“Show me what?” Anya was trying to think how they could scare the guards even more, to make them run away so the way back to the canal would be clear. Unfortunately, nothing was coming to mind.
“These big fireplaces here, that have the inglenook you can sit in, they have little staircases that follow the chimney up,” said Shrub. “That’s what I was supposed to come down when I was here last time, only I got the wrong chimney.”
Before Shrub had finished talking, Anya and Smoothie had put the sack down and were tearing away the rotten boards, with Ardent’s enthusiastic help. There was a very spacious inglenook behind—and, sure enough, in the right-hand corner, the beginning of a stair.
“But what do we do when we get to the roof?” asked Shrub. “With the alarm sounding, the guards will be all around the outside at street level.”
“We won’t go down to the street,” said Anya as she lifted the sack again. “We’ll go up.”
Ardent, who was busily ripping a piece of glowing vine down to trail along for light, said something muffled by the vegetation in his mouth. He spat it out for a moment and exclaimed, “Ah! It’s after midnight! The c-c-arpet. Good idea, Princess. If it comes when it’s c-c-called.”
He picked up the glowing vine again and bounded into the inglenook and up the stairs, his wagging tail dislodging a fine cloud of soot.
“Yes,” said Anya. Taking up the sack with Smoothie, they followed.
Neither noticed that Shrub quickly ran back to the central pool, went to the iron gloating chair, dug something out of the tiled path directly beneath it, and ate it. Not without difficulty, his mouth stretching very wide.
He made it back and into the inglenook as the first guards poked their heads very, very cautiously through the archway from the stairs below and looked around, their crossbows rather shakily held at the ready.
The questers emerged onto a flat area between two steeply arched roofs via a hatch in the huge chimney stack. They were very much blackened with soot, and Anya and Smoothie were already tired from carrying the sack of frogs. The frogs, noisy to begin with, had also quieted, which helped. Possibly the dark interior of the sack didn’t encourage vocalization.
“Ardent, call your carpet,” said Anya breathlessly. “I do hope it comes quickly.”
“If the c-c-carpet is like its owner, it will know the importance of obeying c-c-commands,” said Ardent. “We learn this as puppies, that even if you find a bone or something really good, a whistle is a whistle, and the c-c-command should never need to be given—”
“Ardent! Call the carpet!”
Ardent put his head back and called up to the stars and the distant, fleeting silver moon, which was already near the far horizon, the blue moon a slow runner-up far behind.
“Pathadwanimithochozkal! C-c-come here!”
“Say please,” hissed Anya urgently.
“Please c-c-come here, as fast as you can, oh noble and best of c-c-carpets, my friend Pathadwanimithochozkal!”
“Don’t overdo it,” said Anya. “It might think you’re being sarcastic.”
“Praise is good,” said Ardent. He looked out, up at the night sky and sniffed. “The air is better up here.”
“That wouldn’t be difficult,” said Anya. “We all still stink, though.”
“I don’t,” said Smoothie, which was true. She’d washed the stench of the sewers off in one of the Garden’s ponds. So she was sooty, but didn’t smell awful.
“The rest of us do,” said Anya, wrinkling her nose. She had never been so filthy and stinking. Sodden from below the waist with sewer water and covered all over in soot, she didn’t look or feel much like a princess.
“Here it c-c-comes!” proclaimed Ardent happily. He pointed with his nose up at a patch of sky where something flew swiftly, the light of the moon behind it.
Anya’s eyes narrowed.
It wasn’t the carpet.
“Down!” hissed Anya. “Everyone down and quiet. It’s the Duke’s bone ship!”
Everyone lay down instantly. Anya turned her head a little so she could still see the ship, now thankful for the covering of soot that would make them hard to see in the night.
The bone ship flew past them, its great feathery sails trailed out to either side. It was about fifty yards away and fifty feet higher up, descending as it passed. Anya could see the Duke standing at the stern, directing the ship simply by moving his pallid hands as if he was conducting music. There were at least a dozen weaselfolk soldiers crouched down in front of him or hanging over the sides, their red eyes fixed on the ground below.
“It’s landing,” whispered Ardent. “Maybe he’s c-c-come for the festival, like Shrub said.”
“Or he’s got word we’re here,” said Anya grimly. “Come on, carpet!”
She searched the sky again, without getting up. As soon as the Duke landed he’d hear about the intruders, and unlike the Grey Mist, he wouldn’t be so easily scared off. His weaselfolk wouldn’t be as cautious as the human guards either …
Human guards.
Anya suddenly remembered them and crawled back to the hatch in the chimney. Sure enough, she could hear someone creeping up the steps. They were trying to be quiet, but that’s difficult when you’re wearing armor and hobnailed boots, and the stairway is very narrow.
“Guards are coming up,” she said urgently. She looked around for some way to wedge the hatch shut, but there was nothing on the roof. “Any sign of the carpet?”
“Please, great Pathadwanimithochozkal!” called out Ardent. “C-c-come quickly!”
Anya took out her knife and, with some regret, wedged the hatch shut with it, pushing it in right up to the hilt. It wouldn’t last long, but it would hold for a few minutes.
“We’ll have to go across the roofs,” she said. “Shrub, which way?”
Shrub made a kind of strangled noise but didn’t say anything. He raised one foot and pointed over the high peak of the roof to their left.
“Choked on soot,” said Ardent. “Nasty. Princess, I won’t be so good on these rooftops. Leave me here as a rear guard.”