"Back to the House, first creation of the Architect and epicenter of the Uni verse," said Suzy. "If I can find the Front Door, and if the Skinless Boy an d his minions don"t stop me. Good-bye!"
Michaeli gave a tentative wave. Suzy bowed, clapped her wings behind her ba ck, and ran up the stairs to the roof garden.
Behind her, Michaeli looked at Leaf to see if she was still breathing, but didn"t go any closer. Then she went across to her own room and looked out t he window. There was an ambulance in the street. She hesitated for a moment , then ran down the stairs.
Suzy patted the ceramic iguana that stood in the roof garden on the head, ju mped on its back, and launched herself into the sky with a few strong wingbe ats. Thirty feet above the roof, she caught an updraft and quickly soared to a height of several hundred feet.
The wings, besides being exceptional examples of their kind for flying, wer e also imbued with several other properties. Suzy was counting on one of th em to make the return trip to the House uneventful. According to Dr. Scaman dros, who had reluctantly helped her borrow them from Dame Primus"s dressin g room, flying with the wings would generate a sorcerous effect that would make mortals unable to look at her. The wings also had some protective qual ities, but again, only when in use for flight. Suzy had thought this rather shabby, and still thought so, even after Dr. Scamandros had explained that it was the nature of sorcery to never live up to expectations.
Not that Suzy antic.i.p.ated anything other than flying. She intended to fly t o the manifestation of the House, which she had seen through Seven Dials wa s located above the hospital. Then she would fly right up to the Front Door and, if necessary, hover in front of it while she knocked. Then it would b e straight back to Monday"s Dayroom with the pocket. From there she would w ork out how to get it to Arthur so he could throw it in sufficient Nothing to get rid of it and the Skinless Boy.
A very straightforward and satisfactory job, Suzy thought. Even Dame Pri mus could hardly complain though she would, of course, and carry on abou t the Original Law, but Suzy was used to that. It would be a small price t o pay for saving Arthur"s world from the Spirit-eater. Suzy was three-quarters of the way to the hospital and could clearly see th e House ahead when she also saw the flaw in her plan. From the lack of inte rest from various official-looking mortals she had flown above, it was prob ably true that the wings shielded her from the gaze of humans. And while th is would not work on Nithlings, both she and Dr. Scamandros had thought it very unlikely that the Skinless Boy had a set of wings.
What they hadn"t given full thought to was the fact that someone had made t he Skinless Boy in the first place and had helped it get through the Front Door to Earth, in defiance of numerous laws of the House. Anyone who would raise a Spirit-eater would not hesitate to use more common Nithlings. There could easily be other Nithlings here, sent to help the Skinless Boy achiev e whatever he had been sent to do.
And now here they were. Suzy flapped her wings hard to gain height as she sa w them. Three winged shapes, slowly flying in a circle about five hundred ya rds out from the Front Door. Currently they were playing a game with one of the mortals" flying machines, taking turns to dive in front of it as it came around on its...o...b..t of the hospital, its spinning top part chattering away.
The fact that the mortal pilot couldn"t see them and wouldn"t know what he" d hit if one of them miscalculated was obviously the main attraction of the game.
Suzy didn"t know exactly what kind of Nithlings they were. They were roughl y human-sized, but one had the head of a rodent, one had a head like a snak e, and the third had a head that resembled a partially squashed avocado wit h eyes and a toothy mouth. They all had normal-enough limbs, save for great variety in the number of fingers. All three wore Denizen cast-off shirts, waistcoats, and breeches, similar to the clothes favored by Suzy herself, t hough these Nithlings did not have hats. They also had very fine-looking re d-feathered wings, not the cheap paper ones. The wings probably had similar properties to Suzy"s own, though Nithlings also had a native ability to re main unseen in the Secondary Realms.
They were armed with tridents, which suggested they might have once serv ed Drowned Wednesday, but that was surely misdirection. Suzy knew too mu ch about Drowned Wednesday to fall for that one. The sad, food-obsessed Trustee would not have employed Nithlings. These three had to be in the service of one of the four remaining Morrow Days.
Suzy continued to gain height as she watched them, circling to put the sun behind her. The Nithlings were busy with their game, but at any time they might remember their duty and look up and around. The sun would hide her to some extent.
