Drowned Wednesday (The Keys to the Kingdom 3)

The Second Mate turned the key. It played musical notes as it turned several times in the lock.

Ting-ting-ting-ting-ting …

Each note seemed like it would be the last. Finally the key stopped, and instead of a jangled note, there was a soft snick as the lock released. Sunscorch leaned forward and lifted the lid.

'Ahhhh!' came from a hundred throats.

'Is that all?' asked Arthur, looking over Sunscorch's shoulder. The contents of the chest looked very disappointing to him. It was full of little off-white blocks carved with letters. They looked like cheap mah-jong pieces.

Sunscorch didn't answer. He seemed quite stunned. Looking around, Arthur saw that nearly everybody else was as well. They were all staring with their mouths open.

Except for Doctor Scamandros. He bent down and picked up one of the small blocks and tilted it so the character carved into its surface caught the light.

'A deep, racking cough,' pronounced Scamandros. 'Fixed in auriphant ivory from Senhein. Good for twenty years or more, as House time flows.'

He put it back again and took out another piece.

'A roseola rash around the neck, head, and ears,' said Scamandros. 'Fixed in wood-fired clay. Good for at least a decade in the House.'

Arthur knew that human diseases were valued by the Denizens of the House. They would get the symptoms, but not feel the effects. So these little blocks of ivory and clay were how the diseases were actually used by the Denizens, and would presumably be in demand. But what were they worth?

'This is a great treasure,' said Doctor Scamandros. 'A very great treasure. There must be twenty thousand coughs, rashes, swellings, and other diseases here, all of the highest virulence and fixed by first-class sorcery. I would guess its value to be in excess of a million simoleons of gold.'

His words were met by a vast cheer from the crew, who began to sing and dance around and throw their caps in the air.

'And ninety per cent of it is mine?' asked Arthur. He could barely make himself heard above the uproar.

'Notionally,' replied Scamandros. 'As I said, if you want both yourself and the treasure to remain salvaged, you must come to an agreement with Captain Catapillow.'

'Feverfew will never bear this loss,' muttered Sunscorch, who was still staring at the open chest. He pointed at a small bronze plaque set on the underside of the chest's lid. As his finger touched it, the letters engraved there burst into red fire, and a booming voice roared across the beach:

'THIEVES! THIEVES! THIEVES! This be the treasure of Captain Elishar Feverfew! The Red Hand marks you! Feverfew's vengeance shall be swift and slow: swift in the taking, slow in the making. Regret and repentance shall prove no -'

Whatever else the voice was going to shout stopped as Doctor Scamandros tapped the plaque with an ebony paper knife that materialised in his hand. Silence fell over the beach, the only sound the lapping of the waves on the shore. The Denizens' songs and cheer were gone, replaced by a mood of dread.

'I'm the only one with the Red Hand,' said Arthur. 'Aren't I?'

'Yes,' said Doctor Scamandros. 'Though Feverfew would kill or enslave anyone sailing with you, or giving you aid.'

'You're a sorcerer - can't you get rid of it?'

'No. It is beyond my power. Feverfew is an expert in magics I do not wish to know.'

Arthur looked down at the treasure, then at his red hands.

'So you're all at risk from Feverfew while I'm around?'

'Indeed. Though, in truth, Feverfew kills or enslaves everyone he encounters anyway. But the Red Hand marks you for a particularly long and unpleasant ending, and we would probably share in it.'

'Can you send messages to other parts of the House? And can you find out what's happening to someone if they're in the House? I mean, by sorcery.'

'Yes, on both counts.'

'In that case,' said Arthur, turning back to Captain Catapillow, 'I am prepared to offer you, and the crew of the Moth, all of my share of the reward in return for some help. I want to get a message to Dame Primus . . .'

Captain Catapillow nodded his agreement.

'I need to find out what's happened to my friend Leaf, who I think is aboard a ship with glowing green sails . . .'

Once again Catapillow nodded, this time with a smile.

Arthur paused, thinking about what he might need.

'And I might . . . I might want passage as quickly as possible to wherever I can meet Drowned Wednesday.'

'What!' shrieked Catapillow. 'Are you totally mad?'

