Superior Saturday(58)

The Denizens had their backs to Arthur. They were all looking at a huge iron platform at the base of the tower. As broad and long as a football field, it was about twelve feet high. Made from thousands of plates riveted together, it looked like the deck of a very old battleship, with its hull and upper works sliced off.

Located next to the tower, the massive platform had a dozen twelve-foot-high bronze wheels along two sides. On each corner there were raised, open-roofed turrets packed with sorcerers.

But it wasn’t the platform all the Denizens in the square were looking at. They were staring up at the construction that stood on the platform, which looked like a giant bullet. It was a cylinder several hundred feet high, with its bottom half solid bronze and its top half an open framework of bronze rods like a baroque birdcage. This caged section was divided into eight levels, which had woven wicker floors like in a balloon basket. The floors were connected by spindly metal ladders that ran up the full length of the cylinder, from the solid ‘cartridge’ part to the top of the open section.

A dozen of the octopoidal construction automatons perched on the top of the rocket or whatever it was, flexing their tentacles. In the air around them flew fifty or sixty grease monkeys, their wings fluttering. Most of them held shiny pieces of metal.

Like the watching Denizens, all the grease monkeys were looking up. Arthur couldn’t help but look up too, though he also eased the door shut a bit, to make it harder for him to be seen.

Blinking aside a raindrop that fell into his eye, Arthur saw a shape so dark, it had to be composed of Nothing. It was slowly descending out of the rain toward the bronze-wire cylinder, so slowly that at first it appeared to be levitating of its own accord. It was only after Arthur’s eyes adjusted to its darkness that he saw faint lines of light upon its surface, traces made by the Immaterial ropes that were being used by several hundred flying Denizens to bring the object over to the bronze rocket.

The ropes were bright, but it was the dark shape that hurt Arthur’s eyes. He immediately knew what it was: a spike of sorcerously fixed Nothing, like the one that the Piper had used to stop the movement of the Great Maze. This one was much, much taller, though it was also more slender. Arthur figured it to be a hundred feet long, with an incredibly thin, sharp point at the top.

The flying Denizens lined the spike up with the cylinder of bronze wire. When this was done, there was a shouted order from one of their number, and together they released the ropes. The spike fell straight down the remaining few feet and was caught by the automatons, whose tentacles were cased in some kind of protective coating that sparked and glowed as they handled the Nothing. They moved the spike around, shifting it to the right position, and lowered it into place. Immediately the grease monkeys moved in, fitting a collar of a sparkling translucent material – probably Immaterial Glass – to hold the spike in place atop the cylinder.

‘Saturday’s vehicle to pierce the underside of the Incomparable Gardens,’ said the Will, not quietly enough for Arthur’s liking. He eased the door shut and turned on the raven.

‘You need to be quieter and more careful,’ he whispered. ‘There are thousands of Denizens out there.’

‘I thought I was being quiet,’ said the Will, lowering its voice only a little. ‘I haven’t been this corporeal for ages. It’s hard getting used to having a throat . . . and a beak.’

‘Well, try harder to be quiet,’ Arthur admonished.

‘Very well,’ croaked the raven, its voice so quiet that Arthur could barely understand it. ‘All I wanted to say was that if that’s Saturday’s vehicle for piercing the Gardens, then it’s likely that all the Denizens down here will get in it. And when they get in it, we can get going.’

‘It must be the assault ram mentioned in Alyse’s orders. And that’s the Exterior Lift One or whatever it was called.’

‘It doesn’t matter what it’s called,’ said the Will. ‘As long as it goes. The sooner Saturday starts fighting with Sunday, the better for us to sneak up the other side of the tower.’

‘Okay.’ Arthur looked down at his ragged coveralls and bare feet. ‘I have to get some clothes.’

‘No problem!’ said the Will. Before Arthur could stop it, it hopped to the door, pried it open, and hopped out, transforming as it did so into a small, extremely dishevelled grease monkey.

He heard the Will say something to the closest Denizen, who answered loud enough for not only Arthur to hear, but every other Denizen within twenty yards.

‘You sure? Asked for me, by name? Woxroth?’