Mister Monday: Chapter One (Part Two)

[pangolin20]

Chapter One (Part One) | Table of Contents | Chapter Two

Welcome back! Last time, we met our protagonist, and the plot was about to begin.

The man in the chair addresses the other man as “Sneezer.” Pffff. That one’s funny, too. The man says that he doesn’t know why he keeps Sneezer “upstairs”, or why he agrees to Sneezer’s “ridiculous plans.” Sneezer goes “now, now” at this. Now they’re a bit closer, Arthur notices that “[Sneezer’s] nose [is] rather red and [has] a patchwork of broken blood vessels shining under the skin.”

I’m not entirely sure why that is, or why Sneezer looks so bad in general. Maybe his master won’t let him take on a neater form, because he’s got a quite low position? That makes sense with what we’ll see later, anyway.

Sneezer says that “[i]t’s not a plan, but a precaution.” They don’t want to be bothered by the Will, right? The young man grumbles a bit, agreeing with Sneezer. He “yawn[s] widely and close[s] his eyes.” He asks if Sneezer is sure they’ll “find someone suitable here.” Well, that’s quite ominous…

Sneezer replies with “[s]ure as eggs is eggs[.] Surer even, eggs not always being what one might expect.” He’s set “the dials” himself, to find someone “suitably on the edge of infinity.” According to the plan, the man in the chair gives Arthur “the Key”, Arthur dies, and the man gets it back. That’s… not very encouraging. Sneezer says that there will be “another ten thousand years” without trouble, and the Will can’t complain because the younger man “did give up the Key to one in the line of heredity, as it were.” We’ll see how well that will work out.

The young man yawns again. He says it’s very annoying, and he’s “quite exhausted” with “all this running around and answering those ridiculous queries from up top.” I guess those come from Saturday, as she’s the one who could command Barnsom, someone from Monday’s jurisdiction, in the prologue. He asks how he should know how the part of the Will escaped. Maybe you could use magic to find out? The dials that sent you here also have a “view” setting, for example. The man says he won’t write a report. He doesn’t have the energy. He says that he really needs a nap, before Sneezer cuts him off.

Sneezer “urgently” says that he can’t take a nap right now. He puts a hand above his eyes and looks around. “Strangely, he still seemed unable to see Arthur, though he was right in front of him.” Sneezer says they’re almost there.

The younger man says “coldly” that they’re there. He points at Arthur “as if the boy [has] suddenly appeared out of nowhere.” He asks “Is that it?”

Sneezer leaves the bath chair and walks over to Arthur. He attempts a smile, which reveals “even more yellow teeth, some of them broken, but all too many of them sharp and doglike.” Sneezer then says this:

‘Hello, my boy,’ he said. ‘Let’s have a bow for Mister Monday.’

1) Quite creepy. This is very much not reassuring.

2) Yep, the man in the chair is Mister Monday. Good luck, Arthur. You’ll need it.

Arthur stares at Sneezer, thinking that it must be “an unknown side effect”, and that he’s hallucinating because of oxygen deprivation.

A moment later, he feels “a bony hand” grip his head and “bob it forward several times” as Sneezer makes him bow to Monday. The shock of this makes him lose control over his breathing. He’s panicking and he can’t breathe at all. Well, that’s certainly a way to ensure he dies…

Monday tells Sneezer to bring Arthur to him. “With a languid sigh”, he leans over the edge of the chair, while Sneezer “drags Arthur effortlessly over, using only two finger to pick [Arthur] up by the back of his neck.”

Monday asks if Sneezer’s sure “this one” will die immediately. I mean, you have the means to make sure he will die soon. Then again, I don’t think Monday wants to bother. Monday grabs Arthur’s chin and looks at his face. Arthur notes that, unlike Sneezer, Monday’s hands are clean and his nails are trimmed. There is “hardly any force in his grip”, but Arthur discovers he can’t move at all, “as if Mister Monday [has] pressed a nerve that paralyse[s] his whole body.” Gah. That’s horrible, really. The only thing that saves him here is that Monday is too tired to bother with anything except giving Arthur the Key and waiting for him to die. With most of the other Trustees, he would have been a cloud of ashes immediately after.

Sneezer rummages a bit in his pocket, while still holding Arthur. We switch to Sneezer’s perspective for a moment, I guess, as we see what he’s doing. He pulls out “half a dozen scrunched-up pieces of paper, which [hang] in the air as if he’[s] laid them on an invisible desk.” My, they’re not exactly subtle about their magic. Then again, who do they have to fear? Sneezer sorts through the pieces, smooths one out and presses it against Arthur’s cheek. The paper shines with “a bright blue light and Arthur’s name appear[s] on it in letters of gold.”

Sneezer says it’s absolutely Arthur, no doubt whatsoever. He puts the paper back in his pocket, and the other papers follow, “as if they [are] joined together on a thread.” Sneezer names him as Arthur Penhaligon, and says Arthur’s bound to die any minute. He says Monday would best give him the Key.

