blocking her ears.
The girl felt that single word pull at her, but she was able to resist it. The sleepers felt it more intensely. All around the room, the old folks suddenly sat up, climbed out of bed and joined the last of the sleepwalkers who were passing through the door.
Leaf got up too and went after them, doing her best impersonation of a sleepwalker, with the final six sleepers and the Denizen rearguard right on her heels. Behind her slack-jawed face, her mind was working furiously, concentrating on repressing the terrible sick feeling of fear and panic that was welling up through her whole body.
Not fear for herself, but for her helpless Aunt Mango.
The doors at the far end were open, but Leaf didn’t dare to look up and ahead until she was shuffling through the doorway and could pretend to stumble a little in her sleep. The stumble almost turned into a real fall, but her legs were getting stronger with every step and she managed to stay upright and take a look.
What she saw almost made her stop and give herself away. The large space ahead housed an Olympic-size swimming pool. The pool, however, didn’t have any water in it. Instead, a ramp had been built down to the bottom and right now the last of the sleepwalkers were shambling down it. Down into a mirrored surface, which at first reflected their approach and then just… swallowed them whole.
Leaf hesitated again at the top of the ramp. There were those four Denizens behind her, but there were also several other doors out of the pool room. If she ran now, she might be able to get through one of the exits. It might be her only chance of escape.
But her aunt had already gone beyond the mirrored bottom of the dry pool.
Leaf took a step forward and then another, looking through slitted eyes. She saw the fear in her face, staring back up as her feet disappeared from view. She could still feel her limbs, the sensation being transmitted up through her legs indicating that she was walking down a gentle slope. Leaf suddenly felt physically ill, just like when she’d been vomiting out the mould. Desperate not to throw up, she shut her eyes and plunged forwards, her arms outstretched in front, as she committed herself to whatever lay beyond the reflection of Lady Friday’s sleepers.
If there was anything beyond…
The Nithling soldier thrust its crackling, electrically charged spear towards Arthur’s chest. At the very last moment, just as he was about to be impaled, the boy managed to block the thrust with his shield, the spear point scratching up and across with a horrifying shriek of metal on metal. Arthur stabbed back with his savage-sword, but the Nithling dodged aside and then leaped upon him, knocking him down as its taloned fingers ripped at his face—
Arthur sat up in bed, screaming, his hands scrabbling for a weapon. His fingers closed on a sword hilt and he picked it up and hacked at his attacker – who melted into thin air as the boy became fully awake. The sword in his hand transformed itself, changing from a slim rapier to a marshal’s gold-wreathed ivory baton, the shape the Fourth Key appeared to prefer when Arthur was carrying it.
Arthur put the baton down and took a deep breath. His heart was still hammering as if a crazed blacksmith were at work in his chest, the fear from his nightmare only slowly fading.
Not that the waking world was all that much better. Arthur looked hopefully at the silver crocodile ring on his finger, the one that indicated just how much sorcery had seeped into his blood and bone. But it was no different than it had been the night before. Five of the ten marked segments of the ring had turned gold, indicating he was now at least half Denizen. Every time Arthur used a Key or some other sorcery he would be affected and the ring would measure the contamination. If the gold spread across just one more segment, the process would be irreversible and he would never be able to return home. Not without negatively affecting everyone and everything he loved. Denizens had a bad effect on life in the Secondary Realms.
“Home!” said Arthur. He was really awake now and every one of his many problems clamoured in his head, demanding he think about them. But foremost of them all was his desire to find out what was going on back home and to check that everyone was all right.
He slid out from under the heavy satin sheets and off the feather-stuffed mattress on its four-poster base of mahogany. Each of the posts was carved with battle scenes, which distracted him for a moment, so he found out the hard way that it was further to the ground than he expected. He was just getting up off the floor when a discreet knock came at the door.
“Come in!” Arthur called out as he looked around. He’d been so exhausted battling to defend the Citadel against the New Nithling army that he’d hardly noticed where they’d carried him off to sleep. Clearly it was the bedroom of some very superior officer – probably Sir Thursday himself – for as well as the ornate bed there were several gilded, overstuffed armchairs; a richly woven carpet that depicted yet another battle scene, this one a vast spray of orange-red firewash over a horde of misshapen old-style Nithlings; a washstand with a solid gold washbasin and several thick fluffy towels; and an open door leading to a walk-in wardrobe absolutely stuffed full of different uniforms, boots and accoutrements.
“Good morning, Lord Arthur. Are you ready to be shaved?”
The Denizen who came in was a Corporal wearing the scarlet tunic and black trousers of the Regiment, but he also had a white apron over his tunic and what appeared to be a brass bowl on his head. He carried a leather case, which he deftly laid on the side table and opened to reveal several brushes and a number of very sharp-looking cut-throat razors.
“Uh, yes, but with the back of the blade, please,” said Arthur, without really thinking. He’d got used to “shaving” during his recruit training, even though at age twelve he had no whiskers to come off and wouldn’t need to shave for a couple of years.
The Corporal gestured to Arthur to sit, took the bowl off his head, filled it with water from the washstand’s elephant trunk spout and began to whisk up a lather.
Arthur sat down, then stood straight back up. “I haven’t got time for this!” he said hurriedly. “I have to find out what’s going on.”
“And so you shall, sir,” said a new voice from the door. It was Marshal Dusk, looking much cleaner and tidier in his dark grey uniform than when Arthur had last seen him in the aftermath of battle. “It was Thursday’s custom to hear the morning news as he was shaved and dressed. Would you care to follow this practice?”
Arthur looked down at himself. He hadn’t realised he was wearing pyjamas. Regimental pyjamas of scarlet and gold, complete with fringed gold epaulettes that irritated his neck. He was sure they would have woken him if he hadn’t been too tired to notice.
“I suppose I do have to get dressed…”
He sat back down and the barber instantly applied lather to his cheeks and chin. Dusk marched into the room and stood at attention opposite, while another Corporal, in a more usual cap, came in and marched past into the wardrobe.
“What are the New Nithlings doing? Has the Piper been seen?” asked Arthur. He tried not to move his mouth too much when he talked. The barber was using the back of the razor to just scrape the lather off, but it still made Arthur nervous.
The New Nithlings who served the Piper, the enigmatic second
