Mister Monday: Chapter Eleven

[pangolin20]

Chapter Ten (Part II) | Table of Contents | Chapter Twelve

Kerlois: Welcome back to Mister Monday, everyone! Last time… Suzy decided to help and Arthur promised to bring the children of the House back home. …That is close enough, at least.

This time, we will get a long overdue explanation of things!

 

We open on Arthur and Suzy “carefully loiter[ing]” on a street and slipping behind a “procession of bearers” carrying “bundles of linen rags” for paper. So the paper is also made in the Lower House? That tracks… though I might wish we saw where that happens. Also, is this from Arthur’s POV?

Well, Suzy follows up her “3900 floors” remark from last time, saying that they will take “a goods elevator”, and there is one in “the Instrumentality for Rapid Dissemination of Excess Records”. What would that have been for? For distributing extra, empty records? Not a bad thing, though it seems like it would clog up things even more…

Thinking about it, the Middle House has several large organisations in contrast to this. So I think that that may have been the Lower House’s original state. Over time, they would clog up. Then, the people might have decided to break the big organisations into countless tinier organisations, so those would not get clogged. And that might have worked, except that this made them very dependent on each other, and when some of them became clogged, the others could not function either, and the Lower House ground to a halt again, creating the present situation.

I do not know if Nix meant that, but if so, it is an awesome piece of worldbuilding.

Arthur points at one of the beams of light and asks if they are elevators. Suzy frowns at this (…why?) and says they mark the path of elevators, instead of being one. When you are inside one, it is like “being in a little room”, which she finds very boring. That is just what elevators are, at least in my experience.

Arthur is relieved at this, since he will not be “turned into a stream of photons or something”, or at least, he will not know about it. Suzy further adds that some of them have music (is that “elevator music”, then?) but those are only the big ones that can house “a few minstrels or a band”. They will not be going in one of those, though, since they are for “the big nobs”.

Arthur does not know what Suzy means, so she clarifies that it means the “high-ups”, or “[o]fficers of the Firm”. Arthur then asks what the Firm is. They cross the street now and Arthur ducks “under a very long rolled-up parchment [carried like a carpet] between a very short, fat man and a very tall, thin woman”.

Suzy lists some more names for them, and says that it is “[t]hem as wot runs the House” and all its… business. Arthur asks what the House is and how all of this can be inside it. Finally!

Suzy looks around and then opens “a trapdoor at the base of a nearby wall”. She tells him to go through there; it is a bit of a crawl, though. They both go into “a narrow tunnel” that goes under the building. It slopes down for a bit and then levels out. While they crawl, Suzy answers.

She says she has never been very sure what the House is, because she is “an immigrant so to speak” and she has only seen the Lower Atrium and “maybe a dozen other floors”. She has not had much “eddication” either, except from what she read and what some people taught her—and then she gets cut off. Arthur asks what is going on, and we get this:

“The House is the Epicentre of All Creation,” said a deep voice in the darkness, scaring the life out of Arthur.

Look who is back again! And who has apparently no concept of asking people. As for what the Will says, less Important Capitals and more actual explanation might be suitable.

Suzy swears at this, then burps and adds “It got out. I mean in.” So the Will just climbed in her throat again without asking?! And they will never exactly improve qua sketchy behaviour, though we are luckily not supposed to condone it.

Arthur gets nervous and asks the Will (who he addresses as “frog, or whatever you are”), what they mean by the “Epicentre of Creation”. The Will says that Arthur can call them “The Will”, of which they are “not an unappreciable fraction”. They further explain that the House is “the Kingdom of All Reality” and holds “the Archive of All Things”.

Arthur asks what that actually means. The Will comes with a history of the House. It was built from Nothing by “the Great Architect of All” and she populated it with servants to do “Her work”. Once she had done that, She made the “Secondary Realms”, a. k. a. the Universe. The House and its servants were dedicated to “recording and observing” the Universe, and that they did for “uncounted aeons”. Then the Architect “went away”, leaving behind the Will to ensure that Her work would continue as it ought to.

