Neverwhere

along it, and the far end erupted into scarlet flame.
«Can I ask a question?» said Richard.
«Certainly not,» said the marquis. «You don’t ask any questions. You don’t get any answers. You don’t stray from the path. You don’t even think about what’s happening to you right now. Got it?»
«But—»
«Most important of all: no buts,» said de Carabas. «And time is of the essence. Move.» He pointed into the depths revealed by the open manhole cover. Richard moved, clambering down the metal ladder set into the wall beneath the manhole, feeling so far out of his depth that it didn’t even occur to him to question any further.
Richard wondered where they were. This didn’t seem to be a sewer. Perhaps it was a tunnel for telephone cables, or for very small trains. Or for . . . something else. He realized that he did not know very much about what went on beneath the streets of London. He walked nervously, worried that he’d catch his feet in something, that he’d stumble in the darkness and break his ankle. De Carabas strode on ahead, nonchalantly, apparently not caring whether Richard was with him or not. The crimson flame cast huge shadows on the tunnel walls.
Richard ran to catch up. «Let’s see . . . » said de Carabas. «I’ll need to get her to the market. The next one’s in, mm, two days’ time, if I recall correctly, as of course I unfailingly do. I can hide her until then.»
«Market?» asked Richard.
«The Floating Market. But you don’t want to know about that. No more questions.»
Richard looked around. «Well, I was going to ask you where we are now. But I suppose you were going to refuse to tell me.»
The marquis grinned once more. «Very good,» he said, approvingly. «You are in enough trouble already.»
«You can say that again,» sighed Richard. «My fiancee’s dumped me, and I’ll probably have to get a new telephone—»
«Temple and Arch. A telephone is the least of your troubles.» De Carabas put the flare down on the ground, resting it against the wall, where it continued to sputter and flame, and he began to climb up some metal rungs set into the wall. Richard hesitated, and then followed him. The rungs were cold and rusted; he could feel them crumbling roughly against his hands as he climbed, fragments of rust getting in his eyes and mouth. The scarlet light from below was flickering, and then it went out. They climbed in total darkness.
«So, are we going back to Door?» Richard asked.
«Eventually. There’s a little something I need to organize first. Insurance. And when we get into daylight, don’t look down.»
«Why not?» asked Richard. And then daylight hit his face, and he looked down.
It was daylight (how was it daylight? a tiny voice asked, in the back of his head. It had been almost night when he entered the alley, what, an hour ago?), and he was holding onto a metal ladder that ran up the outside of a very high building (but a few seconds ago he was climbing up the same ladder, and he had been inside, hadn’t he?), and below him, he could see . . .
London.
Tiny cars. Tiny buses and taxis. Tiny buildings. Trees. Miniature trucks. Tiny, tiny people. They swam in and out of focus beneath him.
To say that Richard Mayhew was not very good at heights would be perfectly accurate, but it would fail to give the full picture. Richard hated clifftops, and high buildings: somewhere not far inside him was the fear—the stark, utter, silently screaming terror—that if he got too close to the edge, then something would take over and he would find himself walking to the edge of a clifftop and stepping off into space. It was as if he could not entirely trust himself, and that scared Richard more than the simple fear of falling ever could. So he called it vertigo, and hated it and himself, and kept away from high places.
Richard froze on the ladder. His hands clamped tightly to the rungs. His eyes hurt, somewhere behind the eyeballs. He started breathing too fast, too deeply. «Somebody,» said an amused voice above him, «wasn’t listening, was he?»
«I . . . » Richard’s throat didn’t work. He swallowed, moistening it. «I can’t move.» His hands were sweating. What if they sweated so much that he simply slipped off into the void . . . ?
«Of course you can move. Or, if you don’t you can stay here, hanging onto the side of the wall until your hands freeze and your legs buckle and you tumble to a messy death a thousand feet below.» Richard looked up at the marquis. He was looking down at Richard, and still smiling;