‘But what . . . please tell someone where I’ve gone –’
Before Arthur could say any more, the Lieutenant Keeper snapped a salute, turned on his heel to get behind Arthur, and gave him a very hefty push. Arthur, arms cartwheeling, went straight through the strange liquid barrier and once more fell on his hands and knees on the cold stone floor. His left clog came off and clattered away and his hood fell down over his face.
As Arthur struggled with his hood, a bright light shone on him. Arthur looked up and shielded his eyes from a lantern held high by a short, broad figure. The light was shrouded and blurred by the smoke, so for a second Arthur thought he was looking at some sort of pig-man, then he realised it was the thrusting visor of a helmet. The fellow also wore a bronze breastplate over a long leather coat and had a broad, curved sword thrust na**d through his belt. More peculiarly, he had what looked like a miniature steam engine in a harness on his back that was sending a steady flow of smoke up behind his neck, and small bursts of steam from out behind his elbows.
That one small engine couldn’t possibly be the cause of the thick smoke behind the looming figure. It was like a fog, so heavy that Arthur could only make out fuzzy lights and occasional blurry shapes moving in its midst. Noise was also muffled. Arthur could hear a distant roar, as if there was a crowd somewhere, but he couldn’t see it, and there was also a kind of metallic thumping noise that sounded like machinery.
‘There’s another loose one!’ called the lantern bearer to some unseen companions back in the smoke. He sounded like he didn’t have any teeth or there was something wrong with his tongue. Or perhaps it had to do with the pig-helmet.
‘Get up!’ ordered the steaming, smoking figure. ‘You’re in the Grim’s service now and must stand in the presence of all Overseers.’
‘I am?’ asked Arthur as he slowly stood up, speaking in a quavering voice that was only partly an act. ‘I hit my head . . . You’re an Overseer?’
The Overseer swore in a language Arthur didn’t know. The Key had enabled him to speak all languages of the House, but without it, he had only kept the power to understand the lingua domus that Denizens of the House spoke, not the specialised dialects of each demesne.
‘More damaged goods!’ the Overseer continued. ‘Those other Days are always trying it on. Follow me! Obey orders or you’ll get steamed.’
To demonstrate his warning, the Overseer pulled out a large-bore flintlock pistol – the kind pirates and highwaymen had in films – but this one was connected by a hose to the miniature steam engine on his back. He cocked the flintlock, then pulled the trigger. The lock snapped down, sending a spray of sparks into the air and a whistling blast of steam quite close to Arthur. The boy flinched and jumped aside, to the Overseer’s great delight.
‘Har! Never seen the like before, have you? Behave and you’ll keep some flesh on your scrawny bones.’
Arthur jumped again as the Overseer pushed him deeper into the smog. He only had a moment to glance back over his shoulder, to try and fix his location for a later exit. There was a door there, tall and imposing, easily thirty feet high. But it didn’t look like the Front Door. It was made of carved wood and showed scenes of a tall, thin man – presumably Grim Tuesday – making things at a forge and a bench, and being worshipped by hundreds of apron-clad disciples. But the scenes were fixed and unmoving, stained with streaks of grime and pitted as if acid had been sprayed across the surface. Nothing like the constantly shifting, colourful and vibrant images on the Front Door. Clearly this could be the Front Door, because Arthur had come out of it, but it wasn’t at the moment. There had to be some secret to its use.
There would be no easy escape through there.
The Overseer pushed Arthur again, shoving him to the right. Arthur saw that he was heading towards the back of a line of sad-looking Denizens that disappeared into the eddying smog. The line was halted, but there was a sudden brief lurch forward as Arthur joined it, and a momentary lightening of the smog gave him a brief glimpse of their destination: a long mahogany desk, little more than fifteen yards away, where a Denizen was being presented with a leather apron and a cape that looked even drabber than the one Arthur had.
‘Get in line and get yer stuff,’ said the Overseer with a final push. None of the Denizens looked around as Arthur joined the line. They simply shuffled along, their eyes downcast.
Arthur almost called out that he already had his stuff but he kept his mouth shut. The Overseer might not like his stupidity being publicly announced. Or perhaps there was other stuff being given out as well as the leather aprons and capes.
