The people in the hall continued to bow, and to stay bowed, as the small shape came closer. It reached the group of people around Richard, although not a one of them noticed it. They were all looking at Richard.

It was a rat, which looked up at Richard, curiously. He had the bizarre and momentary impression that it winked winked one of of its little black oildrop eyes at him. Then it chittered, loudly. one of of its little black oildrop eyes at him. Then it chittered, loudly.

The man with the glass dagger threw himself on his knees. So did the people gathered around them. So, too, after a moment's hesitation, and a little more awkwardly, did the homeless man, the one they had called Iliaster. In a moment, Richard was the only one standing. The thin girl tugged at his elbow, and he, too, went down on one knee.

Lord Rat-speaker bowed so low that his long hair brushed the ground, and he chittered back at the rat, wrinkling his nose, showing his teeth, squeaking and hissing, for all the world like an enormous rat himself.

"Look, can anybody tell me . . ." muttered Richard.

"Quiet!" said the thin girl.

The rat stepped-a little disdainfully, it seemed-into the Lord Rat-speaker's grubby hand, and the man held it, respectfully, up in front of Richard's face. It waved its tail languidly as it inspected Richard's features. "This is Master Longtail, of the clan Gray," said the Lord Rat-speaker. "He says you looks exceeding familiar. He wants to know if he's met you afore."

Richard looked at the rat. The rat looked at Richard. "I suppose it's possible," he admitted.

"He says he was discharging an obligation to the marquis de Carabas."

Richard stared at the animal more closely. "It's that that rat? Yes, we've met. Actually, I threw the TV remote control at it." Some of the people standing around looked shocked. The thin girl actually squeaked. Richard hardly noticed them; at least something was familiar in this madness. "Hello, Ratty," he said. "Good to see you again. Do you know where Door is?" rat? Yes, we've met. Actually, I threw the TV remote control at it." Some of the people standing around looked shocked. The thin girl actually squeaked. Richard hardly noticed them; at least something was familiar in this madness. "Hello, Ratty," he said. "Good to see you again. Do you know where Door is?"

"Ratty!" said the girl in something between a squeak and a horrified swallow. She had a large, water-stained red button pinned to her ragged clothes, the kind that comes attached to birthday cards. It said, in yellow letters, I AM 11 I AM 11.

Lord Rat-speaker waved his glass dagger admonishingly at Richard. "You must not address Master Longtail, save through me," he said. The rat squeaked an order. The man's face fell. "Him?" he said, looking at Richard disdainfully. "Look, I can't spare a soul. How about if I simply slice his throat and send him down to the Sewer Folk . . . . "

The rat chittered once more, decisively, then leapt from the man's shoulder onto the ground and vanished into one of the many holes that lined the walls.

The Lord Rat-speaker stood up. A hundred eyes were fixed on him. He turned back to the hall and looked at his subjects, crouched beside their greasy fires. "I don't know what you lot are all looking at," he shouted. "Who's turning the spits, eh? You want the grub to burn? There's nothing to see. Go on. Get-get away with the lot of you." Richard stood up, nervously. His left leg had gotten numb, and he rubbed life into it, as it prickled with pins and needles. Lord Rat-speaker looked at Iliaster. "He's got to be taken to the market. Master Longtail's orders."

Iliaster shook his head, and spat onto the ground. "Well, I'm not taking him," he said. "More than my life's worth, that journey. You rat-speakers have always been good to me, but I can't go back there. You know that."

The Lord Rat-speaker nodded. He put his dagger away, in the furs of his robe. Then he smiled at Richard with yellow teeth. "You don't know how lucky you were, just then," he said.

"Yes I do," said Richard. "I really do."

"No," said the man, "you don't. You really don't." And he shook his head and said to himself, marvelling, " 'Ratty.' "

The Lord Rat-speaker took Iliaster by the arm, and the two of them walked a little way out of earshot and began to talk, darting looks back at Richard as they did so.

The thin girl was gulping down one of Richard's bananas in what was, Richard reflected, the least erotic display of banana-eating he had ever seen. "You know, that was going to be my breakfast," said Richard. She looked up at him guiltily. "My name's Richard. What's yours?"

The girl, who, he realized, had already managed to eat most of the fruit that Richard had brought with him, swallowed the last of the banana and hesitated. Then she half-smiled, and said something that sounded a lot like Anaesthesia. "I was hungry," she said.

"Well, so'm I," he told her.

She glanced at the little fires across the room. Then she looked back at Richard. She smiled again. "Do you like cat?" she said.

"Yes," said Richard. "I quite like cats."

Anaesthesia looked relieved. "Thigh?" she asked. "Or breast?"

The girl called Door walked down the court, followed by the marquis de Carabas. There were a hundred other little courts and mews and alleys in London just like this one, tiny spurs of old-time, unchanged for three hundred years. Even the smell of piss here was the same as it had been in Pepys's time, three hundred years before. There was still an hour until dawn, but the sky was beginning to lighten, turning a stark, leaden color. Strands of mist hung like livid ghosts on the air.

