Dan Simmons - Drood

I have to admit that there was little obscene about the turgid tale of wild boys living like pitiable animals in the sewers beneath the city, although I do remember a particularly gruesome and suggestive illustration of several of the boys finding a mostly nude body of a woman in their sewer searches. In another scene, mercifully not illustrated, a boy new to the Wild Boys group comes across the corpse of a man being consumed by rats. So perhaps it was obscene after all.

But who was to imagine that such a fantastical tale, indifferently told, was based on the truth?

Dickens laughed—the sound echoing down different dark channels—and said, “This place is not so different from my favourite London club, Wilkie.”

“Except that King Lazaree warned us that some of these diners are cannibals,” I said.

As if in response to our witticisms, there came the squeak and scuttle of rats from one of the openings, although it was impossible to tell which. Perhaps from all.

“Do we turn back now?” I asked, perhaps a shade plaintively. “Now that we have discovered the heart of the mystery of Undertown?”

Dickens looked sharply at me. “Oh, I doubt very much that this is the heart of the mystery. Nor even the liver or lights of same. Come, this channel looks the widest.”

Fifteen minutes and five turnings and scratchings on the wall later, we emerged into a space that made the Wild Boys’ living area look like a minor loculus.

This tunnel was a major thoroughfare compared to the low and mean sewers through which we had already passed: at least twenty-five feet across, fifteen feet high, the centre a river of quickly moving water—albeit a sludge-thick sorry excuse for water—rather than the mere oozes of mud and filth we had been scuttling past. The walls and brick path before us now, as well as the high vaulted arches, were built of gleaming new brick.

“This must be part of Bazalgette’s new works,” said Dickens, his voice sounding awed for the first time, the weakening beam of his bullseye playing across the wide thoroughfare and ceilings. “Although perhaps not officially opened yet.”

I could only shake my head, as much in weariness as in astonishment. “Which way now, Dickens?”

“No way from here, I believe,” he said softly. “Unless we swim.”

I blinked and realised what he meant. This brick walkway was wide—five feet wide at least, as clean and spotless as a new city sidewalk above—but it only extended fifteen feet or so in each direction from our tunnel opening.

“Do we retrace our steps?” I asked. The idea of entering one of those tiny pipes again made my skin crawl.

Dickens turned his light on a post two yards or so to our left. It was made of wood and held a small ship’s bell on it. “I think not,” he said. Before I could protest, he had rung the bell four times. The brash sound echoed up and down the broad bricked thoroughfare above the quickly flowing waters.

Dickens found an abandoned pole at the end of this strange brick dock we were on and he thrust it down into the current. “Seven feet deep at least,” he said. “Perhaps deeper. Did you know, Wilkie, that the French are preparing boat tours of their sewers? They are to be spotlit—women in the boats, men walking alongside for parts of the tour. A sort of bicycle apparatus will propel the flat-bottomed vessels while searchlights within the boat and others carried by égoutiers alongside will illuminate features of interest along the way.”

“No,” I said dully. “I didn’t know that.”

“There is talk of high society in Paris arranging rat-hunting tours.”

I had had enough of this. I turned back towards the tunnel from which we had emerged. “Come along, Dickens. It’s almost dawn. If Detective Hatchery goes to Leman Street Station and announces that we are lost, half the constables in London will be down here searching for the most famous writer alive today. King Lazaree and his friends would not want that.”

Before Dickens could reply, there was a sudden flurry and several clusters of rags floating around white, rodent-like faces exploded from the tunnel.

I fumbled out the pistol. At the moment, I was convinced that we were being attacked by gigantic grub-faced rats.

Dickens stepped between me and the surging, feinting forms. “They’re boys, Wilkie,” he cried. “Boys!”

“Cannibal boys!” I cried back, raising the pistol.

As if to confirm my statement, one of the pale faces—all tiny eyes and long nose and sharp teeth in the bullseye light—lunged at Dickens and snapped, as if he were attempting to bite off the author’s nose.

Dickens swatted away the face with his stick and made to seize the child, but his hand came away with a wad of rags and the naked boy was gone along with his two or three cohorts, skittering down the low, dark passage from which they—and we before them—had emerged.

“Dear God,” I gasped, still holding the heavy pistol high. I heard a sound behind me, from the water, and turned slowly, the pistol still raised. “Dear God,” I whispered again.

A long, narrow boat of no design I had ever seen before had glided up to our brick esplanade. There was a tall figure holding a pole in the bow and another at a sweep in the stern, although except for the high stern and bow and oarsmen and lanterns hanging fore and aft, the craft bore only a vague resemblance to an Italian gondola.

The male figures were not quite men—the faces were absolutely pale and not yet shaped into manhood—but neither did they look still to be boys. They were very thin and dressed in tights and tunics that almost seemed to be uniforms. Their hands and glimpses of their chests and midriffs between the ill-fitting costumes showed flesh as ghastly pale as their faces. Most strangely in the dimness of the wide sewer, each boy-man was wearing a pair of square smoked glasses over domino masks, as if they had ventured out of a midnight masked ball into brilliant sunlight.

“I believe that our ride has arrived, Wilkie,” whispered Dickens.

Glancing apprehensively over my shoulder at the black opening from whence I expected the wild boys to emerge again at any second, I crowded close to Dickens as he prepared to board the little boat. He paid the silent form in the bow two sovereigns, then paid the man at the sweep in the stern the same amount.

The two shook their heads and each handed one of the sovereigns back. They pointed at Dickens and nodded. Then they pointed at me and shook their heads again.

Clearly I was not invited.

“My friend must accompany me,” said Dickens to the silent pair. “I will not leave him.” He fumbled out more coins. The shadowy shape at the sweep and the one in the bow shook their heads almost in unison.

“Are you from Mr Drood?” asked the author. He repeated the question in French. The silent pair did not respond to either language. Finally the one at the stern pointed to Dickens again and motioned for him to board. The one in the bow pointed to me and then to the brick walkway I was on, telling me to stay. I felt that they were commanding me as if I were a dog.

“The blazes with this,” I said loudly. “Come back with me, Dickens. Now. ”

The author looked at me, looked at the tunnel behind me—from which there were renewed scuttling sounds—looked at the boat, and craned to see up and down the underground river. “Wilkie…” he said at last. “After coming so far… after learning so much… I can’t… just… turn back.”

I could only stare. “Come back another night,” I said. “For now we must be away.”

He shook his head and handed me the bullseye lantern. “You have the pistol and… how many shots did Hatchery say?”

“Nine,” I said. Disbelief rose in me rather as one’s gorge might in a rough trailing sea. He was going to leave me behind.