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" We would appear to have crossed successfully, " said the leather woman.

Richard's heart was pounding in his chest so hard that, for a few moments, he was unable to talk. He forced himself to breathe slowly, to calm down. They were in a large anteroom, exactly like the one on the other side. In fact, Richard had the strange feeling that it was the same room they had just left. Yet the shadows were deeper, and there were after-images floating before Richard's eyes, like those one saw after a camera flash. " I suppose, " Richard said, haltingly, " we weren't in any real danger. . . It was like a haunted house. A few noises in the dark. . . and your imagination does the rest. There wasn't really anything to be scared of, was there? "

The woman looked at him, almost pityingly; and Richard realized that there was nobody holding his hand. " Anaesthesia? "

From the darkness at the crown of the bridge came a gentle noise, like a rustle or a sigh. A handful of irregular quartz beads pattered down the curve of the bridge toward them. Richard picked one up. It was from the rat-girls necklace. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. Then he found his voice. " We'd better. We have to go back. She's

. . . "

The woman raised her flashlight, shone it across the bridge. Richard could see all the way across the bridge. It was deserted. " Where is she? " he asked.

" Gone, " said the woman, flatly. " The darkness took her. "

" We've got to do something, " said Richard urgently.

" Such as? "

Once again, he opened his mouth. This time, he found no words. He closed it again. He fingered the lump of quartz, looked at the others on the ground.

" She's gone, " said the woman. " The bridge takes its toll. Be grateful it didn't take you too. Now if you're going to the market, it's through here, up this way. " She gestured toward a narrow passageway that rose up into the dimness in front of them, barely illuminated by the beam of her flashlight.

Richard did not move. He felt numb. He found it hard to believe that the rat girl was gone—lost, or stolen, or strayed, or. . . —and harder to believe that the leather woman was able to carry on as if nothing at all out of the ordinary had happened—as if this were utterly usual. Anaesthesia could not be dead

He completed the thought. She could not be dead, because if she were, then it was his fault. She had not asked to go with him. He held the quartz bead so tightly it hurt his hand, thinking of the pride with which Anaesthesia had shown it to him, of how fond he had become of her in the handful of hours that he had known her.

" Are you coming? "

Richard stood there in the darkness for a few pounding heartbeats, then he placed the quartz bead gently into the pocket of his jeans. He followed the woman, who was still some paces ahead of him. As he followed her, he realized that he still did not know her name.

FIVE

People slipped and slid through the darkness about them, holding lamps, torches, flashlights, and candles. It made Richard think of documentary films he had seen of schools of fish, glittering and darting through the ocean. . . Deep water, inhabited by things that had lost the use of their eyes.

Richard followed the leather woman up some steps. Stone steps, edged with metal.

They were in an Underground station. They joined a line of people waiting to slip through a grille, which had been opened a foot or so to uncover the door, which led out onto the pavement.

Immediately in front of them were a couple of young boys, each with a string tied around his wrist. The strings were held by a pallid, bald man, who smelled of formaldehyde. Immediately behind them in the line waited a gray-bearded man with a black-and-white kitten sitting on his shoulder. It washed itself, intently licked the man's ear, then curled up on his shoulder and went to sleep. The line moved slowly, as, one by one, the figures at the end slipped through the space between the grille and the wall and edged into the night. " Why are you going to the market, Richard Mayhew? " asked the leather woman, in a low voice. Richard still could not place her accent: he was beginning to suspect that she was African or Australian—or perhaps she came from somewhere even more exotic and obscure.

" I have friends I'm hoping to meet there. Well, just one friend. I don't actually know many people from this world. I was sort of getting to know Anaesthesia, but. . . "

he trailed off. Asked the question he had not dared to voice until this moment. " Is she dead? "

The woman shrugged. " Yes. Or as good as. I trust your visit to the market will make her loss worthwhile. "

Richard shivered. " I don't think it could, " he said. He felt empty, and utterly alone.

