Chương 60: Trash Among Trash

The entrance to the lower city wasn't far. We walked two streets over and came to a small wooden shack, and outside it two lizards were waiting — Ragn'tatt's men.

"I'm René," said the leaner of the two lizards, speaking with ease.

"I'll be your guide to the lower city. This is Joseph." He gestured to his heavily scarred companion.

"He's just here for the extra muscle."

"Hello," said Joseph in a croaking voice, and gave a small nod.

"You do know where the hub is," said Eulalie. It was not quite a question.

"You're not taking us down there to wander about and waste our time?"

"Definitely not," said René quickly.

"I grew up in the lower city. I know the place very well."

"So people from the lower city can move up here?" I asked.

"No, they can't," said René.

"It requires exceptional circumstances, or exceptional gold. In my case, Ragn'tatt plucked me out of that miserable place himself. I owe him my life."

"Oh. I see," I said, and thought about that for a moment.

"Come on, then," said Eulalie.

"All of you, into the elevator." They should have called it a hellevator. Did nobody ever think of that? Inside the shack there was almost nothing at all: a hole in the floor, and over the hole a rickety wooden frame of the sort one sees in the deep mines, with a gate that didn't quite shut. We all crowded in, shoulder against shoulder. But this one had no crank and no winch. Eugene simply produced a small green crystal and slotted it into a bracket beside the gate.

The frame rattled, shook violently, and began to descend. Slowly. Really slowly. It took a great deal of time, and a great deal of dust, and after a while it became impossible to tell how deep we had gone. Then the whole thing lurched hard enough to knock us into one another, and we got out. We started down a tunnel so cramped we had to walk in single file, Eulalie raised her crystal staff, casting a bright, glowing light to guide us.

As we walked, the tunnel gradually widened, and familiar small red crystals began to appear, embedded in the stone walls. It all came back to me. The dim red light, the occasional mushroom, the trickle of water somewhere out of sight, the damp cool smell of the stone. It was Marguerite's caves, near enough, and it filled me with a quiet, warm sort of peace, and I found myself smiling Oh, I do miss Marguerite's cave! I wonder when I might visit. Would they let me take the vertebus?

I was still lost in the thought when the tunnel widened further and people began to appear along its walls — small wooden structures, simple tents, and makeshift lean-tos clung to the rock. And every one of them who noticed us, grown and child alike, scrambled quickly away to their homes, as though they'd seen a… what? A monster? A skeleton? Well, something else properly frightening. It made me somewhat sad. This was the exact opposite of the upper city, where citizens smiled and waved happily as we passed.

Down here, they didn't like officers. Not one bit. I wasn't sure why, but I got the feeling that if I knew, it would probably just make me feel worse. So, I didn't ask. Ahead of us the tunnel ended in a wide, ragged gap full of pale light. We came out through it into an enormous cavern — and there was a whole town in it. I could only gape. The ground was too broken to build on properly, and what little of it was flat had gone to market stalls, so only a few houses stood down there.

The rest had climbed the walls — stacked one above another in the rock, slung on ropes, propped on beams, with rope bridges strung across at every height and washing lines of bright mismatched cloth between them. It was chaos, and it was beautiful.

"From here you'll want your guard up," warn René.

"This is the Larksong district, one of the biggest and busiest in the lower city. As you're well aware, upper city officers aren't much loved down here, and any of these unfortunates can be paid by the gangs to try something. So stay vigilant." As we walked into the street a hundred different foods came at my nose at once, and it reminded me of the food shops in my town, back in the living world.

Then one smell came through the rest — not quite a fruit tart, but very nearly — and for a moment I was back in the pastry shop, my friend weeping over the simple tart, silly creature that she was. Maybe... Maybe I should come here with Henriette sometime. Without the uniform, obviously. I noticed our group had closed ranks, and that the apparitors had gone tense, and then I saw why. People began to gather around us. A few at first, keeping their distance. Then more of them, and closer, and bolder.

"Go away!" shouted a child.

"Back to your sky city!"

