Lady Friday (5 page)

 
“Open up!” repeated Arthur. “Or else I’ll blast this door off its hinges!”

He withdrew his rapier from the mail slot and it transformed back into a baton. Arthur hoped this meant that no immediate enemies were in the vicinity and that whoever was behind the door was friendly, or at least neutral. He figured he likely had only minutes before a whole lot more Nithlings showed up—probably with their boss. That could be anyone or anything, he guessed, ranging from Saturday’s Dusk to one of the Piper’s New Nithling officers. Whoever it was, Arthur wanted to be inside the tower before they arrived.

There was no immediate response to his shout. Arthur was just drawing breath to repeat his order for the third time, and wondering what he would actually do if they didn’t open up, when he heard the sound of several bolts being withdrawn on the other side of the door, followed by the door itself creaking open.

A thin but very wiry Denizen poked his head around nervously and said, “Come in, sir, come in. You won’t slay us all, will you?”

“I won’t slay anyone,” said Arthur.

The Denizen stood aside as the boy came through, then pushed the foot-thick iron-bound door closed with considerable effort and slid home several huge bolts, then lowered a bar that looked as if it would be more at home as the central prop for a very deep mine, where it could hold up tons and tons of rock.

Arthur looked around at the small antechamber, but there was nothing of interest to see apart from slightly damp stone walls and another, closed door opposite of a less sturdy appearance. It was still very cold.

“I just want to get warm,” said Arthur. “Who are you?”

“Marek Flat Gold, sir. Leading Foilmaker, Second Class, 97,858
^th
in precedence within the House. You’re not going to slay us? Or destroy the mill?”

“No,” said Arthur. He didn’t pause to wonder why a Denizen who towered over him could be so afraid of a young, mortal boy. Marek hesitated, then opened the inner door and gestured for Arthur to go ahead.

The boy walked through, but recoiled as he passed the threshold and felt a wave of heat roll over him, accompanied by fierce yellow light.

“Wow, it’s hot in here!”

He felt like he’d walked from the snow into a sauna. Past the door was a huge open area, as big as a sports arena, far larger than was possible from the tower’s outer dimensions. Arthur was used to that; in the House many buildings were larger on the inside than they seemed on the outside. What he hadn’t been prepared for was the heat, the rich red and yellow light, and the source of both: a huge pool of molten gold in the middle of the chamber. It was as big as an Olympic-size swimming pool, but instead of being sunk into the ground, it was built up, its clear crystal sides at least six feet high.

Red-hot liquid gold flowed from the big pool along an open gutter of crystal that was supported by stilts of dark iron, ending up in a series of six smaller pools. At each of these, Denizens scooped the gold up with tools that looked like big cups on the end of ten-foot-long metal poles. The gold-carriers then took their cups to another corner of the chamber, where it was cast into ingots. The still-hot ingots were carried away by yet more Denizens who wore huge, elbow-high padded gloves, a constantly moving line of them taking the gold to another corner, which looked like a brick yard, except with gold ingots instead of bricks stacked up everywhere. As soon as a Denizen unloaded his ingots he went back again in yet another line. Both moving lines of Denizens reminded Arthur very much of ants at work.

In addition to the heat and light, there was also a dull, mechanical thumping noise that pervaded the room. That came from one end, where an axle powered by the waterwheel outside turned a slightly smaller interior wheel that in turn drove a series of lesser wheels, belts, and pistons that powered an array of mechanical hammers. The largest hammer had a head about the size of a family car, and the smallest had a head about as big as Arthur’s.

All the hammers were pounding away with monotonous regularity, Denizens busy around them, placing and snatching out gold that started as an ingot beneath the big hammer and ended up as a broad flat sheet by the time the smallest mechanical hammer was finished with it. From there the sheets of gold were taken by another line of Denizens to the farthest corner of the room, where two or three hundred workbenches were set up, each with a Denizen hammering away, making the sheets of gold even thinner.

