Beneath Ceaseless Skies #17 Read online

  Issue #17 - May. 21, 2009

  “The Tinyman and Caroline,” by Sarah L. Edwards

  “System, Magic, Spirit,” by T.D. Edge

  For more stories and Audio Fiction Podcasts, visit

  http://beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/

  THE TINYMAN AND CAROLINE

  by Sarah L. Edwards

  None but the tinymen and the rats ran these dark streets beneath the streets, where the river was piss and planks served for bridges. There was a time when Jabey would have traded a hand for a candle, but he’d been a new runner then, and young. Since then long terrified scrambles in this darkness had taught his feet as no map could do.

  Now he scurried along the ledges built of dredged sewer rubbish. At a side tunnel he turned and paused, blinking against stabs of light: a drain. He clambered up through its broken bars.

  The sun had set while he’d been below—the stabbing light was the glow of a streetlamp. Pressing himself into the shadows of a carriage house, Jabey peered upstreet and down at the dark, massive forms of the istocrats’ castles.

  The west hill, right. He’d never been this close before. From where he stood it was castles all the way up, or so the chatter said, castles built of diamond windows and brownstone flecked with gold, and livedolls hung from the doors instead of knockers.

  Just one pretty was all he needed. One sparkling trinket to buy himself into the clubber chief’s service—and to buy his protection.

  Something rustled behind him, and he spun, certain he’d see Yol Stulbrend’s mutt closing in to tear him into a clutter of tinyman bones. But no, it was only a breeze scuffing newsprint across the cobblestones. Jabey shuddered against the chill and the trembling deep in his belly and slipped along the shadows to the nearest dark-windowed house. The stones jutted out slightly between their mortar, forming ledges just deep enough for the toe of a determined, barefooted tinyman.

  He’d meant to find an opening from the roof, but at the second story a muffled snort drew him to a window. At his touch it swung silently open. On a bed lay a man stiff on his back, eyes closed, the whiskers of his mustache draping his face like rats’ tails. Jabey edged past into the hall and drew the door shut behind him.

  A pretty, the hard-eyed kid had said, sneering down at him. Sewer running and pocket picking wasn’t enough, never mind that Jabey made no claims to be a sneak thief. It was a fine pretty he needed to buy into Sloan’s service— “And don’t think there ain’t others trying for the place, runt.”

  Jabey didn’t let himself think about where that place was. Not yet.

  What about jewels? In the safe, likely. Yol’s buddies had long complained of those. Silver? Yol boasted of stealing some rich’s silver teapot, years ago. The kitchen, Jabey guessed. Where’d riches keep their kitchens?

  He wanted to smack himself for this plan—this lack of a plan. Except it was all he had between him and the stingwhip, which Yol’d lay on heavy enough if he got hold of Jabey again, if he didn’t set Kingfisher on him instead.

  He swallowed the doubts and kept going, glancing in the open doorways as he passed. The rooms were filled with furniture and tapestries likely worth his life and more, but he could hardly have budged them, much less taken them below.

  He had to crawl down the stairs, pausing once when he thought he’d heard something creak. It didn’t come again. He kept going, through rooms and doorways and more rooms all full of istocrat trappings, and finally into the kitchen. He climbed up a cabinet and wandered the countertops, opening cupboard doors and peering over into drawers. The plates were china and the tools all iron. He found a big pot he could have slept in comfortably, and behind another door a pantry stacked with jars and slouching burlap sacks, but nothing he’d guess for silver.

  Not that he’d know it if he saw it, eh?

  Brilliance splashed the room, bouncing from the hanging knives in their rack, casting Jabey’s shadow a full threefeet high against the window shutters. He whirled, hands high against the light.

  A girl stood in the doorway with a single wavering candle. Above a high-collared nightie wide blue eyes peered at him. Her mouth opened, closed.

  “Are you an elf?” she said finally. “You look older than me.” Another glance up and down him, over his stubby arms, his shirt and trousers smeared with sewer grime. “But you’re not taller.”

