Grim Tuesday Part 6

They walked for hours without seeing anything of interest, save for occasional piles of broken train parts piled up next to the line. The Grim's train clearly suffered a lot of broken axles, snapped connecting rods, corroded pistons, chipped wheels, and other damage. Probably because it was affected by Nothing at the bottom of the Pit, Arthur guessed.

He would have liked to look at the various parts, but the gang's first stop only came when Number Six tripped out of her own clogs and fell down, knocking over Number Five, who knocked over Number Four. But they only stopped long enough for the three Denizens to get up and get their clogs back on.

An hour later, Arthur deliberately kicked off a clog himself in order to get a rest, but being right at the back no one noticed except j.a.peth, and the rest of the gang didn't stop. So Arthur and j.a.peth had to run to catch up.

That took most of Arthur's remaining energy. He knew he didn't need food and water in the House, but he still felt hungry, thirsty, and depressed. He tried to shake off the depression, telling himself it was only because he was tired. But that was the problem. He wasn't just tired. He was exhausted. He got wearier and wearier, and they just kept on walking.

Thoughts of giving in and signing over the Key and the Mastery of the Lower House started to well up as Arthur walked and walked and walked. He simply couldn't think of anything else to do except give up.

He managed to beat those defeatist thoughts back for a while when they left the smog behind and he felt a bit better. He even ran up to look at the time candle, ignoring the glares of Number One for getting out of line. But the feeling better only lasted for a few minutes. Arthur quickly fell back to his rear position, disturbed to see that the candle had burned down to only the second band out of twelve. According to his watch, which was going backwards but otherwise seemed to be tracking time okay, they had been walking for six hours. With ten bands of the candle to go, that was another thirty hours walking.

Even without the smog it was still pitch dark. The only light came from the gang's Strom lanterns and the time candle. To make things worse, they soon descended into wet, hanging clouds that were cleaner than the smog but cold and clammy.

Thirty hours of walking to go. I can't do it. But I have to I have to Arthur was already too tired to think about how he could get out of his current predicament, but the thought of having to keep going for another thirty hours made him try harder. He tried to look around more, just in case some opportunity came up.

Perhaps I could hide, and sneak back up later, he thought. Or somehow ambush an Overseer and take his clothes and disguise myself. Only I haven't seen any Overseers down here so far or there might be a telephone booth and some coins the Grim didn't notice, and I could call up the Will and be rescued The sound of a clog falling off broke into Arthur's daydream. He realized he'd fallen asleep walking and that j.a.peth wasn't in front of him, but next to him, steering him by his elbow.

It was his own clog that had fallen off. He bent down to put it back on, moving so slowly he felt like he was still in his dream.

"How long asleep?" mumbled Arthur. Everything looked the same. Denizens disappeared into clouds in front of him, led by an indistinct figure carrying a flickering light. There was the railway track to the right. There was another pile of broken wheels and bits and pieces.

"I don't know," said j.a.peth. "You are brave to be able to sleep here while walking. I doubt if I will sleep again for weeks."

"I'm just worn out," mumbled Arthur. "Not a Denizen."

"Not a Denizen?" asked j.a.peth. "But even the Piper's children have become Denizens, of a kind"

"M' not even that. Mortal. Been in House only once before"

"But you have power! I felt it when we shook hands. You said you were on a mission "

Arthur shook his head to wake himself up. He was so tired he couldn't even get his mouth and tongue to form words properly. He slapped himself on the face and felt a little spark zap across from his palms. It woke him up a bit.

"It's hard to explain," he told j.a.peth. "Grim Tuesday is my enemy, and I really do want to help everyone escape from this Pit. But I have to get out myself first."

"There can be no escape from the indenture," said j.a.peth gloomily, fingering the string around his neck. "Indentured workers are always returned to the Far Reaches, even if you could get into another part of the House. There is no escape, getaway, deliverance, or emergence. We're down here for eternity. Forever, plus the statutory day."

"There must be some way," said Arthur. He felt a little refreshed, either from slapping himself or from his walking sleep. But only a little. A deep weariness lurked in every bone and muscle, waiting to rise up and overwhelm him. "Can't the indenture be cut off or something?"

"Quiet back there!" ordered Number One. He seemed to think he was in charge because he held the candle.

"Stick your nose down your own ap.r.o.n!" retorted j.a.peth. "We'll talk as much or as little as we like."

Number One grumbled something back, but said no more. However, he did increase the pace, with the other Denizens obediently following. It was just fast enough for Arthur to have to run every twenty paces or so, rather than every half hour. Soon, he felt a familiar tightness in his right lung. His throat was also a bit sore and his nose puffy. The spell the Lieutenant Keeper had taught him must be wearing off.

