Fic: Go My Own Way, PG
Title: Go My Own Way
Author: wildesidewalker
Rating: PG
Fandom: Keys to the Kingdom
Warnings: None
Prompt: 87) I'll not listen to reason. Reason always means what someone else has got to say.--Elizabeth Gaskell.
Summary: It’s a pretty dumb Law when you can’t do anything but everyone else can. Sometimes, in order to get anything done, you have to take matters into your own hands.
A/N: A big thank you gehayi for running the ficathon and to sholmes87 for the beta. Keys to the Kingdom and all characters are owned by Garth Nix.
Suzy Turquoise Blue was sitting at the table in Monday’s Dayroom, teacup in hand, plate of biscuits in front of her, when Dame Primus came striding in. She quickly stuck her littlest finger out, just in case. Dame Primus was relentless in her attempts to teach Suzy “proper” behavior.
“Were you successful?” Monday’s Noon inquired from where he was sitting quietly in one of the many large armchairs in the Dayroom. “Is Lord Arthur returning to the House?”
“The call was terminated,” she replied brusquely, sounding unusually like the frog whose form she had once assumed. “Our credit has been revoked, by order of the Court of Days. More of Grim Tuesday’s efforts to seize mastery of the Lower House, no doubt. I don’t know how much I was able to communicate to Arthur before we were cut off.”
“Why dontcha just send me?” Suzy piped up, setting her cup on the table. “I could nip over there no problem, find Arthur, and tell him how old Grimy is sticking his fingers in where they don’t belong, we could pop back here and he could set everything to rights.”
“Because,” said Dame Primus, in the tones of one who has explained this before, “The Original Law forbids it. We are prohibited from interfering in the Secondary Realms, even if it is to correct more interference.”
“It’s a pretty dumb Law when you can’t do anything but everyone else can,” Suzy retorted.
“We must abide by the rules set down by the Architect. Any more talk of that sort and you’ll go to your room, young lady, for the next decade if you’re not careful, trouble or no trouble,” Dame Primus replied, frowning.
“You can’t do that. Arthur’s the Master, he made me Monday’s Tierce, you’re only the Steward,” Suzy shot back.
Dame Primus, already much taller than Suzy, seemed to swell even more. “To your room, young lady. I will not tolerate such talk. I am part of the Architect’s Will.”
Suzy muttered and grumbled but knew by now that Dame Primus in this mood brooked no argument. It would be better to at least pretend to go along, and get things worked out on her own. Someone had to help Arthur, and it certainly wouldn’t be done by following any stupid Laws.
She entered the room in a sort of thoughtful huff, hearing the door lock tight behind her. She rattled the handle half-heartedly, although she knew from much experience that it wouldn’t work. The first thing to do, though, was to get out of the room. She headed over to the window, but it was thick glass and not made to open. She examined it carefully; she could probably break it if she tried a little, but the room was quite far off the ground, and although a fall probably wouldn’t kill her, it would hurt terribly and delay her considerably. She did not have time to waste.
She looked around, but there did not seem to be any other means of leaving the room. Except possibly for the fireplace. She headed over and poked her head inside, ignoring the light dusting of soot that fell around her. Yes, she should be able to do it, just brace her back against one side of the chimney, and her feet against the other…She’d be a bit grimy coming out at the end, but that didn’t matter.
She climbed up inside the fireplace, and, standing with her back against one wall, started walking her feet up the one opposite. It was a rather long climb, and the sooty walls did not offer the best purchase, but after a bit of work and a few precarious moments, she found herself outside, none the worse for the wear, although considerably dirtier.
It was a simple matter to climb down from the roof and sneak back into the house, but she still had no idea how Arthur was doing. She’d have an easier time helping him if she knew what they were up against. Dame Primus certainly had her ways of finding out, but somehow Suzy didn’t think she’d be of much help right now. There was more than one way, though….
