Pravuil shrugged. ‘Perhaps a hundred Coal-Collators, and fifty Coal-Cutters. A few others who have ended up down here without any employment at all.’
‘We have to warn them,’ said Arthur. The woodsman and the woman had disappeared out of the circle of light from the Key. They were out there in the darkness now, creeping around. They could easily fall upon some unsuspecting Coal-Collator or Cutter who was intent on work. ‘We’ll have to shout. Sound should carry a long way down here.’
‘Oh, I shouldn’t worry,’ said Pravuil. ‘Even if they do run across someone, they’ll only gouge out their eyes. While not as robust as the Old One, most of us would grow eyes or a liver back in a month or two. And you forget the pain. They got me once, a long time ago. Of course, they were vultures then. Almost preferable to these clockwork horrors, though they were particularly nasty vultures –’
‘I think we should try at least,’ said Arthur. Judging from the speed with which Pravuil had jumped out of the way of the clockwork figures, he thought the other workers down here would be glad of a warning. ‘We can shout together. How about, ‘Look out! The clock things are loose!’ On the count of three. One . . . two . . . three!’
‘The tock lings are goose!’ shouted Pravuil, or something that sounded like it, and he was half a second behind Arthur’s shout. The boy frowned and tried again several times, but Pravuil never got it right, or didn’t want to. Still, Arthur thought, the noise at least might have warned somebody.
‘Do you have friends down here?’ he asked after they’d sat in silence for a few minutes. The cold was starting to bite into Arthur again, and he knew it was going to get worse.
‘Friends? I fear not,’ sighed Pravuil. ‘We’re forbidden to talk to one another, except upon business, and you never know who might be a spy or a visiting Inspector or such-like. That’s what I thought you were at first, my lord, though of course my superior intelligence soon penetrated your disguise.’
‘I thought Dusk told you who I was,’ said Arthur. Pravuil wasn’t getting any more likable.
‘Well, he did, but I already had more than an inkling as to what was what, what?’
‘Tell me about the Secondary Realms,’ said Arthur.
‘What are they exactly?’
‘Hmmm, very tricky, tough question,’ replied Pravuil. He took off his tattered hat and scratched his head. ‘There is the House, you see, which is here. Then there is Nothing, which is not here, but the House is built upon it. Then there are the Secondary Realms, which are out there, outside the House and not connected to Nothing. The Secondary Realms all started as a sort of Nothing that the Architect just threw out there, and this expanded into all kinds of things like stars and planets and so on, and then some of those planets kept developing and living things emerged and we in the House keep the records of them too, along with everything else, but that’s all. That’s the Original Law. No interference, none permissible! Watch and record only! Well, first of all the Old One went out there and interfered quite a lot, but he was chained up. Serves him right, I say. Then the Trustees interfered just a little bit when the Architect first went away and then a little bit more and I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve been up to all sorts of things, only I’ve been trapped down here, so I wouldn’t know, but I say if a mortal shows up with the Lesser Key of the Lower House then there must be a lot going on that shouldn’t.’
Pravuil stopped to draw breath. As he was about to start again, a scream sounded in the distance. A scream that made Arthur shiver and feel sick, for in the scream were two barely identifiable words.
‘My eyes!’
‘Oh, good,’ said Pravuil happily. ‘We can get down now. My camp isn’t too far away.’
Arthur climbed down reluctantly, though now that he knew how to make the coal stick, he could easily climb another pyramid if necessary. And he knew that whoever had lost eyes would grow them back, but he still couldn’t forget that terrible scream. Or the fact that Pravuil couldn’t care less what happened to anybody else. He considered that as he followed the Coal-Collator. Arthur thought he was pretty good at figuring out what people would do and what they were really like. Pravuil had refused to do something he wasn’t supposed to and had suffered for it. But then he appeared to have his own interests very much at heart. A strange contrast. Though perhaps it could be explained by the fact that Pravuil wasn’t really a person. Or he was a person, but he wasn’t really human. He was a Denizen. No one in the House was human, except maybe the children like Suzy who had once been mortals. But even they were changed. Arthur wasn’t sure exactly what the others were, let alone what the Old One was, or the Architect. He really didn’t want to dwell on it, particularly since his thoughts were heading in a direction that he was uncomfortable with. None of his family went to Church and he knew very little about any religion. Now he kind of wished he did and was also kind of glad that he didn’t.
