‘You don’t have to worry about the pirates,’ said Leaf. ‘They’re a gutless bunch. Feverfew could make them brave, but without him, they’re hopeless.’
‘I just about had heart failure when I saw you with them,’ said Arthur. ‘What were you doing?’
‘How about “thanks for the great kick”?’ said Leaf crossly. ‘I was staying alive, what do you think? Feverfew said he only enslaved Denizens. Or Piper’s children at a pinch, because they’re as hardy as Denizens and a sight cleverer. First off he was going to throw me over the side, till I told him he could get a ransom for me.’
‘From who?’
‘From you, of course,’ said Leaf. ‘When he heard that, he got all interested.’
‘And you told him whatever he wanted to know!’
‘Duh! I didn’t have any choice! He could read my mind for starters.’
‘Sorry! Sorry!’ said Arthur. ‘Let’s start again. Thank you for that wonderful kick. Thank you, Suzy, for an equally fantastic smash with the stick.’
‘That’s better,’ said Leaf. ‘You can make the thanks official by getting me out of here and back home where I now fully realise I belong!’
‘Good idea,’ said Suzy. She pointed up at the sky. ‘If we can get out.’
Arthur looked up. The sun was wobbling in the sky and there were strange, streaky black clouds spreading out from it.
‘Uh-oh. They’re cracks!’
‘This worldlet is collapsing,’ said the Carp, once more being carried by Jebenezer. ‘But we must believe in a way out, for then we shall find one.’
‘The augury puzzle,’ snapped Arthur. He turned around to look for Feverfew’s body. ‘It must be on Feverfew somewhere. We grab that, find someone who can use it among the slaves, take a ship —’ He stopped talking. Where Feverfew’s body had been there was just a big dark stain on the ground and long, thin, useless strips of curling paper.
The ground rumbled under Arthur’s feet. Branches dropped from the trees and the Hot Lake bubbled more ominously. Mud began to spread beyond its shores, oozing oilily across the yellow earth.
‘How long have we got?’ Arthur asked the Carp. ‘And can you do anything to stop it or slow it down?’
‘I have no power over such structures as this. I estimate the worldlet will last between six and twelve hours. Perhaps a little less, perhaps a little more. It depends on the nature of the eventual demise. Slow dissolution by intruding Nothing, or cataclysmic rupture into the Void.’
‘How were you going to get out, Arthur?’ asked Leaf.
‘By submersible,’ said Arthur. ‘One run by the Raised Rats. But it can only fit half a dozen Denizens, and —’
As he spoke, he got out the box and opened it to check the bottle. But the bottle was gone, in its place a pile of green glass dust and a tiny fragment of cork.
‘— they’re not going to be picking anyone up anyway. They’ve already left. Or been destroyed.’
‘So we’re stuck here, which means we’re dead,’ said Leaf.
‘How about the Improbable Stair?’ asked Suzy. ‘We did it before, Arthur. It ain’t so bad. You lead the way and we all troop along behind.’
‘I can’t get onto the Stair without a Key,’ said Arthur. ‘But maybe the Will can —’ ‘Not in this form,’ said the Carp.
‘At least we destroyed Feverfew,’ said Suzy philosophically. ‘Even if it’s one of those whatchamacallit victories where you win and croak before you get all the loot and everything.’
‘A pyrrhic victory,’ said Leaf. ‘Great. There has to be some other way out of here. We need to try and think outside the square. Or laterally. Or with different hats. Beyond the normal . . . only I guess that is normal here. . .’
‘There might be a way out,’ said Arthur slowly. ‘We have to get everyone to the harbour. Onto the Moth.’
‘But it’s an old tub,’ protested Leaf. ‘If you think you can get a ship out, we should take the Mantis!’
Arthur shook his head.
‘We can’t get a ship out. The Rats were sure Feverfew’s Gore-Draken augury puzzle was the only way to find a gate in or out, and I bet that’s true. But there might be a way out using the Moth, because part of the Moth’s insides are actually somewhere else, inside the House.’
‘What?’ asked Leaf and Suzy at the same time.
