Sir Thursday

He paused to bow to Monday’s Noon, who bowed back. Arthur gripped his orange juice and tried not to look too impatient. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Suzy slink back in and sit on the floor, hidden behind Monday’s Noon.

“As far as we can ascertain,” Scamandros continued, “Spirit-eaters have only been raised on a handful of occasions in the whole history of the House. A Spirit-eater is a potent and unpleasant type of Nithling created to assume the identity of someone, either Denizen or mortal. Its chief power is to cloak itself in an exact likeness of its target, and it also has the ability to extrude its mentality into those around it, whether they be mortal or Denizen—”

“What?” interrupted Arthur. “What does ‘extrude its mentality’ mean?”

“I’m not too certain… apparently once a Spirit-eater has done it, though, it is able to control its victims’ minds and read their recent thoughts and memories. It does this in order to further its deception. Initially, it will have only the usual, exterior knowledge of its target, so it seeks to learn more from the target’s confidantes and fellows.”

“You mean it’s going to mentally take over my family?” Arthur spilled his orange juice as he stood up in agitation. “How long will it take to do that?”

“Yes, that is… I suppose that is what it will do,” said Scamandros. “Though I don’t know how.”

“How much time would it need?” asked Arthur. This was the worst thing, his family being in danger. He remembered the two Grim’s Grotesques breathing their foul breath of forgetting over his father, how he had felt in that awful second as that fog had rolled over his dad. Now his whole family were threatened again and he was stuck in the House. They would be defenceless.

I have to help them Arthur thought desperately. There has to be something… someone…

“A few days, I think. But I cannot say for certain,” said Scamandros.

Arthur looked at Leaf. She met his gaze.

“I guess you’re thinking what I’m thinking,” she said. “You can’t go back or the whole world goes kapow. But I could go back and try and get rid of this Spirit-eater.”

“I don’t know,” said Arthur. “It sounds very dangerous. Maybe Monday’s Noon could—“

“No interference!” boomed Dame Primus. “Remember the Original Law! The mortal may return to whence she came, but no others may sully the Architect’s work.”

“I think it’s more than a bit sullied already,” said Arthur crossly. “How come it’s all right for the bad guys to do whatever they want, and whenever I want to do something it’s ‘forget about it’. What’s the good of being the Rightful Heir anyway? All I get is trouble!”

Nobody answered Arthur’s question and he noticed everyone was not quite looking at him – and no one was telling him to behave himself. He felt suddenly weird and wished that somebody would just say, “Shut up, Arthur, we’ve got work to do.”

“Is it possible?” asked Leaf. “To get rid of the Spirit-eater, I mean.”

Arthur and Leaf both looked at Scamandros. The tattoos on his face showed some anxiety, picturing shaky towers that were being built up stone by stone, only to fall down as the last course was laid.

“I think so. But it would require finding the item used to create the Spirit-eater in the first place. That will be something personal from its target, overlaid with spells. In this case, something of yours, Arthur, that was close to you for quite a while. A favourite book, or a spoon, or perhaps some piece of clothing. Something of that order.”

Arthur frowned in puzzlement. What could he have lost that could be used in this way?

“When would this have happened?” he asked.

“It would have taken more than a year of House time for the Spirit-eater to be grown from Nothing,” replied Dr Scamandros.

“A year… How long has it been since I was given the minute hand by Mister Monday?” Arthur asked. It was only the previous week for him, but much longer in the House. “In House Time, I mean?”

“A year and a half,” replied Dame Primus stiffly. She had the Agenda open and was tapping it with a gold pencil. Every time she tapped, one of the items on the list moved up or down, or to some unseen page deeper in the volume.

“It must have been Monday’s Fetchers,” said Arthur. “Or maybe one of Grim Tuesday’s Grotesques. But I can’t think of anything really personal that I’ve missed.”

“You could enquire of the Atlas,” said Dame Primus. “You still hold the Third Key, so the Atlas will answer.”

Arthur took the Atlas out of his pocket, set it on the table and held the small trident that was the Third Key with his right hand. But he didn’t start concentrating on a question to ask the Atlas. After a moment, he put the Third Key down, the trident’s tines pointing to the hollow centre of the table.

