Grim Tuesday

Chapter Sixteen

Arthur half-shut his eyes and pulled his hands up into the sleeves of his brightcoat as Tom opened the portside hatch. But as Tom had promised, the hatch opened onto clear blue water, with a sandy beach only yards away, with the jungle verge beyond. A small surf of one- to two-foot waves swept around the sunship's hull and crashed onto the beach.

Even though he'd seen it through the porthole, this was not what Arthur had expected. He'd thought there'd be some indication they were in the heart of a sun. Brighter light for example, or a ring of fire in the distance.

There was normal sunshine overhead and the air was warm and humid. Arthur poked his head out the hatch and saw ocean stretching out to the horizon, broken a mile or so out by a long line of what must be coral reefs.

All in all, it looked good enough to become a postcard from an unspoiled tropical holiday destination.

"Where do the waves come from?" Arthur asked Tom as they jumped down. The sea was warm, but the waves were bigger than they looked from the ship, and as the beach shelved away steeply, the water was deeper. Arthur had to jump up to keep his head out of a passing wave in order to hear Tom's reply.

"It is unlike the other bottles, in that this place is both here and there, in a manner of speaking," said Tom. He grabbed Arthur and Suzy by their coat collars and lifted them up as an even larger wave swept past. "But the only way for us to get to it is here. If we went to where it is on the old Earth, we wouldn't see it and would turn away - or, in unlucky circumstances, we would wreck and drown some way off. You should be able to wade now."

"Thanks," muttered Arthur as Tom dropped them in the wash and strode up the beach. The boy picked himself up clumsily, his lame leg stuck in the wet sand for a moment.

"Hey, I'm dry!" exclaimed Suzy after one step up the beach. She'd been sodden and dripping a moment before.

"So am I!" said Arthur, patting his coat. There was some steam rising off it, but otherwise the coat and everything else he was wearing had dried the instant he left the sea.

"This is a great coat," said Suzy. "I hope I can keep it. And these shoes keep the sand out and they'll be great for kicking Nithlings. Immaterial Boots are proof against everything you know, even Nothing. For a while, anyway."

"You're cheerful," Arthur observed wryly. But he felt much better himself. The clean air and the sunshine were very heartening, and with Tom's help he felt sure they would soon find the Will. Once they had Part Two, then it could sort out Grim Tuesday and all would be well.

This moment of optimism was slightly spoiled as he stumbled in the sand, his shortened leg betraying him once more. He kept trying to walk like he always had, but he couldn't. He had to learn to take different steps and think ahead to where he'd put his left foot.

Tom had already gone into the jungle, following a rivulet of fresh water. The trees and undergrowth thinned out a bit on either side of this narrow stream, making it the next best thing to a path.

"Too green for me, and too damp," remarked Suzy with distaste as they splashed up the stream. She looked up at the canopy of leaves and vines and shuddered.

"Could be anything hiding in the shrubbery. Give me a nice street any day."

"What about your old place with the dinosaurs?" asked Arthur. "That had trees."

"Only a few, and it was inside the House? Where did Tom go?"

Arthur and Suzy stopped and looked around. Tom had been only a little way ahead. Now they could neither see him nor hear him splashing. There was only the gentle burble of the stream and the soft noises of the wind rustling the upper levels of the jungle canopy.

"Tom?" called out Arthur. "Captain?"

Paranoid thoughts began to creep into his brain.

Maybe Tom had somehow seen the telegram from Grim Tuesday after all? Or maybe he'd always planned to get us here. He's brought us here to trap us. He'll leave us here, on this jungle island in the middle of the sun. We'll never escape -

"Up here!" Tom called out.

"Where?" Arthur shouted back. He could hear Tom, but couldn't see him. There was only the jungle all around, and Suzy next to him, slowly scanning the trees.

"Here!" called out Tom again, and this time Arthur saw a hand thrust down through the thick mass of leaves, waving. "You can climb up on the other side."

Arthur and Suzy left the stream, pushed their way between some vast bushes with pale yellow flowers and odd elongated seedpods, and came to the trunk of a large, spreading tree. The trunk was wrapped in vines that grew in all directions, making a natural ladder up into the jungle canopy. Arthur and Suzy climbed easily, maneuvered through the leafy canopy, and emerged out into the sunshine.

Tom was waiting for them, perched on a thick spreading branch next to something that could only be described as a nest. A circular platform of branches and vines wove together in a haphazard fashion to make a cross between a balcony and a treetop bed.