"Even if you could cut off my indenture tag, it wouldn't help," said j.a.peth as he easily ran next to Arthur. "Grim Tuesday has a master indenture roll, containing every Denizen's contract and listing what we owe and earn. An individual tag will simply re-form if it is damaged or destroyed. The only way out would be if one of the other Days bought out our contracts. And that will never happen. Our Days 'transferred' us to the Grim in the first place, though it would be more accurate or to the point to say we were sold, traded, or bartered."

"There has to be a way," muttered Arthur. At least he wasn't indentured. Not that it mattered when he was heading in precisely the wrong direction for any chance of escape. He was also totally exhausted, with one lung seizing up, the other sore from taking the load, and his nose streaming. It was all he could do to think about putting one foot in front of the other, let alone anything farther ahead.

"By the way," j.a.peth asked, "where did you get your streaming nose? That would be worth a fortune back in the Middle House."

"I told you I'm a mortal," sniffed Arthur. "I've got a cold."

"Oh," said j.a.peth. "A cold! Can you transfer it? Then maybe you could bribe an Overseer "

Arthur shook his head. He had no idea how to transfer his cold, besides maybe sneezing on j.a.peth, which wasn't something he was about to do. He couldn't understand why the Denizens were so keen to have mortal ailments. Except, of course, that for them they were purely cosmetic, since they didn't feel sick.

Half an hour later the constant wetness of the cloud began to turn into actual rain, and the gang paused briefly to put on their capes. The rain soon became a steady drizzle, punctuated by the occasional heavy, stinging drop. One fell on Arthur's hand, burning his skin as it slid off with a sizzling noise. But as with the Scoucher's cut, the burn healed within a few minutes, leaving no sign.

Nothing rain, thought Arthur dully. That's all I need.

The stinging drops kept coming down every few minutes, but most fell on Arthur's hood or cape, leaving pockmarks in the stabilized mud. Arthur was so tired he hardly noticed them. He managed to keep going, but only because j.a.peth was almost carrying him.

Even with j.a.peth's help, they were falling farther and farther behind, the candle flame borne by Number One often out of sight, and Number Eleven a dim figure occasionally glimpsed through the rain.

"I can't go any farther," Arthur finally gasped when they lost sight of Number Eleven altogether. "You go. I'll catch up when I've had a rest. I can hide from the Overseers behind all this junk."

j.a.peth lowered the boy down next to yet another pile of broken train parts. Arthur leaned back against a pair of bogey wheels and his head sank down on his knees. He halfheartedly wiped his nose on his sleeve and thought about casting the breathing spell again. But he was so tired After a while, he realized that j.a.peth was still standing in front of him.

"Go!" said Arthur weakly. "I'll work out some way to catch up. You don't want to get steamed."

"Perhaps a steaming is less to be feared than descending farther into the Pit," said j.a.peth slowly. "I have seen only despair and fatalism among the Denizens here. But you offer some hope. You are not indentured. You have some latent power. I shall take my chances with you. Rest, and I will watch. Stand guard. Shelter. Shield you. Shepherd. Mind. Watch. Tend. Keep vigil. Watch and ward. Patrol. Do the rounds"

j.a.peth kept talking, but Arthur felt himself fall far away, the Denizen's voice receding into some distant s.p.a.ce. In less than a second, Arthur was asleep.

He woke up to a peculiar whirring sound and the hum of the railway lines. j.a.peth was shaking him by the shoulder.

"Arthur! Wake up! Something is coming down the line!"

Arthur sat up and immediately started coughing. A racking cough that started deep in his chest and rolled up through his throat. A cough that kept going and going, as if his body was desperate to get something toxic out of his system.

Still coughing, Arthur plunged his fingers into his nose and his thumb into his mouth. Then, in between racking coughs, he managed to sputter out the words of the Lieutenant Keeper's spell. But the coughing continued, his nose kept running, and Arthur was overcome by fear. The spell hadn't worked and he was going to choke to death here in the ghastly Pit Suddenly the coughing stopped and Arthur's nose dried up at the same moment. He took a deep breath, luxuriating as it spread through both lungs. He felt fine, though very stiff in the legs. According to his backwards watch, he'd been asleep for three hours.

"We must hide! Conceal ourselves! Take cover!" j.a.peth warned.

Arthur looked up the track and a large Nothing-laced raindrop hit his cheek, almost splashing his eye. He swore and wiped it off, ignoring the painful stinging sensation, and looked again, careful to keep his hood well forward.

He saw two fuzzy lights coming down the railway line, lights no stronger than his strom lantern, and only about a foot apart. They were too close together and didn't look bright enough to be the lights of a train. The whirring sound was also too quiet, and the rails were only humming very softly, nothing like they would for a full-sized locomotive and its load.

