mr. croup and mr. vandemar had set up their home in the cellar of a victorian hospital, closed down ten years earlier because of national health service budget cutbacks. the property developers, who had announced their intention of turning the hospital into an unparalleled block of unique luxury-living accommodations, had faded away as soon as the hospital had been closed, and so it stood there, year after year, gray and empty and unwanted, its windows boarded up, its doors padlocked shut. the roof was rotten, and rain dripped through the empty hospital's interior, spreading damp and decay through the building. the hospital was ranged around a central well, which let in a certain amount of gray and unfriendly light.
the basement world beneath the empty hospital wards comprised more than a hundred tiny rooms, some of them empty, others containing abandoned hospital supplies. one room held a squat, giant metal furnace, while the next room housed the blocked and waterless toilets and showers. most of the basement floors were covered with a thin layer of oily rainwater, which reflected the darkness and the decay back toward the rotting ceilings.
if you were to walk down the hospital steps, as far down as you could go, through the abandoned shower rooms, past the staff toilets, past a room filled with broken glass, where the ceiling had collapsed entirely, leaving it open to the stairwell above, you would reach a small, rusting iron staircase, from which the once-white paint was peeling in long, damp strips. and if you went down the staircase, and traversed the marshy place at the bottom of the steps, and pushed your way through a half-decayed wooden door, you would find yourself in the sub-cellar, a huge room in which a hundred and twenty years of hospital waste had accumulated, been abandoned, and, eventually, forgotten; and it was here that mr. croup and mr. vandemar had, for the present, made their home. the walls were damp, and water dripped from the ceiling. odd things moldered in corners: some of them had once been alive.
mr. croup and mr. vandemar were killing time. mr. vandemar had obtained from somewhere a centipede--a reddish orange creature, almost eight inches long, with vicious, poisonous fangs--and was letting it run over his hands, watching it as it twined between his fingers, vanished up one sleeve, appeared a minute later out of the other. mr. croup was playing with razor blades. he had found, in a corner, a whole box of fifty-year-old razor blades, wrapped in wax paper, and he had been trying to think of things to do with them.
"if i might have your attention, mister vandemar," he said, at length. "pipe your beady eyes on this."
mr. vandemar held the centipede's head delicately between a huge thumb and a massive forefinger to stop it wriggling. he looked at mr. croup.
mr. croup put his left hand against a wall, fingers spread. he took five razor blades in his right hand, took careful aim, and threw them at the wall. each blade stuck into the wall, between mr. croup's fingers; it was like a top knife-thrower's act in miniature. mr. croup took his hand away, leaving the blades in the wall, outlining the place his fingers had been, and he turned to his partner for approval.
mr. vandemar was unimpressed. "what's so clever about that, then?" he asked. "you didn't even hit _one_ finger."
mr. croup sighed. "i didn't?" he said. "well, slit my gullet, you're right. how could i have been such a ninny?" he pulled the razor blades out of the wall, one by one, and dropped them onto the wooden table. "why don't you show me how it should have been done?"
mr. vandemar nodded. he put his centipede back into its empty marmalade jar. then he put his left hand against the wall. he raised his right arm: his knife, wicked and sharp and perfectly weighted, was in his right hand. he narrowed his eyes, and he threw. the knife flew through the air and thudded into the damp plaster wall blade-first, the blade having first hit and penetrated the back of mr. vandemar's hand on its way.
a telephone began to ring.
mr. vandemar looked around at croup, satisfied, his hand still pinned to the wall. "_that's_ how it's done," he said.
there was an old telephone in the corner of the room, an antique, two-part telephone, unused in the hospital since the 1920s, made of wood and bakelite. mr, croup picked up the earpiece, which was on a long, cloth-wrapped cord, and spoke into the mouthpiece, which was attached to the base. "croup and vandemar," he said, smoothly, "the old firm. obstacles obliterated, nuisances eradicated, bothersome limbs removed and tutelary dentistry."
the person at the other end of the phone said something. mr. croup cringed. mr. vandemar tugged at his left hand. it wasn't coming free.
"oh. yes, sir. yes, indeed. and might i say how your telephonic confabulation brightens up and cheers our otherwise dreary and uneventful day?" another pause. "of course i'll stop toadying and crawling. delighted to. an honor, and--what do we know? we know that--" an interruption; he picked his nose, reflectively, patiently, then: "no, we don't know where she is at this precise moment. but we don't have to. she'll be at the market tonight and--" his mouth tightened, and, "we have no intention of violating their market truce. more of waiting till she has left the market and scrobbling her . . . " he was silent then, and listened, nodding from time to time.
mr. vandemar tried to pull the knife out of the wall with his free hand, but the knife was stuck quite fast.
"that might be arranged, yes," said mr. croup, into the mouthpiece. "i mean it _will_ be arranged. of course. yes. i realize that. and, sir, perhaps we could talk about--" but the caller had hung up. mr. croup stared at the earpiece for a moment, then put it back on its hook. "you think you're so damned clever," he whispered. then he noticed mr. vandemar's predicament and said, "stop that." he leaned over, pulled the knife out of the wall and out of the back of mr. vandemar's hand, and put it down on the table.
mr. vandemar shook his left hand and flexed the fingers, then wiped the fragments of damp plaster from his knife-blade. "who was that?"
"our employer," said mr. croup. "it seems the other one isn't going to work out. not old enough. it's going to have to be the door female."
"so we aren't allowed to kill her any more?"
"that, mister vandemar, would be about the short and the long of it, yes. now, it seems that little miss door has announced that she shall be hiring a bodyguard. at the market. tonight."
