Mister Monday: Prologue: The Will Is Gone

[pangolin20]

Table of Contents | Chapter One (Part I)

For my second project, I take on another series from my youth, The Keys to the Kingdom. A bit of backstory for that: I first found these books in my local library in Dutch. Unfortunately, they were only translated up to the fourth book. I did eventually read the remaining three books in English, and I’ve read them several times since, but I haven’t taken an in-depth look at them yet. That’s what I’m here for.

I remember these books as very good, so let’s hope they hold up on examination. There’s seven books: Mister Monday, Grim Tuesday, Drowned Wednesday, Sir Thursday, Lady Friday, Superior Saturday and Lord Sunday. Not that the series will be all that long; the books are relatively short. I’ll put up one review of this series after two of the Inheritance Cycle.

Let’s begin with the prologue of Mister Monday. Every book, except for the last one, has such a prologue, which is generally from a different viewpoint than that of the protagonists. So we’ll have to wait for them for a bit. I’ll do the opening paragraph line-by-line, to see how it holds up.

They had tried to destroy the Will, but that proved to be beyond their power.

Interesting. It raises lots of questions right from the start. Who are “they”? Why did they try to destroy the Will? Who or what is the Will? Why did destroying the Will prove to be beyond their power? I won’t answer those questions just yet (I want to keep some sense of mystery), but “they” are the people mentioned in the book titles, and the reason they wanted to destroy the Will is because they would die if it were executed.

So they broke it, in two ways. It was broken physically, torn apart, with the fragments of heavy parchment scattered across both space and time. It was broken in spirit

because not one clause of it had been fulfilled.

That’s the next best thing after permanently destroying it, after all. With some luck, no one will be able to find or connect all the pieces. I haven’t got that much to say about this, actually; it’s just a nice opening paragraph, and I like the language here.

I do like how it’s made clear just how much the Will has been broken. It’s not something that can be recovered from easily, and that will probably (certainly) take the entire series to put back together. And the Will also has to be executed, with as yet unknown consequences.

