‘Watkingle can organise those items for you,’ said Goldbite.
‘Whose fresh-cut Rat hair, sir?’ asked Watkingle. ‘I ain’t due for a haircut-’
‘Someone will need one,’ said Goldbite. ‘See to it at once.’
‘Aye, aye,’ grumbled Watkingle. He left the cabin, mumbling to himself, ‘Hair, plaster, grey or brown paint...’
‘Let me see,’ continued Dr Scamandros. He set a green crystal bottle stoppered with a lead seal on the table. ‘The large bottle of activated ink... might be best to read up a little. There’s that piece in Xamanader’s Xenographical Xactions... sure I had a copy somewhere...’
‘Where is the other Nebuchadnezzar? The one in the Upper House?’ asked Arthur, though as always he was fascinated by the amount and size of the stuff Scamandros could keep in his coat. ‘And are there Rats who might be able to help me there?’
‘I don’t know much,’ replied Goldbite. ‘I believe it is in the very lowest levels of the Upper House, by the steam engines that drive the chains. We do have some agents in place. And, of course, the Piper’s children there who help us would probably assist you too.’
‘Piper’s children?’ asked Suzy. ‘I never knew there was a bunch of us lot in the Upper House.’
At the same time, Arthur asked, ‘Steam engines? Chains?’
Goldbite explained what little he could, with Scamandros interrupting a little, in between cataloguing items he needed and re-sorting strange things that had come out of his coat. As it happened, the sorcerer could add little to Goldbite’s explanations. Scamandros had been expelled from the Upper House several thousand years previously, and back then Superior Saturday had still used more conventional means to build her tower, and there had been other buildings too, not just one enormous, sprawling construction of iron cubes.
‘It sounds like some sort of giant toy construction set,’ said Arthur. ‘And all the cubes get moved along rails by steam-driven chains?’
‘So I am told,’ said Goldbite.
‘Reckon that’ll be worth looking at,’ said Suzy happily. ‘Nothin’ like a nice cloud of honest steam and a bit of sooty coal smoke to invigilate the lungs.’
‘Vigorate,’ said Scamandros absently. ‘In-vig-o-rate. The other’s to do with exams and looking into matters. Cause of my downfall.’
‘I’m sure it will look interesting enough,’ said Arthur. ‘But we have to remember it’s the fortress of our enemy. If you do come, Suzy, you have to stay out of sight and be sneaky. I don’t want to have to fight thousands of sorcerers. Or Saturday, for that matter – not in her own demesne with the Sixth Key. We’ll just go in, find Part Six of the Will, get it, and get out. Get it?’
‘Got it,’ said Suzy.
‘Good,’ said Arthur. At that moment, a fleeting memory of his father, Bob, flashed through his head, of him watching one of his favourite Danny Kaye films and laughing fit to burst. But then it was gone, and Arthur couldn’t think why it had come to mind. He wished he could have held on to it longer. His father, and his family, felt so distant. Even a brief memory of them made him feel not so much alone.
EIGHT
THEY WERE TAKEN in a ship’s boat from the Rattus Navis IV to the Rattus Navis II. Rowed by eight salty Rats with blue ribbons trailing from their straw hats who kept in time to Watkingle’s hoarse roars of ‘Pull, Pull,’ the boat made a quick passage across the few hundred yards of open sea that separated the ships.
Arthur sat with his back against the bow, looking at the Rattus Navis IV and the ranks of Newniths on the deck. They were all facing the other way, studiously ignoring the departure of their brief fellow passenger. He was thinking about them, and where they might be going, and also thinking about where he was going, when a great spray of cold seawater splashed across his shoulders. He turned around just in time to cop the last of it in his open mouth, and saw that they were plunging down the face of a wave, having just cut through the crest of it, in the process taking on perhaps a third of a bucket of water. It would have been much more, save for Watkingle’s skill in steering the boat.
In that small amount of water, which had mostly fallen over Arthur, there was something else, which now lay wet and sodden in his lap. It was a fluffy yellow elephant – his toy elephant, which he’d already found once in the Border Sea, home of lost things, only to lose it again somewhere between the Sea and the Great Maze.
‘Elephant,’ he said dumbly, and clutched it to his chest, as tightly as he’d ever held it as a small child. Then he remembered who and where he was, and slowly lowered the toy back into his lap.
‘You need to be careful with that,’ said Dr Scamandros, looking at him over the top of his open copy of Xamanader’s Xenographical Xactions, a small scarlet-coloured book that looked too slim to have much sorcerous wisdom in it. ‘Childhood totems are very potent. Someone could make a Cocigrue from it, like the Skinless Boy, or perhaps a sympathetic needle to bring you pain.’
‘I won’t lose Elephant again,’ said Arthur. He put the small toy inside his tunic and made sure it couldn’t fall out. It made rather a strange lump, but he didn’t care.
‘I ’ad a toy when I was little,’ said Suzy. She frowned for a moment, then added, ‘Can’t remember what it was. It moved and made me laugh...’
‘Ahoy the boat! Come alongside!’
Suzy’s recollections were left behind as they scrambled up the rope ladder to the deck of the Rattus Navis II, where they were met by a nattily dressed Raised Rat whose uniform was much finer and considerably more decorative than any other Arthur had seen. Even the basic blue material of his coat had a swirling, silken pattern that caught the light.
‘Greetings, Lord Arthur! I am Lieutenant Finewhisker, commander of this vessel. Please, come below. We have our own small contingent of Newniths aboard, senior officers for the most part, who have been kind enough to foregather in the bow and take tea while you... ahem... visit.’
‘Thank you,’ said Arthur.
‘Follow me, please.’ Finewhisker moved quickly to the aft companionway and ushered them down to the captain’s great cabin. It was similar to the cabin in the Rattus Navis IV, but was much more elaborately decorated. There were red velvet curtains on the windows, and the chairs were upholstered in a bright patterned cloth that looked almost like a tartan.
Arthur hardly noticed the decorations. The cabin was dominated by an enormous green glass bottle that sat in a wooden cradle that was lashed to the deck. The bottle was at least eight feet long and five feet in diameter, and if it wasn’t for the neck being only as thick as his leg, he could have easily got inside without being turned into a Rat first.
The green glass was cloudy, but not entirely opaque, and something that looked like smoke or fog was swirling about inside, prevented from issuing out into the cabin by the Simultaneous Nebuchadnezzar’s huge, wire-wrapped, steel-bonneted cork.
‘Everything is prepared,’ said Finewhisker. ‘You need only enter the bottle, whenever you are... ah... made ready to do so. May I offer you a refreshing cordial, Lord Arthur, while your sorcerer prepares his spell?’
‘No, thank you,’ said Arthur. ‘How long will it take you, Doctor Scamandros?’
Scamandros was sorting out his various supplies on the bench. He glanced over at Arthur, blinked several times at the Nebuchadnezzar, and coughed.
‘Perhaps thirty minutes, Lord Arthur. If I may prevail upon someone to fetch me a large piece of cheese with the rind on, I would be grateful. I thought I had a slab of Old Chewsome, but I can’t lay my hand on it.’
‘I will have the cook deliver some,’ Finewhisker said. ‘Please make yourselves comfortable. I must go on deck for a few minutes, but I will be back in plenty of time to open the Nebuchadnezzar. Quite a specialised technique is required, so please do not attempt the cork yourselves. I should also warn you not to touch the glass. The exterior of the bottle is often very, very cold, and occasionally very, very hot. As neither the heat nor cold radiates, it can be a very unpleasant shock.’