The Night Market Page 2

  She pulled the mask up to sit on top of her head, wiped the sweat from her face, tucked her hair behind her ears, and then inspected the lock on the cage protecting the ladder. It didn’t take long to decide there was nothing she could do. The whole mechanism was frozen solid by rust and neglect. Yael doubted it would have opened even with the proper key.

  There was nothing for it. Yael prepared herself to climb, running through an abbreviated stretching routine while she considered her route.

  Her galoshes and wet coat were no help, but Yael had climbed since she was a child. Though she was tired, she could still muscle herself up onto the top of the concrete half-wall, with the help of a running start. The rubber toes of her boots banged futilely against the cement while her fingers burned, clutching the edge of the top of the wall, but she finally found a drainage outlet large enough to wedge her foot in, then used that to struggle to the top of the ledge.

  Yael paused for a moment to catch her breath, then levered herself up and crab-walked the length of the wall, her hands on the ledge for balance, water sloshing in her boots.

  There was a three-foot gap in front of her and then the railing of the catwalk directly across from where she stood. In between there and here, a fifteen-foot fall to the trash and concrete. Yael didn’t give herself time to think about it, glad that she had decided to throw her bag up first, so that she was committed. She might have not have made the jump otherwise.

  “One... two...”

  Her legs shook so badly she thought she might fall. Yael jumped at the last moment possible, pushing off the corner of the ledge, a shriek she instantly regretted echoing throughout the room. She hit the railing chest-first, with an impact that knocked the wind out of her. Yael wrapped her arms around the railing in desperation, hanging from the metal bar by virtue of fear alone. Her legs kicked wildly beneath her, bouncing helplessly off the bars lining the catwalk, the blunt toes of the galoshes too wide to fit between the bars. Yael swore to herself, the worst word that she knew, then wedged her foot sideways into the gap between the bars and the floor of catwalk, gasping at the pressure on her trapped ankle.

  The pain was bearable. Yael curled forward, clutching to the railing with her fingers, taking the strain off her leg. She twisted and pulled until her foot was free, leaving her clinging to the side of the catwalk over the dark and uncertain void.

  It seemed like a very long time that Yael labored, partway across the bar, straining until her muscles cried out in anguish, trying to push herself over the rail. With a titanic effort, Yael tumbled head over heels onto the catwalk and then lay on the metal, breathing hard and profoundly grateful to be on a flat surface.

  When her heart stopped racing, Yael crawled over to her bag, pleasantly surprised to find the catwalk wobbly but largely intact. Without her mask, she tasted rotting metal and stale air, but there was none of the sweetness that would indicate nanite contamination. Yael could stand the smell long enough to sleep.

  The loft was small, about four feet tall and long enough that she could stretch out. Most importantly, the ledge was wide enough that if she rolled over in her sleep, she would be in no danger of falling to the ground below. Whatever machines had been stored there had leaked oil and hydraulic fluid on the concrete, leaving multicolored stains, but any trace of odor or wetness was long gone. Yael removed her coat and boots, placing them on top of her duffle, where they would be within easy reach.

  Gripping the flashlight in her teeth, Yael removed her shirt and the base layer she wore beneath, both of which were soaked through with sweat and covered in grime and grease. She took out her spare top along with new underwear and socks and wondered when she might next have an opportunity to do laundry.

  Taking a bottle of water and a plastic bag from her duffel, Yael made brief ablutions, washing as best she could with a handful of alcohol wipes, then brushed her teeth and washed out her mouth, spitting the water over the side.

  She had already changed and laid out her sleeping bag before she found half of a crushed egg salad sandwich left over from lunch and became acutely aware of her hunger. Yael tore open the cellophane and took a bite, her mouth watering absurdly over brown bread and lettuce. She was still chewing when she heard something scratching and realized that an animal was making its way across the catwalk toward her nook.

  Yael scrambled for her flashlight, pulling her sleeping bag tight around herself in a reflexive gesture of fear. Black eyes glittered back at her from the darkness, a presence at the edge of the loft.

  The rat appeared surprised rather than hostile. Yael lowered her arms from her face, as an attack didn’t appear imminent, then considered her position. The flashlight didn’t seem to bother the rat at all. She suspected it to be the rat she had encountered earlier – at least she hoped so. Yael didn’t want to think that the subway was filled with rats of this size. It was sitting uncertainly on the edge of the loft, watching her while cleaning a pink ear, brown fur slicked and glistening. There was no way around and she didn’t trust the catwalk enough to spend the night on it.

  Yael glanced down at the remainder of her sandwich, where it had fallen on the concrete beside her bag. She picked it up carefully and tore it in half, tossing the portion that had touched the ground to the rat.

  “That’s all I have,” she said firmly, her voice ringing in the emptiness. Yael wished she could hear a train. “You can have half. Do you understand me? There is no more food.”

  Yael held open her duffel bag, shining her flashlight to show the contents to the rat.

