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The marquis de Carabas has impeccable instincts. He knows when he can turn his back on a potential threat. He knows, as now, when turning his back is out of the question. The route through the Tunel running under Istanbul is blocked by a dozen child-like creatures.
"They only look like children," de Carabas says. Richard Mayhew pauses, spear point suspended over the sheath on his shoulder. Richard has lost most of the awkwardness of the Upworlder but he's lamentably ignorant.
"They're not children?" asks Richard.
"They're not."
The creatures grin toothily, in unison.
As he and Richard back away, de Carabas keeps both eyes on the creatures in the Tunel. This is an error. Just before de Carabas turns to follow Richard, he catches sight of a bloodied sack twisting in the arms of one of the creatures. Whatever is trapped inside is still moving.
It is probably an ill-advised rescue attempt. But truth is there'd be little pleasure in anything if the odds weren't against them.
"We're heading back in," de Carabas says to Richard.
"Right," says Richard. He doesn't ask why. Richard has lost the habit of annoying questions, and de Carabas wouldn't have answered anyway.
**
De Carabas is a skilled taleteller. He can tell an epic adventure in which he trapped a sea serpent in his hair. He can tell a heartrending tale of death while awaiting restorative water from a beloved's cup. He can tell stories of loss and love that would make the Blunderbore cry, presuming de Carabas finished the telling alive.
This is a tale he doesn't tell. He doesn't tell it because it is largely true. No one wants to hear a true tale, especially a true tale without a happy ending.
...
It was night. Two working boys propped themselves against the iron railings running around the Polly and Molly cab yard. De Carabas walked past. He stepped with swift precision among the few cabs, among the cab horses, cab brags and cab wargs and their seemingly infinite variety of shit. He had the assurance of someone with a fine cloak and many well-hidden skills.
"Up for a piece of something nice, mate?" one boy called.
"No," De Carabas said.
"I could be anyone you like," said the other boy, "a velvet, a sub-sailor, aristocracy." As de Carabas left the boy said, "I can take you for a ride beyond anything you ever imagined."
De Carabas flashed a smile into the dark. "I've experienced most of the rides at that carnival, child."
A howl sounded nearby. The air chilled. The cart animals scuttled into stables.
De Carabas looked down the lane for a long moment. "I highly recommend you two make yourselves scarce," he said. The boys glanced at one another nervously. "Get back if you value your lives," said De Carabas and melted into the blackness behind a pillar.
Abruptly a creature was silhouetted in the yard. It was not a man but it looked like one, though oversized. The creature paused to sniff the air, then loped onward. As it passed the boys it reached out a long arm to the nearest one. There was a soft wet sigh, a collapsing, and the boy fell to the ground. The creature howled as it left, and didn't look back.
For a moment the yard was still, and full of fear. Then the second boy stumbled out across the path. The boy grasped de Carabas' coat.
"He just reached and scooped out Peg's brain," said the boy in horror.
"And you're still alive," de Carabas said. "Aren't you the fortunate one." He turned to leave.
"I don't have any way to go. Peg was my Way home." At de Carabas' still gaze the boy said quietly, "Please, you can't leave."
"I think you'll find that you're incorrect."
The boy took a sobbing breath. He shrugged. "Fair enough," he said to the ground.
De Carabas eyed the boy. "All right. I'll help find your Way," He said. The boy smiled and de Carabas continued quickly, "But you can't stay. I do not play well with others." The boy continued to smile and de Carabas sighed resignedly. "Do you have a name?"
"They call me Puss," said the boy, and followed de Carabas.
**
The Tunel which runs under the northern shore of Istanbul is the second-oldest underground system in the world. The funicular within it runs along a steep incline between Galata on the Bosporus and Beyoglu in the hills.
The Lady Door has sent de Carabas and Richard Mayhew here to confer with Sultan Ahmed and Hagia Sophia. Both are leaders of Istanbul Below, though Hagia Sophia insists on calling it Byzantium which tends to invoke a mild coughing fit in the Sultan.
