‘I would like a cake,’ said Arthur. He looked around to see where cakes and wine might come from, but there was no sign of any larder, or kitchen, or waiters, though nothing would have surprised him at that point.
The Old One held out his hand, palm down towards the ground, and intoned:
‘Sweet cakes of almond meal, sticky with honey,
A dozen piled on a platter of woven straw.
A pitcher of wine from the sun-kissed hills,
Flavoured with resin from the crack-barked pine.’
Arthur felt the floor under his feet shiver as the Old One spoke. Then the stone cracked and groaned apart. In the fissure, a pool of darkness slowly rose, till it lapped out and spread across the floor near Arthur’s feet. He stepped back as the darkness changed colour and quickly coalesced into an earthenware jug and a flat-sided basket full of delicious-looking small cakes.
The fissure snapped shut as the Old One bent down to pick up the food and wine.
‘Where did they come from?’ asked Arthur. He wasn’t sure he wanted a honey cake all that badly now.
‘Nothing lies close beneath us here,’ said the Old One. He upended the jug and poured a continuous stream of light-coloured wine into his mouth. ‘Ahhh! If you have the power, or a tool of power like your Key, many things can be brought forth from Nothing. After all, it is where everything began. Even the Architect came from Nothing, as did I, hard upon Her heels. Here, drink!’
He passed the jug. Arthur took it and tried to pour it as he’d just seen. But it was much harder than it looked, and he splashed more wine on his chin than he got in his mouth. When he swallowed, he wished he hadn’t swallowed any wine in at all. It tasted horrible, like licorice, and burned his throat.
The honey cakes were much better, though they were very sticky. They had pieces of orange peel all through them and were soft and moist. Arthur ate three of them in quick succession. The Old One ate the other nine with considerable relish.
‘Now, tell me your tale,’ commanded the Old One after he had brushed the last of the crumbs from his chin and chest. ‘And wet your throat when you have need.’
Arthur shook his head at the offered jug. But he told the Old One everything, from the first appearance of Mister Monday and Sneezer. The giant listened carefully, sitting with one knee up and his chin rested upon his fist. Every now and then he moved from this position so that the chains did not jerk him back when the clock hands moved.
When Arthur was finished, the hands stood at twenty to nine, and the Old One was kneeling a few feet inside the rim of the clock face, with Arthur sitting by the numeral eight, on the safe side of the minute hand. It was warm on the clock face, a gentle warmth, like that given by the sun on a clear, calm winter’s day. Arthur felt much more comfortable . . . and extremely tired.
‘This is a curious tale,’ rumbled the giant. ‘One where I must weigh my part. It is true I am the enemy of the Architect whose Will has made you its agent. Yet I am not the friend of Mister Monday or the Morrow Days, whose petty usurpation offends me more than any enmity I have for the Architect. Yet should I help you, hinder you, or simply let be? I must think on it. Rest here, Arthur, till I know my mind.’
Arthur nodded sleepily. He was very, very tired and it would be extremely easy to stretch out here and take a nap. But there were those creepy doors at the centre of the clock, and Pravuil’s warning . . . Even if the Key kept him sort of safe, he didn’t want to suffer pain.
‘Will you promise to wake me before twelve?’ he asked. The Old One seemed trustworthy, at least to the extent that he would keep a small promise like that.
‘Twelve?’ asked the Old One. He too looked at the doors. ‘I should not ponder for so long.’
‘Do you promise?’ asked Arthur again. He could barely get the words out, his jaw an effort to move, and his eyes so heavy they were inexorably sliding shut.
‘I will wake you before twelve,’ confirmed the Old One.
Arthur smiled and collapsed onto the warm clock face. The Old One watched him, turning his hands so that the chains clanked quietly together.
‘But how long before twelve, I do not know,’ whispered the Old One a minute later. He looked at the doors again and hooded his eyes. ‘Shall I let them have your sight so that I might sleep a single night without torture? Or shall I suffer as I always suffer, and give you what help I can?’
Arthur was woken by a shout, a shout that filled his whole body with sound. It felt like the sound hurled him upright, though it was actually his adrenaline-spiked muscles.
