‘Well, don’t poisonously bite anyone unless I ask you to,’ said Arthur forcefully. He looked up at his flag and saw that it was fully spread. There had been no olive branch available, but the white flag should be an unmistakable request for a truce and negotiation, Arthur thought.

He’d been a bit concerned that the firewashed area was going to be a gruesome repository of dead Nithlings, but there were no bodies or even any bloodstains. Just a fine, grey ash that lay inch-thick on the dirt, puffing up under Arthur’s feet as he strode out towards the trenches.

When he judged he was halfway, Arthur found a patch of loose earth, probably from where a cannonball had struck early in the siege, and stuck the staff in the ground. Then he stood under the flag and waited.

He could see the front line of trenches very clearly, and the heads of the New Nithlings who were observing him just as closely. They did not use muskets or any other distance weapon as far as he knew, but even so his skin felt tense, as if there would suddenly be a shot, or an arrow would plunge down from the sky.

Nothing happened for a considerable time. The sun sank lower in the sky. Arthur even began to get bored, which surprised him. The New Nithlings continued to move about the trenches, carrying ladders and other gear, and pushing larger siege engines along farther back. But they did not move out of their trenches and come forward.

Arthur almost missed it when something began to happen. The pattern of Nithling movement changed and all handling of large equipment stopped. It also became much quieter.

A tall figure climbed out of the forward trench and walked towards Arthur. A Denizen-tall figure in a voluminous yellow greatcoat that hid his body, topped by that Napoleon hat and the steely mask. He had no obvious weapons, but the greatcoat could conceal almost anything, and of course, he probably had his pipe.

He walked up to within two yards of Arthur and stopped. Then he gave a sketchy half-salute. Arthur, without thinking, returned it with an instinctive, smartly snapped salute at full attention.

‘You are courteous,’ said the Piper. His voice was light and somewhat strange, and it made Arthur feel like he was in a dream, not really understanding what was happening, but also feeling an overwhelming urge to agree with the Piper. He shook his head to clear it and gripped the Fourth Key more tightly.

‘I see you are protected,’ said the Piper. His voice sounded the same, but it didn’t have the same effect. ‘I suppose that is only to be expected.’

‘Why are you here?’ Arthur asked gruffly. His own voice sounded like a crow’s rasping caw after the Piper’s melodious tones. ‘I mean, why are you attacking the Army?’

‘Let us introduce ourselves first, surely,’ said the Piper. ‘Though I have now been told who you claim to be. I am called the Piper, and I am the son of the Architect and the Old One. I am the Rightful Heir to the House.’

Twenty-eight

‘UH, ’ SAID ARTHUR. ‘Um, that’s kind of … tricky. You see, I’m Arthur Penhaligon, and though I didn’t want to be, I am the Master of the Lower House and the Far Reaches, Duke of the Border Sea, and Commander-in-Chief and Overlord of the Great Maze, and all because your mum’s … the Architect’s Will chose me to be the Rightful Heir.’

‘The Will chose you because I was not available at the time,’ said the Piper. ‘That is regrettable, but it can easily be rectified.’

‘Right,’ said Arthur. ‘Where were you?’

‘I was in Nothing,’ said the Piper, bitterness in his voice. ‘Where I was cast by my turncoat brother, Lord Sunday, seven hundred years ago.’

‘In Nothing? Shouldn’t you be –’

‘Dissolved?’ asked the Piper. ‘Very little of my corporeal flesh remains beneath this coat and mask. But I am the Architect’s son. Even as the Nothing ate my flesh and bone, I shaped the Nothing. I built a place for myself, a small worldlet where I could recuperate, and there I lay for the first hundred years, regaining my strength. In my second century I made the worldlet larger. I created servants to tend me, and began to fashion connections back to the House. In the third hundred I began to build an army, not of mindless Nithlings but of my New Denizens. Better ones than Mother made. More like mortals. Smarter and able to change. More in keeping with my father’s vision. In the fourth century I made the spike, and in the fifth I began to plan how to re-enter the House through the Great Maze –’

He stopped and took a breath.

