Mister Monday

Chapter Twenty-Four

The snakes were unpleasantly warm, almost hot against Arthur's bare legs and feet. He flinched as he lowered himself completely into the writhing mass, and they started to coil around his calves. Their scales, or whatever their skin was, was also raspy, like sandpaper, making the experience even worse.

Arthur tried not to think about it and began to wade across the trench to the sunken door. Bibliophages wound around his waist and were all around his legs and under his coat. Some of them started to hang off his arms as well, and one slithered up and around his neck. But even when they were wound quite tightly, they didn't constrict, and so far they hadn't bitten. Arthur supposed the Key would do something if they did. Or try to.

By the time he was halfway across, Arthur was simply covered in snakes. They were everywhere, even around his head, hanging down his face, and there had to be dozens of them around his legs. There were so many it was hard to walk, and Arthur stumbled a couple of times, allowing even more snakes the opportunity to climb on board.

"Avert! Foul snakelings!" cried out Suzy behind him. Arthur didn't reply, as he was afraid a bibliophage would get in his mouth. He didn't turn to look either. He would overbalance for sure, and he didn't think he would be able to get up if he fell. Even though the bibliophages weren't biting, the sheer weight of them would keep him down. He concentrated on pushing his way through.

At last he came to the door. A simple wooden door in the side of the trench, half-buried in bibliophages. It had a silver handle. Arthur tried to turn it, but it was locked. Shaking his arm to remove some bibliophages, he touched the handle with the Key and said, "Open!"

The door shivered. The handle turned of its own accord, and then the door slowly groaned inwards, letting out a blast of heat and the very unpleasant smell of rotten eggs. The bibliophages that had been piled against the door didn't fall inside as Arthur expected. They stayed suspended, as if there was some invisible barrier as well as the door that kept them out.

If there was, it didn't stop Arthur. Holding his nose against the smell, he stepped inside. As he did so, all the bibliophages fell off him like leaves from a tree suddenly struck by a high wind.

The inside of Monday's lounge was not the interior of a Roman villa. It bore no resemblance to the building outside.

Arthur stood on a platform of old black-brown cast iron, an island in a sea of steam. Through the open diamond weave of the floor, he could see boiling mud about fifteen yards below. Dark yellow mud that bubbled and popped like burning porridge, sending up wafts of stinking steam.

An extremely narrow one-person bridge led out from the platform into the steamy interior. It was iron too and had the monogram MM cast into the diamond weave every few yards. Arthur couldn't see where it led. There was too much steam, and the bridge was simply smothered in billowing clouds.

"The stink of the match factory," said Suzy slowly. "I remember it. Father said it was the stench of the..."

"Sulfur dioxide," said Arthur quickly. "From the hot mud. Like in Yellowstone National Park. There'll probably be geysers too."

The words were barely out of Arthur's mouth when a geyser fountained up nearby, spattering droplets of hot mud everywhere. Suzy folded her wings over her head to protect herself, and Arthur found the Key took the heat out of the mud that hit him.

"Come on," said Arthur. He started along the iron walkway. But Suzy didn't follow. Arthur didn't notice at first, but after twenty yards or so, he turned back. Suzy was staring up into the clouds of steam.

"There's something up there," she said quietly, drawing her knife.

Arthur looked up just as a shadowy figure dipped out of the steaming clouds. Not Mister Monday, but someone shorter. Dressed in pink, with yellow wings that shed feathers as he hovered above them.

"Pravuil!"

Arthur's shout of recognition was answered by a crossbow bolt that whistled straight at him. Without conscious effort from its wielder, the Key struck the bolt out of the air, cutting it in two, the separate halves passing to either side of Arthur.

"Nothing personal, sir!" called out Pravuil, hidden in the steam above. "Simply a commercial priority. Now I must sound the alarm. Fare... arrgh!"

The clouds had parted for a moment, and Suzy had thrown her knife. It hit Pravuil in the left foot and stuck there, quivering. The Denizen dropped his small cross-bow and hunched over to try to pull out the knife, his wings laboring.

Before Pravuil could do anything else, Suzy launched herself up at him.

"Go on, Arthur!" she yelled as she flew. Like a small bird attacking a larger one, she spun in circles around Pravuil's head, kicking and scratching. He hit back, forgetting the knife. They flew higher as they fought, disappearing into the clouds completely.

Arthur craned his head and stood on tiptoe, looking up, the Key held ready. But all he could see were clouds of steam and a single pearly-white feather that came spiraling down. Arthur caught it and saw it was stained with blood. Red blood, not the blue blood of a Denizen.

Arthur stared at the feather. Then he opened his hand and let it fall. Suzy was gone. But her sacrifice would not be in vain. Even if she lost the aerial battle... or had lost it already... she had gained Arthur precious time. He would not waste it.

He held back his fear and ran along the bridge, into the swirling steam, the geysers, and the raining mud. He ran faster than he ever had, his footsteps ringing on the iron, until he pointed down with the Key and said,

"Silence!"