The Commissionaire"s truncheon would not be much use if it came to an aerial fight, Suzy thought. She couldn"t see from her current distance, but the tr idents were bound to be sorcerous in nature, either glowing red-hot or emitt ing electric effects or, if she was very unlucky, firing projectiles of Noth ing.
J can"t fight three armed Nithlings, Suzy thought.
She peered down at the House, trying to see if there were any more Nithlin gs or anything else near the Front Door. It was hard to see from so high u p. She was now at least three thousand feet above the House, and there wer e deep shadows from the many bizarre overhangs, abutments, projections, cr enulations, awnings, and afterthoughts. Her only chance would be to dive straight down, checking her flight at the las t possible instant right in front of the door. If she timed it right, did it f ast enough, and didn"t break her neck, she might be able to get into the door before the Nithlings could intercept her.
Suzy tucked the precious container with Arthur"s torn pocket deeper into the fob pocket of her third-inside waistcoat and b.u.t.toned up the two waistcoats she wore over that and did her coat up all the way to her throat.
The Nithlings were still playing with the chattering flying machine. Suzy ho vered for a moment, her chin almost resting on her chest as she made sure th at she had a clear flight path straight down.
"Hey, ho, it"s any fool"s go," Suzy muttered to herself. She clasped her han ds above her head in a cla.s.sic diving posture, threw herself forward and dow n, and stopped flapping.
For an instant her outstretched wings held her in position, though her body was almost perpendicular to the ground. Then Suzy folded her wings all the way back and she fell like a meteorite from the heavens, straight down.
Chapter Eighteen.
Arthur got a very accelerated Not-Horse riding lesson that night. He and F red, after the enormous surprise of a handshake and some nice words from S ergeant Helve, were hustled from the Mess Hall by the lieutenant. They wer e marched to the Orderly Room, where Colonel Huwiti informed them that the y had been given battlefield graduations from Fort Transformation and cong ratulated them on their a.s.signment to GHQ as privates in the Regiment. He shook their hands too. In return they saluted and did the smartest about-t urns they could manage. Then they were marched off to the Quartermaster"s Store, where they signed over all the recruit equipment they"d left in the barracks, handed back the Legionary gear they were wearing, and were issu ed Horde field riding armor and equipment, which they quickly had to put o n. From the Q Store, they limped after the lieutenant in their knee-length Hord e hauberks and stiff leather boots, trying not to groan under the weight of their winged helmets, saddles, stuffed saddlebags, and the curved swords the Horde called lightning tulwars.
The riding lesson was given in the Post Stables by a Horde NCO they had no t met before, named Troop Sergeant Terzok. He was considerably less wide a cross the shoulders than most of the other sergeants but had the most amaz ing mustache, which Arthur was sure must be fake. Close up it looked like it might be made of wire, and it certainly stuck out at right angles from his nose in a way that hair surely couldn"t manage.
They almost felt better when Troop Sergeant Terzok, rather than being stran gely friendly, immediately shouted at them and proceeded to impart a long l ist of facts about Not-Horses and the riding of them, interrupting himself every minute or so to quiz the two of them on what he"d just said.
Arthur was tired but also buoyed up by having survived the battle, without r eally having to think about it yet. The prospect of going to GHQ was a relie f, as well. So the first few hours of the Not-Horse lesson were bearable.
By the third hour, which was when they finally got to go into the Not-Horse stable, he was losing any feeling of relief. Then he made the fatal error of actually yawning, as Troop Sergeant Terzok was showing them the finer point s of a Not-Horse that was standing quietly in its stall, its glittering ruby eyes quiescent.
"Am I boring you, Trooper Green?" shouted Terzok.
"Not exciting enough, hey? Want to get straight on a Not-Horse, do you?"
"No, Sergeant!" shouted Arthur. He was suddenly very wide awake indeed.
"No, Troop Sergeant!" yelled Terzok. He pushed his wire-brush mustache almo st into Arthur"s nose. "You are going to ride a Not-Horse like a trooper in the Horde, not a private, and I am a Troop Sergeant, not some plodding ord inary sergeant. Is that clear?"
"Yes, Troop Sergeant!" shouted Arthur and Fred, who figured that it would be best for him to join in as well.
