Drowned Wednesday(85)

‘How about “thanks for the great kick”?’ said Leaf crossly. ‘I was staying alive, what do you think? Feverfew said he only enslaved Denizens. Or Piper’s children at a pinch, because they’re as hardy as Denizens and a sight cleverer. First off he was going to throw me over the side, till I told him he could get a ransom for me.’

‘From who?’

‘From you, of course,’ said Leaf. ‘When he heard that, he got all interested.’

‘And you told him whatever he wanted to know!’

‘Duh! I didn’t have any choice! He could read my mind for starters.’

‘Sorry! Sorry!’ said Arthur. ‘Let’s start again. Thank you for that wonderful kick. Thank you, Suzy, for an equally fantastic smash with the stick.’

‘That’s better,’ said Leaf. ‘You can make the thanks official by getting me out of here and back home where I now fully realise I belong!’

‘Good idea,’ said Suzy. She pointed up at the sky. ‘If we can get out.’

Arthur looked up. The sun was wobbling in the sky and there were strange, streaky black clouds spreading out from it.

‘Uh-oh. They’re cracks!’

‘This worldlet is collapsing,’ said the Carp, once more being carried by Jebenezer. ‘But we must believe in a way out, for then we shall find one.’

‘The augury puzzle,’ snapped Arthur. He turned around to look for Feverfew’s body. ‘It must be on Feverfew somewhere. We grab that, find someone who can use it among the slaves, take a ship —’ He stopped talking. Where Feverfew’s body had been there was just a big dark stain on the ground and long, thin, useless strips of curling paper.

The ground rumbled under Arthur’s feet. Branches dropped from the trees and the Hot Lake bubbled more ominously. Mud began to spread beyond its shores, oozing oilily across the yellow earth.

‘How long have we got?’ Arthur asked the Carp. ‘And can you do anything to stop it or slow it down?’

‘I have no power over such structures as this. I estimate the worldlet will last between six and twelve hours. Perhaps a little less, perhaps a little more. It depends on the nature of the eventual demise. Slow dissolution by intruding Nothing, or cataclysmic rupture into the Void.’

‘How were you going to get out, Arthur?’ asked Leaf.

‘By submersible,’ said Arthur. ‘One run by the Raised Rats. But it can only fit half a dozen Denizens, and —’

As he spoke, he got out the box and opened it to check the bottle. But the bottle was gone, in its place a pile of green glass dust and a tiny fragment of cork.

‘— they’re not going to be picking anyone up anyway. They’ve already left. Or been destroyed.’

‘So we’re stuck here, which means we’re dead,’ said Leaf.

‘How about the Improbable Stair?’ asked Suzy. ‘We did it before, Arthur. It ain’t so bad. You lead the way and we all troop along behind.’

‘I can’t get onto the Stair without a Key,’ said Arthur. ‘But maybe the Will can —’ ‘Not in this form,’ said the Carp.

‘At least we destroyed Feverfew,’ said Suzy philosophically. ‘Even if it’s one of those whatchamacallit victories where you win and croak before you get all the loot and everything.’

‘A pyrrhic victory,’ said Leaf. ‘Great. There has to be some other way out of here. We need to try and think outside the square. Or laterally. Or with different hats. Beyond the normal . . . only I guess that is normal here. . .’

‘There might be a way out,’ said Arthur slowly. ‘We have to get everyone to the harbour. Onto the Moth.’

‘But it’s an old tub,’ protested Leaf. ‘If you think you can get a ship out, we should take the Mantis!’

Arthur shook his head.

‘We can’t get a ship out. The Rats were sure Feverfew’s Gore-Draken augury puzzle was the only way to find a gate in or out, and I bet that’s true. But there might be a way out using the Moth, because part of the Moth’s insides are actually somewhere else, inside the House.’

‘What?’ asked Leaf and Suzy at the same time.

‘I’ll explain when we get there,’ said Arthur. ‘Jebenezer, you’d better send someone back to the cavern and order the Followers to the harbour before they start spreading out everywhere. Oh, and did anyone stick those two Denizen’s heads back . . . oh, good . . . will they be all right?’

‘They will survive,’ said the Carp. ‘But they will suffer for many months, and they will not be able to drink for a year.’