"You're not welcome here!" called a woman from a second-floor window. A group of four lizards stepped out into our path, then thought better of it and scattered when Eulalie gave them a look. A stick came spinning out of the crowd and struck my leg; I caught sight of a child bolting behind a house. Then a stone, which hit nothing but dirt. I looked about me and there were so many of them, and it was perfectly plain that they were not fond of us, and all at once I was afraid. Another child threw another stick.

Eugene began to raise his wooden staff with the red ruby set in it, and Eulalie put a hand on his arm.

"We keep a low profile. I want to reach the trading hub unannounced, if we can manage it."

"Not far now," said René, pointing up a narrow road and stepping neatly around something wet that had been thrown at him. We turned into a wide tunnel in the wall, and the Larksong crowd did not follow us in. There were homes along both sides of it, if one can call them homes — scrap board and grey tenting, and holes hacked into the rock with curtains hung across. Until now the place had been shabby, but it had charm. This had none. It was filthy and it stank.

And the people were in a bad way — clothes torn, faces blank, old and young alike. They weren't frightened of us, and they weren't hostile either. They simply didn't care. Women and lizards in very little clothing looked our apparitors over, hoping for custom, and a beggar caught hold of my leg. I shrieked and kicked free. He only lay there with his hand still out. It began to get to me. It was nothing at all like Marguerite's caves, and nothing at all like my home town in the living world.

It was dirty and it was sad and it was disgusting, and I wanted nothing in the world so much as to go back up to the upper city. We kept going. The tunnel narrowed until it was only just wide enough for two, and in places the ceiling came down so low we had to duck. Then it opened out again, and here there were sheets of coloured cloth hanging down from the rock above us, so many of them that we had to push through as though through washing on a line.

"We're close now," said the guide.

"Slowly. There should be sentries about here, and they'll be armed." I tensed at that. We went on, slowly, and I imagined a man stepping out from behind the coloured sheets, aiming a bonearm straight at my face and then… wait. I actually had no idea what a bonearm did. But I was sure it wasn't terribly pleasant! And then I heard music. Tam, tam, tam. It had an upbeat tempo, like a lively tavern jig, but the notes were completely off—a discordant, horrible melody that made absolutely no sense.

Pushing past a sheet, I saw people dancing. Men and women in rags, spinning about with great smiles on their faces. They waved happily at us. One woman even offered her hand to an Apparitor to join the dance, though he quickly snatched his hand away. Two lizards sat on the dirty floor, smiling and chatting like they hadn't a care in the world. Then I saw a young woman giggling as she slowly pricked her own leg with a rusted knife. I gasped, slapping a hand over my mouth. This was the switch-paste.

What a horrifying thing! If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. A short, skinny man walked casually straight toward us. One of the Apparitors leveled a pistol at him, but the man just smiled and kept coming.

"I'm not scared," he said in a fiercely confident tone.

"I'm free now." He kept walking until his chest was nearly touching the barrel. I saw the apparitor's finger tighten, and I braced myself.

"Leave us," said Eulalie, low and final. The short man stood there a long moment, then nodded and trotted away.

"There are many ways people use the paste," our guide explained.

"Hurting oneself for the pleasure of the pain is only one. That one has a taste for being shot at — the paste turns his fear into courage, and the nearer he comes to death, the more of it he gets." He shrugged.

"I've seen people starve themselves to feel a fullness and a contentment they never had in life. Some shame themselves to feel the pride they never felt. Some will even destroy things with someone they love, just to feel the opposite of a broken heart —""I get it!" I snapped, totally overwhelmed.

"This is a bad place. Please stop explaining!" By Jove, I was about ready to weep right then and there. We went on, and I did my best to ignore the horrifically happy people all around us, and after one more turn we came to a large wooden cabin, built wide enough to fill the whole tunnel. Two men stood in front of it. They weren't smiling and they weren't in rags.

"Hey, you there! Stop!" said one of them. Then he got a proper look at us, and panic went across his face, and he snatched a long bone up from his belt — just before a flick of green light left Eulalie's staff, and three red slashes opened across his stomach, and he went down in a bleeding heap.

"We're under attack!" shouted the other, dragging out a pistol. There was a crack. One of the apparitors already had his musket levelled, and shot him dead.

