Lady Friday

Chapter Eighteen

“I had heard the High Guild was treacherous,” said Arthur.

He sat up straighter in his chair, which took considerable effort. It felt like he had a sack of cement tied to his chest and back.

“We are merely pragmatic,” said Jakem.

“And knowing that,” said Arthur, “I didn’t drink the tea.”

With a gasp, he stood up. The gasp was echoed by Jakem.

“I bet my friends didn’t either,” added Arthur. He wasted no effort by looking around as he said that, and he heard no answer. But even if they hadn’t drunk the tea, the others would probably be held silent and in place by the powers of the press.

“You can’t get up!” protested Jakem. “The press was made by the Architect! It has never failed to hold recalcitrants!”

“This was made by the Architect too,” said Arthur. He took a step and drew the Key, willing it to take its sword form. For a moment he thought it wouldn’t work, then the baton slowly lengthened and shimmered, transforming into a thin silver blade, the graceful quillons of the hilt wrapped around Arthur’s fist.

“Stop the press,” ordered Arthur. He took another step, directly towards Jakem. It hurt to walk, with every muscle in his legs, back, and arms feeling like they were being twisted by the fingers of a sadistic masseur. But he had kept going before, when he had no air to breathe, when only his determination kept him moving. This was only pain, not lack of breath.

“But you can’t!” protested Jakem. “You simply can’t be walking out!”

Arthur did not reply. He took another step and snarled with the effort. His arms and legs were shaking, but he forced himself on. Only four more steps and he would be clear of the base plate-and within striking distance of Jakem, if the Denizen didn’t flee.

“Perhaps we have been a little overhasty,” said Jakem. Three more steps.

“We were ordered to, you see,” said Jakem. “We have to follow orders.”

Arthur gritted his teeth together. It was only two more steps but he couldn’t lift his foot, it was just too hard.

Instead, he slid his right foot forward and let out a sound that to him sounded like a moan of pain, but to Jakem sounded like a growl of anger.

“Stop the press!” shouted Jakem. “Lord Arthur, we most humbly apologize!”

Arthur slid his left foot off the base plate of the press. Immediately the weight fell off him, so suddenly that he bounded forward and the point of his rapier accidentally flew to Jakem’s face. Arthur only just managed to twitch his wrist so the blade cleared the Denizen’s forehead by two inches and drilled a hole straight through his paper hat.

Jakem fell to the ground as Arthur recovered, bringing the rapier back to the guard position with the Denizen’s hat halfway along the blade. As he slid the hat off, Arthur looked over his shoulder. Suzy was hurrying to his side, her knife in her hand. Ugham had leaped clear of the press and was looking up at the Denizens in the winding gallery, his spear ready. Only Fred was still in his chair, sitting immobile, with his eyes open.

Maybe he’s dead, thought Arthur, struck by this sudden fear. He’d be trusting enough to drink ....

“Get up!” ordered Arthur. He tapped Jakem on the head with his rapier. “Get someone to give Fred an antidote for whatever you put in the tea.”

Jakem rose unsteadily, his hands clasped in supplication.

“There is no antidote-”

Arthur snarled and pulled his hand back, ready to stab with the rapier.

“But it is merely a soporific!” said Jakem. “A little sleep-maker, that’s all. Your friend will wake within the hour!”

“Too trusting, that lad,” said Suzy. “Should’ve learned to never drink a tea you can see through.”

“What?” asked Arthur. His hand was shaking-not, he thought, from the effort of crossing the floor of the press, but from repressing the surge of anger he’d felt towards Jakem. He’d really wanted to kill the Denizen for a second, and if Fred had been killed or even harmed, he thought he would have.

“Tea,” said Suzy. “Got to be thick and dark, or it’s no good.”

Arthur shook his head. He was tired again, he realized. He’d had a good sleep after the siege of the Citadel but that was at least twenty hours ago.

No time to sleep, he thought, with a glance at Fred. Ugham had moved to look at the boy and now he nodded and gestured with his hand, indicating the rise and fall of a chest, to show the boy was breathing.

Sleep can come after ... after what? Don’t think about that ... think about what has to be done ....

“Right,” he said. “Jakem, get two of your Denizens to move Fred and his chair out of the press. They can put him over there. Were you telling the truth about the spell on the gold leaf?”

“Yes, Lord Arthur!” said Jakem. “Digby, Hurrent, fetch Mister Fred out of the press. Quickly now, you dolts!”

“Do you need anything to do the spell?” asked Arthur.

“No, it is a simple matter,” said Jakem. “If I may hold the gold leaf?”

