Leaf knew this Denizen was the Lieutenant Keeper of the Front Door, and even though dull blue blood was seeping through his coat and breeches in a dozen places, he was not yet dead. As the Reaper stooped over him, he raised his head.

"You come too late for the fight," he said weakly. "But I thank you."

"I have long thought it unwise you should fight alone in the Door," replied the Reaper. He transferred his scythe to his left hand and reached down to slide his right arm under the Lieutenant Keeper's shoulder. "Come, I will bear you away. My Master shall make you anew."

"Nay," said the Lieutenant Keeper, shaking his head. "I must not leave my post, and their blades were Nothing poisoned. I will soon pass a more mysterious door than this one."

Leaf, who was looking over the Reaper's shoulder, wiped a tear from her eye. It was as much a reaction to everything that had happened as it was sorrow at the death of a Denizen she didn't even know.

"Shed no tears, lass," said the Lieutenant Keeper. "In truth, I have long been weary of my unceasing work. But before I am released, perhaps you would take my sword."

"No!" the Reaper shouted as the Lieutenant Keeper flicked the sword up to Leaf and fell back, slowly tumbling into a somersault, all strength and life gone, poured into his final act.

Leaf dropped her short sword and caught the hilt of the Lieutenant Keeper's weapon, as the Reaper shrugged her off his back and jumped away, twisting so that he had his scythe ready to strike against her.

As Leaf's fingers closed around the hilt, the golden braid fastened itself around her wrist. In that instant, she felt a new sense suddenly flower in her mind. She could feel the Front Door in all its vastness, could feel the thousands of entrances and exits, could almost taste the presence of intruders, sour and unwelcome…It was all too much, and she cried out and crouched down under the pressure of the sensory overload, not even noticing that her radiation suit was turning blue and softening, becoming a swallow-tailed coat just like the dead Lieutenant Keeper's, while the bottom half became white breeches and the suit's overboots became black top boots, the toe caps shiny as a mirror.

The Reaper raised his scythe, but did not strike. Instead he frowned and used the scythe to rise some ten feet above Leaf. He was still in striking distance, but did not make any further moves until the girl slowly uncurled and stood up.

"My Master will be displeased," said the Reaper.

"What?" asked Leaf. She was still trying to come to grips with her new ability to sense what was going on in the Door and it was hard to listen or talk at the same time.

"You are now the Lieutenant Keeper of the Front Door," said the Reaper. "As such, I cannot compel you to come with me. I could kill you, of course, but my instructions are otherwise."

"Whose instructions?" asked Leaf.

"Lord Sunday's, of course," said the Reaper. "As I'm sure you guessed."

"Yes," said Leaf. "What does he want with me?"

"I do not know," replied the Reaper. "My Master likes to gather all possible tools before embarking upon any work. In this case, he must forgo your possible use."

"What?" asked Leaf again, more sharply. She looked to one side, feeling the approach of a large group of Nithlings. "There are Nithlings coming-"

"That is not my concern," said the Reaper. "I will leave you now."

"But you can't!" said Leaf. There were lots of Nithlings inside the Door, and there were strange breaches where she knew there should only be closed portals into parts of the House or the Secondary Realms. "I need your help!"

"I answered the Lieutenant Keeper's call," said the Reaper. "A detour from my proper work that has cost me dear. Now I must report my failure."

"Wait a-" Leaf began, but the Reaper raised his scythe and it lifted him away. A moment later, he was accelerating into the dark.

"Farewell!" cried the Reaper, and he was gone.

Leaf hefted her sword, which shone with its own cold blue light, stark as a fluorescent tube, and looked to the direction from which the Nithling horde would come.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The dragonfly swooped down to the third terrace that was cut into the hill, about halfway up, and Arthur was dragged over rough green turf for twenty feet before the flying creature came to a stop and went into a steady hover. The rope ladder tumbled down and the two tall green Denizens descended. They unhooked Arthur's chains from the dragonfly's tow rope and, as he had feared, dragged him over to the clock.