Nevertheless, Arthur hurried around the pile of sc.r.a.p metal and hunkered down with j.a.peth behind an upturned bench seat thrown from a carriage, its horsehair stuffing sprayed out like a strange plant. They put their lanterns down the central hole of a huge driving wheel, covered it with a steel damping plate, and sat completely still in the darkness.

Arthur held his breath, fear rising as he stared at the lights and the dark shape behind them.

Chapter Eight.

Arthur peered over the upturned bench at the approaching vehicle. Shrouded by the rain and disguised by a nimbus of diffused light, it was extremely hard to make out what it was. Only one thing was for sure it wasn't a train. In fact, as it closed in, Arthur saw that it was a single wheel about six feet high and two feet wide, running on only the inner rail of the track. Or more exactly, it was two wheels, one inside the other. The inner wheel didn't move. The lights were fixed to the sides of this inner wheel, and there was someone or something sitting inside it. The outer wheel rotated around the inner wheel.

Arthur couldn't see any sign of a steam engine or anything else to make the wheel go. Perhaps it simply ran downhill and could never return to the top. It also seemed an unlikely conveyance for Grim Tuesday, which was a relief. It would be hard for anyone much taller or fatter than Arthur to fit inside the wheel.

Mind you, Arthur thought, Grim Tuesday might not be like the picture on the station door. . . . He might really be small and slight or not even have a human shape.

"What is that?" whispered j.a.peth.

"I don't know," Arthur whispered back. He stared at the approaching wheel. Was it his imagination, or was it slowing down?

"It's stopping! Halting! Arresting! Ceasing to proceed forward!"

"Ssshhh! Don't panic," hissed Arthur. He bent down and picked up a long tube of Nothing-pocked copper, perhaps a former steam-pipe or fire-tube. It was slippery and wet, but felt comfortingly heavy in his hand.

"What if whoever's in it has a steam-gun?" j.a.peth asked.

"Ssshhh," Arthur hissed again. "Maybe it will go past."

But the wheel stopped about ten yards away. The rail stopped humming, allowing Arthur to hear clearly the strange, low sound that still came from the wheel. It took Arthur a moment to recognize it as the constant tick of clockwork. That immediately brought unpleasant memories of the clockwork creatures from the Coal Cellar The figure inside the wheel stretched one leg out, then another. The movements seemed normal, not clock-work, but Arthur clutched his metal pipe more tightly. Once again, defeatist thoughts rose up in his mind. Perhaps he should step out and surrender, ask to be taken to Grim Tuesday No! Arthur fought back. I'm not giving in. I'm not surrendering, and I'm not going to sit and wait to be steamed or cut to bits.

The wheel-rider slipped completely out and stood up behind the left lantern of the wheel. The light, spread and blurred by the rain, made it impossible to gauge the size of the person or what he or she was doing. But Arthur couldn't see any steam wafting out or the shine of an unsheathed blade.

The dim figure raised one hand. Arthur tensed, then as a bright light flashed from the end of the wheel-rider's index finger, he leaped up and rushed forward, swinging the metal tube over his head.

"Haaahh!" he cried, attacking.

"Arthur!" a voice called out.

Arthur slid to a stop and almost fell over. He lowered his copper pipe and squinted at the light, brushing away the rain from his face with the back of his left hand.

"Suzy?" he asked.

"Of course it is, stupid! Who were you expecting?"

Arthur smiled and shook his head as Suzy Turquoise Blue stepped in front of the lantern. She looked the same as ever, bright-eyed and seriously disheveled. The ubiquitous ap.r.o.n of the Far Reaches was simply thrown over her multiple shirts, and one corner of her mulberry-colored waistcoat poked out from under the ap.r.o.n. Her battered top hat was missing, and in its place she wore an odd little red pillbox with a shiny black strap under her chin. There was also a large cleft stick thrust in her belt, with a piece of parchment stuck in the cleft.

Arthur shook his head again, but his smile got wider. Suzy was not only a great friend and ally, she had a knack for turning up just when Arthur really needed some help. And as far as he could tell, she was never downhearted. Not even here, in Grim Tuesday's Pit.

I wasn't expecting anyone friendly," Arthur said. "But I'm very glad to see you."

"'Course you are," said Suzy. "So would I be, down this dismal hole. Who's your mate?"

Arthur looked over his shoulder to where j.a.peth was standing hesitantly behind the upturned bench.

"j.a.peth. It's all right, j.a.peth, she's a friend of mine," Arthur called. "Come out."

He turned back to Suzy and added, "j.a.peth was in my work gang. He helped me stay alive, I guess. But what are you doing here?"

"Looking for you, of course," said Suzy. "Ow!"

