There was a neatly made-up bunk in one corner and some barrels and a chest in another, but most of the room was taken up by a long table of deeply polished wood. On the table were hundreds and hundreds of different bottles, all carefully laid flat, many of them mounted on wooden or ivory bases.
Every bottle had a ship in it. Many different kinds of ships, in many different sorts of bottles. Glass of all colours, thick and thin, sealed with corks, or wax, or lead, or sprung metal stoppers. Ships with one mast, two masts, three masts, or no masts and lots of oars. Big ships that might have crews of hundreds of sailors and little ships just for one.
Arthur walked closer. The lamp swung, and the shadows shifted. Arthur saw a red glow suddenly flare in the corner at the end of the table and stopped as he saw it came from a pipe in the mouth of a man who was sitting there. An oldish man, white haired and white whiskered, his face looking like it hadn’t seen a shave for a week but wasn’t yet up to a beard.
He was wearing a heavy blue coat, the sleeves showing dark bands where four gold braided bands might once have been. Instead of the ubiquitous clogs of the Far Reaches, he had on rubber boots, with the tops folded over above the knee.
His eyes were deep set, bright blue, and very piercing. He met Arthur’s stare, carefully placed his pipe on a stand, still smoking, then put down the quill pen he held, snapped shut the top of the inkwell, set down the huge bronze-bound book he was writing in, and spiked a piece of paper that looked like an old-fashioned telegram on a long metal spike that held hundreds of similar papers.
Then he stood up, all six feet six inches of him, and came into the light.
‘It’s the Piper!’ shrieked Suzy, and she fell to her knees, either in worship, a faint, or some sort of faked fall to distract the man. Arthur didn’t know. But he was slightly relieved this man wasn’t Grim Tuesday, which is what he’d thought.
The relief only lasted a second as the man reached into the shadows and pulled out a nine-foot-long harpoon that glittered and shone all the way from its incredibly sharp-looking point to the eyehole on the end where a rope would normally be attached.
‘Nay, lass, I’m not the Piper,’ growled the man, his voice deep and carrying. ‘That would be my youngest brother you’re thinking of. Now tell me your names before I must do as Grim Tue sday bids me, and send you to perdition.’
‘Ah, is perdition some part of the House?’ asked Arthur.
The man chuckled.
‘In this case, perdition means “total destruction,”’ he explained. ‘But I’m a kindly man and hold no grudge against you Denizens. My friend here will snip your skein of destiny, sharp as you like, and that will be the end of it.’
He slapped his harpoon as he spoke, and it shone still brighter.
‘Now, give me your names. I’ve a lubber’s employment now, keeping the register straight for Grim Tuesday, and I mislike pawing over a stone-cold corpse to find a name to strike off the roll. Speak!’
‘Off the roll?’ asked Arthur. ‘Do you mean the register of indentured workers?’
‘Aye, I do, and I must return to it, so kindly give me your names. Or must I prick it out of thee at the point of my companion?’
‘I’m not an indentured worker,’ said Arthur, though he quailed a little as the man lifted his harpoon and made as if to strike. ‘I’m the Master of the Lower House and I’ve come to get Part Two of theWill.’
The man’s eyes narrowed, but he put the harpoon aside and strode over to Arthur. Standing above him, he gripped the boy’s chin and pushed his head back till their eyes met. At the same time, he blocked an attempted blow from Suzy’s copper pipe, grabbed her by the collar, and lifted her up without looking.
‘Master of the Lower House, are ye?’
‘Yes . . . yes, I am!’ stammered Arthur. Suzy’s lips were turning blue and her eyes were rolling back in her head. ‘Leave her alone!’
He reached out and tried to drag Suzy down. At first he couldn’t move the man’s arm at all, then once again his hand felt hot and, with a sudden lurch, Suzy was dropped.
‘Well, well,’ said the man. ‘So you are, after all.’
He held out his hand.When Arthur hesitantly took it, they shook vigorously.
‘You can call me . . . let’s see . . . Captain Tom Shelvocke,’ the man said. ‘A mariner, temporarily becalmed by that slavemaster Grim Tuesday. And who’s this young lady, Master?’
