6
NICK
ONE
About five steps later, round the first bend, in fact, was the weirdest city I’d ever been in.
I was in a crowded shopping arcade, surrounded by bustling, busy people. That was all I noticed at first, because everyone turned to stare at me. For a moment I couldn’t think what they were staring at, until I happened to see my reflection in the window of one of the big fancy shops inside the pillars of the arcade. I saw a sopping wet youth with a blue light standing up off the soaking hair on his forehead. Anyone would stare at that—particularly under the roof of a dry arcade.
I said, “Damn!” and somehow managed to suck the witchlight into myself. I was not sure I was going to be able to get it back again, but I couldn’t help that. The stares were really hostile. And it didn’t help that everyone around me was really elaborately dressed. The women wore tight tops with loose sleeves and swirling skirts in bright colors, absolutely stiff with embroidery. The men had hip-hugging blouses and baggy trousers covered with embroidery, too. I’d never seen so much embroidery in one place. The shop I could see myself in was selling rolls and rolls of differently embroidered cloth. I looked really out of place.
Get back and take the other path! I told myself. Quick!
But by that time I’d been swept along in the crowds quite some way and jostled out toward the chest-high parapet lined with enormous pillars that seemed to separate the arcade from the street. I couldn’t tell where the path was now. I’d just turned back to look for it when everything went suddenly quiet and sedate, with almost no sound except hundreds of walking feet and music playing in the shops. It reminded me of the way everything goes law-abiding on a motorway when a police car drives past.
That was more or less what it was. The crowds drifted away sideways to make a clear space for two men in bright yellow who came slowly pacing through. They had embroidery, too, in official-looking shield shapes, and more official embroidery on the fronts of their tall caps. The most noticeable thing about them, though, was the curly yellow sheepskin boots they wore from the knees down. It made their feet look vast. I remembered Dad once saying that you can always tell policemen by their boots. I’d never seen policemen who looked like this, but I knew at once what they were.
I also knew that I’d better keep out of sight. The best way seemed to be to cross the road, so I went on drifting toward the parapet with the rest of the crowd. I had a real shock when I got to the wall. It wasn’t a road beyond it. It was a huge ravine.
It plunged down and down, hundreds of feet. And I
could see it going up, quite as far, on the other side. What I had taken for the row of shops on the other side of the street was just one arcade in a whole stack of them, built one on top of another against the face of a cliff, rows of shops, rows of houses above and below, and rows of blank-looking factories lower down. Every so often there were fancy iron bridges where people could get from one side of the city to the other.
Keeping half an eye on those slowly pacing policemen, I craned over sideways to see farther. The place was all different canyons winding away in different directions, with more houses and shops stacked up the sides of them and more bridges between—as if the land here had cracked into a set of branching ravines and people had decided to live up the sides of them. It looked spectacular. There were huge cargo hoists, or perhaps lifts, in the spaces made by the massive pillars that held each layer of buildings up. Really complicated machinery, those were, painted in bright colors.
As the policemen paced slowly out of sight, I heard a sort of grinding and rushing coming from the depths below. There has to be a river down there, I thought, and I hitched myself on my stomach so that I could look down.
It wasn’t a river, it was a train—two trains actually, like long silver bullets, coming smoothly into a stopping place far, far below. I watched tiny specks of people come milling out of the trains in the milky electric lighting down there.
By this time I was really interested. Nobody seemed to be staring at me anymore, so I decided to stay for a while. Two of the hoists across the way were working now, bringing the people up from the trains, and I told myself I’d look for the path when they’d stopped. I also told myself—knowing it was just an excuse—that the drunk had said I was supposed to help two more people on my way, and there were surely two I could help here. So I stayed hanging over the parapet.
Even if I hadn’t been watching, I could have told when the hoists stopped at the level where I was. The crowd in the arcade suddenly doubled. I swung round to watch as it went in seconds from just busy to packed and hectic. People pushed past me both ways, treading on my feet and banging me with shopping bags. There was a roar of voices that made my head go round.
And I saw Romanov go past, only a foot away.
