“No idea?”
“Not really.” It sounded quite defeated. “I think it’s the doorway to the room where the squid beak is, but…no. Not really.”
Deeba stamped around the room in rage.
“We spent two days crashing around in a forest, and people died, and we aren’t even sure what for! I’m supposed to use it to get something to get something else! Why don’t I just get the last thing in the first place?”
“As I say, the occasions tend to present themselves, and then it’s clear…” the book said.
“I’d shut up now, if I were you,” Hemi muttered to it. The book took his advice.
“If Diss hadn’t died getting us this,” she said, staring at the key, “I’d tear the bloody useless thing up. I know it’s not your fault,” she said to the book. “It was my idea. And I know it would be nice for you if what’s written in you turned out to be sort of true. But we don’t have time. And it’s too risky. So go through the tasks, and tell me what each one’s supposed to do.”
“Well, as I say, the squidbeak clipper’s supposed to hold on to something in the tearoom—”
“Forget it,” Deeba said. The book hesitated, then continued.
“The bone tea’s refreshing—”
“No.”
“But…we need it to give to the aleactor, to send him to sleep when we play ludo, so we can take the teeth-dice—”
“I said no.”
“The teeth-dice we need to chew up a—”
“No.”
“The snail, I think, can prove to us that slow and steady wins out—”
“Are you joking? No.”
“The black-or-white king’s crown explains an outcome—”
“Whatever. Don’t even know what that means.”
“— and the UnGun’s a weapon.”
There was a pause.
“Is it? A weapon? For real?”
“For very real,” Hemi said. “I didn’t know it was in the prophecy, but everyone’s heard of the UnGun.”
“It’s the most famous weapon in UnLondon’s history,” the book said.
Hemi nodded— surreptitiously, so the book wouldn’t see that Deeba wanted independent verification of everything it was saying.
“Why?” she said. “What did it do?”
Hemi looked at the book, and Deeba was sure the book was looking back at him.
“I dunno,” said Hemi. “Heroic stuff.”
Deeba rolled her eyes. “What is it?”
“A gun,” the book said, “only an un one. It says in me, ‘The Smog’s afraid of nothing but the UnGun.’ That’s what all this, all the seven tasks, leads up to. The fetching of the UnGun. It was put in a very safe place, where no one would mess with it, years ago.”
“Smog’s afraid of nothing but the UnGun, eh?”
“Yes,” the book said, then added nervously, “Well to be honest it actually says ‘nothing and the UnGun,’ but we realized that must be a misprint.”
“You’re kidding me,” Deeba snapped. “So you did know you there could be mistakes in you?”
“It was three letters,” the book said forlornly. “We didn’t think anything of it…”
“Alright. Whatever.” Deeba thought. “A weapon. Alright. Right now we haven’t got much to fight the Smog with. We need a weapon, and the Smog’s obviously scared of this one.
“So that’s what we’re going to do,” Deeba said. “We’ll skip the rest of the stuff. Save us some time. We’ll go straight to the last stage of the quest. Let’s go get the UnGun. Then we can deal with the Smog, and I can go home.”
67. Weapon of Choice
“This is ridiculous.” Deeba could tell from the book’s voice that if it could walk, it would be refusing to. It would be digging in its heels. Unluckily for it, it was tucked under her arm, and she was walking rapidly. “I said this is ridiculous.”
“I heard you,” Deeba said.
“So? Are you going to stop?”
“Nope.”
Hemi, Curdle, and the utterlings ran after the arguing duo. Deeba was turning decisively but randomly down side roads as shadows lengthened in the UnSun.
“Look,” said the book frantically. “You can’t pick and choose bits from a prophecy. That’s not how they work.”
“Let’s be honest,” Deeba said. “We all know you have no idea how prophecies work.”
Hemi winced and sucked in his breath, shook his hand in an ouch motion.
“In fact,” Deeba went on, “it looks a lot like prophecies don’t work.”
“The whole point is you need each of those things to get the next one, until we get to the UnGun,” the book said.
“Even if we had time to try that, you don’t know,” Deeba said. “You’re the one that keeps saying what’s in you’s wrong. You want to do it your way to make some of it work again. But if we know it’s the UnGun we really need to deal with you-know-what, we’re going straight to it, instead of messing around with in-between bits. Unless,” she added with sudden interest, “there’s any more telephones on the way?”
“N-no, there’s not,” the book said. “But in any case—”
“We are not walking through each of your chapters, book! So. Give me directions, or…or I’m just going to keep wandering in circles until the Smog finds us.”
Deeba and the book sulked at each other.
“I vote you give her directions,” Hemi said.
“Alright,” the book said at last, as they turned yet another corner pointlessly. They passed a tumbledown piano, one of UnLondon’s random pieces of street furniture. The book sounded beaten down and miserable. “I’ll tell you what’s written.
“It’s going to be harder to get the UnGun than the key. Even if we had the crown of the black-or-white king. To get the UnGun we have to get past something truly terrifying, one of the most deeply feared creatures in UnLondon—”
“Get on with it,” Deeba snapped.
“Alright. It’s protected by the Black Window.”
Hemi gasped. Deeba stopped.
“The Black Window?” Hemi said in a hushed voice. Then he said to her more normally, “Are you laughing?”
“Sorry,” said Deeba. She tried to stop. “Black Window!” She sniggered again, making Curdle turn excited circles. The utterlings watched her, bewildered.
“I do not see what’s so funny,” the book said.
“It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter,” Deeba said. “Tell me about this Black Window. What do we have to do?”
“This is no joke, Deeb,” Hemi said. “The Black Window’s nasty UnKin. Someone must’ve really wanted to protect the UnGun if they put it there.”
“That’s why we’re supposed to work up to it,” the book grumbled. “In stages…”
“Yeah yeah,” Deeba said. “Who must’ve really wanted to?”
“Well,” said Hemi hesitantly. “Whoever…wrote the prophecies, I suppose.”
“That makes sense,” said Deeba. “Sadists. Tell me what it is.”
“The Black Window lives in Webminster Abbey,” the book said.
“Oh you didn’t say that,” said Deeba, and laughed more.
“I wish you’d treat this information with the awe it deserves,” said the book plaintively.
“Webminster, though!” Deeba said, but her laughter died at Hemi’s face.
“It is serious,” he said. “You wouldn’t catch me going near there normally.”
“The window doesn’t just kill you,” the book said. “It takes you right out of the world. No body left, no clothes, no trace. Swallows up whatever comes close. It’s the perfect predator.”
“I thought that was a shark,” Deeba said.
“Alright, the shark’s the perfect predator. The Black Window is the pluperfect predator.”