Grim Tuesday

Chapter Eleven

Arthur leaned desperately to the right as something plummeted past him. Once again he hardly had time to register what it was, beyond a jumbled snapshot of teeth, claws, and tiny, useless wings fluttering madly.

"What was that?!"

"Dunno," said Suzy. "Who knows how the gobbets decide what to make when they come together? Bad news for down below."

"What?"

"A Nithling'll probably survive the fall. It'll just be really cross. Look out!"

Arthur flipped his legs forward and threw himself back, tumbling end over end as something that looked like a cross between a boa constrictor and a weasel fell hissing past, its jaws almost close enough to close on Arthur's hand.

It fell still closer to Suzy, but she whacked it with her copper pipe. Arthur was surprised to hear the clear ringing tone of metal striking metal and to see that none of the pipe dissolved.

"Ouch!" exclaimed Suzy. "Jarred my hand!"

"Was? was that a Nithling?" Arthur asked as he regained his flying equilibrium. He kept looking nervously in all directions, though, ready to lean or tumble or do whatever it took to avoid whatever came flying up or falling down next.

"Who knows?" said Suzy. "Most shaped-up Nithlings are some sort of flesh, but whatever that was, it was made of metal. It bent my pipe."

"How long till we hit the ceiling?" asked Arthur.

Suzy frowned.

"Hard to say. We haven't even got to the smoky upper air yet. Maybe an hour or two."

Suzy had hardly finished speaking before they broke through the cloud and entered the layer of smog. Arthur had been out of it long enough that he could smell it clearly, many revolting odors combining to create something sharp and acidic in the choking smoke, with overtones of ozone, like from an electric appliance burning out.

Fortunately, the spell the Lieutenant Keeper had taught him was still going strong. Suzy, having been in the House long enough to be almost a Denizen, was unaffected, though she did wrinkle her nose.

The next hour passed uneventfully enough. There were still gobbets of Nothing flying around, and once a

Nithling fell just close enough to glimpse and cause Arthur a momentary panic.

Otherwise Arthur's wings continued their steady beat and they climbed up through the smoggy darkness. It was impossible to tell where they were, relative to the edges of the Pit or the ceiling of the Far Reaches.

After a while, Suzy pulled a fob watch out of her apron pocket, opened it, and peered at the face.

"I reckon we must be getting close," she said, closing the watch with a practiced one-handed snap. "Try and lie on your back. That'll slow the wings down so we don't crash into the ceiling too hard. Once we hit, use the spell to fully wake your stickit fingers and hold on to the ceiling. Then pull your string and lose the wings and we'll go hand over hand to the Treasure Tower."

"Which direction will it be in?" asked Arthur as he kicked and threw himself backwards. Unfortunately he just did a somersault, confusing him and not slowing his wings for more than a second.

"Mmm," replied Suzy evasively. She'd managed to lie on her back by folding her legs up and holding her feet against her face, which was a gymnastic maneuver Arthur couldn't hope to match. He drew his knees up instead and tried to keep them against his chest while he threw himself backwards with rather less vigor.

That sort of worked. Arthur's wings slowed as they tried to work out the best way to keep ascending.

"How will we know where to crawl across the ceiling?" asked Arthur again. "I mean, it could be miles away, in any direction, couldn't it? Without the light from our wings. In the dark and the smog, with no landmarks."

"We'll work it out," said Suzy.

"And we're just going to hang by three little woolen finger-puppets to the ceiling with a? a? a thousand-mile or whatever it is drop straight down beneath us?"

"Don't worry, Arthur," said Suzy. "Stickit fingers don't come off until you tell them to."

Arthur drew in an angry breath to answer, but before he could, he suddenly saw the ceiling. The breath left him as he frantically raised his arms and legs and braced for the impact.

He'd expected to hit solid stone, but what he hit was a deep layer of soot. He drove in at least a foot, and soot exploded all around him, smothering him in fine particles. There was so much soot his wings couldn't brush it away from him, and they flapped harder and harder to keep ascending.

Arthur scrabbled against the ceiling, finally getting his hands and legs braced against the solid stone beneath the soot, as his wings beat furiously in their efforts to push him through this barrier.

Suzy was nearby, soot cascading down all around her. Her and Arthur's impact had started an avalanche of soot. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of years of accumulated soot had been loosened. Arthur could see it raining down close by, and could hear it farther afield. It made a sound like ice cubes being cracked out of a tray.

"Ow!" Suzy exclaimed as her balance slipped and her wings drove her face-first into the ceiling. She got herself braced again, with her knees and elbows firmly against the ceiling, while her wings beat madly on her back.

"Stickit spell!" called Suzy. "Make sure you have your active hand stuck to the ceiling before you undo your wings. And remember, your sticky hand will change every minute!"

Arthur spat out a mouthful of soot and rubbed his mouth on his shoulder, a very difficult maneuver. But he only got more soot on his face. It was everywhere, billowing in clouds and sticking to every part of Arthur's body, except for his wings.

"This isn't going to work!" Arthur called out. He'd been too tired and too pleased to have any chance of escape from the Pit to think it through before. But with just one hand sticking to the ceiling, he'd be hanging from it and would have to swing his other hand, get it on the ceiling, and then wait till it stuck. He wouldn't be able to do that for very long before he misjudged the timing or got too exhausted and couldn't even raise his arms. Or worse?

