“And presumably it’s the same above and below,” he said aloud.
“It’s very clean here,” Doreen said nervously. “Isn’t it clean, Arthur?”
“It’s very clean.”
“What’s that noise?” said Ludmilla.
> “What noise?”
“That noise. Like something sucking something.”
Arthur looked around with a certain amount of interest.
“It’s not me.”
“It’s the stairs,” said Windle.
“Don’t be silly, Mr. Poons. Stairs don’t suck.”
Windle looked down.
“These do.”
They were black, like a sloping river. As the dark substance flowed out from under the floor it humped itself into something resembling steps, which traveled up the slope until they disappeared under the floor again, somewhere above. When the steps emerged they made a slow, rhythmic shlupshlup noise, like someone investigating a particularly annoying dental cavity.
“Do you know,” said Ludmilla, “that’s quite possibly the most unpleasant thing I’ve ever seen?”
“I’ve seen worse,” said Windle. “But it’s pretty bad. Shall we go up or down?”
“You want to stand on them?”
“No. But the wizards aren’t on this floor and it’s that or slide down the handrail. Have you looked closely at the handrail?”
They looked at the handrail.
“I think,” said Doreen nervously, “that down is more us.”
They went down in silence. Arthur fell over at the point where the traveling stairs were sucked into the floor again.
“I had this horrible feeling it was going to drag me under,” he said apologetically, and then looked around him.
“It’s big,” he concluded. “Roomy. I could do wonders down here with some stone-effect wallpaper.”
Ludmilla wandered over to the nearest wall.
“You know,” she said, “there’s more glass than I’ve seen before, but these clear bits look like shops. Does that make sense? A great big shop full of shops?”
“And not ripe yet,” said Windle.
“Sorry?”
“Just thinking aloud. Can you see what the merchandise is?”
Ludmilla shaded her eyes.
“It just looks like a lot of color and glitter.”
“Let me know if you see a wizard.”