They were approaching the front of the line. " What do you do? " he asked.

She smiled. " I sell personal physical services. "

" Oh, " he said. " What kind of personal physical services? " he asked.

" I rent my body. " She did not elaborate.

" Ah. " He was too weary to pursue it, to press her to explain just what she meant; he had an idea, though. And then they stepped out into the night. Richard looked back.

The sign on the station said KNIGHTSBRIDGE. He didn't know whether to smile or to mourn. It felt like the small hours of the morning. Richard looked down at his watch and was not surprised to notice that the digital face was now completely blank. Perhaps the batteries had died, or, he thought, more likely, time in London Below had only a passing acquaintance with the kind of time he was used to. He did not care. He unstrapped the watch and dropped it into the nearest garbage can.

The odd people were crossing the road in a stream, walking through the double doors facing them. " There? " he said, appalled.

The woman nodded. " There. "

The building was large, and it was covered with many thousands of burning lights.

Conspicuous coats of arms on the wall facing them proudly proclaimed that it sold all sorts of things by appointment to various members of the British Royal Family.

Richard, who had spent many a footsore weekend hour trailing behind Jessica through every prominent shop in London, recognized it immediately, even without the huge sign, proclaiming it to be, " Harrods? "

The woman nodded. " Only for tonight, " she said. " The next market could be anywhere. "

" But I mean, " said Richard. " Harrods. " It seemed almost sacrilegious to be sneaking into this place at night.

They walked in through the side door. The room was dark. They passed the bureau de change and the gift-wrapping section, through another darkened room selling sunglasses and figurines, and then they stepped into the Egyptian Room. Color and light broke over Richard like a wave hitting the shore. His companion turned to him: she yawned, catlike, shading the vivid pinkness of her mouth with the back of her caramel hand. And then she smiled, and said, " Well. You're here. Safe and, more or less, sound. I have business to attend to. Fare you well. " She nodded curtly and slipped away into the crowd.

Richard stood there, alone in the throng, drinking it in. It was pure madness—of that there was no doubt at all. It was loud, and brash, and insane, and it was, in many ways, quite wonderful. People argued, haggled, shouted, sang. They hawked and touted their wares, and loudly declaimed the superiority of their merchandise. Music was playing—a dozen different kinds of music, being played a dozen different ways on a score of different instruments, most of them improvised, improved, improbable.

Richard could smell food. All kinds of food—the smells of curries and spices seemed to predominate, with, beneath them, the smells of grilling meats and mushrooms. Stalls had been set up all throughout the shop, next to, or even on, counters that, during the day, had sold perfume, or watches, or amber, or silk scarves. Everybody was buying.

Everybody was selling. Richard listened to the market cries as he began to wander through the crowds.

" Lovely fresh dreams. First-class nightmares. We got 'em. Get yer lovely nightmares here. "

" Weapons! Arm yourself! Defend your cellar, cave, or hole! You want to hit 'em?

We got 'em. Come on darling, come on over here. . . "

" Rubbish! " screamed a fat, elderly woman, in Richard's ear, as he passed her malodorous stall. " Junk! " she continued. " Garbage! Trash! Offal! Debris! Come and get it! Nothing whole or undamaged! Crap, tripe, and useless piles of shit. You know you want it. "

A man in armor beat a small drum and chanted, " Lost Property. Roll up, roll up, and see for yourself. Lost property. None of your found things here. Everything guaranteed properly lost. "

Richard wandered through the huge rooms of the store, like a man in a trance. He was unable to even guess how many people there were at the night market. A thousand?

Two thousand? Five thousand?

