Neverwhere(96)

“Is it?” asked Richard.

“Sometimes,” said the marquis de Carabas. And they went down.





Neverwhere





SIXTEEN


They walked for hours in silence, following the winding stone road downwards. Richard was still in pain; he was limping, and experiencing a strange mental and physical turmoil: feelings of defeat and betrayal roiled within him, which, combined with the near loss of his life to Lamia, the damage inflicted by Mr. Vandemar, and his experiences on the plank far above, left him utterly wrecked. Yet, he was certain that his experiences of the last day paled into something small and insignificant when placed beside whatever the marquis had experienced. So he said nothing.

The marquis kept silent, as every word he uttered hurt his throat. He was content to let it heal, and to concentrate on Hunter. He knew that, should he let his attention flag for even a moment, she would know it, and she would be away, or she would turn on them. So he said nothing.

Hunter walked a little ahead of them. She, also, said nothing.

After some hours, they reached the bottom of Down Street. The street ended in a vast Cyclopean gateway—built of enormous rough stone blocks. Giants built that gate, thought Richard, half-remembered tales of long-dead kings of mythical London churning in his head, tales of King Bran and of the giants Gog and Magog, with hands the size of oak trees, and severed heads as big as hills. The portal itself had long since rusted and crumbled away. Fragments of it could be seen in the mud beneath their feet, dangling uselessly from a rusted hinge on the side of the gate. The hinge was taller than Richard.

The marquis gestured for Hunter to stop. He moistened his lips, and said, “This gate marks the end of Down Street, and the beginning of the labyrinth. And beyond the labyrinth waits the Angel Islington. And in the labyrinth is the Beast.”

“I still don’t understand,” said Richard. “Islington. I actually met him. It. Him. He’s an angel. I mean, a real angel.”

The marquis smiled, without humor. “When angels go bad, Richard, they go worse than anyone. Remember, Lucifer used to be an angel.”

Hunter watched Richard with nut brown eyes. “The place you visited is Islington’s citadel, and also its prison,” she said. It was the first thing she had said in hours. “It cannot leave.”

The marquis addressed her directly. “I assume that the labyrinth and the Beast are there to discourage visitors.”

She inclined her head. “So I would assume also.”

Richard turned on the marquis, all his anger and impotence and frustration spewing out of him in one angry blast. “Why are you even talking to her? Why is she still with us? She was a traitor—she tried to make us think that you were the traitor.”

“And I saved your life, Richard Mayhew,” said Hunter, quietly. “Many times. On the bridge. At the gap. On the board up there.” She looked into his eyes, and it was Richard who looked away.

Something echoed through the tunnels: a bellow, or a roar. The hairs on the back of Richard’s neck prickled. It was far away, but that was the only thing about it in which he could take any comfort. He knew that sound: he had heard it in his dreams, but now it sounded neither like a bull nor like a boar; it sounded like a lion; it sounded like a dragon.

“The labyrinth is one of the oldest places in London Below,” said the marquis. “Before King Lud founded the village on the Thames marshes, there was a labyrinth here.”

“No Beast, though,” said Richard.

“Not then.”

Richard hesitated. The distant roaring began again. “I . . . I think I’ve had dreams about the Beast,” he said.

The marquis raised an eyebrow. “What kind of dreams?”

“Bad ones,” said Richard.

The marquis thought about this, eyes flickering. And then he said, “Look, Richard. I’m taking Hunter. But if you want to wait here, well, no one could accuse you of cowardice.”

Richard shook his head. Sometimes there is nothing you can do. “I’m not turning back. Not now. They’ve got Door.”

“Right,” said the marquis. “Well then. Shall we go?”

Hunter’s perfect caramel lips twisted into a sneer. “You’d have to be mad to go in there,” she said. “Without the angel’s token you could never find your way. Never get past the boar.”

The marquis reached his hand under his poncho blanket and produced the little obsidian statue he had taken from Door’s father’s study. “One of these, you mean?” he asked. The marquis felt, then, that much of what he had gone through in the previous week was made up for by the expression on Hunter’s face. They went through the gate, into the labyrinth.