The City of Secret Rivers

by Jacob Sager Weinstein

  One thing still puzzled me. “The biggest windows are still blank and so are all those scrolls. If this is such an important place, why isn’t it finished?”

  “Nothing’s ever finished,” Lady Roslyn said.

  That was her least useful answer yet, which was saying a lot. But I didn’t have the chance to ask her more, because Richard the Raker yelled, “Aha!”

  He shined his lantern behind the base of a massive stone arch while the other toshers crowded around. “Found some tosh?” asked Longface Lucky.

  “Send me off to Sackville, this ain’t no tosh,” said Richard the Raker. “This here is what you’d call a tosheroon. In fact, this may just be the tosheroon, if you know what I mean.” He knelt down and picked up a funny-looking object, and I recognized it immediately.

  It was the wrench-hammer-hacksaw tool I’d used to fix my tap.

  I guess I should have thought before I said what I said next. I should have noticed that Richard the Raker and Newfangled Troy and Longface Lucky were all gazing at the tool in silent awe. I should have remembered that they didn’t trust me to begin with. I should have kept my mouth shut.

  But I was so surprised to see the thing that had started the whole adventure that I couldn’t help myself. “That’s mine!” I exclaimed.

  The toshers’ awed expressions vanished. Instead, Newfangled Troy looked puzzled. Richard the Raker looked suspicious.

  And Longface Lucky? He looked really, really, really suspicious.

  “Now, now, Hyacinth,” said Lady Roslyn. “We’ve agreed: what these gentlemen find, they may keep.”

  “She didn’t say as she wants to take it,” Longface Lucky said. “She said as it was hers already.”

  “How could that possibly be hers?” Lady Roslyn said.

  “I notice you ain’t saying it ain’t,” Longface Lucky said.

  “I think I made myself perfectly clear,” Lady Roslyn said.

  Longface Lucky took the wrench-hammer-hacksaw from Richard the Raker and gave it a deep sniff with that sharp nose of his. His eyes narrowed. “See, what’s interesting about this situation here is, we finds you awandering with an umbrella full of something remarkable, and a young woman at your side, and a ribbon what smells of some things which is quite unusual in their own rights. And all along, I was wondering how those facts there might be related to each other. And now here’s the young woman, saying as she owns Bazalgette’s Trowel. And now here’s you, going around the glasshouse on the question of whether it is hers or it ain’t.”

  “If you’re implying that I’m deliberately misleading you, then you are a very sceptical man,” Lady Roslyn said, which only made Longface look even more sceptical. I couldn’t blame him. I mean, I could tell she was dodging the question, and I didn’t even know what they were talking about.

  “You know what I think, gents,” Longface said. “I think as we’ve found ourselves two tosheroons today. One of them is Bazalgette’s Trowel, which would be snowy enough … and the other is this young lady here.”

  Longface held out his long hoe, blocking us in on one side. Richard the Raker did the same, trapping us on the other.

  Keeping her eyes on them, Lady Roslyn took a few steps backwards. Since there wasn’t anywhere else to go, I did the same thing. We bumped into the wooden entrance doors, which had somehow closed behind us.

  I spun around and yanked on the handle.

  The doors were locked. We were trapped.

  CHAPTER 14

  “You gave us your word,” Lady Roslyn said.

  “I promised you as we’d get you out of that hole, what we did. And I promised as we’d show you the way to the surface. Well, see those stone steps there?” Longface Lucky pointed to an archway a football field away from us. “That’s the way up. Now I’ve shown it to you. I never promised as I’d let you actually take it. You ain’t the only one what knows your way around a glasshouse, Lady Roslyn. Now, gents, let’s finish this off—”

  “It’s not my thingy,” I said.

  “Hyacinth…” Lady Roslyn said.

  Her tone of voice made it clear she wanted me to stop, but I didn’t see how bluffing could make the situation any worse, so I kept going. “That thingy there – Battleship’s Trowel? I’ve never seen it before.”

  “HYACINTH!” Lady Roslyn yelled. She looked genuinely upset.