"so?" mr. vandemar spat on the back of his hand, where the knife had gone in, and on the palm of his hand, where the knife had come out. he rubbed at the spit with a massive thumb. the flesh closed, knitted, was whole again.
mr. croup picked up his old coat, heavy, black, and shiny with age, from the floor. he put it on. "so, mister vandemar," he said, "shall we not also hire ourselves a bodyguard?"
mr. vandemar slid his knife back into the holster in his sleeve. he put his coat on as well, pushed his hands deep into the pockets, and was pleasantly surprised to find an almost untouched mouse in one pocket. good. he was hungry. then he pondered mr. croup's last statement with the intensity of an anatomist dissecting his one true love, and, realizing the flaw in his partner's logic, mr. vandemar said, "we don't need a bodyguard, mister croup. we hurt people. we don't get hurt."
mr. croup turned out the lights. "oh, mister vandemar," he said, enjoying the sound of the words, as he enjoyed the sound of all words, "if you cut us, do we not bleed?"
mr. vandemar pondered this for a moment, in the dark. then he said, with perfect accuracy, "no."
"a spy from the upworld," said the lord rat-speaker. "heh? i should slit you from gullet to gizzard and tell fortunes with your guts."
"look," said richard, his back against the wall, with the glass dagger pressed against his adam's apple. "i think you're making a bit of a mistake here. my name is richard mayhew. i can prove who i am. i've got my library cards. credit cards. things," he added, desperately.
at the opposite end of the hall, richard noticed, with the dispassionate clarity that comes when a lunatic is about to slit your throat with a piece of broken glass, people were throwing themselves to the ground, bowing low, and remaining on the floor. a small black shape was coming toward them along the ground. "i think a moment's reflection might prove that we're all being very silly," said richard. he had no idea what the words meant, just that they were coming out of his mouth, and that as long as he was talking, he was not dead. "now, why don't you put that away, and--excuse me, that's my bag," this last to a thin, bedraggled girl in her late teens who had taken richard's bag and was roughly tipping his possessions out onto the ground.
the people in the hall continued to bow, and to stay bowed, as the small shape came closer. it reached the group of people around richard, although not a one of them noticed it. they were all looking at richard.
it was a rat, which looked up at richard, curiously. he had the bizarre and momentary impression that it _winked_ one of its little black oildrop eyes at him. then it cluttered, loudly.
the man with the glass dagger threw himself on his knees. so did the people gathered around them. so, too, after a moment's hesitation, and a little more awkwardly, did the homeless man, the one they had called iliaster. in a moment, richard was the only one standing. the thin girl tugged at his elbow, and he, too, went down on one knee.
lord rat-speaker bowed so low that his long hair brushed the ground, and he chittered back at the rat, wrinkling his nose, showing his teeth, squeaking and hissing, for all the world like an enormous rat himself.
"look, can anybody tell me . . . " muttered richard.
"quiet!" said the thin girl.
the rat stepped--a little disdainfully, it seemed--into the lord rat-speaker's grubby hand, and the man held it, respectfully, up in front of richard's face. it waved its tail languidly as it inspected richard's features. "this is master longtail, of the clan gray," said the lord rat-speaker. "he says you looks exceeding familiar. he wants to know if he's met you afore."
richard looked at the rat. the rat looked at richard. "i suppose it's possible," he admitted.
"he says he was discharging an obligation to the marquis de carabas."
richard stared at the animal more closely. "it's _that_ rat? yes, we've met. actually, i threw the tv remote, control at it." some of the people standing around looked shocked. the thin girl actually squeaked. richard hardly noticed them; at least something was familiar in this madness. "hello, ratty," he said. "good to see you again. do you know where door is?"
"ratty!" said the girl in something between a squeak and a horrified swallow. she had a large, water-stained red button pinned to her ragged clothes, the kind that comes attached to birthday cards. it said, in yellow letters, i am 11.
lord rat-speaker waved his glass dagger admonishingly at richard. "you must not address master longtail, save through me," he said. the rat squeaked an order. the man's face fell. "him?" he said, looking at richard disdainfully. "look, i can't spare a soul. how about if i simply slice his throat and send him down to the sewer folk . . . "
the rat chittered once more, decisively, then leapt from the man's shoulder onto the ground and vanished into one of the many holes that lined the walls.
the lord rat-speaker stood up. a hundred eyes were fixed on him. he turned back to the hall and looked at his subjects, crouched beside their greasy fires. "i don't know what you lot are all looking at," he shouted. "who's turning the spits, eh? you want the grub to burn? there's nothing to see. go on. get-get away with the lot of you." richard stood up, nervously. his left leg had gotten numb, and he rubbed life into it, as it prickled with pins and needles. lord rat-speaker looked at iliaster. "he's got to be taken to the market. master longtail's orders."
iliaster shook his head, and spat onto the ground. "well, i'm not taking him," he said. "more than my life's worth, that journey. you rat-speakers have always been good to me, but i can't go back there. you know that."
the lord rat-speaker nodded. he put his dagger away, in the furs of his robe. then he smiled at richard with yellow teeth. "you don't know how lucky you were, just then," he said.
"yes i do," said richard. "i really do."
"no," said the man, "you don't. you really don't." and he shook his head and said to himself, marvelling, " 'ratty.' "
the lord rat-speaker took iliaster by the arm, and the two of them walked a little way out of earshot and began to talk, darting looks back at richard as they did so.
the thin girl was gulping down one of richard's bananas in what was, richard reflected, the least erotic display of banana-eating he had ever seen. "you know, that was going to be my breakfast," said richard. she looked up at him guiltily. "my name's richard. what's yours?"
the girl, who, he realized, had already managed to eat most of the fruit that richard had brought with him, swallowed the last of the banana and hesitated. then she half-smiled, and said something that sounded a lot like anaesthesia. "i was hungry," she said.
"well, so'm i," he told her.
she glanced at the little fires across the room. then she looked back at richard. she smiled again. "do you like cat?" she said.