The house was large enough and filled with enough hiding places that sneaking through to the Seven Dials room was easy. Just as she had suspected, Sneezer was there, dressed as usual now in an immaculate butler’s uniform. He started on seeing her.
“Suzy!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing here? Her Lady…”
Suzy interrupted him. “This is important, Sneezer,” she said, “and Dame Primus is being difficult. Grim Tuesday is trying to take over the Lower House and Arthur’s got to come back and stop him, only we tried to call him and got cut off, so I said I should go there, only old Primy said I couldn’t, and sent me to my room for no reason, but Arthur’s helped me and you before and we gotta help him now.”
“Of course I will help Lord Arthur,” Sneezer replied. “But what do you want me to do?”
“Let me use the Seven Dials to look into the Secondary Realms. I have to see what Grim Tuesday is doing in Arthur’s world.”
Sneezer opened and shut his mouth a few times. “That is…the Seven Dials are…”
Suzy fixed him with a determined gaze.
“All right,” he said finally. “But mind you stand well away while I’m setting them up.”
He went over the corner and pulled a bell rope hanging from the ceiling. With a deep rumbling sound, a section of wall swung aside to reveal seven grandfather clocks; all arranged facing each other, their pendulums swinging in unison. Sneezer walked into the circle and began winding the clocks and arranging the hands.
“There we go,” he said, jumping out of the circle suddenly. “Just watch. Don’t step inside.”
She watched as an image appeared in the circle, looking so real it was like it was actually there. She saw Arthur standing in the doorway of a house, talking to two deformed, hunchbacked creatures. “Grotesques,” she said in a disgusted voice. “If Tuesday can send Grotesques I don’t see why I can’t go. M’not even a proper Denizen, really.” She watched Arthur arguing with the figures, then shoving one of them. There was a flash of blue light, and they both turned and left. They did not look happy.
She saw Arthur run out of the house and mount some strange, wheeled contraption, obviously a cart of some kind that would take him quickly where he wanted to go. He stopped a few minutes later and looked around, confused.
Suzy froze. There, hiding behind a metallic structure not far away from where Arthur was standing, she saw a quivering mass of pink flesh, slowly changing form. A Scoucher! Arthur had to get away from there, but he didn’t even seem aware of the danger. She closed her eyes and concentrated hard, trying to send him a message. Run. Danger. But Arthur didn’t seem able to hear her. She broke off, not sure if a mortal like Arthur could receive waking dreams.
“Sneezer!” she called out. “A Scoucher! We’ve got to help Arthur.”
Suzy had been so caught up in the vision that she hadn’t realised he was standing right beside her. “He has the Atlas with him,” Sneezer replied. “Between us, we should be able to communicate with it, briefly at least.”
“Communicate with the Atlas?” she asked incredulously. “We can do that? How? How do you know how?”
“Mister Monday was not fond of doing something if he could get someone else to do it for him,” Sneezer answered. “I learned many things I perhaps should not have.”
“Don’t worry if you were s’posed to or not. We have to help Arthur!”
The two quickly set up to communicate with the Atlas, and through it, with Arthur. After a few moments, a picture of an open book appeared between the clocks, partially obscuring the vision of Arthur. “Atlas,” Suzy asked quickly, “how can we help Arthur escape the Scoucher and bring him here to the house?” A hazy picture of a girl’s face appeared next to the Atlas. Suzy vaguely recognized her; one of Arthur’s friends she had met under odd circumstances on previous adventures in the house. “Take him to her!” she said. The girl and the book disappeared from the vision, leaving only Arthur and his surroundings.
Suzy turned back to the image in the center of the clocks, watching as Arthur saw the Scoucher, opened the Atlas, and took off running as the Scoucher leapt for him, no longer a fleshy blob, but huge and man-shape with hundreds of long, thin, tentacles.
