for a moment, upon waking, he had no idea at all who he was. it was a tremendously liberating feeling, as if he were free to be whatever he wanted to be: he could be anyone at all--able to try on any identity; he could be a man or a woman, a rat or a bird, a monster or a god. and then someone made a rustling noise, and he woke up the rest of the way, and in waking he found that he was richard mayhew, whoever that was, whatever that meant. he was richard mayhew, and he did not know where he was.
there was crisp linen pressed against his face. he hurt all over; in some places--the little finger on his left hand, for example--more than others.
someone was nearby. richard could hear breathing, and the hesitant rustling noises of a person in the same room he was in, trying to be discreet. richard raised his head, and discovered, in the raising, more places that hurt. some of them hurt very badly. far away--rooms and rooms away--people were singing. the song was so distant and quiet he knew he would lose it if he opened, his eyes: a deep, melodious chanting . . .
he opened his eyes. the room was small, and dimly lit. he was on a low bed, and the rustling sound he had heard was made by a cowled figure in a black robe, with his back to richard. the black figure was dusting the room, with an incongruously brightly colored feather duster. "where am i?" asked richard.
the black figure nearly dropped its feather duster, then it turned, revealing a very nervous, thin, dark brown face. "would you like some water?" the black friar asked, in the manner of one who has been told that if the patient wakes up, he is to be asked if he would like some water, and has been repeating it to himself over and over for the last forty minutes to make sure that he didn't forget.
"i . . . " and richard realized that he was most dreadfully thirsty. he sat up in the bed. "yes, i would. thank you very much." the friar poured some water from a battered metal jug into a battered metal cup and passed it to richard. richard sipped the water slowly, restraining the impulse to gulp it down. it was crystal cold and clear and tasted like diamonds and ice.
richard looked down at himself. his clothes were gone. he had been dressed in a long robe, like one of the black friars' habits, but gray. his broken finger had been splinted and neatly bandaged. he raised a finger to his ear; there was a bandage on it, and what felt like stitches beneath the bandage. "you're one of the black friars," said richard.
"yes, sir."
"how did i get here? where are my friends?"
the friar pointed to the corridor, wordlessly and nervously. richard got out of the bed. he checked under his gray robe: he was naked. his torso and legs were covered in a variety of deep indigo and purple bruises, all of which seemed to have been rubbed with some kind of ointment: it smelt like cough syrup and buttered toast. his right knee was bandaged. he wondered where his clothes were. there were sandals beside the bed, and he put them on, then he walked out into the corridor. the abbot was coming down the passage toward him, holding onto the arm of brother fuliginous, his blind eyes pearlescent in the darkness beneath his cowl.
"you are awake, then, richard mayhew," said the abbot. "how do you feel?"
richard made a face. "my hand . . . "
"we set your finger. it had been broken. we tended your bruises and your cuts. and you needed rest, which we gave you."
"where's door? and the marquis? how did we get here?"
"i had you brought here," said the abbot. the two friars began to walk down the corridor, and richard walked with them.
"hunter," said richard. "did you bring back her body?"
the abbot shook his head. "there was no body. only the beast."
"ah, um. my clothes . . . " they came to the door of a cell, much like the one richard had woken in. door was sitting on the edge of her bed, reading a copy of _mansfield park_ that richard was certain the friars had not previously known that they had. she, too, wore a gray monk's robe, which was much, much too big for her, almost comically so. she looked up as they entered. "hello," she said. "you've been asleep for ages. how are you feeling?"
"fine, i think. how are you?"
she smiled. it was not a very convincing smile. "a bit shaky," she admitted. there was a loud rattling in the corridor, and richard turned to see the marquis de carabas being wheeled toward them in a rickety and antique wheelchair. the wheelchair was being pushed by a large black friar. richard wondered how the marquis managed to make being pushed around in a wheelchair look like a romantic and swashbuckling thing to do. the marquis honored them with an enormous smile. "good evening, friends," he said.
"now," said the abbot, "that you are all here, we must talk."
he led them to a large room, warmed by a roaring scrap wood fire. they arranged themselves around a table. the abbot gestured for them all to sit down. he felt for his chair and sat down in it. then he sent brother fuliginous and brother tenebrae (who had been pushing the marquis's wheelchair) out of the room.
"so," said the abbot. "to business. where is islington?"
door shrugged. "as far away as i could send him. halfway across space and time."
"i see," said the abbot. and then he said, "good."
"why didn't you warn us about him?" asked richard.
"that was not our responsibility."
richard snorted. "what happens now?" he asked them all.
the abbot said nothing.