I’d honestly forgotten the Will was, at least when it was broken, made of physical parchment. Guess it’s easy to forget when the parts are alive for most of the series.

~~~

If the treacherous Trustees had their way, no clause of the Will would ever be executed.

So here we learn that the people from the book titles are called Trustees, and we learn that they’re probably the villains, or at least the people who need to be defeated in order to repair the Will. I really like how much information Nix puts into just the opening paragraphs.

To make sure of this, all seven fragments of the Will had been hidden with great care.

We’ll see how they’re hidden later, and I think some of them are hidden quite sloppily, actually, although they’re still hard to get. And here it’s implied, and later confirmed, that a major focus of the books will be freeing all the parts of the Will.

We’re told what happened to the “first and least of the fragments”: it was fused inside “a single clear crystal, harder than diamond.” That crystal was probably made with magic, then. The crystal was then encased in “a box of unbreakable glass”, which was in turn locked in a “cage of silver and malachite.” For reference, malachite is a greenish copper mineral. This cage was then fixed to “the surface of a dead sun at the very end of Time.”

This part is very well hidden and very hard to liberate indeed!

I do wonder how the “dead sun” exists, because as of yet, the universe isn’t old enough for stars to have completely cooled down and solidified, like this one is, and we’ll hear later that this universe is just as old as ours. So maybe magic, as part of the prison for Part One? I’ve got the same question about the “end of Time”, because every part of the universe originated at the same time, and so the “end of Time” doesn’t really make sense. Maybe the star is at the edge of the universe?

My complaints aside, this part is hidden quite well. Given how far away it’s located, there’s only a very remote chance that anyone would find it by accident, and even someone who knew where to look would have much difficulty ever locating it. And even if they did find it, removing the parchment would be a hell of a task. So, good job hiding this part, Monday.

Around the cage, there are “twelve metal Sentinels” that stand guard. Each of them stands on a number of a clock face that’s been etched into the star with “permanent light.” They’ve been specially created as guardians of the fragment. Seems like a bit of overkill, but it can’t hurt, after all.

The Sentinels look vaguely human, though they’re twice as tall (like 11 feet (3,35 meters)?), and their skins are “luminous steel.” They’re “quick and flexible as cats”, and they have blades instead of hands. That’s certainly a nice aesthetic, and very intimidating too.

Each Sentinel is responsible for the space on the star between its own hour and the next, and their leader has the command for the position between twelve and one. They’re overseen by a “carefully chosen corps of Inspectors, lesser beings who would not dare question the breakers of the Will.” Once every hundred years, one of them comes along to check that everything’s in order with the fragment.

There’s an obvious flaw in this arrangement: the Inspectors can be used by people who want to free the Will. It would be much safer to use magic to look at the cage from the outside. Then again, sending people there means it can be more easily repaired if something breaks, and there needs to be a plot.

We’re told that in “recent aeons”, the Inspectors have become lax. They rarely bother to do more than appear, squint at the part of the Will, salute the Sentinels, and disappear again. Well, that’s rude. At this point we don’t have that much reason to care about this, though. We’re barely a page in, after all.

The Sentinels, naturally, are not pleased with this “slipshod attention to duty.” But it isn’t in their nature to complain, and they can’t do so either. They can raise the alarm in case of need, but they can’t do anything further.

The Sentinels have seen many Inspectors come and go. No one else has ever visited. No one’s tried to steal or rescue Part One. “In short, nothing had happened for all of that ten thousand years.” Well, good to know! On to the story!

We’re told that “on a day that was no different from any of the more than three and a half million days that had gone before”, an Inspector arrives who takes his duties more seriously. (The three and a half million days checks out, because 10000 years is 3652425 days.) So now we’ll hear the tale of the Inspector Who Took His Job Seriously.

He arrives “normally enough”, as he simply appears outside of the clock face. His hat’s a bit askew from the transfer, and he has an “official warrant” clutched in one hand, so the Sentinels can see the “bright gold seal” on it. The Sentinels twitch and their blades “shiver[] in anticipation.” The warrant and the seal are only half of the authentication that’s necessary. There’s always a chance that the “watchwords” that have been left by the previous Inspector won’t be said, and the Sentinels will have to cut the Inspector down.

Luckily, the Sentinels are required to give the Inspector a “minute’s grace.” We’re told it’s not unknown that a transfer across time and space mixes up someone’s brain temporarily, immortal or not.

We get a description of the Inspector, and he really needs a name. Let’s call him Barnsom. Barnsom looks a bit worse for the wear. He “[wears] a fairly standard human shape, that of a middle-aged man of rapidly thickening girth.” So he could change shape away from this, though he probably wouldn’t be allowed to, because of his low rank. He’s wearing a “blue frock coat” that’s shiny at the elbows and has ink stains on the right cuff. It seems like he's usually doing a desk job that involves a lot of writing, then. His white shirt isn’t really white, and his “badly tied green necktie” doesn’t adequately disguise the fact his collar has come adrift. His top hat “ha[s] seen much service” and is both squashed and leaning to the left.