‘Call me Arthur,’ said Arthur as he helped Suzy up. She gave Tom a nasty look and massaged her throat. ‘This is Suzy Turquoise Blue, Monday’s Tierce.’
‘Sorry about the neck wrangle,’ said Tom, offering his hand to Suzy. ‘Though by rights, you’d be stuck through and through by my friend, as is my orders from Grim Tuesday. “Any indentured workers that step through that door are to be slain,” he said. But if one of the other Days orders me to leave her alone, well then, Tom has to wait and think about it and maybe not do anything at all.’
Suzy reluctantly shook Tom’s hand, then stepped back, out of his reach.
‘Who are you?’ asked Arthur. ‘I mean, are you a Denizen . . . or something . . . someone . . . er . . . else?’
‘I’m a treasure,’ said Tom. ‘Collected by Grim Tuesday from a place called Earth. You’ve heard of it?’
‘Yes,’ replied Arthur. ‘I’m from Earth. I mean, that’s where I live, only I have to be the Master, but not yet . . . It’s a long story . . . but why would you be a treasure?’
‘Because I’m neither mortal nor Denizen nor Nithling,’ said Tom. ‘Like my brother, the Piper, who Miss Blue has obviously met. I’m one of the sons of the Architect and the Old One, in a manner of speaking. The Old One sired the three of us on mortal women, and the Architect brought us up in the House, with all the changes that brings.When She chained up Dad, we slipped back to the Secondary Realms. I went to Earth and signed up for a few seafaring journeys, here and there and back again. First I knew of Mother disappearing was when Grim Tuesday took me from the deck of my ship and stuck me in here. Took all the power of the Second Key to do it, and that wouldn’t have been enough if I was ready with my friend at hand. Or in all truth, if I’d drunk a little less rum at dinner, which I wouldn’t normally have done, you understand, if it wasn’t for that blamed bird I shot by accident . . . but there you have it. I’m bound here by the power of the Key, can venture no farther than the worldlets in my bottles, and must serve Grim Tuesday as an inky-fingered secretary.’
‘Nothing wrong with inky fingers,’ muttered Suzy.
‘What’s that?’ asked Tom sharply.
‘What’s your “friend” made out of?’ asked Suzy quickly and more respectfully than Arthur had seen her speak to anyone.
‘She’s made from the luminous trail of a narwhal’s wake under the aurora borealis in an arctic sea,’ said Tom. ‘Mother made her for me, as a birthday present when I was a century old and set fair for a seafaring life.’
‘Good,’ said Suzy. ‘There’s a Nithling outside who should meet your friend.’
‘A Nithling? Inside the Tower?’
‘It used to be Grim Tuesday’s eyebrow,’ Arthur explained. ‘Or so it says.’
Tom laughed again, a deep, booming laugh, and rubbed his hands together.
‘Looks like Tuesday’s glass is set for storms. Now, am I right in thinking you’re looking for something in particular in this Treasure Tower, Arthur? Anything I might be able to help ye with?’
Arthur had been thinking about that, and about what Tom had said. A few things had caught his attention.
‘What are these “worldlets” in the bottles?’ he asked.
‘Ah, the bottles are something I taught Grim Tuesday myself,’ Tom said. ‘You see, if you’ve got the art and the craft and the power, and a bottle made special, you can copy a little piece of the Secondary Realms and stick it in that bottle. It’ll stay there, right and tight, place and time and all, unless someone pulls the stopper. And if you’ve got the secret of it, you can visit whatever place you’ve got in your bottle.’
‘So they’re all copies of real ships in real places?’ Now that Arthur looked closely at the bottles, he could see that the ships were moving, the sea splashing, the sun – sometimes more than one sun – shifting in the sky.
‘All but one bottle,’ answered Tom. ‘There’s one that holds a real place, not a copy. One where time flows like it should, not round and round for a few copied hours.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Arthur. ‘What’s in that one bottle?’
Tom smiled. ‘I’m as pleased as punch you asked that question, for it’s the one I’ve been wanting to tell you. That single bottle holds a sun, and several worlds, and a sunship, the finest ever built. Sail into the sun, she can, right to its blazing core – with the crew none the hotter for it.’
‘Why would you sail to the centre of that sun?’ asked Arthur.
