Un Lun Dun

Parakeetus Claviger and several of his followers were dive-bombing Bling, and Deeba grabbed the terrified utterling and the featherkey.

She tried to fight her way through the increasing current. The water took her feet from under her and sent her sprawling.

“Come on!” shouted the book. Cavea’s human hands swatted birds. “We can’t help the utterling. We have to go!”

“Ow!” Deeba crawled out of the water. A fish with a vicious jutting jaw was attached to her leg, biting her even through her trousers. The explorers got out of the toilet, shielding themselves from parakeet attack and trying to stay out of the water.

They stumbled along the side of the new rising river, which tore down the corridor and to the stairs.

Its waters bubbled with more than just its current.

“Don’t fall in,” yelled the book. “It’s teeming with piranhas!”

They retraced their steps as fast as they could, hurrying under a new crop of leeches, leaping over predatory creepers. The birds followed them, scratching, through several layers of trees, but gradually began to leave them alone. Deeba heard harsh cawing. Cavea whistled.

“It’s the beta males,” the book said, jostling under Mr. Cavea’s arm. “We’ve done them a favor. Now they get to fight to become the alpha, the main key-carrier.”

“Less talking…” said Hemi. “More getting out.”

It took them some time, even traveling as fast as they could, to get all the way down the stairs. No one said very much.

“I…I’m so sorry about Diss,” Deeba said to Bling.

“It’s not your fault, Deeba,” the book said. She didn’t answer.

They were descending beside what was a dangerous river, now, rather than the trickle it had been. Every so often a particularly voracious piranha would hurl itself from the water and at them. They dodged and climbed and slipped down muddy slopes, clinging to roots and stumps.

They paused at the bottom of the stairs to catch their breath. There were only a few meters— though they were those oddly behaved meters, Deeba remembered— to the front door.

“It’s not far,” Hemi said. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Can you hear something?” Deeba said. They listened. “There it is again.”

Coming towards them, faint at first, but growing quickly louder, was a hacking, whacking sound. The leaves and trunks of the corridor were shaking with each stroke.

“What the…?” Hemi said.

Cavea whistled.

“He says he’ll go and look,” the book said. But even as Cavea reached up to undo his cage door, the sound was suddenly right up close to them, and the curtain of leaves beside them was violently split open.

Standing before them was a man swinging a big blade. There was a hacked path behind him. He stared at the travelers, who were momentarily frozen.

His skin was wrinkled and mottled. His face was slack, his jaw hanging. He leaked dark smoke from the corners of his mouth and from his empty eye sockets.

The man had obviously been dead for some time. He raised his machete and stumbled towards them.

65. The Smoky Dead

Deeba stumbled. She heard Curdle squeak in her bag. Cauldron leapt at the attacker, but the dead man backhanded him away.

An awful stink of old meat and burning sulfur filled the air. Deeba tried to crawl away, but the man bore down on her with his fast shambling step and raised his blade.

Deeba screamed as it swung down.

But the blow stopped descending. The man looked up with smoke eyes. His weapon had caught on a vine. He struggled clumsily to free it.

“Come on, come on!” Hemi hauled Deeba up.

“What is it?” she shouted.

“A smombie,” Hemi said.

The aggressive corpse lurched at Hemi, who ducked wildly.

The travelers backed onto the banks of a pool where the river’s waters had collected. The horrible smelly attacker blocked their path and came at them. With each blow it devastated a huge swath of forest: it was terrifyingly strong.

Bling flew at it, scratching with hard insect claws. Where it tore skin, wisps of smoke rose. The dead man ignored the injuries and headbutted a tree trunk, stu

Mr. Cavea sang and stepped in front of him. He threw the book to Deeba, put up his hands, and dropped into an odd crouch, like an antique photograph of those old boxers wearing what looked like women’s swimming costumes. He waggled his fists.

“He says, ‘I must warn you, sir…’ ” the book translated, but got no further, as the dead man swung the machete and Cavea had to dance away.

“Don’t try it!” Hemi shouted. “Smombies are strong!”

Mr. Cavea skipped nimbly over the roots, jabbing swiftly and punching. His blows didn’t seem to do any real damage, but they were obviously a

He’s turning him round! Deeba realized. He’s giving us a way out! She gestured at Hemi and the utterlings, and they began to creep behind the smombie’s back.

But while the man was dead, he wasn’t stupid. He saw them moving and turned. Mr. Cavea punched and shoved him, tried and failed to knock him down. The man ignored him, and raised his machete again.

The bird in the cage whistled once.

“He says, ‘Oh, dammit!’ ” the book said.

With that, Cavea grabbed the dead figure and twisted in a kind of judo throw, hauling the corpse over his shoulder. Their attacker arched towards the water and the avidly waiting fish. As he sailed over, the smombie gripped Cavea himself, and pulled him with him into the pool.

The two bodies vanished into the deep water.

“No!” Hemi and Deeba shouted.

The smombie’s head and Mr. Cavea’s birdcage both broke the surface. The water rippled as excited piranhas came to investigate. The smombie hauled clumsily at roots, to get out, but Mr. Cavea kept batting his hands away. The bird shook water from itself and trilled and hopped around its cage.

“He says go!” the book shouted. “Now! Before the Smog gives up on this body.”

“We can’t leave him,” Deeba said.

“No way!” said Hemi.

Cavea chirruped at them furiously.

“Go. He says he won’t be able to hold him much longer.”

Deeba could see hundreds of fish nibbling at the men in the water. The piranhas around the smombie swam away, to join those attacking Yorick Cavea.

They don’t like old meat, she realized.

“He says thanks for inviting him,” said the book.

Hemi dragged Deeba. “We got to go,” he said urgently. He pulled her through the passageway the smombie had cut, under the sliced ends of vines dripping sap.

Deeba looked back. Mr. Cavea was sinking. He gripped the smombie with one hand, and with the other, he threw open the door to his cage. As his body slipped into the piranha-infested water, the little bird flew out.

Immediately, the human body stiffened, its hand still tight around the smombie’s neck. The two figures sank below the surface, the smombie still moving, the little bird circling above the pool.

There was a rumbling, bubbling noise.

The water of the pool was thick and foul with the juices of the fight and the dead body. It was unsettled like a stomach. Big bubbles rolled up in it.

There was a farting sound, and a mass of gas erupted out of the deeps. Bubbles of black smoke gathered, and sent out tendrils.

The bird-part of Cavea, still soaking, launched itself from a branch and circled the bolus of Smog.

“Move,” whispered the book.

“No, everyone stay still,” whispered Deeba.

The bird whirled around the Smog so fast it tore off strips of cloud-matter. After several such provocations, it raced off up the stairs. The Smog billowed in a dirty mass after it.