The White Wolf, page 73
“There’s someone wants to shoot you,” I said, shaking his paw. “You’d better be careful.”
“I am used to it,” he assured me. “I am always careful. And you are…?”
“I am Oonagh Beck. I’m hoping to get back to Ingleton as soon as possible.”
Lord Renyard frowned, not understanding everything I said. Then he bowed again. “Enchanted, mademoiselle.” He spoke in faintly accented English. “You appear to have won the approval of our friends the Off-Moo.”
“Who’s that, again?”
“Those gentlemen. They are the builders and inhabitants of yonder city. I think it’s safe to say they are allies of mine. They’ll not harm you.”
“But Klosterheim’s around!” I looked, but I could no longer see the skull-faced Puritan.
“Oh, he’ll not bother us for a while yet, believe me. He cannot come here. How can I help you?” He was serenely confident. I calmed down.
“Maybe you could point me in the right direction for the village,” I suggested. There had to be another exit or entrance or whatever. “Or even take me a bit of the way to Ingleton…”
“Ingleton, my dear child?”
“It’s where I live.”
“Is that where you entered the World Below?”
“It is.” My granny had told me bedtime stories about the World Above and the World Below when I was a little girl. I’d forgotten all about them. “So? Any ideas about Ingleton?”
He shook his long head. For the first time I became genuinely worried. “Then how can I find my way home?”
“We’ll have to look, I suppose.”
“Is it possible to stay lost for a long time?”
“It’s always possible.” He was regretful. “But I’m sure I can help. I have a good many maps where I live. A very extensive library on all subjects. I was paying a casual visit to my friends the Off-Moo, so we can leave without risking offence. I come here to relax. They see nothing strange in me, whereas most of your kind and mine are suspicious of a fox who not only wears human clothes but is also educated, as I am, in all the Encyclopaedists.”
“I don’t know much about encyclopaedias, Lord Renyard.” I felt a bit silly saying that. Had he read them all?
“I am an intellectual child of Voltaire and Montaigne.” He spoke with a slight air of self-mockery. “Of whom, no doubt, you’ve never heard.”
“I’ve heard of Voltaire, but we don’t really do much French history or philosophy yet at school.”
“Of course you don’t.” He opened his muzzle and barked several times. It took me a moment to realise that he was laughing. “How old are you, mademoiselle?”
“I’m twelve.”
“Another six years before you go to university.”
“About that. My sister goes next year.”
He asked after my family, and I told him. I said our family name was really von Bek, and at this he barked again.
“Von Bek? It could be I know your father. Or one of your relatives at least. Is his name Manfred?”
“It’s one of his names, but they have so many names. I don’t think there’s been a Manfred first name. Not for about two hundred years at least.”
“That could easily be, of course. I met him in about 1800.”
“Over two hundred years ago.” Was I dreaming or not? Somehow the logic seemed to be that of a dream. “What’s the year here?”
“The Off-Moo don’t have calendars as we do. But in Mirenburg, the City in the Autumn Stars, where I rule as a prince, it would be about, I don’t know, 1820 perhaps. To tell you the truth, my dear, it could as easily be 1920. If I had any means of measuring, I’d be better able to compute exactly what year it was in comparison. When we arrive there I’ll be able to help you more.”
“Then I suppose we’d better get off to Mirenburg. My mum and dad will be worrying. We can probably phone from there.”
“Perhaps they won’t be worrying, child.” His voice softened in reassurance. “Time has substantial variations, and only a moment or two might have passed in Ingleton while days and weeks go by out here.”
For some reason I was reassured by him, just as I had been in my dreams.
“Or several years,” added Lord Renyard. Then, realising he might have disappointed me, he leaned down, offering something like a smile. “But it’s generally only a matter of moments. I was just finishing my business here. Would you like to come with me to my home? From there it might be possible to reckon a little more specifically.”
“I don’t seem to have much choice,” I said.