This is a diplomatic undertaking, like those to Paris and Cairo before it. In Cairo they were met by a delegation including an elderly Ṣalah ad-Din. Even de Carabas was less ironic than usual when he bowed to the old man. The only extraordinary aspect of the Parisian exercise was Richard Mayhew's appalling schoolboy French. Now in Istanbul, there's the potential for things to get interesting.
"You're the Hunter, Richard Mayhew," says de Carabas. "Do you think you can find your way to spearing something?"
"It's just that they look like children," says Richard. "Slightly toothy children."
"I've told you they are not," says de Carabas. "Look what they've done to that creature in the sack. They are vermin."
Richard is still arguing. "You'd merrily boil up a baby for your supper if nobody was delivering. I'm hardly going to take your word in this. In any case, my spear is more useful for things like, I don't know, actually spearing mighty beasts than it is for poking at a dozen… uh make that two dozen... oh."
The creatures attack quickly and with impressive unity. It's about forty five second before De Carabas and Richard Mayhew are bound and laid on the tracks. They look at one another.
"Right," says Richard. "Perhaps the spear next time."
**
For weeks, Puss had treated the Rococo armchair as his own. The chair had been forgotten in London Above years earlier and de Carabas, appreciating its gilt aesthetic, had picked it up Between. Despite being surprisingly comfortable sharing his house, de Carabas felt the loss of that chair keenly.
When de Carabas woke for the evening, Puss was reading a book about ancient Moroccan technologies and eating a mushroom the size of his head.
"Have you been to Morocco?" asked de Carabas around a yawn. He wasn't interested. It was merely irritating to know so little about someone who was sitting in his chair.
"I've never been past the Channel," said Puss. "I've never even been Above."
De Carabas was not surprised. Puss' pale brown skin and quick black eyes gave the impression of someone genuinely Below-grown.
These were days when being anything but Below-born was dangerous. Separatists were dedicated to halting all relations between London Above and London Below. Most people wouldn't admit to any Upworld history and simply visiting London Above was sneered upon.
De Carabas had associates: persons who felt that valuing all people regardless of birthplace and maintaining movement between London Below and Above was a moral imperative. De Carabas simply knew the tailors in London Below were amateurs compared with those in London Above, and he could never find a good coffee Below.
When Old Bailey and the Chalk Farmer stopped in to talk shop, de Carabas introduced them to Puss. Old Bailey hustled de Carabas outside and onto the footpath.
"You'll find there's something wrong there," said the Chalk Farmer, shifting her weight and nodding up to the boy in the house. She was a solid Yorkshire woman. "That pretty boy will bring trouble."
"I suppose I need not find that trouble until it finds me," said de Carabas pleasantly. "What brings you?"
Old Bailey rummaged in his deep pockets for a grubby folded paper. "Here you go," he said while attempting to remove the creases with his thick fingers. "Them Separatists have erected piles of barricade crap in most of the Ways Between."
"That is, the Ways of which you and they are aware," said de Carabas.
"That is that." Old Bailey continued, "Our Thomas Savery made himself a map. If you look at it the right way it shows all the Ways that have been blocked up." Old Bailey handed over the map.
"You know the Ways better than most, de Carabas," said the Chalk Farmer in her firm voice.
"The air is getting ugly," said Old Bailey. "Some Upworlder will be killed coming through. Or worse."
"You want me to spend my time to save some unnamed Upworlder?" De Carabas said.
"We do not expect you to be interested in saving lives," said the Chalk Farmer. "We have others with a more sympathetic mindset for that. We want you to assist in keeping the Ways open."
"By writing them down on a mucky bit of paper for you to squander or, worse, carelessly lose to the Separatists?"
"The Ways are of no value if nobody knows them," said the Chalk Farmer.
"They're of value to me."
"That's not enough for London Below," said the Chalk Farmer.
