Lord Sunday

Eight

THE TWO DENIZENS clamped Arthur’s wrists with manacles that shone with their own intense blue light. He had seen that sorcerous steel before, binding the Old One to his clock, so he struggled even harder. But the Denizens were too strong, and they were aided by the unseen power that Arthur felt pressing down upon him, the power that he knew emanated from the Seventh Key that Lord Sunday must be holding in his hand.

As one of the Denizens fastened a chain to the manacle on his right hand, Arthur summoned up all his strength. Wrenching his arm free, he held out his hand, pointed it directly at Sunday, and shouted, ‘I, Arthur, anointed Heir to the Kingdom, claim the Seventh Key-’

Lord Sunday’s eyes narrowed. He made a slight gesture with the Key that lay hidden in his cupped hand. Arthur immediately lost his voice, his next few words croaking away into unintelligibility.

‘You cannot claim the Key without the aid of Part Seven of the Will,’ said Lord Sunday. ‘And I do not wish to listen to your blatherings.’

The Denizens finished fastening the chains, drawing Arthur’s hands up behind his back. He could feel the sorcery in the manacles. It felt like a terribly cold current in the metal, eternally running counterclockwise around his wrists. They felt so strong he doubted whether he could break them even if he managed to get back the Fifth and Sixth Keys, which seemed unlikely. They were still jumping and flying about inside the silver net, which Sunday was holding at arm’s length in his left hand, while his right held the Seventh Key. Arthur wished he could see what that Key was, but it was entirely hidden. Whatever it was, it had to be small – though it might grow and change, Arthur thought, as Sunday had changed himself.

Lord Sunday looked up, and Arthur followed the direction of his gaze. There was something above them, a black dot against that beautiful blue sky with its whispery clouds. The dot grew larger and larger, swooping down towards them from some great height, and Arthur saw it was a huge dragonfly. It descended very quickly to hover up above them, its wings almost touching the tops of the hedges on either side.

It was a very big dragonfly. Its body was about sixty feet long, and each of its multipart, buzzing wings was easily twice that length. Arthur couldn’t see clearly from below, but there was something on its back, a kind of cabin or deckhouse, with stained-glass windows and a roof of wooden shingles.

A Denizen, wearing a one-piece coverall of soft tan leather and a kind of hunting hat with a feather, threw a long rope ladder down from the tail of the dragonfly. The ladder unrolled itself as it fell, ending near Lord Sunday, who quickly began to climb up it, effortlessly taking three or four rungs at once.

While Lord Sunday was climbing up, the Denizen on the dragonfly went farther back along the creature’s body and threw down a rope that ended in a large hook. The Denizens holding Arthur looped his chains around the hook, the Denizen above waved to some other unseen crew, and the rope was hauled up, leaving Arthur dangling some thirty feet below the dragonfly. It was a very painful position, with his arms twisted behind his back and the manacles on his wrists supporting his entire weight. Arthur knew that prior to his transformation he would have been screaming in pain as his arms were dislocated at the shoulders. Now, though it hurt a lot, he merely grimaced and contained his pain, the anger inside him still stronger than any other feeling.

Part of that anger was addressed to himself.

How could I have been so stupid? Arthur thought. I should have got out of here somehow, as soon as I knew it was the Incomparable Gardens. I never should have been so careless with an unknown Piper’s child ...

The two tall, green-skinned Denizens shinnied up the rope ladder, and it was drawn up. Arthur heard a whistle above him, and the thrum of the dragonfly’s wings increased in tempo and pitch. Its legs, which had been dangling just above Arthur, retracted against the vast abdomen.

The dragonfly zoomed up and jinked sharply to the right in a move that sent Arthur swinging on his chains, jerking his arms enough to make him let out a small gasp. His arms might be dislocation-proof now, but some part of his brain hadn’t worked that out and was still sending intense pain – do something signals.

Arthur forced the pain back down. Then, with a herculean effort, he leaned forward till he was head down, hooked his feet through his linked arms, and swung through so that his manacled wrists were now in front and above him, and he could hold on to the chains rather than having his whole weight supported by the manacles and his wrists. He was still suspended by chains under a fast-moving giant dragonfly, but at least his wrists and shoulders didn’t hurt as much.

