The Dark Portal

by Robin Jarvis

  Through dark spaces between decks they went, Twit’s curiosity burning in him to find out more about his guide. Yet he was too polite to ask.

  Only when they emerged from the darkness and stepped out on to the dimly-lit lower deck could he see the stranger properly for the first time.

  He was a mouse, of middle age, with white whiskers framing a round face. His eyes were bright and wise. He was stout but could obviously move with speed when required and he looked very strong. There seemed to be an air of something foreign about him as if he had been to far-off countries and adopted some of their habits. This effect was emphasised by a red kerchief around his neck and a shapeless navy-blue woollen hat on his head.

  ‘Well,’ the stranger said, turning to Twit at last. ‘Welcome aboard matey.’ He stretched out his paw. ‘Midshipmouse Thomas Triton,’ he introduced himself.

  Twit took the paw in his and shook it vigorously. ‘Willum Scuttle, but mostways I’m called Twit.’

  ‘Hmmm, well lad you’ve a look as one who’s got a tale to tell. Come with me, back to my bunkhouse. We’ll have a sip of something to warm you down to your toes.’

  Twit couldn’t help accepting the invitation. He had an immediate liking for the midshipmouse, for there was something solid and dependable about him.

  On the lower deck of the Cutty Sark were great sacks of wool – examples of its former cargoes – and tall screens telling the ship’s history.

  ‘Nowt in those sacks,’ Thomas said in disgust. ‘I looked, I knows. Fine ship this was once. Now look at her!’ He seemed passionate about it.

  ‘I think it’s marvellous,’ replied Twit.

  ‘Well, you speak your mind,’ the midshipmouse laughed. ‘Aye, I’ll think the better of you for it. But no, this ship once sailed the high seas, felt the salt spray in her rigging and the rolling ocean swell against her hull. Now . . .’ he waved his arms about sadly, ‘permanent dry dock! Proper invalid she is – can’t go nowhere, like me I suppose,’ he added softly. ‘Guess that’s why I live here – two of a kind, her and me.’

  They walked over the polished floorboards and under glass cases containing models of other ships until they came to a steep flight of steps.

  ‘I bunk in the hold,’ said Thomas. ‘Don’t see why I should change now after all these years. Can you manage these stairs?’ Twit answered that he could and the two mice descended.

  The hold was an eerie place, not as cluttered as the lower deck but long and high, sloping gently and curving round at each end.

  It was dark down there, and in the gloom Twit could just make out a row of giant figures on both sides of him. All were staring fixedly ahead. There were gentlemen, painted ladies, two black exotics, hunters, kings and a chap showing white teeth ready to champ. Twit hesitated.

  ‘I ain’t goin’ in there,’ he whispered, ‘there’m gert forms a-starin’ with big round googly eyes.’

  Thomas laughed. ‘’S all right matey!’ He slipped behind a wooden rail and climbed up to the nearest figure, a tall, voluptuous woman with curling blonde hair and wearing a flimsy blue dress that was belted with a scarlet sash which matched her lips. Thomas raised a paw and knocked soundly on her.

  ‘They’re only figureheads carved from wood,’ he assured him, ‘friendly enough. Matter of fact I live in one of ’em.’

  Twit went over to peer at the carvings. He had never seen their like before. In his field, decorations were looked on as frivolous and he knew one or two staunch mice who would go so far as to call them heathen and idolatrous. He tapped at the wooden folds of the blue dress then beamed brightly.

  ‘’Tis amazing,’ he said. Thomas Triton led him to a figurehead that was somewhat smaller than its, neighbours. It was the image of a maiden, painted a glossy white with a turban of gold on her head.’

  ‘This is my princess,’ he said. ‘Now up you go matey, round the back with you.’

  Twit peered behind the carving. There was a rich smell of fresh paint close to her and there, where two joints didn’t quite meet, was a small hole.

  ‘Through here?’ he, asked.

  ‘’Sright – she opens up inside once you’re through.’

  The fieldmouse passed easily through the hole and into a comfortable room in the middle of the figurehead. A stubby white candle flickered gently, lending the room a warm, cosy glow. In one corner was a bed and here and there, neatly arranged, were Thomas’s few belongings: a tiny wooden ship, a lead anchor charm, some pictures of distant lands and maps of continents, and a highly polished sword.