“I have to be careful how much I use the Keys,” he said slowly. “I already used this one quite a lot back in the Border Sea and I don’t want to turn into a Denizen. Then I could never go back home.”

“How close are you?” Leaf asked curiously. “Like, do you get to use the Key a hundred times or something and then wham, you’re suddenly seven feet tall and a lot better looking?”

“I don’t know,” said Arthur. “That’s part of the problem.”

Dr Scamandros gave a slight and rather fake-sounding cough and raised his hand. Dame Primus stopped tapping her Agenda for a moment and stared at him, then continued with her rearranging.

“You may care to know, Lord Arthur,” said Dr Scamandros, “that there is a little student project of mine that could be of use to you. It measures the sorcerous contamination of things, including, of course, persons.”

Scamandros started rummaging around inside his yellow greatcoat and pulled out a peacock feather fan, several enamelled snuff boxes, a scrimshaw letter opener and a brass piccolo, all of which he laid distractedly on the table.

“Here somewhere,” he said, and then triumphantly pulled out a two-inch square velvet box that was very worn on the edges. Opening it, he passed it to Sunscorch, who passed it to Leaf, who looked curiously at the item inside before she gave it to Arthur. It was a slim silver crocodile coiled into a ring, its tail in its jaws. It had bright pink diamonds for eyes, and its body was scored with lines that divided it into ten sections, each marked with a tiny engraved Roman numeral.

“Is this relevant?” asked Dame Primus impatiently. “I am ready to proceed with the reordered Agenda.”

Arthur ignored her and took the ring out of the box.

“What does this do?” he asked. “Do I put it on?”

“Yes, do put it on,” replied Dr Scamandros. “In essence, it will tell you the degree to which you have been… ah… tainted with sorcery. It is not exact, of course, and in the case of a mortal, the calibration is uncertain. I would say that if the ring turns more than six parts gold then you will have become irretrievably transformed into a—“

“Can we move on?” snapped Dame Primus, as Dr Scamandros said,

“Denizen.”

Arthur put on the ring and watched with fascination and growing horror as each silver segment of the crocodile slowly turned from silver to gold.

One… two… three…

If he was transformed into a Denizen, he could never go back home. But he needed to use the Keys and the Atlas against the Morrow Days, and that meant more sorcerous contamination.

Unless it was all too late already.

Arthur stared at the ring as the tide of gold continued on, flowing into the fourth segment without slowing at all.

CHAPTER THREE

Arthur kept staring at the ring with dread fascination. After the fourth segment the gold suddenly stopped spreading and then it slowly ebbed back a little.

“It’s almost up to the fourth line,” Arthur reported.

“It is not exact,” said Dr Scamandros, “but that would concur with my previous examination. Your flesh, blood and bone are some four-tenths contaminated with sorcery.”

“And past six-tenths I become a Denizen?”

“Irrevocably.”

“Can I get rid of the contamination?” Arthur tried to keep his voice calm. “Does it wear off?”

“It will reduce with time,” Scamandros replied. “Provided you don’t add to it. I would expect that degree of contamination to lessen in about a century.”

“A century! It might as well be permanent. But how much would using the Atlas add to the contamination?”

“Without careful experimentation and observation I should not like to say. Considerably less than the interventions to heal your ailments or to undo misdirected application of the Keys’ power. Anything not focused on your own body will be less harmful.”

“It is not harmful to become a Denizen,” said Dame Primus. “It is to become a higher order of being. I cannot understand your reluctance to shed your mortality, Arthur. After all, you are the Rightful Heir of the Architect of Everything. Now can we please return to the Agenda?”

“I was only chosen because I was about to die and happened to be handy,” said Arthur. “I bet you’ve got a stack of Rightful Heirs noted down somewhere if something happens to me.”

There was silence in the vast room for a few seconds, until Dame Primus cleared her throat. Before she could speak, Arthur raised his voice.

“We will go back to the Agenda! After we’ve worked out what to do about the Spirit-eater. I just wish I could remember what might have been taken.”

