Un Lun Dun - China Mieville [40]
“You can get from the Pons Absconditus to anywhere, can’t you?”
“Of course,” said Mortar. “So long as it’s somewhere. That’s what bridges are for—getting to somewhere. Where do you want to go?”
“Please come with me,” Brokkenbroll said. “And…” He looked thoughtful, and was silent for several seconds. “Yes. You too, young Miss Resham. I think you deserve an explanation. A little while back, I found something. Where to? Set course. We’re going to Ben Hue Unstible’s workshop.”
“What?” said Mortar.
“I’m not leaving Zanna,” Deeba said. “Look at her.”
Zanna lay on a sofa, tended by Propheseers. Her eyes were closed. She was sweating, and pale, and with every breath her lungs made an ugly sound.
“I didn’t know,” the book whispered.
“You can’t help her,” Brokkenbroll said. “Not here. Not yet. But come with me, and I’ll show you how you may be able to.”
“She won’t be safe,” Deeba said.
“She will,” said Lectern. “We can keep the bridge moving.”
“The main mass of the Smog doesn’t know what’s happened,” Brokkenbroll said. “Eventually, a few wisps of this battle may reach it, but there’s time.”
“I just want to go home,” said Deeba, “and take Zanna with me.”
“Of course,” said Brokkenbroll. “That’s what I’d like to facilitate. Believe me.”
Mortar, Lectern and the book, Deeba and Curdle, the Unbrellissimo, and his obedient unbrellas walked down the curve of the bridge.
“Even when the Smog does find out what happened,” Brokkenbroll said, “I think the course of events might put some fear into it.
“It knows that we’re approaching a big fight,” he said. “It’s been preparing for years. Now it’s started. That’s why it attacked the Shwazzy,” he said to Deeba gently. “It was scared of her. It wanted her out of the way before the war. It’s going to attack UnLondon soon.
“But now we’ve given it something to think about. I’ll explain everything.”
They were near the end of the bridge. Mortar and Lectern focused thoughtfully on the streets ahead.
“Let’s go…” Mortar said, and stepped off the end.
“Don’t worry,” Lectern said to Deeba, and tried to give her a reassuring smile. “I know you want to take care of your friend. We’ll make sure everything’s okay.” She beckoned, and followed Mortar, Deeba only a few steps behind.
She took several steps before realizing that the buildings beside her didn’t look much like they had a few seconds before. They were unfamiliar charcoal-colored edifices in the light of the early-evening loon.
There was no bridge behind her.
She walked past some of UnLondon’s odd buildings. A house like a fruit with windows, one in the shape of the letter S and another like a Y, a house in a giant hollowed-out ball of string. It made the building that Brokkenbroll took them towards stand out all the more.
“I remember this place,” Mortar said. “Used to get supplies round the back, by canal…”
It was a perfectly ordinary-looking brick factory. It was several floors high, with a tall chimney-cum-clocktower rising from its heart.
28
The Laboratory
The Unbrellissimo led them through the building in absolute darkness.
They stumbled through corridors and rooms and up flights of stairs, following his voice.
“What if there are traps?” Lectern said.
“Shut up,” the book said urgently. “I want to hear this. I need to know what’s going on.”
“It’s been obvious for a while that the Smog’s been preparing something,” Brokkenbroll said. “The Smog’s always hidden, set the odd fire, rushed out and drunk it, disappeared again. Lurking in deserted buildings or under the ground. But things have been changing.
“People have been wondering for months now if the Shwazzy’s due. I think that’s what’s got the Smog so nervous. It must think it’s quest season.
“It was obvious that Unstible was worried, though. I don’t think…” Brokkenbroll looked momentarily at the book, then away, seemingly embarrassed. “I’m not sure he ever quite believed the prophecies were true.” (“Might