Garth Nix - Keys to the Kingdom 2 - Grim Tuesday

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Nix, Garth - The Keys to the Kingdom 02 - Grim Tuesday (v1.0) (html).html

Prologue

The blood-red, spike-covered locomotive vented steam in angry blasts as it

wound up from the very depths of the Pit. Black smoke billowed through the

steam, coal smoke that was laced with deadly particles of Nothing from the deep

mines far below.

For over ten thousand years, the Pit had been dug deeper and deeper into the

foundations of the House. Grim Tuesday's miners sought workable deposits of

Nothing, from which all things could be made. But if they found too much in one

place or broke through to the endless abyss of Nothing, it would destroy them

and much else besides, before the hole could be plugged and that particular shaft

closed off.

There was also the constant danger of attack by Nithlings, the strange creatures

that were born from Nothing. Sometimes Nithlings came as multitudes of lesser

creatures, sometimes as a single, fearsome monster that would wreak enormous

havoc until it was defeated, turned back, or escaped into the Secondary Realms.

Despite the danger, the Pit grew ever deeper, and the shafts and tunnels that

preceded it spread wider. The train was a relatively recent addition, a mere three

hundred years old as time ran in the House. The train took only four days to

travel from the bottom of the Pit up to the Far Reaches. There wasn't much left

of the Reaches, since the digging had eaten away much of Grim Tuesday's

original domain within the House.

Very few ordinary Denizens ever rode the train. Most had to walk, a journey of

at least four months, following the service road next to the railway. The train

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Nix, Garth - The Keys to the Kingdom 02 - Grim Tuesday (v1.0) (html).html

was only for the Grim himself and his favored servants. Its locomotive and

carriages were razor-spiked all over to prevent hitchhikers, and the conductors

used steam-guns on anyone who tried to get on. Even an almost-immortal

Denizen of the House would think twice about risking a blast of superheated

steam. Recovery would take a long time and be extraordinarily painful. -

Flying would be far faster than the train, but Grim Tuesday never wore wings

himself and had forbidden them to everyone else. Wings attracted Nothing from

all over the Pit. Sometimes they caused flying Nithlings to form. Other times, the

flapping set off storms of Nothing that the Grim himself had to quell.

The train whistled seven times as it came to a screeching stop alongside the

platform. Up Station had been built by Grim Tuesday himself, copied from a

very grand station on some world in the Secondary Realms. It had once been a

beautiful building of vaulting arches and pale stonework. But the coal smoke

from the train and the Grim's many forges and factories had stained the stones

black. The pollution from Nothing had also eaten into every wall and arch,

riddling the stone with .tiny holes, like a worm-eaten wooden ship. The station

only stayed up because Grim Tuesday constantly repaired it with the power of

his Key.

Grim Tuesday held the Second Key to the Kingdom, the Key that he should have

handed to a Rightful Heir ten thousand years ago, but instead chose to keep, in

defiance of the Will left by the Architect who had created the House and the

Secondary Realms.

Grim Tuesday rarely thought about the Will. It had been broken into seven

fragments and those fragments had been hidden away across the vastness of

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space and the depths of time. He had hidden a fragment himself, the Second

Clause of the Will, and had once been sure that no one else would ever reach it.

But now he had learned that the first part of the Will had escaped. It had found

itself a Rightful Heir, and that heir had unbelievably managed to vanquish Mister

Monday and assume his powers.

That meant Grim Tuesday would be next. As he stepped off the train, he scowled

at the open letter he held in his gauntleted hand. The messengers who had

brought this unwelcome message to the Far Reaches were waiting now,

expecting a reply.

Grim Tuesday read over part of the letter again. The heir was a boy named

Arthur Penhaligon, a boy from the world that was one of the most interesting of

those in the Secondary Realms. A place called Earth, which had given birth to

many of the artists and creators whose work Grim Tuesday copied. Humans,

they called themselves. They were the most gifted result of all the Architect's

aeons-old seedlings, the only creatures anywhere, in the House or out of it, who

rivaled Her in their creativity.

The Grim scowled again and crushed the letter. He did not like to be reminded

that he could only copy things. Given a good look at anything original, he could

make a copy from Nothing. He could even combine existing things in interesting

ways. But he could not create anything entirely new himself.

"Lord Tuesday."

The greeting came from the taller of two messengers.

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Nix, Garth - The Keys to the Kingdom 02 - Grim Tuesday (v1.0) (html).html

Denizens of the House, but not like the ones in the Far Reaches. They stood head

and shoulders above the soot-stained, Nothing-pocked servants of Grim Tuesday

who flocked to the train to unload the great bronze-bound barrels of Nothing

brought up from below. These barrels of Nothing would be used to make raw

materials like bronze, steel, and silver, which would in turn be transformed into

finished goods in Grim Tuesday's factories and foundries. Some of the Nothing

would be used directly by the Grim to magically fashion the exquisite items he

sold to the rest of the House.

The Grim's servants usually wore rags and badly mended leather aprons, and

were hunched and slow and beaten-looking. The messengers could not look

more different, standing arrogantly in their shining black frock coats over snowy-

white shirts, their neckties a somber red, a little lighter than their silken

waistcoats. Their top hats were sleek and glossy, reflecting and intensifying the

pallid light from the gaslights that lined the platform, so it was hard to see their

faces.

Grim Tuesday snorted. He was pleased to see that he was still taller than the

messengers, though they were at least seven feet tall. His servants were generally

twisted and foreshortened by their exposure to Nothing, but Grim Tuesday was

not. He was thin in the fashion of someone who can easily run all day or swim a

mighty river. He scorned fancy clothes, preferring leather trousers and a simple

leather jerkin that showed the corded muscles in his arms. His hands were

hidden, encased in gold-banded gloves of flexible silver metal. Grim Tuesday

always wore these gloves, whether he was working or not.

"I have read the letter," grumbled Grim Tuesday. "It matters not to me who rules

the Lower House, or any other, for that matter. The Far Reaches are mine and so

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Nix, Garth - The Keys to the Kingdom 02 - Grim Tuesday (v1.0) (html).html

they shall remain."

"The Will —"

"I've taken care of my part, and far better than that sloth Monday," interrupted

Grim Tuesday. "I have no fears on that score."

"The writer of the letter does not think so."

"No?" The Grim frowned again, and the scars where his eyebrows once were

met above his nose. "What do you know that I do not?"

"We know of a way that you can strike at the Lower House and this… Arthur

Penhaligon… a loophole in the Agreement."

"Our Agreement?" growled Tuesday. "I trust you are not suggesting anything

that would let Wednesday or that fool Friday encroach upon my preserves?"

"No, no. It is a loophole only you can exploit. The

Agreement forbids interference between the Trustees and their properties. But

what if you had a lawful claim to the Lower House and the First Key? Then it

would be your property, not another's."

Grim Tuesday understood what the messenger was saying. If he could find a

way to say this Arthur owed him something, then he could take the First Key as

the payment. There was only one problem, which the Grim told the messenger

— he had no claim against Arthur.

"The former Mister Monday owed you for more than a gross of metal

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Nix,Garth-TheKeystotheKingdom02-GrimTuesday(v1.0)(html)\.htmlPrologueTheblood-red,spike-coveredlocomotiveventedsteaminangryblastsas\itwoundupfromtheverydepthsofthePit.Blacksmokebillowedthrought\hesteam,coalsmokethatwaslacedwithdeadlyparticlesofNothingfromt\hedeepminesfarbelow.Forovertenthousandyears...

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