"happens? in what way?" asked door.
"well, you wanted to avenge your family. and you have. and you've sent everyone involved off to some distant corner of nowhere. i mean, no one's going to try and kill you anymore, are they?"
"not for right now," said door, seriously.
"and you?" richard asked the marquis de carabas. "have you got what you wanted?"
the marquis nodded. "i believe so. my debt to lord portico has been paid in full, and the lady door owes me a significant favor."
richard looked to door. she nodded. "so what about me?" he asked.
"well," said door. "we couldn't have done it without you."
"that's not what i meant. what about getting me back home?"
the marquis raised an eyebrow. "who do you think she is--the wizard of oz? we can't send you home. this is your home."
door said, "i tried to tell you that before, richard."
"there has to be a way," said richard, and he slammed his left hand down on the table, hard, for emphasis. it hurt his finger, but he kept his face composed. and then he said, "ow," but he said it very quietly, because he had gone through much worse.
"where is the key?" asked the abbot.
richard inclined his head. "door," he said.
she shook her pixy head. "i don't have it," she told him. "i slipped it back into your pocket at the last market. when you brought the curry."
richard opened his mouth, and then he closed it again. then he opened it and said, "you mean, when i told croup and vandemar that i had it, and they were welcome to search me . . . i had it?" she nodded. he remembered the hard object in his back pocket, on down street; remembered her hugging him on the ship . . .
the abbot reached out. his wrinkled brown fingers picked up a small bell from the table, which he shook, summoning brother fuliginous. "bring me the warrior's trousers," he said. fuliginous nodded and left.
"i'm no warrior," said richard.
the abbot smiled gently. "you killed the beast," he explained, almost regretfully. "you are the warrior."
richard folded his arms, exasperated. "so, after all this, i still don't get to go home, but as a consolation prize i've made it onto some kind of archaic underground honors list?"
the marquis looked unsympathetic. "you can't go back to london above. a few individuals manage a kind of half-life--you've met iliaster and lear. but that's the best you could hope for, and it isn't a good life."
door reached out a hand, and touched richard's arm. "i'm sorry," she told him. "but look at all the good you've done. you got the key for us."
"well," he asked, "what was the point of that? you just forged a new key--" brother fuliginous reappeared, carrying richard's jeans; they were ripped, and covered in mud, and splashed with dried blood, and they stank. the friar handed the trousers to the abbot, who commenced to go through the pockets. door smiled, sweetly. "i couldn't have had hammersmith copy it without the original," she reminded him.
the abbot cleared his throat. "you are all very stupid people," he told them, graciously, "and you do not know anything at all." he held up the silver key. it glinted in the firelight. "richard passed the ordeal of the key. he is its master, until he returns it to our keeping. the key has power."
"it's the key to heaven . . . " said richard, unsure of what the abbot was getting at, of what point he was trying to make.
the old man's voice was deep and melodious. "the key is the key to all reality. if richard wants to return to london above, then the key will take him back to london above."
"it's that simple?" asked richard. the old man nodded his blind head, beneath the shadows of his cowl. "then when could we do this?"
"as soon as you are ready," said the abbot.
the friars had washed and repaired his clothes and returned them to him. brother fuliginous led him through the abbey, up a vertiginous series of ladders and steps, up into the bell tower. there was a heavy wooden trapdoor in the top of the tower. brother fuliginous unlocked it, and the two men pushed through it and found themselves in a narrow tunnel, thickly cobwebbed, with metal rungs set in the side of one wall. they climbed the rungs, going up for what seemed like thousands of feet, and came out on a dusty underground station platform.
nightingale lane
said the old signs on the wall. brother fuliginous wished richard well and told him to wait there and he would be collected, and then he clambered down the side of the wall, and he was gone.
richard sat on the platform for twenty minutes. he wondered what kind of station this was: it seemed neither abandoned, like british museum, nor real, like blackfriars: instead it was a ghost-station, an imaginary place, forgotten and strange. he wondered why the marquis had not said good-bye. when richard had asked door, she had said that she didn't know, but that maybe good-byes were something else, like comforting people, at which the marquis wasn't much good. then she told him that she had something in her eye, and she gave him a paper with his instructions on, and she went away.
something waved from the darkness of the tunnel: something white. it was a handkerchief on a stick. "hello?" called richard.
the feather-wrapped roundness of old bailey stepped out of the gloom, looking self-conscious and ill at ease. he was waving richard's handkerchief, and he was sweating. "it's me little flag," he said, pointing to the handkerchief.