  Great, I thought. Way to spoil my bluff. But I didn’t let her distract me. I kept going. “Anyway, it’s true. I’ve never seen that tool thing. I just said it’s mine because it looked pretty, so I don’t have any connection to it, which means I can’t be a tosheroon thingy, whatever that is, so you can go ahead and lift the hoe thingy, and you can keep the trowel thingy, and we’ll be on our way.” (Fun fact about me: when I’m lying, my thingy-per-minute count goes through the roof.)

  I stopped and took a deep breath. I was waiting to see if the toshers would believe me. Weirdly, they seemed to be waiting for something, too. And so did Lady Roslyn. They all looked up nervously, and then down nervously, and then around nervously. And when nothing happened, they all looked at each other in relief.

  “Well,” said Longface Lucky. “I suppose as you must be telling the truth, seeing as how the sky ain’t fallen.”

  Unfortunately, at exactly that moment, the sky did fall.

  Well, not the sky. If the actual sky had fallen, that wouldn’t have been so bad, since presumably it’s made of nice soft clouds and the occasional bird.

  But what actually started falling was the ceiling. Which was made of gigantic blocks of stone.

  One of which crashed right next to me, almost smooshing me. Another one smashed into Richard’s hoe, shattering it into splinters. A dozen other giant stone blocks pounded the pews around me into sawdust.

  “Aha! You was lying!” Richard the Raker cried triumphantly, but he wasn’t triumphant for very long, because a giant beam of wood came swinging downwards, whamming into him and sending him flying.

  Now, usually, I wouldn’t be thrilled to have a giant underground cathedral collapsing around my ears. But under those particular circumstances, I could see the bright side, because with Longface’s hoe smashed and Richard the Raker whammed, we suddenly had a clear shot at making it to the staircase leading up to the surface.

  If we could run to it before the whole building collapsed.

  So we ran.

  On either side of us, huge stone columns wobbled ominously, threatening to tip onto us as we ran past. Bricks from the walls rained down around us.

  Longface Lucky and Newfangled Troy were close on our heels. We kept running. We were halfway to the steps.

  All around the collapsing wall above us, there were alcoves with stone statues, and the statues came tumbling down towards us. A huge stone woman playing a flute toppled into the aisle just in front of me, but with the toshers right behind, I couldn’t stop, so I dodged to one side, leapt like a ballerina over a wooden pew, and kept going.

  We were three quarters of the way to the steps. Newfangled Troy was barely more than an arm’s length behind me, and Longface Lucky was right behind him.

  Not too far ahead, I could see the stone steps, curving up out of sight behind an archway. Suddenly, the bottom step snapped up and down. It was like a hand cracking a whip, sending a wave through the tile floor coming right at us.

  Since we were in front, Lady Roslyn and I could see that the tile floor was acting like a stormy ocean, and we jumped over the big tile wave. Troy and Longface didn’t see it. When the wave reached their feet, they went flying.

  We made it to the stairs and started to run up, but the stairs shook and leapt like they were trying to throw us off. We grabbed on to the wooden handrail and pulled ourselves up like mountain climbers.

  “What’s going on?” I said. Or, actually, shouted, since it was kind of hard to be heard over all the crashing stone.

  “When you are in the presence of magic,” Lady Roslyn shouted back, “never break your word, and never, never, never tell a lie.”r />
  We made it to the top of the staircase and staggered out onto a narrow walkway. It led under one of the large blank windows, and now that we were close to it, I could see little silvery fish swimming by outside. This strange cathedral wasn’t just underground – it was underwater. And the water was sparkling, like the whole cathedral radiated whatever magic shadow the umbrella did. Maybe that’s why I was seeing a beautiful fish-filled river out the window, instead of a brown flow of sewage.

  The walkway wasn’t wide enough for us to run side by side, and Lady Roslyn, unlike me, didn’t stop to gawk at the fish outside the window. She ran on ahead.

  I snapped out of it and ran after her.

