Lord Sunday

Eighteen

DAME PRIMUS BENT down to Leaf and touched her sword-hand with one gauntleted finger.

‘Ow!’ Leaf shrieked as a white-hot pain coursed through her fingers and up to her elbow, leaving her arm completely dead. Her nerveless fingers dropped the sword hilt, and the loop fell from her wrist. The sword clattered to the ground, completely out of the Front Door.

‘Oh,’ said Leaf, looking down at the fallen blade. ‘Does this mean I’m not the Lieutenant Keeper anymore? Can I go home?’

‘No and no,’ replied Dame Primus. ‘I have merely detached you from duty in the Door. I have another task for you.’

‘But I don’t want any tasks!’ Leaf protested. She massaged her arm as the feeling slowly returned, accompanied by ferocious pins and needles. ‘I want to go home!’

‘I daresay you do,’ sniffed Dame Primus. ‘But like it or not, you will either do my bidding or you will return to the Door and resume your duties there.’

Leaf clenched one fist. The fingers on her right hand still wouldn’t close.

‘I guess I don’t have a choice,’ she said angrily. ‘What’s this task?’

‘You will take up your sword and go with General Suzy Blue to the Upper House to join with her in capturing sufficient elevator controls to enable our invasion to be launched. Should you survive that, then I expect you will join in our subsequent assault upon the Incomparable Gardens.’

‘I’ll go along with that for now,’ said Leaf, crossing her fingers behind her back. ‘But as soon as I see Arthur, I’ll just get him to send me home. So there.’

Dame Primus smiled, a thin smile that had no good humour in it.

‘As you wish,’ she said. ‘As we do not know where Lord Arthur is, and we cannot find him anywhere within our domains, within the House or out of it, I can only wish that you do find him, and quickly at that. Now, tell me, did Sunday’s Dusk say why he was taking you from your world?’

The sudden change of subject rattled Leaf for a second.

‘No – he just said something about Lord Sunday liking to have all his tools ready before he did some work.’

‘Interesting,’ said Dame Primus. ‘I wonder ...’

She looked up at the ceiling, her gaze distant, as if she looked far beyond the pressed plaster decorations of book fruits growing upon vines of words. Then she bent her head back down and snapped at Leaf.

‘In any event, there is no time to waste. General Suzy Blue!’

‘I’m here,’ said Suzy. She mouthed something under her breath, which Leaf thought might be ‘you old bat’.

‘Your force must strike within the hour, and at least twenty elevator shafts must be open into the Upper House within a further hour of your attack.’

‘Twenty, milady?’ exclaimed Dr Scamandros. The tattoos on his face became tumbling Catherine wheels trailing sparks as they careened across his cheeks and crashed into each other. ‘In an hour? Even if they have been merely blocked, it will take me considerably more time to undo-’

‘You have your colleague,’ said Dame Primus, pointing to Giac. ‘Put him to work.’

‘Even the two of us-’

‘You will do it!’ ordered Dame Primus. Her voice shredded the books in the shelf nearest her, their spine bindings falling to the floor like a nest of serpents suddenly all discarding their skins at once. ‘Don’t you understand? There is no time! Without Arthur here, the Middle House will soon fall, and the Upper House after it. Only the Incomparable Gardens can survive, and we must all be in it just as soon as we can!’

Suzy blinked, and wiped paper dust off her face. Then she saluted. ‘Right, then. Come on, Leaf! Let’s go find our raiding party.’

Leaf, partially stunned herself, bent and picked up the Lieutenant Keeper’s sword. It practically leaped to her hand, instantly banishing the remaining deadness and pins and needles. But, Leaf noticed at once, she could no longer sense what was going on inside the Front Door.

‘Dame Primus!’ she called. The Will, who was already leaving, stopped and turned back. ‘The Front Door ... there are lots of Nithlings in it, and Nothing is leaking in everywhere. It needs to be defended.’

‘Yes,’ said Dame Primus. ‘It must be defended, for what little time remains. I shall dispatch Friday’s Dawn and a force of Gilded Youths. It is unlikely the Piper would try to use the Door. He has no need for it, now that he is within the Upper House.’

‘That reminds me,’ said Suzy quietly, after Dame Primus had stalked out. ‘You get those things I was after, Doc?’

‘What?’ asked Dr Scamandros, who was already deep in a technical discussion of elevator sorcery with Giac, who once again seemed surprised at the return of his long-forgotten knowledge. ‘Oh, yes!’

