Sir Thursday (The Keys to the Kingdom 4)

'Where do I sit, then?' asked Leaf.

'You may stand behind Arthur,' said Dame Primus coldly.

'Actually, I think Leaf had better have a chair next to me,' said Arthur firmly. 'As an honoured guest.'

'Very good, sir,' said Sneezer, making Arthur jump. The butler was somehow behind him now, offering him an orange juice. 'I shall place a chair for Miss Leaf.'

'I have prepared an Agenda for this council,' announced Dame Primus as she sat down. Her chair swirled through red, white, and gold and Arthur noticed it grew a few inches at the back, almost matching his own chair's height.

Dame Primus tapped a large hard-bound book of at least three or four hundred pages that was sitting in front of her on the table. Arthur had a copy in front of his seat too. He sat down, dragged the book over, flipped the cover open, and read Being an Agenda for a Council to Discuss Various Troublesome Matters Pertaining to the House, the Release of the Will of the Architect, the Assumption of the Rightful Heir, and other Diverse Matters.

The next page had a list of items numbered from one to thirty. The page after that had thirty-one through sixty.

Arthur turned to the end and saw that there were over six thousand Agenda items.

'I suggest we begin with Item One,' said Dame Primus. 'And work our way through.'

Arthur looked at Item One.

Arbitration Between Demesnes, Article One: The Dispute Concerning Record Filing and Transport of Records between the Middle and Lower House.

'The Agenda is arranged alphabetically,' said Dame Primus helpfully. 'All the Arbitration matters are first.'

'I haven't got time for this,' said Arthur. He shut the agenda book with a loud clap. 'What I want to know is what that Spirit-eater is, what it's going to do to my family, and how to get rid of it. Dr Scamandros, do you know?'

'This is quite improper,' Dame Primus complained. 'I must protest, Lord Arthur. How can we properly come to conclusions and act effectively if we don't follow our Agenda?'

'Why don't you put the Agenda in order of importance, and while you're doing that, we'll talk about the Spirit-eater,' said Arthur, not daring to look at Dame Primus as he spoke. There was something about her that made him want to quietly sit and do as he was told. She reminded him of the scariest teacher he'd ever had, who could stun a classroom into silence just by appearing in the doorway.

But like that teacher, Arthur found that if he didn't meet her gaze, she was easier to confront. 'Dr Scamandros?'

'Ah, well, I haven't had much time to look into things,' said Scamandros with a jittery glance at Dame Primus. The tattoos of palm trees on his cheeks suddenly shook and half-a-dozen nervous monkeys fell out and slid down to his chin before the palm trees disappeared and were replaced by clock faces with swiftly moving hands. 'I mean, I barely had time for a glass of revitalising tonic at Port Wednesday before I was hustled here. But nevertheless, I do have some information, collected with the aid of Monday's Noon, who while not trained in the Upper House is nevertheless a capable sorcerer …'

He paused to bow to Monday's Noon, who bowed back. Arthur gripped his orange juice and tried not to look too impatient. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Suzy slink back in and sit on the floor, hidden behind Monday's Noon.

'As far as we can ascertain,' Scamandros continued, 'Spirit-eaters have only been raised on a handful of occasions in the whole history of the House. A Spirit-eater is a potent and unpleasant type of Nithling created to assume the identity of someone, either Denizen or mortal. Its chief power is to cloak itself in an exact likeness of its target, and it also has the ability to extrude its mentality into those around it, whether they be mortal or Denizen –'

'What?' interrupted Arthur. 'What does "extrude its mentality" mean?'

'I'm not too certain … apparently once a Spirit-eater has done it, though, it is able to control its victims' minds and read their recent thoughts and memories. It does this in order to further its deception. Initially it will have only the usual, exterior knowledge of its target, so it seeks to learn more from the target's confidants and fellows.'

'You mean it's going to mentally take over my family?' Arthur spilled his orange juice as he stood up in agitation. 'How long will it take to do that?'

