Lady Friday

Chapter Twenty-One

The ladder went a long, long way down, and after the first twenty feet there was no light at all. Even looking back up, Arthur couldn’t see anything. Suzy’s wings were too far from the manhole and the shaft was too narrow. He could hear the Servant below him, the metal claws on his boot tips loud on the rungs of the iron ladder.

Several hundred feet down-or so Arthur guessed-he heard the sound of those clawed boots change, and a second later his own boots found no more rungs below. There was a smooth floor for as far as he could reach while still holding on to the ladder. There was no way he was going to let go. There might be holes only feet away, or deep crevasses that ultimately might lead to Nothing.

Or the Beast itself, unseen. Waiting in the darkness.

Something touched Arthur’s arm, just above the elbow. He flinched and swallowed a shriek, even as he heard the click-clack of claws and knew it was the Servant. The strange Denizen gripped his arm and began to lead him away, Arthur reluctantly relinquishing his hold on the ladder. The ladder that was the only hope of leaving this black hole.

Slowly, they walked deeper into the Inner Darkness. It was a cavern, Arthur presumed, but that was only because it felt and sounded like stone underfoot, and because it was inside the mountain. It might simply be a room, one cavernous enough for the echo of their footsteps to sound as if it came from far away.

Ten paces ... twenty paces ... thirty .... Arthur couldn’t tell whether they were walking in a straight line or weaving a bit, the Servant gently steering him around obstacles.

Forty paces ... fifty .... The Servant slowed down. Arthur heard something that wasn’t just the echo of their footsteps. A soft, deep hiss like the sound of a punctured tire. A very big tire with a very slow puncture.

Breathing, thought Arthur. Wheezy breathing from something with very, very big lungs ...

The Servant stopped. Arthur stopped too, swaying back from an almost-step.

“Is it here?” Arthur whispered. He couldn’t help himself from gripping the Fourth Key with his left hand almost as hard as the Servant was holding his arm.

They both stood utterly still. Arthur could hear the breathing getting louder. Getting closer. He could hear his own breathing grow louder, and his heart started to beat faster, tapping out a message of fear to the rest of his body. The pulse in his neck felt as if it might break out of the skin.

Suddenly there was a mighty rush of displaced air. Arthur felt movement, close by. The Servant’s grip tightened like a sudden twist of a vise, only to release an instant later as hand, arm, and indeed the whole Servant were snatched away, his still-closed fingers ripping through Arthur’s paper coat, paper shirt, and skin.

Arthur cried out, but the Denizen did not. He made no sound and for a few seconds all Arthur could hear was the breathing of the Beast.

Then it began to chew. The awful sound of a particularly rude dinner-table companion, magnified many times.

It was too much for Arthur to bear in the darkness. It was too much not to know exactly what was making the awful noise.

He didn’t think it through, or consider his vow not to use sorcery, didn’t think he could have his wings shed light. Fear of the unknown, fear of the dark, was as deeply implanted in his psyche as in any human’s, and he couldn’t take any more.

He drew the Fourth Key completely from its sheath and held it high, speaking in a shrill and shaking voice that he barely recognized as his own.

“Light! Give me lots and lots of light!”

The Key began to glow with a soft, golden radiance, then before Arthur could do more than half-glance away and lid his eyes, it exploded into brilliant white light, brighter than any electric light Arthur had ever switched on, with his face effectively only inches from the source.

Something out in the former darkness shrieked so loudly the noise hurt Arthur’s ears. It was a frantic Keekee-kee-kee of extreme discomfort, pitched at a tone that would have surely shattered glass if there had been any present.

Arthur tried to see what was shrieking but he was as blinded by the light as he had been by the dark a moment before.

“Less light!” he shouted urgently, focusing his thoughts on the Key. “Much less light!”

Slowly the brilliance ebbed. Arthur shielded his eyes with his right forearm and looked around. He was in a truly vast cavern of pallid green stone, and his stomach flip-flopped to see that the iron ladder came straight down the middle of it, stretching up into thin air farther than the light illuminated.

The Beast was only twenty yards away, lying on a bed of thousands of multicoloured pebbles. It was shielding its head too, but with one enormous, leathery wing that stretched from the wrist of a russet-furred forearm to the ankle of blue-scaled leg. It was about forty feet long and to Arthur’s eye looked to be a weird mixture of bat and dragon.

It was lizardlike from the waist down, scaled in blue iridescence, with a long, club-ended tail. From the waist up, it had red fur like a fox, and its wings were pale black and partially transparent, the bones very obvious, like struts in an old biplane’s paper wing.

It had huge, pink, four-fingered taloned paws, so dextrous they could almost be hands.

In its left paw, it held the Servant, now looking like a normal Denizen, albeit one in a pale red one-piece undergarment with attached socks. He had been stripped of wings, helmet, and flying suit. All those items were in the Beast’s right paw, scrunched up into a ball.

Arthur stared as the creature slowly lowered its shielding wing to reveal a fierce, foxlike head with huge, round eyes of limpid brown and a long, tapered mouth replete with rows and rows of sharp, narrow teeth.

Arthur stared even more as he saw the collar around its neck. Or, to be exact, the silver, sharp-tined crown that was welded in place, the points blunted under the Beast’s chin. It made the creature look like some bizarre heraldic creature. A loose chain led from the crown-collar off into the dark.

