by Neil Gaiman
“Not in the sense you’re thinking of. We have some healers, a handful of leeches and chirurgeons . . .”
Hunter coughed, then, and winced. Bright red, arterial blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. The marquis edged a little closer. “Do you keep your life hidden anywhere, Hunter?” he asked.
“I’m a hunter,” she whispered, disdainfully. “We don’t go in for that kind of thing . . .” She pulled air into her lungs with an effort, then exhaled, as if the simple effort of breathing were becoming too much for her. “Richard, have you ever used a spear?”
“No.”
“Take it,” she whispered.
“But . . .”
“Do it.” Her voice was low and urgent. “Pick it up. Hold it at the blunt end.”
Richard picked up the fallen spear. He held it at the blunt end. “I knew that part,” he told her.
A glimmer of a smile breathed across her face. “I know.”
“Look,” said Richard, feeling, not for the first time, like the only sane person in a madhouse. “Why don’t we just stay very quiet. Maybe it’ll go away. We’ll try to get you some help.” And, not for the first time, the person he was talking to ignored him utterly.
“I did a bad thing, Richard Mayhew,” she whispered, sadly. “I did a very bad thing. Because I wanted to be the one to kill the Beast. Because I needed the spear.” And then, impossibly, she began to haul herself to her feet. Richard had not realized how badly she had been injured; nor could he now imagine what pain she must be in: he could see her right arm hanging uselessly, a white shard of bone protruding horribly from the skin. Blood ran from a cut in her side. Her rib cage looked wrong.
“Stop it,” he hissed, futilely. “Get down.”
With her left hand she pulled a knife from her belt, put it into her right hand, closed the nerveless fingers around the hilt. “I did a bad thing,” she repeated. “And now I make amends.”
She began humming, then. Humming high and humming low, until she found the note that made the walls and the pipes and the room reverberate, and she hummed that note until it felt like the entire labyrinth must be echoing to her hum. And then, sucking the air into her shattered rib cage, she shouted, “Hey. Big boy? Where are you?” There came no reply. No noise but the low drip of water. Even the mosquitoes were quiet.
“Maybe it’s . . . gone away,” said Richard, gripping the spear so tightly that it hurt his hands.
“I doubt it,” muttered the marquis.
“Come on, you bastard,” Hunter screamed. “Are you scared?”
There was a deep bellow from in front of them, and the Beast came out of the dark, and it charged once more. This time there could be no room for mistakes. “The dance,” whispered Hunter. “The dance is not yet over.”
As the Beast came toward her, its horns lowered, she shouted, “Now—Richard. Strike! Under and up! Now! ” before the Beast hit her and her words turned into a wordless scream.
Richard saw the Beast come out from the darkness, into the light of the flare. It all happened very slowly. It was like a dream. It was like all his dreams. The Beast was so close he could smell the shit-and-blood animal stench of it, so close he could feel its warmth. And Richard stabbed with the spear, as hard as he could, pushing up into its side and letting it sink in.
A bellow, then, or a roar, of anguish, and hatred, and pain. And then silence.
He could hear his heart, thudding in his ears, and he could hear water dripping. The mosquitoes began to whine once more. He realized he was still holding tight to the haft of the spear, although the blade of it was buried deep within the body of the immobile Beast. He let go of it, and staggered around the beast, looking for Hunter. She was trapped beneath the Beast. It occurred to him that if he moved her, pulling her out from under it, he might cause her death, so instead he pushed, as hard as he could, against the warm dead flanks of the Beast, trying to move it. It was like trying to push-start a Sherman tank, but eventually, awkwardly, he tumbled it half-off her.
Hunter lay on her back, staring up at the darkness above them. Her eyes were open, and unfocussed, and Richard knew, somehow, that they saw nothing at all. “Hunter?” he said.
“I’m still here, Richard Mayhew.” Her voice sounded almost detached. She made no effort to find him with her eyes, no effort to focus. “Is it dead?”
“I think so. It’s not moving.”
