Mordew

by Alex Pheby

  On the underside of the Road, spitting swallows had made their nests – the moonlight shone through the hardened spittle, eggs inside like the black spots in frogspawn, the mothers and fathers flitting to and fro, midges and flies wriggling in their beaks. Nathan looked down between his boots and the regular pattern of the roof slates grew beneath them.

  When he stopped there was a long way to go, as if he was dangling from a high tree branch, and something in him knew that if he dropped, he would break something – his shin, his skull, his back. High above, he could just make out Joes leaning over the road, rope between their hands. And Prissy? Was that her?

  He moved his bad hand to his waist, the good one holding the rope, and undid one knot, clumsily, painfully. His hand was veined with blue like a ripe cheese, swollen red. The shift in how he was hanging made him swing. He wrapped himself around the rope and undid the last knot. Now he had a few extra feet to play with. He took the rope between both hands and let them take his weight. He slipped, a few burning inches, enough to take the skin off his palms and set his bad arm ringing, and then, hand over hand, edged himself to the very end of the rope.

  Then there was nowhere to go.

  The swallows above darted under the road and out, little things no bigger in the body than a mouse, tiny eyes like mouse spores.

  He opened his hands and fell.

  When he crashed into the roof it took the wind from him utterly and he couldn’t work out whether he was face up or down, still or moving, safe or falling. That was until he felt the pain in his leg. The roof had given, his foot cracking the slates and passing through, splintering the damp wood beneath, grazing his skin. He reached for the nearby chimney piece and pulled his leg free. There was a rip in the fabric but only a superficial scrape in his flesh. It wept a thin wash of blood over his skin, but above the rope was slipping quickly up into the sky and the others would be coming. Prissy would be coming, and he had to get ready.

  Through the gap in the roof there was nothing but blackness, but it let him know where Prissy would be landing when she dropped. Nathan tested the roof to either side; it was solid enough. He stood so that his body blocked the gap, and looked up. There was Prissy, her skirts billowing out like a lady’s parasol, spinning in the sky above as she span on the rope. Her legs were tight together, so that they looked like the handle, and Nathan watched the parasol grow in the sky, until she stopped, ten feet or more above him.

  She was shouting something, but it was lost in the breeze.

  ‘Just drop, I’ll catch you.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘I promise I’ll catch you.’

  ‘I can’t!’

  ‘Would I let you down?’

  She didn’t have the chance to answer, because suddenly she came down in a rush. Nathan caught her under the legs and leaned heavily against the chimney piece. The rope slapped around his shoulders, looping and falling, but Nathan didn’t stumble. There was no time to wonder why the rope was there, or feel his arm, because the rope was followed by a high-pitched screech, like a rabbit in an owl’s talons. They both looked up and, in a flash, here came Jerky Joes, falling with shocking speed.

  Nathan wheeled, taking Prissy with him to the other side of the chimney, but he could have saved the effort – Joes landed ten feet up the roof, back first, so that they were snapped over the roof ridge, perfectly in half.

  Prissy’s mouth opened as if she was screaming, but no sound came out, only a hoarse crackling breath. Up on the Glass Road, Gam’s stocky silhouette swayed, tiny and indistinct. If he made any sign, they didn’t see it. Then he disappeared.

  Nathan went to Joes, and for once their eyelids were still, their limbs were still, everything was still. Nathan put his ear to their lips, to hear for their breath, but there was nothing.

  ‘They’re dead, aren’t they?’

  Nathan nodded.

  ‘Well, make them alive again. You can do it! Like with the safe.’

  Nathan shook his head. ‘I don’t think it works like that. The dead are dead.’

  ‘Try.’

  Perhaps it would work. Hadn’t he made a living rat of the dead-life fluke? Hadn’t he made metal want to live? Nathan put his hands on Joes’ face. One hand was small and trembling, the other swollen and varicoloured, but he ignored the stinging ache and closed his eyes. The Itch was there, ready, and he let it build, let it seep, past the soreness, through his shoulders, past the grating in one elbow, past the pulsing in one wrist, into his hands where it burned on one side like bleach in a cut.