“You could, of course, also stay with the Off-Moo. That gentleman over there is Scholar Ree, their spiritual counsellor. He can be very kind.”
“I think I’d better stay with you, Lord Renyard, if it’s all the same…”
“I shall be glad of the company.” The handsome fox again offered me his paw and began to lead me back to the larger group of stonelike beings. “First we’ll make our adieux.”
With grace Lord Renyard bowed to his hosts, then led me out along a narrow trail of smooth rock. Above us the enormous cave widened. The roof of the cavern seemed miles overhead. Instead of stars, crystals glittered and a silver river ran away into the distance, its luminous waters lighting a landscape of stalagmites and stalactites and what seemed like forests of fronds, all pale, shimmering and ethereal.
Reconciled to my inability to contact my parents at that moment, I felt better when Lord Renyard’s soft padded paw grasped my hand and we left the Off-Moo city behind. As we walked, he told me a little of the people inhabiting the land he called Mu-Ooria. They had lived here long before the surface of the earth was occupied by sentient beings, he said. Their world was sometimes known as the Border Land or the Middle March, existing on a plane shared in common by many aspects of the multiverse. I was familiar with the idea of alternative universes, so I grasped what he told me fairly easily, though I had never really expected to experience what old-fashioned writers sometimes called “another dimension,” and had until now pretty much taken the ideas as fiction. Most of the children’s stories that my brother and sister and I read were the kind which describe another world parallel to ours, and I had never thought the idea strange. That said, I knew it might be difficult to escape from such a universe once you had fallen into one, and I remained concerned for my worried parents, feeling somewhat guilty that the fascinating underground world kept distracting my attention.
The Off-Moo had few natural enemies and were peaceful, Lord Renyard told me. The cats I had seen often visited them and communicated between them and certain humans. “Felines often come and go from that city. They have a special fondness for it. I know not why.”
Lord Renyard said he found the intellectual stimulus he craved by visiting the Off-Moo. Most of his colleagues in Mirenburg were positively anti-intellectual, he said. “Many are outrageously superstitious. But if they were not, I should probably not rule them.”
“You are Mirenburg’s ruler?”
“Not the whole city, dear young lady.” As we strolled along he told me that he had enjoyed the company of my great-great-great-umpteenth-grandfather and that of another adventurer, his friend the famous aerial navigator, the Chevalier St Odhran.
“You know the Chevalier St Odhran? I met him yesterday!” I was excited to have a friend in common with him.
“Indeed? Not his descendant?”
“Only if his descendant is also a balloonist.”
He described his friend who often visited Mirenburg. It was my St Odhran to the letter. And sometimes, I heard, he came here with two friends who had to be Lobkowitz and Fromental. This gave me more hope. If the Scot had been able to fly his balloon to Ingleton, then it suggested there was a way I could easily be reunited with my parents and that the Chevalier St Odhran might also know where to look for me. In that way kids can do, I made up my mind not to worry and to enjoy the experience as much as possible. If a minor earth tremor had opened the world to me, there was a good chance that a similar tremor would get me out.
Lord Renyard had a taste, it emerged, for abstraction. He reminded me a bit of my dad, who was always inclined to wander off the practical point into speculation. I began to lose the thread of the fox’s arguments and was glad whenever he paused to point out a spectacular view or describe some flora or fauna of the surrounding world.
I was beginning to get tired and hungry by the time the tottering towers of the City in the Autumn Stars came in sight: a sprawl of tall tenements and chimneys, spires and domes. High overhead I could see pale, bright spots of faded colour, rusty reds and dark yellows, which might indeed have been ancient stars. I wondered if I would find my other protector, Monsieur Zodiac, there in the city.
Lord Renyard told me to be careful where I put my feet. “We shall be at my home soon, but the path can still be treacherous.” He pointed to the skyline of Mirenburg. “What you observe,” he explained, “is a mirror of the city you will find on the surface. Do not ask me how this phenomenon can be. I lack the intellect to explain it. But in a certain place the upper city and the lower city connect and allow us to move from one into the other. I think you will find that upper city more familiar. I cannot be sure, but it might even exist on the same plane as your own.”
