Lord Sunday

Twenty

THIS IS THE PLAN,’ Suzy announced as the elevator began to rise. ‘So pay attention.’

Twenty-one Piper’s children stopped playing seven very different games involving nine entirely different decks of cards. Four ceased juggling wax-sealed cheeses. Thirty-three looked up from checking their weapons. Five woke up. Three stopped arguing about the relative merits of tea from Earth versus that from other worlds, or the kind formerly made in the Far Reaches out of Nothing.

Leaf stopped scratching Daisy’s pineapple-skin hide for a moment, but quickly resumed. It seemed to calm the huge creature, and in the limited space of the elevator, it was best if the beastwort remained still.

‘You listening?’ asked Suzy.

Everyone nodded.

‘When the elevator goes ping and the doors open, we rush out.’

‘Sounds good,’ said someone. ‘Easy to remember.’

Leaf shut her eyes and tried to remain calm.

‘There’s more to it than that,’ said Suzy. ‘Idiot.’

She looked over to Fred. ‘You and everyone from Elame will be one lot,’ she continued. ‘When the elevator goes ping, you go right. Leaf ... Leaf!’

‘Yes!’ said Leaf, opening her eyes. ‘I’m listening.’

‘You take charge of everyone from Gowzer to Abidge. You go left.’

‘Right,’ said Leaf. ‘I mean okay, we go left. But shouldn’t someone else be in charge?’

‘You’re an Admiral, aren’t you?’ said Suzy. ‘And you got Daisy and the special sword.’

Leaf looked down at the sword and grimaced. ‘Only until I can hand it over to someone better suited to being Lieutenant Keeper.’

‘Bren, Shan, and Athan, you take the cannon out and set it up wherever looks good. I’ll take everyone else and we’ll go straight ahead. Doc and Giac, you come behind us and the first desks you get at, you start opening up elevators. The sooner they work, the sooner Old Primey can send up reinforcements.’

‘That’s it?’ asked Leaf. ‘Do we know exactly what we’re up against? I don’t even know what Saturday’s tower is like!’

‘Like I said before, we’re facing Newniths wearing heavy armour and leather wings, and waving around big slow swords. Or if they’re still Saturday’s lot, there’ll be a bunch of mid-level sorcerers. If it’s sorcerers, get in close and go for their umbrellas. If it’s Newniths, keep your distance from those swords. As for the tower, it’s just a tower, made up of lots of little office cubes. There’s lots of desks on the floor we’re going to. That’s about it. Oh, except there’s no outside walls, so don’t fall out.’

Suzy stopped talking. There was an expectant silence for a few seconds.

‘That’s it,’ she concluded. ‘Carry on.’

The Piper’s children resumed their previous activities. Leaf touched Suzy’s elbow.

‘What I don’t understand,’ she said, ‘is why Dame Primus is sending us to capture the elevator controls. I mean, surely it would be better to send soldier Denizens. They’re bigger and stronger and harder to kill-’

‘We’re sneakier and a lot smarter,’ said Suzy. ‘But that ain’t the reason. Old Primey reckons we can do it, but if you ask me, she hopes most of us will get finished off as well.’

‘What?’ gasped Leaf. Daisy, who had been quiescent next to her, rumbled and shifted her tentacles as she felt Leaf’s shock.

‘Maybe not you,’ said Suzy. ‘Though I ain’t sure about that, neither, cos you’re Arthur’s friend and Old Primey don’t want Arthur to ’ave any friends. Not ones he listens to. But she doesn’t trust us Piper’s children, cos she ’ates the Piper.’

‘I just want to go ’ome – I mean home,’ said Leaf. She looked at her sword. ‘I wonder if I can give this to someone without having to be practically dead first.’

‘We might need a little bit of your help,’ said Suzy. ‘But if you want to go after that, I ain’t going to stand in the way.’

‘The portals to the Front Door in the Upper House are closed,’ said Leaf. ‘I don’t know how else I could get back.’

‘Open ’em up again. Or there’s Seven Dials. It’s around somewhere. Might even have moved to the Upper House by now. Ask the Doc.’

