"I don't want to make a mistake," said the Will softly. "Better not to make a decision than to make a mistake."
"The whole House is going to fall down if you don't make a decision!" Arthur argued. "Everything the Architect made will return to Nothing. You have to choose me? or Grim Tuesday, and Grim Tuesday has already gone against the Architect's Will."
The Nithling above stopped making holes and started punching the side of the pyramid. The glass didn't shatter, but cracks began to appear.
The Will stood up on its hind legs. The sun blaze upon its chest grew brighter and brighter, and its fur became less furlike and more full of words. It grew larger, the words spreading out, weaving a larger body. It changed shape, continuing to grow, though it still remained a bear.
"I will be strong," it said. The blaze on its chest turned black and the words that made it up darkened and became furlike once more. It now stood almost as tall as Grim Tuesday, and was twice his bulk. No longer a sun bear, but an imperial grizzly of forbidding aspect. "I will stand by my decision with tooth and claw. I am the Second Part of the Will of the Architect, and I say the Second Key must be -"
Just then, a huge square of glass exploded, and the half-insect Nithling leaped down with a chittering scream.
Chapter Twenty
Huge shards of glass came falling down, shining in the artificial sunlight from the panels in the ceiling high above. The Nithling fell between the shards, screaming its strange insectoid scream.
For an instant, everyone stood still, staring up. Then Arthur dived under the stone bench just as Suzy dived from the opposite direction. The Will grabbed a palm tree and uprooted it, holding it over its head like an umbrella.
Grim Tuesday stood his ground, raised his hands, and shouted? but nothing happened. His mouth gaped in surprise, for he had forgotten that the Will had revoked his power over the Second Key.
Tom spun his harpoon above his head and shouted a word in the strange rasping language he used for his magic. Arthur and Suzy clapped their hands over their ears, but it was no good. The pain struck them, eating into their jawbones as the harpoon shone with its arctic glow. The light caught the falling glass, and suddenly it wasn't glass anymore, but a great wave of freezing sea-water.
The wave crashed down, sweeping Arthur and Suzy out from under the bench. It carried them about ten yards away, depositing them all tossed together against a stand of trees.
Both Grim Tuesday and Tom had managed to stand against the wave. Now they faced the Nithling, which jumped at Tuesday, gripping his jerkin with its spiky insectoid legs as it raised its elbows to spike into his head.
Tom raised his harpoon, but could not strike without spearing Grim Tuesday as well. But his intervention was not needed. Even without the power of the Second Key, Grim Tuesday was a mighty Denizen. He gripped the Nithling's arms and with a sound like a lobster being cracked open, he split the thing completely in half. He threw the remains into an ornamental pool, where the thing's Nothingrich blood bubbled away.
Grim Tuesday snorted, bent down, and wiped his gauntlets clean on the grass. Arthur and Suzy straightened themselves out, and the Will thrust its tree umbrella back into the ground.
"As I was saying," it boomed, "the Second Key will go to the winner of an appropriate contest, the two contestants being Arthur Penhaligon and Grim Tuesday."
"What?!" exclaimed Arthur. He looked up at the mass of gobbets floating around above the pyramid and the distant flare of the distress rockets coming out of the Pit. "We haven't got time -"
"I am ready for any competition," declared Grim Tuesday, clapping his gloves together. They sounded like crashing cymbals and didn't do anything for Arthur's confidence. "What is it to be? Mortal combat?"
"Naturally not," said the Will. "In keeping with the powers of the Second Key, it shall be a contest of making. In light of the urgency of the Nothing situation, it shall be an expedited competition. Each of you shall be allowed three minutes with the Second Key to create a work of art. The creator of the greater work will win the competition and be declared either the Trustee or the Rightful Heir to the Second Key and shall assume the Mastery of the Far Reaches."
"But I've never even used the Second Key!" protested Arthur.
"Wot a swizzle!" said Suzy. "I've played fairer games of Uncle Jack." "I have made my decision!" roared the Will. Arthur opened his mouth to protest again, but didn't. As a huge grizzly, the Will was considerably harder to take lightly. "All that remains is to appoint a judge. Naturally it must be someone of appropriate rank -"
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 vapor. 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 the Will 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 the Will. "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 a clock 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.
The Will'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.