Superior Saturday (The Keys to the Kingdom 7)

'Um, Lord Arthur, I trust that I can move a little in that direction?' Scamandros pointed at a pile of coal a few yards away and added, 'As I observe that the front half of yonder pyramid has ceased to exist . . .'

'Of course you can move!' snapped Arthur. He felt a peculiar rage rising in him, something he'd never felt before, an irritation at having to deal with lesser Denizens and inferior beings. For a moment he even felt like striking Scamandros, or forcing the Denizen to prostrate himself and beg forgiveness.

Then the feeling was past, replaced by a deep sense of mortification and shame. Arthur liked Scamandros and he did not like the way he had just felt toward the sorcerer, the proud anger that had fizzed up inside him, like a shaken bottle of soda ready to explode. He stopped and took a deep breath and reminded himself that he was just a boy who had a very tough job to do, and that he would need all the help he could get, from willing friends, not fearful servants.

I'm not going to become like one of the Trustees, thought Arthur firmly. At the back of his head, another little thought lay under that. Or like Dame Primus . . .

'Sorry, I'm sorry, Doctor Scamandros. I didn't mean to shout. I just . . . I'm a bit . . . um . . . anyway, do whatever you need to do to keep away from the Nothing. We'll get out of here soon.'

Dr Scamandros bowed low as Arthur walked away, and another baseball-sized grenade fell out of an inner pocket and immediately began to smoke. The Denizen tut-tutted, pinched the burning fuse out, and slipped it up his sleeve, which did not look like a secure place for it to go. However, it did not immediately fall out.

Arthur walked on, weaving between the pyramids of coal and splashing through the puddles of dirty coaldust-tainted water. He remembered that he had been very cold when he'd last visited the Deep Coal Cellar, but it felt quite pleasant now to him, almost warm. Perhaps a side effect of the Nothing that now surrounded the place, he thought.

There were other changes too. As he drew closer to the blue illumination spread by the clock, Arthur noticed that many of the pyramids now sprouted flowers. Climbing roses twined up through the coal, and, between the puddles, there were clumps of bluebells.

The bluebells spread as the ground climbed a little higher and got drier, the flowers now growing out of stone slates rather than a bed of coaldust, which was equally impossible but did not bother Arthur. He was fairly used to the House. Flowers growing out of coal and stone were far from the strangest things he had seen.

At the last pyramid, he stopped, as he had done all that time ago, when he had first cautiously approached the Old One's prison. The shimmering blue light was less annoying than it had been then, and he could see more clearly this time, even without calling on the Fifth Key to shed some kinder illumination.

Arthur saw a markedly different landscape from what it had been. Between him and the clock-prison was a solid carpet of bluebells, interspersed with clumps of tall yellow-green stalks that burst out at the top in profuse pale white flowers that were shaped a little like very elongated daffodils, but at the same time looked too alien to have come from the earth he knew.

The raised circular platform of stone, the clock face, was significantly smaller, as if it had been shrunk. It had been at least sixty feet in diameter, the length of the driveway at Arthur's own home. Now it was half that, and the Roman numerals that had stood upright around the rim were smaller and tarnished, much of their blue glow gone. Some of them were bent over at forty-five degrees or more, and the numbers and most of the rim were wreathed in climbing red and pink roses.

The metal hands had shrunk with the clock face, to remain in proportion. Long, shining blue-steel chains still ran from the ends of the hands back through the central pivot, fastened at the other end to the manacles locked on the wrists of the Old One.

The Old One himself was not as Arthur had last seen him. He still looked like a giant barbarian hero, eight feet tall and heavily muscled, but his formerly old, almost-translucent skin was now sun-dark and supple. His once-stubbled head now sported a fine crop of clean white hair that was tied back behind his neck. He no longer wore just a loincloth, but had on a sleeveless leather jerkin and a pair of scarlet leggings that came down to just below his knees.

Where he once looked like a fallen, fading ancient of eighty or ninety, the Old One now looked like a super-fit sixty-year-old hero who could easily take on and defeat any number of lesser, younger foes.

