by Garth Nix
As Arthur watched, the colour from the bloody roots slowly spread upwards, changing the tooth from white to a deep, even red. Then the tooth began to shimmer and change, its outline becoming blurry and indistinct. An instant later, Arthur was looking down at a fat little wooden doll about an inch high and two inches around, with a smiling face, red cheeks, and a bright red-painted coat with a black line around the stomach to mark where it could be opened. It looked like the smallest doll from a set of Russian dolls, the kind that nested one within another.
‘Uh, you sure this is right?’ asked Arthur.
‘Open it up,’ said Suzy with a sniff. ‘See for yourself.’
Arthur bent down and unscrewed the doll. When he lifted off the top half his thumb and forefinger were savagely forced apart, nearly spraining them, as a larger doll exploded out.
The second doll was five times the size of the tiny doll he’d just opened. Arthur sighed as Suzy raised an eyebrow.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘There’s three more dolls inside that one, then the one with the stuff. Don’t stick your head too close, mind.’
‘I’ll do it, sir,’ offered Japeth.
‘No, I’ll do it,’ said Arthur. ‘And don’t call me sir!’
‘Very good, Your Sublime Serenity.’
‘Don’t call me that either,’ said Arthur as he gingerly unscrewed the head of the second doll, leaning well back to allow the larger one inside to bound out without doing him permanent damage.
The other dolls quickly followed, and in a few minutes Arthur was unscrewing the head of the fifth and last doll, which was almost as tall as he was, and three times as fat. This time, nothing exploded out.
Arthur warily looked inside the open doll, ready to jump back if there was some delayed reaction or ghastly contents inside. But the doll was empty, save for a canvas satchel at the bottom about the same size as Arthur’s school backpack.
‘Had to put it inside lots of dolls so the Grim’s Sniffers didn’t pick it up,’ explained Suzy. She stuck her umbrella upright in the spoke hole of a leading wheel, rolled the doll onto its side, and bent in to retrieve the satchel.
Her muffled voice continued from inside. ‘You probably missed ’em coming in the back way. Horrid things, those Sniffers. Just the snout of a dog, without the rest of the animal. A nose crawling about on hairy-bristle legs that I reckon the Grim took off a cricket and sized up. Fair made me want to puke.’
‘One crawled over me when I arrived,’ said Japeth with a shudder. ‘A disembodied snout with two tiny eyes and a shrunken mouth, sniffing at my skin . . . I didn’t know what it was, or what it was doing.’
‘They sniff out magic or forbidden powers,’ said Suzy. ‘Like wot’s in ’ere.’
She laid the satchel down under the umbrella and opened it up. It unfolded like a picnic set, revealing two pieces of beautifully crisp, heavy white paper; a stick of crimson sealing wax; four small coiled balls of twine; a box of matches (with a picture of a duck smoking a pipe on it and the words DANGER MATCHES – FIVE TIMES AS FIERY, SUPER EASY TO LIGHT); and two glass jars that were stuffed full of what appeared to be green woollen frog finger puppets.
‘Two sets of Ascension Wings and two sets of stickit fingers,’ said Suzy. ‘The wings take us up out of the Pit, all the way to the ceiling of the Far Reaches. Using the stickit fingers, we then clamber across the ceiling to the spire of Grim Tuesday’s Treasure Tower. We drop onto the spire, raise the cockerel windvane, and climb in as quick as you like, find Part Two of theWill, and set this place to rights . . . At least, that’s what Dame Primus reckons, so it’ll go horribly wrong for sure.’
‘What are AscensionWings?’ asked Arthur. ‘And why do we have to climb across the ceiling? What’s this Treasure -?’
‘What’s that noise?’ asked Japeth. ‘Begging your pardon.’
Arthur heard it too, and looked up into the darkness, pulling his hood forward to shield his eyes. He could hear a really loud hissing that seemed to come from up above. It took him a second to work out that it sounded like a firework fuse being lit, magnified a thousand times, but also very far away.
‘Uh-oh,’ said Suzy. She plucked the folded paper from the end of her cleft stick and handed it to Arthur. ‘That’ll be this. I’m supposed to have warned all the gangs between Up Station andWay Stations One and Two . . .’
