Lady Friday

Chapter Eleven

Arthur’s headlong flight ended suddenly with an impact that sent him momentarily to his knees. But the pain of running full tilt into what felt like a giant mattress-but was probably a pile of old vellum manuscripts-helped clear his head a little. In that moment of brief respite, he clutched at the Key on his belt, and though he did not order it to do anything, as soon as his fingers closed on the cool ivory, he felt the fear dissipate. He could still hear the horrible shrieking but he wasn’t driven mad by a complete and unreasonable fear.

“Hold on!” shouted Arthur. He was kicked and pushed by Suzy and Fred as they tried to get past him, still fleeing from the scream. “It’s some kind of sorcery. It’s just a noise!”

His words had no effect. Suzy slid by and he felt the impact of Fred’s elbow as he barged past. Then he was alone in the dark and they were crashing and banging their way ahead of him.

“Stop!” yelled Arthur, but he knew they wouldn’t unless he actually used the power of the Key on them.

Instead he followed them at a slower pace, keeping one hand on the Key while he held his other hand out in front of himself to feel the way.

Behind him, the screaming drew closer and then was suddenly softened by the rumble of part of the wharf’s piles of paper falling over, followed by angry snorting, ripping, and shoving noises as something tried to bull its way through the now-blocked passage.

Arthur felt a different fear then, but it was a rational fear. He could keep it in bounds, while trying to go just a little bit faster without running into something and knocking himself out.

He was thinking about that when he suddenly felt his way around a corner and emerged into unexpected lantern light. A single strom lantern (as they were called in the House due to a clerical error) hung from a bamboo hatstand in the far corner of a chamber about as big as his living room back home, with ragged walls of piled-high papers, a roof made of stitched-together hides covered in the sticklike writing of some strange alphabet, and a window that was haphazardly framed by two stacks of slates and a hollow log, all of them written on.

Suzy and Fred were still trying to run away but with little success, as Ugham had caught them and was holding them under his arms. At the same time he was kicking a

Denizen who was trying to hit him with a long wooden pole that had a hook on the end. Three other Denizens were hastily climbing out through the window, and beyond them Arthur could just make out the debris-filled waters of the canal.

“Back, back, foul fiend!” chanted the Denizen with the pole, and then with a half-glance behind him, “Wait for me!”

“Who dost thou call fiend?” bellowed Ugham. He kicked the pole down and advanced on the Denizen. “The fiend is without, or so that noise would attest. But where do your fellows flee?”

The Denizen looked at his empty hands, then turned and ran. Unfortunately the marble slab that was the windowsill tilted back as he jumped and he fell back down in front of Ugham, who put one heavy foot upon his chest.

At the same time, there was an immense crash somewhere back along the wharf, and the pitch of the screeching went still higher, so high that Arthur winced and a set of four recently emptied fine porcelain teacups near the window hummed and vibrated before suddenly exploding.

Just as the cups shattered, there was a very loud splash and the screaming stopped. The sound of falling bits and pieces continued, but it still felt strangely quiet.

“The creature has fallen through these rotten boards,” said Ugham, “into the canal.”

He stamped his foot in emphasis and the Denizen groaned. Suzy, finding herself in the crook of Ugham’s left arm, tilted her head back with a puzzled look. Fred, under the Newnith’s right arm, had a similar expression.

“You can put me down, Uggie,” said Suzy. “I s’pose I got ensorcerated into running away.”

“It was the sound,” said Fred as Ugham set the two Piper’s children gently on their own feet. He shook his head as if a remnant of the scream was still lodged inside. “I had to get away from the sound. What was it anyway?”

“I don’t know,” said Arthur. “Hopefully it’s drowning. Are you a Paper Pusher?”

This question was addressed to the Denizen who was groaning under Ugham’s foot. He didn’t answer, but continued to moan.

“I asked if you’re a Paper Pusher,” said Arthur. “I’m Arthur, the Rightful Heir to the Architect, and I need your help.”

Still the Denizen didn’t answer, but he stopped groaning. Then, as Ugham grunted and began to press down harder with his foot, he quickly spoke.

“I’m not saying one way or another. Maybe I is a Paper

Pusher and if I am, why then, I’d be responsible for this here wharf number seventeen, stretch twelve, and I’d be a fully paid-up Branch Secretary of the Noble and Exalted Association of Waterway Motivators, and you’d not be and you’d have no business on the canal.”

“What’s your name and precedence within the House then, cully?” asked Suzy.

“Peter Pirkin, Primary Paper Pusher, First Class, 65,898,756th in ... Oh, you’re a sharp one. Got me proper, didn’t you?”

“Okay, Peter Pirkin Paper Pusher,” said Arthur. “I really am the Rightful Heir to the Architect, and that means the Middle House as well and everything and everyone in it. I need you to help me get up to Lady Friday’s Scriptorium.”

“Can’t,” said Pirkin. “And won’t.”

“Why can’t you?” asked Arthur. “We’ll deal with won’t in a minute.”

“Can’t, because the canal only goes up to the Top Shelf.”

