Grim Tuesday 2 of 2

The light was coming from Arthur's wings. That was comforting for a few
seconds, till he realized that being lit up like a Christmas tree angel in the Pit was
just an invitation to Nithlings, Overseers, and who knew what else.
Not that there was anything he could do, or any time to think about it. More and
more gobbets were flying at him, most of them coming up from below, so he had
to draw his knees and feet up and lean forward, which was quite difficult. Every
time he leaned forward too far or let one knee fall lower than the other, he lost
his balance and started to spin around.
After beating away at least a dozen more gobbets of Nothing, Arthur noticed that
there were fewer of them, but the ones that were still attacking were larger. They
were combining… becoming a Nithling.
Which worried him a lot, particularly when no more gobbets came hurtling up
out of the darkness. Did that mean he was out of their reach, or that they had
combined into something that was somewhere nearby, flying up with him?


Something touched his leg. Arthur flinched and cried out, till he realized it was
just his useless lantern, brushing against his knee. He opened his hand and let it
fall, the glass sending one last reflection back before it disappeared into darkness.
A second later, there was the sound of broken glass and an angry cry, partly
muffled by rain and Arthur's beating wings.
"Ow!"
"Suzy!" Arthur called again. But as he called out, and relief rose in his heart, a
nasty thought crept into his mind. Maybe there was some sort of Nithling that
could imitate people? What if there was one that could take the shape of people
it had dissolved or eaten? He had a vague half-memory of someone talking about
that, or maybe he had read it in the Atlas…
"Suzy?" he repeated, looking down. "Is that you?"
"'Course it's me!" came the retort. Arthur still couldn't see her, but she sounded
closer. "Almost took my eye out, you idiot! There's enough rubbish in this hole
without you chucking some more down."
That did sound like the sort of thing Suzy would say, Arthur thought. But what if
the Nithling had absorbed her mind and memories, and had gotten all her
vocabulary and word choices and everything?
He wished he could see her, but at the same time was afraid that he would see
the distorted man-shape with the insectlike wings beating in a frenzy as it tried to
catch up.


"What happened?" Arthur asked. He caught a glimpse of something below, but
couldn't quite make out what it was. "The Nithling —"
"Missed me," called out Suzy. "Close-run thing. Bit off my right clog. I was
kicking it in the teeth, so I's'pose that's fair."
Arthur relaxed. It had to be Suzy, narrowly escaped.
But if it's Suzy, why aren't her wings glowing like mine?
"Better dim your wings!" Suzy called out, almost exactly as Arthur thought this.
"The light's making Nothing come together into gobbets. Once there's enough of
them around, they'll make a Nithling."
"How do I know you're really Suzy?" Arthur called in return, a slight edge of
panic in his voice.
"What are you talking about?" came the exasperated reply. "Who else would I
be? Shade your light!"
"Don't listen to her!" called another voice, one that also sounded like Suzy, but
huskier. "Keep your light up, it's the only thing protecting you from the
Nithlings!"
"Tarnation!" said the first Suzy voice. "The thing that got my clog has patterned
itself on me. Must have found a bit of toenail or skin."
"Don't listen, Arthur!" came the other Suzy voice. "I'm the real Suzy! Keep your
light on, I'm catching up!"


Arthur stared down at the darkness. If only he could see the speakers, he was
sure he'd be able to tell which one was the real Suzy. But there was nothing…
"Arthur, tell your stupid wings to dim, and look out! That Nithling will get above
you and swoop down at your face. It's blind, but it smells the power behind the
light!"
Arthur blinked. That voice came from the left, and was accompanied by a faint
sparkle of light, like a single distant star seen on a cloudy night.
"That's a lie! The light protects you!" screamed the second Suzy voice, from off
to the right, and closer.
"Wings, please dim your light," said Arthur softly, and he raised the remnant of
his copper tube and held it out like a sword before his face.
He was only just in time, as a nightmarish thing crashed into the tube, hurtling
Arthur in a series of backwards somersaults, his wings thrashing to right
themselves. The pipe was torn from Arthur's grasp as it stuck like a harpoon into
the Nithling's breast. The creature plummeted past him and into the depths,
shrieking.
Mid-somersault, Arthur caught a horrific vision of a figure the size and general
shape of Suzy, but made from scales and patchwork crocodile hide. One of its
fifteen-foot dragonfly wings beat so fast it blurred, while the other hung limp
and useless with Arthur's pipe stuck into the chest muscles that powered it.
"How could you telllllll…"


Suzy's fingernail, thought Arthur. That faint sparkle of light.
Arthur's wings got him upright and level again, and resumed their steady, aireating
pace. They did not brighten, keeping the light at about the same level as
that shed by a couple of birthday cake candles, so Arthur could hardly see his
own hands.
"That was close," said Suzy.
"Very," said Arthur. "I know it's you, Suzy, but can you just brighten up your
wings for a second so I can be sure? I'd hate to burn you into cinders with my
power by mistake."
He said the second sentence louder than the first, in case it was another Nithling.
It might get scared off.
"Oh, all right," said Suzy. Then she added in a louder voice, "Anything to avoid
being incisorated."
Light bloomed a mere twenty feet below Arthur's feet, and he saw Suzy looking
up at him. She winked, lifted her hands above her head, and pushed her palms
together to make herself into an arrow shape. In response, her wings beat faster.
She leaned to the left and rapidly drew up level with Arthur, a few feet to the
side.
"Incisorated?" asked Arthur.
"Dunno," said Suzy with a shrug. "It sounds scarier, though, don't it? Incinerated
is what they do with dead papers out on the Waste Waste, back home in the


Lower House. That wouldn't scare me, not up here. Where's your incinerator?"
"I wish I was back home," said Arthur.
"So do I," replied Suzy briefly. "Wish I had one, let alone being there. Keep an
eye out for more Nithlings. Too many gobbets flitting about below. They seem
to be attracted to the wings. I'd wondered why no one ever used them here."
"What?" asked Arthur. "You knew no one ever used wings here?"
"Sure," said Suzy. "I just thought they were dumb plodders. Look, there's the
train!"
She pointed. Arthur squinted into the dark and for a moment thought he saw a
tiny spray of what might be sparks somewhere in the distance. Then he was
plunged into a thick cloud, and even his wings couldn't keep all the moisture
from him.
"An hour or so of cloud and then into the smoke next," said Suzy cheerfully.
"Worse than Dame Primus's cigars. Old bat won't give me one, neither."
"Smoking will kill you with throat or lung or mouth cancer or heart disease,"
said Arthur, an asthmatic and the son of a doctor. "Not to mention years of bad
breath, yellow teeth, brown fingernails, lungs full of tar so you cough like a cat
throwing up hairballs, only the sputum is worse than hairballs."
"Well, you might be right about the yellow teeth and the fingernails, but
smoking won't kill you in the House," said Suzy. "Unless you nick one of Dame
Primus's cigars."


"Well, smoking will kill you back in my home," said Arthur. "Where I intend to
be again as soon as possible. Where I should be… where I would be now, if it
wasn't for the Morrow Days and the bits of the Will and everything."
"It could be worse," said Suzy.
"How?"
"You could have the Will stuck down your gob. It used to throb in my throat and
make me feel like I'd got a bit of rice pudding stuck halfway down. Horrible, it
was."
"And we're going to get another piece of it. If we can find it."
"It might be a better bit. Nicer. We'll find it. Has to be in the Grim's Treasure
Tower, doesn't it?"
"Why?" asked Arthur gloomily.
"Stands to reason, doesn't it? Grim Tuesday's famous for stuffing 'is tower full of
the best things ever made and the most valuable loot from the Secondary
Realms. 'Course the Will will be in there somewhere."
"It can't be as easy as that," said Arthur.
"Well, we do have to get in there," said Suzy. "Through the wind vane and all.
Might be a bit tricky, even with the stickit fingers. Then there'll be guards and so
forth, I's'pose."


"Right," said Arthur heavily.
"And traps."
"Great."
"And there's an eel of a chance Grim Tuesday'll be there himself, though, if that
is his train going down the Pit, he should be on that."
"Good."
"Probably. Though sometimes it's only one of the Grotesques takes the train —
look out!"
Chapter Eleven
Arthur leaned desperately to the right as something plummeted past him. Once
again he hardly had time to register what it was, beyond a jumbled snapshot of
teeth, claws, and tiny, useless wings fluttering madly.
"What was that?!"
"Dunno," said Suzy. "Who knows how the gobbets decide what to make when
they come together? Bad news for down below."
"What?"
"A Nithling'll probably survive the fall. It'll just be really cross. Look out!"
Arthur flipped his legs forward and threw himself back, tumbling end over end


as something that looked like a cross between a boa constrictor and a weasel fell
hissing past, its jaws almost close enough to close on Arthur's hand.
It fell still closer to Suzy, but she whacked it with her copper pipe. Arthur was
surprised to hear the clear ringing tone of metal striking metal and to see that
none of the pipe dissolved.
"Ouch!" exclaimed Suzy. "Jarred my hand!"
"Was… was that a Nithling?" Arthur asked as he regained his flying equilibrium.
He kept looking nervously in all directions, though, ready to lean or tumble or do
whatever it took to avoid whatever came flying up or falling down next.
"Who knows?" said Suzy. "Most shaped-up Nith-lings are some sort of flesh, but
whatever that was, it was made of metal. It bent my pipe."
"How long till we hit the ceiling?" asked Arthur.
Suzy frowned.
"Hard to say. We haven't even got to the smoky upper air yet. Maybe an hour or
two."
Suzy had hardly finished speaking before they broke through the cloud and
entered the layer of smog. Arthur had been out of it long enough that he could
smell it clearly, many revolting odors combining to create something sharp and
acidic in the choking smoke, with overtones of ozone, like from an electric
appliance burning out.


Fortunately, the spell the Lieutenant Keeper had taught him was still going
strong. Suzy, having been in the House long enough to be almost a Denizen, was
unaffected, though she did wrinkle her nose.
The next hour passed uneventfully enough. There were still gobbets of Nothing
flying around, and once a
Nithling fell just close enough to glimpse and cause Arthur a momentary panic.
Otherwise Arthur's wings continued their steady beat and they climbed up
through the smoggy darkness. It was impossible to tell where they were, relative
to the edges of the Pit or the ceiling of the Far Reaches.
After a while, Suzy pulled a fob watch out of her apron pocket, opened it, and
peered at the face.
"I reckon we must be getting close," she said, closing the watch with a practiced
one-handed snap. "Try and lie on your back. That'll slow the wings down so we
don't crash into the ceiling too hard. Once we hit, use the spell to fully wake your
stickit fingers and hold on to the ceiling. Then pull your string and lose the
wings and we'll go hand over hand to the Treasure Tower."
"Which direction will it be in?" asked Arthur as he kicked and threw himself
backwards. Unfortunately he just did a somersault, confusing him and not
slowing his wings for more than a second.
"Mmm," replied Suzy evasively. She'd managed to lie on her back by folding her
legs up and holding her feet against her face, which was a gymnastic maneuver
Arthur couldn't hope to match. He drew his knees up instead and tried to keep


them against his chest while he threw himself backwards with rather less vigor.
That sort of worked. Arthur's wings slowed as they tried to work out the best
way to keep ascending.
"How will we know where to crawl across the ceiling?" asked Arthur again. "I
mean, it could be miles away, in any direction, couldn't it? Without the light
from our wings. In the dark and the smog, with no landmarks."
"We'll work it out," said Suzy.
"And we're just going to hang by three little woolen finger-puppets to the ceiling
with a… a… a thousand-mile or whatever it is drop straight down beneath us?"
"Don't worry, Arthur," said Suzy. "Stickit fingers don't come off until you tell
them to."
Arthur drew in an angry breath to answer, but before he could, he suddenly saw
the ceiling. The breath left him as he frantically raised his arms and legs and
braced for the impact.
He'd expected to hit solid stone, but what he hit was a deep layer of soot. He
drove in at least a foot, and soot exploded all around him, smothering him in fine
particles. There was so much soot his wings couldn't brush it away from him,
and they flapped harder and harder to keep ascending.
Arthur scrabbled against the ceiling, finally getting his hands and legs braced
against the solid stone be-neath the soot, as his wings beat furiously in their
efforts to push him through this barrier.


Suzy was nearby, soot cascading down all around her. Her and Arthur's impact
had started an avalanche of soot. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of years of
accumulated soot had been loosened. Arthur could see it raining down close by,
and could hear it farther afield. It made a sound like ice cubes being cracked out
of a tray.
"Ow!" Suzy exclaimed as her balance slipped and her wings drove her face-first
into the ceiling. She got herself braced again, with her knees and elbows firmly
against the ceiling, while her wings beat madly on her back.
"Stickit spell!" called Suzy. "Make sure you have your active hand stuck to the
ceiling before you undo your wings. And remember, your sticky hand will
change every minute!"
Arthur spat out a mouthful of soot and rubbed his mouth on his shoulder, a very
difficult maneuver. But he only got more soot on his face. It was everywhere,
billowing in clouds and sticking to every part of Arthur's body, except for his
wings.
"This isn't going to work!" Arthur called out. He'd been too tired and too pleased
to have any chance of escape from the Pit to think it through before. But with
just one hand sticking to the ceiling, he'd be hanging from it and would have to
swing his other hand, get it on the ceiling, and then wait till it stuck. He wouldn't
be able to do that for very long before he misjudged the timing or got too
exhausted and couldn't even raise his arms. Or worse…
"Our arms will get pulled out of their sockets!" he yelled.


"No they won't," scoffed Suzy. But then she frowned and said, "Actually, maybe
yours will. Dame Primus didn't think of that!"
Arthur groaned. It took all his strength to stop his wings from smacking him into
the ceiling again and again like a demented moth. Every time they beat, he was
pushed into the ceiling and slid around a bit in the soot, bashing his knees and
hands and, if he was unlucky, his face or chest.
Slid around in the soot…
"What if we try to crawl with the wings keeping us pressed against the… oof…
ceiling?" Arthur cried. "The soot makes it kind of slippery, so we can slide our
hands and knees along."
He demonstrated, timing it so he slid on his hands and knees as his wings
readied for the downstroke, bracing himself just as they flapped. He managed to
get about four feet away from Suzy in that slide and was no more bruised than if
he'd stayed still. And no more sooty. He was just about as caked in soot as it was
possible to be. Only his teeth, the whites of his eyes, and his wings weren't
totally black.
"It works!" he proclaimed.
"Very slowly," said Suzy dubiously. "I think I'll lose my wings and go hand over
hand."
"No!" said Arthur. He had an image of Suzy forgetting to change hands quickly
enough, or being distracted. There would be that moment where she would hang
in the air, and then, with a despairing scream, fall into the endless darkness…


"No," said Arthur again. "Try moving with the wings, like I did."
Suzy made an indistinct grumbling noise, but slid across the ceiling as her wings
flexed up, barely bracing herself in time for the next wingbeat down.
"I's'pose it does work," she said. "But we'll be black and blue on the knees and
elbows by the time we get there."
"I seem to be healing quickly," said Arthur, thinking about the Scoucher cut back
in his own world. A slight current of fear ran through his mind as he wondered if
he was being transformed into a Denizen. Then his wings flapped, he almost
smacked his nose into the ceil-ing, and that brought his attention back to the task
at hand. "Your bruises won't last long, will they?"
"No, but they still hurt while they're around," said Suzy. "Let's get going, then."
"But which direction?" asked Arthur. "Where is the Treasure Tower?"
"It's in the North-West corner of the Far Realms," said Suzy. "That's… uh, curse
these wings… all I know."
"Which way is North — ouch, that really hurt — North-West?" asked Arthur. In
the darkness, with smog and falling soot all around, there could be no hope of
spying any landmarks.
"The opposite — oof—of South — ow — East."
Arthur didn't answer for a moment, as he waited for his wings to beat and begin
to fold.


"You have no idea, do you?"
"I have one id —"
Whatever Suzy was going to say was lost as she slipped and her wings pushed
her face-first into the sooty ceiling. She pushed herself off again immediately,
spitting and cursing, resisted the next beat of her wings, then added, "One idea.
Ask the Atlas!"
"Oh, yeah. That'll be… ah… really easy, won't it? Opening a book when I need
both hands to brace —"
Arthur's knee slipped, and he was violently twisted and thrust against the ceiling,
the wind knocked out of him.
"It may not have to open!" called out Suzy. "Just put one hand on it and ask…"
Arthur nodded carefully. His mouth was so full of soot he couldn't speak. He
was sure the Lieutenant Keeper's spell was the only thing preventing him from
choking to death.
Slowly, he drew his elbows in towards his chest, so he could still brace against
the ceiling and resist his wings but also touch the Atlas in his pocket with his
index finger. Which didn't have a stickit on it.
"Atlas —" Arthur started to say, but he slipped again, his elbows splaying out as
the right side of his face smashed into the ceiling. He had a black eye for sure
now, Arthur thought as he struggled to get back into a good position. Not that


anyone could tell under the cloaking soot. This time he managed to lock his
elbows tighter and he waited till just after the downbeat of his wings.
"Atlas! Don't open! Show me which way is North-West."
Arthur felt the Atlas shiver under his hand, lost his concentration, and once more
went face-first into the sooty ceiling. This time, when he pried himself off and
braced again, his nose was bleeding and it felt like it might be broken, sending a
savage pain lancing up between his eyes.
"Did it work?" called out Suzy.
Arthur didn't answer. He had his forehead balanced on the ceiling, every muscle
straining to resist the next wingbeat, and all his attention on resisting the pain of
a broken nose. Or maybe just a bruised one, as the throbbing began to fade. In
the next second it stopped bleeding of its own accord — or had so much soot
stuffed up it, no blood could get out.
"Did it work?" called out Suzy again.
Arthur steadied himself and looked back at his pocket.
"No," he said.
Then, "Or actually, yes, I think it has!"
A small compass made of four crossed golden arrows had materialized on his
pocket and was slowly spinning around as if it were mounted on his shirt. Arthur
stared down at it, grunted as his wings flapped, then pointed and slid at the same


time.
"North-West is that way! Come on!"
Suzy followed, the two of them developing a rhythm where they slid when their
wings folded up, and braced when their wings flapped. Though they could only
slide four or five feet at a time, Arthur somehow found it easier to hold himself
against the ceiling.
More importantly, he finally felt more optimistic. He might be pressed against
the ceiling of the Far Reaches, but he was moving.
And he had escaped the Pit!
Chapter Twelve
They had been crawling across the ceiling for several hours when Arthur
suddenly slid out of the smog and found himself buffeted by a strong breeze that
ruffled the feathers of his wings and upset his sliding rhythm.
The breeze also took off the loose layer of soot on Arthur. He suddenly felt
lighter and cleaner, even though there was still plenty of soot ingrained into his
skin and clothes.
But it was neither the sudden disappearance of the smog nor the fresh breeze that
made his mouth hang open and his jaw almost get broken on the ceiling when his
wings flapped. Ahead of him, part of the ceiling the size of a football field shone
as if there were hidden lights within it, sending down a shaft of clear golden light
like late afternoon sunshine.


The light fell squarely on Grim Tuesday's Treasure Tower. It was a simple round
stone tower without visible windows, about fifty stories high and maybe two
hundred feet in diameter. It had a steeply pitched, tiled roof, surmounted, as
Suzy had said, by a wind vane in the shape of a cockerel.
What Suzy hadn't mentioned was that the tower and the green lawns that
surrounded it were entirely encased within a pyramid of sparkling glass, its apex
just above the cockerel wind vane and fifty feet below the lit-up ceiling.
"That's new," said Suzy. "Guess old Grimbly didn't like his tower getting as
scummy and sooted up as the rest of the Far Reaches. Dame Primus definitely
didn't know about this."
"Or much else," said Arthur wearily. He was severely battered and bruised, and
did not welcome another setback. He'd been looking forward to getting his wings
off and standing up like a normal person. On the ground. Not to mention
washing his hands and face. He knew a full-on bath or shower was an impossible
dream.
"There doesn't seem to be any heat coming off the lit-up area," he added. "So we
can get closer, I guess. But it's still a long way down. And how do we get
through the glass?"
Suzy looked across at the tower and the pyramid. She had become much better
than Arthur at letting her wings push her almost into the ceiling, resisting only to
lessen the impact, rather than trying not to hit the ceiling at all.
"I guess we'll have to get as close as we can… Drat these wings, the sooner


they're paper again, the better… Drop the wings, jump to the face of the
pyramid, stick with our stickit fingers, then climb down and find another way in."
"But even at the closest, the pyramid will be forty or fifty feet below!"
"We can make that. You did almost as big a jump back in the Atrium,
remember?"
"I had the… arrggh… rotten… Key then!"
Suzy thought for a while, white lines appearing on her forehead where the soot
came off as the skin wrinkled up.
"How about you undo one wing, then jump," she suggested. "You'll corkscrew…
but… one wing will still be lifting you up, so it won't be that bad."
Arthur looked down at the pyramid.
Jump sixty feet, corkscrewing around, maybe hit really hard, then have to climb
down with hands that alternated between sticky and nonsticky?
"I should never have gone on that cross-country run," he muttered.
"What?"
"Nothing," said Arthur. He couldn't think of any other alternative, and he was
tired of being a fly on the ceiling, particularly one that couldn't control its wings.
And he was able to do a lot of things in the House that would be impossible or
too dangerous back home. Hopefully this jump would be one of them.


