‘Oh,’ said Japeth. ‘A cold! Can you transfer it? Then maybe you could bribe an Overseer –’
Arthur shook his head. He had no idea how to transfer his cold, besides maybe sneezing on Japeth, which wasn’t something he was about to do. He couldn’t understand why the Denizens were so keen to have mortal ailments. Except, of course, that for them they were purely cosmetic, since they didn’t feel sick.
Half an hour later the constant wetness of the cloud began to turn into actual rain, and the gang paused briefly to put on their capes. The rain soon became a steady drizzle, punctuated by the occasional heavy, stinging drop. One fell on Arthur’s hand, burning his skin as it slid off with a sizzling noise. But as with the Scoucher’s cut, the burn healed within a few minutes, leaving no sign.
Nothing rain, thought Arthur dully. That’s all I need.
The stinging drops kept coming down every few minutes, but most fell on Arthur’s hood or cape, leaving pockmarks in the stabilised mud. Arthur was so tired he hardly noticed them. He managed to keep going, but only because Japeth was almost carrying him.
Even with Japeth’s help, they were falling farther and farther behind, the candle flame borne by Number One often out of sight, and Number Eleven a dim figure occasionally glimpsed through the rain.
‘I can’t go any farther,’ Arthur finally gasped when they lost sight of Number Eleven altogether. ‘You go. I’ll catch up when I’ve had a rest. I can hide from the Overseers behind all this junk.’
Japeth lowered the boy down next to yet another pile of broken train parts. Arthur leaned back against a pair of bogey wheels and his head sank down on his knees. He halfheartedly wiped his nose on his sleeve and thought about casting the breathing spell again. But he was so tired . . .
After a while, he realised that Japeth was still standing in front of him.
‘Go!’ said Arthur weakly. ‘I’ll work out some way to catch up. You don’t want to get steamed.’
‘Perhaps a steaming is less to be feared than descending farther into the Pit,’ said Japeth slowly. ‘I have seen only despair and fatalism among the Denizens here. But you offer some hope. You are not indentured. You have some latent power. I shall take my chances with you. Rest, and I will watch. Stand guard. Shelter. Shield you. Shepherd. Mind. Watch. Tend. Keep vigil. Watch and ward. Patrol. Do the rounds . . .’
Japeth kept talking, but Arthur felt himself fall far away, the Denizen’s voice receding into some distant space. In less than a second, Arthur was asleep.
He woke up to a peculiar whirring sound and the hum of the railway lines. Japeth was shaking him by the shoulder.
‘Arthur!Wake up! Something is coming down the line!’
Arthur sat up and immediately started coughing. A racking cough that started deep in his chest and rolled up through his throat. A cough that kept going and going, as if his body were desperate to get something toxic out of his system.
Still coughing, Arthur plunged his fingers into his nose and his thumb into his mouth. Then, in between racking coughs, he managed to sputter out the words of the Lieutenant Keeper’s spell. But the coughing continued, his nose kept running, and Arthur was overcome by fear. The spell hadn’t worked and he was going to choke to death here in the ghastly Pit . . .
Suddenly the coughing stopped and Arthur’s nose dried up at the same moment. He took a deep breath, luxuriating as it spread through both lungs. He felt fine, though very stiff in the legs. According to his backwards watch, he’d been asleep for three hours.
‘We must hide! Conceal ourselves! Take cover!’ Japeth warned.
Arthur looked up the track and a large Nothing-laced raindrop hit his cheek, almost splashing his eye. He swore and wiped it off, ignoring the painful stinging sensation, and looked again, careful to keep his hood well forward.
He saw two fuzzy lights coming down the railway line, lights no stronger than his strom lantern, and only about a foot apart. They were too close together and didn’t look bright enough to be the lights of a train. The whirring sound was also too quiet, and the rails were only humming very softly, nothing like they would for a full-sized locomotive and its load.
Nevertheless, Arthur hurried around the pile of scrap metal and hunkered down with Japeth behind an upturned bench seat thrown from a carriage, its horsehair stuffing sprayed out like a strange plant. They put their lanterns down the central hole of a huge driving wheel, covered it with a steel damping plate, and sat completely still in the darkness.
Arthur held his breath, fear rising as he stared at the lights and the dark shape behind them.