  Thomas bade him sit down. Twit found a block of wood and sat on it.

  The midshipmouse strolled over to a corner and brought out two deep bowls; he gave one to Twit and filled it with a strange-smelling liquid. He took a wooden pipe off a shelf and stuffed it with tobacco. Then he stooped over the candle flame and puffed on the pipe. All this he did in silence, obviously waiting till everything was to his satisfaction and he was comfortable before talk could begin. He sat down on the bed and looked across to Twit, considering him from beneath his bushy white brows.

  Twit wondered if he was meant to say anything but the other mouse seemed to be enjoying the silence so much that he kept quiet. Instead, he gave his attention to the full bowl he held in his paws.

  He lowered his head and sniffed tentatively.

  By now Thomas had filled his own bowl and said, with the pipe stuck firmly in one side of his mouth, ‘You drink it matey, ’s all right,’ and as if to prove the fact he took a good swig out of his bowl.

  So Twit drank too. It warmed his throat in a pleasant tingling way and slowly the feeling spread down to his toes and the end of his tail. It was a thick syrupy drink that spoke to him of exotic fruits and foreign shores, not a bit like the blackberry ferment drunk in his field. He smacked his lips.

  ‘That’s rum, lad,’ grinned Thomas. ‘A good belly warmer to get you goin’. Now what were you doin’ outside?’

  For a moment Twit collected his wits and put everything that had happened to him and his friends in order. Then he took a deep breath and began, telling of Audrey’s first disappearance and the search for her in the sewers; the fight with the rats – Thomas seemed to listen very intently at this stage – then on to Oswald and Piccadilly, how they had set off to find the mousebrass; finally he described how Audrey had vanished from the cellar and how he had followed Arthur up to the attic in search of the bats.

  ‘Up through the roof they flew me,’ he said, ‘and out into the night, around towers and hills, oh it were marvellous. Then they got tired and threatened to drop me in the river.

  ‘But you ended up here instead,’ Thomas finished. ‘Hmm – a good tale young Twit and it makes me wonder.’

  ‘About what?’

  The midshipmouse puffed on his pipe and gazed abstractedly through the blue smoke that had gathered around his face. ‘Things are moving matey. I’ve felt it for some time, a change in the order of things; that’s one reason I was on deck tonight – been fidgety you see, could always smell a storm comin’.’

  ‘I just wish my friends were all safe in their homes again,’ Twit said glumly.

  ‘Well, we can’t help that can we? Not at the moment.’ Thomas got to his feet and paced around impatiently. ‘Summat’s up – or should I say down, as that’s where the trouble is. Some retirement this is!’ He turned to Twit and said darkly, ‘I been many places matey. Strange lands I’ve seen and stranger creatures I’ve met; I’ve seen foreign gods and heard the beat of pagan drums in the night. I’ve slept on a bed of spices from the far Indies and I ain’t had such a decent kip since. Once I got lost in the East and folk there were mighty queer, mice wore outlandish masks and claimed to possess certain powers – an’ I believed ’em too, but . . .’ he paused to consider things, ‘but I say I ain’t never come across owt like the situation here. A living god down in the sewers and a blacker fiend you won’t find all round the world: everyone’s afraid of him, no exceptions – rats, mice, even the squirr
els in Greenwich park yonder don’t talk about him. The tales I hear would make your tail drop off. Heartless cruel don’t come near to describin’ him. He’s a dirty stain on the land and he’s up to summat.’ Thomas knocked his pipe on the shelf. ‘Time I found out what. Come on lad!’

  The midshipmouse was stirred into action. ‘Been idle too long – you come just at the right time.’

  Twit finished the rum in his bowl. ‘What are we going to do?’ he asked excitedly, catching the other’s mood.

  ‘Find out what he’s up to!’

  He ushered Twit out of the figurehead and extinguished the candle flame before following.

  ‘Where are we going?’ inquired the fieldmouse. ‘Will we have to climb down the side of the ship?’ He remembered how difficult this feat was and did not relish tackling it a second time.