"Let's get as close as we can," he told Suzy. "Then… then I suppose I'll have to
jump."
It was more difficult sliding as soon as they left the sooty part of the ceiling, and
Arthur developed even more bruises. He was a bit tentative about crossing the litup
section, but it wasn't so bad. The light was quite soft and there was no
noticeable heat. As long as he kept his eyes half-shut it was bearable. And on the
plus side, the light made a bit more of the soot fall off.
At last they came to a point about twenty feet short of the point of the pyramid
and fifty feet above it. Since he had to face the ceiling or be pulverized by his
wings, Arthur could only glance down from side to side. But it looked as if this
was as close as they could get. There was no way he was going to jump too close
to the point of a glass pyramid, particularly with a single wing spinning him
around.
"Ready?" asked Suzy. "Remember the stickit finger spell?"
"Yeah, I remember," said Arthur. "Just give me a second."
It was a long way down. Back in his own world he'd be sure to die from a fall
that far. And what if the glass broke?
"What if the glass breaks?"
"The glass won't break," said a voice that wasn't Suzy's. Arthur almost tore his
neck muscles whipping his head around to see who'd spoken and, for the
thousandth time, got mashed into the ceiling by his wings.


Suzy shouted something, but Arthur missed it. He was partially stunned by the
impact and still busy trying to crawl around so he could see who was talking.
He finally managed, only to see what looked like a black, soot-covered hairball
the size of his head on the otherwise pristine, shining ceiling. But the winds were
too strong for it to be a lump of soot. Besides, the blob had two deep-set silver
eyes, eyes like bigger versions of the silver balls used in cake decorations. They
flickered from side to side as Arthur met the thing's gaze.
It had a mouth as well, under the silver eyes. A mouth that also glinted silver,
either from teeth or whatever lined the thing's throat.
"A Nithling!" exclaimed Suzy. She tried to draw her copper tube out of her belt
while still bracing against her wings, but had to give up when she was mashed
against the ceiling.
"I'm not a Nithling!" protested the blob. "I can help you!"
"I'll help you," muttered Suzy. She had braced herself on her elbows and was
struggling to get something out from under the top of her apron. Probably her
knife.
Arthur didn't know what she was going to do, but he was curious about this sootencrusted
hairy blob.
"Suzy, wait!"
He paused for a moment as his wings beat, then spoke to the thing.


"If you're not a Nithling, what are you?"
The sooty hairball spoke quickly, as if eager to convince Arthur of its story. As it
spoke, it slowly unraveled, becoming less of a ball and more like a hairy, sooty
slug. A very big hairy, sooty slug.
"More than nine thousand years ago I was one of Grim Tuesday's eyebrows,
before I was wrenched from his forehead by an explosion of Nothing, down in
the first, dark diggings of the Pit. I was lost there for centuries, next to Nothing.
Slowly the emanations of Nothing transformed me and I became a thinking,
living creature. Neither a Denizen made by the Architect, nor a Nithling born out
of Nothing. The true Nithlings de-spise me and the Denizens fear me. Both
attempt to slay me at any opportunity."
Suzy and Arthur looked at each other, then back at the hairy slug. It did resemble
a vastly overgrown, animate eyebrow. A long, hairy crescent, caked in soot. It
moved back a little under their combined stares, undulating sideways and
making faint popping sounds.
"I am still attuned to Grim Tuesday," declared the thing. "I know some of his
mind and secrets."
"It does look like a huge eyebrow," said Suzy hesitantly. "And strange things do
happen near lots of Nothing."
"What are you doing up here?" asked Arthur. He wished he could consult the
Atlas and check up on this… eyebrow … but it was too difficult in his present
situation.


"I've been trying to get in the Treasure Tower," said the thing. "I need to be near
the treasures. I want to feel the weight of the gold, bathe in the reflected light of
the paintings, embrace the statues. Once I get in, I shall never leave. That's all I
want — to get in the Treasure Tower!"
"If you can't get in yourself, how can you help us?" asked Arthur.
"I cannot get in by myself," said the blob, "but I can help you, and then you can
help me. For example, I have a diamond to cut the glass."
"Show it to us, then," Suzy demanded.
The blob undulated backwards and forwards, popping unpleasantly, and opened
its mouth wider than Arthur would have thought possible. A black, stickylooking
tongue slowly poked out. Coiled up in the end of the tongue was a
diamond as big as Arthur's thumbnail, sparkling in the light from the ceiling.
"Where did you get that?" asked Suzy.
"I madth ith," the blob started to say, then it withdrew its tongue and continued.
"I made it from Nothing. I told you, I know much that the Grim knows. I also
have some of his talents. But my tongue is not strong enough to hold the
diamond and cut the glass. I need a hand."
"What's your name?" asked Arthur. When the blob didn't answer for a moment,
he added, "What do you call yourself?"
"I suppose you could call me… Soot," said the thing. "Yes… Soot. I have
breathed it, lived in it, and eaten it for so long that it is a fitting name."


"Eaten it?" asked Suzy. "Why eat soot?"
"Boredom," said Soot. "The Overseers fire their steam-guns at me if I get too
close. The Nithlings would eat me themselves. I have been unable to get into the
Treasure Tower. What else has there been for me to do but brood upon the walls
and ceiling of this realm and eat soot?"
"If we help you get into the Treasure Tower," said Arthur, "you'll have to swear
to help us in every way you can against Grim Tuesday."
"Yes!" cried Soot. It practically bounced off the ceiling in excitement. Arthur
wished it hadn't because he saw its belly, lined with lots of horrid-looking little
suckers, like an octopus's tentacle. That was what made the popping sound when
it moved.
"That story might be true, but I reckon that still makes it a Nithling," whispered
Suzy, as she edged as close as she could to Arthur. "A clever one, so very
dangerous. But we need that diamond."
"I'm sick of hanging upside down and getting smashed into… this stupid
ceiling," Arthur whispered back. "Let's accept its help for now."
Suzy nodded reluctantly.
"We accept your offer," said Arthur to Soot.
"Fine! Fine!" burbled Soot. "It's a pleasure working with you. Whoever you are."
"I'm Arthur," said Arthur quickly, before Suzy could introduce him as Monday


or the Master of the Lower House. "That's Suzy."
"And you'll be thieving just a few odds and ends from the Treasure Tower?"
asked Soot. His voice sounded slightly anxious and he clearly took it for granted
that Arthur and Suzy were thieves.
"We'll be reclaiming stolen goods!" snapped Suzy indignantly. "Goods as should
have been returned to their rightful owner ten thousand —"
"Suzy!" interrupted Arthur. He didn't want Soot to know too much. If the thing
did have some strange connection with Grim Tuesday, it was possible that Grim
Tuesday might have a connection to it, as well.
"Reclamation," muttered Suzy. "Arthur only wants wot he's supposed to have
already —"
"Suzy! Are you ready to do the stickit spell?"
"Oh, stickit fingers, is it?" asked Soot, peering with his silvery eyes at Arthur's
hands. "Very nice workmanship. Not made by the Grim himself, but one of his
better crafters."
"Stick by day and stick by night, stick for a minute each, left and right," Suzy
recited to her hands, keeping herself propped on her elbows and forearms. As
she said the words of the spell, the little finger-puppet things on her fingers
wriggled and squeaked and began to glow with a fuzzy green light.
Suzy braced against a wingbeat, then slapped both hands against the ceiling and
pulled back. One hand stuck by the thumb and two fingers. Immediately Suzy


used her other hand to grab both strings that hung around her neck. She pulled
them. Wax seals cracked and her two wings instantly blew into a cloud of
confetti that was whisked away by the breeze.
Suzy hung from the ceiling and turned to Arthur. She smiled, despite her two
black eyes and a bruise on her chin, evidence of the damage done by being
constantly beaten into the ceiling.
"That's a relief! I'll be dropping in about forty seconds, so you jump now, Mister
Soot, and make sure you keep your distance on the pyramid."
Suzy punctuated her instruction by drawing the copper tube out of her belt.
Soot needed no encouragement. With a single flexing motion, accompanied by
lots of tiny popping noises like exploding bubblewrap, it launched itself straight
down. Caught a little by the breeze, it plopped onto the eastern face of the
pyramid, about thirty feet below the apex.
"Good luck, Arthur," said Suzy. She quickly thrust the copper tube back through
her belt to leave her hand free. "I reckon you should —"
The stickits on her right hand suddenly stopped squeaking and sticking.
Arthur watched Suzy fall. He almost couldn't bear to see her hit the pyramid, but
she landed on her feet, then bounced and rolled down for a few seconds before
she arrested her descent by slapping her sticky left hand on the glass.
She lay still for a few seconds, then rolled back and waved up at Arthur,
shouting something he couldn't hear, the words carried away by the breeze and


the beat of his wings.
Arthur looked back up, stopped himself yet again from being pushed into the
ceiling, and took a deep breath. Then, propping himself so his hands didn't touch
the ceiling, he spoke the words of the stickit finger spell. With the last word, he
felt the ends of his fingers tingle, and the stickits on his left hand began to
squeak.
Arthur used his right hand to pull the right string. He heard the wax crack, then
confetti blew up past his ears. A second later, he began to fall, while his
remaining wing beat harder and harder, trying to maintain its single-minded
upwards thrust.
Arthur expected to corkscrew, but he didn't. Instead his single wing threw him
head over heels, which rapidly became a series of wild somersaults.
An eye-blink later, Arthur hit the glass face of the pyramid.
Very, very hard.
Chapter Thirteen
Arthur screamed as he hit. There was an unbearable pain in his left leg, and he
was sliding down the glass, faster and faster, while his single wing thrashed
around his head so he couldn't see anything.
Then he managed to slap his sticky hand on the glass and came to a sudden stop.
He pulled the string and almost choked on a sudden mouthful of confetti as it
shot up all around him.


Arthur started to slide again as his hand became unstuck. He slapped his other
hand down and stopped again. He could hear Suzy shouting something, and Soot
too, but couldn't give them any attention. He had to see what was wrong with his
leg. The pain was deep inside, but stabbing up into his body and down to his
feet. He hardly dared to look.
But he made himself. Both his jeans and the pajama-like trousers the Lieutenant
Keeper had given him were ripped. He could see some blood and what he had
feared — something protruding that could only be bone.
He'd broken his tibia or fibula, the bones in the lower leg. Maybe both of them,
in a complex fracture. A bad one.
Arthur felt a terrible, sudden coldness sweep over him. He began to shiver. He
tried to quell the shivers as he drew his leg up for a closer look. It made him feel
sick to see his leg looking all lumpy and wrong, with that piece of bone thrust
out through the skin.
Arthur gulped in a deep breath. He could feel his lungs tightening as panic set in.
I will not have an asthma attack, he told himself. / can't have one. I'm in the
House. Things are different here. Everything heals quickly. Even a broken bone
will heal in time… but I haven't got time… can't stand the pain for long… I have
to do something…
Hesitantly, he laid his hand lightly over his shin, only just touching the lumpy
broken part. Even so, it sent another stab of pain up his leg and into his head. He
almost blacked out.


"By the power of… of the First Key… the power that remains in my hand,"
Arthur whispered. "Heal me. Fix the broken… bone."
His hand stopped shaking, though the rest of his body didn't. Then he felt it grow
hot. As Arthur watched, the bone retreated back through the skin, which rejoined
itself.
The pain remained for what seemed like several minutes but could only have
been seconds, for it faded just as Arthur's right hand lost its stickiness and he had
to slap his left hand onto the glass.
His leg still felt very strange, but Arthur was able to look around and refocus on
what was going on. A moment later Suzy slid down next to him, stopping herself
a little short with her sticky hand. Soot watched from a distance, silver eyes
twinkling amid its black hair.
"What happened?" asked Suzy. "Are you sorely hurt?"
Arthur shook his head. The shakes were slowly subsiding but it took an effort to
find his voice.
"I… I broke my leg. But I think I fixed it…"
Suzy raised her eyebrows and grimaced when it made her black eyes hurt.
"Not bad. Don't's'pose you could fix up my bruises while you're at it?"
"Uh, I don't really know what I did," said Arthur. He lifted his leg and flexed it a
few times. It felt stiff and clumsy, and Arthur experienced a stab of fear. The


bone was healed all right, but his leg now looked and felt a bit crooked.
It hasn't set straight, he thought. I'll be lame. No running ever. No baseball. No
soccer.
"Uh-oh," said Suzy, interrupting Arthur's thoughts. "Overseers."
Arthur looked down and started to slip. Quickly he changed hands again and
temporarily forgot about his leg. Suzy was pointing to a band of Overseers that
had emerged out of the smog down below and were running towards the base of
the pyramid.
"Don't think their steam-guns'll reach us," said Suzy. "But they might have other
weapons. We'd better start. It won't be quick with the stickit fingers."
"Yes! Yes!" called out Soot. It started undulating to the top of the pyramid. "We
must get inside and join… see the treasures!"
Arthur nodded and pulled himself up as far as he could above his sticking hand
and reached out to plant his other hand. Then he had to wait until it stuck, then
repeat the process.
After ten minutes, they were still short of the top. Almost a thousand feet below
and several hundred feet to the east, at the base of the pyramid, the group of
Overseers was busy putting together something that looked suspiciously like a
weapon. They had wheeled a steam engine in from somewhere out in the
smoggy regions and were stoking it furiously, as other Overseers set up a long
bronze barrel on a tripod mount and connected it to the engine by a hose of some
silver-metal mesh.


"Steam-cannon," said Soot, looking down from its perch on the very apex of the
pyramid. "Hurry, before they blast us off!"
"We are hurrying!" said Arthur as he pulled back on one hand to see if it was
sticking yet. He kept looking down, not at the Overseers, but at his leg. As far as
he could tell, it worked fine, but from a point several inches below his knee the
leg was definitely not straight and it felt weird.
Suzy reached the top before Arthur. Soot immediately held out the diamond in
his tongue
"Wait," said Suzy. "I'll have to time my stickits carefully."
She took out her pocket watch, left it hanging down the front of her apron, and
waited till her stickit fingers swapped. Then she extracted a once-white
handkerchief from her sleeve, used it to receive the gem, and gave it a good
polish before she touched it.
"Keep an eye on my watch," she instructed Arthur as he arrived. "I'll cut till my
stickit fingers are about to swap. Tell me when the second hand hits two."
Arthur looked at the watch dangling on its silver-gilt chain. It kept spinning
around, so the face was difficult to see. The second hand was ticking around
steadily, but as it reached twelve Arthur was distracted by his own stickits
swapping over.
"Look out!" he called hastily as he stopped his sudden slide with a slap on the
glass.


Suzy popped the diamond in her mouth and slapped her other hand down just in
time. Then she resumed her work with the gem. The diamond didn't actually cut
through the glass, but it scored it enough so a solid hit would snap off the
pinnacle of the pyramid, allowing them to climb inside to the weather vane atop
the tower.
"They're going to fire the steam-cannon," said Soot anxiously. "Hurry! Hurry!"
Arthur looked down. The bronze barrel was being elevated to target the top of
the pyramid, Overseers frantically turning wheels and gears. Long wafts of
steam were escaping from the end of the barrel, and the steam engine was
blowing a steady stream of thick black smoke.
"Only a bit more to cut," Suzy said to Arthur. "You'd better hit it, rather than me.
It will probably need the power of the First Key. Take the tube from my belt."
Arthur reached over and slid out the copper tube. Suzy finished the deeply
scored line she'd drawn right around the pyramid, about four feet down from its
point.
"Hit it!"
Arthur swung hard. The copper tube bounced off, jarring his hand. But there had
been a definite cracking sound and his hands were hot. He swung again, and this
time the cracking sound was so loud he had no doubt that the point of the
pyramid had broken all along the diamond-cut line.
Together, Arthur and Suzy pushed at the top part of the pyramid. It resisted for a
moment, then snapped off. The top three feet of the pyramid toppled over and


fell down the other side, leaving a nice square access hole directly above the
weather vane.
Arthur's stickits changed and he slipped back a few feet before he could slap his
other hand down. Suzy quickly tested the edge of the inch-thick glass.
"It's not sharp," she said, and climbed up and inside the pyramid, her feet tapping
the east-west crossbars of the weather vane to make sure they'd take her weight.
Suzy's right hand stuck to the glass as she lowered herself down. She pulled at it,
then quickly said, "Stickit fingers, my thanks to you, your work is done, till called
anew."
"That's the spell, Arthur," she added, her voice suddenly fading as her head
dipped below the lip of the hole. She waved at Arthur through the glass, and he
faintly heard her say, "Come on!"
Before he could move, Soot swarmed past him, dived into the hole, and slid
down the weather vane on the opposite side from Suzy. It continued to the roof
of the tower and disappeared from Arthur's sight.
A second later, the first blast of long-range steam screamed up the side of the
pyramid, clouding the glass as it came.
Arthur swung his legs into the hole and Suzy helped place his feet on the
crossbars of the weather vane. He crouched down as low as he could, so he was
almost entirely inside the pyramid. Almost — but his right hand was stuck
outside, firmly glued by the stickit fingers.


Arthur opened his mouth to speak the unsticking spell, but he only got the first
word out before the steam hit. Most of it hurtled above his head, but some spilled
back down inside the pyramid. Arthur ducked down even more as it scalded his
ears and the back of his neck. It hurt, but he'd only suffered the cooler edges of
the blast.
Except for his right hand. That must have been right in the middle of the
superheated stream of steam. But it didn't hurt. Arthur didn't look for a moment,
imagining that he couldn't feel the pain because it was so intense, and all that
was left were the bones. Then he discovered that his right hand was clenched
against his chest and his left hand was stuck to the weather vane. The stickits
must have swapped an instant before the steam hit, and Arthur had instinctively
snatched his hand in just in time.
Arthur sighed a very deep sigh of relief and recited the spell. Immediately, the
stickits on his left hand quieted down and stopped wriggling.
"This is hinged," said Suzy, who had climbed down to the roof and was
examining the base of the weather vane. The whole thing was about six feet high
and made of cast iron, so it would be very heavy. Arthur tapped the cold iron
beak of the cockerel and wondered how they were supposed to lift it and get
inside the tower, as Dame Primus had suggested. Even if it was hinged.
"There must be a catch somewhere," added Suzy. "A lock or lever… ah —"
She pressed a hidden button. There was a loud metallic zing! and Arthur was
flung violently into the air. He smacked down onto the roof of the tower and
rolled down the tiles to the gutter. His legs went over and he scrabbled
desperately to get a grip, his fingers no longer sticky.


At the last second, he grasped the gutter, leaving his legs dangling over the side
of the tower. Arthur tried to breathe a sigh of even temporary relief, but he
couldn't get a breath.
Then there was a rattle on the tiles and Suzy's anxious face appeared, looking
down at him and the ground, several hundred feet below.
"Sorry!" said Suzy. "It was spring-loaded…"
"Help me up!" whispered Arthur. His breath was coming back. Once again he
was grateful to be in the House. If he'd had the wind knocked out of him like that
back home, he would've had an asthma attack for sure.
"Swing your feet back, I mean behind you," said Suzy. "The pyramid wall is
only a few feet away. Push against it and I'll pull you over."
It took several minutes to get Arthur onto the roof. He lay on his back for a few
minutes, panting, then wearily sat up.
Suzy was looking into the hatchway under the weather vane, which now hung at
a right angle to the tower. Arthur slowly climbed up next to her, thankful that the
pitch of the roof was not too steep.
"Bigger inside than out," muttered Suzy, still looking inside. "And that Soot
thing has scarpered."
Arthur looked through the hatch. Even with Suzy's comment, he still expected to
see something like a round tower room.


But the inside of the tower bore no relationship to the outside. It wasn't even
round. It was rectangular and vast. It reminded Arthur of a nineteenth-century
prison he'd visited on a school excursion. Large and gloomy, it had an open
internal courtyard with many levels of cells built into the brick walls on each
side, each traced by a cast-iron walkway.
The prison Arthur had visited had six levels, with a hundred cells or so on each
side. The Grim's treasure prison had at least fifty levels, and the main courtyard
was a mile long, maybe more. It was hard to tell, because the only light came
from flickering oil lanterns — or imitations of lanterns — that were placed in
wall brackets between every fourth cell. There had to be at least a thousand cells
on every level, Arthur calculated, which meant there were more than fifty
thousand rooms!
"It looks like a prison," said Arthur. "I mean, it looks almost exactly like one I
visited back home. Only much, much bigger."
"That's what Grim Tuesday does," said Suzy. "Copies stuff. We'd better start
looking for the Will."
"Start!" exclaimed Arthur. He looked down at the iron ladder that led to the toplevel
walkway, and the cells stretching to the left and right — a seemingly
endless row of riveted cast-iron doors. "Where do we start?"
"Depends what you're looking for," said Soot, unexpectedly appearing out of the
gloom at the top of the ladder. "Did I hear you mention… the Will?"
"Do you know where it is?" asked Arthur eagerly, before he remembered he


didn't want their real business known to Soot.
Soot reared up and flexed, showing its nasty sucker underside again. Arthur
leaned back from it, struck by the notion that it had gotten bigger somehow. It
certainly looked about half again as big.
"The Will of the Architect?" asked Soot. "That part of it entrusted to Grim
Tuesday?"
"Yes," said Arthur. Soot's voice had dropped in pitch as well. It sounded more
menacing, less eager to please than it had before. As if Arthur and Suzy were
less useful to it now that it had gotten into the Treasure Tower.
"I don't know where it is exactly," replied Soot. Its silver eyes weighed up Suzy,
who had hefted her copper tube, and it backed down the ladder. "But I know
where it must be. Follow me."
Soot slithered and popped down the ladder and onto the top walkway. It didn't
look back to see if they were following.
"It's got bigger," whispered Suzy. "Like a Nithling that's sucked the life out of
someone."
Arthur nodded and bit his lip.
"We have to follow it," he said finally. "There are too many cells to check every
one. Particularly since Grim Tuesday must know we're in here by now."
"What if it's leading us into a trap?"