With the lessening of the pain, Arthur found he could concentrate on other things, like looking around. The dragonfly had settled into level flight at about a thousand feet up, Arthur guessed, giving him a panoramic view of the Incomparable Gardens.

In other circumstances, it would have been a wonderful vista. Below him was a patchwork of hundreds or possibly thousands of different gardens, all separated by corridors of tall green hedges like the one in which he had been ambushed. There were gardens that were small and green and tidy; gardens of russet and tan that sprawled across many acres; there were deserts and low rolling hills and swamps and even several beaches that bordered portions of ocean no more than a hundred yards long and wide. A small proportion of the gardens had buildings, varying from garden sheds to minarets and modern buildings that would not have looked out of place in Arthur’s hometown.

Amid the patchwork of gardens, there were several other locations that occupied much larger areas. One, some distance away on Arthur’s right, was a green area that was at least a mile wide and several miles long, with a dry pond or muddy pit at its centre. A moment later, Arthur recognised this as the point where Saturday’s assault ram had broken through, and as he peered more closely, he saw that there were tiny figures moving around the hole, and across the green lawn towards the ridge of wildflowers, where many more little dots moved. But he was several miles away, with the dragonfly climbing higher, so he couldn’t tell if the tiny figures were Sunday’s insect soldiers or Saturday’s Denizens.

Not that it really matters, thought Arthur. He needed to concentrate on what he was going to do, instead of wondering about what was happening in the battle between Saturday and Sunday – or, for that matter, the battle in the Upper House below them, between the Piper and Saturday.

He looked up at the manacles on his wrists. As far as he could see with the wind in his eyes and the constant swinging back and forth as the dragonfly changed course, the manacles were all one piece of sorcerous steel. They had no keyholes or bolts or any other obvious fasteners, and the chain ran through protruding eyelets that were half an inch thick and seemed as much part of the manacle as the main band, with no signs of welds or any weakness that might be exploited.

It was likely that they could only be unfastened by the Seventh Key, or some similar power. Perhaps Arthur, with all the other six Keys, might be able to command his release if he was not opposed by Lord Sunday. But he didn’t have even one Key now.

He brought his wrists together and tried to get the fingers of his right hand under the left manacle, to see if he could bend or break it with his now otherworldly strength. But the manacles were too tight, and in his heart he knew there was no chance that they could be opened by any physical act. Made with sorcery, they could only be undone by sorcery.

Next, Arthur tried to summon a telephone, as he had done in other parts of the House. But whether he asked for one aloud or simply tried to will a telephone into existence, nothing happened.

After that, he tried to call the First, Second, Third, and Fourth Keys to him, as he had done in the Middle House. But that didn’t work either, no matter how he shouted and raged, his voice hoarse from whatever Sunday had done to him, made worse by the constant rush of wind.

Always, he felt the unseen pressure of the Seventh Key working against him. It was clear that he could not prevail against it.

Despite that, after a bit of a rest, or as much of a rest as it was possible to have while swinging on chains under a giant dragonfly moving at full speed, Arthur tried again. But all he managed to do was give himself a raging headache, to add to the pain in his wrists and shoulders.

Eventually he just let himself swing by his chains, and tried to think. He was in a desperate situation, Arthur knew that much. While he now was very hard to kill, Lord Sunday certainly had the power to slay him if he wanted to, though if he did want to, he presumably would have already done so.

Arthur thought about that a little more. Sunday had been able to catch and hold the Fifth and Sixth Keys while Arthur was being bound, but perhaps if he’d tried to kill Arthur, the Keys would have defended him more strongly. Also, if he did kill Arthur, then Sunday could never take the other Keys. They had to be handed over willingly.

It was possible that Lord Sunday might not even want the other Keys. Arthur had no idea what Sunday really wanted. After all, it was Saturday who had set the fall of the House in motion, and Saturday who had invaded the Incomparable Gardens, because the Gardens were the only part of the House likely to survive the onrush of Nothing that had already taken the Far Reaches, the Lower House, and who knew what else by now.

