Lord Sunday (The Keys to the Kingdom 6)

"Sunday will not strike from the air against us in this place," said the Mariner after a swift look upward. "But here he comes! Now, is it truly your wish that I should break this lock and open this cage?"

Arthur lowered his arms. He looked up too. The dragonfly was coming in to hover and he could see Sunday running towards its tail.

"Yes," he said.

"This is the third of three times that I swore to aid you," said the Mariner. "There will be no more."

"Please! Open it!"

Sunday didn't wait for the ladder. He jumped from the dragonfly, fifty feet up, without wings, as the Mariner touched the very tip of his harpoon to the lock of the cage.

Arthur put his arm in front of his face, expecting an explosion, or at the very least a cascade of white-hot sparks. But there was only a gentle click. The door sprang open. The Mariner took a step back and let the harpoon fall from his hand. The weapon turned into water as it fell, becoming a dark, whitecrested wave that broke on Arthur's feet, the smell of salt strong in the air as the wash sank into the ground.

"All journeys end," said the Mariner. He inclined his head to Arthur, then turned to his left and nodded. "Farewell, brother."

Lord Sunday caught the Mariner as he fell and laid him down. Then the Trustee clapped his hand to his chest, his fingers reaching for the gap between the top two buttons of his shirt, just above his waistcoat, where something gold gleamed against his skin.

But before Lord Sunday could touch whatever was inside, one of the branches of the tree snapped out through the open door and finger-twigs gripped his arm. At the same time a root exploded out of the ground and wound around Sunday's legs. Tiny words and letters thronged and wriggled on the branch and root, flowing off the tree and on to Sunday. These words multiplied, becoming more branches and roots, all of them spreading across the Trustee's body, all struggling to keep his hand away from the Seventh Key.

Arthur! You must act now! came the urgent voice of the Will. Now!

The voice seemed distant and far away to Arthur – as in fact did everything else. He knew he was speaking, but even his own voice felt as if it came from some distant, faraway place.

"I, Arthur, anointed Heir to the Kingdom, claim the Seventh Key and with it sovereignty over the Incomparable Gardens, the House and the Secondary Realms. I claim it by blood…and bone…and contest. Out of truth, in testament and against all trouble."

There was silence when Arthur spoke the last word. The sounds of battle were muffled and far away. Arthur felt like he was alone with the tree-wrapped Lord Sunday, just the two of them on the hill.

The silence stretched into long seconds, before Sunday finally spoke.

"You have doomed us all."

The tree retreated from Lord Sunday, words slip ping back to branch and root, these limbs shrinking back to the tree inside the cage.

Lord Sunday reached behind his neck.

Where is the Key? Arthur thought frantically. He looked at the tree in the cage. It wasn't doing anything now.

Is Lord Sunday reaching for a weapon? What does he mean that I've doomed us all?

Sunday lifted a chain from around his neck, pulling it over his head to reveal a small, shining object on the end of the chain, the object that had been hidden under his shirt.

It was a key. A tiny golden key, the length of the smallest joint on Arthur's little finger.

Lord Sunday let the chain fall. It hung in the air for a moment. Then, with the jangling noise of a falling harp, the Seventh Key flew to Arthur.

The chain briefly rested around his head like a crown before it slipped down to lie about his neck, the Key itself coming to rest upon his chest. As it settled there, Arthur felt a titanic infusion of certainty and confidence.

I've done it, thought Arthur. I am the Master now!

The tree inside the cage shook its branches, rustled its leaves and, one by one, began to draw its roots out of the earth. Lord Sunday turned away from Arthur, as if by not seeing him he could deny his existence.

Arthur let him. Sunday was of no account now. He simply didn't matter. Arthur could feel the glorious power of the Seventh Key filling him up, a power that would soon be augmented by all his other Keys, as soon as Dame Primus could get there and deliver them.

"You must stop the fighting," said the Will, speaking aloud. "It is delaying matters, which is annoying after so long a wait."

It turned its trunk sideways and leaned through the door, reaching out with several branches and some of its taproots, like a contortionist coming out of a box.