"I still think we have to risk it."
"I's'pose so," said Suzy. "But keep your eye out for an architectural sword, or a
light-ax, or something. If it gets any bigger, we'll need a better weapon than this
copper pipe."
Arthur nodded and led the way down the ladder. His leg still felt weird and it felt
weirder still when he finally stood up straight on the walkway. He took a few
steps, stopped, then felt both his knees, his forehead wrinkled in puzzlement.
"What is it?"
"My leg… the one I broke," Arthur said hesitantly. "It's gotten shorter. It's an
inch shorter than the other one!"
He bent down and felt his legs again. His clogs were long gone, fallen off into
the Pit. He was standing in his socks, and there could be no doubt. He'd
magically healed his broken bone, but he'd done it wrong. Not only was his leg a
bit twisted, it was definitely shorter.
"It is shorter," confirmed Suzy in a conversational tone. "Come on, that Soot is
going down those stairs to the next level."
"You don't get it!" cried Arthur. "My leg is shorter!"
He coughed as he said it, his breath catching. He could feel his lungs tightening,
but it couldn't be asthma. Not here in the House. It was shock, or a panic attack,
or something. It was bad enough having asthma and not being able to do
everything. Now he was lame as well. Everything would be worse —


Arthur stopped himself.
I am not going to think about this now. I have to find Part Two of the Will, defeat
Grim Tuesday, and get back in time to save the house and all our money and
stop anything worse from happening. So one leg is a bit shorter? That's better
than it being broken, isn't it?
"Come on!" repeated Suzy. She started off, and Arthur followed, lurching as he
got used to his shorter leg.
They had to run to catch Soot, as the thing undulated down a set of iron steps to
the next level, along it for a hundred yards or so, and then continued straight on
down to the level below that.
Even in their socks, Arthur's and Suzy's footsteps rang on the metal walkway,
the sound echoing through the vast open space in the middle.
"If there are guards here, they'll know where we are," said Arthur anxiously. His
voice echoed out into the central courtyard, carrying even more than their
footsteps.
"There are no guards," called Soot. It had stopped outside a cell door that looked
the same as all the others. "Grim Tuesday allows no one but himself to enter the
Treasure Tower. Not even the Grotesques are allowed in here. But at last I am
where I should have always been — with all the lovely treasure!"
Arthur and Suzy grimaced and stepped back as thick, translucent saliva dribbled
out of Soot's mouth and dripped down through the cast-iron mesh of the


walkway.
"Is the Will inside that cell?" asked Arthur. It seemed a bit too straightforward
for someone like Grim Tuesday to keep the Will here, even if no one but himself
— or his former eyebrow — could know which of the five thousand rooms to
look for.
"There should be a way to the Will inside," said Soot, its drool bubbling as it
spoke. "But here I must leave you. Other, more easily digestible treasures await
me!"
It leaped backwards and over the railing as Suzy rushed forward to hit it with the
pipe. She and Arthur rushed to look over the side, only to see Soot several levels
down, clinging to the side of the walkway there. With a loud popping, it slithered
underneath the walkway and was gone from sight.
"Good riddance," said Arthur. "I suppose."
"If it's led us to the right door," said Suzy. She looked it over, then tried to slide
back the inch-thick bolt. It didn't budge, even when she pulled with both hands
and pushed with her feet against the rim of the door.
"Stuck, or magically locked," she said. "Not even a padlock to pick."
Arthur examined the bolt. It actually looked welded in place, with thick strands
of metal between the bolt and the loops. As he touched it, Arthur's hand felt
suddenly hot. Flakes of rust fell to the floor, the bolt rattled, and Arthur easily
drew it back.


Suzy whistled in admiration.
"That's a good trick. Wish I could do the same thing to Dame Primus's biscuit
pantry."
Arthur pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Chapter Fourteen
Arthur stepped into another room that was bigger inside than out. This was no
tiny cell, but a room about the size of the big family room in Arthur's house —
the house that they would lose if Arthur couldn't stop the Grotesques.
Apart from the overall size, this room had nothing in common with Arthur's
family room. For a start
brick walls of the prison were gone, replaced by wooden planking, sealed with
tar that had dripped in numerous places. The ceiling and the floor were planked
too, and everything creaked a little as Arthur walked farther in. The only light
came from a lamp that swung on a chain from the ceiling, making the shadows
shift and sway.
There was a neatly made-up bunk in one corner and some barrels and a chest in
another, but most of the room was taken up by a long table of deeply polished
wood. On the table were hundreds and hundreds of different bottles, all carefully
laid flat, many of them mounted on wooden or ivory bases.
Every bottle had a ship in it. Many different kinds of ships, in many different
sorts of bottles. Glass of all colors, thick and thin, sealed with corks, or wax, or
lead, or sprung metal stoppers. Ships with one mast, two masts, three masts, or


no masts and lots of oars. Big ships that might have crews of hundreds of sailors
and little ships just for one.
Arthur walked closer. The lamp swung, and the shadows shifted. Arthur saw a
red glow suddenly flare in the corner at the end of the table and stopped as he
saw it came from a pipe in the mouth of a man who was sitting there. An oldish
man, white-haired and white-whiskered, his face looking like it hadn't seen a
shave for a week but wasn't yet up to a beard.
He was wearing a heavy blue coat, the sleeves showing dark bands where four
gold braided bands might once have been. Instead of the ubiquitous clogs of the
Far Reaches, he had on rubber boots, with the tops folded over above the knee.
His eyes were deep-set, bright blue, and very piercing. He met Arthur's stare,
carefully placed his pipe on a stand, still smoking, then put down the quill pen he
held, snapped shut the top of the inkwell, set down the huge bronze-bound book
he was writing in, and spiked a piece of paper that looked like an old-fashioned
telegram on a long metal spike that held hundreds of similar papers.
Then he stood up, all six feet six inches of him and came into the light.
"It's the Piper!" shrieked Suzy, and she fell to her knees, either in worship, a
faint, or some sort of faked fall to distract the man. Arthur didn't know. But he
was slightly relieved this man wasn't Grim Tuesday, which is what he'd thought.
The relief only lasted a second as the man reached into the shadows and pulled
out a nine-foot-long harpoon that glittered and shone all the way from its
incredibly sharp-looking point to the eyehole on the end where a rope would
normally be attached.


"Nay, lass, I'm not the Piper," growled the man, his voice deep and carrying.
"That would be my youngest brother you're thinking of. Now tell me your names
before I must do as Grim Tuesday bids me, and send you to perdition."
"Ah, is perdition some part of the House?" asked Arthur.
The man chuckled.
"In this case, perdition means 'total destruction,'" he explained. "But I'm a kindly
man and hold no grudge against you Denizens. My friend here will snip your
skein of destiny, sharp as you like, and that will be the end of it."
He slapped his harpoon as he spoke, and it shone still brighter.
"Now, give me your names. I've a lubber's employment now, keeping the
register straight for Grim Tuesday, and I mislike pawing over a cold stone corpse
to find a name to strike off the roll. Speak!"
"Off the roll?" asked Arthur. "Do you mean the register of indentured workers?"
"Aye, I do, and I must return to it, so kindly give me your names. Or must I prick
it out of thee at the point of my companion?"
"I'm not an indentured worker," said Arthur, though he quailed a little as the man
lifted his harpoon and made as if to strike. "I'm the Master of the Lower House
and I've come to get Part Two of the Will."
The man's eyes narrowed, but he put the harpoon aside and strode over to
Arthur. Standing above him, he gripped the boy's chin and pushed his head back


till their eyes met. At the same time, he blocked an attempted blow from Suzy's
copper pipe, grabbed her by the collar, and lifted her up without looking.
"Master of the Lower House, are ye?"
"Yes… yes, I am!" stammered Arthur. Suzy's lips were turning blue and her eyes
were rolling back in her head. "Leave her alone!"
He reached out and tried to drag Suzy down. At first he couldn't move the man's
arm at all, then once again his hand felt hot and, with a sudden lurch, Suzy was
dropped.
"Well, well," said the man. "So you are, after all."
He held out his hand. When Arthur hesitantly took it, they shook vigorously.
"You can call me… let's see… Captain Tom Shelvocke," the man said. "A
mariner, temporarily becalmed by that slavemaster Grim Tuesday. And who's
this young lady, Master?"
"Call me Arthur," said Arthur as he helped Suzy up. She gave Tom a nasty look
and massaged her throat. "This is Suzy Turquoise Blue, Monday's Tierce."
"Sorry about the neck-wrangle," said Tom, offering his hand to Suzy. "Though
by rights, you'd be stuck through and through by my friend, as is my orders from
Grim Tuesday. 'Any indentured workers that step through that door are to be
slain,' he said. But if one of the other Days orders me to leave her alone, well
then,


Tom has to wait and think about it and maybe not do anything at all."
Suzy reluctantly shook Tom's hand, then stepped back, out of his reach.
"Who are you?" asked Arthur. "I mean, are you a Denizen… or something…
someone… er… else?"
"I'm a treasure," said Tom. "Collected by Grim Tuesday from a place called
Earth. You've heard of it?"
"Yes," replied Arthur. "I'm from Earth. I mean, that's where I live, only I have to
be the Master, but not yet… It's a long story… but why would you be a treasure?"
"Because I'm neither mortal nor Denizen nor Nith-ling," said Tom. "Like my
brother, the Piper, who Miss Blue has obviously met. I'm one of the sons of the
Architect and the Old One, in a manner of speaking. The Old One sired the three
of us on mortal women, and the Architect brought us up in the House, with all
the changes that brings. When She chained up Dad, we slipped back to the
Secondary Realms. I went to Earth and signed up for a few seafaring journeys,
here and there and back again. First I knew of Mother disappearing was when
Grim Tuesday took me from the deck of my ship and stuck me in here. Took all
the power of the
Second Key to do it, and that wouldn't have been enough if I was ready with my
friend at hand. Or in all truth, if I'd drunk a little less rum at dinner, which I
wouldn't normally have done, you understand, if it wasn't for that blamed bird I
shot by accident… but there you have it. I'm bound here by the power of the
Key, can venture no farther than the worldlets in my bottles, and must serve
Grim Tuesday as an inky-fingered secretary."


"Nothing wrong with inky fingers," muttered Suzy.
"What's that?" asked Tom sharply.
"What's your 'friend' made out of?" asked Suzy quickly and more respectfully
than Arthur had seen her speak to anyone.
"She's made from the luminous trail of a narwhal's wake under the aurora
borealis in an arctic sea," said Tom. "Mother made her for me, as a birthday
present when I was a century old and set fair for a seafaring life."
"Good," said Suzy. "There's a Nithling outside who should meet your friend."
"A Nithling? Inside the Tower?"
"It used to be Grim Tuesday's eyebrow," Arthur explained. "Or so it says."
Tom laughed again, a deep, booming laugh, and rubbed his hands together.
"Looks like Tuesday's glass is set for storms. Now, am I right in thinking you're
looking for something in particular in this Treasure Tower, Arthur? Anything I
might be able to help ye with?"
Arthur had been thinking about that, and about what Tom had said. A few things
had caught his attention.
"What are these 'worldlets' in the bottles?" he asked.
"Ah, the bottles are something I taught Grim Tuesday myself," Tom said. "You


see, if you've got the art and the craft and the power, and a bottle made special,
you can copy a little piece of the Secondary Realms and stick it in that bottle.
It'll stay there, right and tight, place and time and all, unless someone pulls the
stopper. And if you've got the secret of it, you can visit whatever place you've
got in your bottle."
"So they're all copies of real ships in real places?" Now that Arthur looked
closely at the bottles, he could see that the ships were moving, the sea splashing,
the sun — sometimes more than one sun — shifting in the sky.
"All but one bottle," answered Tom. "There's one that holds a real place, not a
copy. One where time flows like it should, not round and round for a few copied
hours."
"What do you mean?" asked Arthur. "What's in that one bottle?"
Tom smiled. "I'm as pleased as punch you asked that question, for it's the one
I've been wanting to tell you. That single bottle holds a sun, and several worlds,
and a sunship, the finest ever built. Sail into the sun, she can, right to its blazing
core — with the crew none the hotter for it."
"Why would you sail to the center of that sun?" asked Arthur.
"Why, you'd sail there to see what Grim Tuesday might have put there ten
thousand years ago."
"The Will?"
Tom smiled and shrugged.


"Can you take us there?"
"I could take one of the Seven Days into any of these bottles at their command,
for Grim Tuesday never said nay about that."
"Well, I, Arthur, Master of the Lower House, command you to take me and Suzy
to the center of the sun where Grim Tuesday went ten thousand years ago."
"It will be my pleasure to go a-sunfaring with the two of you," replied Tom.
"We'll just need some bright-coats, star-hoods, and Immaterial Boots."
The mariner went over to a chest behind the barrels and reached way down
inside it, far further than it was deep. He quickly produced several long
overcoats that shimmered in different colors, like mother-of-pearl. He threw
these to Arthur, who nearly collapsed under the weight of what felt like a
hundred pounds of wool. Then he threw across several pairs of boots identical to
the ones he was wearing himself, that just looked like ordinary rubber seaboots.
Finally he gestured to the corner of the table.
"And we'll need the saltshaker off the luncheon corner of my board, Miss Blue,
if you don't mind. Likely Old Tuesday will have left some Fetchers aboard."
Arthur separated out the pile of coats into half a dozen garments. One looked to
be his size, so he happily discarded his apron and tried it on. The coat fit
perfectly. Despite its weight, it was very cool and very soft, and Arthur
immediately liked it.
"Star-hood in the collar," said Tom. He put on a brightcoat himself and took the
huge silver saltshaker from Suzy and put it in his pocket. Then he folded up his


collar and unfurled a hood that was made from what Arthur thought must be
loosely woven starlight. It sparkled and shimmered, barely visible, save for the
faint outline where it touched Tom's hands.
"Drag it right over, you won't come to harm," Tom instructed. He pulled the
hood completely over his face and down to the top button of his coat, where it
fastened with a single press of his thumb.
"Immaterial Boots on and you'll be equipped for any trouble of a starry nature,"
said Tom. "Just remember to pull your hands into your sleeves if it gets a little
hot. Not that you need any of this gear aboard the Helios, as I call her, but it's
best to be prepared — we might have some trouble docking."
"What do we dock with? What's at the center of that star?" Arthur asked as he
struggled to get the Immaterial Boots on. As soon as his feet were snug, they
rippled and changed shape to look like his normal runners. Suzy's became shiny
patent leather half-boots.
"A place Grim Tuesday made," Tom replied. "That's all I can say. It may be a
little hot disembarking there, and hotter still when it's time to sail away. Are you
ready?"
"I'm ready," said Suzy.
"I just want to look at the register," said Arthur. He walked over to look at the
bronze-bound book. It was about two feet thick, with very thin paper like onionskin.
The open page was printed up with headings and lines, and had some clear
copperplate writing filling in each section, obviously copied from the yellow
forms that were on the spike.


There was number, occupation, former name, origin, misdemeanors,
punishments, and the same headings Arthur had seen on Japeth's indenture card,
EARNINGS and OWING.
The figures under earnings and owing changed as Arthur watched, written in
clear numerals unlike the copperplate hand that had to be Tom's.
"One of Grim Tuesday's conceits," said Tom darkly. "The register can write
everything itself, but he enjoys setting me to enter the new arrivals. That register
took over for more than two thousand clerks. Freed them up to go down the Pit."
"I have to destroy it," said Arthur. "So the indentured workers can be freed."
"Many's the time I've tried to rip it apart or wrench it from the table," said Tom.
He was bent over the bottles, carefully reaching across to get one that shone with
a clear yellow light. "Grim Tuesday makes strong stuff, particularly when it's got
slavery at the heart of it."
Arthur tried to rip out the open page. But he couldn't get a grip. His fingers slid
off. Then he tried to pick up the book, but it didn't budge at all. It felt like a solid
lump of metal bolted to a concrete block.
"I promised Japeth I'd free him and the other workers," said Arthur. He put both
his hands on the open pages of the register and took the deepest breath he could
manage.
"I, Arthur, Lord Monday, Master of the Lower House, call upon the power of the


First Key to destroy this register! Turn every page to dust and… and break its
binding into fragments!"
Arthur's hands got hot and smoke billowed out from under his palms. But the
book didn't turn to dust or explode into fragments. When Arthur stepped back, it
looked just the same.
"Made with the Second Key," said Suzy. " 'Spect you need that to destroy it."
Arthur didn't reply. He stared down at the register, watching the owing figure
increase for some poor Denizen who had the former name Sargarol and was now
just a thirteen-digit number and Driller Fifth Class.
As he stared, a yellow form fluttered out of the air and landed next to the book.
Arthur picked it up, expecting to see the record of a newly indentured worker.
But this was a telegram, just five lines of uneven capital letters from some really
old typewriter that said:
CAPTAiN STOP THIEVES IN TOWER STOP SLAY ALL INTRUDERS
STOP NO EXCEPTIONS STOP REPORT ANY INCIDENT IMMEDIATELY
STOP GRlM TUESDAY END
Chapter Fifteen
Arthur glanced across at Tom. The old mariner was rearranging the bottles,
intent on his task. Without looking directly at the telegram, Arthur slowly
dropped his hand over it and then slid it across the table towards his waist. He
coughed as he crumpled the paper to disguise the noise, and thrust the balled-up


telegram deep into the pocket of his brightcoat.
"How do we get inside?" Suzy asked as she bent over to look inside the bottle
Tom had carefully placed in front of her. "Is that the sunship?"
"The Helios. A fine vessel, one of the finest in my fleet. Though she sails with
the solar winds of space rather than on the seas I love, I rate her as my third most
favorite ship, after the sloop Polly Parbuckle and my Ophiran quinquereme."
"Looks like a metal turtle," said Suzy. She looked at Tom and quickly added,
"No insult meant, your honor."
"None taken, young miss," Tom replied. "She does look like a metal turtle, and
that's a fine shape for sun-faring. Now, I'll ask you to place your left hand upon
the bottle and look deep at my Helios while I ready the spell to take us in. Mind
you — stare at the ship and not at one of the planets or the sun itself. Are you
ready, Arthur?"
Arthur hesitated. Having experienced the awfulness of the Pit firsthand, he really
wanted to destroy the register and free the indentured workers before he headed
into the sunship.
"What if you helped me take the register?" he asked Tom, struck by a sudden
idea. "You're the son of the Old One. I've got some of the power of the First
Key. Maybe together we'd be strong enough to remove it?"
"Remove it together? Perchance we could," said Tom. "But what then?"
"Could we drop it into the sun we're going to visit?" asked Arthur. "Out of the


sunship?"
"Aye, we could. But that might not destroy it. It depends upon the protections
Grim Tuesday wove into its making."
"Oh… and I guess if we drop it in the sun it would just keep on working and we
couldn't even get it back to try and destroy it some other way."
Tom shook his head. "If it was not destroyed, it would find its way back here.
That is the nature of such artifacts."
"Maybe we could drop it into the Pit and it would be destroyed by Nothing,"
Arthur offered. He reached up and felt the outline of the Atlas in his pocket. "I'll
ask the Atlas."
"The Atlas? The Compleat Atlas of the House}" asked Tom, with obvious
surprise. "You have it?"
"Yes," answered Arthur. "Why?"
"It disappeared at the same time as Mother, ten thousand years ago," replied
Tom. "It is one of her greatest works, after the House itself and the Secondary
Realms."
Arthur took out the little green notebook and looked at it. It was certainly useful
sometimes, but he hadn't really thought of it as anything much more than a
faintly annoying and difficult-to-use database. Though it had helped him to
escape the Scoucher… and had shown him the direction to the Treasure Tower…


"I guess it is kind of amazing," he said without conviction. Then, in case the
book had feelings and might be offended, he continued, "I mean really amazing.
And helpful. I'll ask it if the register of indentured workers can be destroyed by
dropping it into the sun."
Arthur held the Atlas out and focused upon it, concentrating all his willpower
upon the question. The book shivered under his hands, but didn't open or grow to
its full size. Arthur tried again, mentally repeating his question. But the Atlas did
not respond.
"It's not working," Arthur admitted. He tried to open it like a normal book, but
just as when he'd first tried it in the hospital, it felt like all the pages were solidly
glued together.
"You need to be Mother, or have a Key to use the Atlas," said Tom. "Many's the
time I tried myself, an Atlas being in my line of work.-'
"I opened it before," Arthur insisted. "After I gave the First Key to the Will…
Dame Primus. She said it would answer some of my questions even without the
Key."
"That would be because the First Key's power lingered in you." Tom's piercing
blue eyes fixed on Arthur. "There is some scant residue of that power left. But
very little, a mere sip in the bottom of the glass. You must have used it without
stint. Even a mortal vessel will hold a great deal of the Key's power."
"I guess I… I healed my leg… not very well," said Arthur, wincing as he looked
down at his twisted, foreshortened leg. "And I opened your door, and I tried to
remove the register. Before that I pushed one of the Grotesques… and I used the


power to get to the Front Door. I didn't know I could use it up."
He had very mixed feelings about losing the power he had gained from the First
Key. If he'd been back home and all was well, he would have been pleased to
return to normal. Right now, in the House, with danger on every side, it would
be comforting to have just a little magic.
"You might be the better for it," said Tom. He looked away from Arthur,
towards his bottles, and spoke as much to them as to the two children. "The
power of the Architect, in her person, or from her Keys, is perilous to mortals."
"Do you think I have enough power left for us to take the register?" asked Arthur.
Tom shrugged and started to say something. But his words were lost in a deep
booming thud that echoed through the room and made the floor and walls vibrate
with a dull buzz, and the bottles hum a high-pitched note.
"The pyramid," said Tom. "Grim Tuesday has lifted the western side to gain
entry. He will come straight here. Let us try the register!"
Arthur didn't hesitate. He grabbed one side of the bronze-bound book with both
hands as Tom grabbed the other side.
"One, two, three… heave!" Arthur called out.
The register groaned like a man in pain, then shrieked like a cat whose tail is
trodden on, and came away from the table with a sound like a car screeching to
an emergency stop.


