Alan Moore - Jerusalem

Everyone froze, not sure what they should do, with even Phyllis seeming disconcerted. It was clearly one thing to be generally disobedient and cheeky when it came to ghosts or devils, but if builders told someone to do something, even the lower-ranking builders, then there wasn’t any argument. Everyone did what they were told. They just did. Luckily, it was at this point that a second dove-robed labourer detached himself from the main team that strained and pushed at the huge wagon’s rear, to intervene upon the gang’s behalf. He called to his more bellicose confederate in a convivial and reassuring tone.

“Whornyb delm stiv cagyuf!”

Worry not, my brother, for this is the Dead Dead Gang that I did tell you of some several centuries ago … and so on. It was Mr. Aziel, the builder who had taken them to visit Mr. Doddridge following the Great Fire of Northampton back down in the sixteen-hundreds. The first angle, who had shouted at the children, now turned round to gape at Aziel in disbelief.

“Thedig cawn folm spurbyjk?”

The Dead Dead Gang we read of in that splendid book? My brother, why did you not say? Is that Drowned Marjorie with all those stinking rabbits round her neck? When all the meanings of the other builder’s breathless outburst had subsided, Mr. Aziel shook his head. His long, lugubrious face was still recognisable beneath its mask of sweat and black dust, shaking his head as he replied to his companion.

“Nopthayl jis wermuyc.”

No, that is Phyllis Painter. Now, I must accompany them on their journey. It is written. With that Mr. Aziel turned from his colleague and began to walk across the ruined flagstones, heading for the children with a fond smile showing through the inadvertent blacking.

“Herm loyd fing sawtuck?”

Hello, my young friends. Shall I take you to see the great end of all wonders?

All the other children nodded, since consenting verbally would have meant taking down the tents of clothing that they held across their mouths. Though Michael wasn’t certain what he was agreeing to, he nodded along with the rest of the Dead Dead Gang, so as not to be the odd one out.

Aziel led them from the front end of their shambling, wheezing queue, with tall John holding tight onto a rear tuck of the artisan’s singed green-and-grey-and-violet gown. Although it still took ages to reach the south wall where all the comet-spangled steps were, they made better time than if they hadn’t had the builder guiding them. What’s more, they were less cowed by all the towering and unnatural shapes that stalked or slithered past them in the mercifully obscuring clouds, going the other way. At last the angle, who was seemingly impervious to smoke, announced that they were at the bottom of the south wall’s staircase. Its oak banisters and rail were mostly gone or else reduced to charred stumps, but the night-blue stairs with their embedded constellations were intact. Still clutching at each other’s clothing, for they were not yet above the level of the roiling fumes, the ruffians cautiously ascended in the wake of Mr. Aziel.

When they were roughly halfway up the first of the long zigzag flights of stairs … fifty or sixty feet over the workplace floor by Michael’s estimation … they broke through the surface of the curdling vapour-ocean into something that was more like air. Michael, however, thought he must have accidentally inhaled some smoke since he was still experiencing difficulty in catching his breath.

“Get ayt the way! Get ayt the way, yer silly bugger! Can’t yer see we’re in an ’urry?”

“Ooh, Doug, ’e’s dead. Ayr Michael’s dead. What are we gunna do? What shall I tell Tom when ’e’s ’ome from work? Ooh, God. Ooohh, God …”

Once they were clear of the asphyxiating fog by several large and midnight-speckled steps, the builder let the children pause to pull down their makeshift bandannas and take in the sights from their new elevation.

The whole bottom level of the vast celestial warehouse was filled by a cube of smoke some sixty feet deep, and the children’s view was as if they were up above the clouds, like people in an aeroplane. The eight-by-nine arrangement of cracked flagstones that had previously kept the devils captive was invisible beneath the shifting, suffocating blanket, as were all the many builders occupied in battling the conflagration threatening the northern wall. The only things that Michael could see poking up above the level of the smog were what he quickly realised must be the smashed floor-tiles’ former occupants.

Something that looked either like a dragonfly or a glass skyscraper was picking its way carefully across the vista upon twelve or so impossibly thin crystal legs. Considerably smaller but still big enough to loom out from the fumes was a tremendous spider-thing that had three heads. The nearest one looked like a cat’s head, if a cat’s head were the same size as a whale, while the one in the middle was that of a tittering long-haired man with lipstick and eye make-up on, who wore a golden crown. The spider’s third head was too far away from Michael to see properly, but he thought it might be a fish or frog. Colossal horrors paced this way and that through the grey fields of murk that stretched below his vantage point as he stood there upon the galaxy-stained stairs with their black stumps of banister. To Michael’s puzzlement, they seemed to be assisting with the fight against the blaze.

At the enormous chamber’s far, north end, Michael could see the diamond toad upon its trolley, or at least could see its head and shoulders where they rose above the smoke. Its priceless cheeks were puffed out like balloons, and with a vehement expression in its ring of piggy eyes it was expelling a great waterspout against the burning wall, so that hot gouts of steam surged up to join with the surrounding swirl. Michael, quite frankly, would have liked to look at it for longer, but that was when Mr. Aziel suggested that they should resume their climb.

They carried on up the star-pimpled stairs. The high-set windows of the Works above them, which had looked out onto clear blue sky the last time Michael had been up this way, now glowered a sullen red. Alarmed, he looked up at the great seal of the Works, the raised disc with the balance and the scroll on, just to make sure it was still all right, but it seemed more or less untouched. He wasn’t certain why he found the crude design’s survival quite so reassuring, unless it implied that even in all this confusion and distress, Justice was still above the street.

Somewhat consoled, Michael continued his ascent. None of the gang were clutching at each other’s jumpers now that they could see where they were going, and Michael made sure that he kept well clear of the stairway’s outside edge, where there were only blackened stumps of balustrade between him and the long drop to the broken slabs below. At last they reached the building’s lowest landing, where the heavy swing-door that led out onto the balcony was situated. The thick portal’s stained glass, heavily discoloured, had been broken in one lower corner. The brass plate was now completely jet with soot, save for the butter-coloured smudges left by Mr. Aziel’s fingers pushing on it, opening the door onto the balcony. A wall of air as thick and warm as gravy rushed in from outside and dashed itself over the builder and the kids, making them blink and gasp. Still following the mournful lesser angle, the Dead Dead Gang filed out through the entrance to the once-majestic walkways of Mansoul.

John crossed himself, while Phyllis groaned as though tormented. Reggie Bowler screwed his hat down tighter and spat spectral phlegm over the remnants of the pitch-daubed handrail. An infernal torture-brazier light crawled on the children’s faces, on the split boards at their feet and sidled everywhere in the prevailing darkness. His expression now more melancholy than was customary, Mr. Aziel gently shepherded the ghost-kids out onto the endless landing, steering them towards a section of the wooden railing that was still intact so that they could see down into the great well of the astral Mayorhold, the arena wherein the gigantic Master Builders had their fight in 1959. For his part, Michael didn’t want to look, and instead focussed his attention on the upper balconies surrounding the unfolded former town square, well above whatever was providing the hell-tinted radiance that was under-lighting everything.