"How?" asked Arthur. He had the power, he knew, but he wasn't sure how to use it.

"Why not slay them all, myself included?" suggested Lord Sunday bitterly, without turning around. "You hold three Keys directly, and all by acclaim; you have the power."

"Yes," said Arthur. He knew that he could. "I suppose I could kill you all."

It seemed like a reasonable suggestion for a moment, perhaps even a useful exercise of his newfound power. Arthur's hand crept to hold the Seventh Key, but even as his fingers closed around it, he was distracted by something. The lingering scent of sea spray; a glimpse of the body of a small yellow elephant; an old man dead on the ground with a far-travelled smile still on his face…

"No…what…" said Arthur. He groaned and snatched his hand away. "I am Arthur Penhaligon! I'm not killing anyone!"

He let his arms rest at his side, and reached past the anger and the pride, past the arrogance of power, to that small inner core of his being, where he was still a quiet, thoughtful boy who had been brought up in kindness and peace.

"Whatever else I may have become, I am also Arthur Penhaligon," he repeated. "I am not going to kill anyone."

"It would be a mercy, in many ways," said Lord Sunday. "I still find it hard to comprehend that I have failed. How could a mortal have defeated me?"

Arthur didn't answer, which made Lord Sunday look even haughtier, and at the same time more defeated.

Instead Arthur gazed out at the battle that was being fought across the Incomparable Gardens. He didn't need a telescope now, for if he wanted to he simply focused his attention and saw as closely as he wished. His mind worked faster too, processing the images, taking in everything almost instantaneously.

He saw the Horde charging home against a flying hedgehog of umbrella-armed sorcerers; the Legion locked in vertical combat with Newniths in a battle two miles high; jewel-winged insects and Border Sea sailors in a confused, circling melee that moved like a tornado, sucking in combatants and spitting out the wounded and the dead; he saw Suzy's Raiders, though without Suzy, the Piper's children valiantly attacking the most powerful foes; and finally he saw Leaf and Daisy, falling through the torn-apart sling, still a thousand feet above the ground.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Suzy lifted Leaf off Daisy's back just as the sling finally tore apart, holding the slighter girl under the arms . The beastwort flung its tentacles up and Borderers grabbed hold of them, but with the barbed insects still being fired against them, and confusion everywhere, there were not enough Denizens to keep the creature airborne.

"Try for that lake!" shouted Leaf wildly. She pointed down at a large body of water, still some distance away. "Drop her in the lake! Hold on, Daisy!"

The beastwort let out a long, high-pitched cry and fell away, with too few Borderers holding on. Leaf took a breath to shout for more of them to chase and grab hold, but could not get the breath she needed, instead getting a stabbing pain in her chest. She coughed it out, but could not speak. The Gardens below went blurry, and for a moment she didn't know where she was or what she was doing.

"Daisy?" she whispered.

"I reckon she'll hit the lake," said Suzy. She was flying upward as fast as she could, trying to get out of range of the spiked insects. The living missiles were being propelled upward out of strange bulbous flowers full of a pink gas, but the flowers could not send them higher than three thousand feet. "Very tough critter, that Daisy. Like as not, she'll pick 'erself up."

Leaf nodded and pressed her hands into her eyes, to try to refocus them and get her head together. "Where did you come from?" she asked.

"Saw your sling coming undone," said Suzy. "So I doubled back."

"Are we winning?" Leaf asked. She couldn't concentrate, couldn't look out. It was easier just to hang in Suzy's arms and ask the question.

"Dunno," said Suzy. "But we're making ground. Or air. Only a few miles from the Elysium now. But the Piper's ahead of us."

"Keep lots of soldiers in between us then," said Leaf. She was having trouble staying conscious and the world kept slipping away, darkness alternating with flashes of confused light and sound.

"Do my best," muttered Suzy. She was looking for her Raiders, but couldn't see them. There was fighting everywhere and it was difficult to work out where to go. The Elysium did lie ahead, the hill one of the few landmarks Suzy could easily spot. But the battle was especially heavy around it…though Suzy frowned as she realised that there were no longer any insects or dragonflies defending the place. Instead the air above the hill was packed with Newniths and sorcerers, who were desperately holding back multiple assaults by different units of the Glorious Army of the Architect.