The book was so heavy that Arthur's end dropped almost to the floor, even
though Tom was taking most of the weight. Together he and Arthur staggered
over to the sunship bottle.
"Arthur, touch the bottle with your nose and stare at the sunship!" Tom gasped
as he leaned forward and planted his beaklike nose on the glass. "Miss Blue,
your hand will do."
It was extremely difficult for Arthur to get his nose against the glass, but
fortunately the bottle was quite big.
"I can't see past your head!" exclaimed Suzy. Arthur slid his nose back a bit and
Suzy leaned over his shoulder.
"Look at the ship!" Tom commanded again. Then he roared out something that
sounded like a poem, in a language that was nothing like any Arthur had ever
heard. It was all roars and deep, husky noises, and it made him shiver all over.
His eyes slid away from the ship, drawn to a planet with many feathery rings,
like Saturn but much brighter.
Desperately Arthur forced his dizzy eyes back to the sunship. It did look like a
huge metal turtle, as Suzy had said. A metal turtle eighty feet long made of
beaten gold, with hundred-foot-long front flippers of glowing red-tinged light.
Its head had two big eyes that were obviously windows, made of a deep blue
material the color of an old-fashioned glass fishing float.
Arthur stared at those windows. They seemed to get closer and closer, until he
could see blurry figures moving behind them. When he was closer still, he could


see the figures were Tom and Suzy and — even more strangely — Arthur
himself.
Tom roared a final, deafening word and all of a sudden Arthur was looking out
through the blue glass windows at a distant, feathery-ringed planet. Tom and
Suzy were by his side, and the register was on the deck between them. A deck of
golden metal planks, fixed with silver nails.
"Welcome aboard the Helios," Tom said, but his blue gaze looked past the two
children, and he drew the silver saltshaker from his pocket.
Arthur looked around too. They were on the bridge of the Helios, an oval-shaped
chamber about twenty feet in diameter. There was a wheel, lashed in position
with a bright white rope. There were several strange-looking gauges around the
wheel and a map box of mirrored metal that showed the planets and the sun in
three dimensions, like shining fish in a deep, clear aquarium. There were the two
huge blue glass windows at the front, and a gangway at the back going down,
through an open hatch.
"Here," said Tom, handing the saltshaker to Arthur. "Go below and clear away
any Fetchers or such-like that may be lurking. I'll get us under way."
"What about the register? And Grim Tuesday? Can he get us out of the bottle?"
"The register can stay where it is, but we'll need to watch it for any tricks. As for
Grim Tuesday, we should return a scant minute after our embarkation. Time
flows slowly here."
Tom began to unlash the wheel. Arthur hefted the saltshaker and looked at Suzy.


"Lead on," she said. "I want to see the rest of the ship."
Arthur climbed down the gangway, grimacing as his left leg lurched down the
steps. Like the rest of the Helios, the gangway and the passage below were made
of golden metal that shone with a soft light, so there was no need for lanterns. Or
maybe, Arthur thought, it was a very bright light, lessened by his protective gear.
He felt the faint presence of the star-hood over his face, but he didn't dare take it
off to test his theory.
There were two decks below the bridge. Arthur and Suzy searched every cabin,
space, and store methodically, but found no Fetchers. They did find a bronze
bottle, sealed with a lead stopper, but as far as Arthur could see it was secure. If
it held Nothing, none had leaked out.
They found many other things of interest, since the Helios was well stocked with
equipment and food, for venturing on planets as well as deep in space or inside a
sun. Many things baffled both of them, but others, like the cutlasses they
discovered in the armory, they admired and immediately acquired. When they
climbed back up to the bridge, both had broad-bladed but short cutlasses thrust
through their belts, the edges of the blades shimmering with curdled moonlight.
Suzy had also acquired a diamond-set gold earring, one much more resplendent
than the indentured tag in Arthur's ear, and a bright red bandanna she'd tied
around her head, over the top of the star-hood.
The view through the blue portholes had changed considerably. The two long
flippers of the Helios were extended even farther out the front, so they now
looked more like matching spinnakers of insubstantial red light.


There was no sign of the many-ringed planet; instead, the stars were moving
with considerable speed past the portholes, and the sun had grown much larger,
filling half the view.
"We didn't find any Nithlings," Arthur reported.
"Call me 'sir' or 'Captain' aboard ship," said Tom, but not unkindly.
"Yes, sir."
"And 'aye, aye' or 'aye' rather than 'yes,'" Tom continued. "I'll make sailors of the
pair of ye before we're through."
"Is everything working properly, uh, Captain?" asked Arthur, with a glance at
the rapidly enlarging sun.
"Indeed it is. We're set fair for the star's fiery heart, and the Helios dances light
as she ever did."
"And we definitely won't burn up?" Suzy asked. "Captain, I mean, sir."
"Not unless we stay too long," replied Tom. "But a quick visitation should prove
no problem for the Helios or for ourselves. Now I should bend my attention to
the ship, for we must beat against the solar wind, and I need to trim the sails."
Arthur and Suzy watched for more than an hour as Tom turned the wheel this
way and that. He occasionally pulled or pushed upon one of the levers that were
mounted against the wall ahead of the wheel or tapped the glass of an oscillating
gauge to steady it. The sun grew larger and larger, until it filled all the portholes.


There was nothing else to see but blazing white light.
Arthur was very grateful for the shining metal of the sunship hull and the blue
portholes. He knew that without them his whole body would have been burnt to
ash many millions of miles out from the sun. He was grateful for his star-hood
too, for saving him from instant blindness.
Tom spun the wheel a half-turn in anticipation of a shift of the solar winds and
pointed to a circular ring on the floor near his foot.
"Arthur, you see that ring?"
"Yes… I mean, aye, aye, Captain."
"Take hold of it. When I say 'heave,' pull it up and out as far as you can. Then
when I say 'let go,' release it."
"Aye, aye, sir!"
Arthur hurried over, knelt down, and gripped the ring. He looked up at Tom,
who was staring intently through the portholes and moving the wheel in quarter
turns, continually to the right.
"Heave!"
Arthur wrenched back on the ring. It came clear of the floor, and a brilliantly
sparkling chain that seemed to be made of crystals or perhaps even diamonds
came rattling out behind it. Arthur staggered backwards, pulling on the ring.
Yards and yards of the glittering chain emerged, spreading all over the deck.


"Mind you don't get caught up!" Tom shouted.
Arthur had already realized that, but it was easier said than done. There was
chain spreading everywhere, at least a hundred yards of it, and Arthur had to go
down the gangway to avoid it, while still pulling on the ring. Suzy retreated to
one corner, eyeing the chain with suspicion.
"Hold there, Arthur!" Tom called out. He suddenly stepped away from the
wheel, looped the chain around the register on the floor, sprang back to the
wheel, and shouted, "Let go!"
Arthur let go. The ring shot away from his hand, and the chain rebounded back
to wherever it had come from. The loop around the register tightened. For a few
seconds, the chain stopped, and the register stayed stuck to the deck. Then as
Arthur leaped back up the gangway, he saw the register screech across the floor,
deep scratches in the floor testifying to how hard it was fighting the pull.
"It won't go through there!" Arthur shouted, pointing at the saucer-sized chainhole.
But when the large bronze-bound book reached the hole, it did go through,
though not without a final, earsplitting scream that sent Arthur tumbling down
the gangway again, his hands pressed against his ears.
A moment later the ship ran into something. There was a thud and a groan from
the hull. The deck rocked from side to side.
Arthur dragged himself up to the bridge, shaking his head from side to side, his
ears ringing.
"It had to be a surprise," Tom was saying to Suzy. "The register would have


defended itself better if it knew I was going to wrap it in the anchor chain. I trust
you were not too disturbed?"
Suzy looked up at him, tapped her ears, and shook her head.
"Good!" declared Tom, not realizing that Suzy was shaking her head to try to
clear her ears. "We've docked, in a manner of speaking. We'll swing on the chain
a little and should be able to see —"
The white light in the porthole changed. Arthur stared as he saw lush green trees
drift into view. Trees hung with vines and dense green leaves, interspersed with
bright white flowers.
"It looks like a jungle!" he cried out, surprised.
"It is, of sorts," replied Tom. "A tropical island, pre-served in a bubble of
Immaterial Glass, here in the heart of the sun."
"How do we get across?" Suzy asked, much too loudly. Her hearing hadn't fully
come back.
"We're beached on her sandy shore, broadside on through the Immaterial Wall,"
said Tom. "So we can wade in. But we need to wait a moment, to make sure the
anchor has taken bite. It wouldn't do to drift back into the sun's embrace before
we're back aboard."
"What are we going to wade through?" Arthur asked.
"A patch of sea, caught with the island," Tom replied. "The Immaterial Glass


that encloses this place knows to let the Helios impinge. Any other vessel would
just bounce off."
He bent down and gave the anchor ring a few heaves. A few yards of chain came
out, but then snagged. Tom gave a few more steady heaves, then let the ring go.
"She's fast," he declared, "unless a storm comes up. But now — let's go ashore!"
Chapter Sixteen
Arthur half-shut his eyes and pulled his hands up into the sleeves of his
brightcoat as Tom opened the portside hatch. But as Tom had promised, the
hatch opened onto clear blue water, with a sandy beach only yards away, with
the jungle verge beyond. A small surf of one- to two-foot waves swept around
the sunship's hull and crashed onto the beach.
Even though he'd seen it through the porthole, this was not what Arthur had
expected. He'd thought there'd be some indication they were in the heart of a sun.
Brighter light for example, or a ring of fire in the distance.
There was normal sunshine overhead and the air was warm and humid. Arthur
poked his head out the hatch and saw ocean stretching out to the horizon, broken
a mile or so out by a long line of what must be coral reefs.
All in all, it looked good enough to become a postcard from an unspoiled
tropical holiday destination.
"Where do the waves come from?" Arthur asked Tom as they jumped down. The
sea was warm, but the waves were bigger than they looked from the ship, and as


the beach shelved away steeply, the water was deeper. Arthur had to jump up to
keep his head out of a passing wave in order to hear Tom's reply.
"It is unlike the other bottles, in that this place is both here and there, in a
manner of speaking," said Tom. He grabbed Arthur and Suzy by their coat
collars and lifted them up as an even larger wave swept past. "But the only way
for us to get to it is here. If we went to where it is on the old Earth, we wouldn't
see it and would turn away — or, in unlucky circumstances, we would wreck
and drown some way off. You should be able to wade now."
"Thanks," muttered Arthur as Tom dropped them in the wash and strode up the
beach. The boy picked himself up clumsily, his lame leg stuck in the wet sand
for a moment.
"Hey, I'm dry!" exclaimed Suzy after one step up the beach. She'd been sodden
and dripping a moment before.
"So am I!" said Arthur, patting his coat. There was some steam rising off it, but
otherwise the coat and everything else he was wearing had dried the instant he
left the sea.
"This is a great coat," said Suzy. "I hope I can keep it. And these shoes keep the
sand out and they'll be great for kicking Nithlings. Immaterial Boots are proof
against everything you know, even Nothing. For a while, anyway."
"You're cheerful," Arthur observed wryly. But he felt much better himself. The
clean air and the sunshine were very heartening, and with Tom's help he felt sure
they would soon find the Will. Once they had Part Two, then it could sort out
Grim Tuesday and all would be well.


This moment of optimism was slightly spoiled as he stumbled in the sand, his
shortened leg betraying him once more. He kept trying to walk like he always
had, but he couldn't. He had to learn to take different steps and think ahead to
where he'd put his left foot.
Tom had already gone into the jungle, following a rivulet of fresh water. The
trees and undergrowth thinned out a bit on either side of this narrow stream,
making it the next best thing to a path.
"Too green for me, and too damp," remarked Suzy with distaste as they splashed
up the stream. She looked up at the canopy of leaves and vines and shuddered.
"Could be anything hiding in the shrubbery. Give me a nice street any day."
"What about your old place with the dinosaurs?" asked Arthur. "That had trees."
"Only a few, and it was inside the House… Where did Tom go?"
Arthur and Suzy stopped and looked around. Tom had been only a little way
ahead. Now they could neither see him nor hear him splashing. There was only
the gentle burble of the stream and the soft noises of the wind rustling the upper
levels of the jungle canopy.
"Tom?" called out Arthur. "Captain?"
Paranoid thoughts began to creep into his brain.
Maybe Tom had somehow seen the telegram from Grim Tuesday after all? Or
maybe he'd always planned to get us here. He's brought us here to trap us. He'll


leave us here, on this jungle island in the middle of the sun. We'll never escape —
"Up here!" Tom called out.
"Where?" Arthur shouted back. He could hear Tom, but couldn't see him. There
was only the jungle all around, and Suzy next to him, slowly scanning the trees.
"Here!" called out Tom again, and this time Arthur saw a hand thrust down
through the thick mass of leaves, waving. "You can climb up on the other side."
Arthur and Suzy left the stream, pushed their way between some vast bushes
with pale yellow flowers and odd elongated seedpods, and came to the trunk of a
large, spreading tree. The trunk was wrapped in vines that grew in all directions,
making a natural ladder up into the jungle canopy. Arthur and Suzy climbed
easily, maneuvered through the leafy canopy, and emerged out into the sunshine.
Tom was waiting for them, perched on a thick spreading branch next to
something that could only be described as a nest. A circular platform of branches
and vines wove together in a haphazard fashion to make a cross between a
balcony and a treetop bed.
In the middle of it, apparently asleep, was a small bear. It was a sleek black in
color, apart from a lighter muzzle and a bright yellow crescent-shaped blaze
across its chest. It also had a tail, which Arthur wasn't sure was normal for bears.
If it was a bear. It wasn't that big, about half Arthur's size, though it was plumper
around the middle.
"That's it," said Tom. "Part Two of the Will. And, if I recall from one of my
journeys to the Spice Islands, in the shape of a sun bear."


Arthur climbed across to look at the sun bear more closely. It didn't stir, but the
slow rise and fall of its chest suggested it was merely asleep. Arthur leaned
closer still and looked at its fur. Sure enough, when he was only an inch or two
away, he could see thousands of tiny letters swirling about, rather than actual fur
or flesh.
"What's wrong with it?" he asked, as the sun bear didn't awaken or show any
sign of being aware of its visitors. "Is it asleep? Or hibernating?"
"Sun bears —" Tom began to say, but he got no further, as the sharp crack of an
explosion sounded from the beach. Arthur, Tom, and Suzy snapped around to
look and saw a huge geyser of steam spout into the air — from where the Helios
was beached.
"Uh-oh," said Suzy. Her hand fell to her cutlass hilt. "Is that Grim Tuesday
arriving?"
"No," Tom replied. "Apart from the Improbable Stair, there is no way to reach
this island but the Helios, and Tuesday wouldn't dare the Stair. It is more likely
we have woken a guardian or watcher. I will deal with it."
All of a sudden, Tom's harpoon appeared in his left hand, glittering with its
strange mix of light and darkness.
"But what about the Will?" Arthur asked. He prodded the bear with his finger,
keeping a wary eye on its long, sharp-looking claws. A faint golden glow spread
over Arthur's finger, but the bear didn't move. "What do we do with it?"


Tom had begun to climb down, but he stopped and looked back up, his forehead
furrowed in thought. He kept glancing back towards the beach, where the steam
continued to spout a hundred feet into the air.
"What did you plan to do with it?" the seafarer asked.
"I don't know," replied Arthur in exasperation. "I thought it'd be like the first part
of the Will. You know, it would tell me what to do. Not just lie there."
"Bring it, then. We should not linger here," said Tom. Then he was gone.
"You reckon we can lift it?" Suzy asked Arthur. "Pretty solid-looking bear. Even
if it is made of words."
"I don't know," Arthur snapped, showing his irritation. "Why can't it just wake
up and be useful?"
Making sure he had a good foothold on the branch, he bent down and tried to lift
the sun bear under one arm. But he could barely raise its front legs an inch off
the nest. It was extremely heavy, heavier than any bear of real flesh and blood.
Suzy tried to lift it too, but could only get its rear legs up, while its round
midsection stayed firmly planted on the woven leaves. Even lifting together, they
could only bend it into a U-shape. It still didn't wake up.
"It's too heavy!" Arthur conceded.
"The Captain could carry it," said Suzy. "That steam's stopped… oh… smoke."
She pointed. The steam geyser had gone, but in its place there was a dense


column of smoke. Then they heard a strange crackling noise, and a soundless
vibration passed through Arthur and Suzy, making them shiver. It was followed
by an inhuman, very high-pitched scream — and a triumphant shout from Tom.
"Reckon that was the Captain's 'friend,'" whispered Suzy as she felt her teeth
with one dirty hand. Arthur's teeth felt odd too, kind of fuzzy. But the sensation
passed quickly.
"As long as it gets used on the right side, I don't mind," said Arthur. He cupped
his hands over his mouth and shouted, "Captain! Captain! We need you to carry
the Will!"
"Aye, I hear you!" came a returning shout. "I'm coming back!"
Tom followed his shout several minutes later, emerging through the canopy,
once again without his harpoon. "We must speed on. That was a Sunsprite. There
are others trying to drag the Helios off. They have some means of getting in
through the Immaterial Glass."
"I thought you said there was no way in except the Stair and your sunship," Suzy
said as Tom picked up the sun bear and slung it over one shoulder as easily as if
it were a pillow.
"So I thought, lass, so I thought," Tom muttered. "I wonder… but this is no time
for wonderings. Quickly, to the ship!"
"What's a Sunsprite?" Arthur asked Suzy as they hastily climbed back down into
the cool shade of the jungle. Tom easily outdistanced them into the greenery,
even with the sun bear on his shoulder.


"Dunno exactly," replied Suzy. "There's a mort of different Sprites, and I never
learned 'em. Basically they're Nithlings that got out of the House and into the
Secondary Realms."
"Miss Blue is correct, to a degree," Tom called out. He was ten or twenty yards
ahead and hidden, so his comment came as a minor shock to Arthur and Suzy.
"All Sprites were once Nithlings, but they take on the nature of the place they
inhabit out in the Secondary Realms. Sunsprites are essentially self-willed
entities composed of stellar plasma. But even they should not be here, at the hot
heart of a star. They usually swarm around the fringes of a sun."
"He's got good hearing," whispered Suzy.
"Swarm?" asked Arthur. He didn't like hearing that word.
"Typically the original escaped Nithling divides into several hundred Sprites. If
they come upon us, do not let them embrace you. Even a brightcoat and starhood
will not endure long against their kiss."
"Uh, let's just get back on board without meeting any," Arthur suggested. He
picked up his pace, splashing Suzy with his strange, stumbling gait.
"Too late for that," said Tom as another geyser of steam erupted out of the sea,
just as all three of them burst out of the jungle and onto the sand.
The Sunsprite wasn't visible, but the column of steam slowly moved towards the
beach, the water fizzing and boiling all around it


"Can't the sea quench it?" asked Arthur.
"Eventually, if there was some means of keeping it in the water," Tom told him.
He held out his left hand and his harpoon appeared there out of nowhere. He
immediately handed the weapon to Arthur, who accepted it with surprise.
"My friend does not willingly fly from another's hand, but she will help the
Master of the Lower House. Aim high, for the upper torso of the Sprite — and
keep your distance. My friend is best thrown as far as you can."
"But… but what are you going to do?"
"I must ready the Helios for our departure, before the other Sprites drag it back
into the sun. You will need to distract this Sunsprite, then finish it. Miss Blue,
your cutlass will cut several times before the blade melts. Use your weapons
well."
He rushed into the surf just as a man-sized cloud of writhing steam emerged
from the sea. A moment later the steam wafted away and Arthur caught a
glimpse of a dark charcoal-colored creature, just before it exploded into flame.
Even through his star-hood, Arthur felt the heat of it on his face.
Without even thinking about it, he threw Tom's harpoon at it, aiming for its
upper chest. Once again there was the strange crackling noise, like wrapping
paper being mangled, magnified a hundred times. The harpoon flew so fast
Arthur only saw a luminous aftertrail.
"Ow!" exclaimed Suzy, and Arthur groaned as the harpoon hit. Both of them
clutched their mouths, as they were hit by a sudden toothache that radiated


through into their cheekbones and eye sockets.
It was much worse for the Sunsprite. It screamed and ropes of flame shot from
its hands up into the sky, then came back down and wrapped around the harpoon
that stuck through its chest. When it seemed as if it might pull the harpoon free,
Suzy dropped her hand from her mouth and drew her cutlass. But the flaming
ropes dimmed and the Sunsprite's fire went out completely as it crumbled into
ash and chunks of charcoal.
The harpoon disappeared. Arthur flinched as it reappeared in his hand with a
solid whack!
Suzy looked at the harpoon, ran her tongue across her still-aching teeth, and
shook her head. "That's nasty, that is. I wouldn't want to be any closer next time
you use it."
"I hope there won't be a next time," Arthur replied as he hurried into the sea. He
held the harpoon away from his body as far as he could, as if it might turn and
strike at him. "Let's get aboard before another Sunsprite comes through, and —"
A wave slapped him in the face before he could continue. The star-hood stopped
him from swallowing anything, but he had to stop where he was in order to
regain his balance.
At that moment, steam exploded just in front of him. He stumbled back into
Suzy, and both of them fell over in the soft sand, the wash spilling over their legs
as another steam-wreathed Sunsprite reared up out of the sea.
It was too close to throw, and he was blinded by steam, so Arthur simply thrust


Tom's harpoon up and out, while Suzy scrambled away on all fours as fast as she
could.
Arthur felt the harpoon shudder in his hands at the same time an intense heat
blasted across his face. He pulled his hands into his sleeves as far as he could,
and leaned back into the wash, setting the shaft of the harpoon into the sand.
A moment later, he had to let go of the weapon, as a biting ache struck every
bone in his body and spread through his teeth and across his face. He screamed
and beat at his mouth with his sleeved hands, desperate to stop the pain. The
intense heat of the Sunsprite was nothing compared to the deep, vibrating ache
beneath his skin, throbbing in agonizing time with his increasing pulse.
Rushing to escape the harpoon's awful influence, Arthur squirmed away through
the sea and sand. He didn't care whether he'd gotten the Sunsprite, whether it was
following to kiss him and burn him to death. All he wanted to do was get away
from the Captain's terrible weapon —
Something slapped into his right hand, and Arthur screamed again. The harpoon
had come back. He couldn't get away from it!
That meant the harpoon thought it would soon be used again.
Chapter Seventeen
Even though the harpoon was back in Arthur's hand, the pain suddenly ebbed
away, disappearing as quickly as it had come, leaving only a lingering
discomfort in his teeth and a horrific memory.


