The Keys to the Kingdom 5 - Lady Friday by Garth Nix

Author:Garth Nix
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3
Published: 2007-02-28T14:00:00+00:00

Thirteen

ARTHUR STRETCHED OUT his arms and drew his hands into the sleeves of his new paper-patchwork coat, so Pirkin could cut the cuffs to the right length. The Denizen was using a huge, old pair of bronze scissors, which should have made Arthur nervous, but he was feeling quite relaxed. It was very warm inside the hut on the raft, thanks to a fridge-sized porcelain stove that was sitting on a ten-by-ten-foot slab of red stone deeply chiselled with huge incomprehensible letters. There was no fire visible through the stove’s smoky quartz door, nor had Arthur seen it fed with any fuel, but there had been smoke outside.

New, dry clothes were also a good thing. Arthur, like the others, was now completely dressed (from underclothes up) in garments made from paper or parchment or soft hide, all with lines and lines of writing. He’d expected the clothes to be itchy or uncomfortable, especially the paper coat, but they were surprisingly soft and comfortable. He’d also thought they’d be no use outside in the wet snow, but Pirkin had explained that they would shed water. It was one of the Paper Pushers’ few unique powers, to make clothes that would survive work on the canal and be proof against both textually charged water and the normal kind.

Arthur was also pleased because the raft was moving along the canal at quite a high speed, perhaps twenty miles an hour, fast enough to generate quite a wash behind it. So he was moving towards his objective – if indeed Lady Friday’s Scriptorium was his objective. He was having some thoughts about the situation and what he should do, and was weighing whether he should discuss matters with Suzy and Fred.

They are my friends, he thought. But they are also bound to serve the Piper. Ugham is a good bloke, but ultimately he has to serve the Piper too. If we get to the Key, Ugham would have to try to take it for the Piper … or rather, call the Piper in, since he wouldn’t be able to take it himself. I wonder if he has some means of contacting the Piper …’

Pirkin finished cutting the sleeves and took up a long needle and some red thread, swiftly hemming the cuffs to finish the process. Arthur was the last to be outfitted, as he had ordered, unconsciously following the ethos of the Army of the Architect, that an officer must look after his or her soldiers first. Suzy and Fred, already resplendent in their typographical coats, had gone outside to make sure the boar-unicorn Nithling was not somehow pursuing them, Ugham following them like a large and faithful hound shepherding some toddlers. The Newnith had been reluctant to change his uniform, but had complied when Pirkin explained that the textually charged currents and other sorceries in the canal would actively try to drown anyone not wearing the correct clothing, as made by the Paper Pushers.

The Piper and Saturday will go for the Scriptorium, thought Arthur.

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