A heavy drop of Nothing-tainted rain had fallen on the back of her hand. She wiped it off with a grimace, ignoring the red welt it left behind. Unlike Arthur and j.a.peth, she wasn't wearing a stabilized mud cape.

"Got to get my umbrella," she muttered, rummaging inside her shirts. She brought out and opened up a small multicolored paper umbrella of the kind used to ornament c.o.c.ktails. For a moment it just looked ridiculous, then it exploded into a full-sized umbrella, much as the Atlas did.

The Atlas!

Arthur had a momentary panic as he scrabbled under his cape and ap.r.o.n for his shirt pocket. For an instant he thought he'd dropped the Atlas back on the railway! A second later his hand closed on the rough cloth cover and he sighed in relief.

"Heart attack?" asked Suzy curiously. "Thought you were too young."

"No, just checking the Atlas," said Arthur. He looked at Suzy again and for a moment felt like giving her a hug, he was so relieved to see her. But the moment pa.s.sed. He offered his hand instead. Suzy took it.

"Delighted, I'm sure," said Suzy formally. "See, I've been learning me manners."

As they shook, the nail on her index finger suddenly shone with a very bright, clear light, almost blinding Arthur. Suzy let go immediately and tugged on the finger till the joints cracked and the light went out.

"Supposed to stop once I found you," she grumbled. "Dame Primus that's her as used to be Part One of the Will fixed it so it would get brighter when you were close."

"But how did you know I was here?" asked Arthur.

"That'd be telling," said Suzy, holding her index finger up to her nose. It lit up once again and she flinched. "Stupid finger spells! That Will was a frog for too long if you ask me."

"But how did you know?" Arthur repeated.

"Well, after the telephone was cut off I thought I'd nip over to your world, only Dame Primus wouldn't let me go, cos of the Original Law. I said, 'It's a pretty dumb Law when you can't do anything but everyone else can' and Dame Primus said, 'You'll go to your room, young lady, for the next decade if you're not careful, trouble or no trouble,' and I said, 'Arthur's the Master, he made me Monday's Tierce, you're only the Steward,' and then she sent me to my room. Only I climbed out through the chimney and Sneezer let me use Seven Dials to have a look at what was going on, and I saw the Grotesques had gone through, and then the Scoucher, and I wanted to warn you but your head is too thick or something and won't receive waking dreams, so Sneezer helped me ask the Atlas and it steered you to that girl Leaf who I met when we were on the Improbable Stair, and then I sent a dream to her telling her where the Grotesques had opened their side of the Door in your world, and I Where was I?"

She took a deep breath and rushed on.

"Oh we figured Leaf could tell you and then you could use that door to get back into the House. But then I thought maybe I'd better go and help you out anyway, so I went to see the Lieutenant Keeper and asked him to let me through, but he wouldn't, so then I sneaked back into the Dayroom and looked through Seven Dials again and saw you were going through the Door, so I went down to the Atrium to meet you. But when you didn't show up, I knocked on the Door and talked to the Lieutenant Keeper.

"I sez to him, 'Did Arthur come through the Door?' and he sez, 'Yes,' and then I waited and he didn't say anything so I sez, 'Where did he go?' and he sez, 'The Far Reaches,' and I sez, 'How long ago?' and he sez, 'Two hours by House Time,' and then I sez, 'Let me go through too,' and he sez, 'No,' and I sez, 'Why?' and he sez, 'Even if I could permit it, you can only use that door from the Secondary Realms. Here, you have to go through the House.'

"So I went back to Dame Primus and after a bit of shouting and carrying on she sez, 'Grim Tuesday deserves to have you on his doorstep,' and she fixed me up with all the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs to help you out, like this fingernail thing."

"Right," said Arthur weakly. After having hardly spoken for a day it was almost too much to listen to Suzy, who was clearly in a talkative mood. "So how did you get into the Far Reaches and get that that wheel and everything?"

"The Grim uses the Piper's children for messengers," said Suzy, brandishing the cleft stick with the parchment in the end. "Monday's Noon, that used to be Dusk, did a transfer for me to the Middle House, and then a friend of his there sold my contract to Grim Tuesday so I could join his messengers. Then I swapped with Ned to come down the line because my finger glowed when I went near the railway."

Arthur shook his head, his new earring jangling an-noyingly against his neck. He was still tired and sore and it was all a bit too much to take in. Then he realized the significance of what Suzy was saying.

"You're indentured!" he said. "That means you're trapped here!"

"Only temporarily," replied Suzy with a shrug. "Once you find Part Two of the Will and take over from Grim Tuesday, then you can release me from my indenture."

"And me," said j.a.peth. "Sir. Excellency. Eminence. Highness. Majesty. Whoever you actually are."

"He's Monday," said Suzy. "The Master of the Lower House."