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Sneezer. Or anyone, really.’
    The singing abruptly stopped, replaced by a thin, soft voice that sounded like paper rustling.
    ‘Ah, where are you calling from? This line doesn’t appear to be technically, um, attached to anything.’
    ‘The Lower House,’ said Arthur. ‘Please, I think I’m about to be engulfed by Nothing and I need to work out where to go.’
    ‘Easier said than done,’ replied the voice. ‘Have you ever tried connecting a nonexistent line to a switchboard that isn’t there anymore?’
    ‘No,’ said Arthur. Somewhere outside he heard a twanging sound, like a guitar string snapping. He felt it too, a sudden lurch in his stomach. His net, his defence against the Void, was breaking. ‘Please hurry!’
    ‘I can get Doctor Scamandros—will he do?’ asked the operator. ‘You wanted him before, it says here—’
    ‘Where is he?’ gabbled Arthur.
    ‘The Deep Coal Cellar, which is kind of odd,’ said the operator. ‘Since nothing else in the Lower House is still connected ... but metaphysical diversion was never my strong suit. Shall I put you through? Hello ... hello ... are you there, Lord Arthur?’
    Arthur dropped the phone and stood up, not waiting to hear more. He raised the mirror that was the Fifth Key and concentrated upon it, desiring to see out of the reflective surface of a pool of water in the Deep Coal Cellar—if there was such a pool of water, and a source of light.
    He was distracted for an instant by the sight of his own face, which was both familiar and strange. Familiar, because it was in essence much the same as it had been at any other time he’d looked in a mirror, and strange because there were numerous small changes. His cheekbones had become a little more pronounced, the shape of his head was a bit different, his ears had got smaller ...
    ‘The Deep Coal Cellar!’ snapped Arthur at the mirror, both to distract himself and get on with his urgent task: finding somewhere to escape to before Nothing destroyed Monday’s Dayroom.
    His image wavered and was replaced by a badly lit scene that showed an oil lamp perched on a very thick, leather-bound book the size of several house bricks, which was set atop a somewhat collapsed pyramid made from small pieces of coal. The lamplight was dim, but Arthur could perceive someone on the far side of the pyramid who was raising a fishing pole over his head, ready to cast. Arthur saw only the caster’s hands and two mustard—yellow cuffs, which he immediately recognised.
    ‘Fifth Key,’ Arthur commanded, ‘take me to the Deep Coal Cellar, next to Doctor Scamandros.’
    As before, a door of pure white light appeared. As Arthur stepped through it, he felt his defensive net tear asunder behind him and the onrush of the great wave of Nothing.
    A scant few seconds after his escape, the last surviving remnants of the Lower House ceased to exist.
     

 

     
     

Chapter Four
     

 

     
     

     
    Arthur appeared next to a pyramid of coal, stepping out of the air and frightening the life out of a short, bald Denizen in a yellow greatcoat, who dropped his fishing pole, jumped back, and pulled a smoking bronze ball that looked like a medieval hand grenade out of one of his voluminous pockets.
    ‘Doctor Scamandros!’ exclaimed Arthur. ‘It’s me!’
    ‘Lord Arthur!’
    The tattooed trumpets on Dr Scamandros’s forehead blew apart into clouds of confetti. He tried to pinch out the fuse on the smoking ball, but a flame ran around his fingers and continued on its way. Even more smoke boiled out of the infernal device.
    ‘Scamand—’ Arthur started to say, but Scamandros interrupted him, lobbing the ball behind a particularly large pyramid of coal some thirty feet distant.
    ‘One moment, Lord Arthur.’
    There was a deafening crack and a fierce rush of air, closely followed by a great gout of smoke and coaldust that spiralled up into the air. Moments later, a hail of coal came down, some fist-sized pieces striking the ground