Mister Monday: Chapter Twenty-Five

[pangolin20]

Chapters Twenty-Three and Twenty-Four | Table of Contents | Chapters Twenty-Six and Twenty-Seven

Corneille Blanche: A good day, everyone, and welcome back to Mister Monday! Last time, Arthur managed to infiltrate Monday’s Dayroom and we ended with Arthur calling the Hour Hand to him.

Content warning for some gore

This chapter opens with Monday waking up and trying to grab the Hour Hand. It is too late, though, as it flies toward Arthur, “a gold and silver streak almost too fast to see”. Arthur somehow manages to catch it (probably because the Hand guided itself) in his left hand, with the “Minute Key” in his right. Oh, that is the better arrangement, fortunately! He holds the Keys apart, the attraction between them making it hard to keep them apart. Now he “only” has to stab his thumbs…

But then, he is knocked back buy a “great gust of wind” which nearly throws him in the mud. As Arthur tries to get up, he sees Monday hovering above him, “his too-handsome face distorted in rage”. He has “[h]uge golden wings stained with rust” and he buffets Arthur again, which rolls him along the bridge. Monday calls him a “[f]oolish mortal” and tells the Hour Hand to come to him. So the Hour Hand actually jumps in Arthur’s grip and tries to go back to Monday. He tries to hold it tighter, but it slowly slips through. To stop it, Arthur puts the Minute Hand against it and presses the Keys to his chest. He also gets up and begins to run back.

Monday tells the Key to return again and flies above Arthur. The Hour Hand almost wriggles free, but Arthur puts the point of the Minute Hand through the circle on the end and keeps them together, shouting at them to hold fast. He keeps running, thinking that if he can just get outside, the Will can keep Monday off him so he can complete the ritual. I also think that it would give him more space… though I am not sure if that is actually true. He probably has more space here than outside, though he might escape by way of the bridge, and Dusk might just help out, too.

(I also wonder why he will not encounter Sneezer again on the way back.)

Still, the Hour Hand keeps trying to break free, and then Arthur finds that he loses grip on the bridge, as the Hour Hand is lifting him toward Monday! As he begins to lift off and only his toes touch the ground, he tells the Key to make him heavy. Monday shouts something Arthur can’t hear, and then he hits the bridge again, “so hard that his feet dent [it]”. He feels the impact in his bones and knows they would have broken if not for the Key. (There is our first example of this, and I think I will like it quite a bit.)

This works for some minutes. Arthur sprints like he has never done before. The Hour Hand keeps pulling, but he can keep it in place. That is, until Monday does something different and pulls the Hour Hand to the left. Arthur is going too fast and is too surprised to act, so he hits the railing and falls over. (What railing?) As he falls, he grips the Keys tightly and tells them to make him fly.

He speaks the last word as he hits the mud. He is so heavy that he hits “like a car going into a river”. Mud explodes around him and he goes straight down. It even covers his face entirely, though he doesn’t breathe it in and doesn’t seem to need to. He keeps sinking for a bit, but then he feels itching on his back, his chest muscles rippling and his shoulder blades getting “pins and needles”. He is reminded of something and then he knows it is like the paper wings Noon gave him. Yay!

His wings expand and “beat with incredible strength”. Arthur breaches “like a rocket” and flies straight past Monday. We are told they are “pure, pearly white” and shed the mud as he flies up into the steam. (Come to think of it, how high is the ceiling of this place?) Monday gives a “bellow of rage” and follows, flying up like “an avenging missile”. Arthur doesn’t wait for him. At the top of his climb, he dives forward, folding his wings to go faster. Though he cannot see it, he “somehow” knows exactly where it is and dives straight at it.

Monday meets him just before it, “a sword of black fire in his hand”, which is as thin as a rapier and much quicker. So it seems that Monday is also accomplished in other magic than that of the Keys… which I am quite sure will soon give us a continuity error. Arthur evades as Monday lunges. The sword hits him in the leg as they tumble down. They hit the platform before the door together, “both shouting, the iron screaming as it buckle[s]”. Blood sprays from the wound, but “congeal[s]” a second later as the Key heals Arthur. Going by this description, Monday probably hit Arthur’s femoral artery or the like, which might well have killed him without the Key’s intervention. That is quite a step up from the danger we have encountered so far, and I also just find it unsettling to see it heal without any kind of scar whatsoever.

Arthur recovers first, flinging himself at the door, which is shut for some reason. Monday attacks again… and is blocked by the Minute Hand moving of its own accord, which sprays “drops of molten gold”. Monday tries again, with the same result. He screams at Arthur to give him the Keys and tries a third time, without success, then throws the sword away. He steps back, raises his arms and shouts something into the air. That should rightly pain Arthur, but apparently not here.