In the middle of it, apparently asleep, was a small bear. It was a sleek black in color, apart from a lighter muzzle and a bright yellow crescent-shaped blaze across its chest. It also had a tail, which Arthur wasn't sure was normal for bears. If it was a bear. It wasn't that big, about half Arthur's size, though it was plumper around the middle.

"That's it," said Tom. "Part Two of the Will. And, if I recall from one of my journeys to the Spice Islands, in the shape of a sun bear."

Arthur climbed across to look at the sun bear more closely. It didn't stir, but the slow rise and fall of its chest suggested it was merely asleep. Arthur leaned closer still and looked at its fur. Sure enough, when he was only an inch or two away, he could see thousands of tiny letters swirling about, rather than actual fur or flesh.

"What's wrong with it?" he asked, as the sun bear didn't awaken or show any sign of being aware of its visitors. "Is it asleep? Or hibernating?"

"Sun bears -" Tom began to say, but he got no further, as the sharp crack of an explosion sounded from the beach. Arthur, Tom, and Suzy snapped around to look and saw a huge geyser of steam spout into the air - from where the Helios was beached.

"Uh-oh," said Suzy. Her hand fell to her cutlass hilt. "Is that Grim Tuesday arriving?"

"No," Tom replied. "Apart from the Improbable Stair, there is no way to reach this island but the Helios, and Tuesday wouldn't dare the Stair. It is more likely we have woken a guardian or watcher. I will deal with it."

All of a sudden, Tom's harpoon appeared in his left hand, glittering with its strange mix of light and darkness.

"But what about the Will?" Arthur asked. He prodded the bear with his finger, keeping a wary eye on its long, sharp-looking claws. A faint golden glow spread over Arthur's finger, but the bear didn't move. "What do we do with it?"

Tom had begun to climb down, but he stopped and looked back up, his forehead furrowed in thought. He kept glancing back towards the beach, where the steam continued to spout a hundred feet into the air.

"What did you plan to do with it?" the seafarer asked.

"I don't know," replied Arthur in exasperation. "I thought it'd be like the first part of the Will. You know, it would tell me what to do. Not just lie there."

"Bring it, then. We should not linger here," said Tom. Then he was gone.

"You reckon we can lift it?" Suzy asked Arthur. "Pretty solid-looking bear. Even if it is made of words."

"I don't know," Arthur snapped, showing his irritation. "Why can't it just wake up and be useful?"

Making sure he had a good foothold on the branch, he bent down and tried to lift the sun bear under one arm. But he could barely raise its front legs an inch off the nest. It was extremely heavy, heavier than any bear of real flesh and blood.

Suzy tried to lift it too, but could only get its rear legs up, while its round midsection stayed firmly planted on the woven leaves. Even lifting together, they could only bend it into a U-shape. It still didn't wake up.

"It's too heavy!" Arthur conceded.

"The Captain could carry it," said Suzy. "That steam's stopped? oh? smoke."

She pointed. The steam geyser had gone, but in its place there was a dense column of smoke. Then they heard a strange crackling noise, and a soundless vibration passed through Arthur and Suzy, making them shiver. It was followed by an inhuman, very high-pitched scream - and a triumphant shout from Tom.

"Reckon that was the Captain's 'friend,'" whispered Suzy as she felt her teeth with one dirty hand. Arthur's teeth felt odd too, kind of fuzzy. But the sensation passed quickly.

"As long as it gets used on the right side, I don't mind," said Arthur. He cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted, "Captain! Captain! We need you to carry the Will!"

"Aye, I hear you!" came a returning shout. "I'm coming back!"

Tom followed his shout several minutes later, emerging through the canopy, once again without his harpoon. "We must speed on. That was a Sunsprite. There are others trying to drag the Helios off. They have some means of getting in through the Immaterial Glass."

"I thought you said there was no way in except the Stair and your sunship," Suzy said as Tom picked up the sun bear and slung it over one shoulder as easily as if it were a pillow.

"So I thought, lass, so I thought," Tom muttered. "I wonder? but this is no time for wonderings. Quickly, to the ship!"

"What's a Sunsprite?" Arthur asked Suzy as they hastily climbed back down into the cool shade of the jungle. Tom easily outdistanced them into the greenery, even with the sun bear on his shoulder.

"Dunno exactly," replied Suzy. "There's a mort of different Sprites, and I never learned 'em. Basically they're Nithlings that got out of the House and into the Secondary Realms."

"Miss Blue is correct, to a degree," Tom called out. He was ten or twenty yards ahead and hidden, so his comment came as a minor shock to Arthur and Suzy.