One stall was piled high with bottles, full bottles and empty bottles of every shape and every size, from bottles of booze to one huge glimmering bottle that could have contained nothing but a captive djinn; another sold lamps with candles, made of many kinds of wax and tallow; a man thrust what appeared to be a child's severed hand clutching a candle toward him as he passed, muttering, " Hand of Glory, sir? Send 'em up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire. Guaranteed to work. " Richard hurried past, not wishing to find out what a Hand of Glory was, nor how it worked; he passed a stall selling glittering gold and silver jewelry, another selling jewelry made from what looked like the valves and wires of antique radios; there were stalls that sold every manner of book and magazine; others that sold clothes—old clothes patched, and mended, and made strange; several tattooists; something that he was almost certain was a small slave market (he kept well clear of this); a dentist's chair, with a hand-operated manual drill, with a line of miserable people standing beside it, waiting to have their teeth pulled or filled by a young man who seemed to be having altogether too good a time; a bent old man selling unlikely things that might have been hats and might have been modern art; something that looked very much like a portable shower facility; even a blacksmith's. . .

And every few stalls there would be somebody selling food. Some of them had food cooking over open fires: curries, and potatoes, and chestnuts, and huge mushrooms, and exotic breads. Richard found himself wondering why the smoke from the fires didn't set off the building's sprinkler system. Then he found himself wondering why no one was looting the store: why set up their own little stalls? Why not just take things from the shop itself? He knew better, at this point, than to risk asking anyone. . .

He seemed marked as a man from London Above, and thus worthy of great suspicion.

There was something deeply tribal about the people, Richard decided. He tried to pick out distinct groups: there were the ones who looked like they had escaped from a historical reenactment society; the ones who reminded him of hippies; the albino people in gray clothes and dark glasses; the polished, dangerous ones in smart suits and black gloves; the huge, almost identical women who walked together in twos and threes, and nodded when they saw each other; the tangle-haired ones who looked like they probably lived in sewers and who smelled like hell; and a hundred other types and kinds. . .

He wondered how normal London— his London—would look to an alien, and that made him bold. He began to ask them, as he went, " Excuse me? I'm looking for a man named de Carabas and a girl called Door. Do you know where I'd find them? " People shook their heads, apologized, averted their eyes, moved away.

Richard took a step back and stepped on someone's foot. Someone was well over seven feet tall, and was covered in tufty ginger-colored hair. Someone's teeth had been sharpened to points. Someone picked Richard up with a hand the size of a sheep's head, and put Richard's head so close to someone's mouth that Richard almost gagged. " I'm really sorry, " said Richard. " I—I'm looking for a girl named Door. Do you know—"

But someone dropped him onto the floor and moved on.

Another whiff of cooking food wafted across the floor, and Richard, who had managed to forget how hungry he was ever since he had declined the prime cut of tomcat—he could not think how many hours before—now found his mouth watering, and his thinking processes beginning to grind to a halt.

The iron-haired woman running the next food stall he approached did not reach to Richard's waist. When Richard tried to talk to her, she shook her head, drew a finger across her lips. She could not talk, or did not talk, or did not want to talk. Richard found himself conducting the negotiations for a cottage cheese and lettuce sandwich and a cup of what looked and smelled like home-brewed lemonade, in sign language. His food cost him a ballpoint pen, and a book of matches he had forgotten he had. The little woman must have felt that she had got by far the better of the deal, for, as he took his food, she threw in a couple of small, nutty cookies.

Richard stood in the middle of the throng, listening to the music—someone was, for no reason that Richard could easily discern, singing the lyrics of " Greensleeves" to the tune of " Yakkety-Yak" —watching the bizarre bazaar unfold around him, and eating his sandwiches.

As he finished the last of the sandwiches, he realized that he had no idea how anything he had just eaten had tasted; and he resolved to slow down, and chew the cookies more slowly. He sipped the lemonade, making it last. " You need a bird, sir? "

asked a cheery voice, close at hand. " I got rooks and ravens, crows and starlings. Fine, wise birds. Tasty and wise. Brilliant. "

Richard said, " No, thank you" and turned around.

