Читать книгу Grim Tuesday - Гарт Никс - Страница 12

CHAPTER FIVE

To Arthur’s considerable relief, the light did grow and it did look exactly like the Front Door. Only this time he was approaching very slowly, so he had enough time to prepare himself for the shock of falling through to the other side – to the green lawn of Doorstop Hill, in the Atrium of the Lower House.

Once he was there, he figured it would be relatively easy to get to Monday’s Dayroom. Arthur wondered if it was called Arthur’s Dayroom now, or The Will’s Dayroom, or something else completely different. In any case, he would find the Will and Suzy there, and together they would work out what to do about Grim Tuesday and his minions.

Arthur was still thinking about that as he drifted gently towards the Door, when he was unexpectedly thrust forward by a tremendous force. Completely unprepared for what felt like a giant whack in the back, he tumbled end over end and crashed headfirst into the bright rectangle of light.

For an instant Arthur felt like he was being turned inside out, everything twisted in impossible and painful directions. Then he bounced on his feet on the other side and crashed down on to his hands and knees. Jarring pain in both told him he had not landed on soft grass. It was also completely dark, without even the soft glow of the distant ceiling of the Atrium, and certainly no elevator shafts illuminating the scene. Even worse, there was smoke everywhere – thick, cloying smoke that instantly made Arthur’s lungs tighten and constrict.

Before he could begin to feel around or even cough, someone grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him up and back. Arthur swallowed his cough and instinctively screamed, a scream that was cut off as some kind of fluid enveloped him. He started to choke, thinking that he was in water, but a solid clap on the back stopped that and he realised that whatever the fluid was, it wasn’t water and it wasn’t getting into his throat and nose. A moment later he was out of it and could feel air again. He had passed through some kind of membrane or fluid barrier.

Wherever he was, everything looked extremely blurry and there was too much colour, like he was standing with his nose pressed to a stained-glass window where the colours kept mixing up.

“Relax and blink a lot,” instructed whoever was gripping his shoulders – a calm, deep male voice that sounded vaguely familiar. It only took Arthur a second to remember whose it was.

The Lieutenant Keeper of the Front Door.

Arthur blinked madly and tried to relax. As he blinked, the colours settled down and the blurriness eased, at least when he was looking straight ahead. It was still very blurry to either side.

“Are we inside some sort of multicoloured glass ball?” Arthur asked after a moment. They certainly were inside something spherical and there was light shining into it, light that kept shifting around and was diffracted into many different colours.

“We are in a temporary bubble inside the Door itself,” explained the Lieutenant Keeper. He let go of Arthur, stepped in front of him and saluted. As before, he was wearing a blue uniform coat with one gold epaulette. “One that lessens the effect of the Door on mortal minds. Now, we only have a brief respite before you must go through to the Far Reaches—”

“The Far Reaches?” exclaimed Arthur in alarm. “But I wanted to go to the Atrium of the Lower House.”

“The Front Door opens on many parts of the House, but the door you entered in the Secondary Realms leads only to the Far Reaches and the Grim’s railway station.”

“I can’t go there!”

“You must go there,” declared the Lieutenant Keeper. “You have already gone there. I snatched you back, but I cannot keep you inside the Door for any great length of time. You must go where you are going. That is the Law of the Door.”

“But…” Arthur struggled to think. “OK, if I have to go to the Far Reaches, can you send a message from me to the Will or Suzy in the Lower House?”

“That part of the Will is called Dame Primus now,” said the Lieutenant Keeper. “I am afraid I am not allowed to send unofficial messages to her or anyone else. I can hold a message for someone, but I cannot pass it on unless they enquire whether I have one.”

He unbuttoned part of his coat and reached in to withdraw a watch. It played a haunting melody as he flipped open the case and gravely studied the dial.

“Two minutes, then I must return you to the Far Reaches.”

“Can you give me a disguise?” asked Arthur desperately. The Lieutenant Keeper had helped him before with a shirt and cap, so he didn’t stand out in the Lower House. Arthur would need a disguise even more in Grim Tuesday’s domain.

“That I can do. I hoped you would ask.”

The Lieutenant Keeper reached out through the glowing walls of the sphere. When he pulled his hand back he held one end of a clothesline. He reeled it in. As the pegs dropped off, various items of clothing fell into Arthur’s lap, including a faded pyjama-like top and trousers, a strange hooded cape of some rough material the colour of mud, and a many-times-patched leather apron.

“Put the work suit on over your clothes,” instructed the Lieutenant Keeper. “You will need layers for warmth. Roll up the cape for later.”