  “Not taller,” he agreed. But not much shorter, which made her... three? Four? He couldn’t remember the year he’d stopped growing.

  “I must introduce myself,” she said. “I’m Caroline Elisabeth Morrowbridge.” She set the candle stand on the floor and curtsied.

  “Jabey,” he said. Would she called the coppers? Throw him out herself?

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Name’s Jabey.”

  “And are you an elf, Mr. Jabey?”

  “I don’t think so.” She was hardly big enough to hurt him, but he’d enough on his head; he didn’t need to rough some rich’s little girl.

  “Do you mean you don’t know? You must come with me, and I’ll show you.”

  “I can’t be staying—”

  “Then I should have to call Mr. Gaither to come and show you out.” Caroline crossed her arms. “And he doesn’t like being waked.”

  Jabey gave a last regretful glance around the kitchen, so empty of pretties, and slid off the countertop. He followed her to the staircase, where she blew out the candle and crept slowly up, quite as softly as he had earlier. He remembered the creaking he’d heard.

  She led him into a bedroom, shut the door behind him, and relit the candle.

  “We must be very quiet,” she whispered. “I shall be scolded if anyone hears.” She reached beneath the bed and pulled out a book so broad and thick her arms trembled. Sitting on the flowery rug, she opened it to a page and pointed to a red-cheeked man clutching a nut as big as his head. “That’s an elf.” She looked up at Jabey and twisted her mouth. “I believe you’re too tall for an elf.”

  Jabey snorted. “Never been too tall for anything.”

  She nodded seriously. “I know what you mean. I’m terribly small for my age—I’ll be nine in October.

  “Perhaps you’re a sprite, instead? No, that’s silly, you haven’t any wings—have you? You aren’t hiding them beneath your shirt?”

  “Ain’t hiding nothing,” said Jabey, freshly conscious of the slave collar scars at his neck—conscious, too, of the rips in his trousers and the sewer-filth crusted on his feet. He wondered if there were any folk like that in her book, folk with scars and bruises and mud under their toenails.

  She frowned and turned more pages, muttering to herself. Jabey eyed the window—could he get it open? That latch didn’t look shut.

  Caroline looked up, pouting, and said, “This book isn’t very useful. You don’t match the descriptions of any of the fairy-folk.”

  “What, no tinymen in your book?” he muttered. “None of them that run your messages and keep your sewers running nice? Wouldn’t figure a rich’s book would talk about us.”

  She leaned closer, eyes glowing with reflected candlelight. “I’ve never heard of a tinyman.” Her fingers stretched towards his face.

  “Now, you can’t be telling people about me,” he said, edging away. Towards the window....

  “Of course not,” she said, dropping her hand. “Father would be fearfully angry. He hates elves and brownies and sprites and all those things. He says they aren’t natural, that they’re frauds and foul things a lady shouldn’t think about.

  “But you’re not a fraud—any ninny can see it. I don’t understand why Father should object so. Franny Grace—that’s my nurse, only I’m too old for a nurse now—she had a hat once w
ith a sweet little bird on it. Every time she passed someone on the street, or said hello, the bird would cheep. And Father made her give it to the rubbish man!”

  “Probably was a livedoll,” Jabey said.

  “A what?”

  “From the dark quarter. You know. From the animatists.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Don’t you know the dark quarter?” He flicked his hand to the south. “Where the alleys are all closed in and there’s canvas stretched over the streets. Where the clubbers are. You know?”

  Where poisons bubbled and vapored like the whiskey in Yol’s corn still. Where bastard babies were abandoned, never to grow to adulthood—though they might live that long, if you called it living. Where he hoped to find a place before night’s end, stupid runt that he was.

  She was leaning forward, eyes wide. “Is that where you come from?”

  “I guess so. Yeah.” Every tinyman began in the dark quarter, however quickly he escaped thereafter.

  “I should so like to see it.”

  “Why?” he asked, appalled.

