The nearer tendril stopped its questing and suddenly, sickeningly advanced, rippling like a snake as it headed straight for Leaf.
Leaf shut her eyes and remembered Milka’s words.
Count yourself lucky that you mortals die easily.
A terrible crackling noise filled the air and Leaf felt an excruciating pain shoot through every bone in her body, including her teeth and skull. She screamed and fell to the ground.
‘Set the dials, Sneezer,’ said Arthur. He stood outside the circle of clocks, still clad in his paper-patchwork clothes, still bearing all Four Keys. After their arrival via the Improbable Stair – which had gone better than Arthur had expected, with only one strange stop along the way – there’d been no time to change or do anything except have a hasty conference with Dr Scamandros, who now stood behind him, along with Part Five of the Will, Suzy, and Fred. Sneezer, the butler, stood within the circle of the seven grandfather clocks, turning the hands to the setting he and Scamandros had worked out for Lady Friday’s retreat.
‘You’re sure Leaf didn’t mention my mother?’ Arthur asked again.
‘Definitely not, no,’ replied Dr Scamandros. ‘She had very little time. I fear for her.’
‘So do I,’ said Arthur. ‘Any luck with the telephone to Dame Primus?’
Dr Scamandros shook his head. ‘Nor with telegrams. They keep coming back marked Return to Sender.’
‘The dials are set for watching, sir,’ said Sneezer as he retreated back out of the circle. ‘May I suggest you take a few minutes to look before going through?’
‘Only long enough to make sure it’s not opening into Nothing,’ said Arthur. ‘I don’t want to waste any time. Anything could be happening to Leaf and my … the other mortals.’
As he spoke, a trail of white fog appeared out of the floor between the clocks and began to slowly spin around, spreading quickly till there was a slowly rotating cloud. Silver luminescence rose through the white, growing brighter as it reached the edges.
Arthur blinked, and in that blink the cloud became a window to another world. Looking through it, he saw a great crowd of people – humans – standing ahead. In front of them was a lake, and in the middle of the lake there was a stone column with a silver chair set atop it. Above the chair, a winged figure was descending … a very tall Denizen with extra-large yellow wings, who held something impossibly bright in her right hand.
‘Sneezer!’ snapped Arthur. ‘We need to go through right now!’
The butler jumped into the circle, so quickly that his long white hair whipped around his face and the tails of his coat leaped up almost to the small of his back. He deftly adjusted the hands of several of the clocks and jumped back out.
‘Go, milord!’
Arthur and his companions moved almost as swiftly as Sneezer had, entering the circle as the clocks began to chime.
Twenty-five
‘GET UP, YOUNG miss.’
Leaf opened one eye. She was lying on the floor. She lifted her head slightly to see if there was a tendril poking through her chest – or some hideous botanical growth implanted in her flesh, to kill her slower than Milka had thought.
There wasn’t. There was no sign of the seedpods at all. There was, instead, a very tall old man with white hair and a white three-day growth on his chin. His piercing blue eyes were fixed on Leaf. He wore a knee-length blue coat, blue breeches, and sea-boots folded over at the knee. In his hard-knuckled right hand he gripped a nine-foot-long harpoon that glittered with a light painful to Leaf’s eyes.
‘Captain!’ sobbed Leaf. ‘Sir!’
The Mariner bent down and hauled her up by her elbow. ‘We’d best move sharp-ish,’ he said. ‘I cracked that dome when my skiff landed and all manner of gardener’s horrors are climbing in. Not to mention we’d best avoid Friday. She’ll not be pleased.’
Leaf tried to take a breath and coughed, the cough turning into a sob. The Mariner clapped her on the back, almost propelling her into the wall.
‘That’s no way for a ship’s boy from the old Mantis to behave,’ he scolded. ‘You’re safe enough now.’
Leaf bit back her sobs and stood at attention.
‘Begging your pardon, sir,’ she said, unintentionally aping her mentor, Albert. ‘But there are a lot of mortals who need rescuing out in the crater. Including my aunt.’
‘Mortals to be rescued!’ exclaimed the Mariner. ‘I’ve sailed into a storm, I see. Well, let’s be getting the gauge of it. Do you know of a lookout where I can espy the lay of the land?’
‘There’s a big window,’ said Leaf. ‘On Circle Six at about Twenty Past. That’s down and around a bit.’