It dropped over Rosa, and rose again, and disappeared.
Rosa was gone.
“No!” shouted Jones, and jumped, but there was nothing above them. Their attacker had soared into the overhanging web, into the shadows and out of sight.
71
Men of the Cloth
They hollered and stared up into the webbed vault, ready for another attack. No motion was visible. They had no idea where the thing had gone. There was no trace of Rosa at all.
Back in the light of the UnSun, Jones stamped and shouted miserably, and kept saying Rosa’s name.
“Years, we’ve been together,” Jones said. “Years! She fought by my side in the Siege of the Battery Sea. Drove search-and-rescue to the coldmines for years. It was her came over from London with me…”
“I know, I know,” said Deeba. They all stood in a circle, trying to work out what to do.
“Oh, dratted shame,” said someone. “Are we too late?”
Deeba whirled around. Behind her were two tall, dry-looking priests. They wore big, silly popes’ hats, and carried shepherds’ crooks. They were incredibly ancient. One was stubbly, with very dark red, almost black, robes. His skin was the same color. The other was as pale as Hemi, and wore a long white beard and white—though dirty—cassock.
The men moved in tiny tottering zigzags, diagonally, forward and back.
“Who are you?” Deeba said.
“What’s that?” said the pale man, cupping his ear. “Oh, who are we? I’m Bishop Alan Bastor.”
“And I’m Bishop Ed Bon,” said the other. “We know the secrets of this place, et cetera.”
Their two voices were indistinguishable. They sounded extremely posh and elderly. Old English gents.
“May I say,” said Bishop Bastor, “gather you lost a comrade. Awful business. Dreadfully sorry.”
“Time was we met every arachnofenestranaut, warned them with a few home truths,” said Bon. “Didn’t stop them all, of course, but at least they had due warning.”
“Now we’re older, there’s always some we don’t get to,” said Bastor.
“Arackno—what?” said Hemi.
“Ah. Rack. No. Fenestra. Naut,” said Bon. “Travelers like yourselves.”
“You run this place?” said Deeba.
“Oh, no,” sighed Bon. “Bless you.”
He and Bastor looked sadly at each other. They were both coated in dust. Their eyes were as droopy and tired-looking as bloodhounds.
“We were military chaplains.”
“Spiritual support for the troops.”
“You were a team?” Deeba said. The two men looked shocked.
“Absolutely not,” said Bastor. “Deadly enemies.” He said this in the same vague, slightly tremulous tones with which he had said everything. Bon nodded judiciously.
“Quite right,” he said. “Implacably opposed.” The two men looked at each other mildly.
“What are you doing here?” said Deeba.
Bastor handed his staff absently to Bon, who took it without a word and waited while his companion scratched himself vigorously.
“Bastor and I were spiritual staff, for each side.”
“Although that didn’t stop me kicking a little bottom at times,” sniffed Bastor with satisfaction. “A couple of knights rather regretted tangling with this His Eminence.”
“Absolutely,” said Bon. “I doubt your lot would’ve thought me very holy, either.” They both chuckled in reminiscence.
“And?” said Deeba.
“We’re on a bit of a schedule here,” said Hemi.
“Sorry, sorry. Well, we both got taken.”
“But his lot were shockingly lax on security.”
“I didn’t exactly get stopped at the fence myself, old chap.”
“We bumped into each other here. We’d had a similar idea.”
“Bishops, you know? Heard this was an important church.”
“Turned out not to be quite what we’d had in mind,” Bon said, waving at the silk. “Still—”
“—neither of us could very well let the place fall into enemy hands. But then we were both hors de combat as they say in Parisn’t.”
“So after a few stiff words—”
“Yes, I was awful, wasn’t I?”
“—we came to an arrangement. You see, I’m watching to make sure he doesn’t claim it.”
“And I he. Until we find out who won the war.”
“As soon as we find out my lot’ve won, you’re for it then, I’m afraid.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” said Bastor placidly. “Soon enough you’ll be in my power.”
“Truth is, though…we’ve rather lost touch of the state of the campaign. Haven’t had any communiqués for…how long would you say it was, Bon?”
“Oh, a few years now.”
“I think they’re talking about the Eight-by-Eight War,” the book muttered to Deeba, apparently hoping that the two bishops were too deaf to hear it. “No one knows anything about it, except that it happened. Centuries ago.”
“Anyway,” said Bon. “Once we realized what was in the church, and that people were trying their luck, we thought it only fair to act as warning. Gives us something to do.”
“Or at least…try to do,” said Bastor apologetically.
“We know as much about this place as anyone. We try to set the more deluded treasure seekers straight about what they’re up against.”
“Until we find out who’s the victor.”
“Someone’ll come and tell us.”
“Someone rather special’s due.”
“To whom we’ll owe…well, I don’t know what.”
“Everything, I suppose.”
“Good,” said Jones. “You know about the Black Window. Then you have to help us.”
“We have to get past it,” said Hemi.
“Forget getting past it,” Jones snapped. “We need to know how to get the bloody thing. It took Rosa.”
“I’m sorry,” said Bon gently. “Your friend is gone. Even if by any chance she isn’t dead, we have no way of knowing which of them took her.”
