‘Oh, no, sir!’ the Denizen replied. ‘That’s the Carp’s special moss, that is, not mould. It takes cultivation to get that growing right, that does.’
Arthur shut his eyes and stepped forward, holding his hands in front of his face, just in case he did run straight into a mossy cliff.
After four or five paces, when he didn’t suddenly impact with rock, Arthur opened his eyes. He found himself in soft darkness, lit here and there by soft green lights. Some of the lights moved, including one close, bright clump of green lights above Arthur’s head.
‘The moss is luminous!’ he said.
‘Aye, it shines in the darkness, to illuminate our path,’ said Jebenezer. ‘As does the Carp.’
‘It doesn’t shine very well,’ said Suzy. ‘And I can’t see a path.’
Arthur looked around, but he couldn’t see anything more than a few feet away. But judging from the echo of Suzy’s voice, and the patches of both moving and static green light, he knew he had to be standing inside a huge cavern, somewhere near the top. It looked like it extended downward for a few hundred feet and back for at least as far.
‘The path to the Carp is a little difficult,’ admitted Jebenezer. ‘Even with the gift of our light. I’d better go first, and you might care to hold the back of my belt, sir. Miss Suzy, please hold Lord Arthur’s coat-tails.’
Suzy muttered something that Arthur felt he was probably glad not to hear. He reached out and hooked two fingers through the back of Jebenezer’s belt. With one leg not as nimble as it should be — though the crab armour did a great job — he didn’t want to take any risks in the dark. He felt Suzy grab hold of his coat-tails a moment later.
As a makeshift train it was a slow shuffle down. Most of the time Arthur couldn’t see how narrow the path was, or how far he could fall, but every now and then they encountered a large patch of the glowing moss in exactly the right place to illuminate the danger.
Despite these momentary flashes of light and terror, they reached the cavern floor without incident. For the first time, Arthur looked back and was unnerved to see a long line of moving green light zigzagging back up behind them. It looked as if all eight hundred-odd Followers of the Carp were coming down the path. All very quiet now, in contrast to their shouting outside.
‘We approach the Carp,’ whispered Jebenezer. He pointed ahead, indicating a straight way lit by regularly spaced clumps of luminous moss. At the far end, perhaps two hundred feet away, there was a soft, golden light that occasionally twinkled with a red glint, as if there was a distant fire caught by a mirror.
‘The Carp’s road is flat; there is no danger,’ said Jebenezer. ‘You should go ahead here, Lord Arthur, and we will follow.’
Arthur let go of Jebenezer’s belt and started walking slowly towards the gold-red light. He was having last-minute doubts with each step. Surely, the Carp had to be Part Three of the Will? But what if it wasn’t? What if it was some other powerful entity, something like the Old One in the Coal Cellar? Something strange, strong, and dangerous that was expecting some other kind of Rightful Heir, somebody else entirely.
As he drew closer, Arthur saw that the greenlit road ended and there was a band of darkness. Beyond that was a kind of sunken arena or theatre, a deep bowl with terraced sides where the Denizens could sit. The gold-red light came from inside the bowl, but it was deep enough that he could not quite see its source.
Arthur crossed the darkness and stepped down onto the first terrace. He paused there for a moment, looking down. The light came from a huge glass bowl about twenty feet in diameter, with a bronze lid that appeared to be riveted to the glass in some way. The bowl was full of sparkling clean water, and in the water was the biggest goldfish Arthur had ever seen. It was ten feet long and six feet high, with huge goggly eyes and long moustache-like tendrils hanging down from its mouth.
Arthur stepped down to the next terrace and the next. There were forty in all before he reached the lowest and stood in front of the glass bowl. The goldfish watched him approach, just bobbing up and down. It didn’t look very intelligent.
Arthur cleared his throat, not without some difficulty, and spoke.
‘Greetings! I am Arthur, chosen by Part One of the Will to be the Rightful Heir to the House!’
‘I knew you were coming,’ said the Carp, its words mysteriously echoing all around the arena. Its voice was of a strange pitch, and could have come from either a deep-voiced woman or a high-voiced man. ‘It is as I have told my Followers. Hold true to your faith that the Rightful Heir will come. The pirate Feverfew will be cast down, and we shall return to the House!’
