Neverwhere

SEVENTEEN

Richard followed the path between the burning candles, which led him through the angel's vault to the Great Hall. He recognized his surroundings: this was where they had drunk Islington's wine: an octagon of iron pillars supporting the stone roof above them, the huge black stone and metal door, the old wooden table, the candles.

Door was chained up, spread-eagled between two pillars beside the flint and silver door. She stared at him as he came in, her odd-colored pixie eyes wide and scared. The Angel Islington, standing beside her, turned and smiled at Richard as he entered. That was the most chilling thing of all: the gentle compassion, the sweetness of that smile.

"Come in, Richard Mayhew. Come in," said the Angel Islington. "Dear me. You do look a mess." There was honest concern in its voice. Richard hesitated. "Please." The angel gestured, curling a white forefinger, urging him further in. "I think we all know each other. You know the Lady Door, of course, and my associates, Mister Croup, Mister Vandemar." Richard turned. Croup and Vandemar were standing on each side of him. Mr. Vandemar smiled at him. Mr. Croup did not. "I was hoping you would show up," continued the angel. It tipped its head on one side, and asked, "By the bye, where is Hunter?"

"She's dead," said Richard. He heard Door gasp.

"Oh. The poor dear," said Islington. It shook its head sadly, obviously regretting the senseless loss of human life, the frailty of all mortals born to suffer and to die.

"Still," said Mr. Croup chirpily. "Can't make an omelette without killing a few people."

Richard ignored them, as best he could. "Door? Are you all right?"

"More or less, thanks. So far." Her lower lip was swollen, and there was a bruise on her cheek.

"I am afraid," said Islington, "that Miss Door was proving a little intransigent. I was just discussing having Mister Croup and Mister Vandemar… " It paused. There were obviously some things it found distasteful actually to say.

"Torture her," suggested Mr. Vandemar, helpfully.

"We are," said Mr. Croup, "after all, famed across the entirety of creation for our skill in the excrutiatory arts."

"Good at hurting people," clarified Mr. Vandemar.

The angel continued, staring intently at Richard as it spoke, as if it had heard neither of them. "But then, Miss Door does not strike me as someone who will easily change her mind."

"Give us time enough," said Mr. Croup. "We'd break her."

"Into little wet pieces," said Mr. Vandemar.

Islington shook his head and smiled indulgently at this display of enthusiasm. "No time," it said to Richard, "no time. However, she does strike me as someone who would indeed act to end the pain and suffering of a friend, a fellow mortal, such as yourself, Richard… " Mr. Croup hit Richard in the stomach, then: a vicious rabbit punch to the gut, and Richard doubled up. He felt Mr. Vandemar's fingers on the back of his neck, pulling him back to a standing position.

"But it's wrong," said Door.

Islington looked thoughtful. "Wrong?" it said, puzzled and amused.

Mr. Croup pulled Richard's head close to his, and smiled his graveyard smile. "He's traveled so far beyond right and wrong he couldn't see them with a telescope on a nice clear night," he confided. "Now Mister Vandemar, if you'll do the honors?"

Mr. Vandemar took Richard's left hand in his. He took Richard's little finger between his huge fingers and bent it back until it broke. Richard cried out.

The angel turned, slowly. It seemed distracted by something. It blinked its pearl gray eyes. "There's someone else out there. Mister Croup?" There was a dark shimmer where Mr. Croup had been, and he was there no longer.

The marquis de Carabas was flattened against the side of the red granite cliff, staring at the oak doors that led into Islington's dwelling.

Plans and plots whirled through his head, each scheme fizzling out uselessly as he imagined it. He had thought he would have known what to do when he got to this point, and he was discovering, to his disgust, that he had absolutely no idea. There were no more favors to call in, no levers to press or buttons to push, so he scrutinized the doors and wondered whether they were guarded, whether the angel would know if they were opened. There had to be an obvious solution he was missing, if only he thought hard enough: perhaps something would occur to him. At least, he thought, slightly cheered, he had surprise on his side.

