‘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.’
‘Good,’ said Arthur absently. ‘Let’s go! Carp, I presume you can free the slaves held down at the town?’
‘Now that Feverfew is gone, I can loose their shackles even from here,’ said the Carp. It swelled up like a blowfish, flared as bright as the sun for an instant, then flashed around its jar in its usual shape at immense speed for several seconds. ‘There, it is done!’
By the time they reached the town, it was a shambles. The suddenly freed slaves had turned on any pirates still left. The most recent slaves, the crews of the Moth and the Flying Mantis, had re-formed under their officers and mates and were busy restocking their ships with supplies and the choicest pieces of salvage from the vast selection in Feverfew’s warehouses. The slaves who had been there longer mainly sat around, waiting to be told what to do by somebody.
When Arthur arrived he first had a brief but very welcome reunion with Sunscorch, who was overseeing the resupply of the Moth. But long explanations had to wait, so after a little back-slapping that left his shoulders sore, Arthur had the Carp use its ability to make its voice heard everywhere around the harbour, to tell the former slaves that the worldlet was doomed and that if they wanted to live and return to the House, they must gather aboard the Moth, bringing only one small item of salvage each.
Naturally this caused a panic, only quelled by the Carp using its voice more forcefully, and Jebenezer, Sunscorch, Pannikin, and various others using their voices and belaying pins to bring order to the mass of Denizens that was trying to get on any of the four small boats that could take them from the harbour wall to the Moth.
Leaf also had an important role to play, convincing Captain Swell that he must abandon the Flying Mantis, and that even such a practised Navigator-Sorcerer as he would not be able to find a way to sail it out. As he had already tried every augury puzzle he could find, the logic of it was clear, but it was still very hard for him to leave a ship he had commanded for nigh on ten thousand years.
Captain Catapillow presented a different problem, for he did not want to let anyone into his quarters, for fear that they would destroy his stamp collection. But when Arthur lost his temper and spoke sharply to him, he caved in and withdrew to his bed, Ichabod calmly drawing the curtains after him.
Arthur had been worried about how many Denizens would fit in the strange chamber within the Moth, particularly since he had promised the Followers of the Carp that he would try to save them, and as they would be last to arrive, they would be the most likely to be left behind. But the chamber was even larger than he remembered, and Ichabod moved the display cases around to create even more space, while telling him that his coat needed to be cleaned, his boots washed, and that the creation of vastly more space within a room was merely a matter of correctly arranging the furniture.
At last, five hours after they’d begun, the room was entirely packed with at least three thousand Denizens, Arthur, Suzy, and Leaf. There was no room to move at all for most of the Denizens, with everyone pressed together like standing sardines.
As far as anyone could tell, no one had been left behind.
Outside, the cracks in the sky almost stretched from the sun to the ground, and the Carp now predicted a catastrophic implosion, with the worldlet suddenly collapsing and being sucked into the Void of Nothing.
‘Then, if this worldlet has been properly constructed, the breach in the Void will seal over and cause no more trouble,’ the Carp pronounced. ‘Or if shoddily made, it will spread Nothing everywhere around it and cause many more problems to the locality.’
‘You mean Wednesday’s stomach,’ said Arthur.
‘Yes,’ said the Carp. ‘Now, as to the matter of our survival — I do not think this room would survive such a catastrophe, as it is linked to the ship that will be sucked into the maelstrom of Nothing.’
‘I know we have to get out of here too,’ said Arthur. ‘But as this room is actually somewhere else within the House, all we have to do is find a way from inside here to outside there. As I asked you to look into several hours ago.’
‘Indeed,’ said the Carp. ‘Unfortunately while I have found out where this room actually is, I can’t find a way to get out. And even if I could, I’m not sure how much use it would be.’
‘Great,’ said Leaf. ‘Excellent work, Arthur.’
Twenty–nine
‘WHY WON’T IT HELP to get out of the room?’ Arthur asked the Carp. ‘We have to!’
‘This room is still where it was,’ said the Carp. ‘In the old Port Wednesday. Underwater. I don’t know how far. Besides, I can find no way from here to the outside of the room.’