He rummaged inside his coat and handed over a large brown paper bag that looked like it was full of marbles. Or acorns. Suzy stuffed it in her own coat pocket, though like the doctor’s, there didn’t appear to be room for such a large bag.

‘What’s in that?’ asked Leaf. ‘And what’s with calling me “Admiral”?’

‘Earpluggers,’ said Suzy. ‘Make sure the Piper don’t get us again. As for Admiral, I reckon you need to be a nob to get anything done ’round ’ere. Though I s’pose you is Lieutenant Keeper of the Door ...’

‘Only until Arthur can fix things up,’ said Leaf. ‘And get me home.’

‘We got to do some fighting first,’ said Suzy with unconcealed relish.

Leaf shook her head, and quietly followed Suzy as the Piper’s child rushed past the lines of soldiers and bookbinders.

‘Come on, Giac, Doc!’ Suzy called at the next intersection. ‘Hurry up! We’ve got an elevator to catch!’

Scamandros and Giac caught up just as Suzy reached some stairs and bounded up them, with Leaf following less enthusiastically a few steps behind.

‘But, General!’ called out Giac. ‘Aren’t there going to be more of us going?’

Suzy stopped at the top and tapped her pocket with the bag of earpluggers, as she called them.

‘Of course!’ she said. ‘Why do you think I need all these? And what do you think Bren, Shan, and Athan have been up to? Gathering the Raiders, of course! Come on!’

Suzy’s Raiders, threescore and six Piper’s children arrayed in the most motley combination of weapons, uniforms, and equipment that anyone had ever seen, were gathered in the courtyard, being watched suspiciously by a number of sergeants from the more regular units. The sergeants stood between the Raiders and the supply wagons, and whenever a Piper’s child drifted too close, they grunted warnings and raised their swagger-sticks, bow staves, or knuckle-duster knives.

A short, black-haired, and very dark-skinned Piper’s child in a uniform that was half Regiment and half Horde, with a savage-sword sheathed on his back rather than at his side, began to address the Raiders as Suzy and the others approached from behind him.

‘All right, you lot!’ called out Fred Initial Numbers Gold. ‘Suzy’ll be here any minute. Has everyone got everything they need?’

A chorus of ‘ayes’ and ‘yes, sirs’ with a ‘probably’ and an ‘I hope so’ answered him as Suzy tapped him on the shoulder. Fred spun around and smiled.

‘Wotcher, boss,’ he said. ‘Hello, Leaf.’

‘Hi, Fred.’ Leaf had only met him briefly at Friday’s secret fastness in the Secondary Realms, but like everyone else, she’d liked him immediately.

‘You got the message from Bren, Shan, and Athan, then?’ asked Leaf.

‘Yep,’ said Fred. ‘We’ve got sixty-six Raiders here. Almost all the Piper’s children around Binding Junction, not counting the Gilded Youths. There’s more coming in with the Fleet, but I’m told they won’t be here for hours.’

‘Only sixty-six,’ said Suzy. ‘There should be a lot more survivors from the other demesnes.’

‘That’s all that’s here,’ said Fred. ‘I sent word to the camp at the canal-head, but no one’s come in.’

‘I hope Old Primey isn’t up to her tricks,’ said Suzy darkly.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Leaf.

‘She wanted to kill us all off,’ said Suzy. ‘In case the Piper got a hold of us. Arthur stopped her, but I don’t know ... she’s tricky.’

‘Yeah,’ said Leaf, unable to suppress a shiver. The embodiment of the Will had become much scarier, and certainly Leaf didn’t feel Dame Primus could be trusted.

‘Where are Bren, Shan, and Athan, then?’ asked Suzy, surveying the crowd.

‘Uh, they got arrested,’ said Fred in a loud voice. ‘Something about a missing cannon and a Nothing-powder wagon. Marshal Noon caught them, or they’d have got out of it.’

‘Hmmph,’ Suzy sniffed. ‘They’ll have to cool their heels till we get back. No time to sort things out for them now. ’Ere, hand these around.’

She passed the bag of earplugs over, first taking a pair for herself and Leaf. Leaf sheathed her sword to take them, upon discovering that she had a scabbard at her side, and was relieved that she was able to let go of the sword.

The earplugs were balls of waxed paper that had tiny writing all over them. Suzy stuffed hers into her ears and, after a moment’s hesitation, Leaf followed suit, as did the Piper’s children, who were quickly taking their earplugs from Fred.