All Arthur knew was that Lord Sunday was one of the original faithless Trustees who had not obeyed the Architect and had broken and hidden the seven parts of the Will instead of following the Will’s instructions. As Arthur was effectively an agent of the Will, and the supposed Rightful Heir of the Architect, Lord Sunday was automatically his enemy.

But maybe we can work something out, he thought. We both have to stop the tide of Nothing, to save the House and the rest of the Universe. Maybe I could confirm that he would stay in charge of the Incomparable Gardens, and he’d be left alone, that seems to be what he wants ...

Arthur sighed as his thoughts continued into less optimistic regions.

Who am I kidding? Dame Primus would never agree.Besides, who knows what Sunday is really up to? I have to escape! But how?

He sighed again, the sigh turning into a grimace of pain as the dragonfly changed direction again, swinging Arthur out wide, scraping the manacles across the raw wounds on his wrists, no matter how tightly he held the chains above the manacles.

With the pain came an unexpected realisation. Since he’d taken the Fifth Key at least, any pain he felt had come with a burning desire to retaliate, to strike against whoever or whatever had caused him hurt. But he was not angry now, and he felt no great store of rage waiting to explode within him.

I am weaker without my Keys, thought Arthur. But I am also more myself.

They were heading towards a new landmark, a tall green hill that was still several miles away. It looked a lot like Doorstop Hill in the Lower House, though it was significantly higher and the bottom slopes were terraced and dotted with trees. There was also something on the crest of the hill, a low building or construction of some kind, but it was too far for him to easily identify.

Directly below him, the variety of gardens continued, still divided and penned in by the tall green hedges. Arthur watched them flicker by as he desperately tried to think of some stratagem to gain his release. He let his eyes go out of focus, half-lidding them against the rushing wind, and the gardens below blurred into a patchwork of many shades of green and brown and blue.

Blue, thought Arthur.

He blinked and refocused. There was a lake and, about half a mile beyond, one of those strange, truncated oceans dumping its waves onto a two-hundred-yard-long stretch of cutoff beach.

Navigable waters, thought Arthur, swiftly followed by a single, piercing image of a tall, white-bearded sailor with deep-set eyes of the clearest blue, wielding a harpoon that glittered and shone with the most powerful sorcery.

This was the Mariner, second son of the Architect and the Old One, who had sworn to aid Arthur three times, and had already done so twice. Wherever there were navigable waters, the Mariner could sail, and Arthur figured that if anything other than the Seventh Key could break his chains, it would be the Mariner’s harpoon.

I have to call him straight away, since he could take ages to get here. Which means I need my medal.

The Mariner’s medal was in Arthur’s belt pouch, near his hip, which presented a problem. Suspended as he was, with his wrists manacled together, he couldn’t just reach down, undo the pouch, and retrieve it.

Nor, after a few attempts, could he pull himself up high enough to get his hands near the pouch, because when he did so he started to spin around violently.

Next, Arthur tried swinging his legs up so that he could hang upside down. But a few attempts showed him that even though he could manage to turn upside down and get his hands near his belt pouch without going into the same sort of spin, there was no way he could undo the pouch and get the medallion out, at least not without a very high chance of the medallion and his yellow elephant simply dropping out and being lost forever.

He was still trying to work out how he could get the medal when the dragonfly began to descend. It was still flying towards the terraced hill Arthur had seen, only it was no longer aiming for the top of the hill, but at a point about halfway up.

Arthur swung himself right way up again as he got lower, and tried to stop his spin. There was something on the terrace that had caught his eye, and he wanted a better look.

He got it, and he felt a chill colder than the icy steel. On the terrace halfway up the hill, lying flat, was a twenty-foot-wide clock face, with vertical numbers of blue sorcerous metal. The clock had long, sharply pointed hands, and next to their central pivot was a small trapdoor.

It was a smaller replica of the Old One’s prison, save that there was no one chained to the clock hands.

Or at least, Arthur thought, there was no one chained there yet ...