Suzy’s heart sped up as Arthur slowed down. “Run, Arthur, run!” she screamed, not caring that he couldn’t hear her. He had to get away from it. If it caught him, Arthur would bleed to death, and no one would be able to stop Grim Tuesday from taking over. A small shriek escaped her lips as one of the Scoucher’s tentacles brushed Arthur’s hand. She could see the blood flowing from it, so much blood.
Suddenly, she saw Arthur’s head whip around. There was the girl, the one the Atlas had shown her! Arthur ran to her, and they both fled inside a house, the Scoucher right behind them. The view in the middle of the clocks shifted, showing Arthur and the girl running through the house, chased by the Scoucher’s long tentacles.
Suzy closed her eyes, both to block out the fight coming through from Arthur’s world, and to concentrate on sending a dream to this girl. Arthur couldn’t receive dreams, but maybe this girl could…Yes, yes, she could feel it; there wasn’t the block that had been there when she tried to send one to Arthur. She had to tell this girl, Leaf, her name was, she suddenly remembered, had to tell Leaf how to get into the House from Arthur’s world, so Leaf could tell Arthur.
“Sneezer,” she yelled, “where does the House open into Arthur’s world?”
Sneezer opened a large, leather-bound volume and ran his finger down one page. “It says the Yeats Paper Mill. It’s near Lord Arthur’s current location.”
Go the old Yeats Paper Mill, she thought, mouthing the words silently. It’s near a river. Go under it to come to the House. The Yeats Paper Mill. Go under it to come to the House. Be careful, the Grotesques… All of a sudden, the block was there again. She turned back to the Seven Dials just in time to see Arthur helping Leaf up off the floor. She was pale, and there was blood pouring down her arm. She gestured for Arthur to go.
“The Grotesques are still there, Sneezer,” she said. “He’ll need help to fight against them, he’s still a mortal. I have to go there.”
She rushed out of the room and through the house, careful to avoid being seen. She hurried to wear the Front Door was located within the House, and knocked impatiently. In a moment, the Lieutenant Keeper answered, tall and imposing in his blue uniform.
“Send me through to Arthur’s world,” Suzy demanded.
“I am afraid I cannot do that,” he replied calmly.
“Why not? Arthur’s in trouble! He needs help!”
“You are not authorized to pass through this door. I can’t let you through without authorization. I’m sorry.”
Suzy fumed and muttered, but knew it was useless to argue with him. He truly could not let her pass through the Door. It just wouldn’t send her anywhere. Perhaps Arthur had made it through on his own. She snuck back to the Seven Dials room, and had Sneezer tune it to Arthur again.
The image showed Arthur crawling through a metal hatch into a huge pipe, before going completely black. A few seconds later, the image was gone, nothing but air in the middle of the clock circle.
“Sneezer, what happened?” Suzy yelled. “Why can’t we see Arthur anymore?”
“The Seven Dials will not show any location within the House,” Sneezer replied calmly. “Only in the Secondary Realms. I can only assume this means that Lord Arthur has gained entry.”
Suzy let out a sigh of relief. “Great! I’ll go down to meet him. Can’t let Dame Primus get there first; she’ll start acting like she can boss him around.”
She hurried down the Atrium, where the Front Door let into the House. She waited patiently for a short while and impatiently for a bit longer before getting fed up and then worried. She went and knocked on the Door for a second time.
It was answered again for the Lieutenant Doorkeeper in his blue uniform. “Yes?”
“Did Arthur come through the Door?” Suzy asked imperiously.
“Yes.”
There was a long pause.
“Well, where did he go?”
“The Far Reaches.”
Suzy drew in a sharp breath. “How long ago?”
“Two hours, by House time,” the Doorkeeper replied.
“Let me go through, too.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Even if I could permit it, you can only use that door from the Secondary Realms,” the Doorkeeper explained patiently. “Here, you have to go through the House.”
Suzy rushed back to the Dayroom. If Arthur had gotten himself indentured to Grim Tuesday, she wouldn’t be able to free him on her own. She just hoped Dame Primus wouldn’t make things too difficult.
