But after that first step, Arthur hesitated. He had changed so much, he was so different to look at. Emily might not even recognise him. Or she might be afraid of what he had become.
Either situation was too awful to contemplate. Arthur's hesitation turned into a terrible fear and he began to back away. As he did so, Emily put the journal down and turned her head, so that she was looking directly at him. Arthur's eyes met Emily's, but he saw neither recognition nor fear in her gaze. In fact she looked right through him.
"Mum," Arthur said, his voice weak and uncertain.
Emily didn't respond. She yawned, looked away from Arthur and picked up the journal again, touching the screen to bring up a different article.
"Mum?" Arthur walked right up to her and stood behind her chair. "Mum!"
Emily didn't respond. Arthur reached out to touch her shoulder, but stopped an inch away. He could feel a strange electric tingle in his fingers, and his knuckles pulsed with the ache of sorcery. Slowly he pulled his hand back. He didn't want to accidentally set off a spell that might hurt – or even kill – her. Instead he held his hand out to cover the screen of her journal. But she kept reading, as if his hand was simply not there.
The article was about the Sleepy Plague, Arthur saw. It was entitled "First Analysis and Exploration of Somnovirus F/201/Z, 'Sleepy Plague'" and was written by Dr Emily Penhaligon. The Sleepy Plague had been the first of the viruses that had been spawned by the presence of the First Key and other intrusions from the House. Though swept away by the Nightsweeper that Arthur had brought back from the Lower House, other viruses had been created by powers of the House that should not have been on Earth. Emily was a pre-eminent medical researcher, but even she could have had no idea of the real reason the new viruses had suddenly appeared.
Arthur took his hand away and went to sit on the other chair in the room. He had felt so relieved to see his mother, because he'd thought she had somehow returned safely to their home. Now that relief was gone. He couldn't be sure it even was Emily sitting opposite him, or that this was in fact his home.
"I'd better have a look round," said Arthur. He spoke loudly, but Emily didn't react. He watched her for a few seconds more, then got up and went downstairs to the kitchen.
The screen on the refrigerator, which Arthur had hoped would be active so he could check the time, date and any news, was blank.
Arthur turned away to head over to his father's studio and the computer there, but first he noticed something unusual through the kitchen window. He should have been able to see the dawn light coming through, but it was blocked by something green that was pressed right up against the glass.
Arthur went closer. There was a bushy tree or perhaps a hedge growing right next to the window, its foliage so thick that he couldn't see through it. But there hadn't been a tree there before, and in fact there should have been nothing but bare earth outside the kitchen because Bob hadn't got around to doing the landscaping yet.
Arthur went to the kitchen door and opened it. The door opened inward, which was just as well because there was a solid expanse of spiky green hedge outside. It was so thick Arthur couldn't see through any part of it, or get any idea of how far it extended.
One thing was clear. The area around his home had been transformed, and it added to Arthur's growing suspicion that this wasn't really his house at all.
He sat down at the kitchen table and took out A Compleat Atlas of the House. It looked like the real thing and Dame Primus had told him it would probably reappear somewhere near him, that he should check out bookshelves. There was only one way to find out, and to check exactly where he was and what was going on.
Arthur laid the Atlas on the table and said, "I need to know where I am."
He was about to reach for his Keys to use their power to activate the Atlas, but he didn't need them. His touch was sorcerous enough. The Atlas flipped open and grew until it was the size of a glossy magazine.
The double-page spread it had opened to was blank at first, then writing began to appear on the left-hand page, much slower than when Arthur had looked at it before. It was as if the invisible hand was being opposed or held back in some way, for the letters were not only slow to appear, they were in an almost illegible scrawl rather than the beautiful copperplate writing the Atlas usually used.
Arthur guessed what the Atlas was going to say before the first word was complete.
Incompa…
"But how can this be the Incomparable Gardens?" asked Arthur as soon as the words were finished, a long minute later. "And why are my house and my mother in it?"