Immediately his wings disappear and Monday begins to glow “dull red”. Then he melts, his head flowing down into his shoulders. Arthur realises that Monday is “turning into something else”. So he tries to stub his right thumb on the Hour Hand, but every time he moves it just a little, it “kick[s] and buck[s]” and he needs all his strength to drag it back to him. Arthur panics and looks at Monday, who is still changing, his face “horribly” staying the same. He snarls at Arthur, “his forked tongue flickering”. Then he tells the Hour Hand to know its Master.

It shakes in Arthur’s grasp and cuts his hand. Unlike the mud or even Monday’s sword, this “actually hurt[s]”. That is not a good sign. Arthur presses the Hour Hand tighter to his chest. It shakes again, this time cutting him “just above his heart”. Monday sneers that a minute cannot withstand the hour and tells the Key to strike.

(I would almost have told Arthur to try to open the door before now instead of trying to stab his thumbs… but then the Hour Hand would have been very hard to control, and now he also needs the Minute Hand to control it. The Will cannot be much good unless Arthur gets through the bibliophage pit, after all, and if he would lose the Hour Hand or be killed by it, the Will would not be able to help anyway.)

So the Hour Hand leaps and drives its point between his ribs. It only gets in “half an inch” before Arthur manages to stop it, but he still nearly blacks out with pain. …Half an inch is not an “only” so close to vital organs, so this is quite serious. (I have to say I quite like Arthur getting magically hurt like this, especially when the Key has otherwise kept him from harm.)

Arthur then follows my suggestion by touching the Minute Hand to the door and commanding it to open. The door opens and Arthur tries to get the Hour Hand off his chest. But it has taken advantage off the absence of the Minute Hand and now its “point slid[es] up along his ribs”, heading “inexorably” toward his heart. Without some intervention, he will probably die soon, then. He tries to “interpose” his thumb, but the angle is wrong (presumably too large) and he cannot let the Minute Hand go, lest he “lose his leverage and be impaled”. Well, he would rather die of having the Hour Hand cut into his heart, but whatever. Also, if he let go of the Minute Hand, he would lose its healing powers, which would certainly not help him, either.

Monday laughs and Arthur turns to look. He has completed his transformation by now, and he turned into a “huge snake, coloured gold and red”. The snake’s head has Monday’s face on it, “though it [has] another mouth underneath where a snake’s usually would be”. How does this look like? I would expect the snake’s mouth to be underneath Monday’s mouth. (And I do not exactly understand why Monday did not opt to become a snake entirely instead of this awful mixture.)

Also… why is Monday even a snake now? When he began this transformation, it was the best way he could strike at Arthur without getting blocked by the Minute Key… but now that Arthur it about to die anyway, it is relatively pointless. Maybe it is about revenge, then? That does make sense, though this whole setup feels a bit convoluted anyway.

So Monday laughs again, and then goes to wind around Arthur. Arthur screams for help, but naturally no one answers. Monday keeps winding, and has already put two coils around Arthur’s legs. Arthur tells us he cannot strike at Monday, since he cannot move either of the Keys. So he will die, since he is trapped. He will either be “crushed” (constriction works by messing with the circulation, though) or impaled by the Hour Hand. The Minute Hand might keep him alive for a while, but it is just not strong enough to resist the Hour Hand. Well, thank you for the recap, then.

He then thinks that it is “all over”, and he will die, and everyone else too from the plague, or they will “suffer terribly”. So, naturally, something happens! Someone hits the platform very hard, and yellow and white feathers fly around. Out of this emerges… Suzy! She is bloody, but “triumphant” (and very much alive), while Pravuil “cower[s] and whimper[s] behind her”. What did Suzy do to get him to this state, then?

She tells Arthur to hang on, pulls her knife from Pravuil’s foot and stabs at Monday. The Hour Hand then moves in Arthur’s grasp and turns away from him “momentarily”. So Monday can actually control it now? Well, Monday uses this to send out sparks from his body, which hit Suzy’s knife and blast her to the railing (and presumably electrocute her as well). She drops her knife, screaming, and then Pravuil takes the opportunity to attack her again. Monday coils around Arthur’s waist and squeezes tighter, while chuckling evilly. Arthur despairs again, thinking that nothing can hurt Monday and This Is The End.

Thinking that Monday is invisible does give Arthur an idea, though. He begins to pull himself toward the door, and asks Suzy if she has any ink on her. Oh, I like this! He is answered by “a scream” as Suzy trips Pravuil, who falls into the mud. That will not be easy to come back from, I think, especially given Pravuil’s shoddy wings. So, very well done, Suzy! For an instant, it seems that Suzy will fall, too, but she regains here balance and pulls out a bottle of ink from inside her coat. I do love that she has managed to keep this ink on her during the whole book.