‘You are Part Three of the Will, aren’t you?’ asked Arthur. It was hard to see through the curved glass, but he could see that the fish was actually composed of tiny shining letters, moving in lines. Its skin was like the detailed etching on a banknote. From a distance it looked like solid colour, but up really close you could see what it was made of.
‘Indeed I am,’ replied the Carp. It did a circuit around the bowl and returned to face Arthur. ‘What was your name again?’
Twenty–six
‘ARTHUR! ’
The Carp blew out a huge stream of bubbles, and a strange chuckling, gargling sound filled the air. It took Arthur a moment to realise the goldfish was laughing.
‘Only joking, Lord Arthur! I am not a goldfish, though I have that shape. While it is true I depend upon newly escaped slaves for news of the House and Realms beyond this island prison, I have heard of your heroic exploits!’
‘You haven’t read that book about me, have you?’ asked Arthur. ‘Because it isn’t true —’ ‘I have read no book,’ said the Carp. ‘I have merely heard stories. Now tell me of the ships waiting to enter this worldlet, and the legions amassed to assault the vile Feverfew’s fort!’
‘Uh, there’s just me and Suzy,’ said Arthur. ‘We had to sneak in through Wednesday’s stomach. In the Raised Rats’ submersible.’
‘Only the two of you?’ asked the Carp. It did four rapid circles of its bowl, then calmed down and approached Arthur again. ‘And you dealt with the Raised Rats? You are very confident, Lord Arthur. But I expect that my Followers can defeat the pirates after you have slain Feverfew himself.’
‘I wasn’t planning to run into Feverfew,’ said Arthur. ‘I just planned to sneak in here, find you — the Will — and sneak out again. The submersible is waiting to take us back out of Drowned Wednesday. Then Wednesday can release you and give me the Key. Once I have that, I can take on Feverfew. I have to rescue my friends in the slave huts — if they’re still alive — as well as your Followers, but I can’t do it straightaway.’
‘I have faith,’ muttered the Carp. ‘But there are limits. Why did you not bring the First and Second Keys with you? I cannot feel their presence.’
‘Because I want to stay human,’ said Arthur angrily. ‘I don’t want to turn into a Denizen. This is all your stupid fault anyway. I mean, the Will’s fault. I never wanted to get involved, but now I have to sort it all out and I wish I didn’t have to but I do! So how about helping me instead of complaining?’
The Carp started doing circles again and did not respond, but Arthur heard a strange whooshing sound. He looked around and saw that the Followers of the Carp had begun to file into the amphitheatre and sit down on the terraces in numerical order. Suzy and Jebenezer were right behind him.
The strange whooshing sound came from the assembled Denizens all drawing in highly indignant breaths at the same time. But before they could say anything or start throwing things, which some of them looked like they wanted to do, the Carp stopped circling and came right up to the glass near Arthur.
‘You are the Rightful Heir, proclaimed by the two parts of the Will that precede me. There is no doubt about that. So I must help you to help myself. It is a pity that things were not arranged otherwise, but I believe it will all turn out for the best. How do you intend to take me to this submersible?’
Good question, thought Ar
thur.
‘Uh, I was hoping you’d be in a more . . . mobile . . . shape. Can you get out of that bowl?’
‘My current shape has been fixed by the Third Key, as part of my imprisonment,’ said the Carp. ‘If you had the other Keys you could free me, but that is water under the bridge. The bowl is a later addition of Feverfew’s. As the Rightful Heir, I suspect you could banish the bowl, but then I should only be able to flop around on the ground.’
Arthur scratched his head with both hands and resisted the urge to pull his hair out or start smacking his forehead.
‘How did the slaves carry you up here, then?’ asked Suzy. ‘You and that bowl would be a mighty heavy load even for twenty Denizens.’
‘Both my person and my bowl were smaller then,’ said the Carp. ‘As my following has grown, so I have grown, reflecting the worship of my Followers.’
‘So you can shrink yourself and the bowl?’ asked Arthur.
‘I could,’ admitted the Carp. ‘But it would not befit my station to appear less than I am.’