Arthur tries to get a word in, but the Will thunders in all-caps “BUT IT DID NOT!” Yes, you have every right to be upset, but Arthur and Suzy are still there. Do you want to burst their eardrums? Well, Suzy rightly complains that it is ­her throat the Will is using.

The Will quiets and repeats that it did not. We get the same information as at the very beginning of the book: the Will was not executed, but broken in seven parts that were spread “across the Secondary Realms, through space and time”. The part about the Secondary Realms was not there in the introduction… maybe because it is not actually true.

The “Trustees” broke their faith and began to rule the House, and not to “just observe and record”, but to meddle with the Secondary Realms! Hmmm, I do not exactly see why “ruling the House” was a bad thing? Meddling in the universe is most definitely bad, though! I do wonder why this aspect, which will eventually become quite important, could not have been brought up earlier.

Arthur guesses that Mister Monday is “one of those guys”. The Will says he is, “though that is not his real name”. And? We will never hear about any other name of his, and, even more, that is the name he himself uses, so I would certainly say that is his real name. The Will goes on, saying that there is “little honour among thieves”, they did decide to divide their power in the House and in the Secondary Realms. So Monday rules the Lower House, and in the Universe, he “holds dominion over everything on any given Monday”.

And how are these Mondays measured? By House time or by the time of the place in the Universe? I think the latter method would be very hard to maintain, frankly.

Suzy gets nervous and says that it is really not the place to talk about things like this. She asks if they should not better wait, but the Will overrides her. They now say that time in the House always goes forward, “though it may be malleable outside”. That just flows so well from what they were saying before this. The Will continues by telling Arthur that Monday “seeks to retrieve what he has lost”: half of one of “the Seven Keys to the Kingdom, the Seven Keys of the House, the Seven Keys of Creation!” Yes, I think we already understand.

Suzy says that half of one Key out of seven does not sound like much, and by her reckoning, it is—and then the Will cuts her off again, saying that from Nothing the whole House came. Yes, that is true, but that has little to do with what Suzy just said and it does not justify cutting her off! The Will goes on, saying that half of one Key is better than nothing. Soon, the Rightful Heir will have the other half, “and the first part of the Will shall be done!” But do not bother to explain what any of this means, of course.

Also, do they think that Monday will just surrender the Key?

Arthur asks if the Will means him, and he protests that he does not want to be the heir to everything, and that he only wants to “get a cure for the plague” and go home. Hmmm, I think this is indicative of a problem with this book… but I will leave it to Vermaanti to talk about next chapter.

The Will bellows that Arthur is a Rightful Heir, and adds a bit softer that he is the “only one on hand, […] whether [he] like[s] it or not.” The Will says that they will prevail.

At that, Suzy calls them “overconfident”. I would add “incoherent” to that, given that the Will has not described at all what they are supposed to do. Suzy coughs and Arthur can see her massage the throat in “the dim light”. She says that “[a] deluded green frog, one mortal visitor and a Ink-Filler Sixth Class” will not do much against Monday and the “whole apparatus of the Lower House”.

To be fair, Arthur has the Key, but that might not help very much.

Arthur asks what she means, and Suzy explains that she hears the phrase one time and she thought it sounded good. She explains that the “apparatus” means Noon and “his goons, the Elevator Drivers, the Commissionaires in the Atrium, and the Stampers and Sealers”. The what? Who are those “Stampers and Sealers”? More of Nix not having planned this series out, I suppose…

She also lists Dawn and “her Corps of Inspectors” (how scary) and Dusk and “whatever special thingummies he commands”. How would Suzy not know about who Dusk commands when she has lived here for the greatest part of her life? And next chapter, she knows about them anyway! Was it so hard to keep this in line, Nix? I am getting quite peeved by this book.

The Will identifies Dusk’s forces as “Winged Servants of the Night” and also “Midnight Visitors”. They correct themselves, saying that the Winged Servants serve under “Sir Thursday and his Dusk”, or at least, they think so. (The Winged Servants fall under Friday’s Dusk, for the record.)

