Grim Tuesday

by Garth Nix

  Suzy hit it. The end of the copper rod puffed into metallic mist as it struck, but whatever it was batted over the edge of the Pit and went straight down.

  ‘A gobbet of Nothing,’ said Suzy with a frown. ‘Trying to find other gobbets to join to make a Nithling.’

  She looked up at the sunburst, which was very faint now. The clouds were practically solid again all around it, and she and Arthur were in twilight that was rapidly turning into darkest night. ‘I thought the sunburst would keep that sort of thing down for longer. You’d better grab some kind of club. Copper’s better than steel, though neither’s much use really against unformed Nothing. Need silver or something special like one of them blades made from frozen moonlight or burning with architectural fire, like Noon’s. How’re your wings? Can you reach your strings? Don’t pull ’em yet.’

  Arthur craned his neck to look. His wings now stretched from his shoulder blades to his knees and were magnificently feathered and shining. They were beating slowly, as if they were warming up. The air they washed around him was cleaner, faintly orange-scented, and very refreshing. He felt for the strings, which were hanging down his chest on either side of his neck.

  ‘I can reach them,’ he confirmed. He looked around and saw another piece of copper pipe, this one thicker and longer than the tube Suzy had appropriated. He started for it, was lifted off his feet, and overshot by several yards.

  ‘Be ready,’ warned Suzy. ‘They’ll flap proper-like in a minute.’

  Arthur bent down and half-crawled, half-pulled himself to the copper pipe. Just as his hand closed around it, his wings gave an almighty beat, lifting him ten feet off the railway.

  Suzy was still on the ground, her wings warming up.

  ‘You can lean to change direction!’ she shouted. ‘Aim for the centre of the Pit to start with. Harder to get shot at from the train or the road. If you get to the ceiling before me, you have to somersault just before you hit. That’ll confuse the wings for a bit and they’ll slow down. Use your stickit fingers to stick to the ceiling. It’ll be easy!’

  Arthur’s wings increased the depth and the speed of their beat again, and he began to accelerate upwards. He looked down and saw a huge, only vaguely human figure that had long, wet dragonfly-like wings trailing down its back. As Arthur watched, it climbed up over the lip of the Pit and began to stalk towards Suzy.

  She was looking up at Arthur, and obviously could neither hear nor see the Nithling.

  ‘Suzy!’ Arthur screamed. ‘Look out! A Nith –’

  TEN

  AS THE NITHLING lunged at Suzy’s back, the sunburst suddenly went out, plunging the Pit back into total darkness, save for the pathetic circle of light from the strom lantern clutched in Arthur’s shaking hand.

  Suzy didn’t have a lantern – she’d only had the two fixed on the wheel taken by Japeth. Arthur strained his eyes, desperately trying to see what was happening, but to no avail. He couldn’t hear anything either, over the beat of his wings and the rush of air.

  ‘Suzy!’

  There was no answer. Arthur’s wings beat inexorably on, taking him higher and higher, faster and faster.

  ‘Suzy!’ he shouted again.

  The only response came from above, a sudden swathe of rain. But Arthur’s wings repelled or blew the drops away and surrounded him with an envelope of warm, dry air.

  ‘Suzy!’

  She must have escaped.

  Arthur tried to recall that last split-second image before the sunburst died.

  Suzy’s wings had been fully extended, about to beat down, hadn’t they? She would have taken off an instant before the Nithling struck her.

  Right?

  Arthur remembered what Suzy had told him about Nithlings. It seemed like only yesterday and he clearly recalled her words:

  ‘A festering bite or scratch from a Nithling will dissolve you into Nothing. That’s why everyone’s afraid of them.’

  It was only yesterday, Arthur realised. They’d both survived Monday, but Tuesday was much worse. It had been bad enough to start with, but now –

  Something flittered into the light of Arthur’s lantern. Instinctively he hit at it with his copper tube, knocking it back into the rainy darkness. Only after he’d done it did he realise it was another one of those flying lumps of Nothing.

  A gobbet. Seeking other gobbets to make a Nithling . . .

  Arthur started to look everywhere feverishly, craning his head as far around as he could to either side.

  What if a gobbet of Nothing hits me in the back of the head? Or in the wings?

