Mordew

by Alex Pheby

  So they did.

  With the downpour slicking off the slates and into the gutters, the Glass Road above, cool and impassive, dogs inside, death below, it was hard to credit what they saw. They looked to each other, blinked the rainwater from their eyes – the corpse of Joes had become two corpses, each lying half on and half under the other as entangled lovers might lie. One corpse was of a boy, the other of a girl, but apart from that they were entirely the same. They left between them a pile of clothes, discarded.

  Prissy grabbed Nathan’s sleeve, but neither could make sense of what they were seeing.

  Down in the roof space, the dogs were scratching and rearing up on their hind legs.

  ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘We’ve no choice.’ Nathan edged back up the roof and took the rope from where he had laid it over Jerky Joes. He knotted it, looped it around the chimney pot, and pulled it tight. Prissy, seeming to understand his intention, backed away.

  ‘We’ll never reach the ground.’

  ‘We’ll swing in through a lower window and make a run for it from there.’

  ‘What if it doesn’t work?’

  Nathan looked back up the roof and the choice between death by falling and being eaten by dogs was heavy in the air. Then two scrabbling paws rattled at the gap in the tiles. ‘Do not flee,’ the talking dog called. ‘We are on our way.’

  With a last glance at Joes, they slid together, Nathan holding the rope and Prissy holding Nathan, down across the slates and over the edge.

  XXXIV

  There was a sudden lurching drop that seemed like it might become an endless fall, but then the rope snapped taut and they began to swing, thirty feet from the ground, scraping against the brickwork, tearing their clothes. The nearest window was out of reach and below was simple flat stone, distant and grey. The rain continued to pour and the rope, fattened with the water, was hard to grip.

  ‘We’re going to die, aren’t we? Can’t you Spark us down?’

  Nathan didn’t see any way the Spark could be made to help – even if he made the rope live, turned it into a snake, what use would that be? And the pain in his arm – he didn’t think he’d be able to sustain Itching, never mind Scratching. He could barely keep his grip as it was.

  Above, the talking dog peered down at them from over the roof edge. The rain was falling so hard now that Nathan slipped, and if the rope had not been knotted at the end, giving him something to cling to, they would have fallen.

  ‘Why dangle you there?’ called the dog. ‘It is not safe. Return at once; my companion has received a message: give me your name, male child, and if it is the name we are expecting, we will not harm you.’

  Nathan did not reply, but neither could he see any way to save them, and the wind blew them hard against the wall.

  As if Nathan’s silence was a request for more information, the dog went on: ‘We are leased by the Master of Mordew to the mistress of this house by a contract. While we are duty-bound to carry out any and all orders made by the householders, this contract contains a clause, my companion reminds me, that prevents a conflict of interest that might disadvantage the leaseholder.’ The wind blew harder, the rain driving at Nathan and Prissy. ‘In a lengthy addendum, named parties are listed. The appearance in the household of any person named in this list, or anyone who might appear to be one of said persons, requires that Sirius, through a psychic link, inform the leaseholder – the aforesaid Master of Mordew…’

  ‘It’s Nathan Treeves!’ Prissy shrieked. ‘Nathan bleeding Treeves!’

  Immediately the dog bit the rope and pulled and Nathan’s hand slipped again.

  ‘Hold tighter,’ the dog said, its mouth not parting to make the words. ‘I will pull the rope and so return you to safety, but it remains for you to hold onto it.’

  The rope jerked up and the two wet thieves ascended, swinging, thumping up and against the wall of the house, back to the relative safety of the roof.

  Anaximander pulled them over and there was Sirius, up by the chimney breast. He was gnawing at one of the faces of Joes.

  ‘Leave them alone!’

  Nathan would have tried to stop it, but Anaximander blocked his path. ‘Whom should he leave alone? Your companions? They are dead and no longer require their flesh. Sirius, on the other hand, must eat.’

  There was a tearing, ripping squelch and Sirius raised his head, shook it from side to side as if he had grabbed hold of a rat intent on shaking it to death.

  Anaximander continued. ‘The Master has dissolved our lease. You are to be escorted from the premises and allowed to return to your business unmolested.’

