“This is Sinner,” I said. “This is Pretty Poison, and that is Madman. I am John Taylor.”
The bargeman shook his head. “No. Sorry. Means nothing to me. I had that Julien Advent in my barge once. A real gentleman, he was.”
“How long have you been down here?” I asked.
“I have no idea. And don’t tell me, because I don’t want to know. It was the beginning of the twentieth century when I first came to the Nightside, boarding the newly opened subway from Paris with a howling mob hot on my heels. I soon found my way down here. I’d had enough of the hurly-burly of city life, and wished only solitude. I do miss the opera, though…Still! I provide a service here, to keep myself occupied, and as a small act of penance for the days of my hot-headed youth.”
“What can you tell us about the World Beneath?” said Sinner.
“Parts of it are as old as any other part of the Nightside, and as dangerous. It started out as a collection of sewers, canals, and offshoots of the Thames, covered over by the growing city, running through and around a huge system of catacombs built by the Romans, so they could do things down here that the world above wouldn’t approve of. Very practical people, the Romans. They believed that if the gods couldn’t see what you were doing, it didn’t count. Lot of people in the World Beneath still think that way, though of course I use the term people very loosely. We have quite a population down here, these days. Solitudes, of course; religious types sitting in dark stone cells for the good of their souls. Then there’s the odd type who just can’t get on with anyone, even in the Nightside. And those on the run, like my good self. The Subterraneans have been down here for centuries, making their own little city out of the catacombs. Don’t bother them, and they won’t sacrifice you to their gods. Then there’s vampires and ghouls and various offshoots of the Elder Spawn…We get all sorts down here. But don’t you worry yourself about them, my friends. My barge and I are protected, by old custom. You sit tight, and I’ll bring you right to the Gate of the Lord of Thorns’ domain. And after that—may God have mercy on your souls, because it’s a safe bet the Lord of Thorns won’t.”
“Have you ever met him?” said Sinner.
The bargeman snorted loudly behind his mask. “No. And the odds are you won’t get to, either. He is very well guarded.”
He poled us along the canal for some time, singing snatches of grand opera and saucy French drinking songs in a fine baritone voice. Madman’s sound track joined in, producing perfect harmonies and descants. Things came and went in the dark waters, occasionally bumping against the sides of the barge, but never breaking the surface of the water. The golden glow surrounding the boat was just bright enough for me to make out the strange astronomical symbols carved into the curving stone ceiling above us. Star systems never seen from earth, in this or any other time. Pretty Poison snuggled in close beside Sinner, ignoring the surroundings to murmur in his ear. He didn’t respond, except to sometimes shake his head.
The barge finally slowed to a halt beside a section of the canal bank that at first glimpse seemed no different from any other. The masked bargeman leaned on his pole, and looked thoughtfully about him.
“This is as far as I can take you. A bad place, my friends. I would say au revoir; but I doubt we’ll meet again.”
They disembarked, and he pushed the barge away from the bank and set off back the way we’d come. He wasn’t singing any more. The golden glow departed with the barge, replaced by a sullen red glare emanating from a high archway set into the dark stone wall. Ancient Greek characters had been etched into the cracked and pitted stone slabs that made up the arch. We all looked at each other for a while, then Pretty Poison tutted loudly.
“No-one studies the classics any more. Allow me. Translating very freely, it says, Meat is Murder.”
“Wonderful,” said Sinner. “We have fallen among vegetarians.”
“Somehow I rather doubt it,” said Pretty Poison. “I can smell rot and decay and the corruption of living things. And the smell is wafting out of this archway.”
I could smell it, too. A heavy, noxious smell that left a bad taste in the mouth. Like a charnel-house left to simmer in a hot sun. It was definitely drifting out of the open archway, even though there was no trace of movement in the air. A warning, perhaps…or a threat. It didn’t make any difference. There was nowhere else for us to go, except back. I led the way in, and the others followed reluctantly after me.