“Well, you can take us that far at least,” said Arthur. “Now-”

Before he could go on, the floor under his feet suddenly shuddered, and the timbers lifted up several inches before subsiding again. This phenomenon was immediately repeated, this time with a horrible grunting, gargling sound.

“It didn’t drown,” said Fred.

“It’s under us,” said Suzy.

“Let me go!” called out Pirkin. “Let me go!”

“Where?” asked Arthur. The floor was creaking and splintering all around them.

“The raft!”

Ugham picked up Pirkin by the collar of his paper-patchwork smock and ran to the window. He looked out and immediately had to dodge a thrown bronze tablet shaped like a large piece of toast.

“A strange flat vessel does indeed lie a jump away,” he reported, in between ducking or dodging thrown House records of various media.

“You have to take us too!” said Arthur to Pirkin. He jumped aside as several floorboards near him suddenly exploded into splinters. A long, extremely sharp, straight spear-or horn-of pure Nothing contained within a spiral wrap of silver wire thrust through and up at least six feet before it was withdrawn. “All of us go, or all of us stay!”

“We can’t!” squealed Pirkin. “You have to be a member of the association to ride the rafts!”

“We’ll join!” shouted Arthur as the Nothing horn smashed through the floor again. This time he saw the head of the beast as well. It was a Nithling, one of the elemental kind made of pure Nothing, in this case contained within an armature or framework of silver wire. It looked like a huge crazy wire sculpture, a mad cross between a unicorn and a wild boar, but with roiling dark matter inside the wire instead of empty space.

It didn’t have any eyes or any visible mouth.

“You can’t just join-”

“Throw him on the raft and jump!” ordered Arthur. He had the Key in his hand now, in its sword form, and as the boar-unicorn smashed through again, he struck at its horn.

It was like hitting a stone, but even though Arthur’s hand was jarred by the impact, the Nithling beast felt it much more. Its horn bent from the blow, it squealed, horribly loud and high-pitched, and withdrew back under the wharf.

Arthur turned, climbed through the window, and jumped to the raft below, almost missing it as it was already moving away. Six Paper Pushers were shoving with their poles, the looks on their faces indicating that they were more concerned with putting some distance between themselves and the Nithling creature than anything else, including a late addition to the crew.

The seventh Paper Pusher was Pirkin. He was picking himself up with more assistance than he probably wanted from Ugham, while Suzy and Fred stared back at the collapsing wharf and the horrible beast that was climbing up through the records to shriek after them.

Fortunately the Paper Pushers knew their business well, and a swift current picked up the raft and raced it away, propelling the odd vessel several hundred yards out into the canal, with the wharf and the beast quickly lost in the gloom.

The current of textually charged water propelled the vessel, Arthur saw, because the raft was entirely covered in writing of various kinds and was in fact made up entirely of House records. In this case, hundreds or perhaps thousands of bundles of papyrus tied together with ribbon that was itself printed on, the raft then given greater structural strength by the addition of bracing struts that were long, thin planks covered in something that must be writing, though to Arthur it looked more like random woodworm trails.

The whole raft was about the size of half a football field, though parts of it looked as if they had sunk lower than intended and were waterlogged or actually submerged. The part that held Arthur’s interest, though, was a but right in the middle. A solid-looking construction of marble tablet walls and a writing slate roof, it had a chimney with smoke coming out the top and soft yellow light attested to the presence of one or more strom lanterns.

Arthur started for this shelter immediately, this time not even trying to suppress the shivers that were emerging from somewhere inside him and making his hands and teeth shudder. Part of it was cold, and part of it was shock. He’d seen some terrible things in the House, but the boar-unicorn was one of the worst.

I hope it can’t swim, thought Arthur, quickly followed by, I hope it isn’t coming after us ....

“Stop,” said Peter Pirkin, raising one finger in Arthur’s face. “All right, you’re on the raft, we’ll let that go by, even if it is against both the rules and the articles of the association. But you are definitely not coming into the meeting house.”

“Yes we are,” said Arthur simply. He brushed some snow off his shoulder and walked on. “I’m too cold to argue.”

“Cold? This isn’t cold!” said Pirkin. “Why, we’ve been in currents so cold that only the moving text keeps the ice broken and then only long enough for the raft-”

“Stand aside, please,” chattered Arthur. Pirkin had kept walking backwards in front of Arthur and now stood in front of the door to the but-a door made from a single piece of bark with pictograms on it.

“No, I really have to draw ... Oh, stuff it. No one cares anyway. Look at all the help I get from my fellow members of the association! It’s bad enough when they won’t pay their dues, but as for repelling unauthorized passengers ...”

Pirkin gestured to the half-dozen other Paper Pushers who were watching with interest from what they hoped was a safe distance, resting on the poles they had used to push off from the canal’s shallower waters. Big broad-bladed paddles lay next to them, which would make quite useful weapons, but they made no move to pick them up.

Suzy waved to them, and after a moment, four of them waved back.

“Come in, then,” said Pirkin with a sigh. “You’d better get out of those wet things and put on some proper written-up clothes anyway. Never know when we might all end up in the water.”