So Below: The Trilogy

by Matt Whyman

  “Ah, I think I’ve just lost my appetite, actually.”

  “Yoshi was wondering if you could tell him what the numbers mean on that thing around his neck.” Mikhail scoops up the final scroll as he says this. He turns to give it to Julius, who drops the lot for a second time.

  “Good Lord,” the old man whispers, his eyes wide in awe. He stares at the nickel plates for what seems like an age. “I had no idea you were wearing tags. You’re lucky it’s just your memory that’s in a pickle, dear boy. I’m surprised your mind isn’t messed up, too.”

  “Really?” Yoshi slides his gaze to Mikhail, who shrugs as if the old man’s musings are beyond him. With a big sigh, he stoops to pick up the scrolls again. “All I remember is a chase, and a man in a white fur coat,” continues Yoshi, “but nothing more.”

  Julius nods, as if the boy’s arrival makes complete sense to him now. His focus on Yoshi sharpens so intently that Mikhail clearly thinks twice about trusting him again with the scrolls, because he dumps them on the table instead.

  “If I’m right,” says Julius eventually, “it’s a blessing you don’t remember anything more than that.”

  “But I want to know,” insists Yoshi. “I need to know who I am, where I’ve come from, and how I can get home again.”

  “For the sake of your safety,” insists Julius, “you really should accept our invitation to stay.”

  “I feel like you guys know more about me than I know about myself,” says Yoshi, clearly frustrated. “Maybe I should stick around in case you can tell me what’s going on.”

  Julius smiles kindly. “In time, it won’t seem like such a puzzle. Right now, however, all I can say is that these numbers round your neck tell me everything and nothing.”

  “So is it a code for a bank vault?” asks Mikhail. He presses his hands together in prayer. “Please say we’re millionaires.”

  “That’s for us to discover,” says Julius, and then flattens his lips behind his blizzard of a beard. “But if there’s a fortune in store for Yoshi it isn’t the kind you can spend. There are other kinds of riches in this world, you know?”

  Mikhail looks like he’s finding it hard to accept this. He draws breath to protest, only for the bunker air to be seized by the sound of the siren again. “Must be another operation,” he yells over the din, backing towards the iron stairs. “If it involves making anything vanish then I should be out there leading the team. I do the best disappearing tricks in the West End. Let’s go!”

  “By the time I make it to the Bridge, it’ll all be over,” Julius chuckles and waves him away. “Leave the poor boy with me. He might enjoy a tour under the town.”

  Yoshi remembers the emergency exit that Mikhail had shown him. “Will we be going down the chute?” he asks, blocking his ears as the siren continues to wail.

  “Goodness no! At my age, there are some things best left to the youngsters.”

  “So how do we get out of here?” asks the boy.

  “The civilised way,” says Julius, simply. “This bunker is designed to withstand a nuclear strike from the skies. The military didn’t regard moles and worms as a major threat, so I had my crew here cut through into the sewer below.”

  Yoshi looks at Mikhail, mystified once more. “It can be kind of gross,” the Russian boy tells him. “But as long as you don’t hit high tide, it beats travelling by tube, bus or car. No crowds, traffic lights or fares to be paid, either.”

  “Indeed, it’s the finest gateway into London,” adds Julius. He pauses there, distracted for a moment by the blaring siren. “Mikhail, you had better get up to the Bridge. Billy is capable of running the show, but without you around to keep him in check there’s bound to be a drama.”

  Mikhail turns for the stairs, pausing only to throw a brief farewell to Yoshi. “I’ll catch up with you later,” he promises. “Maybe then I can show you what’s up our sleeves. It’s about time you learned some proper tricks!”

  “Sure thing,” says Yoshi, wishing he could remember someone on the surface, if only so he could see the look on their face when he revealed what was down here. Then again, if he painted a picture of this madcap old man the chances are he’d be laughed at in disbelief. In his patchwork coat, Julius Grimaldi looked like some kind of Victorian explorer trapped in time. It’s an impression the boy finds hard to shake as Julius searches the shadows between two bookcases, and returns with an ancient-looking telescope.