And then she laughed; it was a strange sort of laugh, as if she had just heard the funniest joke that ever the world told a hunter. And, between her spasms of laughter, and the wet, racking coughs that interrupted them, she shared the joke with him. “You killed the Beast,” she said. “So now you’re the greatest hunter in London Below. The Warrior . . .” And then she stopped laughing. “I can’t feel my hands. Take my right hand.” Richard fumbled under the Beast’s body, and wrapped his hand around Hunter’s chill fingers. They felt so small, suddenly. “Is there still a knife in my hand?” she whispered.
“Yes.” He could feel it, cold and sticky.
“Take the knife. She’s yours.”
“I don’t want your . . .”
“Take her.” He pried the knife free from her fingers. “She’s yours now,” whispered Hunter. Nothing was moving, save her lips; and her eyes were clouding. “She’s always looked after me. Clean my blood off her, though . . . mustn’t rust the blade . . . a hunter always looks after her weapons.” She gulped air. “Now . . . touch the Beast’s blood . . . to your eyes and tongue . . .”
Richard was not sure that he had heard her correctly, nor that he believed what he had heard. “What?”
Richard had not noticed the marquis approach, but now he spoke intently into Richard’s ear. “Do it, Richard. She’s right. It’ll get you through the labyrinth. Do it.”
Richard put his hand down to the spear, ran it up the haft until he felt the Beast’s hide and the warm stickiness of the Beast’s blood. Feeling slightly foolish, he touched his hand to his tongue, tasting the salt of the creature’s blood: it did not, to his surprise, revolt him. It tasted utterly natural, like tasting an ocean. He touched his bloody fingers to his eyes, where the blood stang like sweat.
Then, “I did it,” he told her.
“That’s good,” whispered Hunter. She said nothing more. The marquis de Carabas reached out his hand and closed her eyes. Richard wiped Hunter’s knife on his shirt. It was what she had told him to do. It saved having to think.
“Better get a move on,” said the marquis, standing up.
“We can’t just leave her here.”
“We can. We can come back for the body later.”
Richard polished the blade as hard as he could on his shirt. He was crying, now, but he had not noticed. “And if there isn’t any later?”
“Then we’ll just have to hope that someone disposes of all our remains. Including the Lady Door’s. And she must be getting tired of waiting for us.” Richard looked down. He wiped the last of Hunter’s blood off her knife, and put it through his belt. Then he nodded. “You go,” said de Carabas. “I’ll follow as fast as I can.”
Richard hesitated; and then, as best he could, he ran.
Perhaps it was the Beast’s blood that did it; he certainly had no other explanation. Whatever the reason, he ran straight and true through the labyrinth, which no longer held any mysteries for him. He felt that he knew every twist, every path, every alley and lane and tunnel of it. He ran, stumbling and falling, and still running, exhausted, through the labyrinth, his blood pounding in his temples. A rhyme coursed through his head, as he ran, pounding and echoing to the rhythm of his feet. It was something he had heard as a child.
This aye night, this aye night
Every night and all
Fire and fleet and candlelight
And Christ receive thy soul.
The words went around and around, dirgelike, in his head Fire and fleet and candlelight . . .
At the end of the labyrinth was a sheer granite cliff, and set in the
cliff were high wooden double doors. There was an oval mirror hanging on one of the doors. The doors were closed. He touched the wood, and the door opened, silently, to his touch.
Richard went inside.
Seventeen
Richard followed the path between the burning candles, which led him through the angel’s vault to the Great Hall. He recognized his surroundings: this was where they had drunk Islington’s wine: an octagon of iron pillars supporting the stone roof above them, the huge black stone and metal door, the old wooden table, the candles.
Door was chained up, spread-eagled between two pillars beside the flint and silver door. She stared at him as he came in, her odd-colored pixie eyes wide and scared. The Angel Islington, standing beside her, turned and smiled at Richard as he entered. That was the most chilling thing of all: the gentle compassion, the sweetness of that smile.