"And," Old Bailey said, "if you're the only one who knows them, I'd not bet on you living long."
It was a fair point.
**
"These creatures were originally actual vermin," says de Carabas to Richard, eying those surrounding them with some misgiving. The chains are pressing into his arms and waist.
"Oh," says Richard. "I thought you were employing overstatement."
"I don't overstate," says de Carabas. "No, these are Vermin, known across the undersea for carving the Bosporos in their mad dash to devour a lady cow."
"I see." They lapse into contemplative silence.
"She was a legendary beauty before she was a cow."
"Quite."
De Carabas feels his life force thrumming against his ribs. He should have left it in London Below. Unfortunately, despite the fear of death and the awkward moments of compassion which come while he carries his life force, he feels increasingly bereft without it. In an unguarded moment he explained it to Richard as a missing limb. Of course, he has counted and he still has all his limbs so he can't be certain.
The Vermin have bound and tied de Carabas and Richard to the braces extending along the chill rock of the Tunel walls. The sack is lying alongside them. The Upworlder trains won't restart until morning, but in the meantime the Vermin are dancing a heavy wordless dance and the Bosporous is rising through the Tunel passage. Its waters seep through the grates in the floor and lap at the tracks. De Carabas looks from Richard Mayhew on one side to the sack on the other. The sack is no longer moving.
"You seem upset by the poor thing in the sack," says Richard. "Do you know what it is?"
"Probably," says de Carabas quellingly. "It's the kind of thing I tend to know. Richard, could you perhaps use this time to consider possibilities for escape?"
**
Puss was curled nonchalantly in his favourite chair, consuming a bowl of questionable stew when de Carabas returned to the house. Puss' smooth hair lay like a curtain across his face and de Carabas couldn't see his eyes.
"You were watching us," said de Carabas. "Essentially speaking, I have no problem with that. But I'd prefer you didn't pretend otherwise."
Puss nods warily.
De Carabas says, "There will, however, be a problem if you spill a drop of that unappetising stew onto my priceless chair."
"You know I eat like a princess," said Puss. He tucked his hair behind his ear with a smile that lit his serious face.
That night, late, de Carabas pored over the maps. The galvanic electricity was failing, so he tugged the table to the window and sat with his back against the sill. Street light was better than no light. The map was as provoking as a stroll beside an Opener with a creative streak. Whenever he thought he had it deciphered, the lines seemed to shift and he was in a whole new dimension of confusion.
De Carabas rotated the map a third time and knocked a glass from the table. The dark liquid soaked into his shirt sleeve.
"Damn," said de Carabas and stood.
Puss was looking at him with clear eyes. "No need for temper," he said. He unexpectedly crossed the room to stand before de Carabas. Puss could move at a startling speed when he wished.
"I can make it all better," said Puss quietly.
De Carabas glared at him. Puss didn't blink. Puss placed his hands on de Carabas shoulders and pushed de Carabas against the window.
Puss kissed like a professional and like a child. De Carabas felt the press of the boy against his thighs. He had time to wonder where that mouth had been.
Then de Carabas stepped away.
"Don't do that again, Puss," said de Carabas.
Puss pouted for a moment.
"You know I did it just because I thought I'd have to," said Puss.
"You don't."
"Some people would be thrilled to be in your shoes," said Puss
"No doubt," said de Carabas, and grinned sharply at the boy.
De Carabas turned back to the map. He tried to make sense of the strange two dimensional capture of the places he knew so well.
A few minutes later, "That's an odd map," said Puss over de Carabas' shoulder. Puss didn't hold grudges. "A multiple point equal distance projection, by the looks of it. Nelson's Column is one point - the Circus, Westminster, the underpalace."
De Carabas looked from Puss to the map. "I assume this means you can assist me," he said. "How fortuitous."
**
De Carabas is attempting to loosen the chains binding him to the long wall brace. Richard appears to be doing nothing so much as staring into the gloom of the Tunel.
