Beyond the door – which creaked shut behind them – was a rough-hewn stone chamber the size of a small auditorium, with a very high ceiling. Huge glass bottles as large or larger than the Simultaneous Nebuchadnezzar were lined up against the walls, and in front of them were stacked many smaller bottles, jars, jugs, urns and other containers of glass, metal or stoneware.
There was an open space on one wall between an amber bottle full of a dark viscous fluid and a nine-foot-tall clear glass bottle filled with what looked like light green olive oil. Dartbristle pointed at this gap and they manoeuvred the Nebuchadnezzar to the space, untied it from the trolley, and began to lift it up.
‘Hold it at an angle and lean it on that pot there,’ Dartbristle instructed. ‘Got to put some oil in it, so it doesn’t look out of place. The purloined letter, you know.’
‘The what?’ Arthur asked as Dartbristle picked up a Jeroboam-sized bottle and with great difficulty poured a stream of purple-black oil into the Nebuchadnezzar.
‘Oh, yes, heard that one before,’ said Suzy. She left Arthur holding up the Simultaneous Bottle and wandered over to look at a small, narrow door on the other side of the chamber.
‘Hide a letter by putting it in plain sight, where it will be considered ordinary,’ explained Dartbristle. ‘Good idea. Right, got to slap the cork in and then we’ll be off.’
‘Off where exactly?’ asked Arthur. ‘We need to get some clothes for when we stop being Raised Rats. This gear we have on won’t fit.’
‘Exactly!’ said Dartbristle. ‘Half a mo’.’
He took off his hat, tipped it over, and took out a very small bottle, the kind that might hold perfume, and what Arthur at first thought was a cigarette pack. Dartbristle took a tiny rolled-up scroll out of the pack, checked what was written on the outside of it, unstoppered the bottle, and thrust the scroll in. He then replaced the stopper and put everything back into his hat, which he pulled firmly down upon his head, before also replacing his mask.
‘Smallest Simultaneous Bottle there is,’ he said. He pointed to the Nebuchadnezzar. ‘One hundred and twentieth the size of that. Just had to report your arrival. Saturday’s lot can’t track the small bottle – it’s sorcery on a scale too tiny for them to contemplate. Come on.’
‘I asked where we’re going to,’ said Arthur frostily.
Really, these inferior creatures are galling. They should learn instant obedience –
Arthur shook his head and touched the bag at his wrist, feeling for Elephant.
I am not an angry, puffed-up superior Denizen, he thought sternly. I am human. I am polite. I care about other people.
‘Up to the floor,’ said Dartbristle. ‘To join a Chain Gang. When you’re back in normal shape you’ll fit right in with the Piper’s children. They’re a good bunch; they’ll take you on without too many questions. And they’ll have clothes for you too.’
‘Very good,’ said Arthur. ‘How do we get there?’
‘Service chain-haul. To shift the lubricants. We’ll just grab hold and it’ll take us up.’
He took a small key from his hatband and trotted over to the narrow door. For the first time, Arthur noticed that, like himself, Dartbristle was a tailless Raised Rat. But where Arthur didn’t have a tail because Scamandros couldn’t make one in time, Dartbristle had once had one, as evidenced by the battered stump of a tail poking out through an elegantly sewn hole in his black breeches.
The Raised Rat opened the door and pulled it open, revealing a vertical shaft about twelve feet square. In the middle of the shaft a heavy chain hung down. Each of its links was easily two feet tall and made from four-inch-thick dark iron. It wouldn’t have been out of place on a battleship, Arthur thought.
‘Got to start her up,’ said Dartbristle. He leaned precariously into the shaft and grabbed hold of the motionless chain, which was so heavy it barely rattled.
Arthur poked his head in and looked up and down. The chain extended in both directions as far as he could see into the smoke-shrouded shaft.
Dartbristle continued his instruction. ‘When she starts, you’d best jump and hold on quick, while she’s still slow. Then wait for me to give the word to jump off, and jump. If you wait too long, the chain’ll go over the wheel and take you back down again – or mash you up. Stand by the door . . . ready?’