Arthur unfolded the note and quickly read:
DANGER. All Overseers, all gangs, all Way Stations, all workers and all staff. A sunburst is scheduled for High Noon House Time today, affecting top layers from Up Station to Way Station Two. All workers are hereby ordered to stop work or motion at the sound of the thirty-second fuzee, which will be clearly audible. All workers must shield their eyes and must not look up till the all-clear whistle is heard. Should the sunburst reveal Nithlings, then the alarm must be sounded as per Standing Orders 27, par. 4 or by screaming as loudly as possible in unison for three seconds every nine seconds. By Order, Tuesday’s Yan.
What’s a thirty-second fuzee? thought Arthur. Must mean fuse . . . thirty seconds –
‘Look down!’ shouted Arthur as he grabbed his companions and pushed them headfirst down towards the cold, wet stone.
NINE
ARTHUR HAD BARE LY hit the ground, with Suzy and Japeth on either side, when there was a sudden flash of light so intense that he had to shut his eyes even though he was looking at the ground and his hood was pulled over his face.
Strangely, there was no heat or shock wave, though Arthur had flinched in expectation. There was only the initial flash, then a slowly lessening but still brilliant light.
A few seconds later, a faint but piercing whistle echoed down through the Pit, like the cry of a distant bird. The all-clear whistle, Arthur presumed. Scrunching up his left eye and keeping the right completely closed, Arthur risked a look.
What he saw astounded him. A giant glowing ball the size of a hundred hot-air balloons hung in the air about a mile up and eight or nine miles away, like a small, comfortably bright sun. It had banished all the rain clouds, the rain and the smog, and its slowly fading light illuminated the upper reaches of the Pit in all its vastness, a hole so big the far side was just a blurry smudge at least twenty miles distant and so deep that even the sunburst’s light could not penetrate its depths.
‘So that’s a sunburst,’ said Suzy, with a sniff. ‘Thought it’d be better than that.More like a big firework, you know, knock the dust out of yer ears with a bang.’
‘It’s bigger than I thought . . . could have thought,’ whispered Arthur. He’d been to the Grand Canyon and was thinking of the Pit on the same sort of scale. But it was much, much wider than the Grand Canyon and much, much deeper. ‘The Pit, I mean.’
‘It’s still just a big rotten hole in the ground,’ said Suzy. ‘We’d better hurry and get these wings on. Take advantage of the sunburst. Might not be another one for months.’
‘What is that sunburst thing?’ asked Arthur, pointing to the huge glowing ball. It was much less bright than it had been, and the shadows from the Pit were steadily climbing upwards, and faint wisps of rain cloud were reforming high above. ‘What does it do?’
‘I dunno exactly,’ replied Suzy. ‘Ned told me it kind of clears up the Nothing, gets rid of the rain for a while and so on. Grim Tuesday does it to different parts of the Pit every few months. Like clearing out a drain with vitroleum, I ’spect. But it’s handy for us. Better to fly in the light. If we ever get around to it.’
‘Ah, I heard an Overseer say to another something similar to “need a sunburst soon, for track-checking,” said Japeth hesitantly. ‘Which suggests that the track is inspected during the season or interval of this sunburst, and as the sunburst’s light falls or descends upon us, we may soon be, ah, inspected . . .’
Arthur looked back up the railway. He had gone at least thirty miles along the service road, around the edge of the Pit while slowly descending. Up Station had to be roughly a third of the way anti-clockwise back around the si
de – about ten miles – and about half a mile up. He peered in that direction, narrowing his eyes against the sunburst, which was now only as bright as a highway streetlight. But it had done its work, and, though beginning to darken and cloud over, the air was still clear.
Japeth and Suzy looked too. At first no one could see anything, then everyone spoke at once.
‘Smoke –’
‘Train –’
‘Grim’s train!’
They could all see the signs that revealed the presence of the train, though it was too far away to see the train itself. The glitter of the sunburst’s light on polished metal, a tall spray of sparks and a smudged column of black smoke rising straight up. It had to be Grim Tuesday’s train, starting down the railway.
‘It’ll take a few hours to get here,’ said Arthur rather doubtfully. ‘Or an hour, at least.Won’t it?’
‘Right, we have to get the Ascension Wings on,’ said Suzy. She added, ‘And they’re called that because they only go up. You can lean to change direction, but they only go up. They’re a very weak magic, much weaker than regular wings. Easier to smuggle in.’
