Leaf frowned. She really couldn’t remember, and she told herself it was not the time to try. She should be keeping track of where the Nithlings were, to make sure she didn’t get ambushed. So she concentrated on intruders and found that while there were still several hundred Nithlings within the Front Door, none of them were near her. In fact, they were all moving away, to congregate around a particularly large pool of Nothing that was leaking in from what used to be a portal into the Great Maze.
I wonder what they’re doing, thought Leaf, and she felt a strong compulsion to go and have an actual look. But it was a bit like being told to do something by a parent. Leaf ignored the feeling. Instead it merely hardened her determination to get rid of the sword and stop being the Lieutenant Keeper. As she’d told Arthur quite some time ago, Leaf did not want any more adventures. As far as she was concerned, she’d had enough.
A small point of light appeared up ahead. Leaf thought about going faster, and straightened her wrist so the sword pointed directly at the portal. She sped up, the beastwort easily keeping pace. Together they accelerated towards the portal, which grew larger and became defined as a rectangular door of harsh white light.
A dozen feet away Leaf belatedly thought it might be a good idea to slow down rather than crash through into the Middle House with a three-ton creature on her heels.
But it was too late. Frantically Leaf swung the sword to the right, but that just meant she hit the side of the portal and was flung through it, wrenching her arm. She rolled across a thick carpet and collided with something wooden and fragile that broke.
The beastwort came through a second later, right on top of Leaf. She screamed, but the creature simply danced across her, its hundreds of legs exerting no more pressure than a small child, though that was enough to temporarily knock the wind out of Leaf.
The beastwort crashed into a wall just beyond Leaf, making the floor shudder and a large amount of dust fall from the ceiling. Leaf coughed and sneezed while she made sure she still held the beastwort’s lead, then she slowly took stock of her surroundings. As she’d half expected, the sword was still stuck in the Door, though most of it was out.
The room she was in looked like a study or small library, as the walls were lined with book-laden shelves. The wooden thing she’d smashed was a chair, one of three that were standing in niches between the shelves. The portal from the Front Door was in the middle niche, which was why Leaf had landed right on top of it.
The beastwort had smashed a whole floor-to-ceiling shelf to pieces, and was standing amid a pile of books, blocking Leaf’s view of most of the room. She got up and twitched its lead.
‘Over here, Daisy,’ she said, pointing to the opposite side of the room. The beastwort obeyed.
Now Leaf could see that there was a door at the other end – an extremely sturdy door for a library. It was studded with iron bolt-heads the size of small plates, and there was a heavily barred window near the top. As Leaf looked at it, she saw a hooded Denizen duck down and heard muffled shouting, quickly followed by the tolling of a bell and the clatter of armoured Denizens in the corridor outside, approaching at a run.
‘Here we go again.’ Leaf sighed and tugged at the sword, which obstinately refused to come free.
Sixteen
HOW YOU BEEN, DOC?’ asked Suzy as she led Giac into Dr Scamandros’s temporary workroom, a former paper store. The sorcerer looked up from his bench, put down his peacock feather quill, and doffed his latest hat to Suzy. It was an orange fez, and when he took it off, several items fell out. Some of them scurried under the bench before Suzy could see what they were, but one rolled to her feet. She picked up the smooth metal ball cautiously and handed it back to Dr Scamandros. As he reached for it, it flicked out a dozen jointed metal legs and jumped clear, joining its brethren in the dark recesses under the furniture.
‘I have been tolerably well,’ said Dr Scamandros, but the moving tattoos on his face told another story, with small furry animals sticking their heads into piles of sand while others covered themselves under piles of small rocks. ‘Given the circumstances.’
‘This ’ere’s Colonel Giac, my aide,’ said Suzy. ‘He’s a sorcerer too.’
‘Ah, I was a Sorcerous Supernumerary,’ said Giac carefully.
Dr Scamandros beamed and shook his hand.
‘As I would have been if I had stayed,’ he replied. ‘I expect it was political.’
‘Political?’
