Drowned Wednesday

Twenty–one

THE HELMSRAT MOVED his levers and the distant hum became a louder vibration, rattling Suzanna's teapot till she laid a firm hand on it.

"Full ahead both engines," commanded Longtayle. "Helm steady as she goes. Dive to twenty fathoms."

The view in the crystal globe became full of bubbles and blue water that slowly changed colour from a light azure to a deep blue-black. The submersible angled down and Suzanna's tray slid along the table, till it was arrested by the raised lip, a feature Arthur hadn't noticed before. The incline was gentle, and didn't last long before the submarine levelled off.

"Twenty fathoms," reported the helmsrat. "Cruising speed achieved. Eighteen knots."

"Very good," confirmed Longtayle.

"Phew!" said Suzanna loudly, startling everyone. She ripped off her large white hat and threw it on the floor. "Fair thought I'd never see a ceiling again with that on!"

"Suzy!" exclaimed Arthur. He started to get up and was surprised to find a restraining belt had automatically slid around his waist when the submarine dived. It had a buckle, but it took him a few seconds to work out how to release the old-fashioned bronze hook and clasp.

Suzy, in that short time, had torn the puffy sleeves off her dress and was reaching into her pink handbag to pull out a much larger, much scruffier leather suitcase with a broken strap. She undid her belt, put the case on the floor, and rummaged around in it.

"What were you doing?" asked Arthur. He felt quite cross that she'd been pretending, though he was also relieved. "What was with all that Suzanna stuff?"

Suzy pulled out her favourite squashed top hat and stuck it on her head with a pat to the crown that made it even more dented.

"Promised, didn't I? Old Primey wouldn't let me go excepting I swear to be all ladylike and proper on the Border Sea. So I swore, but we ain't on the Border Sea anymore, are we? We're under it."

"I'm glad to see you," said Arthur. "The real you, I mean."

"Good to see you too, Arthur," declared Suzy. She spat in her hand and held it out for him to shake. "Be even better once I get out of these ridiculous duds. I reckon you couldn't even run in this, let alone climb a wall."

Arthur took her hand with some hesitation.

"I didn't really spit," whispered Suzy as they shook. "Just did it to stir up the Rats. They're awful particular for folk who started out as vermin. Not that I hold that against them. They're good mates to all the Piper's children, long as it don't cost them any hard cash or real secrets."

"Dame Primus didn't say much in her letter," said Arthur as they sat back down. He tried not to flinch as his seat belt crept back around and refastened itself. "How is everything? How long has it been since I left you in the Far Reaches?"

"Over a twelve-month," said Suzy. She carelessly poured some more tea, letting it slop over the top of the cup. "And a busy time it's been. I reckon the Morrow Days have fair got the wind up about you, Arthur. And Dame Primus. You should see the stuff they're sending down to try and keep her busy. One of the forms was eighty-two feet high when all the pages were stacked up! Mind you, that old Primus doesn't really read like normal folk. She just sits there absorbing it. Like dropping a biscuit in tea. Oops!"

"So they're just sending lots of paperwork? That doesn't sound so bad."

"Well, there's also been assassins, sabotage, and tons more Nithlings boiling up out of the floor, and no help to deal with them," said Suzy, fishing for her biscuit with a spoon. "It's been much more exciting than it used to be. Not that Dame Primus lets me anywhere near anything if she can help it. Lessons, lessons, and more lessons, that's her idea of what's good for me. Surprised she let me come along here, though I s'pose since you asked directly she couldn't say no. Thanks."

"You do know what I want to do?"

Suzy nodded airily.

"Course I do. We sit here in comfort scoffing tea and biscuits till we get swallowed up by old Wednesday whale. Then we have to get into some crazed pirate's private world, which is stuck in her ladyship's guts, grab the next bit of the Will, and then the usual, only you reckon Wednesday's just going to hand over the Key."

"I guess that covers the main points..."

"And you've got your own sorcerer along this time," said Suzy approvingly. She waved at Doctor Scamandros. "How-do. I'm Suzy Blue. Used to be an Ink-Filler."

"Pleased to meet you, young lady," said Doctor Scamandros. He leaned forward in his chair and came up against his seat belt. He looked puzzled, then subsided back again, obviously considering the three foot distance too far to travel. "I am indeed a sorcerer, though sadly not in full bloom. Doctor Scamandros is my name. I shall be assisting Lord Arthur and yourself, I believe, by constructing sorcerous disguises to ease your entry into Feverfew's hideaway."

"Disguises! What kind?" asked Suzy. "I wouldn't mind a pirate rig myself, with some tattoos like yours."

