“Our lord the Piper was very thorough in our training,” Ugham explained. “We spent many decades in practice of all kinds, before the attack on the Great Maze.”
“You’ll need an escort,” said Friday’s Dawn, who left Digby to approach Arthur. “It has been reported that the Piper and a dozen soldiers, probably Piper’s children, flew to the Scriptorium peak several hours ago, followed by Saturday’s Noon and a force of Internal Auditors. Now that we have Binding Junction, I can spare forty or fifty of my Gilded Youths. I would that it were more, but far too many Denizens here are experiencing.”
“I don’t like this experiencing business,” said Arthur. “I’m not sure I really get it. Where do these experiences come from?”
“Lady Friday takes them from mortals, Lord Arthur,” Friday’s Dawn explained. “She partakes of most of their good memories and leaves the bad. The Denizens who are with her in her retreat fix the discarded memories on sorcerously charged paper and bring them back here to sell. Though they are usually sad and depressing memories, they are fascinating to many Denizens. You see, we do not dream, and our lives have a fixed purpose. The mortal experiences are very attractive.”
“Takes them from mortals ....” Arthur repeated quietly. “What happens to the mortals?”
“I don’t know,” said Dawn. “I have never approved of the practice and Lady Friday never took me to her retreat.”
“Do you know where it is?”
Friday’s Dawn shook his head. “Somewhere in the Secondary Realms.”
Arthur stood silently for a moment, his wings twitching. Then he took out the crystal and looked at it again.
“First we find the Will,” he said. “Then we get it to help us get the Fifth Key. Come on.”
He started along the corridor with everyone trailing behind, then stopped.
“Uh, I don’t know the way out of here. Digby?”
“Follow me, Lord Arthur,” said Digby. He led the way along the corridor and out into a pleasant, open courtyard set with strange trees that had long, curled-up yellow leaves that looked almost like scales. From there they went back into another building, into a large hall that was full of small presses, workbenches, piles of documents, and at least a hundred Denizens who were lying on their backs experiencing, with pieces of sorcerous paper stuck to their foreheads.
At the end of the hall was the main gate, which was guarded by a mixed force of mutually suspicious Gilded Youths and High Guild bookbinders, the latter armed with nasty-looking spears in the shape of seven-foot-long bookbinder’s needles.
Arthur got his first proper look at the Top Shelf when he stepped outside. The mountain on which the Scriptorium sat was an imposing rocky peak some miles away. It completely dominated the northern skyline and was about four or five thousand feet high, Arthur estimated. Or at least the bit that poked up from the second sky was. He knew the actual mountain extended all the way down below the Flat, and the Top Shelf was just a small plateau of the greater whole.
Apart from the fortress behind him, most of what he could see looked like a pleasant country scene. There were meadows and occasional copses of trees. Not trees that he recognized, but still identifiable as trees, even if the colour and shape of the leaves and branches were a bit strange.
There were two suns in the eastern sky, which helped explain why it was so hot. Neither was particularly large, but one was much smaller than the other. Arthur knew better than to look at them directly, but the light they cast was of a similar colour to that of his own Earth sun in summer.
“I have too much to attend to here and below,” said Dawn. “But your escort will be commanded by Fifteen, who is one of my most experienced Gilded Youths. Fifteen, this is Lord Arthur.”
“Lord Arthur acknowledged,” said the Gilded Youth. His, or perhaps her, voice was soft and crackly and sounded weirdly remote, as if it came from farther away than from inside the mask. “Flight ready to launch.”
“Thank you,” said Arthur. He checked the crystal again. The arrow was definitely pointing to the mountain and up. “Thank you too, Friday’s Dawn. Good luck with sorting out Saturday’s Dusk. If all goes well, I will be able to send help soon.”
Dawn saluted as Arthur flexed his wings, kicked off, and launched into the sky. The Gilded Youths launched at the same moment, all forty of them surrounding Arthur in a star formation, while his friends were a little slower, taking off behind to fly beneath him.
It was fun to fly. Arthur enjoyed the exhilarating rush of air past his face and the powerful feel of the wings on his back. He experimentally leaned one way and then the other, hastily correcting his balance as he almost tumbled head over heels.
“These ’ere are proper wings!” shouted Suzy. “Not like those Ascension Wings we ’ad in the Pit. Got to treat them more careful like, ‘cos they go down as well as up.”
Arthur had forgotten the wings he’d used before were ones that only went up.
I should have remembered that, he thought. Those ones were stuck on with sealing wax too. These have just connected through my paper coat. I guess the washing between the ears has affected my memory .... I wonder what else I’ve forgotten ....
As an experiment, Arthur tried to remember all his family’s faces. He was relieved when the memories came, clear and sharp. His house was also clear, and the new school ....
A wind buffeted him, interrupting his thoughts. Arthur instinctively corrected and laughed aloud as he was swept up by an updraft, his wings stretching wide. The Gilded Youth called Fifteen flew near and called out in its odd, penetrating voice.
“Upwind positive. Target achievement in forty minutes.”
“Thanks!” said Arthur. He looked up. The mountain peak looked as high as ever, but he could see something built on top of the bare rock. The hint of a roof.
Arthur took out the crystal again and checked it. This time, he looked at it twice and held it up even closer than before.
“Hey!” he said. “The gold arrow is pointing across now, not up to the Scriptorium. But there’s nothing ... oh ...”
There was something. There, in the side of the mountain, about halfway up, was a small vertical crevasse, a slit in the rock that hinted at dark caverns behind.
Arthur slipped one wing down and flew around in a gentle curve to take a better look. Everyone else followed, with some of the Gilded Youths going above Arthur and some below.
“Entrance Winged Servants Night home,” crackled Fifteen. “Entry forbidden day flyers.”
“The arrow is definitely pointing there,” said Arthur. He flew closer and hovered like a hummingbird in order to peer in the crevasse. It was only the height of a door and half as wide, and there was no ledge or step to stand on, so it would be very difficult to enter. “How do the Servants fly in?”
Suzy came to hover next to him, and Ugham and Fred hovered above.
“You’d have to fly at it and fold your wings at the last minute and kind of dive through,” she said finally, and did a quick loop below. It was hard work to keep hovering.
“Forbidden day flyers,” reiterated Fifteen.
“You’ll never fit through there, Ugham,” said Arthur. “I guess Suzy, me, and Fred will have to go alone. I hope the Servants are still feeling friendly.”
“They were a bit funny about their secret eyrie,” said Fred cautiously.
“I have to go in.” Arthur looked at the crystal again. The tiny arrow was pointing directly at the crevasse. “Part Five of the Will is in there somewhere.”
“My duty is to stay with Suzy and Fred,” said Ugham. “Yet the way is too narrow for such as I am.”
“I’ll go in alone,” said Arthur. “This is going to be tricky. Ah, Fifteen, can you and your ... um ... people circle here for a while, till I come back out?”
“Arthur commands is done,” replied Fifteen, and turned away, the other Gilded Youths following as she flew in a wide circle out from the mountainside and back again.