Seven Sorcerers (32 page)

‘No. Thtrood forbade them to dig under the thentre of the Houthe. He didn’t want to rithk anything collapthing. I’ve thought about it a lot and I think the Thecret Way thtartth in the inner garden, the one the Houthe ith built around, nextht to the Maug’th courtyard. Theraphine loved the garden.’

Jonas stared at the fish-man. ‘Gorgle, you’re brilliant. I am very glad I met you!’

Gorgle smiled shyly and blinked his silvery eyes.

‘A top-notch artist too. These carvings are wonderful.’

‘Thankth!’ Gorgle hung his head bashfully. ‘I like carving. It taketh my mind off thingth. Ethpethially on Fridayth.’

‘What happens on Friday?’

‘Mithter Thtrood hath fith for dinner on a Friday.’ Gorgle’s face twisted in misery. ‘Every Friday afternoon, the girl cometh from hith kitchen and taketh a fith.’

Jonas looked at Gorgle and then he looked at the pond, where the silver-backed fish swirled beneath the surface.

‘They are my brotherth and thithterth,’ said Gorgle.
Tears were welling in the corners of his eyes. ‘I have to give him one of my family to eat. But if I don’t he will kill me and if he killth me then who will fill the pond? And if no one fillth the pond then they will
all
die.’

‘That’s terrible!’

By now the tears were on Gorgle’s cheeks. ‘They underthtand, my brotherth and thithterth. Every Friday I athk them who will go and one of them, one of the older oneth, thwims to the thurface. Every Friday.’

Jonas reached out and put an arm round the fish-man’s thin shoulders.

‘It breakth my heart,’ said Gorgle and then fell silent, staring empty-eyed at the pool as it glimmered in the fractured light.

f Milo hadn’t been hanging on to her, Nin would have frozen on the spot.

‘Eyes,’ he hissed, dragging her along with him.

It was thin and spindly and covered in spiky hair, with arms and legs that looked out of proportion. Its face was mostly eyes. Huge, bulging, black, glossy eyes. Underneath them was a tiny mouth like a slash. Nin felt a dart of fear as it ran past, but the creature ignored her.

‘It’s the uniform,’ said Milo comfortingly. ‘Makes you as good as invisible, but only as long as you’re where a servant ought to be.’

As they went past Gan Mafig’s picture, Nin glanced nervously up the stairs to where Mr Strood had his rooms.

‘Doesn’t he have a bodyguard?’

‘What’s the point? No one can hurt him. He’s immortal. As in never going to die.’

Nin remembered Strood telling her that he had been thrown to the wolves once. She also remembered how scarred he was.

‘So even if someone, say, chopped him to pieces he’d just heal up again?’

‘Yep.’

‘Ugh! I always thought being immortal would be nice.’

Milo shook his head vigorously. ‘Nobody’d want to be like he is!’

They kept going down the corridor. Here, the walls were lined with pink-and-burgundy-striped paper, not silk, although the carpet on the floor was still deep and soft. When she had seen the House from the outside, Nin had noticed the bricked-in windows. Here on the inside, all traces had been papered over and the walls were flawless. Light came from lamps on metal brackets in the wall that burned steadily with a yellow-white light. Nin thought the house had a strange feel, as if it were its own world, far apart from the Drift or the Widdern. They passed a couple of servants, who shot them timid smiles and said nothing, but no more Eyes. Once they were past the kitchens, where the clean scent of soap and hot water mingled with rich smells of lunch, Milo pushed open a door.

‘Here you are. The stairs to the down-house. It’s two flights to the storerooms. Then if Toby’s not there, go all the way along the storerooms corridor and up the stairs at the other end, all right? And BE CAREFUL.’

Nin leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. He smiled at her. The door swung shut and she was alone. Nervously, she followed the stairs down into the part of
the House that was built inside the cliff until she reached the stores. Here, the occasional wall lamp pitted its glow bravely against the shadows, and in the dim light, doors marched two by two into the distance. It looked like they went on for miles. She had a lot of rooms to look in and it would take her some time, but with no one around, at least she would be able to call his name.

The tunnel had been sneakily curving back on itself for a while, and now it had narrowed down to a thin slit in the rock. Irritably, Jik stared at the gap. It was too small even for him. If the wall had been earth and not rock he might have been able to …

He stopped mid-thought and turned, hurrying back to a point just before the tunnel had started shrinking. Here the walls were not rock but densely packed earth. Putting his hands out in front of him he stepped slowly forward, his stumpy arms burrowing easily into the earth. Though it wasn’t really burrowing but blending.

Inside the Land he paused to get his bearings and then moved on, swimming through the earth, part of it and yet not. From listening to the way it sounded, he knew that towards the cliff face and right down at the lowest parts of the House the Land was mostly rock. Underneath the House, the Land was soil and he would be able to travel through it easily, as long as he avoided the wooden struts built in to support the walls and floors of the many rooms.

After a while Jik decided to step outside the walls for a look around to see where he was. He found himself in a corridor that led to a bathroom containing a bathtub big enough to take a whole Grimm guard. There was a scrabbling noise coming from the bath, so he climbed on to the chair next to it to look in. It was a spider.

It was dark blue, its eyes were purple – all eight of them – and it sat in a knock-kneed jumble of legs up at the plug end, watching him nervously. Jik had seen something like it before in the House gardens, so he wasn’t surprised by its size.