  Another gobbet hurtled past Arthur’s foot. He kicked at it, and the point of his clog disappeared, sliced off as if by a guillotine. For a heart-stopping instant Arthur thought his toes might have gone as well, till he wriggled them.

  For the first time Arthur experimented with changing direction. As Suzy had said, the wings only flew up, but he found he could quickly change the angle of his ascent. To avoid any gobbets that were targeting him – which they might be able to, he didn’t know – Arthur leaned to the right, then the left, then backwards and forwards, till he started to spiral and had to try and remain still and straight to stop that.

  Whatever he did, there were still gobbets flying around him. So far none had come from behind, or if they had, they were blown away by his wings. Soon Arthur was batting them away every few minutes with his rapidly diminishing piece of pipe. Every time he hit a gobbet, it dissolved several inches of copper and he had to be careful only to get them with the dissolved end.

  Then one hit Arthur’s lantern, boring a hole straight through it, extinguishing its flame, or whatever actually shed the light behind the glass. Arthur groaned, but the darkness only lasted a few seconds. A soft, mellow white light slowly grew all around him, and the gobbets of Nothing were rimmed with luminescence as soon as they got close.

  The light was coming from Arthur’s wings. That was comforting for a few seconds, till he realised that being lit up like a Christmas tree angel in the Pit was just an invitation to Nithlings, Overseers, and who knew what else.

  Not that there was anything he could do, or any time to think about it. More and more gobbets were flying at him, most of them coming up from below, so he had to draw his knees and feet up and lean forward, which was quite difficult. Every time he leaned forward too far or let one knee fall lower than the other, he lost his balance and started to spin around.

  After beating away at least a dozen more gobbets of Nothing, Arthur noticed that there were fewer of them, but the ones that were still attacking were larger. They were combining . . . becoming a Nithling.

  Which worried him a lot, particularly when no more gobbets came hurtling up out of the darkness.Did thatmean he was out of their reach, or that they had combined into something that was somewhere nearby, flying up with him?

  Something touched his leg. Arthur flinched and cried out, till he realised it was just his useless lantern, brushing against his knee. He opened his hand and let it fall, the glass sending one last reflection back before it disappeared into darkness.

  A second later, there was the sound of broken glass and an angry cry, partly muffled by rain and Arthur’s beating wings.

  ‘Ow!’

  ‘Suzy!’ Arthur called again. But as he called out, and relief rose in his heart, a nasty thought crept into his mind. Maybe there was some sort of Nithling that could imitate people?What if there was one that could take the shape of people it had dissolved or eaten? He had a vague half-memory of someone talking about that, or maybe he had read it in the Atlas . . .

  ‘Suzy?’ he repeated, looking down. ‘Is that you?’

  ‘’Course it’s me!’ came the retort. Arthur still couldn’t see her, but she sounded closer. ‘Almost took my eye out, you idiot! There’s enough rubbish in this hole without you chucking some more down.’

  That did sound like the sort of thing Suzy would say, Arthur thought. But what if the Nithling had absorbed her mind and memories, and had
got all her vocabulary and word choices and everything?

  He wished he could see her, but at the same time was afraid that he would see the distorted man-shape with the insectlike wings beating in a frenzy as it tried to catch up.

  ‘What happened?’ Arthur asked. He caught a glimpse of something below, but couldn’t quite make out what it was. ‘The Nithling –’ ‘Missed me,’ called out Suzy. ‘Close-run thing. Bit off my right clog. I was kicking it in the teeth, so I s’pose that’s fair.’

  Arthur relaxed. It had to be Suzy, narrowly escaped.

  But if it’s Suzy, why aren’t her wings glowing like mine?

  ‘Better dim your wings!’ Suzy called out, almost exactly as Arthur thought this. ‘The light’s making Nothing come together into gobbets. Once there’s enough of them around, they’ll make a Nithling.’

  ‘How do I know you’re really Suzy?’ Arthur called in return, a slight edge of panic in his voice.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ came the exasperated reply. ‘Who else would I be? Shade your light!’

  ‘Don’t listen to her!’ called another voice, one that also sounded like Suzy, but huskier. ‘Keep your light up, it’s the only thing protecting you from the Nithlings!’

