by Garth Nix
She practically threw him onto the ladder. Arthur dropped the harpoon as he grabbed the bottom rung, but it didn’t fall. It just disappeared.
‘Don’t come back to me,’ muttered Arthur under his breath as he clambered up. At the top, he turned and reached back to help Suzy. The water was really boiling now all along the sunship, and Arthur could see a red glow spreading through the clear blue-green sea.
Suzy leaped aboard with alacrity, hardly needing Arthur’s help.
‘Shut the hatch and dog it!’ roared Tom from somewhere inside.
Arthur pulled and Suzy pushed on the hatch. It was very heavy, made of the same golden metal as the hull, and at least a foot thick. It moved very slowly along a top and bottom rail. As it closed, Arthur saw dozens of gouts of steam explode up through the waves outside. The columns of steam were motionless for a second, then all turned towards the still open hatch.
‘Sunsprites!’ shouted Arthur. ‘Lots of them!’
He gave up pulling the hatch and ran around to help Suzy push.
‘Heave!’ he yelled. ‘One, two, three – heave!’
A ropy arm of fire thrust itself inside just as the hatch rolled shut. Cut off, it rolled and twisted around Arthur’s and Suzy’s feet, till Suzy stamped on it. Its fire went out and it collapsed into black dust.
Arthur picked up the long metal bar and slid it in place, locking the hatch. He’d barely got it in place when there was a sudden beating on the hull, a sound like many hammers striking metal.
‘I hope they can’t get in,’ said Suzy. ‘I lost my cutlass in the sea.’
‘So did I,’ gasped Arthur, feeling his side. He couldn’t remember when he’d last had it. ‘Let’s get some more. I’m not using that harpoon again.’
‘All hands to the bridge!’ Tom bellowed.
Arthur and Suzy hurried along the passage and then up to the bridge. Tom was steering the wheel with one hand and reaching out to pull levers with the other. Through one blue porthole, Arthur and Suzy saw the island, now hidden in steam and smoke. The other porthole showed only bright light and indistinct figures that had to be Sunsprites. The metal hammering noise was just as loud here, making it hard to hear and even harder to concentrate.
‘They’re trying to tow us somewhere,’ said Tom. ‘But we’ve got the solar wind with us. Grab those two levers and pull back as hard as you can.’
Arthur and Suzy hurried over to the levers, jumping across the dormant Will. It was lying on the floor behind Tom, still asleep or unconscious.
The levers were much harder to pull down than Arthur expected. In the end, he and Suzy had to hang on to each one to drag them down into position.
‘Sunsprites are trying to spoil our rigging, but the Helios is a tough ship,’ shouted Tom. ‘Tuesday might be a penny-pinching slaver, but he can make a good vessel.’
‘Grim Tuesday made the Helios?’ shouted Arthur.
‘Aye, he did,’ roared Tom, even his mighty voice almost lost in the constant hammering ring. ‘Copied, of course, from some inventor out in the Secondary Realms. Not from Earth, for a change. ProbablyDDDDDDDDor Æ
‘Where?’ asked Arthur. ‘Who?’
He couldn’t even begin to understand the noises Tom had just made, which he presumed were names of other worlds. Or maybe just countries. Or maybe they were the inventors’ names.
Tom didn’t answer. He was intent on a gauge that was slowly filling with a red dye. As it got to two-thirds full, he spun the wheel and held it fast, straining against some unseen pressure. The gauge almost immediately became totally suffused with the red dye and stayed full.
‘A good wind and both sails taut,’ shouted Tom. ‘They’re trying to hold us back, but they’ll fall away. Aye, there they go!’
Arthur couldn’t see anything in the portholes, or at least he couldn’t be sure what he was seeing. But the hammering lessened, and the indistinct shapes in the brightness were no longer all over the place but bunched up in the bottom corners of the portholes. From there, they slowly disappeared.
After five minutes, there was no more hammering. Tom relaxed a little at the wheel, though he didn’t lash it or let go.
‘We’ll be returned to our mooring afore too long with this wind,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Then back into the House in a trice.’
‘And we’ll get back only a minute or so after we left?’ asked Arthur. He was thinking about the telegram in his pocket and what Grim Tuesday would do. And the even bigger question: What was he going to do with a sleeping Will?
