Un Lun Dun Read online

  “Besides, as I said to my partner—who believe me took some convincing, and who expended quite some effort on checking that everything was safe—everyone should have benefited. You got your friend back, uninterested in dangerous topics anymore. Your friend got to live. You get to feel good about having helped save her—so don’t say I didn’t give you anything. And I got to impress the idiots around me with my powers over the nasty smoke, so they put their trust in me. Which in turn benefits my partner. You were supposed to be out of the picture, and perfectly happy. You never, ever would have had to bother us, or we you.

  “Now why, after I go to all that trouble to sort all that out for everyone, did you have to ignore it all and come back? You had absolutely no need.”

  There was a silence. Deeba stared at him pugnaciously until he sighed and looked away.

  “He’s sort of got a point,” Hemi whispered. “Why did you come back?”

  “Shut up,” said Deeba. “Listen.”

  “We should get a move on,” Murgatroyd said to Brokkenbroll. “I’ve got to get back, report to my superiors. Rawley was pretty worried by her letter, you can imagine. She wants reassuring that everything’s in hand. Thanks for telling us who she was. I had to spin her some nonsense about tracking her movements from the post office.” The two men laughed.

  “How is it all up there?” Brokkenbroll said.

  Murgatroyd shrugged modestly.

  “It seems to be working well,” he said. “Our LURCH program is proceeding excellently. It was hard building those trans-odd chimneys that send the fumes directly through to here, but worth the effort. My boss is getting lots of kudos for cutting down on pollution up our end.” They both laughed. “Some people are beginning to wonder if all this might mean Prime Minister Rawley one day. She values her relationship with you and your partner immensely.”

  “Yes, I’m sure we’ll do more work together.”

  “I know it’s not so easy for it to make its way over…”

  “Oh, it does when it has to.”

  “Absolutely. Now, I do have to report back that we’ve got the girl. She could have thrown a real spanner in things here.”

  “I’m sure we’ve sorted it all out, but just in case, we’ll know everything she knows in a minute,” Brokkenbroll said. “We’ll know exactly who they’ve told. Did you hear that?” he said to Deeba, his voice chillingly gentle. “Lie all you want.”

  “I’m not lying!” Deeba shouted.

  “It won’t make any difference,” he said. “We’ll know the truth in…” He peered behind her. “In just a minute.”

  Murgatroyd was looking too, his face wrinkled with severe distaste.

  “I’d rather not stay around for this,” he said. “I’ll go and wait by the elevator, so I can get straight back as soon as we’ve heard.”

  “Very well,” Brokkenbroll said. “I’ll take you back. It’s been very handy, installing that elevator in the lab. Not easy, I know, and very appreciated. Meanwhile, we’ll let things here…get on.” He raised his voice and spoke to the something or someone behind Deeba. “Come along when you’re done and tell us how it went. Good-bye, Miss Resham. I hope for your sake you impart whatever information you have swiftly.”

  “You pig,” Deeba spat.

  “Lanky dweeb!” shouted Hemi.

  “You won’t get away with this,” Deeba said. The Unbrellissimo tipped back his hat and looked quizzical.

  “Of course I will,” he said. “Who’s going to stop me? The Shwazzy herself couldn’t. So much for the prophecies. If she couldn’t, what on earth do you think you’re going to do?”

  Brokkenbroll reached into Deeba’s bag and pulled out her umbrella. He looked at its unbroken shape with extreme distaste.

  “How I do hate to see an unbrella in this unfinished state,” he said, and roughly ripped a slit in its canopy.

  He dropped it. It didn’t fall flat, but tottered unstably on its handle. It swayed, snapped upright, looked eyelessly around. Brokkenbroll clicked his fingers, and the newborn unbrella leapt to attention.

  “Come with me, you,” he said. “Let’s get you treated. But first…”

  He gripped Deeba’s shoulders, and spun her and Hemi on their backsides, scraping them on the ground. Now Deeba was pointed at the fire. She could see exactly what was waiting for them.

  The flames poured out of a brazier, a big oil drum packed with coal and noxious rubbish, gushing black smoke. Beside it was a pile of trash with a shovel jutting from it.