  ‘Tarnation!’ said the first Suzy voice. ‘The thing that got my clog has patterned itself on me. Must have found a bit of toenail or skin.’

  ‘Don’t listen, Arthur!’ came the other Suzy voice. ‘I’m the real Suzy! Keep your light on, I’m catching up!’

  Arthur stared down at the darkness. If only he could see the speakers, he was sure he’d be able to tell which one was the real Suzy. But there was nothing . . .

  ‘Arthur, tell your stupid wings to dim, and look out! That Nithling will get above you and swoop down at your face. It’s blind, but it smells the power behind the light!’

  Arthur blinked. That voice came from the left, and was accompanied by a faint sparkle of light, like a single distant star seen on a cloudy night.

  ‘That’s a lie! The light protects you!’ screamed the second Suzy voice, from off to the right, and closer.

  ‘Wings, please dim your light,’ said Arthur softly, and he raised the remnant of his copper tube and held it out like a sword before his face.

  He was only just in time, as a nightmarish thing crashed into the tube, hurtling Arthur in a series of backwards somersaults, his wings thrashing to right themselves. The pipe was torn from Arthur’s grasp as it stuck like a harpoon into the Nithling’s breast. The creature plummeted past him and into the depths, shrieking.

  Mid-somersault, Arthur caught a horrific vision of a figure the size and general shape of Suzy, but made from scales and patchwork crocodile hide. One of its fifteen-foot dragonfly wings beat so fast it blurred, while the other hung limp and useless with Arthur’s pipe stuck into the chest muscles that powered it.

  ‘How could you telllllll . . .?’

  Suzy’s fingernail, thought Arthur. That faint sparkle of light.

  Arthur’s wings got him upright and level again, and resumed their steady, air-eating pace. They did not brighten, keeping the light at about the same level as that shed by a couple of birthday cake candles, so Arthur could hardly see his own hands.

  ‘That was close,’ said Suzy.

  ‘Very,’ said Arthur. ‘I know it’s you, Suzy, but can you just brighten up your wings for a second so I can be sure? I’d hate to burn you into cinders with my power by mistake.’

  He said the second sentence louder than the first, in case it was another Nithling. It might get scared off.

  ‘Oh, all right,’ said Suzy. Then she added in a louder voice, ‘Anything to avoid being incisorated.’

  Light bloomed a mere twenty feet below Arthur’s feet, and he saw Suzy looking up at him. She winked, lifted her hands above her head, and pushed her palms together to make herself into an arrow shape. In response, her wings beat faster. She leaned to the left and rapidly drew up level with Arthur, a few feet to the side.

  ‘Incisorated?’ asked Arthur.

  ‘Dunno,’ said Suzy with a shrug. ‘It sounds scarier, though, don’t it? Incinerated is what they do with dead papers out on the Waste Waste, back home in the Lower House. That wouldn’t scare me, not up here. Where’s your incinerator?’

  ‘I wish I was back home,’ said Arthur.

  ‘So do I,’ replied Suzy briefly. ‘Wish I had one, let alone being there. Keep an eye out for more Nithlings. Too many gobbets flitting about below. They seem to be attracted to the wings. I’d wondered why no one ever used them here.’

  ‘What?’ asked Arthur. ‘You knew no one ever used wings here?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Suzy. ‘I just thought they were dumb plodders. Look, there’s the train!’

  She pointed. Arthur squinted into the dark and for a moment thought he saw a tiny spray of what might be sparks somewhere in the distance. Then he was plunged into a thick cloud, and even his wings couldn’t keep all the moisture from him.

  ‘An hour or so of cloud and then into the smoke next,’ said Suzy cheerfully. ‘Worse than Dame Primus’s cigars. Old bat won’t give me one, neither.’

  ‘Smoking will kill you with throat or lung or mouth cancer or heart disease,’ said Arthur, an asthmatic and the son of a doctor. ‘Not to mention years of bad breath, yellow teeth, brown fingernails, lungs full of tar so you cough like a cat throwing up hairballs, only the sputum is worse than hairballs.’

  ‘Well, you might be right about the yellow teeth and the fingernails, but smoking won’t kill you in the House,’ said Suzy. ‘Unless you nick one of Dame Primus’s cigars.’