  “Come with me, dear boy,” says Julius, ushering him towards the passageway. “It’s time we did some sightseeing.”

  6

  TELL ME WHAT YOU SEE

  It’s hard to keep track of time when you’re underground. Without a sun or moon to help anchor your place in the day, all you can do is go with the flow and prepare to be surprised when you surface.

  For Yoshi, it’s been one long string of shocks since we first fell upon him. Right now, he’s in a dusty old wine cellar that opens up over his head into a towering stone shaft. A series of iron rungs lead all the way to the top. High up there, a creaking old man in a flowing patchwork coat has just lifted himself onto a ledge. He makes himself as comfortable as he can on this narrow perch, and then peers down into the lamplight at the boy’s feet.

  “Don’t be scared, Yoshi. I’ve made the same climb every day for decades. It’s perfectly safe.”

  “I’m not frightened,” he calls up, and steps back to remind Julius what he has carted all the way here. “I’m just scared I’ll smash your telescope.”

  “Have some faith in yourself, dear boy!” Julius pauses there, and fishes out a pocket watch. “But we must act swiftly.”

  A brass cap covers the telescope lens, but Yoshi doubts that will help to protect it should he drop the thing ten metres. Oh well, he thinks, and lifts it over his shoulder, Julius has got me here in one piece. He must know what he’s doing.

  From the moment Yoshi had followed him out of the Map Room, Julius moved with a spring in his step. He appeared more upright and sparky, and not just because the boy had foolishly offered to carry the telescope. No, it was as if Yoshi’s arrival in the bunker had given the old man some kind of purpose. At the time, Yoshi had wished he would slow down, and not just because the weight on his shoulder was making his arm ache. Mostly it was so he could check out the spectacular gallery of charts, sketches, blueprints and engineering diagrams that lined the passage walls. Every one was contained in an ornate frame, like some weird exhibition of a city picked apart to the bone.

  “Is this London?” he had asked, hanging back for a better look.

  “The city under the surface,” Julius confirmed. “London underground is so much more than a rickety tube-train system and a clapped-out network of oversized Victorian plumbing. There are ancient burial chambers and catacombs down here, bank vaults, mine shafts, panic rooms and priest-holes. And the deeper you go, of course, the more history you uncover. The foundations themselves are centuries old, but the bedrock underneath has been around since the dawn of the earth.”

  “Wow. Even if I could be sure I’ve lived in London all my life, I doubt I’ve ever thought about it like that.”

  “For the people who live on street level, this subterranean world is out of sight and out of mind for good reason. What we don’t know tends to scare us, after all. A place of urban myth and legend, perhaps, dug up for nighttime stories to keep little ones in bed.”

  “Like the myth about the giant alligator living in the sewers?” Yoshi had suggested, which amused Julius no end. “I may not be able to remember where I heard that story, but everyone knows it!”

  “Do you mean the tale about the pet reptile that was flushed down the toilet when it grew too big to be kept in an apartment?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “The one about how it grew to massive proportions on account of the fertiliser that runs off the fields around London and into the water system?”

  “That’s the one!”

  “It’s no myth,” Julius had said, not smiling any
more, and promptly dismissed this detour in their conversation by steering him along the gallery. “Yoshi, I have made it my life’s work to map the history and geography of London under the surface, but every new discovery presents another one just waiting to be explored.”

  “You must get around.” Yoshi had cast an eye along the walls, trying hard not to think about Mikhail’s mention of some short cut through the sewers.

  “Quite so, dear boy. As in life, it’s all about tracing the connections.” Julius had pointed at a chart beside the boy. “You’re looking at a cutaway view of the tube network, just to show how deep it goes. The one above it uncovers everything you wish you didn’t know about the sewers, and that beauty opposite singles out the service tunnels. The Royal Mail have underground train tracks used exclusively to transport post from one sorting office to another, did you know that? Many of the tracks are in a state of disrepair, of course. They’re pitch black and rat-infested, but that isn’t a problem if you’re well prepared for such a journey.” At this, Julius had reached up to unhook an oil lamp from a roof joist. He held it high, looking set to turn and lead the way, and cast a light on some of the frames that had been in shadow.