‘Wake, Arthur! Run! Run, or they will have you!’
For a frozen moment, Arthur stood dazed and disoriented, the Old One’s shout echoing inside his head. Then a tremendously loud bell struck somewhere near, the vibrations almost shaking him off his feet, like an earth tremor. At the same time he heard the two doors near the centre of the clock bang open, and a horrid, high-pitched giggle came from whatever was inside.
The next thing Arthur knew he was in full flight, tripping and stumbling off the clock face, then sprinting as fast as he could to the border where the pyramids of coal began.
He was halfway there when the bell tolled again, shaking the ground once more. Obviously it was the clock, striking noon or midnight. After the bell, the horrible giggling continued, accompanied by the sound of clockwork unwinding and the ratchet of moving gears.
Arthur threw himself behind a pyramid of coal at the same time as the clock struck for the third time. Again, both the ground and the air vibrated with the bell, and pieces of coal fell off on the boy’s head.
By now thoroughly awake and thoroughly frightened, Arthur’s immediate desire was to run like crazy into the coal field. He wanted to get away from the tolling bell, the insane cackling, and the zinging sound of clockwork. The fear was so strong that he turned to run, holding the Key high to illuminate his way. But after a couple of steps, he forced himself to stop. What was he running from? Just a noise and nothing more. What if he couldn’t find his way back to the clock and the Old One? He still had to find a way out, and the Old One offered the best chance of that. He couldn’t give up that chance because he was afraid of a noise. Arthur took a deep breath and turned around to see if there actually was anything to be afraid of.
He had to squint because the blue light was shimmering even brighter than before. The Old One’s arms were behind his back, held tight by the chains against the hands of the clock, which were both on the twelve. His ankles appeared to be stuck against the hands farther down, though Arthur couldn’t see any chains or anything else. But it was clear the giant couldn’t move at all.
The doors on either side of the central pivot suddenly slammed open. As Arthur watched, a small figure hopped out of each door. One began to move jerkily out towards the numeral nine and the other to the three on the opposite side.
The first figure was a caricature of a woodchopper, a little man in green with a feather in his cap, no taller than Arthur. He held an axe that was almost as big as he was, which chopped up and down haltingly as he moved. The second figure was a short fat woman with an apron and a frilly cap. She held a giant corkscrew, at least two feet long, which she held in front of her, turning it with irregular motions as she advanced across the clock.
Both of them appeared to be made of wood, but looked horribly alive at the same time. Their eyes flickered from side to side and their mouths seemed human, lips curled back every few seconds to let out their awful giggling noise. But their arms were not human at all. They were jointed like a puppet’s and moved in fits and starts. Their legs did not bend, but stayed straight, and they proceeded around the clock as if they were on wheels, or being dragged along by hidden wires.
When they reached the nine and the three, they turned towards the Old One and advanced upon him. As the woodsman passed the ten, he began to chop faster. As the woman glided past the two, she started to turn her corkscrew more rapidly.
Arthur watched in horror. The Old One couldn’t move at all, couldn’t do anything to stop these hideous puppet things. Arthur knew they were intent on doing something horrible. But what could he do? He couldn’t just stand and watch.
Arthur looked at the Key, hefted it like a knife, and took a step forward.
As he stepped out from behind the pyramid, the clock struck again, perhaps the fifth stroke of its full twelve. As the echoes died, the woodsman and the corkscrew woman stopped just short of the Old One. Arthur took another step, and both of the puppet things rotated in place, staring back at the boy.
‘No! Don’t!’
Someone clutched at Arthur’s sleeve. He swung around, the Key ready to strike, but it was only Pravuil. The Coal-Collator gripped Arthur’s elbow and tried to drag him back behind the pyramid.
‘It is the Old One’s punishment. Nothing can be done. They would simply take your eyes as well,’ said Pravuil. ‘And I do not think yours would regrow with the same facility as the Old One’s. Not when taken by the clock-marchers.’ ‘What?’ asked Arthur, aghast. ‘They take out his eyes?’
He glanced back as he spoke and wished he hadn’t for the microsecond it took him to look away again. The woodsman and the woman had advanced next to the twelve. They were standing on the Old One’s chest, looking down at his face, and both axe and corkscrew were about to descend.