Monday yawns for the third time and releases Arthur’s chin. Then, he reaches “inside the left sleeve of his silk robe” and “pull[s] out a slender metal spike.” Ah, so Monday has Sleeves of Holding. I think it fits in nicely with the setting, though. When we’ll get this in the later Inheritance books, it will be much more jarring. Arthur describes the spike as looking “very much like a thin-bladed knife without a handle.” Arthur stares at it as his brain begins to fog up again from lack of oxygen. Somewhere, the voice from earlier screams at him to run away.

The paralysis from Monday’s touch is gone, but Sneezer doesn’t relax his grip for a moment, and Arthur simply isn’t strong enough to break free. Monday mutters a block of legalese, which is apparently required to give away the Key. He speaks too fast for Arthur to make out what he’s saying, and he keeps going until the final few words, which are: ‘And so let the Will be done.’

As he finishes, Monday “thrust[s] out with the blade.” Simultaneously, Sneezer lets go of Arthur, who drops onto the grass. Smooth. Monday “laugh[s] wearily” and drops the blade into Arthur’s open hand. Sneezer immediately folds Arthur’s hand around it, “pushing so hard that the metal [bites] into his skin.” With the pain, there comes another shock. Arthur can breathe again! Yay! He compares it to “a catch [having] been turned at the top of his lungs, unlocking them to let air in.”

Sneezer urges Monday to give Arthur “[t]he other”. He says Arthur “has to have it all.” Monday looks at Sneezer and he frowns. He begins to yawn again, but suppresses it, “taking an angry swipe across his own face.” He remarks that Sneezer is “very keen for the Key to lose [his] possession, even if only for a few minutes.” He nearly takes something out of his other sleeve (the other part of the Key), but now he hesitates. He says Sneezer was also very keen to “give [him] boiled brandy and water. Too much boiled brandy and water.” He says that perhaps, in his weariness, he hasn’t thought it over well enough.

Sneezer argues that the Will might find him, and if “[he has] not given the Key to a suitable Heir”… Then Monday cuts him off, wondering what will happen if the Will finds him. He says that if the reports are true, “only a few lines have escaped their durance.” He wonders how much power they hold. Not very much, I’d say, at least not without some kind of body. And even then, without any kind of Key or other magical item, they wouldn’t be able to do much to Monday, at least not directly. I have to say I do like that Monday figures this out. It gives him some good villain cred.

Sneezer says they’d better not test it out, “wiping his nose on his sleeve.” Arthur remarks that “[a]nxiety obviously [makes] his nose run.” Monday says that Arthur might live if he has the complete Key. And, I’ll note, Arthur might just use it against Monday. Monday sits upright in the chair, “the sleepy look [] gone from his eyes.” He says he also finds it strange that Sneezer, of all his servants, “should have come up with this plan.”

Sneezer asks why. He “trie[s] to smile ingratiatingly, but the effect [is] repulsive.” Monday flies into a rage and shouts it’s “[b]ecause generally [Sneezer’s] an idiot!” He flicks a finger and “an unseen force” blasts Sneezer and Arthur back. Oooh, this escalated fast!

Monday asks whose game Sneezer’s playing. He guesses that he’s in league with the “Morrow Days” (the higher-up Trustees). He then suggests Sneezer and Barnsom are in league, with the Will as safe as ever. He asks Sneezer if he expects to take over his office. Um, Monday, you’re leaping to conclusions very fast here. Why would Sneezer himself expect to take over your position?

Sneezer says no to these accusations. He slowly gets up and advances on Monday. With each step, “his voice change[s], becoming louder and clearer, booming into the distance.” Trumpets sound while he walks, and Arthur sees “letters of sharp black ink form upon his skin. The letters dance[] and join[] into lines of type that rush[] across Sneezer’s face like living, shining tattoos.” Yep, that’s the Will, who’s currently hitching a ride in Sneezer’s body. That’s a smart move, admittedly, though there’s some… issues with those that Corneille Blanche will get to later in this book.

“[B]oth the type and the booming voice that [come] out of [Sneezer’s] mouth, but [is] not [his]” repeat the lines from the Will that Barnsom said. So the Will is now speaking through Sneezer… Okaayy. Monday suddenly moves so fast that Arthur can’t believe it. He pulls the other part of the Key, “a glittering object”, from his sleeve, and points it at Sneezer. He shouts “deafening words that sound[] like thunderclaps, the vibration of them smashing through the air and shaking the ground where Arthur [lies].”

There’s a flash of light, “a concussion that [shakes] the earth”, and a “stifled scream”, though Arthur doesn’t know who it comes from. He closes his eyes, and when he opens them again, Monday, the bath chair and Sneezer have disappeared. There’s still “black type” running through the air, “moving too quickly for him to read the words.” The letters form a spiral above Arthur, “a whirlwind of shiny letters.” “Something heavy” materialises between the lines and falls down, “striking him sharply on the head.” Couldn’t have aimed any better, Will?