"Actually," Arthur said, "I was wondering about disguising ourselves as rats. Ordinary rats, if that's possible. I mean as an illusion, not as some kind of shape-change. I don't want to get turned into a rat. Not that it wouldn't be great to be a rat, if I had to be one —" Arthur stopped before he got himself into any further embarrassment, since he was sure Longtayle and the helmsrat were listening to every word.

"You want anyone looking at you to see a rat," said Doctor Scamandros.

"Yes."

"It can be done," said Scamandros. "But I don't have anything prepared, so I shall have to start from scratch. It will take time. The first things we will need are noses and tails."

"Noses and tails?"

"Yes. Rat noses and tails."

Arthur winced as Longtayle's right ear rotated and quivered in attention.

"Uh, I don't think —" "No, no. Not real noses and tails. We'll have to make some, and I shall imbue them with sorcerous intent as we go. Now let me see. We shall need a quantity of nice thin paper, a simple glue, some cardboard. Activated ink."

As he spoke, the Doctor pulled all these things out of his coat pockets, along with a pair of scissors, several quills, a quill-sharpening knife, and an enameled snuff box.

"Are you familiar with the craft of layering paper and glue that when dry is quite solid and three-dimensional?"

"You mean papier-mache," said Arthur. He'd made masks for the end-of-year play at his old school. "I've done some."

"We shall make rat noses for you and Suzy out of glue and paper. I shall write on each layer of paper with Activated

Ink, impressing it with a spell of illusion and misdirection. This spell will build in strength with each layer, which when complete will create a fully fledged illusion that will cloak your body and present the appearance of a rat to anyone who looks at you. I estimate that to produce two such rat noses will take at least five hours."

"I think it's going to be at least twelve hours before we even get to Drowned Wednesday," said Arthur. "So we've got plenty of time."

"We shall need it," said Scamandros. "For the rat noses will merely fool the eyes of the pirates — excepting Feverfew, as I previously mentioned. To present them with the sounds and smells of a rat, we shall need to work on another spell, which will be housed in tails. Tails that must be woven expressly for the purpose on looms created for that spell and that spell alone."

"Looms? Ain't they great big wooden things with lots of threads in a frame?" said Suzy. "Could be tricky to get one in here, even if you've got it tucked away in those pockets."

"Looms are not always large," said Scamandros. He reached into his coat and came out with two cotton reels, no more than three inches high and two inches in diameter. They each had four nails hammered into the top of them.

"Allow me to introduce you to the wonders of the Arkruchill circle loom," said Doctor Scamandros.

"That's what you use for French knitting," said Arthur. "I know how to do that. Or I did know, once."

"French knitting?" asked Scamandros. "I learned it as Arkruchillor circle-weaving. But doubtless, as with most good ideas, it came from your Earth and was transplanted to Arkruchillor by travelers from the House. You will need small hooks and the yarn."

He handed over two small silver hook-ended needles and two balls of brown, fuzzy wool, then quickly explained how to run the wool through the cotton reel, arrange it around the nails, and start weaving or knitting, with the occasional use of the hook. After a few false starts, Arthur and Suzy quickly began to produce lengths of knitted wool.

Once they had the knack, Scamandros took the reels back.

"I have to write the spell on them first, so you'll need to start again," he explained. "In any case, we should do the noses first. They will take the most time, and will also need to dry."

The next eight hours were taken up entirely in craft activity, interspersed with occasional breaks for tea or to look at something interesting in the crystal globe. Once they passed through a large sargasso of salvage, and all kinds of things bumped past the submarine. Long-lost possessions, treasured by their owners. Many of them were children's toys, dimly seen stuffed animals and wooden figures, floating in the darkness of the sea.

Finally, the work was done. The rat noses looked like papier-mache cones with paper whiskers. The rat tails looked like three-foot-long braids of brown wool. But if you looked closely, you could see the words of Scamandros's spell moving about in the paper, or on the wool. Tiny letters marching around, joining up into words. Arthur couldn't read them, but when he looked at them his mind was filled with images of rats. Normal rats, the kind he used to see occasionally slipping out of the gutter near the central railway station in his old home city.

"Try them on," urged Scamandros. "But please remember, you must have both nose and tail on for the complete illusion, and if you only wear one of the two, there might be some imbalance in the spell."

"Like what?" asked Suzy.

"Suffice to say that if you put a nose on, put the tail on quickly thereafter," said Scamandros. "And vice versa."

Arthur picked up a rat nose and stuck it over his own, tying the cord at the back of his head. It felt ridiculous, a feeling made even worse when he fastened the rat tail to the back of his trousers.