"Inside. Hurry," said Eulalie. We barged in with weapons drawn — bonearms, staves and muskets, and me with a pistol in each hand. Inside was one long room, thick with smoke and that same wrong music coming from somewhere at the back, and people scattering in every direction. Some of them didn't scatter at all: they sat exactly where they were with the paste smile on their faces and watched us go by as though we were weather. Nobody, at least, was stupid enough to start anything.

"Up the stairs," said René. We went up and pushed open a door into a large, fancy room, which was a very strange thing to find in that crumbling building. Two skeleton women bolted out of the back door as we came in. But one fat lizard was still there, in a frenzy, cramming gold coin into a pack with both hands. When he saw us he ran too for the back door. Suddenly, I heard a sharp bzzzzt sound. Eugene had lifted a small, curly bone weapon. The fat lizard screamed and fell to the floor, clutching his legs.

Something was horribly wrong with how his legs bent. Oh. So the bone weapons break bones! That's what they do! Ouch, That looks rather painful!

"This is Franz," René said, looking down at the fat lizard groaning in agony on the floor.

"This is a good catch. He runs the paste for half this district."

"Good," said Eulalie.

"But we want his boss." She was quiet for a moment. Then she looked at René.

"Is there a passage up? Close by?"

"Yes. Behind the far wall, two turns from here."

"Emilie, Jean." She nodded at two of the apparitors.

"Bind the fat lizard and take him back to headquarters, to the cells. I'll have him questioned later. Perhaps we'll get something useful." Leaving the two Apparitors behind, we headed back down the stairs, preparing to leave. As we exited, we saw a large lizard in a green coat scrambling away, clutching a large bag.

"You there! Stop!" shouted Eugene.

"Drop the bag."

"This... this is only..." the lizard mumbled, in a thick Russian accent.

"It is my things! I done nothing wrong!"

"Drizella," said Eugene, raising an open hand toward him.

"You'll want to watch. This is called pyrossomancy."

"I done nothing wrong sir!" the lizard said.

"Please, sir, I..." Eugene closed his hand. I felt something happen in the air, a sort of pressure, and then a small crack, and the lizard screamed as two of his fingers burst into flame. He dropped the bag and ran, and fell, and cried out, and scrambled out of the cabin on all fours. It was the same thing James once did to protect me. Only this time it was utterly unnecessary. Eugene walked over to the sack and turned it upside down, and out fell nothing but dirty rags. And some fruit.

"Well. It really was just his things," he said, with a shrug.

"But don't look at me like that. We came here to show muscle. People will see that lizard's scars for years, they'll hear the story, and they'll be reminded what it costs to be on the wrong side of the law." By gosh, but I hate Eugene. I was still glaring at his back when a young man came out from between two crates at my side, and he was already close. He had a daring sort of smile on his face and a knife in his hand, and he was coming for me — one of those ones the paste had turned brave.

But he was slow and clumsy. I simply sidestepped his wild swing and drove my fist hard into his face. He went down in a heap, out cold before he even hit the floor.

"Good," said Eugene, and gave me an approving nod.

"Shut it!" I said. I could have hit Eugene too. I found myself shaking and rattling. It hadn't really been dangerous. I was simply overwhelmed by all of it. I hate this place, and Eugene, and everything, I told myself, for the millionth time. I felt bony fingers rest gently on my shoulder.

"I hate it too," Eulalie said, quite calmly.

"I truly didn't want you to see all this on your first day. But this is part of the job." I didn't speak.

"There are other parts too," she said.

"Investigation. Bringing murderers to justice. Helping new arrivals from the living world. Festival duty. Or, some days, simply patrolling a quiet town and helping beelzebuns down out of the trees. They get stuck up there quite a lot, actually." She tilted her head up, and the blue light showed in her eye sockets.

"But sometimes it's awful. And then we hold ourselves together. All things considered, you're doing well."

"I — I try," I mumbled, looking down.

"Anyway, we're finished with this hub." She turned to René.

"You have another one, yes? We ought to hurry. There's a good chance they already know we're coming." René took us back through the coloured sheets and into a different tunnel, and then another, and then a long climb that left my legs aching, until we came out into a second cavern. There was a small district here, shacks and tents thrown down anyhow, with no plan to any of it. It hadn't the beauty of Larksong, but I could see how a person might live an ordinary life in it.

