‘We don’t care wot you want!’ roared the Overseer. He rummaged around in his coat pockets and eventually pulled out a shiny metal disc that was several inches in diameter. ‘Where do you want it?’
‘Oh, the nose,’ grumbled the Denizen. The Overseer grunted and touched the disc to the Denizen’s ear. There was a small flash of light, a sizzling sound, and the disc was hanging off the Denizen’s earlobe just like an oversized earring.
‘I said my –’ Before the Denizen could say any more he was clouted to the ground by the Overseer’s large fist.
Sensibly, the downed Denizen lay there, obviously struggling to keep his mouth shut. The Overseer sighed again and rubbed his knuckles.
‘Now then, anybody else a swiftie?’
Arthur thought very swiftly indeed and raised his hand. The Overseer lumbered down the line.
‘Oh, it’s dropped-on-the-head. You sure you know what we’re talking about? Show us your sole.’
Arthur lay back, slipped off his clog and sock, and showed his bare foot. The Overseer bent down with considerable creaking and grunting and whistled between his front teeth.
‘Completely gone! Orright, get up and I’ll give you a nose-clip.’
‘Great, I’ve always wanted a big round thing in my nose,’ suggested Arthur as he stood up. He instinctively knew better than to ask for it in his ear straight out. ‘Or . . . um . . . jangling on my lip.’
‘Keep yer lip to yerself,’ snarled the Overseer. He held the disc out and laughed as Arthur flinched. Then he touched the disc to the boy’s left ear.
Arthur felt a stab of pain that went right through his ear and into his head, where it bounced around between his eyes. The pain was so intense, he staggered back. He would have fallen if he wasn’t caught by Japeth.
‘Slow and sensitive!’ roared the Overseer. ‘You have to stand on yer own feet here!’
‘He’s one of the Piper’s children,’ retorted Japeth. ‘They’re different. They were mortals once.’
‘No special cases here!’ shouted the Overseer. He threw a punch at Japeth. Strangely, though Japeth didn’t move, the punch missed, as if the Overseer had pulled it on purpose.
Despite his mind being mainly focused on the throbbing pain behind his eye sockets, Arthur still managed to wonder why the Overseer was so loud. The Denizen seemed to have only twomodes of communication: loud and deafening.
‘No more backchat or I’ll steam the lot of you!’ roared the Overseer. He consulted his piece of paper.
‘Orright! You lot are now called Gang 205117. Remember that! Gang 20 –’ He looked at the paper again.
‘Gang 205117. You on the left, you’re Number One in the gang. You’re Number Two, and you’re Three, and Four, and Five, and Six, and Seven –’ ‘He counts well, doesn’t he?’ whispered Japeth, who was still holding Arthur up. But the pain passed quickly, so Arthur managed to stand on his own as the Overseer pointed at him and said, ‘You’re Thirteen.’
Something about that number made the Overseer stop and scratch his head. He looked at his paper again, but whatever he was looking for wasn’t there.
‘Ain’t supposed to be thirteen,’ he said to himself after a long silence. ‘Always twelve in a gang . . .’
‘Maybe they throw the Piper’s children in extra,’ said Japeth, as he put out a hand to stop Arthur from swaying into him. ‘For free. As a bonus, premium, or frill –’
‘Shut up!’ roared the Overseer. ‘You, Number Thirteen! You’re one of the Piper’s children?’
‘Y-yes,’ stuttered Arthur.
‘You’re not a messenger? Piper’s children is always messengers down here.’
‘No,’ said Arthur. ‘I’m not a messenger.’
‘Thrown in as an extra, then,’ said the Overseer with satisfaction. His brow cleared at having solved this mighty puzzle and he looked at his paper again and slowly read out the next instruction, pausing every now and then to puzzle over a word or pick off a spot that had obscured the type.
‘Gang insert-number-here. You are about to begin your journey to the bottom of the Pit! You will be put on the road and Number One will be given a time candle. You must reach the First Way Station before that time candle burns out. If you do not, you will be hunted down and punished. At the First Way Station you will be given another time candle and you must go on to the Second Way Station before it burns out. This system will continue until you reach Down Station, when you will be put in new gangs to work in the Pit. Praise be to Grim Tuesday!’
Finished, the Overseer folded up his paper and put it back in a pocket. Then he fished around in almost every other pocket before finally dragging out a tall white candle marked with red bands a fingerbreadth apart. As soon as the Denizen who was now Number One took it, the candle burst into flame. The Denizens all stared at it, their faces registering shock, horror, and distaste.
Arthur stared at the candle too. Its lighting had brought home to him, and everyone else, that they really were on their way down to the unknown horrors of the Pit.
‘Get going,’ roared the Overseer.
But as Number One stepped out, the Overseer raised his visor and muttered something. It took Arthur a second to realise that, like the Supply Clerk, what he’d said was, ‘Good luck.’
Arthur was surprised that an Overseer would wish them luck, and worried that they would need it. He almost said something as he went past, but the Overseer had already snapped his visor down and the next lot of downcast Denizens was coming out of the smog from up the line.
Arthur’s own gang was heading down, walking in single file next to the railway tracks, with Number One setting a quick walking pace. Arthur hesitated for a moment, but, as before, he had no real choice. He couldn’t go back up. There was only the edge of the Pit on the other side of the tracks.
He had to follow the rest of the gang and descend into the smoky darkness.
SEVEN
NUMBER ONE DIDN’T slacken his pace, and for several hours he didn’t stop at all. Arthur was hard put to keep up at a walk, and occasionally had to run to catch up. As the wall of the Pit rose up on his left and the service road grew narrower and closer to the railway, Arthur began to get an idea of just how vast the Pit must be. The railway and the road that ran next to it were clearly cut into the side of the Pit, following the edge around in one huge spiral from top to bottom. It was impossible to see with all the smog, but the curve was so gentle that Arthur eventually figured that the Pit must be miles in diameter.
Arthur had no idea how deep it was. He asked Japeth, who also didn’t know. Japeth asked Number Eleven in front of him, but that Denizen shook her head and wouldn’t answer. None of the other Denizens talked at all. They just followed Number One with their heads bent, eyes fixed on their clogs or the heels of the Denizen in front of them. Occasionally one would look up anxiously and try to get a clear view of the bands remaining on the time candle.
They walked for hours without seeing anything of interest, save for occasional piles of broken train parts 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 Japeth, and the rest of the gang didn’t stop. So Arthur and Japeth 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 realised he’d fallen asleep walking and that Japeth 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 Japeth. ‘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 Japeth. ‘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 Japeth. ‘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 Japeth 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 apron!’ retorted Japeth. ‘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 Japeth 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,’ Japeth 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.’