"Marvelous!" said the Doctor. "Say something."

"I feel stupid," grumbled Arthur. As far as he could tell he looked just the same and his voice sounded normal. But Scamandros clapped his hands and Suzy laughed.

"I'll try mine!" she said.

Arthur slipped off his rat nose and undid the tail as Suzy put hers on. As she tied the cord at the back, she disappeared. Arthur blinked, and it took him a moment to think of looking down. There was a rat near his feet, looking up at him and waving a pink paw.

"It works!" exclaimed Arthur.

Suzy reappeared, the rat nose hanging around her neck like a strange necklace.

"I could have done with one of these years ago," she said. "How long will it last?"

"A few days," said Scamandros. "The Nothing in the Activated Ink will eventually eat through the paper and the wool. But it is a reliable, well-made charm, even if I say so myself. It might even last a little longer."

Arthur looked at Suzy. Her eyes were dreamy, indicating some thought about an additional use for the rat disguise, beyond sneaking into Feverfew's worldlet.

"Pilchards," said the helmsrat. "Or sardines."

Everyone looked at the crystal globe. It was suddenly full of flickering silver shapes, so many that Arthur had to stare and focus to work out that the Balaena had struck a huge shoal of fish.

"We must be approaching Drowned Wednesday," said Longtayle ten minutes later, when there was no sign of any lessening of fish. "She concentrates the fish in her path, using her powers."

He picked up the speaking tube.

"All hands! Secure for ramming stations! Close all watertight doors! Stand by all pumps! Everyone strapped in back there?" Longtayle called out.

"Yes," said Arthur.

"Indeed," said Scamandros.

"Reckon so," said Suzy.

Longtayle did not leave his chair, but he leaned around to talk to the others.

"Drowned Wednesday usually cruises near the surface, and according to our observations her mouth extends from four hundred fathoms above sea level to an estimated six hundred and fifty fathoms underneath. We have calculated that if we go in at about thirty fathoms below sea level, we should have a very good chance of finding a hole in the upper straining plates and should have no risk of being caught between her jaws. The plates are mostly holes, in fact, but we will have very little time to see one and steer for it, if we are not in the grip of too strong a current."

"We're getting a current now," reported the helmsrat. "Speed in the water has increased to twenty-six knots."

Longtayle turned back to concentrate on the controls.

"What do we do if we don't go through a hole?" asked Suzy.

"I think we get smashed to bits," said Arthur. "But like Longtayle said, it's mostly holes. And the current must aim for the holes, or get directed through them. We'll be all right."

"What happens if we don't get smashed completely to bits, but just a bit smashed to bits?" asked Suzy after a while. "I mean, so we're still alive but drowning?"

"Suzy, please don't ask me these questions right now," said Arthur with as much restraint as he could manage.

The silver fish in the globe were rushing past at a faster and faster rate, and he could feel the Balaena rocking up and down and from side to side, as it was swept up by the inrush of water into Drowned Wednesday.

Suddenly, all the silver fish disappeared and the globe went dark.

"We're in her shadow!"

"Emergency power!" snapped Longtayle. "Snout-eye lights to maximum!"

Light glimmered in the crystal globe and grew brighter. The silver fish were no longer streaming past. They were going backwards, along with masses of seaweed and other objects that had to be salvage. Like the submersible, they were all being sucked into Drowned Wednesday's maw.

Something hit the Balaena, the sound echoing through the hull, a deep, long bong! It was followed by a whole series of impacts that together made a noise like hail on a tin roof. The submersible rocked and rolled, the helmsrat and Longtayle both working the levers furiously to keep it stable.

Arthur saw the glint of something white up ahead.

"The straining plate!"

Longtayle saw it too. He and the helmsrat redoubled their efforts, the submersible rolling over to thirty degrees and into a steep incline, then leveling off just as quickly. Arthur saw the solid white ahead of them replaced by a dark hole. The submersible headed straight for it, surrounded by silver fish and hundreds of pieces of flotsam and jetsam of many varying sizes.

"We're in!" called Longtayle as he flicked between the views in the crystal ball. All of them showed distant white walls. "We're going through the straining plate!"

He spoke too soon. With a resounding crash, the Balaena hit an obstruction big enough to really slow her down. Everyone was thrown forward, tight against their seat belts, then hurled back again as the submersible screamed to a full stop.

The water and all the smaller debris kept rushing past, not quite so quickly, but the submersible didn't move at all, even though the engine vibrations began to shake the hull.

"We're stuck," whispered Arthur.

Stuck deep underwater, in a tunnel of bone.