“You have learned some manners, I see,” said Dame Primus. “Perhaps my lesson on the Border Sea was worthwhile.”
Suzy didn’t reply. She’d blithely forgotten that one of the things she actually was afraid of was being forced to behave like a lady again.
“Part Six is with me now, so I know much of what occurred in the Upper House and of the disposition of Saturday’s forces, but I would like to know more. I have questions for you and this minion of Saturday’s you have brought with you.”
“Oh, to be a minion,” muttered Giac to himself dreamily. “I was a sub-minion.”
“You will speak when spoken to and not before, Colonel Giac,” said Dame Primus sharply. Giac bowed deeply. When he straightened up, each of his epaulettes had sprouted a crown inside a woven wreath, Dame Primus perhaps unintentionally having confirmed Suzy’s irregular grant of his rank.
“We have a great host here,” continued Dame Primus. “The survivors of the Far Reaches, the Lower House and the Great Maze, combined with the forces of the Middle House. Our fleet from the Border Sea will soon arrive here on the Extremely Grand Canal, and the sailors, scavengers, merchants and marines will join the Land Army, as the Piper and the ships of his cursed Raised Rats have blockaded direct egress for ships into the Upper House.
“Due to the work of myself as Part Six, we have access to one elevator shaft into the Upper House,” continued Dame Primus, pointedly ignoring Suzy’s and Giac’s contributions to that operation. “But that is not enough to land a sufficient force to engage both the Piper’s troops and Saturday’s. We need to open more elevator shafts. After we have discovered what additional information you may have to offer, Miss Turquoise Blue—”
“General,” said Suzy, though it was difficult to get any words out against Dame Primus. “Lord Arthur made me a General.”
Dame Primus bent her gaze down to the Piper’s child. For a moment Suzy feared that she would blast her with words so potent they might as well be a death spell. Then the raven feathers on her head ruffled and the Will looked back up, above Suzy’s head, to the bright sky above that was the underside of the Upper House.
“After we have spoken, General Blue,” said Dame Primus, “I intend that you shall lead a strike force back to Floor 6879 of Saturday’s tower, to open more elevator shafts. To secure our beachhead, as it were.”
“Sure,” said Suzy. “But I get to pick who comes along, right?”
Dame Primus narrowed her strange, luminous pink eyes in thought.
“You may, within reason. You will, of course, take Dr Scamandros, who will be needed to open the elevator shafts. There is also someone else I wish you to speak to, to enlist to our cause.”
“Who’s that, then?” asked Suzy.
“The Lieutenant Keeper of the Front Door.”
“Well, he’s right handy with a blade, but I never heard of him leaving the Door.”
“I am speaking of the new Lieutenant Keeper of the Front Door,” said Dame Primus. “Though she lacks the swordcraft, I suspect she may be of use. Certainly Lord Sunday thought so, enough to send his Dusk to fetch her.”
“Exactly who is the new Lieutenant Keeper?” asked Suzy. She had never felt a need to suppress her curiosity.
“A mortal,” said Dame Primus. “Arthur’s friend Leaf.”
“Leaf!” exclaimed Suzy. “I never!”
“It is a most peculiar and in many ways unfortunate circumstance. But if Lord Sunday wants her, then she must be secured. I believe we can get her out of the Front Door. What’s left of the Door, that is. Now, do you have any idea where Lord Arthur may have gone?”
“Dunno,” said Suzy with a shrug. “I didn’t see ’im after he went down the plughole. Don’t you know?”
“No.” Dame Primus’s mouth tightened and her lips became menacingly thin. “We do not. He and his Keys are sorely needed, both to stem the tide of Nothing that has risen alarmingly and to continue the campaign against the faithless Trustees and the aberration that is the Piper. I trust that you are not covering up for some mortal indiscretion of Arthur’s, Suzy? Are you sure he has not gone back to his world?”
“I dunno.” Suzy gulped. “Like I said, I ’aven’t seen Arthur since he went down the gurgler and I got tied up.”
