Neverwhere

"You were upset," said the marquis. "I was certain it would be here. And I am so rarely wrong. Now . . . " he held the little wooden globe up. The light caught the polished glass and glinted from the brass and copper fittings. It galled him to admit ignorance about anything, but he said it anyway. "How does this work?"

Anaesthesia led Richard into a small park on the south side of the bridge, then down some stone steps, set beside a wall. She relit her candle-in-a-bottle, and then she opened a workman's door and closed it behind them. They went down some steps, with the darkness all around them.

"There's a girl named Door," said Richard. "She's a bit younger than you. Do you know her?"

"The Lady Door. I know who she is."

"So which, um, barony is she part of?"

"No barony. She's of the House of the Arch. Her family used to be very important."

"Used to be? Why did they stop?"

"Somebody killed them."

Yes, he remembered the marquis saying something about that, now. A rat cut across their path. Anaesthesia stopped on the steps and performed a deep curtsey. The rat paused. "Sire," she said, to the rat. "Hi," said Richard. The rat looked at them for a heartbeat, then it darted off down the steps. "So," said Richard. "What is a floating market?"

"It's very big," she said. "But rat-speakers hardly ever need to go to the market. To tell the truth—" She hesitated. "Nah. You'll laugh at me."

"I won't," said Richard, honestly.

"Well," said the thin girl. "I'm a little scared."

"Scared? Of the market?"

They had reached the bottom of the steps. Anaesthesia hesitated and then turned left. "Oh. No. There's a truce in the market. If anyone hurt anyone there, the whole of London Below would be down on them like a ton of sewage."

"So what are you scared of?"

"Getting there. They hold it in a different place every time. It moves around. And to get to the place it'll be tonight . . . " she fingered the quartz beads around her neck, nervously. "We'll have to go through a really nasty neighborhood." She did sound scared.

Richard suppressed the urge to put an arm around her. "And where would that be?" he asked. She turned to him, pushed the hair from her eyes, and told him.

"Knightsbridge," repeated Richard, and he began to chuckle, gently.

The girl turned away. "See?" she said. "I said you'd laugh."

The deep tunnels had been dug in the 1920s, for a high-speed extension to the Northern Line of London's Underground Railway system. During the Second World War troops had been quartered there in the thousands, their waste pumped up by compressed air to the level of the sewers far above. Both sides of the runnels had been lined with metal bunk beds for the troops to sleep on. When the war ended the bunk beds had stayed, and on their wire bases cardboard boxes were stored, each box filled with letters and files and papers: secrets, of the dullest kind, stored down deep, to be forgotten. The need for economy had closed the deep tunnels completely in the early 1990s. The boxes of secrets were removed, to be scanned and stored on computers, or shredded, or burned.

Varney made his home in the deepest of the deep tunnels, far beneath Camden Town Tube. He had piled abandoned metal bunk beds in front of the only entrance. Then he had decorated. Varney liked weapons. He made his own, out of whatever he could find, or take, or steal, parts of cars and rescued bits of machinery, which he turned into hooks and shivs, crossbows and arbalests, small mangonels and trebuchets for breaking walls, cudgels, glaives and knob-kerries. They hung on the wall of the deep runnel, or sat in corners, looking unfriendly. Varney looked like a bull might look, if the bull were to be shaved, dehorned, covered in tattoos, and suffered from complete dental breakdown. Also, he snored. The oil lamp next to his head was turned down low. Varney slept on a pile of rags, snoring and snuffling, with the hilt of a homemade two-bladed sword on the ground beside his hand.

A hand turned up the oil lamp.

Varney had the two-bladed sword in his hand, and he was on his feet almost before his eyes were open. He blinked, stared around him. There was no one there: nothing had disturbed the pile of bunk beds blocking the door. He began to lower the sword.

A voice said, "Psst."

"Hh?" said Varney.

"Surprise," said Mr. Croup, stepping into the light.

Varney took a step back: a mistake. There was a knife at his temple, the point of the blade next to his eye. "Further movements are not recommended," said Mr. Croup, helpfully. "Mister Vandemar might have a little accident with his old toad-sticker. Most accidents do occur in the home. Is that not so, Mister Vandemar?"

"I don't trust statistics," said Mr. Vandemar's blank voice. A gloved hand reached down from behind Varney, crushed his sword, and dropped the twisted thing to the floor.

"How are you, Varney?" asked Mr. Croup. "Well, we trust? Yes? In fine form, fetlock and fettle for the market tonight? Do you know who we are?"