Quarto and Septum turned and curtsied to Arthur.
‘Lord Arthur,’ they chorused.
‘Hello,’ said Arthur. ‘Thank you for splitting. I guess we’d all better get on with it.’
‘Indeed,’ said Dame Quarto.
‘We had,’ added Dame Septum. She raised her hand and dramatically announced, ‘I shall attend to the Middle House!’
‘And I to the mountains!’ declared Dame Quarto, and both strode from the room.
‘And I to . . . sorting out Superior Saturday,’ said Arthur. Somehow it didn’t sound the same. He raised the mirror and concentrated on looking through it and out of the reflection in the silver jug in the stern cabin of the Rattus Navis IV. He would soon find himself wherever the ship might be upon the strange waters of the Border Sea.
SEVEN
IT WAS MUCH harder going through the doorway with two people hanging on, and for a fearful moment Arthur thought all three of them would be thrown back, and not to the safety of the Citadel, but somewhere else not of his choosing. The ground swayed unsteadily beneath his feet, the light dazzled his eyes, and Suzy and Scamandros felt like enormous lead weights dragging his arms back and down. But he kept pushing forward, his total concentration on reaching his goal. He could half-see the table and chairs in the big cabin on the Rattus Navis IV. Even though it looked just a step away, it was almost impossible to reach.
Then, with a Herculean effort that left Arthur sweating and gasping, they fell out onto the tilted-over floor of the ship and slid across the floorboards into the starboard hull. Then, as the ship rolled back the other way and pitched forward, they slid diagonally across to the port side, smacked into the table, and sent the silver jug clanging onto the deck.
As they got up and grabbed hold of whatever they could to stay upright, the door burst open and a Newnith soldier gaped in the doorway.
‘Boarders!’ he shouted as he drew a sparking dagger from the sheath at his belt. ‘The enemy!’
Scamandros reached into his sleeve and came out with a tiny cocktail fork with a pickled onion on it, which he didn’t expect and hurriedly replaced.
Suzy drew her savage-sword at the same time, but the Newnith was quicker and had his sea legs. He rushed at Arthur, who instinctively raised his arm to protect himself, even though an arm would be no real protection from a long dagger that was spewing out white-hot sparks.
But it was his right arm, and in his right hand Arthur held the Fifth Key. Before the Newnith could fully complete his downward cut at the boy, there was a brilliant flash of light, a sudden, strange chemical stench, a stifled scream, and then just a pair of smoking boots on the deck where the Newnith had been.
Arthur felt a surge of annoyance.
How dare these pathetic creatures attack me? he thought. How dare they! I shall walk among them and wreak havoc . . .
Arthur shook his head and took a breath, forcing this arrogant temper tantrum back to wherever it had come from. He was frightened by it, frightened that he could get so angry, and that his immediate response was to attack.
As the rage lessened, he became aware that his arm hurt quite a lot.
‘Ouch!’ he exclaimed. The point of the Newnith’s dagger had made contact with him after all. He rolled his arm over to get a better look, and saw that it had done more than just scratch the skin. There was a six-inch-long incision in his forearm, and it looked cut to the bone. Yet even as he looked, the cut closed up, leaving only a very faint white scar. Arthur wiped off what little blood there was with his left hand, and tried not to notice that it was neither red like a normal human’s nor blue like a Denizen’s. It was golden, like a deep, rich honey, and that was almost more painful to him than the cut itself. Whatever he was becoming was very strange indeed.
‘There’s nothing left of ’im,’ said Suzy with satisfaction, turning over the vapourised Newnith’s smoking boots with the point of her sword.
‘I didn’t mean to do it,’ said Arthur sadly. ‘It was the Key.’
‘We’d best get ready.’ Suzy tugged on the table, to drag it to the door, but it was bolted to the deck and she only succeeded in staggering into Scamandros when she lost her grip. Still unsteady, both of them went backwards into one of the well-upholstered chairs. Suzy was up again in a moment, while Scamandros struggled like a beetle thrown upon its back.
‘Won’t just be one Newnith on board,’ Suzy warned. ‘They’ll be charging in any moment.’
‘They might not have heard,’ said Arthur. It was noisy, the constant rhythmic thud of the ship’s steam engine mixed with the groan and creak of the rigging above, as well as the regular crash and jolt as the ship plunged through what had to be fairly sizable waves.