Dame Primus’s gaze bored into Suzy. The girl tried to meet the Will’s eyes, but had to look away.
“Very well,” said Dame Primus softly. “Now tell me about what you know of Saturday’s assault upon the Incomparable Gardens.”
“I don’t know much,” said Suzy. She coughed and added, “I never got to the top. Course I’ll tell you what I know, only my throat’s gone dry.”
“Tea,” ordered Dame Primus. Her long, elegant fingers snapped with a crack that was as loud as a small cannon, and several Denizens rushed forward bearing a samovar, an enamelled tea caddy, a silver teapot and fine porcelain cups.
Suzy eyed the samovar suspiciously. Dame Primus didn’t normally respond well to hints.
She wants something, thought Suzy. And that can’t be good.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Leaf let her incredibly weary sword arm fall, the Lieutenant Keeper’s blade dangling from her limp fingers. She had been fighting almost nonstop for what felt like hours, though she had no means of measuring time, so perhaps it was only feverish, adrenaline-fuelled minutes. Her Nithling opponents lay dead, slowly drifting away from her, propelled by their final actions, or by the cuts and thrusts of the sword that had danced in her hand as if it had a life of its own.
Perhaps it does have a life of its own, thought Leaf with distaste. After dispatching the first wave of Nithlings – a dozen slow-moving things that looked more like human-size turnips than anything else, though they had mouths with needle-sharp fangs – she had tried to drop the sword and run to the exit she knew led to her Earth. But try as she might, she could not lose the sword. If she let go, the goldbraided strap tightened on her wrist so she could not slip it off, and if she slipped the strap off first, her fingers became glued to the hilt.
Before she had been able to experiment further, another Nithling had attacked. It was alone, but far more trouble than the previous lot. It was rather like a bear with the horns of a bull, and it was fast and clever. It had scratched Leaf and would have taken her head off if she had jumped back any slower. Years of gymnastics when she was younger had finally paid off.
Leaf inspected the scratch. The blue swallow-tailed coat looked like it was made of wool, but was evidently made of much tougher stuff. The Nithling’s horn had not even torn the cloth as it had scraped across, but the very tip had drawn blood from her unprotected throat. Leaf looked at the blood. It was hard to tell, since the only light came from the blue radiance of the sword, but she was relieved to see it still looked red and human.
From what had happened to Arthur, Leaf was well aware of the contamination caused by House sorcery and its transformative effects.
Which means I have to ditch this sword soon, she thought. And get back home.
There were lots more Nithlings inside the Front Door. Leaf could sense everything in the Door in a general kind of way, including intruders, entrances and exits, and if she concentrated on any particular aspect, she could work out more. Right now, there was only one group of Nithlings headed in her direction. Leaf decided not to wait for their arrival, but to check out the entrance she’d come in by, the one she knew led to Earth. There was something different about that one – it made a different sensation in her head when she thought about it, but she didn’t know what that meant.
Apart from essentially fighting on its own, the Lieutenant Keeper’s sword was also useful in other ways, Leaf found. When she lifted it and thought of heading towards the exit to Earth, it immediately oriented towards that point and began to pull Leaf along. It did so gently at first, but gradually accelerated until the girl had to hold on with both hands.
“Doesn’t mean I’m going to keep you,” said Leaf. She was thinking about how she might rid herself of the weapon and the unwanted post of being Lieutenant Keeper. If she could work out how to let go of the sword, she could just leave it behind. Or it might be as easy as finding someone to give the weapon to, just as she had received it from the previous wielder. Of course, she might need to be dying before she could give it up, which was a depressing thought.
Leaf supposed she also ought to think very carefully about who ended up as Lieutenant Keeper. Not that the job was as important as it once was, considering that large parts of the House weren’t there any more. Leaf felt the dead ends like a toothache and immediately turned her mind away from thinking about them. There was nothing she could do about that anyway, and with any luck she’d soon be home and could hope everything would go back to normal.
