“Not to mention Banneret Ugham,” continued the Piper. He made a small motion with his left hand, and Ugham strode over to the Piper’s side.
Arthur kept his gaze on the Piper.
One lunge to the heart, he thought, if he raises the pipes-
“This is all rather tedious and besides the point,” said the Will. “That isn’t the Key, you know. Moreover, it is almost certainly a trap of a very nasty kind. We would all do better to leave and carry on whatever we must discuss outside.”
The Piper ignored the Will.
“Ugham, fetch me the mirror from that stand of stone.”
“Don’t,” said Arthur. “It’s a trap. Besides, if it was the Key, it would kill you!”
Ugham nodded. “We know that our prince loves us not, save that we serve him. But he made us, and that is not a debt easy to repay. We serve with what honour we may retain. One slight matter remains, before I take up yonder-”
“I said to pick up that mirror, Ugham,” interrupted the Piper. He had not moved, the steel mask facing Arthur, the dark holes where eyes might lie in line with Arthur’s gaze.
“You do not wish to hear of a matter of import, milord?” asked Ugham.
“Get on with it!” said the Piper, his voice cracking.
Ugham nodded again, bent down, and put his spear, knuckle-duster knife, and sword on the floor. Then he reached inside his coat and put a small, folded piece of paper under the knife. Standing up, he looked Arthur in the face, and his third eye, above his forehead, winked.
“Don’t do it, Uggie!” said Suzy. She started forward, but Arthur grabbed her elbow and hauled her back.
“Wisely done, Arthur,” said the Piper. His voice was smooth again, but so loaded with menace that Arthur felt like he was in a room with a bomb. He had no idea of the
Piper’s full powers but he wasn’t confident about taking him on, even with the Fourth Key and the Will at his side. Not with the Gilded Youths arrayed against him as well.
Not to mention one sound of that pipe and Suzy and Fred will be stopped cold, Arthur thought.
Ugham saluted the Piper, but the salute also encompassed Arthur, Suzy, and Fred. Then he quickly strode over to the stone plinth, reached over, and picked up the mirror.
There was no immediate result. Ugham’s shoulders relaxed a little, he took half a step back, he began to turn-and the stone floor beneath his feet groaned and shifted and then it wasn’t there, an area ten feet in diameter replaced by a whirling vortex of Nothing.
In the instant the floor disappeared, Ugham was destroyed. He had no time to react or cry out; he was instantly dissolved into the pure darkness of Nothing.
Everyone else in the room only had a few seconds more. The vortex spun wider, stones falling into it as it spread.
The Piper was the first to react. With his pipes he sketched steps in the air, creating an entrance to the Improbable Stair. He jumped onto it as the floor beneath his feet ceased to exist.
Everyone else, including most of the unconscious Piper’s children on the floor, was suddenly swept out of the way by an enormous scaly tail. Knocked head over heels, Arthur found himself being dragged over a knocked-down wall as the Will simultaneously grew large, smashed the wall down, and pulled the contents of the room, including Arthur, to temporary safety.
But it was only a brief respite. The vortex was still expanding. Gilded Youths sprang into the air in a panic around Arthur as he struggled to his feet. Suzy was trying to pick up Quicksilver, and Fred had his arms around Sable, his wings flapping in a frenzy.
“The Key, Arthur!” roared the Will. “Use the Key. This is a breach into the Void itself!”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Arthur balanced on the very edge of the mountain, his wings extended, and raised the Fourth Key. It stayed in its baton shape, but shone with an internal light that reflected back from the crocodile ring, more gold than silver.
The vortex spread towards Arthur. Almost the entire top of the mountain was a dark absence now, and Arthur instinctively knew that as the breach into the Void spread outwards it also expanded down, eating the substance of the House.
He concentrated on the vortex and on the Key, building a picture in his mind of how it had looked when he’d flown up only minutes before.
“Be as you were,” he said. “The House rebuilt, the Nothing banished.”
The Key grew hot in his hand but the Nothing continued to spread, though more slowly.
I can’t do it! thought Arthur, panic suddenly filling him. His concentration slipped. The Nothing began to spread more quickly, smoothly destroying everything as it lapped towards his feet. The Fourth Key isn’t strong enough in the Middle House! I need the Fifth Key and I haven’t got it!
You can do it, you know, came a thought, directly into his head. He knew it was Part Five of the Will and though it was only a mental touch, the Beast still sounded calm and relaxed. You’re Lord Arthur, you know. Wielder of Four Keys, though you might only hold one in your hand. Think of them all as being with you. Combined, they will have more than power enough.
Arthur grimaced and imagined the clock-hand sword of the First Key, heavy at his side. The rough feel of the gauntlets of the Second Key on his hands. The trident of the Third Key at his belt, and the heavy baton of the Fourth Key in his strong right hand.
“Begone!” instructed Lord Arthur, and the Nothing was gone, and the mountaintop was all bare, polished stone, save for a rim of debris around the edge, where the Will had swept as much as it could with its tail.
Arthur blinked and looked at his hands. He was actually wearing the gauntlets of the Second Key. The clock-hand First Key was at his side. The Third Key was thrust through his belt.
“How ... how did I do that?” he whispered.
“Don’t ask me,” said Suzy as she landed at his side. “But I reckon Dame Primus is going to be pretty miffed.”
“I think I will understand the circumstance,” said the Will as it landed on Arthur’s shoulder, parrot-sized once more. “Once I can get together with myself. That breach could have destroyed the whole Middle House.”
“Right,” said Arthur dazedly. “I have to stop saying that, don’t I? Particularly when I mean wrong .... Ugham’s dead .... The Piper’s children ...”
“Quicksilver and Sable are here,” said Fred somberly, who was crouched by the two children. “They seem to be just asleep. But the others ...”
He gestured at the shallow, smooth-walled crater that had been carved by the Nothing breach.
“The Gilded Youths?” asked Arthur. He couldn’t see them anywhere above.
Fred pointed down. Arthur looked. Way below there was the glint of gold and many small, distant figures.
“Flying home,” said the Will. “Confused. Best place for them, really. No place like home.”
“Yes,” said Arthur bitterly. He looked at the crocodile ring on his finger, watching the progress of the gold with resignation. “Not that any of us will be going home.”
“Where are we going?” asked Fred.
“We’re going after Lady Friday,” said Arthur. “To get the Fifth Key.”
“We going to do like the Piper?” asked Suzy eagerly. “No elevators for us, Front Door locked, telephones off ...”
“We will take the Improbable Stair to Monday’s Dayroom,” said Arthur. “Then the Seven Dials to wherever Friday is, out in the Secondary Realms. I’ll use the Atlas to find her.”
“But you don’t want to use the Keys,” said Fred. “No,” said Arthur. “I don’t want to. Ugham didn’t want to die for the Piper either, did he?”
Fred shook his head. “I don’t understand,” he said.
“I suppose you could call it honour,” said Arthur. “Or responsibility, or something like that. Come on. Beast, I presume you can walk the Stair?”
“If you lead me, Lord Arthur,” replied Part Five of the Will. “Or allow me to ride your shoulder.”