“Try to work your way back through everything you did,” Leaf suggested. “Did you drop your inhaler on the oval? Maybe they picked that up? Or did you have something at school when they burned the library?”

Arthur shook his head. “I don’t think so… Hey, wait a second!”

He turned to look at Monday’s Dusk. He was slightly shorter than he had been as Noon and looked rather less severe, though no less handsome. He wore the night-black, undertaker-like costume of Dusk, though he’d taken off his top hat with the long black silk scarf wound around its crown.

“You sent the Fetchers, when you were Noon. Did one of them bring something back or were they banished straight into Nothing?”

“They did not return to me,” said Dusk, his once-silver tongue now a shiny ebony and his voice much softer. “But then I did not raise them in the first place. Mister Monday assigned them to me. I presume he bought them from Grim Tuesday, for he would not have been energetic enough to create them himself. You may recall that I was forced to return to the House when the Fetchers and I cornered you at your school.”

“At the school,” Arthur said slowly, revisiting that scene in his memory. “They took the Atlas! I’d forgotten because the Atlas came back here and I just picked it up again. A Fetcher ripped the pocket off my shirt and it got the Atlas with it—”

“A pocket!” interrupted Scamandros, scattering the things he’d put on the table with an excited wave of his arms, and the tower tattoos on his cheeks grew sturdier and sprouted fancy battlements. “That must be it. That will be the source of this Spirit-eater. A scrap of material that has lain next to your heart, overlaid with charms and planted in Nothing to grow a Cocigrue! Find that and we might be able to do something about the Spirit-eater!”

“Right,” said Leaf. “That sounds really easy.”

“You don’t have to try,” said Arthur. “I… I understand if you want to stay out of all this.”

“I don’t think there’s much choice,” said Leaf. “I can’t just let an evil clone of you go around taking over people’s minds, can I?”

“You could,” said Arthur. Though Leaf was trying to make light of the situation, he could tell she was afraid. “I know people who wouldn’t do anything unless it directly affected them.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t want to be one of those people. And if Ed’s out of quarantine, he can help… though I guess if it’s still Wednesday when I get back he’ll be stuck in hospital…”

Leaf pulled a face at the thought of her brother Ed still being stuck in hospital. Her parents, aunt and brother had all suffered from the Sleepy Plague and been quarantined.

“Anyway, Doc, is there anything particular that I can do to this Spirit-eater, you know, like salt gets rid of Fetchers and silver dissolved that Scoucher?” Dr Scamandros pursed his lips and wooden scaffolding appeared around the tower tattoos on his cheeks, propping them up.

“I don’t know. A silver spear or sword would annoy it, I suspect, and like all Nithlings it would not eat salt voluntarily, but only the lesser Nithlings suffer much from silver or may be banished with salt.”

“Does it sleep?” Leaf asked. “And will it have Arthur’s pocket on it or will it keep that somewhere else?”

“Good questions, excellent questions,” muttered Scamandros. “I’m afraid my sources don’t say anything about it sleeping, but it is quite possible that it does. I suspect it will hide the pocket somewhere near its lair – but again, my information is sadly lacking.”

“And do you have any idea where its lair will be?” Leaf continued to question. “Arthur’s house?” Two small clouds of dust on Scamandros’s cheeks whirled into miniature tornadoes that threatened a house tattooed across the bridge of his nose.

“My sources are incomplete. One of the references refers to the ‘Spirit-eater’s Lair’ but is not more forthcoming.”

“I guess if it’s imitating Arthur, it will leave the house some time,” Leaf pointed out. “I can sneak in the back door or something. Is there a back door?”

“The best way would be through the garage,” Arthur volunteered. “There’s a remote control switch for it under a blue rock in the drive. I suppose it would probably be in my bedroom, up on the top floor, if it’s being me. But I think we’d better get more information about it before we say for sure.”

He picked up the Third Key again and laid his other hand on the Atlas. Its green leather binding quivered under his hand.

“Wait a second!” said Leaf. “You don’t have to—”

“I can’t let you take on something like a Spirit-eater without being prepared,” said Arthur. “Besides, it will be a good test to see how much more I get contaminated.”

“Arthur—” Leaf started to say, but Arthur was already focusing on his questions for the Atlas.

