He was interrupted by another fall of Nithlings. Three things that looked like a cross between a lizard and a monkey came sliding down the pyramid and fell through the gaping hole.
Tom’s harpoon leaped into the air with its crackling noise and impaled all three Nithlings, transforming them into harmless puffs of dark vapour. Arthur and Suzy clenched their teeth, but the effect of the harpoon wasn’t so severe when it struck at a distance.
‘The appropriate rank and power,’ continued theWill crossly. ‘One of the other Days would be suitable if it were not for the fact –’
‘They’re a bunch of traitors,’ whispered Suzy.
‘Hurry up!’ Arthur and Grim Tuesday implored together. They glared at each other as they spoke. Arthur did not drop his eyes, though it took all his willpower to meet Grim Tuesday’s angry stare.
‘Quiet!’ bellowed theWill. ‘To cut straight to the heart of the matter, the contest will be judged by the Mariner. Who wants to go first?’
‘I will go first,’ declared Grim Tuesday. ‘But only if you will restore my right to the Key’s powers.’
‘For three minutes,’ the Will conceded. ‘No more. Captain, stand ready for any trickery.’
Arthur was not even mildly surprised to see the grizzly bear pull a large pocket watch out of its nonexistent waistcoat. The Will fiddled with one of the several knobs on the watch, then raised one hairy paw and waved at Grim Tuesday.
‘Begin!’
Grim Tuesday smiled and raised his hands. Arthur and Suzy flinched, but Tom did not seem perturbed.
The Trustee muttered something under his breath. Arthur tried to hear what he said, in case it was some secret to using the Key. Which, he now guessed, must be one of the strange silvered metal gloves that Tuesday wore. Or maybe both gloves, in the same way that the First Key had been a minute hand and hour hand, which united together as a sword.
A gobbet of Nothing came hurtling down through the hole in the pyramid, summoned down by Grim Tuesday. He caught it easily and held it in both hands, in front of his face. He directed his gaze upon it, and the Nothing lost its darkness and began to shine. Grim Tuesday started to shuffle his hands around the shining ball, still muttering.
It shone brighter and brighter as the Grim moved his hands in short, sharp gestures. He kept talking under his breath, but Arthur couldn’t hear him. Even with his star-hood still on, he couldn’t look directly at whatever Tuesday was doing to the gobbet.
TheWill’s watch chimed, three falling notes.
‘Time!’ called the grizzly.
Grim Tuesday grasped the dazzling object he’d made and lowered it to the park bench. The light slowly faded to reveal a fourteen-inch-high tree made of precious metals. Its trunk and branches were platinum shot with gold, and its thousand leaves were beaten gold, veined with silver. The leaves caught the breeze coming down through the hole in the pyramid and made a sound like a windswept xylophone.
It was the most beautiful object Arthur had ever seen. But only a fleeting smile of satisfaction passed over Grim Tuesday’s face.
‘Arthur can do better than that standing on ’is head,’ said Suzy, but her heart wasn’t in it.
‘Give Arthur the Second Key,’ instructed theWill.
Grim Tuesday scowled and slowly stripped off the silver gauntlets. When they were off, he held them for several seconds before reluctantly handing them to Arthur.
As Arthur took the gauntlets, two yellow envelopes materialised in the air above them. Grim Tuesday snatched them out of the air. He grunted as he read the address on the first one and threw it at Arthur’s feet. The second one he ripped open and read quickly. Then he turned to theWill.
‘Yan warns that the whole eastern buttress of the lower Pit is leaking Nothing,’ Grim Tuesday reported. ‘It will fail within the hour if I am not there to repair it! End this ridiculous contest now and return the Key to me!’
Arthur put the surprisingly light gauntlets under his arm and picked up the other telegram, which was addressed to him asMaster of the Lower House. He opened it and read:
ARTHUR SHOW WILL ATLAS HELP
COMING HOLD ON BE BRAVE DAME
PRIMUS
‘The competition has begun and it must finish,’ the Will was saying as Arthur read the telegram. ‘Arthur, you must begin immediately.’
Arthur handed the telegram to Suzy and put on the gauntlets. While they appeared to be made out of flexible silver metal bound with gold, they didn’t feel cold or metallic. In fact, they were soft and warm and felt very comfortable. Arthur found himself standing straighter once they were on, and he felt more confident.