‘Maybe I can open the portals from this side. But even then, the Door is full of Nithlings-’

‘And there might not be anything to go back to,’ said Suzy cheerfully. ‘Depends where’s Arthur’s got to, doesn’t it? I mean, if the whole ’ouse falls down, then the Secondary Realms ’ave ’ad it. End of the whole picnic.’

‘Picnic?’ Leaf shook her head again. ‘You’re mad, Suzy.’

‘Nah,’ said Suzy, suddenly serious. ‘Just ... just old, I guess. I mean, we’ve all ’ad a good run. Thousands of years, mucking around, taking nothing too serious-’

‘Suzy! I’m not thousands of years old!’ Leaf protested. ‘I’m not even thirteen yet! I don’t want to die, and I don’t want the whole world – the whole Universe – to end either!’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Suzy. She slapped Leaf heartily on the back. If it hadn’t been for the Lieutenant Keeper’s coat, it would have hurt. A lot. ‘I reckon Arthur’ll save the day. We’ll do our bit as well, of course.’

‘I really hope you’re right,’ said Leaf quietly. She was about to add something else when Dr Scamandros edged between two juggling Piper’s children and approached Suzy. He doffed his fez and said, ‘Eight minutes till we arrive, General!’

‘Thanks, Doc,’ Suzy said. Then she raised her voice and added, ‘Get yer weapons ready!’

‘Doctor Scamandros,’ Leaf said, before the sorcerer could go back near the elevator door. ‘Do you know where Seven Dials is now?’

‘Hmm, I’m afraid not,’ said Scamandros. ‘I believe it is likely it would move nearer to its controller. Formerly that was Monday, now it is Lord Arthur. So I expect it is somewhere in the Upper House.’

At that moment, the elevator shuddered to a halt. Dr Scamandros whipped a pocket watch out of his coat and peered at it.

‘Six minutes early!’

Many decks of cards, several cheeses, and a lot of other inessential equipment hit the floor as the Raiders belatedly readied their weapons. The door began to open, and there was a very loud ping.

‘Charge!’ shouted Suzy. She had her savage-sword out and was already storming for the elevator door, closely followed by her central group.

Around twenty Piper’s children looked at Leaf.

‘Uh, come on!’ she shouted. She fumbled at her sword, and it leaped into her hand, twisting itself to avoid sticking one of her companions. Daisy rumbled up on her assembly of legs, and her tentacles brushed against the ceiling, buckling it in several places. Leaf tugged on the beastwort’s lead, tried to keep her sword up, and joined the mad rush out of the elevator.

There were Newniths outside on the tower floor, but they were not ready for a surprise attack by Piper’s children. They barely got to turn around before they were thrown to the ground by the rush, and trussed up a moment later, the Piper’s children chivalrously not using their weapons unless weapons were used against them first.

This happened some twenty seconds later. A rain of lightning-charged spears flew at the door as Leaf’s group burst out. Without conscious direction, Leaf spun and danced, cutting down four spears with her sword, which essentially dragged her after it. The remaining dozen or so were caught or blocked by Daisy’s tentacles, bouncing back to explode against desks or their unfortunate casters.

‘Right!’ shouted Leaf. ‘This way!’

She led a charge between a line of desks, but Daisy simply smashed through them, sending splinters of polished mahogany everywhere. Her tentacles ranged ahead, sweeping up Newniths and dashing them to the floor.

Leaf paused for a moment as she heard someone shouting her name.

It was Scamandros. ‘Leaf! Don’t let Daisy break the desks!’ Giac was hunched over an intact desk, writing something with a quill pen. Scamandros had evidently been about to do the same thing at one of the desks Daisy had just destroyed, because he was standing over a pile of matchwood.

Leaf tugged on the lead and Daisy swung back towards her, smashing a few more desks on the way.

‘Sit!’ commanded Leaf. It didn’t look like Daisy would be needed anymore, anyway. There had only been thirty or so Newniths around the elevators, and they had all been captured or slain. Looking out along the lines of desks, there were no more to be seen on the floor, though, of course, there could be thousands more on the floors above and below them, or even flying out around the tower.

