After only a dozen paces Arthur had to stop. The passage between the records was getting dark, too dark to see. He could hear Ugham moving up ahead somewhere, but the way was too twisty and difficult to navigate without being able to see.
‘Have either of you got some kind of light?’ whispered Arthur. Suzy was right behind him now, and Fred close behind her.
‘Only the spear,’ Fred whispered back. ‘But there’s too much paper to turn it on. Start a fire for sure.’
‘No light,’ said Suzy. ‘But I can see a bit in the dark. Not as much as the Newniths, though. The Piper made them special. They like the dark. Maybe Uggie will find a lantern and come back.’
‘We can’t just let Ugham go ahead,’ said Arthur. ‘What if there is a Trustee at the other end? Or a top-level Denizen sorcerer?’
Suzy drew breath to answer, but whatever she was about to say was completely drowned out by the sound of a terrible, inhuman scream behind them. A scream that they immediately and instinctively recognised as a cry of rage. A vengeful sound that drove all rational thought out of the three children’s heads.
The scream rose to an almost unbearable pitch, then fell away in a series of horrible grunts before starting to rise again. Arthur was already running, feeling the walls and the way ahead with his hands to find the passage. He felt Suzy crashing along behind him and Fred shouting something incomprehensible that was probably ‘Run!’
All of them knew the scream had come from somewhere outside the wharf. Somewhere behind them. Every instinct told them to get to the end of the wharf as fast as they could.
Whatever lay ahead, hidden under the hilly peninsula of papers, tablets, hides, and papyrus scrolls, had to be less dangerous than whatever was prowling around outside, screaming its rage at the sky.
Eleven
ARTHUR’S HEADLONG FLIGHT ended suddenly with an impact that sent him momentarily to his knees. But the pain of running full tilt into what felt like a giant mattress – but was probably a pile of old vellum manuscripts – helped clear his head a little. In that moment of brief respite, he clutched at the Key on his belt, and though he did not order it to do anything, as soon as his fingers closed on the cool ivory, he felt the fear dissipate. He could still hear the horrible shrieking but he wasn’t driven mad by a complete and unreasonable fear.
‘Hold on!’ shouted Arthur. He was kicked and pushed by Suzy and Fred as they tried to get past him, still fleeing from the scream. ‘It’s some kind of sorcery. It’s just a noise!’
His words had no effect. Suzy slid by and he felt the impact of Fred’s elbow as he barged past. Then he was alone in the dark and they were crashing and banging their way ahead of him.
‘Stop!’ yelled Arthur, but he knew they wouldn’t unless he actually used the power of the Key on them. Instead he followed them at a slower pace, keeping one hand on the Key while he held his other hand out in front of himself to feel the way.
Behind him, the screaming drew closer and then was suddenly softened by the rumble of part of the wharf’s piles of paper falling over, followed by angry snorting, ripping, and shoving noises as something tried to bull its way through the now-blocked passage.
Arthur felt a different fear then, but it was a rational fear. He could keep it in bounds, while trying to go just a little bit faster without running into something and knocking himself out.
He was thinking about that when he suddenly felt his way around a corner and emerged into unexpected lantern light. A single strom lantern (as they were called in the House due to a clerical error) hung from a bamboo hat-stand in the far corner of a chamber about as big as his living room back home, with ragged walls of piled-high papers, a roof made of stitched-together hides covered in the sticklike writing of some strange alphabet, and a window that was haphazardly framed by two stacks of slates and a hollow log, all of them written on.
Suzy and Fred were still trying to run away but with little success, as Ugham had caught them and was holding them under his arms. At the same time he was kicking a Denizen who was trying to hit him with a long wooden pole that had a hook on the end. Three other Denizens were hastily climbing out through the window, and beyond them Arthur could just make out the debris-filled waters of the canal.
‘Back, back, foul fiend!’ chanted the Denizen with the pole, and then with a half-glance behind him, ‘Wait for me!’
‘Who dost thou call fiend?’ bellowed Ugham. He kicked the pole down and advanced on the Denizen. ‘The fiend is without, or so that noise would attest. But where do your fellows flee?’
The Denizen looked at his empty hands, then turned and ran. Unfortunately the marble slab that was the windowsill tilted back as he jumped and he fell back down in front of Ugham, who put one heavy foot upon his chest.