Ten

'TAKE YOU TO DROWNED WEDNESDAY!' repeated Catapillow. 'Do you think us fools?'

'Uh, no,' said Arthur. 'I only said I might want to go and see her. I'm not sure where I should go next. But I have been invited to have lunch with Lady Wednesday -'

'You mean to be lunch!' scoffed Concort. He paled and added, 'Excuse me! I didn't mean to say that!'

'I'm sure we can work something out with regard to the treasure,' said Catapillow. 'Doctor Scamandros will help you find your friend, send messages, and so forth. We will even carry you to Port Wednesday. But I'm sure you will be as grateful as we will be to not encounter our most esteemed but sadly submerged ultimate mistress.'

'Why?' Arthur asked, wondering why Catapillow and the others seemed unreasonably terrified at the idea. But they were in her service, or at least they operated in her demesne of the House. Presumably she gave them orders or sent them instructions from time to time. But perhaps she was slothful, like Mister Monday, and the administration of the Border Sea was all fouled up like it had been in the Lower House.

'By the way,' Arthur continued, 'do you have any orders about Lord Arthur? I mean, if you happened to pick him up, what would you do with him?'

'Pick up Lord Arthur? Well, naturally, we should do whatever he wanted us to do,' replied Catapillow. 'He's lord of two domains within the House!'

'We wouldn't want to cross that half-frog thing,' said Concort. 'Or the killer girl either.'

'So you haven't been instructed by Lady Wednesday or her officers to do anything to Arthur if he does show up?'

Sunscorch snorted. Catapillow and Concort looked at each other. Eventually Concort muttered, 'Very busy these days, Drowned Wednesday, what with eating . . . with various things . . . unfortunately Noon and Dusk went missing some years ago, the confusion arising out of the flooding . . .'

'What Mister Concort means,' cut in Doctor Scamandros, 'is that the Moth has been largely forgotten these six or seven thousand years. I don't believe we have had any instructions in that time. We simply cruise the Border Sea, take our salvage from it, and sell it and replenish our stores at Port Wednesday or, if we are pressed, at less salubrious anchorages both in the Border Sea and out in the Secondary Realms . Now tell me, have you really been invited to luncheon with Lady Wednesday?'

'Yes,' said Arthur. He reached into his pocket and drew out the soggy invitation. Doctor Scamandros took it, raised his eyebrows at the almost complete absence of readable type upon it, and set it on the table. He took an oval-shaped felt blotter out of his coat and rolled it across the card several times. With each pass, the card dried and the ink returned to its former density and blackness. Catapillow and Concort craned over the table to look, and even Sunscorch tilted his head to get a proper view.

Arthur watched the two officers' faces change as they read the invitation, going from curiosity through puzzlement to shock. Sunscorch, though he moved his lips to read, did not seem unduly affected.

LADY WEDNESDAY

TRUSTEE OF THE ARCHITECT

AND DUCHESS OF THE BORDER SEA

HAS GREAT PLEASURE IN INVITING

ARTHUR PENHALIGON

TO A PARTICULAR LUNCHEON

OF SEVENTEEN REMOVES

TRANSPORT HAS BEEN ARRANGED

RSVP NOT REQUIRED

'I don't understand,' said Catapillow. 'Then you must be -'

'But you can't be,' said Concort. 'You're just a boy!'

'He is,' said Scamandros. 'Who else might have A Compleat Atlas of the House in his top pocket and the mark of the Mariner's favour on a string around his neck? Not to mention this very curious invitation.'

'Why is it curious?' asked Arthur. For the first time since the wave picked him up he had time to ask some questions instead of just trying to stay alive, or recover from the effort of staying alive. 'Why is everyone scared of her? Why do you call her Drowned Wednesday? And what was the Deluge and all that?'

Catapillow and Concort still looked stunned. Sunscorch looked at Scamandros.

'Best if the Doctor explains all that to you,' said Sunscorch after a moment. 'The Captain and Mister Concort have duties to attend to, as do I.'

