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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 Dr 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.
A scant few seconds after his escape, the last surviving remnants of the Lower House ceased to exist.
Arthur appeared next to a pyramid of coal, stepping out of the air and frightening the life out of a short, bald Denizen in a yellow greatcoat, who dropped his fishing pole, jumped back, and pulled a smoking bronze ball that looked like a medieval hand grenade out of one of his voluminous pockets.
“Dr Scamandros!” exclaimed Arthur. “It’s me!”
“Lord Arthur!”
The tattooed trumpets on Dr Scamandros’s forehead blew apart into clouds of confetti. He tried to pinch out the fuse on the smoking ball, but a flame ran around his fingers and continued on its way. Even more smoke boiled out of the infernal device.
“Scamand—” Arthur started to say, but Scamandros interrupted him, lobbing the ball behind a particularly large pyramid of coal some thirty feet distant.
“One moment, Lord Arthur.”
There was a deafening crack and a fierce rush of air, closely followed by a great gout of smoke and coal dust that spiralled up into the air. Moments later, a hail of coal came down, some fist-sized pieces striking the ground uncomfortably close to the sorcerer and the boy.
“I do beg your pardon, Lord Arthur,” said Dr Scamandros. Puffing slightly, he went down on one knee, clouds of disturbed coal dust billowing up almost as high as his shoulders. “Welcome.”
“Please, do get up,” said Arthur. He leaned forward and helped the Denizen rise. Dr Scamandros was amazingly heavy, or possibly all the things he had in the pockets of his yellow greatcoat were amazingly heavy.
“What’s going on?” Arthur asked. “I came back to Monday’s Dayroom but there was this…this huge wave of Nothing! I only just managed to hold it off long enough to escape.”
“I fear that I lack exact knowledge of what has occurred,” replied Scamandros. The tattoos on his face became a herd of confused donkeys that ran in a circle from his chin to the bridge of his nose and back again, and kicked their heels at each other. “I have been here since we parted company at Lady Friday’s retreat, a matter of some days. Dame Primus wished me to investigate some unusual phenomena, including the sudden growth of flowers and a powerful aroma of rose oil. It has been quite a restful interlude in some ways, though I have to say that attar of roses is no longer…”
The Denizen noticed Arthur’s frown and got back to the question.
“Ahem, that is to say, just under an hour ago, I felt a tremor underfoot, followed a moment later by a sudden onslaught of Nothing that annihilated at least a third of the Cellar before its advance slowed. Fortunately it was not the third I happened to be located in at the time. I immediately attempted to telephone Dame Primus at the Citadel, but found all lines severed. Similarly, I was unable to summon an elevator. The few short experiments I have conducted suggest the following.”
He held out three blackened fingers, closing them into his fist one by one.
“Item One. The defences against the Void in the Far Reaches must have suddenly collapsed, allowing a huge surge of Nothing to smash through.
“Item Two. If you encountered a wave of Nothing as high as Monday’s Dayroom, then it is likely that the entire Far Reaches and all of the Lower House have been destroyed. But there is a brighter note, which I shall label as Item Three.
“Item Three. If you got an operator on the line, the bulwark between the Lower and Middle House must have held. Or be holding, though everything below it has been lost.”
“Everything? But here…where we are right now,” said Arthur. “This is part of the Lower House, how come it’s not…uh…gone?”
“The Old One’s prison is very strong,” said Scamandros. He pointed to his left. Arthur looked and saw in the distance the faint sheen of blue light that he knew came from the clock face where the Old One was chained. “The Architect had to make it particularly resistant, to keep the Old One in check. Being of such adamant stuff, it has held against the initial inrush of Nothing. But now it is but a small islet, lost in the Void. We are entirely surrounded and totally cut off from the rest of the House. It is very interesting, but I have to confess I’m relieved you’re here, Lord Arthur. Without you, I fear that—”
Scamandros paused. The tattooed donkeys hung their heads and slowly became tumbledown stone cairns, memorial markers for the fallen.
“I fear that I would find the current situation, interesting as it is, likely to be fatal in a relatively short space of time, given that Nothing is eating this small refuge at a rate of approximately a yard an hour.”
“What? You were just saying this area is adamant and strong and all that!” protested Arthur. He peered into the darkness, but he couldn’t tell whether he was looking at advancing Nothing or just couldn’t see very far because the only immediate light came from the feeble lantern on the coal pile.
“Oh, the area immediately adjacent to the clock is doubtless proof against the Void,” said Scamandros. “But before your arrival I was weighing up the relative…er…benefits of being throttled by the Old One as opposed to being dissolved by Nothing.”
“The Old One wouldn’t throttle you…oh…I guess he might,” said Arthur. “He does hate Denizens…” Arthur stopped talking and looked over at the blue glow, thoughts of his very first encounter with the Old One going through his mind. He could well remember the feel of the prison chain around his neck. “I hope he’ll still talk to me. Since I’m here, I want to ask him some questions.”
Dr Scamandros peered owlishly at Arthur, with his half-moon spectacles glinting on his forehead, helping him focus his invisible third and fourth eyes.
“It is true that the Old One has a fondness for mortals. But I think you are no longer mortal. What does my…your ring indicate?”
Arthur looked. The gold had washed well into the seventh segment.
“About seventy-five per cent contaminated,” he said quietly. “I hope the Old One can recognise the quarter-part of humanity inside me.”
“Perhaps it would be best to simply depart,” said Scamandros nervously. “Though I should say that the ring has a margin—”
“I do need to at least try to get some answers from him,” said Arthur distractedly. “If I keep my distance it should be OK. Then we’d better get up to the Citadel and find out what’s happening from Dame Primus. Oh, and I need to ask you about something I’ve done back on Earth…”
Quickly Arthur described what he’d done with the Key, and the strangely red-lit environment