I leaped after him at once. I elbowed and pushed and barged and shouted, “Hey!” and, “Excuse me!” and, “Could you wait a moment, please?” whenever I thought he might hear me. He was quite easy to keep in sight because his jacket was white, with red and blue floral embroidery. Very few other people wore white. I kept him in sight for about a hundred yards, but I didn’t catch up until we were level with one of the bridges. He had to slow down to turn out across it because he had two kids with him for some reason, and he wanted to make sure they kept with him. While he was stretching out to catch hold of the younger boy, I got near enough to tap him on the back of his embroidery. “Excuse me!” I panted.
He turned round, and he wasn’t Romanov. He wasn’t even very like Romanov. His hair wasn’t particularly dark, and he wore glasses. Behind the glasses, his eyes were washy blue, and around the glasses his face was pale and haughty and thin without being jagged. He didn’t even stand like Romanov. Romanov had had a sort of eager curve to him. This man was stiff and upright. And he was staring at me in utter outrage. I could feel my face flooding red as I stared back and wondered how on earth I’d managed to make such a mistake.
Then it got worse than embarrassing. The two kids grabbed my arms, and they both began yelling. The big one had a voice that squawked, and the small one went off like a train whistle. This made all the other people around start yelling, too. That smaller kid was an utter brat. He kept pinching me, and twisting the pinches, until I’d had enough and I kicked him. At that, he screamed harder than ever, and half the people near promptly grabbed me as well. In no time I was sort of bent over under a heap of people and jerking about desperately to try to throw them off me.
Like that, I looked across and saw two pairs of yellow, curly yeti boots. I felt sick and dizzy, and I knew I was in real trouble then. “Look, it was a mistake!” I said.
Nobody listened to me. They all shouted at the policemen. Most of them seemed to be accusing me of picking the false Romanov’s pocket, but there were other things they shouted that I didn’t understand then. The brat kid went on screaming. The older kid squawked that I’d assaulted his brother. The false Romanov just stood there, looking outraged, as if simply touching him had been a crime. And there was an elderly blond woman wearing pink and lilac embroidery which clashed horribly with the police uniforms, who grabbed a policeman by the arm and kept stabbing her finger at me, accusing me of nameless crimes.
Two more policemen arrived. They each took one of my arms and marched off with me, whatever I said. It wasn’t far, just round the bend of the arcade, opposite the next hoist. They kicked open a door there and hauled me through. It was a police station. I could smell it was. There was a fellow with a mustache sitting behind a desk, looking very senior and important in lots more official yellow embroidery. He gave me a sarcastic glance and pointed with his thumb. The two policemen nodded and hustled me off into the depths of the place, where it was all carved out of the rock of the cliff. They kicked open another door there and threw me inside. While I was stumbling forward into the cell beyond, I saw the outside door burst open and all the rest of them come pouring through—false Romanov, both kids, pink lady, and crowds more—all shouting accusations still.
Then the cell door shut with a bang, and I couldn’t hear them anymore. There was a bunk thing, and I sat on it. There was a hole bored into the rock in the corner for a loo. Otherwise there was nothing but walls that had been hacked out of rock and then whitewashed rather a long time ago. The only light came from a grille in the door, and it was beastly cold.
I sat there trying to be angry for a while. But what I mostly felt was tired. I’d been having peculiar adventures now for more than a day and a night, and I suddenly found I’d had enough. I knew I was in bad trouble, but that didn’t matter as much as the fact that I was exhausted. I lay down and went to sleep.
I must have slept for several hours. It seemed to be early evening when they came and woke me up. I suppose they’d meant to leave me there for long enough for me to get thoroughly intimidated, but if that was their idea, it misfired. You see, I am a total zombie just after I wake up. It takes me half an hour even to get my eyes open. Ask anyone who knows me. I can’t see; I can’t talk properly; I can’t do anything without help. The only thing I can do properly is think. And I know how to exploit my condition. I’ve had years of practice.
Anyway, the policeman fetching me shook me and shouted at me. If he did anything else, I didn’t see because I couldn’t get my eyes open. Eventually he hauled on my arm and then poked my back. I stood up and walked into a wall. He pulled me straight and shoved me onward, I wish I could have seen my progress to the front of the police station after that. I must have gone in zigzags. I kept hitting things and being pulled straight and then hitting something else. Two people kept shouting at me.
At length they stood me still, and I felt and smelled someone breathing into my face. “No, he’s not blind. He’s got his damned eyes shut,” this man said. And he roared, “Open your eyes, Alph take you!”
I tried to explain. I meant to say, “I’m afraid I can’t yet,” but it came out as “Frayed auntie.”