When the Overseer had disappeared back into the deeper smog, Arthur hesitantly tapped the Denizen in front of him on the shoulder. It was a woman, dressed in the sort of strange combination of nineteenth-century clothing that Arthur had seen in the Lower House. This woman had a long, torn dress as the basis of an eccentric outfit that appeared to include at least a dozen scarves wound around her arms and torso.
Arthur’s tap on the shoulder didn’t have the effect he expected. The Denizen shrank beneath his touch, losing six inches in height without bending her knees. She turned around fearfully, obviously expecting someone much scarier than Arthur.
‘Beg pardon, sir,’ she whispered, tugging at her fringe. ‘It wasn’t my fault, whatever it was.’
‘Uh, sorry,’ said Arthur. ‘I think you’ve got me confused with someone else. I’m not one of the Overseers or anything. I’m . . . ah . . . one of you.’
‘An indentured worker? You?’ whispered the Denizen in amazement. ‘Then how?’
She made a gesture with her hand pushing down on her head. She was much shorter than she had been before Arthur tapped her.
‘Oh, that wasn’t me,’ said Arthur hastily, almost babbling. ‘I don’t know how that happened. Don’t think it was anything to do with me. I hit my head and I can’t remember anything.Where are we?’
‘The Far Reaches,’ whispered the Denizen. She was still feeling the top of her head and looking puzzled. ‘Your contract must have been assigned to Grim Tuesday. You’re an indentured worker now.’
‘Sssshhhh!’ warned the next Denizen along. ‘Keep it down! The last person talking got steamed and so did everyone next to him. I don’t want to be steamed.’
‘Where are you from?’ whispered Arthur to the woman ahead of him.
‘The Upper House. I was a Capital Ornamenter Third Class. I don’t understand why I was sent here. I must have done something wrong. Are you one of the Piper’s children, or unnaturally shrunk? It does happen here. I didn’t think it would happen to me so soon –’
‘Quiet!’ hissed two Denizens farther up. ‘Overseer!’
An Overseer lurched out of the smog. He stopped to gaze at the line of Denizens, tapping on his steam-gun with thick, calloused fingers. Arthur saw a ripple of fear pass through the whole line, a kind of slow hunching down that all the Denizens did, while at the same time trying not to show any signs of movement.
The Overseer kept watching for a few seconds, then disappeared back into the smog. As it closed around him, Arthur caught a glimpse of another two or three lines of Denizens, all waiting to be given their basic outfit. There could be even more lines beyond.
No one spoke after the Overseer left. They kept shuffling forward as their turns came. Arthur didn’t tap the woman on the shoulder again, fearful of shrinking her even further, and she didn’t look around.
When he came to the front of the line, the Denizen behind the desk stopped in mid-action as he was about to hand Arthur a pile of clothing. He was short and shaped rather like a turnip, so stopping made him almost topple over. In order to keep his balance he dropped the clothes and grabbed the table, almost oversetting the name plaque that said SUPPLY CLERK in tarnished gold-leaf letters.
‘You’ve already got yours!’ the clerk gasped.
‘Got what?’ asked Arthur. Pretending to be stupid seemed the best defence.
‘Your apron, leather, one of; cape, rain, stabilised mud with hood, one of; and clogs, wood veneer, one pair,’ replied the Denizen. ‘So what do I do?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Arthur. ‘Just let me go on?’
Wherever ‘on’ was. Arthur had been watching carefully, but hadn’t been able to work out what happened to the Denizens in front of him after they got their aprons and capes. They marched around the left side of the table and disappeared into still thicker smog. Arthur also couldn’t work out where the aprons and capes and clogs came from. The Denizen handing them out appeared to pull them from the solid mahogany tabletop.
‘But I don’t know if that’s allowed,’ muttered the supply clerk.
‘You could ask,’ piped up the Denizen who was waiting behind Arthur.
‘Ask?’ hissed the clerk. He looked around nervously. ‘You never ask anything round here. That only leads to trouble.’
‘Well, how about you pretend you never saw me and I just go?’ suggested Arthur.