  Standing over the glowing drum, breathing in the stench and filthy fumes with an expression of hunger and delight on his ghastly face, was the thing pretending to be Benjamin Unstible.

  50

  Malevolent Breather

  Deeba’s eyes widened. She cried out.

  “What?” called Hemi. “What, what, what?”

  “It’s him, it’s the thing,” she said. “Unstible. It’s here.”

  Behind her, Deeba heard a beating like wings as the flock of unbrellas took off from the empty streets, the murmurs of Brokkenbroll and Murgatroyd receding rapidly with them.

  Unstible’s face looked terrible in the glow. He seemed plumper than she remembered, and his skin was oily and seeping and graying and unhealthy. His eyes were wide and bloodshot. He leaned over the fire and, still staring at Deeba, took another long, luxurious snort.

  “Aaaaaaaaah,” he sighed. He seemed to fill out. Deeba saw his skin ripple, and strain.

  “Hello again,” he said. His voice was different from when she had heard him before. He was relaxed, now, and it was a slow grating wheeze.

  “Now it’s just you…and me.”

  “Unstible” moved slowly around the fire, breathing deeply, keeping his eyes on Deeba. He rummaged in her bag.

  “Have to know what you’ve seen,” he said. “Have to know who you’ve told. And why you came.”

  “Who are you?” Deeba whispered.

  A slow and ghastly smile came over “Unstible’s” face.

  “You know,” he said. He wagged his finger at her. “You’re not fooled by this silly puppet.” He prodded himself in the chest. “You know, don’t you, little girl?”

  Deeba did know.

  “Why?” she said. “Why are you all doing this?”

  “Everyone’s happy. The minister gets what she wants. Unbrella man what he wants. And me…why am I doing this? Because of her LURCH…because I’m hungry,” he crooned.

  The Unstible-thing brought out the word-glove from her bag, and looked at it quizzically. Then it threw it on the fire, and sighed happily as smoke wafted up.

  “Old…” it said. “Powerful…And this? From the boy-thing’s pocket.” It held up the Shwazzy’s travelcard. Deeba stared at it in astonishment. “Unstible” dropped it on the fire too, and crooned happily, sniffing its smoke. “More Propheseer power!”

  “You did steal it!” she said furiously, and tried to bang Hemi’s head with her own.

  “I wanted to see if she was really the Shwazzy,” he said through his teeth, and butted her back. “I was just going to have a look and put it back. Could we possibly discuss this later?”

  Like a tide coming in, little lapping wavelets of dirty smoke were edging into view around the corner. The smoggler a few streets away was stretching. Within it, Deeba could see creeping figures. As the Smog came, so did a few of the smaller intrepid smoglodytes.

  No two were the same shape. There were things like crosses between rats and fungus, or bodiless things like two monkey arms attached together, or millipedish creatures the size of Deeba’s forearm, each of its legs ending in tiny hands.

  The smoglodytes were graveworm-pale and colorless. All had either enormous dark eyes, all pupil, to see in the filthy half-light of the Smog, or no eyes at all. And all had some adaption for breathing the poisonous stew, like enormous nostrils, or many pairs of them, to suck what little oxygen there was out of the clouds. Deeba saw one thing like a cat-sized snail, watching her with a bouquet of retra
ctable eyes. Below them its face was an organic gas mask.

  “You surprise me,” Unstible said. “Why would you come back? Thought we could forget about you…and the other one. Where’s she?”

  For a moment Deeba didn’t understand. Then her eyes widened.

  “Nowhere,” she said. “She don’t remember nothing.”

  “Was more worried about her,” Unstible said. “Wasn’t expecting you at all. But Brokk persuaded me it would work, and when I came to fetch what she breathed, it did seem to be the end of it. But now…” He smiled at Deeba and widened his mad-looking eyes. “Seems it wasn’t. Perhaps she’ll remember. If you got back, I certainly better go back and take care of her. Can’t have the Shwazzy coming back here.”

  “She’s not!” Deeba shouted. “Leave her alone! You took all the memories out with your smoke! She don’t know nothing!”

  “Safety first, safety first. Make sure. Seeing you here, I think I’d better sort her out. Just as soon as we’ve taken care of you.”

