Superior Saturday(7)

Or maybe the Key would protect me for a little while, Arthur thought with sudden nausea. Long enough to feel the Nothing dissolve my flesh . . .

He hurried along the main corridor until he saw a door he recognised. Darting through it, he leapt up the steps four at a time, bouncing off the walls as he tried to take the turns in the staircase too fast.

At the top, he sprinted down another long corridor, this one also narrowed by piles of records, many of them written on papyrus or cured hides instead of paper. Pausing to shift a six-foot-high stone tablet that had fallen and blocked the way, Arthur didn’t bother with the handle of the door at the end but kicked it open and stumbled into the library beyond.

The room was empty, and not just of Denizens. The books were gone from the shelves, as were the comfortable leather armchairs and the carpet. Even the scarlet bell rope that Sneezer had pulled to reveal the heptagonal room that housed the grandfather clocks of the Seven Dials was missing, though the room was presumably still there, behind the bookcase.

The telephone that had stood on a side table was also missing.

Arthur’s shoulders slumped. He could feel the pressure outside, like a sinus pain across his forehead. He knew it was the weight of Nothing striving to break the bonds he had placed upon it. The weight was there in his mind, making him weary, almost too weary to think straight.

‘Telephone,’ mumbled Arthur, holding out his right hand, while he cradled the Fifth Key in his left. ‘I need a telephone, please. Now.’

Without further ado, a telephone appeared in his hand. Arthur set it down on the floor and sat next to it, lifting the earpiece and bending to speak into the receiver. He could hear crackling and buzzing, and in the distance someone was singing something that sounded rather like Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head, but the words were ‘Line-drops are lining up tonight.’

‘Hello, it’s Lord Arthur. I need to speak to Dame Primus. Or Sneezer. Or anyone, really.’

The singing abruptly stopped, replaced by a thin, soft voice that sounded like paper rustling.

‘Ah, where are you calling from? This line doesn’t appear to be technically, um, attached to anything.’

‘The Lower House,’ said Arthur. ‘Please, I think I’m about to be engulfed by Nothing and I need to work out where to go.’

‘Easier said than done,’ replied the voice. ‘Have you ever tried connecting a nonexistent line to a switchboard that isn’t there anymore?’

‘No,’ said Arthur. Somewhere outside he heard a twanging sound, like a guitar string snapping. He felt it too, a sudden lurch in his stomach. His net, his defence against the Void, was breaking. ‘Please hurry!’

‘I can get Doctor Scamandros – will he do?’ asked the operator. ‘You wanted him before, it says here—’

‘Where is he?’ gabbled Arthur.

‘The Deep Coal Cellar, which is kind of odd,’ said the operator. ‘Since nothing else in the Lower House is still connected . . . but metaphysical diversion was never my strong suit. Shall I put you through? Hello . . . hello . . . are you there, Lord Arthur?’

Arthur dropped the phone and stood up, not waiting to hear more. He raised the mirror that was the Fifth Key and concentrated upon it, desiring to see out of the reflective surface of a pool of water in the Deep Coal Cellar – if there was such a pool of water, and a source of light.

He was distracted for an instant by the sight of his own face, which was both familiar and strange. Familiar, because it was in essence much the same as it had been at any other time he’d looked in a mirror, and strange because there were numerous small changes. His cheekbones had become a little more pronounced, the shape of his head was a bit different, his ears had got smaller . . .

‘The Deep Coal Cellar!’ snapped Arthur at the mirror, both to distract himself and get on with his urgent task: finding somewhere to escape to before Nothing destroyed Monday’s Dayroom.

His image wavered and was replaced by a badly lit scene that showed an oil lamp perched on a very thick, leather-bound book the size of several house bricks, which was set atop a somewhat collapsed pyramid made from small pieces of coal. The lamplight was dim, but Arthur could perceive someone on the far side of the pyramid who was raising a fishing pole over his head, ready to cast. Arthur saw only the caster’s hands and two mustard-yellow cuffs, which he immediately recognised.

‘Fifth Key,’ Arthur commanded, ‘take me to the Deep Coal Cellar, next to Doctor Scamandros.’

As before, a door of pure white light appeared. As Arthur stepped through it, he felt his defensive net tear asunder behind him and the onrush of the great wave of Nothing.