"If we had a few more Not-Horses here, I could have taken a troop after thos e Nithlings," Terzok continued. "None of "em would have gotten away then. Ri ght. I will repeat the basics for the fifth and final time. This here is Mow lder, the oldest Not-Horse on the post. Made up more than four thousand year s ago and still going strong. He is a typical Not-Horse, with three toes on each leg, not the four-toed variant that is occasionally seen. Each of these toes has been fitted for combat purposes with a four-inch steel claw, as yo u can see. The Not-Horse"s skin is a flexible metal but the creature itself is a Near Creation based on an original design of the Architect. It has livi ng flesh under the metal skin, which serves as a very useful armor. Like us Denizens, the Not-Horse is extremely hardy and heals well.
Not-Horses are also smart and must be treated properly at all times. Any que stions so far?"
"No, Troop Sergeant!"
"Right, then. I will now demonstrate the correct means of approaching a Not- Horse to fit a bit and bridle. Watch closely."
Arthur watched closely as Terzok demonstrated how to get all the harness on a Not-Horse. It looked straightforward, provided the Not-Horse cooperated, but was not quite so easy when Arthur got to do it himself. Getting up int o the saddle and actually riding the Not-Horse also proved to be more diffi cult than he"d thought. Six hours after the lesson began, in the cold, dark early time before the d awn, Terzok p.r.o.nounced Arthur and Fred as capable as they were going to get in the time available. Which was not capable at all, but he hoped they wou ld stay on long enough to learn from experience. Before they left, he whisp ered in the ears of the two Not-Horses chosen to carry them.
By this stage, Arthur in particular was so tired that he didn"t care if he was tied across the saddle like a blanket. He just wanted to rest and not h ave to listen to or watch Troop Sergeant Terzok and his mustache ever a gain. He"d thought he was used to being exhausted and had gotten much bette r at staving off the swimming vision and loss of coordination. But now even the proximity of a sergeant couldn"t stop him from swaying on his feet.
But he wasn"t allowed to go to sleep. Another unknown lieutenant, this o ne unwounded and wearing Horde armor, arrived as the lesson concluded an d announced that he would be leading them to GHQ.
"I"m Troop Lieutenant Jarrow," he said. "Seconded from the Horde to Fort Transformation. We"ll be riding out in fifteen minutes, after I"ve checke d your weapons, equipment, harness, and mounts. Which of you is Gold and which Green?"
"I"m Priv Trooper Gold," said Fred.
Arthur mumbled something that sounded like it might be "Green." Jarrow fr owned and stepped closer to him.
"I know there"s a medical advice about you, Green," he said. "But the file"s gone missing. Are you fit enough to travel?"
"I"m just tired, sir," said Arthur. "Very tired."
He was so tired that he wasn"t entirely sure that he"d actually said anyth ing aloud. And he was also confused about where he was and what he was doi ng. Surely if he was meant to be going anywhere, it was school. School wit h Leaf and Ed.
Arthur shook his head. What was this school he could see in his mind"s e ye? Who were Leaf and Ed, and why were they looking down at him with the blue sky behind them?
"Have you shown these two the Horde method of carrying wounded, Troop Sergeant?" asked Jarrow.
"No, sir!" snapped Terzok. He looked at Arthur. "Should I sling him up, Tr oop Lieutenant?"
"Yes, do," said Jarrow.
Three Not-Horses had been readied for the ride ahead and were standing pat iently outside the stable door. Terzok took what appeared to be a large ca nvas bag with leather straps and steel buckles from behind the stable door and hung it between two of the Not-Horses. Muttering something to them qu ietly, he buckled one side of the sack to the left-most Not-Horse"s saddle , and the other to the Not-Horse in the middle. Thus strung, it made a kin d of hammock between the two mounts.
"This here"s a double-ride sack," said Terzok. "Not-Horses are able to perfe ctly match each other"s stride, unlike other mounts. But the double-ride sac k"s only to be used when ordered, because the mounts can"t gallop with it fi xed."
Arthur stared at the sack between the two Not-Horses. He was so tired it too k a few seconds for him to understand that it was for him.
"How do you get in?" asked Fred.
"If you"re fit enough to climb in, then you should be riding," said Terzok. "I f you"re not "
He picked Arthur up under his arm, walked to the front of the horses, and s hoved him in the open end of the sack, armor, weapons, and all.