  “You see? It’s just clothes and stuff. The sandwich was all I had. And I need to keep part of it, because I walked all night, okay?”

  That rat’s head bobbed oddly from side to side, then it scurried forward, something about the movement making Yael flinch instinctively. She watched enough to be certain that it was intent on the sandwich and not her before she resumed eating.

  She hoped that the rat would be gone by the time she finished, but when she shone her light, it was still there, licking its forepaws to clean the sides of its face. It paused briefly when the light hit it to glance at her, then resumed cleaning.

  “Are you planning on staying? Because I need to sleep. And I’m afr – I need to know that you aren’t going to try and bite me or anything, okay? There’s enough room up here for both of us.”

  Yael waited a while longer, but it was clear that the rat wasn’t going anywhere, curling into a pile like a snake, its nose pressed to its back.

  It wasn’t easy to turn away, wrapping herself in her sleeping bag so that only her face showed. Yael squirmed as close as possible to the wall, trying to slow her racing heart and unclench the muscles in her back. She didn’t dare take her clothes off until she was securely wrapped in the bag. Yael strained to hear something, but the rat simply chattered a few times before it settled into silence.

  ***

  “I’m surprised that you would invite me here.”

  “The treaty still holds, does it not? We both have bigger problems to deal with now. The old war is forgotten.”

  “Maybe. We’ve just shifted our attention to more challenging prey.”

  “However you want to look at it. I don’t think you plan on eating me.”

  “I think not. How long have you lived down here, anyway? I shudder to think what you would taste like.”

  “Are you kidding? This place is a paradise. It’s warm, the air is safe and you don’t have to go very far to find food.”

  “Please do not discuss what you consider to be food.”

  “I won’t if you don’t. Anyway, nobody comes here and nobody bothers us, at least until this youngling showed up. We have a nice thing going. And we’ve kept our end of the bargain – one of your feral cousins stumbled in here a few months ago, all torn up from tangling with one of the toads. We took care of him till he could walk and sent him back your way.”

  “I have heard of your kindness and appreciate it. The treaty stands, you have nothin
g to fear. Now, could we move on to why you have brought me to your filthy tunnel?”

  “This one. She made it inside the tunnels yesterday. Don’t know how. The passage is almost completely choked with debris. No one has ever come further than that.”

  “She looks skinny. And determined. After all, she climbed up here somehow.”

  “Yeah, that must have taken some doing. I could hear her from two turns back. I thought maybe she was breaking down the door.”

  “And?”

  “Well, she’s lost, even if she doesn’t know it yet. And the way she packed her bag, I’m thinking she doesn’t want to go back where she came from. Assuming she could find the way.”

  “You want me to take her home? Why?”

  “She shared her food with me. No reason, I didn’t even ask. But she did me a good turn and I have to admit – whatever it was she gave me, it was delicious. I’ve never had anything quite so good before...”

  “You live in a tunnel and you eat garbage. It couldn’t have been hard to impress you.”

  “Nonetheless. And she asked my permission to be here, when she could have just as easily trespassed. That’s respect and proper manners for you. Don’t see that much these days.”

  “No, I suppose you don’t. A food-debt, then? Well, I suppose there is nothing else for it. I will escort the youngling home...”

  “That isn’t what I want.”

  “Then spit it out already. I want to get out of this horrible tunnel before the smell gets into my coat.”

  “I want you to take her to the Night Market.”

  “Are you sure? How old do you think she is, anyway?”

  “I can’t tell. They all look the same to me.”

  “It’s in the nuances. If you look carefully, there are differences between them.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Why do you want me to help her?”

  “She needs a guide to the Nameless City and your kind are permitted to travel freely. I could guide her deeper if that was her desire, but I don’t think she is the kind to want to go further down.”

  “Imagine that.”

  “You don’t know what you are talking about, Hunter-Beneath-the-Moon. There are things beneath these tunnels, things beneath your precious Underworld. There is always further down to go . You would be surprised by what can be found there. She might be happy with us in the Deep. It is warm, and there is always music.”

  “Somehow I doubt it. Go with your first instinct, that’s my policy.”

  “You will take her?”

  “Why to the Night Market?”

  “Because there are some things even I can see, oldest enemy. There are some things that fall into my area of expertise, living on what others throw away. This girl is desperate and hunted. That is a state of being that I have a great deal of sympathy for.”

  “Bah. You are soft hearted, former prey. Very well. I will take this child as far as the Night Market. But from there, she is on her own.”

  “When it comes to the Market, everyone is.”

  “Don’t try to sound smart.”

  2. How Like A Fallen Angel

  Faded to the point that it no longer hurts to the touch. The elegance of momentary vulnerability, an exposed shoulder and drug-vacant eyes. Growing in the absence of the sun, warm and obscene, like a worm in an apple. Lessons in darkness.

  Yael woke curled in a ball, her sleeping bag kicked partway off during the night, bare shoulders resting on a blackened patch of concrete. There was an instant of panic, a troubling feeling of dislocation, while the events of the previous day organized themselves in her mind.