"i'm glad it's come in useful."
old bailey grinned uneasily. "right. just wanted to say. something i got for you. here you go." he thrust a hand into a coat pocket and pulled out a long black feather with a blue-purple-green sheen to it; red thread had been wound around the quill end of the feather.
"urn. well, thanks," said richard, unsure of what he ought to do with it.
"it's a feather," explained old bailey. "and a good one. memento. souvenir. keepsake. and it's free. a gift. me to you. bit of a thank-you."
"yes. well. very kind of you."
richard put it in his pocket. a warm wind blew through the tunnel: a train was coming. "this'll be your train now," said old bailey. "i don't take trains, me. give me a good roof any day." he shook richard's hand, and fled.
the train pulled in at the station, its headlights were turned off, and there was nobody standing in the driver's compartment in the front. it came to a full stop: all the carriages were dark, and no doors opened. richard knocked on the door in front of him, hoping that it was the correct one. the door gaped open, flooding the imaginary station with warm yellow light. two small, elderly gentlemen holding long, copper-colored bugles stepped off the train and onto the platform. richard recognized them: dagvard and halvard, from earl's court; although he could no longer recall, if he had ever known, which gentleman was which. they put their bugles to their lips and performed a ragged, but sincere, fanfare. richard got onto the train, and they walked in behind him.
the earl was sitting at the end of the carriage, petting the enormous irish wolfhound. the jester-- tooley, thought richard, that was his name--stood beside him. other than that, and the two men-at-arms, the carriage was deserted. "who is it?" asked the earl.
"it's him, sire," said his jester. "richard mayhew. the one who killed the beast."
"the warrior?" the earl scratched his red-gray beard thoughtfully. "bring him here."
richard walked down to the earl's chair. the earl eyed him up and down pensively and gave no indication that he remembered ever meeting richard before. "thought you'd be _taller_," said the earl, at length.
"sorry."
"well, better get on with it." the old man stood up and addressed the empty car. "good evening. here to honor young mayflower. what was it the bard said?" and then he recited, in a rhythmic alliterative boom, "_crimson the cuts in the carcass, fast falls the foe, dauntless devout defender, bravest of boys . . . _ not really a boy anymore, though, is he, tooley?"
"not particularly, your grace."
the earl reached out his hand. "give me your sword, boy."
richard put his hand to his belt and pulled out the knife that hunter had given him. "will this do?" he asked.
"yes-yes," said the old man, taking the knife from him.
"kneel," said tooley, in a stage whisper, pointing to the train floor. richard went down on one knee; the earl tapped him gently on each shoulder with the knife. "arise," he bellowed, "sir richard of maybury. with this knife i do give to you the freedom of the underside. may you be allowed to walk freely, without let or hindrance . . . and so on and so forth . . . et cetera . . . blah blah blah," he trailed of vaguely.
"thanks," said richard. "it's mayhew, actually." but the train was coming to a stop.
"this is where you get off," said the earl. he gave richard his knife--hunter's knife--once more, patted him on the back, and pointed toward the door.
the place that richard got off was not an underground station. it was above ground, and it reminded richard a little of st. pancras station--there was something similarly oversized and mock-gothic about the architecture. but there was also a _wrongness_ that somehow marked it as part of london below. the light was that strange, strained gray one only sees shortly before dawn and for a few moments after sunset, the times when the world washes out into gloom, and color and distance become impossible to judge.
there was a man sitting on a wooden bench, watching him; and richard approached him, cautiously, unable to tell, in the gloaming, who the man was, whether it was someone he had met before. richard was still holding hunter's knife--his knife-- and now he gripped the hilt more tightly, for reassurance. the man looked up as richard approached, and he sprang to his feet. he tugged at his forelock, something richard had previously only seen done on television adaptations of classic novels. he looked both comical and unpleasant. richard recognized the man as the lord rat-speaker.
"well-well. yes-yes," said the rat-speaker, agitatedly, beginning in mid-sentence, "just to say, the girl anaesthesia. no hard feelings. the rats are your friends, still. and the rat-speakers. you come to us. we'll do you all right."