Suzy says that the Will is “not even sure about a minor detail” and they still want to take on “the Big Bosses” (a fair complaint). She says they are about to emerge in the street, so the Will had better be quiet. I do take issue with the “minor detail” here; after all, these are people that you might well have to face soon! Also, Suzy ought to be correcting the Will on this, since she has lived here!

The Will responds that they are only “a portion of the Will” and that means their knowledge is incomplete. Oh, so incomplete as to forget who Monday’s Dusk commands? I thought not. Suzy tells them again to be quiet. She stops and opens a trapdoor above them a bit and looks out. She says the coast is clear, and they will “come out in the corner of a shipping office, behind a crate that’s lost its label”.

What. She just said two paragraphs ago that they were to come out in the “street”! A “shipping office” is not the street!! How hard can it be, Nix!? I am seriously getting fed up with this chapter.

Suzy says the crate has been there for some centuries. They will wait there for a bit, and when the bell rings, they run for the aforementioned goods elevator. She asks if he understands. Arthur says he does understand running for the goods elevator, but not any of the rest.

We get this:

“I bet it’s going to get even worse,” said Suzy gloomily as they climbed out and crouched down behind the crate.

Then tell us what is going on, Nix!

Well, Suzy says she should have never picked up “that cursed frog”, though she thinks that anything is better than filling inkwells for the next ten thousand years. She also thinks she might miss “the next time they try to wash [her] between [her] ears”.

Arthur is confused and thinks that she means being washed behind her ears, and he thinks she could use that. Suzy says it is washing between the ears. Every century or so all the children have “their minds washed”. She does not know why. It “hurts like a toothache”, not that she has ever had one in the House, and you forget nearly everything. Well, that is dystopian, but also very ineffective, I think. She says that she has had to learn reading again quite some times, though she never forgot how she got here, and sometimes she can still remember what life was like before…

Just then, a bells sounds in the room. Instantly, Suzy jumps up, takes Arthur’s hand and drags him across the room, while pushing through a group of people who were beginning to carry “boxes and crates” to an open goods elevator. Suzy and Arthur make it there before them and Suzy closes the door before their “surprised faces”. Arthur does think there is something odd about their surprise as Suzy presses a button from the thousands that cover one wall.

She says she does this “all the time”. The elevator begins to move, first shuddering, and then slowly moving fluidly. Arthur is pushed down by the acceleration, so he has to bend his knees and grab a handrail. He says the elevator accelerates more than any he has experienced before now. Well, little wonder, if it is to reach between thousands of floors in a reasonable time.

Suzy continues that they always look surprised, which she thinks is in case “someone from outside” is watching. They might have been truly surprised now, though, since she always goes alone. Arthur asks if there will be a problem if the stuff they are supposed to deliver does not arrive. Suzy shakes her head and says that probably no one will notice, as everything in the Lower Atrium is “right stuffed up” and nothing ever gets done in proper fashion.

Arthur asks why. Suzy gives an “expressive shrug” and says she does not know. She has heard it said that Monday does not do anything to fix problems, and then the Will overrides her again. Stop that! They say that it is “[s]loth”. Monday is afflicted with it, and from him, it seeps through the Lower House. When the Will is done, “sloth shall be banished and vigour will return.”

One, I did not have the idea that “sloth” is the problem of the Lower House instead of excessive bureaucracy, and two, I very much doubt that fixing it would be so easy. Well, at least we know another reason why deposing Monday would be good. I am somewhat surprised that “then he cannot mess with the Earth anymore” has not come up yet; I would think that that would be a good reason for Arthur.

Suzy now asks “angrily” of the Will cannot get out and talk for itself as she massages her throat again. Arthur asks that too, “anxiously”. He finds it “very creepy” to hear such a deep voice coming from “a young girl”. I can get that, but I think that is not the most relevant objection here.

The Will agrees, because Arthur asked. Because of course respecting Suzy’s wishes would just be too difficult. Suzy then spits out the frog, who lands on the wall “with a sticky plop”. It hangs there for a bit, “its iridescent eyes swivelling around” and then sits next to Arthur. (“Iridescent” eyes?)

