Mister Monday by Garth Nix Page B

faster than if he’d tripped walking around his bedroom with his nose glued to a book.
    Arthur opened his eyes, flailed his arms, and smacked into the ground. He lay there for a second, feeling a tremendous surge of relief as he felt honest-to-goodness solid matter under his hands. He still held the Key, no longer glowing, and the absence of significant pain suggested no bones were broken or other damage done.
    But where was he? He became aware that he was lying on grass—he could see and feel that. Slowly Arthur got to his feet and looked around. The first thing he noticed was that the light was strange. Dim and cool and orange-pink, like sunset when the sun hung low and orange. But there was no sun in sight.
    Arthur stood on a bare, high hill of close-mown grass that looked down upon a sea of white…no, not a sea. A fog bank had settled to the limits of the horizon. And there were buildings in the fog, dim shapes that he couldn’t quite make out. Spires pierced the gray-white mist, and towers, but none was close enough for him to see any identifying features.
    Arthur looked up next, expecting to see the sky. But he didn’t and he instinctively crouched at what he saw instead.
    There was no sky. There was a ceiling in its place, a vast domed ceiling of dull silver that stretched for miles in every direction. Its epicenter was about six hundred feet directly above the hill where he stood. Swirls of purple and orange moved across the silver surface of the dome, providing what little light there was.
    “Pretty, ain’t it?” said a voice behind Arthur. A man’s voice, deep and slow. Not threatening, just the sort of remark anyone at a lookout might make to another visitor.
    Arthur jumped and nearly fell over again as he twisted around to see who spoke. But all he could see was an enormous free-standing door of dark-oiled wood between tall gateposts of white stone, standing on the crest of the hill. Door was an inadequate word, Arthur thought. It was more of gate, as it was easily three or four times the size of his parents’ garage door.
    The door was decorated with wrought-iron climbing vines and clever curlicues that formed different patterns and designs depending on where you looked and the angle of view. Rather like a puzzle. In a few seconds Arthur made out a tree, which could also be a sea horse if he tilted his head, and that horse’s tail could also be a comet surrounded by stars, with the stars joining together to make a ship…
    Arthur blinked and saw completely different shapes and pictures. He blinked again and tore his gaze away. The door was dangerous. He felt that the patterns and shapes could trap him into staring at them forever.
    And where was the person…or whatever it was…who had spoken to him? He looked around, but there was only the strange door and the bare hill. A vast door that appeared to go nowhere, standing stark and alone.
    Arthur walked around it and was unsurprised to see that the other side was exactly the same. Perhaps the door was some sort of sculpture, he thought, only meant to make an artistic statement. But deep down, Arthur knew that if the door was to open, he would not see the hill on the other side.
    “Shift change in a moment,” said the voice. “Then you’ll see something worth seeing.”
    “Where are you?” asked Arthur.
    “Where?” asked the voice. It sounded surprised. “Ah. Not exactly…wait a moment…a step to the left…”
    The ironwork on the door shimmered, and the patterns formed into the shape of a man. Then the shape stepped out of the door. The iron tracery became flesh and blood, and standing in front of Arthur was a tall, calm-looking man who looked about the same age as his father, Bob, though he had long white hair that flowed down and over his shoulders. Like Mister Monday, Sneezer, and Noon, he was wearing very old-fashioned clothes. In his case, a blue swallow-tailed coat with gold buttons and a single gold epaulette on his left shoulder,