“Come in, Richard Mayhew. Come in,” said the Angel Islington. “Dear me. You do look a mess.” There was honest concern in its voice. Richard hesitated. “Please.” The angel gestured, curling a white forefinger, urging him further in. “I think we all know each other. You know the Lady Door, of course, and my associates, Mister Croup, Mister Vandemar.” Richard turned. Croup and Vandemar were standing on each side of him. Mr. Vandemar smiled at him. Mr. Croup did not. “I was hoping you would show up,” continued the angel. It tipped its head on one side, and asked, “By the bye, where is Hunter?”
“She’s dead,” said Richard. He heard Door gasp.
“Oh. The poor dear,” said Islington. It shook its head sadly, obviously regretting the senseless loss of human life, the frailty of all mortals born to suffer and to die.
“Still,” said Mr. Croup chirpily. “Can’t make an omelette without killing a few people.”
Richard ignored them, as best he could. “Door? Are you all right?”
“More or less, thanks. So far.” Her lower lip was swollen, and there was a bruise on her cheek.
“I am afraid,” said Islington, “that Miss Door was proving a little intransigent. I was just discussing having Mister Croup and Mister Vandemar . . .” It paused. There were obviously some things it found distasteful actually to say.
“Torture her,” suggested Mr. Vandemar, helpfully.
“We are,” said Mr. Croup, “after all, famed across the entirety of creation for our skill in the excruciatory arts.”
“Good at hurting people,” clarified Mr. Vandemar.
The angel continued, staring intently at Richard as it spoke, as if it had heard neither of them. “But then, Miss Door does not strike me as someone who will easily change her mind.”
“Give us time enough,” said Mr. Croup. “We’d break her.”
“Into little wet pieces,” said Mr. Vandemar.
Islington shook his head and smiled indulgently at this display of enthusiasm. “No time,” it said to Richard, “no time. However, she does strike me as someone who would indeed act to end the pain and suffering of a friend, a fellow mortal, such as yourself, Richard . . .” Mr. Croup hit Richard in the stomach, then: a vicious rabbit punch to the gut, and Richard doubled up. He felt Mr. Vandemar�s fingers on the back of his neck, pulling him back to a standing position.
“But it’s wrong,” said Door.
Islington looked thoughtful. “Wrong?” it said, puzzled and amused.
Mr. Croup pulled Richard’s head close to his, and smiled his graveyard smile. “He’s traveled so far beyond right and wrong he couldn’t see them with a telescope on a nice clear night,” he confided. “Now Mister Vandemar, if you’ll do the honors?”
Mr. Vandemar took Richard’s left hand in his. He took Richard’s little finger between his huge fingers and bent it back until it broke. Richard cried out.
The angel turned, slowly. It seemed distracted by something. It blinked its pearl gray eyes. “There’s someone else out there. Mister Croup?” There was a dark shimmer where Mr. Croup had been, and he was there no longer.
The marquis de Carabas was flattened against the side of the red granite cliff, staring at the oak doors that led into Islington’s dwelling.
Plans and plots whirled through his head, each scheme fizzling out uselessly as he imagined it. He had thought he would have known what to do when he got to this point, and he was discovering, to his disgust, that he had absolutely no idea. There were no more favors to call in, no levers to press or buttons to push, so he scrutinized the doors and wondered whether they were guarded, whether the angel would know if they were opened. There had to be an obvious solution he was missing, if only he thought hard enough: perhaps something would occur to him. At least, he thought, slightly cheered, he had surprise on his side.
That was until he felt the cold point of a sharp knife placed against his throat, and he heard Mr. Croup’s oily voice whispering in his ear. “I already killed you once today,” it was saying. “What does it take to teach some people?”
Richard was manacled and chained between a pair of iron pillars when Mr. Croup returned, prodding the marquis de Carabas with his knife. The angel looked at the marquis, with disappointment on its face, then, gently, it shook its beautiful head. “You told me he was dead,” it said.
“He is,” said Mr. Vandemar.
“He was,” corrected Mr. Croup.
The angel’s voice was a fraction less gentle and less caring. “I will not be lied to,” it said.
