Arthur gingerly peered over the edge. There was nothing beneath the walkway, no sign of solid ground. All he could see was a thick cloud of roiling black smoke. He could hear the whoosh, hiss and deep bass beat of big steam engines somewhere down below, but he couldn’t see any sign of them.
Then the smoke currents whorled and shifted and he caught a glimpse of the upper half of a huge bronze wheel as big as a house. It was turning very slowly, but before Arthur could see what it was connected to or what its purpose was, more smoke billowed across and obscured it again.
Closer to the walkway, a black cloud parted to reveal the end of a huge, rusted iron beam that was as long as three school buses joined together. The beam rose up through the smoke like a whale breaching, then descended into the depths with a gargling whoosh, and the industrial fog closed up again.
The metal mesh under Arthur’s feet was vibrating in time to the beat of the engines below, and the bronze supporting rods hummed at Arthur’s touch. The rods were tarnished, Arthur noted with concern, and their connection to the ceiling looked none too secure, though it was hard to see exactly how the thirty-foot-long rods were joined to the stone above. Judging by the occasional clean patches, the ceiling was a solid, pale rock, but most of it was so stained with soot that it resembled a dirty carpet of the blackest plush.
‘Hurry! Help me push!’ cried the Piper’s child. He was struggling to get the bottle moving.
Arthur cautiously ran around the right-hand side of the bottle while Suzy ran around the left. They put their shoulders to the base of the Nebuchadnezzar and heaved. The trolley creaked and rumbled forward, slowly gathering speed. It had a tendency to veer dangerously off toward the edge, so all three pushers needed to be constantly vigilant.
‘Got to get it back to the lubricant store,’ wheezed the Piper’s child. ‘Fill it up with oil again and make ourselves scarce. You’ll need disguises too.’
Arthur glanced across at the boy and did a double take. It wasn’t a Piper’s child at all under the broad-brimmed hat with the scarlet feather, but a Raised Rat wearing a papier-mâché mask painted to look like a human face. The ridiculous nose covered the Rat’s own snout.
‘Lord Arthur, I presume,’ husked the Rat. ‘Dartbristle, at your service.’
‘Good to meet you,’ said Arthur. ‘This is my friend Suzy.’
‘General Suzy Turquoise Blue if you don’t mind,’ sniffed Suzy.
‘Welcome to the Upper House, General,’ said Dartbristle. ‘Up ahead, we need to heave her around to the left. Hurry now.’
The walkway met another broader walkway at a T-intersection. Manhandling the trolley around without it – or them – falling off the edge was no easy task, but they got it turned and were able to push the Nebuchadnezzar faster once they were in the clear.
Dartbristle kept looking behind them, so Arthur looked too, but all he could see was the thick, grey smoke, with occasional eddies of thicker, blacker smoke coiling up through it. He was no longer surprised that the smoke had no effect upon him. In fact, he even quite liked the smell, though he knew that his old human lungs would have quickly failed in the toxic atmosphere.
‘What are you looking for?’ Arthur asked after they had pushed the bottle several hundred feet and there was nothing to see ahead or behind except more of the platform and more of the smoke.
‘Ratcatcher Automatons,’ said Dartbristle. ‘The sorcerers know when the Nebuchadnezzar fires up – least they know there’s serious sorcery afoot – but it takes ’em a minute or two to plot where it occurred. Since we’re under the floor, they don’t come down here themselves. They send Ratcatchers. But I reckon we might have got away fast enough. Lubricant store’s just ahead, in the bulwark rock.’
‘We’re under the floor of the Upper House?’ asked Arthur.
‘Yep.’ Dartbristle moved around to the front of the bottle and slowed it down as they came up to a sheer and apparently solid rock face of grimy yellow stone that was shot through with barely visible veins of a glowing purple metal. ‘We’re in the bulwark between the Middle and the Upper House. Saturday had a bit of the top part of it burrowed out to put in all her steam engines, chain gear, and so on. Where is that bell push?’
The Rat began pressing different protuberances of rock, but none of them moved in the slightest.
‘Curse the thing, always moving around. You’d think it was made by a practical joker!’ Dartbristle griped.
‘There’s something behind us,’ said Suzy. ‘I saw something go under the walkway.’
