Un Lun Dun

82. The Tangle

As Jones and Skool tugged on the oars, Deeba saw that the sky was darker, more stained with Smog than ever. Deeba was sure that those shreds would be mostly gathered over Unstible’s factory, where they were heading.

One by one the [image should be there]s began to cross the river, with faint splashes. Lectern and three binja huddled with Deeba and her companions in the Diss&Rosa. A widening wedge of vessels followed. The ghosts walked and drifted like thread over the river’s surface, appearing and disappearing.

What had been the car’s windshield and windows were below water level, and Deeba watched the brown swirl. She thought she could hear the noises of fighting in the wind.

“Sounds like trouble,” Hemi said.

From the shore they had left, Deeba heard the song of a bird.

She looked back sharply. Jones stopped rowing, and looked through his telescope. He swore excitedly.

Running around the corner of a warehouse was a familiar figure, in an old-fashioned khaki jerkin, trousers, and big boots. In place of a head, he had a birdcage, within which a little bird sang.

“Mr. Cavea!” said Deeba, and jumped up, swaying the [image should be there] dangerously. She waved her hands excitedly over her head, and Yorick Cavea waved back, desperately, without breaking stride. “But we saw him get et!”

“That was just his vehicle,” the book said. “He must’ve got a new one.”

“What’s he singing? What’s he singing?”

Cavea had reached the [image should be there]s that had not yet cast off, and was shoving them towards the river hurriedly.

“He’s saying…‘Quick,’ ” the book said. “He says: ‘They’re coming.’ ”

No one on the shore seemed to understand Cavea. One or two even shoved him back.

“Too late,” said Hemi. Lectern let out a cry.

Masked figures were emerging into the docks, following in Cavea’s footsteps, stepping in time. The nightlights reflected in their goggles. Pipes clanked and rattled from their helmets and the sacks over their heads. Deeba heard the hissing of gas sluiced through tubes.

“Stink-junkies,” she said. “Hundreds.”

The UnLondoners still at the river’s edge stared a moment in horror at the oncoming army, then tried to race onto the water.

“Too slow, too slow,” said Jones. “They won’t make it!”

They could not all launch onto the Smeath before the Smog’s slaves reached them. The front line of stink-junkies was already raising hoses, preparing to spray their enemies with flame or poison. Deeba’s army was way outnumbered.

Flumen and a few others stepped forward, swinging spanners and planks. The Slaterunners somersaulted to the edges of the roofs, blowpipes at the ready. But these brave efforts could only slow the remorseless march by a few seconds.

“They’re doomed!” said Jones, stricken.

“No they’re not,” said Deeba. Her voice was suddenly hard. “Everyone who’s not a stink-junkie!” she shouted as loud as she could. “Get down right now! Jones, catch me.”

Every Slaterunner, librarian, marketeer, utterling, nomad, adventurer, and birdcage-headed explorer hit the pavement, leaving Deeba a clear line of sight to the horde of stink-junkies. She raised and fired the UnGun.

The recoil slammed her backwards, but this time Jones was there behind her, braced and ready. In the split second of the roar, Deeba was trying to remember what was in the cylinder.

Ant? she thought. Salt?

Light flared from the barrel, and the stink-junkies froze. For one, two, three seconds they were all immobile, and the rebels looked up from where they crouched. Then the Smog’s army began to shake, and their masks to bulge.

“What in…?” Obaday said.

The stink-junkies’ helmets shifted. The sacks that covered their faces blew up like lumpy balloons. They split, and from the rips burst out yards and yards of hair.

Oh… that’s what it was, thought Deeba.

Stink-junkies tugged ineffectually at their heads, but their hair kept growing, shooting out of their scalps like waterfalls. Sideburns and stubble erupted from the seams of their masks, and the edges of the eyeglasses. Sudden fat dreadlocks pushed the pipes out of the headpieces, and clogged them so only trickles of Smog escaped.

The attackers reeled under the weight of the sudden shaggy swamp. It oozed out of their heads and mingled in a matted slick. In seconds they were just shambling mounds in a streetful of hair. The odd arm, leg, or split-open helmet poked from the tangle, but nothing could get out of it.

Deeba’s allies got slowly to their feet and stared in astonishment.

With a little swagger, Deeba blew the smoke away from the end of her UnGun. She wrinkled her nose at the reek of scorched hair.

“He says that was amazing,” the book said, translating Yorick Cavea’s twitters.

Cavea opened his head-cage, and the bird flew over the river and joined Deeba on the Diss&Rosa.

“It’s so good you’re here!” Deeba said. “How’d you find us? Where did you get…” She pointed vaguely at the human body on the shore. Cavea whistled.

“He says over the last few days, everyone’s been talking about the Shwazzy and what she’s doing. Then he says other people tell them off and say she’s not the Shwazzy at all, but that she’s doing something anyway. He’s been looking for us. He intercepted the stink-junkies, and realized they were coming for us.”

“Yorick, mate,” said Jones as he rowed. “Keep it down a bit.”

The bird whistled more quietly.

“The Smog’s attacking on several fronts,” the book translated, “and the Unbrellissimo’s flying from place to place, ordering his unbrellas into action defending people.”

“Yeah,” said Deeba. “Defending them so long as they retreat, I bet. While the Smog takes what it wants.”

“Well yes, but apparently some people are saying they don’t want to go, and they’re trying to use the unbrellas to fight back. So Brokkenbroll’s having to order them into action against the people who carry them. Telling everyone it’s for their own good, and they have to pull together.”

It was, Deeba realized, a very confused war. She looked back at the giant hairball still twitching on the docks. Cavea whistled.

“He says he has to go. He doesn’t want to leave his body unguarded tonight. He says good luck, good luck, good luck.” The little bird circled, and Deeba blew it a kiss. Then it scudded over the surface of the river back to its body and its cage.

The higgledy-piggledy procession of upside-down cars proceeded along a river full of obstacles. Hemi steered them past the hulks of sunken ships, and half-submerged old guns, and oddities, and amphibious trees with roots in the sludge on the bottom, leaves emerging from the black water and rustling on the vessels that passed them.