Can't answer…opposed by the Seventh Key…came the ever-so-slow reply. The last word was almost unreadable, the final letter not much more than a blob of ink with a downstroke.
"Is that really Emily upstairs?" Arthur asked. He focused his mind more strongly upon the Atlas, and slipped his hands into his pouch to hold and draw on the power of both the Fifth and Sixth Keys, the mirror in his left hand and the pen in his right. He could feel something fighting back, some power opposing his attempt to use the Atlas. It was like an unseen presence pressing on his face, trying to push him back from the table and the open book.
Arthur fought against it, though he remembered Dame Primus saying the Seventh Key was paramount, the most powerful of all, and like all the Keys, it was even stronger in its own demesne. But surely, he thought, having two Keys would enable him to have some chance against it?
The Atlas slowly wrote a single, misshapen letter. Arthur couldn't quite figure it out for a moment, till he turned his head slightly and saw it was a Y that was partly rotated, followed very slowly by two more letters.
"Yes," read Arthur aloud.
But the Atlas kept writing. Another word appeared, each letter painstakingly spelled out over several seconds.
"And," read Arthur, and then, "no."
"Yes and no? How can it be yes and no?" Arthur asked angrily. He felt rage build up inside him. How dare this ineffectual Atlas be so slow and so inexact!
"I must have the answer!" shouted Arthur. He thumped the table with the Keys and thought furiously at the Atlas. What do you mean, "yes and no"?
But the Atlas wrote no more and Arthur felt the power that opposed him grow stronger. It kept pushing at his face and he found himself turning his head, unable to keep looking at the Atlas, no matter how hard he tried. Then, with a crack, his head snapped round past his left shoulder, and with a snap that was almost as loud, the Atlas shut itself and returned to its normal size.
Arthur growled. His vision was washed with red, a red that pulsed with his rapidly beating heart. He lost conscious thought. In one second he was sitting at the table, the rage building inside him. In what felt like the next second he found himself standing above the wreckage of the table, his hands balled into fists, with splinters of wood sticking out from his knuckles.
The Atlas, undamaged, lay on top of the broken pile of wood.
Arthur stared at it and the splintered timber. He was shocked by what he had done, for the table had been old and immensely solid, and could not have been smashed by even the strongest of men without a sledgehammer . He was even more shocked by the fact that he had done it involuntarily, that the rage had been so strong he had lashed out without his conscious mind even being aware of it.
The anger was still there, smouldering away like a fire that needed only the merest breath to make it blaze again. It scared him, because it came out of nowhere and was so powerful. He had never been like this before. He was not an angry person. Or at least, he had not been before he became the Rightful Heir. Once again, as he had thought so often, he wished he had not been chosen by the Will to be the Heir, even though it had told him he would otherwise have died from an asthma attack. That was the only reason he'd been chosen, or so the Will had said. It had wanted a mortal, and one who was about to die.
Arthur shivered and forced himself to take a long, slow breath. He counted to six as he breathed in, and to six as he exhaled. As he did so, he felt the rage diminish. He tried to visualise it being forced back into a small, locked box from which it could not emerge without him consciously releasing it.
After a few minutes, he felt slightly calmer again and was able to think about what was going on.
OK, I'm in some part of the Incomparable Gardens. I need to get out, get back to the Great Maze, and rally the Army of the Architect to invade the Upper House.
Arthur stopped in mid-thought. That was what Part Six of the Will had suggested, but perhaps that wasn't the best course of action. Dame Primus and Sir Thursday's Marshals could get the Army organised without him, and whatever might be the outcome of any battle, he would still need to find Part Seven of the Will and release it. Then, with its help, he could force Sunday to give up the Seventh Key. With that in his possession, it wouldn't matter if Saturday or the Piper conquered the Incomparable Gardens. With all Seven Keys, Arthur could defeat any opposition. And, more important, he could stop the tide of Nothing that was destroying the House.
All I have to do is find the Will, thought Arthur with sudden clarity. I've done it before. I can do it here. I'm attuned to the Will. I am in the Incomparable Gardens and it is supposed to be here somewhere. I'll just focus my mind on it and it will tell me where it is.