  Prissy turned away, buried her head in Nathan’s shoulder, and he slowly walked her up from the edge of the roof, his eyes on Joes throughout.

  ‘Moreover, you are to be allowed to leave with the objects of your burglary.’

  Now Sirius left the corpses, and their heads were bloody, faceless, their skulls as identical as their faces had been. He paced across the roof, jaw working, cutting off Nathan’s route to the bodies.

  ‘It is you we must aid, Treeves, not the painted pup. Sirius asks if he may have her cheeks, to finish his meal with something sweet.’

  ‘No!’

  Sirius growled and pulled back his lips. His teeth were red.

  ‘He is disappointed. Perhaps another time? We have been ordered to escort you quickly from this place. You came for the locket; I lie beside my mistress every evening, and I know the combination to the strongbox. Let us return inside.’

  Nathan wanted to go to them, to heal them, but what could he do? With a last look, he turned away and went where the dog told him.

  XXXV

  The box contained a teardrop locket on a chain of fat gold links, flattened so that they lay against each other neatly but other than that very plain. It rested on a green, felt cushion.

  ‘We must be quick,’ Anaximander said. ‘If our mistress returns, the new orders will be in conflict with the old.’

  Nathan did not trouble to ask what would happen then, and Prissy was dragging him out of the room anyway.

  The upstairs rooms were relatively spare – beds, wardrobes, desks – though plushly decorated, but the more floors they descended the more ostentatious became the displayed wealth until Anaximander was leading them through a blur of golden-framed portraits, free-standing vases, feathers in bundles, candelabras, arrangements of muskets and pistols and coats of arms and animal skins and mounted horned heads and rugs and elaborations of every sort. The foot of the final set of the stairs ended in a doorway flanked by caryatids in bronze and Nathan slid to a halt in front of them. They were goat-headed women, naked to the waist, holding crops and flails.

  ‘Do not pause,’ said the dog, ‘we must leave now. What interests you in these statues?’

  The skirts of the caryatids were supported by belts, and the buckles of these bore the goat-horn sign that decorated the den. Nathan reached out and touched one.

  ‘That icon?’ continued Anaximander. ‘It is a religious image common to the aristocracy of this city – you will see it in many places. We must leave.’

  They ran through into the courtyard of granite statues and out of the iron gates, and as soon as they left sight of the Spire, Sirius turned. About his face was an entirely new expression: the baring of teeth and wrinkling of snout that had typified him within was gone entirely and now his tongue protruded and his eyes were wide. He circled first Prissy, then Anaximander, and then crouched in front of Nathan, head down, tail high.

  ‘Companion,’ Anaximander barked, ‘this is no time for games.’ When Sirius began to wag his tail, and then his rear end, then, seemingly, all of him, Anaximander turned to the children. ‘My apologies; Sirius enquires whether you have either stick or ball for him to fetch.’

  Nathan patted his pockets, knowing that he didn’t, and Prissy grabbed his sleeve, pulled him away. ‘Let’s leave them to it. I don’t want to get bit.’

  No sooner had
she stopped talking than Sirius bounded towards her, making her flinch, but he didn’t try to tear off her cheeks – instead he nuzzled at her hands and when she pulled them away he weaved between her legs in a figure of eight. He was so big that she had to raise her legs one at a time as he went under.

  Anaximander grabbed at Sirius’s collar with his mouth and tried to pull him away. Because he didn’t speak with his lips, the voice coming directly from his throat, he could still say: ‘He is feeling the excitement that a dog whose work is done feels – our indenture has been dissolved, we have been made free. No more guarding, no more fighting, no more beatings. This is a novelty for him, since he has known only servitude, and he acts without regard for propriety. He has never “played”, though I have told him stories of sticks and balls since we were puppies. I once read a book on the subject in the householder’s infant’s nursery, and he still requests the tales every night before sleep.’

  The dog’s words seemed to touch something in Prissy. She took a deep breath, reached into her shawl and from it drew a purse, empty except for a few copper coins. She showed this to Sirius, who stared at it intently, examining every aspect of it, then she drew it back and threw it as high and far as she could. ‘Don’t chew it to pieces!’

