“You’re sure Leaf didn’t mention my mother?” Arthur asked again.
“Definitely not, no,” replied Dr. Scamandros. “She had very little time. I fear for her.”
“So do I,” said Arthur. “Any luck with the telephone to Dame Primus?”
Dr. Scamandros shook his head. “Nor with telegrams. They keep coming back marked Return to Sender.”
“The dials are set for watching, sir,” said Sneezer as he retreated back out of the circle. “May I suggest you take a few minutes to look before going through?”
“Only long enough to make sure it’s not opening into Nothing,” said Arthur. “I don’t want to waste any time. Anything could be happening to Leaf and my ... the other mortals.”
As he spoke, a trail of white fog appeared out of the floor between the clocks and began to slowly spin around, spreading quickly till there was a slowly rotating cloud. Silver luminescence rose through the white, growing brighter as it reached the edges.
Arthur blinked, and in that blink the cloud became a window to another world. Looking through it, he saw a great crowd of people-humans-standing ahead. In front of them was a lake, and in the middle of the lake there was a stone column with a silver chair set atop it. Above the chair, a winged figure was descending ... a very tall Denizen with extra-large yellow wings, who held something impossibly bright in her right hand.
“Sneezer!” snapped Arthur. “We need to go through right now!”
The butler jumped into the circle, so quickly that his long white hair whipped around his face and the tails of his coat leaped up almost to the small of his back. He deftly adjusted the hands of several of the clocks and jumped back out.
“Go, milord!”
Arthur and his companions moved almost as swiftly as Sneezer had, entering the circle as the clocks began to chime.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Get up, young miss.”
Leaf opened one eye. She was lying on the floor. She lifted her head slightly to see if there was a tendril poking through her chest-or some hideous botanical growth implanted in her flesh, to kill her slower than Milka had thought.
There wasn’t. There was no sign of the seedpods at all. There was, instead, a very tall old man with white hair and a white three-day growth on his chin. His piercing blue eyes were fixed on Leaf. He wore a knee-length blue coat, blue breeches, and sea-boots folded over at the knee. In his hard-knuckled right hand he gripped a nine-foot-long harpoon that glittered with a light painful to Leaf’s eyes.
“Captain!” sobbed Leaf. “Sir!”
The Mariner bent down and hauled her up by her elbow. “We’d best move sharpish,” he said. “I cracked that dome when my skiff landed and all manner of gardener’s horrors are climbing in. Not to mention we’d best avoid Friday. She’ll not be pleased.”
Leaf tried to take a breath and coughed, the cough turning into a sob. The Mariner clapped her on the back, almost propelling her into the wall.
“That’s no way for a ship’s boy from the old Mantis to behave,” he scolded. “You’re safe enough now.”
Leaf bit back her sobs and stood at attention.
“Begging your pardon, sir,” she said, unintentionally aping her mentor, Albert. “But there are a lot of mortals who need rescuing out in the crater. Including my aunt.”
“Mortals to be rescued!” exclaimed the Mariner. “I’ve sailed into a storm, I see. Well, let’s be getting the gauge of it. Do you know of a lookout where I can espy the lay of the land?”
“There’s a big window,” said Leaf. “On Circle Six at about twenty past. That’s down and around a bit.”
“Then let’s get under way,” rumbled the Mariner. “And smartly.”
Leaf nodded and headed for the stairs, with the Captain close behind. They did not speak for some time, but as they reached Circle Six, the Mariner laid one large hand gently on Leaf’s shoulder and stopped her.
“You still have the medallion?” asked the Mariner. “Yes, sir,” said Leaf.
“You had best give it back to Arthur when you can. It was not meant to be passed into other hands.”
“I’m sorry,” said Leaf. “I didn’t know who-”
“No harm done,” said the Mariner. “But I am not without business of my own. Three times I will answer to the call. I owe young Arthur that. This is the second, and for the third and final time, the call must come from Arthur himself.”
“Yes, sir,” said Leaf again. The Mariner raised his hand and indicated for her to go on.
The window was where she remembered. It was clear glass or something like glass, about seven feet long and three feet high. It looked directly out on to the lake and the crater floor, a few hundred feet below.
“There,” said Leaf. “All those people, the sleepers lined up on the shore. Oh! Friday’s already landing on the rock. She’ll use the Fifth Key to suck all the people’s memories out of them. Their experiences!”
The Captain looked out-at Lady Friday alighting on the silver chair upon the rock; at the thousands of sleepers who were lined up all around the crater; at the dozen or more Denizens who circled above Friday.
“The odds are poor,” he said. “But the position is good.”
With that, he tapped the glass with the point of his harpoon and it flew out in a single piece, shattering on the rock far below. Leaf shuddered as a wave of pain and nausea went through her, but it was soon past. The feeling came from the harpoon, she realized, and she sidled away from the Mariner.
“Now,” mused the Mariner. “I shall get perhaps two good casts before they are upon us. What, then, shall be my targets?”
Down below, Lady Friday raised her hand and the mirror that was the Fifth Key shone even brighter.
“Quick!” shouted Leaf. “She’s going to-”
The Key flashed, its stark light banishing darkness from every corner and crevice within the crater. The lake and dome flicked to silver, and from the eyes and mouths of the thousands of sleepers, a mad spaghetti of colored streamers sprang out towards Lady Friday’s hand. Once again she gathered them up, the mirror in her hand transforming from something of pure white brilliance to a bright rainbow that overflowed down her arm.
Lady Friday raised the mirror and tipped her head back, opening her mouth with its perfect white teeth.
“Stop her!” yelled Leaf. “Don’t let her drink them all up!”
“That’s Leaf’s voice,” said Arthur as he stumbled out onto the rocky surface of the crater, accidentally pushing over several sleepers. For some reason his balance was way off and he stumbled again before he righted himself. He could hear his friend but he couldn’t see her anywhere or make out what she was shouting. All he could see was a sea of sleepers, Friday perched on her rock, and the Denizens who flew above her.
“Friday is using the Key,” warned the Will, who came right after him. It shrank itself down some more and scuttled between two swaying sleepers. “In a most peculiar fashion.”
“This is unusual,” said Scamandros, who was next to emerge from the white-lit transition from the Seven Dials. He raised his glasses to his forehead and peered at the nearest sleeper. “These mortals are being drained of ... well, not life, exactly, but close to it.”
Leaf had stopped shouting. Arthur was about to push forward when he heard a distant crackling sound and a pain he knew danced across his teeth. An instant later, the Mariner’s harpoon flew down from the crater wall. It looked as if it would strike Friday but she leaped up the merest fraction of a second ahead of its impact, yellow wings bursting to turn her jump into flight. The Key stayed in her hand, rainbow-bright and full of experience.
“The Mariner!” shouted Friday, pointing up at the crater wall. “Attack him!”
A dozen Denizens, including the monocled Noon, wheeled in the air and flew towards the window where the Mariner held out a hand for his returning harpoon.