“Stay back,” Deeba said. “You don’t know it, but you’re working for the Smog.”
“These crazy allegations have to stop,” said a voice. Climbing clumsily down a rope ladder was Murgatroyd. He stumbled to the ground and dusted himself off, stood by Jones, and pulled a strange-looking gun out of his suit. He aimed it at Deeba.
Following him down the ladder came Obaday Fing, in an outfit stitched of monochrome book jackets.
“Careful, now, Deeba,” Fing said. “Don’t move suddenly; there’s no need to get hurt.”
“You let him pull a gun on me?” Deeba said, aghast, staring at Jones and Obaday, who shifted uncomfortably.
“It’s a tranquilizer,” Murgatroyd said. “I don’t want to use it, and I’m hoping you don’t make me. It’s purely in case you refuse to listen to reason. We’re here to help.”
“How’d you find me?” said Deeba. She refused to look at Murgatroyd, only addressing Fing and Jones.
“Jones came and asked my advice,” Obaday Fing said. “Together we figured out how your mind works, Deeba. When the Propheseers told us about the tasks in the book, we thought we knew what you might try to do.”
“And there’s been sightings for days,” Jones said, and winked. “You’re noticeable, girl, been making an impact. I been sticking close to Murgatroyd. He made sure he was the first person who heard all the rumors that came through.”
“Your friends’ve come along, to prove that you’ve no reason to be anxious,” Murgatroyd said. “This is all for your own good. We just want to stop this misunderstanding.”
“You going to try to blame everything on Hemi again?” Deeba said.
“We’ll sort out the truth about this half-boy later,” Murgatroyd said. “Please come with us. The Unbrellissimo’s program to hand out unbrellas is continuing—nearly a third of UnLondon’ve been issued protection now, and just in time, because the Smog’s attacks are increasing. We urgently want you on-side, Deeba. We want all this unpleasantness and misunderstanding to stop.”
Cauldron and Bling looked one way and another, trying to work out if they could rush past their captors.
“Listen here,” the book said with a pompous voice, “I think you should know that I believe Miss Resham may not be wrong—”
“Shut up, book,” Murgatroyd interrupted. “We all know about your failures. Deeba, come with us. And you, boy. We’ll deal with you too.”
“Jones, Obaday,” Deeba said. “Please, listen. The Smog’s working with Brokkenbroll. They want to make everyone rely on unbrellas, ’cause that means on Brokk. Then they can rule UnLondon together. They’re going to make everyone work in factories, burning stuff to make the Smog stronger.”
“Really…” said Murgatroyd, and shook his head.
“And it’s already getting stronger because Rawley, his boss in London—” Deeba pointed at Murgatroyd. “—she’s been feeding smoke straight into UnLondon. We heard him saying so to the Unbrellissimo! Everyone in London, like my mum and dad, even, thinks Rawley’s doing good things at my end, but she’s not cleaning anything up; she’s feeding the Smog over here!”
“That is enough!” Murgatroyd said. “I’ve had enough of your slurs.”
“Ask him what, what the lurch is!” Deeba said. “It’s something to do with all this. Are you going to believe him over me?” she begged. “This bloke holding a gun? You don’t know him! After all we done together! Please…don’t you believe me?”
Fing and Jones looked uncomfortable. Murgatroyd looked smug.
“The thing is, Deeba,” Jones said sheepishly. He put his hand on Murgatroyd’s shoulder. “He’s explained things to us. On the bridge, in the air. About how you’ve been led astray.” Fing nodded sadly. “And to be honest with you…
“Yes. Of course we believe you.”
Jones sent a sizzling, crackling bolt of electricity through his hand. Murgatroyd’s teeth rattled and sparked, and he made little burbling noises and danced like a ridiculous puppet. The current made his snubby gun burst.
“There,” said Jones, and let go. The bureaucrat dropped to the ground, his shoulder smoking, his eyes wide, drooling and making noises like a baby. “That should keep him quiet for a good couple hours.”
“Thank goodness for that,” said Obaday Fing, and stepped over the smoldering man, his arms open. “He was really beginning to annoy me.”
