‘Odd clothes,’ said Suzy doubtfully. She put on the coveralls, but tore a strip of blue cloth off her old rags and added it as a belt.
‘You’ll get utility belts at the depot,’ said Dartbristle.
‘I like a bit of colour,’ sniffed Suzy.
‘There’s boots there,’ Dartbristle pointed out. ‘You’ll need them for the climbing and jumping and whatnot.’
‘Climbing and jumping?’ asked Arthur. He sat down and pulled on a pair of the boots. They were made of soft leather and had strange soles that were covered in tiny tentacles like a sea anemone. They gripped Arthur’s finger when he touched them.
‘Everything up past the ground-floor level here is made up of desk units,’ said Dartbristle. ‘Open iron boxes with a lattice floor, stacked and slotted into a framework of guide rails, and moved up, down and across by shifter chains. The Piper’s children here are grease monkeys – they keep the chains oiled, free up obstructions, service the pneumatic message tubes and so on. Requires a lot of climbing, jumping and the like. If you’re going to be looking around the Upper House, you’ll need to fit in as grease monkeys.’
‘Who said we’d be looking around the Upper House?’ asked Arthur suspiciously.
Perhaps I should slay this Rat now, came an unbidden thought. He knows too much and I probably don’t need him... Stop... stop! I don’t want these thoughts...
‘The message that came through advising me of your arrival,’ Dartbristle replied. ‘Said you’d be looking for something, and to offer you any reasonable assistance.’
‘Yes,’ said Arthur, keeping a tight lid on the nasty, selfish thoughts that were roiling in the depths of his head. ‘Thank you. We are looking for something. In fact-’
He took a breath and decided to go for it. He had to trust people, even if they happened to be Raised Rats. Or Denizens. Or Piper’s children.
‘I’m looking for Part Six of the Will of the Architect. It’s here somewhere. Trapped, or held prisoner. Have you heard anything about it?’
Dartbristle took off his hat and scratched his head. Then he took off his mask and scratched his nose. Then he put both back on and said, ‘No, I’m afraid not. The grease monkeys might-’
‘Maybe,’ said Arthur. ‘But I want to check them out first, so keep it secret for now. Remember, we’re newly returned from the Army and washed between the ears.’
‘Aye, I’ll remember,’ said Dartbristle. ‘We’re good with secrets, we Raised Rats. Are you ready to go?’
The question was addressed to Suzy, who was playing with the sole of one of her boots.
‘Reckon,’ she said, slipping on her footwear. ‘Down that tunnel?’
‘Yes, we have to avoid the Sorcerous Supernumeraries, as I said,’ replied Dartbristle. ‘We should have an hour or more before the next flood.’
‘How can you tell?’ Arthur asked. He looked up at the window. ‘Doesn’t it depend on the rain?’
‘Yes and no,’ said Dartbristle as he led the way down the ladder. ‘You see, it always rains here, and always at the same, steady rate. Makes traversing the flood channels and stormwater drains very predictable.’
‘It always rains?’ asked Arthur. ‘Why?’
‘She likes the rain,’ Dartbristle told him. ‘Or maybe she likes umbrellas.’
There was no doubt who ‘she’ was: Superior Saturday, who Arthur was beginning to think more and more must be his ultimate nemesis, and the cause of not only his own troubles but those of the entire House and the Universe beyond.
Now he was in her demesne. She, and her thousands of sorcerers, were somewhere up above him. Hopefully in ignorance of his presence, but possibly all too aware that he had come within her reach.
ELEVEN
AS DARTBRISTLE HAD claimed, the flood channel did not suddenly fill with rushing water as Arthur half-feared it might. All the way along he listened carefully for the sound of an approaching deluge, and was ready to race back to the ladder and the warehouse. Then, when he caught sight of a ladder ahead, he had to hold himself back from trampling over the Raised Rat to get to it and climb out.
Maybe all my worries have made me claustrophobic, Arthur thought with some concern. But then he told himself it was perfectly normal to be concerned when walking along what was basically a big underground drain, in the middle of a heavy rainstorm. People got drowned all the time doing stupid stuff like that, and as he had thought before in the Border Sea, Arthur was particularly concerned that the Key would keep him sort of alive underwater and he might take a long time to die.
However, he managed to stay calm, and didn’t streak up the ladder like a rat up a drainpipe. Instead he remembered what Suzy had said about his looks, and paused to pick up some mud, which he smeared on his face and front. After that he climbed out slowly, and so had time to adjust to the light and noise that was filtering down the access shaft to the channel.
The chamber above was very different from the warehouse. It was smaller, sixty feet square, and had thick stone walls without any windows and only a single door, which was shut and barred. But it was full of light, from the dozens of lanterns that hung on wires of different lengths from the arch-beamed ceiling high above, and it was full of noise, from the thirty or so grease monkeys who were sitting on simple wooden benches at six old oak tables – or not sitting, since a good number of them were jumping over the tables as part of a dozen-person game of tag, or doing cartwheels along them, or playing shuttlecock with improvised shuttles and bats, or constructing curious pieces of machinery. Or completely monopolising a tabletop by lying asleep on it, as one nearby grease monkey was doing.
As Dartbristle helped Suzy out and she and Arthur stood at the rim of the trapdoor, all this activity ceased. The children stopped their games and activities and turned to look at the new arrivals.
‘Wotcher!’ said Suzy, and went to tip her hat. She got halfway to her head before she remembered it wasn’t there, and so had to be satisfied with a wave.
The grease monkeys didn’t wave back. They stood there, staring, until the one who was apparently asleep on the table rubbed her eyes and sat up. She looked like a typical Piper’s child, with her ragged, self-cut hair, dirty face and oil-stained coveralls. But from the way the other grease monkeys’ eyes shifted toward her, Arthur could tell she was the boss.
‘Mornin’,’ she said. ‘Dartie here says you’ve been demobbed and sent back, with a washing between the ears behind you.’
‘That’s right,’ said Arthur. ‘Uh, I think.’
‘I’m Alyse Shifter First Class,’ said the girl. ‘I’m gang boss of this bunch, the Twenty-seventh Chain and Motivation Maintenance Brigade of the Upper House. What’re your names and classifications? Don’t tell me your House precedence – we don’t bother with that here.’
‘Uh... I can’t quite... remember,’ said Arthur. ‘I think my name’s Ray.’
‘Got your paperwork?’ asked Alyse, holding out her hand.
‘Lost it,’ muttered Arthur.
‘Somewhere,’ added Suzy vaguely. ‘Think my name’s Suze, though.’
‘Suze and Ray,’ said Alyse. ‘Well, what’s your classification?’
‘Uh...’ Arthur let his voice trail off as he looked around in what he hoped was a gormless manner, till he spotted a long line of coats and other items hanging from coat hooks down the far wall. Each hook held a duckling-yellow peaked rain-cap, a rubberised yellow rain-mantle and a broad leather belt loaded with pouches, tools and a holster that held a long, shining silver shifting wrench.
‘I think I used to do up nuts,’ he said. ‘For bolts?’
Alyse looked at him.
‘You got long enough arms for it,’ she said. ‘Nut-turner, I guess. Maybe First Class. What about you?’
‘Dunno,’ said Suzy. ‘Forget. Reckon I could turn my hand to anything, though.’
Alyse looked her up and down and shrugged.
‘Nice under-belt,’ she said. ‘Blue-sky wisher, are you? You must be a Wire-flyer?’