Dawn did not waste any time letting Arthur have a look at Wednesday’s transformation. She started flying directly away, her wings beating rapidly and full, gaining height as well as speed. It took Arthur a moment to understand that even now they might not get away, that Dawn was pushing herself to the limit in order to escape Wednesday’s remarkable growth and even more remarkable hunger.
Neither of them spoke for some time, till it was clear that their flight had taken them out of Drowned Wednesday’s ravening path.
‘Where do you wish to go?’ asked Dawn finally. ‘I will do as promised, and take you to a place of safety, if you so desire.’
Fifteen
ARTHUR DIDN’T REPLY immediately. He felt himself at an important crossroads, and his choice here would decide not only his own fate but the fate of many others as well.
‘If safety is your prime concern,’ Dawn continued, ‘then I must take you to Port Wednesday. It is the only place in the Border Sea where there are elevators to take you elsewhere within the House, and thence wherever you wish to go.’
Arthur was silent, thinking this through. It would be so easy to go to Port Wednesday, take an elevator to the Lower House, and then go home through the Front Door or Seven Dials. That would be the safe course to follow. But deep inside he felt that there were no safe courses for him anymore. Not in the long run.
‘How far are we from the Triangle?’ he asked.
‘A half-day’s journey, by way of an ocean in the Secondary Realms,’ replied Wednesday. ‘Or a week or more if we stay within the House. Port Wednesday is even closer, only a few hours away, again by way of a suitable sea on another world in the Secondary Realms. There’s nothing for you at the Triangle.’
‘My friend Leaf is there, and some Raised Rats. Have you asked them to try and find the pirates’ secret harbour?’ asked Arthur.
‘No,’ said Dawn. ‘We do not deal with Rats. Milady Wednesday wished to ban them from the Border Sea, but they possess a patent of authority from the Architect herself, allowing them to roam where they will within the House. What can you possibly want with the Raised Rats?’
‘They’re expert finders and searchers,’ said Arthur, thinking back to the vision he’d seen of Leaf and the Commodore. ‘Or they say they are.’
‘They are braggarts and not to be trusted,’ Dawn scoffed. ‘They sell their services and the secrets of others. They have never answered to any authority within the House, save the Architect’s, and since her disappearance I doubt they have grown more obedient to anyone, not even Lord Sunday.’
‘He’s ultimately in charge of everything, right?’
‘After a fashion,’ replied Dawn. ‘Superior Saturday has the day-to-day management of affairs, as it were. Lord Sunday’s mind dwells upon higher things, not for any lesser beings to know.’
‘They’re both traitors to the Architect,’ Arthur stated boldly. ‘Saturday and Sunday, and all the other Morrow Days.’
‘Where do you wish to go?’ asked Dawn, her tone even frostier than usual.
‘The Triangle,’ Arthur answered firmly.
‘The Triangle,’ Dawn confirmed. ‘I cannot approve of this desire to deal with the Rats, but does this mean you will go in search of the Will? To aid milady?’
‘Yep,’ said Arthur. Somehow yep seemed the most positive thing he could say. Stronger than yeah and more heroic than yes. He hoped he could live up to it.
He pushed on. ‘I’m going to rescue Leaf and get the Raised Rats to help find the pirates’ secret harbour. Then I guess I’ll work out some way to release the Will and set everything straight. Including Lady Wednesday.’
Dawn was silent for a while, save for the sound of her constant wingbeat. In a small voice that sounded strange and half-strangled, she finally said, ‘Thank you.’
Then she folded her wings and dove towards the sea, with Arthur just managing to take a breath and put his nosepeg back on before they plunged through a slow rolling wave.
The journey to the Triangle was much quicker than Arthur had thought it would be. Even the Line of Storms didn’t bother him this time. He just shut his eyes and put his fingers in his ears. He figured that if the lightning hadn’t fried him the first few times it wasn’t going to now.
Shortly after crossing the Line, the sea suddenly changed colour and temperature, and they were swimming through lukewarm, orange-tinted seas full of tiny floating flowers. Sometime later the orange sea transformed to a body of freezing, black water, full of small, regularly shaped chunks of faintly luminous ice. It was as if millions of radioactive ice cubes had been dumped into the sea. Fortunately Arthur did not feel the full effect of the cold, for the golden radiance of Wednesday’s Dawn surrounded him and kept him warm. In any case, they were not in this chill sea for long, leaving it abruptly for the blue waters of the Border Sea and, very soon after, another crossing of the Line of Storms.