“Obaday!” said Deeba, and hurled herself into his hug. “And Jones!” she said, and grabbed him too, and he laughed and hugged her back.
“You knew?” she said.
“Not at first,” said Fing. “But we’ve spent time with you. We know you. You’re no fool, Deeba. You wouldn’t misunderstand what Unstible said.
“And what this idiot was saying just didn’t make sense. Like you say, it would be crazy for Wraithtown to join the Smog against UnLondon. I didn’t want to admit that but…you were right. And I owe you an apology,” he said to Hemi. He held out his hand.
For several seconds, Hemi just glowered. Then he smiled slowly, and shook his hand.
“Alright then,” he said. “Glad you believe me now.”
“Unfortunately, Mortar doesn’t,” said Jones heavily. “The man has too much history with Unstible. Can’t bear there to be anything wrong. And Brokkenbroll’s there every day, on the bridge, since they showed him how to get there. Whispering in Mortar’s ear, and the old man won’t question a word. Lectern doesn’t like it, I don’t think, but she’s not rocking the boat. And what Mortar says, the rest of the Propheseers obey. Bunch of cowards, mostly. They don’t think for themselves. So we had to keep very shtum.”
“That’s why we made sure we came with Murgatroyd,” Obaday said. “We’ve been stuck to him like whelks. As soon as he heard a rumor about you, we told him we’d come too. They’d never have sent us along if they thought we were on your side. We couldn’t say anything till we found you.”
“So you going to help me, then?” Deeba said.
“If you’ll have us,” Jones said.
“But…you’ll be going against the Propheseers.”
“If they’re too stupid to see what’s what,” said Obaday Fing, “that’s their own fault. We’re all packed and ready to go. Why d’you think I’m dressed like this? Book covers are tougher than their insides, and I needed something heavy-duty.” Despite the swagger he tried to give his words, Deeba could tell he was afraid. She gave him another hug.
“Funny how it all turns out,” he said. “I’ve never been a renegade before.”
69
The Balance of Forces
“Good to have you back, Deeba!” Rosa shouted from the cab as Skool effortlessly hauled Deeba and her companions on.
Deeba hugged the ungainly driver, and Skool patted her clumsily on the back.
“Let me introduce everyone,” Deeba said. “This is Bling and Cauldron.” Cauldron stuck out three of his four hands, and shook the hands of Obaday, Jones, and Skool simultaneously. Bling reared up on its rear legs and gave a solemn locust bow.
“Where to, Deeba?” Rosa shouted.
“Webminster Abbey. Quick as you can.”
“Really?” said Rosa.
“She knows what she’s doing,” Obaday Fing said.
“You’re absolutely right, she does,” said Jones. “So on we go.”
“No, I don’t,” Deeba said. “I’m probably making mistakes. But we haven’t got nothing to go against the Smog with, and we know it’s scared of the UnGun, and we know that’s at the abbey.”
“Is it now?” said Jones.
“Webminster Abbey it is,” Rosa said, and the bus began to chug through the sky.
“What’s going to happen to him?” Hemi said, pointing at the immobile figure of Murgatroyd, hidden in a pile of rubbish. Deeba remembered how he had left her for the Unstible-thing to burn, and she’d imagined all sorts of bloodthirsty and fatal things to do while they had tied him up.
“I dunno,” she said grudgingly. “We couldn’t just do him
in.”
“See…” said Hemi. “Just not sure I agree…”
“I just couldn’t.”
“Well, he’s not waking up for a while,” Jones said. “And when he does, it’ll take the same again for him to get out of those bonds. By the time he gets back to the Propheseers and Brokkenbroll, they’ll know we’ve done a bunk.”
Deeba stared out of the windows at the towers and spirals and steeples made of what looked like untold coiled wires. She had never flown over this neighborhood, and was frustrated that she couldn’t look down at the abcityscape below, but she and Hemi stayed away from the platform, out of sight.
Obaday rummaged nosily through her luggage. He made rude noises about her sewing kit.
“What is the point of this dreadful equipment?” he muttered. He stitched up some of the rips in her and Hemi’s trousers, and replaced her needles and thread with some from his own scalp.