Suddenly Richard speaks. "Do you think they speak English?"
"I don't think they speak Turkish or Byzantine or Latin any of which would be realistically more likely."
"Right," says Richard. "Thing is I have this key which Door gave me. It was after that whole Islington thing. She felt I saved her life a little bit." De Carabas doesn't mention that he likely saved both of their lives. Richard continues. "It'll open one thing once, she says. I don't know if it'll work on these chains."
"It will work. It's an Opener's skeleton key. It will open anything, once."
"It doesn't seem like a comprehensive plan, as there are forty of them and one of us will still be trapped."
De Carabas says, "These Vermin cannot resist a chase. That cow was driven mad by their endless pursuit. They were driven mad."
"So we give them something to chase," says Richard.
"We give them something to chase. If they keep up the chase for long enough we'll be able to herd them off a cliff or something."
"Seems reasonable," says Richard, which is kind of him.
**
De Carabas and Puss were drinking an artichoke and cannabis tea. Puss had eschewed his usual position on the armchair to lean against de Carabas' calves on the settee. De Carabas resolutely ignored him. It was comfortable having Puss' quiet presence in his house, but he wasn't about to start petting him.
There was a scrabbling of feet on the sill and a deep grey and purple pigeon rapped on the window. The pigeon hopped nervously as de Carabas opened the window. De Carabas read his mail in silence. It was written in Old Bailey's bird scratch. "Me and Chalk here on WhiteChapel Way. A sudden it's them Separatists. Looking bad."
Ways Between had peculiar perils. Ordinarily, everyday people Below would only kill or kidnap a person if it was really necessary. In the Ways Between anything was acceptable. As the Separatists had captured Old Bailey and the Chalk Farmer on a Way Between, there would be little thought before the Separatists removed any information and organs they required.
De Carabas nodded to the pigeon absently. "There will be no response." The pigeon fluttered skyward. De Carabas stood for a moment with eyes fixed on Puss, then gathered his cloak and turned to step lightly through the window.
"I'll be back later," he said from the ground. His voice carried. "Don't wait up."
He went first to Ye Olde Grey Bear.
"Oh, it's you," said the punter leaning on the bar. His eyes were red and watery.
"You're rather drunk, Apsley."
"You're right."
"You'd have lost your liver for that, in the first Lord Wellesley's day," said de Carabas.
"But it's not his day, is it? What do you want?"
"You owe me a favour, Apsley. Tell me where Wellington and the Earl are holding Old Bailey and the Chalk Farmer."
It seemed a waste of an important favour, but Apsley was an old booze hound and his mind was on its way out.
"At the Arch," Apsley said, "But they've got both the Ways covered. And Mary Le Strand herself on guard. You'll not free them." The man obviously thought he had been released from the favour lightly. De Carabas didn't disabuse him of the notion. Wellington would find Apsley and punish him when it suited him.
Naturally, De Carabas had kept several Ways Between to himself. The Green Park way was unprotected. The rescue was a simple matter of distraction in a whirl of coats. It was a swift victory in a sense. But Wellington's double-sworded henchman, Mary Le Strand lopped off one of his signature polished coat buttons. She also sliced through the Chalk Farmer's torso.
There was no time to stay and watch his sometime friend gasp for air that couldn't reach her lungs.
Afterwards de Carabas and Old Bailey slipped through Green Park and onto the rooftops which Old Bailey knew better than any.
"It was that boy of yours," said Old Bailey as they clambered over the tiles.
"He's not mine," said de Carabas. But he knew it was true.
He refused to discuss it further. Leaving Old Bailey among the pigeons, he made his swift way home. He opened the door with some trepidation. The windows were open. Puss was gone.
**
The Vermin dance goes on, little feet thudding against the stone interior of the tunnel. De Carabas is poised. Richard is rubbing his aching muscles in preparation for escape.
De Carabas thinks briefly of his mother.
