his back. He experimentally leaned one way and then the other, hastily correcting his balance as he almost tumbled head over heels.

"These 'ere are proper wings!" shouted Suzy. "Not like those Ascension Wings we 'ad in the Pit. Got to treat them more careful like, 'cos they go down as well as up."

Arthur had forgotten the wings he'd used before were ones that only went up.

I should have remembered that, he thought. Those ones were stuck on with sealing wax too. These have just connected through my paper coat. I guess the washing between the ears has affected my memory .... I wonder what else I've forgotten ....

As an experiment, Arthur tried to remember all his family's faces. He was relieved when the memories came, clear and sharp. His house was also clear, and the new school ....

A wind buffeted him, interrupting his thoughts. Arthur instinctively corrected and laughed aloud as he was swept up by an updraft, his wings stretching wide. The Gilded Youth called Fifteen flew near and called out in its odd, penetrating voice.

"Upwind positive. Target achievement in forty minutes."

"Thanks!" said Arthur. He looked up. The mountain peak looked as high as ever, but he could see something built on top of the bare rock. The hint of a roof.

Arthur took out the crystal again and checked it. This time, he looked at it twice and held it up even closer than before.

"Hey!" he said. "The gold arrow is pointing across now, not up to the Scriptorium. But there's nothing ... oh ..."