“Suzanna!” Dame Primus cried when she spotted her. “I thought I sent you to your room.”
“Yes, you did,” Suzy replied matter-of-factly. “But I got out. And it’s a good thing I did, too. Arthur’s in trouble!”
Dame Primus looked up sharply. “What do you mean?”
“He tried to come through the Front Door, but Grim Tuesday had it fixed up to take him straight to the Far Reaches.”
“Well, that is fortuitous,” Dame Primus said. “He is perfectly located to take on Grim Tuesday and recover the second part of the Will.”
“He’s a slave!” Suzy said. “He doesn’t know anything at all about the Far Reaches. He’ll be stuck there forever and ever. You’ve got to let me go help him.”
“Absolutely not! You’ve spent far too long running around the House like a hooligan. Arthur must do this on his own.”
“Are you crazy!” Suzy yelled. “He’ll never do anything without some help. It’s your fault he’s there anyway! If you had let me go to him in the first place…”
“Fine!” Dame Primus broke in. “Grim Tuesday deserves to have you on his doorstep.”
“And?” Suzy asked.
“And what?” Dame Primus replied, rising up imperiously. Suzy calmed down a bit.
“I can’t rescue him all the way out of the Pit all by myself. I prolly wouldn’t even find him all by myself. You should give me some stuff to help me.”
Dame Primus considered. “Lord Arthur would have a better chance of defeating Grim Tuesday if we provided him with assistance. Very well. I shall give you a finding spell, with which to locate Arthur. I will also provide you two pairs of Ascension Wings, which will carry you out of the Pit, and two sets of stickit fingers, which you can use you move across the ceiling of the Pit to Grim Tuesday’s Treasure Tower. This is where the second Key and the Second Part of the Will should be kept.”
Suzy took a deep breath. “All right. We can do that.
After much bureaucratic rigmarole, so easy after centuries of negligence in the Lower House, and exchanges of favors, Suzy found herself in service as one of Grim Tuesday’s messengers. After receiving her first assignment, she walked carefully through the dark, cold fogginess of the Upper Reaches, activating the finding spell in utter silence, not knowing how much attention the Overseers would pay to a messenger. The spell was nothing more than a small glowing light affixed to the tip of her finger that would brighten when she was moving towards Arthur and dim when she moved away.
She watched her finger out of the corner of her eye, noticing a faint spark every now and then. It grew slowly but steadily as she made her way through the gloom. She came to a sudden stop, almost tripping over a set of rusty iron tracks that disappeared into the distance. She pointed in each direction; the light grew brighter off to the left. Where the tracks led down into the Pit.
She took a deep breath. Her assignment was not to the Pit, she would have no reason to go down there. And without a reason, she couldn’t take official transportation, and without that, it could days or even weeks to get down there. She just didn’t have that long. Arthur needed her help, now. She’d just have to find a job that would give her reason to go down there.
Luckily, there was a sunburst scheduled soon, to help clear the Pit some, and word had to be taken to the Overseers. Suzy asked around till she found out who had been given that assignment, and hurried back to the tracks, just in time to see a boy getting into odd wheel-inside-wheel contraption that messengers used to access the Pit quickly.
“Ned, wait!” she called, slightly breathless. He looked up at her.
“What do you want?” he asked nervously.
“Do you want to swap me?” she asked.
“Swap?” he replied, confused.
“I’ll take your message down to the Pit, and you deliver mine for me,” she said, thrusting out a fist with a piece of parchment in it.
“You want to go into the Pit?” Ned asked incredulously.
“Sure,” Suzy shrugged. “Why not? S’got to be interesting, anyway.”
“I think you’re crazy, but you want to go, you go,” Ned said, taking the parchment from Suzy and handing her his own. “Good luck.”
“Thanks,” Suzy said, accepting the message from him and climbing into the wheel. She closed her eyes and pulled the lever that would start it moving. She was going into the Pit. To find Arthur. The Pit. Arthur.