When Barnsom lifts his hat to acknowledge the Sentinels (nice of him!) a “sandwich wrapped in newspaper” falls out. He catches it and puts it in an inside coat pocket before speaking the watchwords.

Before we go there, I want to say that Nix has done a good job of characterising Barnsom, in less than a page. I really like the way the description of his clothes actually informs us about him, and establishes that he probably has a desk job, and that this mission is far outside his normal range of activities. I also get the idea that he either didn’t choose these clothes himself, or he’s chosen them to fit in with the people around him. Given what we see later, I’d go with the second option. Last of all, I love that he’s got a sandwich in his hat. It’s so nicely goofy.

Barnsom carefully speaks the watchwords: “Incense, sulphur and rue, I am an Inspector, honest and true.”, and he holds up the warrant to show the seal. The “Twelve O’Clock Sentinel” swivels in place in response to this, and crosses its blades with a “knife-sharpening noise”. Barnsom trembles at this and the Sentinel waves a salute.

I don’t think the watchword system is terribly secure, but combined with the Sentinels, it probably works well enough.

The Sentinel now says “Approach, Inspector”, which is half of everything it ever says. That’s sad. Barnsom nods and cautiously steps off his “transfer plate” onto the “curdled darkness of the star.” He’s wearing “Immaterial Boots (disguised as carpet slippers)” to counteract the effects the star’s matter may have on him, though his superior has told him the warrant and the seal will be sufficient. I would be a tiny bit nervous about stepping on a dead neutron star or the like, too.

Lots of new terms here. Both the transfer plate (basically a teleporting device) and the Immaterial Boots (boots that are, well, immaterial and thus protect the wearer’s feet, and can adapt themselves to the user) will show up a lot later on.

He pauses to pick up the transfer plate, because it’s a “personal favorite”. It’s a “large serving plate of delicate bone china with a fruit pattern” instead of the usual “disc of burnished electrum.” We’re told using a china plate is a risk, because it can break more easily, but it looks nice and that counts for Barnsom. Awww, I love this!

We’re told not even the Inspectors are allowed to go past the inner rim of the clock face, where the bases of the numerals are “bordered by a golden line.” So Barnsom “gingerly” walks past the Twelve O’Clock Sentinel, and stops before the line. The silver cage looks as solid as it should be, the glass box is intact and “beautifully transparent”, and Barnsom can see the crystal inside, just where it ought to be. Just as expected. But that is about to change…

Barnsom mutters that all seems to be in order, sounding as if he’s about to sneeze. Relieved, he takes a small box out of his coat, flicks it open, and takes some snuff. Don’t use snuff while on duty, Barnsom! Shaking my head here. (Just kidding.)

We’re told it’s “a new snuff, a present from a higher authority.” Well, that’s not vaguely ominous at all. Then this happens:

‘All, ahhh, ahhh, in order,’ he repeated, then let out an enormous sneeze that rocked his whole body and for a moment threatened to overbalance him across the gold line.

That’s very scary. If he had gone over the line, he’d probably be dead, and given that we’ll learn later that people like Barnsom can survive much more than humans, I don’t really want to think about how he could have died.

By the way, that’s got to be some powerful snuff to make him sneeze that hard.

The Sentinels jump from the positions, and the blades of the Twelve O’Clock Sentinel come down “within an inch” of Barnsom’s face as he desperately windmills his arms to stay upright. Finally he succeeds, and he teeters back on the right side of the line.

I knew he would make it, but still, this was tense. Poor Barnsom must be so freaked out. Case in point, he quickly stuffs away the snuff box, and “squeak[s] “Awfully sorry, terrible habit!”” He reminds them that he’s an Inspector and shows them the warrant and the seal again. That calms the Sentinels down, and they resume their usual rounds.

Barnsom whips out a “patched handkerchief” from his sleeve to wipe the sweat off his face. While he does so, he thinks he sees something move on the clock face. “Something small and thin and dark.” When he blinks and lowers his handkerchief, it’s gone. Take a wild guess at what this might be.

Barnsom get nervous and statement-asks if there’s anything to report. He tells us he hasn’t been an Inspector for long. He’s been that for only 390 years, and he’s only “Inspector of the Fourth Order”. Not sure why there would be separate ranks among the Inspectors, but then again, the society he lives in is very strongly hierarchical. Before that, he’s been a “Third Back Hall Porter” for most of his career, almost since the “Beginning of Time”. And before that—he’s cut off by the Sentinel.

It says there’s nothing to report, which uses up the rest of its standard vocabulary. I have to say that giving the Sentinel literally two dialogue options is a very bad idea. How is the Sentinel supposed to convey “the cage has been compromised, but the Will hasn’t escaped”? Some kind of Morse code using “Approach, Inspector” as short and “Nothing to report” as long? I can see why this oversight would occur, but it undermines the purpose of the Sentinels quite a bit.