Arthur tells her to drag him out. Monday calls him a fool and says it “makes no matter” where he dies (I think that is up to Arthur). So Suzy runs forward and grabs Arthur beneath the shoulders. Monday lunges, but cannot reach her “without uncoiling from Arthur”. I had imagined him quite a bit longer than that, and it just seems too convenient to me that he is able to coil around Arthur like this, but not able to reach Suzy. So Monday gets frustrated and quickly adds another coil around Arthur. Suzy uses that to drag Arthur into the ditch, where they are immediately set upon by the bibliophages. Then Arthur tells Suzy to write something on Monday! This really is set up and thought through well.

The Hour Hand is “biting into [Arthur] again”, going deeper as Monday tightens his coils. But, as Monday hears what Arthur says, he loosens his coils and tries to let go of Arthur. He retreats as the bibliophages begin coiling around him in turn. Suzy pours ink on her finger and begins to write a letter on Monday’s tail. As she does so, all the bibliophages freeze and concentrate intensely on Monday. Then Suzy “complete[s] a downstroke” and finishes the letter. (Having thought about which letter it could be… I think it is an “m”, since that ends with a downstroke and takes relatively long to write.) And so every single one of the bibliophages lunges toward Monday, “a tidal wave of snakes falling upon the Master of the Lower House”. That is quite horrible, but it is the best way to let Arthur claim the Key, which he needs to do to survive and to combat the plague, so… Further, Monday can escape more easihjly than Arthur, and he is a Denizen… so I cannot fault Suzy very much.

Monday shouts for the Hour Hand to kill Arthur before his voice “dissolve[s] into a wordless howl of pain”. The Hour Hand “[strikes] viciously”, but Arthur manages to deflect it, so it “[drives] into him below and to the left of his heart, straight into the lung”. Ouch. Presumably it went in quite deep, too. The only positive to this is that he may have a chance to complete the ritual without having to pull the Key out entirely. Arthur “shriek[s]” at the pain and gets to his feet. Monday’s last coils release him as “Nothing dissolve[s] the snake’s nerves and muscles”. That is horrible! Yes, I know Monday will presumably get rid of this damage if he succeeds in changing back, but it would still be a very awful and painful experience.

Suzy keeps writing, though she cannot see what she is doing with all the bibliophages. Monday has also mostly gone back through the door by now. When there is nowhere to write, Suzy jumps off and helps keep Arthur up. She stares “aghast” at the Hour Hand stuck in his chest, with the Minute Hand beneath it in a (futile) effort to keep it from going deeper. Arthur “whisper[s]” to Suzy if the Hour Hand has “come out the back”. That would indeed be for the best… By now, the ditch swims around him and he knows only the Minute Hand keeps him conscious. Despite all he can do, the Hour Hand is still digging deeper into his body.

Suzy “sob[s]” that it has. Arthur then whispers (with lots of ellipses) that the Minute Hand should hold the Hour Hand “for a minute”. He lets go of the Hour Hand, reaches behind his back, and stabs his right thumb on its point, “though it [is] already slick with his own blood”. Ooh, I do like this! Then he reaches forward, holds the Minute Key in his right hand and uses it to stab his left thumb. Then he smears a drop of blood from that thumb on the Hour Hand and a drop from his right thumb on the Minute Hand. Yay!

Behind him, Monday finally gets himself completely through the door, throwing both Suzy and “hundreds of bibliophages” into the air. Arthur puts the “bloodied circle ends” of the Keys together and sobs out the beginning of the second incantation: saying that he claims the Key, and does so by “blood and bone and contest”. Then the Hour Hand drives in again, “at least an inch”. Arthur screams and “the whole world darken[s]”. Given that the Hour Hand broadens toward its base, it will also do more damage even though it has already come out his back, too… Still, if he can manage to complete the incantation, it does not matter how much the Hour Hand hurts him; it will be healed anyway. So Arthur tells himself that there are just a few words left, and he can do it, and has to do it. And the chapter ends with this:

‘Out… out of truth, in testament, and…’

Well, this is one cliffhanger ending that is completely deserved (and it highlights just how inconvenient this incantation truly is). I also like that we have had an actually good (and brutal) climax; the action is especially nice compared to the rest of this book. Finally, I noticed that I have somewhat misremembered this chapter, and the actual chapter is, for once, better than my memory.

I will be back in chapter twenty-eight, then, and you will see the resolution of this cliffhanger next time with Kerlois! Until then!