Grim Tuesday

Chapter Twelve

They had been crawling across the ceiling for several hours when Arthur suddenly slid out of the smog and found himself buffeted by a strong breeze that ruffled the feathers of his wings and upset his sliding rhythm.

The breeze also took off the loose layer of soot on Arthur. He suddenly felt lighter and cleaner, even though there was still plenty of soot ingrained into his skin and clothes.

But it was neither the sudden disappearance of the smog nor the fresh breeze that made his mouth hang open and his jaw almost get broken on the ceiling when his wings flapped. Ahead of him, part of the ceiling the size of a football field shone as if there were hidden lights within it, sending down a shaft of clear golden light like late afternoon sunshine.

The light fell squarely on Grim Tuesday's Treasure Tower. It was a simple round stone tower without visible windows, about fifty stories high and maybe two hundred feet in diameter. It had a steeply pitched, tiled roof, surmounted, as Suzy had said, by a wind vane in the shape of a cockerel.

What Suzy hadn't mentioned was that the tower and the green lawns that surrounded it were entirely encased within a pyramid of sparkling glass, its apex just above the cockerel wind vane and fifty feet below the lit-up ceiling.

"That's new," said Suzy. "Guess old Grimbly didn't like his tower getting as scummy and sooted up as the rest of the Far Reaches. Dame Primus definitely didn't know about this."

"Or much else," said Arthur wearily. He was severely battered and bruised, and did not welcome another setback. He'd been looking forward to getting his wings off and standing up like a normal person. On the ground. Not to mention washing his hands and face. He knew a full-on bath or shower was an impossible dream.

"There doesn't seem to be any heat coming off the lit-up area," he added. "So we can get closer, I guess. But it's still a long way down. And how do we get through the glass?"

Suzy looked across at the tower and the pyramid. She had become much better than Arthur at letting her wings push her almost into the ceiling, resisting only to lessen the impact, rather than trying not to hit the ceiling at all.

"I guess we'll have to get as close as we can? Drat these wings, the sooner they're paper again, the better? Drop the wings, jump to the face of the pyramid, stick with our stickit fingers, then climb down and find another way in."

"But even at the closest, the pyramid will be forty or fifty feet below!"

"We can make that. You did almost as big a jump back in the Atrium, remember?"

"I had the? arrggh? rotten? Key then!"

Suzy thought for a while, white lines appearing on her forehead where the soot came off as the skin wrinkled up.

"How about you undo one wing, then jump," she suggested. "You'll corkscrew? but? one wing will still be lifting you up, so it won't be that bad."

Arthur looked down at the pyramid.

Jump sixty feet, corkscrewing around, maybe hit really hard, then have to climb down with hands that alternated between sticky and nonsticky?

"I should never have gone on that cross-country run," he muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing," said Arthur. He couldn't think of any other alternative, and he was tired of being a fly on the ceiling, particularly one that couldn't control its wings. And he was able to do a lot of things in the House that would be impossible or too dangerous back home. Hopefully this jump would be one of them.

"Let's get as close as we can," he told Suzy. "Then? then I suppose I'll have to jump."

It was more difficult sliding as soon as they left the sooty part of the ceiling, and Arthur developed even more bruises. He was a bit tentative about crossing the lit-up section, but it wasn't so bad. The light was quite soft and there was no noticeable heat. As long as he kept his eyes half-shut it was bearable. And on the plus side, the light made a bit more of the soot fall off.

At last they came to a point about twenty feet short of the point of the pyramid and fifty feet above it. Since he had to face the ceiling or be pulverized by his wings, Arthur could only glance down from side to side. But it looked as if this was as close as they could get. There was no way he was going to jump too close to the point of a glass pyramid, particularly with a single wing spinning him around.

"Ready?" asked Suzy. "Remember the stickit finger spell?"

"Yeah, I remember," said Arthur. "Just give me a second."

It was a long way down. Back in his own world he'd be sure to die from a fall that far. And what if the glass broke?

"What if the glass breaks?"

"The glass won't break," said a voice that wasn't Suzy's. Arthur almost tore his neck muscles whipping his head around to see who'd spoken and, for the thousandth time, got mashed into the ceiling by his wings.

