Un Lun Dun - China Mieville [33]
“The smog started to think. And that’s when it became the Smog.”
Lectern shivered and shook her head at the thought. “It’s no surprise it wasn’t…nice,” she said. “Its thoughts are clotted from poisons, and things we’ve burnt to get rid of.”
“It was never going to be our friend,” Mortar said.
“As smoke kept going up,” the book said, “the Smog got bigger and stronger and smarter. But no kinder. It wanted to grow.
“It had always strangulated some people who breathed it in. At first it didn’t set out to, but then it realized that some of the dead would be cremated, and that their ashes would blow up and fatten it…So it became a predator.”
“It knew it would be safer if Londoners thought it was just dirty fog, so it kept its new brain to itself.”
“Mostly…” Mortar sighed and hesitated, appalled by what he had to say. “It had some allies. Believe me, there’s nothing so terrible that someone won’t support it. It has allies here, too.”
“Yeah, we know that,” said Deeba.
“One of them set airjackers on us,” Zanna said.
Mortar and Lectern shook their heads in disgust.
“For ages, the fight went on,” Mortar said. “But slowly, the Smog was losing. Even without knowing you were fighting, you were winning. Then it counterattacked. For five days, half a century ago, it assaulted London. It killed four thousand people. Its worst single attack. And still, most of you didn’t even know you were at war!
“After that…” He breathed out and threw up his hands. “Well…it gets a bit vague.”
“He’s right,” said the book. “There are hints, in me, but I’m about UnLondon, not London. There’s nothing clear.”
“We know a little bit, from stories,” said Lectern.
“From travelers,” said Mortar. “Secret histories. The Smog was beaten. There was a secret group of guardians. Weatherwitches. The Armets. It’s an old word for helmet, and they were like London’s armor, you see? And we’ve heard how they won. They had a magic weapon.”
“The Klinneract,” announced Lectern.
Lectern and Mortar looked at Zanna. Eventually they looked at Deeba. They seemed a bit disappointed by their lack of recognition. “As I say,” Mortar went on. “It was a secret group.
“So with magic and a secret war, Londoners drove the Smog away, but they didn’t manage to kill it. It got away.”
“By coming here,” the book said.
“There was so much rubbish in it, it could slip through the crevices through which moil comes to UnLondon,” Mortar said. “It was weak for a long time. It arrived…depleted.
“At first, even we Propheseers didn’t think it was a threat. The book…we saw no clear references to it.”
“We’ve talked about that,” the book whispered. “You’re being unfair.”
“That wasn’t my point,” Mortar muttered. “Can we discuss this later?”
“Yeah, please do,” Zanna said.
Mortar cleared his throat. “It crept into chimneys. It looked for smoky fires to feed at. We ignored it. But it was preparing. It remembered the way to London. It would send a few wafts through the gaps, and they’d reach your factories and suck the smoke down. Drank from you as well as us. It took years. It was patient.
“We should’ve realized. But the first we knew what was happening was when…it started providing its own food.”
“It…what?” Zanna said. “How?”
“It started fires. Or it got its followers to.”
“There’s so much rubbish in the Smog, it can concentrate it and move things. Pick things up. It’s got as many chemicals in it as the best laboratory, and it can mix them, make poisons and flammables and tar and whatever. It can squeeze the coal and metal and ash it carries, and throw it around.
“It rains petrol, lights it by squeezing metal dust into shards and dropping them until they spark. We realized, at last, what we were facing. And it made sense of warnings in the book, too.”
“Yes, it did,” said the