The giant was sitting on the rim of the clock between the numbers three and four, slowly plucking the petals from a rose. He was half-turned away from Arthur, so the boy couldn't see the Old One's eyes – or, if it was soon after they had been torn from their sockets by the puppets within the clock, the empty, oozing sockets.

Thinking that was something he definitely did not want to see, Arthur craned his neck to check the position of the clock hands. The hour hand was at nine, and the minute hand at five, which relieved him on three counts. The Old One's eyes would have had plenty of time to grow back and his chains would be fairly tight, keeping him close to the clock. Perhaps most important, it also meant the torturer puppets would not be emerging for several hours.

Arthur stepped out and crossed the field of bluebells. Chains rattled as he approached, and the Old One stood to watch him. Arthur stopped thirty or forty feet from the clock. While the face had shrunk, he couldn't be sure the chains had as well, so he erred on the side of caution.

'Greetings, Old One!' he called.

'Greetings, boy,' rumbled the Old One. 'Or perhaps I can call you boy no longer. Arthur is your name, is it not?'

'Yes.'

'Come sit with me. We will drink wine and talk.'

'Do you promise you won't hurt me?' asked Arthur.

'You will be safe from all harm for the space of a quarter hour, as measured by this clock,' replied the Old One. 'You are mortal enough that I would not slay you like a wandering cockroach – or a Denizen of the House.'

'Thanks,' said Arthur. 'I think.'

He approached cautiously, but the Old One sat down again and, doubling over his chain, swept a space next to him clear of the thorny roses, to make a seat for Arthur.

Arthur perched gingerly next to him.

'Wine,' said the Old One, holding out his hand.

A small stoneware jug flew up out of the ground without parting the bluebells. He caught it and tipped it up above his mouth, pouring out a long draught of resin-scented wine. Arthur could smell it very strongly and once again, it made him feel slightly ill.

'You called the wine with a poem last time,' Arthur said hesitantly. He was thinking of the questions he wanted to ask, and wasn't sure how to start.

'It is the power of my will that shapes Nothing,' replied the Old One . 'It is true that many lesser beings need to sharpen their thoughts with speech or song when they deal with Nothing. I do not need to do so, though on occasion it may amuse me to essay some rhyme or poesy.'

'I wanted to ask you some questions,' said Arthur. 'And to tell you something.'

'Ask away,' said the Old One. 'I shall answer if I choose. As for the telling, if I do not like what I hear, it shall not make me stray from my promise. Whatever your speech, you may still have safe passage hence. If you do not overstay your allotted time.'

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and proffered the jug. Arthur quickly shook his head, so the ancient drank again.

'You probably know more than anyone about the Architect,' said Arthur. 'So I wanted to ask you what happened to her? And what is the Will exactly, and what is it . . . she . . . going to do? I mean, I'm supposed to be the Rightful Heir and all, and I thought that meant that I was going to end up in charge of everything, whether I wanted to or not. Only now I'm not so sure.'

'I knew the Architect long ago,' said the Old One slowly. He drank a series of smaller mouthfuls before speaking again. 'Yet not so well as I thought, or I would not have suffered here so long. I do not know what happened to her, save that it must have been at least in part of her own choosing. As for the Will, it is an expression of her power, set up to achieve some end. If you are the Rightful Heir, I would suggest the question you need ask is this: what exactly are you to inherit, and from whom?'

Arthur frowned.

'I don't want to be the Heir. I just want to get my old life back and make sure everyone is safe,' he said. 'But I can't get everything sorted out without using the Keys, and that's turning me into a Denizen. Scamandros made me a ring that says I'm six . . . more than six parts in ten . . . - sorcerously contaminated, and it's irreversible. So I will become a Denizen, right?'

'Your body is assuming an immortal form – that is evident,' said the Old One. 'But not everything of immortal flesh is a Denizen. Remember, the Architect did not make the mortals of Earth. She made the stuff of life and sowed it across all creation. You mortals arose from the possibility she made and, though she always liked to think so, are consequently not of her direct design. There is more to you, and all mortals, than the simple flesh you inhabit.'