Arthur found he was lying facedown in wet sand, and hastily rolled over. There
was no sign of the Sun-sprite or any other geysers of steam. Wearily, he sat up,
then staggered to his feet and looked around properly. Suzy was lying still on the
sand about six feet away, just above the tide line.
"Suzy!" Arthur called, panic in his voice. What if the side effects of using the
harpoon had killed her?
Suzy lifted her head, probed her face with her fingers as if to make sure it was
still there, then shakily stood up.
"Are you all right?" Arthur asked urgently, taking a step towards her. She backed
away and held up her hands.
"Keep your distance with that sticker, Arthur. I'll just follow on behind."
"Arthur! Miss Blue! Quickly, we need to cast off!"
Tom's shout galvanized both children into action. Arthur flung himself into the
waves, turning sideways to get through them more easily, though he had to kick
as well, as a bigger wave lifted him off his feet. Suzy, despite her words, plunged
in and soon caught up to him.
As they approached the portside hatch and the rope ladder hanging from it, the
water all along the golden bulk of the sunship's hull began to fizz and bubble.
Tom leaned out of the hatchway and shouted again.
"Faster! The Sunsprites have done something to the Immaterial Glass, our
anchor's dragged, and our starboard sail is filling!"


Arthur redoubled his efforts, but stumbled just before he got to the ladder. He
fell completely underwater. Hot water. He pushed off the sand and felt a hand
under his arm, and when he burst back out, Suzy was right behind him, helping
him up.
She practically threw him onto the ladder. Arthur dropped the harpoon as he
grabbed the bottom rung, but it didn't fall. It just disappeared.
"Don't come back to me," muttered Arthur under his breath as he clambered up.
At the top, he turned and reached back to help Suzy. The water was really
boiling now all along the sunship, and Arthur could see a red glow spreading
through the clear blue-green sea.
Suzy leaped aboard with alacrity, hardly needing Arthur's help.
"Shut the hatch and dog it!" roared Tom from somewhere inside.
Arthur pulled and Suzy pushed on the hatch. It was very heavy, made of the
same golden metal as the hull, and at least a foot thick. It moved very slowly
along a top and bottom rail. As it closed, Arthur saw dozens of gouts of steam
explode up through the waves outside. The columns of steam were motionless
for a second, then all turned towards the still open hatch.
"Sunsprites!" shouted Arthur. "Lots of them!"
He gave up pulling the hatch and ran around to help Suzy push.
"Heave!" he yelled. "One, two, three — heave!"


A ropy arm of fire thrust itself inside just as the hatch rolled shut. Cut off, it
rolled and twisted around Arthur's and Suzy's feet, till Suzy stamped on it. Its
fire went out and it collapsed into black dust.
Arthur picked up the long metal bar and slid it in place, locking the hatch. He'd
barely gotten it in place when there was a sudden beating on the hull, a sound
like many hammers striking metal.
"I hope they can't get in," said Suzy. "I lost my cutlass in the sea."
"So did I," gasped Arthur, feeling his side. He couldn't remember when he'd last
had it. "Let's get some more. I'm not using that harpoon again."
"All hands to the bridge!" Tom bellowed.
Arthur and Suzy hurried along the passage and then up to the bridge. Tom was
steering the wheel with one hand and reaching out to pull levers with the other.
Through one blue porthole, Arthur and Suzy saw the island, now hidden in steam
and smoke. The other porthole showed only bright light and indistinct figures
that had to be Sunsprites. The metal hammering noise was just as loud here,
making it hard to hear and even harder to concentrate.
"They're trying to tow us somewhere," said Tom. "But we've got the solar wind
with us. Grab those two levers and pull back as hard as you can."
Arthur and Suzy hurried over to the levers, jumping across the dormant Will. It
was lying on the floor behind Tom, still asleep or unconscious.
The levers were much harder to pull down than Arthur expected. In the end, he


and Suzy had to hang on to each one to drag them down into position.
"Sunsprites are trying to spoil our rigging, but the Helios is a tough ship,"
shouted Tom. "Tuesday might be a penny-pinching slaver, but he can make a
good vessel."
"Grim Tuesday made the Helios}" shouted Arthur.
"Aye, he did," roared Tom, even his mighty voice almost lost in the constant
hammering ring. "Copied, of course, from some inventor out in the Secondary
Realms. Not from Earth, for a change. Probably @@©@©@@@ or MQdoofj-."
"Where?" asked Arthur. "Who?"
He couldn't even begin to understand the noises Tom had just made, which he
presumed were names of other worlds. Or maybe just countries. Or maybe they
were the inventors' names.
Tom didn't answer. He was intent on a gauge that was slowly filling with a red
dye. As it got to two-thirds full, he spun the wheel and held it fast, straining
against some unseen pressure. The gauge almost immediately became totally
suffused with the red dye and stayed full.
"A good wind and both sails taut," shouted Tom. "They're trying to hold us back,
but they'll fall away. Aye, there they go!"
Arthur couldn't see anything in the portholes, or at least he couldn't be sure what
he was seeing. But the hammering lessened, and the indistinct shapes in the
brightness were no longer all over the place but bunched up in the bottom


corners of the portholes. From there, they slowly disappeared.
After five minutes, there was no more hammering. Tom relaxed a little at the
wheel, though he didn't lash it or let go.
"We'll be returned to our mooring afore too long with this wind," he said
cheerfully. "Then back into the House in a trice."
"And we'll get back only a minute or so after we left?" asked Arthur. He was
thinking about the telegram in his pocket and what Grim Tuesday would do. And
the even bigger question: What was he going to do with a sleeping Will?
"As long as it takes to speak both spells, the embarkation and disembarkation,"
replied Tom. He frowned and added, "I trust you'll do something with that Will.
I've no more mind to follow Grim Tuesday than I ever did, but if he commands
me in person with the power of the Second Key, I must obey without question or
slipperiness. I don't want my friend to shorten your future."
Arthur and Suzy shook their heads in an instant mutual reaction.
"Why is nothing ever easy?" asked Arthur. "I just want the Will to wake up and
tell Tuesday to hand over the Key to me. Then I can sort everything out, get back
home, and forget about this blasted House and everything in it!"
"It could be worse," said Suzy philosophically. "We could be soaking wet."
Arthur let a slight chuckle escape as he walked around the sun bear.
"And I could be having an asthma attack. And all our teeth might fall out


because of…"
He glanced at Tom and decided not to say anything about the harpoon. Maybe it
had feelings and would be offended. Or Tom might be.
Arthur stopped circling the sun bear and took a series of breaths, each one a little
deeper than the last. Now he was outside the House, he couldn't quite fill his
lungs, the familiar catch still lurking there, but it could hardly be called asthma.
It was just a minor annoyance. Nothing compared to his short, twisted leg.
Forget about the leg, he told himself. Get on with it.
"Okay, I have to wake the Will up. How do you wake up a sleeping bear? Or a
hibernating one? Does anyone know?"
Suzy shook her head. Tom adjusted the wheel, then almost absently said, "I
know sun bears don't hibernate."
"They don't?"
Tom shook his head, and, out of the corner of his eye, Arthur saw the Will's eye
flicker too. Just a rapid, momentary lift of an eyelid so it could get a snapshot of
the room and the situation.
"It's not even asleep," cried Arthur, crouching down next to the bear. He tapped
it on the snout and said, "Wake up, Part Two of the Will."
Nothing happened.
"Tell it who you are," suggested Suzy. "I mean, the Master and everything."


"I'm Arthur Penhaligon. Master of the Lower House. Rightful Heir to… uh… the
Keys to the Kingdom, the Lower House, the Middle House, the Upper House…
um… the Far Reaches —"
"The Great Maze, the Incomparable Gardens, and the Border Sea," recited Suzy,
helping Arthur out.
"Says who?"
For a second Arthur didn't know who'd spoken, till he saw the corner of the sun
bear's mouth lift up. It had a high-pitched, squeaky drawl, and it could speak
with barely a movement of its snout or lips.
"Says Paragraphs Three to Seven of the Will, who chose me in the first place,"
said Arthur angrily. "I didn't want the job, but I've got it, so you can get up and
help me out."
The Will opened one eye fully and slowly looked Arthur up and down. "How do
I know you're telling the truth? You could be anyone. Where's the First Key if
you're Master of the Lower House?"
"I made Dame Primus — that is, the first part of the Will — my Steward,"
Arthur answered, trying to muster authority into his voice. "She's got the Key. I
need you to make Grim Tuesday hand over the Second Key to me, so you'd
better stay awake and start thinking about doing it."
"Not as easy as that," said the Will. Its high-pitched voice was quite annoying. "I
need to see it in writing that you're the Rightful Heir. Proper official notice from


Dame Primus. Part One chooses the heir, fair enough, but the least she can do is
the proper notification. I can't do a thing without it. Wouldn't be prudent. Don't
bother me again unless you've got the notice."
It shut its eyes. Arthur reached forward and tapped it smartly on the nose, then
retreated even more smartly as one claw snapped out and raked the air where his
hand had been an instant before.
"I said, don't bother me," squeaked the Will. "I'm meditating."
"Even more irritating than the first bit," remarked Suzy. "Though I's'pose it's a
benefit not having it in your throat."
"We'll have to get it — and ourselves — away from
Grim Tuesday, out of the pyramid, and up to the Lower House," said Arthur.
"Somehow or other. Did Dame Primus tell you what to do once we got the Will?"
"Nope," said Suzy. "Maybe I should've asked, from experience, like. With her
last plan coming unstuck and everything."
"This one's come unstuck too," said Arthur. He scratched his head. "We've got
an hour or so sailing back, haven't we, Captain?"
"Half that, or maybe a third," replied Tom. "The solar wind is with us now."
"So we come back out a few minutes after we left," said Arthur, as he paced
lopsidedly around the bridge. "Surely it'll take Grim Tuesday ten minutes to get
up to your room, Captain?"


"Depends. There are weird ways inside the Treasure Tower. If he climbs the
stairs at his usual pace, it'll be ten minutes or more."
"Weirdways? In the prison… I mean the Tower? Where?"
"Ah, a slip of the tongue there," Tom said with a twinkle in his eye. "I've been
expressly ordered not to mention the weirdways. Can't tell anyone where they
are either, though I suppose I might nod my head or give a wink, if someone was
to ask where they're not or suchlike roundabout questions."
"Grim Tuesday wouldn't put a weirdway right into the chamber with the bottles,"
said Arthur slowly, watching Tom's face. "But he might put one close… like the
cell next door…"
Tom slowly winked.
"Even if someone did put a weirdway in a cell next door, they'd be sure to
disguise it," continued Arthur. "Like maybe behind something on the wall. Or
behind a trapdoor in the floor. Or the ceiling. Or disguised as something else —"
Tom nodded slowly at the last sentence.
"How would you disguise the entry to a weirdway, Suzy?" asked Arthur. "How
are they normally disguised?"
"Could be anything," snorted Suzy. She glanced at Tom and said, "A cup of
water is quite common. Or a teapot. Or a candlestick. Sometimes a book. Or a
painting. A hook on the wall. I remember an old geezer had one you got in
through a coin stuck to the floor. Then there's flowers. A loose brick. Mirrors is


popular. Water closet, though that's disgustin' and not proper. A chest or drawer.
Maybe a box of some kind. Wardrobes. Cigarette case. A pianoforte or
harpsichordicle. Clocks —"
She stopped. Tom had winked at "clocks."
"So a clock in one of the neighboring cells is the entry to a weirdway. I wonder
where it comes out? I guess it must still be inside the pyramid, since Grim
Tuesday is so paranoid about keeping people out."
"I wonder if he left the door open?" mused Suzy.
"You said he lifted the west side of the pyramid to get in," said Arthur to Tom.
"Can you talk about that?"
"The entire west face of the pyramid is hinged as a door," said Grim Tuesday.
"It's no secret, for no one else is strong enough to lift it. Even I could not open
that door. Not alone."
"And all my power's gone," said Arthur.
"Maybe he left it open," suggested Suzy. "He was in a hurry."
Arthur shook his head. "Leave open the door to all his treasures? I doubt it."
"Just being optimistic," said Suzy. "You should try it. It doesn't hurt. Least, it
doesn't hurt me. Maybe it would give you a pain in the midsection."
Arthur ignored the comment. His mind was racing over the possibilities, trying
to work out what to do.


"We'll have to get Grim Tuesday to open the pyramid for us," he said. "Or
maybe Soot. It must have got-ten even bigger and stronger from eating the
Grim's treasures —"
"Ah, the Nithling," interrupted Tom. "I fear that it will not be able to serve you. I
am sure that Grim Tuesday will call upon me to slay it immediately. I am
surprised he did not send a telegram to that effect. It is his preferred means of
communication, fitting for one so mean with words."
"Oh, yeah, right," said Arthur. He slipped his hand into his pocket and felt the
telegram there. He'd hoped it had become a sodden, unreadable mess, but the
bright-coat had kept it dry, or had dried it out perfectly. "Sure. I guess you
chasing around after Soot will distract Grim Tuesday anyway. That's better than
nothing…"
Arthur's voice trailed off as a thought slowly rose to the front of his mind.
"Telegrams," he said.
"What?" asked Suzy.
"Telegrams!"
"What about telegrams?"
Arthur clutched Tom's sleeve. "If you can receive telegrams in your room, does
that mean you can send them?"


"Aye, if I've the coins to pay. Grim Tuesday allows nothing on account."
"Have you got any coins?" asked Arthur feverishly. "I mean can you lend me
some?"
"Only the coins in my ears, for paying Davy Jones in case of drowning," said
Tom, pushing back his graying hair to show two large gold coins hanging from
his ear-lobes. "Superstition, I know, but I've grown accustomed… Anyways,
once we're ashore you can have the loan of one of them. I need to be keeping
one, against unfortunate circumstance."
"Would it be enough?" asked Arthur, eyeing the coin. It looked pretty thick and
heavy. The laurel-crowned head stamped into it looked pretty smug and selfsatisfied
too about being on such a valuable coin. "To send a telegram and pay
for a reply?"
"Aye, it should. Who would you send it to?"
"Dame Primus. Then she can send one back confirming that I'm the heir. I show
that to this… to the sun bear. It sorts out Grim Tuesday. Everything'll be okay!"
Chapter Eighteen
"Telegram's not good enough," said the sun bear with-out opening its eyes.
"When I say proper notification, I mean proper. Stamped and sealed."
"You're a proper pain, aren't you?" commented Suzy. But the Will didn't respond.
"I'll send the telegram anyway," said Arthur, with as much conviction as he


could muster. His brilliant idea didn't seem so brilliant now. "Maybe Dame
Primus can help us escape from the Tower and the pyramid. Or send the proper
notification some other way… or something. I guess we'll just have to try to get
out ourselves in the meantime. And make sure Grim Tuesday doesn't find us."
"Good idea," said Suzy. "Only we can't carry the bear. Not without the Captain."
"I thought I was the one who needed optimism," Arthur reminded her. He
prodded the sun bear's rear with the toe of his Immaterial Boot. "It can walk.
How about that, Will? You should come with us just in case I
do turn out to be the Rightful Heir, which everybody tells me I am."
"I'm not going anywhere till I have adequately assessed the situation," said the
sun bear, still without opening its eyes. "It would not be prudent to move until I
have considered all possibilities, or must comply with appropriate authority."
"You're not staying on board the Helios," announced Tom. He turned from the
wheel and stooped down to look at the sun bear. "Part Two of the Will, do you
know who I am?"
"No," said the sun bear, squeezing its eyes even more shut. "Nor do I care to play
twenty questions to discover your dubious identity."
Tom held out his hand. There was a rush of cold air, and his strangely dark and
bright harpoon appeared in his hand. He tilted it down, till the point touched the
deck a few inches from the sun bear's nose.
Arthur and Suzy retreated to the companionway and took a few steps down,


almost falling over each other in their haste.
The sun bear reluctantly opened one eye.
"Do you know me now?" growled Tom.
The sun bear opened its other eye, lifted its snout with obvious effort, and
sniffed the air several times.
"The Old One's second son," it squeaked.
"The Architect's adopted son."
"Yes, yes," admitted the sun bear. "That is true enough."
"And I say Arthur is the Master of the Lower House and so must have been
chosen as the Rightful Heir."
The sun bear rolled its eyes and gave an annoyed snort.
"Character witnesses are all very well, but I stand by my position. I will not act
on behalf of anyone until I am in receipt of the correct notification from Dame
Primus."
Tom scraped the point of the harpoon across the deck towards the sun bear's
snout. It made a nerve-jangling, harmonic sound that filled the bridge and made
Arthur and Suzy take several steps down the ladder.
But the sun bear did not retreat. It merely pulled back its head.


"Nor am I moved by threats!" it added.
"This is not a threat, you furry backslider," Tom roared. "But if you won't at least
go along with Arthur, then I'll see if Mother's gift can spill some of Mother's
words out of your gizzard."
The sun bear looked distastefully at Arthur and wrinkled its nose.
"I suppose that I have to go somewhere, since my pleasant retreat has been
destroyed. Perhaps, ipso facto, pursuant to the circumstances, I may accompany
this potential heir-designate until further information is forthcoming one way or
another."
"Pleasant retreat!" said Arthur. "That was a prison — you… you were supposed
to break out of it and do your duty. Let the Will be done, my foot!"
"I trusted that I would be released at the correct and proper moment to fulfill my
obligations," said the Will stiffly. "Certainly not rousted out by such an
unorthodox… ahem… party, with such peculiar —"
"That's enough!" ordered Tom. His harpoon vanished, he spun the wheel and
pushed back several levers. The red dye in the central gauge ebbed away. "We're
almost at the mooring point. You will need to gather around me for the transfer
back to the House."
The Will frowned, but stood up with visible effort and waddled the few steps to
Tom's feet.
"Fat little rat," whispered Suzy. "Nothing like Part One."


"I guess they could all be different," whispered Arthur back. "Not that I want to
find out."
"Stand close," said Tom. He reached into his pocket and drew out a silver
carving fork. He frowned, returned it, and pulled out a very large silver soup
spoon,
^250^
rubbing it carefully against his sleeve. Then he held it up so it caught the blue
light from the portholes.
"Focus on your own reflection in the spoon," he instructed. "Don't look at
anything else. Don't get distracted. Don't look away. Everybody looking?"
Arthur and Suzy nodded.
The Will sighed and reared up on its hind legs, its stubby tail helping it to
balance.
"Hold it a little lower, if you please? Yes, I am look-ing."
Arthur stared fixedly at the curved back of the spoon. His reflection was curved
and fuzzy, mixed in with Suzy's and the reflection of the bear. Arthur tried to
concentrate on maintaining his stare, but his mind was wandering ahead, trying
to think about other options. But he couldn't think of anything other than sending
the telegram to Dame Primus and trying to stay one step… or preferably many
more steps… ahead of Grim Tuesday.


Tom began to bellow his spell (or poem or chant or whatever it was). Having an
extremely loud, incomprehensible shout going on and on above his head was
very distracting but Arthur forced himself to keep staring at the shiny spoon and
his own curved face.
It got easier to look after the first minute. The other reflections drifted away, and
Arthur lost all sense that there was anything or anyone else around him. There
was only his shimmering reflection. He was alone in the universe, looking at
himself, and that was all there was —
Tom finished the spell and wrapped his weather-beaten hand around the spoon.
Arthur blinked.
They were back in Tom's room in the Treasure Tower. Arthur could hear distant
bellowing and shouting. No words were distinguishable, it was all angry roaring,
until a few distinct words came through, one voice cutting through the other.
Arthur recognized the quieter voice as Soot's.
The louder one's shout was, "Captain! To me!"
Tom cursed.
"I must obey!" he explained. "Good fortune, Arthur. Here!"
He tore the gold coin from his right ear and flipped it to Arthur as he strode to
the door, his "friend" materializing in his hand on his second step.
Arthur caught the coin, sticky with Tom's blood, and looked over to the table.


"Thanks! But how do I send a —"
He was too late. Tom had gone, the door swinging shut behind him.
Suzy hurried over to the desk, while the Will climbed awkwardly into Tom's
chair and recommenced looking haughty and disapproving.
"There'll be a telegraph blank here somewhere," Suzy explained, quickly sorting
through the papers. "You just write in the squares. Here!"
She took a quill and an ink bottle from deep inside her shirt, unscrewed the
bottle, licked the point of the quill, and handed it to Arthur.
"You write it," he said. He tried to hand the quill back. He'd never used anything
but a ballpoint or felt tip.
Suzy shook her head. "I'm still taking penmanship. Dame Primus says my letters
are a disgrace. Particularly the esses. And the haitches."
Arthur looked at the telegram blank. It was a simple printed form, headed the
elevated and worshipful
TELEGRAPHIC, TELEPHONIC, AND MESSAGE SERVICE OF
the house. Under that, there was to and a line of seven word boxes, message and
five lines of seven boxes, and from with its line of seven boxes, plus a red-inked
circle in the corner about the size of the blood-dappled gold coin Arthur held.
There was also a very small box with the words reply paid under the circle.