Barnsom “politely” tips his hat to the Sentinel, but he’s still concerned. He can feel that something isn’t quite right. “But the penalty for a false alarm was too horrible to contemplate.” He could be demoted back to Hall Porter, or, even worse, he could be “made corporeal”. Then he would be stripped of his powers and his memories, and sent somewhere in the “Secondary Realms” as a “living, breathing baby.” Well, that’s really fucked up indeed. Being stripped of your memories and having your body forcibly altered is a horror scenario. And I do have to wonder if the parents would also get a choice in this. How many people on this version of Earth are actually people who’ve been punished in this way?

That’s something I’ve noticed on reread: this series is a lot darker than I remembered it to be. It’s often funny, sure, but it can also get really dark, and it handles both very well.

We’re told that, of course, the penalty for missing something important is even worse. I have to say, if the punishments for not being absolutely correct about this are so severe, how are the Inspectors supposed to be in any way reliable? Because they’ll probably say whatever their superiors will want to hear, instead of what has actually happened. Anyway, he might be made corporeal for that, but not as anything vaguely human, or on a world where there’s intelligent life. And that isn’t even the worst that can happen. There’s far more terrible fates, but Barnsom refuses to think about them.

He looks across to the cage once more, and then pulls out “a pair of opera glasses” and looks again. He still can’t see anything out of the ordinary. He tells himself that surely the Sentinels would know of anything would have gone amiss. Well, they should, but if they will is another question.

Barnsom steps back outside the clock face and clears his throat. He compliments the Sentinels, and gives the watchwords for the next Inspector: “Thistle, palm, oak and yew, I’m an Inspector, honest and true.” They accept it, and Barnsom readies himself to leave.

The Twelve O’Clock Sentinels salutes, Barnsom doffs his hat, and he puts down the transfer plate, “chanting the words that [will] take him to the House.” He tells us that according to regulations, he’s supposed to go via the “Office of Unusual activities on the forty-fifteenth floor” to report, but he’s unsettled and he wants to go straight back to the “twenty-tenth floor”, to his own comfortable study, and a nice cup of tea. I like the way that “four thousand and fifteen” and “two thousand and ten” have been shortened to “forty-fifteen” and “twenty-ten”. It’s a nice worldbuilding touch.

We now get what Barnsom says: “From dead star’s gloom to bright lamp’s light, back to my rooms and away from night!” Nice little rhyme! Of course, this is where everything falls apart.

Before he can step on the plate, “something small, skinny and very black” shoots across the golden line, between the legs of the Twelve O’Clock Sentinel, across Barnsom’s left Immaterial Boot and onto the plate. The fruit pattern flashes and the plate, along with the black streak, vanishes in a “puff of rather rubbery and nasty-smelling smoke.” Oh no! Good luck coming back to the House, Barnsom.

The Sentinels cry “Alarm”, and leave the clock face to swarm at the vanished clock face, where they hack in on the emptiness. Simultaneously, “twelve impossibly loud alarm clocks [ring] and [ring] somewhere inside their metal bodies.” Much useless. Very wow.

Barnsom shrinks down before the Sentinels and begins chewing on his handkerchief and sobbing. “He knew what that black streak was. He had recognised it in a flash of terror as it sped by.”

He explains it’s “a line of handwritten text.” The text from the fragment that’s supposed to be still “fused in crystal, locked in the unbreakable box, inside the silver and malachite cage, glued to the surface of a dead sun and guarded by metal Sentinels.”

“Only now none of those things was true.

One of the fragments of the Will had escaped – and it was all his fault.”

Looks like our plot has just started! Part One has escaped, and now the other parts will be freed! And our dear Inspector thinks it’s all his fault. It really isn’t, though. If anyone’s at fault, it’s the higher authority who give him that snuff. Poor Barnsom.

He tells us that, even worse, Part One has touched him, “striking his flesh straight through the Immaterial Boot.” So he knows what the Will says, which he isn’t allowed to know. “Even more shockingly”, Part One has recalled him to his real duty. For the first time in millennia he’s conscious of “just how badly things had gone wrong.” Yeah, we’ll see later just how that’s happened. That must also be a very bad shock indeed.

Barnsom now whispers the first lines of the Will: “‘Into the trust of my good Monday, I place the administration of the Lower House.’ […] ‘Until such a time as the Heir or the Heir’s representatives call upon Monday to relinquish any such offices, properties, rights and appurtenances as Monday holds in trust.’”

Note the reference to the “Heir”. That will be important later on. He tells us that the Sentinels don’t understand him, or perhaps they can’t even hear him because of their alarms. They’ve swarmed out, and are now scouring the surface of the star, “beams of intense light streaming from their eyes into the darkness.” We’re told the star isn’t large (no more than a thousand yards (914,4 m) in diameter), but Part One is already gone. Barnsom tells us it’s already left his rooms and now is in the House proper.

Talking to himself, Barnsom says that he has to get back. The Will will need help. The transfer plate is gone, so he’ll have to go “the long way.”

He reaches into his coat, and pulls out a “grimy and bedraggled pair of wings” that’s nearly as tall as himself. He hasn’t used them in a very long time, and he’s surprised at how bad a state they’re in. The feathers are yellowed and askew and the pinions don’t look remotely reliable. He plops them in place on his back and flaps them for a bit the make sure they still work. So I guess his plan now is to fly back to a portal to the House, even though that might be light years away? Oh well, I don’t think he’s got much choice…

