'What?' asked the girl. She had a mobile phone in her hand, thumb poised over what was probably a speed-dial button for the police.
'Arthur!' burst out Leaf, speaking slower so she could be understood. 'I'm a friend of Arthur's!'
'What are you doing here?' repeated Michaeli. She hadn't pressed the button. 'And what's wrong with you?'
'Arthur sent me,' said Leaf. 'Got Greyspot.'
Michaeli recoiled in horror, backing out the door so fast she ended up against the corridor wall on the other side.
'Not contagious,' said Leaf, spoiling her words by losing control of her leg and falling on the floor, where she writhed around in a desperate struggle with her own body.
Michaeli screamed then, but it wasn't because of Leaf's contortions. Suzy Turquoise Blue had materialised in the corridor, and she was wearing pale-yellow wings that were fully extended, tip feathers touching the ceiling and walls. She also had a Metal Commissionaire's truncheon in her hand, an apparently wooden club that was covered in crawling blue sparks.
'What's going on?!' screamed Michaeli. She had dropped her phone, Leaf was pleased to see.
'I'm a friend of Arthur's,' said Suzy. She folded her wings and bent over Leaf, gesturing with the truncheon in her hand. 'Do I need to knock you out with this, Leaf?'
'Not yet,' chattered Leaf. Her jaw was moving of its own accord. But her right arm was still her own. She made contact with her jeans and tried to pull out the box with the sorcerous pocket, but her legs kept thrashing away. 'Thanks … coming … so quick.'
'I've been watching through Seven Dials,' said Suzy. 'Off and on, after the Army nobs knocked me back. Got to do something useful, even if Old Primey objects.'
She suddenly transferred the truncheon to her belt and put her booted foot on Leaf's thigh, stopping her spasms. Then she reached down and took the plastic box.
Leaf's arms whipped around to try to snatch the box back as Suzy took the sorcerous pocket, confirming Leaf's worst fears. The Skinless Boy could see what she saw. It would probably be only minutes before it had total control of her body.
'Take … to House,' she said. 'Quickly.'
'What about you?' asked Suzy.
'Knock me out,' whispered Leaf. Her right hand was starting to crawl across the floor to Suzy's foot. 'Tell Sylvie in ambulance. Get … sedate …'
'The old lady in the conveyance with the light on top?' asked Suzy, but she was really only talking to distract Leaf as she whipped out the truncheon and tapped her on the shoulder. There was a sharp crack, and a river of blue sparks ran up and down Leaf's body, from toe to head. Every muscle in her body spasmed, and her eyes rolled back.
'You've killed her!' cried Michaeli from the doorway. She'd picked up a broom from somewhere and was brandishing it with a technique that suggested past lessons in kendo or perhaps a role in a stage musical of Robin Hood.
'No, I haven't,' protested Suzy, keeping a wary eye on the broomstick. 'You're Arthur's sister Michaeli, right?'
'Yes …'
'I'm Suzy Turquoise Blue. You might say I'm Arthur's chief assistant.'
'His what? What is going on?'
'No time to explain,' said Suzy airily. 'Could you nip down to the … what d'ye call it, ambulance, outside and tell the old lady that Leaf needs to be taken care of. I must hasten away.'
'But …'
Michaeli lowered the broom a little. Suzy took this as an invitation and gingerly edged past, her wings flapping a little. A few feathers brushed Michaeli's face, making the other girl jump.
'Those wings … they are real!'
'I should hope so,' said Suzy. 'Best you can get. Hopefully the owner won't miss 'em before I get back. Which way is the Eastern Hospital?'
'Uh, East Area? Kind of that way,' said Michaeli, pointing.
'Thank you,' said Suzy. 'And your roof garden lies beyond that door?'
Michaeli nodded, bewilderment plain on her face. 'Where are you going?' she asked.
'Back to the House, first creation of the Architect and epicentre of the universe,' said Suzy. 'If I can find the Front Door, and if the Skinless Boy and his minions don't stop me. Goodbye!'
Michaeli gave a tentative wave. Suzy bowed, clapped her wings behind her back, 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 the 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, jumped on its back, and launched herself into the sky with a few strong wingbeats. 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, were also imbued with several other properties. Suzy was counting on one of them to make the return trip to the House uneventful. According to Dr Scamandros, who had reluctantly helped her borrow them from Dame Primus's dressing 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 qualities, 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 anticipated anything other than flying. She intended to fly to the manifestation of the House, which she had seen through Seven Dials was 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 be straight back to Monday's Dayroom with the pocket. From there she would work 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 Primus could hardly complain – though she would, of course, and carry on about the Original Law, but Suzy was used to that. It would be a small price to pay for saving Arthur's world from the Spirit-eater.
Suzy was three-quarters of the way to the hospital and could clearly see the House ahead when she also saw the flaw in her plan. From the lack of interest from various official-looking mortals she had flown above, it was probably true that the wings shielded her from the gaze of humans. And while this 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 the 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 achieve whatever he had been sent to do.
And now here they were. Suzy flapped her wings hard to gain height as she saw them. Three winged shapes, slowly flying in a circle about five hundred yards 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 orbit 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 roughly human-sized, but one had the head of a rodent, one had a head like a snake, and the third had a head that resembled a partially squashed avocado with 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 favoured by Suzy herself, though these Nithlings did not have hats. They also had very fine-looking red-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 remain unseen in the Secondary Realms.
They were armed with tridents, which suggested they might have once served Drowned Wednesday, but that was surely misdirection. Suzy knew too much 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 tridents were bound to be sorcerous in nature, either glowing red-hot or emitting electric effects or, if she was very unlucky, firing projectiles of Nothing.
I can't fight three armed Nithlings, Suzy thought.
She peered down at the House, trying to see if there were any more Nithlings or anything else near the Front Door. It was hard to see from so high up. She was now at least three thousand feet above the House, and there were deep shadows from the many bizarre overhangs, abutments, projections, crenulations, awnings, and afterthoughts.
Her only chance would be to dive straight down, checking her flight at the last possible instant right in front of the door. If she timed it right, did it fast 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 buttoned 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 hovered for a moment, her chin almost resting on her chest as she made sure that she had a clear flight path straight down.
'Hey, ho, it's any fool's go,' Suzy muttered to herself. She clasped her hands above her head in a classic diving posture, threw herself forward and down, 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.
Eighteen
ARTHUR GOT A very accelerated Not-Horse riding lesson that night. He and Fred, after the enormous surprise of a handshake and some nice words from Sergeant Helve, were hustled from the Mess Hall by the lieutenant. They were marched to the Orderly Room, where Colonel Huwiti informed them that they had been given battlefield graduations from Fort Transformation and congratulated them on their assignment to GHQ as privates in the Regiment. He shook their hands too. In return they saluted and did the smartest about-turns 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 issued Horde field riding armour and equipment, which they quickly had to put on.
From the Q Store, they limped after the lieutenant in their knee-length Horde 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 not met before, named Troop Sergeant Terzok. He was considerably less wide across the shoulders than most of the other sergeants but had the most amazing moustache, 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 strangely friendly, immediately shouted at them and proceeded to impart a long list 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 really having to think about it yet. The prospect of going to GHQ was a relief, 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 points 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 moustache almost 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 ordinary 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 those Nithlings,' Terzok continued. 'None of 'em would have got away then. Right. I will repeat the basics for the fifth and final time. This here is Mowlder, the oldest Not-Horse on the post. Made up more than four thousand years 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 you 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 living flesh under the metal skin, which serves as a very useful armour. 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 questions so far?'