‘Ratcatcher!’ hissed Dartbristle. He reached under the Nebuchadnezzar and drew out three long curved knives from the trolley, handing one to Suzy and one to Arthur. ‘They’re armoured, so you need to get them in the red glowing bit right on the front of their head. I suppose it’s an eye or something like it. But watch out for its nippers. And the feelers – they’re like the tentacles of a Blackwater squid.’
He spoke quickly and unhooked the mask from his face so it dangled under his mouth, allowing him to see better. His deep black eyes moved rapidly from side to side, and his nose twitched as he tried to smell the approaching enemy. Suddenly he started forward and raised his knife.
‘Where is—’ Suzy started to say, when all of a sudden the Ratcatcher Automaton sprang out from under the walkway. Darting forward in a flash of steely plates and accompanied by a sound like the soft chink of coins in a leather purse, the twelve-foot-long, two-foot-wide, metallic praying mantis opened its huge claws and nipped at Dartbristle. At the same time, its impossibly long, razor-edged feelers whipped at Arthur and Suzy.
Dartbristle ducked under and around one set of pincers and heaved on the joint, pushing the automaton’s left claw into its right, whereupon they gripped each other tightly. Suzy jumped back from a feeler. It cut her across the chest and tried to wrap itself around her neck to cut her head off, but she blocked it with her knife and slid under the Nebuchadnezzar trolley.
Arthur instinctively parried with his knife and twisted it to trap the feeler. Then, without thinking, he grabbed it and heaved. The razor edges cut his hand, which hurt, but he also managed to pull the feeler entirely out of the Ratcatcher’s head, which caused a great fizz of sparks to jet out like a firework.
‘Get the red eye!’ shouted Dartbristle. ‘While the claws are locked!’
Arthur ran forward. The automaton’s remaining feeler whipped at his legs, but he jumped over it, leaping so high that he landed on the Ratcatcher’s back. The automaton immediately threw itself backwards, but he gripped it around its triangular head and plunged his knife deep into the red orb at the head’s centre. The little bag that held the Fifth Key knocked against the Ratcatcher’s metal overlapping metal plates as Arthur stabbed the automaton several more times, before at last it gave a high-pitched, almost electronic squeal and slowly collapsed to the walkway, its rear legs hanging over the edge.
Arthur carefully climbed down, anxious not to overbalance the defunct automaton and send both of them down into the smoky depths. As soon as the boy stood safe on his own feet, Dartbristle began to push the Ratcatcher over the side.
‘They can track these too,’ he said. ‘More come to find the remains, whenever one is slain.’
Arthur helped him push, and Suzy slid out and gave the Ratcatcher a not very helpful but certainly satisfying kick just as it tumbled over.
‘Right – I’ll get that door open,’ said Dartbristle. He looked admiringly at Arthur and added, ‘Well fought, Lord Arthur.’
‘Thanks,’ said Arthur absently. He looked at his paw and saw that it was already almost healed, the gold blood disappearing as it dried. Belatedly he remembered that Suzy had been hurt.
‘Suzy, that feeler cut you! Are you all right?’
Suzy, who had been looking over the side, turned around. Her shirt was cut through and gaped open, and there was a line of blood across her furry stomach, blood that was neither the blue of a Denizen nor entirely the red of a human, but something in betw
een.
‘Nah, I’ve had worse,’ Suzy said dismissively. ‘If I’d ’ad my old coat on, it would never have even broken the skin. Give it a day or two to scab up and I’ll be right as rain.’
‘Found it!’ declared Dartbristle. He pushed energetically on a slight knob of rock that was at the level of his knee. His push was answered by a rumble inside the stone. Slowly, a great rock-slab door as wide as the walkway pivoted open.
‘In with the bottle,’ ordered Dartbristle. He started pushing the trolley, and Arthur quickly joined him. Suzy moved more slowly to help, and Arthur noticed she grimaced as she set her shoulder to the Nebuchadnezzar and began to push.
Beyond the door – which creaked shut behind them – was a rough-hewn stone chamber the size of a small auditorium, with a very high ceiling. Huge glass bottles as large or larger than the Simultaneous Nebuchadnezzar were lined up against the walls, and in front of them were stacked many smaller bottles, jars, jugs, urns and other containers of glass, metal or stoneware.
