Morlock Night

by KW Jeter

  "Ah, well, there's the kindness Mr. Mayhew did me. The calling does pay well, for all manner of valuable objects is lost into the sewers for the finding by those that know the ways. But most toshers spend their earnings on drinks and suchlike sprees as fast as they can get it. Mr. Mayhew, bless his memory, was the one who pointed out to me the folly of such rude practices, and how fast a little put by from one's findings would soon amount to a tidy sum. I followed his advice, though Lord! I got thirsty at times, and now the people in this district hereabouts call me 'Rich Tom,' though I'm prouder yet of the learning I've done meself in these years since I left the toshing trade. For it's that what prompted our mutual friend Dr. Ambrose to seek me out and enlist me in his projects."

  My eyebrows raised in unbidden scepticism. "What exactly is it Ambrose consults you about?"

  Our host lifted his chin with a measure of disdain. "Dr. Ambrose is a man of great knowledge, as you might expect, knowing who he really is, and he knows more about the London sewers than many of the toshers mucking about down there. But he doesn't know as much as I do."

  "How much is there to know?" said I. "About sewers?"

  "Sir, you reveal your ignorance. There's marvels beneath the street that would fair scatter the wits of the average fellow walking about on the pavement all unaware of what's below his feet. Places and ways deeper and older than you can imagine, my dear Mr. Hocker. And things, too – certain valuable things, if you catch me drift."

  I did indeed. "So you know then what it is we are seeking?"

  "I believe I do," said Clagger. "Though I can tell you the fetching of it will be no easy matter."

  "The harder the task," said Arthur sternly, "the greater the glory." Tafe, seated away from him, rolled her eyes heavenward at his statement but said nothing.

  I looked at the old king dubiously, then turned back to Clagger. "There's little time." I said. "How soon can we start down there?"

  "Me old pals have loaned me from their gear some of the stuff we'll need for our little expedition – lanterns and aprons, mostly. And I've got me old pole to help me test the way ahead of us. So I believe we can start at most any time you please."

  "You'll guide us?"

  "Of course," said Clagger. "Who else? And I can't bloody well give you a map, you know."

  "I suppose not. Well, that's most kind of you then."

  "I'll go fetch the gear." He got up and disappeared into the rear of his lodgings, coming back a few moments later with the traditional leather aprons used by sewer-hunters draped over his arm. From one hand dangled some battered tin lanterns with leather straps affixed. These, as I knew from my reading of Mayhew, were worn on the toshers' chests to light their way in the dark passageways under the London streets. Clagger deferentially handed one of the aprons to Arthur, but before his hand could grasp it the old king doubled over in a fit of coughing. As the choking and hacking died inside him, he straightened up, pressing his handkerchief to his lips. Before he could put the cloth away I was up from my chair and had grabbed his thin wrist. He was able to put up only the most feeble resistance as I turned his hand over and revealed the spots of blood upon the handkerchief.

  We looked in grim silence at the blood, then Clagger spoke. "You'll have to stay here, my lord," he said. "You mustn't come down into the sewers with us."

  "Nonsense," said Arthur angrily. "I'm more than capable." He jerked his hand free from my grasp. "No," said Clagger, shaking his head. "The cold and the damp and the noxious gasses make it no fit place for weak lungs. It'd kill you for sure, and then where would we all be?"

  "He's right," said I. "Come, you're an old soldier. Would you endanger the success of a mission by sending along a man in your condition?"

  His red-flecked eyes glared fiercely at me for a moment, then clouded with moisture as he sank back into the chair. "Go on, then," he said, gesturing weakly at us. He looked very old and shrunken now. "I'll… I'll keep watch on the situation from up here. Yes, that's what I'll do. Stand guard."

  We completed our preparations in silence, then left the old king there in the parlour, staring before him into his memories of ancient glories.

  As we crossed the courtyard I drew Clagger toward me. "You see the urgency of our task," I whispered. "Not only his strength but his very life depends upon our finding the swords." He nodded and led us quickly on toward the river, his pole carried in his hand like some odd weapon of battle.

  "Down here," said Clagger when we had reached a section of sagging wharves along the bank of the Thames. "There's a bit of a rope here you can lower yourself down on. I'm afraid those fancy boots of yours will be most ruined." He went before us to show the way down to the muck at the river's edge. The moon and stars glittered upon the oily, garbagespecked waters.

  Tafe and I dropped down behind him. I reached over my shoulder and felt the bundled Excalibur where I had securely strapped it so that it would not impede my movements. We had decided to take it with us for whatever aid it might furnish us in locating its fraudulent brothers.

  Splashing through the shin-deep, odorous mud, we made our way to one of the large iron gates of the sewer outlets. These were hinged so that they only opened outwards, to allow sewage to exit into the river yet prevent the water from backing up into the drains when the river was swelled by high tide.

  Clagger got his hands under the edge, of the gate and lifted it far enough for Tafe and me to scramble into the circular opening beyond. He ducked himself under the gate, then let it fall behind him. With a resounding clang that echoed down the passageway, we were thus enclosed in the darkness of the London sewers.