They says that it is often necessary to be concealed, as Monday has “certain powers” and his minions “are not without perception”. Would you think? Arthur now asks how long it will take to get the office, whose name he has already forgotten. Suzy says it may take “a minute more or so”, but you never know. Sometimes it takes very short to get at your destination, sometimes hours. Once, she was stuck in a broken-down elevator for “fourteen months”. But today, they are travelling well enough.

Arthur protests that she would die after fourteen months. Suzy shakes her head and goes into a long explanation. She says it is not easy to die in the House. You cannot die from lack of “food or water”, though it is possible to go “horribly hungry” and to be killed, though even that is not easy. There is certainly pain and you can “suffer something terrible”, but wounds that ought to kill do not always do so, at least not for the Denizens and possibly not for “us Piper’s children” either, though she does not want to test.

The Denizens can even get decapitated and if the head is set back soon enough, they will heal from it. Some things can kill, though: the Commissionaires’ weapons, for example, as can fire which is “hot enough”, and the Nithlings, of course. If a bite or scratch from them festers, you will “dissolve [] into Nothing”. That is why everyone is so afraid of them. Then Arthur was very lucky!

She goes on to say that one cannot die of sickness in the house or even get sick in the first place. At least, not “real sick, like with a fever or the water runs or the black vomiting”. There is a fashion to use “colds and sniffs” taken from the Universe, though. Those are usually in things like a charm that you can take off, or something to eat that will only last for a while, and it can only give things like “the sneezes or the cough or the red eyes”, so you do not feel sick. That is certainly interesting worldbuilding!

No one has to eat or drink either, but tea is “fashionable” and everyone eats “just for fun or to show off”. That is also no trouble, as there are “no toilets in the House, none required”. Arthur asks how long she has been here, his head “whirling with everything he’[s] learned”. (I certainly get that.)

Suzy says she does not know, because of the washing between the ears, and House Time is different. The Will speaks up again, saying that House Time is the “true Time”. Time out in the universe is “malleable to a certain degree, at least going backwards.” So… the time in the Universe can run slower than in the House and those relations can be controlled? That is what I think this means, at least. The Will tells Arthur to remember that, as it may be useful. Then they see “Gleep”.

Arthur asks what that means. The Will explains that the frog’s body was “forged from Nothing”. Though it is a copy of a jade frog stolen from Earth, it was shaped by “Grim Tuesday himself”, so much of the strength of the original frog were captured in it, which makes it as “hard shape to inhabit”. Arthur ought to remember that, too.

Why? Does the Will expect Arthur to lose his current body, then? It is certainly good to remember anyway, but I doubt it has very much relevance now. And there we already have some references to our next antagonist, I see.

Arthur tells the Will to hold up. He takes a deep breath and then asks why the Will chose him to be “this Rightful Heir”, and why he was given the Key and the Atlas, though he has lost the latter to the Fetchers. The Will gets to explaining. They say it was “[c]hance and circumstance”. Twelve days ago, by House Time, they managed to break free of “the bonds and strictures” that kept them on a distant star. They managed to go into the House and “by ways sneaky and deceitful” to enter Sneezer’s mind, who he calls Monday’s “butler and factotum”.

While controlling Sneezer, they enticed Monday to “give away the Key to a mortal who was soon to die.” Monday thought he could claim the Key back once the mortal died, since by giving it away, he would have fulfilled what the Will asked of him, which would keep him safe from “the powers of Righteousness and Law”. The Will clarifies that that means both themself and the other parts that “may yet escape their durance”. Arthur knows what happened then.

Arthur then asks why he was chosen and why the Will wanted a mortal to have the Key. The Will says that Arthur being chosen was “mere chance”, and the Architect wrote that only a mortal can be Rightful Heir. I wonder… would the Piper’s children also be eligible to be Rightful Heirs? I doubt we ever get the answer.

