Help would be coming soon. Arthur willed himself to be calm. He forced himself up to a sitting position and concentrated on taking slow breaths, as deep as he could manage. With a bit of luck he would stay conscious. The main thing was not to panic. He'd been here before, and he'd come through. He had the inhaler in his hand. He'd just stay quiet and still, keeping panic and fear securely locked away.
A flash of light suddenly distracted Arthur from his slow, counted breaths. It hit the corner of his eye, and he swung around to see what it was. For a moment he thought he was blacking out again and was falling over and looking up at the sun. Then, through half-shut eyes, he realized that whatever the blinding light was, it was on the ground and very close.
In fact, it was moving, gliding across the grass towards him, the light losing its brilliance as it drew nearer. Arthur watched in stunned amazement as a dark outline became visible within the light. Then the light faded completely, to reveal a weirdly dressed man in a very strange sort of wheelchair being pushed across the grass by an equally odd-looking attendant.
The wheelchair was long and narrow, like a bath, and it was made of woven wicker. It had one small wheel at the front and two big ones at the back. All three wheels had metal rims, without rubber tires, or any sort of tire, so the wheelchair ... or wheel-bath, or bath-chair, or whatever it was ... sank heavily into the grass.
The man lying back in the bath-chair was thin and pale, his skin like tissue paper. He looked quite young, though, no more than twenty, and was very handsome, with even features and blue eyes, though these were hooded, as if he was very tired. He had an odd round hat with a tassel on his blond head and was wearing what looked to Arthur like some sort of kung fu robe, of red silk with blue dragons all over it. He had a tartan blanket over his legs, but his slippers stuck out the end. They were red silk too, and shimmered in the sun with a pattern that Arthur couldn't quite focus on.
The man who was pushing the chair was even more out of place. Or out of time. He looked somewhat like a butler from an old movie, or Nestor from the Tintin comics, though he was nowhere near as neat. He had on an oversized black coat with ridiculously long tails that almost touched the ground, and his white shirtfront was stiff and very solid, as if it was made of plastic. He had knitted half gloves that were unravelling on his hands, and bits of loose wool hung over his fingers. Arthur noticed with distaste that his fingernails were very long and yellow, as were his teeth. He was much older than the man he pushed, his face lined and pitted with age, his white hair only growing on the back of his head, though it was very long. He had to be at least eighty, but he had no difficulty pushing the bath-chair straight towards Arthur.
The two men were talking as they approached. They seemed entirely unaware of Arthur, or uninterested in him.
"I don't know why I keep you upstairs, Sneezer," said the man in the bath-chair. "Or agree to your ridiculous plans."
"Now, now, sir," said the butler-type, who was obviously called Sneezer. Now that they were closer, Arthur noticed that his nose was rather red and had a patchwork of broken blood vessels shining under the skin. "It's not a plan, but a precaution. We don't want to be bothered by the Will, do we?"
"I s'pose not," grumbled the young man. He yawned widely and closed his eyes. "You're sure that we'll find someone suitable here?"
"Sure as eggs is eggs," replied Sneezer. "Surer even, eggs not always being what one might expect. I set the dials myself, to find someone suitably on the edge of infinity. You give him the Key, he dies, you get it back. Another ten thousand years without trouble, and the Will can't quibble cos you did give up the Key to one in the line of heredity, as it were."
"It's very annoying," said the young man, yawning again. "I'm quite exhausted with all this running around and answering those ridiculous inquiries from up top. How should I know how that bit of the Will got out? I'm not going to write a report, you know. I haven't the energy. In fact, I really need a nap ."
"Not now, sir, not now," said Sneezer urgently. He shaded his eyes with one dirty, half-gloved hand and looked around. Strangely, he still seemed unable to see Arthur, though he was right in front of him. "We're almost there."
"We are there," said the young man coldly. He pointed at Arthur as if the boy had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. "Is that it?"
Sneezer left the bath-chair and advanced on Arthur. His attempt at a smile revealed even more yellow teeth, some of them broken, but all too many of them sharp and doglike.
"Hello, my boy," he said. "Let's have a bow for Mister Monday."
Arthur stared at him. It must be an unknown side effect, he thought. Oxygen deprivation. Hallucinations.
A moment later, he felt a hard bony hand grip his head and bob it forward several times, as Sneezer made him bow to the man in the bath-chair. The shock and unpleasantness of the touch made Arthur cough and lose all his hard-won control over his breathing. Now he really was panicking, and he couldn't breathe at all.
"Bring him here," instructed Mister Monday. With a languid sigh, he leaned over the side of the bath-chair as Sneezer dragged Arthur effortlessly over, using only two fingers to pick the boy up by the back of his neck.
"You're sure this one will die straight away?" Mister Monday asked, reaching out to lift Arthur's chin and look at his face. Unlike Sneezer, Monday's hands were clean and his nails trimmed. There was hardly any force in his grip, but Arthur found he couldn't move at all, as if Mister Monday had pressed a nerve that paralyzed his whole body.
Sneezer rummaged in his pocket with one hand, not letting go of Arthur's neck. He pulled out half a dozen scrunched-up pieces of paper, which hung in the air as if he'd laid them on an invisible desk. He sorted through them quickly, smoothed one out, and held it against Arthur's cheek. The paper shone with a bright blue light and Arthur's name appeared on it in letters of gold.
"It's him, no doubt at all," said Sneezer. He thrust the paper back in his pocket, and all the others went back in as if they were joined together on a thread. "Arthur Penhaligon. Due to drop off the twig any minute. You'd best give him the Key, sir."
Mister Monday yawned again and let go of Arthur's chin. Then he slowly reached inside the left sleeve of his silk robe and pulled out a slender metal spike. It looked very much like a thin-bladed knife without a handle. Arthur stared at it, his mind and sight already fuzzy again from lack of oxygen. Somewhere in his head, under that fuzziness, the panicked voice that had told him to use his inhaler was screaming again.
Run away! Run away! Run away!
Though the weird paralysis from Monday's touch had gone, Sneezer's grip did not lessen for a moment, and Arthur simply had no strength to break free.
"By the powers vested in me under the arrangements entered into in the blah, blah, blah," muttered Mister Monday. He spoke too quickly for Arthur to make out what he was saying. He didn't slow down until he reached the final few words. "And so let the Will be done."
As he finished, Monday thrust out with the blade. At the same time, Sneezer let Arthur go and the boy fell back on the grass. Monday laughed wearily and dropped the blade into Arthur's open hand. Instantly, Sneezer made Arthur wrap his fingers around it, pushing so hard that the metal bit into his skin. With the pain came another sudden shock. Arthur found that he could breathe. It was as if a catch had been turned at the top of his lungs, unlocking them to let air in.
"And the other," said Sneezer urgently. "He has to have it all."
Monday peered across at his servant and frowned. He also started to yawn, but quashed it, taking an angry swipe across his own face.
"You're very keen for the Key to leave my possession, even if only for a few minutes," said Monday. He'd been about to take something else out of his other sleeve, but now he hesitated. "And to give me boiled brandy and water. Too much boiled brandy and water. Perhaps, in my weariness, I have not given this matter quite the thought..."