The hand-painted sign above the stall said:

OLD BAILEY'S BIRDS AND INFORMATION

There were other, smaller, signs scattered about:

YOU WANTS IT, WE KNOWS IT, and YOU WON'T FIND A PLUMPER STARLING!!!! and WHEN IT'S TIME FOR A ROOK, IT'S TIME FOR OLD BAILEY!! Richard found himself thinking of the man he had seen when he had first come to London, who used to stand outside Leicester Square Tube station with a huge hand-painted sandwich board that exhorted the world to " Less Lust Through Less Protein, Eggs, Meat, Beans, Cheese and Sitting. "

Birds hopped and fluttered about small cages that looked as if they had been woven out of TV antennae. " Information, then? " continued Old Bailey, warming to his own sales-pitch. " Roof-maps? History? Secret and mysterious knowledge? If I don't knows it, it's probably better forgot. That's what I says. " The old man still wore his feathered coat, was still wrapped about with ropes and cords. He blinked at Richard, then pulled on the pair of spectacles tied about his neck with string. He inspected Richard carefully through them. " Hang on—I knows you. You was with the marquis de Carabas. On the rooftops. Remember? Eh? I'm Old Bailey. Remember me? " He thrust out his hand, pumped Richard's hand furiously.

" Actually, " said Richard, " I'm looking for the marquis. And for a young lady named Door. I think they're probably together. "

The old man did a little jig, causing several feathers to detach themselves from his coat; this provoked a chorus of raucous disapproval from the various birds around them. " Information! Information! " he announced to the crowded room. " See? I told 'em.

Diversify, I said. Diversify! You can't sell rooks for the stewpot forever—anyway, they taste like boiled slipper. And they're so stupid. Thick as custard. You ever eaten rook? "

Richard shook his head. That was something he could be certain of, at any rate.

" What'll you give me? " asked Old Bailey.

" Sorry? " said Richard, awkwardly leaping from ice floe to ice floe in the stream of the old man's consciousness.

" If'n I give ye your information. What'll I get? "

" I don't have any money, " said Richard. " And I just gave my pen away. "

He began to pull out the contents of Richard's pockets. " There, " said Old Bailey.

" That! "

" My hankie? " asked Richard. It was not a particularly clean handkerchief; it had been a present from his Aunt Maude, on his last birthday. Old Bailey seized it and waved it above his head, happily.

" Never you fear, laddie, " he sang, triumphantly. " Your quest is at an end. Go down there, through that door. You can't miss them. They're auditioning. " He was pointing towards Harrods' extensive network of Food Halls. A rook cawed maliciously. " None of your beak, " said Old Bailey, to the rook. And, to Richard, he said, " Thank'ee for the little flag. " He jigged around his stall, delighted, waving Richard's handkerchief to and fro.

Auditioning? thought Richard. And then he smiled. It didn't matter. His quest, as the mad old roof-man had put it, was at an end. He walked toward the Food Halls.

Fashion, in bodyguards, seemed to be everything. They all had a Knack of one kind or another, and each of them was desperate to demonstrate it to the world. At the moment, Ruislip was facing off against the Fop With No Name.

The Fop With No Name looked somewhat like an early eighteenth-century rake, one who hadn't been able to find real rake clothes and had had to make do with what he could find at the Salvation Army store. His face was powdered to white, his lips painted red. Ruislip, the Fop's opponent, resembled a bad dream one might have if one fell asleep watching sumo wrestling on the television with a Bob Marley record playing in the background. He was a huge Rastafarian who looked like nothing so much as an obese and enormous baby.

They were standing face to face, in the middle of a cleared circle of spectators and other bodyguards and sightseers. Neither man moved a muscle. The Fop was a good head taller than Ruislip. On the other hand, Ruislip looked as if he weighed as much as four fops, each of them carrying a large leather suitcase entirely filled with lard. They stared at each other, without breaking eye contact.

The marquis de Carabas tapped Door on the shoulder and pointed. Something was about to happen.