Author: wildesidewalker
Rating: PG
Fandom: Keys to the Kingdom
Warnings: None
Prompt: 87) I'll not listen to reason. Reason always means what someone else has got to say.--Elizabeth Gaskell.
Summary: It’s a pretty dumb Law when you can’t do anything but everyone else can. Sometimes, in order to get anything done, you have to take matters into your own hands.
A/N: A big thank you gehayi for running the ficathon and to sholmes87 for the beta. Keys to the Kingdom and all characters are owned by Garth Nix.
Suzy Turquoise Blue was sitting at the table in Monday’s Dayroom, teacup in hand, plate of biscuits in front of her, when Dame Primus came striding in. She quickly stuck her littlest finger out, just in case. Dame Primus was relentless in her attempts to teach Suzy “proper” behavior.
“Were you successful?” Monday’s Noon inquired from where he was sitting quietly in one of the many large armchairs in the Dayroom. “Is Lord Arthur returning to the House?”
“The call was terminated,” she replied brusquely, sounding unusually like the frog whose form she had once assumed. “Our credit has been revoked, by order of the Court of Days. More of Grim Tuesday’s efforts to seize mastery of the Lower House, no doubt. I don’t know how much I was able to communicate to Arthur before we were cut off.”
“Why dontcha just send me?” Suzy piped up, setting her cup on the table. “I could nip over there no problem, find Arthur, and tell him how old Grimy is sticking his fingers in where they don’t belong, we could pop back here and he could set everything to rights.”
“Because,” said Dame Primus, in the tones of one who has explained this before, “The Original Law forbids it. We are prohibited from interfering in the Secondary Realms, even if it is to correct more interference.”
“It’s a pretty dumb Law when you can’t do anything but everyone else can,” Suzy retorted.
“We must abide by the rules set down by the Architect. Any more talk of that sort and you’ll go to your room, young lady, for the next decade if you’re not careful, trouble or no trouble,” Dame Primus replied, frowning.
“You can’t do that. Arthur’s the Master, he made me Monday’s Tierce, you’re only the Steward,” Suzy shot back.
Dame Primus, already much taller than Suzy, seemed to swell even more. “To your room, young lady. I will not tolerate such talk. I am part of the Architect’s Will.”
Suzy muttered and grumbled but knew by now that Dame Primus in this mood brooked no argument. It would be better to at least pretend to go along, and get things worked out on her own. Someone had to help Arthur, and it certainly wouldn’t be done by following any stupid Laws.
She entered the room in a sort of thoughtful huff, hearing the door lock tight behind her. She rattled the handle half-heartedly, although she knew from much experience that it wouldn’t work. The first thing to do, though, was to get out of the room. She headed over to the window, but it was thick glass and not made to open. She examined it carefully; she could probably break it if she tried a little, but the room was quite far off the ground, and although a fall probably wouldn’t kill her, it would hurt terribly and delay her considerably. She did not have time to waste.
She looked around, but there did not seem to be any other means of leaving the room. Except possibly for the fireplace. She headed over and poked her head inside, ignoring the light dusting of soot that fell around her. Yes, she should be able to do it, just brace her back against one side of the chimney, and her feet against the other…She’d be a bit grimy coming out at the end, but that didn’t matter.
She climbed up inside the fireplace, and, standing with her back against one wall, started walking her feet up the one opposite. It was a rather long climb, and the sooty walls did not offer the best purchase, but after a bit of work and a few precarious moments, she found herself outside, none the worse for the wear, although considerably dirtier.
It was a simple matter to climb down from the roof and sneak back into the house, but she still had no idea how Arthur was doing. She’d have an easier time helping him if she knew what they were up against. Dame Primus certainly had her ways of finding out, but somehow Suzy didn’t think she’d be of much help right now. There was more than one way, though….