"yes," said richard. "i quite like cats."
anaesthesia looked relieved. "thigh?" she asked. "or breast?"
the girl called door walked down the court, followed by the marquis de carabas. there were a hundred other little courts and mews and alleys in london just like this one, tiny spurs of old-time, unchanged for, three hundred years. even the smell of piss here was the same as it had been in pepys's time, three hundred years before. there was still an hour until dawn, but the sky was beginning to lighten, turning a stark, leaden color. strands of mist hung like livid ghosts on the air.
the door was roughly boarded up and covered with stained posters for forgotten bands and long-closed nightclubs. the two of them stopped in front of it, and the marquis eyed it, all boards and nails and posters, and he appeared unimpressed; but then, unimpressed was his default state.
"so this is the entrance?" he said.
she nodded. "one of them."
he folded his arms. "well? say 'open sesame,' or whatever it is that you do."
"i don't want to do this," she said. "i'm really not sure that we're doing the right thing."
"very well," he unfolded his arms. "i'll be seeing you, then." he turned on his heel and began to walk back the way that they had come. door seized his arm. "you'd abandon me?" she asked. "just like that?"
he grinned, without humor. "certainly. i'm a very busy man. things to see. people to do."
"look, hold on." she let go of his sleeve, bit her lower lip. "the last time i was here . . . " she trailed off.
"the last time you were here, you found your family dead. well, there you are. you don't have to explain it anymore. if we aren't going in, then our business relationship is at an end."
she looked up at him, her elfin face pale in the pre-dawn light. "and that's all?"
"i could wish you the best of luck in your career, but i'm afraid i rather doubt you'll live long enough to have one."
"you're a piece of work, aren't you?"
he said nothing. she walked back toward the door. "well," she said. "come on. i'll take us in." door put her left hand on the boarded-up door, and with her right hand she took the marquis's huge brown hand. her tiny fingers twined into his larger ones. she closed her eyes.
. . . something whispered and shivered and changed . . .
. . . and the door collapsed into darkness.
_the memory was fresh, only a few days old: door moved through the house without doors calling "i'm home," and "hello?" she slipped from the anteroom to the dining room, to the library, to the drawing room; no one answered. she moved to another room._
_the swimming pool was an indoor victorian structure, constructed of marble and of cast iron. her father had found it when he was younger, abandoned and about to be demolished, and he had woven it into the fabric of the house without doors. perhaps in the world outside, in london above, the room had long been destroyed and forgotten. door had no idea where any of the rooms of her house were, physically. her grandfather had constructed the house, taking a room from here, a room from there, all. through london, discrete and doorless; her father had added to it._
_she walked along the side of the old swimming pool, pleased to be home, puzzled by the absence of her family. and then she looked down._
_there was someone floating in the water, trailing twin clouds of blood behind him, one from the throat, one from the groin. it was her brother, arch. his eyes were open wide and sightless. she realized that her mouth was open. she could hear herself screaming._
"that hurt," said the marquis. he rubbed his forehead, hard, twisted his head around on his neck, as if he were trying to ease a sudden, painful crick.
"memories," she explained. "they're imprinted in the walls."
he raised an eyebrow. "you could have warned me."
they were in a huge white room. every wall was covered with pictures. each picture was of a different room. the white room contained no doors: no openings of any kind. "interesting decor," acknowledged the marquis.
"this is the entrance hall. we can go from here to any room in the house. they are all linked."
"where are the other rooms located?"
she shook her head. "i don't know. miles away, probably. they're scattered all over the underside."
the marquis had managed to cover the whole room in a series of impatient strides. "quite remarkable. an associative house, every room of which is located somewhere else. so imaginative. your grandfather was a man of vision, door."
"i never knew him." she swallowed, then continued, talking to herself as much as to him. "we should have been safe here. nobody should have been able to hurt us. only my family could move around it."
"let's hope your father's journal gives us some clues," he said. "where do we start looking?" door shrugged. "you're certain he kept a journal?" he pressed.
she nodded. "he used to go into his study, and private the links until he'd finished dictating."
"we'll start in the study, then."
"but i looked there. i did. i _looked_ there. when i was cleaning up the body . . . " and she began to cry, in low, raging sobs, that sounded like they were being tugged from inside her.
"there. there," said the marquis de carabas, awkwardly, patting her shoulder. and he added, for good measure, "there." he did not comfort well.
door's odd-colored eyes were filled with tears. "can you . . . can you just give me a sec? i'll be fine." he nodded and walked to the far end of the room. when he looked back she was still standing there, on her own, silhouetted in the white entrance chamber filled with pictures of rooms, and she was hugging herself, and shuddering, and crying like a little girl.
richard was still upset about the loss of his bag.
the lord rat-speaker remained unmoved. he stated baldly that the rat--master longtail--had said nothing at all about returning richard's things. just that he was to be taken to market. then he told anaesthesia that she was taking the upworlder to the market, and that, yes, it was an order. and to stop snivelling, and to get a move on. he told richard that if he, lord rat-speaker, ever saw him, richard, again, then he, richard, would be in a great deal of trouble. he reiterated that richard did not know how lucky he was, and, ignoring richard's requests that he return richard's stuff--or at least the wallet--he led them to a door and locked it behind them.
richard and anaesthesia walked into the darkness side by side.
she carried an improvised lamp made of a candle, a can, some wire, and a wide-mouthed glass lemonade bottle. richard was surprised at how quickly his eyes became used to the near darkness. they seemed to be walking through a succession of underground vaults and storage cellars. sometimes he thought he could see movement in far corners of the vaults, but whether human, or rat, or something else altogether, it was always gone by the time they reached the place it had been. when he tried to talk to anaesthesia about the movements, she hissed him to silence.
he felt a cold draught on his face. the rat-girl squatted without warning, put down her candle-lamp, and tugged and pulled hard at a metal grille set in the wall. it opened suddenly, sending her sprawling. she motioned richard to come through. he crouched, edged through the hole in the wall; after about a foot, the floor stopped completely. "excuse me," whispered richard. "there's a hole here."