  ‘We’re off to the sewers, matey,’ Thomas replied. ‘And don’t worry – there’s an easier way than the one you tried before.’ He led Twit back past the either figureheads once more til they stopped at the carving of a king with a golden crown.

  ‘Neptune, Lord of the Waters,’ declared the midshipmouse as Twit gazed up. ‘Yet also a handy doorkeeper. Come see.’ They circled the carving and Thomas showed Twit a small hole hidden in the king’s shadow.

  Thomas wriggled through it. ‘This gap gets smaller every day,’ he grunted, as Twit followed. Beyond there was a dark passage that smelled of pitch. The fieldmouse thought about his new companion – what an odd character he was! He longed to hear Thomas’s tales of far-off lands and his adventures there, but here he was on his way back to the sewers – where all roads seemed to have led recently.

  He wondered if Oswald and Piccadilly had found Audrey’s mousebrass yet and were safely back in the Skirtings, then he thought of Audrey herself – what had happened to her?

  A touch of guilt struck him. Should he have left with the bats when she was still missing? Poor old Arthur would have got back to the hall ages ago and now have another disappearance to worry about.

  ‘Nearly there now,’ Thomas called out in the dark.

  A sliver of pale moonlight showed ahead as the two mice emerged from the Cutty Sark.

  ‘Just climb down this bit of rudder,’ Thomas explained.

  They managed it easily and were soon standing on the concrete. The ship reared high above them in shapely grace.

  ‘Yes she’s a beauty,’ Thomas nodded in approval. ‘Sometimes in the dead of night I catch her out. Maybe it’s just the timbers shrinking after a warm day, but there are occasions when I fancy I hear the old girl sighing and sobbing for what was.’ He pointed to the metal struts supporting the ship.

  ‘Look at these,’ he said angrily. ‘Spears in her side! She’ll never sail again; no wonder she cries – got a right to.’

  Thomas reached out and stroked the ship tenderly. Then he shook himself and led Twit to the side of the concrete trench. There was a gutter in the floor and he followed it round until they came to a grate in the wall.

  Twit stepped back in alarm.

  ‘The Grille!’ he choked.

  Thomas looked at him curiously, ‘Aye, ‘tis a grille – nothing more.’

  But Twit shook his head. ‘The Grille leads to him! ’Tis an evil door, see how it pops up everywhere.’

  Thomas understood. ‘Ah, so you have a similar thing in the Skirtings.’

  The fieldmouse scratched his head.

  ‘No, the Grille there is fancier with leaves ‘n stuff, but ’tis the same – can you not feel the dark things lurkin’ beyond?’

  Thomas had to agree. The air that issued from the grate stirred his mind and whispered grimly to him – he had not felt it before, but Jupiter’s realm was growing and his power was spreading.

  ‘Wicked magic fills the air,’ murmured Twit. ‘Black thoughts come to you and het you up terrible.’

  He had not forgotten Arthur’s vicious and sudden outburst earlier, that night.

  Thomas pulled his woollen hat further down. ‘I’m not havin’ this. Everyone clams up tight when he’s mentioned – well he don’t scare me! I’ve sailed with enough rats in my time to know the ins and outs of ’em! A good thump in the face puts paid to any mutiny in their guts. I’m fed up with all this hushed whisperin’ – not darin’ to say his name. Ain’t no one even seen him! If he’s ’orrible to look on like they say with two heads an’ such – don’t bother me any, things I’ve seen. Friends of mine have been eaten alive by fish with three rows of razor teeth; I’ve heard the screams of a drowning mouse and fought to the death with Spanish rats. No sewer rat gonna intimidate old Tom.’ The midshipmouse threw back his head and shouted loudly, ‘JUPITER!’

  The call bounced and echoed around the concrete trough. Thomas sighed and grinned sheepishly when he saw Twit staring at him as if he were a mad thing.

  ‘I needed to do that. Too much whisperin’s been gettin’ me down; all this “Hush hush, speak softly or his curse will descend.” Rubbish! Time to act: come on matey. We’ll go through this grate and find out somethin’ useful.’