There was constant activity everywhere, save for one area quite close to Arthur, where around fifty Denizens lay as if asleep, each with a narrow strip of pale blue parchment or paper stuck on their foreheads, extending down their noses to their necks.

Arthur looked quickly around at the workers and the odd sight of the papered Denizens, but didn’t waste any time in asking what they were doing. He had more important things to worry about.

“Who’s in charge here?” he asked. He had to shout to be heard over all the noise of the hammering, the Denizens calling out to one another and the gurgle and hiss of molten gold running along the gutter. “And is there any way to look outside to see what’s happening?”

“You’re really, truly not going to kill everyone?” asked Marek.

“No!” shouted Arthur. “Why do you keep asking? Do I look like some kind of crazy murderer?”

“No ....” Marek sounded as if he did still think that but didn’t want to upset Arthur. “Forgive me. These are strange times ... and I saw what you did to those Nithlings.”

“Speaking of Nithlings, a whole lot more will be attacking here soon,” Arthur warned. “I need to talk to whoever is in charge.”

Marek said something, but Arthur couldn’t hear it. Frustrated, he retreated back to the antechamber, gesturing to Marek to follow him. With the door half-closed, in the relative quiet, Arthur repeated his question yet again.

“I don’t know who’s in charge,” said Marek, cringing so low that his head was almost level with Arthur’s. “None of the telephones work. We had a letter this morning saying Lady Friday has gone away and Friday’s Dawn, our Guildmaster, went up the canal to find out what’s happening. After he left we got a letter from Superior Saturday saying she has taken over the Middle House and we are all to keep at work, that a new Guildmaster will soon come to oversee us.”

“Who’s next in precedence within the House after Friday’s Dawn?” asked Arthur. He was getting anxious about an imminent attack by Fetchers. “And is there any way to get a view from the tower of what’s happening outside?”

“Elibazeth Flat Gold is the Master Foiler,” said Marek. “But she is far too busy with the foil to interrupt. I am third, after Elibazeth, and responsible for collecting letters. Kemen is second, but he is experiencing and won’t be back for weeks. To look out from the tower, it is a matter of opening this inner door differently. However, if you are not going to kill us or destroy anything, why don’t you just leave? We have work to do!”

Arthur blinked. Marek had switched from cowardly groveling to strangely aggressive in the space of a breath.

“I’m Lord Arthur, Rightful Heir to the Architect, Commander of the Army of the Architect, and a whole lot of other stuff, and I’m taking command here, not Superior Saturday or anyone else. Understand?”

Marek immediately went back to cowardly groveling, sinking down on one knee as he answered, “Yes, Lord.”

“Go and interrupt Elizabeth—”

“Elibazeth, lord.”

“Elibazeth, then. Go and tell her I want any Denizens who have served in the Army to gather near the door here, with whatever weapons you have or can improvise. And open this door the ‘different way’ so I can take a look out of the tower.”

“Yes, lord.”

Marek showed Arthur how to pull out the door handle, rotate it ninety degrees, and push it back in. This time what lay beyond the open door was not the antechamber and the outer door, but a dim, cold, and very damp stairway, none of these conditions much relieved by the thin bands of light that came in through the gaps in the slats of the shuttered windows above.

Arthur bounded up the stairs as Marek shut the door behind him. Reaching the first window, the boy unbolted the shutters and opened one a few inches, enough to look out without being too obvious.

Through the narrow gap he saw the snowy plain and not much else. Visibility was still very limited, with snow falling steadily and the clouds almost low enough to touch from the tower. Arthur had half-expected to see massed ranks of Fetchers or other Nithlings, so he was relieved by the absence of enemies, even if it was only for the time being.

Then it occurred to him that he was looking out only one side of the tower. The Fetchers could be forming up on one of the other two sides, the fourth side being the canal, and thus probably safe. Unless the Fetchers had wings, or boats. Which was entirely possible, Arthur thought. So he would have to check that side as well.