‘Let us retreat a little farther,’ said Pravuil anxiously. ‘They can sometimes leave the clock face, you know! Yes, it is his eyes for now, though for many centuries they took his liver.’
‘His liver?!’
‘It is a punishment laid upon him by the Architect,’ explained Pravuil as he quickly led the way behind a particularly large pyramid of coals, with constant glances over his shoulder. ‘Every twelve hours, forever and ever. He will regrow his eyes by two or three o’clock, only to have them . . . ah . . . attacked nine hours later.’
‘But what did he do to deserve this?’ asked Arthur.
‘Deserve? I don’t know about deserve,’ muttered Pravuil. ‘Did I deserve to be sent down here? As to what he did, I have no idea. Best not to inquire about that sort of thing. I gather it had something to do with interfering in the Architect’s work in the Secondary Realms. She is a jealous creator, you know. Or was.’
The clock struck again. Both Arthur and Pravuil flinched at the bell.
‘But if the Architect’s gone, why isn’t the Old One free?’
‘Her work inside the House cannot be undone,’ said Pravuil. ‘Lesser beings may meddle in the Secondary Realms, but the House is constant. Well, apart from minor decorations and fittings, wallpaper and such-like. But anything big like the Old One and the clock, that’s fixed forever.’
Arthur shivered, not just from the returning cold. He thought again of that chopping axe and the turning corkscrew, and the Old One chained and defenseless, his eyes open . . . and that would happen every twelve hours for eternity? It was too awful to think about, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to not think about it. He had to distract himself.
‘Why did you come back to help me?’ Arthur asked.
‘I had a visit from Monday’s Dusk,’ said Pravuil. He still kept looking over his shoulder, though he seemed a little more relaxed. ‘Scared the wings off me. Or would have, if I still had any. But he was very nice. He . . . um . . . promised me some small luxuries if I assisted you. Is it true you’re a mortal? Even though you have the Lesser Key?’
‘Yes,’ said Arthur.
‘And you are a Rightful Heir to the Lower House?’
‘Well, that’s what the Will says,’ replied Arthur uncomfortably. ‘Actually, I just want to get home with a cure –’
He faltered as the clock struck again, and Pravuil went down on one knee before him.
‘Let me swear my allegiance to the true Master of the Lower House,’ pledged Pravuil. ‘Though I am but a mere Coal-Collator, I will serve the Master as best I am able.’
Arthur nodded and wondered what he was supposed to do. Pravuil looked up at him eagerly as if he expected Arthur to do something. The clock struck again as Arthur hesitated. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do, and there was still something shifty about Pravuil. Something that he instinctively didn’t trust. But perhaps the Denizen would be more trustworthy if Arthur let him swear allegiance . . .
As the bell’s sound echoed around them, he thought of films he had seen, and knights and kings. He lightly tapped Pravuil on each shoulder with the Key. The clock hand shone brighter as it touched the Denizen, and some of its light flowed into Pravuil.
‘I accept your allegiance and, um . . . thank you for it,’ said Arthur. ‘You may arise, ah, Sir Pravuil.’
‘Sir Pravuil!’ exclaimed the man as he stood. ‘That’s very fine, thank you, my lord! I like that.’
Arthur stared at him. Pravuil had been a little shorter than he was. Now he was several inches taller. He was standing much straighter, but that couldn’t explain this gain in height. He also looked less ugly, and Arthur realised his rather large nose had shrunk, and most of the caked-on coal dust had fallen off his face.
The clock struck once more. Arthur noticed that the last few chimes had been much closer together. He’d lost count, but perhaps this was the last, the stroke of twelve. It was followed a moment later by the sound of slamming doors.
‘Was that . . . the clock-marchers going back inside the clock?’ asked Arthur. He was already wondering when he could go back and ask the Old One about the Improbable Stair. If it was the way out, he wanted to get on it.
‘That was indeed their doors closing,’ said Pravuil. ‘If they haven’t left the clock face, they always return on the twelfth stroke. But it is best not to trouble the Old One till his eyes have regrown. Would you like a cup of tea?’