Soot reared up and flexed, showing its nasty sucker underside again. Arthur leaned back from it, struck by the notion that it had gotten bigger somehow. It certainly looked about half again as big.
"The Will of the Architect?" asked Soot. "That part of it entrusted to Grim Tuesday?"
"Yes," said Arthur. Soot's voice had dropped in pitch as well. It sounded more menacing, less eager to please than it had before. As if Arthur and Suzy were less useful to it now that it had gotten into the Treasure Tower.
"I don't know where it is exactly," replied Soot. Its silver eyes weighed up Suzy, who had hefted her copper tube, and it backed down the ladder. "But I know where it must be. Follow me."
Soot slithered and popped down the ladder and onto the top walkway. It didn't look back to see if they were following.
"It's got bigger," whispered Suzy. "Like a Nithling that's sucked the life out of someone."
Arthur nodded and bit his lip.
"We have to follow it," he said finally. "There are too many cells to check every one. Particularly since Grim Tuesday must know we're in here by now."
"What if it's leading us into a trap?"
"I still think we have to risk it."
"I's'pose so," said Suzy. "But keep your eye out for an architectural sword, or a light-ax, or something. If it gets any bigger, we'll need a better weapon than this copper pipe."
Arthur nodded and led the way down the ladder. His leg still felt weird and it felt weirder still when he finally stood up straight on the walkway. He took a few steps, stopped, then felt both his knees, his forehead wrinkled in puzzlement.
"What is it?"
"My leg? the one I broke," Arthur said hesitantly. "It's gotten shorter. It's an inch shorter than the other one!"
He bent down and felt his legs again. His clogs were long gone, fallen off into the Pit. He was standing in his socks, and there could be no doubt. He'd magically healed his broken bone, but he'd done it wrong. Not only was his leg a bit twisted, it was definitely shorter.
"It is shorter," confirmed Suzy in a conversational tone. "Come on, that Soot is going down those stairs to the next level."
"You don't get it!" cried Arthur. "My leg is shorter!"
He coughed as he said it, his breath catching. He could feel his lungs tightening, but it couldn't be asthma. Not here in the House. It was shock, or a panic attack, or something. It was bad enough having asthma and not being able to do everything. Now he was lame as well. Everything would be worse -
Arthur stopped himself.
I am not going to think about this now. I have to find Part Two of the Will, defeat Grim Tuesday, and get back in time to save the house and all our money and stop anything worse from happening. So one leg is a bit shorter? That's better than it being broken, isn't it?
"Come on!" repeated Suzy. She started off, and Arthur followed, lurching as he got used to his shorter leg.
They had to run to catch Soot, as the thing undulated down a set of iron steps to the next level, along it for a hundred yards or so, and then continued straight on down to the level below that.
Even in their socks, Arthur's and Suzy's footsteps rang on the metal walkway, the sound echoing through the vast open space in the middle. "If there are guards here, they'll know where we are," said Arthur anxiously. His voice echoed out into the central courtyard, carrying even more than their footsteps.
"There are no guards," called Soot. It had stopped outside a cell door that looked the same as all the others. "Grim Tuesday allows no one but himself to enter the Treasure Tower. Not even the Grotesques are allowed in here. But at last I am where I should have always been - with all the lovely treasure!"
Arthur and Suzy grimaced and stepped back as thick, translucent saliva dribbled out of Soot's mouth and dripped down through the cast-iron mesh of the walkway.
"Is the Will inside that cell?" asked Arthur. It seemed a bit too straightforward for someone like Grim Tuesday to keep the Will here, even if no one but himself - or his former eyebrow - could know which of the five thousand rooms to look for.
"There should be a way to the Will inside," said Soot, its drool bubbling as it spoke. "But here I must leave you. Other, more easily digestible treasures await me!"
It leaped backwards and over the railing as Suzy rushed forward to hit it with the pipe. She and Arthur rushed to look over the side, only to see Soot several levels down, clinging to the side of the walkway there. With a loud popping, it slithered underneath the walkway and was gone from sight.
"Good riddance," said Arthur. "I suppose."
"If it's led us to the right door," said Suzy. She looked it over, then tried to slide back the inch-thick bolt. It didn't budge, even when she pulled with both hands and pushed with her feet against the rim of the door.
"Stuck, or magically locked," she said. "Not even a padlock to pick."
Arthur examined the bolt. It actually looked welded in place, with thick strands of metal between the bolt and the loops. As he touched it, Arthur's hand felt suddenly hot. Flakes of rust fell to the floor, the bolt rattled, and Arthur easily drew it back.
Suzy whistled in admiration.
"That's a good trick. Wish I could do the same thing to Dame Primus's biscuit pantry."
Arthur pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Chapter Fourteen
Arthur stepped into another room that was bigger inside than out. This was no tiny cell, but a room about the size of the big family room in Arthur's house - the house that they would lose if Arthur couldn't stop the Grotesques.
Apart from the overall size, this room had nothing in common with Arthur's family room. For a start, it looked more like a ship's cabin than a room. The brick walls of the prison were gone, replaced by wooden planking, sealed with tar that had dripped in numerous places. The ceiling and the floor were planked too, and everything creaked a little as Arthur walked farther in. The only light came from a lamp that swung on a chain from the ceiling, making the shadows shift and sway.
There was a neatly made-up bunk in one corner and some barrels and a chest in another, but most of the room was taken up by a long table of deeply polished wood. On the table were hundreds and hundreds of different bottles, all carefully laid flat, many of them mounted on wooden or ivory bases.
Every bottle had a ship in it. Many different kinds of ships, in many different sorts of bottles. Glass of all colors, thick and thin, sealed with corks, or wax, or lead, or sprung metal stoppers. Ships with one mast, two masts, three masts, or no masts and lots of oars. Big ships that might have crews of hundreds of sailors and little ships just for one.
Arthur walked closer. The lamp swung, and the shadows shifted. Arthur saw a red glow suddenly flare in the corner at the end of the table and stopped as he saw it came from a pipe in the mouth of a man who was sitting there. An oldish man, white-haired and white-whiskered, his face looking like it hadn't seen a shave for a week but wasn't yet up to a beard.
He was wearing a heavy blue coat, the sleeves showing dark bands where four gold braided bands might once have been. Instead of the ubiquitous clogs of the Far Reaches, he had on rubber boots, with the tops folded over above the knee.
His eyes were deep-set, bright blue, and very piercing. He met Arthur's stare, carefully placed his pipe on a stand, still smoking, then put down the quill pen he held, snapped shut the top of the inkwell, set down the huge bronze-bound book he was writing in, and spiked a piece of paper that looked like an old-fashioned telegram on a long metal spike that held hundreds of similar papers.
Then he stood up, all six feet six inches of him and came into the light.