EIGHT
ARTHUR PEERED OVER the upturned bench at the approaching vehicle. Shrouded by the rain and disguised by a nimbus of diffused light, it was extremely hard to make out what it was. Only one thing was for sure – it wasn’t a train. In fact, as it closed in, Arthur saw that it was a single wheel about six feet high and two feet wide, running on only the inner rail of the track. Or more exactly, it was two wheels, one inside the other. The inner wheel didn’t move. The lights were fixed to the sides of this inner wheel, and there was someone . . . or something . . . sitting inside it. The outer wheel rotated around the inner wheel.
Arthur couldn’t see any sign of a steam engine or anything else to make the wheel go. Perhaps it simply ran downhill and could never return to the top. It also seemed an unlikely conveyance for Grim Tuesday, which was a relief. It would be hard for anyone much taller or fatter than Arthur to fit inside the wheel.
Mind you, Arthur thought, Grim Tuesday might not be like the picture on the station door . . . He might really be small and slight . . . or not even have a human shape.
‘What is that?’ whispered Japeth.
‘I don’t know,’ Arthur whispered back. He stared at the approaching wheel. Was it his imagination, or was it slowing down?
‘It’s stopping! Halting! Arresting! Ceasing to proceed forward!’
‘Ssshhh! Don’t panic,’ hissed Arthur. He bent down and picked up a long tube of Nothing-pocked copper, perhaps a former steam-pipe or fire-tube. It was slippery and wet, but felt comfortingly heavy in his hand.
‘What if whoever’s in it has a steam-gun?’ Japeth asked.
‘Ssshhh,’ Arthur hissed again. ‘Maybe it will go past.’
But the wheel stopped about ten yards away. The rail stopped humming, allowing Arthur to hear clearly the strange, low sound that still came from the wheel. It took Arthur a moment to recognise it as the constant tick of clockwork. That immediately brought unpleasantmemories of the clockwork creatures from the Coal Cellar . . .
The figure inside the wheel stretched one leg out, then another. The movements seemed normal, not clockwork, but Arthur clutched his metal pipe more tightly. Once again, defeatist thoughts rose up in his mind. Perhaps he should step out and surrender, ask to be taken to Grim Tuesday . . .
No! Arthur fought back. I’m not giving in. I’m not surrendering, and I’m not going to sit and wait to be steamed or cut to bits.
The wheel-rider slipped completely out and stood up behind the left lantern of the wheel. The light, spread and blurred by the rain, made it impossible to gauge the size of the person or what he or she was doing. But Arthur couldn’t see any steam wafting out or the shine of an unsheathed blade.
The dim figure raised one hand. Arthur tensed, then as a bright light flashed from the end of the wheel-rider’s index finger, he leaped up and rushed forward, swinging the metal tube over his head.
‘Haaahh!’ he cried, attacking.
‘Arthur!’ a voice called out.
Arthur slid to a stop and almost fell over. He lowered his copper pipe and squinted at the light, brushing away the rain from his face with the back of his left hand.
‘Suzy?’ he asked.
‘Of course it is, stupid! Who were you expecting?’
Arthur smiled and shook his head as Suzy Turquoise Blue stepped in front of the lantern. She looked the same as ever, bright eyed and seriously dishevelled. The ubiquitous apron of the Far Reaches was simply thrown over her multiple shirts, and one corner of her mulberry-coloured waistcoat poked out from under the apron. Her battered top hat was missing, and in its place she wore an odd little red pillbox with a shiny black strap under her chin. There was also a large cleft stick thrust in her belt, with a piece of parchment stuck in the cleft.
Arthur shook his head again, but his smile got wider. Suzy was not only a great friend and ally, she had a knack for turning up just when Arthur really needed some help. And as far as he could tell, she was never downhearted. Not even here, in Grim Tuesday’s Pit.
‘I wasn’t expecting anyone friendly,’ Arthur said. ‘But I’m very glad to see you.’
‘’Course you are,’ said Suzy. ‘So would I be, down this dismal hole. Who’s your mate?’
Arthur looked over his shoulder to where Japeth was standing hesitantly behind the upturned bench.
‘Japeth. It’s all right, Japeth, she’s a friend of mine,’ Arthur called. ‘Come out.’
He turned back to Suzy and added, ‘Japeth was in my work gang. He helped me . . . stay alive, I guess. But what are you doing here?’
‘Looking for you, of course,’ said Suzy. ‘Ow!’