‘As long as it takes to speak both spells, the embarkation and disembarkation,’ replied Tom. He frowned and added, ‘I trust you’ll do something with that Will. I’ve no more mind to follow Grim Tuesday than I ever did, but if he commands me in person with the power of the Second Key, I must obey without question or slipperiness. I don’t want my friend to shorten your future.’
Arthur and Suzy shook their heads in an instant mutual reaction.
‘Why is nothing ever easy?’ asked Arthur. ‘I just want theWill to wake up and tell Tuesday to hand over the Key to me. Then I can sort everything out, get back home, and forget about this blasted House and everything in it!’
‘It could be worse,’ said Suzy philosophically. ‘We could be soaking wet.’
Arthur let a slight chuckle escape as he walked around the sun bear.
‘And I could be having an asthma attack. And all our teeth might fall out because of . . .’
He glanced at Tom and decided not to say anything about the harpoon. Maybe it had feelings and would be offended. Or Tom might be.
Arthur stopped circling the sun bear and took a series of breaths, each one a little deeper than the last. Now he was outside the House, he couldn’t quite fill his lungs, the familiar catch still lurking there, but it could hardly be called asthma. It was just a minor annoyance. Nothing compared to his short, twisted leg.
Forget about the leg, he told himself. Get on with it.
‘Okay, I have to wake theWill up.How do you wake up a sleeping bear?Or a hibernating one? Does anyone know?’
Suzy shook her head. Tom adjusted the wheel, then almost absently said, ‘I know sun bears don’t hibernate.’
‘They don’t?’
Tom shook his head, and, out of the corner of his eye, Arthur saw the Will’s eye flicker too. Just a rapid, momentary lift of an eyelid so it could get a snapshot of the room and the situation.
‘It’s not even asleep,’ cried Arthur, crouching down next to the bear. He tapped it on the snout and said, ‘Wake up, Part Two of theWill.’
Nothing happened.
‘Tell it who you are,’ suggested Suzy. ‘I mean, the Master and everything.’
‘I’m Arthur Penhaligon. Master of the Lower House. Rightful Heir to . . . uh . . . the Keys to the Kingdom, the Lower House, the Middle House, the Upper House . . . um . . . the Far Reaches –’
‘The Great Maze, the Incomparable Gardens, and the Border Sea,’ recited Suzy, helping Arthur out.
‘Says who?’
For a second Arthur didn’t know who’d spoken, till he saw the corner of the sun bear’s mouth lift up. It had a high-pitched, squeaky drawl, and it could speak with barely a movement of its snout or lips.
‘Says Paragraphs Three to Seven of the Will, who chose me in the first place,’ said Arthur angrily. ‘I didn’t want the job, but I’ve got it, so you can get up and help me out.’
The Will opened one eye fully and slowly looked Arthur up and down. ‘How do I know you’re telling the truth? You could be anyone.Where’s the First Key if you’re Master of the Lower House?’
‘I made Dame Primus – that is, the first part of the Will – my Steward,’ Arthur answered, trying to muster authority into his voice. ‘She’s got the Key. I need you to make Grim Tuesday hand over the Second Key to me, so you’d better stay awake and start thinking about doing it.’
‘Not as easy as that,’ said the Will. Its high-pitched voice was quite annoying. ‘I need to see
it in writing that you’re the Rightful Heir. Proper official notice from Dame Primus. Part One chooses the heir, fair enough, but the least she can do is the proper notification. I can’t do a thing without it. Wouldn’t be prudent. Don’t bother me again unless you’ve got the notice.’
It shut its eyes. Arthur reached forward and tapped it smartly on the nose, then retreated even more smartly as one claw snapped out and raked the air where his hand had been an instant before.
‘I said, don’t bother me,’ squeaked the Will. ‘I’m meditating.’
‘Even more irritating than the first bit,’ remarked Suzy. ‘Though I s’pose it’s a benefit not having it in your throat.’
‘We’ll have to get it – and ourselves – away from Grim Tuesday, out of the pyramid, and up to the Lower House,’ said Arthur. ‘Somehow or other. Did Dame Primus tell you what to do once we got theWill?’
‘Nope,’ said Suzy. ‘Maybe I should’ve asked, from experience, like. With her last plan coming unstuck and everything.’
‘This one’s come unstuck too,’ said Arthur. He scratched his head. ‘We’ve got an hour or so sailing back, haven’t we, Captain?’