Suzy shouted something, but Arthur missed it. He was partially stunned by the impact and still busy trying to crawl around so he could see who was talking.

He finally managed, only to see what looked like a black, soot-covered hairball the size of his head on the otherwise pristine, shining ceiling. But the winds were too strong for it to be a lump of soot. Besides, the blob had two deep-set silver eyes, eyes like bigger versions of the silver balls used in cake decorations. They flickered from side to side as Arthur met the thing's gaze.

It had a mouth as well, under the silver eyes. A mouth that also glinted silver, either from teeth or whatever lined the thing's throat.

"A Nithling!" exclaimed Suzy. She tried to draw her copper tube out of her belt while still bracing against her wings, but had to give up when she was mashed against the ceiling.

"I'm not a Nithling!" protested the blob. "I can help you!"

"I'll help you," muttered Suzy. She had braced herself on her elbows and was struggling to get something out from under the top of her apron. Probably her knife.

Arthur didn't know what she was going to do, but he was curious about this sootencrusted hairy blob.

"Suzy, wait!"

He paused for a moment as his wings beat, then spoke to the thing.

"If you're not a Nithling, what are you?"

The sooty hairball spoke quickly, as if eager to convince Arthur of its story. As it spoke, it slowly unraveled, becoming less of a ball and more like a hairy, sooty slug. A very big hairy, sooty slug.

"More than nine thousand years ago I was one of Grim Tuesday's eyebrows, before I was wrenched from his forehead by an explosion of Nothing, down in the first, dark diggings of the Pit. I was lost there for centuries, next to Nothing. Slowly the emanations of Nothing transformed me and I became a thinking, living creature. Neither a Denizen made by the Architect, nor a Nithling born out of Nothing. The true Nithlings despise me and the Denizens fear me. Both attempt to slay me at any opportunity."

Suzy and Arthur looked at each other, then back at the hairy slug. It did resemble a vastly overgrown, animate eyebrow. A long, hairy crescent, caked in soot. It moved back a little under their combined stares, undulating sideways and making faint popping sounds.

"I am still attuned to Grim Tuesday," declared the thing. "I know some of his mind and secrets."

"It does look like a huge eyebrow," said Suzy hesitantly. "And strange things do happen near lots of Nothing."

"What are you doing up here?" asked Arthur. He wished he could consult the Atlas and check up on this? eyebrow ? but it was too difficult in his present situation.

"I've been trying to get in the Treasure Tower," said the thing. "I need to be near the treasures. I want to feel the weight of the gold, bathe in the reflected light of the paintings, embrace the statues. Once I get in, I shall never leave. That's all I want - to get in the Treasure Tower!"

"If you can't get in yourself, how can you help us?" asked Arthur.

"I cannot get in by myself," said the blob, "but I can help you, and then you can help me. For example, I have a diamond to cut the glass."

"Show it to us, then," Suzy demanded.

The blob undulated backwards and forwards, popping unpleasantly, and opened its mouth wider than Arthur would have thought possible. A black, stickylooking tongue slowly poked out. Coiled up in the end of the tongue was a diamond as big as Arthur's thumbnail, sparkling in the light from the ceiling.

"Where did you get that?" asked Suzy.

"I madth ith," the blob started to say, then it withdrew its tongue and continued. "I made it from Nothing. I told you, I know much that the Grim knows. I also have some of his talents. But my tongue is not strong enough to hold the diamond and cut the glass. I need a hand."

"What's your name?" asked Arthur. When the blob didn't answer for a moment, he added, "What do you call yourself?"

"I suppose you could call me? Soot," said the thing. "Yes? Soot. I have breathed it, lived in it, and eaten it for so long that it is a fitting name."

"Eaten it?" asked Suzy. "Why eat soot?"

"Boredom," said Soot. "The Overseers fire their steam-guns at me if I get too close. The Nithlings would eat me themselves. I have been unable to get into the Treasure Tower. What else has there been for me to do but brood upon the walls and ceiling of this realm and eat soot?"

"If we help you get into the Treasure Tower," said Arthur, "you'll have to swear to help us in every way you can against Grim Tuesday."