‘I’ll explain when we get there,’ said Arthur. ‘Jebenezer, you’d better send someone back to the cavern and order the Followers to the harbour before they start spreading out everywhere. Oh, and did anyone stick those two Denizen’s heads back . . . oh, good . . . will they be all right?’
‘They will survive,’ said the Carp. ‘But they will suffer for many months, and they will not be able to drink for a year.’
‘Good,’ said Arthur absently. ‘Let’s go! Carp, I presume you can free the slaves held down at the town?’
‘Now that Feverfew is gone, I can loose their shackles even from here,’ said the Carp. It swelled up like a blowfish, flared as bright as the sun for an instant, then flashed around its jar in its usual shape at immense speed for several seconds. ‘There, it is done!’
By the time they reached the town, it was a shambles. The suddenly freed slaves had turned on any pirates still left. The most recent slaves, the crews of the Moth and the Flying Mantis, had re-formed under their officers and mates and were busy restocking their ships with supplies and the choicest pieces of salvage from the vast selection in Feverfew’s warehouses. The slaves who had been there longer mainly sat around, waiting to be told what to do by somebody.
When Arthur arrived he first had a brief but very welcome reunion with Sunscorch, who was overseeing the resupply of the Moth. But long explanations had to wait, so after a little back-slapping that left his shoulders sore, Arthur had the Carp use its ability to make its voice heard everywhere around the harbour, to tell the former slaves that the worldlet was doomed and that if they wanted to live and return to the House, they must gather aboard the Moth, bringing only one small item of salvage each.
Naturally this caused a panic, only quelled by the Carp using its voice more forcefully, and Jebenezer, Sunscorch, Pannikin, and various others using their voices and belaying pins to bring order to the mass of Denizens that was trying to get on any of the four small boats that could take them from the harbour wall to the Moth.
Leaf also had an important role to play, convincing Captain Swell that he must abandon the Flying Mantis, and that even such a practised Navigator-Sorcerer as he would not be able to find a way to sail it out. As he had already tried every augury puzzle he could find, the logic of it was clear, but it was still very hard for him to leave a ship he had commanded for nigh on ten thousand years.
Captain Catapillow presented a different problem, for he did not want to let anyone into his quarters, for fear that they would destroy his stamp collection. But when Arthur lost his temper and spoke sharply to him, he caved in and withdrew to his bed, Ichabod calmly drawing the curtains after him.
Arthur had been worried about how many Denizens would fit in the strange chamber within the Moth, particularly since he had promised the Followers of the Carp that he would try to save them, and as they would be last to arrive, they would be the most likely to be left behind. But the chamber was even larger than he remembered, and Ichabod moved the display cases around to create even more space, while telling him that his coat needed to be cleaned, his boots washed, and that the creation of vastly more space within a room was merely a matter of correctly arranging the furniture.
At last, five hours after they’d begun, the room was entirely packed with at least three thousand Denizens, Arthur, Suzy, and Leaf. There was no room to move at all for most of the Denizens, with everyone pressed together like standing sardines.
As far as anyone could tell, no one had been left behind.
Outside, the cracks in the sky almost stretched from the sun to the ground, and the Carp now predicted a catastrophic implosion, with the worldlet suddenly collapsing and being sucked into the Void of Nothing.
‘Then, if this worldlet has been properly constructed, the breach in the Void will seal over and cause no more trouble,’ the Carp pronounced. ‘Or if shoddily made, it will spread Nothing everywhere around it and cause many more problems to the locality.’
‘You mean Wednesday’s stomach,’ said Arthur.
‘Yes,’ said the Carp. ‘Now, as to the matter of our survival — I do not think this room would survive such a catastrophe, as it is linked to the ship that will be sucked into the maelstrom of Nothing.’
‘I know we have to get out of here too,’ said Arthur. ‘But as this room is actually somewhere else within the House, all we have to do is find a way from inside here to outside there. As I asked you to look into several hours ago.’
‘Indeed,’ said the Carp. ‘Unfortunately while I have found out where this room actually is, I can’t find a way to get out. And even if I could, I’m not sure how much use it would be.’