“We don’t lie,” said Mr. Croup, affronted.
“Do,” said Mr. Vandemar.
Mr. Croup ran a grimy hand through his filthy orange hair, in exasperation. “Indeed we do. But not this time.”
The pain in Richard’s hand showed no indication of subsiding. “How can you behave like this?” he asked, angrily. “You’re an angel.”
“What did I tell you, Richard?” asked the marquis, drily.
Richard thought. “You said, Lucifer was an angel.”
Islington smiled superciliously. “Lucifer?” it said. “Lucifer was an idiot. It wound up lord and master of nothing at all.”
The marquis grinned. “And you wound up lord and master of two thugs and a roomful of candles?”
The angel licked its lips. “They told me it was my punishment for Atlantis. I told them there was nothing more I could have done. The whole affair was . . .” it paused, as if it were hunting for the correct word. And then it said, with regret, “Unfortunate.”
“But millions of people were killed,” said Door.
Islington clasped its hands in front of its chest, as if it were posing for a Christmas card. “These things happen,” it explained, reasonably.
“Of course they do,” said the marquis, mildly, the irony implicit in his words, not in his voice. “Cities sink every day. And you had nothing to do with it?”
It was as if the lid had been pulled off something dark and writhing: a place of derangement and fury and utter viciousness; and, in a time of scary things, it was the most frightening thing Richard had seen. The angel’s serene beauty cracked; its eyes flashed; and it screamed at them, crazy-scary and uncontrolled, utterly certain in its righteousness, “They deserved it.”
There was a moment of silence. And then the angel lowered its head, and sighed, and raised its head, and said, very quietly and with deep regret, “Just one of those things.” Then it pointed to the marquis. “Chain him up,” it said.
Croup and Vandemar fastened manacles around the marquis’s wrists, and chained the manacles securely to the pillars beside Richard. The angel had turned its attention back to Door. It walked over to her, reached out its hand, placed it beneath her pointed chin, and raised her head, to stare into her eyes. “Your family,” it said, gently. “You come from a very unusual family. Quite remarkable.”
“Then why did you have us killed?”
“Not all of you,” it said. Richard thought it was talking about Door, but then it said, “There was always the possibility that you might not have . . . worked out as well as you did.” It released her chin and stroked her face
with long, white fingers, and it said, “Your family can open doors. They can create doors where there were no doors. They can unlock doors that are locked. Open doors that were never meant to be opened.” It ran its fingers down her neck, gently, as if it were caressing her, then closed its hand on the key about her neck. “When I was sentenced here, they gave me the door to my prison. And they took the key to the door, and put it down here too. An exquisite form of torture.” It tugged, gently, on the chain, pulling it out from under Door’s layers of silk and cotton and lace, revealing the silver key; and then it ran its fingers over the key, as if it were exploring her secret places.
Richard knew, then. “The Black Friars were keeping the key safe from you,” he said.
Islington let go of the key. Door was chained up beside the door made of black flint and tarnished silver. The angel walked to it, and placed a hand on it, white against the blackness of the door. “From me,” agreed Islington. “A key. A door. An opener of the door. There must be the three, you see: a particularly refined sort of joke. The idea being that when they decided I had earned forgiveness and my freedom, they would send me an opener, and give me the key. I just decided to take matters into my own hands, and will be leaving a little early.”
It turned back to Door. Once more it caressed the key. Then it closed its hand about the key and tugged, hard. The chain snapped. Door winced. “I spoke first to your father, Door,” the angel continued. “He worried about the Underside. He wanted to unite London Below, to unite the baronies and fiefdoms—perhaps even to forge some kind of bond with London Above. I told him I would help him, if he would help me. Then I told him the nature of the help I needed, and he laughed at me.” It repeated the words, as if it still found them impossible to believe. “He laughed. At me.”
Door shook her head. “You killed him because he turned you down?”
“I didn’t kill him,” Islington corrected her, gently. “I had him killed.”
“But he told me I could trust you. He told me to come here. In his journal.”
