Lady Friday (21 page)

“We got a cup of tea at Binding Junction,” protested Fred.

“Not a decent cup,” said Suzy. “That was poison.”

“I wonder how we are going to get all these people back to where they belong,” said Scamandros. “And now that I think of it, I wonder how
we
are going to get back. I forgot to pack a Transfer Plate!”

 
“She’s not among the sleepers in the crater,” Arthur said an hour later. The silver chair had been fished out of the lake and set up on the shore, and he was sitting on it, as the centerpiece of an impromptu court or council of war. “Leaf, are you sure this Harrison fellow would know if she was here?”

Harrison, who had been found hiding in the linen store, nodded from where he was kneeling in front of Arthur. Leaf, who was sitting at Arthur’s side on a wooden chair from one of the closer rooms, also nodded. Her aunt Mango stood next to her, swaying from side to side and occasionally snoring.

“Harrison had the records from Friday’s hospital back home of everyone sent through. I’m on the list, but there’s no mention of your mom.”

“Someone else has taken her, then,” said Arthur. “Scamandros, there can be no doubt she is not on Earth?”

“If we could not find her through the Seven Dials, she is either shrouded by sorcery or somewhere else,” Scamandros replied.

Arthur bit his lip, then asked the question that had been worrying him for a long time.

“Could she be dead?”

“Only if no one knows she is dead. Which is very unlikely.”

“I have to find out,” said Arthur. “I don’t suppose it’s any use now, but Scamandros, if I use the First Key instead of the Fifth, will it contaminate me less?”

“No, Arthur,” Scamandros said sadly.

“Thought not,” Arthur muttered. He raised the mirror, glad that he couldn’t see the crocodile ring and its measure of his sorcerous contamination under the gauntlet of the Second Key. “Friday, I charge you by the power of the Fifth Key to tell me truly if you know anything of what has happened to my mother since last Thursday, in the time of Earth, my home.”

“I know nothing,” whispered Lady Friday. “I would have taken your mother, if she had been there for the taking. But she was not among the patients of the temporary hospital from which I took my final selection. I would have so enjoyed her experiences, I’m sure—”

“Enough!” ordered Arthur.

He bent his head and kneaded his forehead with his gauntleted fingers until a sudden fear that this could somehow contaminate him even more made him sit back straight, just in time to see the Mariner approaching. He was leading two bedraggled Denizens, who were in turn carrying across their shoulders Friday’s Noon and Dusk. The two superior Denizens were silent and still, their eyes closed, but they were not dead. There were papers stuck on their foreheads, hanging down over their elegant noses. Friday’s Noon had lost his monocle.

“Milka and Feorin!” said Leaf. “These were the two who helped me. Not that they really meant to.”

“I found them trying to sneak out and board my ship!” The Mariner laughed. “Doubtless they did not know what I do with stowaways!”

Arthur looked at the bedraggled would-be star sailors, and then at Friday’s Noon and Dusk. He was annoyed that they had escaped punishment, the more so that they were doing it by partaking of some poor long-lost mortals’ lives.

“Can they be brought out of their experiencing?” he asked.

“Not without breaking their minds,” said Scamandros. “It is not an area which I have studied. I don’t know who has. Now, Arthur, we must get these sleepers back to their Secondary Realm, to your Earth. They will wake up before too long and I doubt that waking here would serve them well.”

“I need to get Aunt Mango back,” confirmed Leaf.

“Easier said than done.” Arthur felt the pocket at his side where the Fifth Key rested. They had already established that there were two ways out of Friday’s retreat, mirror-paths set up that could be activated by the Key. One went back to the private hospital on Earth and the other to the Middle of the Middle House.

“Martine can lead us back if you can open the way with the Key,” said Leaf. She had spoken to the craggy-faced, gray-haired woman, who was not anywhere near as mad as Harrison had made out. She was just shy and deathly afraid of Lady Friday and the Denizens, though she’d served the former Trustee for at least thirty years.

“I’ve got a Transfer Plate too,” said Suzy, pulling out a disc of burnished electrum. “The doc can retune it for the Citadel or wherever you want to go, Arthur.”

“I want to go back to Earth!” said Arthur. “I’m just not sure if that’s the right thing to do. The Piper may already be attacking the Citadel again, and without the Keys, Dame Primus will be hard-pressed. So perhaps I should go there. Or I should move directly against Saturday ... if I can figure out some way of getting into the Upper House. There’s just so much I don’t know!”

“Knowledge, like all things, is best in moderation,” intoned the Will. “Knowing everything means you don’t need to think, and that is very dangerous.”

“Whatever you decide, Arthur, I must be away,” said the Mariner. “The solar tide of this purple star flows strongly, and I would catch it. If you do not require them, I might also take these Denizens. My current ship requires no crew, but I have my eye on a larger vessel.”

“They may go, if they wish,” said Arthur. “Though if you could stay, Captain, I’d really appreciate it.”

“Do we wish?” Feorin asked Milka.

“Definitely,” said Milka. She bowed low to Arthur, and then almost as low to Leaf.

“I must catch the tide,” said the Mariner. “I am a seafarer, Arthur. Long ago I decided I did not want to be immured in all the politicking and bickering within the House. When my debt to you is fully paid, I shall not come again, save that it be at my own whim.”

The Mariner saluted Arthur. Then he took his crew and left, striding back inside to begin the long climb up to the crater rim where his small starship nestled against a crack in the dome. As they disappeared, Leaf heard Feorin asking the Mariner whether he had his ship’s log bound in leather or calfskin.

“I have decided,” said Arthur. “I will go back to Earth with you, Leaf, and the sleepers. Suzy—you, Fred, and the Will had better use the Transfer Plate to go to the Great

Maze and take Friday with you to be locked up, with her Noon and Dusk. Dr. Scamandros, I have the plate here that took me to the Middle House. You can reset it for Monday’s Dayroom—I know Dame Primus wants you to keep an eye on the Old One.”

“It is not the Old One that is troubling,” said Dr. Scamandros. “He is chained as always. But there has been a curious winnowing of Coal-Collaters and other strangeness in the cellars. I am investigating that.”

“I am going to give you the first four Keys to take to Dame Primus,” continued Arthur, directing his attention to the Beast. “I’ll need the Fifth Key to get back to the House. Which I will do as soon as possible.”

“I’d keep them all if I was you,” said Suzy.

“No,” said Arthur. “Everything of power from the House, Denizen or Key, has a bad effect on the Secondary Realms. I have brought enough plagues and troubles to my world. Besides, Dame Primus will need them to fight off the Piper. And Saturday.”

“Saturday!” exclaimed Suzy. “That reminds me. Where did I put it?”

She rummaged in the pockets of her paper coat, pulled out a small square of paper, and handed it to Arthur. “It’s the paper poor old Uggie had. I reckon he got it from the Raised Rat who used the Transfer Plate Friday sent to Saturday, the one whose tracks we saw in the snow. There’s a bloody paw print on the outside, see?”

“What is it?” asked Arthur. He unfolded it as Suzy answered.

“Something worth a Raised Rat dying for, I’d say.”

Arthur read what was written on the scrap of paper aloud. It had been torn from a larger paper, and there was an edge that he thought had probably once held a seal, for there was a trace of the rainbow wax used by all the Trustees.

For the last time, I do not with to intervene. Manage affairs in the House as you wish. It will make little difference in the end.

S.