The house was large enough and filled with enough hiding places that sneaking through to the Seven Dials room was easy. Just as she had suspected, Sneezer was there, dressed as usual now in an immaculate butler’s uniform. He started on seeing her.
“Suzy!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing here? Her Lady…”
Suzy interrupted him. “This is important, Sneezer,” she said, “and Dame Primus is being difficult. Grim Tuesday is trying to take over the Lower House and Arthur’s got to come back and stop him, only we tried to call him and got cut off, so I said I should go there, only old Primy said I couldn’t, and sent me to my room for no reason, but Arthur’s helped me and you before and we gotta help him now.”
“Of course I will help Lord Arthur,” Sneezer replied. “But what do you want me to do?”
“Let me use the Seven Dials to look into the Secondary Realms. I have to see what Grim Tuesday is doing in Arthur’s world.”
Sneezer opened and shut his mouth a few times. “That is…the Seven Dials are…”
Suzy fixed him with a determined gaze.
“All right,” he said finally. “But mind you stand well away while I’m setting them up.”
He went over the corner and pulled a bell rope hanging from the ceiling. With a deep rumbling sound, a section of wall swung aside to reveal seven grandfather clocks; all arranged facing each other, their pendulums swinging in unison. Sneezer walked into the circle and began winding the clocks and arranging the hands.
“There we go,” he said, jumping out of the circle suddenly. “Just watch. Don’t step inside.”
She watched as an image appeared in the circle, looking so real it was like it was actually there. She saw Arthur standing in the doorway of a house, talking to two deformed, hunchbacked creatures. “Grotesques,” she said in a disgusted voice. “If Tuesday can send Grotesques I don’t see why I can’t go. M’not even a proper Denizen, really.” She watched Arthur arguing with the figures, then shoving one of them. There was a flash of blue light, and they both turned and left. They did not look happy.
She saw Arthur run out of the house and mount some strange, wheeled contraption, obviously a cart of some kind that would take him quickly where he wanted to go. He stopped a few minutes later and looked around, confused.
Suzy froze. There, hiding behind a metallic structure not far away from where Arthur was standing, she saw a quivering mass of pink flesh, slowly changing form. A Scoucher! Arthur had to get away from there, but he didn’t even seem aware of the danger. She closed her eyes and concentrated hard, trying to send him a message. Run. Danger. But Arthur didn’t seem able to hear her. She broke off, not sure if a mortal like Arthur could receive waking dreams.
“Sneezer!” she called out. “A Scoucher! We’ve got to help Arthur.”
Suzy had been so caught up in the vision that she hadn’t realised he was standing right beside her. “He has the Atlas with him,” Sneezer replied. “Between us, we should be able to communicate with it, briefly at least.”
“Communicate with the Atlas?” she asked incredulously. “We can do that? How? How do you know how?”
“Mister Monday was not fond of doing something if he could get someone else to do it for him,” Sneezer answered. “I learned many things I perhaps should not have.”
“Don’t worry if you were s’posed to or not. We have to help Arthur!”
The two quickly set up to communicate with the Atlas, and through it, with Arthur. After a few moments, a picture of an open book appeared between the clocks, partially obscuring the vision of Arthur. “Atlas,” Suzy asked quickly, “how can we help Arthur escape the Scoucher and bring him here to the house?” A hazy picture of a girl’s face appeared next to the Atlas. Suzy vaguely recognized her; one of Arthur’s friends she had met under odd circumstances on previous adventures in the house. “Take him to her!” she said. The girl and the book disappeared from the vision, leaving only Arthur and his surroundings.
Suzy turned back to the image in the center of the clocks, watching as Arthur saw the Scoucher, opened the Atlas, and took off running as the Scoucher leapt for him, no longer a fleshy blob, but huge and man-shape with hundreds of long, thin, tentacles.