‘Failing your exams!’ exclaimed Scamandros. ‘Ah, it’s a long time since I have spoken with a colleague. I wonder if you might give me your opinion on these spells I am preparing. They are reinforcing papers, to be pasted over small eruptions of Nothing, but I fear they are of such short duration that I doubt their worth. Of course, it is the Keys that are needed to properly contain the Nothing, so we can only hope—’
‘Doc!’ interrupted Suzy. ‘Dame Primus sent us over. We’ve got to go in the Front Door and get Leaf. She’s the new Lieutenant Keeper. Then we have to get into the Upper House and open up a lot of elevator shafts.’
‘What? What!’ said Dr Scamandros. The furry animal tattoos dug deeper, till only their feet were visible, waving furiously. ‘Leaf is the new Lieutenant Keeper?’
‘That’s what Old Primey reckons,’ said Suzy. Giac looked around nervously and crossed his fingers as Suzy said, ‘Primey.’
‘Apparently Sunday’s Dusk went and got her from her world, but something ’appened in the Door and she ended up being the new Keeper.’
‘Oh, dear,’ said Scamandros. ‘I fear this is another sign.’
‘Sign of what?’ asked Suzy.
‘The House is dissolving too fast,’ whispered Dr Scamandros. ‘We’ve lost the Far Reaches, the Lower House, and the Great Maze, and the Border Sea is riddled with Nothing. If the old Lieutenant Keeper couldn’t hold the Door, then the Nothing can spread through it into all parts of the House!’
‘Arthur’ll fix it up,’ said Suzy confidently.
The furry creature tattoos poked their heads out of their holes.
‘Lord Arthur has returned!’ exclaimed Dr Scamandros. ‘Perhaps there is hope after—’
‘Uh, he’s not exactly back,’ interrupted Suzy.
‘Oh,’ said Dr Scamandros. The furry creatures turned into doors that shut themselves and dwindled into tiny squares.
‘No one knows where he is,’ added Suzy. ‘So he’s probably doing something important. Anyhow, what we have to do is get in the Front Door, find Leaf, bring her back, get a force together – I’ve got some of my Raiders working on that – get an elevator into the one shaft that’s open, and attack the Upper House so’s we can get more shafts working. Once the elevators are going, the main army can come in and fight Saturday and the Piper’s lot, and then open up the Incomparable Gardens and get in there to help Arthur, so he doesn’t ’ave too much trouble.’
‘Uh, I’m not sure if I follow all that,’ said Dr Scamandros.
‘Neither do I,’ said Giac.
Suzy sighed.
‘Orright. One step at a time. We get in the Front Door and get Leaf. That’s where you come in, Doc. Where’s an entrance to the Front Door around here?’
‘Ah, I shall have to undertake a lengthy divination,’ said Scamandros with a frown. He thought for a moment and his frown ebbed away. ‘Or possibly I can simply ask one of the Binders.’
‘Digby should know,’ said Suzy. ‘Let’s track him down. Come on!’
‘But my spells— I’m in the middle of a laborious procedure!’ Dr Scamandros protested.
‘No time,’ said Suzy. ‘You said it yourself. Let’s go!’
Scamandros shrugged, his oversize greatcoat accentuating the movement. Then he reached across his bench, swept everything into one of the impossibly voluminous pockets on the inside of the coat, and followed Suzy and Giac to the door.
Suzy was already calling out to some unseen Denizen, ‘Hoy, mate! Where’s Digby? Or Jakem?’
Shortly thereafter D
igby was found in the Press Room. Drawing on a discarded proof with a pencil, he quickly sketched a map to show them the way to the nearest entry to the Front Door.
‘It is heavily guarded, of course,’ he said. ‘And lies at the end of a corridor amply provided with murder holes, an oil trap, and so forth. I shall write a note for the guards, to let you—’
As he spoke, a bell tolled in the keep, three times three. Digby cocked his head to one side.
‘Hmmm, that’s synchronistically curious,’ he said. ‘That is the alarm for an incursion from the Front Door. Perhaps I’d best show you over there myself. Jakem! Jakem!’
The former Pressmaster, who had been demoted by Arthur when Digby was raised up in his place, ran over and bowed deeply.
‘Jakem, please inform Marshal Noon that there may be an attack through the Front Door portal located in the dungeon of the west wing. General Turquoise Blue, Colonel Giac, Doctor Scamandros – please follow me.’