  His good hand could feel Joes’ flesh, the warmth in it of recent life, so Nathan Scratched into this, into what was left of the actions of a living body in Joes’ skin – the residue of their feeling, their wholeness, their selves as they were contained in a physical object.

  Immediately, Nathan knew that it would be no good. There was an unwillingness there, in the body. In the lock of the gate, in the metal of the safe, in the dead-life fluke, there had been an eagerness for the Spark, a lust for it, even. Those things wanted life, to be transformed, but Joes’ flesh was the opposite. It resisted the Spark.

  Nathan pushed against the resistance, forced the flow against Joes’ will. It burned his wound so badly that Nathan shook with it. From behind his closed eyes there was light, brighter and brighter, and when he opened them, he had to turn away it was so bright. He turned back, eyes slitted – Joes was shining, becoming hot, steaming, then, horribly, charring. Their ears, their nose, their fingertips.

  ‘Stop!’ Prissy cried. ‘You’re hurting them.’

  Nathan wasn’t – Joes felt nothing – but he quenched the Spark, pulled it back into his chest.

  The light left Joes slowly, until around them there was only darkness and the looming of the Glass Road above.

  XXXIII

  ‘We can’t stay here.’ Nathan went to where his foot had made a hole in the roof, widened the gap, pulling off slates and piling them where they wouldn’t fall and make a clatter on the top of the chimney. When the rafters were exposed, there was enough room between them for him to slip into the roof space. ‘When I go, you come straight behind me, don’t hang about, don’t look down, just come.’

  ‘What about Joes?’

  ‘Nothing can hurt them up here. We’ll come back for them when we’ve done the job.’

  ‘What if the crows peck their eyes out?’ Prissy covered her mouth, as if she could see it already. Nathan went over to where Joes lay, and pulled their jacket off them. They were still warm and easy to move and when the jacket was off, Nathan draped it over their face.

  ‘Shouldn’t we wait for Gam? He’ll know what to do.’ But even as she said it, she didn’t seem convinced.

  ‘How would he get down here? We have the rope.’

  ‘I don’t know, do I? What happened, anyway?’

  ‘Who knows? Gam lost his grip, I suppose.’

  ‘Gam never loses anything. And anyway, it was Joes what was supposed to stay behind.’

  Nathan nodded his head. ‘Ready?’

  ‘Don’t suppose I’ve got a choice. I can’t sit up here until morning, grieving like some bleeding widow, can I?’

  The space inside the roof was dusty, and the moonlight coming in through the gap danced with motes to the rhythm of the breeze. The floor hadn’t been laid to boards, so Nathan led Prissy across a beam like a tightrope walker, over to a hatch. He pressed his ear to it, but there was nothing to hear. It was hinged and oiled, so Nathan drew it up. Light flooded in – oil lamps, but so much brighter than the moonlight that it made their eyes smart.

  ‘Shut it!’ Prissy hissed. ‘They must be up here, awake.’

  Nathan didn’t do as he was asked. ‘I don’t hear anything.’

  ‘Why would you? Can you hear people combing their hair or whatever? Reading a bleeding book? Are you a bleeding owl? I wish Gam was here. And Joes…’

  ‘I can’t hear anything’ – he peeped through the gap – ‘and I don’t see anything. Wh
at’s to say they aren’t downstairs, and the skivvies haven’t turned down the lamps?’

  ‘Who? What are you talking about? You’re crap at this, Nathan. Whatever you do goes wrong.’

  Nathan said nothing. It was hard to disagree.

  ‘I’m scared, Nathan. Can’t I stay up here? Can’t I go back up? Perhaps Joes weren’t dead.’

  ‘There’s no way out up there; we can’t sit on the roof for the rest of our lives.’ Nathan poked his head through the hatch. Beneath there was a recess in a bedroom, filled with women’s dresses, and through the mass of silks and taffeta, corsetry and lace, an untouched, perfectly made bed. Without waiting to ask Prissy, he slipped down through the hatch.

  The room was so quiet – quieter than anything he’d ever heard – no crash of waves or whisper of breezes, no moaning or sighs. One sound – a clock ticking on a bedside table. He beckoned for Prissy, and though she fussed, she came when she was asked. When she saw the dresses, she couldn’t help but stare, fascinated.

