Un Lun Dun (11 page)

20

The Welcome

There was an office on the bridge.

In the middle of the road was a collection of desks and chairs, telephones, weird-looking computers, bookshelves, and potted plants. Twenty or thirty men and women were working away. Mostly they wore shabby suits. They read reports and shuffled files. None of them noticed Zanna, Deeba, and the dustbin approach.

The girls could see to the Roofdom; they could see the waterwheel; they could see the outline of Manifest Station and across the skyline of UnLondon.

Eventually, one by one, the people on the bridge looked up. One by one, their mouths fell open. Deeba moved closer to Zanna. The two girls stood quietly, and waited.

“Um…” said Zanna eventually. “Hello. We were told you could help us.”

“Can I…help you?” It was an old man who spoke. He wore a nondescript suit and an extraordinarily long beard. He spoke hesitantly, and his voice contained disapproval, surprise…and, though he was trying to hide it, excitement. “May I ask how you managed to get here? Who exactly
are
you?”

“My name’s Zanna. This is Deeba. Are you…”

“I am Mortar of the Propheseers. But…but who
are
you?” He spoke more breathlessly, and quickly. “Where are you from?”

“I’m
Zanna,
I said. I’m from London. I think you know who I am.” She spoke with sudden authority that made Deeba stare at her. “I’ll show you.”

All the Propheseers gasped as Zanna reached into her pocket—

—and hesitated, and fumbled, and groped in another pocket, and another, more and more frantic.

“Deeba,” she whispered. “It’s gone! The travelcard…it’s gone!”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s
gone.
It was in my back pocket and now it’s not.” The Propheseers and the dustbin were watching, puzzled.

“That…that ghost-boy!” said Deeba. “He must’ve took it! On the roofs…Excuse me,” she said more loudly, to the old man. “It’s just…my friend had something that sort of said who she was, and, and we’ve been using it to get here, and now it’s been
stole,
and we…”

Her voice petered out at the sight of the Propheseers’ faces.

“I knew it wasn’t possible,” one muttered.

“Remember,” said another, “the enemy’ll try anything.” She looked at Zanna unpleasantly.

“Who are you
really
?” said a third.

“I had a
card,
” Zanna said, stricken. She searched her pockets again. “It’d show you…” She and Deeba began to back away.

“Wait.” It was the old man who spoke. “We have to be sure. Lectern! Bring it!”

A woman came trotting towards them through the desks. In her arms, she carried a huge, mottled book.

“Is it her?” whispered the old man.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Hold on…”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute.”

Zanna and Deeba started. This new voice was reedy and self-important. It rolled sounds around. It seemed to come out of nowhere. “Check page three-sixty-five,” it went on. The woman flicked to the right place.

“Who is that?” said Deeba. She and Zanna looked around.

“Tall for her age, blond hair,” the voice went on. “Let me have a good look…Decent-enough aura, brustly at the spectrids. Resonating in at least five or six dimensobilities…Let’s check the history. Page twenty-four please.”

“Deeba,” whispered Zanna.

“I know.”

The voice was coming from the book.

“Oh my,” it said, suddenly hushed. “Well tear me up and shove me in a hutch. It’s her. It is.”

The woman slapped the book shut. Her mouth went slack.

“It’s her,” she said.

“It is,” the book said. “It’s the Shwazzy. We’ve found her.”

“
You’ve
found her?” Deeba said. “I don’t
think
so. She found you, more like. And it wasn’t easy, neither.”

“What…?” said the old man again. “Lectern, who
is
that? Why’s she here?”

“I don’t know, Mortar…” the woman said.

“It’s alright,” the disembodied voice interrupted. “She’s in here. Page seventy-seven, ‘Shwazzy’s First Appearance.’ Look her up in the index: ‘Shwazzy, Companions of the.’ Um…something like that, anyway.”

The woman riffled through the pages and read silently.

“It’s right,” she said. “Fits the description. This…is how it’s supposed to go.” She and the man were staring at Zanna, rapt.

“Everyone!” the old man shouted. “Attention, please! I have an announcement! All of you know what’s been happening. All of you know of the danger we face. I’m sure many of you have despaired. That what was promised would never come. There’s no shame in it: it’s understandable. But despair is over.

“The Shwazzy
is here
! She’s come!”