"it's not a big drop," she told him. "go on."
she shut the grille behind her. she was now uncomfortably close to richard. "here," she said. she gave him the handle of her little lamp to hold, and she clambered down into the darkness. "there," she said. "that wasn't that bad, was it?" her face was a few feet below richard's dangling feet. "here. pass me the lamp."
he lowered it down to her. she had to jump to take it from him. "now," she whispered. "come on." he edged nervously forward, climbed over the edge, hung for a moment, then let go. he landed on his hands and feet in soft, wet mud. he wiped the mud off his hands onto his sweater. a few feet forward, and anaesthesia was opening another door. they went through it, and she pulled it closed behind them. "we can talk now," she said. "not loud. but we can. if you want to."
"oh. thanks," said richard. he couldn't think of anything to say. "so. um. you're a rat, are you?" he said.
she giggled, like a japanese girl, covering her hand with her face as she laughed. then she shook her head, and said, "i should be so lucky. i wish. no, i'm a rat-speaker. we talk to rats."
"what, just chat to them?"
"oh no. we do stuff for them. i mean," and her tone of voice implied that this was something that might never have occurred to richard unassisted, "there _are_ some things rats _can't_ do, you know. i mean, not having fingers, and thumbs, an' things. hang on--" she pressed him against the wall, suddenly, and clamped a filthy hand over his mouth. then she blew out the candle.
nothing happened.
then he heard distant voices. they waited, in the darkness and the cold. richard shivered.
people walked past them, talking in low tones. when all sounds had died away, anaesthesia took her hand from richard's mouth, relit the candle, and they walked on. "who were they?" asked richard.
she shrugged. "it dun't matter," she said.
"then what makes you think that they wouldn't have been pleased to see us?"
she looked at him rather sadly, like a mother trying to explain to an infant that, yes _this_ flame was hot, too. _all_ flames were hot. trust her, please. "come on," she said. "i know a shortcut. we can nip through london above for a bit." they went up some stone steps, and the girl pushed open a door. they stepped through, and the door shut behind them.
richard looked around, puzzled. they were standing on the embankment, the miles-long walkway that the victorians had built along the north shore of the thames, covering the drainage system and the newly created district line of the underground, and replacing the stinking mudflats that had festered along the banks of the thames for the previous five hundred years. it was still night--or perhaps it was night once more. he was unsure how long they had been walking through the underplaces and the dark.
there was no moon, but the night sky was a riot of crisp and glittering autumn stars. there were streetlights too, and lights on buildings and on bridges, which looked like earthbound stars, and they glimmered, repeated, as they were reflected with the city in the night water of the thames. _it's fairyland,_ thought richard.
anaesthesia blew out her candle. and richard said, "are you sure this is the right way?"
"yes," she said. "pretty sure."
they were approaching a wooden bench, and the moment he set eyes on it, it seemed to richard that that bench was one of the most desirable objects he had ever seen. "can we sit down?" he asked. "just for a minute."
she shrugged. they sat down at opposite ends of the bench. "on friday," said richard, "i was with one of the finest investment analyst firms in london."
"what's a investment an' a thing?"
"it was my job."
she nodded, satisfied. "right. and . . . ?"
"just reminding myself, really. yesterday . . . it was like i didn't exist anymore, to anybody up here."
"that's 'cos you don't," explained anaesthesia. a late-night couple, who had been slowly walking along the embankment toward them, holding hands, sat down in the middle of the bench, between richard and anaesthesia, and commenced to kiss each other, passionately. "excuse me," said richard to them. the man had his hand inside the woman's sweater and was moving it around enthusiastically, a lone traveler discovering an unexplored continent. "i want my life back," richard told the couple.
"i love you," said the man to the woman.
"but your wife--" she said, licking the side of his face.
"fuck her," said the man.
"don' wanna fuck _her_," said the woman, and she giggled, drunkenly. "wanna fuck _you_ . . . " she put a hand on his crotch and giggled some more.
"come on," said richard to anaesthesia, feeling that the bench had started to become a less desirable neighborhood. they got up and walked away. anaesthesia peered back, curiously, at the couple on the bench, who were gradually becoming more horizontal.
richard said nothing. "something wrong?" asked anaesthesia.
"only everything," said richard. "have you always lived down there?"
"nah. i was born up here," she hesitated. "you don't want to hear about me." richard realized, almost surprised, that he really did.
"i do. really."
she fingered the rough quartz beads that hung in a necklace around her neck, and she swallowed. "there was me and my mother and the twins . . . " she said, and then she stopped talking. her mouth clamped shut.
"go on," said richard. "it's all right. really it is. honest."
the girl nodded. she took a deep breath, and then she began to talk, without looking at him as she talked, her eyes fixed on the ground ahead of her. "well, my mother had me an' my sisters, but she got a bit funny in the head. one day i got home from school, and she was crying and crying, and she didn't have any clothes on, and she was breaking stuff. plates and stuff. but she never hurt us. she never did. the lady from the social services came and took the twins away, an' i had to go and stay with my aunt. she was living with this man. i didn't like him. and when she was out of the house . . . " the girl paused; she was quiet for so long that richard wondered if she had finished. then she began once more, "anyway. he used to hurt me. do other stuff. in the end, i told my aunt, an' she started hitting me. said i was lying. said she'd have the police on me. but i wasn't lying. so i run away. it was my birthday."
they had reached the albert bridge, a kitsch monument spanning the thames, joining battersea to the south with the chelsea end of the embankment, a bridge hung with thousands of tiny white lights.
"i didn't have anywhere to go. and it was so cold," said anaesthesia, and she stopped again. "i slept on the streets. i'd sleep in the day, when it was a bit warmer, and walk around at night, just to keep moving. i was only eleven. stealing bread an' milk off people's doorsteps to eat. hated doing that so i started hanging around the street markets, taking the rotten apples an' oranges an' things people threw away. then i got really sick. i was living under an overpass in notting hill. when i come to, i was in london below. the rats had found me."