Digby led the group at a quick pace down a stairway and into one of the auxiliary passages of the keep, which was largely occupied by a small rack-and-pinion railway – not much larger than an oversize toy train – that in normal times transported paper, ink, and type throughout Binding Junction. Now the railway transported military stores, its fruit-box-size cars trundling steadily along loaded with savage-swords, Nothing-powder, binding spears, and other such stuff.
‘Quicker through here,’ explained Digby. ‘The main corridors are too full of soldiers.’
At the next intersection they had to wait while another train crossed in front. The alarm bell continued to toll in the distance, repeating a refrain of three deep calls, a pause, then three again, a pause and three again. Every time it finished the ninth tolling, there was a longer silence, and everyone cocked their ears to see if it would stop, indicating that the emergency was over.
But the bell continued to sound, and Digby increased his pace as they crossed the tracks behind the caboose of the train which carried an unusually short Denizen guard dwarfed beneath her large leather cap. She waved her red lantern in greeting as they passed, but only Giac waved back. The others were too intent on what lay ahead.
When they reached the steps leading down to the dungeon, it was crowded with a bristling hedgehog of Bookbinders and their long needle spears. Digby had to shout to get them to move to one side. As he led the way down, a platoon of musket-wielding Regimental soldiers marched up and began to file down behind Dr Scamandros, who was bringing up the rear of Suzy’s party.
There were several thick iron-studded doors along the corridor, open to allow the spear-carriers passage. Suzy looked up and saw lots of murder holes in the ceiling, and caught a glimpse of the Denizens who waited above with cauldrons of hot oil.
The most massive door of all, at the end of the corridor, was shut fast, and barred with four heavy beams. A Bookbinder was perched on one of the beams so he could see through the small grille window. As Digby and the others arrived, he jumped down and bowed.
‘Press Turner First Class Horrybig, temporarily in charge of the Lower Ground Guard! Beg to report intruders from the Front Door!’ he boomed in an authoritative voice. ‘A huge Nithling and a small mortal-shaped Nithling!’
‘I told you already! I’m not a Nithling!’ shouted someone on the other side of the Door.
‘That’s Leaf!’ cried Suzy, and ran to the Door. But Dr Scamandros pulled at her sleeve and stopped her.
‘Careful,’ he whispered. ‘It may be a trick. Perhaps even a Cocigrue of Leaf. Allow me to check.’
The sorcerer rummaged in his pockets and pulled out his gold wire-framed spectacles, putting them on so that they sat on his forehead, above his eyes.
‘Oh, I remember,’ said Giac. He sounded surprised at himself. ‘Inward seeing.’
‘Exactly, my dear colleague,’ replied Dr Scamandros. He carefully stepped up onto the lower bar and peered through the window.
‘Hmmm . . .’ he said. ‘The large creature was grown in the Incomparable Gardens and is not precisely a Nithling, as such, but a sorcerously manipulated native of some Secondary Realm. The smaller being is a mortal . . . not a Cocigrue—’
‘Doctor Scamandros, it’s me, Leaf! Is Arthur there?’
‘Definitely a mortal,’ continued Dr Scamandros. ‘Probably Miss Leaf. I note the sorcerous weapon she holds maintains a connection with the Front Door, and the creature is retained under her command by the use of Grobbin’s Commanding Leash—’
‘I remember that too!’ exclaimed Giac. ‘Old Grobbin was one of my tutors, but I’d forgotten everything he said until now. Fancy that. It was there all the time, but I couldn’t think of it.’
‘Too much rain,’ said Suzy. ‘Got water on the brain probably. That’d hold you up.’
‘Suzy! Can you let me out?’
‘Very interesting,’ said Dr Scamandros. ‘While the mortal – who I must say is almost definitely Miss Leaf – is an unaltered human, the uniform she is wearing is in fact a sorcerous construct of a very high order, as is the sword she wields. Both made by the Architect herself, I’d warrant. Colonel Giac, perhaps you would care to take a look?’
‘I’d be delighted, um, honoured colleague,’ said Giac.
‘Is anybody going to open this door?’ shouted Leaf. ‘And help me get this sword unstuck?’
‘In a moment, Miss Leaf,’ said Dr Scamandros through the window. ‘Please allow my colleague—’
He stopped talking as Suzy lifted one end of the bar, forcing him to step down, where he collided with Giac, who was waiting to step up.