Arthur and Suzy stood shoulder to shoulder in the doorway. Dartbristle shifted his grip, then swung fully onto the chain. As it took his weight, it fell a few feet, causing a frightful screech and rattle. Then there was a click almost as loud as a gunshot, and the chain began to move upward, taking Dartbristle with it.
Suzy jumped before Arthur could even think of doing so. She landed well, and climbed up a few feet to settle below Dartbristle’s rear paws.
‘I like this!’ she exclaimed, and was gone, the chain already accelerating.
Arthur gulped, and leaped for the chain.
TEN
ARTHUR HIT HIS SNOUT on the chain, but got a good pawhold, gripping the link he held with remarkable strength. The chain was rising up at a speed that felt like forty or fifty miles an hour, the smoky air whistling past them fast enough to plaster Arthur’s long Rat ears against his head.
‘Uh-oh,’ said Suzy.
‘What?’ Arthur asked. He looked up. Suzy was only holding on with one paw while she wriggled her other paw in the air. ‘What are you doing?! Hold on with both hands . . . paws . . . whatever!’
‘That’s it!’ said Suzy. ‘I can’t. My paw is turning back into a hand and it’s not working properly!’
‘Hold on with your teeth!’ called Dartbristle. He demonstrated with his own front teeth, which were at least five inches long and rather impressive.
‘Can’t!’ said Suzy. ‘My mouth has gone weird and wobbly!’
She slithered down the chain toward Arthur. She looked half-Rat and half-human. He climbed up to her, and one human and one Raised Rat foot scraped his head before landing on his shoulders.
‘Almost there!’ called Dartbristle. ‘I’ll count. Jump on three – it doesn’t matter which direction.’
‘Can’t . . . hold on!’
Suzy crashed into Arthur. He gripped the chain with his own huge front teeth and one paw and grabbed her with the other paw. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was holding on to, because her body was rippling and changing, parts of it Raised Rat and parts human. It looked very disturbing and very painful, and her sailor’s clothes were now nothing but rags, ripped and torn by the transformations.
‘One!’
Suzy slipped from Arthur’s grasp, but he swung his feet out and gripped her with his back paws, which in Rat shape were almost as dextrous as his front paws.
‘Two!’
They shot out of the narrow shaft into a huge, dirty warehouse that was two-thirds full of the same kind of oil containers as the chamber below.
‘Three! Jump!’ shouted Dartbristle.
Arthur opened his mouth and pushed off from the chain, using all his strength so he took Suzy with him. The two of them landed on the edge of the shaft, and he had to scrabble and claw his way to safety, dragging Suzy with his back paws.
Above them, the chain continued up through a broad chimney to some other chamber, and Arthur caught a glimpse of the enormous, fast-spinning driving wheel that had pulled the chain.
‘I’m going to kick Scamandros in the shins when I see him next!’ growled Suzy. She stood up and then immediately fell down again as her lower half became human and her top half Raised Rat, so she was totally out of proportion and her centre of gravity was all wrong.
‘I’m sure it will wear off . . . ugh . . . soon,’ said Arthur. He had to pause mid-sentence as a wave of nausea ran through his body. His torso suddenly stretched up several feet, then snapped back again, and his paws turned to four sets of feet.
‘It’d better,’ said Suzy. ‘Thanks, Arthur.’
She crawled away from the shaft, and, after a moment’s thought, Arthur followed her. The rapid changes to his body might topple him in if he stayed too close to the edge.
‘I’ll scout out the lay of the land while you’re sorting yourselves out,’ said Dartbristle. ‘The grease monkeys – that’s what the Piper’s children here call themselves – have a depot across the way, and there’s a drain that connects us here. We can’t cross outside, because there’s a detachment of Sorcerous Supernumeraries watching the depot, but I’ll nip through, have a word with the grease monkeys, and pick you up some clothes.’
‘Don’t tell them our real names,’ said Arthur. He had an unbearably itchy nose, but he couldn’t control his arms enough to be able to scratch it. ‘Tell them . . . uh . . . tell them we’re Piper’s children discharged from the Army and we’ve just been washed between the ears and can’t remember our names or anything yet.’
‘Aye, aye,’ said Dartbristle. He went over to a nearby trapdoor and lifted it. As he did, the sound of rushing water – a great deal of rushing water – filled the warehouse.