"have you ever tried to return to all this?" he asked, gesturing. quiet, warm, inhabited houses. late-night cars. the real world . . . she shook her head. _all fire burns, little baby. you'll learn._ "you can't. it's one or the other. nobody ever gets both."
"i'm sorry," said door, hesitantly. her eyes were red, and she looked as if she had been vigorously blowing her nose and scrubbing her tears from her eyes and cheeks.
the marquis had been amusing himself while he waited for her to collect herself by playing a game of knucklebones with some old coins and bones he kept in one of the many pockets of his coat. he looked up at her coldly. "indeed?"
she bit her lower lip. "no. not really. i'm not sorry. i've been running and hiding and running so hard that . . . this was the first chance i've really had to . . . " she stopped.
the marquis swept up the coins and the bones, and returned them to their pocket. "after you," he said. he followed her back to the wall of pictures. she put one hand on the painting of her father's study and took the marquis's large black hand with the other.
. . . reality twisted . . .
_they were in the conservatory, watering the plants. first portia would water a plant, directing the flow of the water toward the soil at the base of the plant, avoiding the leaves and the blossoms. "water the shoes," she said to her youngest daughter. "not the clothes."_
_ingress had her own little watering can. she was so proud of it. it was just like her mother's, made of steel, painted bright green. as her mother finished with each plant, ingress would water it with her tiny watering can. "on the shoes," she told her mother. she began laughing, then, spontaneous little-girl laughter._
_and her mother laughed too, until foxy mr. croup pulled her hair back, hard and sudden, and cut her white throat from ear to ear._
"hello, daddy," said door, quietly.
she touched the bust of her father with her fingers, stroking the side of his face. a thin, ascetic man, almost bald. _caesar as prospero,_ thought the marquis de carabas. he felt a little sick. that last image had _hurt._ still: he was in lord portico's study. _that_ was a first.
the marquis took in the room, eyes sliding from detail to detail. the stuffed crocodile hanging from the ceiling; the leather-bound books, an astrolabe, convex and concave mirrors, odd scientific instruments; there were maps on the walls, of lands and cities de carabas had never heard of; a desk, covered in handwritten correspondence. the white wall behind the desk was marred by a reddish-brown stain. there was a small portrait of door's family on the desk. the marquis stared at it. "your mother and your sister, your father, and your brothers. all dead. how did _you_ escape?" he asked.
she lowered her hand. "i was lucky. i'd gone off exploring for a few days . . . did you know there are still some roman soldiers camped out by the kilburn river?"
the marquis had not known this, which irritated him. "hmm. how many?"
she shrugged. "a few dozen. they were deserters from the nineteenth legion, i think. my latin's a bit patchy. anyway, when i got back here . . . " she paused, swallowed, her opal-colored eyes brimming with tears.
"pull yourself together," said the marquis, shortly. "we need your father's journal. we have to find out who did this."
she frowned at him. "we know who did this. it was croup and vandemar--"
he opened a hand, waggled his fingers as he spoke. "they're arms. hands. fingers. there's a head that ordered it, that wants you dead, too. those two don't come cheap." he looked around the cluttered office. "his journal?" said the marquis.
"it's not here," she said. "i told you. i looked."
"i was under the misapprehension that your family was skilled in locating doors, both obvious and otherwise."
she glowered at him. then she closed her eyes and put her finger and thumb on each side of the bridge of her nose. meanwhile, the marquis examined the objects on portico's desk. an inkwell; a chess-piece; a bone die; a gold pocket-watch; several quill-feathers and . . .
_interesting._
it was a small statue of a boar, or a crouching bear, or perhaps a bull. it was hard to tell. it was the size of a large chess-piece, and it had been roughly carved out of black obsidian. it reminded him of something, but of what he could not say. he picked it up casually, turned it over, curled his fingers around it.
door lowered her hand from her face. she looked puzzled and confused. "what's the matter?" he asked.
"it _is_ here," she said, simply. she began to walk through the study, head turning first to one side and then to the other. the marquis slipped the carving discreetly into an inside pocket.
door stood before a high cabinet. "there," she said. she reached out a hand: there was a click, and a small panel in the side of the cabinet swung open. door reached into the darkness and removed something roughly the size and shape of a small cannon-ball. she passed it to the marquis. it was a sphere, constructed of old brass and polished wood, inset with polished copper and glass lenses. he took it from her.
"this is it?"
she nodded.
"well done."
she looked grave. "i don't know how i could have missed it before."
"you were upset," said the marquis. "i was certain it would be here. and i am so rarely wrong. now . . . " he held the little wooden globe up. the light caught the polished glass and glinted from the brass and copper fittings. it galled him to admit ignorance about anything, but he said it anyway. "how does this work?"
anaesthesia led richard into a small park on the south side of the bridge, then down some stone steps, set beside a wall. she relit her candle-in-a-bottle, and then she opened a workman's door and closed it behind them. they went down some steps, with the darkness all around them.
"there's a girl named door," said richard. "she's a bit younger than you. do you know her?"
"the lady door. i know who she is."
"so which, um, barony is she part of?"
"no barony. she's of the house of the arch. her family used to be very important."
"used to be? why did they stop?"
"somebody killed them."
yes, he remembered the marquis saying something about that, now. a rat cut across their path. anaesthesia stopped on the steps and performed a deep curtsey. the rat paused. "sire," she said, to the rat. "hi," said richard. the rat looked at them for a heartbeat, then it darted off down the steps. "so," said richard. "what is a floating market?"
"it's very big," she said. "but rat-speakers hardly ever need to go to the market. to tell the truth--" she hesitated. "nah. you'll laugh at me."
"i won't," said richard, honestly.
"well," said the thin girl. "i'm a little scared."
"scared? of the market?"
they had reached the bottom of the steps. anaesthesia hesitated and then turned left. "oh. no. there's a truce in the market. if anyone hurt anyone there, the whole of london below would be down on them like a ton of sewage."
"so what are you scared of?"