“In which case they’d have long-distance telephones,” I said. “And I’ll be able to get in touch with my parents.”
He hesitated, doubtful. “Our Mirenburg—my Mirenburg—is not an especially progressive city, though she has lately accepted some modest manufacturing reforms.”
As we descended towards the city walls, the silence of the huge caverns was broken by a rapid drumming sound. Looking around him, Lord Renyard drew me back into the shadow of a slab of granite. He put his paw to his muzzle, indicating to me that I shouldn’t talk. Far away across the ridge, under the dim light of the “autumn stars,” I saw two men on horseback. I couldn’t make out their features until they rode quite close. I would have called to them if I hadn’t remembered Lord Renyard’s instructions. When I saw their faces, I was glad I hadn’t. It was the mysterious visitor and the other man from the dreams, the Puritan with the pale, gaunt head. Klosterheim. I suspected they were looking for me.
Soon we had reached the high walls of Mirenburg. It was a cold, rather alarming place. I gripped the fox’s paw still tighter as he led me through unguarded gates, explaining where we were. “The larger, outer city we call, these days, the Shallow City. But my people inhabit the core of the place. The quarter known as the Deep City. The Shallow City is ruled by the Sebastocrater, descended from Byzantine knights. But I have little intercourse with them. They are very poorly educated, having forgotten their old wisdom and skills. They never leave the city and certainly never venture under ground, as I do.”
We walked through black, unlit streets and eventually came to a wide boulevard. A single globe of light, very dim at this distance, lit this area of the city. The globe was seated on top of a monolith of black marble, block upon gigantic block, ascending to cubes of basalt.
“The palace of the lower city’s Sebastocrater,” Lord Renyard murmured. “No threat to us.”
Many of the other buildings had the look of public offices or apartments of important officials. Only rarely did I see a yellow light in a window. The buildings were high and close together. I was reminded of New York, except that this city was weirdly silent, as if everything slept. The only time I’d been to New York, I’d been astonished at the noise of traffic and police sirens going all night.
Lord Renyard seemed nervous, murmuring that this part of the city was not one he was familiar with. “Mine is the oldest quarter, what most these days call the Thieves’ Quarter.”
“Thieves?”
“I am not an entirely respectable person,” he murmured, as if embarrassed. “Though I strived to educate and civilise myself all my life, those amongst whom I am doomed to dwell still consider me a monster. Many are deeply conservative. Even their religion is of a very old-fashioned kind. Only in that district, where no decent citizen will enter, can I find any kind of rest.”
This sounded rather melodramatic to me. Personally I found a talking fox cool. My guess was that he’d be on every TV chat show there was, if he moved to London. I meant to tell him this as soon as we arrived at his house. After all, if I could travel so easily to his world, he could as easily come to mine.
The big buildings began to open out until we reached a wharf district on what was either a lake or a very wide river. The horizon turned a faint pink as the sun began to rise. Black water glittered. Overhead the stars grew dim. Lord Renyard led me down some watersteps, and then, amazingly, he led me up them again as the sun rose behind us and Mirenburg awoke and began to greet the morning. It was the same city we had just left, but utterly transformed!
Cocks crowing, dogs barking, maids calling from window to window, hawkers beginning to cry their wares, bells ringing, the sounds of carts rolling over cobbles, the bustle of people everywhere. It was the people, however, who rather alarmed me, not because they were sinister in any way, because they were not. They were fresh-faced, round-headed for the most part and of a generally cheerful disposition. They were dressed like people out of another century. Spiral streets wound up towards the town centre, where a vast castle tottered. The smells convinced me that I had almost certainly gone back in time.