Pravuil’s camp, when they finally got to it after traversing more freezing coal-strewn wasteland, consisted of a small wooden chest, a threadbare armchair, and a weird-looking metal urn about three feet high that had lots of taps, spigots, and little drawers. It glowed with a dull heat and Arthur was glad to put his hands near it.
Pravuil explained that the urn was called a samovar and that it was his most precious possession, bequeathed to him by a Coal-Collator who had been reprieved and returned upstairs. According to Pravuil, the samovar, if correctly supplied with raw ingredients, could provide hot tea, mulled wine, coffee, or cocoa.
This turned out to be almost true. Pravuil filled one of the drawers rather hesitantly with some of the tea Dusk had given him. But after some spouting of steam and considerable rattling, he was disconcerted to find that every tap and spigot dispensed a rather nasty blend of cocoa and wine. After several attempts to fix this, Pravuil finally ended up with something hot, pale, and amber that tasted faintly of apples. He served Arthur some of this in a pewter flagon that was a foot high and had a broken lid.
Arthur drank it gratefully. He was very cold, and whatever the fluid was, it warmed him up.
‘Why don’t you conjure up tea from Nothing?’ he asked after a few mouthfuls had revived him. ‘Like the Old One?’
‘If only I could,’ sighed Pravuil with an angry glare at the samovar. ‘But that is a great magic, to work with Nothing. The Old One is an adept, of course, though limited by his chains. Apart from him, there would be few in the House who can work with Nothing, particularly without assistance from some object of power, like your Key.’
‘I see,’ said Arthur. He wondered if he could use the Key himself to conjure something out of Nothing. But common sense told him it would be best not to try without some expert help. What if he called up a whole bunch of Nithlings like the ones who’d come up out of the cobbles in the Atrium?
Thinking of expert help reminded Arthur that he needed to talk to the Old One as soon as possible. He wondered if enough time had passed for the Old One’s eyes to grow back, and that led immediately to wondering how much time might have passed back home. Though the Will had said time between the House and the Secondary Realms was flexible, Arthur worried that he had been away too long. If he’d been missing for a day, then his parents would be terribly worried. Unless they had the Sleepy Plague already, in which case every minute was too long to delay to get back with a cure . . .
‘What time is it?’ asked Arthur. ‘Is it safe to approach the Old One?’
‘Mmmm, hard to say what time it is for the Old One,’ replied Pravuil. ‘Unless we look at his clock. Shall we go and see?’
Eighteen
PRAVUIL HUNG BACK as they approached the clock and then stopped altogether.
‘I’ll wait here if you don’t mind, my lord,’ he said. He kept his head bowed and he avoided Arthur’s gaze. ‘The Old One can be a little bit tetchy. Though of course he won’t be to you, Master.’
Arthur looked at him suspiciously. Pravuil hadn’t been afraid to go quite a bit closer before. What was he up to?
> ‘What does ‘a little bit tetchy’ mean?’ he asked. ‘What will he do?’
‘That’s really quite difficult to say . . .’
‘Well, what sort of things does he do? And what doesn’t he like?’
‘Well, last time I went up to the clock he threatened to pull my head off and kick it over the rim of the pit. I’d never find it if he did that. I’d be worse off than Bareneck.’
‘But why?’ asked Arthur. ‘He was quite friendly to me, once he knew who I was.’
‘You’re a mortal, and you carry the Lesser Key,’ said Pravuil. ‘It’s the Denizens of the House the Old One doesn’t like. He said he particularly didn’t like me for some reason. I can’t think why. So I’ll just wait here, shall I?’
‘Do whatever you like,’ said Arthur. He thought Pravuil was up to something, but he didn’t have time to argue with him, and there was no point trying to drag him closer. ‘Just remember you swore to serve me, Sir Pravuil.’
