The Anubis Gates

Though the lightermen and bargemen on the Thames had another half hour of April sunlight to work in, the inhabitants of the St. Giles rookery had seen the sun set an hour ago behind the tall, ragged old buildings that were their drab and stultifyingly close horizon, and nearly every one of the unmatched windows of Rat’s Castle glowed with light.

Standing out in the alley by one of the building’s side doors, Len Carrington impatiently answered one more objection from the party of six men that was about to leave for Fleet Street. “You’ll do it because it’s the very last suth errand you’ll ever run for them, and because if you didn’t it would tip them off, and we want to hit them with no warning—and also because once you fetch this fellow for them they’ll be so absorbed with him that we’ll be able to kill them both with no trouble.”

“Is by any chance this lad we’re going to fetch the same one that pitched Norman out the window at the Swan With Two Necks?” asked one of the men.

Carrington pursed his lips, for he’d hoped they wouldn’t make that connection. “Yes—but you mishandled that abduction.”

“And they seem to have mishandled hangin’ onto him,” the man added.

“—And this time you’ll take him quiet,” Carrington went I on sternly. Then he grinned. “And if we all do our parts correctly, there’ll be a real celebration in Rat’s Castle tonight.”

“Amen to that,” whispered another of the men. “Let’s off—he’ll be at his silly book meeting by now.”

The six men padded away down the alley and Carrington went back inside. The huge old kitchen was empty at the moment, and lit only by the dull red glow of the hearth. He dragged the door closed behind him and the room was quiet, except for the faint sound of distant wailing and grunting. He sat down on a bench and hooked a jug of cool beer down from a shelf.

He took one long swallow, then, re-corked the jug, put it back and stood up. He’d better be getting back to the front room; it wouldn’t do to let the clown wonder what had delayed him.

As he walked toward the inner door he passed the drain, and the wailing and groaning were louder. He paused and peered with distaste down into the black hole that led to the deep cellars and the subterranean river. I wonder, he thought, what’s got Horrabin’s Mistakes so riled up this evening. Maybe old Dungy was right, and the things are able to read minds a little, and they’re aware of our imminent mutiny tonight. He cocked his head, listening for the basso profundo voice of Big Biter, who was the only one of the Mistakes anyone would pay any attention to, but he didn’t hear him. Good boy, Carrington thought nervously—if you sense any part of our plans, keep it behind the portcullis of your appalling teeth.

He groped around for the wooden plug, found it under a pile of potato peelings, and fitted it over the drain hole, effectively silencing, up here at least, the noise from the deep cellars.

He opened the door to the hallway just as Horrabin’s fluty voice called from the front room, “Carrington! Where in hell are you?”

“Right here, yer Worship,” Carrington said, striding forward and forcing his voice to sound relaxed. “Just stopped in the kitchen for a sip of beer.” He stepped unhurriedly into the room.

The clown, looking like a huge spider perversely made of ribbon candy, was penduluming rapidly back and forth in his swing, while Romany or Romanelli or whatever his name was this week was reclining in his high wheeled cart that looked like nothing so much as a baby’s perambulator, the snapping glow of St. Elmo’s Fire flickering around his tortured frame even more brightly now than it had five minutes ago.

“I assume they’re off?” asked Horrabin.

“They are.”

“And instructed not to bungle it this time?” put in Romanelli.

Carrington gave the man a cold look. “They got him for you that time and they’ll get him for you this time.”

Romanelli scowled, then made his face relax, as though he just didn’t have the spare energy to resent the insubordination. “Go downstairs to the old hospital,” he said. “Make sure they’ve got everything ready.”

“Aye aye.” Carrington hurried out of the room and his boots could be heard clumping along the hall and then tapping down the long flight of stone steps.

“Why don’t you go too?” croaked Romanelli to the clown.

“I just got here!” the clown protested. “And there’s a couple of things you and I have to straighten out. Now I had an agreement with your ka: I was to—”

“He’s dead and you have no agreement with me. Go.”

After a pause Horrabin reached out and snared his stilts, thrashed out of his swing and onto them, and stood wobbling in the center of the floor. “You’re pretty damn sure of—”