A short tunnel, its curving stone walls beaded with sweat, soon gave way to a fair-sized cavern hollowed out of the living rock. Big enough to hold a fair-sized congregation, but not of any church you’d choose to visit. Butcher’s tools hung down from the ceiling on wires, saws and knives and skewers, all of them stained with old, dried blood. At the far end of the cavern was a crude throne, made up of slabs of meat, some of it fresh, most clearly spoiled, all of it surrounded by a great cloud of buzzing flies. And all the walls of the cavern were covered in people’s names, drawn spikily in blood, from a wide variety of languages and cultures.
“The names of those who came before us?” wondered Sinner.
“I don’t know if anyone else has noticed,” said Pretty Poison. “But there doesn’t seem to be any other way out of here.”
“I’d noticed,” I said.
“This isn’t at all how I’d pictured the Lord of Thorns’ domain,” said Sinner. “I think there is a strong possibility that we’ve been had, people.”
“I don’t think so,” Pretty Poison said slowly. “We’re not alone here.”
The cloud of flies rose up suddenly from the meat throne, buzzing angrily. They swirled around the cavern horribly quickly, while we ducked our heads and swatted at them with flailing hands, then the cloud returned to the meat throne, swelled in size and took on a roughly human shape. It stood on stocky legs, a dark blocky shape towering over us, its unfinished head brushing against the cavern ceiling. And then it sat down abruptly on the meat throne, and the heavy buzzing gradually resolved itself into something like human speech. It sounded foul and hostile, a mockery of language.
“Welcome, dear travellers,” said the flies. “You have found your way to the entrance to the domain of the Lord of Thorns. And this is as far as you go. He does not wish to be disturbed. And so he has set me here, a demon summoned up out of Hell and bound to this place, just to ensure he gets his rest. A Prince of the Pit, damned to obey a servant of Heaven, until the Nightside is destroyed or Time itself runs out. Sometimes I think the whole universe runs on irony. Still, the eating’s good. Hello, Pretty Poison. It’s been a while. How do you like my place? It’s not much, but it has some of the comforts of home.”
“Hello, Bub,” said Pretty Poison. “How is it that thou art bound here, to a mortal’s purpose?”
“Because he is the Lord of Thorns and knows much that is forbidden. Is that your Sinner with you? The only soul that still loved in Hell?”
“Yes,” said Pretty Poison. “This is my dear Sidney.”
“Pervert,” the demon said to Sinner. “And fool, to still believe in Hell’s lies. She will corrupt you and drag you back down into the Pit. It’s what she does. And she has always been very good at her job.”
“Given enough time, and sufficient motivation,” said Sinner, “I could probably swat you to death.”
I decided to intervene, before the conversation could deteriorate any further.
“Hi. I’m John Taylor. No doubt you know the name. I’m here to speak with the Lord of Thorns. So step aside, or I’ll think of something amusing to do to you.”
“John Taylor?” The writhing shape leaned forward on its meat throne to get a better look at me. “I’m impressed. Really. Though I’d always thought you’d be taller. But it’s more than my job’s worth to let you pass. Pride in my position is pretty much all I have left here. And whatever you might do to me would be nothing compared to the torments the Lord of Thorns would visit on me. I am bound to this place, and to his will. Besides, it’s been a long time
since my last visitor, and I’m hungry.”
The dark shape stood up abruptly, and huffed and puffed itself up into a great hulking figure, taking up half the cavern, buzzing almost painfully loudly. It tried to pick up Madman with one huge black hand, but the flies just slipped harmlessly past him. The demon hesitated a moment and thrust a hand in my direction. The fingers extended, becoming shafts of flies rushing towards my face. They swept over me, trying to force their way into my mouth, nose, ears, and eyes. I panicked, flapping my hands wildly about my head while pressing my lips and eyelids firmly together, as the flies crawled over my face. And then to my astonishment they all leapt off me and retreated, apparently repulsed. The demon froze where it was, seemingly just as astonished as I was, and I seized the moment to summon up my gift. My inner eye snapped open, and it only took a moment for me to find and identify the Words of Power that bound the demon to this place.