‘Because there isn’t one, or because of something else?’ asked Arthur.
‘There may be an exit,’ said the Carp. ‘But this room is strangely twisted and I simply have not had time to work out its exact place within the fabric of the House. I doubt anybody could, save the Architect herself.’
‘The Atlas!’ cried Arthur. He reached down into his boot and pulled out the green book. ‘Can you use the Compleat Atlas of the House?’
‘No,’ said the Carp.
As it spoke, there was a commotion near the door out to the Moth. Arthur jumped up onto Catapillow’s blanket box to see over the heads of the Denizens. Sunscorch, who had been handling the last few stragglers, was just inside the door.
‘A piece of the sky’s fallen in!’ he roared over the hubbub. ‘And the sea is starting to turn like water going down a plughole!’
‘There has to be a way out!’ said Arthur. He held the Atlas and focused all his attention on it.
‘Arthur —’ said the Carp.
‘Not now!’ hissed Arthur. His knuckles were stark and white against the green book, he was gripping it so hard. ‘I’m concentrating!’
‘Arthur —’
Arthur ignored the Carp and concentrated on his question.
Where is the way out of this room back into the House?
The Atlas stubbornly failed to open. Without a Key, it just would not respond.
‘Arthur!’ roared the Carp, so loud that Arthur’s ears rang. ‘I cannot use the Atlas, but I can help you use it! Place your right hand against the glass of my jar!’
Jebenezer held up the jar and Arthur slapped his palm against the glass. The Carp came right up against it, puckered up, and kissed the side of the jar against Arthur’s fingers three times. Each time it did, it shone more brightly, some of the light travelling through to bathe Arthur’s fingers.
‘Ask your question!’
Arthur took his hand away and gripped the Atlas again, repeating his question, willing the book to open with a determination that shut out everything else around him.
Nothing happened for three seconds, just long enough for the Carp to start to say, ‘We must have —’
Then the Atlas exploded open. Arthur fell off the blanket box, but was so hemmed in by Jebenezer, Suzy, Leaf, and other Denizens that his feet didn’t even touch the floor.
Arthur didn’t notice. He was watching the perfect, though rapid, penmanship of the invisible writer in the Atlas. Words spread across the page, Arthur shrieking them aloud as he read.
‘The chief clerk’s office of the Blue Moon Company’s Second Counting House has been twisted seven turns sideways and inclined twelve degrees to the impossible, due to incompetent renovation. There are three means of egress from within the office. One is to the ship Moth, through the former front door. The second opens on the Void of Nothing, and has been sealed under the floor ten paces to the left of the front door. The third opens in the ship telegraph turret of the
Blue Moon Company in old Port Wednesday, and is located through the mirrored back of the former records safe, now in use as a wardrobe —’
‘No!’ yelped Ichabod, but his voice was drowned out by the surge of Denizens towards the wardrobe.
‘Hold!’ roared the Carp. ‘Followers, link arms!’
‘Moths, stand still!’ roared Sunscorch.
‘Mantises, hold yer ground!’ shouted Pannikin.
‘And may be activated by peeling off the wallpaper backing,’ finished Arthur. He slapped the Atlas shut, jumped down, and wormed his way between the Denizens to the wardrobe. It was a huge oak-panelled affair, easily ten feet high and fifteen feet wide.
‘Ichabod!’ called Arthur. ‘Is there any trick to going in?’
‘No, sir,’ said Ichabod stiffly. He had managed to appear at Arthur’s elbow, unruffled and calm once more. ‘Simply walk through. But if I may remove the Captain’s clothes before they are trampled —
’ He was interrupted by a very loud cracking sound, and the floor shivered under Arthur’s feet. He didn’t wait to hear any more from Ichabod, but strode straight at the mirror.
The inside of the wardrobe was bigger than the outside. There were racks of clothes against the side walls, and shelves of boots, shoes, and accessories. The rear wall was wallpapered with a simple blue flower pattern, and had a chaise lounge against it, next to a small table with an open book of fashion plates on it.