"If the soldier being carried is very badly hurt, you do up these laces here," instructed Terzok.
"But I don"t want to be " Arthur started to say.
"Silence!" snapped Terzok. "You have been ordered to ride in the sack! Now go to sleep!"
Arthur shut up and wriggled around so the hilt of his lightning tulwar wasn" t sticking in his hip quite so much, and reached down to untuck a fold of hi s mail hauberk that was bunched up on his thighs.
Then, because a sergeant had ordered him to, he shut his eyes and fell asleep .
It was not a deep sleep at first. Through slitted eyes, Arthur was dimly aw are of activity around him, as Troop Lieutenant Jarrow checked over the Not -Horse"s harness. Then the sack he was in began to jiggle up and down and t he steel claws of the Not-Horses" toes struck sparks on the flagstones outs ide the stable for a moment, before becoming m.u.f.fled as they walked onto th e dusty bare earth. The jiggling increased as they broke into a trot, then became a kind of swaying roll as the two Not-Horses carrying the sack chang ed pace into a perfectly matched canter.
As the Not-Horses continued to head out of the fort at a steady pace, Arthur sank into a deeper sleep and began to dream.
He was standing in a vast, marble-lined room, surrounded on all sides by inc redibly tall Denizens, each easily twelve feet tall, measured by their relat ionship to the piles of weapons, armor, and Nithling bodies beneath them. Ye t despite their height, Arthur was taller still, looking down on them from a position of lofty eminence. He was looking at a ring on his finger, a croco dile ring that was slowly turning from silver to gold. Only the last portion of it remained silver, and as he stared, it too turned to gold. The tall De nizens began to applaud and Arthur felt himself grow taller still, until he was suddenly no longer in the marble-lined room but was a giant standing abo ve a green field that a little voice in his mind said was the school oval. C hildren were running around his feet, pursued by dog-faced creatures that he somehow knew were called Fetchers. Then he was suddenly child-sized himself , and the Fetchers were twice his size, pinching and grabbing him. One tore the pocket from his school shirt and took the book that had been in it.
"Got you!" said a horrific, rasping voice.
Arthur shrieked and woke up, threshing about in the grasp of something lea thery and horrible. A vicious creature had taken The Compleat Atlas of the Housel That"s it. The Compleat Atlas of the House. I had The Compleat Atlas of th e House. My name is Arthur Penhaligon. I am the Rightful Heir.
Arthur tried to hold that thought, but it slipped away. He gave up on it, ope ned his eyes, and looked around. He was still in the double-ride sack, but th e Not-Horses were standing still. The sun was coming up, a thin sliver of its rosy disk showing above the ochre-red hills to the east. Stunted trees with pale trunks and yellow triangular leaves were dotted around, too spa.r.s.e to be called a forest.
Fred was standing in front of Arthur, ma.s.saging the insides of his thighs a nd muttering something about the iniquities of Not-Horses. Troop Lieutenant Jarrow was sitting on a nearby stone, consulting his Ephemeris.
It was very quiet, the only sound the whirring breath of the Not-Horses and th e occasional tap of their toes on a loose stone as they shifted their weight.
"What"s happening?" asked Arthur sleepily. He pushed his arms out the top o f the sack and pulled himself part of the way out. He would have fallen the rest of the way if Fred hadn"t caught him and restored his balance just lo ng enough for both of them to collapse under limited control.
"What"s happening?" asked Fred indignantly. "You get to snore your way acro ss half a dozen tiles, while I wear the skin off my thighs and bruise my ta ilbone that"s what"s happening."
"That"s what has happened," corrected Arthur with a smile. "What"s happen ing now?"
"We"ve stopped for a rest," said Fred. He tipped his head towards Troop Lieu tenant Jarrow. "That"s all I know."
Jarrow closed his Ephemeris and walked over. Arthur and Fred scrambled to th eir feet, stood at attention, and saluted.
"No need for that we"re in the field," said Jarrow. "Are you fully rested, Green?"
"Yes, sir," said Arthur.
"Good," said Jarrow. "We have a fair way to ride, and there is a strong pos sibility we may have to run from New Nithling forces."