'But can I become a normal boy again?'

'I do not know.' The Old One drained the last of the wine from the jug, then threw it far past the light of the clock. The sound of its shattering came faint and distant from the darkness, reassurance that there was still solid ground out there – at least for a little while longer. 'In general, one cannot go back. But in going forward, you may achieve some of what you desired of the past. If you can survive, anything may happen.' The Old One plucked another rose, careless of its thorns, and held it beneath his nose. 'Perhaps you will even be given flowers. The clock ticks, Arthur. Your time is almost sped.'

'I have so many questions,' said Arthur. 'Can you give me another ten-'

The Old One put down his rose and looked at the boy with his fierce blue eyes, a gaze that would make the most superior Denizen quail and tremble.

'Never mind.' Arthur gulped. 'I just wanted to tell you that if I do end up in charge of everything, I'll do my best to set you free. It isn't right that the puppets should torture you.'

The Old One blinked and took up the rose again.

'I honour you for that. But look – the puppets are no more. As the House has weakened, I have grown stronger. An hour ago, the clock shivered, and I felt Nothing draw close. The puppets felt it too, and as is their duty, came forth before their time, to prevent a rescue or an attempted escape. I fought with them, broke them, and cast them down.

'I am still chained, but as the House falls, my strength will grow, and my prison will weaken. In time, I will be free, or so these flowers promise me. I have been stripping the petals to throw upon my enemies. The puppets do not like it, for they know the flowers are a harbinger of change. Go, I grant you the time to look upon them!'

Arthur stood up nervously and looked across the clock face, but he didn't move. He didn't really want to go anywhere near the trapdoors on either side of the central pivot of the clock.

'Hurry,' urged the Old One.

Arthur walked closer. The trapdoors were smashed in, splintered stubs of timber hanging from the thick iron hinges. Something rustled from inside, and Arthur looked down into a deep narrow chamber that was piled high with rose petals. The puppet woodchopper was there, still with its green cap on, the feather bent in half. But its limbs were broken, and all it could do was wriggle on the rose petals, gnash its teeth, and hiss.

Arthur shuddered and retreated to the rim, almost backing into the Old One.

'I hope . . . I hope we will not be enemies,' said Arthur.

The Old One inclined his head, but did not speak. Arthur jumped down from the clock face and hurried away, his mind churning with fears and facts and suppositions. He had hoped the Old One could help him make sense of his situation, make matters clearer.

But he had only made it worse.

FIVE

'LORD ARTHUR, I am vastly relieved to see you,' called out Scamandros as he saw Arthur hurrying back. 'I trust the Old One answered your questions?'

'Not exactly,' said Arthur. 'Not even close, really. Is the Nothing still advancing?'

In answer, Scamandros cast out a lure with his fishing rod. The lure, a lobsterlike crustacean four or five inches long, disappeared into darkness. Scamandros wound the line back in, counting marks on the woven thread as he did so. There was no lure on the end.

'Six . . . seven . . . eight. The speed of encroachment has increased, Lord Arthur.'

'Where was Dame Primus when you last were in touch? And Suzy?'

'They were both in the Citadel,' said Scamandros. 'It has become the general headquarters of your forces throughout the House, Lord Arthur.'

'Could be tricky to get there,' said Arthur. 'Using the Fifth Key, I mean, since they secured the Citadel against Lady Friday. I suppose we could take the Improbable Stair-' Scamandros began to shake his head, and Arthur stopped himself. 'Oh, yeah, you can't go on the Stair. Oh, well . . . there was a mirror in Sir Thursday's . . . in my quarters. I guess I can try that, and if it doesn't work then we'll have to think of somewhere else, in the Middle House or wherever, and try to take an elevator from there.'

He took out the Fifth Key and held it up for a moment in front of his face, then dropped it to his side.

'Uh, if I can make a door, how do I take you with me?'

Dr Scamandros held up his hand and wiggled his fingers.

'If you allow me to hold on to your coattails, I shall be carried through, Lord Arthur.'