‘What about Japeth?’ asked Arthur.
‘Sorry.’ Suzy shrugged. ‘Nothing I can do.’
‘Perhaps I could take your wheel, Miss Suzy, and catch up with my gang,’ suggested Japeth. ‘Then, when you defeat Grim Tuesday, sir, you might take the trouble to release me from my indenture? And perhaps find employment suitable for a former Thesaurus?’
‘More like if than when,’ muttered Arthur. ‘And I can’t just fly out on you. You didn’t run out on me.’
‘Norwill you run out onme, I’msure,’ said Japeth, bowing again. ‘This is merely a delay, postponement, deferment, or recess. I am sure you will be successful and my release, rescue, deliverance, redemption, saving of my bacon –’
‘You said it,’ said Suzy. ‘Nice tomeet you, Japeth. Don’t worry. Arthur’s smarter than he looks. I reckon he’ll see you right. Tuesday’ll be a pushover compared to Monday.’
‘Really?’ asked Japeth.
‘Nah, don’t be soft,’ said Suzy. ‘I just said that to cheer you up. Shouldn’t have asked. Now, Artie, we need to get the wings and stickit fingers on. I’ll have to cut some holes in your coat and shirt.’
‘Don’t call me Artie! And why do I need holes in my clothes?’
‘Because the wings are stuck on with sealing wax to your shoulders,’ explained Suzy, indicating the stick of red wax, ‘with a string through the wax, so when it’s time to drop the wings, you pull the string, break the seal, and down you drop, nice as ninepence. Come on.’
Still Arthur hesitated. He felt that he was once more being pushed into something that he had no control over. But was there any real choice?
‘That train is remarkably fleet, fast, light-footed,’ said Japeth, who was watching the smoke plume from the Grim’s train. ‘If I am to take the wheel, I perhaps should set forth, depart, leave, or absent myself immediately.’
‘You’re right,’ said Arthur. He forced a deep breath into his tired lungs and stood up straighter. He owed it to Japeth – and Suzy and everyone else – to do his absolute best and then some more. Giving up was not an option. ‘I will defeat Grim Tuesday and I will release you and all the other indentured workers. No one should be a slave. Here, or anywhere else.’
‘That’s more like the old Arthur,’ said Suzy. ‘There I was thinking this Pit had sucked the guts out of you. In a manner of speaking.’
‘Thanks a lot,’ muttered Arthur. He held out his hand to Japeth. ‘Good luck. I’ll do my best to help you.’
This time, there were fewer sparks when Japeth shook his hand. But Arthur felt a surge of energy come out of his palm and travel up through his arm, and Japeth’s arm trembled as if he felt something similar. Then Arthur noticed that Japeth had grown several inches, and his ragged shirt had restitched itself, even the string holding together his cuffs transforming into mother-of-pearl links.
‘I will serve you too, Arthur, when I can,’ said Japeth, letting go of his hand. ‘Farewell for now,Master.Miss Suzy, if I may trouble you to explain, elucidate, or illuminate the workings of this wheel?’
He hurried over to the wheel and climbed in. Suzy showed him the lever that controlled its speed and the locked access hatch to the gearbox that could only be opened by Grim Tuesday or one of the Grotesques, to allow the wheel to use its stored clockwork power to go up the railway rather than down.
Japeth gently pushed the lever forward and the wheel moved off. The Denizen waved as he passed Arthur, then pushed the lever as far as it would go. The wheel accelerated away, and was soon lost in the rising shadows.
The rain had also just started again. Spotting drops, so far without the Nothing taint. The clouds were spreading out from the edges of the Pit, drawing closer to the fading sunburst.
Arthur stood still as Suzy sliced through his cape and shirt with a short, sharp knife – the knife she’d picked up in Monday’s antechamber. Standing still while Suzy cut behind him reminded Arthur unpleasantly of being in the hospital, about to be injected in the upper arm.
After cutting the slits in his clothes, Suzy picked up one of the pieces of paper and quickly folded and tore it into two separate wings. The paper became fluffier and more feathery as she worked.
‘Lie down,’ she instructed Arthur. He lay down but craned his head to see what she was doing.
Suzy put the wings on the ground and weighted them with a piece of ballast. She unrolled two pieces of twine and set them next to the wings. Then she picked up the stick of sealing wax and the matches.