Dipping the quill in the turquoise-blue ink, Arthur somewhat blobbily wrote
Dame Primus. He had to re-ink for the -mus, ignoring Suzy's unspoken but
evident scorn at his clumsiness with the quill.
He thought for a few seconds, then with several refills, numerous splotches, and
some scratching, wrote:
IN TREASURE TOWER GOT WILL IT WON'T RECOGNIZE ME SAYS
NEEDS OFFICIAL FORM SEND FORM OR HELP HELP!
He hesitated at the from boxes, then simply put Arthur and ticked the box next to
reply paid.
As soon as he'd ticked the box, the red-lined circle began to glow with a silver
light, and the handwritten annotation 12R appeared.
"Lob the coin down," Suzy instructed.
Arthur placed the gold coin on the circle. The whole form immediately vanished.
In its place were four silver coins of varying sizes and designs.
"Lucky you got the change," said Suzy, sweeping the coins off the table and into
her pocket. "They embezzle it half the time."
"We'd better find that weirdway next door," said Arthur, suddenly conscious that
he couldn't hear any shouting outside.
"Which side?" asked Suzy.
"Forgot to ask," Arthur shouted as he made his way to the door. "Come on! You


too, Will."
"If you must call me anything, you may address me as Most Excellent
Testamentary Clause," said the sun bear.
"Claws?" said Suzy, as she tilted the chair to speed the bear on its way. "Orright,
Claws, hop to it."
"No, no, no," protested the sun bear. "Most Excellent…"
"Claws it is," said Suzy loudly. "After you, Claws."
"I said… oh… just don't speak to me," huffed the Will as it waddled after Arthur.
Out on the walkway, Arthur was already trying the door on the left. It opened
easily enough, but the cell beyond was completely empty and quite dark,
illuminated only by the spill of light from the walkway lanterns. Arthur dashed
in, quickly scanned the room, and dashed out again.
"The other one!" he said. He tried to keep his voice down, but it still echoed.
The echo was answered by a shout from below. A harsh, powerful voice that was
not Tom's. It echoed up from a point not as far below as Arthur would have
hoped. Perhaps only three or four levels down.
"Captain! Did you hear that?"
"What?" came the reply from Tom, while Arthur and Suzy crept along to the
next door, gently slid back the bolt, and pushed open the door. There was a light


inside this cell, and Arthur immediately felt more hopeful. They would find the
weirdway quickly and get away, at least for the time being.
"That was no Nithling! It must not have eaten the other intruders!" the voice
continued.
"Let us deal with the Nithling, Lord Tuesday," said Tom. "It is strong, and grows
stronger. We must find it first."
"Come here, Nithling!" roared the voice, which Arthur now knew must belong to
Grim Tuesday. "I do not have time to waste searching for miscreants!"
He growled out something else, then more clearly shouted, "By the power of the
Second Key, all intruders stand before me!"
Arthur felt unseen hands tug at him, dragging him back towards the nearest steps
down. Suzy also took several steps back, a look of surprise on her face. Only the
Will appeared unaffected. It stood to Arthur's left, watching him struggle as his
Immaterial Boots slid backwards across the woven iron floor.
Arthur grimaced and threw himself forward. But he just fell face-first onto the
cold iron and began to slide back, as if dragged by invisible captors. He tried
hooking his fingers through the mesh of the walkway floor, but had to let go
before they were broken or torn off.
Flailing wildly for some other handhold, Arthur touched the Will's tail. As soon
as he did, the dragging force disappeared. Arthur immediately gripped the tail
hard.


"How dare you!" squealed the Will, its high-pitched voice echoing out into the
central void.
Arthur didn't reply. He reached out and grabbed Suzy's hand as she was dragged
past. She stopped too and started to crawl back.
"Unhand my tail!" squealed the Will. It turned on Arthur and tried to scratch
him, but he kept his grip and jumped behind it.
"I'm not letting go until we go through the weirdway in that cell," gasped Arthur
as he jumped again, Suzy jumping with him. She managed to get a grip directly
on the Will's tail as well.
"This is outrageous behavior. I protest!"
"Who is that?" bellowed Grim Tuesday. His shout was followed by heavy
footsteps ringing on the iron steps.
"Hurry up!" snapped Arthur to the Will. "You don't want to meet Grim Tuesday
either, do you?"
The bear turned again and sped into the cell far faster than Arthur had seen it
move before. The two children barely hung on, both running hunched over and
scraping the door frame.
Arthur kicked the door shut with his foot, jarring his bad leg. He could hear
Grim Tuesday's shouts reverberating outside as he hastily looked around the
room. It was mostly empty, but there was an armchair sitting opposite two
exquisite clocks on the wall: an ornate cuckoo clock made of finely sculpted


gold, and a very simple, small ivory dial set in a walnut frame.
"Let go, let go, let go!" whined the Will. "I insist that you let go."
Arthur looked at Suzy, then tentatively loosened his grip. When they weren't
struck by invisible forces, they both let go completely and stepped well back to
get clear of the Will's claws and to look at the two clocks.
"If you've rumpled my fur, I shall send you the cleaning bill," said the Will as it
curled around to inspect its tail.
Arthur ignored it. Instead he stretched up and touched the door of the cuckoo
clock. It was solid gold, with an emerald-set door handle. Arthur opened it and
was not surprised to find the door expanding as he pulled it, stretching down and
across till there was no sign of the clock. Instead there was a normal-sized
doorway in the wall, leading to a dark corridor whose walls, floor, and ceiling
rippled as if they were made of stretched cloth rather than the solid stone they
otherwise appeared to be.
"Come on!" Arthur held the door open for Suzy. Strangely, it still felt as if he
was reaching up to hold a tiny clock door. "Claws, come on!"
"How many times must I repeat myself, you may address me as —" the Will
started to say. It made no move towards the weirdway.
Before he could finish, Arthur suddenly slapped his hand to his mouth and
groaned, as the now-familiar ache struck. Tom had used his harpoon, a fact
confirmed by a shriek of agony from Soot and another inarticulate bellow from
Grim Tuesday. It sounded like they were all very close.


"Go through!" screamed Arthur in frustration as the Will turned around to
inspect its tail again.
Then Grim Tuesday shouted again, from right outside the door.
"Finish the Nithling, Captain! I'll fix the other thieves!"
Chapter Nineteen
Grim Tuesday's shout finally galvanized the Will into action. The sun bear shot
into the weirdway and Arthur dived after it. He had a momentary glimpse of the
cell door opening and the shadow of Grim Tuesday falling on the armchair. Then
the cuckoo clock reassembled itself, closing the weirdway.
Arthur shivered. He did not want to meet Grim Tuesday without the Will's help.
He needed to be taught the spells or incantations he would need to wrest the
Second Key from the unfaithful Trustee.
The Will had already caught up to Suzy. Arthur ran after them both, steadying
himself with his hands as he wobbled from side to side. This weirdway was even
more fluid underfoot than the one he'd used in the Lower House to get to Mister
Monday.
It was a lot shorter too. Arthur came to the end and ran straight out without even
realizing that the darkness was the exit, not another turn. He stumbled against
Suzy and the sun bear, then fell over a waist-high palm tree.
"Tuesday's in the cell," gasped Arthur as he pulled himself up on the palm,


shredding most of its fronds. He could still see the weirdway exit, a strange inky
doorway standing between two twelve-foot palm trees. "How do we shut the
weirdway?" he asked.
"Blood ought to do it," said Suzy. She got out her knife and then, before Arthur
could do anything, suddenly gripped his hand tight and stuck the point of the
blade into his thumb. "A Day's blood, that is. Yours. Sorry about that. Bung
some in."
Arthur flicked a few drops of blood at the dark doorway. Instead of going
through, they splattered as if on glass. The weirdway gave a strange, cooing sigh
that made Arthur step back as it closed in on itself, leaving only air between the
palm trees.
Arthur looked around. The air was clean and bright, and they were surrounded
by healthy-looking palms and carefully tended shrubs with pale pink trefoil
flowers. For a moment he thought they were out of the Far Reaches altogether.
Then he saw the wall of the Treasure Tower and the sparkle of the pyramid glass.
"Yep," said Suzy, noting his look. "We're in the garden around the Tower. Still
inside the pyramid."
"We'd better find somewhere to hide," said Arthur. "What's that?"
He pointed up at the pyramid wall. It was hard to see through the shining glass,
but somewhere in the distance Arthur could just make out big red-bursting flares
that had to be very bright to make it through the smog. They were exploding
near the ceiling of the Far Reaches and then drifting back down.


"Rockets," said Suzy. "Ooh, that was a good one!"
"Why… who would be firing rockets?" Arthur asked. He tilted his head to catch
a distant, muffled noise. "I can hear bells too. Electric bells, like the elevator
bells. Lots of them, all going off at once. Like the fire alarm at school…"
He looked at Suzy and said, "Those rockets are distress signals. The bells are
alarms."
"Grim Tuesday's problem," said Suzy, with a shrug. She started to push through
a line of thick bushes to see if there was a good place to lurk.
"It must be Nothing," said Arthur. "That's what everyone's afraid of."
"I'm not afraid of Nothing," said the Will. "Or anything else. Nothing cannot
divert me from my duty."
"You should be afraid," Arthur warned. He was sick of this part of the Will. It
was all bluster and wind. "Dame Primus was afraid of Nothing. I'm afraid of
Nothing, like anyone with any sense. What if it all breaks out and destroys the
foundations of the House and the whole… everything… the complete universe?"
"The Architect's work is far too superior for that to happen," said the Will
smugly. "You need not worry on that score."
"You've been locked up for ten thousand years," Arthur pointed out angrily.
"Grim Tuesday has dug a huge great Pit into the foundations here in the Far
Reaches, right into Nothing. The Atlas says it is a great danger to the House —
and I bet it knows more than you."


"The Atlas?" asked the Will, sitting up and losing its supercilious look. "You
have The Compleat Atlas of the House?"
"Yes, I do." Arthur took it out and flashed it in front of the Will's nose like a
police badge, then thrust it back in his pocket. "Because whether I like it or not, I
am the heir to this whole mess!"
"Ah, perhaps I have been a little too rigorous in applying the principles laid
down at my creation," the sun bear said with a couple of delicate coughs. "If I
might make a closer examination of —"
"Arthur! Take a look at this!"
Arthur pushed through the bushes. Suzy was standing on a long stone bench,
looking out over a well-manicured hedge towards the eastern side of the glass
pyramid.
"Get down!" Arthur called nervously. "He'll see us."
"Come and have a look!" answered Suzy.
Arthur glanced around, then jumped up, knowing from past experience that Suzy
wouldn't get down until he took a look at whatever it was she wanted him to see.
"I think Grim Tuesday has got a whole lot of new problems," said Suzy, pointing
to the border between the windswept clean air and the ceiling-high wall of smog.
Arthur stared. Through the swirling edge of the smog, he saw the fringe of a
great crowd. Hundreds and hundreds, maybe even thousands, of Denizens were


marching north, towards the station and the elevators. They were waving their
leather aprons as they marched, throwing them in the air and trampling upon
them.
Closer to the pyramid, a few dozen Overseers were running in all directions. A
few ran towards the glass wall. Arthur could see they were shouting, probably to
Grim Tuesday, for help, though he could only hear the ringing bells and the
deeper, rough noise of the crowd.
"The register of indentured workers," he said. "It was destroyed by the sun!"
"Sure was." Suzy took out the indenture ticket from around her neck and looked
at it. All the columns had reset to zero. Suzy took it off, bit it with her teeth to
start a tear, then ripped it to pieces.
"I can make another register," said a harsh voice behind them. "The other Days
will sell me more workers. It is merely an annoyance."
Arthur spun around. Even though the boy was standing on a bench, Grim
Tuesday was taller. A hard-faced man with no eyebrows, his arms were corded
with muscle, and his leather jerkin was torn near the heart with the telltale marks
of a Nothing burn upon his chest. He wore gloves of flexible silver metal, bound
with golden bands.
"I… I am the Rightful Heir," said Arthur, though his mouth was suddenly dry. "I
claim the Second Key and Mastery of the Far Reaches."
Grim Tuesday's eyes narrowed. "You are the boy Penhaligon."


"Yes. I am Arthur Penhaligon. Give me the Second Key and… and I will be
merciful."
"I do not recognize your claim," said Grim Tuesday with finality. He raised his
right hand and made a chopping motion. Though he didn't come any closer,
Arthur felt a savage blow strike his chest. He was knocked backwards over the
bench, and crashed down to the grass behind.
Arthur lay there, stunned and wheezing.
I have to get up. I have to get up and get away. I have to —
Before he could get up, Grim Tuesday stood above him. This time he raised his
left hand and made a claw.
Arthur covered his eyes with his arm and cried out.
I hope it's quick. I hope Dad and Mom will be okay and they keep the house and
everything. I hope Michaeli gets to university. The plague had better not come
back. Suzy should run right now, she might make it. If Nothing bursts out,
everyone will die anyway. The Will should do what it's supposed to do. I tried my
best. I tried to do the right thing and sometimes evil does win anyway no matter
what you do…
"Before I extract your heart and gild it for my… depleted store of treasures,"
Grim Tuesday said, "I want you to give me the Atlas. Take it from your pocket
and hand it to me."
Arthur moved his arm and opened his eyes. His mind was racing furiously again,


but his thoughts were more concentrated.
"No," he said.
The Atlas must be like the Key. Grim Tuesday can't take it, even from my dead
body. It has to be given freely.
"Give it to me," Grim Tuesday ordered, without inflection. He might not have
even heard Arthur. He clawed the air with his hand, and Arthur felt his heart
stabbed all around by a thousand needles.
"No, I won't." Arthur raised his voice and half-shouted and half-sobbed out,
"Will! I call upon you as the Bearer of the Atlas and the Rightful Heir to do
your… do your job. Just do… do what you're supposed to do…" he finished in a
whisper.
"Give me the Atlas!" roared Grim Tuesday. "Why am I thwarted at every turn?!"
"Cos you're a rotten bastard," said Suzy as she popped out from the hedge and
swung a large paving stone at the back of his head. But she would have done
better not to speak. Grim Tuesday spun like a top, a blur of motion, and smashed
the stone to powder with his fist. Suzy was also caught by the blow, flying
through the air to smack into a palm tree. She struck with enough force to snap
its trunk, and fell down with it.
"Now, Penhaligon, the Atlas!"
"No," whispered Arthur. "You give me the Key."


"You shall know pain," threatened the Grim. "Unspeakable pain, until you give
me the Atlas."
"Ahem!"
Grim Tuesday looked surprised by the interruption.
He glanced around at normal head height, but it wasn't until the second "ahem!"
that he saw the Will near his feet. His eyes narrowed and he clenched his fists.
"What?!" Grim Tuesday raged. "You, here't I shall soon fix that!"
"I think not," said the Will, and for once Arthur was glad to hear its stuffy, selfsatisfied
tone. "You tricked me once, but not again. And I have taken the
precaution of enlisting assistance."
The bushes parted and Tom strode out, his harpoon in his hand. He nodded
curtly at Grim Tuesday and reached down to help Arthur up.
"You are bound to me, Captain," snarled Grim Tuesday, raising both his hands.
"By the power of the Second Key —"
"Which I now officially place in dispute," announced the Will. "I revoke your
status of Trustee, pending further inquiry."
Grim Tuesday shook his head. "You cannot. I will not allow it! I do not allow
anyone to take things away from me! What is mine is mine forever."
"Your sooty old eyebrow proved that one wrong when it ate up a bunch of stuff,"
said Suzy, staggering over. Her nose was bleeding but otherwise she seemed to


be all right. Grim Tuesday took a step towards her and raised his hand, but did
not persist when Tom made a slight motion with his harpoon.
"Your wishes are immaterial, Lord Tuesday," declared the Will. "I have spoken.
While I am not ready to pronounce on the matter of a Rightful Heir, it is clear
that you cannot continue to wield the power of the Second Key."
"You must allow it," said Grim Tuesday with cold satisfaction. He pointed at the
bursting rockets up in the smoggy regions. "Those are distress signals from the
depths of my Pit. The bells confirm it, as will the screams of my former workers.
Nothing is breaking out. Only I can stem it, and I must have the power of the
Key to do so. But I know when to cut my losses. You may all leave my domain.
I shall not prevent you."
"The outbreak of Nothing is not my concern," continued the Will. "I shall
establish an inquiry into the Rightful Heir, and once I have examined all the
relevant documents and heard from material witnesses, whoever is granted the
Second Key, whether it is returned to your trust or not, shall deal with the
Nothing. We must not be too hasty. Prudence is a virtue, as I always say."
This speech was somewhat lost as everyone else was staring up at the distress
rockets and the gobbets of Nothing that were already beginning to fall down
upon the pyramid, despite the cleansing winds.
"There's no time for an inquiry," said Tom. "Declare Arthur the heir. He must go
down and repel the Nothing. Grim Tuesday's day is done."
The sun bear sighed and seemed about to launch into another speech when a
particularly large gobbet plummeted onto the glass a few hundred feet above. It


ran down the side and joined several other gobbets, which writhed and coiled
together until they became a Nith-ling. A large Nithling, with a sort of human
head and torso upon a cricket's body, all of it covered in stiff, rod-like red hair. It
fiddled its back legs together, then set about punching holes in the glass with the
spikes on its elbows.
"One here, a thousand down below," said Grim Tuesday. "And raw Nothing
everywhere, eating away at the foundations of this House. Confirm me in my
power, Most Excellent Testament, and I shall secure those foundations as I have
always done."
"You dug into them for your own greedy purposes, using Denizens as slaves!"
Arthur pointed out with indignation. He took a deep breath, the deepest he'd ever
managed, and looked down at the Will. "I don't want to be the Heir," he
continued. "I don't want the Second Key. I really don't want to go and deal with
the Nothing. But I have to, because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
When Dame Primus picked me, I had to do the right thing — and I have to try to
keep on doing it. You don't want to confirm me as the Heir, but I think you have
to do the right thing too, so I can at least attempt to put things right."
"I don't want to make a mistake," said the Will softly. "Better not to make a
decision than to make a mistake."
"The whole House is going to fall down if you don't make a decision!" Arthur
argued. "Everything the Architect made will return to Nothing. You have to
choose me… or Grim Tuesday, and Grim Tuesday has already gone against the
Architect's Will."


The Nithling above stopped making holes and started punching the side of the
pyramid. The glass didn't shatter, but cracks began to appear.
The Will stood up on its hind legs. The sun blaze upon its chest grew brighter
and brighter, and its fur became less furlike and more full of words. It grew
larger, the words spreading out, weaving a larger body. It changed shape,
continuing to grow, though it still remained a bear.
"I will be strong," it said. The blaze on its chest turned black and the words that
made it up darkened and became furlike once more. It now stood almost as tall
as Grim Tuesday, and was twice his bulk. No longer a sun bear, but an imperial
grizzly of forbidding aspect. "I will stand by my decision with tooth and claw. I
am the Second Part of the Will of the Architect, and I say the Second Key must
be —"
Just then, a huge square of glass exploded, and the half-insect Nithling leaped
down with a chittering scream.
Chapter Twenty
Huge shards of glass came falling down, shining in the artificial sunlight from
the panels in the ceiling high above. The Nithling fell between the shards,
screaming its strange insectoid scream.
For an instant, everyone stood still, staring up. Then Arthur dived under the
stone bench just as Suzy dived from the opposite direction. The Will grabbed a
palm tree and uprooted it, holding it over its head like an umbrella.
Grim Tuesday stood his ground, raised his hands, and shouted… but nothing


happened. His mouth gaped in surprise, for he had forgotten that the Will had
revoked his power over the Second Key.
Tom spun his harpoon above his head and shouted a word in the strange rasping
language he used for his magic. Arthur and Suzy clapped their hands over their
ears, but it was no good. The pain struck them, eating into their jawbones as the
harpoon shone with its arctic glow. The light caught the falling glass, and
suddenly it wasn't glass anymore, but a great wave of freezing sea-water.
The wave crashed down, sweeping Arthur and Suzy out from under the bench. It
carried them about ten yards away, depositing them all tossed together against a
stand of trees.
Both Grim Tuesday and Tom had managed to stand against the wave. Now they
faced the Nithling, which jumped at Tuesday, gripping his jerkin with its spiky
in-sectoid legs as it raised its elbows to spike into his head.
Tom raised his harpoon, but could not strike without spearing Grim Tuesday as
well. But his intervention was not needed. Even without the power of the Second
Key, Grim Tuesday was a mighty Denizen. He gripped the Nithling's arms and
with a sound like a lobster being cracked open, he split the thing completely in
half. He threw the remains into an ornamental pool, where the thing's Nothingrich
blood bubbled away.
Grim Tuesday snorted, bent down, and wiped his gauntlets clean on the grass.
Arthur and Suzy straightened themselves out, and the Will thrust its tree
umbrella back into the ground.
"As I was saying," it boomed, "the Second Key will go to the winner of an


appropriate contest, the two contestants being Arthur Penhaligon and Grim
Tuesday."
"What?!" exclaimed Arthur. He looked up at the mass of gobbets floating around
above the pyramid and the distant flare of the distress rockets coming out of the
Pit. "We haven't got time —"
"I am ready for any competition," declared Grim Tuesday, clapping his gloves
together. They sounded like crashing cymbals and didn't do anything for Arthur's
confidence. "What is it to be? Mortal combat?"
"Naturally not," said the Will. "In keeping with the powers of the Second Key, it
shall be a contest of making. In light of the urgency of the Nothing situation, it
shall be an expedited competition. Each of you shall be allowed three minutes
with the Second Key to create a work of art. The creator of the greater work will
win the competition and be declared either the Trustee or the Rightful Heir to the
Second Key and shall assume the Mastery of the Far Reaches."
"But I've never even used the Second Key!" protested Arthur.
"Wot a swizzle!" said Suzy. "I've played fairer games of Uncle Jack."
"I have made my decision!" roared the Will. Arthur opened his mouth to protest
again, but didn't. As a huge grizzly, the Will was considerably harder to take
lightly. "All that remains is to appoint a judge. Naturally it must be someone of
appropriate rank —"
He was interrupted by another fall of Nithlings.