I bet the Second Key works just like the First Key or the Atlas, he thought. I just have to think what I want them to do and say it aloud. That’s why Grim Tuesday was muttering –
‘Begin!’
‘Get me a gobbet of Nothing!’ called out Arthur as he raised his hands and looked up to the broken pane of the pyramid.
‘A small gobbet!’ he hastily added as he saw several huge gobbets head towards him.
They swerved aside, and a football-sized gobbet of Nothing came sailing down through the hole. Arthur raised his hands to catch it, fighting down his apprehension and all thoughts of what might happen if he fumbled and it landed on his unprotected face.
He didn’t fumble the catch. Once he had the gobbet firmly in his grasp, he went to work. He’d already thought of what he would make, ironically inspired by the sound of Grim Tuesday’s precious-metal tree.
Arthur knew he had no hope of matching Grim Tuesday’s artistry with a sculpture or a painting or anything like that. But what he intended to do might not work either. It all depended on what criteria Tom was judging the results on.
‘My xylophone,’ he muttered to himself, as he pictured it in his head. ‘The one Dad and Mum gave me for my sixth birthday, that Dad borrowed all the time. With wooden bars on a metal frame, and two mallets.’
He tried to stretch and shape the gobbet with his gauntlets as he focused his mind on remembering the xylophone. It was hard to tell if it was working, but the gobbet was shining, though not as much as it had for Grim Tuesday. Or perhaps it was, Arthur saw, as he took a swift look at everyone else shielding their eyes.
But I can only spend a minute getting this xylophone, Arthur thought desperately. How do I know when it’s ready?
His fingers twitched without Arthur meaning them to.
Was that a sign from the Key?
Arthur’s fingers twitched again. Taking the second twitch as a definite sign, Arthur gently put the glowing former gobbet onto the ground and stepped back. The glow faded, and there on the grass was Arthur’s xylophone, with its two mallets.
‘Is that it?’ asked Suzy.
In answer, Arthur clumsily knelt down and picked up the mallets. He took a deep breath, something he wasn’t able to do the last time he played, and immediately started the tune that he’d spent two years composing, from when he was eight to almost ten. It was his thank-you song, composed for Bob and Emily, to express his gratitude for them adopting him. It started off sad and slow and quiet, and got happy and loud.
He didn’t think it was the greatest song in the world, but he’d composed it himself, and it did express something of what he felt when he learned he was adopted, how he’d come to terms with it, and how grateful he was to be in a family that loved him and accepted him and treated him no differently than any of his other siblings.
He finished just as theWill called, ‘Time!’
The last fading note of the xylophone merged with the watch’s third chime.
There was silence for a moment, then Grim Tuesday gave a scornful laugh and held out his hand for the gauntlets. But the Will stepped between him and Arthur.
‘We must await the adjudication,’ it said sniffily. ‘Captain?’
Tom looked down at Grim Tuesday’s gold-and-platinum tree and scratched his chin.
‘That’s a beautiful piece of work,’ he said. ‘There’s not many that could work a masterpiece out of Nothing. A real work of genius.’
Arthur’s heart sank. He’d gambled on what he’d heard about Grim Tuesday’s nature and what Tom might think was important, and he’d lost. Even if Grim Tuesday did let themgo as he’d promised, and if he went down and stopped the Nothing breaking out, Arthur’s family would still lose everything. Maybe the whole world would slide into an economic depression, and all because Arthur couldn’t do –
‘A real work of genius,’ Tom repeated. ‘Only not your genius, Lord Tuesday.’
‘I made it!’ roared Grim Tuesday. ‘I wrought it from Nothing!’
‘But it is a copy,’ insisted Tom. ‘I have seen it before, though you have replaced silver with platinum. It was in the workshop of del Moro in Rome, upon the old Earth, when I was master of a Genoese trader, buying candlesticks and silver-gilt basins on my own account. I saw it again, in a much later time, in the collection of Froment-Meurice. I suppose the original is now in your Treasure Tower.’