  “I’ve never been to Faerie,” she said. “I’ve read about it, the strange creatures and people there—quite dangerous, marvelous things they have in Faerie.”

  “Dangerous, right,” said Jabey. “Folk like to knock you in chains as talk to you. Or use you up for their gimmickry, if you’re too old to work.”

  “It’s all right,” she said. “I know to be very polite to everyone I meet, even the ugly people. I know to follow directions and not go where I’m not invited and never eat anything offered me. I’d be quite safe.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  Her lips drew thin. “You’ve come to rob Father, haven’t you?”

  “Hey, now-” Jabey stumbled backward and fell against a chair only five feet from the window clasp.

  “Just because I’m a child doesn’t mean I’m stupid. You fairy-folk are just like magpies, always after pretty baubles. The book said. Well, I’ll get one for you, if you’ll take me to your country.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “A trade. I give you something nice, and you take me to Faerie.”

  “I don’t know the way to Faerie,” he muttered.

  “To your country, I mean. Or else I’ll tie you up in my bedclothes and wake the whole house, and they’ll put you in jail!”

  “I can’t take you off with me. There’d be riches sending after me like wasps that got their nest smashed in, and coppers, too. I got enough folk after me now!”

  “Please, Mr. Jabey, take me to see your country. You could return me before tomorrow, couldn’t you, so no one would notice?”

  “Um....”

  “Here, I’ll find you something—I know!” She stood up so fast the candle flickered out, and a moment later she’d crept out the door.

  He backed the last few steps to the window, reached for the clasp, and hesitated. He’d better get out now. Except... night was wearing on, and he couldn’t flub this chance with Sloan. Couldn’t. Every time he popped up from below, there’d be roughs looking for him—more than one’d like to lay his hand on a tinyman’s bounty.

  And then Caroline was back, pressing into his hand something heavy wrapped in cloth. “My opera glasses,” she whispered. “They’re very fine. Father had them custom made. Now, let us go before someone wakes.”

  Clutching the bundle, Jabey followed her down hallway and stairs, where he waited while Caroline draped a dark cloak over her nightie. Then she led him past the kitchen and though a side door that she closed behind her.

  “How do we get there?” she said.

  For a moment he only stared at her, this rich girl just asking to be nabbed and ransomed. And then he shrugged and took out the paper he’d pulled from the ganger kid’s unwilling fingers. On it were the quick-drawn figures—a gemstone inked in crimson and three bronze lamps.

  “What curious pictures,” Caroline said. “What are they?”

  “That’s the street,” Jabey said, pointing to the gem. “I don’t know what the other’s for.”

  He didn’t want to go. Now, with the bundle heavy in his hand and the figures on the paper to direct him, he wanted to drop it all and run, below maybe, to make his home with the rats.

  But Yol’d find him, even if another runner didn’t turn him in. He had to come up sometime. Jabey fingered his neck, the scars there reminding him of matters more pressing than old memories—or tagalong istocrat girls.

  “Let’s go,” he muttered.

  At the drain Caroline balked, peering down between the bars. “Is it safe?”

  He lowered himself to the ground and shimmied through the gap. “Safe is in your rich house. Go back if you want.”

  A pause, and then she was scrabbling down beside him.

  * * *

  Once he had to pull her aside into a crumbling outlet when he heard the telltale of a runner scrambling past, ferrying message or cargo. Another time he took her hand and they ran by a sideway and the squeaking rats nested there. Caroline didn’t let go of him after they were past.

  Eventually she said, “I don’t understand why you like it here.”

  “Like? I got no say in it. Go up above, the real men’ll catch me, right enough.”

  “Are they—are they worse than the things down here?”

  “Only the ones that’d like to beat me. Or shoot me. Or lock me up for being a runt.”

  “A runt?”

  “A tinyman.”

  She shivered next to him, from his words or from the chill. “It sounds like Father,” she said. “I’m sorry we’re like that.”

  “Sorry?” He choked back a laugh. “You’re a rich muck’s little girl. What do you care?”

