The Night Market (3 page)

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 nothing 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.”

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.”