As if that’s going to happen, thought Leaf, but she repressed that thought too and returned to working out methods of losing the sword and the office that went with it. Getting Arthur’s help, or the assistance of Dr Scamandros, would be the best bet. If she went to one of the exits into the Great Maze…
Leaf’s train of thought derailed as she focused on the portals to the Great Maze and discovered that there no longer were any, though she was sure she’d felt some only minutes before.
“It’s getting worse,” Leaf said aloud. She was torn by indecision, unsure whether she should try to help in some way or just get out. If she could.
The just-getting-out part of her mind won for the moment, though she rationalised it as merely an attempt. She would try to ditch the sword and go home. If that didn’t work she’d go and find Arthur and Dr Scamandros and the others…somewhere…the Middle House perhaps, since she could still feel exits there.
Soon after, she reached the exit to her world. It appeared as a normal-size doorway of pure white light that was always vertical whichever way Leaf approached it, rotating as she rotated, even corkscrewing around to match her movement, which she did just to see what it would do.
When she stopped up close to the shining portal, Leaf found she could see through it, out to the world beyond. She also sensed that the exit had a sort of frayed or fraying feel about it, as if it would soon collapse. The Reaper must have made it, she surmised, so it was only temporary.
The exit was still located in the same space as the front door of Friday’s hospital. Leaf was momentarily puzzled when she looked outside, because everything looked almost exactly the same as when she’d left. The personnel carrier was there, smoke still trickling from the barrel of its machine gun. The front of it was bashed up and dented, the rear door was lying about twenty feet away, and she could see a masked and suited figure peeking cautiously around the right-hand track.
The caution was because the Reaper’s creature – the beastwort – was also still there. Leaf hadthought it would disappear with its master, but he’d just abandoned it. The huge tentacled thing was gently swaying on its many legs right in front of the doors.
Though Leaf had been gone for what seemed like hours, it appeared only a very few minutes had passed on Earth. She looked at the beastwort, its curious daisy-like head of questing tendrils and its very long and immensely strong tentacles. There was little chance of sprinting past it and, even with the Lieutenant Keeper’s sword, she didn’t fancy her chances fighting it.
In any case, Leaf knew she shouldn’t take the sword out of the Door, and definitely not to Earth. It would create plagues and trouble, as all powers of the House did when brought to the Secondary Realms.
“OK, you have to go,” Leaf said to the weapon. She unhooked the loop and tried to pry her fingers off the hilt with her left hand. But once again, she simply could not open her grip.
Leaf grimaced and put the loop back over her wrist. Then she let go, the sword dangling from the golden cord. Leaf let it hang for a moment, then swiftly pulled her hand back, to try to get it free of the loop in one motion.
It didn’t work.
Leaf tried to throw the sword overhand and slip her hand away as the blade arced overhead, but all that did was nearly slice her own kneecap off. She bit her knuckles in the hope that pain might help her move her fingers. That didn’t work either.
Next she held the hilt with her left hand and slipped her right hand out of the loop, and was momentarily triumphant – till she couldn’t let go with her left hand, and ended up having to transfer the sword back to her right hand again, out of nervousness that she might be attacked, for she sensed Nithlings getting closer.
Finally she gave in.
“All right! I’ll just have to get help!” she said.
There was an exit to the Middle House not too far away, but before Leaf headed towards it, she took another wistful look at her own world. Nothing had changed. She could see movement and it was not in super slow motion, but evidently when she wasn’t looking, time moved much more slowly out on Earth.
The soldier at the back of the carrier moved out a few paces while Leaf watched. She couldn’t tell who it was, but thought from the size it was Major Penhaligon. He moved very carefully and kept his focus on the beastwort. It was observing him too, for several of its petal-like sensory organs aligned themselves in his direction.
The soldier took another step, and a tentacle suddenly lashed out and knocked him down. He rolled away and another soldier dragged him back into the carrier as the tentacle struck the ground where he’d been a moment before.
It’s got them penned in, Leaf realised. But it’s not going over to get them. It’s guarding the Door, I suppose – but that means no one can get in to help Aunt Mango and the sleepers. I have to do something.