‘White and luminous,’ said Arthur. ‘The way into the Improbable Stair.’
Ahead of him, the clicking noise suddenly increased in volume and tempo. The soldier insects were beginning their charge.
‘White! Luminous! Stair!’ shouted Arthur.
A squealing zing went over his head, but he didn’t turn or look. All his attention was on that one pale blue sandbag, which was slowly, ever so slowly, beginning to turn white.
Two
SUZY TURQUOISE BLUE, sometime Ink-Filler Sixth Class, Monday’s Tierce, and General of the Army of Lord Arthur, waggled her left foot, just enough to start her spinning in a counterclockwise direction. She’d been slowly turning clockwise for the past hour and she felt like a change. She could introduce that motion with only a slight movement of her foot, which was fortunate, since it was the only part of her that wasn’t tightly wrapped in the inch-thick scarlet rope that suspended her from a crane that had been swung out some 16,000 feet up on the eastern side of Superior Saturday’s tower.
‘Stop that!’ called a Sorcerous Supernumerary, who sat at the base of the crane. He was reading a large leather-bound book and dangling his legs over the edge of the tower. ‘Prisoners are not to spin counterclockwise!’
‘Sez who?’ asked Suzy.
‘The manual says so,’ replied the Supernumerary rather stiffly, tapping the book he held. ‘I just read that bit. “Prisoners are not to spin counterclockwise, for the prevention of sorcerous eddies.”’
‘Better wind me in, then,’ said Suzy. ‘Else I’ll keep spinning.’
She had been hanging there for more than six hours, ever since being captured by the Artful Loungers near the Rain Reservoir, where Arthur had gone down the plughole in search of Part Six of the Will. Since being a prisoner was a definite improvement over being dead, which was what she thought was going to happen when the Loungers had attacked, Suzy was quite cheerful.
‘It says here, “Prisoners are to be left dangling in the wind and rain at all times, unless ordered otherwise by Suitable Authority”,’ said the Supernumerary.
‘It’s stopped raining,’ said Suzy. ‘It’s not all that windy either. It’s quite nice, in fact. Besides, aren’t you a Suitable Authority?’
‘Don’t make me laugh,’ grumbled the Supernumerary. ‘You know quite well I wouldn’t be here if everyone else wasn’t up top, fighting Sunday. Or down below, fighting the Piper.’
And that’s only the half of it, thought Suzy, with a smile that would have annoyed the Supernumerary if he’d seen it. Superior Saturday is fighting Lord Sunday up above in the Incomparable Gardens; the Piper is fighting Superior Saturday’s forces in the lower portions of the Upper House; Dame Primus is trying to hold back the Nothing that is eroding the House, while also preparing to attack Superior Saturday; Arthur hopefully by now has got Part Six of the Will and will be trying to obtain the Sixth Key ...
It’s all like a very complicated game, thought Suzy as she spun back towards the Supernumerary. I wonder if anyone really knows what’s going on.
Thinking about games gave her an idea. Artful Loungers were too crazed and dangerous to try to trick, but this Sorcerous Supernumerary was more like a normal Denizen.
‘You know, if you wind me in, we could play chess,’ said Suzy. She pointed her toe at the chess set that was on top of the closer desk. It looked to be a very fine one, with ivory pieces that had ruby-chip eyes.
‘That’s one of Noon’s sets,’ said the Supernumerary. ‘We can’t touch that! Besides, I failed chess.’
‘We could play checkers. We oughter play something until my rescuers show up and chuck you off the building,’ said Suzy.
‘What?’ asked the Supernumerary. He looked around nervously. Unlike most of Saturday’s tower, the prison section at level 61620 (that was really floor 1620, which was quite high enough) was a solid buttress attached to the main building, rather like a shelf that was put on as an afterthought. It was not made up of open iron-framed office cubes, but was a broad and elegant verandah of teak decking that ran alongside the tower for a hundred feet. The outer edge was lined with a dozen cranes that were mounted so that they could pivot and swing their hooks out over the edge, to suspend prisoners some 16,000 feet above the ground.
Currently, only one of the cranes had a dangling prisoner. The Internal Auditors who usually ran the prison level had all left to join Saturday’s assault upon the Incomparable Gardens, and had presumably dispatched all their prisoners before their departure. Now only Suzy was there, guarded by two Sorcerous Supernumeraries. One was reading the manual and another was prowling back and forth in front of the single large leather-padded door that led back into the tower proper. As she paced, she muttered to herself about awesome responsibilities and the inevitability of things going wrong. This Supernumerary had not once looked over at Suzy, almost as if she wanted to deny the existence of her prisoner.
‘What do you mean, rescuers?’ the Supernumerary with the manual asked. ‘And why would they chuck me off the tower?’
‘I’m a Piper’s child, right?’ asked Suzy. ‘Who’s attacking the tower?’
‘The Piper,’ said the Supernumerary. ‘Oh ... I see. But he’ll never get this far.’
‘Dunno about that,’ said Suzy. ‘I mean, Saturday’s nicked off with all the best fighters, ain’t she? I mean, she’s all right, she’ll be living it up in the Incomparable Gardens, with her Artful Loungers and Internal Auditors and all. It’s you poor blokes I feel sorry for.’
‘We always get the worst jobs,’ admitted the Sorcerous Supernumerary. ‘You know what the higher-ups call us? Maggots, that’s what. At least that’s what one called me once ...’
‘Wot’s your actual name, then?’ asked Suzy. ‘I’m Suzy Turquoise Blue.’
‘Giac,’ replied the Supernumerary. He looked over the edge and sighed. ‘I was enjoying being up this high till you said I might get chucked off.’
‘Course you might not get thrown off,’ Suzy said thoughtfully.
‘I bet I would,’ said Giac. ‘Bound to be. Just my luck.’
‘They might just cut your head off,’ said Suzy. ‘The Newniths, I mean. The Piper’s soldiers. Big, ugly brutes, they are, with charged battle-axes and the like. I’m glad I’m on the same side as them, is all I can say.’
‘They’ll never get this far,’ repeated Giac uneasily.
‘Might as well ’ave a bit of fun before whatever happens happens,’ said Suzy. ‘Tell you what – why don’t you bring me in, we’ll play checkers, and then when the Newniths show up, I’ll get them to just take you prisoner. Instead of cutting your head off.’
‘I have to do what the manual says,’ replied Giac gloomily. ‘Besides, one of the Internal Auditors might come back. They’d do worse than cut my head off.’
‘Worse?’ asked Suzy. ‘Like what?’
‘Encystment,’ said Giac with a shudder. He turned a page in the manual and stared at it, then sighed and shut the book.
‘It’s so nice up here,’ he said. ‘Particularly without the rain. I really do think ten thousand years of rain is a bit much. My socks might even dry if it stays fine.’
‘Be even better with a game of checkers,’ said Suzy. ‘You don’t have to untie me. Just swing me in, and I’ll call out the moves. Then, if one of your lot shows up, you can swing me out again and they’ll be none the wiser.’
‘I suppose I could ...’ Giac put the book down and peered at the workings of the crane. ‘I wonder if it’s this wheel ... or perhaps this lever?’
‘No! Not the lever!’ shouted Suzy.
Giac withdrew his hand, which had been just about to pull the lever that would release the hook and send Suzy plummeting down to certain death.
‘Must be the wheel, then,’ he said. He started to turn it, and the crane responded, rotating on its pivot until Suzy was brought back to dangle above the floor of the verandah.