That was until he felt the cold point of a sharp knife placed against his throat, and he heard Mr. Croup's oily voice whispering in his ear. "I already killed you once today," it was saying. "What does it take to teach some people?"

Richard was manacled and chained between a pair of iron pillars when Mr. Croup returned, prodding the marquis de Carabas with his knife. The angel looked at the marquis, with disappointment on its face, then, gently, it shook its beautiful head. "You told me he was dead," it said.

"He is," said Mr. Vandemar.

"He was," corrected Mr. Croup.

The angel's voice was a fraction less gentle and less caring. "I will not be lied to," it said.

"We don't lie," said Mr. Croup, affronted.

"Do," said Mr. Vandemar.

Mr. Croup ran a grimy hand through his filthy orange hair, in exasperation. "Indeed we do. But not this time."

The pain in Richard's hand showed no indication of subsiding. "How can you behave like this?" he asked, angrily. "You're an angel."

"What did I tell you, Richard?" asked the marquis, drily.

Richard thought. "You said, Lucifer was an angel."

Islington smiled superciliously. "Lucifer?" it said. "Lucifer was an idiot. It wound up lord and master of nothing at all."

The marquis grinned. "And you wound up lord and master of two thugs and a roomful of candles?"

The angel licked its lips. "They told me it was my punishment for Atlantis. I told them there was nothing more I could have done. The whole affair was… " it paused, as if it were hunting for the correct word. And then it said, with regret, "Unfortunate."

"But millions of people were killed," said Door.

Islington clasped its hands in front of its chest, as if it were posing for a Christmas card. "These things happen," it explained, reasonably.

"Of course they do," said the marquis, mildly, the irony implicit in his words, not in his voice. "Cities sink every day. And you had nothing to do with it?"

It was as if the lid had been pulled off something dark and writhing: a place of derangement and fury and utter viciousness; and, in a time of scary things, it was the most frightening thing Richard had seen. The angel's serene beauty cracked; its eyes flashed; and it screamed at them, crazy-scary and uncontrolled, utterly certain in its righteousness, "They deserved it."

There was a moment of silence. And then the angel lowered its head, and sighed, and raised its head, and said, very quietly and with deep regret, "Just one of those things." Then it pointed to the marquis. "Chain him up," it said.

Croup and Vandemar fastened manacles around the marquis's wrists, and chained the manacles securely to the pillars beside Richard. The angel had turned its attention back to Door. It walked over to her, reached out its hand, placed it beneath her pointed chin, and raised her head, to stare into her eyes. "Your family," it said, gently. "You come from a very unusual family. Quite remarkable."

"Then why did you have us killed?"

"Not all of you," it said. Richard thought it was talking about Door, but then it said, "There was always the possibility that you might not have… worked out as well as you did." It released her chin and stroked her face with long, white fingers, and it said, "Your family can open doors. They can create doors where there were no doors. They can unlock doors that are locked. Open doors that were never meant to be opened." It ran its fingers down her neck, gently, as if it were caressing her, then closed its hand on the key about her neck. "When I was sentenced here, they gave me the door to my prison. And they took the key to the door, and put it down here too. An exquisite form of torture." It tugged, gently, on the chain, pulling it out from under Door's layers of silk and cotton and lace, revealing the silver key; and then it ran its fingers over the key, as if it were exploring her secret places.

Richard knew, then. "The Black Friars were keeping the key safe from you," he said.

Islington let go of the key. Door was chained up beside the door made of black flint and tarnished silver. The angel walked to it, and placed a hand on it, white against the blackness of the door. "From me," agreed Islington. "A key. A door. An opener of the door. There must be the three, you see: a particularly refined sort of joke. The idea being that when they decided I had earned forgiveness and my freedom, they would send me an opener, and give me the key. I just decided to take matters into my own hands, and will be leaving a little early."

It turned back to Door. Once more it caressed the key. Then it closed its hand about the key and tugged, hard. The chain snapped. Door winced. "I spoke first to your father, Door," the angel continued. "He worried about the Underside. He wanted to unite London Below, to unite the baronies and fiefdoms-perhaps even to forge some kind of bond with London Above. I told him I would help him, if he would help me. Then I told him the nature of the help I needed, and he laughed at me." It repeated the words, as if it still found them impossible to believe. "He laughed. At me."