  Sirius was after it so quickly that he caught it before it landed, rushing back so directly and with such speed and enthusiasm that Prissy let out a squeal of terror, apparently fearing that he might knock her over. Instead, Sirius wheeled around at the last moment and dropped the purse at her feet, crouching again, panting.

  Anaximander looked at Nathan. ‘If this, now, is the way matters are going to proceed, I would not object at all, if such a thing were to meet your approval, Nathan Treeves, to a rubbing of my back. Then you might proceed to scratch behind my ears, preparatory to tickling my stomach. Again, only if this is something you would feel naturally inclined to offer.’

  After a while of this, the dogs headed for the Zoo and neither child was then keen to leave them, there being something in shared play that bonds people and animals together and makes each less aware of their troubles and their sadnesses. Moreover, beasts their size were a natural deterrent to the curious, and there was no denying the children felt safer with the dogs beside them.

  When Prissy and Nathan came onto the approach, Sirius was digging in the soft dirt of the flower bed beside the gate, furiously throwing back soil so that a passageway was created that he could crawl through.

  Even before Anaximander reached him, he was under the fence, his claws clicking on the paving stones on the other side, running head down. ‘This way!’ Anaximander called, and followed his companion.

  ‘That’s it. I’m not going under there and getting myself all filthed up.’

  Nathan shrugged. ‘It’s the quickest way home.’

  Even in the moonlight, some of the exhibits were beautiful: birds with eye feathers fanned out huge behind them, striped cats with staring eyes and long fangs, little pigs covered in spikes.

  ‘Aren’t they lovely?’ Prissy said, but Anaximander disagreed.

  ‘Can a prisoner be lovely? Can the tortured be? These creatures speak endlessly of their misery, if you only knew their language. That bird, with its plumage raised in fear, would peck your eyes out if only it got the chance.’

  Prissy wrinkled her nose. ‘Why? What have I ever done to it? It’s not my fault it’s not got the sense to keep out from behind bars, is it? I don’t blame it for me having to go to the Temple, do I?’

  Anaximander sniffed the air, as if this was the means by which he heard the bird’s speech. ‘It sees its captor in you and is incapable of the fine discrimination between features that you use to identify yourselves. You are all the same to it. It sees only the net it was dragged here in, and you dragging it. It pulls its feet through the dirt to sharpen its claws, and if you were to enter its domain, it would use them to slice you down to the bone.’

  Prissy shook her head. ‘Bloody birds. Never liked them anyway. I’ll pull your feathers out, mate, and make a hat out of them.’ She turned to Nathan, but he was looking at the striped cats.

  ‘Those too,’ Anaximander said. ‘This one remembers the hills of her childhood and the poisoning of her mother. She remembers those who make use of her species’s innards for medicines, and how they harvest those goods. She counts the long and fruitless circuits of her compound, and this number she vows to make an equivalence of in the bodies of your dead. You, specifically, she would chew in the neck.’

  ‘Well, tell it not to blame me.’

  Anaximander did as he was asked, but the cat rattled the bars of the cage with its shoulder, and Prissy looked away.

  ‘What about those,’ Nathan said. Up ahead, Sirius was barking at the alifonjers. ‘Do they hate us?’

  Anaximander trotted over to stand beside his companion. He stood still and Sirius stopped his noise. The bull alifonjer came over, and then the cow with her calves. They stood in silence and Prissy reached for Nathan’s hand. No one moved and the world seemed to have frozen in place, subject to some eerie spell.

  ‘No,’ Anaximander said, eventually. ‘They do not hate you. They want only release. There is something else, and what Sirius says makes no sense. Come. Companion. We may not tarry here with these beasts. If their keepers return, we will find ourselves caged beside them, our captivity renewed, and then you would share your mystical discourse indefinitely.’

  Eventually, Anaximander convinced Sirius to leave, and the party weaved through the streets of the Pleasaunce towards the Entrepôt until Prissy recognised somewhere. ‘That’s the back of the Warehouse where Gam gets our bacon. See? Here’s where it says so.’ She pointed at words ten feet high in whitewash, and though neither of the children could read them, they still recognised the shapes as letters.