The door was roughly boarded up and covered with stained posters for forgotten bands and long-closed nightclubs. The two of them stopped in front of it, and the marquis eyed it, all boards and nails and posters, and he appeared unimpressed; but then, unimpressed was his default state.

"So this is the entrance?" he said.

She nodded. "One of them."

He folded his arms. "Well? Say 'Open sesame,' or whatever it is that you do."

"I don't want to do this," she said. "I'm really not sure that we're doing the right thing."

"Very well," he unfolded his arms. "I'll be seeing you, then." He turned on his heel and began to walk back the way that they had come. Door seized his arm. "You'd abandon me?" she asked. "Just like that?"

He grinned, without humor. "Certainly. I'm a very busy man. Things to see. People to do."

"Look, hold on." She let go of his sleeve, bit her lower lip. "The last time I was here . . ." she trailed off.

"The last time you were here, you found your family dead. Well, there you are. You don't have to explain it anymore. If we aren't going in, then our business relationship is at an end."

She looked up at him, her elfin face pale in the pre-dawn light. "And that's all?"

"I could wish you the best of luck in your future career, but I'm afraid I rather doubt you'll live long enough to have one."

"You're a piece of work, aren't you?"

He said nothing. She walked back toward the door. "Well," she said. "Come on. I'll take us in." Door put her left hand on the boarded-up door, and with her right hand she took the marquis's huge brown hand. Her tiny fingers twined into his larger ones. She closed her eyes.

. . . something whispered and shivered and changed . . .

. . . and the door collapsed into darkness.

The memory was fresh, only a few days old: Door moved through the House Without Doors calling "I'm home," and "Hello?" She slipped from the anteroom to the dining room, to the library, to the drawing room; no one answered. She moved to another room.

The swimming pool was an indoor Victorian structure, constructed of marble and of cast iron. Her father had found it when he was younger, abandoned and about to be demolished, and he had woven it into the fabric of the House Without Doors. Perhaps in the world outside, in London Above, the room had long been destroyed and forgotten. Door had no idea where any of the rooms of her house were, physically. Her grandfather had constructed the house, taking a room from here, a room from there, all through London, discrete and doorless; her father had added to it.

She walked along the side of the old swimming pool, pleased to be home, puzzled by the absence of her family. And then she looked down.

There was someone floating in the water, trailing twin clouds of blood behind him, one from the throat, one from the groin. It was her brother, Arch. His eyes were open wide and sightless. She realized that her mouth was open. She could hear herself screaming.

"That hurt," said the marquis. He rubbed his forehead, hard, twisted his head around on his neck, as if he were trying to ease a sudden, painful crick.

"Memories," she explained. "They're imprinted in the walls."

He raised an eyebrow. "You could have warned me."

They were in a huge white room. Every wall was covered with pictures. Each picture was of a different room. The white room contained no doors: no openings of any kind. "Interesting decor," acknowledged the marquis.

"This is the entrance hall. We can go from here to any room in the House. They are all linked."

"Where are the other rooms located?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. Miles away, probably. They're scattered all over the Underside."

The marquis had managed to cover the whole room in a series of impatient strides. "Quite remarkable. An associative house, every room of which is located somewhere else. So imaginative. Your grandfather was a man of vision, Door."

"I never knew him." She swallowed, then continued, talking to herself as much as to him. "We should have been safe here. Nobody should have been able to hurt us. Only my family could move around it."

"Let's hope your father's journal gives us some clues," he said. "Where do we start looking?" Door shrugged. "You're certain he kept a journal?" he pressed.

She nodded. "He used to go into his study, and private the links until he'd finished dictating."

"We'll start in the study, then."

"But I looked there. I did. I looked looked there. When I was cleaning up the body . . ." And she began to cry, in low, raging sobs, that sounded like they were being tugged from inside her. there. When I was cleaning up the body . . ." And she began to cry, in low, raging sobs, that sounded like they were being tugged from inside her.

"There. There," said the marquis de Carabas, awkwardly, patting her shoulder. And he added, for good measure, "There." He did not comfort well.

Door's odd-colored eyes were filled with tears. "Can you . . . can you just give me a sec? I'll be fine." He nodded and walked to the far end of the room. When he looked back she was still standing there, on her own, silhouetted in the white entrance chamber filled with pictures of rooms, and she was hugging herself, and shuddering, and crying like a little girl.

Richard was still upset about the loss of his bag.

The Lord Rat-speaker remained unmoved. He stated baldly that the rat-Master Longtail-had said nothing at all about returning Richard's things. Just that he was to be taken to market. Then he told Anaesthesia that she was taking the Upworlder to the market, and that, yes, it was an order. And to stop snivelling, and to get a move on. He told Richard that if he, Lord Rat-speaker, ever saw him, Richard, again, then he, Richard, would be in a great deal of trouble. He reiterated that Richard did not know how lucky he was, and, ignoring Richard's requests that he return Richard's stuff-or at least the wallet-he led them to a door and locked it behind them.

Richard and Anaesthesia walked into the darkness side by side.