  A match sputtered into flame, then a shaft of light coursed in front of us from the lantern strapped to Clagger's chest. He helped us light our own lanterns. By their combined glow we could see quite well the drain's slime-encrusted walls leading on into blackness, and the torpid stream of filthy water that washed about our ankles. For several moments my breath, laden with the sewer's stagnant odours, caught gagging in my throat.

  "It's a roughish smell at first," said Clagger. "But you'll get used to it. Just step along right behind me as we go and you'll be all right!"

  His words proved true. After a few yards, both Tafe and I found our breaths coming easier to our lungs. The human body, prompted by the human will, is a marvel of accommodation to all manner of wretched conditions.

  A scurry of tiny clawed feet sounded from somewhere beyond the reach of our lamps. Rats eyes, red in the lantern light, glared at our passage, then disappeared back into the crevices that served as their nests.

  "Don't mind the little beasties," said Clagger. "They're not dangerous but when they're cornered. And then, Lord! How they'll fly at you! Some toshers think it's grand sport to hunt em, and probably think for all the world that they're just like the landed gentry on a fox hunt, but I've no mind for such foolishness."

  Our little band was like an island of light moving through the dark world of the sewers. Our boots splashed in the shallow rivulets while our lanterns danced their beams over the walls covered with layer upon layer of ancient filth. More than once we had to squeeze past a throng of wet stalactites compounded from slow decades of flowing sewage. The damp air curled in our lungs.

  My voice echoed from the curved walls as I broke the silence. "Clagger," I said, "where exactly are we headed down here? It strikes me that we've already gone some distance."

  He turned around with one finger pressed to his lips. "Quiet," he whispered, then covered the aperture of his lantern and ordered Tafe and me to do the same. "There's a street grating up ahead," came his hushed voice.

  I understood his meaning. Though sewer-hunting was a well-known profession among the lower classes, forming as it did something of an aristocracy among them, it was still technically illegal for people to enter the sewers for any reason other than the maintenance of them. If our lights and the noise of our passing caught the attention of a constable on the street overhead, our mission could be considerably interfere
d with. With Clagger to guide us there was little doubt that we would elude any efforts by the police to apprehend us, but the noise and general fuss of their search would frustrate the secretive nature of our quest.

  Cautiously, we filed under the parallel slits of the street grating. I glanced up and saw the narrow sections of the night sky, the stars blotted out for a moment by someone's bootsoles as he crossed the street.

  Once safely past, we uncovered our lanterns and proceeded. Our path curved downward and we were soon out of hailing distance of the surface world. At a wide point in the tunnel Clagger held up his hand for us to stop. "Quite a little stroll, eh?" he said, smiling. He took a small parcel from a pocket on the inside of his leather apron, unwrapped it and divided hunks of stiff bread and cheese among us.

  "So," said I, swallowing a dry mouthful, "where are we, Clagger? It all seems to go on forever down here."

  "Patience, lad." The old tosher gestured with a hard crust. "We've gone quite a ways, there's no disputing that. But the hardest part is all ahead of us. Down we go now into the deepest and darkest parts of the city's sewers. And even beyond that…"

  "What do you mean?"

  "You'll see." Without further explanation he hoisted his probing pole and started in a sloshing trudge down the length of sewer tunnel. Tafe and I exchanged glances, then followed after.

  We had gone what seemed like several more leagues when we halted at the edge of a crevice a couple of feet wide that ran alongside our path. "Look down here," said Clagger, bending over so that his lantern shone down into the hole.

  From the extreme dampness of the crevice's walls I assumed that it was periodically flooded, perhaps by the high tide seeping in through an underground channel. At the bottom I could see a dully glinting mass of metal.

  "See that?" Clagger's arm extended, indicating the metal amalgam. "Must be a hundred-weight or more of valuables – silver coins, brass nails and ship fittings, jewellery, what looks like a pewter christening mug… Lord, you'd be surprised at all the stuff what gets washed down here. It all gets rolled by the water into low places such as this, then becomes all stuck together by virtue of the constant passage of dirty water over it. A lump such as that is what we call a 'tosh' and other people call us 'toshers' because of 'em. Many's the time when I was younger that I've found toshes big as me own head, taken 'em out under the bridge to bust 'em apart, and made more than five pounds from the coins alone. That one you see down there would be the making of someone's fortune, easy."

  I pondered the lump below. "Why hasn't anyone taken it then?"

  "Why, bless you, there's many that's tried! Old Rollicker Jim near cracked his skull open trying to rig a block and tackle to fetch it up, and only succeeded in bringing a piece of the sewer masonry down on his head. No, I fear that bloody tosh down there is too damn great and heavy to be gotten out. It'll sit there growing bigger by every dropped sovereign and penny-piece that comes to it until the end of time."

  "It's growth may be over sooner than you think, then," said I. "We've no time to waste gawking at such things if we are to avert the disaster that faces us."

  Clagger nodded, causing the beam of his lantern to shift back and forth across the metal lump. "You must know somewhat of where you're going, though, before you go rushing down there. I'm showing you this for reasons other than as a pretty sight on a Sunday promenade. Just where do you think you'll find that for which you're looking?"