  “What about that one?” Yoshi had asked, his eye drawn to a simple sketch of the city boundaries, with thick pencil lines scribbled inside.

  “The lost rivers,” said Julius with a sigh, clearly anxious to be moving on. “Tributaries from the Thames that have been buried or built upon over the centuries. There are said to be twelve in total, some still flowing happily deep under the streets, all shopping-trolley free as well. Indeed, I have stood upon the underground shores of the Fleet, Stamford Brook and the Falcon, and very pleasant they are too, but others remain a mystery to me. Now, please keep up, dear boy. We have some way to go.”

  Julius had swung around with the lamp, revealing a manhole cover in the floor of the passage behind him, but Yoshi remained genuinely entranced. For the next frame to capture his attention had shown a page ripped from an A–Z street map.

  Yoshi had recognised it immediately: the centre of London Town.

  Every street name seemed familiar, as if perhaps this was his home ground. And yet the closer the boy had studied the network of roads, terraces and squares, the more his memory refused to provide directions. It didn’t help that someone had defaced the map with a black marker pen: drawing a jagged flower shape around the city’s heart.

  “What does this mean?” he had asked, inviting a frustrated sigh from up ahead.

  Crouching to lift the manhole cover, with the lamplight burning beside him, Julius had turned and said simply: “Oh!”

  “Well?” Immediately, Yoshi had sensed that this was more than just an act of graffiti.

  “It’s a seven-pointed star,” Julius confessed after a moment, breathing out as if it was a relief to share the information. “Geometrically speaking, we refer to it as a septagram. In mystical circles, it’s known as the Faerie Ring. The number seven is what makes it so special. It governs so much of our lives, from the days in the week to the colours in the rainbow, the number of oceans in this world and the continents, too. There are even seven pressure points on the human spine, and seven openings in the head,” he had finished, whisking a finger from his eyes to his mouth and nose, and then back to the map on the wall. “Seven is everywhere, and is summed up as one by the Faerie Ring.”

  “So what’s the meaning of it?” the boy had asked, studying the skewed shape. The star’s diameter had spanned the city, reaching out at seven points to cross roads and public buildings, rundown estates, royal parks and palaces.

  “Give it time, Yoshi, and this may become something you can answer for yourself.”

  “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

  “Then let’s push on, Yoshi, for I intend to take you to the very place.”

  By the time the boy begins the climb up the column now, his eyes fixed on Julius at the top, he’s ready to believe anything. The journey here has opened his eyes to many things. First Grimaldi had unlocked the manhole cover and dropped down with his lamp. Yoshi had followed with a prayer on his lips and his nose firmly pinched between his fingers. Mercifully, the sewer was dry underfoot, not to mention alligator-free. According to the old man, this one served as an emergency overflow. Some days, so he had warned along the route, there could be unfortunate moments when too many citizens flushed their lavatories and emptied their baths and sinks at the same time. Yoshi had hurried after the old man, anxious to be out of the pipe, and deeply relieved when Julius shone his lamp up at another manhole cover about a hundred metres along the way.

  With a helping hand from the urban explorer, Yoshi had climbed out to find himself on the soot-covered ballast bed of an old tube track. His shoes are wet from where they had gone on to cross a deep-level viaduct, and his heart is still hammering since dipping under the nose of an old, war-time bomb. There it was, poking through the vaulted roof of a culvert, and still capable of exploding, according to the old man who had inched past it so carefully. It seemed incredible to Yoshi that so much of the capital could be hidden from the world above ground. Despite the dangers, it also seemed strangely thrilling.

  Directly below Julius at last, Yoshi holds on tight to the last rung inside this strange column, and reminds himself not to look down.