'Yes, that is … I suppose that is what it will do,' said Scamandros. 'Though I don't know how.'

'How much time would it need?' asked Arthur. This was the worst thing, his family being in danger. He remembered the two Grim's Grotesques breathing their foul breath of forgetting over his father; how he had felt in that awful second as that fog had rolled over his dad. Now his whole family was threatened again, and he was stuck in the House. They would be defenceless.

I have to help them, Arthur thought desperately. There has to be something … someone …

'A few days, I think. But I cannot say for certain,' said Scamandros.

Arthur looked at Leaf. She met his gaze.

'I guess you're thinking what I'm thinking,' she said. 'You can't go back or the whole world goes kapow. But I could go back and try to get rid of this Spirit-eater.'

'I don't know,' said Arthur. 'It sounds very dangerous. Maybe Monday's Noon could –'

'No interference!' boomed Dame Primus. 'Remember the Original Law! The mortal may return to whence she came, but no others may sully the Architect's work.'

'I think it's more than a bit sullied already,' said Arthur crossly. 'How come it's all right for the bad guys to do whatever they want, but whenever I want to do something it's "forget about it"? What's the good of being the Rightful Heir anyway? All I get is trouble!'

Nobody answered Arthur's question, and he noticed everyone was not quite looking at him – and no one was telling him to behave himself. He felt suddenly weird, and wished that somebody would just say, 'Shut up, Arthur, we've got work to do.'

'Is it possible?' asked Leaf. 'To get rid of the Spirit-eater, I mean.'

Arthur and Leaf both looked at Scamandros. The tattoos on his face showed some anxiety, picturing shaky towers that were being built up stone by stone, only to fall down as the last course was laid.

'I think so. But it would require finding the item used to create the Spirit-eater in the first place. That will be something personal from its target, overlaid with spells. In this case, something of yours, Arthur, that was close to you for quite a while. A favourite book, or a spoon, or perhaps some piece of clothing. Something of that order.'

Arthur frowned in puzzlement. What could he have lost that could be used in this way?

'When would this have happened?' he asked.

'It would have taken more than a year of House Time for the Spirit-eater to be grown from Nothing,' replied Dr Scamandros .

'A year … How long has it been since I was given the minute hand by Mister Monday?' Arthur asked. It was only the previous week for him, but much longer in the House. 'In House Time, I mean?'

'A year and a half,' replied Dame Primus stiffly. She had the Agenda open and was tapping it with a gold pencil. Every time she tapped, one of the items on the list moved up or down, or to some unseen page deeper in the volume.

'It must have been Monday's Fetchers,' said Arthur. 'Or maybe one of Grim Tuesday's Grotesques. But I can't think of anything really personal that I've missed.'

'You could enquire of the Atlas,' said Dame Primus. 'You still hold the Third Key, so the Atlas will answer.'

Arthur took the Atlas out of his pocket, set it on the table, and held the small trident that was the Third Key with his right hand. But he didn't start concentrating on a question to ask the Atlas. After a moment, he put the Third Key down, the trident's tines pointing to the hollow centre of the table.

'I have to be careful how much I use the Keys,' he said slowly. 'I already used this one quite a lot back in the Border Sea, and I don't want to turn into a Denizen. Then I could never go back home.'

'How close are you?' Leaf asked curiously. 'Like, do you get to use the Key a hundred times or something and then wham, you're suddenly seven feet tall and a lot better looking?'

'I don't know,' said Arthur. 'That's part of the problem.'

Dr Scamandros gave a slight and rather fake-sounding cough and raised his hand. Dame Primus stopped tapping her agenda for a moment and stared at him, then continued with her rearranging.

'You may care to know, Lord Arthur,' said Dr Scamandros, 'that there is a little student project of mine that could be of use to you. It measures the sorcerous contamination of things, including, of course, persons.'

Scamandros started rummaging around inside his yellow greatcoat and pulled out a peacock-feather fan, several enamelled snuff boxes, a scrimshaw letter opener, and a brass piccolo, all of which he laid distractedly on the table.