And then, of course, our trusted guide led us out of the ordinary part and into the poorest, foulest backwater of it, to a great wooden structure leaning against the far wall of the cavern that looked as though it might come down at any moment.

"This is it," said René.

"Bertrand's place. He answers for this whole district, and they don't only sell — some of the paste is cooked here." No sentries this time. And when we went in, carefully, slowly, weapons up, we found the place entirely empty. Only a few paste-heads drifting about with silly smiles.

"They were warned," said Eugene, looking at Eulalie.

"We should have split up and taken both at once."

"No, we shouldn't have," said Eulalie sharply. Then, to René: "Any other special places Ragn'tatt would like us to visit?"

"There's no point," said René.

"They'll all be empty now."

"Then we're done here," said Eulalie. I would have kissed her, if she had any lips to kiss. Finally, finally, we could go. We came out of the crumbling building, ready to head back. While I waited for the others, I noticed a group of urchins — skeleton, human and lizard children, all in filthy torn clothes, playing at something with a wooden stick.

"It's rare for children to arrive from the living world," the guide explained, following my gaze.

"These will mostly be orphans. The extermination event last year was a harsh one, so there are a great many of them in the lower city these days."

"Oh, but I told you to stop explaining sad things!" I said to him. I was barely holding myself together as it was! And then I saw the children stop their game. One of them pointed, and the rest followed. I looked to see what had caught their attention. It was another orphan, much smaller and sickly thin. He was limping heavily, clutching something tightly to his chest with both hands. He didn't see the other kids quietly sneaking up behind him.

When they closed the distance, a larger lizard kid violently shoved the small boy hard to the ground. The little kid scrambled back to his feet, still clutching his prize with all his might. He glared at the older children with fierce defiance. Another kid grabbed the object he was holding and yanked hard. When the small boy fought back and refused to let go, the attacker punched him squarely in the face. This time he stayed down.

His fingers came open, and the older boy pulled the thing free and ran off with it, and the rest went whooping after him. I could see now what the treasure had been. A piece of bread. Not even a large one.

"Trash among trash," said Eugene, who had come to stand beside me and was watching the same thing I was. I looked at him.

"Even among the trash of the lower city," he elaborated, "there is always someone lower. A lower trash. But don't trouble yourself. He won't suffer long."

"What do you mean?" I asked, and my voice was shaking. I hated this place and I hated Eugene.

"With that leg," he said, "and as thin as he already is? He won't last. I've seen it often enough. I'd wager that the next time we come down here, he won't be around."

"What's keeping you?" called Eulalie.

"Let's go."

"No," I said.

"Wait." Something small broke inside of me. I had simply had enough. I was absolutely brimming with sadness, and I couldn't take one more ounce of it today. So I walked over to the small urchin. He was still sprawled on the ground with his lower lip split and bleeding. His eyes were open. I think he had come back to his senses some while ago and had simply not found any particular reason to get up.

"Get up. On your feet!" I scolded him.

"Stop lazing about!" He looked at me in surprise. Then his gaze drifted down to take in my officer's uniform. His eyes went wide. He scrambled quickly to stand, stumbled on his bad leg, caught himself, and finally stood. He didn't look afraid. Instead, he stared at me with pure contempt. His eyes were fierce. They were the eyes of someone who knew he had almost nothing, but refused to give up on the tiny bit he had left. He was ready to fight for it. I liked his eyes.

"Do you have family about?" I asked him. He didn't answer. He only kept looking at me with contempt.

"I'll take that as a no," I said.

"It happens that I have a large house, and one lousy battler who does nothing but grunt in Russian. I could use another pair of hands, if you're up to the task. There... there will be food for you there." He looked rather less certain now. But he still said nothing, and he still looked at me with utter scorn.

"I'll take that as a yes," I said, and hauled him up over my shoulder like a sack of laundry. He weighed less than the laundry would have. It was like lifting a rag doll, and I had to stop a moment before I could walk, because a child ought to be heavier than that. The urchin beat his fists against my back, in silence, and I hardly felt them. I carried him back to the others.

"You can't do that," said Eugene.

"You can't simply take a lower city stray up top. They aren't citizens. There are rules." I looked at Eugene, and I gave him a lovely, wide smile.