A heavy drop of Nothing-tainted rain had fallen on the back of her hand. She wiped it off with a grimace, ignoring the red welt it left behind. Unlike Arthur and Japeth, she wasn’t wearing a stabilised mud cape.
‘Got to get my umbrella,’ she muttered, rummaging inside her shirts. She brought out and opened up a small multicoloured paper umbrella of the kind used to ornament cocktails. For a moment it just looked ridiculous, then it exploded into a full-sized umbrella, much as the Atlas did.
The Atlas!
Arthur had a momentary panic as he scrabbled under his cape and apron for his shirt pocket. For an instant he thought he’d dropped the Atlas back on the railway! A second later his hand closed on the rough cloth cover and he sighed in relief.
‘Heart attack?’ asked Suzy curiously. ‘Thought you were too young.’
‘No, just checking the Atlas,’ said Arthur. He looked at Suzy again and for a moment felt like giving her a hug, he was so relieved to see her. But the moment passed. He offered his hand instead. Suzy took it.
‘Delighted, I’m sure,’ said Suzy formally. ‘See, I’ve been learning me manners.’
As they shook, the nail on her index finger suddenly shone with a very bright, clear light, almost blinding Arthur. Suzy let go immediately and tugged on the finger till the joints cracked and the light went out.
‘Supposed to stop once I found you,’ she grumbled. ‘Dame Primus . . . that’s her as used to be Part One of the Will . . . fixed it so it would get brighter when you were close.’
‘But how did you know I was here?’ asked Arthur.
‘That’d be telling,’ said Suzy, holding her index finger up to her nose. It lit up once again and she flinched. ‘Stupid finger spells! That Will was a frog for too long if you ask me.’
‘But how did you know?’ Arthur repeated.
‘Well, after the telephone was cut off I thought I’d nip over to your world, only Dame Primus wouldn’t let me go, cos of the Original Law. I sez, “It’s a pretty dumb Law when you can’t do anything but everyone else can,” and Dame Primus sez, “You’ll go to your room, young lady, for the next decade if you’re not careful, trouble or no trouble,” and I sez, “Arthur’s the Master, he made me Monday’s Tierce, you’re only the Steward,” and then she sent me to my room. Only I climbed out through the chimney and Sneezer let me use Seven Dials to have a look at what was going on, and I saw the Grotesques had gone through, and then the Scoucher, and I wanted to warn you but your head is too thick or something and won’t receive waking dreams, so Sneezer helped me ask the Atlas and it steered you to that girl Leaf who I met when we were on the Improbable Stair, and then I sent a dream to her telling her where the Grotesques had opened their side of the Door in your world, and I . . . Where was I?’
She took a deep breath and rushed on.
‘Oh . . . we figured Leaf could tell you and then you could use that door to get back into the House. But then I thought maybe I’d better go and help you out anyway, so I went to see the Lieutenant Keeper and asked him to let me through, but he wouldn’t, so then I sneaked back into the Dayroom and looked through Seven Dials again and saw you were going through the Door, so I went down to the Atrium to meet you. But when you didn’t show up, I knocked on the Door and talked to the Lieutenant Keeper.
‘I sez to him, “Did Arthur come through the Door?” and he sez, “Yes,” and then I waited and he didn’t say anything so I sez, “Where did he go?” and he sez, “The Far Reaches,” and I sez, “How long ago?’ and he sez, “Two hours by House Time,” and then I sez, “Let me go through too,” and he sez, “No,” and I sez, “Why?” and he sez, “Even if I could permit it, you can only use that door from the Secondary Realms. Here, you have to go through the House.”
‘So I went back to Dame Primus and after a bit of shouting and carrying on she sez, “Grim Tuesday deserves to have you on his doorstep,” and she fixed me up with all the trimmings to help you out, like this fingernail thing.’
‘Right,’ said Arthur weakly. After having hardly spoken for a day it was almost too much to listen to Suzy, who was clearly in a talkative mood. ‘So how did you get into the Far Reaches and get that . . . that wheel and everything?’
‘The Grim uses the Piper’s children for messengers,’ said Suzy, brandishing the cleft stick with the parchment in the end. ‘Monday’s Noon, that used to be Dusk, did a transfer for me to the Middle House, and then a friend of his there sold my contract to Grim Tuesday so I could join his messengers. Then I swapped with Ned to come down the line because my finger glowed when I went near the railway.’