Arthur struck as her fingers pressed the catch and the umbrella began to fold. His wrench bounced off the Denizen’s head. She blinked once and said, ‘No little Piper’s child can hit hard enough to... to...’
She blinked again and slowly slid to the floor. Arthur, keeping them both covered and out of sight under the partly folded umbrella, shoved her back under the desk.
‘What have you done?’ exclaimed Alyse in a furious whisper. ‘You’ll get us all executed!’
‘I only knocked her out,’ said Arthur. ‘It had to be done. Tell me, is there somewhere all this rain goes? Like a big stormwater reservoir or something?’
‘What?’ asked Alyse. She peered under the desk and then looked back up. Her gang was already above, but so were a line of sad-eyed Sorcerous Supernumeraries.
‘How did they get ahead of us?’ asked Arthur.
‘They caught a normal elevator like they always do!’
‘They’ll wonder what’s happened to this sorcerer, won’t they?’
‘Of course they will!’
‘Do the Denizens ever sleep at their desks?’ Arthur asked. He was trying to think how to hide the sorcerer, but there wasn’t anywhere completely out of sight. They were surrounded by sorcerers at their desks, thousands of them...
‘They always sleep at their desks,’ said Alyse. ‘But it’s not nighttime, is it? I knew I should have pushed you off the Big Chain!’
They were four floors away from their destination now. Arthur could see Suzy leaning over the edge, watching him. She waved again. Arthur responded by scratching his cap in an agitated way and throwing his hands up in the air, hoping that this might send a message that they were about to be in serious trouble. Not that there was anything Suzy could do.
All he could think of was to take out the Fifth Key, destroy as many of the Sorcerous Supernumeraries and the surrounding sorcerers in their offices as he could in a surprise attack, and then use the Key to escape. But that wouldn’t free the Will, and it would be very difficult to get back, even now that he’d seen the place and could use the Key, since there were all these sorcerers who would be watching for just such a thing.
‘Have you ever had one keep hiding under a desk after they’ve risen up?’ he asked Alyse.
‘Of course not! Some of them have been waiting thousands of years to get promoted. They get out and dance on their desks half the time. Or start weaving spells to catch water and throw it down on their former fellows.’
Three floors away and there were more Sorcerous Supernumeraries staring mournfully down and shuffling on the edge of the temporary shaft.
‘Right,’ said Arthur. He quickly looked around to check that the office was above the eyeline of the Denizens around them. ‘I’d better do something.’
‘What?’ asked Alyse.
‘This,’ said Arthur, and he shifted the umbrella so he and part of the desk were hidden from the sight of the Denizens above.
Alyse looked puzzled, an expression that changed to horror as Arthur suddenly reached out with his wrench and smashed the green desk lamp. It exploded with a vicious crack and a shower of sparks. A sheet of flame shot up, and the rain falling on it created an instant pall of steam.
Moving through the cloud, Arthur sprang to the corner and stuck his wrench into the rising chain. Exerting all his unnatural strength, he tried to break one of the links open, but the wrench bent in half and snapped off in his hand. The chain kept rising with the broken head in it, and the office kept rising too... for about half a foot. Then there was a fearful screeching, and the office suddenly lurched up on one side and down on the other. Arthur, Alyse, the desk and the unconscious Denizen began to slide off into an adjacent office.
‘Shut down!’ Alyse screamed up the shaft as she kicked the desk to push it against a corner. ‘Chain break! Shut down! Chain break!’
Still obscured by steam, Arthur stopped the Denizen’s slide, but the office was continuing to rise on the far side, tilting the floor even more.
‘Shut it down!’ Alyse continued to shout.
The chain suddenly stopped its mechanical shriek, the office juddered to a full stop at a thirty-degree angle, the flame from the green lamp sputtered out and the steam wafted away. Arthur quickly arranged the Denizen against the jammed-up desk, so she looked like she’d struck her head in the accident.
‘Who would know where the water goes?’ Arthur asked Alyse with some urgency.
‘How dare you!’ was Alyse’s reply. ‘We had such a good record!’
‘Some things are more important,’ said Arthur coldly. ‘Like the fact that the whole House and the entire Universe is going to be destroyed unless I do something. So stop whining and tell me who might know where all the stormwater goes!’
Alyse grimaced and looked up, rain tapping on her goggles. Then she looked back at Arthur.
‘Dartbristle would know. Go ask him, and get away from us!’
‘You all right down there?’ called a grease monkey from above.
‘Not exactly!’ shouted Arthur. ‘Just give us a minute!
‘Where would I find Dartbristle?’ Arthur continued in a quiet tone. ‘Also, I bet we need a pass or something to go back by ourselves, right?’
‘There’s a pennywhistle by the drain you came up,’ said Alyse. ‘Play his tune on that and he’ll come to the depot.’
‘His tune? Oh, yeah, the one he whistles – I remember that.’
Arthur had a very good musical ear, so good that people often assumed that he’d inherited it from his father, the lead singer of The Ratz, not knowing that Bob was actually his adoptive father.
‘Do we need a pass to go back?’
‘I’ll write to say you’re going to fetch a part we need.’ Alyse got out her book and a blue pencil and quickly scribbled something on a page. Then she tore out the page and handed it to Arthur, saying, ‘That’s it. Just go!’
‘Everything’s going to change,’ Arthur told her. ‘Whether you want it to or not. The only question is whether the change is for the better or the worse.’
‘We just want to do our job,’ said Alyse, repeating the words like a mantra.
The umbrella above them suddenly moved, a black-clad Sorcerous Supernumerary sweeping it aside. Another Supernumerary landed with a splash next to him, and then a third jumped down. They ignored Arthur and Alyse, going to look at the unconscious sorcerer on the floor. Each of them, Arthur noticed, had the slightest of smiles that would not be visible to anyone farther away than he and Alyse. They were pleased to see an unconscious sorcerer and a halted promotion.
‘Boss? What do we do?’ a grease monkey called from above.
Alyse looked up. ‘Get yourself down here! You and Bigby and Whrod. I’m sending Ray and Suze back down to get a Number Three temporary chain bracket. The rest of you, I want every inch of horizontal chain from here to ten offices out in all directions checked for corrosion.’
‘Corrosion accident causal effect?’ asked a tinny, booming voice.
The speaker was one of the octopoidal automatons. It spoke through a valve under its central sphere, which rather horribly opened and shut as it talked.
‘How would I know?’ shouted Alyse. ‘Most likely, though. We’ll have to look.’
‘Higher authority approaches,’ reported the automaton. ‘Await instruction.’
‘Big nob!’ hissed one of the grease monkeys above.
The three Sorcerous Supernumeraries straightened like string puppets yanked to attention and rapidly climbed back up.
‘Quick, you drop over the side to the next level, run through to the north side, and use your wings,’ Alyse told Arthur. ‘A Sorcerer-Overseer will see who you are straight away, up close.’
‘Suze!’ Arthur shouted. ‘Get down here!’
He slid down the uneven floor and began to lower himself over the side, making sure first that he wasn’t going to drop on the head of the Denizen below.
‘Thanks,’ Arthur said to Alyse. ‘Suze! Come on!’
‘I’m here!’ Suzy called, landing with a thump near Arthur and almost rolling off before she got a good handhold. ‘In a hurry, are we?’