One moment there were two men standing impassively, just looking at each other, then the Fop's head rocked back, as if he'd just been hit in the face. A small, reddish purple bruise appeared on his cheek. He pursed his lips and fluttered his eyelashes.

" La, " he said, then stretched his rouged lips wide, in a ghastly parody of a smile.

The Fop gestured. Ruislip staggered, and clutched his stomach.

The Fop With No Name smirked outrageously, waggled his fingers, and blew kisses to several spectators. Ruislip stared angrily at the Fop, redoubling his mental assault. Blood began to drip from the Fop's lips. His left eye started to swell. He staggered. The audience muttered appreciatively.

" It's not as impressive as it looks, " whispered the marquis to Door.

The Fop With No Name stumbled, suddenly, going onto his knees, as if someone were forcing him down, and fell, awkwardly, to the floor. Then he jerked, as if someone had just kicked him, hard, in the stomach. Ruislip looked triumphant. The spectators clapped, politely. The Fop writhed and spat blood onto the sawdust on the floor of Harrods' Fish and Meat Hall. He was dragged off into the corner by some friends, and was violently sick.

" Next, " said the marquis.

The next would-be bodyguard was again thinner than Ruislip (being about the size of two and a half fops, carrying but a single suitcase filled with lard between them). He was covered in tattoos and dressed in clothes that looked like they had been stitched together from old car seats and rubber mats. He was shaven-headed, and he sneered at the world through rotten teeth. " I'm Varney, " he said, and he hawked, and spat green on the sawdust. He walked into the ring.

" When you're ready, gentlemen, " said the marquis.

Ruislip stamped his bare feet on the floor, sumo-like, one-two, one-two, and commenced to stare hard at Varney. A small cut opened on Varney's forehead, and blood began to drip from it into one eye. Varney ignored it; and instead appeared to be concentrating on his right arm. He pulled his arm up slowly, like a man fighting a great deal of pressure. Then he slammed his fist into Ruislip's nose, which began to spurt blood. Ruislip drew one long, horrible breath, and hit the ground with the sound of half a ton of wet liver being dropped into a bathtub. Varney giggled.

Ruislip slowly pulled himself back to his feet blood from his nose soaking his mouth and chest, dripping onto the sawdust. Varney wiped the blood from his forehead and bared his ruined mouth at the world in an appalling grin. " Come on, " he said. " Fat bastard. Hit me again. "

" That one's promising, " muttered the marquis.

Door raised an eyebrow. " He doesn't look very nice. "

" Nice in a bodyguard, " lectured the marquis, " is about as useful as the ability to regurgitate whole lobsters. He looks dangerous. " There was a murmur of appreciation, then, as Varney did something rather fast and painful to Ruislip, something that involved the sudden connection of Varney's leather-bound foot and Ruislip's testicles.

The murmur was the kind of restrained and deeply unenthusiastic applause one normally only hears in England on sleepy sunny Sunday afternoons, at village cricket matches. The marquis clapped politely with the rest of them. " Very good, sir, " he said.

Varney looked at Door, and he winked at her, almost proprietarily, before he returned his attention to Ruislip. Door shivered.

Richard heard the clapping and walked toward it.

Five almost identically dressed, pale young women walked past him. They wore long dresses made of velvet, each dress as dark as night, one each of dark green, dark chocolate, royal blue, dark blood, and pure black. Each woman had black hair and wore silver jewelry; each was perfectly coifed, perfectly made up. They moved silently: Richard was aware only of a swish of heavy velvet as they went past, a swish that sounded almost like a sigh. The last of the women, the one dressed in utter black, the palest and the most beautiful, smiled at Richard. He smiled back at her, warily. Then he walked on toward the audition.