One by one, the Propheseers stood at their desks and began to applaud. The UnSun began to rise. It illuminated Zanna’s face full-on, momentarily blinding her. She couldn’t see the clapping Propheseers, but she could hear their shouts of welcome.

21

An Unlikely Place of Work

“I didn’t think it could be true!” the woman Lectern said. “We got a garbled message from a conductor, couriered through several hands. Told us that you were coming!”

“Jones!” Deeba said. “Is he okay?”

“What?” said the old man, looking away from Zanna and glancing at Deeba in surprise. “Yes. I don’t know. He must be. Said he was hiding south of the river. But the point is he told us you were coming. We thought that was all nonsense. But…

“This is extraordinary. You’ve met our guards.” He gestured at the silent cylindrical guide. “The secret warriors: the binja. It’s just as well we passed on the message. We thought the conductor was confused, but we dropped a communiqué down, just in case. But we had to be sure, in case they’d been confused, escorted in some imposter. In fact, we should tell them to stand down. Jorkins!” he shouted. “Memo to the binja. ‘Shwazzy received safely. Many thanks. Yours, et cetera, et cetera.’”

A scrawny young man nodded and speedily typed. He whipped the piece of paper from his typewriter, crumpled it up, and threw it over the edge of the bridge.

“Amazing guards,” Mortar said. He stroked his long beard thoughtfully. “An ancient, ancient order. The right mixture of chemicals left to marinate long enough in the right conditions in those bins, some secret training, and
voila.
”

“Are they all loyal?” said Deeba. “Do any of them go off and be baddies?”

“You’re a talkative young lady, aren’t you?” he said. “All sorts of interesting questions.”

Zanna and Deeba sat with Mortar and Lectern a little way away from the office area. The binja stood nearby, scanning the area from under its lid, constantly. Curdle played under the table.

“We were being followed,” Zanna said. “What if they get past the binja?”

“Don’t you worry,” Lectern said. “This bridge is rarely just where you want it to be. Only once you’re actually
on
it. And only Propheseers and our guests know how to get there. It’s all a question of remembering what a bridge does—gets from somewhere to somewhere else.”

“Now look,” Zanna said. “I’m knackered and hungry. I’ve got no idea what’s going on.
We’ve
got no idea what’s going on.”

“We just want to go
home,
” Deeba said. “We didn’t want to be here in the first place.”

“I don’t know what you lot want,” Zanna said. “I don’t know why some people are so pleased to see me. And I don’t know why some people aren’t.”

“Everyone’s said the Propheseers’ll explain, blah blah blah,” Deeba said. “And that you’ll
tell us how to get back.
”

“Well, here we are, and we need to know.”

“We’re being chased by flies and nutters,” Deeba said.

“People are asking me if I’ve got the Klin…something,” Zanna said. “I don’t even know what they’re on about. Who’s chasing me? And what’s the Smog? And why’s it after
me
?”

“Of course, of course,” Mortar said. “I can’t imagine how confused you must be, Shwazzy. And we will help you home again. But there’s something you can do first. We have tried to contact you, over the years. We’ve heard rumors of where you might be. From the clouds, and the animals, and a few savvy abnauts. And from the book.”

“That’s right,” said the voice from the book, smugly.

“There’s always a difficulty of interpretation. But from careful reading—over generations!—we’ve learnt many things.”

“Many, many things,” the voice went on.

“Hush,”
Lectern said, and looked apologetically at Zanna.

“We tried to ease your journey. Sent you the Pass. A pity that was stolen. It took…some effort to send it across the Odd, believe me.”

In the distance, UnLondon’s giant chests of drawers were opening up, and flocks of birds were setting out into the dawn.

“Shwazzy,” Mortar said. “UnLondon is at war. We’re under attack. And it’s been written, for centuries, that you—
you
—will come and save us.”

“Me?” said Zanna.

“Her?” said Deeba.

“I’m just, I’m…just a girl,” said Zanna.

“You’re the
Shwazzy,
” Mortar said. “You’re our hope. Against the Smog.

“What is the Smog? Just exactly what it sounds like—thick, smoky fog. And why’s it out to get you? Because it hates being beaten.”

“Why does it think I’ll beat it?” Zanna said.

“It doesn’t think you will,” Lectern said. “It knows you already have.”