  The bedroom was unoccupied and so was the hallway outside – nothing but polished wood floors smelling faintly of beeswax, plain walls where even the oil lamp smudges had been wiped away. Another room led off; this was empty too – a writing desk and chair, everything tidied away. Nathan stood in the doorway, listening so hard that his eyes narrowed and his head tilted. When Prissy whispered, even though she was being as quiet as she could, the words clattered around as if they were breaking glass. ‘I can’t hear nothing.’

  Nathan raised his finger to his lips and went to the top of the stairway. He gestured to Prissy to wait at the top and went into the room they had come from. Where would the locket be? He followed their footsteps in the deep pile of the rug, across to the recess, and checked behind the hanging dresses and under the prim leather shoes. Nothing – no hatch into which a safe box might be slipped, no loose boards. Everything was out where it could be got at. Under the bed? Nothing – not even a ball of fluff or a chamber pot. Nathan went to the dresser – it had a varnished top, polished like a mirror, inlaid with all kinds of wood and ivory in the pattern of a smiling sun. There were drawers above and below.

  ‘Found anything?’ Prissy said suddenly over his shoulder.

  Nathan twitched and was going to tell her to go back to the stairs when she pulled open a drawer. In it were piles of silk knickers.

  ‘She’s got some fancy gear, this jeweller’s Mrs.’

  Prissy picked up a pair in blue, fringed in lace, and stroked it to her cheek. Then she stuffed it in her pocket and did the same with as many as she could. ‘Hope she hasn’t got a fat arse.’

  Then Nathan found something in her bedside cabinet, a small flat iron box, padlocked in the middle, with a chain running though that anchored the box to the cabinet frame, reinforced on the inside with bars of iron. The padlock had a sequence of numbers on it, rotating dials. Nathan looked at Prissy.

  ‘Well, go on then,’ she said, ‘what are you waiting for?’

  He picked it up and laid it on the polished table, but then he stopped again.

  ‘Come on. We haven’t got all day. Who knows when they are going to come back? Open it, let’s get the swag and leg it.’

  Nathan nodded, but something was wrong. There was a smell in the air, like burning steel, like acid, something strange and metallic. Like the Spark. But then it was gone.

  ‘Give me the combination, I’ll do it.’

  ‘What combination?’

  ‘Spark it then.’

  Nathan touched his arm, which was throbbing.

  ‘Second thoughts? Forget it. I don’t need all that faff. There’s more than one way to skin a cat.’ She went to the dresser and pulled a handful of hatpins from the porcupine and set about applying them to the lock, but it wasn’t that kind of lock and it didn’t make any difference. Nathan pulled his knife from his belt, but the metal was strong and thick and if anything was going to snap, it would be the knife blade, not the padlock.

  ‘What about the chain?’

  ‘The chain will not break,’ came a voice from behind them, ‘not under physical force, in any case.’

  Prissy froze; Nathan moved the knife into the palm of his good hand, fighting style. They turned.

  In the doorway stood two huge, black dogs, with black eyes and black collars, waist-high to a man and broad across the shoulder. They were alone, and Nathan peered past them, looking for their master.

  ‘The tattle-tale in the dresser drawer gave you away,’ the left dog said, ‘though, in truth, your smell would have alerted us in any case.’

  Nathan swallowed and Prissy edged behind him, holding him across the chest. The dog on the right was sniffing the air furiously, as if it smelled a rabbit on the wind.

  ‘I am Anaximander, who is called Bones,’ the left dog said, the words leaving his lips as he bared his teeth, as if there was someone speaking from inside his mouth, ‘and this is my companion, Sirius, who is called Snap. Our master is not at home, and we do not recognise you. Account for yourselves, please, as we are charged with the guarding of this place and will not suffer any intrusion or making off with goods. Indeed, we are given permission to use what force we deem fit to prevent these things. While I am a moderate, Sirius has a taste for man-flesh.’

  ‘Dogs can’t talk. Why is it talking?’

  Nathan shrugged. Was a talking dog any stranger than an alifonjer? Than Joes? Than anything else that happened in Mordew?