“Can’t we go faster?” Deeba said. “I’m worried about the phlegm effect.”
“Not without drawing attention,” Jones said. “They think we’re looking for you. If they see us suddenly speeding up, they’re going to think we’ve got a lead, or they’re going to realize we’re doing a runner. And either way they’re going to come after us. Soon enough, they’ll realize we’re AWOL, and they’re going to have to start choosing sides. But at the moment, there’s enough stuff up here for no one to notice us. So long as we don’t draw attention.”
It was true. There were a few other buses, dangling below balloons or innumerable little spinning propellers. There were insects and birds, and high-flying rubbish like ragged dustbin bags crawling against the wind, and low clouds, and a flock of escaped washing hurtling around the sky with incomprehensible purpose. Deeba even glimpsed a grossbottle, but this one wasn’t being ridden. It was wild—disgusting but not an enemy.
A little way off, Deeba saw a patch of the abcity, several streets by several streets, completely surrendered to Smog.
“I wish we could speed up,” Jones said, seeing where she was looking. “We don’t have much time. And I don’t even just mean with you and your family. Look out there. I mean for UnLondon. The Smog’s spreading.”
“According to Brokkenbroll,” Obaday said, “the Smog’s gathering forces. Now—”
“Wait a sec,” said Hemi. “Brokkenbroll’s really on the Smog’s side, even if Mortar doesn’t know it. Why’d he tell the truth about what it’s doing?”
“Because he wants people to be scared of it, so they’ll trust him to protect them,” Deeba said. “When they realize he’s in on it, he’ll already be in charge. That’s what the unbrellas are for. He might even be exaggerating how bad it is.”
“I don’t think so,” said Jones grimly. “Its attacks are coming more often, and smogglers are taking over more places.”
“They travel underground, along the train tubes and the sewers,” Obaday said.
“Smoglodytes and stink-junkies and smombies come with the Smog wherever it goes,” Jones said. “People have tried to fight, but its forces are too strong. The unbrellas defend people, but they can’t—or won’t—disperse a decent-sized smoggler. Even electric fans sometimes don’t. People just run, when the Smog moves in. UnLondon’s filling with refugees.”
“It’s taking over in patches,” Deeba said slowly. “Separating us into camps. Easier to control.”
“You know, Brokkenbroll even said we’d have to give up certain areas,” Jones said thoughtfully. “And Mortar went along with it. Telling us to make orderly retreats. Into designated ‘safe’ zones.”
“Like they’re herding us,” said Hemi.
“There are a lot of rumors in UnLondon,” Obaday Fing said. “There are mercenaries on the Smog’s side. Like the man who attacked you and the Shwazzy in the bus.”
“What happened to him?”
Obaday spat.
“A disgrace to the market. Barnabus Cudgel. He’s worked alongside me for years. It turns out he was part of a group calling itself the Concern. They say there’s business they want to do, factories and the like, that’ll lead to more smoke and more emissions, so it makes sense to work with the Smog, would you believe? They want to do deals with it.”
“They told you this?” said Deeba.
“They put out leaflets and graffiti and whatnot,” Jones said. “Secret distribution. But it’s not hard to find.”
Skool gesticulated, drew large letters in the air.
“That’s true. You see their sign on the walls,” Obaday said. “More and more. ‘E = A.’ ‘Effluence equals affluence.’” He smiled sardonically.
“And people have seen the Hex, they say,” Jones said. “Fighting on the Smog’s side.”
“What’s that?” Deeba said, seeing Jones, Hemi, and Obaday Fing exchange fearful glances.
“Nasty, nasty,” Hemi muttered.
“A group of spellspeakers,” said Jones. “Very powerful. If the Smog’s got them on its side, life’s going to be even harder for us.”
“Don’t we have any magicians?”
Jones and Fing looked at each other forlornly.
“I can make a sweet come out of your ear,” Rosa yelled from the front.
“That’s great,” Deeba muttered.
“No, but I really can! Not just quick fingers, you know, I really pull it out of your ear!”
“Perhaps,” Deeba said, “that’ll come in handy.”