"getting there. they hold it in a different place every time. it moves around. and to get to the place it'll be tonight . . . " she fingered the quartz beads around her neck, nervously. "we'll have to go through a really nasty neighborhood." she _did_ sound scared.
richard suppressed the urge to put an arm around her. "and where would that be?" he asked. she turned to him, pushed the hair from her eyes, and told him.
"knightsbridge," repeated richard, and he began to chuckle, gently.
the girl turned away. "see?" she said. "i said you'd laugh."
the deep tunnels had been dug in the 1920s, for a high-speed extension to the northern line of london's underground railway system. during the second world war troops had been quartered there in the thousands, their waste pumped up by compressed air to the level of the sewers far above. both sides of the runnels had been lined with metal bunk beds for the troops to sleep on. when the war ended the bunk beds had stayed, and on their wire bases cardboard boxes were stored, each box filled with letters and files and papers: secrets, of the dullest kind, stored down deep, to be forgotten. the need for economy had closed the deep tunnels completely in the early 1990s. the boxes of secrets were removed, to be scanned and stored on computers, or shredded, or burned.
varney made his home in the deepest of the deep tunnels, far beneath camden town tube. he had piled abandoned metal bunk beds in front of the only entrance. then he had decorated. varney liked weapons. he made his own, out of whatever he could find, or take, or steal, parts of cars and rescued bits of machinery, which he turned into hooks and shivs, crossbows and arbalests, small mangonels and trebuchets for breaking walls, cudgels, glaives and knob-kerries. they hung on the wall of the deep runnel, or sat in corners, looking unfriendly. varney looked like a bull might look, if the bull were to be shaved, dehorned, covered in tattoos, and suffered from complete dental breakdown. also, he snored. the oil lamp next to his head was turned down low. varney slept on a pile of rags, snoring and snuffling, with the hilt of a homemade two-bladed sword on the ground beside his hand.
a hand turned up the oil lamp.
varney had the two-bladed sword in his hand, and he was on his feet almost before his eyes were open. he blinked, stared around him. there was no one there: nothing had disturbed the pile of bunk beds blocking the door. he began to lower the sword.
a voice said, "psst."
"hh?" said varney.
"surprise," said mr. croup, stepping into the light.
varney took a step back: a mistake. there was a knife at his temple, the point of the blade next to his eye. "further movements are not recommended," said mr. croup, helpfully. "mister vandemar might have a little accident with his old toad-sticker. most accidents do occur in the home. is that not so, mister vandemar?"
"i don't trust statistics," said mr. vandemar's blank voice. a gloved hand reached down from behind varney, crushed his sword, and dropped the twisted thing to the floor.
"how are you, varney?" asked mr. croup. "well, we trust? yes? in fine form, fetlock and fettle for the market tonight? do you know who we are?"
varney did the nearest thing he could to a nod that didn't actually involve moving any muscles. he knew who croup and vandemar were. his eyes were searching the walls. yes, there: the morning-star: a spiked wooden ball, studded with nails, on a chain, in the far corner of the room . . .
"there is talk that a certain young lady will be auditioning bodyguards this evening. had you thought of trying out for the task?" mr. croup picked at his tombstone teeth. "enunciate clearly." varney picked up the morning-star with his mind. it was his knack. gentle, now . . . slowly . . . he edged it off the hook and pulled it up toward the top of the tunnel arch . . . with his mouth, he said, "varney's the best bravo and guard in the underside. they say i'm the best since hunter's day."
varney mentally positioned the morning-star in the shadows above and behind mr. croup's head. _he would crush croup's skull first, then he'd take vandemar_ . . .
the morning-star plunged toward mr. croup's head: varney flung himself down, away from the knife-blade at his eye. mr. croup did not look up. he did not turn. he simply moved his head, obscenely fast, and the morning-star crashed past him, into the floor, where it threw up chips of brick and concrete. mr. vandemar picked varney up with one hand. "hurt him?" he asked his partner.
mr. croup shook his head: _not yet._ to varney, he said, "not bad. so, 'best bravo and guard,' we want you to get yourself to the market tonight. we want you to do whatever you have to, to become that certain young lady's personal bodyguard. then, when you get the job, one thing you don't forget. you may guard her from the rest of the world, but when we want her, we take her. got it?"
varney ran his tongue over the wreck of his teeth. "are you bribing me?" he asked.
mr. vandemar had picked up the morning-star. he was pulling the chain apart, with his free hand, link by link, and dropping the bits of twisted metal onto the floor. _chink._ "no," said mr. vandemar. _chink._ "we're intimidating you." _chink._ "and if you don't do what mister croup says, we're . . . " _chink_ " . . . hurting you . . . " _chink_ " . . . very badly, before we're . . . " _chink_ " . . . killing you."
"ah," said varney. "then i'm working for you, aren't i?"
"yes, you are," said mr. croup. "i'm afraid we don't have any redeeming features."
"that doesn't bother me," said varney.
"good," said mr. croup. "welcome aboard."
it was a large but elegant mechanism, built of polished walnut and oak, of brass and glass, copper and mirrors and carved and inlaid ivory, of quartz prisms and brass gears and springs and cogs. the whole thing was rather larger than a wide-screen television, although the actual screen itself was no more than six inches across. a magnifying lens placed across it increased the size of the picture. there was a large brass horn coming out of the side--the kind you could find on an antique gramophone. the whole mechanism looked rather like a combined television and video player might look, if it had been invented and built three hundred years ago by sir isaac newton. which was, more or less, exactly what it was.
"watch," said door. she placed the wooden ball onto a platform. lights shone through the machine and into the ball. it began to spin around and around,
a patrician face appeared on the small screen, vividly colored. slightly out of time, a voice came from the horn, crackling in mid-speech. " . . . that two cities should be so near," said the voice, "and yet in all things so far; the possessors above us, and the dispossessed, we who live below and between, who live in the cracks."
door stared at the screen, her face unreadable.
