“No sign of the pig thing,” said Suzy. “But Uggie’s keeping watch.”
“Never thought I’d go for a ride on a Paper Pusher’s raft,” said Fred. “Particularly not when I was up for another ninety-nine years of service in the Army before I could even get back to Letterer’s Lark.”
“Still want to be a General, Fred?” asked Arthur.
Fred shook his head slowly and fingered the line of writing around his neck.
“In whose army?” he said. “I don’t reckon Marshal Noon or anyone would trust me now.”
“I’m sure that can be removed,” said Arthur. “Dr. Scamandros, or Dame Primus-”
“Can you do it now?” asked Suzy. “I just can’t stand having to obey the-”
“Suzy! Stop!” both Fred and Arthur interrupted, but it was too late.
“-the Piper,” finished Suzy and as the word left her mouth, the line on her throat gave out a low, whistling hum and both boys saw it suddenly contract on Suzy’s throat.
Suzy coughed once and fell to the floor, sliding down to Arthur’s feet. Her face went bright red and she scratched desperately at her neck, the writing there stark white against the red, irritated skin.
“Arthur!” shouted Fred. “Do something!”
Arthur hesitated, but only for a second. He didn’t really have a choice. He drew the baton that was the Fourth Key and held it against Suzy’s throat as she thrashed at his feet.
“Release Suzy from the Piper’s bonds,” he said quietly.
A faint glow of green light appeared around the baton, and a similar glow surrounded Suzy’s throat. It grew brighter for an instant, bright as an emerald in the sun, then disappeared, taking with it the line of type that forced Suzy to the Piper’s service.
As Suzy took in a deep, racking breath, Arthur stood up and held the baton to Fred’s throat, repeating the process.
It only took a few seconds to release both of them. Arthur sat back down, put the baton on his lap, and raised his empty hand. The crocodile ring on his finger caught the light, glinting in almost equal parts silver and gold. Arthur had to look at it more closely to see that, as he had expected, the gold had crept farther past the fifth line.
“You did that on purpose, didn’t you, Suzy?” he said bitterly. “To make me use the Key.”
“I didn’t really mean to, Arthur,” said Suzy, though her voice lacked conviction. “It just came out!”
“Sure,” said Arthur. He shook his head in exasperation.
“Thanks, though,” said Suzy. She punched Arthur lightly on the shoulder, but he did not react and she stepped back.
“Yes, thank you, Arthur,” said Fred. “It was more than a bit of a worry, you know, not knowing if it was going to choke me sometime. Or cut my head off.”
Arthur didn’t answer. He was furious with Suzy for forcing him to use the Key, but he was also angry with himself for being furious, because it felt so mean not to help his friends when they needed it, just to save himself from becoming a Denizen.
The three of them sat in silence for a few minutes, neither Suzy nor Fred looking up at Arthur. He, in turn, looked down and turned the crocodile ring on his finger so that only the silver side showed. Then he turned it again, back to the gold, and kept on turning, till at last he sighed and looked up.
“What’s Ugham going to do?” asked Arthur.
“I think he’ll be all right,” said Fred. “The Newniths are funny. The ones we were with kept talking about gardening. They’re good soldiers, but they don’t like soldiering, I reckon. They owe the Piper because he made them, but they don’t volunteer to do anything.”
“Uggie’s said he’ll only do what he was ordered to do,” said Suzy. “Look after us. ‘Course, if he gets new orders, that’s different.”
“We’ll have to be careful,” said Arthur.
“Look on the bright side, Arthur,” said Suzy. “Now-”
“What bright side?” interrupted Arthur crossly. “You just don’t take anything seriously, Suzy!”
“She really didn’t mean to make you use the Key,
Arthur,” said Fred cautiously. “Maybe you should say sorry, Suzy.”
“Sorry,” muttered Suzy.
Arthur let out an exasperated sigh, and with it, most of his anger. He never could stay angry with Suzy, even though he knew she had almost gotten herself killed just then on purpose, to make him use his power and free her from the Piper’s compulsion.
“Oh, forget it!” he said. “Okay! Tell me what the bright side is.”
“Now you can tell us what we’re going to do so you can get the Key and fix Friday for good and proper!”
“Yes!” said Fred, his face brightening. “What’s the plan?”
Arthur frowned again, this time in thought, not anger.
“You do have a plan, don’t you?” asked Fred.
“Yes,” admitted Arthur. “But I’m not sure it’s a very good one. We’ll need to find a sorcerer, for a start. Or somehow get in touch with Dr. Scamandros. Or I suppose we might be able to find out what we need to know some other way. Or-”
“How about you tell us the plan?” said Suzy. “Before the others come back in? Between Fred and me, we can probably fix it up.”
“Thanks!” said Arthur, not without sarcasm. “It is pretty basic. First, the Piper and Saturday will both go for Lady Friday’s Scriptorium to try to seize the Key. They’ll expect me to do the same, and I guess that’s what Friday would predict I’d do. But I think I’ll try to find the Fifth Part of the Will first, which may or may not be in the Scriptorium but probably is in the Middle House. And I have a way to find the Will. At least I think I do, if I can get a sorcerer to do a simple spell. If there are any sorcerers in the Middle House ....”
“Sorcerers?” asked Fred. “Depends on what kind of sorcery. There’s heaps of Denizens who use sorcery up in the Top Shelf. Most of the High Guild, though they’re not exactly what you’d call full sorcerers, like that Dr. Scamandros. Binding and Restoration, that’s mostly sorcery anyway. What do you want one of them to do?”
Arthur was about to answer when the door flung open and Pirkin leaned in, his face framed by a flurry of snow. An icicle fell off his nose and bounced on the stone floor.
“All hands on deck!” he said. “There’s some kind of battle going on above us, up under the sky!”
Chapter Fourteen
It was cold out on deck, colder than it had been before, but it was no longer snowing. The raft, traveling up the canal at a sharp angle, was already breaking through the low clouds, and the sky around them was clear and much lighter, though it did grow darker again overhead. Arthur could see a slice of the sun on the far horizon, where it had presumably stuck, its light falling in a tight band that did not extend to the top of the canal.
There were some other lights in the darkness above, twinkling faux stars on the underside of the intermediate roof. Somewhere unseen up there was the skylock through which the canal would pass.
As Arthur stared up, he saw half a dozen new stars move swiftly across the sky, till one of them suddenly exploded into many smaller, fiery fragments that rained down in a quickly fading shower. The other five swerved away and grew fainter, till they disappeared again.
“A skirmish of the air,” said Ugham. “I know not the combatants. One side is lit fair, the other stalks in darkness. Ah, the light-bearers come again!”
He pointed at a different quarter of the sky. This time more than a dozen stars were moving in an arrowhead formation towards the point where the explosion had been. The stars grew brighter as they crossed the sky, and Arthur realized that they were drawing closer to the raft, descending as well as moving horizontally.
“Who are they?” Arthur asked Pirkin.
“Dunno,” answered the Paper Pusher. “I know who’s waiting in the dark, though.”
“So do I,” breathed Fred. Arthur glanced at his friend, who was staring entranced up at the sky.
“Who?”