‘Shrink,’ commanded Arthur. ‘I haven’t got time to argue about it. Get as small and light as you can.’
‘That is no way to speak to the Carp!’ protested someone back up a terrace or two.
‘Arthur is the Rightful Heir,’ said the Carp. ‘It is my duty to obey his orders, however given. I shall dwindle to a transportable size.’
‘First time I’ve seen a part of the Will with a sensible attitude,’ muttered Suzy.
‘We still have to get back to the water gate,’ said Arthur. He took the small case and checked the green bottle inside. It was intact, he was pleased to see. So the Balaena had not encountered trouble. Or not yet. ‘There’s those four pirates to get past too.’
‘May I have my Followers sing as I shrink?’ asked the Carp.
‘Sure, whatever. They can dance too, if they like,’ said Arthur. ‘But please hurry.’
‘Song of Faith Number Eighty-One,’ instructed the Carp. ‘I shall diminish myself and my bowl as the song progresses, and at the end shall be positively minute.’
‘How long is the song?’ asked Suzy.
‘A mere hundred verses and the chorus repeated as often,’ said the Carp. ‘I shall set the key.’
‘No,’ said Arthur. He was feeling really agitated and tense, as if every second lost was vital. ‘You’ve got two minutes. Please just shrink. We’ll also need some help to fight the gate guards, so maybe, Jebenezer, you can pick a dozen —’ The boy stopped in midsentence as he thought that through. The Denizens who came to fight the guards at the water gate would never be able to get back to the hills. They’d have to go with Arthur to the Balaena.
‘No, say just four of your very best archers to come with. . . to help us get past the gate.’
Arthur turned to look at all the luminous green Denizens sitting on the terraces, and raised his voice.
‘And I do promise that if I make it back out and get the Third Key, I will return! I will make sure you are all brought out to the House, even if I have to use the Improbable Stair to get here.’
This speech did not evoke wild cheering, but the Denizens appeared slightly happier. Arthur sighed and twisted around to look at the Carp, and was taken aback. There was no longer any huge fishbowl with a giant carp in it. There was only Suzy and Jebenezer.
‘What?’
Jebenezer held up something that looked like a jam jar full of water, with a two-inch goldfish whizzing around and around in it.
‘Small enough?’ asked the Carp. Its voice was still as loud, and omnidirectional.
‘Thank you,’ said Arthur. It was a heartfelt expression of gratitude. ‘Jebenezer, can you carry the Will . . . I mean the Carp. . . and lead us out of here? And can you get those four archers?’
‘I can,’ said Jebenezer. ‘But. . . but what is to happen to us when you leave with the Carp? It is only the Carp’s powers that make this cavern safe from Feverfew. Once the pirate knows the Carp is gone, he will attack, and his sorcery will invade our home.’
Why is nothing straightforward? thought Arthur. It’s bad enough that I can’t go and rescue Leaf and the crews from the Moth and the Mantis. Now I have to worry about all these Denizens as well. I bet heroes who had only to beat up on dragons or monsters never had to worry about whole populations and their friends, not to mention what might happen to their family back home …
‘I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ said Arthur. ‘Perhaps you should split up and hide all over the hills.’
‘You must have faith,’ intoned the Carp.
‘We must have faith,’ echoed back the Followers.
‘I reckon splitting up and hiding might come in handy as well,’ said Suzy. ‘I mean, faith is fine and everything, but you got to be practical.’
The Carp stopped circling and peered at Suzy for a moment.
‘If you have faith, all will be well,’ said the Carp. ‘But to sharpen your faith, my Followers, I shall test it. When I have left, so must you disperse among the hills, in groups of no more than three, and meditate quietly. No singing, and no loud praising of me. If you are true to your faith, Lord Arthur will return and save you. If not, doubtless Feverfew will capture you and end your doubting existences in the Hot Lake.’
‘The Carp is wise, long swim the Carp!’ chanted the Denizens as Arthur, Suzy, and Jebenezer started to climb back up through the terraces. As they passed through the crowd, Jebenezer held the jar up above his head, and the Carp’s radiance lit up the faces of his Followers, while Jebenezer singled out the archers who were to accompany them to the water gate.