‘Got to wait a few minutes,’ he said. ‘This is a flood channel – takes an overflow every now and again. Timing is everything, as they say.’
‘Quiet!’ Arthur suddenly ordered. He sat up as best he could with a rubbery neck and cocked his one Rat ear to listen. Amid the sound of the rushing water, he’d heard a distinctive call, and at the same time he’d felt a familiar twinge inside his head.
‘Arthur!’
It was the Will, calling his name. But the voice was distant and fleeting. Even with the others quiet, all he could hear now was running water, the jangle of the moving chain in the shaft, and the more distant thrum of the subterranean engines.
‘Did you hear that?’ he asked. ‘Someone calling my name?’
‘No,’ said Suzy. She looked herself again. Even the torn rags of her Rat breeches and shirt weren’t too out of place on her, considering her normal choice in clothes. ‘Didn’t hear nuthin’.’
‘Nor I, I fear,’ added Dartbristle. ‘And with my ears, I have won many a Hearing Contest in the fleet.’
‘Never mind,’ said Arthur.
It must have been speaking in my head, he thought. Like the Carp did . . . but from far away. Or perhaps the Will could only escape its bonds for a moment . . .
The sound of the rushing water died away. Dartbristle waved his hat over his head and jumped down. Arthur and Suzy could hear the splash as he landed in the channel.
‘There’s a window up there,’ said Suzy, pointing to a large iron-barred window of dirty, rain-flecked glass that was set into the riveted iron walls about twelve feet up. ‘If I climb up those bottles, and stand on top of that big yellow one, I reckon I could see outside.’
The window let in a subdued greyish light. Looking at it, Arthur realised for the first time that he must have developed better night vision, because he could see quite clearly, even though the warehouse had only one dim lantern hanging from the high ceiling, and the six windows, all on the same wall, did not admit much extra light.
‘Suzy, how light is it in here?’ he asked.
‘In here? If it weren’t for the windows and that lantern, it’d be dark as a dog’s dinner, inside of a dog, and even with the windows and the lantern it’s not much better,’ answered Suzy, who was starting to climb from one bottleneck to another, stepping across an impromptu stairway to her chosen window. ‘But I reckon it is daytime outside, only it’s raining.’
‘What can you see?’ Arthur was now almost himself, apart from his hands, which were still paws and not under his control. They were twitching and wriggling in a very annoying way and he had already slapped himself in the face several times and would have suffered more if he hadn’t got control of his arms and neck and twisted away. His clothes were also reduced to shreds, which was probably just as well, as they would have been terribly restrictive now that he was back to his full height.
‘Rain,’ said Suzy. ‘And not much else. There’s a very tall building, with lots of green lights.’
‘Ow!’ said Arthur as his paws turned into hands but kept twitching, smacking his fingers against the floor. ‘That’s enough! Stop!’
His hands tingled and stopped. Arthur flexed his fingers and gave a relieved sigh. He was himself again, and everything was under control.
Suzy climbed down and both of them went over to look through the trapdoor. There was a rusted iron ladder that led down to an arched passage lined with small red bricks. A thin trickle of water ran down the middle, but from the dampness of the walls it was evident that the water rose nearly as high as the trapdoor when it was in full spate, as it must have been just a few minutes before the Raised Rat went through.
Suzy immediately started to climb down the ladder, but Arthur pulled her back.
‘Hold on! Let’s wait for Dartbristle. We need proper clothes. Besides, there might be more water flooding through.’
‘I was just ’aving a look,’ grumbled Suzy.
‘How’s that cut?’ asked Arthur.
Suzy looked down and felt her chest through her ripped rags.
‘It’s gone!’ she exclaimed. ‘That was at least a four-day cut, that was!’
‘Healed in the transformation, I suppose,’ said Arthur.
‘Maybe I won’t kick old Doc after all,’ said Suzy cheerfully.
‘I’m glad you’re better.’ Arthur knelt down and peered into the flood channel. Though it wasn’t lit at all, he could see at least thirty or forty feet along it. That made him have a second thought about his eyes, and he sprang back up and looked carefully at Suzy. Her eyes looked the same as ever: dark brown, curious and sharp.