  “Now what?” he asks, scanning the cramped and gloomy space above the old man. He counts six sides at the summit, each sporting a circular stone plate.

  Julius checks his pocket watch one more time. “If I’m right, we’ve made it with just minutes to spare.” He winks at the boy next to him. “And if my clock is out then at least we’ve come to the right place to correct it.”

  “Huh?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  Yoshi watches as Julius spreads his gnarled fingertips over the plate in front of him and gives it a gentle push. With a click the plate swings outward, much to the boy’s astonishment, before Julius moves on to the next one. Seconds later, moonlight is flooding in from six angles, as well as the hum of a city under the stars.

  “Where are we?” asks Yoshi.

  “About a mile north-east from the bunker, in a place called Seven Dials.” Julius shifts around to let the boy see for himself. “These plates are clock faces. Sun dials, to be precise.”

  “But there are only six,” says Yoshi curiously. “Where is the seventh dial?”

  Julius chuckles, and offers his hand to help Yoshi up. “We’re in it,” he reveals. “This is the seventh dial. As the sun moves around the pillar, so too does the shadow.”

  “What happens at night?” the boy asks, amazed more than anything to find a whole day has passed since he first discovered this underground world.

  “That’s why we’re here,” says Julius. “Many of London’s earliest architects were also great mystics. These founding fathers looked to the skies for inspiration, and designed buildings with the sun and the moon in mind. Some even used the interplay between darkness and light to help us see things that would otherwise be invisible to the eye.”

  “Like the time,” says Yoshi, struggling to keep up.

  “The sundial is one small example,” the old man concedes. “But just look around you now,” he suggests, as if this will help Yoshi make sense of things. “Tell me what you see.”

  7

  AS ABOVE, SO BELOW

  It’s a squash at the top of the pillar, providing just enough room for Julius and Yoshi to face out through the open sundials. Together, they peer over the moon-silvered rooftops like pirates in the crow’s nest of a ship that’s run aground. Seven narrow avenues surround the monument, all of which are flanked by tall, cramped buildings. The city is quiet at street level, which makes Yoshi think it must be late. A taxi circles the roundabout, and a drunk somewhere sings a gutter serenade.

  “It looks so familiar,” Yoshi breathes, scanning the pitched roofs, sundecks and balconies, “but different in every way.”

  “That’s becaus
e you’re looking at it from the inside out,” says Julius. “Of course, it doesn’t help that dropping in on us as you did appears to have reset your memory, but I’m confident we’ll find out what makes you tick. Now study your surroundings. I want to know what goes through your mind.”

  Yoshi turns as best he can, taking in the gables, gargoyles and roof gardens that so often go unnoticed from below.

  “It’s a blank,” he says sadly. “But what a view!”

  “One of the finest,” agrees Julius. “And for good reason.”

  Yoshi looks up at the old man beside him. Puffing hot breath into the air, Julius invites the boy to count the number of church steeples he can see on the skyline.

  “Well,” begins Yoshi. “I see one over there, another to the right, and over there is number three.” He turns to peer through the open clock faces behind him. “Four, five and six.” He comes around full circle. “And one more makes seven. That makes seven steeples, Julius! Some far away, some closer. So what?”

  “Does the pattern seem familiar?”

  Yoshi thinks about it, tries drawing it in the air with his finger.

  “Imagine looking at it all from overhead.”

  Slowly, the boy seems to picture it. Counting out seven points now, he completes the star shape and looks at Julius.

  “It’s the pattern I saw on one of your maps,” he says, sounding very pleased with himself. “That’s a clever discovery.”

  “All the churches you have counted were built by Nicholas Hawksmoor, following the Great Fire,” says Julius. “Now there was a city architect with vision.”

  Yoshi studies the steeples once again, aware now that the seven streets spreading out from the monument further complicate the arrangement. Despite his loss of memory, Yoshi senses that he had always considered London to be a random tangle of roads and lanes and alleyways. But now it seems the city has been founded on a grand design, as if the landmarks were arranged to satisfy a certain order.