Ascending the path to the cavern exit was considerably easier with the Carp’s light, though Arthur was slightly shocked to see some parts of the path that he’d blithely walked along were not only narrow but the rock was crumbling on the edges as well. This time he traversed these sections with his back against the rock wall, trying not to think about how easily he could have put a foot wrong and fallen to his death.
It was a relief to get back outside. The sun was still shining, though it was a little lower in the sky. Coming out of the darkness, Arthur thought that the sunlight was tinged a little pink, like a grapefruit skin, and so the island was probably not a piece of his Earth, pinched off to become Feverfew’s worldlet, but was from one of the myriad other worlds in the Secondary Realms.
‘So, do we head straight back the way we came?’ asked Suzy. ‘Cos if we are, I hope you know the way we came. I need streets and buildings, personally. Can’t find my own elbow in these woods.’
‘The quickest path down from here goes round the shores of the Hot Lake,’ said Jebenezer. ‘Then we can strike nor’-nor’-east to the peninsula and follow that to the water gate. Only the pirates’ll probably see us coming, either from the water gate, the fort, or the Shiver. We’ll have to run the length of the peninsula, burst through the guards, and go into the Stomach.’
‘Is it a lack of faith to be thinking that we’re all going to be slain or captured and sunk into the Hot Lake?’ asked one of the four chosen archers.
‘Yes,’ snapped the Carp. Its voice was more restrained now that it was out in the open. ‘Believe in Lord Arthur. Believe in your Carp. We shall prevail.’
‘Provided we get a move on,’ muttered Suzy.
I can’t run the length of the peninsula, thought Arthur as panic began to make his stomach feel tight and his breathing shallower. I just can’t run that far without having an asthma attack …
‘Shall we take the quick path, Lord Arthur?’ asked Jebenezer.
I can’t run that far … I can’t run that far … Arthur’s thoughts were in a loop of fear and doubt. He felt like he was drowning in them, unable to think about anything else. Then all of a sudden, he felt, rather than heard, the Carp speak, inside his head. He couldn’t describe it or see it, but he experienced the Carp’s words as if he heard them and read them at the same time.
Have faith in yourself, Arthur. Take it one step at a time. Le
t us get to the peninsula. Then we shall take the next step. Perhaps we will not need to run. Perhaps you will run better than you think. One step at a time.
You can read my mind! Arthur thought back.
Not normally, replied Part Three of the Will silently, for Arthur alone. But your fear was so great that it opened the doorways of your mind. They are closing now, and I will not ‘Arthur! The quick path or not?’ asked Suzy.
‘Sorry,’ said Arthur. He shook his head and found it clear of the paralysing fear he’d felt a moment before. ‘Yeah, let’s take the quick path.’
‘Florenza and Padraic, take scout,’ ordered Jebenezer.
The two Denizens he’d named looked at each other nervously, then slowly advanced into the forest, bows ready.
Twenty–seven
THE QUICK WAY down the hill would have been a very slow way if it had been up to Arthur or Suzy to find it, Arthur thought as they were led through seemingly impassable tangles of undergrowth, under arching tree roots, and between rocks. But within forty minutes they were back down to the flat area, skirting the Hot Lake, keeping just within the border of the forest before it died back and was replaced by bare, sulphurous yellow earth.
‘It does stink,’ said Suzy as she tied a torn-off flounce from her dress over her face.
Arthur took a deep breath and was surprised to find that it went all the way to the bottom of his lungs. The air did smell horrible, like rotten eggs, but he could actually breathe it more easily than the cool, wet air of the hills.
Across the Hot Lake, Arthur could see Feverfew’s yardarm. The pirate had simply transferred a mast and its yards from a captured ship, and set it right on the lake’s edge, with a block and tackle to swing prisoners out and dip them. There was a viewing platform nearby.
‘I reckon we’ve done it,’ said Suzy a little later, as they passed the eastern shore of the lake. ‘Plenty of time to spare too.’
‘Let’s not talk about it till we’re actually out of here and out of Drowned Wednesday’s stomach,’ said Arthur. ‘Or, better still, getting served tea by Sneezer back in Monday’s Dayroom.’