"All Sprites were once Nithlings, but they take on the nature of the place they inhabit out in the Secondary Realms. Sunsprites are essentially self-willed entities composed of stellar plasma. But even they should not be here, at the hot heart of a star. They usually swarm around the fringes of a sun."

"He's got good hearing," whispered Suzy.

"Swarm?" asked Arthur. He didn't like hearing that word.

"Typically the original escaped Nithling divides into several hundred Sprites. If they come upon us, do not let them embrace you. Even a brightcoat and starhood will not endure long against their kiss."

"Uh, let's just get back on board without meeting any," Arthur suggested. He picked up his pace, splashing Suzy with his strange, stumbling gait.

"Too late for that," said Tom as another geyser of steam erupted out of the sea, just as all three of them burst out of the jungle and onto the sand.

The Sunsprite wasn't visible, but the column of steam slowly moved towards the beach, the water fizzing and boiling all around it

"Can't the sea quench it?" asked Arthur.

"Eventually, if there was some means of keeping it in the water," Tom told him. He held out his left hand and his harpoon appeared there out of nowhere. He immediately handed the weapon to Arthur, who accepted it with surprise.

"My friend does not willingly fly from another's hand, but she will help the Master of the Lower House. Aim high, for the upper torso of the Sprite - and keep your distance. My friend is best thrown as far as you can."

"But? but what are you going to do?"

"I must ready the Helios for our departure, before the other Sprites drag it back into the sun. You will need to distract this Sunsprite, then finish it. Miss Blue, your cutlass will cut several times before the blade melts. Use your weapons well."

He rushed into the surf just as a man-sized cloud of writhing steam emerged from the sea. A moment later the steam wafted away and Arthur caught a glimpse of a dark charcoal-colored creature, just before it exploded into flame. Even through his star-hood, Arthur felt the heat of it on his face.

Without even thinking about it, he threw Tom's harpoon at it, aiming for its upper chest. Once again there was the strange crackling noise, like wrapping paper being mangled, magnified a hundred times. The harpoon flew so fast Arthur only saw a luminous aftertrail.

"Ow!" exclaimed Suzy, and Arthur groaned as the harpoon hit. Both of them clutched their mouths, as they were hit by a sudden toothache that radiated through into their cheekbones and eye sockets.

It was much worse for the Sunsprite. It screamed and ropes of flame shot from its hands up into the sky, then came back down and wrapped around the harpoon that stuck through its chest. When it seemed as if it might pull the harpoon free, Suzy dropped her hand from her mouth and drew her cutlass. But the flaming ropes dimmed and the Sunsprite's fire went out completely as it crumbled into ash and chunks of charcoal.

The harpoon disappeared. Arthur flinched as it reappeared in his hand with a solid whack!

Suzy looked at the harpoon, ran her tongue across her still-aching teeth, and shook her head. "That's nasty, that is. I wouldn't want to be any closer next time you use it."

"I hope there won't be a next time," Arthur replied as he hurried into the sea. He held the harpoon away from his body as far as he could, as if it might turn and strike at him. "Let's get aboard before another Sunsprite comes through, and -"

A wave slapped him in the face before he could continue. The star-hood stopped him from swallowing anything, but he had to stop where he was in order to regain his balance.

At that moment, steam exploded just in front of him. He stumbled back into Suzy, and both of them fell over in the soft sand, the wash spilling over their legs as another steam-wreathed Sunsprite reared up out of the sea.

It was too close to throw, and he was blinded by steam, so Arthur simply thrust Tom's harpoon up and out, while Suzy scrambled away on all fours as fast as she could.

Arthur felt the harpoon shudder in his hands at the same time an intense heat blasted across his face. He pulled his hands into his sleeves as far as he could, and leaned back into the wash, setting the shaft of the harpoon into the sand.

A moment later, he had to let go of the weapon, as a biting ache struck every bone in his body and spread through his teeth and across his face. He screamed and beat at his mouth with his sleeved hands, desperate to stop the pain. The intense heat of the Sunsprite was nothing compared to the deep, vibrating ache beneath his skin, throbbing in agonizing time with his increasing pulse.

Rushing to escape the harpoon's awful influence, Arthur squirmed away through the sea and sand. He didn't care whether he'd gotten the Sunsprite, whether it was following to kiss him and burn him to death. All he wanted to do was get away from the Captain's terrible weapon -

Something slapped into his right hand, and Arthur screamed again. The harpoon had come back. He couldn't get away from it!

That meant the harpoon thought it would soon be used again.