  That’s when I noticed that the rumbling and the shaking and the ceiling-collapsing had suddenly stopped. I wondered whether that was a good sign or a bad sign.

  I didn’t have long to wonder. Just as I passed under the first blank window, the entire walkway jumped with an ear-splitting BANG.

  One by one, the stones of the walkway began to drop away, crashing to the floor below.

  I kept running.

  Behind me, I could hear the stones I had just run across crashing down.

  I kept running.

  The walkway led to an arch, and just as Lady Roslyn ran through it and out of sight, the half dozen feet of walkway between me and her exploded into powder, leaving a huge gap.

  I kept running.

  I was going to have to jump.

  I was going to have to jump right at the very moment I reached the gap, because it was so wide, I wouldn’t make it if I jumped a single instant too soon.

  I was going to have to jump in half a second.

  I was going to have to jump right now.

  But as my foot hit the last remaining tidbit of walkway, the stone shattered beneath my heel like thin ice.

  I couldn’t stop. I toppled forwards.

  I must have been moving really fast, but everything seemed to go incredibly slowly. I felt like I had all the time in the world to look down and admire the sharp and hard and pointy chunks of stone that were going to be the last things I’d ever see.

  Then somebody grabbed the back of my shirt. I hung there for a moment, and that seemed endless, too. I wanted to know who had me, but after the scraping my clothes had received in the sewers, they were just barely holding together. I could feel my shirt straining, and I knew that if I turned around, the motion would rip it off, and not only would I fall onto a bunch of sharp stones and die, I’d do it topless, which would just make the whole thing embarrassing.

  Whoever was holding on to my shirt pulled me back onto the walkway. My feet touched solid ground. I turned around slowly and carefully, and I found myself standing face to face with Newfangled Troy.

  There wasn’t a whole lot left of this section of stone balcony, which meant there wasn’t much room for the two of us, which meant we were standing close together.

  I wondered if I should shove him backwards. Sure, he had just saved me, but who knew what he was saving me for? I still didn’t know what a tosheroon was, and I certainly didn’t know what toshers did to a girl they thought was one. Plus, if I didn’t catch up with Lady Roslyn and help her get the drop of water to the Saltpetre Men, I wouldn’t see my mom again.

  But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Shoving another person to his doom? Sorry, that just wasn’t me.

  Plus, he smelled really good. It wasn’t like anything you’d expect from somebody who lived in the sewer. It was rugged and clean, like a backyard in winter when someone nearby has a fire going. I’m not saying I would have pushed him to his doom if he had smelled bad. I’m just saying the way he smelled made it a little harder for me to think clearly, and I didn’t have very long to think at all, because he grabbed my arms and held them tight at my sides.

  “Let me go!” I said.

  “You was thinking about pushing me over,” he said.

  I started to deny it, and then I remembered what had happened the last time I’d lied, so I just settled for glaring at him.

  “Ah, I can sees you’ve had it explained to you about the value of telling the truth. So you know I ain’t pulling the wool cap over your eyes whenas I tells you: I’m going to help you.” He let go of me.

  “Fine,” I said. “But why are you helping me all of a sudden?”

  I was kind of hoping his answer would involve the fact that I smelled as good to him as he smelled to me, although rationally I recognized I wasn’t exactly at peak fragrance level. But what he actually said was “A-cause there’s money in it for me. See, a tosheroon what belongs to a fellow is a million times more valuable than one what he stole. Magic is a little more cooperative if it thinks as you’ve got a right to use it. And right now, Bazalgette’s Trowel would seem to belong to you. So if you was so kind as to give it to me, I’d be disposed to help you get away.”

  “You’re asking me to give you something that you and your friends already took? Interesting negotiating technique.”

  “Longface Lucky is a-holding on to it, but it ain’t his, if you sees what I mean. All you got to do is, tell me as it now belongs to me. Then it’s my lookout how I get my hands upon it.”

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that. OK, it’s not like I even wanted the Trowel, but if it was so incredibly valuable, was it a mistake to give it up?