Suzy’s heart sped up as Arthur slowed down. “Run, Arthur, run!” she screamed, not caring that he couldn’t hear her. He had to get away from it. If it caught him, Arthur would bleed to death, and no one would be able to stop Grim Tuesday from taking over. A small shriek escaped her lips as one of the Scoucher’s tentacles brushed Arthur’s hand. She could see the blood flowing from it, so much blood.
Suddenly, she saw Arthur’s head whip around. There was the girl, the one the Atlas had shown her! Arthur ran to her, and they both fled inside a house, the Scoucher right behind them. The view in the middle of the clocks shifted, showing Arthur and the girl running through the house, chased by the Scoucher’s long tentacles.
Suzy closed her eyes, both to block out the fight coming through from Arthur’s world, and to concentrate on sending a dream to this girl. Arthur couldn’t receive dreams, but maybe this girl could…Yes, yes, she could feel it; there wasn’t the block that had been there when she tried to send one to Arthur. She had to tell this girl, Leaf, her name was, she suddenly remembered, had to tell Leaf how to get into the House from Arthur’s world, so Leaf could tell Arthur.
“Sneezer,” she yelled, “where does the House open into Arthur’s world?”
Sneezer opened a large, leather-bound volume and ran his finger down one page. “It says the Yeats Paper Mill. It’s near Lord Arthur’s current location.”
Go the old Yeats Paper Mill, she thought, mouthing the words silently. It’s near a river. Go under it to come to the House. The Yeats Paper Mill. Go under it to come to the House. Be careful, the Grotesques… All of a sudden, the block was there again. She turned back to the Seven Dials just in time to see Arthur helping Leaf up off the floor. She was pale, and there was blood pouring down her arm. She gestured for Arthur to go.
“The Grotesques are still there, Sneezer,” she said. “He’ll need help to fight against them, he’s still a mortal. I have to go there.”
She rushed out of the room and through the house, careful to avoid being seen. She hurried to wear the Front Door was located within the House, and knocked impatiently. In a moment, the Lieutenant Keeper answered, tall and imposing in his blue uniform.
“Send me through to Arthur’s world,” Suzy demanded.
“I am afraid I cannot do that,” he replied calmly.
“Why not? Arthur’s in trouble! He needs help!”
“You are not authorized to pass through this door. I can’t let you through without authorization. I’m sorry.”
Suzy fumed and muttered, but knew it was useless to argue with him. He truly could not let her pass through the Door. It just wouldn’t send her anywhere. Perhaps Arthur had made it through on his own. She snuck back to the Seven Dials room, and had Sneezer tune it to Arthur again.
The image showed Arthur crawling through a metal hatch into a huge pipe, before going completely black. A few seconds later, the image was gone, nothing but air in the middle of the clock circle.
“Sneezer, what happened?” Suzy yelled. “Why can’t we see Arthur anymore?”
“The Seven Dials will not show any location within the House,” Sneezer replied calmly. “Only in the Secondary Realms. I can only assume this means that Lord Arthur has gained entry.”
Suzy let out a sigh of relief. “Great! I’ll go down to meet him. Can’t let Dame Primus get there first; she’ll start acting like she can boss him around.”
She hurried down the Atrium, where the Front Door let into the House. She waited patiently for a short while and impatiently for a bit longer before getting fed up and then worried. She went and knocked on the Door for a second time.
It was answered again for the Lieutenant Doorkeeper in his blue uniform. “Yes?”
“Did Arthur come through the Door?” Suzy asked imperiously.
“Yes.”
There was a long pause.
“Well, where did he go?”
“The Far Reaches.”
Suzy drew in a sharp breath. “How long ago?”
“Two hours, by House time,” the Doorkeeper replied.
“Let me go through, too.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Even if I could permit it, you can only use that door from the Secondary Realms,” the Doorkeeper explained patiently. “Here, you have to go through the House.”
Suzy rushed back to the Dayroom. If Arthur had gotten himself indentured to Grim Tuesday, she wouldn’t be able to free him on her own. She just hoped Dame Primus wouldn’t make things too difficult.