Arthur put on the pyjama-like top and trousers, and then strapped on the apron, which was very heavy leather. As instructed, he rolled up the hooded cape. It was very thick and difficult to squash down. Arthur didn’t recognise the material.

“Stabilised mud,” said the Lieutenant Keeper as Arthur looked down on a rolled-up cape that was a quarter as big as he was. “Inexpensive and it offers sufficient protection against the Nothing rain in the Pit. While it lasts.”

“Nothing rain?” asked Arthur. He didn’t like the way the Lieutenant Keeper said the Pit either. He remembered that the Atlas had called it a huge sore in the foundation of the House.

“The Pit is so vast that clouds form partway down and there is constant rain,” said the Lieutenant Keeper as he reached back out through the barrier and retrieved a pair of wooden clogs stuffed with straw.

“The rain concentrates the Nothing pollution that pervades the Pit and carries it back down. Hence the name.”

“But what is the Pit exactly?” asked Arthur. All he knew from the Atlas’s earlier reference was that it was some sort of giant mine, and a danger to the House.

“Unfortunately, you will soon see for yourself. I fear you will have difficulty staying out of it. Once in, you should escape as quickly as you can. Now – put on the clogs. Keep your socks. They are not so different as to attract notice.”

Arthur slipped off his comfortable, arch-supported, computer-designed sneakers and put on the straw-stuffed wooden clogs. They felt loose and extremely uncomfortable. When he stood up he couldn’t take a step without his heels lifting out.

“I can’t even walk in these,” he protested.

“All the indentured Denizens wear them,” said the Lieutenant Keeper. “You cannot risk being given away by your footwear. Now, for the smog. It contains minute particles of Nothing, so it wears down Denizens and will almost certainly slay a mortal. Which hand did you hold the First Key in most?”

“The right,” said Arthur.

“Then you must put two fingers from your right hand up your nostrils and your thumb in your mouth while you inhale and recite this small spell: First Key, grant this boon to me, that the air I breathe be pure and safe, and keep from me all harm and scathe.”

“What?”

The Lieutenant Keeper repeated his instructions and added, “You may need to repeat this spell as it too will be worn down by the smog, and the residual powers of the Key will fade from your flesh. Do not stay overlong in the Far Reaches, particularly the Pit.”

“I won’t if I can help it,” muttered Arthur. “I guess I can always get out up the Improbable Stair if I really have to.”

The Lieutenant Keeper shook his head.

“You mean I can’t use the Stair?” asked Arthur. He knew the Stair was risky, but at least it had been an option. Like a parachute or a fire escape. Some faint hope of escape from disaster.

“You would never reach a favourable destination,” said the Lieutenant Keeper. “Not without a Key, or a well-practised guide.”

“Great,” said Arthur dolefully. He carefully put his fingers in his nostrils and his thumb in his mouth. It was difficult to say the spell around his thumb, but possible. He felt a tingling in his nose and throat as he said the words, and at the end of the spell let out an enormous sneeze that rocked him back on his heels.

“Good!” declared the Lieutenant Keeper as he quickly consulted his watch again. “Now we must return you to your destination. I have done all I can, Arthur Penhaligon, and more than I should. Be brave and take appropriate risks, and you shall prevail.”

“But what… please tell someone where I’ve gone—”

Before Arthur could say any more, the Lieutenant Keeper snapped a salute, turned on his heel to get behind Arthur and gave him a very hefty push. Arthur, arms cartwheeling, went straight through the strange liquid barrier and once more fell on his hands and knees on the cold stone floor. His left clog came off and clattered away, and his hood fell down over his face.

As Arthur struggled with his hood, a bright light shone on him. Arthur looked up and shielded his eyes from a lantern held high by a short, broad figure. The light was shrouded and blurred by the smoke, so for a second Arthur thought he was looking at some sort of pig-man; then he realised it was the thrusting visor of a helmet. The fellow also wore a bronze breastplate over a long leather coat and had a broad, curved sword thrust naked through his belt. More peculiarly, he had what looked like a miniature steam-engine in a harness on his back, that was sending a steady flow of smoke up behind his neck and small bursts of steam from out behind his elbows.

That one small engine couldn’t possibly be the cause of the thick smoke behind the looming figure. It was like a fog, so heavy that Arthur could only make out fuzzy lights and occasional blurry shapes moving in its midst. Noise was also muffled. Arthur could hear a distant roar, as if there was a crowd somewhere, but he couldn’t see it, and there was also a kind of metallic thumping noise that sounded like machinery.