Lord Sunday followed close behind, directing the power of the Seventh Key against Arthur while Arthur's own Keys struggled to break out of the silver net. The force of Sunday's power pushed Arthur's head down and made him feel weak and unable to resist the two Denizens. One of them held him while the other fastened the chains to the tips of the clock hands. Arthur felt the chains grow shorter, like elastic returning to its normal length, and they dragged him across the clock face till he had to sit on the central pivot, next to the trapdoor.

Arthur craned his neck to check the position of the hands. The hour hand was on the twelve and the minute hand just past it. Then he looked at the trapdoor. It was shut, but he could hear a faint whirring noise behind it and something like a low, unpleasant chuckle.

"This is like the Old One's clock prison," Arthur said to Lord Sunday, who stood by the number six, gazing down at his captive. He still held the Seventh Key close in his right hand and the silver net in his left. "Are there puppets within that will take out my eyes?"

"There are," confirmed Lord Sunday. "But you have almost twelve hours before they will emerge, and you will have a chance to be spared from their ministrations."

"How?" asked Arthur.

"You may surrender your Keys to me," said Lord Sunday. "And A Compleat Atlas of the House. If they are freely given, I will return you to your Earth."

"And my mother?"

"Yes, she shall go with you."

"And you'll leave us alone? I mean, leave the Earth alone? And you'll stop the Nothing from destroying the House and the Secondary Realms?"

"I do not interfere unnecessarily beyond these Gardens," said Lord Sunday. "It is unfortunate that events have so transpired that I must take a hand, to impose order where others have failed to do so."

"So you won't promise to leave us alone," said Arthur. "Or anything else."

"You have heard my offer," Lord Sunday replied coldly. "You and your mother will return to your world, if you give me the Keys and the Atlas."

Arthur slowly shook his head. "No. I don't trust you."

"Very well," said Lord Sunday. "Consider that allowing the puppets to take your eyes is only one of many things I can do to make you reconsider. While I will not stoop to menace mere mortals, I do hold your mother prisoner. Your friend Leaf has also been taken. If you wish to see either of them again, then you will give me the Keys and the Atlas ."

Arthur shut his eyes for a moment. He was tempted by Lord Sunday's offer, but not because he was afraid for his mother or Leaf, or of the puppets that would tear out his eyes, but simply because it would mean he could lay down the impossible burden he had been given. Everything would just go back to the way it was before.

Except it's too late for that, Arthur thought as he opened his eyes. I can't trust Sunday to do the right thing, for the House or the Universe…or for me. I don't even know what his plans really are, or why he has let Saturday destroy the House. There's no way he could leave me alone, not now. I have come too far, and I have changed too much to go back. I have to see this through. I'll use the medal to call the Mariner and hope he gets here before the clock strikes twelve…

Arthur's hand fell to the pouch at his waist as he thought this and he saw Lord Sunday's eyes follow the movement. Instantly Arthur lifted his hand to scratch his nose, the chain clanking as he moved. But it was too late. Sunday's attention was on the pouch. The Trustee lifted his hand slightly and Arthur's belt broke apart, the pouch sailing across the intervening space to land at Sunday's feet. Waterless soap, a cleaning cloth and brush, several nuts and bolts, and the all-important silver bag fell out.

Sunday gestured again and the silver bag spewed out it contents: A Compleat Atlas of the House, the yellow elephant toy and the Mariner's medal. The Atlas disappeared as it touched the grass. Arthur jumped as it reappeared a moment later inside the front of his coveralls.

"Like the Keys, the Atlas must be given freely," said Sunday. "I hope you will do so before too much time passes. As for your sentimental possessions, I do not care to give you the comfort of them. Noon, take these things and throw them from the hill."

Arthur could only watch as the slightly taller of the two green Denizens scooped up the elephant and the medal and threw them away. The items separated as they flew through the air, the elephant on a high arc that ended suddenly as it landed in the high branches of a tree, the medal going lower and further, travelling several hundred yards before it disappeared below the level of the terrace.