‘Why, you’d sail there to see what Grim Tuesday might have put there ten thousand years ago.’
‘TheWill?’
Tom smiled and shrugged.
‘Can you take us there?’
‘I could take one of the Seven Days into any of these bottles at their command, for Grim Tuesday never said nay about that.’
‘Well, I, Arthur, Master of the Lower House, command you to take me and Suzy to the centre of the sun where Grim Tuesday went ten thousand years ago.’
‘It will be my pleasure to go a-sunfaring with the two of you,’ replied Tom. ‘We’ll just need some brightcoats, star-hoods, and Immaterial Boots.’
The mariner went over to a chest behind the barrels and reached way down inside it, far further than it was deep. He quickly produced several long overcoats that shimmered in different colours, like mother-of-pearl. He threw these to Arthur, who nearly collapsed under the weight of what felt like a hundred pounds of wool. Then he threw across several pairs of boots identical to the ones he was wearing himself, that just looked like ordinary rubber seaboots. Finally he gestured to the corner of the table.
‘And we’ll need the saltshaker off the luncheon corner of my board, Miss Blue, if you don’t mind. Likely Old Tuesday will have left some Fetchers aboard.’
Arthur separated out the pile of coats into half a dozen garments. One looked to be his size, so he happily discarded his apron and tried it on. The coat fit perfectly. Despite its weight, it was very cool and very soft, and Arthur immediately liked it.
‘Star-hood in the collar,’ said Tom. He put on a brightcoat himself and took the huge silver saltshaker from Suzy and put it in his pocket. Then he folded up his collar and unfurled a hood that was made from what Arthur thought must be loosely woven starlight. It sparkled and shimmered, barely visible, save for the faint outline where it touched Tom’s hands.
‘Drag it right over, you won’t come to harm,’ Tom instructed. He pulled the hood completely over his face and down to the top button of his coat, where it fastened with a single press of his thumb.
‘Immaterial Boots on and you’ll be equipped for any trouble of a starry nature,’ said Tom. ‘Just remember to pull your hands into your sleeves if it gets a little hot. Not that you need any of this gear aboard the Helios, as I call her, but it’s best to be prepared – we might have some trouble docking.’
‘What do we dock with? What’s at the centre of that star?’ Arthur asked as he struggled to get the Immaterial Boots on. As soon as his feet were snug, they rippled and changed shape to look like his normal runners. Suzy’s became shiny patent-leather half-boots.
‘A place Grim Tuesday made,’ Tom replied. ‘That’s all I can say. It may be a little hot disembarking there, and hotter still when it’s time to sail away. Are you ready?’
‘I’m ready,’ said Suzy.
‘I just want to look at the register,’ said Arthur. He walked over to look at the bronze-bound book. It was about two feet thick, with very thin paper like onion-skin. The open page was printed up with headings and lines, and had some clear copperplate writing filling in each section, obviously copied from the yellow forms that were on the spike.
There was NUMBER, OCCUPATION, FORMER NAME, ORIGIN, MISDEMEANORS, PUNISHMENTS, and the same headings Arthur had seen on Japeth’s indenture card, EARNINGS and OWING.
The figures under EARNINGS and OWING changed as Arthur watched, written in clear numerals unlike the copperplate hand that had to be Tom’s.
‘One of Grim Tuesday’s conceits,’ said Tom darkly. ‘The register can write everything itself, but he enjoys setting me to enter the new arrivals. That register took over for more than two thousand clerks. Freed them up to go down the Pit.’
‘I have to destroy it,’ said Arthur. ‘So the indentured workers can be freed.’
‘Many’s the time I’ve tried to rip it apart or wrench it from the table,’ said Tom. He was bent over the bottles, carefully reaching across to get one that shone with a clear yellow light. ‘Grim Tuesday makes strong stuff, particularly when it’s got slavery at the heart of it.’
Arthur tried to rip out the open page. But he couldn’t get a grip. His fingers slid off. Then he tried to pick up the book, but it didn’t budge at all. It felt like a solid lump of metal bolted to a concrete block.
‘I promised Japeth I’d free him and the other workers,’ said Arthur. He put both his hands on the open pages of the register and took the deepest breath he could manage.