‘Next!’ said the supply clerk, craning his neck to look to the next person in line. Arthur hesitated for a moment, unsure of where to go. The supply clerk scratched his nose and cupped his hand around his mouth so he could whisper, ‘Around to the left, down the steps.’
Arthur walked around the desk to the left and almost fell down the steps, since he didn’t see them until he was almost on them. They were broken in parts, deeply coated with soot and dangerously greasy. As Arthur cautiously made his way down, he tried to dig up some thoughts out of his brain on how to escape. But no bright ideas flared. All he could think of were the Lieutenant Keeper’s words: Take appropriate risks.
But what risks were appropriate?
Arthur was still wondering about that when he reached the bottomof the steps. It looked no different fromthe area above – dark and smoggy, save for a diffused light ahead that could be ten or fifty yards away. Arthur set out for it, his clogs clacking on the stone floor, occasionally waving his arms to dissipate a thick band of nasty-smelling smog. Fortunately, the spell the Lieutenant Keeper had taught himwas working andArthur was very relieved he’d done it, even though he’d felt stupid sticking his fingers in his nose.
The light came from two lanterns on either end of another wide mahogany desk. This desk was also bare, save for an identical gold-lettered sign that also said SUPPLY CLERK. The particular clerk behind the desk was even shorter and squatter than the one before. He was so shrunken he only came up to Arthur’s waist and was barely visible behind the desk.
As Arthur stopped in front of him, he pulled a smoke-grimed lantern with a badly mended handle out of the desktop, his fingers appearing to actually dip into the wood.
‘Strom lantern, self-oiling, one.’
‘Storm lantern, you mean,’ said Arthur.
‘Says strom lantern in my book,’ replied the clerk. ‘Hurry along and join your gang. Just follow the railway tracks behind me. Unless you hear a whistle, in which case, get off the tracks for a while.’
‘This storm – sorry, strom - lantern is broken,’ Arthur pointed out.
‘They’re all broken,’ sighed the clerk, indicating the lanterns at each end of his desk, which were identical. ‘That’s the pattern. I suppose our lord and master has better things to do than fix up the pattern. No use complaining. I complained once and look what happened.’
Arthur stared at the clerk in puzzlement.
‘Got downsized, didn’t I? I was a foot taller and a Maker Fourth Class before I was stupid enough to complain about badly made strom lanterns. At least I didn’t get sent down the Pit. Now off you go before I get into more trouble.’
‘What’s your name?’ asked Arthur. This clerk might be a useful contact. At least he talked about Grim Tuesday and the Pit.
‘Name! Supply Clerk Twelve Fifty-Two. Now get going before an Overseer shows up! Around the desk and follow the rails.’
Arthur turned to go, holding his smoking lantern high. But before he disappeared into the smog, the supply clerk coughed. Arthur turned back.
‘Mathias. That was my name,’ muttered the clerk. ‘I don’t know who you are, but something makes me want to tell you. Good luck in the Pit. You’ll need it.’
SIX
THERE WERE RAILWAY TRACKS behind the desk, only ten yards away but unseen until Arthur tripped over the first rail. Inspecting them with the lantern, Arthur saw they were made of some dull metal that looked like bronze, and they were set very wide apart, at least eight feet, which he thought was a wider gauge than any railway back in his world. The rails ran on stone sleepers rather than wood or concrete, and the rubble under and between the sleepers was of some strange material that was the shape and colour of woodchips but was very heavy and hard – perhaps another kind of light stone.
The rubble was called ballast, Arthur remembered. Bob’s ninety-four-year-old uncle Jarrett – Arthur’s great-uncle – had worked on the railways all his life and liked his great-nephews and great-nieces to know the proper terminology for everything from the tracks to the trains. He even had recordings of different types of steam engines they’d had to listen to.
But Great-uncle Jarrett wasn’t there to tell Arthur anything about this particular railway, and the boy didn’t know which way to go. The tracks ran to the left and right, disappearing into thick smog in both directions. To try to get a better idea of where he was, Arthur crossed the tracks and walked away at a right angle. Having learned that visibility was effectively nil in the smog and general weirdness of the place, he trod carefully, alert for another stairway or a sudden drop.