Superior Saturday

TWENTY-ONE

A SIX-FOOT-LONG flame of blazing, white-hot intensity struck the worm and ran along its length without touching the Denizen it was trying to eat. She continued to hold its ashy remains for a millisecond, then, as they blew apart in her hands, she clapped and said, ‘Cor!’

‘So you didn’t fail advanced blasting,’ said someone else. ‘Still, something let you down, made you just like us... ow! Another one!’

Flames, shooting sparks and bolts of frost shot out of numerous umbrellas as more of the huge, toothy earthworms thrust through the bars. Denizens shouted and screamed and fought, many falling to Nothing-infested earthworm bites and strangulation, as well as one another’s sorcery.

‘Up! Up!’ someone roared. ‘We have to get clear! This is not the battle!’

‘Could have fooled me,’ grunted someone close by Arthur’s ear, as he blasted another striking worm back into the earth it came from.

‘Up!’

Arthur obeyed the command, backing towards the interior ladder. The Denizens behind him and the Sorcerous Supernumeraries at his side had the luxury of turning around, but the worms kept coming in. A shrinking ring of Denizens and constant sorcerous attacks were all that kept them back.

Finally, there was only Arthur and four other Denizens around the base of the ladder, desperately flaming the boiling sea of worms that was writhing and arching towards them.

‘We can’t climb up – as soon as one goes, they’ll get the rest of us!’ said a Denizen. ‘I knew it would end like this-’

‘Shut up!’ yelled Arthur. There were too many worms, and his lances of flame could only kill a few at once.

There’s so much sorcery happening here, he thought. No one could possibly notice me add some more.

Arthur reached into his coat pocket with his left hand while he batted at a worm with his umbrella, temporarily just a lump of metal and fabric. One-handed, he fumbled open the bag that held the Fifth Key, pushing two fingers in until he touched the cold, smooth glass of the mirror.

‘By the power of the Fifth Key,’ he whispered, so low that he could not even hear himself above the hideous frying sounds of burning worms, ‘destroy all the worms about me. Make them as if they had never been!’

There was an intense flash of light, accompanied by a single pure note of the most beautiful music, and the worms were gone. Even the ash and the burned bits of worm-meat were gone as well, as if they had never existed.

‘Right,’ said Arthur. He could hear shouting, explosions and the hissing sound of fire and destruction spells going on up above. ‘Up!’

The other Denizens looked at him, then turned and climbed at a speed that would have won them approval from Alyse.

‘They are more afraid of you than they are of the worms,’ chuckled the Will. It flew out of Arthur’s sleeve as a three-inch-long raven, and grew to full size as it landed on his shoulder. ‘I should wait a moment before going up. She knows you are here now.’

‘What?’ asked Arthur. ‘But I thought, there is so much sorcery...’

‘Not of the kind made possible by the Keys,’ said the Will. ‘But it is a good time. She is beset by Sunday’s defenders. We will assail her when they have done their work. Best to wait here till then.’

‘Here?’ asked Arthur. As if in answer to his question, the whole rocket shuddered and the floor suddenly dropped several feet and lurched to one side.

‘Maybe not,’ conceded the raven. ‘Quick! Up!’

Arthur went up the ladder and the next and the one after that so fast, he almost felt like he was a rocket himself. But he had to slow down as he caught up to the line of Denizens. They were climbing quickly too, for the rocket was shaking and shifting. Looking back down, where the floors were still illuminated by the fading light from the umbrellas of dead Denizens, Arthur saw that parts of the assault ram had fallen away... or had been torn off.

‘Hurry up!’ shouted the Denizen ahead of Arthur. ‘The ram’s falling apart!’

She looked down and hastily amended, ‘I mean it’s falling back down!’

Arthur looked. The lower floors of the rocket were no longer there. Instead there was a gaping, roughly rocket-sized hole, and at the end of it there were wisps of cloud. A long way below that, he could see a fuzzy green lump that was the top of the tower.

‘Hurry up!’ screamed the Denizen again, and everyone did hurry up, as more and more bits of the rocket fell away below them and went down through the hole to either strike the tower or perhaps make the even longer journey – all twenty-odd thousand feet to the floor of the Upper House.

Arthur burst out on the top floor of the ram like a bubble from the bottom of the bath. The Nothing spike was gone, consumed by its purpose in cutting a way through the bed of the Incomparable Gardens.

Except it hadn’t quite cut all the way through, or rather the rocket hadn’t. Arthur looked around quickly, blinking at the soft, mellow sunlight. The top of the ram was about twenty feet below the rim of the hole made by the spike. Some of the interior ladders from the rocket had been ripped off and propped against the earth. From the shouting and general tumult, Arthur figured that was where everyone had gone.

The floor fell under Arthur’s feet, slipping down several yards. He ran for a ladder and jumped halfway up it. As the floor fell, Arthur sprinted up the rungs, taking four at a time. Three rungs from the top, he hurled himself up with all the energy and concentration of an Olympic high-jumper. The Will helped too, gripping his head and flapping with all its might.