The Beast opened its mouth wide, and Arthur forgot the crown. But before he could even think of doing anything, it suddenly threw up one hand and snapped down on what it had been holding, jaws closing with a resounding snap.

“Stop!” yelled Arthur. “Don’t eat him!”

His commanding voice faltered as he saw that the Beast had in fact only swallowed the Servant’s clothing, as a second course to the wings, which it had obviously eaten first.

“I wasn’t going to,” protested the Beast. It had a curiously high-pitched voice that made it sound a bit like a small child. “I never do. Though I must say I like the wrappers. Still, everything in moderation.”

It carefully laid the Denizen down on the colored stones, which shifted under him like beans in a beanbag. As the creature moved and the light shone through its wing, Arthur saw lines and lines of type moving within the membrane between the bones.

“You are Part Five!” he exclaimed, relief making his voice squeak, so he sounded a bit like the Beast himself. “Of the Will, I mean.”

“Of course I am, dear boy,” said the Beast.

“I’m Arthur. That is, the Rightful Heir to-”

“I know, I know. I wondered when you would finally get here.”

“Oh,” said Arthur. “You knew I was here?”

“One Who Survived the Darkness talks to me a little,” the Will replied. “Very tough Denizen, she is. Most of them can’t go back to the Eyrie. Some deep psychological thing once the mask and leather comes off.”

Arthur looked at the unconscious Denizen.

“What happens to them, then?”

“They wander down through the hidden ways and take up other employment,” said the Will. “A lot of them become Paper Pushers on the canal. Now, if you wouldn’t mind removing my chain? I believe there is a lot of work to be done, and while too much work is to be discouraged, I believe a fair amount should be essayed each and every day.”

“Okay,” said Arthur. He walked over to the Will, which was quite difficult since the pebbles kept slipping under his feet. “What’s with all these little stones?”

The Will looked down at the stones.

“A hobby. I’ve made one for every week of my confinement here. They do add up, don’t they? I suppose I should not have kept at it, but it is generally very dull down here in the Inner Darkness. Friday used to come and talk to me too, once upon a time, but I believe she has developed other interests in more recent times.”

“You could say that,” said Arthur. He reached up and touched the chain to see what it was made of and whether there was any chance of breaking or releasing it without using the Fourth Key. But as his fingers touched the metal, the links simply fell apart, though the crown-collar remained around the Will’s neck.

“Excellent! The touch of the Rightful Heir is true,” said the Will. “I’m so glad you’re not an imposter. I really didn’t want to eat you.”

“I appreciate that,” said Arthur. He was beginning to like Part Five of the Will. It appeared to be much more relaxed than the other parts and more normal ... considering it was a giant bat-dragon monster.

“Now tell me your doubtless fiendishly cunning plan,” said the Will. It flexed its wings, nearly buffeting Arthur into the pebbles. “Pardon me. A little stretch before I resize. It has been most troublesome not being able to shrink all this time.”

“My plan ...” said Arthur. “My plan ...”

His mouth stayed open as the Beast shrank before his eyes, going from a forty-foot-long monster to a strange-looking critter the size of a handbag poodle in a matter of seconds.

“Too small?” asked the Will. It jumped to Arthur’s shoulder and let out a squawk like a parrot, which sounded very odd from a russet bat’s mouth. Its draconic tail hung down Arthur’s back and made him ticklish. “Mind if I ride? Flying is all very well, but not for extended periods. Now tell me the plan.”

“The plan is ...” Arthur began. “Not much of a plan. Lady Friday has supposedly abdicated-”

“She hasn’t,” said the Will. “Not officially. For it to be official, she’d have to tell me, and she hasn’t.”

“Has she left the Key in her Scriptorium for either me, the Piper, or Saturday to claim?”

“She hasn’t done that either,” said the Will. “The Key’s not even in the House. It’s out in the Secondary Realms somewhere. I can feel it.”

“Um, well, the Piper and Saturday’s Noon have gone up to the Scriptorium to get the Key,” said Arthur. “Hopefully they’ve killed each other. I was planning to go up and see what was what, with a force of Gilded Youths, but ...”

“But what?” asked the Will. “Sounds like a good plan to me. Simple. You don’t want too much complexity in a plan. Nice and straightforward. Let’s get going.”

“If the Key’s not even there, why bother?” said Arthur. But he started clambering back to the ladder.

“Might find out something useful,” said the Will. “I’ve got a feeling we should take a look anyway. Friday’s obviously gone off the deep end. No knowing what she’s done. How’s the rest of me doing, by the way?”

“The rest of you?” Arthur looked around as if there might be some errant tail or other missing bit.

“Rest of the Will!”

“Oh, Dame Primus,” said Arthur. “Fine, I think. Only since Part Four joined up, she’s been a bit ... vindictive.”

“Hmm, interesting,” said the Will. “Well, I’m bound to be unbalanced without me, if you know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t,” Arthur admitted.

“Moderating influence,” said the Will. “Calming temperament, that sort of thing. Known for it, you know. Got any other Keys with you, by the way? I mean left them upstairs or whatever? I can only sense the Fourth at your side.”

“That’s it,” said Arthur. “Dame Primus wields the others as my deputy. She’s got my Compleat Atlas too.”

“Hmm,” said the Will. “Still, it’s unlikely I would do anything really unbalanced without the rest of me ... but perhaps we should hurry. Don’t bother with the ladder. Use those wings. Mind if I hold on to your ear? Hup! Hup!”