22

History Lessons

“Not you personally,” Mortar explained. “But you, Londoners. Even if you didn’t know it.”

“Let me tell the history,” the book said grandly. “Page fifty-seven.” Lectern flicked through to the relevant place. The book cleared its nonexistent throat.

“Abcities have existed at least as long as the cities,” it said. “Each dreams the other.

“There are ways to get between the two, and a few people do, though very few know the truth. This is where the most energetic of London’s discards come, and in exchange London takes a few of our ideas—clothes, the waterwheel, the undernet.

“Mostly such swaps are beneficial, or harmless. Mostly.”

Mortar and Lectern were staring intently at Zanna.

“Back in your old queen’s time,” the book said, “London filled up with factories, and all of them had chimneys. In houses they burnt coal. And the factories were burning everything, and letting off smoke from chemicals and poisons. And the crematoria, and the railways, and the power stations, all added their own effluvia.”

“Their own what?” said Zanna.

“Muck,” said Lectern.

“Add all that to the valley fog, and what you get’s a smoke stew,” the book went on. “So thick they called it pea soup. Yellow-brown and sitting on the city like a stinking dog. It used to get into people’s lungs. It could
kill
them. That’s what smog is.”

“Well,” said Mortar. “That’s what it
was.
But something happened.”

“As I was about to
explain,
” said the book testily. “As I was
saying.
At first, it was just a dirty cloud. Nasty but brainless as a stump. But then something happened.

“There were so many chemicals swilling around in it that they reacted together. The gases and liquid vapor and brick dust and bone dust and acids and alkalis, fired through by lightning, heated up and cooled down, tickled by electric wires and stirred up by the wind—they reacted together and made an enormous, diffuse cloud-brain.

“The smog started to think. And that’s when it became the Smog.”

Lectern shivered and shook her head at the thought. “It’s no surprise it wasn’t…nice,” she said. “Its thoughts are clotted from poisons, and things we’ve burnt to get rid of.”

“It was never going to be our friend,” Mortar said.

“As smoke kept going up,” the book said, “the Smog got bigger and stronger and smarter. But no kinder. It wanted to grow.

“It had always strangulated some people who breathed it in. At first it didn’t set out to, but then it realized that some of the dead would be cremated, and that their ashes would blow up and fatten it…So it became a predator.”

“It knew it would be safer if Londoners thought it was just dirty fog, so it kept its new brain to itself.”

“Mostly…” Mortar sighed and hesitated, appalled by what he had to say. “It had some allies. Believe me, there’s nothing so terrible that someone won’t support it. It has allies here, too.”

“Yeah, we know that,” said Deeba.

“One of them set airjackers on us,” Zanna said.

Mortar and Lectern shook their heads in disgust.

“For ages, the fight went on,” Mortar said. “But slowly, the Smog was losing. Even without knowing you were fighting, you were winning. Then it counterattacked. For five days, half a century ago, it assaulted London. It killed
four thousand people.
Its worst single attack. And still, most of you didn’t even know you were at war!

“After that…” He breathed out and threw up his hands. “Well…it gets a bit vague.”

“He’s right,” said the book. “There are hints, in me, but I’m about UnLondon, not London. There’s nothing clear.”

“We know a little bit, from stories,” said Lectern.

“From travelers,” said Mortar. “Secret histories. The Smog was beaten. There was a secret group of guardians. Weatherwitches. The Armets. It’s an old word for helmet, and they were like London’s
armor,
you see? And we’ve heard how they won. They had a magic weapon.”

“The
Klinneract,
” announced Lectern.

Lectern and Mortar looked at Zanna. Eventually they looked at Deeba. They seemed a bit disappointed by their lack of recognition. “As I say,” Mortar went on. “It was a
secret
group.

“So with magic and a secret war, Londoners drove the Smog away, but they didn’t manage to kill it. It got away.”

“By coming here,” the book said.

“There was so much rubbish in it, it could slip through the crevices through which moil comes to UnLondon,” Mortar said. “It was weak for a long time. It arrived…depleted.

“At first, even we Propheseers didn’t think it was a threat. The book…we saw no clear references to it.”

“We’ve talked about that,” the book whispered. “You’re being unfair.”

“That wasn’t my
point,
” Mortar muttered. “Can we discuss this later?”

“Yeah, please do,” Zanna said.