Door shook her head. "You killed him because he turned you down?"

"I didn't kill him," Islington corrected her, gently. "I had him killed."

"But he told me I could trust you. He told me to come here. In his journal."

Mr. Croup began to giggle. "He didn't," he said. "He never did. That was us. What was it he actually said, Mister Vandemar?"

"Door, child, fear Islington," said Mr. Vandemar, with her father's voice. The voice was exact. "Islington's got to be behind all this. It's dangerous, Door- keep away from it-"

Islington caressed her cheek, with the key. "I thought my version would get you here a little faster."

"We took the journal," said Mr. Croup. "We fixed it, and we returned it."

"Where does the door lead to?" called Richard.

"Home," said the angel.

"Heaven?"

And Islington said nothing, but it smiled.

"So, you figure they won't notice you're back?" sneered the marquis. "Just, 'Oh look, there's another angel, here, grab a harp and on with the hosannas'?"

Islington's gray eyes were bright. "Not for me the smooth agonies of adulation, of hymns and halos and self-satisfied prayers," it said. "I have… my own agenda."

"Well, now you've got the key," said Door.

"And I have you," said the angel. "You're the opener. Without you the key is useless. Open the door for me."

"You killed her family," said Richard. "You've had her hunted through London Below. Now you want her to open a door for you so you can single-handedly invade Heaven? You're not much of a judge of character, are you? She'll never do it."

The angel looked at him then, with eyes older than the Milky Way. Then it said, "Ah me," and turned its back, as if it were ill-prepared to watch the unpleasantness that was about to occur.

"Hurt him some more, Mister Vandemar," said Mr. Croup. "Cut off his ear."

Mr. Vandemar raised his hand. It was empty. He jerked his arm, almost imperceptibly, and now he was holding a knife. "Told you one day you'd find out what your own liver tastes like," he said to Richard. "Today's going to be your lucky day." He slid the knife blade gently beneath Richard's earlobe. Richard felt no pain-perhaps, he thought, he had felt too much pain already that day, perhaps the blade was too sharp to hurt. But he felt the warm blood drip, wetly, from his ear down his neck. Door was watching him, and her elfin face and huge opal-colored eyes filled his vision. He tried to send her mental messages. Hold out. Don't let them make you do this. I'll be fine. Then Mr. Vandemar put a little pressure on the knife, and Richard bit back a scream. He tried to stop his face from grimacing, but another jab from the blade jerked a grimace and a moan from him.

"Stop them," said Door. "I'll open your door."

Islington gestured, curtly, and Mr. Vandemar sighed piteously and put his knife away. The warm blood dripped down Richard's neck and pooled and puddled in the hollow of his clavicle. Mr. Croup walked over to Door and unlocked the right-hand manacle. She stood there, rubbing her wrist, framed by the pillars. She was still chained to the pillar on the left, but she now had a certain amount of freedom of movement. She put her hand out for the key. "Remember," said Islington. "I have your friends."

Door looked at him with utter contempt, every inch Lord Portico's oldest daughter. "Give me the key," she said. The angel passed her the silver key.

"Door," called Richard. "Don't do it. Don't set it free. We don't matter."

"Actually," said the marquis, "I matter very much. But I have to agree. Don't do it."

She looked from Richard to the marquis, her eyes lingering on their manacled hands, on the heavy chains that bound them to the black iron pillars. She looked very vulnerable; and then she turned away, and walked to the limit of her own chain, until she stood in front of the black door made of flint and tarnished silver. There was no keyhole. She put the palm of her right hand on the door, and closed her eyes, let the door tell her where it opened, what it could do, finding those places inside herself that corresponded with the door. When she pulled her hand away, there was a keyhole that had not been there before. A white light lanced out from behind the keyhole, sharp and bright as a laser in the candlelit darkness of the hall.