‘Great,’ said Leaf. ‘Excellent work, Arthur.’
Twenty–nine
‘WHY WON’T IT HELP to get out of the room?’ Arthur asked the Carp. ‘We have to!’
‘This room is still where it was,’ said the Carp. ‘In the old Port Wednesday. Underwater. I don’t know how far. Besides, I can find no way from here to the outside of the room.’
‘Because there isn’t one, or because of something else?’ asked Arthur.
‘There may be an exit,’ said the Carp. ‘But this room is strangely twisted and I simply have not had time to work out its exact place within the fabric of the House. I doubt anybody could, save the Architect herself.’
‘The Atlas!’ cried Arthur. He reached down into his boot and pulled out the green book. ‘Can you use the Compleat Atlas of the House?’
‘No,’ said the Carp.
As it spoke, there was a commotion near the door out to the Moth. Arthur jumped up onto Catapillow’s blanket box to see over the heads of the Denizens. Sunscorch, who had been handling the last few stragglers, was just inside the door.
‘A piece of the sky’s fallen in!’ he roared over the hubbub. ‘And the sea is starting to turn like water going down a plughole!’
‘There has to be a way out!’ said Arthur. He held the Atlas and focused all his attention on it.
‘Arthur —’ said the Carp.
‘Not now!’ hissed Arthur. His knuckles were stark and white against the green book, he was gripping it so hard. ‘I’m concentrating!’
‘Arthur —’
Arthur ignored the Carp and concentrated on his question.
Where is the way out of this room back into the House?
The Atlas stubbornly failed to open. Without a Key, it just would not respond.
‘Arthur!’ roared the Carp, so loud that Arthur’s ears rang. ‘I cannot use the Atlas, but I can help you use it! Place your right hand against the glass of my jar!’
Jebenezer held up the jar and Arthur slapped his palm against the glass. The Carp came right up against it, puckered up, and kissed the side of the jar against Arthur’s fingers three times. Each time it did, it shone more brightly, some of the light travelling through to bathe Arthur’s fingers.
‘Ask your question!’
Arthur took his hand away and gripped the Atlas again, repeating his question, willing the book to open with a determination that shut out everything else around him.
Nothing happened for three seconds, just long enough for the Carp to start to say, ‘We must have —’
Then the Atlas exploded open. Arthur fell off the blanket box, but was so hemmed in by Jebenezer, Suzy, Leaf, and other Denizens that his feet didn’t even touch the floor.
Arthur didn’t notice. He was watching the perfect, though rapid, penmanship of the invisible writer in the Atlas. Words spread across the page, Arthur shrieking them aloud as he read.
‘The chief clerk’s office of the Blue Moon Company’s Second Counting House has been twisted seven turns sideways and inclined twelve degrees to the impossible, due to incompetent renovation. There are three means of egress from within the office. One is to the ship Moth, through the former front door. The second opens on the Void of Nothing, and has been sealed under the floor ten paces to the left of the front door. The third opens in the ship telegraph turret of the Blue Moon Company in old Port Wednesday, and is located through the mirrored back of the former records safe, now in use as a wardrobe —’
‘No!’ yelped Ichabod, but his voice was drowned out by the surge of Denizens towards the wardrobe.
‘Hold!’ roared the Carp. ‘Followers, link arms!’
‘Moths, stand still!’ roared Sunscorch.
‘Mantises, hold yer ground!’ shouted Pannikin.
‘And may be activated by peeling off the wallpaper backing,’ finished Arthur. He slapped the Atlas shut, jumped down, and wormed his way between the Denizens to the wardrobe. It was a huge oak-panelled affair, easily ten feet high and fifteen feet wide.
‘Ichabod!’ called Arthur. ‘Is there any trick to going in?’
‘No, sir,’ said Ichabod stiffly. He had managed to appear at Arthur’s elbow, unruffled and calm once more. ‘Simply walk through. But if I may remove the Captain’s clothes before they are trampled —
’ He was interrupted by a very loud cracking sound, and the floor shivered under Arthur’s feet. He didn’t wait to hear any more from Ichabod, but strode straight at the mirror.