‘Oh, yes, a chap couldn’t forget that!’ said Pravuil brightly, but still he didn’t look Arthur in the eye. ‘I stand by my words. Good luck, my lord. Sir.’
Arthur nodded and began to cross the open ground between the coal pyramids and the clock. He could see the Old One now. The giant was crouched in his thinking position, near the numeral two. His chains were still quite tight, and it was clear he couldn’t move beyond the first quarter of the clock.
Arthur walked slowly towards him. He was glad to see that the doors on the clock were shut, though he only had Pravuil’s word for it that the horrid puppet things had gone back inside.
The Old One looked up as Arthur stepped up and onto the clock face. His eyes were red, but they were there. If it weren’t for the splashes of dried blood upon his cheeks Arthur would have doubted that the giant’s eyes had been the targets of the woodsman’s axe and the woman’s corkscrew.
‘Greetings, Old One.’
The Old One inclined his head in what might be a very restrained greeting. But he did not speak, nor did he smile or show any other sign of welcome. Arthur started to feel nervous. He remembered the feel of the chain around his neck, and he wondered if his own head could be reattached if it was severed from his body by the Old One. Somehow he doubted it.
‘I’ve come back to see if you’ve decided to help me or not,’ Arthur announced as he took several more slow steps towards the Old One. ‘You said you wouldn’t need that much time to think about it. Then the things came out of the doors –’
‘Yes,’ growled the Old One. ‘I deliberated too long and almost gave you to them. If you had stayed another second on the clock, they would have taken your eyes.’
‘They came out and took somebody’s,’ said Arthur, restraining his anger. ‘Why didn’t you wake me earlier?’
‘I wished to test myself, to see if I could let a sleeping boy pay terribly for my night’s rest,’ rumbled the Old One. ‘At the last, I could not. I am pleased that this is so. You have earned some answers, Arthur. Ask me three questions, and no more, and I shall answer.’
Arthur almost asked the Old One why only three questions, but bit his lip just in time. That would have counted as a question for sure, and then he’d only have two left. He had to think carefully about this.
‘You may begin,’ said the Old One, breaking Arthur’s train of thought. ‘I will give you two minutes, by the hand of this clock.’
‘Two minutes!’ exclaimed Arthur. He thought furiously, then gabbled out, ‘How can I use the Improbable Stair to get to Monday’s Dayroom from here?’
‘The Improbable Stair exists everywhere there is somewhere to exist,’ said the Old One. ‘You must imagine a stair where there is not one, a stair made of whatever you can see, be it a grass-stem broken in three places or a peculiar step-shaped cloud. Then you must jump towards the first step of the stair, making sure you have the Key in your hand. If you believe it is there, it will be – at least it will be for the wielder of the Lesser Key.
‘Once upon the stair, you must keep going until you arrive where you want to be. The Improbable Stair has many landings, and upon each landing you may need to find the Stair again. If you do not find the continuation of the Stair quickly, you will be stuck wherever and whenever you have stopped. The Stair winds through all the Secondary Realms, through both time and space, and also through the House, so you must be wary. It is possible to end up somewhere you particularly do not wish to be. It is even likely, for that is part of the Stair’s nature. It takes strength of will as well as power to get to where you really want to, using the Stair. You must also beware of other travellers, particularly Nithlings who sometimes manage to find their way onto the Stair.’
The long hand of the clock moved, rattling the Old One’s chain. A whole minute gone!
‘What . . . how do I use the powers of the Lesser Key?’ asked Arthur. He held up the Key as he spoke, and its light flared briefly, though it was washed out by the strange blue glow of the Old One’s chains.
‘The powers of the Lesser Key are numerous,’ intoned the Old One. ‘In the hands of its rightful wielder it may do almost anything that is asked of it, though it is generally weaker in the House than in the Secondary Realms, and it may be opposed by both Art and Power. In general it may be used to lock, unlock, bind, unbind, open, close, animate, petrify, illuminate, darken, translate, befuddle, and to perform small diversions or redirections of Time. It will protect you to some degree from both physical and psychic harm, though as you are mortal, there are close limits on this power. As to how you might use it, you know already. Ask or direct, and if it is within its powers, the Key will work as you require. You have thirty seconds left.’