Arthur hurried over, shoved the table and book aside, and pulled the chaise lounge away from the wall. Then he reached up and pulled a loose corner of wallpaper. It came away easily, revealing a mirrored surface underneath. Arthur ripped some more, and then Suzy and Leaf and Jebenezer and even Ichabod were there pulling at the paper as well.
‘What if it’s really deep on the other side?’ asked Leaf. ‘Will we get the bends going up? Can you get the bends in the House?’
‘I don’t know!’ snapped Arthur. ‘We haven’t got a choice, have we? Go through as soon as the paper’s off.’
‘What about you?’ asked Suzy.
‘I’ve got to make sure everyone gets out,’ said Arthur. ‘You guys go or you’ll get trampled.’
As the paper was almost all off, he took the Carp’s jar from Jebenezer and stepped back out of the wardrobe, hitting a solid wall of waiting Denizens, who were barely kept in check by the combined efforts of the Mates, some of the Carp’s Followers, and the more dependable crew.
Arthur managed to squeeze through back to the blanket box. He stepped up on that, ignoring the fact that it was vibrating, along with the floor, like a badly tuned car.
‘Okay, Carp, maximum volume,’ said Arthur. ‘Repeat what I say.’
‘I shall do so,’ replied the Carp.
‘Quiet down!’
‘Quiet down!’
‘Don’t push and wait your turn!’
‘Don’t push and wait your turn!’
‘Everyone will get out!’
‘Everyone will get out!’
‘Listen carefully but don’t move till I tell you to.’
‘Listen carefully but don’t move till I tell you to.’
‘There are two walls of mirrors to go through.’
‘There are two walls of mirrors to go through.’
‘Walk slowly and carefully through the wardrobe mirrors and keep going through the next set of mirrors. You will come out underwater. Swim up and try to help anyone who needs it.’
‘Walk slowly and carefully through the wardrobe mirrors and keep going through the next set of mirrors. You will come out underwater. Swim up and try to help anyone who needs it.’
‘Everyone at the back stay still. If you’re in front of the wardrobe, start walking slowly forward!’
‘Everyone at the back stay still. If you’re in front of the wardrobe, start walking slowly forward!’
‘As space opens in front of you, walk slowly forward! Steady! Everyone will get through!’
‘As space opens in front of you, walk slowly forward! Steady! Everyone will get through!’
Arthur kept giving instructions as the Denizens shuffled forward into the mirrored doors of the wardrobe. Every now and then one would panic and Arthur would stop breathing as it looked like the fear would spread, only for everything to come back under control as calmer Denizens wrestled the panicked one back into line.
But it’s all taking too long, Arthur thought as he was forced to step down from the blanket box, which was shaking itself to pieces. The floor under his feet was starting to glow a nasty, dull red — if it wasn’t for his Immaterial Boots, Arthur was sure he would feel the heat.
‘Let’s move a bit faster!’ he called out, the Carp repeating his words. Perhaps half the Denizens had gone through, so there was more room and less likelihood of a terrible crush.
Five minutes later, the walls started to weep black, tarlike tears the size of Arthur’s head, and the floor was twisting and tilting by as much as six inches up and down.
‘Come on, faster now!’ called Arthur. ‘Jogging on the spot and then forward when space opens up!’
He demonstrated jogging as best he could with his crab-armoured leg on a moving surface. Perhaps two hundred Denizens remained, but the room was clearly under enormous stress, and that meant that the Moth and the worldlet outside must be close to final destruction.
‘Can you tell what’s happening outside?’ whispered Arthur to the Carp as he moved to the back, smiling and waving on jogging Denizens. ‘I mean the Moth side, Feverfew’s worldlet.’
‘It’s still there because we’re still here,’ said the Carp. ‘Hold on a moment. I’ll check.’
It whizzed around its jar several times, then stopped.
‘The underlying structure is holding, though the cosmetic features, like the hills and so forth have all gone. Remarkable, really. Grim Tuesday lacked true flair, but his work was always very solid.’
‘How long have we got?’
