I should’ve got Suzy to swim out with me. I wasn’t thinking. I was too confident. No – I’ve got to stop obsessing. It’s done now. I just have to rescue her. I’ll have to challenge Saturday for the Key anyway. But she has too many sorcerers. So I should go back and get the Army. And Dame Primus, or Dame Quarto and Thingo or whoever. At least the other Keys. But if I do that, it might take too long . . .
The Will came planing back on one claw a few minutes later, while Arthur wrestled with his conscience, his fears and his half-formed plans.
‘Almost there!’ cawed the Will. ‘Only part of a claw and a tail feather to go!’
‘Good,’ said Arthur. ‘As soon as you’re ready, I guess we’d better go back to the Citadel—’
He stopped talking and cocked his head.
‘What is it?’ asked the Will. It was preening its wing feathers with its beak.
‘The steam engines,’ said Arthur. ‘They sound closer.’
He stood up and turned around.
‘Closer and coming from a different direction.’
The Will stopped preening and looked out across the water with its beady black eyes.
‘Steamship,’ said Arthur. ‘Or steamships. That’s what I can hear.’
‘I can see them!’ said the Will. ‘Look! Eight of them.’
Arthur stared out across the lake. There was too much steam and smoke, but even if he couldn’t see anything, he could hear the rhythmic beat of the engines and the sound of the ship’s wake. Finally one sharp bow thrust its way through the fog, and he saw the front of a Raised Rat steamship, with rank after rank of Newniths mustered on the foredeck.
‘The Piper!’ said Arthur. ‘We’ve got to get out of here!’
‘So much sorcery!’ said the Will. ‘Saturday is bound to respond at any moment!’
‘I think she already has,’ said Arthur. He pointed up at the clouds of smoke above them. A huge ring of fire was beginning to form above the ships, a ring the size of an athletic track, easily five hundred yards in diameter. Flames began to fall from it, small flames at first, like fiery rain, but they began to get bigger and, from the way they changed colour from yellow-red to blue and white, much hotter.
The ships responded by increasing their speed. They were heading straight for the quay where Arthur was standing, their funnels belching smoke as their engines were stoked for maximum power.
‘They’re going to run aground right here!’ said Arthur. ‘Are you complete?’
‘Not quite,’ said the Will calmly. ‘Just one short paragraph to go, but an essential one, to make a flight feather . . .’
‘Hurry up,’ Arthur urged. As the ships came closer, the ring of fire was moving too, and the storm of incendiary rain was increasing in ferocity.
But it wasn’t setting the ships alight, Arthur saw, or even hitting the Newnith soldiers on the decks. The rain was sliding off an invisible barrier that stretched from the masts of the ships down to the side rails, a sorcerous barrier that was, for the moment, proving impervious to Saturday’s attack.
We don’t have that barrier, Arthur realised. That fire is getting way too close . . .
He could feel the heat of the flaming rain now, fierce on his face. The drops were so hot that he could see them keep going for several feet underwater, unquenched, their fire lasting for much longer than it should.
‘Are you ready?’ Arthur snapped again. ‘We have to run!’
‘Almost, almost, almost there,’ crooned the raven.
Fiery raindrops were hissing into the water ten feet away. The ships, steaming at full speed, were three hundred yards away. A group of soldiers pointed at Arthur and suddenly there were arrows in the air, which flew true but didn’t make it through the firestorm.
‘Done,’ said the raven. It flew up and perched on Arthur’s shoulder. ‘I am complete. I am Part Six of the Will of the—’
Arthur didn’t wait to hear any more. He turned and ran along the quay as fast as he could go, flames spattering on the stone behind him. Steam klaxons sounded too, and the war cries of the Newniths, which he knew all too well from the battles in the Great Maze.
Through all that noise, through the hammering of engines, the scream of klaxons, the hiss and roar of the firestorm and the shouts, there was still that other sound. A clear and separate sound, beautiful and terrible to hear.
The sound of the Piper, playing a tune upon his pipes.
‘Ah,’ said the raven. ‘The Architect’s troublesome third son.’
‘Troublesome!’ Arthur snorted. ‘He’s a lot worse than that.’
The quay ended at a solid rock face, with no obvious exits. Arthur stared at it for a second, then started to hunt for protuberances or bits of stone that looked out of place. He quickly found one, pressed it, and rushed in as the rock-slab door groaned open.