“What?” Hemi said. “It was the Black Window.”
“Yes, but which one?” said Bastor.
The travelers stared at them, aghast.
“I think we’ve found another mistake in you,” Deeba said to the book. “Defeat the Black Window to get the UnGun, you said. Which bloody one?”
72
The Truth about Windows
“Why do people come here?” said Hemi. “And what do you tell them?”
“To make their fortune,” said Bon.
“To stay away,” said Bastor.
“No doubt you’ll be off now,” said Bon.
“Hey, wait,” Deeba said. “You don’t understand—we have to get in there. We’re trying to find something.”
“Oh dear,” sighed Bon. “You are an arachnofenestranaut.”
“We’re not going to encourage foolish greed by giving out information.”
“What you on about?” said Hemi. “What sort of treasure seekers come here anyway? Not Deeba. She’s here for UnLondon. We all are.”
“The lad’s right,” said Jones. “I’ve had enough of this. That bloody thing took my friend. Now you’d better tell me what you know to help us.” Skool tried to gently hold him back.
“Wait a minute,” said Deeba. “Shut up a minute.”
She scrunched up her brow in thought. “You’ve been waiting ages to find out what happened,” she said to the bishops. “For someone special to explain. Someone was due.” She counted off on her fingers, mentally running through the things the book had told her that she, in Zanna’s place, was supposed to pick up. When she reached the penultimate one, she looked at the bishops in their different-colored robes.
“It’s me,” she said. “I’m the one supposed to tell you. In return for help. I’m supposed to bring you the crown of the black-or-white king.”
“You?” said Bis
hop Bastor.
“You’ve come with the crown of the king?” Bon said. “The crown that was surrendered?”
The two men looked absolutely kiboshed. They were talking so quickly Deeba couldn’t interrupt them.
“We’ll know, Edward.”
“We will, Alan.”
“After so long!”
“It’s extraordinary…”
“Best of luck, Edward.”
“You too, Alan, you too.”
They shook hands vigorously.
“Shwazzy…Bishop Bon and I’ve been waiting for you for longer than I can even remember. Now that you’re here…my goodness, our wait’s complete. Happy, happy day.”
“For one of us,” said Bastor. There was a pause.
Neither of them looked anything but horrified.
“Listen to you two,” the book said scornfully. “Have you actually read the prophecy? Jones, give them me, please, page four-twenty-one. Read the description!”
Bon peered at the text.
“‘And she shall be tall and with hair like the light of the sun and the UnSun, and—’”
“Well take that for a start,” the book interrupted. “Look at her!”
There was a pause.
“Perhaps she dyes it,” said Bon.
“I do not,” said Deeba.
“She’s not the Shwazzy!” said the book.
“Number one,” Deeba said. “No, I’m not the Shwazzy. She couldn’t come. I’m her friend. And number two, no, I don’t have the crown of the black-or-white king. We didn’t have time to get it.” The two men were staring in profound bewilderment.
“But number three…we still need to know everything about the Black Windows. Instead, in return I’m offering you…” She thought, and rummaged in her bag. “This feather in the shape of a key.”
There was a long silence. The bishops’ faces grew more and more confused. They reached out simultaneously and took Parakeetus Claviger’s crest.
“Well…it is pretty,” Bon said.
“But it’s…”
“How can we put this?”
“Not what we were expecting.”
“What do you mean the Shwazzy’s not coming?” Bon said.
“Don’t you know how long we’ve been waiting?” Bastor said. “How much we need to know…?”
“Yeah but you don’t,” interrupted Deeba. “What’s it going to matter? Imagine how it’ll be. You’d have to go separate ways, for a start, which you don’t want.” The bishops looked quizzical.
“Alright,” she snapped. “I do have the black-or-white king’s crown. It’s white.”
Bon’s face broke into a look of incredulity and delight. Bastor’s broke into shock and misery. Almost as soon as he saw his companion’s expression, though, Bon’s smile faltered. Deeba ignored the surprised expressions her companions were giving her.
“Sorry, wrong way round,” she said. “The crown’s black.”
Instantly the bishops’ expressions were reversed. This time it was the beaming Bastor who began to frown at Bon’s obvious horror.
“See?” said Deeba. “I got no idea who surrendered. We haven’t got the black-or-white king’s crown. But look at you two. You don’t want to know.”
The two bishops stared at her, then at each other. For a long time.
“She may have—” said Bon.
“—a point,” said Bastor.
“But Chosen One,” said Bon. “Sorry, I mean, Unchosen One. Waiting to find out’s been our whole purpose.”
“We can’t live without a purpose…”
“Okay,” said Deeba thoughtfully. “I know what your purpose is.”
“Do you?” Bon said eagerly.
“What?” said Hemi.
“Really?” said the book.
“If I tell you,” Deeba continued, “you have to help. You have to tell us everything about the Black Windows.”
“That seems perfectly reasonable,” said Bastor.
“Alright,” said Deeba. “You just got it back to front. I reckon your purpose is to make sure no one ever brings you the crown. Your purpose in life is to make sure you don’t find out who won.”