‘You can do your inward seeing thing just as well with the door open,’ said Suzy. She lifted the bar off completely and set it aside.
‘Half a mo’, Leaf,’ she called out as she lifted the second bar. ‘Got to get this all undone.’
A wary murmur and shuffle behind Suzy reminded her that the passage was packed with armed Bookbinders and soldiers. After she set the last bar down, she stood on it and addressed the crowd.
‘Everything’s sorted,’ she called out. ‘It’s only Arthur’s second right-hand . . . uh . . . mortal . . . ah . . . Admiral Leaf. So you lot can stand down. Who’s got the key for this door?’
‘I do,’ said Horrybig. He looked at Digby, who nodded. Horrybig looked surprised, but put the key in the lock and turned it before quickly stepping back.
Suzy opened the door and went in. She recognised Leaf, who was leaning out of an alcove and holding on to the hilt of a sword that as far as Suzy could see was stuck in the wall. The creature Dr Scamandros had referred to was somewhat more imposing than Suzy had expected, occupying all the rear half of the room, its tentacles coiled up on the floor like strange, neck-high pots.
‘Suzy! It is you,’ said Leaf. ‘Is Arthur here? I need him to get this sword out of the Front Door.’
‘Arthur’s not here,’ replied Suzy. She advanced closer, keeping a wary eye on the beastwort. ‘Wot’s that thing? And ’ow did you end up becoming the new Lieutenant Keeper?’
‘That’s Daisy,’ said Leaf. ‘She’s a beastwort. The Reaper – that’s one of Sunday’s guys – brought her to Earth. Only he left her behind when he took me through. He was supposed to deliver me to Lord Sunday, but we stopped to help the old Lieutenant Keeper and . . . he was dying. He gave me his sword, and apparently now I’m the Lieutenant Keeper. But I don’t want to be!’
‘Bad job,’ Suzy agreed. ‘Too much work.’
‘You’re telling me!’ Leaf looked past Suzy. ‘Doctor Scamandros! Maybe you can help?’
‘I shall do my best,’ said Dr Scamandros. He stood next to Suzy and peered at Leaf’s coat, apparently fascinated by her sleeve. Tattoos of small weaver’s looms appeared on his face, shuttles flew across them, and rolls of blue cloth cascaded across his nose. ‘How may I assist you?’
‘First I want to get this sword out of the Front Door!’ Leaf said as she tugged on it once again.
‘Oh, dear,’ said Dr Scamandros. ‘That is beyo
nd my ability.’
‘But not, I think, beyond mine,’ said a cold and powerful voice behind him. Both Suzy and Scamandros jumped, and Daisy scuttled back on her many legs and emitted a high-pitched tone of fear or distress.
‘Dame Primus,’ said Leaf warily. ‘Hello.’
Seventeen
IT WAS HALF PAST ELEVEN, and the chains that bound Arthur to the clock had shrunk, dragging him back to the central boss. With each passing minute, they tightened farther, pulling his hands behind his back.
There had been no sign or portent of the Mariner’s arrival. Arthur tried to not think of how long it had taken the Captain to come to his – or Leaf’s – aid in the past. He’d hoped that the Mariner might not be too far away, cosmically speaking.
Now he had to address the very real possibility that within forty minutes two horrendous puppets were going to take out his eyes. While he was pretty confident they would grow back, that didn’t make him feel any better.
Elephant shifted at his side, sensing Arthur’s fear. His friend had continued to grow for a while after bringing the medal back, but had stopped when he got to the size of a large dog. Or rather the height of one, for he was very round, and would weigh much more than even the most heavyset dog.
‘You’ll have to go and hide soon,’ said Arthur. ‘Lord Sunday said he’d be back before twelve. And I don’t want the puppets taking your eyes as well.’
Elephant made a thrusting motion with his tusks. They were about a foot long now, and very sharp.
Arthur shook his head.
‘No. You can’t fight Sunday. Or the puppets. But thank you.’
Elephant made a deep grumbling sound.
‘No, I couldn’t bear it if you were hurt or killed,’ said Arthur. He remembered when he’d lost Elephant all those years ago. It was an intense ache that had never really left him, though it had become smaller inside him as he had grown bigger. ‘You’d better go and hide now.’