  Sneaking out of her parent’s estate the same way she had a million times, by crawling through the dry culvert that went underneath the main wall, too small for anyone but her. Her flight through the flooded neighborhood adjoining the docks, the poorly considered decision that had led her into an abandoned subway tunnel.

  The rat.

  She flipped over, still huddled in her bag, her back pressed against the far wall of the loft, her hands up to protect her face. It took her a moment to process what she saw, then another for Yael to slowly relax her guard.

  A tawny cat was curled in front of her, tail waving lazing in front of its face, eyes bright and alert but not unfriendly.

  “Do you have anything to eat?”

  The cat looked at Yael hopefully. She shook her head mutely.

  “Pity. Are you certain? Because the rat spoke very highly of what you gave him. I was unable to hunt last night...”

  Yael held up her empty hands helplessly.

  “All I had was part of my sandwich from yesterday. I wish I had some food. I’m hungry, too.”

  “Well, nothing for it, then.” The cat begin a comprehensive set of stretches. “I’m afraid we will have to go without. Perhaps we can find some sort of breakfast on the way.”

  Yael paused in the act of pulling her shirt over her head. For some reason, changing in front of a cat didn’t make her feel embarrassed at all, though she had the nagging suspicion that she should have been.

  “If you don’t mind... on the way to what?”

  The cat shook his head solemnly, then began grooming his forepaws, first one, then the other, with a delicate intensity.

  “Some girls wander by mistake,” the cat said gravely. “And some run away. Whatever your intentions, child, you are nowhere except for lost. Fortunately, you have a guide.”

  “Am I far from downtown? I wondered why I didn’t hear any trains...”

  “You are far from everywhere. Consequently, that means you are already halfway to the Nameless City.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Yael complained, pulling on her galoshes, wincing when her socks soaked up the chilled water trapped inside.

  “It’s all a matter of perspective,” the cat offered reasonably. “If the universe is infinite, then every possibility must exist in reality, yes? Then, it follows that there would be a place where the world is always ending, but never actually ends. That is where I am taking you.”

  Yael paused in the act of putting on her windbreaker.

  “That doesn’t sound like a very nice place.”

  “It isn’t a nice place. But they have something special there, a place for people in your position.”

  “And what is my position?”

  “You have lost something you are determined to get back,” the cat explained with sparkling eyes. “Or am I wrong?”

  Yael had no answer. It was a relief to put the gas mask back on. She had the disquieting feeling that the cat was reading her facial expressions with frightening ease. Behind the polarized lenses and sticker-covered plastic, her secrets felt a bit more intact.

  “Where are you taking me, then?”

  “To the Night Market, in the Nameless City that lies beyond the Dreamlands of men, beside the sea the gods sleep beneath. The way is both long and treacherous and I cannot tell you what you might find if you should survive. The Market offers different things to each customer, but it will endeavor to offer you the desire of your heart, at a cost. If the way seems too risky, or the destination too uncertain, then turning back is still an option. We could find the Rat and he could help you find your way home...”

  Yael shook her head, shoving her sleeping bag into her duffel.

  “I’m not going back.”

  “Very well,” the cat said, tail waving gently as he set off toward the locked door. “Then we should begin. It is a long walk and we must pass through some places that are better traveled during the day, even in these tunnels.”

  Yael hoisted her bag on to her shoulder and nodded at the cat, following him across the rickety metal catwalk.

  A cat on a catwalk. Yael giggled to herself.

  “What is it?” The cat looked back at her from in front of the rusted door, tail wavering uncertainly. “What is so funny?”

  “Nothing,” Yael assured the cat, glad the mask hid her face. “Where does the door go, anyway?
”

  “To the Underworld,” the cat responded archly, pushing the ancient metal door open with a nudge of his head.

  “I thought that was where I was already.”

  “No, child. You are underground. The Underworld is an entirely different matter, I’m afraid.”

  ***

  “Safe as she can be.”

  There was a fire in the fireplace. Yael was eight years old and playing with a kitten and a length of string that she would wind around it, laughing at the kitten’s attempts to simultaneously free itself and pounce.

  Through the window she watched the sky change colors, and this frightened her.

  At school, listening to the other girls whisper mean things, things they meant for her to hear, but not so loud that the teacher would notice. They loved her brother, she knew. Which for some reason meant that they hated her.

  Watching ripples in a cup of tea during the departure of one the ships from the harbor, the foundations of their ancient home shaking as though from an earthquake.

  “And the cat?”

  ***

  Violet moss covered the walls and the ceiling like luminescent carpet. Prefabricated concrete gave way to rough hewn rock, nothing like the sandstone hills that surrounded the harbor near her home. The deep grey stone was speckled with vivid green occlusions which reflected her flashlight like water, abrasive and damp with condensation. They walked along metal-wrapped bundles of utility cables between the sulfur puddles cast by an occasional flickering light bulb.