The vast, red-iron round table was still in the middle of the chamber, with the hundred tall-backed white chairs around it. On the other side, Arthur’s own high throne of gilded iron sat next to the rainbow chair of Dame Primus.
‘Hello!’ Arthur called out. ‘Anyone here?’
His voice filled the empty space, and the echoes were the only answer. Arthur sighed and strode over to the door, his footsteps setting up another echo behind him, so it sounded like he was being followed by many small, close companions.
The corridor outside was still crowded with thousands of bundles of paper, each tied with a red ribbon and stacked like bricks. Unlike last time, there were no Commissionaire Sergeants standing at attention in the gaps between the piles of paperwork.
‘Hello!’ Arthur shouted again. He ran down the corridor, pausing several times to see if there were doors leading out. Eventually he came to the end of the corridor, where he found a door propped half open and partially covered in bundles of paper. He could only see it because one of the piles had collapsed.
There were still no Denizens. Arthur rushed through the half-open door and along another empty corridor, pushing doors open as he passed them without encountering anyone else.
‘Hello! Anyone here?’ he shouted every few yards, but no answer came.
Finally he came to a pair of tall, arched doors of dark oak. They were barred, but he easily lifted the bar – not even pausing to marvel that he had grown so strong that he could move a piece of timber that must weigh several hundred pounds. Once the bar was up, the door was easily pushed open.
This particular door led outside. Arthur had expected to see the lake and the rim of the crater that surrounded the Dayroom, and the ceiling of the Lower House above. Instead he saw a vast, arching wave of Nothing that rose way above him, a wave that had already eaten up everything but the small villa behind him. He felt like he was on a small hilltop, the last piece of dry land ahead of a tsunami – but the wave was coming, climbing high, and it would soon crash down to destroy even this last refuge.
Arthur turned to run, his heart suddenly hammering in fear, his mouth dry as dust. But after that first panicked step, he stopped and turned back. The wave of Nothing was coming down, and he didn’t have time to run. He doubted the Fifth Key could protect him from such a vast influx of Nothing. At least not unless he actively directed its power.
I have to do something, thought Arthur, and he acted with the speed of that thought.
Even as the wave of Nothing crashed down upon him, he raised the mirror and held it high, pushing it toward the dark, falling sky.
‘Stop!’ he shouted, his voice raw with power, every part of his mind focussed on stopping the tsunami of Nothing. ‘Stop! By the Keys I hold, I order the Nothing to stop! House, you must hold against the Void!’
Blinding light shone from the mirror, hot white beams that set the air on fire as they shot out and up, striking the onrush of Nothing, splashing across the face of the darkness, small marks of brilliance upon the void.
Arthur felt a terrible pain blossom in his heart. The pain spread, racing down his arms and legs. Awful cracking sounds came from his joints, and he had to screw his eyes shut and scream as his teeth rearranged themselves into a more perfect order in his jaw. Then his jaw itself moved and he felt the plates of bone in his skull shift and change.
But still he kept holding the mirror up above his head, even as he fell to his knees. He used the pain, channelling it to fuel his concentration, directing his will against the rush of Nothing.
Finally, it was too much. Arthur could neither bear the pain nor continue the effort. He fell forward on his face, his screams becoming dull sobs. His strength used up, he dropped the Fifth Key on the narrow band of grass that was all that remained of the lawns that had once surrounded the Dayroom villa.
He lay there, partially stunned, awaiting annihilation, knowing that he had failed and that when he died, the rest of the Universe would follow. All he loved would be destroyed, back on Earth, in the House, and in the worlds beyond.
A minute passed, and then another, and the annihilation didn’t happen. As the pain in his bones ebbed, Arthur groaned and rolled over. He would face the Nothing, rather than be snuffed out by it while he lay defeated upon the grass.
The first thing he saw was not incipient destruction but a delicate tracery of glowing golden lines, like a web or a mesh net of light thrown against the sky. It was holding back the great mass of threatening darkness, but Arthur could feel the pressure of the Nothing, could feel the infinite Void pushing against his restraints. He knew that it would soon overcome his net of light and once again advance.
Arthur picked up the mirror and staggered to his feet. The ground felt further away than normal, and he lost his balance for a moment, swaying on the spot. The sensation passed as he shook his head, and he ran back to the open doors. There was a telephone in the library, he knew, and he needed to call and find out where in the House was safe, instead of going somewhere that might have already succumbed to Nothing. He didn’t want to think about what would happen if he used the Fifth Key to take him straight into the Void, though it probably would have the advantage of being quick . . .