" . . . still," said her father, "i am of the opinion that what cripples us, who inhabit the underside, is our petty factionalism. the system of baronies and fiefdoms is both divisive and foolish." the lord portico was wearing a threadbare old smoking jacket and a skullcap. his voice seemed to be coming to them across the centuries, not days or weeks. he coughed. "i am not alone in this belief. there are those who wish to see things the way they are. there are others who want the situation to worsen. there are those . . . "
"can you speed it up?" asked the marquis. "find the last entry?"
door nodded. she touched an ivory lever at the side: the image ghosted, fragmented, re-formed.
now portico wore a long coat. his skullcap was gone. there was a scarlet gash down one side of his head. he was no longer sitting at his desk. he was talking urgently, quietly. "i do not know who will see this, who will find this. but whoever you are, please take this to my daughter, the lady door, if she lives . . . " a static burst wiped across the picture and the sound. then, "door? girl, this is bad. i don't know how long i've got before they find this room. i think my poor portia and your brother and sister are dead." the sound and picture quality began to degrade.
the marquis glanced at door. her face was wet: tears were brimming from her eyes, glistening down her cheeks. she seemed unaware that she was crying, made no attempt to wipe away the tears. she just stared at her father's image, listened to his words. _crackle. wipe. crackle._ "listen to me, girl," said her dead father. "go to islington . . . you can trust islington . . . you must believe in islington . . . " he ghosted. blood dripped from his forehead into his eyes. he he wiped it off. "door? avenge us. avenge your family."
a loud bang came from the gramophone horn. portico turned his head to look offscreen, puzzled and nervous. "what?" he said, and he stepped out of frame. for a moment, the picture remained unchanged: the desk, the blank white wall behind it. then an arc of vivid blood splashed across the wall. door flicked a lever on the side, blanking the screen, and turned away.
"here." the marquis passed her a handkerchief.
"thanks." she wiped her face, blew her nose vigorously. then she stared into space. eventually, she said, "islington."
"i've never had any dealings with islington," said the marquis.
"i thought it was just a legend," she said.
"not at all." he reached across the desk, picked up the gold pocket-watch, thumbed it open. "nice workmanship," he observed.
she nodded. "it was my father's."
he closed the cover with a click. "time to go to market. it starts soon. mister time is not our friend."
she blew her nose once more, put her hands deep into the pockets of her leather jacket. then she turned to him, elfin face frowning, odd-colored eyes bright. "do you honestly think we can find a bodyguard who will be able to deal with croup and vandemar?"
the marquis flashed his white teeth at her. "there's been no one since hunter who'd even have a chance. no, i'll settle for someone who could give you the time you might need to get away." he fastened the fob of the watch chain to his waistcoat, slid the watch into his vest pocket.
"what are you doing?" asked door. "that's my father's watch."
"he's not using it anymore, is he?" he adjusted the golden chain. "there. that looks rather elegant." he watched the emotions flicker across her face: quiet anger and, finally, resignation.
"we'd better go," was all she said.
"the bridge isn't very far now," said anaesthesia. richard hoped that was true. they were now on their third candle. the walls flickered and oozed, the passageway seemed to stretch on forever. he was astonished that they were still under london: he was half-convinced that they had walked most of the way to wales.
"i'm really scared," she continued. "i've never crossed the bridge before."
"i thought you said you'd been to this market already," he asked, mystified.
"it's the _floating_ market, silly. i told you already. it moves. different places. last one i went to was held in that big clock tower. big . . . someone. and the next was--"
"big ben?" he suggested.
"maybe. we were inside where all the big wheels went around, and that was where i got this--" she held up her necklace. the candlelight glimmered yellow off the shiny quartz. she smiled, like a child. "do you like it?" she asked.
"it's great. was it expensive?"
"i swapped some stuff for it. that's how things work down here. we swap stuff." and then they turned a corner, and saw the bridge. it could have been one of the bridges over the thames, five hundred years ago, thought richard; a huge stone bridge spanning out over a vast black chasm, into the night. but there was no sky above it, no water below. it rose into darkness. richard wondered who had built it, and when. he wondered how something like this could exist, beneath the city of london, without everyone knowing. he felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. he was, he realized, deeply, pathetically scared of the bridge itself.
"do we have to go across it?" he asked. "can't we get to the market some other way?" they paused at the base of the bridge.
anaesthesia shook her head. "we can get to the place it's in," she said. "but the market wouldn't be there."
"huh? but that's ridiculous. i mean, something's either there or it's not. isn't it?"
she shook her head. there was a buzz of voices from behind them, and someone pushed richard to the ground. he looked up: a huge man, crudely tattooed, dressed in improvised rubber and leather clothes that looked like they had been cut out of the inside of cars, stared back down at him, dispassionately. behind the huge man were a dozen others, male and female: people who looked like they were on their way to a particularly low-rent costume party. "somebody," said varney, who was not in a good mood, "was in my way. somebody ought to watch where he's going."
once, as a small boy walking home from school, richard had encountered a rat in a ditch by the side of the road. when the rat saw richard it had reared up onto its hind legs and hissed and jumped, terrifying richard. he backed away marvelling that something so small had been so willing to fight something so much larger than itself. now anaesthesia stepped between richard and varney. she was less than half his size, but she glared at the big man and bared her teeth, and she hissed like an angry rat at bay. varney took a step backwards. he spat at richard's shoes. then he turned away, and, taking the knot of people with him, he walked across the bridge and into the dark.
"are you all right?" asked anaesthesia, helping richard back to his feet.
"i'm fine," he said. "that was really brave of you."
she looked down, shyly. "i'm not really brave," she said. "i'm still scared of the bridge. even they were scared. that was why they all went over together. safety in numbers."
"if you are crossing the bridge, i will go with you," said a female voice, rich as cream and honey, coming from behind them. richard was not able to place her accent. he turned, and standing there was a tall woman, with long, tawny hair, and skin the color of burnt caramel. she wore dappled leather clothes, mottled in shades of gray and brown. she had a battered leather duffel bag over her shoulder. she was carrying a staff, and she had a knife at her belt and an electric flashlight strapped to her wrist. she was also, without question, the most beautiful woman that richard had ever seen.