Arthur reached inside his coat and got out the crystal prism with the speck of gold leaf inside.

“Just do the spell I want,” he warned as he handed it over. “I want to be able to use it to find Part Five of the Will.”

“Yes, sir, I understand,” said Jakem. “It should work as you wish, the gold leaf here calling out to the greater part that was used in the creation of the Will.”

“I don’t want it pointing to Dame Primus, though,” added Arthur. “That’s the current shape of Parts One to Four of the Will.”

“It will point to whichever part of the Will is closest,” said Jakem. “Providing, of course, that this speck of gold is in fact part of the greater whole the Architect used.”

“He talks a lot, doesn’t he?” said Suzy. “You should stick him a bit, Arthur, for encouragement.”

“Not with the Key,” said Arthur. “It only needs a touch to kill.”

“Please, Lord Arthur!” grovelled Jakem. “If I may concentrate for a moment?”

Arthur nodded and looked at Suzy, who correctly interpreted his look as a sign to keep silent. She shrugged, smiled, and wandered over to Fred, who had just been carried out of the press.

Jakem drew out a large piece of stiff paper from one of the pockets of his robe and put it down on the floor with the crystal sitting in the middle. Then he took a quill pen and tiny bottle of activated ink from another pocket and, crouching down on his knees, quickly inked the pen and swiftly wrote four incomprehensible words from an alien alphabet on the paper around the crystal. The words were hardly written when they began to float up off the paper, shimmering and writhing like strange sea creatures on the tide. Jakem waved the quill above them in a ritual fashion and the words slid into the crystal, shrinking as they entered, till they were too small to see.

The Pressmaster sniffed, put the lid back on the ink, replaced pen and bottle in a pocket, and stood up.

“There, it’s done,” he said.

“That’s it?” said Arthur. “Okay, you pick it up.”

“I would not dare essay anything against you, milord-” Jakem said.

“Pick it up, then,” interrupted Arthur. “And hand it to one of your Denizens. He can give it to me.”

“Better give it to me, Arthur,” said Suzy suspiciously. “Then you can stick ’im if there’s anything havey-cavey going on with it.”

“I have done the spell exactly as instructed!” bleated Jakem. He bent down and picked up the crystal. “Digby! Come here!”

The denizen Digby ran over, pausing to tug his forelock in front of Arthur before accepting the crystal from Jakem. Nothing odd occurred then, or when it was passed to Suzy. She held it up to look carefully at the speck of gold inside, knocked on it with the handle of her knife, and finally handed it to Arthur, who took it with his left hand, not wanting to let go of the Key. Jakem was just too smooth. He oozed potential for treachery.

“Looks all right, but I’m ready,” Suzy said, sidling over to Jakem with her knife out. He looked at her nervously and began to wring his hands again.

Arthur gazed into the crystal.

“How do I make it work?” he asked, but even as he spoke, he saw that the speck itself was moving within the crystal and changing shape. Slowly it became a very thin and very small arrow, the size of a fingernail clipping. It spun around a little and then settled down to point in a particular direction, at a vertical angle.

“That way,” he said, pointing at a spot near where Fred was sleeping in his chair. “And up, I think. What lies that way and up, Jakem?”

“The mountain,” said Jakem. “Lady Friday’s Scriptorium.”

“How long till morning?” asked Arthur.

“Dawn breaks even now,” Jakem said. “The little sun is already up, the greater one in a few minutes.”

“We’ll need wings,” said Arthur. “Or is there some other way to get to the Scriptorium?”

Jakem shook his head.

“What does that mean?” snapped Arthur. “No other way or no wings?”

“No other way,” said Jakem, flinching. “It may only be reached through flight. As for wings, we have none, but perhaps Friday’s Dawn ... the Gilded Youths ...”

“Who you haven’t let in,” said Arthur. “Why was that?”

“Saturday’s Noon instructed us, I think because Friday’s Dawn refused to obey. We were only following Saturday’s orders!”

“Is Saturday’s Noon still here?” asked Arthur. “Are your elevators working? And your telephones?”

“No, Saturday’s Noon visited only briefly yesterday. Saturday’s Dusk has visited several times through the night, but he is not here now. The elevators answer to them, but not to us. Our telephones are not working.”

“I want you to send a messenger to Friday’s Dawn,” instructed Arthur. “Tell him that Lord Arthur has assumed command of the Middle House and if he will follow my orders, he will be put in charge of this fortress and the Top Shelf.”

“This fortress!” squeaked Jakem. “But Dawn’s province is the Flat, down there-”

Arthur lifted the point of his rapier.