(And yet even as I used my gift, some instinct made me slam my inner eye shut again, the moment it was no longer needed. While my mind was open and vulnerable, I sensed Something awful closing in on me, trying to pin down my location so it could manifest. My enemies had found something worse than the Harrowing to send after me, and all my instincts screamed that if I were to use my gift one instant longer than necessary, this new horror would find me and carry out its makers’ terrible intent.)
I said the Words of Power. They arose from no human tongue, or even human sounds, and just to hear them said aloud would reduce most men to madness. I said the Words, slowly but distinctly, forcing them out syllable by syllable, and the terrible sound of them reverberated in my skull until I thought they’d blow my head apart. The demon screamed in thwarted rage, then was gone, taking with him his meat throne and his butcher’s tools. All that remained was the sullen red glare, and the names of his victims traced on the cavern walls in their own blood.
Pretty Poison looked at me, taken aback. “How is it that you were able to speak those Words? The sheer power involved should have blasted the soul right out of your body.”
“I have hidden depths,” I said. My throat hurt. Where the meat throne had stood, there was now an opening in the cavern wall. “And so, it seems, has this place.”
We all moved cautiously forward to study the new opening. It was shaped like a door, with smooth sides and top, but that was all there was to it. No warning signs, no welcome mat. Beyond the opening lay a long, descending stairway, carved into the rock face of a vast open space. Hovering lights marked the stairs here and there, but their pale light did little more than show just how far down the steps went. It looked like a hell of a long way. There was no railing, nothing between the open edge of the steps and an impossibly long drop. I started down the steps, one shoulder pressed firmly against the rock face, and after a moment the others followed me. We descended into the dark abyss, step by step, for a very long time.
“Are we there yet?” said Madman.
“Shut up,” I said.
“Are we even still under the Nightside?” said Sinner.
“We do seem to have travelled rather a long way.”
“We haven’t left the Nightside, sweetie,” Pretty Poison assured him. “I’d know.”
“We are in the dark places of the earth,” said Madman.
“Where all the ancient and most dangerous secrets are kept. There are Old Things down here, sleeping all around us, in the earth and in the living rock, and in the spaces between spaces. Keep your voices down. Some of these old creatures sleep but lightly, and even their dreams can have force and substance in our limited world. We have come among forgotten gods and sleeping devils, from the days before the world settled down and declared itself sane.”
“I think I liked it better when you made no sense at all,” said Sinner.
The hovering lights turned out to be paper lanterns, nailed to the rock face at regular intervals. Their tightly stretched sides were made up of silently screaming faces. The eyes in the agonised faces turned to watch us as we passed.
“Are they still alive?” I said. “Still suffering?”
“Oh yes,” said Pretty Poison, her voice heavy with a certain satisfaction.
“Hush,” said Sinner.
“But what are they?” I said. “Who were they?”
“Uninvited guests,” said Madman, and after that no-one felt like talking for a while.
We descended further and further into the earth. The stairs wound around the curving wall of the vast abyss. The dark rock of the wall showed clear signs of having been worked on long ago, at first by tools but later by what seemed to be bare hands. Someone had fashioned this great gulf under the Nightside for a purpose, but who and why and when remained a mystery. Could men have done this, alone or with help? Why would they have wanted to? Was the Lord of Thorns really so dangerous that they had to bury him this deep in the earth? The deeper I went, the more scared I became. My hands were trembling, and my mouth was dry. This was all getting too big, too important for me. I wanted to go back to being just another private investigator, dazzling the natives with tricks and mind games, trading on a reputation I’d never really earned. But I had to go on. I’d come this far for the truth, and though I’d run out of courage and good sense, stubbornness kept me going.
The wall at my shoulder became increasingly pitted and corroded, and thin streams of liquid trickled down the dark stone. I stopped and studied the wet surface closely.
“Don’t touch it,” said Sinner.
“I wasn’t going to. What do you suppose this is? Acid rain, or the underground equivalent?”
“No,” said Pretty Poison. “Tears.”
Sinner looked at her dubiously. “You know this place?”
“Of it. All demons and angels are warned about this place. We are almost at the domain of the Lord of Thorns, the Overseer of the Nightside.”
