“I don’t know what you lot want,” Zanna said. “I don’t know why some people are so pleased to see me. And I don’t know why some people aren’t.”
“Everyone’s said the Propheseers’ll explain, blah blah blah,” Deeba said. “And that you’ll tell us how to get back.”
“Well, here we are, and we need to know.”
“We’re being chased by flies and nutters,” Deeba said.
“People are asking me if I’ve got the Klin…something,” Zanna said. “I don’t even know what they’re on about. Who’s chasing me? And what’s the Smog? And why’s it after me?”
“Of course, of course,” Mortar said. “I can’t imagine how confused you must be, Shwazzy. And we will help you home again. But there’s something you can do first. We have tried to contact you, over the years. We’ve heard rumors of where you might be. From the clouds, and the animals, and a few savvy abnauts. And from the book.”
“That’s right,” said the voice from the book, smugly.
“There’s always a difficulty of interpretation. But from careful reading— over generations!— we’ve learnt many things.”
“Many, many things,” the voice went on.
“Hush,” Lectern said, and looked apologetically at Zanna.
“We tried to ease your journey. Sent you the Pass. A pity that was stolen. It took…some effort to send it across the Odd, believe me.”
In the distance, UnLondon’s giant chests of drawers were opening up, and flocks of birds were setting out into the dawn.
“Shwazzy,” Mortar said. “UnLondon is at war. We’re under attack. And it’s been written, for centuries, that you—you— will come and save us.”
“Me?” said Zanna.
“Her?” said Deeba.
“I’m just, I’m…just a girl,” said Zanna.
“You’re the Shwazzy,” Mortar said. “You’re our hope. Against the Smog.
“What is the Smog? Just exactly what it sounds like— thick, smoky fog. And why’s it out to get you? Because it hates being beaten.”
“Why does it think I’ll beat it?” Zanna said.
“It doesn’t think you will,” Lectern said. “It knows you already have.”
22. History Lessons
“Not you personally,” Mortar explained. “But you, Londoners. Even if you didn’t know it.”
“Let me tell the history,” the book said grandly. “Page fifty-seven.” Lectern flicked through to the relevant place. The book cleared its nonexistent throat.
“Abcities have existed at least as long as the cities,” it said. “Each dreams the other.
“There are ways to get between the two, and a few people do, though very few know the truth. This is where the most energetic of London’s discards come, and in exchange London takes a few of our ideas— clothes, the waterwheel, the undernet.
“Mostly such swaps are beneficial, or harmless. Mostly.”
Mortar and Lectern were staring intently at Zanna.
“Back in your old queen’s time,” the book said, “London filled up with factories, and all of them had chimneys. In houses they burnt coal. And the factories were burning everything, and letting off smoke from chemicals and poisons. And the crematoria, and the railways, and the power stations, all added their own effluvia.”
“Their own what?” said Zanna.
“Muck,” said Lectern.
“Add all that to the valley fog, and what you get’s a smoke stew,” the book went on. “So thick they called it pea soup. Yellow-brown and sitting on the city like a stinking dog. It used to get into people’s lungs. It could kill them. That’s what smog is.”
“Well,” said Mortar. “That’s what it was. But something happened.”
“As I was about to explain,” said the book testily. “As I was saying. At first, it was just a dirty cloud. Nasty but brainless as a stump. But then something happened.
“There were so many chemicals swilling around in it that they reacted together. The gases and liquid vapor and brick dust and bone dust and acids and alkalis, fired through by lightning, heated up and cooled down, tickled by electric wires and stirred up by the wind— they reacted together and made an enormous, diffuse cloud-brain.
“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.