“Thanks,” I said. “Thanks for telling me.”
“You’re welcome,” he said. “But before you go, do you mind if we ask you a question—me and my sons and daughters?” His hand went out, with the needle in it, and he wasn’t sewing, for a wonder; he was pointing to the six other people round the green embroidery, including the woman with the bad arm.
“Fine,” I said. “Go ahead.”
I supposed he was going to ask me what I was doing here. I told you, I’m very self-centered. But he said, “This big square we’re doing, it’s a new idea of mine. It’s not finished yet, but take a look at it. Think of yourself as a very rich man, and tell me if you’d want to spend good money on it, and why.”
Actually, I am pretty rich. Very rich, really. But I was ashamed to tell him, and I didn’t think he’d have believed me anyway. I looked down at the square. I’d been admiring it out of the corner of my eye even before the sun set. Now the lights were on it, it was like something alive and growing, all greens and golds and coils that seemed almost to move. There were still white patches all over it where they hadn’t embroidered yet, but I could see the main design, and it was fabulous.
“It’s fabulous!” I told them. “I’d pay a lot. It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.” It came into my mind that Dad would love it. He’d been talking about wanting something to hang on the wall of his study. He said he was sick of staring at a blank wall. If I could have thought of a way to pay for it and get it home, I’d have put in an order for it then and there.
The old man said, “Now, here’s our question. If you were this rich man, what would you do with our square when you’d bought it?”
“Hang it on the wall,” I said. “Just have it there and stare at it. It would be different every time I looked at it, I know it would.”
The old man banged his knee delightedly. “There, you see!” he said. It was clear they’d had a few family arguments about his new idea. Everyone else sewing on it glanced up at me and beamed, looking relieved.
“Well, it’s good to know we’re not working for nothing,” the woman with the bad arm said. “I’d hate to think of it cut up for clothing.” Then she called out to the smallest kid balancing beside me. “Sibbie, go down and tell him when there’s no one about on Fourteen. But go careful. I don’t want you ending up in a factory.”
This made everything much simpler. I waved good-bye and followed Sibbie down the slippery tiled stairs to the bend. When she beckoned from the bottom to show it was all clear, I scudded down and across the tarry floor of Fourteen and went galloping away between the drifts of rubbish on the next lot of stairs.
There were a lot of people on the stairs below those, and more the further down I got. Voices and footsteps and loud music sounded from nearly every level I came to. What they’d told me was true: people did a lot at night here. I suppose it was safer not to come out in the sunlight, even on the lower levels.
When I met the first crowds, around the Sex, Drugs level, I was quite scared. But I noticed that there was not a single policeman about on the stairs. If I were them, I’d have patrolled the stairs all the time, but that must have seemed like too much hard work to them in those curly yellow boots. So I kept a look on my face that said, “I’m not important, and I know just what I’m doing,” and went on pushing and galloping my way down. Nobody even looked at me.
I went a bit more cautiously when I got to the House of Prayer notice. There was loud, droning chanting coming from there, which gave me a sort of fizzing feeling. Magic being done, I thought. Must be official magic. Go carefully. Anyway, my knees were aching by then. I went down the last flights very sedately and slowed right down when I got near Level Eleven. Easy to do. That last stretch was pretty crowded. I slid slowly down with my back against the wall and looked over people’s heads at the Level Eleven archway below.
Before long I saw a couple of policemen parade past down there, parting the crowd like butter. Good. I knew they wouldn’t parade back for at least five minutes. I put on speed and hurried out under the massive arch, along the way that I’d been coming from when I’d thought I’d seen Romanov. I still coul
dn’t see how I made that stupid mistake.
It was really lively along that arcade. People were laughing, talking, strolling along, listening to a group of musicians, applauding, and rushing in and out of the brightly lit shops. Some of those were still selling embroidered cloth. I saw the identical patterns I’d seen being sewn up on Level Fifteen. But some shops seemed to have turned into dance halls or places to drink, and I had real trouble recognizing the one opposite where I’d first come out. I worked out that it had been a bit along from one of the hoists, and in the end I was sure it must be the one where people were sitting out at tables, pouring drinks from big, fancy teapots and eating sticky cakes.
I looked for the path, sort of sideways on from everything. And there it was, dark and steep and rocky, and glistening faintly with rain. It was just the shop that had changed. I shot into that path like a rat up a drainpipe.
I was in pitch dark the next second and stumbling about on that rocky surface, where I found myself sort of replaying in my mind those last instants before I shot into the darkness. It seemed to me that I had seen some familiar faces staring at me as I went. One was definitely Mizz Jocelyn, only she had changed for the evening from pink and mauve into beige and violent green. Another was a man in a suit embroidered like a flower bed. He had this big, fluffy mustache, and it seemed to me that he could have been Important having an evening out in ordinary clothes—if you could call a bed of dahlias ordinary. There was another one, too, a sharp-faced boy about my own age. I thought he might just have been that Prayermaster’s elder son....
But they were there in that mad city, and I was here, now, in the path. I felt my way over to the left-hand wall and kept my hand trailing along the gritty, wet rockface until I felt the promontory that had divided the two branching paths. I swung round into the right-hand fork there in triumph.
Or modified triumph anyway.
It was wet and pitch dark, and I couldn’t seem to make another of those blue flames whatever I did. The drunk had only given it to me. He hadn’t told me how to do it myself. I fumbled my way on, feeling less and less triumphant. I still had two people to help before I could get anywhere, and as soon as I remembered that, I began feeling really tired. I almost lay down on the wet rock and went to sleep. The only thing that stopped me was a strong notion that if I did, I wouldn’t get up again. The slitherings and flappings were back again. They sounded hungry to me.
I tried singing, like the drunk. But that came out wavering and scared. So I tried to think about something else. I thought about Loggia City. What a crazy system it was, putting the people who did the embroidery right at the top where the sun would kill them. If they all died, the shops would have nothing to sell! I was really glad that Romanov was giving them sunshield spells. It proved that Romanov was a good thing, and I was not making a mistake trying to find him.
I tried not to think of the way Romanov had despised me.
I thought about the girl, Roddy, instead. If she hadn’t wanted me to deal with her politics, I’d have made a real effort to get through to her. She was quite something. I kept getting a sort of jolt every time I remembered the way she had stood balanced on that hillside. But she had looked at me as if I was a sort of tool, and I didn’t go for that. And I just couldn’t see myself, not ever, doing anything about Kings and Merlins and suchlike. I’d gone out of my way, after all, not to have anything to do with ruling or rulers. No, that would have to wait for a few years.
On I went. I was trying to imagine what Roddy would be like in a few years’ time, and getting a bit eager about it, when I noticed that the path had widened out a lot. Everything was just a little lighter, and my feet echoed in a different way.
Damn! How am I going to know if a path I need goes off to the right? I thought. I got myself to the middle and sort of groped along there with one hand out in front.
And something groped back at me.
It sort of dabbed at me, whatever it was, wet and cold and desperate. It groped at my hand and then at my face. I went backward with a shriek and sat down in a puddle. It had felt like a snake. But the thing shrieked and went backward, too. The ground shook under my behind. I sat staring, shaking all over. There was just enough gray light for me to pick out what seemed to be a couple of small trees, with the snake coiling this way and that down from them. I thought I must have walked into a forest.
“Oh, please!” said the forest—unless it was the snake. “Help me! I’m lost! I’m stuck!”