The bridge went for a very long way, much farther than he expected. There were platforms every hundred yards or so, but apart from that, Arthur saw nothing but steam, boiling mud, and the occasional geyser that was close enough. He heard a lot more geysers than he saw, and boiling mud fell so often it was like rain, coating Arthur completely. The Key stopped it from doing him any harm, but every now and then he had to slow down to wipe it off his face.

As he ran, Arthur repeated the Will's instructions over and over in his head. Beneath that there was an undercurrent in his head that thought the Will's plan was all very well, but it was unlikely to work. He had to be prepared for anything.

Finally, the bridge changed. It widened a little and inclined down. Arthur slowed, peering ahead into the steam, the Key clutched hard in his hand, ready for action.

There was another platform ahead. A low, broad platform that must be only a foot or two above the mud. Someone was standing there next to a table. Arthur crouched down and crept closer, his heart hammering in his chest. Was this Mister Monday, awake and waiting for him?

The figure turned and Arthur's heart seemed to stop in his chest. He took a breath and opened his mouth to start the incantation. But he didn't speak it, because the steam eddied apart and he saw who it was.

Sneezer. Mister Monday's butler. He looked exactly the same as he had back in Arthur's world, with one very noticeable change. His left wrist was chained to a table leg, which Arthur saw was also cast iron. It was an extremely long chain, coiled up under the table. On top of the table was a silver tray, a methylated spirit burner, two bottles of cognac or whisky or something similar, a saucepan, and a large decanter of colorless fluid, probably water.

Sneezer was mumbling to himself and fiddling with his fingerless gloves. As Arthur watched, he turned around, and the boy saw that his coat and shirt were cut into strips on the back. There were ugly red weals on the jaundiced-looking skin beneath. Given that all House Denizens healed quickly, Arthur knew that no ordinary whip could have inflicted those wounds.

Arthur thought about that. He had to get past Sneezer without the butler giving the alarm. Mister Monday probably wasn't far away. There were steps down from the platform to yet another lower bridge, at the level of the mud. Monday could well be only yards away, concealed by the steam.

Arthur kept watching. Sneezer rearranged his gloves, then aimlessly shifted the bottles and the decanter. After a minute of this, Arthur crept closer, while Sneezer's back was turned. When he was only a few feet away, he could make out Sneezer's mumblings.

"Not my fault. I was only visiting for a card game. How was I to know that the Will would crawl up my nose? I never thought to look in a handkerchief. Who would? Used that handkerchief since Time began, never had anything in it before I sneezed. Not my fault. Always strived to give the best service. Never had the training. Not my fault. I mean, a handkerchief? Not my fault, ulp..."

Sneezer stopped in midsentence as Arthur pressed the sharp point of the Key against his throat and whispered, "Freeze!"

Arthur was quite unprepared for what happened next. Sneezer did freeze, but it was a literal freeze. Ice flowed from the Key in a softly crackling rush, moving swiftly down Sneezer's body and arms and up over his head. In a few seconds, the butler was completely encased in shiny blue ice. Frozen solid.

Arthur slowly pulled the Key back. While he hadn't expected it, this was a good result. But would the ice last in this incredible heat? Just to be sure, he touched Sneezer with the Key again and said, "Double freeze!"

More ice gushed from the Key, flowing steadily till it wasn't so much Sneezer that stood in front of Arthur, but a man-sized icicle, the ice so thick that the butler was just a dim shape at its core.

Arthur inspected the icicle. There were a few drops of water sliding off it already, but it should hold for a few hours. Hopefully Arthur would only need a fraction of that time to do what he had to.

Arthur left the platform and trod as quietly as he could down the steps to the low bridge. It was barely above the mud and, in fact, in places the steaming mud flowed across it. Protected by the Key, Arthur had no trouble walking through it.

The steam was even thicker this close to the surface. Arthur slowed down even more and waved the Key in front of him to send the steam swirling apart so he could see. Mister Monday had to be somewhere close, surely?

He was. Steam parted, and Arthur saw that the bridge stopped. Ahead there was a pool of bubbling mud that had several iron posts sticking out of it. Hung between the posts was a hammock of silver rope, and in the hammock was Mister Monday.

Arthur stopped, his mouth dry despite the steam. Monday looked asleep. He was wrapped in a thick white bathrobe and had something on his eyes. For a moment Arthur thought they were slices of cucumber like his mother used sometimes, then he saw they were coins. Gold coins.

Arthur edged closer, right up to the end of the bridge. The top rungs of an iron ladder went down from there into the mud. Arthur looked at the ladder, then at Monday again. What was that glint in his pocket on the right-hand side? Was it the Hour Hand, the Greater Key?

Monday moved slightly. Arthur flinched, then calmed himself. It was only a small movement, and Monday's chest continued to rise and fall with the steady motion of a sleeper.

Recite the incantation. The Hour Hand will fly to you. The words of the Will echoed in Arthur's head. Recite the incantation.

Arthur raised his own Key and pointed it at Monday. Then he swallowed twice and in a soft voice, little more than a whisper, spoke.

"Minute by minute, hour by hour, two hands as one, together the power!"