Now I really was beginning to worry. I blurted out my anxiety. “Lord Renyard, I don’t think you’re taking me back to my parents. I’m beginning to be concerned about them. I really do need to get home.”
Lord Renyard paused. Ahead of us were lofty tenements which seemed to sway in a kind of dance. Even the chimney pots hopped and shuddered. “Visitors here sometimes know of ways of going back and forth across the multiverse.” He seemed almost sorrowful.
I didn’t mean to start crying. Why had it taken so long for the reality to sink in? I had no idea what was happening. I was lost in time as well as space, and however kind Lord Renyard was, he had no easy way of helping me. It was some comfort to be held in his huge paw, to have his stammers and snuffles of sympathy, but it wasn’t enough.
I pulled myself together. I was fairly certain Prince Lobkowitz and the others would guess where I was and would find me. I told myself I had every chance of returning home. The fox was greatly relieved when I stopped crying. “It’s not too far now, mademoiselle. And as soon as I am in my apartments I promise I will begin the search for those people who can help you.”
Again I took his soft paw, and soon we were in the canyons of what he called the Deep City, where tall, dilapidated buildings creaked and swayed around us. Lord Renyard assured me it was in the nature of this part of Mirenburg to behave so and that only rarely did a building actually fall down. “It helps us keep our privacy, however. That and our reputation.” His wink included me in a conspiracy whose ramifications I could never hope to understand. To distract myself I changed the subject.
“You said you are a thief, Lord Renyard. What do you steal?”
His big red-furred ears flattened a little, as if with pride. “I am the Prince of the Thieves, as I told you. That is why you are so safe with me. I myself do not steal, but I command as rascally a gang of footpads, pickpockets and tobymen as you’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.”
“Tobymen?”
“The toby is the highway, my dear. They are highway robbers. Knights of the road, as they’re sometimes termed.”
“And murderers?”
He was disapproving. “We don’t encourage murder.”
Among the shadows of the tenements, I began to see shadows lurking. Sometimes I glimpsed a pale, ratlike face, and sometimes I detected a glinting eye in a basement area or heard a scuttling, a shuffling, a sniggering.
Then, outside a tavern whose sign was so weather-stained and peeling I couldn’t easily make out its name, Lord Renyard stopped. “Here we are!” I spelled it. “R-A-S-P-A-Z-I-A-N’S.”
Raspazian’s Tavern was a basement drinking den. The strong smells of alcohol and tobacco roiled up towards us as we descended dirty steps to its door, which was immediately flung open, inviting us to step through.
I heard a sound all around us, as if we had disturbed a colony of rats, but the interior, lit by oil lamps, had an unexpectedly pleasant atmosphere. At the tables groups of men and women dressed in patched and ragged finery, none of it very clean, saluted my friend with their tankards and weapons and called out respectfully.
“Morning, Captain. Who’s the chicksa mort?”
“Enough of that, you rogues.” Suddenly Lord Renyard adopted a haughty manner. I guessed that was how he kept his followers in order. I was glad to be under his protection at that moment. We stepped through the tavern to a door at the back, and up a flight of steps into a spacious room much cleaner than the one we left.
Judging by the table and chairs, the room was used for dining. On the other side of this was another flight of stairs. Lord Renyard ushered me ahead and up into a comfortable apartment with two bedrooms. It was the quaintest set of rooms I’d ever seen. I had expected a prince of thieves to live in a palace, but these were the simple, comfortable apartments of a gentleman who enjoyed reading. There were bookshelves everywhere. There was even a shelf of small leather-bound volumes next to a spice rack.
The smaller bedroom was for me, he said. There he let me clean up while he sent servants out to find clothes for me. Before long his maid brought me everything I needed, including a mobcap. At least I would look normal when I went out. While I was dressing, I smelled cooking food. At the table Lord Renyard now sat before a pile of various breads, butter and jam, which he offered me while his smiling black-haired maid brought him in a plate of undercooked chicken. Civilised and erudite as he was, the fox remained a fox.