There was an open space on one wall between an amber bottle full of a dark viscous fluid and a nine-foot-tall clear glass bottle filled with what looked like light green olive oil. Dartbristle pointed at this gap and they manoeuvred the Nebuchadnezzar to the space, untied it from the trolley, and began to lift it up.
‘Hold it at an angle and lean it on that pot there,’ Dartbristle instructed. ‘Got to put some oil in it, so it doesn’t look out of place. The purloined letter, you know.’
‘The what?’ Arthur asked as Dartbristle picked up a Jeroboam-sized bottle and with great difficulty poured a stream of purple-black oil into the Nebuchadnezzar.
‘Oh, yes, heard that one before,’ said Suzy. She left Arthur holding up the Simultaneous Bottle and wandered over to look at a small, narrow door on the other side of the chamber.
‘Hide a letter by putting it in plain sight, where it will be considered ordinary,’ explained Dartbristle. ‘Good idea. Right, got to slap the cork in and then we’ll be off.’
‘Off where exactly?’ asked Arthur. ‘We need to get some clothes for when we stop being Raised Rats. This gear we have on won’t fit.’
‘Exactly!’ said Dartbristle. ‘Half a mo’.’
He took off his hat, tipped it over, and took out a very small bottle, the kind that might hold perfume, and what Arthur at first thought was a cigarette pack. Dartbristle took a tiny rolled-up scroll out of the pack, checked what was written on the outside of it, unstoppered the bottle, and thrust the scroll in. He then replaced the stopper and put everything back into his hat, which he pulled firmly down upon his head, before also replacing his mask.
‘Smallest Simultaneous Bottle there is,’ he said. He pointed to the Nebuchadnezzar. ‘One hundred and twentieth the size of that. Just had to report your arrival. Saturday’s lot can’t track the small bottle – it’s sorcery on a scale too tiny for them to contemplate. Come on.’
‘I asked where we’re going to,’ said Arthur frostily.
Really, these inferior creatures are galling. They should learn instant obedience –
Arthur shook his head and touched the bag at his wrist, feeling for Elephant.
I am not an angry, puffed-up superior Denizen, he thought sternly. I am human. I am polite. I care about other people.
‘Up to the floor,’ said Dartbristle. ‘To join a Chain Gang. When you’re back in normal shape you’ll fit right in with the Piper’s children. They’re a good bunch; they’ll take you on without too many questions. And they’ll have clothes for you too.’
‘Very good,’ said Arthur. ‘How do we get there?’
‘Service chain-haul. To shift the lubricants. We’ll just grab hold and it’ll take us up.’
He took a small key from his hatband and trotted over to the narrow door. For the first time, Arthur noticed that, like himself, Dartbristle was a tailless Raised Rat. But where Arthur didn’t have a tail because Scamandros couldn’t make one in time, Dartbristle had once had one, as evidenced by the battered stump of a tail poking out through an elegantly sewn hole in his black breeches.
The Raised Rat opened the door and pulled it open, revealing a vertical shaft about twelve feet square. In the middle of the shaft a heavy chain hung down. Each of its links was easily two feet tall and made from four-inch-thick dark iron. It wouldn’t have been out of place on a battleship, Arthur thought.
‘Got to start her up,’ said Dartbristle. He leaned precariously into the shaft and grabbed hold of the motionless chain, which was so heavy it barely rattled.
Arthur poked his head in and looked up and down. The chain extended in both directions as far as he could see into the smoke-shrouded shaft.
Dartbristle continued his instruction. ‘When she starts, you’d best jump and hold on quick, while she’s still slow. Then wait for me to give the word to jump off, and jump. If you wait too long, the chain’ll go over the wheel and take you back down again – or mash you up. Stand by the door . . . ready?’
Arthur and Suzy stood shoulder to shoulder in the doorway. Dartbristle shifted his grip, then swung fully onto the chain. As it took his weight, it fell a few feet, causing a frightful screech and rattle. Then there was a click almost as loud as a gunshot, and the chain began to move upward, taking Dartbristle with it.
Suzy jumped before Arthur could even think of doing so. She landed well, and climbed up a few feet to settle below Dartbristle’s rear paws.
‘I like this!’ she exclaimed, and was gone, the chain already accelerating.