“Yes, at once, Lord Arthur. Digby, you dunce! You heard Lord Arthur. Get yourself an olive branch and deliver his message immediately to Friday’s Dawn outside the gates.”

“Get those chairs out from the press and set them up here,” said Arthur. He really needed to sit down.

“Gaborl, Pluik!” shouted Jakem. “Move these chairs instantly for Lord Arthur!”

“You help them,” said Suzy to Jakem. “Those chairs look heavy.”

“Yes, do,” said Arthur. “Don’t bother with the tea, though.”

Without being told to, the Denizens set up one chair by itself and the others facing it in a semicircle. Arthur settled down in the single chair. He kept the Key in its rapier form, resting the blade across the arm of the chair, holding the hilt loosely in his hand.

“Sit down,” he said to Jakem, who chose a seat facing him. Suzy sat down too, while Ugham stood between her and Fred.

“Since we’re going to have to wait for a response from Friday’s Dawn and for Fred to wake up, you can answer some more questions,” Arthur said to Jakem.

“Anything, anything, milord.”

“Has the Piper been here?” Arthur couldn’t help but glance at Ugham, who met his eyes with an untroubled gaze. Arthur repressed a sigh. He liked Ugham, and he liked the sound of the Newniths. As the Piper had told him before the assault on the Citadel, they actually wanted to be farmers. But even so, Ugham was a problematic ally. One word from the Piper and he would have to turn on his friends.

“Not here,” answered Jakem.

Arthur didn’t suppress his sigh this time.

“You mean not in Binding Junction or not in the Middle House?”

“Ah, I meant to say, he has been seen. He and a troop of his children appeared several hours ago and flew off, presumably to Friday’s Scriptorium, if the Winged Servants did not intercept them first.”

“Did anybody else go after him?”

“Hmm, I believe Saturday’s Dusk and a dozen or so Internal Auditors might have flown after him ....”

“Internal Auditors?” asked Arthur.

“The most doughty soldiery of the Upper House,” said Ugham. “Fell warriors, by all accounts.”

“They can suck your innards out by looking at you,” said Suzy. “‘Least that’s what they say.”

“I wonder which children the Piper had with him,” said Arthur. “He must have used the Improbable Stair, or he’d have brought Newniths. That reminds me. We encountered a Nithling in the Flat, Jakem. A kind of pig thing with a horn ....”

“A pig thing with a horn? Ah, I do believe there was some nasty squealing coming out of the elevator Saturday’s Dusk was using .... It could perhaps have been the type of created Nithling called a grannow-hoinch ....”

“I thought it must have come with Saturday’s Dusk,”

said Arthur. “Strange combination, though. I wonder what the Fetchers were looking for .... Do you know, Jakem?”

“I beg your pardon, Lord Arthur?” Jakem wiped his brow nervously and went back to wringing his hands. “Do I know ...”

“Do you know what Saturday’s Fetchers were looking for down on the Flat?”

“Um, not exactly. I do believe there was some talk about something, perhaps a modified rodent, that had taken something not exactly its property ....”

“A Raised Rat!” exclaimed Arthur. “They were looking for a Raised Rat. I wonder what it could have taken?”

“I don’t know precisely,” said Jakem. “But I did happen to hear a little of the conversation between Saturday’s Noon and Dusk, and that fragment leads me to think the rat-if it was a rat-might have laid its paws upon a letter.”

I wonder what that’s all about, thought Arthur. He rubbed his eyes in an effort to banish his weariness. A Raised Rat who stole something, presumably from Saturday, and they’re looking for it on the Flat of the Middle House ....

“Reckon it must have jumped a Transfer Plate, the one Friday’s messenger gave to Saturday, same as we did for the Piper’s,” said Suzy. “I thought I saw some funny prints in the snow when we arrived, didn’t I, Uggie?”

Ugham nodded.

Arthur looked at him sharply, but this time the Newnith did not meet his gaze, instead looking into a space above Arthur’s shoulder.

You know something about this, thought Arthur. I wonder if you saw the Raised Rat. I’d better ask Fred what he saw. I hope he wakes up soon. In the meantime, maybe I could take a little rest too ... try to think ....

“I’m going to shut my eyes for a few minutes,” said Arthur. “Suzy, Ugham, can you keep watch?”

“Sure,” said Suzy. Ugham nodded again.

“ Jakem, you’re not to go anywhere or do anything, or give any orders.”

“I completely understand, milord!”

Arthur looked around the room, at the press, and at the Denizens who still stood up on the winding gallery. It all looked safe enough, for the moment.

“Wake me when Digby comes back with the reply from Friday’s Dawn,” said Arthur, and he shut his eyes.