‘I can still hear perfectly well,’ said Leaf. ‘They don’t seem to do anything.’

‘They are not supposed to,’ said Dr Scamandros. ‘However, they should block most of the suggestive power of the Piper’s pipe. Still, they will not last long in that circumstance, and immediate removal from the vicinity of the Piper is advised. Particularly as ... ah ...’

‘What?’ asked Suzy.

‘They may suffer spontaneous conflagration if subject to a concentration of the Piper’s sorcery,’ said Dr Scamandros. ‘That is, if the sound is too close.’

‘You mean they’ll catch fire?’ asked Leaf. She felt the ball of paper in her left ear and frowned.

‘More of an explosive burst of fire,’ said Dr Scamandros. ‘Nothing that would kill a Piper’s child. If you do hear the Piper, keeping away would be advisable in any case.’

‘Great,’ muttered Leaf. ‘Do you know if I even need them? I’m not a Piper’s child, and I certainly wouldn’t survive an explosion in my ear hole.’

Dr Scamandros peered at Leaf.

‘Hmmm. I believe the Piper’s music has considerable power over mortals in general, given that is how he brought the children here in the first place,’ he said. ‘But since you are the Lieutenant Keeper, it would perhaps be a greater risk to wear the earplugs.’

‘Right,’ said Leaf. She took the earplugs out and put them in the stupidly small, tight pocket at the top of her white breeches.

‘Is the elevator that’s taking us up ready?’ asked Suzy.

‘Ah, I’m not sure,’ said Dr Scamandros. ‘I prepared one earlier to go to the Upper House, but Dame Primus didn’t tell me who it was for, or how many. It will need a little expansion-’

‘Orright, you nip off and expand it,’ said Suzy. ‘Giac, you go with ’im, give ’im a ’and.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ asked Giac.

‘A hand,’ said Suzy, forcing herself to pronounce the h.

Giac looked at his hands.

‘It means help him,’ said Leaf.

‘Oh, I knew that,’ said Giac. ‘Forgot!’

He hurried off after Dr Scamandros.

‘Where did you get Giac?’ asked Leaf.

‘Upper House,’ said Suzy. ‘’E’s a good sort. Bit forgetful. Needs his self-confidence built up a bit.’

‘So, where is Arthur?’ asked Leaf. ‘Last time I saw him was on Earth, but he was going back to the House.’

‘Tell you on the way to the elevator,’ said Suzy. She raised her voice and addressed the gathered Raiders. ‘Orright! We’re going to zip up to the Upper House and help Doc Scamandros and Colonel Giac open some elevators for the Army to come through. Likely we’ll be fighting Saturday’s lot and the Piper’s Newniths, but if we can make them fight each other, that’ll be better. Any questions?’

A Piper’s child near the front raised his hand.

‘What do ye call a Denizen with a sore foot?’

‘I dunno,’ said Suzy. ‘What do you call a Denizen with a sore foot?’

‘Well, I dunno either,’ said the Piper’s child. ‘That’s why I asked; I heard someone tell the first half of the joke in the elevator on the way up here but never the rest.’

‘Anyone?’ asked Suzy as Leaf groaned and ran her hand through her hair, unable to believe she was about to go on an incredibly dangerous mission with a bunch of ancient lunatics who looked like children and who all had the same sense of humor as a seven-year-old.

No one knew the actual punch line, though there were several suggestions, including ‘whatever you like, because they won’t be able to run fast enough to catch you’ and ‘an angler,’ which provoked questions about what fish had to do with sore feet and not very well received explanations about double meanings and ‘not being able to walk straight’.

‘Best ask Doctor Scamandros,’ Suzy concluded. ‘Any other questions? About what we’re going to do, I mean?’

She waited for a few seconds, but there were no more questions.

‘Let’s go, then,’ said Suzy with a negligent wave of her hand. The watching sergeants scowled as Suzy’s Raiders ambled off after her, in no particular order and with no one purposefully in step with anyone else.

As the crowd opened up a little, Leaf saw that in addition to their many and varied personal armaments – and some of them were liberally festooned with weapons – a trio of hooded-and-cloaked Piper’s children who’d come out from the shadow of the inner wall were pushing a small cannon and a wheelbarrow loaded with small Nothing-powder kegs and cannonballs. Suzy saw them too, and looked at Fred, who winked.

‘Guess they didn’t stay arrested,’ he said quietly.