The Keys to the Kingdom 1 - Mister Monday by Garth Nix

Author:Garth Nix
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3
Published: 2003-08-31T14:00:00+00:00

Fourteen

THE UPPER COAL Cellar Entry was a rickety wooden platform on the edge of a blasted plain. A vast panorama of open space, dimly lit by the beams of only three or four elevators. As in the Lower Atrium, there was a ceiling above the platform, but unlike the Atrium the ceiling here was flat, not domed, and it was much higher up.

Arthur was marched out onto the platform within his box of Commissionaires. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he saw that the plain beyond the platform was not a totally featureless expanse as he’d thought. There was something in the middle.

A circular patch of total darkness.

A huge hole, at least half a mile in diameter and of a depth unseen and unknowable.

‘Yes,’ said Noon, who had been watching Arthur. ‘That pit is the Deep Coal Cellar. Sergeant! March the prisoner to the edge.’

There was a pathway from the elevator platform to the pit. It was paved with white stone that repelled the black dust that lay everywhere else, dust that billowed up as they passed. Coal dust, Arthur guessed it was. He hoped he wasn’t breathing it in and that it wouldn’t still be in his lungs when . . . if . . . he ever got back home. He’d really need the Key then, to keep on breathing. There was no way his poor lungs could survive coal dust along with everything else.

As the Commissionaires marched, their legs occasionally squeaking for want of oil, Arthur tried to stay calm. Suzy had retrieved the Will, and surely it would come looking for him. Though Dusk had said that this was one place the Will wouldn’t dare go, because it feared the Old One.

That doesn’t sound good, whispered the defeatist part of Arthur’s mind. Stuck in a prison pit with some creature called the Old One.

‘You will not be alone down there,’ said Noon. He looked at Arthur knowingly, as if he had just read his mind. ‘There are some House Denizens down there, demoted to the most menial of tasks, chipping coal to size and so forth. They will not dare bother you. But there is one other, who you should stay away from, if you value your life and sanity. He is called the Old One, and he is not to be trifled with. Keep away from him, and you will merely suffer from the cold, the damp, and the coal dust.’

‘How will I know the Old One if I see him?’ asked Arthur. He tried to sound defiant but it didn’t come out that way. His voice sounded squeaky and small. He cleared his throat and tried again, ‘And how am I supposed to get out of here, if I do want to give Mister Monday the Key?’

‘You’ll know the Old One,’ said Noon. He smiled his cold smile, white teeth gleaming. ‘He’s hard to miss. As I said, avoid him, if you can. As for getting out, just say my name three times.

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