While this was the most prominent thought in Arthur's mind, another small part was not so sure. As he tried to focus his thoughts on where Part Seven of the Will might be, a good portion of his subconscious was also trying to tell him that this might not be a good idea, that it might even alert Lord Sunday to his presence, and that despite the two Keys he held, and the overconfidence they had engendered in him, Lord Sunday and the Seventh Key would probably make very short work of Arthur, especially an Arthur who was without allies of any kind.
But the angry, triumphant Arthur was more powerful. He bent his mind on reaching Part Seven of the Will. He was just thinking he felt some feeble touch from it when the green hedge suddenly shivered and split apart. A boy – a Piper's child – stepped through the gap and, without a word of warning, lunged at Arthur with a six-foot-long, three-tined gardening fork, each of the tines red-hot, the air around them blurred from the intense heat they radiated.
CHAPTER FOUR
Leaf adjusted the surgical mask she was wearing to keep the radioactive dust out of her lungs. She had a white doctor's coat on as well, surgical gloves and a floral plastic shower cap on her head. Once upon a time, the other people in the line might have laughed at her, but now they all wore strange combinations of hats and headscarves and raincoats and rubber gloves – anything to avoid breathing the radioactive dust and to keep it off their skin.
She'd been waiting in the line for water, food and antiradiation drugs since soon after dawn that Sunday morning. The Army had fired their micronukes at East Area Hospital a little over twenty-eight hours before, at one minute past midnight on Saturday morning, initiating a hellish twenty-four hours for Leaf and Martine and all the sleepers at Friday's private hospital.
It would have been bad enough for Leaf on her own, without the added responsibility of looking after all the people who had been put to sleep by Lady Friday, who had wanted to harvest their memories. After Friday's defeat, Leaf had shepherded the sleepers back from Friday's otherworldly lair, only to learn of the impending nuclear strike, and then as Arthur's time stop had begun to wear off, she'd had to make a frantic and not entirely successful attempt to move everyone to the underground level.
Though Friday's building was less than a mile from East Area Hospital, there was a slight hill between them, and it had also been shielded by a taller, very solid warehouse building, so it had not been badly damaged by the explosive force of the micronukes. However, there had been small fires all around the outside and everything was contaminated by radiation – though no one knew how bad the contamination was and Leaf hadn't been able to find out. To make the situation even more difficult, all the sleepers had woken up over the course of the Saturday morning, and were badly disoriented and often wanted to just get up and get out. This was double trouble, because all the doors needed to be kept shut to keep radioactive particles out as much as the sleepers inside.
An hour or so after the nuclear strike, special fire trucks had rumbled in and put out the spot fires with their water and foam cannons, though no fire-fighters got out of the vehicles. They were followed by armoured personnel carriers that drove up and down the streets, their external bullhorns loudly crackling with instructions to civilians to stay inside, keep doors and windows sealed, and stand by for further orders.
Those further orders had come on Saturday night, with designated aid stations to be opened the next morning to issue water, food and medication. Every household had been told to send one member, and warnings were issued about wearing gloves, a face mask of some kind and a coat that could be discarded before going back inside.
Leaf had come out to get help for the sleepers, who included her Aunt Mango. Lady Friday had never intended that her private hospital would actually cater to live patients, so there was very little food or medicine, and the only water they knew was not contaminated came from a single water cooler barrel that had been in the front office, and that had only been enough for the merest sip when shared among so many people.
Leaf ran her tongue around the inside of her dry mouth as she thought of that water barrel. She could see people ahead of her in the line coming back carrying big, sealed containers of water and Army-issue backpacks that were presumably stuffed with food and medicine.
She'd tried to explain to one of the soldiers standing guard that she wasn't from a normal house and needed more help, but he'd refused to listen and told her to join the queue. She'd tried to argue, but he had levelled his assault rifle at her and told her again to get in line. His voice through his gas mask had sounded nervous, so she'd backed off.