‘But we are not here to talk of my past, but of my future. I did not believe my part of my mother’s Will had been released until quite recently, Arthur, when my rats confirmed the news. But I am not displeased at your progress. You need simply hand over the Keys to me and I will continue in my campaign against my traitor brother and his minion Saturday. You may return to your own world in the Secondary Realms and live the life you should have had, as I believe you wish to do.’

Arthur opened his mouth, then shut it again. He didn’t know what to say or think. He was being offered a reprieve from the awesome and awful responsibilities that had been thrust upon him.

‘It’s not as simple as that,’ hissed a voice near his elbow.

‘And what, pray tell, do you have to do with it?’ asked the Piper, bending down so his metal mask was close to the serpent’s head, close enough that he could see the lines of type swirling about to create the illusion of snakeskin.

‘I am Part Four of the Will of the Architect, as you very well know,’ said the snake. ‘And Arthur is the Rightful Heir. He can’t just give you the Keys because you’re not the Rightful Heir.’

‘I am the Heir by right of blood and inheritance!’

‘If that were all that mattered, it would be Sunday,’ said the Will. ‘He’s the oldest.’

‘I have proved I am her inheritor,’ said the Piper. He spread his arms wide to take in all the New Nithling army. ‘Look what I have wrought from Nothing!’

‘Very impressive, but it makes no difference,’ said the snake. ‘Arthur is the Rightful Heir. Now that he has the Fourth Key and is Commander-in-Chief, you are rebelling not against the traitor Sunday but against the legitimate authority of the House. Which makes you a traitor now. Not that your loyalty was ever quite as clear as anyone would wish.’

‘Your tone is overly familiar,’ said the Piper. He did not sound angry but rather more puzzled. ‘Who are you to question my loyalty?’

‘You are as much your father’s son as your mother’s,’ said the snake. It uncoiled itself and stretched higher than Arthur’s head. ‘You never sought to free the Will yourself, till you argued with your brother in quite recent times, as we count it in the House. Am I wrong in thinking that Sunday cast you into Nothing because you once again tried to free the Old One against his wishes?’

‘That is not relevant,’ said the Piper. ‘Arthur, either you give me the Keys, beginning with the Fourth Key you hold there, or I will take them from you or whoever holds them.’

‘What will you do once … if you get them?’ asked Arthur.

‘I shall rule the House.’

‘I mean, will you set it to rights and get everything back in order so the House just watches and records the Secondary Realms and doesn’t interfere?’

‘It is not interference to tend something that has grown awry,’ said the Piper. ‘My mother was confused on this issue. Essentially she did not want others to meddle with what she had made, but she “interfered” with the Realms herself if the mood took her. As shall I.’

Arthur shook his head.

‘You don’t care about all the life out there, do you? All the mortals. We’re just the end product of the Architect’s big experiment.’

‘No,’ said the Piper. ‘That is true of my brother Sunday. It is not true of me. I love my mortals, the children I brought to make the House more interesting, and the Rats who serve as my spies. I tried to make my New Denizens as much like them as I could. I succeeded too well, perhaps, for they would prefer to farm and make things, even though they are excellent soldiers and wish to serve me well. Now, we have talked enough. What is your decision, Arthur? I must tell you that if you decline my generous offer, we will attack as soon as both you and I leave this ashen field.’

‘What happened to the Piper’s children who were with me on our attack on the spike?’ Arthur asked.

‘Two were slain by Sir Thursday, though I tried to save them. The others serve me now, as is right and proper.’

‘Of their own free will?’

‘They exist to serve me,’ replied the Piper. ‘It is their reason for being.’

Arthur looked down at the baton in his hand. He could feel the power of the Fourth Key like a constant low vibration and a warmth that was delicious to his skin.