‘Keep a lookout for the counterattack!’ shouted Suzy.

‘They’ll be-’ Whatever she said was lost as the tower shook violently, knocking almost everyone to the floor, which was no longer level. Piper’s children, tied-up Newniths, and everything that wasn’t bolted down started to slide towards the eastern edge. Then, just as suddenly, the tower leaned back the other way.

Leaf, holding on to Daisy’s leash, was the only person who didn’t go very far, since the beastwort gripped the upright columns of the nearer offices and planted herself very solidly in place.

The tower shuddered again and became still, leaning at a minor angle to the west.

‘What was that?’ Leaf called out.

Suzy was already on the move, checking on her Raiders and heading to the eastern edge. ‘Dunno,’ she said. ‘Everyone else! Keep looking out for the Newniths. Not you, Giac. You keep working on the elevators.’

She jumped over some debris, grabbed hold of the outer column of an office, leaned into space, and looked up. She looked up for quite a while, then across at the distant Drasil tree, a green smudge on the horizon.

After getting a full glimpse, she came back to Leaf. Fred hurried over too.

‘I reckon something’s ’appened to the Drasils,’ said Suzy. ‘The sky is lower than it used to be. Might be the Incomparable Gardens just fell down a bit and hit the tower. Could come in handy later.’

She looked over at Scamandros and Giac. ‘ ’Ow yer going, you sorcerers?’

‘Ah, we have three elevators open,’ called out Scamandros. ‘Without interruption, we may be able to open the requisite number in the time allowed.’

‘Sorry I asked,’ sniffed Suzy. She looked around. Several Raiders were playing cards again, and some had gone to look at the Big Chain.

‘I said keep watching out!’ she bellowed with uncharacteristic anger. Piper’s children dropped their cards, and the errant ones dashed back to their posts.

‘I thought you weren’t worried,’ said Leaf.

‘I wasn’t worried in the elevator. Now I am. You see these Newniths?’

She indicated a group of tied-up Newniths nearby, who smiled. One waved his little finger as well, because his hands were tied.

‘They’re second-raters,’ said Suzy. ‘They don’t want to fight, unless the Piper is right behind them.’

‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ asked Leaf. ‘Makes it easier.’

‘It’s bad. It means the Piper’s forces are already a lot higher up the tower, as well as below us. It means that we’re surrounded, and it means the Piper ’imself is probably up above.’

‘Oh.’

‘Could be worse,’ said Suzy, reverting to her usual optimism.

‘How?’ asked Fred.

‘It could be raining.’

‘True. There is a dark cloud over there,’ said Leaf, pointing out at the western sky. ‘Kind of low, though, to rain on us.’

‘I don’t think-’ started Suzy.

‘-that’s a cloud,’ finished Fred. ‘It’s winged Newniths. A lot of winged Newniths.’

‘They might not be coming here,’ said Leaf hopefully.

‘They’ve launched out from up above and circled around,’ said Suzy, dashing that hope. ‘They’ll hit us in minutes.’

‘Newniths at nine o’clock!’ shouted Fred, quickly adding, ‘That’s west!’ as several Raiders got out their watches for the joke, since unlike Denizens, they knew what he was talking about.

‘Get the cannon ready!’ added Suzy. She took a step away, then turned back to Leaf.

‘If you’ve got to go home, go now,’ she said quickly and very quietly. ‘You may not be able to ... after.’

Then Suzy ran, vaulting over several desks before sprinting to join the cannon crew.

Leaf looked at the approaching horde of winged Newniths for a moment, then shut her eyes and reached out to feel for a portal to the Door. There was one somewhere nearby, though it was at least twenty floors higher up, and blocked. Leaf could sense a kind of tiny crack or flaw in the seal, and she felt sure that the Lieutenant Keeper’s sword could open it up.

But if she ran away, what would happen to Suzy, Fred, Scamandros, and everyone else?