‘Half that, or maybe a third,’ replied Tom. ‘The solar wind is with us now.’
‘So we come back out a few minutes after we left,’ said Arthur, as he paced lopsidedly around the bridge. ‘Surely it’ll take Grim Tuesday ten minutes to get up to your room, Captain?’
‘Depends. There are weirdways inside the Treasure Tower. If he climbs the stairs at his usual pace, it’ll be ten minutes or more.’
‘Weirdways? In the prison . . . I mean the Tower? Where?’
‘Ah, a slip of the tongue there,’ Tom said with a twinkle in his eye. ‘I’ve been expressly ordered not to mention the weirdways. Can’t tell anyone where they are either, though I suppose I might nod my head or give a wink, if someone was to ask where they’re not or suchlike roundabout questions.’
‘Grim Tuesday wouldn’t put a weirdway right into the chamber with the bottles,’ said Arthur slowly, watching Tom’s face. ‘But he might put one close . . . like the cell next door . . .’
Tom slowly winked.
‘Even if someone did put a weirdway in a cell next door, they’d be sure to disguise it,’ continued Arthur. ‘Like maybe behind something on the wall. Or behind a trapdoor in the floor. Or the ceiling. Or disguised as something else –’
Tom nodded slowly at the last sentence.
‘How would you disguise the entry to a weirdway, Suzy?’ asked Arthur. ‘How are they normally disguised?’
‘Could be anything,’ snorted Suzy. She glanced at Tom and said, ‘A cup of water is quite common. Or a teapot. Or a candlestick. Sometimes a book. Or a painting. A hook on the wall. I remember an old geezer had one you got in through a coin stuck to the floor. Then there’s flowers. A loose brick. Mirrors is popular. Water closet, though that’s disgustin’ and not proper. A chest or drawer. Maybe a box of some kind. Wardrobes. Cigarette case. A pianoforte or harpsichordicle. Clocks –’
She stopped. Tom had winked at ‘clocks.’
‘So a clock in one of the neighbouring cells is the entry to a weirdway. I wonder where it comes out? I guess it must still be inside the pyramid, since Grim Tuesday is so paranoid about keeping people out.’
‘I wonder if he left the door open?’ mused Suzy.
‘You said he lifted the west side of the pyramid to get in,’ said Arthur to Tom. ‘Can you talk about that?’
‘The entire west face of the pyramid is hinged as a door,’ said Tom. ‘It’s no secret, for no one else is strong enough to lift it. Even I could not open that door. Not alone.’
‘And all my power’s gone,’ said Arthur.
‘Maybe he left it open,’ suggested Suzy. ‘He was in a hurry.’
Arthur shook his head. ‘Leave open the door to all his treasures? I doubt it.’
‘Just being optimistic,’ said Suzy. ‘You should try it. It doesn’t hurt. Least, it doesn’t hurt me.Maybe it would give you a pain in the midsection.’
Arthur ignored the comment. His mind was racing over the possibilities, trying to work out what to do.
‘We’ll have to get Grim Tuesday to open the pyramid for us,’ he said. ‘Or maybe Soot. It must have got even bigger and stronger from eating the Grim’s treasures –’
‘Ah, the Nithling,’ interrupted Tom. ‘I fear that it will not be able to serve you. I am sure that Grim Tuesday will call upon me to slay it immediately. I am surprised he did not send a telegram to that effect. It is his preferred means of communication, fitting for one so mean with words.’
‘Oh, yeah, right,’ said Arthur. He slipped his hand into his pocket and felt the telegram there. He’d hoped it had become a sodden, unreadable mess, but the brightcoat had kept it dry, or had dried it out perfectly. ‘Sure. I guess you chasing around after Soot will distract Grim Tuesday anyway. That’s better than nothing . . .’
Arthur’s voice trailed off as a thought slowly rose to the front of his mind.
‘Telegrams,’ he said.
‘What?’ asked Suzy.
‘Telegrams!’
‘What about telegrams?’
Arthur clutched Tom’s sleeve. ‘If you can receive telegrams in your room, does that mean you can send them?’
‘Aye, if I’ve the coins to pay. Grim Tuesday allows nothing on account.’
‘Have you got any coins?’ asked Arthur feverishly. ‘I mean can you lend me some?’