"The Piper must be there already," Suzy said to herself. "And it looks like something's happened to Sunday. 'Oo would have thought? I hope you're there too, Arthur!"

She tapped her ears, to check the plugs were in, and swooped down behind a cohort of Legionaries who were about to descend against the defenders of the Elysium hill.

Arthur had just decided how to make the fighting stop when the Piper and Saturday landed by the stream, their respective bodyguards flying back up to join the rearguard that was slowly being pressed back and down by the forces of Dame Primus.

Both of Arthur's enemies wore black-lacquered leather wings, which looked odd against the Piper's yellow greatcoat and fashionable with Superior Saturday's new armour of reddish plates. But Saturday was no longer as tall as she had been, nor as astonishingly beautiful, and she remained a step behind her new Master, with her head bent.

The Piper lifted his gold-masked face to Arthur and spoke, his voice as mellifluous and charming as it had been before Part Four of the Will spat poison in his mouth, before the battle for the Citadel, which felt to Arthur so long ago.

"So you have claimed the Seventh Key, Arthur. What now?"

"That is my business," said Arthur shortly. "I give you permission to remove yourself and your army, and Saturday as well."

"To where?" asked the Piper. He spoke as if to an old friend. "The House has been eaten up by Nothing, Arthur. Only the Gardens remain, and perhaps not even that, at least not for very long. Not unless you let me take matters in hand."

"I will force the Nothing back," said Arthur. "You have your worldlet. Return there."

"It too is gone," said the Piper mournfully. "Lost, all will be lost. Unless you give me your Keys. They are too great a burden for a mortal. Better I take them, and put everything to-"

"It is too late for your tricks," interrupted Lord Sunday. "He is too strong. Submit and let us finish this."

"Too proud to fight to the last, are you?" snapped the Piper. "None of this would have happened if you had not been too haughty to raise your hand. But I, bested by a mortal? I think not!"

He shook his sleeve and a pipe appeared in his hand. He had it at the mouth-hole of his mask, his fingers over the holes, when Arthur spoke.

"No," he said, and touched the Seventh Key. "I would like to hear you play, Piper, but not dance to your tune. I think there has been enough fighting."

The Piper's hand clenched into a useless claw and the pipe fell to the ground. Saturday bent to pick it up and returned it to her Master. He took it slowly, then suddenly tried to put it to his mouth again.

"No," said Arthur even more firmly. The pipe blazed with a sudden fire that ran from end to end. The instrument became a stick of ashes, and then the ashes blew away.

The Piper's shoulders sagged.

"So," said the Piper. "I would have liked mortals less if I knew what they might become."

He reached up and removed his mask. Arthur watched intently, ready for some trick or sneak attack. But he wasn't prepared for what he saw. There was only the ghost of a face behind the mask, faint traces of light sketching out someone who once would have looked a little like Lord Sunday.

"I see no reason to continue the struggle to hold myself together just to share your company for these last few minutes," said the Piper to Arthur. He turned to Sunday. "But tell me, brother – was it you who cast me into Nothing, some seven centuries ago?"

"Not I," said Sunday. "Would I stoop to such a thing?"

The Piper looked at Saturday. She cringed before his gaze. "My Rats told me it was you. I should have believed them."

Saturday cried out as the Piper suddenly lunged, a knife with a blade as dark as night appearing in his hand. He plunged it deep into Saturday's chest and twisted the hilt.

An instant too late, Arthur directed the power of the Key against him, throwing the Piper back a dozen feet. He landed on his feet, but did not move.

"In this at least, I command my destiny," the Piper said. "Enjoy your triumph while it lasts, mortal."

He dropped the mask he held in his left hand. As it hit the paving stones, his lightly sketched face suddenly winked out like a hologram turned off, and his yellow coat fell to the ground. There was no body inside. All that remained of the Piper was the golden mask.