Neverwhere

Door looked back at the man. He had a hand on the shoulder of each of the twins and was leading them from the room; but he glanced back over his shoulder, as he left, and he looked straight at her, and smiled an enormous smile; and then he winked at her.

The friars who surrounded them were dark ghosts in the fog. Door raised her voice. "Excuse me, brother," she called to Brother Sable. "But our friend, who's gone to get the key. If he fails, what happens to us?"

He took a step toward them, hesitated, and then said, "We escort you away from here, and we let you go."

"What about Richard?" she asked. Beneath his cowl, she could see him shaking his head, sadly, finally. "I should have brought the marquis," said Door; and she wondered where he was, and what he was doing.

The marquis de Carabas was being crucified on a large X-shaped wooden construction Mr. Vandemar had knocked together from several old pallets, part of a chair and a wooden gate. He had also used most of a large box of rusting nails.

It had been a very long time since they had crucified anybody.

The marquis de Carabas's arms and legs, were spread into a wide X shape. Rusty nails went into his hands and feet. He was also roped around the waist. After experiencing terrible pain, he was now, more or less, unconscious. The whole construction dangled in the air, from several ropes, in a room that had once been the hospital staff cafeteria. On the ground below, Mr. Croup had assembled a large mound of sharp objects, ranging from razors and kitchen knives to abandoned scalpels and lancets. There was even a poker, from the furnace room.

"Why don't you see how he's doing, Mister Vandemar?" asked Mr. Croup.

Mr. Vandemar reached out his hammer, and prodded the marquis experimentally with it.

The marquis de Carabas was not a good man, and he knew himself well enough to be perfectly certain that he was not a brave man. He had long since decided that the world, Above or Below, was a place that wished to be deceived, and, to this end, he had named himself from a lie in a fairy tale, and created himself—his clothes, his ma

There was a dull pain at his wrists and his feet, and he was finding it harder and harder to breathe. There was nothing more to be gained by feigning unconsciousness, and he raised his head, as best he could, and spat a gob of scarlet blood into Mr. Valdemar's face.

It was a brave thing to do, he thought. And a stupid one. Perhaps they would have let him die quietly, if he had not done that. Now, he had no doubt, they would hurt him more.

And perhaps his death would come the quicker for it.

The open kettle was boiling fiercely. Richard watched the bubbling water, and the thick steam, and wondered what they were going to do with it. His imagination was able to provide any number of answers, most of which would have been unimaginably painful, none of which turned out to be correct.

The boiling water was poured into a pot, to which Brother Fuliginous added three spoons of dried, shredded leaves. The resultant liquid was poured from the pot through a tea strainer, into three china cups. The abbot raised his blind head, sniffed the air, and smiled. "The first part of the Ordeal of the Key," he said, "is the nice cup of tea. Do you take sugar?"

"No, thank you," said Richard, warily.

Brother Fuliginous added a little milk to the tea, and passed a cup and saucer to Richard. "Is it poisoned?" he asked.

The abbot looked almost offended: "Good gracious, no."

Richard sipped the tea, which tasted more or less exactly like tea always tasted. "But this is part of the ordeal?"

Brother Fuliginous took the abbot's hands and placed a cup of tea in them. "In a ma

Richard put down his teacup, almost untouched. "Would you mind," he asked, "if we just began the ordeal?"

"Not at all," said the abbot. "Not at all." He stood up, and the three of them walked toward a door, at the far end of the room.

"Is there . . . " Richard paused, trying to decide what he was trying to ask. Then he said, "Is there anything you can tell me about the ordeal?"

The abbot shook his head. There really was nothing to say: he led the seekers to the door. And then he would wait, for-an hour, or two, in the corridor outside. Then he would go back in, and remove the remains of the seeker from the shrine, and inter it in the vaults. And sometimes, which was worse, they would not be dead, although you could not call what was left of them alive, and those unfortunates the Black Friars cared for as best they could.

"Right," said Richard. And he smiled, unconvincingly, and added, "Well, lead on, Macduff."

Brother Fuliginous pulled back the bolts on the door. They opened with a crash, like twin gunshots. He pulled the door open. Richard stepped through it. Brother Fuliginous pushed the door closed behind him, and swung the bolts back into place. He led the abbot back to his chair and placed the cup of tea back in the old man's hand. The abbot sipped his tea, in silence. And then he said, with honest regret in his voice, "It's 'lay on, Macduff' actually. But I hadn't the heart to correct him. He sounded like such a nice young man."

TWELVE

Richard Mayhew walked down the underground platform. It was a District Line station: the sign said BLACKFRIARS. The platform was empty. Somewhere in the distance an Underground train roared and rattled, driving a ghost-wind along the platform, which scattered a copy of the tabloid Sun into its component pages, four-color breasts and black-and-white invective scurrying and tumbling off the platform and down onto the rails.

Richard walked the length of the platform. Then he sat down on a bench and waited for something to happen.

Nothing happened.

He rubbed his head and felt slightly sick. There were footsteps on the platform, near him, and he looked up to see a prim little girl walking past him, hand in hand with a woman who looked like a larger, older version of the girl. They glanced at him and then, rather obviously, looked away. "Don't get too near to him, Melanie," advised the woman, in a very audible whisper.

Melanie looked at Richard, staring in the way children stare, without embarrassment or self consciousness. Then she looked back at her mother. "Why do people like that stay alive?" she asked, curiously.

"Not enough guts to end it all," explained her mother.

Melanie risked another glance at Richard. "Pathetic," she said. Their feet pattered away down the platform, and soon they were gone. He wondered if he had imagined it. He tried to remember why he was standing on this platform. Was he waiting for a Tube train? Where was he going? He knew the answer was somewhere in his head, somewhere close at hand, but he could not touch it, could not bring it back from the lost places. He sat there, alone and wondering. Was he dreaming? With his hands he felt the hard red plastic seat beneath him, stamped the platform with mud-encrusted shoes (where had the mud come from?), touched his face . . . No. This was no dream. Wherever he was, was real. He felt odd: detached, and depressed, and horribly, strangely saddened. Someone sat down next to him. Richard did not look up, did not turn his head.