I wonder if I’m getting addicted to the Keys, he thought. I wonder if I’m making a really big mistake. One with untold consequences for everybody alive, here in the House and all those billions of humans and aliens and who knows what out in the Secondary Realms …

‘I would be happy to work with you against Lord Sunday,’ Arthur said slowly. ‘And I’m sure we could give your Army part of the Great Maze to have for farms. There are even villages ready-built for them to move into. But I can’t give you the Keys. Like it or not, I am the Rightful Heir, and I think I have to keep going. To set everything to rights. To let the universe get on with itself, without … without your kind … toying with all our lives.’

‘That’s that, then,’ said the Piper. ‘I shall play at your funeral, Arthur. You deserve no less, for all that you lack wisdom. It shall be soon, I fear, for the Citadel will not stand long against the might I bring to –’

Arthur was never entirely sure what happened then. The Will either spat poison at the mouth opening of the Piper’s mask or struck at his mouth so swiftly that its passage looked like a spray of venom.

Whichever it was, the Piper staggered back and let out a cry of pain and anger that burned the inside of Arthur’s ears, even after he managed to clap his palms to his head. The boy turned and bolted back towards the bastion. Behind him, the great kettle drums of the enemy beat out a staccato alarm, and tens of thousands of New Nithlings shouted out in rage at their enemy’s treachery, a noise that was as loud as thunder and much more frightening.

Arthur sprinted to the sally port and through the open door. As soon as he was past, it was bolted with six huge bolts, and then when he had gone forward along the passage, a vast stone was swung against it and locked in place.

‘I told you not to do anything!’ Arthur shouted at the Will, which had coiled itself on his forearm, its head held low. ‘That was dishonourable and stupid. The New Nithlings will go berserk.’

‘You told me not to poisonously bite anyone,’ said the Will. ‘I did not. It was an acid. Unfortunately, the Piper will only be incapacitated, at best, for a day or so. If I got it in his mouth. If he still has a mouth.’

A clatter of footsteps and armour announced the arrival of Marshal Dusk and his entourage.

‘What happened, Sir Arthur?’ asked Dusk. ‘We could not see clearly, but the assault has begun!’

‘The Will spat acid at the Piper,’ said Arthur bitterly. ‘For some dishonourable reason of its own.’

‘The Piper is a traitor to the Rightful Heir,’ said the snake. ‘And a very powerful enemy who now will not take the field against us for a day or more. Besides, the parley was finished.’

‘Get off my arm,’ said Arthur coldly. ‘And get out of my sight.’

‘As you wish,’ replied the Will. It slithered off Arthur’s arm and made its sinuous way across the floor, disappearing into a gap in the stones.

‘Has any help arrived from the Lower House?’ Arthur asked as he was led back through the outer defences. Even through the many thick stone walls that were now between him and the enemy, he could hear the drums and the shouting.

‘Not yet, sir,’ replied Marshal Dusk. ‘Where shall you direct the battle, Sir Arthur? I suggest the Star Fort.’

‘No,’ said Arthur. ‘Somewhere on the second line of bastions, where I can be closer to what’s happening.’

‘The central western bastion is the tallest in the second line,’ Dusk informed him. ‘Usually it would be too noisy and clouded with smoke, for there are two royal and four demi-cannon mounted there. But without Nothing-powder …’

‘Yes, I know,’ said Arthur. ‘Will that telephone work there?’

‘I believe it will work anywhere within the Maze,’ said Dusk as they emerged out into the fresh air onto a high catwalk that linked two of the second-line bastions. ‘Provided it is cranked at exactly the right speed. Fortunately Captain Drury is an expert.’

‘I’ll call Dame Primus again and hurry –’

His words were lost in a titanic boom and blast of air, and a rumbling underfoot that shook the catwalk and made several of the officers lose their balance.

‘What was that?’ asked Arthur.

‘A mine,’ said Dusk grimly. He looked back at the outer line of bastions. The southwest bastion was no longer visible, hidden beneath a plume of dust and smoke that coiled up several hundred feet and billowed out horizontally as well. ‘They must have tunnelled under in the last few days … and they have no shortage of Nothing-powder.’

Beyond the giant, dark cloud, the sound of the drums increased in tempo and volume.

‘They’re assaulting through the breach!’ said Dusk. ‘We must hurry!’