70
The Gossamer Edifice
The bus continued its slow journey through the night. For the sake of appearances, like other hunting vehicles, they turned powerful searchlights down into the dim streets, and seemed to walk on light-beam legs.
Once a fat python of Smog rose curiously out of a lost quarter, nosing towards the bus. Rosa took them quickly up to where the wind was stronger, and the coil of cloud sank back.
Deeba held Curdle in her arms as she lay across the seats. The cardboard carton burrowed into her hug.
Tomorrow, she thought, I’m going to get the UnGun. And then we’ll have something that the Smog really doesn’t want us to. She drifted to sleep, thinking of the UnGun, and then, with sudden pangs, of her family.
She woke in the very early morning, as the bus’s anchor snared in a tangle of aerials.
“Oh my gosh,” Deeba said.
Deeba saw an area uncomfortably close to them that had become a smogmire. That was not what made her catch her breath.
They were swaying before a huge building. It was like nothing she had ever seen.
It had no straight edges, was all long curving planes stretched like cloth or rubber. In several places it poked into steep cones, and pillars and jags like tree branches jutted from beneath its shimmering, moving surface. It looked like a load of giant tents, all stitched together at crazy random, as big as a stadium. Its entire surface was white, or gray-white, or yellow-white, and it rippled.
“Oh my gosh,” whispered Deeba again. “It’s a cobweb.”
Tons of spider silk had been draped over an enormous irregular framework. It coated it completely, in layers, totally opaque. At its edges, strands of webbing jutted out at angles and anchored to the pavement and surrounding buildings like guyropes.
In one or two places, Deeba could see dark, immobile things smothered in the silk. It was wound around them in shrouds, suspending them in the building’s substance.
“That’ll be Webminster Abbey, then,” said Hemi.
They all descended, and stood together, the bus above them, in front of Webminster Abbey: Skool, Obaday Fing, Rosa, Conductor Jones, Hemi, the utterlings Bling and Cauldron, Curdle the carton, Deeba, and the book.
The cobweb church loomed before them, its strands humming as the early-morning air passed through them. The UnSun was rising, but its weak light didn’t make the abbey less threatening. It seemed to be smothered in shadow.
In several places, the silk curved inwards into tight funnels of darkness, jutting into the interior. Some were only a foot or two above t
he pavement, some up near the top of the steeple. They ranged from the size of a rabbit hole to that of a trapdoor.
“We’re going to have to go in one of those, aren’t we?” Hemi said.
“Book, do you know what’s inside?” Deeba said.
“The Black Window. I’m afraid I’ve got nothing more than that.”
“Alright,” said Jones cautiously. “Any ideas?”
“Firstly we’ve got to see what’s in there,” said Deeba. “So we just look in, really quick, then get out again and make a plan.”
They looked at each other uncomfortably.
The building was surrounded by a marquee of web, whorls of silk, and web archways. It was like twilight in the cobweb shade. Jones threw a stick into one of the cylindrical tunnels, and they all tensed.
The stick bounced and rolled out.
“Well, it’s not sticky,” said Deeba.
They crept up the silk slope towards the hole. It was like walking on a trampoline.
Skool had to stop. The diving boots were too heavy. They didn’t rip the silk, but sank too deep to walk.
“You’ll have to wait outside,” whispered Deeba. Skool slumped, and backed out of the tunnel. Obaday Fing was clutching his box of scissors, thread, and mirrors as if for comfort.
“You should go with Skool, Obaday,” she said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Make sure there’s no trouble outside.”
“Alright then,” he whispered. “You be careful.” He crept back.
Hemi, Jones, and Rosa were all smiling at Deeba. Even the utterlings seemed to be, in their mouthless way.
“That was kind,” Hemi said.
“Shut up,” said Deeba. “We needed someone outside.”
“Oh, of course,” said Jones.
Deeba grinned grudgingly, looked up—and froze. Something was plummeting out of the shade above them.
“Jones!” she shouted.
The thing came down at tremendous speed. It loomed out of shadow too fast to see clearly, dark, and big, and angled, with limbs splayed.
Un Lun Dun Page 25