  “No…!” Deeba gasped in horror.

  “Oh yes. Not easy to stretch all the way…but I can. And do. A few favors for a few Londonsiders, here and there. Best to make the effort with your friend, as soon as it’s less…busy here. Soon as I have a moment. I’ll be sure. Anyway the practice’ll be good for me. There’ll be other, bigger reasons to go back to London, soon, I think. Best get good at the journey.

  “But that’ll be nothing for you to worry about. Soon, everything’ll be nothing for you to worry about.”

  The smoglodytes crawled, flopped, and scuttled into Unstible’s company, cooing and slobbering with interest as the Smog grew closer.

  “Now,” the man-shaped thing said, and unfolded the Wraithtown printout that proved that Unstible—the real Unstible—had died. He sniffed it, licked it like a connoisseur. He folded it and tore it in half and half again, smiled, and dropped the pieces into the fire.

  The paper combusted with a flare of phosphorescence, and a swirl of released spirits. The heat pushed one little piece in an updraft, wafted it over the edge and onto the ground.

  The thing in Unstible’s shape exhaled, then breathed in hard, and a stream of smoke gushed up from the fire and into him through his mouth, and into each nostril. He breathed in the paper’s smoke.

  “Aaaaah,” he exhaled, smacking his lips appreciatively. “Never eaten ghost-paper before. Unstible’s death certificate. Clever to get it. Clever girl. It’s gone now, though.” He waved his empty hands. “Nothing to show.”

  He tipped a spadeful of rubbish into the fire, and sucked at the resulting burp of stink. He poked around in the garbage, looking for something, sighed ostentatiously. The smoglodytes whickered.

  “No books,” he said. He looked at Deeba. “I love books.”

  “They’ll stop you,” Deeba said, trying to sound brave. “We’ll stop you. You won’t win. They’ll get rid of you just like we did before, in London.”

  There was a pause. Unstible stared. Then he screamed with laughter. He opened his mouth so wide its sides split a little, and wisps of smoke exhaled with each guffaw, and curled up out of the corners of his eyes till he dabbed them with a handkerchief.

  “Got rid? Ha. ‘Rid.’ Yes. Of course, there was no arrangement then. Oh no. Just like there’s none now. Of course.

  “But…you’re wrong, Deeba Resham.” He stalked closer, his whisper crawling into her skull. “They will not win, here. They have already lost. I will rule. And everything will burn, and burn, and burn, and smoke.

  “I will print blueprints for smokeless chimneys, and build modern factories with filters to keep the air pure, and then I will burn them in old old furnaces and I will drink the smoke and grow strong. I will go to the galleries and burn the pictures and have them in me. Because I like art, you see.”

  His face was inches from Deeba’s, and she almost choked on the reek of burnt plastic. The smoglodytes jabbered.

  “And books,” he whispered. “Lovely lovely books, all burning. Fires of paper and print. I will breathe in histories and stories, learn it all in the smoke. I learn and learn all the books you burn. But soon I’ll choose what goes up. No more breathing leftovers then. I’ll burn them all.

  “My partner wants to run things, and make you burn things for me, so I grow.

  “In my UnLondon you will print books over a furnace, so I can breathe them while the ink’s still wet. You will fire the libraries. Light the shelves of the Wordhoard Pit, and fire will take them all, and the bookcliff below, and spread out and take all the libraries in all the worlds. And I will wait at the top and breathe the smoke of them all, and I will know everything.”

  “It won’t fit in your lungs,” Deeba said desperately.

  “Not this I,” he said, prodding his chest carelessly. “The other I…” He breathed the word out, lengthily, until he wheezed smoke.

  “And there’s no reason to stop there.” It spoke almost as if to itself, now. “All the books in the London libraries too. No act to stop me this time. No weapon, no truce, no deals, nothing. Not when I’m finished here, not with the strength I’ll have…But I’m getting ahead of myself.” Unstible smiled in a ghastly way.

  “Now,” he said. “Time to make sure. Time to find out what you know.”

  “So you’re a torturer too?” Deeba said, and felt Hemi shake. She tried to keep her voice from trembling. “Going to hurt us till we talk? I already told you everything.”