Three things that looked like a cross between a lizard and a monkey came sliding
down the pyramid and fell through the gaping hole.
Tom's harpoon leaped into the air with its crackling noise and impaled all three
Nithlings, transforming them into harmless puffs of dark vapor. Arthur and Suzy
clenched their teeth, but the effect of the harpoon wasn't so severe when it struck
at a distance.
"The appropriate rank and power," continued the Will crossly. "One of the other
Days would be suitable if it were not for the fact —"
"They're a bunch of traitors," whispered Suzy.
"Hurry up!" Arthur and Grim Tuesday implored together. They glared at each
other as they spoke. Arthur did not drop his eyes, though it took all his willpower
to meet Grim Tuesday's angry stare.
"Quiet!" bellowed the Will. "To cut straight to the heart of the matter, the contest
will be judged by the Mariner. Who wants to go first?"
"I will go first," declared Grim Tuesday. "But only if you will restore my right to
the Key's powers."
"For three minutes," the Will conceded. "No more. Captain, stand ready for any
trickery."
Arthur was not even mildly surprised to see the grizzly bear pull a large pocket
watch out of its nonexistent waistcoat. The Will fiddled with one of the several
knobs on the watch, then raised one hairy paw and waved at Grim Tuesday.


"Begin!"
Grim Tuesday smiled and raised his hands. Arthur and Suzy flinched, but Tom
did not seem perturbed.
The Trustee muttered something under his breath. Arthur tried to hear what he
said, in case it was some secret to using the Key. Which, he now guessed, must
be one of the strange silvered metal gloves that Tuesday wore. Or maybe both
gloves, in the same way that the First Key had been a minute hand and a clock
hand, which united together as a sword.
A gobbet of Nothing came hurtling down through the hole in the pyramid,
summoned down by Grim Tuesday. He caught it easily and held it in both hands,
in front of his face. He directed his gaze upon it, and the Nothing lost its
darkness and began to shine. Grim Tuesday started to shuffle his hands around
the shining ball, still muttering.
It shone brighter and brighter as the Grim moved his hands in short, sharp
gestures. He kept talking under his breath, but Arthur couldn't hear him. Even
with his star-hood still on, he couldn't look directly at whatever Tuesday was
doing to the gobbet.
The Will's watch chimed, three falling notes.
"Time!" called the grizzly.
Grim Tuesday grasped the dazzling object he'd made and lowered it to the park
bench. The light slowly faded to reveal a fourteen-inch-high tree made of
precious metals. Its trunk and branches were platinum shot with gold, and its


thousand leaves were beaten gold, veined with silver. The leaves caught the
breeze coming down through the hole in the pyramid and made a sound like a
windswept xylophone.
It was the most beautiful object Arthur had ever seen. But only a fleeting smile
of satisfaction passed over Grim Tuesday's face.
"Arthur can do better than that standing on 'is head," said Suzy, but her heart
wasn't in it.
"Give Arthur the Second Key," instructed the Will.
Grim Tuesday scowled and slowly stripped off the silver gauntlets. When they
were off, he held them for several seconds before reluctantly handing them to
Arthur.
As Arthur took the gauntlets, two yellow envelopes materialized in the air above
them. Grim Tuesday snatched them out of the air. He grunted as he read the
address on the first one and threw it at Arthur's feet. The second one he ripped
open and read quickly. Then he turned to the Will.
"Yan warns that the whole eastern buttress of the lower Pit is leaking Nothing,"
Grim Tuesday reported. "It will fail within the hour if I am not there to repair it!
End this ridiculous contest now and return the Key to me!"
Arthur put the surprisingly light gauntlets under his arm and picked up the other
telegram, which was addressed to him as Master of the Lower House. He opened
it and read:


ARTHUR SHOW WILL ATLAS HELP COMING HOLD ON BE BRAVE
DAME PRIMUS
"The competition has begun and it must finish," the Will was saying as Arthur
read the telegram. "Arthur, you must begin immediately."
Arthur handed the telegram to Suzy and put on the gauntlets. While they
appeared to be made out of flexible silver metal bound with gold, they didn't feel
cold or metallic. In fact, they were soft and warm and felt very comfortable.
Arthur found himself standing straighter once they were on, and he felt more
confident.
I bet the Second Key works just like the First Key or the Atlas, he thought. I just
have to think what I want them to do and say it aloud. That's why Grim Tuesday
was muttering —
"Begin!"
"Get me a gobbet of Nothing!" called out Arthur as he raised his hands and
looked up to the broken pane of the pyramid.
"A small gobbet!" he hastily added as he saw several huge gobbets head towards
him.
They swerved aside, and a football-sized gobbet of Nothing came sailing down
through the hole. Arthur raised his hands to catch it, fighting down his
apprehension and all thoughts of what might happen if he fumbled and it landed
on his unprotected face.


He didn't fumble the catch. Once he had the gobbet firmly in his grasp, he went
to work. He'd already thought of what he would make, ironically inspired by the
sound of Grim Tuesday's precious-metal tree.
Arthur knew he had no hope of matching Grim Tuesday's artistry with a
sculpture or a painting or anything like that. But what he intended to do might
not work either. It all depended on what criteria Tom was judging the results on.
"My xylophone," he muttered to himself, as he pic-tured it in his head. "The one
Dad and Mom gave me for my sixth birthday, that Dad borrowed all the time.
With wooden bars on a metal frame, and two mallets."
He tried to stretch and shape the gobbet with his gauntlets as he focused his mind
on remembering the xylophone. It was hard to tell if it was working, but the
gobbet was shining, though not as much as it had for Grim Tuesday. Or perhaps
it was, Arthur saw, as he took a swift look at everyone else shielding their eyes.
But I can only spend a minute getting this xylophone, Arthur thought
desperately. How do I know when it's ready?
His fingers twitched without Arthur meaning them to.
Was that a sign from the Key?
Arthur's fingers twitched again. Taking the second twitch as a definite sign,
Arthur gently put the glowing former gobbet onto the ground and stepped back.
The glow faded, and there on the grass was Arthur's xylophone, with its two
mallets.


"Is that it?" asked Suzy.
In answer, Arthur clumsily knelt down and picked up the mallets. He took a deep
breath, something he wasn't able to do the last time he played, and immediately
started the tune that he'd spent two years composing, from when he was eight to
almost ten. It was his thank-you song, composed for Bob and Emily, to express
his gratitude for them adopting him. It started off sad and slow and quiet, and got
happy and loud.
He didn't think it was the greatest song in the world, but he'd composed it
himself, and it did express something of what he felt when he learned he was
adopted, how he'd come to terms with it, and how grateful he was to be in a
family that loved him and accepted him and treated him no differently than any
of his other siblings.
He finished just as the Will called, "Time!"
The last fading note of the xylophone merged with the watch's third chime.
There was silence for a moment, then Grim Tuesday gave a scornful laugh and
held out his hand for the gauntlets. But the Will stepped between him and Arthur.
"We must await the adjudication," it said sniffily. "Captain?"
Tom looked down at Grim Tuesday's gold-and-platinum tree and scratched his
chin.
"That's a beautiful piece of work," he said. "There's not many that could work a
masterpiece out of Nothing. A real work of genius."


Arthur's head sank. He'd gambled on what he'd heard about Grim Tuesday's
nature and what Tom might think was important, and he'd lost. Even if Grim
Tuesday did let them go as he'd promised, and if he went down and stopped the
Nothing breaking out, Arthur's family would still lose everything. Maybe the
whole world would slide into an economic depression, and all because Arthur
couldn't do —
"A real work of genius," Tom repeated. "Only not your genius, Lord Tuesday."
"I made it!" roared Grim Tuesday. "I wrought it from Nothing!"
"But it is a copy," insisted Tom. "I have seen it before, though you have replaced
silver with platinum. It was in the workshop of del Moro in Rome, upon the old
Earth, when I was master of a Genoese trader, buying candlesticks and silver-gilt
basins on my own account. I saw it again, in a much later time, in the collection
of Froment-Meurice. I suppose the original is now in your Treasure Tower."
Tom turned to Arthur and continued. "Arthur's tune, on the other hand, I have
not heard, and I have heard many songs. It made me think of returning home
from a long, lonely voyage to a glad welcome, but also gave me the joy of
boarding a new vessel, the deck fresh-scrubbed and the tide about to turn. I
declare Arthur the winner of the competition!"
"No!" screamed Grim Tuesday. "No!"
He threw himself at Arthur and his pallid, wiry fingers gripped Arthur's hands,
lifting the boy bodily off the ground. But when the Grim tried to pull off the
gloves, they wouldn't budge. Arthur's arms were almost wrenched out of their


sockets and he was flung all over the place as Grim Tuesday raged and pulled,
till he was restrained by Tom and the Will.
Even those two powerful individuals had trouble holding Grim Tuesday back,
till Arthur held out his palms and yelled, "Stop!"
The gloves wriggled against his skin, and Arthur felt the zap of an electric
charge cross the air. He didn't see anything, but Grim Tuesday suddenly stopped
struggling and became still. As still as a statue.
"You must claim the Second Key properly, milord," said the Will rather humbly.
"Repeat after me: I, Arthur, anointed Heir to the Kingdom, claim this Key and
with it the Mastery of the Far Reaches. I claim it by blood and bone and contest,
out of truth, in testament, and against all trouble."
Arthur quietly repeated the claim. His left side twinged as he spoke, reminding
him of when he'd claimed Monday's key. He also felt the gloves move on his
hands, wriggling about till they fitted most comfortably.
"Well done, Arthur! Like a walk in the park!" declared Suzy. The fact that she
could hardly stand up and her nose and chin were caked in blood somewhat
lessened the effect of this statement. She clapped Arthur on the back, making
him lose his balance and once more reminding him of his misshapen leg.
"You shall not have long to enjoy your triumph," whispered Grim Tuesday.
"When the eastern buttress fails, Nothing will burst forth and destroy us all!"
Chapter Twenty-One


Arthur closed his eyes for a second and tried to summon up all his remaining
strength. Grim Tuesday was defeated. He had the Second Key. But he felt no
thrill of victory, because he still hadn't won. He couldn't rest, or go home, or do
anything he really wanted. He had to take on yet another huge problem that he
was quite unsuited for and totally unprepared to deal with.
"I'll fix the buttress," he said. "Will you tell me how to do it?"
Grim Tuesday snarled and spat at Arthur's feet.
"I have lost the Key, my domain, and all my treasures," he growled. "But I shall
have the satisfaction of returning to the void with them around me, and my
enemies in confusion!"
"That means no," said Suzy helpfully.
"I suppose I'll just have to work it out." Arthur looked out through the glass wall
to the smog-shrouded Pit. "Only, how do I get down there quickly enough?"
"You can't," sneered Grim Tuesday. "The buttress can hold for less than an hour,
yet even my train takes days to reach the face of the Pit!"
"But you were going to get there," said Arthur. "You said you would fix the
buttress. So there has to be a way."
"You can't fly," said Suzy as she looked up towards the ceiling. "Not with all
those gobbets floating around."
"Tom? Do you know a way to the bottom of the Pit?"


"Nay, save for the Improbable Stair," replied Tom. "But it would be very
dangerous, so close to so much Nothing. The Stair skirts Nothing closely
everywhere, but never so close as here. I doubt that Grim Tuesday would risk the
Stair himself."
"You can compel Grim Tuesday to answer your questions with the Key," said
the Will. "It will harm him, but that is of little account. You must not allow
Nothing to break out. I suggest you move swiftly, milord Arthur."
"If you'd helped me in the first place, then we'd have more time," Arthur pointed
out bitterly.
Something caught his eye over in the smog. A nicker of light, then another. It
was not the red flare of the distress rockets, but steady beams of light coming
down from the ceiling.
"Elevators!" Suzy exclaimed, following his look.
"Dame Primus, I guess," said Arthur. "Late and useless as usual."
He turned back to Grim Tuesday. The Denizen seemed shorter than he had been
and less fierce. Diminished in all respects.
Arthur reluctantly raised his hands, then dropped them as a thought struck him.
"Elevators! There must be an elevator to the bottom of the Pit! Where is it?"
Grim Tuesday didn't answer.


"I don't want to do anything nasty to you," said Arthur. "But I will use the Key
on you if I have to. Is there an elevator to the Pit?"
"Do your worst," said Grim Tuesday. "I care not."
Arthur shook his head, then raised his right hand and pointed his index finger at
Grim Tuesday.
"By the power of the Second Key, I command you to answer my questions
truthfully."
Once again Arthur felt the static electric shock. This time he saw sparkling ultrafine
tendrils of light extend from his finger to Grim Tuesday's head, winding into
his ears and nose.
Grim Tuesday grimaced and shook himself like a dog coming out of water, but
did not speak.
"Is there an elevator from here to the bottom of the Pit?"
"Yes," growled the Grim through clenched teeth. "Emergency elevator. Small.
Only for me."
"Where is it?"
Grim Tuesday clenched his teeth still tighter, but his right arm rose up and one
finger uncurled. A bronze button appeared out of nowhere. The Grim tried not to
press it, but his hand lunged forward. As the button depressed, an electric bell
rang and a second later a narrow elevator, no larger than a phone box, erupted


out of the ground.
Only Grim Tuesday was ready for it. He toppled forward, but the elevator door
was not quite open. Rebounding from it, the Denizen was seized again by Tom
and the Will. He did not struggle.
Arthur looked at the elevator. As well as being very narrow, it looked a lot worse
for wear. There were many tiny holes like acid burns all over the plush leather
interior, and the wooden paneling in the ceiling was blackened and burned.
"Let's go!" said Suzy. She stepped shakily inside, still partially stunned by her
encounter with the palm tree. Once in, she took up more than half the space. The
elevator was clearly made to just fit the lean body of Grim Tuesday.
"No," said Arthur. "I think I have to go alone."
"We'll fit," said Suzy. "I'll breathe in." Arthur shook his head and pulled her
sleeve. His gauntlet tingled against his skin and a surprised Suzy found herself
unable to resist. Before she could jump back in, Arthur jumped in himself and
slid the door closed.
"Wait, Arthur! You might need my —" Her voice was cut off as Arthur pressed
the button with the down arrow clearly marked upon it. The elevator lurched,
knocking Arthur off his feet. He bounced off both walls, then managed to wedge
himself into the corner.
"All the way down again}" asked a disembodied voice. "You know this
elevator's only good for a few trips down there."


"All the way to the bottom," instructed Arthur. The elevator increased its
downwards velocity, and Arthur felt himself rising up towards the ceiling, as if
he were in free fall. While he was wedging himself even more firmly into the
corner, he added, "What do you mean again} When was this elevator last used?"
"Half an hour ago," said the voice. "Fair gave me a turn. Haven't had to run this
elevator for more than twenty years. Beautifully mothballed it was, everything
sealed up, waxed, and greased. Look at it now!"
"Who was the passenger?" asked Arthur. Who could possibly have gone to the
bottom of the Pit half an hour ago?
"Dunno," said the voice. "He had the proper authority, though. From on high."
"You didn't ask me for any authority."
"You got the Second Key, haven't you, sir? Hold on, we're almost there."
The elevator slowed dramatically. Arthur slid down the wall and onto the floor,
his stomach attempting to run out through his Immaterial Boots. Then after a
series of frightening bangs and lurches, the elevator came to a stop and the door
slid open.
"Bottom of the Pit, thank you!" said the voice. Arthur stepped out into darkness.
The door slid shut, and the elevator vanished.
For a frightening second it seemed like Arthur was trapped in total darkness. But
as his eyes adjusted, he saw lanterns some small distance away. Then his
gauntlets began to glow with a cool green light that slowly spread up his arms


and all over his brightcoat and boots.
One of the lanterns bobbed nearer. Arthur hurried to meet it. As he got closer, he
saw that the bearer was very short and broad. One of Grim Tuesday's Grotesques.
"You're only just in time, sir!" called the Grotesque hoarsely. "It's fair oozing
Nothing —"
The Grotesque stopped as he realized that Arthur was not Grim Tuesday. A
peculiar expression crossed his face — one of relief, sorrow, and a twist of anger.
"You're not the Master!"
"I am the Master of the Far Reaches now," said Arthur, holding up one clenched
fist.
"The Grim… that would explain the indentured workers… I thought it had to do
with all the Nothing…" muttered the Grotesque. He appeared confused and kept
shaking his head. Then he looked at Arthur and said plaintively, "I am Yan. Will
you remake us as we were? As three, instead of seven?"
"I guess… I'll try," said Arthur. "Only first, you need to take me to this buttress
that's about to break."
Yan shook his head again. "The buttress? We need not go anywhere. We are at
its foot."
Arthur looked around, but could see only darkness beyond the circle of light
from his own strange glow and Yan's lantern. But he could hear something off to


his right. A kind of creaking, like the night wind in the trees at home.
"Cast a sunburst up about a thousand feet," said Yan hurriedly. "That is the first
step, sir. You will remember to make us three?"
"Yes," said Arthur. "Uh, how… oh, never mind…"
He cupped his hands and concentrated on the gauntlets.
Sunburst, he thought. A sunburst to fly up to a thousand feet and explode like the
one I saw before. Hot and glorious, a miniature sun to shed light on everything
down here and send the Nothing back into its holes —
Something jetted out of his grasp, heading skyward at incredible speed. Arthur
stared up after it, a shooting star that reached its thousand-foot-tall ceiling in a
few seconds. He was still looking when it exploded into light. His star-hood
saved him from the worst of it, but he still had to blink and cover his eyes with
his arm.
He was just about to lift that arm and take a look around when Yan suddenly
cried out. Arthur heard him fall and his lantern smash upon the stone.
Arthur instinctively jumped back. He saw Yan go sprawling, and he saw a tall,
immaculately clad top-hatted
Denizen step forward and stab the Grotesque through the heart with a swordcane
that had a shining silver blade.
"He might have helped you repair the buttress," said the Denizen, his voice


smooth and cultured, his handsome face unmoved by what he had just done.
"And we can't have that, can we?"
"You killed him!"
The Denizen gave a small shrug.
"Perhaps. He is one-seventh of a higher being. He might recover. It is all rather
academic, with Nothing about to overwhelm the entirety of creation."
He pointed with his sword-cane. Arthur flicked his head to look, but only for an
instant, keeping his attention on that silver blade. In that moment, he saw that
they were standing only yards from the foot of a vast wall that stretched as far as
he could see to the left and right and up towards the sunburst. It was made of
deep red bricks set in yellow mortar, but there were many dark cracks and lines
of leaking Nothing among the bricks.
"I should give up if I were you, Arthur," said the Denizen. His voice was quite
hypnotic and Arthur found himself listening intently. He wanted the voice to go
on and on. "This is all beyond you. Much easier to give in to fate. Let the
buttress fail, let Nothing wash away the House, the Secondary Realms —"
He lunged at Arthur's throat on the last word, but the Key was ready for him
even though the Key's wielder was not. The gauntlets caught the blade, twisted
and broke it. Then Arthur found himself plunging the broken end of the blade
deep into the Denizen's red silk waistcoat.
"Ah, proof against the voice," sighed the Denizen as he backed away. He looked
down at the golden blood that was trickling down his waistcoat. "A hit! One is


enough to end the bout, by any rules. Now others shall take their turn!"
With that, he slapped a button that appeared in the air. The elevator sprang into
visibility, its door open. The Denizen staggered into it. The doors closed and a
beam of light shot up towards the far distant ceiling, well beyond sight.
Arthur stared at the fading beam, totally confused. The Denizen was obviously
not one of Grim Tuesday's servants. Nor was he a Nithling. Or was he? Why did
he want Nothing to destroy the House?
Where were the Nithlings, for that matter? Grim Tuesday had said, "One up
here, a thousand down below."
Arthur turned back to look up at the buttress and saw where the Nithlings were.
They were hundreds of feet up the face of the buttress, clawing out bricks with
their hands and claws and tentacles and talons. Thousands of them, swarming
over the face of what Arthur now realized was effectively a dam wall.
A huge dam made of special bricks, holding back the great void of Nothing itself.
A leaking dam, getting weaker by the second.
A dam wall Arthur had to fix.
Bricks are no good, Arthur thought. The Nithlings can pull out bricks.
Reinforced concrete, that's what we need. Magical reinforced concrete.
He raised his gauntleted hands and began to concentrate, muttering to himself.
"Bricks into reinforced concrete. Special reinforced concrete. Immaterial


Concrete, like my boots but a thousand times stronger, a thousand times tougher."
He felt the gloves vibrate with the power of the Key, but when he looked up at
the dam, there was no change. The streaks of thick, dark Nothing were spreading
as the Nithlings splintered the mortar and crumbled the bricks.
Someone croaked something behind Arthur. He whirled around, ready for
another attack. But it was only Yan, raising himself up on one elbow.
"Touch the bricks," Yan whispered. "Touch the bricks to transform them!"
Arthur nodded and ran towards the buttress. A brick sailed past his ear, and then
another one struck his misshapen leg. He screamed and fell, holding his hands
over his head.
"Key, protect me!"
The green glow in Arthur's brightcoat spun itself into a sphere all around him.
More and more bricks came raining down, but when they hit the green barrier,
they splintered into dust. Coughing and partially blinded, Arthur staggered
forward and got both his palms onto the wall.
He looked up for a second, to see Nithlings of all shapes and sizes coming down
towards him. Some of them flew, some simply jumped, some scuttled, and some
ran as if the wall were horizontal rather than vertical. But none could get to him
for at least thirty seconds, Arthur judged.
He leaned into the wall, resting all his weight on his palms, and once again
thought of the dams he had seen, either in person or in pictures.