  ‘Beaumont and Sons,’ said Anaximander. ‘Purveyors of Swine and Swine Derivatives.’

  Sirius sniffed the ground around the gates, but Nathan wanted no more delays. ‘We need to find Gam. He’s got questions to answer.’

  Anaximander communicated as much to his companion; Nathan kneeled at the grate to the sewers, and, with Prissy’s help, pulled up the cover.

  XXXVI

  The corridors were silent, the rooms empty. Even the sweet, enveloping brininess of bacon frying had given way to the bitterness of black mould. There it was – the sigil he’d seen on the caryatids’ belts – in the decorative plasterwork, in the coving, carved into the skirting boards, woven into every upholstered fabric.

  The dogs paced behind, Prissy was at his side, and the soft pad of their paws and the thudding of her heels were the only sounds he could hear. Nathan wasn’t sure what he had expected, but he had imagined a scene, a drama, a bringing to book. Gam had questions to answer.

  But he was not there.

  Wherever they went Sirius growled and slunk, sniffing at every door – blanching at some, whimpering at others, but it was not Gam he was looking for.

  ‘He senses ghosts,’ Anaximander said.

  Sirius barged open a door that was ajar and galloped through. There was a skull perched on a pile of papers on a tabletop. He knocked this down with a paw, circled it first one way and then the other and then he gripped it between his teeth.

  Prissy ran over, to pull it out of his mouth, but he growled at her and pulled his lips back, and she returned to Nathan’s side. ‘You going to let him do that?’ she said.

  Nathan said nothing, but Anaximander said, ‘How would he prevent him?’

  Prissy opened her mouth to say something, but the question became moot, because Sirius bit down on the skull and it shattered immediately into pieces. Such was its age that these pieces crumbled into dust, forming a little pile at Sirius’s front paws. The dog sniffed this, sneezed, and up rose the shape of a man.

  Both Prissy and Nathan stepped back, but Sirius bit at it – first at the knees, then leaping for the chest. The ghost kicked out, unwilling it seemed to be attacked, but neither affected the
other, since they lived on different planes, and bites and blows met no objects.

  When the ghost saw Nathan, having grown weary of Sirius’s attentions, he smiled, put his fingers in his mouth and made a silent whistle that not even the dogs could hear.

  ‘He summons others. Look!’ Anaximander directed their attentions to a pillar in one corner of the room.

  There, in a long black wedge of shadow, stood another man. He was scarcely there, vague as fog, as if he was painted in crushed pigment or made from the scales that fall from a moth’s wing: grey and transparent, hovering in the air unanchored to the ground. The first ghost pointed at Nathan, and the new ghost’s eyes went wide and staring, almost horrified, but the mouth was split in a smile, the cavity filled in with black. About his neck he wore a locket, ram-headed, and this weighed him down.

  When he advanced, he did so bowed, but he was forceful with it and came at speed like a charging bull, stopping a foot, no more, from Nathan. He stood himself straight, though his face showed the effort; he meant to say something. His expression calmed, and his lips formed around a word. Before he could utter it, Sirius leapt at his throat, passing through him to land, already turning to leap again. He dissolved, reformed, but in the breeze of Nathan’s breath the ghost blew away, dispersed so completely that Nathan wondered whether he’d seen him at all.

  Then Prissy pointed, slipped behind and clutched Nathan around his waist. There was another ghost drifting along it as if progressing down the aisle of a church, growing larger as it approached, filling whatever space it could find. This one was broad across the chest, though no less ethereal in substance. It wore a walrus moustache and, in its hands, held a bowler hat which it clutched against itself submissively. It wanted something, seemed to be pleading for it earnestly, but again, Nathan’s breath, the slightest of winds, exorcised the man utterly before Sirius could even attack.

  It left in the shadows a young child; boy or girl, it was difficult to tell – it was wearing a nightdress, cap and socks. This child Sirius growled at, but Prissy came out from behind Nathan, knelt down, one hand extended. As the child came forward it disappeared as completely as the others.