There were a lot of bodies clustered around the single door. Arthur hovered, looking for any Piper’s children that he recognised. But the bodies were all Denizens, presumably Saturday’s Internal Auditors. They were dressed in black nineteenth-century-style long coats and wore long powdered wigs. Most clutched swords with blades that looked like enlarged and elongated fountain pen nibs.
‘No match for the Piper,’ said Suzy.
‘Indeed,’ said the Will. ‘The Piper is a most powerful individual. But we have me, and Lord Arthur has a Key. Onward!’
It swooped down, landing in front of the door. One of the Internal Auditors who had been lying there, apparently dead, immediately jumped up and pointed his sword, more like a gun than a medieval weapon. The Will chuckled and dived under the stream of Activated Ink that sprayed from the nib. Then he leaped up and bit the Auditor on the elbow. The Denizen sighed, dropped his weapon, and then dropped himself like a boneless fish.
‘One way to do it,’ said Suzy, clearly impressed.
Arthur landed in a whirl of wings and Gilded Youths. Ten stayed aloft as the others came down and formed up around him, Fred, and Suzy. There were so many of them standing so close that Arthur had trouble getting to the door, which the Will was already going through.
The Piper was waiting for them inside, standing alone in a ring of dead Piper’s children and the motionless body of a superior Denizen, one who had once worn the immaculate clothes of a Victorian dandy, his dark red waistcoat stained with his own blue blood. A broken ebony stick lay at his side, his smashed-in top hat next to it.
The Piper’s children were the ones who had gone with Arthur on the ill-fated raid to stop the Spike in the Great Maze. Arthur recognised them immediately: Quicksilver, Gluepot, Yellowbristle, Awning, Halfcut, Sable, and Ermine.
The Piper’s own yellow greatcoat was rent in several places as if torn by weapons, but there was no sign of him being actually wounded. His steel mask hid his face as always, abetted by the Napoleon hat of black oilskin. He held his wooden pipes in his gloved right hand. His left hand was also gloved, but empty.
Beyond the Piper, the room was empty, save for a slim spire of dark stone that rose up to waist-level. On it sat a shining silver mirror that Arthur knew was supposed to be the Key.
One of the Piper’s children on the floor moved. Arthur took a breath, only in that second noticing that he had not been breathing.
‘They’re alive!’ said Fred.
‘Saturday’s minion overrated his power to kill against my own,’ said the Piper easily. His voice was almost as melodious as it had been before Part Four of the Will had spat acid at him.
He inclined his head to Arthur. ‘I see you have once again brought the thing that calls itself the Will against me, Arthur.’
‘It’s a different part,’ Arthur replied. He didn’t take his eyes off the Piper, though he wasn’t sure what he would, or could, do if he raised his pipes. ‘I didn’t know what Part Four was going to do. I’d told it not to do anything poisonous.’
‘I suppose you expect to claim the Fifth Key too?’ said the Piper.
‘I will,’ said Arthur. ‘But that’s not the Key. Friday’s tried to trick us into fighting each other. It’s kind of worked too.’
‘You say that is not the Key?’ asked the Piper. ‘But you are here, with the Will and a force of lovely Gilded Youths. They are fine, are they not? They are mine too, you know, in essence.’
The Piper’s words were not just words. Arthur could almost see the power in them, and he saw Fifteen flinch as the Piper spoke.
‘Yes, ultimate master Piper,’ said Fifteen. The Gilded Youths with her breathily echoed her words in a whispered chorus.
‘Not to mention Banneret Ugham,’ continued the Piper. He made a small motion with his left hand, and Ugham strode over to the Piper’s side.
Arthur kept his gaze on the Piper.
One lunge to the heart, he thought, if he raises the pipes – ‘This is all rather tedious and beside the point,’ said the Will. ‘That isn’t the Key, you know. Moreover, it is almost certainly a trap of a very nasty kind. We would all do better to leave and carry on whatever we must discuss outside.’
The Piper ignored the Will.
‘Ugham, fetch me the mirror from that stand of stone.’
‘Don’t,’ said Arthur. ‘It’s a trap. Besides, if it was the Key, it would kill you!’
Ugham nodded. ‘We know that our prince loves us not, save that we serve him. But he made us, and that is not a debt easy to repay. We serve with what honour we may retain. One slight matter remains, before I take up yonder—’