"Our arms will get pulled out of their sockets!" he yelled.

"No they won't," scoffed Suzy. But then she frowned and said, "Actually, maybe yours will. Dame Primus didn't think of that!"

Arthur groaned. It took all his strength to stop his wings from smacking him into the ceiling again and again like a demented moth. Every time they beat, he was pushed into the ceiling and slid around a bit in the soot, bashing his knees and hands and, if he was unlucky, his face or chest.

Slid around in the soot?

"What if we try to crawl with the wings keeping us pressed against the? oof? ceiling?" Arthur cried. "The soot makes it kind of slippery, so we can slide our hands and knees along."

He demonstrated, timing it so he slid on his hands and knees as his wings readied for the downstroke, bracing himself just as they flapped. He managed to get about four feet away from Suzy in that slide and was no more bruised than if he'd stayed still. And no more sooty. He was just about as caked in soot as it was possible to be. Only his teeth, the whites of his eyes, and his wings weren't totally black.

"It works!" he proclaimed.

"Very slowly," said Suzy dubiously. "I think I'll lose my wings and go hand over hand."

"No!" said Arthur. He had an image of Suzy forgetting to change hands quickly enough, or being distracted. There would be that moment where she would hang in the air, and then, with a despairing scream, fall into the endless darkness?

"No," said Arthur again. "Try moving with the wings, like I did."

Suzy made an indistinct grumbling noise, but slid across the ceiling as her wings flexed up, barely bracing herself in time for the next wingbeat down.

"I's'pose it does work," she said. "But we'll be black and blue on the knees and elbows by the time we get there."

"I seem to be healing quickly," said Arthur, thinking about the Scoucher cut back in his own world. A slight current of fear ran through his mind as he wondered if he was being transformed into a Denizen. Then his wings flapped, he almost smacked his nose into the ceiling, and that brought his attention back to the task at hand. "Your bruises won't last long, will they?"

"No, but they still hurt while they're around," said Suzy. "Let's get going, then."

"But which direction?" asked Arthur. "Where is the Treasure Tower?"

"It's in the North-West corner of the Far Realms," said Suzy. "That's? uh, curse these wings? all I know."

"Which way is North - ouch, that really hurt - North-West?" asked Arthur. In the darkness, with smog and falling soot all around, there could be no hope of spying any landmarks.

"The opposite - oof-of South - ow - East."

Arthur didn't answer for a moment, as he waited for his wings to beat and begin to fold.

"You have no idea, do you?"

"I have one id -"

Whatever Suzy was going to say was lost as she slipped and her wings pushed her face-first into the sooty ceiling. She pushed herself off again immediately, spitting and cursing, resisted the next beat of her wings, then added, "One idea. Ask the Atlas!"

"Oh, yeah. That'll be? ah? really easy, won't it? Opening a book when I need both hands to brace -"

Arthur's knee slipped, and he was violently twisted and thrust against the ceiling, the wind knocked out of him.

"It may not have to open!" called out Suzy. "Just put one hand on it and ask?" Arthur nodded carefully. His mouth was so full of soot he couldn't speak. He was sure the Lieutenant Keeper's spell was the only thing preventing him from choking to death.

Slowly, he drew his elbows in towards his chest, so he could still brace against the ceiling and resist his wings but also touch the Atlas in his pocket with his index finger. Which didn't have a stickit on it.

"Atlas -" Arthur started to say, but he slipped again, his elbows splaying out as the right side of his face smashed into the ceiling. He had a black eye for sure now, Arthur thought as he struggled to get back into a good position. Not that anyone could tell under the cloaking soot. This time he managed to lock his elbows tighter and he waited till just after the downbeat of his wings.

"Atlas! Don't open! Show me which way is North-West."

Arthur felt the Atlas shiver under his hand, lost his concentration, and once more went face-first into the sooty ceiling. This time, when he pried himself off and braced again, his nose was bleeding and it felt like it might be broken, sending a savage pain lancing up between his eyes.

"Did it work?" called out Suzy.

Arthur didn't answer. He had his forehead balanced on the ceiling, every muscle straining to resist the next wingbeat, and all his attention on resisting the pain of a broken nose. Or maybe just a bruised one, as the throbbing began to fade. In the next second it stopped bleeding of its own accord - or had so much soot stuffed up it, no blood could get out.

"Did it work?" called out Suzy again.

Arthur steadied himself and looked back at his pocket.

"No," he said.

Then, "Or actually, yes, I think it has!"

A small compass made of four crossed golden arrows had materialized on his pocket and was slowly spinning around as if it were mounted on his shirt. Arthur stared down at it, grunted as his wings flapped, then pointed and slid at the same time.

"North-West is that way! Come on!"

Suzy followed, the two of them developing a rhythm where they slid when their wings folded up, and braced when their wings flapped. Though they could only slide four or five feet at a time, Arthur somehow found it easier to hold himself against the ceiling.

More importantly, he finally felt more optimistic. He might be pressed against the ceiling of the Far Reaches, but he was moving.

And he had escaped the Pit!