Arthur didn't reply. He reached out and grabbed Suzy's hand as she was dragged past. She stopped too and started to crawl back.
"Unhand my tail!" squealed the Will. It turned on Arthur and tried to scratch him, but he kept his grip and jumped behind it.
"I'm not letting go until we go through the weirdway in that cell," gasped Arthur as he jumped again, Suzy jumping with him. She managed to get a grip directly on the Will's tail as well.
"This is outrageous behavior. I protest!"
"Who is that?" bellowed Grim Tuesday. His shout was followed by heavy footsteps ringing on the iron steps.
"Hurry up!" snapped Arthur to the Will. "You don't want to meet Grim Tuesday either, do you?"
The bear turned again and sped into the cell far faster than Arthur had seen it move before. The two children barely hung on, both running hunched over and scraping the door frame.
Arthur kicked the door shut with his foot, jarring his bad leg. He could hear Grim Tuesday's shouts reverberating outside as he hastily looked around the room. It was mostly empty, but there was an armchair sitting opposite two exquisite clocks on the walclass="underline" an ornate cuckoo clock made of finely sculpted gold, and a very simple, small ivory dial set in a walnut frame.
"Let go, let go, let go!" whined the Will. "I insist that you let go."
Arthur looked at Suzy, then tentatively loosened his grip. When they weren't struck by invisible forces, they both let go completely and stepped well back to get clear of the Will's claws and to look at the two clocks.
"If you've rumpled my fur, I shall send you the cleaning bill," said the Will as it curled around to inspect its tail.
Arthur ignored it. Instead he stretched up and touched the door of the cuckoo clock. It was solid gold, with an emerald-set door handle. Arthur opened it and was not surprised to find the door expanding as he pulled it, stretching down and across till there was no sign of the clock. Instead there was a normal-sized doorway in the wall, leading to a dark corridor whose walls, floor, and ceiling rippled as if they were made of stretched cloth rather than the solid stone they otherwise appeared to be.
"Come on!" Arthur held the door open for Suzy. Strangely, it still felt as if he was reaching up to hold a tiny clock door. "Claws, come on!"
"How many times must I repeat myself, you may address me as -" the Will started to say. It made no move towards the weirdway.
Before he could finish, Arthur suddenly slapped his hand to his mouth and groaned, as the now-familiar ache struck. Tom had used his harpoon, a fact confirmed by a shriek of agony from Soot and another inarticulate bellow from Grim Tuesday. It sounded like they were all very close.
"Go through!" screamed Arthur in frustration as the Will turned around to inspect its tail again.
Then Grim Tuesday shouted again, from right outside the door.
"Finish the Nithling, Captain! I'll fix the other thieves!"
Chapter Nineteen
Grim Tuesday's shout finally galvanized the Will into action. The sun bear shot into the weirdway and Arthur dived after it. He had a momentary glimpse of the cell door opening and the shadow of Grim Tuesday falling on the armchair. Then the cuckoo clock reassembled itself, closing the weirdway.
Arthur shivered. He did not want to meet Grim Tuesday without the Will's help. He needed to be taught the spells or incantations he would need to wrest the Second Key from the unfaithful Trustee.
The Will had already caught up to Suzy. Arthur ran after them both, steadying himself with his hands as he wobbled from side to side. This weirdway was even more fluid underfoot than the one he'd used in the Lower House to get to Mister Monday.
It was a lot shorter too. Arthur came to the end and ran straight out without even realizing that the darkness was the exit, not another turn. He stumbled against Suzy and the sun bear, then fell over a waist-high palm tree.
"Tuesday's in the cell," gasped Arthur as he pulled himself up on the palm, shredding most of its fronds. He could still see the weirdway exit, a strange inky doorway standing between two twelve-foot palm trees. "How do we shut the weirdway?" he asked.
"Blood ought to do it," said Suzy. She got out her knife and then, before Arthur could do anything, suddenly gripped his hand tight and stuck the point of the blade into his thumb. "A Day's blood, that is. Yours. Sorry about that. Bung some in."
Arthur flicked a few drops of blood at the dark doorway. Instead of going through, they splattered as if on glass. The weirdway gave a strange, cooing sigh that made Arthur step back as it closed in on itself, leaving only air between the palm trees.
Arthur looked around. The air was clean and bright, and they were surrounded by healthy-looking palms and carefully tended shrubs with pale pink trefoil flowers. For a moment he thought they were out of the Far Reaches altogether. Then he saw the wall of the Treasure Tower and the sparkle of the pyramid glass.
"Yep," said Suzy, noting his look. "We're in the garden around the Tower. Still inside the pyramid."
"We'd better find somewhere to hide," said Arthur. "What's that?"
He pointed up at the pyramid wall. It was hard to see through the shining glass, but somewhere in the distance Arthur could just make out big red-bursting flares that had to be very bright to make it through the smog. They were exploding near the ceiling of the Far Reaches and then drifting back down.
"Rockets," said Suzy. "Ooh, that was a good one!"
"Why? who would be firing rockets?" Arthur asked. He tilted his head to catch a distant, muffled noise. "I can hear bells too. Electric bells, like the elevator bells. Lots of them, all going off at once. Like the fire alarm at school?"
He looked at Suzy and said, "Those rockets are distress signals. The bells are alarms."
"Grim Tuesday's problem," said Suzy, with a shrug. She started to push through a line of thick bushes to see if there was a good place to lurk.
"It must be Nothing," said Arthur. "That's what everyone's afraid of."
"I'm not afraid of Nothing," said the Will. "Or anything else. Nothing cannot divert me from my duty."
"You should be afraid," Arthur warned. He was sick of this part of the Will. It was all bluster and wind. "Dame Primus was afraid of Nothing. I'm afraid of Nothing, like anyone with any sense. What if it all breaks out and destroys the foundations of the House and the whole? everything? the complete universe?"
"The Architect's work is far too superior for that to happen," said the Will smugly. "You need not worry on that score."
"You've been locked up for ten thousand years," Arthur pointed out angrily. "Grim Tuesday has dug a huge great Pit into the foundations here in the Far Reaches, right into Nothing. The Atlas says it is a great danger to the House - and I bet it knows more than you."
"The Atlas?" asked the Will, sitting up and losing its supercilious look. "You have The Compleat Atlas of the House?"
"Yes, I do." Arthur took it out and flashed it in front of the Will's nose like a police badge, then thrust it back in his pocket. "Because whether I like it or not, I am the heir to this whole mess!"
"Ah, perhaps I have been a little too rigorous in applying the principles laid down at my creation," the sun bear said with a couple of delicate coughs. "If I might make a closer examination of -"
"Arthur! Take a look at this!"
Arthur pushed through the bushes. Suzy was standing on a long stone bench, looking out over a well-manicured hedge towards the eastern side of the glass pyramid.
"Get down!" Arthur called nervously. "He'll see us."
"Come and have a look!" answered Suzy.
Arthur glanced around, then jumped up, knowing from past experience that Suzy wouldn't get down until he took a look at whatever it was she wanted him to see.