Lord Sunday

Twenty-seven

SUZY LIFTED LEAF off Daisy’s back just as the sling finally tore apart, holding the slighter girl under the arms. The beastwort flung its tentacles up, and Borderers grabbed hold of them, but with the barbed insects still being fired against them, and confusion everywhere, there were not enough Denizens to keep the creature airborne.

‘Try for that lake!’ shouted Leaf wildly. She pointed down at a large body of water, still some distance away. ‘Drop her in the lake! Hold on, Daisy!’

The beastwort let out a long, high-pitched cry and fell away, with too few Borderers holding on. Leaf took a breath to shout for more of them to chase and grab hold, but could not get the breath she needed, instead getting a stabbing pain in her chest. She coughed it out, but could not speak. The Gardens below went blurry, and for a moment she didn’t know where she was or what she was doing.

‘Daisy?’ she whispered.

‘I reckon she’ll hit the lake,’ said Suzy. She was flying upward as fast as she could, trying to get out of range of the spiked insects. The living missiles were being propelled upward out of strange bulbous flowers full of a pink gas, but the flowers could not send them higher than three thousand feet. ‘Very tough critter, that Daisy. Like as not, she’ll pick ’erself up.’

Leaf nodded and pressed her hands into her eyes, to try to refocus them and get her head together.

‘Where did you come from?’ she asked.

‘Saw your sling coming undone,’ said Suzy. ‘So I doubled back.’

‘Are we winning?’ Leaf asked. She couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t look out. It was easier just to hang in Suzy’s arms and ask the question.

‘Dunno,’ said Suzy. ‘But we’re making ground. Or air. Only a few miles from the Elysium now. But the Piper’s ahead of us.’

‘Keep lots of soldiers in between us, then,’ said Leaf. She was having trouble staying conscious, and the world kept slipping away, darkness alternating with flashes of confused light and sound.

‘Do my best,’ muttered Suzy. She was looking for her Raiders, but couldn’t see them. There was fighting everywhere, and it was difficult to work out where to go. The Elysium did lie ahead, the hill one of the few landmarks Suzy could easily spot. But the battle was especially heavy around it ... though Suzy frowned as she realised that there were no longer any insects or dragonflies defending the place. Instead, the air above the hill was packed with Newniths and sorcerers, who were desperately holding back multiple assaults by different units of the Glorious Army of the Architect.

‘The Piper must be there already,’ Suzy said to herself. ‘And it looks like something’s happened to Sunday. ’Oo would have thought? I hope you’re there too, Arthur!’

She tapped her ears, to check the plugs were in, and swooped down behind a cohort of Legionaries who were about to descend against the defenders of the Elysium hill.

Arthur had just decided how to make the fighting stop when the Piper and Saturday landed by the stream, their respective bodyguards flying back up to join the rearguard that was slowly being pressed back and down by the forces of Dame Primus.

Both of Arthur’s enemies wore black-lacquered leather wings, which looked odd against the Piper’s yellow greatcoat and fashionable with Superior Saturday’s new armour of reddish plates. But Saturday was no longer as tall as she had been, nor as astonishingly beautiful, and she remained a step behind her new Master, with her head bent.

The Piper lifted his gold-masked face to Arthur and spoke, his voice as mellifluous and charming as it had been before Part Four of the Will spat poison in his mouth, before the battle for the Citadel, which felt to Arthur so long ago.

‘So you have claimed the Seventh Key, Arthur. What now?’

‘That is my business,’ said Arthur shortly. ‘I give you permission to remove yourself and your army, and Saturday as well.’

‘To where?’ asked the Piper. He spoke as if to an old friend. ‘The House has been eaten up by Nothing, Arthur. Only the Gardens remain, and perhaps not even that, at least not for very long. Not unless you let me take matters in hand.’

‘I will force the Nothing back,’ said Arthur. ‘You have your worldlet. Return there.’