“The Overseer?” I said. “Does that mean he’s the one behind the Authorities?”
“No,” said Pretty Poison. “He’s much more powerful than that. He sits in judgement, and mercy and compassion are not allowed to him.”
“I want to go home,” said Madman.
“Most sensible thing you’ve said all day,” said Sinner.
The stairs finally curved around a corner and came to an end, facing a great and elegant chamber carved out of crystal. A pleasant, comfortable light appeared suddenly overhead, bursting out of one crystal facet after another, until the whole chamber was bright as day, like standing in the heart of a huge diamond. In the centre of the crystal cave was a single raised slab of polished stone, and on that slab, sleeping peacefully, a man. He didn’t look particularly dangerous, with his grey hair and grey robes, and a calm face apparently untroubled by care. We all filed into the shining chamber, looking uncertainly about us. I think we’d all been expecting more guardians, more defences, but everything was still and quiet. Like the eye of the storm.
Etched into every crystal facet were characters from the language known as Enochian, a tongue created for men to speak to angels. I recognised it, but I couldn’t read it. Not many can. It is corrosive to rational thinking. Pretty Poison moved along one wall, tracing the characters with a fingertip.
“These are names,” she said softly. “Names beyond number, of angels from Above and Below, from all ranks and stations…Even my name is here. My true name, from before the Fall. No mortal should have access to this knowledge…”
“But…why write them here?” said Sinner.
“Because to know the true name of a thing is to have power over it,” said Pretty Poison. “To command and to control. Whoever put the Lord of Thorns here, and made him Overseer of the Nightside, has given him power over all the agents of Heaven and Hell.”
“No wonder he was ripping the wings off angels during the angel war,” said Sinner. “But who could give him that kind of power?”
“Two possibilities come to mind,” said Madman.
“Shut up,” said Pretty Poison.
She soun
ded shocked, upset. I was concentrating on the man on the slab. He hadn’t moved at all since we entered his domain. But I didn’t think he was sleeping. Sleeping people usually breathe now and again. And then my heart missed a beat as he sat up abruptly, swinging his legs over the side of the slab, and sat facing us. We all froze where we were, caught in the gleam of his gaze, like burglars picked out by torchlight in a place they should never have entered. With his long grey robes, hair, and beard, the Lord of Thorns looked like nothing so much as an Old Testament prophet. The kind that told you the Flood was coming, and you’d left it far too late to book seats on the Ark. His face looked older than any man’s should, and his eyes were fierce and wild and touched with a divine madness. His presence filled the crystal cave, and under his gaze we all flinched and felt unworthy.
Except, of course, for Madman, who shouted Daddy! and tried to climb into the Lord of Thorns’ lap. We all grabbed him, and dragged him away by brute force. And then one by one, we knelt before the Lord of Thorns. His presence demanded it. Madman shrugged, and knelt with us. I kept my head down and tried to look penitent. This was a place of judgement. I could feel it. And judgement without mercy or compassion is always to be feared.
The Lord of Thorns stood up slowly, his joints cracking loudly, and I risked a quick look. He was leaning on a simple wooden staff, and I felt something inside me shudder at the sight of it. Word was the wood of that staff had been taken from a tree grown from a sliver of the original Tree of Life, brought to England in Roman times by Joseph of Arimathea. There were those who said the Lord of Thorns was Joseph of Arimathea. He looked old enough. When he finally spoke, his words sounded like rocks grinding together.
“I am the stone that breaks all hearts. I am the nails that bound the Christ to his cross. I am the arrow that pierced a King’s eye. I am the necessary suffering that makes us all stronger. The cold, clear heart of the Nightside. It was given to me to have dominion over all who exist here, to protect the Nightside from itself. I maintain the Great Experiment, watching over it, and sitting in judgement on all who might seek to disrupt or tamper with its essential nature. I am the scalpel that cuts out infection, and the heartbreak that makes men wiser. I am the Lord of Thorns, and I know you all. Sinner, Pretty Poison, Madman, and John Taylor. Stand up. I’ve been waiting for you.”