‘Jik?’

‘Hss.’ The spider looked sulky and bunched her legs up even closer. She had been stuck in the bath for a long time and was obviously fed up with it. The edge was just too high for her to reach and every time she tried she slithered back on the enamel surface.

‘Jik gik yik ik? Yik hik mik fik mik frik?’

Hss brightened up. ‘Yss pss! Yss.’

Jik nodded and was about to lean over to give her a legs up when the door burst open and one of the servants darted in clutching a bundle of towels.

She spotted Hss straight away and screamed. There was the sound of footsteps running along the corridor. Jik, who was on the other side to the maid, did a neat back flip into the next bathtub along, where he crouched out of sight. He had a moment of sick horror when it dawned on him what would have happened if the bathtub had been full instead of empty. When the dizziness cleared
and he could think again he realised that help had arrived.

‘What is it! What’s happened!’

‘Oh Susan,’ wailed the first maid, ‘there’s a s-spider!’

‘Goodness, is that all! Get me a glass and some card.’ Jik heard Susan edge forward to look. ‘Oh lor!’ She staggered back, having changed her mind about the glass and the card. ‘It’s one of those bigguns from the garden. Hurry up, girl. Go and fetch a guard!’

Feeling very down, Nin traipsed up the stairs at the far end of the storeroom corridor. There had been no sign of Toby and now she was heading towards the great library where all the books that Mr Strood didn’t take a personal interest in were kept. The first thing she saw when she reached the landing was a sobbing maid.

‘It’s B-Bogeyman P-Polpp,’ the girl wailed as soon as she saw Nin. ‘I-I’ve got to s-sweep the library and he th-threw me out.’

‘Did he hurt you?’

‘I hit my head,’ babbled the girl. ‘He called me a stupid moo and said he’d fry my pinny if I didn’t get out.’

Nin took the girl’s broom. ‘I’ll do it,’ she said firmly. ‘You get on with whatever else you’ve got to do.’ An idea was forming in her head. What had Errol told her? Terrible gossips, bogeymen.

The girl stared at her out of eyes so brown they were black and then she turned and ran like a frightened
mouse. Taking a deep breath, Nin pushed open the door of the library.

‘Excuse me, Bogeyman Polpp,’ she said politely.

The creature curled up on an old sofa between two bookcases raised its head and glared at her with irritable red eyes. Polpp looked something like Skerridge only less tidy. He was also hairier and bigger and wore a pair of tartan trousers tied up with someone’s old school tie.

‘What?’ he snarled, ‘make it quick, kid, or yer toast.’

‘I can’t do toast,’ said Nin, ‘but I do have some bread and honey tea?’ Out of the big pocket in her pinafore, she pulled a flask and a half-loaf that Milo had given her.

The bogeyman gave her a long look. And then a longer one. Something about her got its curiosity going.

‘I don’ know yer name,’ Polpp said. ‘An’ the only names a bogeymen don’ know are them what’s been stolen.’

Nin smiled. ‘I’m Ninevah Redstone, but mostly people call me Nin.’ She hoped she wasn’t making a huge mistake, after all he could report her escape to Mr Strood. But somehow she didn’t think he would, and besides, the reward would be worth it. She might not have found Toby yet, but maybe her luck was handing her an opportunity not to be missed.

The BM’s mouth twitched. Something horribly like a grin struggled across it, revealing a set of teeth like broken tombstones.

‘’er what made a Fabulous? ’er what escaped from the Storm ’Ounds?’ The grin broadened. ‘’er what got away
from Bogeyman Skerridge?’

Polpp burst into laughter. Nin ducked as a spurt of flame flickered over her head and burnt a sooty patch on the wall behind her.

‘To be fair …’ Nin began.

The bogeyman waved his hand dismissively. ‘So what if ’e gotcha in the end. Troof is, tha’s the closest any kid’s ever come to it.’ Red eyes looked her over thoughtfully. ‘Awright, ’and over the grub and tell me all about it.’

It took a while because Polpp found some of it so funny that he made her tell it twice.

‘Why are you so interested?’ asked Nin when she had finished.

‘Finks too much of ’imself does Bogeyman Skerridge,’ Polpp snorted. ‘All that “Never lost a kid” stuff. ’Ooo cares. Kid gets lost. Yer goes and gets anovver one. Plenny of ’em out there.’

Nin clamped her mouth shut. Now was not the time to lay into him about the fate of the children he stole, not if she wanted to find out anything useful.

‘An’ the stoopid part is, there’s one fing that just AIN’T DONE fer a bogeyman an’ tha’s goin’ out in the daylight.’ Polpp made a disgusted face. ‘Blimmin’ Skerridge makes a big song an’ dance outta not losin’ a kid, then does somefin’ like goin’ out in the daylight what goes right against a bogeyman’s grain! There’s somefin’ wrong in ’is ’ead if yer arsk me.’ Polpp yawned. ‘Anyway, better get on, I guess. Been fun meetin’ y –
’Ang on …’ He stopped mid-stretch and stared at her. ‘’e got yer in the end? ’Anded yer over t’ Mr Strood?’

‘Yep. Tipped me out right on the rug.’

‘So …’ Polpp’s voice took on a tone of awe, ‘so ’ow come yer ’ere?’

Nin smiled. ‘I got away from Mr Strood,’ she said quietly. ‘And if you like, you can be the first to tell the other BMs how. Only there’s a price.’