Arthur gulped, and leaped for the chain.
TEN
ARTHUR HIT HIS SNOUT on the chain, but got a good pawhold, gripping the link he held with remarkable strength. The chain was rising up at a speed that felt like forty or fifty miles an hour, the smoky air whistling past them fast enough to plaster Arthur’s long Rat ears against his head.
‘Uh-oh,’ said Suzy.
‘What?’ Arthur asked. He looked up. Suzy was only holding on with one paw while she wriggled her other paw in the air. ‘What are you doing?! Hold on with both hands . . . paws . . . whatever!’
‘That’s it!’ said Suzy. ‘I can’t. My paw is turning back into a hand and it’s not working properly!’
‘Hold on with your teeth!’ called Dartbristle. He demonstrated with his own front teeth, which were at least five inches long and rather impressive.
‘Can’t!’ said Suzy. ‘My mouth has gone weird and wobbly!’
She slithered down the chain toward Arthur. She looked half-Rat and half-human. He climbed up to her, and one human and one Raised Rat foot scraped his head before landing on his shoulders.
‘Almost there!’ called Dartbristle. ‘I’ll count. Jump on three – it doesn’t matter which direction.’
‘Can’t . . . hold on!’
Suzy crashed into Arthur. He gripped the chain with his own huge front teeth and one paw and grabbed her with the other paw. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was holding on to, because her body was rippling and changing, parts of it Raised Rat and parts human. It looked very disturbing and very painful, and her sailor’s clothes were now nothing but rags, ripped and torn by the transformations.
‘One!’
Suzy slipped from Arthur’s grasp, but he swung his feet out and gripped her with his back paws, which in Rat shape were almost as dextrous as his front paws.
‘Two!’
They shot out of the narrow shaft into a huge, dirty warehouse that was two-thirds full of the same kind of oil containers as the chamber below.
‘Three! Jump!’ shouted Dartbristle.
Arthur opened his mouth and pushed off from the chain, using all his strength so he took Suzy with him. The two of them landed on the edge of the shaft, and he had to scrabble and claw his way to safety, dragging Suzy with his back paws.
Above them, the chain continued up through a broad chimney to some other chamber, and Arthur caught a glimpse of the enormous, fast-spinning driving wheel that had pulled the chain.
‘
I’m going to kick Scamandros in the shins when I see him next!’ growled Suzy. She stood up and then immediately fell down again as her lower half became human and her top half Raised Rat, so she was totally out of proportion and her centre of gravity was all wrong.
‘I’m sure it will wear off . . . ugh . . . soon,’ said Arthur. He had to pause mid-sentence as a wave of nausea ran through his body. His torso suddenly stretched up several feet, then snapped back again, and his paws turned to four sets of feet.
‘It’d better,’ said Suzy. ‘Thanks, Arthur.’
She crawled away from the shaft, and, after a moment’s thought, Arthur followed her. The rapid changes to his body might topple him in if he stayed too close to the edge.
‘I’ll scout out the lay of the land while you’re sorting yourselves out,’ said Dartbristle. ‘The grease monkeys – that’s what the Piper’s children here call themselves – have a depot across the way, and there’s a drain that connects us here. We can’t cross outside, because there’s a detachment of Sorcerous Supernumeraries watching the depot, but I’ll nip through, have a word with the grease monkeys, and pick you up some clothes.’
‘Don’t tell them our real names,’ said Arthur. He had an unbearably itchy nose, but he couldn’t control his arms enough to be able to scratch it. ‘Tell them . . . uh . . . tell them we’re Piper’s children discharged from the Army and we’ve just been washed between the ears and can’t remember our names or anything yet.’
‘Aye, aye,’ said Dartbristle. He went over to a nearby trapdoor and lifted it. As he did, the sound of rushing water – a great deal of rushing water – filled the warehouse.
‘Got to wait a few minutes,’ he said. ‘This is a flood channel – takes an overflow every now and again. Timing is everything, as they say.’
‘Quiet!’ Arthur suddenly ordered. He sat up as best he could with a rubbery neck and cocked his one Rat ear to listen. Amid the sound of the rushing water, he’d heard a distinctive call, and at the same time he’d felt a familiar twinge inside his head.