It was being held in the Fish and Meat Hall, on the open area of floor beneath Harrods' fish sculpture. The audience had their back to him, were standing two or three people deep. Richard wondered if he would easily be able to find Door and the marquis: and then the crowd parted, and he saw them both, sitting on the glass top of the smoked-salmon counter. He opened his mouth to shout out Door's name; and as he did so, he realized why the crowd had parted, as an enormous dreadlocked man, naked but for a green, yellow, and red cloth wrapped like a diaper around his middle, came catapulting through the crowd, as if tossed by a giant, landing squarely on top of him.

" Richard? " she said.

He opened his eyes. The face swam in and out of focus. Fire opal-colored eyes, peering into his, from a pale, elfin face.

" Door? " he said.

She looked furious; she looked beyond fury. " Temple and Arch, Richard. I don't believe it. What are you doing here? "

" It's nice to see you, too, " said Richard, weakly. He sat up and wondered if he was suffering from a concussion. He wondered how he'd know if he was, and he wondered why he had ever thought that Door would have been pleased to see him. She stared intently at her nails, nostrils flaring, as if she did not trust herself to say anything else.

The big man with the very bad teeth, the man who had knocked Richard over on the bridge, was fighting with a dwarf. They were fighting with crowbars, and the fight was not as unequal as one might have imagined. The dwarf was preternaturally fast: he rolled, he struck, he bounced, he dove; his every movement made Varney appear lumbering and awkward by comparison.

Richard turned to the marquis, who was watching the fight intently. " What is happening? " he asked.

The marquis spared him a glance, and then returned his gaze to the action in front of them. " You, " he said, " are out of your league, in deep shit, and, I would imagine, a few hours away from an untimely and undoubtedly messy end. We, on the other hand, are auditioning bodyguards. " Varney connected his crowbar with the dwarf, who instantly stopped bouncing and darting, and instantly began lying insensible. " I think we've seen enough, " said the marquis, loudly. " Thank you all. Mister Varney, if you could wait behind? "

" Why did you have to come here? " Door said to Richard, frostily.

" I didn't really have much choice, " said Richard.

She sighed. The marquis was walking around the perimeter, dismissing the various bodyguards who had already auditioned, distributing a few words of praise here, of advice there. Varney waited patiently, off to one side. Richard essayed a smile at Door.

It was ignored. " How did you get to the market? " she asked.

" There are these rat people—" Richard began.

" Rat-speakers, " she said.

" And you see, the rat who brought us the marquis's message—"

" Master Longtail, " she said.

" Well, he told them they had to get me here. "

She raised an eyebrow, cocked her head slightly on one side. " A rat-speaker brought you here? "

He nodded. " Most of the way. Her name was Anaesthesia. She. . . well, something happened to her. On the bridge. This other lady brought me the rest of the way here. I think she was a. . . you know. " He hesitated, then said it. " Hooker. "

The marquis had returned. He stood in front of Varney, who looked obscenely pleased with himself. " Weapons expertise? " asked the marquis.

" Whew, " said Varney. " Put it like this. If you can cut someone with it, blow someone's head off with it, break a bone with it, or make a nasty hole in someone with it, then Varney's the master of it. "

" Previous satisfied employers include? "

" Olympia, the Shepherd Queen, the Crouch Enders. I done security for the May Fair for a bit, as well. "

" Well, " said the marquis de Carabas. " We're all very impressed with your skill. "

" I had heard, " said a female voice, " that you had put out a call for bodyguards. Not for enthusiastic amateurs. " Her skin was the color of burnt caramel, and her smile would have stopped a revolution. She was dressed entirely in soft mottled gray and brown leathers. Richard recognized her immediately.

" That's her, " Richard whispered to Door. " The hooker. "

" Varney, " said Varney, affronted, " is the best guard and bravo in the Underside.

Everyone knows that. "

The woman looked at the marquis. " You've finished the trials? " she asked.

" Yes, " said Varney.

" Not necessarily, " said the marquis.

" Then, " she told him. " I would like to audition. " There was a beat before the marquis de Carabas said, " Very well, " and stepped backward.

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