  ‘Miss, that is not the matter at question,’ the dog that called itself Anaximander, or Bones, said. ‘What do you here, in the bedroom of my mistress, and why are you toying with her private things? If would seem as if you are burglars. Can this be so?’

  The silent dog was sniffing ever harder, waving its snout from left to right. The dog that talked faced him and there was a wordless exchange between the two.

  ‘Sirius was not given the power of speech, as I was, but has instead an organ sensitive to, amongst other things, ill-intent and aggressive and acquisitive magics. He reports that he senses these things on you – the male pup. Of the female, he is not sure.’

  Sirius closed his eyes now and keened and whined a little, as if pained by something.

  ‘He is vexed. He says that you reek of power. Raw power. More than he has ever sensed, and it irks him. Explain yourselves, or I will kill you simply to relieve my companion of his annoyance.’ The talking dog edged towards them, his head forward and low, a growl issuing from his throat.

  ‘We came here to steal,’ Nathan said.

  ‘Don’t tell him that!’

  ‘It is as I suspected,’ Anaximander said. ‘Know then that the penalty for theft in this place is death, under sanction from the Master of Mordew, who provided me with the voice by which to issue this sentence and the right by which to prosecute it.’ Anaximander’s paws were wide and heavy and clawed like a bear’s, with long, stiff, curved talons.

  ‘Wait!’ Nathan said. ‘I only said we came to steal. We haven’t stolen anything yet.’

  ‘The difference is technical, since the punishments for theft and conspiracy to theft are identical. Do not struggle. If you allow me to take you into the hall, where I might rip out your throats without risking a stain on the rugs, I will do it quickly and forgo Sirius the pleasure of taking your faces first.’

  Sirius set up a wail at this.

  ‘Hold, companion! Enough. You will get your meat the same. I apologise. It is no doubt the girl pup that excites him – the taste of female skin, he once told me, is delicious, even more so when it is seasoned with the coloured fat and wax she uses to decorate herself. Come onto the boards so that I might exercise my master’s will.’

  Nathan did not come, and neither did Prissy. Nathan brought his knife hand forward and stooped at the knees.

  ‘Ah,’ Anaximander said, barely halting in his slow movement forward, ‘that is unfortunate. Not for me, at least, but it will give the rug cleaners work to do. It will benefit you not at all. My mistress has taken pains
, over the years, to breed into my bloodline a resistance to quick death. For generations she has nurtured only those of my family who were sturdy enough to shrug off one, two, multiple wounds and to continue to fight even as they died. Many of my ancestors were used in this way in her service – my sire even – and many more were drowned in childhood for failing her tests. We have proved capable of feats that have shocked even the most hard-hearted of dog-men. I take no pride in it, only sadness for my people – so many taken for what? – but it is a fact nonetheless. Moreover, if by miracle I am gone and you survive, who will protect you from Sirius’s excesses? Sirius, stop your ceaseless whining!’

  But Sirius did not cease; he started to bark instead, steadily and insistently, louder and louder, until Anaximander stopped entirely in his tracks. He turned his head as if listening and then, excusing himself, both dogs trotted into the hall.

  ‘Onto the roof,’ Nathan whispered, but Prissy was already up into the eaves ahead of him.

  Rain had slickened the tiles of the Spire, and as they scrambled up their hands slipped and grazed. The fabric at their elbows and knees became cold and sodden and raindrops pooled on their collars and encroached on their necks. All of this was nothing, though, compared to the twisted and lifeless form of Joes where they lay, lips parted, teeth bared, staring up through closed lids at the Glass Road above them.

  ‘Don’t look,’ said Nathan.

  ‘I can’t help it.’

  And where else was there to look? If you are somewhere high and are scared of falling, the idea is not to look down; there is something in the perspective, the distance to the ground, the lack of anything between you and death by collision with the earth, that causes a paralysing fear. But also there is a taboo against looking at the dead, and a fear caused by the sight of a corpse. This fear can make a person run away, and Nathan and Prissy had nowhere to run. But there was nowhere else to look. Up, though it felt the safest, made rain fall across their cheeks like tears, and since it felt as if they were crying already, then why not look at Joes?