  He disappeared through the large spaces in the grating. Twit hesitated to follow. He knew practically nothing about this retired seafarer who could be as cracked as an old jug; he certainly didn’t behave like any mouse that Twit had ever met before, and yet when Twit was with him he felt all his worries brushed aside. The midshipmouse, Twit judged, was fearless and trustworthy. The fieldmouse liked him enormously already. With one last doubtful look at the grate Twit followed Thomas. Inside they trotted along the drains. Thomas was striding, determined to discover what Jupiter was up to. Behind him Twit had to run to keep up, but he felt he would rather be down here with Thomas than outside alone.

  ‘Where does this take us?’ he asked timidly.

  Without stopping or turning around Thomas said, ‘Near to the altar of Jupiter where all the rats live. Better prepare your nose for a bit of a shock, miladdo.’

  The drain opened into the sewer and they continued along the ledge.

  Twit gradually became aware of a power beating against him, willing him back, pulling at his insides, and shaking his stomach; filling it with butterflies. He was more puzzled than alarmed: he was not the sort to panic for no reason.

  ‘Can you feel that?’ he asked Thomas eventually.

  ‘That’s one of the enchantments here,’ Thomas answered. ‘He don’t like nosey visitors pokin’ around this bit of the sewer. I wonder why? Hush, do you hear that?’

  He put his paw to his ear. Twit listened.

  Very faintly there was a distant chant – a monotonous dirge with many voices singing hoarsely.

  ‘What can it be?’ Twit wondered.

  The midshipmouse was uncertain. ‘Let’s find the source of this shanty,’ he said eventually.

  So they followed the dismal sound. Twit thought he had never heard such unhappy voices. The music he had listened to with the bats was sad but beautiful; this was just miserable. It dampened his spirits like a hymn to despair.

  They were not far from the source of the song. The funeral anthem rose all about them. The words were difficult to catch but the mood behind them was plain – boredom, misery and the bitter tang of hatred.

  ‘We must be near the altar chamber,’ Thomas said. ‘Let’s skip around a back way and see what’s up.’

  There was a hole in the wall and the voices boomed through it. Thomas clambered into the opening and helped Twit do the same.

  It was only a short tunnel. It turned sharply to the right and after a dozen paces ended abruptly, but on their left the cement had crumbled and a pencil of light shone through.

  Thomas put his eye to the peephole. ‘Blow me,’ he breathed incredulously. ‘What are they a-doin’ of?’

  Twit tugged at his paw. The midshipmouse lifted him up so that he too could see. Twit gasped.

  Before them was a tunnel, wide and high, the floor of which was a good deal below that of their own humble passage. It was filled with rats.

  Nas
ty, ugly rats, sneers on their great faces and sweat pouring off their bodies. Twit covered his nose. All the rats were labouring and as they worked they sang. It was a work song, a song to keep them in time with each other. It told of slow deaths, of throttlings, throat-slittings, peelings and roastings.

  Every rat had a tool of some kind in his claws: old spoons, sharp bits of metal, anything to dig with. Twit realised that the whole tunnel had been dug by them. There was an army of them straining and striking the ground. Some were actually scrabbling at the ground with bleeding claws.

  Older, less useful rats wearily heaved the soil away in sacks and tins strapped to their brittle, bony backs.

  It was a hive of bizarre industry, with no rest. The pace was set by the youngest and strongest; the others had to follow. Twit saw one old rat strain at the heavy sack he was struggling with. It was obvious that he had not slept for a long time, and Twit doubted if he had eaten. He guessed rightly that when breaks were given the rats scrambled for the food provided and the weak were lucky to suck the bones after the others had finished.

  The old rat pulled at the sack and heaved it on to his back, his ears drooping and his eyes shot with blood.

  He took several faltering steps, staggering beneath the weight, and then his heart burst. He fell like a stone to the ground. No one made any effort to help. The rat gasped, his ribs heaving up and down. He opened his mouth, trying to say something, but the words were lost in the din of work. With agony in his face the old rat’s eyes slowly closed and never opened again.

  ‘That’s how they look after their own,’ Thomas said softly in Twit’s ear.

  Another elderly rat picked up the sack that had been such a burden to the other.

  He looked down at the pathetic crumpled body that lay at his feet. The rat sneered and spat in the upturned blank face, then he set off, kicking the corpse aside into the dirt.

  Twit looked away, disgusted at the scene that had unfolded before his eyes. Then he turned to Thomas.