"safety in numbers. you're welcome to come with us," he said, after a moment's hesitation. "my name's richard mayhew. this is anaesthesia. she's the one us who knows what she's doing." the rat-girl preened.
the leather woman looked him up and looked him down. "you're from london above," she told him.
"yes." as lost as he was in this strange other-world, he was at least learning to play the game. his mind was too numb to make any sense of where he was, or why he was here, but it was capable of following the rules.
"travelling with a rat-speaker. my word."
"i'm his guardian," said anaesthesia, truculently. "who are you? who do you owe fealty to?"
the woman smiled. "i owe no man fealty, rat-girl. have either of you crossed night's bridge before?" anaesthesia shook her head. "well. isn't this going to be fun?"
they walked toward the bridge. anaesthesia handed richard her candle-lamp. "here," she said.
"thanks." richard looked at the woman in leather. "is there anything, really, to be scared of?"
"only the night on the bridge," she said.
"the kind in armor?"
"the kind that comes when day is over." anaesthesia's hand sought richard's. he held it tightly, her tiny hand in his. she smiled at him, squeezed his hand. and then they set foot on night's bridge and richard began to understand darkness: darkness as something solid and real, so much more than a simple absence of light. he felt it touch his skin, questing, moving, exploring: gliding through his mind. it slipped into his lungs, behind his eyes, into his mouth . . .
with each step they took the light of the candle became dimmer. he realized the same thing was happening to the leather woman's flashlight. it felt not so much as if the lights were being turned down but as if the darkness were being turned up. richard blinked, and opened his eyes on nothing--nothing but darkness, complete and utter. _sounds._ a rustling, a squirming. richard blinked, blinded by the night. the sounds were nastier, hungrier. richard imagined he could hear voices: a horde of huge, misshapen trolls, beneath the bridge . . .
something slithered past them in the dark. "what's that?" squeaked anaesthesia. her hand was shaking in his.
"hush," whispered the woman. "don't attract its attention."
"what's happening?" whispered richard.
"darkness is happening," said the leather woman, very quietly. "night is happening. all the nightmares that have come out when the sun goes down, since the cave times, when we huddled together in fear for safety and for warmth, are happening. now," she told them, "now is the time to be afraid of the dark." richard knew that something was about to creep over his face. he closed his eyes: it made no difference to what he saw or felt. the night was complete. it was then that the hallucinations started.
_he saw a figure falling toward him through the night, burning, its wings and hair on fire._
he threw up his hands: there was nothing there.
_jessica looked at him, with contempt in her eyes. he wanted to shout to her, tell her he was sorry._
place one foot after another.
_he was a small child, walking home from school, at night, down the one road with no streetlights. no matter how many times he did it, it never got any easier, never got any better._
_he was deep in the sewers, lost in a labyrinth. the beast was waiting for him. he could hear a slow drip of water. he knew the beast was waiting. he gripped his spear . . . then a rumbling bellow, deep in its throat, from behind him. he turned. slowly, agonizingly slowly, it charged at him, through the dark._
_and it charged._
_he died._
and kept walking.
_slowly, agonizingly slowly, it charged at him, over and over, through the dark._
there was a sputter, and a flare so bright it hurt, making richard squint and stagger. it was the candle flame, in its lemonade-bottle holder. he had never known how brightly a single candle could burn. he held it up, gasping and gulping and shaking with relief. his heart was pounding and shuddering in his chest.
"we would appear to have crossed successfully," said the leather woman.
richard's heart was pounding in his chest so hard that, for a few moments, he was unable to talk. he forced himself to breathe slowly, to calm down. they were in a large anteroom, exactly like the one on the other side. in fact, richard had the strange feeling that it was the same room they had just left. yet the shadows were deeper, and there were after-images floating before richard's eyes, like those one saw after a camera flash. "i suppose," richard said, haltingly, "we weren't in any real danger . . . it was like a haunted house. a few noises in the dark . . . and your imagination does the rest. there wasn't really anything to be scared of, was there?"
the woman looked at him, almost pityingly; and richard realized that there was nobody holding his hand. "anaesthesia?"
from the darkness at the crown of the bridge came a gentle noise, like a rustle or a sigh. a handful of irregular quartz beads pattered down the curve of the bridge toward them. richard picked one up. it was from the rat-girls necklace. his mouth opened, but no sound came out. then he found his voice. "we'd better. we have to go back. she's . . . "
the woman raised her flashlight, shone it across the bridge. richard could see all the way across the bridge. it was deserted. "where is she?" he asked.
"gone," said the woman, flatly. "the darkness took her."
"we've got to do something," said richard urgently.
"such as?"
once again, he opened his mouth. this time, he found no words. he closed it again. he fingered the lump of quartz, looked at the others on the ground.
"she's gone," said the woman. "the bridge takes its toll. be grateful it didn't take you too. now if you're going to the market, it's through here, up this way." she gestured toward a narrow passageway that rose up into the dimness in front of them, barely illuminated by the beam of her flashlight.
richard did not move. he felt numb. he found it hard to believe that the rat girl was gone--lost, or stolen, or strayed, or . . . --and harder to believe that the leather woman was able to carry on as if nothing at all out of the ordinary had happened--as if this were utterly usual. anaesthesia could not be dead
he completed the thought. she could not be dead, because if she were, then it was his fault. she had not asked to go with him. he held the quartz bead so tightly it hurt his hand, thinking of the pride with which anaesthesia had shown it to him, of how fond he had become of her in the handful of hours that he had known her.
"are you coming?"
richard stood there in the darkness for a few pounding heartbeats, then he placed the quartz bead gently into the pocket of his jeans. he followed the woman, who was still some paces ahead of him. as he followed her, he realized that he still did not know her name.