"Yes!" cried Soot. It practically bounced off the ceiling in excitement. Arthur wished it hadn't because he saw its belly, lined with lots of horrid-looking little suckers, like an octopus's tentacle. That was what made the popping sound when it moved.

"That story might be true, but I reckon that still makes it a Nithling," whispered Suzy, as she edged as close as she could to Arthur. "A clever one, so very dangerous. But we need that diamond."

"I'm sick of hanging upside down and getting smashed into? this stupid ceiling," Arthur whispered back. "Let's accept its help for now."

Suzy nodded reluctantly.

"We accept your offer," said Arthur to Soot.

"Fine! Fine!" burbled Soot. "It's a pleasure working with you. Whoever you are."

"I'm Arthur," said Arthur quickly, before Suzy could introduce him as Monday or the Master of the Lower House. "That's Suzy."

"And you'll be thieving just a few odds and ends from the Treasure Tower?" asked Soot. His voice sounded slightly anxious and he clearly took it for granted that Arthur and Suzy were thieves.

"We'll be reclaiming stolen goods!" snapped Suzy indignantly. "Goods as should have been returned to their rightful owner ten thousand -"

"Suzy!" interrupted Arthur. He didn't want Soot to know too much. If the thing did have some strange connection with Grim Tuesday, it was possible that Grim Tuesday might have a connection to it, as well.

"Reclamation," muttered Suzy. "Arthur only wants wot he's supposed to have already -"

"Suzy! Are you ready to do the stickit spell?"

"Oh, stickit fingers, is it?" asked Soot, peering with his silvery eyes at Arthur's hands. "Very nice workmanship. Not made by the Grim himself, but one of his better crafters."

"Stick by day and stick by night, stick for a minute each, left and right," Suzy recited to her hands, keeping herself propped on her elbows and forearms. As she said the words of the spell, the little finger-puppet things on her fingers wriggled and squeaked and began to glow with a fuzzy green light.

Suzy braced against a wingbeat, then slapped both hands against the ceiling and pulled back. One hand stuck by the thumb and two fingers. Immediately Suzy used her other hand to grab both strings that hung around her neck. She pulled them. Wax seals cracked and her two wings instantly blew into a cloud of confetti that was whisked away by the breeze.

Suzy hung from the ceiling and turned to Arthur. She smiled, despite her two black eyes and a bruise on her chin, evidence of the damage done by being constantly beaten into the ceiling.

"That's a relief! I'll be dropping in about forty seconds, so you jump now, Mister Soot, and make sure you keep your distance on the pyramid."

Suzy punctuated her instruction by drawing the copper tube out of her belt.

Soot needed no encouragement. With a single flexing motion, accompanied by lots of tiny popping noises like exploding bubblewrap, it launched itself straight down. Caught a little by the breeze, it plopped onto the eastern face of the pyramid, about thirty feet below the apex.

"Good luck, Arthur," said Suzy. She quickly thrust the copper tube back through her belt to leave her hand free. "I reckon you should -"

The stickits on her right hand suddenly stopped squeaking and sticking.

Arthur watched Suzy fall. He almost couldn't bear to see her hit the pyramid, but she landed on her feet, then bounced and rolled down for a few seconds before she arrested her descent by slapping her sticky left hand on the glass.

She lay still for a few seconds, then rolled back and waved up at Arthur, shouting something he couldn't hear, the words carried away by the breeze and the beat of his wings.

Arthur looked back up, stopped himself yet again from being pushed into the ceiling, and took a deep breath. Then, propping himself so his hands didn't touch the ceiling, he spoke the words of the stickit finger spell. With the last word, he felt the ends of his fingers tingle, and the stickits on his left hand began to squeak.

Arthur used his right hand to pull the right string. He heard the wax crack, then confetti blew up past his ears. A second later, he began to fall, while his remaining wing beat harder and harder, trying to maintain its single-minded upwards thrust.

Arthur expected to corkscrew, but he didn't. Instead his single wing threw him head over heels, which rapidly became a series of wild somersaults.

An eye-blink later, Arthur hit the glass face of the pyramid.

Very, very hard.