‘This’ll sting a bit,’ she said as she struck a match against the ground. It flared with a loud whoompah, and a flame about three feet long shot up out of the match.
‘Down,’ said Suzy. The flame receded. ‘Down some more. That’s it.’
Arthur couldn’t see what she did next, but he felt it. A blob of hot sealing wax went straight onto his shoulder blade, then he felt the paper wing brushing his back and the string dangling past his neck. Suzy’s thumb pressed hard into the wax.
‘Don’t move!’ she warned. ‘Got to do the next one quickly or they’ll grow unbalanced.’
Arthur bit his lip to suppress a yelp as the wax dripped on the other side. It was worse when he expected it, but it was only a momentary pain.
‘Done!’ exclaimed Suzy with satisfaction. ‘They take about ten minutes to grow. I’ll make mine, then you can stick them on for me.’
‘I don’t know how!’ Arthur protested.
‘It’s easy,’ replied Suzy as she quickly folded and tore the remaining paper into wings. ‘Just heat the wax, drop a bit on my shoulder, whack the wing and the string on, drop a bit more wax, then seal it with your thumb. There’s already holes in my clothes from my regular wings.’
‘OK,’ said Arthur doubtfully. He took the wings and weighted them down with the same piece of ballast, and put the string next to them. Then he picked up the matches. They looked normal enough apart from the cover of the box.
‘Hurry up,’ said Suzy, who was lying on the floor scratching her back through the holes in her clothes. ‘This stone is cold.’
Arthur struck the match on the ground, flinching as it roared into life. The flame was even longer than the one Suzy had struck, and dancing around in an excited fashion that had nothing to do with any wind. It even seemed to have a tiny, grinning face.
‘Down,’ said Arthur. ‘Down a lot.’
The flame slowly ebbed, the face losing its grin and becoming sad. When it was only an inch or so high, Arthur picked up the sealing wax and quickly melted the end to drop a dollop on Suzy’s back. Being nervous, he got it a bit wrong, so some wax fell on her coat and ran onto the skin. Arthur dripped a bit more on.
‘What’s the hold-up?’ asked Suzy. ‘It’s not like it’s a complicated spell or anything.’
Arthur frowned and dripped a whole lot more wax, then he carefully pressed the wing and the str
ing down, melted more wax on top, and pressed it down with his thumb. He expected that this would leave a thumbprint in the wax, but it didn’t. Instead it made the wax glow in rainbow colours, followed by a perfect round seal, with a profile of his own head wearing a crown of laurel, and words around the outside in some weird alphabet that slowly changed into regular letters that read DOMINUS ARTHUR MAGISTER DOMUS INFERIOR and then changed again to LORD ARTHUR MASTER OF THE LOWER HOUSE.
‘What are you waiting for?’ asked Suzy in an exasperated tone. ‘Grim Tuesday to come and ask you to tea?’
‘Sorry,’ said Arthur. He’d been briefly mesmerised by his own seal. Quickly he put on the second wing. It had already grown a bit on the ground, and was much more like feathers than paper. Clean, glowing white feathers, totally in contrast to the soot-stained stone and the gathering darkness.
Arthur felt his own wings begin to flap, sending a draft around his ankles. But they were still too small to lift him off the ground.
Suzy handed Arthur one of the jars of what looked like woollen frog finger puppets, stuck the other in her apron pocket, then busied herself putting everything else back in the satchel. She hung it over her neck at the front so it didn’t get in the way of her wings.
‘There’s six stickit fingers in the jar. Bung them on now, thumb and every second finger,’ she instructed, unscrewing her own jar. ‘They won’t stick till you speak the spell, which is “Stick by day and stick by night, stick for a minute each, left and right.” Only one of your hands will stick at a time, so you can move about. Just remember which is sticky and which is about to unstick. I’ll tell you how to take them off when we need to.’
Arthur repeated the spell in his head to make sure he got it right, then put the six stickit fingers on his thumbs and alternate fingers. They were just like little woollen finger puppets, only they wriggled and squeaked like little live mice as he put them on, which made it quite difficult.
He was concentrating very hard on that task, so he got an awful shock when Suzy suddenly picked up the copper rod he’d almost used as a weapon and swung it at something that came flying in like a pitched baseball. It was about the size of a baseball too, but black and fuzzy, almost like a lump of tar.