Distracted as he is by his wings, Barnsom doesn’t notice “a sudden flash of light” on the clock, or the two figures who appear with that flash. They’re also wearing human shapes, “as [is] the fashion in the House.” But these people are “taller, thinner and more handsome.” Especially taller, because that indicates status.

They’re wearing “neat black frock coats over crisp white shirts with high-pointed collars and very neat neckties of sombre red, a shade lighter than their dark silk waistcoats.” Their top hats are “sleekly black”, and they carry “ebony sticks topped with silver knobs.” Stylish. They’re obviously bad news, though.

The taller of the two (so the one with the higher status) asks Barnsom where he thinks he’s going. Barnsom turns, shocked, and his wings droop. He falteringly says it’s to report, “as [they] can see.” To his immediate superiors, and to “Monday’s Dawn”, or even Mister Monday himself, if he wants.

“The tall gentleman” says that Monday will know soon enough, and he asks Barnsom if he knows who they are. Barnsom shakes his head. He tells us that they’re very high up in “the Firm”, going by their clothes and the power he can sense from them. But he doesn’t know them, by either name or rank. He asks if they’re from the “sixty-hundredth floor”, from Monday’s “executive office.”

The tall man smiles at that (creepy) and pulls a paper from his waistcoat. The paper unfolds itself, and the seal on it shines so bright that Barnsom has to shield his face with his arm and duck his head. Very effective at intimidation, I must say. The tall man says this: “As you see, we serve a higher Master than Monday. You will come with us.” I guess that that “higher Master” would be Saturday. Also, actually scary scene.

Barnsom gulps and shambles forward. The other man quickly pulls on “a pair of snowy white gloves” and snaps off Barnsom’s wings. They shrink until they’re no larger than “a dove’s wings” and the second man puts them in an envelope that comes from nowhere. He seals it with “a sizzling press of his thumb.” Then he gives the envelope back to Barnsom. The word “evidence” appears on it as Barnsom clutches it to his chest and looks nervously at the two men. So I guess they’re trying to frame him for releasing the Will.

The two men now draw a doorway in the air with their sticks. When they’re done, the air shimmers and transforms into an elevator doorway, “with a sliding metal grille and a bronze call button.” One of the men presses the button, and suddenly an elevator car appears behind the grille. Yes, this is normal business in this world.

Barnsom “gabble[s]” that he isn’t authorised to go in an “executive elevator”, not up “past Records by any means, stair or lift or weirdway.” (We’ll get to the weirdways.) He says he’s most definitely not authorised to go “down below the Inking Cellars.” The two men now push back the grille and gesture for Barnsom to step inside. The elevator is lined with “dark green velvet” and one wall is completely covered in buttons. So this elevator can go to lots of places.

Barnsom asks “in a small voice” if they’re going down. The taller man smiles, “a cold smile that [does] not reach his eyes.” He reaches up, and his arm extends a few meters while emitting clicks, so he can press “a button on the very top right-hand side of the lift.” What the fuck are these people?? If I had to guess, I’ll go with Saturday’s “Internal Auditors”, who are later noted to be “fell warriors”. I’d think extendable limbs would help with that.

Barnsom is “awed in spite of his fear” by the place they’re going to. He can feel the Will’s influence inside of him (that doesn’t sound great…), but he knows he doesn’t have any hope of helping it now. Part One will have to fend for itself. He asks if they’ll go all the way to the top. The two men say “yes” in unison as they shut the grille. And the chapter ends.

I think I can extrapolate a bit about what happened with Barnsom. As we’ll learn later, the very top of the elevator is Saturday’s office. So these two people probably brought Barnsom before her to be judged. As for what happened to him afterward… given some of the punishments we’ll learn later Saturday hands out, it’s probably for the best that we don’t ever find out what’s happened to him. If the punishment took place outside of the “Secondary Realms”, it can’t have take longer than two years, at least.

Overall, a strong prologue. The plot started quite quickly, as the Will has escaped confinement. Barnsom made for a good POV character. Lots of new terms were introduced, but as far as I’m concerned, they were integrated into the worldbuilding quite well. Next time, we’ll meet the ostensible protagonist of this series. Until then!

Comments

[kalinara]

Oh, this one does seem really interesting! I've heard of Garth Nix. I've never actually read his work though!

[pangolin20]

This is the series where I won't be complaining constantly. I'll rather be trying to deep out the worldbuilding. :)

[kalinara]

Sounds good! Negative reviews can be fun to read, but they can be draining too. I'm glad you have one you enjoy as well!

[pangolin20]

Oh, I enjoy reviewing Eragon, too, though I'll probably have more "fun" with the worse parts, which won't happen for quite some while yet.

[kalinara]

Hah, I know what you mean. Looking forward to those parts too!

[kudzumac]

I have never heard of this series before, but I'm interested to see where this goes.

[pangolin20]

You'll see. The updating won't be that quick, though.

[pangolin20]

General question: I plan to bring in guest sporkers for the next post of Eragon. Would you mind if I did so?