She carried an improvised lamp made of a candle, a can, some wire, and a wide-mouthed glass lemonade bottle. Richard was surprised at how quickly his eyes became used to the near darkness. They seemed to be walking through a succession of underground vaults and storage cellars. Sometimes he thought he could see movement in far corners of the vaults, but whether human, or rat, or something else altogether, it was always gone by the time they reached the place it had been. When he tried to talk to Anaesthesia about the movements, she hissed him to silence.

He felt a cold draught on his face. The rat-girl squatted without warning, put down her candle-lamp, and tugged and pulled hard at a metal grille set in the wall. It opened suddenly, sending her sprawling. She motioned Richard to come through. He crouched, edged through the hole in the wall; after about a foot, the floor stopped completely. "Excuse me," whispered Richard. "There's a hole here."

"It's not a big drop," she told him. "Go on."

She shut the grille behind her. She was now uncomfortably close to Richard. "Here," she said. She gave him the handle of her little lamp to hold, and she clambered down into the darkness. "There," she said. "That wasn't that bad, was it?" Her face was a few feet below Richard's dangling feet. "Here. Pass me the lamp."

He lowered it down to her. She had to jump to take it from him. "Now," she whispered. "Come on." He edged nervously forward, climbed over the edge, hung for a moment, then let go. He landed on his hands and feet in soft, wet mud. He wiped the mud off his hands onto his sweater. A few feet forward, and Anaesthesia was opening another door. They went through it, and she pulled it closed behind them. "We can talk now," she said. "Not loud. But we can. If you want to."

"Oh. Thanks," said Richard. He couldn't think of anything to say. "So. Um. You're a rat, are you?" he said.

She giggled, like a Japanese girl, covering her hand with her face as she laughed. Then she shook her head, and said, "I should be so lucky. I wish. No, I'm a rat-speaker. We talk to rats."

"What, just chat to them?"

"Oh no. We do stuff for them. I mean," and her tone of voice implied that this was something that might never have occurred to Richard unassisted, "there are are some things rats some things rats can't can't do, you know. I mean, not having fingers, and thumbs, an' things. Hang on-" She pressed him against the wall, suddenly, and clamped a filthy hand over his mouth. Then she blew out the candle. do, you know. I mean, not having fingers, and thumbs, an' things. Hang on-" She pressed him against the wall, suddenly, and clamped a filthy hand over his mouth. Then she blew out the candle.

Nothing happened.

Then he heard distant voices. They waited, in the darkness and the cold. Richard shivered.

People walked past them, talking in low tones. When all sounds had died away, Anaesthesia took her hand from Richard's mouth, relit the candle, and they walked on. "Who were they?" asked Richard.

She shrugged. "It dun't matter," she said.

"Then what makes you think that they wouldn't have been pleased to see us?"

She looked at him rather sadly, like a mother trying to explain to an infant that, yes this this flame was hot, too. flame was hot, too. All All flames were hot. Trust her, please. "Come on," she said. "I know a shortcut. We can nip through London Above for a bit." They went up some stone steps, and the girl pushed open a door. They stepped through, and the door shut behind them. flames were hot. Trust her, please. "Come on," she said. "I know a shortcut. We can nip through London Above for a bit." They went up some stone steps, and the girl pushed open a door. They stepped through, and the door shut behind them.

Richard looked around, puzzled. They were standing on the Embankment, the miles-long walkway that the Victorians had built along the the north shore of the Thames, covering the drainage system and the newly created District Line of the Underground, and replacing the stinking mudflats that had festered along the banks of the Thames for the previous five hundred years. It was still night-or perhaps it was night once more. He was unsure how long they had been walking through the underplaces and the dark.

There was no moon, but the night sky was a riot of crisp and glittering autumn stars. There were streetlights too, and lights on buildings and on bridges, which looked like earth-bound stars, and they glimmered, repeated, as they were reflected with the city in the night water of the Thames. It's fairyland It's fairyland, thought Richard.

Anaesthesia blew out her candle. And Richard said, "Are you sure this is the right way?"

"Yes," she said. "Pretty sure."

They were approaching a wooden bench, and the moment he set eyes on it, it seemed to Richard that that bench was one of the most desirable objects he had ever seen. "Can we sit down?" he asked. "Just for a minute."

She shrugged. They sat down at opposite ends of the bench. "On Friday," said Richard, "I was with one of the finest investment analyst firms in London."

"What's a investment an' a thing?"

"It was my job."

She nodded, satisfied. "Right. And . . . ?"

"Just reminding myself, really. Yesterday . . . it was like I didn't exist anymore, to anybody up here."

"That's 'cos you don't," explained Anaesthesia.

A late-night couple, who had been slowly walking along the Embankment toward them, holding hands, sat down in the middle of the bench, between Richard and Anaesthesia, and commenced to kiss each other, passionately. "Excuse me," said Richard to them. The man had his hand inside the woman's sweater and was moving it around enthusiastically, a lone traveler discovering an unexplored continent. "I want my life back," Richard told the couple.

"I love you," said the man to the woman.

"But your wife-" she said, licking the side of his face.