  “I care. It’s not good manners, or good sense either, to provoke fairy-folk. Besides, I’m rather more like them than most, don’t you think? I’m so small. I asked Father once if my mother was a fairy. I thought that might account for it.”

  “And?” Jabey said, after a pause.

  “And she wasn’t, I suppose. Anyway, Father was terribly angry. I think he was afraid. That’s why I want to go with you. Father’s afraid of something to do with Faerie, and I want to know what it is.”

  “Better you be afraid too, then.”

  “Perhaps, but I’m not.”

  “Not even now?”

  A couple of deep breaths beside him, and then, “No. Not even now.”

  And then they were crossing a plank into a sewer line he’d never run before. At the next storm drain he had to sniff at the sluggish air and listen to faraway drips before he could decide the turn to take. The air was stranger here; through the familiar sewage stench floated other odors—bitter, sick-sweet, acrid. The drain holes were few and their bars sturdy, though every so often they passed port doors in the tunnel sides, all clamped shut.

  At a drain hole with two broken bars Jabey climbed up loose bricks and gingerly pushed his way out.

  “Is it Faerie?” asked Caroline.

  “Shh!” he hissed as he stared at the street beyond.

  Belying its name, the dark quarter was radiant with the colored glow of dozens of windows. Draped in costumes sublime and hideous, men and women lurched past the windows and burst from wide-swinging doors. Above painted faces there sprouted plumage half again as high as their bodies, and tails of lizards and tigers and peacocks swept behind them.

  Caroline pushed up beside Jabey. “It is Faerie,” she breathed, staring at the spectacle. “Guess you’re seeing things after all,” Jabey said, still looking. Something in the crowd’s loose swagger was familiar. “They’re soaked. Come on. They got no eyes for us.”

  Bright-hued lanterns lined the streets on both sides, leaving no shadows in which to hide. Instead Jabey and Caroline wound their way amongst the revelers, who were too busy singing, shouting, and spilling pungent brew on one another to pay them any attention. The street ended in a wall disguised by some means of gauze and foam. Jabey boosted Caroline to the top
and climbed over himself, and on the other side all was stillness and darkness again, save only for plain yellow streetlamps and the occasional candle in an upstairs window.

  At the first cross street dim lamps shone green and gold—emerald, and perhaps topaz, Caroline said. They followed Emerald until they came to lamps of deep crimson that Caroline opined were garnet. They settled the question of which direction the “3rd lamp” should be counted from by starting off in one direction “until we reach the end—then we can count coming back.” But they didn’t need to. A few blocks before the street lost itself in labyrinthine alleyways, they came to a shop front with bright windows and three lamps glowing over the door.

  Jabey looked at Caroline, shook his head. “I know this kind of place. It’s a gang lair—or a club, I guess. They got plenty of uses for a little rich’s daughter, and you wouldn’t like any of them.”

  “But this is Faerie,” she said. “I can’t stop just because I’m afraid. Besides, you said you have business? Then surely you have safe passage—and I shall, too, in your company.”

  “Not this time,” he said. “Here, get out of the light.” He pointed behind a rubbish barrel. Scowling, Caroline huddled in its shadow.

  “Now don’t move. You’re staying out here and hiding until I get back. Or don’t you want to go home sometime?” As she began to reply, he turned and stalked up to the door.

  No one stopped him; few even turned to look as he came in. He was put in mind of Rat Hold, but it was not the same. Where Rat Hold’s walls displayed skin-clad women in garish colors, these walls were paneled in wood. Rat Hold’s tables were sopping with cheap beer by this hour, but here were only single glasses of a reddish drink, some still half-full, with no evidence anywhere of bottles or kegs. And in Rat Hold at this moment there were surely the personal posses of two or three or even more of the thug chiefs, each jovial or surly as the booze took him. Here the faces all were somber.

  He stared for so long that someone glanced at him and said, “You’ve brought a message?”

  “Sloan.” he mumbled. “I’m looking for Sloan.”