What is a Spirit-eater? How can the one that has copied me be defeated? Where is its lair?

The questions had hardly formed in his mind before the Atlas burst open, expanding to become a much larger book, it pages fluttering like a wind-caught fan. When it reached its full size, the pages settled down and an invisible hand began to write. The first few letters were in a strange alphabet of straight lines and dots, but they shimmered as Arthur watched, turning into the stylish English characters of a fine calligrapher.

Everyone watched Arthur as he stared down at the Atlas. Suzy chose this moment to sneak across the room from one of the side doors where she’d been listening, sidling over to sit down on the floor behind Monday’s Noon, so Dame Primus couldn’t see her.

For the benefit of the others, Arthur read the entry aloud, with some difficulty because he wasn’t used to reading the old-fashioned writing. Many of the words were not ones he’d used before.

“Spirit-eater” is a term often used to describe one of a type of Nithlings that are close to Denizen-class, known as Near Creations, for they utilise some of the technical sorcery used by the Architect herself to create life from Nothing, while lacking Her artistry.

A Spirit-eater is always based upon one of the Architect’s own creations, either directly, as in a copied Denizen, or indirectly, in the case of a copied mortal, the current end result of the Architect’s ancient experiment with the evolution of life.

The purpose of a Spirit-eater, in either case, is to replace an original, usually for the purposes of espionage, treachery or other foul deeds. In order to do so, the Spirit-eater will, to most onlookers, appear to have the physical appearance of its target. Its true face and form may be seen by gazing at it through a veil of raindrops on a sunny day or by application of various sorceries.

Initially, the Spirit-eater will have limited knowledge of its subject, no more than it has been told by its creator. However, part of the spell used to grow a Spirit-eater in Nothing also develops other powers within the Nithling. It is able to extrude its mentality into any sentient mind that it has physical contact with, by the use of a mentally conductive mould that is symbiotic with the Spirit-eater. The mould, derived from a semi-intelligent life form from a world in the Secondary Realms (House Name: Avraxyn; Local Name:

)

“I can’t read the local name—”

Leaf was shaking her head, but it wasn’t at Arthur’s inability to read the alien name.

“A mentally conductive what? What did you say? It grows mould on people?”

“That’s… that’s what it says here,” said Arthur, who had only just realised what he was reading. He’d been concentrating so hard on getting the words right.

“I don’t like the sound of that,” said Leaf, with a shudder. “How do you stop it from doing that?”

“I’ll… I’ll see what the Atlas says,” said Arthur. He continued reading.

The mould enters its victim through skin, scales or hide once the Spirit-eater has provided a bridge by means of shaking hands, gripping a shoulder or such-like. Its spores are a grey colour, but they linger on the skin for only minutes, so the target is usually unaware it has been colonised. The mould travels through the blood, eventually lodging itself in the target’s brain or other major sensorium. At this location it rapidly spreads, duplicating the nervous tissue until it is able to sift through the target’s thoughts and memory, telepathically sharing them with the greater part of the mould that lies within the Spirit-eater’s own secondary brain, usually located in its mid-section. The Spirit-eater uses these memories and thoughts to better mimic the target it has replaced. It is able to control the minds of those subjects where the mould is well-established, but not with great precision.

The influence of the mould is also felt in the behaviour of the Spirit-eater. In its natural state on Avraxyn, the mould always establishes a lair where it locates its primary host safe from harm. In the Spirit-eater, the mould is subordinate and must go where the Spirit-eater wills, but it will always influence the Spirit-eater to establish a lair. This will be dark and as deep in the ground as is practical for the Spirit-eater to easily access. It will be lined with soft materials, and somewhere in it will be the original seed item from which the Spirit-eater has been grown. This is usually a bone, piece of flesh, item of clothing, treasured personal possession or long-term pet or companion of the victim.

“That’s really foul,” said Leaf.

“I’ve known worse,” muttered a voice from somewhere under the table. Dr Scamandros looked round, but either no one else heard Suzy’s comment or they were well-practised at ignoring her.

“It’s writing more,” said Arthur. The page cleared and the invisible hand wrote on.