Before de Carabas found his name, he had another. It's almost lost now, somewhere between the archipelago and London below. But his mother called him Sulieman before she called him Devil and, with her family, attempted to burn him alive. She failed, of course. But De Carabas does not forget betrayal. Until the day she died, his mother never passed a simmering pot or heated oil in a pan without a nasty burn.
"I don't care what you say," says Richard, "it's going to have to be me who runs."
"Good choice," says de Carabas.
Richard looks at de Carabas in blank surprise.
"What?" asks de Carabas. "You didn't think I was going to be the hero, did you?"
**
There was a clumsy note on Puss' chair. "We took your Puss and his boots. Payment in information tonight at the UnderCircus. Come alone."
It was obviously a trap. The UnderCircus was a Separatist haven. De Carabas sat in Puss' chair and frowned in thought.
A woman's voice startled him. "De Carabas."
De Carabas twisted his head. The Lady Portia appeared, inverted in a portrait of the Scarlet Pimpernel. Portia briskly somersaulted through the frame. She dusted herself off.
"So discomfiting, arriving all upturned like that," she said. "And Blakeney, you use too much powder." She nodded pleasantly to the inanimate Pimpernel.
De Carabas offered Portia a chair with a slight flourish.
"I knew the Chalk Farmer slightly," Portia said. "An upright woman."
De Carabas nodded.
"Now business," said Portia. De Carabas felt a wariness in his spine. "In light of the recent conflict we have been watching a selection of players on both sides. We watched Wellington. This came through."
Portia reached to brush de Carabas eyes with her fingers. De Carabas blinked. There was a quick flash of action. De Carabas saw a solid car sliding down a dark street; Puss stepping lightly on the pavement; Wellington's polished grey stepping from the car; Puss' tentative smile widening to see Wellington. Then de Carabas saw Puss flip his smooth hair and climb in the car.
There was a flat moment where de Carabas' mind said Puss had played him for a fool once - he'd not be a fool again. Underneath that thought was a disappointment de Carabas did not wish to acknowledge.
"De Carabas?" Portia's voice brought him back to himself.
"Thank you for the confirmation, Lady Portia," said de Carabas, composedly. "I now have a proposition for you and Lord Portico."
Portia eyed him carefully then said, "I will take you to our home."
They left through the rear of de Carabas' wardrobe.
After a day and a half, de Carabas and the Openers had reached an agreement. Portico and Portia would open hundreds of Ways Between. There could be no battle Below over any one or other Way if so many were available to any creature who stumbled or searched.
De Carabas returned home.
Puss' left hand was pinned to the door.
The hand drooped there bloodlessly, held firmly despite de Carabas' attempts to take it down. Instead he stretched onto his toes and inhaled the scent, reading precise details of place and time and threat.
"I'm on my way," he said aloud and pressed a quick reflexive kiss to the palm.
De Carabas enlisted six rough Bravos, Old Bailey's bird flocks, two horses of water and war. All swept in to the Circus, with de Carabas a whirlwind in flight. It was de Carabas' night. It was the kind of night where everything went de Carabas' way without thinking too hard about it.
They rescued Puss. No one died. They were not too late. In a way, they were not too late.
**
Richard brings the Opener's key into contact with his chains. The chains clatter to the ground, freeing him. The Vermin whip their heads toward him simultaneously.
Richard looks at de Carabas.
"Run," says de Carabas. "They will follow. Run."
Richard runs. He's leaner and faster than he was when he first came below. The Vermin bound forward as one, ignoring de Carabas in their mad pursuit of a fleeing prey.
"Excellent," says de Carabas aloud. The water is rising and he hates having his boots wet. He awkwardly slides his chains along the wall brace and shuffles up the hill along the wall. He nudges the sack and its sodden contents forward with him.
When de Carabas' chains slip off a broken end of the braces he leans for a moment against the wall. Richard's Hunter spear is piled with other spoils downhill. De Carabas splashes through the water to take hold of the spear and follows the noise of the Vermin rush.