So the Will went through the records of people who would die “on an easily accessible Monday”. They wanted someone who was “mentally flexible”, and who was young and “not oversuperstitious or rigidly religious”, which ruled out quite a lot of Mondays. And it had to be a Monday so Monday could go to the Earth. Yes, thank you for that explanation. I am also quite sure that the Will just took the Monday closest to the present time, and went to look there.

We get this:

‘I was really going to die?’ asked Arthur slowly. This was a new shock. ‘Of an asthma attack?’

Hmmm, that does not exactly fit with what we saw. Arthur was breathing just fine until Sneezer (or the Will) made him bow for Monday. If the Will had never chosen him, Ed and Leaf and the people from school would have likely managed to help him just fine. Also, the Will wanted Arthur to survive, so he could become the Rightful Heir. The only way I could see it is if Monday decided not to give Arthur the Key… But Monday wanted to give Arthur the Key to not have to worry about they Key again, so that would not make much sense either.

So I can only conclude that the Will is talking nonsense here. Also, they were the main reason Arthur was in danger in the first place! Not that I blame Arthur for not understanding this.

The Will says he was about to die, but when Arthur took the Key, he “changed the record”. Arthur does not understand, and the Will says it is “quite simple” and launches into an explanation. Every record in the House is connected with the thing in the Universe it records. As the object in the Universe changes, so does the object. People with enough power can see which changes are to come and intervene. The relation also goes the other way: if a record is changed, the change will happen to whatever is recorded.

Arthur then asks if he would die if someone changed his record to show that. Well, if that were true, you would have been long dead already, and I also think the Key might protect you from that. Suzy then breaks in, saying that whoever wanted to do that would have to find Arthur’s record first, and that is very difficult. She has been looking for hers for centuries, and the other Piper’s children have too, and no one has ever found any.

So why bring in the records in the first place, when they will barely play a role, Nix? The Will then says that the records are in a “sorry state”. Either way, “very few inhabitants of the House” can change them anyway. And…? It might still be worth to try to protect one’s record against outside interference, I would think. The Will explains further that they Keys can be used to alter “almost any records” and some other “office holders” have lesser powers. It does go against “the Original Law” and the purpose of the House, which is, of course, to observe and record the Universe, “and NOT INTERFERE!”

If you keep this up, Will, they might well get deaf. Is that what you want? Also, while I can see the Will’s perspective, I would think that the interference is also bad because of the damage it does in the Universe, such as the New Sleepy Plague.

Well, the Will’s shout did hurt Arthur and Suzy, as they say “Ow!” and put their hands on their ears. The Will goes on, saying that “your folk” are partly to blame, while pointing a finger at Arthur. No one was tempted to interfere when there was just “biological soup”. But after a “few million years” those single cells become “very interesting”, and humans are “so creative”. They then wish the Architect had not chosen to leave.

How does this make sense? What, do humans deserve to be meddled with for daring to be interesting and creative? Is this then truly the kind of person who can be trusted? Also, I think you mean “billions” instead of “millions” of years.

Naturally, both Arthur and Suzy completely ignore what the Will said. Arthur asks what would have happened to him if he had died. The Will says that he just would be dead and asks Arthur what he means. Arthur does not exactly know what he means. He gropes around for a bit and asks if there is “some sort of life after death”.

The Will says that there is no afterlife that they know of. There is Nothing, out of which everything came, the House, “which is constant”, and the Universe, which is “ephemeral”. And when one is gone from the Universe, “that’s it”, though it is said that everything eventually returns to Nothing. The record notes the passing and is also dead, “though it is stored for archival purposes”. My, they can actually give a relatively good answer to this!

Suzy snorts and says that means the record is “[l]ost and forgotten” and Arthur would not believe how hopeless they are. Just then she tells him to hang on. The elevator is slowing down, which means they are almost there. She tells him to hold tight and the chapter ends.

That was mostly a whole lot of information, which we certainly need to have at this point. It might have been nice to give some of this earlier, as we are nearly halfway through the book. Still, it is not bad. Vermaanti will be here next time, and I will be back for chapter fourteen. Until then!