The wind whistled gently over the quivering web of the abbey. The UnSun warmed them.
“Again,” said Bon. “She may—”
“—be onto something,” said Bastor.
“I wonder if we’ve been barking up the wrong tree.”
“I always had my doubts, old man.” They were beginning to speak with more enthusiasm.
“Silly of us to have brought it up.”
“Absolutely! No need at all! Perfectly clear!”
“Our holy task is to make absolutely damn sure we don’t find out who won.”
“Of course it is! Splendid! Do let’s get on with it!” The two bishops beamed at each other, and at Deeba and her friends.
“We really can’t thank you enough, young lady. You’ve been immensely helpful.”
“Glad to hear it,” said Deeba. “I’ll even throw in the feather.” She handed it over. “Now, finally—tell us what you know about the Black Windows. Maybe that way we can get past them.”
“I’m not quite sure what it is you’re after,” Bon said. “But I suspect that it’s not past you want but through.”
73
An Unusual Social Ecology
Deeba crept, bouncing, on thick, candy-floss-filigreed darkness.
Hemi was beside her. Jones was ahead, struggling along the tunnel of web. She felt their vibrations. Jones lugged their trap.
They had spent hours making it. It had been complicated work.
“Do you think the straps’ll hold?” Deeba whispered.
“Yes,” Jones whispered back. “Like I did the last six times you asked me. Fing made them out of bits of the web itself, so we know they’ll hold. I was more worried that his loops wouldn’t tighten when we pull, but he said to me, ‘Jones. I don’t tell you how to guard a bus. Don’t tell me how to tie off threads.’”
“The others better not get tired,” whispered Hemi.
Deeba was very scared. Her breath came fast. She wished yet again that she’d been able to think of some other way of achieving their goal. She felt the cord playing out behind Jones from their bait, past her and Hemi, all the way to Skool’s unseen hand. She gave it three quick tugs—everything’s alright.
Outside, each standing by other funnels in the silk, the utterlings, Obaday, and even the bishops themselves were whacking the threads, sending vibrations inside in an attempt to distract the inhabitants while Deeba, Hemi, and Jones got inside.
Deeba heard faint sounds. A tiny rustling like air. Quiet rattling like twigs falling from a tree.
“What is that?” she muttered. Hemi bumped into her.
“Stop stopping,” he grumbled.
“Hold on a second,” Jones whispered. “There’s a bit of light coming, and…whoa!”
The web bounced violently, and Deeba slipped down a sudden incline.
She couldn’t help letting out a little scream. Jones grabbed Deeba in one hand, plucking her out of her slide, and Hemi in the other, pulling them close. He wedged them with him in a little hollow behind a cobweb-smothered ridge. The three of them were absolutely still, waiting to see if they had been noticed.
The cord stretching behind them was repeatedly tugging, Deeba realized. She pulled it three times, to reassure Skool.
Eventually, her heartbeat slowed down, and she looked into the interior of Webminster Abbey.
They were high up in an enormous space. It was dim, faintly illuminated by the light of the UnSun through the silk arcing above them.
The great room was dotted with supports, cobweb-swaddled minarets or trees, jutting at random in the irregular framework on which the web was stretched. In the very center was an ancient, ruined church, dwarfed in the chamber. Its steeple poked up into the cobweb ceiling, which smothered its weather vane.
“That must be where they started all this,” whispered
Jones.
Deeba could see black holes around the chamber: the ends of the tunnels that led outside.
“Alright then,” said Jones. “Let’s do this.” He dangled their bait some way below them. Hemi took Jones’s flashlight from his pocket and played the beam on it.
“We’re ready?” said Deeba. She yanked the cord four times to say stop touching the web.
“Here, window window window,” she whispered. Hemi waggled the light a little, and they settled down, very still, to wait.
A few seconds after their companions stopped vibrating the silk, something began to move.
Deeba saw motion. There were swaying beams of dim light, off in the distance of the darkness. She froze.
Out of the tunnels, back into the shadowy chamber, windows were coming.
There were tens, twenties, untold numbers of them. Crawling into view were heavy, painted wooden window frames, filled with thick, mottled old glass, through which Deeba glimpsed strange lights. From every frame splayed eight wooden arachnid limbs, four each side, clenching and unclenching.
They dangled; they scuttled with horrible bursts of spider speed or picked their way tarantula-slow over the floor. Deeba put her hand over her mouth so as not to make a horrified sound. She and Hemi clutched each other.
A Black Window descended out of the darkness, playing out silk. It twisted on the cord as it came, light from behind the glass rotating like the beam of a lighthouse, the same view, it looked like, shining from both sides. Deeba could see faint shapes beyond the panes of glass.
One or two of the windows trailed broken ropes from under slammed-shut panes. That must be where explorers had attempted to attach themselves, Deeba thought.
The Black Windows were not only clambering over every surface, raising their segmented legs high, through every loop and hole of webbing. They were clambering in and out of each other.
In some bizarre social interaction, windows pulled wide open, and in seemingly impossible motion, others would approach with furtive arachnid scurries and wriggle inside, the pane closing behind them. Others would open, and wooden forelegs would waver out from inside, and other windows would emerge and creep away.
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