Mortar cleared his throat. “It crept into chimneys. It looked for smoky fires to feed at. We ignored it. But it was preparing. It remembered the way to London. It would send a few wafts through the gaps, and they’d reach your factories and suck the smoke down. Drank from you as well as us. It took years. It was patient.

“We should’ve realized. But the first we knew what was happening was when…it started providing its own food.”

“It…what?” Zanna said. “How?”

“It started fires. Or it got its followers to.”

“There’s so much rubbish in the Smog, it can concentrate it and move things. Pick things up. It’s got as many chemicals in it as the best laboratory, and it can mix them, make poisons and flammables and tar and whatever. It can squeeze the coal and metal and ash it carries, and throw it around.

“It rains petrol, lights it by squeezing metal dust into shards and dropping them until they spark. We realized, at last, what we were facing. And it made sense of warnings in the book, too.”

“Yes, it did,” said the book. “So less of your ‘It wasn’t mentioned,’ please.”

“We’ve been fighting it awhile now,” Mortar went on. “Since we understood. With vacuums, and extinguishers, and everything we can find. But then about a year ago, it suddenly stopped attacking.”

“Isn’t that good?” Deeba said.

“No, ’cause it’s waiting for something,” Lectern said. “It’s planning something.”

“And this we know because?” the book said expectantly.

“Because it’s in the book?” Zanna said.

The book said “Bing!”

“Sometimes the words are riddles,” Lectern said. “But there’s not much controversy over ‘The choker will rest, then rise, and fire, and grow, and return.’”

“Who was the man on the bus?” said Zanna.

“Someone who thinks it’ll help him,” Lectern said. “But there are heroes, too. For every one like him, there’s someone like Unstible.”

“We heard that name before,” Deeba said.

“Who’s Unstible?” Zanna said.

“Our greatest mind,” said Mortar. “Benjamin Hue Unstible. Propheseer. Also inventor, scientist, explorer, statesman, artist, banker, furniture designer, and cook. You see, you have to remember we know very little about London’s secret war with the Smog. Unstible researched and researched, all the stories he could find, about the Armets and their secret weapon, and about the Smog itself. He knew more about it than anyone else, ever. In the end, he decided that our best chance to defeat it was to know how it had been beaten before.

“He was sure the Smog would move against us. So he decided to find the Armets.

“That’s why he crossed over, to search. More than two years ago. We haven’t heard a word from him since.” Mortar looked forlorn. “Hopefully we’ll hear from him…any day now.”

“And he was right, too,” Lectern said. “The Smog
is
attacking again. And now we know what it’s been waiting for.”

“It’s been waiting for you, Shwazzy,” Mortar said.

“We knew it was approaching your time,” the book said. “Word’s been spreading. We heard your face had appeared in the clouds over London. That was the first sign.”

Zanna looked at Deeba.

“
Told
you,” Deeba muttered.

“Seven-oh-one,” the book said. Lectern turned pages. “‘One shall come from that other place. She shall be called the Shwazzy. To her alone it is given to save UnLondon.’ The Smog’s heard the prophecy. ‘She shall prevail in her first encounter, and again in her last.’
It knows you’re its enemy.
And it wants you gone. That’s why its forces are emerging at last. It’ll attack you as soon as it can.”

“Actually,” said Zanna, “it already has. In London.”

“But we didn’t know what it was,” said Deeba.

“It found you
there
?” gasped Lectern. “Oh, you poor thing.”

There was a long silence.

“Look,” Deeba said reasonably. “This is all…y’know, important and that. But you still haven’t told us how to get
out
of here—”

“Wait a minute,” Zanna interrupted her. “This is stupid. Why did Unstible go?” She stared at Mortar and Lectern.

“I mean…I’m supposed to defeat the Smog, right?” she demanded. “The prophecy says. It’s…mad, but just say for a moment, right? So why did Unstible go looking for the Armets? What was he worried about if I’m going to take care of it? It’s not his
job.
”

Mortar and Lectern looked at each other uneasily.

“He…always had certain ideas, about what was written,” Mortar said. “He said he wanted to be sure. ‘It’s
given
to her to save us,’ he used to say. ‘That doesn’t mean she’ll
take
it. I’ll go see what I can do.’”

“So…” said Zanna, “he disappeared ’cause he was trying to help me?”