It was no good. His obedient utterlings had scattered. His words had revolted.
“What d’you reckon they’ll do?” Hemi said.
“Dunno,” Deeba said.
It was dawn. Awhile after the utterlings had subdued their speaker, they had ceremoniously ushered Deeba and her companions to sleeping quarters and given them supper, all with immense exaggerated bows. The travelers had slept, and woken refreshed, and Deeba was eager to get going.
They were escorted by a gaggle of the silently squabbling utterlings that were attempting to organize things. The utterlings showed them out with pomp and politeness.
“Might not last,” the book muttered. “The smaller ones’ll ebb and disappear before long. Mr. Speaker’ll be trying to whisper new ones all the time, and he’ll try to talk more loyal ones into existence. And there must be some who want to get back to obeying him, waiting for the right moment…”
“God, don’t you ever stop moaning?” snapped Deeba. “Miserable git[9].” She could see Mr. Speaker, still trapped and gagged in his chair. “Give them a chance.”
The utterlings made Where? motions.
“Where are we going?” said Deeba, stroking Curdle.
“That way,” Hemi said, pointing into the streets.
“We’re looking for a forest,” Deeba said. “We have to find something. Quickly. In fact…” She looked at the utterlings. They were small, but strong, and inquisitive. “In fact, do any of you want to come with us?”
“What?” said the book.
“Why not? The more the better.”
The utterlings looked at her and at each other. After a few seconds, the majority, with ostentatious mimes of Thanks and Regret for not being able to accompany you, went back to the rest of their silently squabbling kind. But three came to stand with the travelers.
One was the silver-furred locust; one was the bear with a pair of legs too many; and one was the four-armed four-legged several-eyed little man. They looked at Deeba and Hemi shyly.
“That’s brilliant!” said Deeba. “Cool. Let me see if I remember…” She pointed at the bear. “You’re Diss,” she said. It nodded and reared on its hind four legs. It had no mouth, but Deeba knew it was smiling.
“And you…” She pointed at the locust. “You’re Bling.” The arm-sized insect fluffed up its silver coat.
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you are,” she said to the many-limbed man. “You got spoke before I got here. What are you?” The man sketched shapes in the air.
Deeba shook her head. “What is it…? Paraffin? Paintbrush? Purpose?”
The utterling shook its mouthless head.
“Redcurrant?” said Hemi. “Blackjack?” No, it mimed.
“Quiddity?” said the book. “Sesquipedalian? Oh this is ridiculous. We’re never going to guess like this. Out of all the words in the whole language, how—”
“Cauldron,” Deeba said, looking at the utterling with her head on one side. It jumped up and down and nodded and threw up its four arms and spun in a jig.
Hemi stared at Deeba in openmouthed delight.
“How could you possibly tell?” the book said.
“I dunno.” Deeba shrugged airily. “Doesn’t it look like the word cauldron to you?”
They set off under the early light of the UnSun, leaving the utterlings to bicker and bargain with each other and chaotically start to make decisions. Deeba, Hemi, Curdle, and the book walked out of the Talklands to look for a forest in a house, accompanied by the words Cauldron, Diss, and Bling.
61. Hired Help
“So you know where the forest-in-a-house is?” Deeba said.
“I do,” the book said. “It’s written in me. And I’ve no reason to think that’s wrong. But we’re stopping off somewhere else first.”
Deeba could not help being self-conscious at the head of such a peculiar group, but no one they passed paid them any particular attention. People were too busy keeping an eye on the skies for Smog attack, their unbrellas at the ready.
“Why?” Deeba said. “We should hurry.”
“How much money do you have?” the book said.
Deeba sifted through the few out-of-date pounds, dollars, a little pack of marks and francs and pesetas from before Europe got the euro, and many dog-eared rupees. As she gathered it, Hemi hesitated, then pulled out the notes she’d given him and added them to her pile.
“You can owe me that,” he said. “If it’ll help to have a bit extra now. Pay me back later, alright?”
“Right, cheers,” she said, carefully not looking at him. “That’s what we’ve got. Why?”
“Perfect,” the book said. “Because where we’re going, we’ll need some help. We’re going to hire someone.”
“When we get into the forest-in-a-house,” it said, “we’re looking for a bird. A particular bird. Its name’s Parakeetus Claviger. We need something it has.”
“The featherkey,” said Deeba.
“Exactly. And it’s going to be nigh-on impossible to get it. The chapter in me about the Shwazzy getting hold of the featherkey makes a point of telling lots of stories about how many people’ve failed because they can’t find Claviger, or understand it, and so on.”
“And hiring someone’ll help?”
“Just wait,” the book said. “It’ll be indispensable.”
It led them to an area of old wooden buildings, interspersed with the reconstituted junk of moil tech.
“So who is this bloke?” said Deeba.
“There’s no shortage of hireable bravos in UnLondon,” the book said. “And I was wondering who we should approach, when I remembered one in particular. He doesn’t live far. His name’s Yorick Cavea. He has all sorts of the usual qualities necessary for endeavors like this: once he fought off an entire horde of giraffes armed only with a corset-stay, believe it or not.” The book let that sink in. “He also fancies himself a bit of an explorer, which combined with the money’s why we’ll probably be able to entice him. Let me do the talking. Here we are.” They stood by a front door.
“Have we got time for this?” Deeba said to Hemi. “Do we need him?”
“Yeah, and are we going to have to go up against giraffes?” said Hemi.
“How’s this Cavea going to help with Claviger?” Deeba said. Then the door opened, and she said, “Ah.”
Yorick Cavea was a tall man. He wore a silk dressing gown and held a glass of whiskey or something. But on his human shoulders, Cavea’s head was an old-fashioned bell-shaped birdcage. Inside it was a mirror, a cuttlefish bone, and a small pretty bird gripping a little swing.
The bird chirped.
“Ah, Yorick,” the book said. “Nice to see you again too.” Cavea shook Deeba’s hand, Hemi’s, and Cauldron’s with its human arm. The bird whistled.
“Always straight to the point, eh, Yorick?” the book said. “Well, this young lady has an offer she’d like to make you. Deeba?”
Deeba fanned out a chunk of her money. The bird stared at it. “Tweet,” it said, and Cavea’s man-hands steepled together.
“Well of course,” the book said. “I wouldn’t expect you to be swayed merely by something so vulgar as money. But there’s more at stake. You wouldn’t expect me to go into detail here— one never knows who’s listening. But suffice to say…it’s going to be quite the expedition.”
Cavea pondered. The bird twittered.
“Dangerous, certainly,” the book said. “And suited to your unique capabilities.”