"thanks," said richard. _anaesthesia will take him,_ he thought. _she's expendable._
the lord rat-speaker fumbled on the bench, and presented richard with a black vinyl zip-up sports bag. it was extremely familiar. "it's all there. everything. take a look." richard opened the bag. all his possessions were in there, including, on top of some neatly folded jeans, his wallet. he zipped the bag up, threw it over his shoulder, and walked away from the man, without a thank-you or a backward glance.
richard walked out of the station and down some gray stone steps. all was silent. all was empty. dead autumn leaves blew across an open court, a flurry of yellow and ochre and brown, a sudden burst of muted color in the dim light. richard crossed the court and walked down some steps into an underpass. there was a fluttering in the half-dark, and, warily, he turned. there were about a dozen of them, in the corridor behind him, and they slipped toward him almost silently, just a rustle of dark velvet, and, here and there, the clink of silver jewelery. the rustle of the leaves had been so much louder than these pale women. they watched him with hungry eyes.
he was scared, then. he had the knife, true, but he could no more fight with it than he could jump across the thames. he hoped that, if they attacked, he might be able to scare them away with it. he could smell honeysuckle, and lily of the valley, and musk.
lamia edged her way to the front of the velvets, and stepped forward. richard raised the knife, nervously, remembering the chilly passion of her embrace, how pleasant it was and how cold. she smiled at him, and inclined her head, sweetly. then she kissed her fingertips, and blew the kiss toward richard.
he shivered. something fluttered in the darkness of the underpass; and when he looked again, there was nothing but shadows.
through the underpass, and richard walked up some steps, and found himself at the top of a small grassy hill. it was dawn, and he could just make out details of the countryside around him: almost leafless oak, and ash, and beech trees, readily identifiable by the shapes of their trunks. a wide, clean river meandered gently through the green countryside. as he looked around, he realized that he was on an island of some kind--two smaller rivers ran into the larger one, cutting him off on his little hill, from the mainland. he knew then, without knowing how, but with total certainty, that he was still in london, but london as it had been perhaps three thousand years ago, or more, before ever the first stone of the first human habitation was laid upon a stone.
he unzipped his bag and put the knife away in it, beside his wallet. then he zipped it up again. the sky was starting to lighten, but the light was odd. it was _younger,_ somehow, than the sunlight he was familiar with--purer, perhaps. an orange-red sun rose in the east, where docklands would one day be, and richard watched the dawn breaking over forests and marshes that he kept thinking of as greenwich and kent and the sea.
"hello," said door. he had not seen her approach. she was wearing different clothes beneath her battered brown leather jacket: they were still layered and ripped and patched, though, in taffeta and lace and silk and brocade. her short red hair shone in the dawn like burnished copper.
"hello," said richard. she stood beside him and twined her small fingers into his right hand, the hand that was holding the sports bag. "where are we?" he asked.
"on the awesome and terrible island of westminster," she told him. it sounded as if she were quoting from somewhere, but he did not believe he had ever heard that phrase before. they began to walk together over the long grass, wet and white with melting frost. their footprints left a dark green trail in the grass behind them, showing where they had come from.
"look," said door. "with the angel gone, there's a lot of sorting out to do in london below. and there's only me to do it. my father wanted to unite london below . . . i suppose i ought to try to finish what he started." they were walking north, away from the thames, hand in hand. white seagulls wheeled and called in the sky above them. "richard, you heard what islington said to us about keeping my sister alive, just in case. i may not be the only one of my family left. and you've saved my life. more than once." she paused, and then, all in a rush, blurted, "you've been a really good friend to me, richard. and i've sort of got to like having you around. please don't go."
he squeezed her hand in his, gently. "well," he said, "i've sort of got to like having you around, too. but i don't belong in this world. in my london . . . well, the most dangerous thing you ever have to watch out for is a taxi in a bit of a hurry. i like you, too. i like you an awful lot. but i have to go home."
she looked up at him with her odd-colored eyes, green and blue and flame. "then we won't ever see each other again," she said.
"i suppose we won't."
"thanks for everything you did," she said, seriously. then she threw her arms around him, and she squeezed him tightly enough that the bruises on his ribs hurt, and he hugged her back, just as tightly, making all of his bruises complain violently, and he simply didn't care.
"well," he said, eventually. "it was very nice knowing you." she was blinking hard. he wondered if she were going to tell him again that she had something in her eye. instead she said, "are you ready?"
he nodded.
"have you got the key?"
he put down his bag and rummaged in his back pocket with his good hand. he took out the key and handed it to her. she held it out in front of her, as if it were being inserted in an imaginary door. "okay," she said. "just walk. don't look back."
he began walking down a small hill, away from the blue waters of the thames. a gray gull swooped past. at the bottom of the hill, he looked back. she stood at the top of the hill, silhouetted by the rising sun. her cheeks were glistening. the orange sunlight gleamed on the key. door turned it, with one decisive motion.
the world went dark, and a low roar filled richard's head, like the maddened growling of a thousand enraged beasts.
