“Ow!” he said. He looked around wildly, but Suzy was still all tied up and slowly spinning in place. “Who did that?”
“Dunno,” said Suzy. “It just came out of nowhere.”
Giac picked up the soap and looked at it.
“Grease monkey soap,” he said. “Probably thought it was funny to drop this over the side, somewhere up top. Oh, well. Let’s get started.”
“You can go first,” said Suzy.
Giac nodded and set out the paper draughts on the makeshift board. He’d only just laid them all down when a breeze blew in, picked them up and lofted them over the edge of the veranda to spin and twinkle away.
“We’d better use Noon’s board and the pawns for draughts,” said Suzy. “Tell you what – if you don’t want to touch it, how about you cut me down and I’ll do all the moves? That way you can say you never went near it.”
“I don’t know…” said Giac. He looked longingly at the board. “I would so love to play a game. It’s been such a long time since I played anything.”
“You get me down and we’ll play draughts until someone shows up. If it’s your lot, you just say I escaped a minute ago. If it’s the Piper’s Newniths, you can change sides.”
“Change sides?” asked Giac. “Um, how could I do that?”
“Well, you just stop obeying Superior Saturday and start obeying the Piper…or someone else. Lord Arthur, for example.”
“Just like that?” asked Giac wonderingly. “And it would work?”
“Well, I s’pose it would,” said Suzy. “As long as you didn’t run into Saturday herself. Or one of her superior Denizens, like Noon.”
“But they’ve gone up top,” said Giac, pointing. “Invading the Incomparable Gardens. I could change sides now.”
“First things first,” said Suzy. “It’s one thing to change sides; it’s something else to have the other side accept you.”
The half smile that had begun to form on Giac’s face crumpled. “I knew it couldn’t be easy as that.”
“Course you will get accepted if you let me go,” said Suzy. “That’s the first thing. So it’s still pretty easy.”
“You mentioned Lord Arthur,” said Giac. “How many sides are there again? I mean, besides Saturday’s?”
“It’s a bit complicated,” said Suzy quickly. “I’ll explain when you get me down. I can draw a diagram.”
“I like diagrams,” said Giac.
“Good!” said Suzy. “Get me down and I’ll draw one. Quickly!”
“All right,” replied Giac, and something like a small smile flitted across his face. It was the first time Suzy had ever seen a Sorcerous Supernumerary look even remotely happy.
Giac pulled the lever and Suzy dropped to the floor of the veranda. The Denizen strode over and began to undo the knots.
“I’m a rebel,” Giac said happily. “Do you think I’ll get a uniform? Something brightly coloured? I rather fancy a red—”
Before he could say anything further, something large and black streaked in from the open air and struck him in the back of the head, sending him sprawling across Suzy. As Giac hadn’t properly undone any knots, Suzy was still trapped. All she could do was wriggle out from under his unconscious form.
“Suzy Turquoise Blue?” asked the black object, which was reforming itself from a kind of bowling ball made of tiny swirling letters into a raven made up of tiny swirling letters.
“Yes,” said Suzy. “Let me guess – Part Six of the Will, right?”
“At your service,” said the raven. “In a manner of speaking. I’ve come to rescue you, as Lord Arthur instructed.”
Suzy sniffed. “I don’t need no rescuing,” she said. “Had it all organised, didn’t I? ’Cept you’ve just knocked out the Denizen wot was untying me. Where’s Arthur?”
“Mmm…not entirely…mmm…sure,” said the raven as it pulled at a knot with its beak. “There – slither out.”
Suzy slithered out of the loosened bonds and checked Giac. He was unconscious, but the faint smile was still on his face, suggesting that he might be dreaming of a colourful uniform. She looked over at Aranj too, but the other Denizen hadn’t even looked up and was still crouched down, totally rejecting the world around her.
“’Ow do you knock out a Denizen?” asked Suzy. “I tried it myself once or twice, but just hitting them never works.”
“It is not the force of the blow, but the authority with which it is delivered,” quoth the raven.
“Hmmph,” said Suzy. She sidled over to the chess set and looked back at Part Six of the Will over her shoulder. “Now, what’s Arthur up to?”
“After releasing me and securing the Sixth Key, Lord Arthur went into the Improbable Stair, to a destination or destinations unknown,” reported the raven. “Which means that until he returns, it is up to us to secure his position here.”
“So he got the Key,” said Suzy with satisfaction. “I told ’im he would. ’Ow do we go about securing the position then?”
As she talked, she picked up the solid-gold queen from Noon’s chess set and idly slipped it into one of the pockets of her utility belt.
“We must open an elevator shaft to the Great Maze,” said the raven, “make contact with my other parts, and bring in troops to secure this tower and the entry into the Incomparable Gardens.”
“Right,” said Suzy. “That can’t be too difficult. Where do we go to open an elevator shaft?”
“The sorcerers assigned to blocking the elevators are on Levels 6860 to 6879. We merely need to access a desk on one of those levels.”
“What if they’re still full of sorcerers? Or been taken over by the Piper’s lot?”
“The Piper’s forces have not advanced beyond the lower levels,” said the raven. “Or at least they hadn’t when I last looked. There are still a great number of Saturday’s lesser troops down there.”
“Right, then,” said Suzy. She walked back over to Giac, sat him up and lightly slapped him on the cheek. “Come on, Giac! Ups-a-daisy!”
“What are you doing?” asked the raven. “You’ll wake him up.”
“I know,” said Suzy. “He might come in handy and he’s on our side now. Ain’t you, Giac?”
Giac looked at her woozily.
“Yes,” he mumbled. “I think so. Which side was that again? Did you draw me a diagram?”
“I’ll draw you up one later,” said Suzy. “Now, where’s an elevator at? Or the Big Chain? Lead on, Giac!”
The Improbable Stair became real and Arthur sprang on to its first step. Even as he left the alien world behind, hundreds of energy beams crisscrossed the air where he’d been – and one of them struck the side of his head. Even Arthur’s magically transformed flesh and bones could not withstand such a forceful strike. He felt it like an ice pick to the brain, an intensely cold and numbing blow that made him black out for a second. He stumbled on the Stair and almost lost his balance, before some primal instinct separate from any intelligence forced