  Then the whole building rumbled again, and the stone balcony under my feet trembled. “Done,” I said. “I hereby grant you Bazalgette’s Trowel. Much good may it do you. What now?”

  “Now? I suppose we stands here and we fights them other two, then whenas that’s done, we finds you a way to get out of here.”

  Over Troy’s shoulder, I saw Richard the Raker and Longface Lucky emerge from the steps. Bits of walkway were still sticking out of the wall, like the remaining teeth in a hockey player’s mouth, and the two toshers jumped over a few close-together bits until there was just one large gap separating us from them.

  “Why ain’t you a-grabbed her?” Longface Lucky called over to Newfangled Troy.

  “Sorry, friends. I ain’t just on her side of this gap. I’m on her side, what you’d call in general.”

  “WHAT?” roared Longface. “Richard, jump across and wallop ’em both.”

  “Me, jump?” Richard roared back. “Great maze pond! You jump, if as you’re so keen on jumping.”

  They kept yelling at each other, but at some point, they were going to settle it, and then we’d have to fight them. I didn’t like our odds. Troy looked pretty strong, but he was smaller and younger than them. And me? I had just proven that I didn’t have the heart to shove another human being off the ledge. We’d have a better chance if we could split up – Troy could hold them off until I escaped, and if I was as valuable to them as I seemed to be, they would then chase after me and leave him alone.

  But the gap between me and the next section of the balcony was a good seven feet wide. I couldn’t jump it, and without a ladder or something, I couldn’t—

  Wait a minute.

  “Your hoe,” I told Troy. “Would it fit across that gap?”

  “Seems like as good an idea as any,” he said. He held it out, and the other end just reached. He lowered the handle onto the bit of stone in front of us, then crouched down to hold it steady.

  “Good luck,” he said.

  I wanted to take a few moments to work up my nerve, but I could see Longface Lucky copying our idea, laying down his hoe to cross towards us. So with no further nerve-working-up, I turned around and put my right foot on Troy’s hoe.

  Then I put my left foot on it, and just like that, I was standing several storeys above the ground on nothing but an overgrown garden implement.

  But I was not going to look down. I was not. I was not going to look down.

  On the plus side, the building wasn’t shaking itself apart any more, and even though lots of it was now on the floor, there was still more-or-less a ceiling over our head. Maybe that last rumble was like the death shudder of whatever fo
rces I’d unleashed with my lie. So the hoe was perfectly still, and Newfangled Troy was going to hold it tight, and I was going to be absolutely fine as long as I kept moving and didn’t look down, and why was I standing there talking to myself instead of moving?

  I lifted my right foot up slowly.

  I moved it forwards, slowly.

  I put it down in front of my left foot, slowly.

  I lifted up my left foot, slowly.

  Right foot.

  Left foot.

  I was not going to look down.

  Right foot.

  Left foot.

  Right foot.

  I was not going to look down.

  CHAPTER 15

  Rough voices called from behind me. “Oi there, missy! You be careful, now. You ain’t nearly as valuable to us dead as alive.”

  “Although dead, you ain’t a bad catch, neither, if you see what I mean.”

  I was not going to look back.

  Right foot.

  Left foot.

  Right foot.

  Out of the corner of my eye, something caught my attention. I glanced over and saw that I was in front of one of the previously blank windows, but it wasn’t blank any more. It showed a half-completed image of me balancing on the hoe. As I took a step forwards, the image filled in just a little more. Don’t pay any attention to it, I thought. Don’t get distracted.

  Right foot—

  Wrong foot. I slammed it back down and wobbled. I threw out my arms and waved them wildly, but I was lurching from side to side and I couldn’t get my balance. Three more seconds, and I was going to topple over.

  That meant I had three seconds to get off this stupid hoe.

  I ran forwards as lightly as I could, arms flapping like a baby bird on its first flight, and I just made it to the other side before I tumbled forwards. I landed on the walkway, my momentum rolling me over onto my back.

  Above me, the window was now completed, with a dramatic image of me dashing along the hoe. I guess I was now part of the history of this building.