To look out other windows he had to go up and look out at the next three levels. Each landing had a single window, to either north, east, south, or west—not that Arthur knew which one was which.

Arthur ran up the stairs and quickly looked out in each direction, making sure he refastened the shutters. He knew that back in the Secondary Realms the Fetchers—winged or otherwise—couldn’t cross a threshold without invitation but he wasn’t sure if that applied in the House.

Thinking of that reminded him of two things. One was that he hadn’t actually confirmed his location. He assumed he was somewhere in the Middle House. The second was that even though he didn’t want to consult it, Dame Primus still had his
Compleat Atlas
of
the House
and he felt a bit funny about that. He’d rather have it with him, so if he absolutely needed to he would be able to check things out in it. He also didn’t want Dame Primus to have it.

It’s not that I don’t trust her,
he thought.
It’s just that ... I’m not sure if I should trust her.

Arthur shook his head and sighed. Thinking about the Will and its manifestation as the annoying Dame Primus wasn’t helping the current situation.

Focus,
he told himself.
Focus!

There was nothing immediately threatening in any direction, or at least nothing that Arthur could see. He went back down somewhat slower than he’d gone up, but his mind was still running fast, thinking through the situation and what he was going to do. At the bottom, he returned to the antechamber, turned the handle around, and opened the door back on to the chamber of molten gold and all its workers.

Arthur had hoped that he’d immediately see a sizable force of former veterans of the Army parading ready to receive his orders, but that was not the case. Only three Denizens stood in line, at ease. They were carrying the ten-foot-long gold-scooping poles, with no other, more effective weapons in evidence. Everything else was much as it had been ten minutes before, a hive of activity, except that the group of Denizens lying down with paper or parchment strips stuck on their foreheads had gotten noticeably larger. At least another twenty or thirty Denizens had lain down in that area.

Marek was nowhere in sight, but a female Denizen who was wearing a ruffled green shirt, as well as a rather cleaner and more impressive apron than the others, was standing by the door, giving instructions to several workers. She turned as Arthur marched in, and bowed low.

“Elibazeth?” asked Arthur.

“Yes, lord.”

“Is this
all
the Denizens here who have done Army service?”

“All who are not experiencing,” said Elibazeth. She gestured to the sleeping, paper-stuck Denizens.

“What?” Arthur didn’t think he’d heard her properly, over the noise of the hammers and everything. “Experiencing.”

“Experiencing what? Being asleep?”

“No, lord,” said Elibazeth. “They are not asleep. They are partaking of mortal experience. They will wake in a month or two.”

“What!” exclaimed Arthur. “What are those papers they’ve got stuck on?”

“Mortal experiences,” said Elibazeth stolidly. She did not appear to be so overawed by Arthur as Marek had been. She was simply matter-of-fact. “They are pieces of mortal experience that Lady Friday has discarded. As they are not explicitly forbidden, they are allowed.”

Arthur stared at her, then shook his head. Obviously he was going to have to get a lot more information, and as quickly as possible.

“Wait here,” he instructed Elibazeth before he strode over to the pitifully small line of former soldiers.

“Ten-hut!” called the Denizen on the right. The trio came to attention.

“Present ar—!”

“Thanks!” called out Arthur. “We won’t bother with all that. Stand easy! I’m Arthur, Commander of the Glorious Army of the Architect. Um, are there really only three of you here who’ve done military service?”

“Yes, sir!” answered the Denizen who’d been about to give the order to present arms. “That is, the only ones not experiencing, sir. There’s probably twenty among the ‘speriencers. Sir.”

“Right ....” said Arthur. “We haven’t got much time. What are your names, with former rank and unit, please?”

“Lance-Bombardier Jugguth Flat Gold of the Moderately Honorable Artillery Company,” replied the right-hand Denizen. “I’ve only been out fifty years. This ’ere is Private

Lukin Flat Gold of the Regiment and Trooper Serelle Flat Gold of the Horde.”