Neverwhere

The Lord Rat-speaker remained unmoved. He stated baldly that the rat—Master Longtail—had said nothing at all about returning Richard's things. Just that he was to be taken to market. Then he told Anaesthesia that she was taking the Upworlder to the market, and that, yes, it was an order. And to stop snivelling, and to get a move on. He told Richard that if he, Lord Rat-speaker, ever saw him, Richard, again, then he, Richard, would be in a great deal of trouble. He reiterated that Richard did not know how lucky he was, and, ignoring Richard's requests that he return Richard's stuff—or at least the wallet—he led them to a door and locked it behind them.

Richard and Anaesthesia walked into the darkness side by side.

She carried an improvised lamp made of a candle, a can, some wire, and a wide-mouthed glass lemonade bottle. Richard was surprised at how quickly his eyes became used to the near darkness. They seemed to be walking through a succession of underground vaults and storage cellars. Sometimes he thought he could see movement in far corners of the vaults, but whether human, or rat, or something else altogether, it was always gone by the time they reached the place it had been. When he tried to talk to Anaesthesia about the movements, she hissed him to silence.

He felt a cold draught on his face. The rat-girl squatted without warning, put down her candle-lamp, and tugged and pulled hard at a metal grille set in the wall. It opened suddenly, sending her sprawling. She motioned Richard to come through. He crouched, edged through the hole in the wall; after about a foot, the floor stopped completely. "Excuse me," whispered Richard. "There's a hole here."

"It's not a big drop," she told him. "Go on."

She shut the grille behind her. She was now uncomfortably close to Richard. "Here," she said. She gave him the handle of her little lamp to hold, and she clambered down into the darkness. "There," she said. "That wasn't that bad, was it?" Her face was a few feet below Richard's dangling feet. "Here. Pass me the lamp."

He lowered it down to her. She had to jump to take it from him. "Now," she whispered. "Come on." He edged nervously forward, climbed over the edge, hung for a moment, then let go. He landed on his hands and feet in soft, wet mud. He wiped the mud off his hands onto his sweater. A few feet forward, and Anaesthesia was opening another door. They went through it, and she pulled it closed behind them. "We can talk now," she said. "Not loud. But we can. If you want to."

"Oh. Thanks," said Richard. He couldn't think of anything to say. "So. Um. You're a rat, are you?" he said.

She giggled, like a Japanese girl, covering her hand with her face as she laughed. Then she shook her head, and said, "I should be so lucky. I wish. No, I'm a rat-speaker. We talk to rats."

"What, just chat to them?"

"Oh no. We do stuff for them. I mean," and her tone of voice implied that this was something that might never have occurred to Richard unassisted, "there are some things rats can't do, you know. I mean, not having fingers, and thumbs, an' things. Hang on—" She pressed him against the wall, suddenly, and clamped a filthy hand over his mouth. Then she blew out the candle.

Nothing happened.

Then he heard distant voices. They waited, in the darkness and the cold. Richard shivered.

People walked past them, talking in low tones. When all sounds had died away, Anaesthesia took her hand from Richard's mouth, relit the candle, and they walked on. "Who were they?" asked Richard.

She shrugged. "It dun't matter," she said.

"Then what makes you think that they wouldn't have been pleased to see us?"

She looked at him rather sadly, like a mother trying to explain to an infant that, yes this flame was hot, too. All flames were hot. Trust her, please. "Come on," she said. "I know a shortcut. We can nip through London Above for a bit." They went up some stone steps, and the girl pushed open a door. They stepped through, and the door shut behind them.

Richard looked around, puzzled. They were standing on the Embankment, the miles-long walkway that the Victorians had built along the north shore of the Thames, covering the drainage system and the newly created District Line of the Underground, and replacing the stinking mudflats that had festered along the banks of the Thames for the previous five hundred years. It was still night—or perhaps it was night once more. He was unsure how long they had been walking through the underplaces and the dark.

There was no moon, but the night sky was a riot of crisp and glittering autumn stars. There were streetlights too, and lights on buildings and on bridges, which looked like earthbound stars, and they glimmered, repeated, as they were reflected with the city in the night water of the Thames. It's fairyland, thought Richard.

Anaesthesia blew out her candle. And Richard said, "Are you sure this is the right way?"

"Yes," she said. "Pretty sure."