Richard is upslope, running a crooked path from track to track. De Carabas watches briefly. They run past him and he sinks into shadow, concentrating. The Vermin appear to move as one, but there is a kind of central method to their madness.
"Richard," says de Carabas as they pass again. "Here." He tosses the spear and Richard reaches high to collect it. "Kill the rearmost one."
"I can't exactly get to it," says Richard.
It's true. With the pack in pursuit, Richard has no chance to circle around. De Carabas breaks free of the shadows. "Stop still," he shouts to Richard. As the Vermin turn to pursue de Carabas, their new prey, Richard is left behind.
Swiftly, Richard slices the head from the rearmost Vermin. The rest stop, suddenly, looking dazed. Then they turn to surround Richard.
Richard looks briefly horrified then puzzled.
"I think they like me," he says. The Vermin are gazing at him with adoration.
"They think you're their mummy."
"Mummy?"
"Let's say leader," de Carabas allows and chuckles.
As they walk down slope the Vermin follow, looking like nothing so much as forty or fifty baby ducks.
**
Safely at home, Puss sat stiffly in his chair and did not eat. His left arm finished at a bandaged stump. He could not look at de Carabas.
"It was the same man that killed Peg," he said shakily.
De Carabas didn't correct the use of the word man. "Yes," he said.
"And another, that one even worse."
De Carabas wanted to take Puss' remaining hand in his, wanted to promise that he would be there to catch the boy if ever he fell. He didn't.
"You thought I'd betrayed you?" Puss asked.
De Carabas didn't answer and Puss finally met his eyes.
"You thought I would betray you?"
"Obviously I made a rare error," said de Carabas. Then, in a low voice, he said, "What was I to think, Puss? You stepped blithely into Wellington's car."
"He said he'd come from you. He had your sign, a button."
Later, Puss said, "They know me now. Those men will chase me down."
De Carabas nodded. "I can hide you."
Puss nodded. "Where?"
"Far."
They sat in silence with the noise of the city around them.
Finally, "Thank you for rescuing me," Puss said.
De Carabas felt sick to his bones.
"If I had this week over again," he said. "I'd do it differently. I'd be there sooner."
**
Richard uses his spear to unchain the sack. A tufty, sodden creatures clambers from the confines and squeaks. Its life feels a little bit miraculous.
"This... rat," says Richard, guessing, "can do you no favours de Carabas. Why risk our lives to rescue it?"
De Carabas shrugs in his heavy coat and doesn't answer. He begins the walk uphill to the meeting at Beyoglu. At this point, with Richard, the multitude of Vermin and the bedraggled creature following him, it's more a parade than anything else.
Before they reach Beyoglu station, De Carabas turns back. "I think you'll find it's not a rat," he says.
"Mew," says the sodden cat as though in agreement.
Richard looks long at the miserable cat trudging beside him. He appears to think he's communicating with it. "Oh all right," Richard says under his breath, "But I don't imagine de Carabas will like it." He gathers the cat into his coat where it promptly falls asleep.
De Carabas smiles to himself in the dark Tunel. Richard is Hunter, now, and no longer an inept upworlder. However when it comes to what de Carabas would like, Richard is most often wrong.
The way de Carabas sees it, Richard can keep this tufty cat. After all, De Carabas shares his long house with eleven felines of various sizes and realities: a Scottish fold, a tortoiseshell, a miniature mog with startling black holes for eyes. It started as a laughable penance, but in quiet moments de Carabas is aware that he would miss the cats, with their padded feet and chair-stealing ways.
**
De Carabas' sources put Puss somewhere in New York Below. De Carabas imagines Puss is happy, curled in someone else's armchair, eating a pickle and mouse sandwich. Someone is there when Puss turns out the lights. The same someone wakes with Puss in the morning. There was maybe a single evening when this was a role De Carabas coveted.
It's just another thing de Carabas doesn't tell.
**
End