'I trust you'll join us for supper, Lord Arthur?' murmured Captain Catapillow, without meeting Arthur's eye. 'Without any, ah, hard feelings as to our regrettable lack of, er -' 'Sure,' said Arthur. 'I understand. It's just that the book makes me seem more like a big hero. Who wrote it anyway?'

Concort opened the book again and showed Arthur the title page. Catapillow looked embarrassed and walked off, muttering something to Doctor Scamandros as he went past.

'It is, um, written by someone called Japeth, "Official Biographer, Chronicler, Annalist, and Recorder of Lord Arthur,"' said the First Mate. 'Published by the Dayroom Press of the Lower House.'

'I see,' said Arthur with a frown. Japeth was his friend, the Thesaurus he'd met in the Pit. He had asked Dame Primus to give him a job, but he hadn't expected it would be writing something that was basically propaganda. He wondered what the point of it was. Why make him out to be such a big hero?

'If you would care to walk with me, I shall attempt to answer your questions about Lady Wednesday and the Deluge,' said Doctor Scamandros. He lifted his hand and a candle appeared there, lighting up as he blew softly on the wick. 'We shall wade in the shallows, so that the sea shall cloak our conversation. There are some matters it is best not to excite the crew with.'

Arthur hesitated. While he thought about whether it would be smart to go off with the Doctor alone, he looked at Sunscorch and tapped the Mariner's medallion. The Second Mate gave a slight nod.

'All right,' said Arthur. 'Lead on.'

He followed the Denizen out of the bright pool of lantern-light, down the beach, and past a line of very neatly organised piles of spare clothing. Each pile was individually labelled.

Scamandros saw him looking at the tidy arrangement and guessed what he was thinking.

'The crew was originally the staff of a counting house,' he said. 'A warehouse where goods were sorted and valued. They were made for that purpose and, being Denizens of a low order, they change and learn very slowly. Hence they are not very good sailors, but excel at the movement and ordering of cargo. Here we are. I shall just take off my shoes and roll up my breeches.'

Doctor Scamandros thrust the candle in the sand and sat to remove his shoes. Arthur sat down too, and took off his Immaterial Boots.

'We must be careful,' Scamandros said as he took up the candle again and waded into the froth. 'The beach shelves very steeply. We shall stay near the tidemark.'

They started walking along, Doctor Scamandros on the lower slope, nearer the sea, so he was almost the same height as Arthur. He was very short for a Denizen, Arthur thought. Shorter even than the miserable Coal-Collaters in the deep cellars of the Lower House.

'Where shall we begin?' asked Scamandros.

'What's the story with Wednesday?' asked Arthur. 'Why is everyone afraid of even going near her?'

'I can answer more easily than most, because I am a volunteer on the Moth and not in fact in her service,' said Scamandros. 'I also have made something of a study of both the Border Sea and its ruler. I am sure you are familiar with the Will of the Architect, the breaking of it by the Trustees, and so forth?'

'Yes,' said Arthur. 'You could say that.'

'Around that time, Lady Wednesday began to be afflicted by an enormous hunger, something no Denizen usually has to any degree. We merely eat for amusement. She ate and ate and ate, and would normally have grown larger and larger. However, by using the power of the Third Key, she was able to keep this growth in abeyance. This continued for some two thousand years, even though by that time she was eating tons and tons of food every day.

'I am not sure exactly what happened then. Either the power of the Key failed, or she misdirected it. In any case, she was transformed into a shape and size appropriate to the amount of food she was eating. She became a Leviathan.'

'A what?'

'A Behemoth.'

'Um, I don't -'

'A monstrous white whale. A stupendous whale! One hundred and twenty-six miles from tail to head, and thirty-two miles in width, with a mouth when open that is two miles high and ten miles wide.'

Arthur stopped walking to think about this. A whale one hundred and twenty-six miles long! Doctor Scamandros kept walking and talking so he had to scurry to catch up and missed a few words.

'. . . transformation and immersion in the Border Sea displaced a vast quantity of water. Fortunately the transformation took place over a week or more, allowing time to prepare the docks and foreshore buildings, most of which were turned into ships like the Moth. A new port was partly prepared on the ridge of Wednesday's Lookout, now Port Wednesday.