The item is “a book, a slim notebook, no bigger than Arthur’s hand.” It’s bound in “green cloth.” Arthur absently picks it up and puts it in his “shirt pocket.” He looks around again, but the Will has gone. He’s just been able to make out four words: “Heir, Monday and The Will.”

I want to take a break here, because something bugs me about the previous scene. That is that we never find out what Monday and the Will exactly did just now. And while that isn’t a problem in and of itself, what is a problem is that I’ve got little idea how they could have done so. That ties into a more general problem with this series: how light the worldbuilding can be. Again, this is also a feature of the books, along with how short they are (57121-80433 words). But in this case, there will be no explanation for this, even when, later on, the Will explains their actions to Arthur.

So here goes a count: Missing Puzzle Pieces.

And another: Continuity Fluidity

And a third one: You Missed A Spot (credit goes to Dub and/or ScipioSmith for that!)

I think you can guess the second one, because it serves the same function as in Eragon.

The third one needs a bit more elaboration. I’ve got the last three books as paperbacks, and comparing those with my PDF showed that the PDF is from a somewhat revised edition. I don’t want to go to the trouble of tracking down earlier copies of the first four books, but what I can count is stuff that could have been fixed in the edit but wasn’t. It might be a bit much, but there will be one of these for every of the other two counts, plus points for (possible) spelling errors.

With that said, let’s see…

For Missing Puzzle Pieces:

1) We don’t get an explanation for the extending arm of the people in the prologue.

2) It isn’t explained how Monday could have teleported away.

3) It also isn’t explained how the Will could have teleported the notebook.

4) It is also not explained how the Will got out of Sneezer: did they leave on their own or did Monday banish them?

Missing Puzzle Pieces: 4

You Missed A Spot: 4

For Continuity Fluidity:

1) The extending arm will never be seen again, even when it logically should come into play.

2) As we will hear later, the Trustees have a pact not to interfere with each other, and Saturday is later on unwilling to break it, because of “sorcerous implications”. So I don’t know why in the world those people acted like that, or why Saturday didn’t reprimand them.

3) Why does Monday complain about inquiries from up top, so probably from Saturday? As we’ll see later, she knows already what’s happened, and even if she didn’t now, finding it out shouldn’t be too hard for her, given that she’s one of the most accomplished magicians in the setting. I don’t know, it just feels off.

Continuity Fluidity: 3

You Missed A Spot: 7

As for You Missed A Spot, I’ve got nothing specific.

Back to the story. We’re almost done. Arthur can now see Weightman sprinting towards him, phone against his ear (probably a smartphone, given the vaguely futuristic elements). The “school nurse” also comes running, at a much slower pace from the gym, “a resuscitation kit in her hand.” So Ed and Leaf succeeded! And help is underway, at least. We’re told that “[b]ehind Weightman [comes] the whole of Arthur’s gym class. Even the walkers [are] running.” What the hell!? Keep those people away, staff! This is an emergency! This school desperately needs better teachers.

Arthur looks at them and tells us “he would have groaned if he could have forced any air out of his lungs.” He’s convinced that he’ll not only die, it will also be in front of everyone. He’s sure everyone will be interviewed on TV “and say things that sound[] sort of nice but really mean[] they [think] he was a stupid loser.” Not sure that everyone would do so, but still sounds about right, sadly.

Then he notices he can, in fact, breathe. He tries to convince himself that he’d been “tripping out from lack of oxygen, with visions and everything”, but the inhaler had worked well enough to get him through. He can breathe a bit, “and it [is] worth the pain in his hand—”.

At this point, Arthur does a double-take and looks at his hand. It’s still clenched in a fist, “with a trickle of blood running out below his little finger.” He’d thought he was holding his inhaler, but he’s not. “He was holding a weird strip of metal, sharp-pointed on one end with a circular loop on the other. It was heavy and was made of silver with fancy gold inlay, all swirls and curlicues.”

Arthur stares at it for a bit before he realises what it is. “It was the minute hand of some sort of antique clock.” And where is the hour hand, then…? He realises it’s real and the notebook is, too. Monday and Sneezer have really been there, too. It “[isn’t] all an oxygen-deprivation dream.”

He realises Weightman and the nurse will be on him soon. He looks around wildly, trying to think of somewhere he can hide the clock hand. He’s certain it will be taken away from him.

He sees a “patch of discolored grass a few paces away.” He crawls over to it and puts it in the earth, “until only the hollow circle remain[s], hidden by some tufts of yellow grass.” As soon as he lets go, his asthma returns in full force. He rolls over, “trying to put some distance between himself and the minute hand.” He doesn’t want anyone else to find it.

He tells himself that “[he’ll] come back to get it as soon as he [can].”

“If he lived.”

End chapter.

Well, that was certainly a nice first chapter! We’ve introduced the protagonist, the antagonist of this book, and the plot has started! And we have a nice cliffhanger to end on (not that Arthur will die, of course).

By the way, after now I will turn this over to my two commentators for this book: Corneille Blanche and Vermaanti, the former of which will appear next chapter.

See you then!