'Here somewhere,' he said, and then triumphantly pulled out a two-inch-square velvet box that was very worn around the edges. Opening it, he passed it to Sunscorch, who passed it to Leaf, who looked curiously at the item inside before she gave it to Arthur. It was a slim silver crocodile coiled into a ring, its tail in its jaws. It had bright-pink diamonds for eyes, and its body was scored with lines that divided it into ten sections, each marked with a tiny engraved Roman numeral.

'Is this relevant?' asked Dame Primus impatiently. 'I am ready to proceed with the reordered Agenda.'

Arthur ignored her and took the ring out of the box.

'What does this do?' he asked. 'Do I put it on?'

'Yes, do put it on,' replied Dr Scamandros. 'In essence, it will tell you the degree to which you have been … ah … tainted with sorcery. It is not exact, of course, and in the case of a mortal, the calibration is uncertain. I would say that if the ring turns more than six parts gold then you will have become irretrievably transformed into a –'

'Can we move on?' snapped Dame Primus as Dr Scamandros said, 'Denizen.'

Arthur put on the ring and watched with fascination and growing horror as each silver segment of the crocodile slowly turned from silver to gold.

One … two … three –

If he was transformed into a Denizen, he could never go back home. But he needed to use the Keys and the Atlas against the Morrow Days, and that meant more sor-cerous contamination.

Unless it was all too late already.

Arthur stared at the ring as the tide of gold continued on, flowing into the fourth segment without slowing at all.

Three

ARTHUR KEPT STARING at the ring with dread fascination. After the fourth segment the gold suddenly stopped spreading, and then it slowly ebbed back a little.

'It's almost up to the fourth line,' Arthur reported.

'It is not exact,' said Dr Scamandros. 'But that would concur with my previous examination. Your flesh, blood, and bone are some four-tenths contaminated with sorcery.'

'And past six-tenths I become a Denizen?'

'Irrevocably.'

'Can I get rid of the contamination?' Arthur tried to keep his voice calm. 'Does it wear off?'

'It will reduce with time,' Scamandros replied. 'Provided you don't add to it. I would expect that degree of contamination to lessen in about a century.'

'A century! It might as well be permanent. But how much would using the Atlas add to the contamination?'

'Without careful experimentation and observation I should not like to say. Considerably less than the interventions to heal your ailments, or to undo misdirected application of the Keys' power. Anything not focused on your own body will be less harmful.'

'It is not harmful to become a Denizen,' said Dame Primus. 'It is to become a higher order of being. I cannot understand your reluctance to shed your mortality, Arthur. After all, you are the Rightful Heir of the Architect of Everything. Now can we please return to the Agenda?'

'I was only chosen because I was about to die and happened to be handy,' said Arthur. 'I bet you've got a stack of Rightful Heirs noted down somewhere if something happens to me.'

There was silence in the vast room for a few seconds, until Dame Primus cleared her throat.

Before she could speak, Arthur raised his voice. 'We will go back to the Agenda! After we've worked out what to do about the Spirit-eater. I just wish I could remember what might have been taken.'

'Try to work your way back through everything you did,' Leaf suggested. 'Did you drop your inhaler on the oval? Maybe they picked that up? Or did you have something at school when they burned the library?'

Arthur shook his head. 'I don't think so … Hey, wait a second!'

He turned to look at Monday's Dusk. He was slightly shorter than he had been as Noon and looked rather less severe, though no less handsome. He wore the night-black, undertaker-like costume of Dusk, though he'd taken off his top hat with the long black silk scarf wound around its crown.

'You sent the Fetchers when you were Noon. Did one of them bring something back, or were they banished straight into Nothing?'

'They did not return to me,' said Dusk, his once-silver tongue now a shiny ebony, and his voice much softer. 'But then I did not raise them in the first place. Mister Monday assigned them to me. I presume he bought them from Grim Tuesday, for he would not have been energetic enough to create them himself. You may recall that I was forced to return to the House when the Fetchers and I cornered you at your school.'