“Suzanna!” Dame Primus cried when she spotted her. “I thought I sent you to your room.”
“Yes, you did,” Suzy replied matter-of-factly. “But I got out. And it’s a good thing I did, too. Arthur’s in trouble!”
Dame Primus looked up sharply. “What do you mean?”
“He tried to come through the Front Door, but Grim Tuesday had it fixed up to take him straight to the Far Reaches.”
“Well, that is fortuitous,” Dame Primus said. “He is perfectly located to take on Grim Tuesday and recover the second part of the Will.”
“He’s a slave!” Suzy said. “He doesn’t know anything at all about the Far Reaches. He’ll be stuck there forever and ever. You’ve got to let me go help him.”
“Absolutely not! You’ve spent far too long running around the House like a hooligan. Arthur must do this on his own.”
“Are you crazy!” Suzy yelled. “He’ll never do anything without some help. It’s your fault he’s there anyway! If you had let me go to him in the first place…”
“Fine!” Dame Primus broke in. “Grim Tuesday deserves to have you on his doorstep.”
“And?” Suzy asked.
“And what?” Dame Primus replied, rising up imperiously. Suzy calmed down a bit.
“I can’t rescue him all the way out of the Pit all by myself. I prolly wouldn’t even find him all by myself. You should give me some stuff to help me.”
Dame Primus considered. “Lord Arthur would have a better chance of defeating Grim Tuesday if we provided him with assistance. Very well. I shall give you a finding spell, with which to locate Arthur. I will also provide you two pairs of Ascension Wings, which will carry you out of the Pit, and two sets of stickit fingers, which you can use you move across the ceiling of the Pit to Grim Tuesday’s Treasure Tower. This is where the second Key and the Second Part of the Will should be kept.”
Suzy took a deep breath. “All right. We can do that.
After much bureaucratic rigmarole, so easy after centuries of negligence in the Lower House, and exchanges of favors, Suzy found herself in service as one of Grim Tuesday’s messengers. After receiving her first assignment, she walked carefully through the dark, cold fogginess of the Upper Reaches, activating the finding spell in utter silence, not knowing how much attention the Overseers would pay to a messenger. The spell was nothing more than a small glowing light affixed to the tip of her finger that would brighten when she was moving towards Arthur and dim when she moved away.
She watched her finger out of the corner of her eye, noticing a faint spark every now and then. It grew slowly but steadily as she made her way through the gloom. She came to a sudden stop, almost tripping over a set of rusty iron tracks that disappeared into the distance. She pointed in each direction; the light grew brighter off to the left. Where the tracks led down into the Pit.
She took a deep breath. Her assignment was not to the Pit, she would have no reason to go down there. And without a reason, she couldn’t take official transportation, and without that, it could days or even weeks to get down there. She just didn’t have that long. Arthur needed her help, now. She’d just have to find a job that would give her reason to go down there.
Luckily, there was a sunburst scheduled soon, to help clear the Pit some, and word had to be taken to the Overseers. Suzy asked around till she found out who had been given that assignment, and hurried back to the tracks, just in time to see a boy getting into odd wheel-inside-wheel contraption that messengers used to access the Pit quickly.
“Ned, wait!” she called, slightly breathless. He looked up at her.
“What do you want?” he asked nervously.
“Do you want to swap me?” she asked.
“Swap?” he replied, confused.
“I’ll take your message down to the Pit, and you deliver mine for me,” she said, thrusting out a fist with a piece of parchment in it.
“You want to go into the Pit?” Ned asked incredulously.
“Sure,” Suzy shrugged. “Why not? S’got to be interesting, anyway.”
“I think you’re crazy, but you want to go, you go,” Ned said, taking the parchment from Suzy and handing her his own. “Good luck.”
“Thanks,” Suzy said, accepting the message from him and climbing into the wheel. She closed her eyes and pulled the lever that would start it moving. She was going into the Pit. To find Arthur. The Pit. Arthur.