Arthur looked at the minute hand. It had moved again, halfway to the next mark. But he was sure he hadn’t used ninety seconds already! In a panic, he tried to think of a good question, one that might attract a better answer than the last two. Something more direct, more straightforward.
‘What is happening back at home? My home?’
‘I cannot tell you that,’ replied the Old One. ‘The Secondary Realms are forbidden to me and many, many years have passed since I last looked upon anything that happens there. You may ask another question.’
‘Who can I trust?’ Arthur blurted out.
‘Those who wish you well,’ said the Old One. ‘Not those who wish to use you well. Be a player, not a pawn. And that is three questions and all your time.’
He raised his hand and waved Arthur away.
‘That’s not really an answer. I meant who in particular can I trust?’ said Arthur. He refused to back off, though the Old One again gestured for him to go. ‘Like the Will or Monday’s Dusk.’
The Old One climbed to his feet, the chains rattling. He made a loop with one chain and flicked it idly in the air. Still Arthur didn’t move. He stood there, looking up at the giant, the Key in his hand. It’s just like standing up to a bully, he told himself, though he felt very shaky inside. It has to be done.
‘You must decide who to trust yourself,’ said the Old One. He started to wave Arthur off again, then paused.
‘But I will tell you one more thing without a question, Arthur Penhaligon. A mortal who wields the Key will become its tool as much as it is his. It will change you, in blood and bone, remaking you in the image of its maker. The Key does not befit a mortal bearer. In time, it will remake its wielder. Think carefully about that, Arthur. To wield power is never without cost. As you can see here. Now go!’
He roared the last two words and jumped forward, swinging his chain. Arthur ducked the flailing links and sprinted off the clock, his heart pounding.
When he got to the edge of the coal pyramids, Pravuil was nowhere in sight. Looking back, Arthur saw the Old One sitting back down, once again resting his elbow on his knee and his head on his fist. Thinking.
Something Arthur would need to do himself, though his uppermost thought was to use the Improbable Stair to get out of this freezing, dusty pit. But it wasn’t as simple as
that. Should he risk the Stair when there might be another way out? Where should he go? Straight to Monday’s Dayroom, to try to get the Hour Hand? What about the Will and Suzy Blue? And Monday’s Dusk?
Monday’s Dusk . . . Arthur suddenly wondered if Pravuil had some means to communicate with Dusk. What exactly had Dusk told Pravuil to do, besides help Arthur and give him a cup of tea?
‘Pravuil!’
Arthur’s shout echoed around the pyramids of coal, but there was no answer out of the darkness, nor from the blue-lit region around the clock.
‘Pravuil! Come here!’
Again there was no answer. So much for swearing loyalty, thought Arthur. He looked around and wondered if he could remember how to find Pravuil’s camp. He could really do with a hot cup of something, even if the Coal-Collator wasn’t there to answer questions. But without having left markers, he knew it was useless. He’d just wander around in the dark, a moving patch of light that would only stumble on the camp by blind good luck.
‘Pravuil!’
Silence returned as the echoes died away. But as Arthur took a breath to shout again, he heard something. A faint noise that was hard to pinpoint. It grew louder as Arthur used the Key to stick the coal together and climbed up a pyramid. The light from the Key spread out as he got higher up, but he still couldn’t see anything.
Then he recognised the noise and looked up. It was the beating of wings. Someone . . . something . . . was coming straight down towards him!
Arthur jumped out of the way as a flapping shape zoomed over his head. As he hit the ground, he heard it crash into one of the pyramids, sending pieces of coal flying everywhere. Whoever it was clearly didn’t know how to fly properly.
Before whoever it was could recover, Arthur rushed over, the Key held ready to strike. He didn’t think it was Dusk, because the wings had looked white as they streaked past, and somehow he didn’t think Dusk or Noon or Dawn would have a problem with their wings.
‘That was a facer, and no mistake!’ declared a familiar voice. Arthur stared down at a blackened shape that was crawling out of a pile of coal. ‘No one told me the ground could come up as fast as that!’