The biggest, strongest dam anywhere. Reinforced concrete. Reinforced
Immaterial Concrete. Dozens of yards thick, on top of the existing brickwork.
Impenetrable.
Impervious to Nothing. Too smooth for fingers, claws, talons, or
tentacles, or teeth. A real dam wall. A mighty buttress! Built with the power of
the Second Key!
Arthur felt that power flow from the gauntlets into his body and then out again.
He was both a pool and a conduit. The power welled up inside him, then when
he was full of it, it spilled over, back through his hands. He could feel the new
dam wall building, the Immaterial Concrete spreading from his hands, expanding
out like spilled ink upon a page.
"It's working!" he cried, just as a bullheaded Nith-ling landed heavily near him
and rushed to the attack, its sharp horns aimed directly at his unprotected back.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Nithling fared no better than the bricks, for the Key had continued to divert
some small part of its power to fulfill Arthur's spoken command. The boy felt a
spray of something against the back of his neck, but it was not enough to distract
him from his task.
Other Nithlings landed and charged, only to meet the same fate. None could
prevail against the power of the Second Key. Many realized it and, instead of
attacking, they fled, hoping to find some way into other parts of the House or the
Secondary Realms. Others climbed higher up the buttress as the new wall rose.


They tried desperately to pull out just one more brick, to erode one more line of
mortar. Many were caught, as reinforcing metal wove its way around and
through them, and were drowned by the rising columns of Immaterial Concrete.
Only one Nithling neither attacked, tried to pry a few bricks away, nor fled. A
strange Nithling that watched Arthur from a place of concealment behind a
many-holed boiler that had rolled down to its final resting place, here at the
lowest part of the Pit.
The lurker did not look like any normal Nithling. If seen from the left side, it
looked just like a boy. In fact it looked just like Arthur in his school uniform.
But from the right side, it was a skeleton, bare bones of red ochre bereft of skin.
Front-on, it was a hideous split-faced thing, half smiling boy and half grinning
skull.
When it was clear that the buttress was going to be rebuilt and there was no
chance of Nothing breaking through in the immediate future, the Skinless Boy
laid himself down completely in the boiler and folded one fleshy hand and one
bony one across his chest. He was in no hurry. The messenger who had come to
watch his unusual birth had presented several interesting possibilities and
opportunities, depending on what happened with the buttress. Arthur's success
had not been considered likely by the messenger, but he had prepared for it and
told the Skinless Boy what to do.
Arthur, unaware of his strange watcher, felt his fingers twitch. He looked up and
saw his sunburst fading, but the concrete wall that he had made sparkled with
starlight, and that was enough to see that it was complete. There was no sign of
any leaking Nothing. No Nithlings. Only Yan, no longer propped up on one


elbow, but sprawled in a heap.
The Grotesque was still breathing, but only just. He opened one eye as Arthur
slowly walked over to him.
"No need to remake us now," he whispered. "Who'd have thought the Grim
wrought so badly? One sword-thrust to slay all seven… We did not want to be
what we became, Arthur. Remember that."
His eye clouded over and his head fell back. As it touched the ground, Arthur
saw the Grotesque's face flicker and change, showing him the three handsome
Denizens who had gone into the making of Grim Tuesday's seven students. Then
it was just Yan's face again, cold and dead.
Arthur looked away. Now he was truly alone, in the very depths of the Pit. The
sunburst was just a faint spark above, the shadows creeping up the dam wall.
He felt completely done in, too tired to do anything, even clean away the brick
dust and the peculiar slime that coated his back and hair. His arms were sore too,
as if he'd been carrying a heavy weight for a long time.
Arthur let his weariness carry him to the ground. He sat down, then lay on his
back and looked up into the gathering darkness.
Light descended from above. A bell rang, and an elevator door opened.
"Going up," said the disembodied voice. "Least, I hope we are. Last trip down
here for this elevator. All aboard who's coming aboard."


Arthur groaned and staggered to his feet.
He hobbled over to the lift and got in.
"This could be a bit tricky, sir," said the disembodied voice. "Taken some
damage, this elevator. Not to mention that last passenger, with his emergency
rise."
"Emergency rise?" asked Arthur with a yawn. "What's that?"
"Well, strictly speaking, this elevator only goes up to the top floor of the Far
Reaches. But that last passenger went right through to the Atrium of the Lower
House. He had the paperwork, of course, but it does terrible wear and tear to an
elevator."
"Who was he?" asked Arthur sharply.
"Dunno. Someone important," said the voice. "Him as went down before you."
The elevator lurched and shuddered as Arthur thought about a suitable reply to
that. Instead he wedged himself in the corner as the lift gathered speed.
"This could be a bit slow, sir," said the voice. "Would you care for some music?
I can play the clarinet a bit. Something soft, you understand, nothing too
strident…"
The elevator did take a long time to get back up. Several hours at least, though
Arthur lost track, as he fell asleep listening to odd, disconnected, half-familiar
tunes played not very well on a clarinet of highly variable volume.


He was rudely awakened by the lift's bell, and a stop that was more like an
impact with a solid object above them than a controlled halt.
Arthur picked himself off the floor and staggered out of the elevator. He
emerged blinking in the artificial sunlight to discover that the glass pyramid had
entirely disappeared. The Treasure Tower had been partially whitewashed, and
the palm tree gardens turned into a large expanse of lawn. Forty large white bell
tents — almost the size of circus big tops — were set up in a circle around the
Tower, and there were long lines of former indentured workers waiting outside
them, each line stretching off into the smog. As far as Arthur could tell from the
tables outside the tents and the groups of teacup-toting Denizens that were
milling around between the lines, the tents were there to serve afternoon tea.
There was a reception committee waiting for Arthur, assembled in a semicircle
around the elevator. Dame Primus was at the front, but there was also Monday's
Noon and at least a hundred armed Commissionaire Sergeants, Metal
Commissionaires, Midnight Visitors, and others.
Suzy was sitting on the park bench, eating a particularly large chocolate eclair.
She was once more dressed in her usual shambolic collection of clothes with her
favorite squashed top hat. Arthur noticed she'd kept her Immaterial Boots, and
the rolled-up bundle at her side must be her brightcoat.
Suzy waved. Arthur waved back.
Dame Primus seemed to think this was a more formal greeting to her. She
saluted Arthur with the First Key, which was in its sword form. She was even
taller than Arthur remembered, and imposingly dressed in some sort of uniform,


all electric blue and gold lace, and a ridiculously tall fur hat like the British
guardsmen wore outside Buckingham Palace. Her wings were not visible, but
there was a kind of hint of them, a shining in the air above her tightly boundback
platinum hair.
"Welcome, Arthur," she boomed, her voice deep and penetrating but not quite as
gravelly as it sometimes got. "Well done. Very well done."
"I'm tired," Arthur burst out. "I want to go home. I
want to have a long rest. I don't want to be bothered again for at least six years
like you promised!"
"That is understood, Arthur. However —" Dame Primus began. Something about
her voice made Arthur look at her more closely and interrupt.
"You're both of them now! I mean you're both parts of the Will!"
"Yes," said Dame Primus. "We are one, as was always the intention of the
Architect. It was the unfaithful Trustees who broke me apart."
"Speaking of breaking things, I need you to fix my leg," said Arthur. "I can't go
home like this."
"A hot towel, sir?" asked Sneezer, appearing at Arthur's elbow and making him
jump. "You seem a little, ahem, disarrayed. Perhaps if I take your coat? And
perhaps a cup of coffee? Or a ginger beer? And I'll just nip that earring out."
Arthur didn't even notice the earring's removal. He took the towel and wiped his


face. For some reason he couldn't feel it, then he remembered the star-hood. He
rolled that back, and Sneezer slipped off his brightcoat in one expert motion.
When Arthur finally got it to his face, the hot towel was almost too hot, but it
refreshed and woke him up a little. It also magically removed the soot, brickdust,
and slime from all parts of his body, even though he only wiped his face.
He looked around and noticed that both Grim Tuesday and Tom were nowhere
in sight.
"Where is Grim Tuesday? And Tom?"
"The Mariner has once again chosen to avoid responsibility in this House,"
sniffed Dame Primus. "He has left, probably to illegally enter the Secondary
Realms. Naturally I have promulgated arrest orders for him should he return."
"But Tom helped me," Arthur protested. "You can't arrest him. And what about
Grim Tuesday?"
"The Denizen formerly known as Grim Tuesday has been put to work," said
Dame Primus. She pointed at the Treasure Tower. Arthur looked and saw a tall,
bony figure in white overalls struggling with a huge tin of paint. An enormous
paint roller, easily twenty feet wide, was propped up against the wall.
"There are many tasks awaiting our Lowest Assistant," said Dame Primus. "The
top level of the Far Reaches will be rehabilitated first, then the Pit must be filled
in — which his former Overseers will be employed to do — and the spring
reestablished. Not to mention the original treasures he has stolen that must be
returned to their proper places in the House or the Secondary
Realms. There is a great deal of work to be done, Arthur. Work that would


benefit greatly from the presence of the true Master of both the Lower House
and the Far Reaches. So I am very pleased to return the First Key —"
"No!" shouted Arthur. He pushed Sneezer's silver tray and proffered coffee cup
aside and walked away. "Didn't you listen to anything I said? I want to fix my
leg and go home, and then I don't want to be bothered again! Haven't I done
enough?"
"You must control your temper," said Dame Primus. "It is not fitting for the
Rightful Heir to have a temper tantrum in front of —"
"I am not having a temper tantrum," Arthur said as coldly as he could manage. "I
am letting you know that I want my leg fixed and then I am going home."
"That would be extremely unwise," replied the Will. "You can only return if you
give up the Second Key, and if you do that, you will be unprotected. The danger
is even greater than before. It is clear that the other Days are exploiting
loopholes in their Agreement and actively working against you. Superior
Saturday's Dusk is believed to have been here, for example —"
"I think I met him," said Arthur. "He killed Yan, and all the Grotesques died.
With a single thrust. But I
wounded him and he ran away. For some reason he wanted to —"
"You see," interrupted the Will. "I even think that they might flout the Original
Law and strike against you in the Secondary Realms."
"Well, you should try and stop them here," said Arthur. "I have to go home. I


want my regular life back!"
"That is not possible," sighed the Will. "However, if you insist on returning, then
it shall be so. But you must appoint a Steward for the Second Key, as before."
"Okay, I appoint you," said Arthur. He stripped off the gauntlets that were the
Second Key and handed them to Dame Primus.
"This is most unorthodox," said Dame Primus. "But I suppose… repeat after
me… T, Arthur, Lord of the Far Reaches, Master of the Lower House, Wielder
of the Second and First Keys to the Kingdom…'"
Arthur gabbled the words. He had the curious sensation that if he could get away
quickly enough then everything would be all right, that he wouldn't be caught up
in anything else.
"I grant my faithful servant, the combined First and Second Parts of the Great
Will of the Architect, all my powers, possessions, and appurtenances, to exercise
on my behalf as Steward, until such time as I shall require them rendered unto
me once more. There, finished!"
Dame Primus took the gauntlets and carefully put them on. They shed a ruby
light as her fingers went in, and rose petals fell from her palms.
"A nice gesture," said Dame Primus approvingly.
"Can you fix my leg now?" asked Arthur anxiously. He pushed it forward so that
its foreshortened length and twist were obvious.


Dame Primus bent down to examine it. She frowned and held out her hand. A
pair of pince-nez appeared, which she fixed to the bridge of her nose before
looking again.
"How did this happen?"
"I broke my leg falling on the pyramid," said Arthur. "Then I fixed it with the
power of the First Key, the power that was left in my hands."
"Ah," said Dame Primus. "Then there is a problem."
"A problem?" whispered Arthur. "Can't you fix it?"
"I can use the First Key to reverse what you did. But then your leg will be
broken, and as it will effectively have been broken by the Key, it cannot be
mended by any magic that would not transform you completely."
"Transform me?"
"Into a Denizen. You would no longer be mortal, which I gather you still wish to
be. The Architect knows why!"
Arthur thought about how much his leg had hurt when he'd hit the pyramid. He
thought about his life. His regular life. He wanted it, every boring bit that he'd
ever complained about. New school and all.
"If that's what it takes," he said slowly. "But I still want to go back. Only… if I
can go straight back home, that would be good. I don't want to be lying around
with a broken leg in the street."


"I am sure that can be arranged," said Dame Primus. "There is now no reason not
to use the Front Door. In fact, I shall make a point of using it, and at the same
time post warnings with the Lieutenant Keeper that you are to be left alone."
"The Lieutenant Keeper…" Arthur said, suddenly struck by a thought. "Does he
come under the Lower House? I mean, he said something about there being no
Captain Keeper for ten thousand years. Was that because of Monday not signing
something? Why don't we… you just promote him?"
"The Captain and Lieutenant Keeper are appointed by all the Days," said Dame
Primus. "The current Cap-tain Keeper is merely missing, so cannot be replaced
until his fate is determined, if it ever is."
"Oh," said Arthur. "I owe the Lieutenant Keeper a favor, so I thought maybe…
also, there are a couple of Denizens who helped me here. If you can, give them
good jobs. A new indentured called Japeth, who used to be a Thesaurus."
"A Thesaurus is always useful," said Dame Primus. She nodded to Monday's
Noon, who bowed to Arthur and made a careful note in a little linen-bound
notebook.
"And a Supply Clerk called Mathias."
Arthur glanced over to the bench where Suzy was now attacking some sort of
cream-filled pastry.
"And Suzy, of course. I could never have done any of it without her. Maybe you
could give her a holiday or something like that?"


"Suzy is always taking holidays," replied Dame Primus. "Whether she should be
having them or not. But some reward can doubtless be discovered through
negotiation."
"And Tom," added Arthur. "The Captain. Please don't have him arrested."
"Very difficult character to arrest," muttered Noon.
"Shouldn't like to try it myself. Amazed Grim Tuesday managed to capture him."
Dame Primus gave Noon a quelling glance.
"Since you ask, Arthur, we shall not bother the Mariner unless he bothers us or
comes to our attention in such a way that we cannot ignore his transgressions."
"I think that's everyone," said Arthur. "Let's get on with it. How do we get to the
Front Door?"
"Transfer Plate," said Dame Primus. "To Doorstop Hill in the Lower House.
Now, where have they gotten to? Sneezer!"
Arthur started again as Sneezer stepped out from behind him.
How had he gotten there without me noticing again?
"I have two Transfer Plates, ma'am," said Sneezer, placing two quite ordinarylooking
yellow-and-white china plates on the grass. "The Combe pattern. Miss
Blue has the third plate for her cakes."
Suzy was already hurrying over, stuffing a cake in her mouth while she wiped


the crumbs off the plate she was carrying. She put it down next to the others.
"Where are we going?" she asked cheerfully, with her mouth full.
Dame Primus grimaced and looked away.
"Doorstop Hill," she said. "Arthur is going home.
You simply step on the plate, Arthur. Not too briskly. With Grim Tuesday
deposed, all lines of communication — and credit, I am pleased to say — are
open once more between here and the other regions of the House. Noon, you are
in charge here until I return."
With that, she stepped on the plate in front of her and vanished.
Arthur was about to step onto his plate when Suzy fell against him and gripped
his elbow.
"Oops!" she said loudly, but at the same time she slipped something in his hand
and whispered in his ear, spraying his neck with crumbs.
"Captain told me to give you this. Don't let the old madam see it."
She pushed herself upright and stepped on her plate. Arthur was tempted to open
his hand and see what he'd been given, but Noon was watching, so he stepped on
his plate too.
And took another step onto the grassy slope of Doorstop Hill.
The Lieutenant Keeper was waiting by the Front Door. A huge door of dark


wood that stood between white stone gateposts on top of the green hill that
overlooked the Lower Atrium. Arthur glanced up at the glowing ceiling and the
many beams of light that shot back and forth between the ceiling and the town
below. He knew better than to look at the Door directly. You could see too much
in the Door and easily go mad.
"I greet you, Arthur Penhaligon," said the Lieutenant Keeper as he saluted.
Arthur waved back and, on the return motion, slipped whatever Suzy had given
him into his shirt pocket next to the Atlas. It was small and flat, so it fit easily.
"Are you ready, Arthur?" asked Dame Primus. "The Lieutenant Keeper will
carry you through when I am done."
"Almost ready," said Arthur. He stripped off the pajama-like shirt and trousers,
but put his Immaterial Boots back on. They looked like sneakers anyway. Now
that the moment had arrived, he couldn't help put it off just a little. And it wasn't
just because his leg was going to be broken. He turned to Suzy and held out his
hand.
"Thanks," he said awkwardly. He wanted to say more, but didn't know how.
"See you," said Suzy. "Next time you come back, we'll get some proper wings.
No more of those rotten ascension ones."
"Definitely not," said Arthur. He turned to face Dame Primus, nodded quickly,
and shut his eyes.
He didn't see what she did, but there was an explosion of pain in his leg. He
cried out and fell. The Lieutenant Keeper caught him with a swooping motion


that carried them both into the Door.
Every step the Lieutenant Keeper took was agony for Arthur. The pain in his leg
was terrible, and every jolt sent it out of his leg and up his side all the way to his
head.
"Steady," said the Lieutenant Keeper. "Not much farther."
Arthur hardly heard him. He wasn't sure if his eyes were open or not. All he
could see were exploding blossoms of bright colors. All he could think about
was his leg.
"You are brave, sir," said the Lieutenant Keeper. "A slight jolt, and —"
Arthur blacked out. When he came to, he was lying on the landing at the bottom
of the steps from his room. Doors were banging. There was shouting. He
realized that he was screaming.
"Shut up!" called Michaeli. He heard slow footsteps on the stairs, then very fast
footsteps and a shout in a very different tone. "Dad! Eric!"
Arthur forced himself to stop screaming. It was surprisingly easy. Too easy, in
fact, until Arthur's pain-drenched mind realized it was because he wasn't getting
any air.
I'm having an asthma attack! The stupid Will has reversed everything the First
Key did to me! I've got a broken leg and I'm having an asthma attack!
"Help," Arthur croaked with what little air he had left. "Asthma…"


It was all too much. As Michaeli turned to dash back up the stairs to get his
inhaler and Bob rushed up from his studio, Arthur blacked out again.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Arthur woke up in the hospital. There was a drip in his arm and an oxygen mask
on his face. He felt extremely sick and there was a constant dull ache in his leg.
It also felt very odd, which was explained when Arthur raised his head and saw
that it was wrapped up in some sort of plastic and carefully placed out of the
covers.
"Arthur?"
He looked across and saw his parents. Bob was asleep in a chair, almost snoring,
his head rising an inch with every heavy breath. Emily was getting out of the
other chair, putting down her folder of luminescent e-paper.
"Mom…"
"You're going to be absolutely fine," Emily said. She came over and straightened
his blankets and smoothed his hair back. "Not a bad asthma attack. But you have
broken your leg. I don't how you did it. Jack — the surgeon who set it — said it
looked like a parachute-jumping injury. But it will be okay too."
"Our house… the real estate agents…"
"Don't worry," soothed Arthur's mom. "Every-thing's messed up, with the Sleepy
Plague and all. Someone just got things confused in the city records and thought
the property tax wasn't paid. We'll sort it out. You just go back to sleep."


"I don't feel sleepy," said Arthur.
"How is the pain?" asked Emily. "Shall I fetch your nurse?"
"No, no… it's not so bad," Arthur answered truthfully. He looked around again,
taking in the normality of the white walls, the stainless steel fittings, the panel
with its numerous buttons and gauges and connections for oxygen and
everything else.
Then he saw the clock, only he couldn't quite see its face.
"What time is it?"
"Just after five in the morning," said Emily. "You've been out since noon
yesterday. The operation finished at seven last night, so you've done very well to
sleep till now. That's a good sign."
She was hiding her concern with her "doctor" manner, Arthur saw. He felt her
hand shaking as she smoothed his hair again.
"Five in the morning on Wednesday," said Arthur.
"Yes," Emily replied with a smile. "Michaeli and
Eric were here, but I sent them home. And your friend Leaf dropped in."
"Leaf?" asked Arthur quickly. "Is she okay?"
"How did you know she was hurt?" Emily sounded surprised. "She came in


around the same time we did. We met her in the emergency room. Nasty cut, but
straightforward. It's hard to believe that people would try to rob a house during a
quarantine emergency. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised."
"Is Leaf still here, in the hospital?"
"Yes, she is. Since her parents and brother are here for Q-observation, she's gone
in with them. And some sort of aunt with a peculiar name."
"Mango," said Arthur. He leaned back into his pillow, stretched his hands
underneath, and immediately felt some things that shouldn't have been there. The
Atlas, a square of cardboard, and the small round-shaped object that Suzy had
given him from Tom.
"I might go to sleep now," he said to Emily, with a yawn. "You should go home."
"I might as well wait for the snore monster to wake up," said Emily. "But I've
got some papers to look at. You just rest up."
Arthur watched her go back to her chair and pick up her papers, their pale green
glow lighting her face. When she started tapping on them with her smart stylus,
he rolled over and touched whatever was under his pillow. But he didn't pull the
items out.
Instead he withdrew his hand. He knew without looking that whatever was under
the pillow would take him farther away from the normal life he so wanted to
lead. It was already five hours into Wednesday and Arthur was sure the Morrow
Days wouldn't leave him alone. That had been a foolish hope, one he was not
going to cling to anymore. If he could survive the Pit and take on Grim Tuesday,


then he could face any further challenge. He might not succeed, but it wouldn't
be for lack of trying.
Arthur reached back under the pillow and pulled all three things out. The Atlas
was first. It seemed to be its usual self so Arthur put it back. Next came a small
disc. Arthur surreptitiously checked it out in the light from the call button. It was
bone — probably whalebone, he thought. One side was carved with lots of tiny
stars, and the other had a ship on it. A Viking longship, with the sail up and oars
out between a row of shields. The disc had a hole at the top, so it could be worn
on a leather strap. Arthur looked at it for a long time, then put it back.
The last thing was, as Arthur had felt, a square of stiff cardboard. White
cardboard, with gilt edges and several lines of elegant copperplate writing.
It said:
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.