  ‘Well, smoking will kill you back in my home,’ said Arthur. ‘Where I intend to be again as soon as possible. Where I should be . . . where I would be now, if it wasn’t for the Morrow Days and the bits of the Will and everything.’

  ‘It could be worse,’ said Suzy.

  ‘How?’

  ‘You could have theWill stuck down your gob. It used to throb in my throat and make me feel like I’d got a bit of rice pudding stuck halfway down. Horrible, it was.’

  ‘And we’re going to get another piece of it. If we can find it.’

  ‘It might be a better bit. Nicer.We’ll find it. Has to be in the Grim’s Treasure Tower, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Why?’ asked Arthur gloomily.

  ‘Stands to reason, doesn’t it? Grim Tuesday’s famous for stuffing ’is tower full of the best things ever made and the most valuable loot from the Secondary Realms. ’Course theWill will be in there somewhere.’

  ‘It can’t be as easy as that,’ said Arthur.

  ‘Well, we do have to get in there,’ said Suzy. ‘Through the windvane and all. Might be a bit tricky, even with the stickit fingers. Then there’ll be guards and so forth, I s’pose.’

  ‘Right,’ said Arthur heavily.

  ‘And traps.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘And there’s an eel of a chance Grim Tuesday’ll be there himself, though, if that is his train going down the Pit, he should be on that.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Probably. Though sometimes it’s only one of the Grotesques takes the train – look out!’

  ELEVEN

  ARTHUR LEANED DESPERATELY to the right as something plummeted past him. Once again he hardly had time to register what it was, beyond a jumbled snapshot of teeth, claws and tiny, useless wings fluttering madly.

  ‘What was that?!’

  ‘Dunno,’ said Suzy. ‘Who knows how the gobbets decide what to make when they come together? Bad news for down below.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A Nithling’ll probably survive the fall. It’ll just be really cross. Look out!’

  Arthur flipped his legs forward and threw himself back, tumbling end over end as something that looked like a cross between a boa constrictor and a weasel fell hissing past, its jaws almost close enough to close on Arthur’s hand.

  It fell still closer to Suzy, but she whacked it with her copper pipe. Arthur wa
s surprised to hear the clear ringing tone of metal striking metal and to see that none of the pipe dissolved.

  ‘Ouch!’ exclaimed Suzy. ‘Jarred my hand!’

  ‘Was . . . was that a Nithling?’ Arthur asked as he regained his flying equilibrium. He kept looking nervously in all directions, though, ready to lean or tumble or do whatever it took to avoid whatever came flying up or falling down next.

  ‘Who knows?’ said Suzy. ‘Most shaped-up Nithlings are some sort of flesh, but whatever that was, it was made of metal. It bent my pipe.’

  ‘How long till we hit the ceiling?’ asked Arthur.

  Suzy frowned.

  ‘Hard to say.We haven’t even got to the smoky upper air yet. Maybe an hour or two.’

  Suzy had hardly finished speaking before they broke through the cloud and entered the layer of smog. Arthur had been out of it long enough that he could smell it clearly, many revolting odours combining to create something sharp and acidic in the choking smoke, with overtones of ozone, like from an electric appliance burning out.

  Fortunately, the spell the Lieutenant Keeper had taught him was still going strong. Suzy, having been in the House long enough to be almost a Denizen, was unaffected, though she did wrinkle her nose.

  The next hour passed uneventfully enough. There were still gobbets of Nothing flying around, and once a Nithling fell just close enough to glimpse and cause Arthur a momentary panic.

  Otherwise Arthur’s wings continued their steady beat and they climbed up through the smoggy darkness. It was impossible to tell where they were, relative to the edges of the Pit or the ceiling of the Far Reaches.

  After a while, Suzy pulled a fob watch out of her apron pocket, opened it, and peered at the face.

  ‘I reckon we must be getting close,’ she said, closing the watch with a practised one-handed snap. ‘Try and lie on your back. That’ll slow the wings down so we don’t crash into the ceiling too hard. Once we hit, use the spell to fully wake your stickit fingers and hold on to the ceiling. Then pull your string and lose the wings and we’ll go hand over hand to the Treasure Tower.’