"New Nithlings, sir?" asked Arthur.
"That"s what we"re calling them now," said Jarrow. "We"ll avoid them where ver possible. Just stay close to me and stay on your mounts, and we"ll out run them. They haven"t got any cavalry." He paused for a moment, then adde d, "Or at least we haven"t seen any yet. Any questions?"
"What do we do if we"re separated from you, sir?" asked Arthur.
"Give the Not-Horses their heads," replied Jarrow. "They"ll find the nearest friendly force. But so you know, we"re headed today for tile 268/457. It"s sc heduled to move at dusk to a position only ten miles from the Citadel. We"re currently on tile 265/459. We"re going to go east for three miles and then so uth two miles. The tiles east are bare hills, gra.s.sy steppe, and jungle with clearings; go south from the jungle and you get a ruined city and then lake a nd marsh, which is the tile we want. We"ll have to be extra vigilant in the j ungle, the ruined city, and the marsh. Easy to be surprised in all three, and hard to ride away. We"ll take another thirty minutes" rest and then ride. I" ll stand watch on the rise there. Keep the harness on our mounts, but you sho uld give them a rubdown. Don"t want them to rust."
Arthur and Fred obediently got wire brushes, cleaning cloths, and bottles o f solvent from their saddlebags and began to work on the knee joints and ot her areas where the Not-Horses were p.r.o.ne to rust. The creatures nickered a nd whinnied slightly, enjoying the attention, and Arthur found himself warm ing to them. Out here in the field, with the sunlight dimming their red eye s, they seemed altogether different from the cold, ruby-orbed beasts of the dark stables.
"I wonder why they want us at GHQ," said Fred. "Troop Lieutenant Jarrow s aid the order came from Sir Thursday himself."
"He probably found out I was here as a Piper"s child," said Arthur, without conscious thought.
"What?" Fred looked under his Not-Horse"s belly to stare up at Arthur.
"He probably found out I was here as a Piper"s child," repeated Arthur slo wly. His words had the ring of truth, but he didn"t know what they meant. He just couldn"t remember Before he could think any further, Jarrow came scrambling down the slight s lope.
"Mount up!" he called softly, cupping his mouth with his hands, so his voice did not travel. "New Nithlings!"
Chapter Nineteen
At her current speed of over 180 miles per hour, Suzy was only nine hundred feet and four seconds away from the door when one of the Nithlings finally s potted her. It shrieked, surprising its comrade, who crashed into the helico pter it was playing chicken with. The Nithling, invisible to the pilot, smas hed through the canopy and caused enormous damage as it thrashed around the c.o.c.kpit while trying to get out again. In the process it accidentally killed both pilots. The attack helicopter reared up on its tail, hung there for an instant, then plunged down into the parking lot and exploded, showering the hospital front, the surrounding soldiers, and FBA agents with burning debri s. Suzy spread her wings at eight hundred feet, the shock of their opening mom entarily blacking her out. Too effective, the wings brought her to a hover within a second, still a few hundred feet above the Front Door, with two Ni thlings flapping up towards her as fast as they could manage.
Suzy dove down again, straight at the Nithlings as if she were going to attac k. They stopped to receive her a.s.sault, raising their tridents, but at the la st second Suzy dipped one wing, slid sideways and down through the air, and l anded on one foot on the hospital roof. The Front Door was right in front of her, but with the Nithlings now diving after her, Suzy didn"t think there was time to knock.
She angled towards the Front Door, shut her eyes and went straight throug h it.
Expecting an impact, Suzy wrapped her arms around her head. But after a fe w seconds of not hitting anything, she cautiously opened her eyes and lowe red her hands.
She was floating, or possibly falling, in total darkness. Her wings weren"t moving, but she had a sensation of movement in her inner ear. She couldn"t s ee a thing, not even when she frantically craned her neck around to see if s he could catch sight of the Front Door she"d just come through.
"Uh-oh," she whispered. Not having used the Front Door before, she"d though t that she would just come out the other side on Doorstop Hill. Evidently i t was not as simple as that.
Suzy thought about her situation for a moment, then whispered, "Wings, shed light."
She was relieved both to be able to hear herself and, a little later, to see he rself, as the wings slowly began to glow, casting a pearly nimbus of light all around her.