Tom turned to Arthur and continued. ‘Arthur’s tune, on the other hand, I have not heard, and I have heard many songs. It made me think of returning home from a long, lonely voyage to a glad welcome, but also gave me the joy of boarding a new vessel, the deck fresh-scrubbed and the tide about to turn. I declare Arthur the winner of the competition!’
‘No!’ screamed Grim Tuesday. ‘No!’
He threw himself at Arthur and his pallid, wiry fingers gripped Arthur’s hands, lifting the boy bodily off the ground. But when the Grim tried to pull off the gloves, they wouldn’t budge. Arthur’s arms were almost wrenched out of their sockets and he was flung all over the place as Grim Tuesday raged and pulled, till he was restrained by Tom and theWill.
Even those two powerful individuals had trouble holding Grim Tuesday back, till Arthur held out his palms and yelled, ‘Stop!’
The gloves wriggled against his skin, and Arthur felt the zap of an electric charge cross the air. He didn’t see anything, but Grim Tuesday suddenly stopped struggling and became still. As still as a statue.
‘You must claim the Second Key properly, milord,’ said the Will rather humbly. ‘Repeat after me: I, Arthur, anointed Heir to the Kingdom, claim this Key and with it the Mastery of the Far Reaches. I claim it by blood and bone and contest, out of truth, in testament, and against all trouble.’
Arthur quietly repeated the claim. His left side twinged as he spoke, reminding him of when he’d claimed Monday’s key. He also felt the gloves move on his hands, wriggling about till they fitted most comfortably.
‘Well done, Arthur! Like a walk in the park!’ declared Suzy. The fact that she could hardly stand up and her nose and chin were caked in blood somewhat lessened the effect of this statement. She clapped Arthur on the back, making him lose his balance and once more reminding him of his misshapen leg.
‘You shall not have long to enjoy your triumph,’ whispered Grim Tuesday. ‘When the eastern buttress fails, Nothing will burst forth and destroy us all!’
TWENTY-ONE
ARTHUR CLOSED HIS EYES for a second and tried to summon up all his remaining strength. Grim Tuesday was defeated. He had the Second Key. But he felt no thrill of victory, because he still hadn’t won. He couldn’t rest, or go home, or do anything he really wanted. He had to take on yet another huge problem that he was quite unsuited for and totally unprepared to deal with.
‘I’ll fix the buttress,’ he said. ‘Will you tell me how to do it?’
Grim Tuesday snarled and spat at Arthur’s feet.
‘I have lost the Key,my domain, and allmy treasures,’ he growled. ‘But I shall have the satisfaction of returning to the void with them around me, and my enemies in confusion!’
‘That means no,’ said Suzy helpfully.
‘I suppose I’ll just have to work it out.’ Arthur looked out through the glass wall to the smog-shrouded Pit. ‘Only, how do I get down there quickly enough?’
‘You can’t,’ sneered Grim Tuesday. ‘The buttress can hold for less than an hour, yet even my train takes days to reach the face of the Pit!’
‘But you were going to get there,’ said Arthur. ‘You said you would fix the buttress. So there has to be a way.’
‘You can’t fly,’ said Suzy as she looked up towards the ceiling. ‘Not with all those gobbets floating around.’
‘Tom? Do you know a way to the bottom of the Pit?’
‘Nay, save for the Improbable Stair,’ replied Tom. ‘But it would be very dangerous, so close to so much Nothing. The Stair skirts Nothing closely everywhere, but never so close as here. I doubt that Grim Tuesday would risk the Stair himself.’
‘You can compel Grim Tuesday to answer your questions with the Key,’ said the Will. ‘It will harm him, but that is of little account. You must not allow Nothing to break out. I suggest you move swiftly, milord Arthur.’
‘If you’d helped me in the first place, then we’d have more time,’ Arthur pointed out bitterly.
Something caught his eye over in the smog. A flicker of light, then another. It was not the red flare of the distress rockets, but steady beams of light coming down from the ceiling.
‘Elevators!’ Suzy exclaimed, following his look.
‘Dame Primus, I guess,’ said Arthur. ‘Late and useless as usual.’
He turned back to Grim Tuesday. The Denizen seemed shorter than he had been and less fierce. Diminished in all respects.
Arthur reluctantly raised his hands, then dropped them as a thought struck him.
‘Elevators! There must be an elevator to the bottom of the Pit!Where is it?’