Sir Thursday(79)

‘I see you are protected,’ said the Piper. His voice sounded the same, but it didn’t have the same effect. ‘I suppose that is only to be expected.’

‘Why are you here?’ Arthur asked gruffly. His own voice sounded like a crow’s rasping caw after the Piper’s melodious tones. ‘I mean, why are you attacking the Army?’

‘Let us introduce ourselves first, surely,’ said the Piper. ‘Though I have now been told who you claim to be. I am called the Piper, and I am the son of the Architect and the Old One. I am the Rightful Heir to the House.’





Twenty-eight





‘UH, ’ SAID ARTHUR. ‘Um, that’s kind of … tricky. You see, I’m Arthur Penhaligon, and though I didn’t want to be, I am the Master of the Lower House and the Far Reaches, Duke of the Border Sea, and Commander-in-Chief and Overlord of the Great Maze, and all because your mum’s … the Architect’s Will chose me to be the Rightful Heir.’

‘The Will chose you because I was not available at the time,’ said the Piper. ‘That is regrettable, but it can easily be rectified.’

‘Right,’ said Arthur. ‘Where were you?’

‘I was in Nothing,’ said the Piper, bitterness in his voice. ‘Where I was cast by my turncoat brother, Lord Sunday, seven hundred years ago.’

‘In Nothing? Shouldn’t you be –’

‘Dissolved?’ asked the Piper. ‘Very little of my corporeal flesh remains beneath this coat and mask. But I am the Architect’s son. Even as the Nothing ate my flesh and bone, I shaped the Nothing. I built a place for myself, a small worldlet where I could recuperate, and there I lay for the first hundred years, regaining my strength. In my second century I made the worldlet larger. I created servants to tend me, and began to fashion connections back to the House. In the third hundred I began to build an army, not of mindless Nithlings but of my New Denizens. Better ones than Mother made. More like mortals. Smarter and able to change. More in keeping with my father’s vision. In the fourth century I made the spike, and in the fifth I began to plan how to re-enter the House through the Great Maze –’

He stopped and took a breath.

‘But we are not here to talk of my past, but of my future. I did not believe my part of my mother’s Will had been released until quite recently, Arthur, when my rats confirmed the news. But I am not displeased at your progress. You need simply hand over the Keys to me and I will continue in my campaign against my traitor brother and his minion Saturday. You may return to your own world in the Secondary Realms and live the life you should have had, as I believe you wish to do.’

Arthur opened his mouth, then shut it again. He didn’t know what to say or think. He was being offered a reprieve from the awesome and awful responsibilities that had been thrust upon him.

‘It’s not as simple as that,’ hissed a voice near his elbow.

‘And what, pray tell, do you have to do with it?’ asked the Piper, bending down so his metal mask was close to the serpent’s head, close enough that he could see the lines of type swirling about to create the illusion of snakeskin.

‘I am Part Four of the Will of the Architect, as you very well know,’ said the snake. ‘And Arthur is the Rightful Heir. He can’t just give you the Keys because you’re not the Rightful Heir.’

‘I am the Heir by right of blood and inheritance!’

‘If that were all that mattered, it would be Sunday,’ said the Will. ‘He’s the oldest.’

‘I have proved I am her inheritor,’ said the Piper. He spread his arms wide to take in all the New Nithling army. ‘Look what I have wrought from Nothing!’

‘Very impressive, but it makes no difference,’ said the snake. ‘Arthur is the Rightful Heir. Now that he has the Fourth Key and is Commander-in-Chief, you are rebelling not against the traitor Sunday but against the legitimate authority of the House. Which makes you a traitor now. Not that your loyalty was ever quite as clear as anyone would wish.’

‘Your tone is overly familiar,’ said the Piper. He did not sound angry but rather more puzzled. ‘Who are you to question my loyalty?’

‘You are as much your father’s son as your mother’s,’ said the snake. It uncoiled itself and stretched higher than Arthur’s head. ‘You never sought to free the Will yourself, till you argued with your brother in quite recent times, as we count it in the House. Am I wrong in thinking that Sunday cast you into Nothing because you once again tried to free the Old One against his wishes?’