Arthur watched every moment of the medal's fall and with it the loss of his only hope of escape.

"I have a garden to tend," said Lord Sunday. "I will return in a few hours when I trust you will have thought further about my offer."

He stepped off the horizontal clock face and walked away, but not to the dragonfly's rope ladder. Instead Arthur watched him cross to the rear of the terrace, where a line of steps wound up the hill. The two Denizens followed. All three were on the steps when a bright blue-and-red bird shot past Arthur and flew in front of Lord Sunday, hovering in place, its wings beating so fast they were a blur. Sunday held out a finger, the bird hopped on to it and was carried to his shoulder, where it spoke into his ear in a high-pitched voice that Arthur could almost hear, but not well enough to make out more than a few key words.

"Saturday…not…Drasils wilting…more…"

The bird finished talking. Sunday nodded once and it flew away, back down the hill. Sunday turned around and looked at Arthur.

"It seems you are not the only recalcitrant who cannot acknowledge the realities of their position," said Lord Sunday. "As always, it is left to me to personally take charge of matters."

With that, he handed the silver net to Sunday's Noon, who held it with both hands. It obviously took a lot of effort to keep it relatively still as the Keys jumped around inside, straining to reach Arthur.

"Distance will make them less restive," said Sunday. He placed his hand just above his breastbone, touching the Key that hung from a chain around his neck, hidden inside his shirt, and closed his eyes for a moment in concentration. "They will be completely quiescent when they are locked away. I have opened the cage, but it will soon close, so attend to that at once. Dawn, come with me."

Sunday retraced his steps back down to the clock terrace, with Sunday's Dawn following, and climbed back up the ladder to the dragonfly. But Arthur didn't watch Sunday climb and only saw the dragonfly depart from the corner of his eye. He was intent upon Sunday's Noon, and watched him as he carefully carried the silver net and the Keys away up the steps that led to the next terrace and out of Arthur's sight.

A few minutes later, the dragonfly was away, turning to climb up and over the hill. Arthur was alone, chained to the clock. He could see only as far as the nearest hundred-foot-high hedge below the hill, and the slope of the terrace behind him.

The clock ticked – a sound like the sharp stroke of an axe on very hard wood. The minute hand swept forward and the chain on Arthur's left wrist rattled as it too moved.

Arthur bit his lip and tried to think. The medal was gone, but there had to be something else he could do. There was the chance that Dame Primus or Dr Scamandros might be able to rescue him, but even as he thought that, he dismissed it. His only real chance would be if he could do something himself. He had to regain the Keys, or free Part Seven of the Will, or somehow retrieve the Mariner's medal.

The clock ticked again, the hand moved and the chain rattled. Arthur stood up and looked around. He couldn't see where the medal had landed. The only thing he could see was his yellow elephant, stuck in the upper branches of a tall tree that reached up from the next terrace further down the hill. The elephant looked like a strange fruit, the bright yellow a stark contrast against the tree's pale green leaves.

I wish you could help me, thought Arthur. Elephant, you were always there to help me out when I was little, even if it was only in my imagination…

Arthur looked away from Elephant, down at the clock face, and then at the green grass of the terrace.

The Old One conjured stuff out of Nothing when I first met him, Arthur thought. He said I'd need a Key to do it, but that was ages ago, before my transformation. I might be able to make things from Nothing here.

He laid his hand on the clock. He couldn't feel any interstices of Nothing lurking somewhere underneath, as was usual in other parts of the House, and it was likely the Incomparable Gardens were completely armoured against the Void, but it was worth a try. Anything was worth a try.

"A telephone, connected to the Citadel in the Great Maze," said Arthur firmly. At the same time he visualised the telephone Dame Primus had given him long ago, in the red box. He tried to picture it in his head as solidly as possible, but he felt none of the symptoms of House sorcery. Though these aches and pains were always unpleasant and sometimes extraordinarily intense, he would have welcomed them if it meant his attempts to make a telephone from Nothing were successful.

Tags: Garth Nix The Keys to the Kingdom Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net