‘Only the coins in my ears, for paying Davy Jones in case of drowning,’ said Tom, pushing back his greying hair to show two large gold coins hanging from his earlobes. ‘Superstition, I know, but I’ve grown accustomed . . . Anyways, once we’re ashore you can have the loan of one of them. I need to be keeping one, against unfortunate circumstance.’
‘Would it be enough?’ asked Arthur, eyeing the coin. It looked pretty thick and heavy. The laurel-crowned head stamped into it looked pretty smug and self-satisfied too about being on such a valuable coin. ‘To send a telegram and pay for a reply?’
‘Aye, it should.Who would you send it to?’
‘Dame Primus. Then she can send one back confirming that I’m the heir. I show that to this . . . to the sun bear. It sorts out Grim Tuesday. Everything’ll be okay!’
EIGHTEEN
‘TELEGRAM’S NOT GOOD enough,’ said the sun bear without opening its eyes. ‘When I say proper notification, I mean proper. Stamped and sealed.’
‘You’re a proper pain, aren’t you?’ commented Suzy. But theWill didn’t respond.
‘I’ll send the telegram anyway,’ said Arthur, with as much conviction as he could muster. His brilliant idea didn’t seem so brilliant now. ‘Maybe Dame Primus can help us escape from the Tower and the pyramid. Or send the proper notification some other way . . . or something. I guess we’ll just have to try to get out ourselves in the meantime. And make sure Grim Tuesday doesn’t find us.’
‘Good idea,’ said Suzy. ‘Only we can’t carry the bear. Not without the Captain.’
‘I thought I was the one who needed optimism,’ Arthur reminded her. He prodded the sun bear’s rear with the toe of his Immaterial Boot. ‘It can walk. How about that, Will? You should come with us just in case I do turn out to be the Rightful Heir, which everybody tells me I am.’
‘I’m not going anywhere till I have adequately assessed the situation,’ said the sun bear, still without opening its eyes. ‘It would not be prudent to move until I have considered all possibilities, or must comply with appropriate authority.’
‘You’re not staying on board the Helios,’ announced Tom. He turned from the wheel and stooped down to look at the sun bear. ‘Part Two of the Will, do you know who I am?’
‘No,’ said the sun bear, squeezing its eyes even more shut. ‘Nor do I care to play twenty questions to discover your dubious identity.’
Tom held out his hand. There was a rush of cold air, and his strangely dark and bright harpoon appeared in h
is hand. He tilted it down, till the point touched the deck a few inches from the sun bear’s nose.
Arthur and Suzy retreated to the companionway and took a few steps down, almost falling over each other in their haste.
The sun bear reluctantly opened one eye.
‘Do you know me now?’ growled Tom.
The sun bear opened its other eye, lifted its snout with obvious effort, and sniffed the air several times.
‘The Old One’s second son,’ it squeaked.
‘The Architect’s adopted son.’
‘Yes, yes,’ admitted the sun bear. ‘That is true enough.’
‘And I say Arthur is the Master of the Lower House and so must have been chosen as the Rightful Heir.’
The sun bear rolled its eyes and gave an annoyed snort.
‘Character witnesses are all very well, but I stand by my position. I will not act on behalf of anyone until I am in receipt of the correct notification from Dame Primus.’
Tom scraped the point of the harpoon across the deck towards the sun bear’s snout. It made a nerve-jangling, harmonic sound that filled the bridge and made Arthur and Suzy take several steps down the ladder.
But the sun bear did not retreat. It merely pulled back its head.
‘Nor am I moved by threats!’ it added.
‘This is not a threat, you furry backslider,’ Tom roared. ‘But if you won’t at least go along with Arthur, then I’ll see ifMother’s gift can spill some ofMother’s words out of your gizzard.’
The sun bear looked distastefully at Arthur and wrinkled its nose.
‘I suppose that I have to go somewhere, since my pleasant retreat has been destroyed. Perhaps, ipso facto, pursuant to the circumstances, I may accompany this potential heir-designate until further information is forthcoming one way or another.’
‘Pleasant retreat!’ said Arthur. ‘That was a prison – you . . . you were supposed to break out of it and do your duty. Let theWill be done, my foot!’
‘I trusted that I would be released at the correct and proper moment to fulfill my obligations,’ said the Will stiffly. ‘Certainly not rousted out by such an unorthodox . . . ahem . . . party, with such peculiar –’