‘Minutes, not hours,’ said the Carp. ‘I can’t say closer than that.’
‘Right,’ said Arthur grimly. There was some sort of holdup near the rear ranks of Denizens. He threaded his way over to it, to find Sunscorch, Pannikin, and Captain Swell trying to pry Captain Catapillow from a display cabinet. Arthur was only mildly surprised not to see Concort, who must have already fled through the wardrobe.
‘I can’t go without at least the heart of my collection,’ sobbed Catapillow. ‘Just one cabinet. You can help me carry it! If it can’t go, I won’t go!’
‘Lord Arthur, please tell the Captain he has to leave the stamps behind,’ asked Sunscorch.
‘You do have to leave them,’ said Arthur. ‘Look around! This place isn’t going to last much longer. We have to hurry everyone through, and you need to set an example.’
‘No,’ said Catapillow mulishly. He hugged the cabinet. ‘If my collection is to be destroyed, then I’ll go with it.’
‘I guess let him stay, then,’ said Arthur. He glanced over the remaining Denizens. There were perhaps fifty left, all gathered near the wardrobe, which was becoming harder to get into as the floor bucked up and down. ‘Everyone else, let’s get through the mirrors!’
The boy turned and joined the back of the relatively orderly queue that was steadily streaming into the wardrobe. He was glad to be able to grab hold of Denizens around him, because he would have fallen over otherwise, the floor was so unstable.
‘The ceiling’s slanting down, isn’t it?’ Arthur asked as they got down to the last twenty Denizens. ‘From that corner. Really quickly!’
In the far left corner, the distance from the floor to the ceiling had been cut in half, and the ceiling was still steadily moving down, like some kind of industrial stamper. It hit some of the display stands, which resisted the downward pressure for a moment, then buckled in a spray of glass and metal.
‘Catapillow! This is it! Come now or you’ll die!’ shouted Arthur as he edged closer to the wardrobe. There were only a dozen Denizens in front of him
now — and Suzy and Leaf! Arthur’s head snapped around, Catapillow forgotten for a second.
‘I told you to go through! We might not make it now!’
The floor broke in half as he spoke, a crevasse opening up in the middle of the room. Yellow mud boiled up out of it, preceded by clouds of stinking gas. Catapillow was on the wrong side, still clutching his display case.
Arthur held his breath and grabbed Leaf and Suzy, or they grabbed him and the three of them jumped through the wardrobe mirrors, only just making it as the crevasse split the floor even further, toppling the wardrobe over.
Inside, the wardrobe was a tangled mess of trampled clothes and broken furniture. But even worse, it had toppled forward, so that the mirrored back wall was now the ceiling, twelve feet above the three children and impossibly out of reach.
‘Stand on my shoulders —’ Arthur started to say, but he hadn’t seen Sunscorch, who had wedged himself in a corner. Without wasting a word, the Second Mate picked up Leaf and threw her straight up and through the mirror gate. As he turned to pick up Suzy, she jumped, got one foot on his shoulder, and leapt up without assistance.
Arthur stumbled, his crab-armoured leg caught in discarded coats.
‘Go!’ he shouted to Sunscorch as he desperately tried to untangle himself and only made it worse. ‘Go!’
Thirty
SUNSCORCH WENT, but he grabbed Arthur under one burly arm, jumped on the exposed springs of the wrecked chaise lounge, and used their bounce to propel himself, Arthur, and the tangle of coats up through the gate.
It happened so quickly that Arthur barely had time to get a breath, and he didn’t have time to make sure the Carp’s jar was securely in his pocket. He saw it hurtle past, and then he was through the mirror and completely surrounded by water.
Arthur kicked the coats free, but Sunscorch didn’t let him go. He struck out in a direction that Arthur hoped was the surface, because he couldn’t see anything except dark blue and tons of bubbles.
We could be hundreds of feet down, he thought. I’ve got through so much and then to drown at the end … I’ll never make it … the Denizens will, but I won’t … and Leaf won’t … It’s all my fault, I should have made her leave the hospital, how am I ever going to explain to her parents … I have to take a breath, I have to take a —