  "You mean that one of the Excaliburs created by Merdenne has been incorporated into a tosh like this?" I pointed to the glittering mass.

  "Not just a tosh, if you please, but the greatest of all! The Grand Tosh!" The sewer walls rang with the sudden fervour in his voice. "Bigger nor houses, it is! Like a cold moon swimming up from the bottom of the sea!"

  "You've seen such a thing?" said I. "How much farther is it?"

  He sadly bowed his head. "Ah, well, if there was a tosher who'd seen the Grand Tosh, I'd be the one. I've been through every slimy foot of these sewers but never laid eyes on it. But it exists! God's truth, it does! I know it, and there – where else but there, in that hidden magnetic lode of all that's most precious and lost – there's the place you'll find the Excalibur that was thrown into these sewers."

  By the time he had finished his impassioned outburst I was in despair. It appeared obvious that Ambrose's confidence in this man had been sadly misplaced, as he seemed now to be either senile or crazed from his long associations with the sewers. Our position looked desperate. What if the old sewerhunter collapsed, or refused to guide us farther, abandoning us to the dark, mazy pathways? Even if we were able once again to obtain the sunlight on our own, what purpose would it serve! We would be no closer to locating the precious sword that lay hidden somewhere in the depths. And all the while, time running out…

  Clagger apparently perceived my anxious thoughts, for he straightened up from his stance over the crevice. "Have no fear," he said quietly. "I get a little emotional sometimes when I think about the mysteries of the sewers. But I assure you that I'm in complete control of my faculties. And while neither I nor any other tosher has ever seen the Grand Tosh, it does exist, all for the finding of that which you seek."

  "But how can that be?" said I in perplexity. "If you've been all through the sewers and not seen it, then where is it? What folly are we pursuing down here?"

  "Calm yourself, for God's sake." Clagger raised his palm in a placating gesture. "It's not in the sewers, and that is God's truth. You must go beyond the sewers."

  Again that hint that had baffled me before. Had the man's acquaintanceship with Ambrose engendered in him a taste for mystery-mongering? The problem with secret knowledge, I mused bitterly, is that no one ever wants to tell you any of it.

  "See here," I exploded. "I'll be damned if I know what you're talking about. Beyond the sewers? What could possibly be beyond them except dead rock and earth?"

  "Ah." Clagger tucked his pole under his arm in preparation for resuming progress. "Let's go along a little farther, and you'll see all soon enough."

  I lagged a few yards behind him in order to pass a word in secret with Tafe. Although she was laconic at all times, she had not even spoken once since we had descended into the sewers, and I was curious to know her mind about our situation. Was it trust or suspicion behind her silence?

  "What do you think?" I whispered to her. Ahead of us, Clagger led the way without turning around. "Our guide's inclined to be a touch peculiar at times. Is he on the up or not?"

  "I don't know," said Tafe in a choked voice. "Maybe… maybe he is. I just don't know."

  The strain in her voice startled me. I could see now that her lips were bloodless, clamped tight, and that her brow was furrowed with some anxiety greater than that troubling me. "What's wrong?" I asked in concern.

  She shook her head. "Nothing. Just leave me alone."

  "Are you sick? Do you want to stop and rest for a moment?"

  "No," she snapped. "Just go on, will you? I'm all right." Suddenly her words exploded out of her. "My God, Hocker, don't you feel it? It's so far down here underneath the whole damned world, and so tight and dark. I can feel the walls pressing in on me and I can't breathe–" Her words choked off, and in her wide, staring eyes I could see the effort with which she forced control over herself.

  Clagger had heard the outburst and now came back to study the situation. "Afraid of being so far underground, eh?" he said, then shook his head. "Should have left you topside along with the old king. You'll not be much good a-toshing down here, and we've got deeper to go yet."

  "Then lead the way, damn you!" Her anger flared up. "I may not like this hole you find so bloody cheerful, but I'm not afraid of it. So go on – we've wasted enough time already listening to you babble about one damn thing or another."

  With an air of dubious resignation he turned away and resumed his place at the head of our little procession. This time I stationed myself last as we went, to be sure Tafe didn't fall behind, paralyzed by her f
ear. My thoughts were grim as I plodded along behind the two. I had not realised until this time how much my own strength was de pendent upon Tafe's. As a comrade-in-arms I had considered her first, and a woman second. Even now she bore up better under the burden of her unfortunate fear than most men who are similarly afflicted. Still, it left our expedition in a perilously weakened state.

  We marched on through the twisting and turning passages, sometimes inching along on our hands and knees beneath some slimy mass, or wading thigh-deep in the turgid, odorous waters that ran beneath the great city. The scraping noises of claws and the bright red eyes of the sewer rats followed us from one niche in the walls to another.

  Ahead, Clagger came to a halt and turned to face us. As we came up to him he began unstrapping the lantern from his chest. "Here's the place," he said, "that's been weighing on my heart since we started out. If we can't get past this point, all our efforts. have been in vain. Take a look ahead and see for yourself. Mind the edge there, it's a mite crumbly."