‘It too is gone,’ said the Piper mournfully. ‘Lost, all will be lost. Unless you give me your Keys. They are too great a burden for a mortal. Better I take them, and put everything to-’

‘It is too late for your tricks,’ interrupted Lord Sunday. ‘He is too strong. Submit and let us finish this.’

‘Too proud to fight to the last, are you?’ snapped the Piper. ‘None of this would have happened if you had not been too haughty to raise your hand. But I, bested by a mortal? I think not!’

He shook his sleeve, and a pipe appeared in his hand. He had it at the mouth-hole of his mask, his fingers over the holes, when Arthur spoke.

‘No,’ he said, and touched the Seventh Key. ‘I would like to hear you play, Piper, but not dance to your tune. I think there has been enough fighting.’

The Piper’s hand clenched into a useless claw, and the pipe fell to the ground. Saturday bent to pick it up, and returned it to her Master. He took it slowly, then suddenly tried to put it to his mouth again.

‘No,’ said Arthur, even more firmly. The pipe blazed with a sudden fire that ran from end to end. The instrument became a stick of ashes, and then the ashes blew away.

The Piper’s shoulders sagged.

‘So,’ said the Piper. ‘I would have liked mortals less if I knew what they might become.’

He reached up and removed his mask. Arthur watched intently, ready for some trick or sneak attack. But he wasn’t prepared for what he saw. There was only the ghost of a face behind the mask, faint traces of light sketching out someone who once would have looked a little like Lord Sunday.

‘I see no reason to continue the struggle to hold myself together just to share your company for these last few minutes,’ said the Piper to Arthur. He turned to Sunday. ‘But tell me, brother – was it you who cast me into Nothing, some seven centuries ago?’

‘Not I,’ said Sunday. ‘Would I stoop to such a thing?’

The Piper looked at Saturday. She cringed before his gaze.

‘My Rats told me it was you. I should have believed them.’

Saturday cried out as the Piper suddenly lunged, a knife with a blade as dark as night appearing in his hand. He plunged it deep into Saturday’s chest, and twisted the hilt.

An instant too late, Arthur directed the power of the Key against him, throwing the Piper back a dozen feet. He landed on his feet, but did not move.

‘In this at least, I command my destiny,’ the Piper said.

‘Enjoy your triumph while it lasts, mortal.’

He dropped the mask he held in his left hand. As it hit the paving stones, his lightly sketched face suddenly winked out like a hologram turned off, and his yellow coat fell to the ground. There was no body inside. All that remained of the Piper was the golden mask.

‘I deserved better,’ croaked Saturday. ‘If I had been made Sunday-’

She fell facedown. The Nothing from the Piper’s blade continued to dissolve the greater part of her body, including her head. It would have spread farther, but Arthur stopped it, forcing the Nothing to become the blade of a knife once more.

‘Stop the fighting, please, Arthur,’ said the Will. ‘My other Parts need to join me as soon as is possible.’

Arthur nodded, and held the Seventh Key tighter as he straightened to his full height. He overtopped Lord Sunday now, he saw, which meant he was around ten feet tall. He also had wings, though he had no memory of putting them on, or indeed of ever procuring wings that shed such brilliant light.

‘Seventh Key,’ said Arthur. ‘Magnify my voice, and let the light of my wings be cast upon all within these Gardens.’

The Key felt warm under his hand. Arthur looked out at all the warring creatures, so tiny and small, and spoke.

‘I am Arthur, Rightful Heir of the Architect, Wielder of the Seven Keys! I command that all fighting must now stop. Let Dame Primus come to the Elysium, and I shall claim my Kingdom!’

His words echoed out all across the Incomparable Gardens and beyond, and with them came a blinding flash of light that emanated from the Seventh Key, a light that was caught up and echoed by all the other Keys, those borne by Dame Primus and by Arthur.

Wherever the light fell, weapons ceased to function, sword-arms tired, and all the fury and hatred were washed away.