Un Lun Dun

Ah, thought Deeba.

She was about to interrupt the bookaneer and explain why she thought she was wrong, but something stopped her. There was a fervor in Staples’s voice.

“I haven’t yet got my unbrella,” she said. “The Unbrellissimo’s distributing them as fast as he can, all of them vulcanized with Unstible’s formula. I was saving up to pay. But Brokkenbroll won’t even accept any money for them. Peter Nevereater…” She pointed across the bookpit at a colleague. “He’s got one, and he was caught in a Smog attack.

“They’re amazing! He told me. You don’t even have to know how to defend yourself! They’ve been given their orders; they’re all fully trained. Peter didn’t even have to get under cover. The unbrella just danced in his hand and kept all the rain-bullets from touching him.”

“I’ve seen it happen,” said Deeba.

“It’s an honor to help him,” Margarita said. “Every day or two we get requests from Unstible, for more and more arcane volumes. Chemistry and sorcery. And chemico-sorcery. And sorcero-chemistry. Some pretty hard expeditions to find them, I can tell you. But worth it, for whatever he’s learning.

“The Smog’s been spreading badly. But if it weren’t for the unbrellas it would’ve taken over the whole abcity by now. With Unstible’s help, we’re in with a chance.”

It was obvious how much trust she put in Benjamin Unstible and his formula. Deeba thought quickly.

Her plan had been to a

Deeba didn’t want to end up in an UnLondon jail, or on the run. And besides, Margarita’s certainty made her question her own conclusions. Wasn’t it possible Deeba had got the wrong idea?

Maybe I should just go back, she thought, and shuddered to think of climbing all the way down again. She didn’t even know if it would work. But more than that, uncertainty gnawed at her.

I can’t say anything until I’m totally sure Unstible’s lying, she thought. I might be totally wrong. But if not…UnLondon is in real trouble.

She cast her eyes over the abcity, wondering what to do. Nearby, the flickering outlines of Wraithtown caught her eye. She remembered something that Obaday Fing had told her about its inhabitants.

The roofs of Wraithtown weren’t consistent. Their shapes shifted. From this distance they seemed to move like pale cold flames.

Deeba did not like the direction her own thoughts were going. She tried to work out some other way of finding out the information she needed. Unfortunately, she couldn’t. She sighed. She had just thought herself into a dangerous expedition.

But I have to be totally certain, she thought. So no one can think I’m mad.

“Can you tell me how to get down?” she said. “Also…what do you know about Wraithtown, and the ghosts?”

40. Ghostwards

Two iron ladders stretched down the outside of the tower. They were rickety and rusted, but after her epic clamber up the cliff of books, they couldn’t intimidate Deeba.

She waved thanks and good-bye to Margarita the bookaneer, and began to descend. Beside her was the other ladder, for readers coming up, to avoid the nightmare of bottlenecks.

After a minute or two, she heard the rattling of a typewriter. Beside the steps jutted a shelf of bricks, only slightly larger than the desk that sat on it. A suited man sat behind the desk, staring at Deeba.

“I don’t have nothing to check out,” she said.

“Wait…how did you get up here?” he said. “Did you sneak past?”

“No I didn’t,” Deeba said indignantly. She continued down. “Ask Margarita,” she shouted up to him. “I come from inside.”

“Really?” he said. “A visitor!” He leaned over the edge of his little work space and called down: “Welcome to UnLondon!”

Yes, it’s really welcoming, Deeba thought sarcastically, thinking of the boroughs of bubbling Smog. And now I have to go and beg a favor of a bunch of ghosts.

But despite herself, Deeba could not pretend that she was not excited to have returned.

At last she touched down onto the pavements of the abcity. Streets meandered away in various directions, their bricks and mortar interrupted by moil technology and other oddities. Bits and pieces of feral rubbish moved skittishly from shadow to shadow.

“You don’t scare me this time,” Deeba said.

The sky was growing lighter, from the random direction in which the UnSun was going to rise. Deeba shouldered her bag and swung her umbrella. She looked up at the enormous pillar of the Wordhoard Pit, towering so high it looked as if it were falling.

Deeba got her bearings and set off in the direction of Wraithtown, considering what she had learnt about its inhabitants.

No one knew why certain of the dead came, as ghosts, to live in Wraithtown. The vast majority of those who died in UnLondon and in London went straight on to wherever it was they went. Of the few who did stick around, many stayed elsewhere, typically haunting the site of their death. A few others would roam.

The majority of the ghost population of the city and abcity, however, did settle in Wraithtown. Sometimes they stayed for years, before fading gradually and moving on, going wherever the dead go.

Wraithtown was an area of UnLondon but was also a suburb of the land of the dead, so far from the necropolis city center that it was hazily visible in the living world. Those dead who lived there must be those with some reason for sticking close to the living, the UnLondoners figured, and their refusal to explain themselves was suspicious.

It was very difficult to make sense of Wraithtown, as the dead were extremely uncommunicative. This led to thousands of rumors. Why else would the Wraithtown dead stay around, unless they were jealous of the bodies of the living?

Deeba was afraid. But it was in Wraithtown that she knew she could find out some vitally important information about Unstible. She tried to work out how she could get safely into its streets, learn what she needed to learn, and leave again without having her body stolen from her. She had a mile or two to decide.

“What am I going to do?” she said out loud.

As she walked quickly through the unlit alleys, Deeba had to admit she wasn’t quite so sure as she had been that UnLondon didn’t frighten her anymore. Margarita had warned her that the empty and emptish streets on the way to Wraithtown weren’t safe. Deeba told herself that because it was almost dawn, and because she was impatient, it would make sense to set off straightaway. She wondered if she’d made a mistake.

She began to hum to herself, to keep her spirits up.

It can’t be very far, she thought. She still hadn’t worked out what she was going to do when she got to the Ghost Quarter. Deeba shivered in the damp, cold air.

From somewhere nearby came the smashing of glass.

She froze.

There was an awful scream, that might be a dog or a fox or possibly, just possibly even a person. Abruptly, it was cut off.

Deeba crept close to a nearby building, a moil house made of ancient record players. She listened.

There were no more cries. There was, though, another noise. A faint wet grinding. And something that was not quite padding, nor quite the noise of hooves. Something in-between.