The particular Spirit-eater that has duplicated Lord Arthur has chosen to call itself the Skinless Boy, perhaps because in its natural appearance it does not have very much skin, instead showing exposed bone. It may be defeated by taking its seed item, the pocket from Lord Arthur’s school shirt. Lord Arthur must plunge that pocket back into Nothing.

At present, 10.20 am local Earth Arthur time on Thursday, the Skinless Boy has established a temporary lair in the primary linen closet of East Area Hospital on Lower Ground Three. If the Spirit-eater moves to Arthur’s home, it is most probable that it will establish its lair in the sump cavity beneath the house, which can be accessed by raising a concrete slab in the garden near the back fence.

“What was that about Thursday?” asked Leaf. “What’s Arthur time?”

Arthur read it again.

“It shouldn’t be Thursday back home! We need to get back on Wednesday afternoon! How can it be Thursday?”

“Time is malleable between the House and the Secondary Realms,” said Dr Scamandros. “But powerful personages such as yourself, Lord Arthur, affect and govern the relative flows. I can only surmise that the Spirit-eater, having something of your quality, has taken your place for chronological purposes. In… ah… other words, you are back.”

“But what about Leaf? Can she go back to Wednesday?”

“I would say not,” said Dr Scamandros. “But I am no expert in these relativities. Perhaps Sneezer may know more, from the Seven Dials.”

“Without putting it to the test, sir, I cannot say,” said Sneezer. “However, as a general rule the temporal relationship between a Secondary World and the House is set by the Front Door and defies explication. It presumably thought you had returned to your Earth and did not miss Miss Leaf, if you pardon me saying so. Therefore, the earliest Miss Leaf can return is twenty minutes past ten on Thursday. If it is still that time. More orange juice?”

“But that means I’ll have been missing all night!” Leaf couldn’t believe it. “My parents will kill me!”

CHAPTER FOUR

“Really?” asked Dr Scamandros. “That seems rather harsh.”

“Oh, they won’t actually kill me.” Leaf sighed. “Even if they wanted to, they’re in quarantine, so they can only shout at me through the intercom and pound on the interview window. It’s just going to make life more difficult.”

Arthur was looking at the Atlas. Something had changed there, catching his eye. It took a second to work out what it was.

“Hey! The time back home’s 10.21 now!”

“I have got to get back,” said Leaf. “I’ll try and do something about the Skinless Boy, I promise, but I really have to at least go and wave at my parents. So – how do I get home? And how do I get back here if… once I get hold of that pocket?”

“Sneezer can use Seven Dials to send you back to the hospital, I think,” said Arthur.

“Indeed, sir,” said Sneezer with a low bow.

“Coming back, I don’t know…”

“The Skinless Boy went through the Front Door, so the House will have manifested itself on your world,” said Dame Primus with an airy wave of her hand. “All you need to do is find it, knock on the Front Door and everything will be taken care of. Now, I must insist we return to the Agenda!”

“OK, OK,” said Arthur.

He turned to Leaf, but was suddenly unable to think of anything to say. He hadn’t known her long but she already felt like an old friend, and he was asking her to do something really huge for him. He didn’t know how to tell her how grateful he was for her friendship and help.

“I… I’m sorry I got you into this, Leaf. I mean I really appreciate it… you… uh… even my old friends back where I used to live wouldn’t be as… anyway… I wish there was something… oh!”

He bent his hand back behind his neck and pulled off the string with the Mariner’s medallion. It was the only thing he had that he could give.

“I don’t know if it will be any use, but if things get really bad, try calling the Mariner. Maybe… not that he was very quick last time, but… well, good luck.”

Leaf dropped the string over her head, nodded firmly and turned away.

“Never gave me nuthin’,” mumbled an unseen voice. Arthur looked down at the chair Leaf had just left and saw Suzy there, hunched over under the table. She was eyeing Dame Primus’s foot and holding a large darning needle. She grinned at Arthur and stuck the needle in, but it had no effect. Tiny letters moved apart to allow the needle entry and then a savage red spark shot along the metal. Suzy dropped it and sucked her fingers as the needle became a small puddle of molten steel.