The girl pushed the silver key into the keyhole. There was a pause, and then she turned it in the lock. Something went click, and there was a chiming noise, and suddenly the door was framed in light. "When I am gone," said the angel, very quietly, to Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, with charm, and with kindness, and with compassion, "kill them all, howsoever, you wish." It turned back to the door, which Door was pulling open: it was opening slowly, as if there was great resistance. She was sweating.

"So your employer's leaving," said the marquis to Mr. Croup. "I hope you've both been paid in full."

Croup peered at the marquis, and said, "What?"

"Well," said Richard, wondering what the marquis was trying to do, but willing to play along, "you don't think you're ever going to see him again, do you?"

Mr. Vandemar blinked, slowly, like an antique camera, and said, "What?"

Mr. Croup scratched his chin. "The corpses-to-be have a point," he said to Mr. Vandemar. He walked toward the angel, who stood, arms folded, in front of the door. "Sir? It might be wise for you to settle up, before you commence the next stage of your travels."

The angel turned, and looked down at him as if he were less important than the least speck of dirt. Then it turned away. Richard wondered what it was contemplating. "It is of no matter now," said the angel. "Soon, all the rewards your revolting little minds can conceive of will be yours. When I have my throne."

"Jam tomorrow, eh?" said Richard.

"Don't like jam," said Mr. Vandemar. "Makes me belch."

Mr. Croup waggled a finger at Mr. Vandemar, "He's welching out on us," he said. "You don't welch on Mister Croup and Mister Vandemar, me bucko. We collect our debts."

Mr. Vandemar walked over to where Mr. Croup was standing. "In full," he said.

"With interest," barked Mr. Croup.

"And meat hooks," said Mr. Vandemar

"From Heaven?" called Richard, from behind them. Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar walked toward the contemplative angel. "Hey!" said Mr. Croup.

The door had opened, only a crack, but it was open. Light flooded through the crack in the door. The angel took a step forward. It was as if it were dreaming with its eyes wide open. The light from the crack in the door bathed its face, and it drank it in like wine. "Have no fear," it said. "For when the vastness of creation is mine, and they gather about my throne to sing hosannas to my name, I shall reward the worthy and cast down those who are hateful in my sight."

With an effort, Door wrenched the black door fully open. The view through the door was blinding in its intensity: a swirling maelstrom of color and light. Richard squinted his eyes, and turned his head away from the glare, all vicious orange and retinal purple. Is that what Heaven looks like? It seems more like Hell.

And then he felt the wind. A candle flew past his head, and vanished through the door. And then another. And then the air was filled with candles, all spinning and tumbling through the air, heading for the light. If was as if the whole room were being sucked through the door. It was more than a wind, though. Richard knew that. His wrists began to hurt where they were manacled-it was as if, suddenly, he weighed twice as much as he ever had before. And then his perspective changed. The view through the doorway- it was looking down: it was not merely the wind that was pulling everything toward the door. It was gravity. The wind was only the air in the hall being sucked into the place on the other side of the door. He wondered what was on the other side of the door-the surface of a star, perhaps, or the event horizon of a black hole, or something he could not even imagine.

Islington grabbed hold of the pillar beside the door, and held on desperately. "That's not Heaven," it shouted, gray eyes flashing, spittle on its perfect lips. "You mad little witch. What have you done?"

Door was clutching the chains that held her to the black pillar, white-knuckled. There was triumph in her eyes. Mr. Vandemar had caught hold of a table leg, while Mr. Croup, in his turn, had caught hold of Mr. Vandemar. "It wasn't the real key," said Door, triumphantly, over the roar of the wind. "That was just a copy of the key I had Hammersmith make in the market."

"But it opened the door," screamed the angel.

"No," said the girl with the opal eyes, distantly. "I opened a door. As far and hard away as I could, I opened a door."

There was no longer any trace of kindness or compassion on the angel's face; only hatred, pure and honest and cold. "I will kill you," it told her.

"Like you killed my family? I don't think you're going to kill anyone anymore."