Arthur just made it, landing on the rim of the hole with his legs dangling, his fingers clawing into soft green turf that threatened to give way. Then he was scrabbling forward to safety, as the top floor of the assault ram and a dozen luckless Denizens fell away behind him.

Before Arthur could get his bearings, he was almost cut in two by a pair of giant elongated jaws. Desperately he rolled aside, thrusting his umbrella up at the twelve-foot-long iridescent green beetle that loomed over him.

The beetle grabbed the umbrella and crushed it to bits, which would have been a good tactic against a normal sorcerer. With Arthur, it just gave him time to get the Fifth Key out of the bag. He held it up, focussed his mind upon it, and the beetle inverted to become a mirror image of itself. Then it dwindled like a receding star into a mere pinprick of light.

There were many more beetles, but none were close enough to do harm. Arthur took a few seconds to take stock.

He was standing on a wonderful green lawn of perfect, real turf. It was in the shape of an oval, at least a mile wide, and was surrounded by a low ridge of heather and wildflowers, surmounted by a fringe of majestic red and gold autumnal trees that blocked further sight.

Only a hundred yards away, there was a ring of large silver croquet hoops, and it was here that Saturday and her remaining forces were defending themselves against a tide of long-jawed beetles. A long line of mainly headless Denizen bodies led from the hole behind Arthur to the ring of hoops. There was quite a pile of bodies near Arthur, so he ran over and crouched down behind this makeshift wall. None of the beetles came after him.

‘You’re all right,’ said a voice by Arthur’s knee. He recoiled in horror as a Denizen head without a body scowled up at him. ‘Typical. Everyone else always has the luck, with promotions and everything. We’d better win, is all I can say. Are we winning?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Arthur. It was difficult to tell what was happening. There were still at least a thousand sorcerers, plus Saturday herself. They’d made a kind of shield-ring of open umbrellas, and from behind that they were shooting spells of fire and destruction, explosion and implosion, unravelling and transformation. But there were at least as many of the beetles, and they were ripping sorcerers out of the shield wall and pulling them apart with their long pincer jaws.

‘She’s winning this round,’ said the Will. ‘She’s using the Key on them, as well as ordinary sorcery. Look.’

Saturday loomed tall in the middle of her troops, with two almost-as-tall Denizens at her side. She held the Sixth Key almost casually, like an orchestra conductor might hold her baton. As Arthur watched, she carefully wrote something in the air. A line of cursive, glowing letters twined out of the pen to make a flowing ribbon in the air.

When Saturday finished writing and flicked the pen, the ribbon of words flew over the heads of her sorcerers and bored straight through first one beetle, then another and another and another, as if it were a thread flowing behind the needle of a quick-handed seamstress. Wherever it passed, whether through head or limb or carapace, the beetle fell to the ground and did not move again.

‘I think now is the opportunity,’ said the Will. ‘Claim the Key. It will come to you when you call.’

‘But she’s still got a ton of sorcerers, and those beetles are dropping like... like flies,’ said Arthur.

‘I know, but what else is there to do?’ asked the Will. ‘I told you I’m not so good with plans. Besides, she’s going to notice us in a second.’

‘Think. I have to think,’ muttered Arthur. He looked around. Where could he go if he got the Key? The trees were too far away, and probably housed more horrible insects. He had no idea what lay beyond them. He had no idea if Lord Sunday would intervene, and if he did, on whose side.

Saturday’s use of the Sixth Key had already been decisive, in only a matter of seconds. At least half of Sunday’s beetles lay dead or at least immobile around the ring of defensive umbrellas. More were falling, to the cheers of Saturday’s sorcerers.

‘She’s noticed us,’ said the Will. ‘Sorry about that. I think I moved my wings too much.’

Saturday was staring straight at Arthur, and so were her two cohorts, her Noon and Dusk.

Arthur looked behind him and made a decision. Transferring the Fifth Key to his left hand in one swift motion, he held up his right hand and called out as loudly as he could.

‘I, Arthur, anointed Heir to the Kingdom, claim the Sixth Key-’

Lightning flashed from Saturday’s hand. It forked to her Noon and Dusk, and then forked again to the sorcerers around them, splitting again at the next lot of sorcerers. Within a second, it had a hundred branches, and then in another second, a thousand, the force of Saturday’s spell multiplying exponentially. As all the branches left the last line of outer sorcerers, they combined back to form a lightning strike greater than any ever produced by a natural storm.

The bolt came straight at Arthur. He raised the mirror, thinking to divert or reflect it, but it was too strong. He was blasted off his feet and thrown back twenty... thirty feet... the Will cawing and shrieking at his side.

Arthur hit the dirt on the very edge of the hole. For a second he teetered there, on the brink. His hat fell off the back of his head, and the Will grabbed his arm so hard that golden blood welled up under the bird’s claws as its wings thrashed the air.

‘And with it the Mastery of the Upper House,’ shrieked Arthur as he finally lost his balance. ‘I claim it by blood and bone and contest...’

He fell, but even as he fell, he called out, his words echoing up to Saturday and her sorcerers.

‘Out of truth, in testament, and against all trouble!’