  “Torture?” the Smog-Unstible said. “Silly. Silly girl. I don’t have to make you tell the truth. I know everything in all the smoke I breathe into me.” He looked at the brazier, and back at Deeba. “So to find out what’s in your head?

  “All I have to do is burn you.”

  51

  Out of the Fire

  “Jones!” Deeba yelled. “Mortar! Obaday! Help!” The knots that held her were very tight. “Hemi, he’s going to put us in the fire!” Hemi strained.

  “Hush now,” the man said. “No one to hear.” He walked towards them, his arms outstretched. “It won’t take long,” he whispered. “It’ll be over quickly. And then your memories live on as smoke in me.”

  Deeba began to scream.

  As the Unstible-thing leaned close, his eyes gaping wide, and Deeba’s voice choked in her throat, Hemi moved. He strained against the ropes, and feeling the peculiar motion, Deeba realized what he was doing.

  Not being pure-blood ghost, it was harder for Hemi than for his mother’s side of the family, but with effort, he could pass through solid matter. That was what he was doing. The flesh of his arms was oozing through the sleeves of his jacket and the cords that held them.

  The rope passed sluggishly through him. He was not transparent like his ghostly relatives, and the bonds disappeared completely within his skin, until they emerged reluctantly out the other side.

  Unstible lunged. Hemi yanked off his blindfold and whacked Unstible in the face, grabbed his leg, and tugged. Unstible roared and fell, and the smoglodytes scattered in confusion. Hemi grunted and pulled himself free of his bonds—and of his clothes, which, not being ghost-clothes, had stayed where they were, like the clothes on the bus. Only his shoes and socks remained on him. Without him there, the ropes around Deeba went slack.

  “Quick!” Hemi said.

  So swollen it was hard for him to rise, Unstible bellowed and smoked. Hemi kicked him, dancing between smoglodytes as they snapped and grabbed for his nude pale legs. Curdle rolled aggressively among them, wheezing sourly as they snapped.

  Deeba grabbed Hemi’s clothes. She hesitated for one second, then picked up the tiny scrap of ghost-paper that had drifted out of the fire. It was unmarked, with only a very few ripped edges of spirits clinging to it.

  Unstible grabbed Hemi’s ankle. Hemi tugged his leg, and Unstible’s fist closed through the skin and Hemi pulled himself free.

  “Come on!” he shouted, and took Deeba’s hand. Behind them, Deeba heard Unstible hauling himself up and growling, and kicking the smo
glodytes, judging by the animal squeals. Deeba and Hemi ran.

  They tore along the deserted streets of the empty quarter, through an alley where the streetlights coiled and lunged at them like enormous snakes.

  “This way! This way!” Hemi said. Deeba called to Curdle, and the milk carton leapt into her hands.

  Deeba could hear running, and she knew that Unstible and his smoglodytes were close. Hemi led her to a brick dead end.

  “Hold on a second,” he said. Deeba blinked as he shoved his head through the bricks, then brought it back.

  “I thought so,” he said. “Jones and the bus are just there.” He held his hands cupped together in a step. The noise of their pursuers got closer. “Quick!”

  Deeba struggled up and over with Hemi’s help. She dropped the clothes and Curdle onto the pavement, dangled, and followed them. She could see the top of the bus nearby. A pair of shoes came sailing over towards her, trailing socks.

  A hairy mass grew from the wall, then burst out. It was Hemi’s head. He strained through the bricks as if shoving through jelly.

  “Come on,” he said, emerging with an audible slurp. “Give me my clothes! Go! Unstible’s still coming.”

  “Jones!” Deeba called, realizing that to shout might tell Unstible where they were but too terrified to care. “Jones! Rosa! Quick! Go! Let’s go!”

  52

  Skeptical Authorities

  “I’m sorry, Deeba,” said Jones. “I still just don’t understand.”

  The bus was flying low and fast, heading half-hidden through the roofscape for the Pons Absconditus.

  “Like I said,” said Deeba. “Unstible’s not Unstible, he’s Smog. And the Unbrellissimo and the man from the MP’s office are in on it.”