The angel was hanging onto the pillar with pale fingers, but its body was at a ninety-degree angle to the room, and was most of the way through the door. It looked both comical and dreadful. It licked its lips. "Stop it," it pleaded. "Close the door. I'll tell you where your sister is… She's still alive… " Door flinched.

And Islington was sucked through the door, a tiny, plummeting figure, shrinking as it tumbled into the blinding gulf beyond. The pull was getting stronger. Richard prayed that his chains and manacles would hold: he could feel himself being sucked toward the opening, and, from the corner of his eye, he could see the marquis dangling from his chains, like a string-puppet being sucked up by a vacuum cleaner.

The table, the leg of which Mr. Vandemar was holding tightly, flew through the air and jammed in the open doorway. Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar were dangling out of the door. Mr. Croup, who was clinging, quite literally, to Mr. Vandemar's coattails, took a deep breath and began slowly to clamber, hand over hand, up Mr. Vandemar's back. The table creaked. Mr. Croup looked at Door, and he smiled like a fox. "I killed your family," said Mr. Croup. "Not him. And now I'm-finally-going to finish the… "

It was at that moment that the fabric of Mr. Vandemar's dark suit gave way. Mr. Croup tumbled, screaming, into the void, clutching a long strip of black material. Mr. Vandemar looked down at the flailing figure of Mr. Croup as it fell away from them. He, too, looked over at Door, but there was no menace in his gaze. He shrugged, as best as one can shrug while holding on to a table leg for dear life, and then he said, mildly, "Bye-bye," and let go of the table leg.

Silently he plunged through the door, into the light, shrinking as he fell, heading for the tiny figure of Mr. Croup. Soon the two shapes merged into one little blob of blackness in a sea of churning purple and white and orange light, and then the black dot, too, was gone. It made some sort of sense, Richard thought: they were a team, after all.

It was getting harder to breathe. Richard felt giddy and light-headed. The table in the doorway splintered and was sucked away through the door. One of Richard's manacles popped open, and his right arm whipped free. He grabbed the chain holding the left hand, and gripped it as tightly as he could, grateful that the broken finger was on the hand that was still in the manacle; even so, red and blue flashes of pain were shooting up his left arm. He could hear himself, distantly, shouting in pain.

He could not breathe. White blotches of light exploded behind his eyes. He could feel the chain beginning to give way…

The sound of the black door slamming closed filled his whole world. Richard fell violently back against the cold iron pillar, and slumped to the floor. There was silence, then, in the hall-silence, and utter darkness, in the Great Hall under the earth. Richard closed his eyes: it made no difference to the darkness, and he opened his eyes once more.

The hush was broken by the marquis's voice, asking, drily, "So where did you send them?" And then Richard heard a girl's voice talking. He knew it had to be Door's, but it sounded so young, like the voice of a tiny child at bedtime, at the end of a long and exhausting day. "I don't know… a long way away. I'm… very tired now. I… "

"Door," said the marquis. "Snap out of it." it was good that he was saying it, thought Richard, somebody had to, and Richard could no longer remember how to talk. There was a click, then, in the darkness: the sound of a manacle opening, followed by the sound of chains falling against a metal pillar. Then the sound of a match being struck. A candle was lit: it burned weakly, and flickered in the thin air. Fire and fleet and candlelight, thought Richard, and he could not remember why.

Door walked, unsteadily, to the marquis, holding her candle. She reached out a hand, touched his chains, and his manacles clicked open. He rubbed his wrists. Then she walked over to Richard, and touched his single remaining manacle. It fell open. Door sighed, then, and sat down beside him. He reached out his good arm and cradled her head, holding her close to him. He rocked her slowly back and forth, crooning a wordless lullaby. It was cold, cold, there in the angel's empty hall; but soon the warmth of unconsciousness reached out and enveloped them both.

The marquis de Carabas watched the sleeping children. The idea of sleep-of returning, even for a short time, to a state so horribly close to death-scared him more than he would have ever believed. But, eventually, even he put his head down on his arm, and closed his eyes.

And then there were none.