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deathpixieYesterday I found myself offline and went through my 'unfinished fic' folder in search of something to do. Here's what I found (and finished the first chapter of).
[Neverwhere/Books of Magic] Through The Angel Door. (1/?)
Rating: PG for language
Disclaimer: Not mine, they're Neil Gaiman's and Vertigo's. No profit, only homage.
***
There is another London. A London few know of, and even fewer see. A London of myths and monstrosities, of the dispossessed and the daring, where Night guards a Bridge, where Ravens hold Court, and where there once was an Angel called Islington.
London Below.
It was here a young man called Richard Mayhew found himself after helping a mysterious street-pixie called Door. Their story, which is also the story of the Angel Islington and its mad quest for Heaven, has been told elsewhere. That book is closed, that tale is ended.
Except…
"Close the door! I'll tell you where your sister is… She's still alive…"
Door flinched.
And Islington was sucked through the door, a tiny, plummeting figure, shrinking as it tumbled into the blinding gulf beyond.
No story is ever truly ended. There's always a loose end, somewhere, that someone stumbles over.
***
"All right, you lot, stop your shoving or we'll be right back on the bus before you can say, 'Aw, sir!' Jenkins, I've already told you, get rid of the chewing gum! Watson, put that down! You don't know where it's been. And Hunter? Hunter! Someone give him a prod, will you?"
It wasn't difficult to find someone to oblige. Tim was startled out of his rapt study of the baroque angel on the advertising poster as Michael Tibbins jabbed him sharply in the ribs.
"Ow! You bloody…"
"Hunter!"
"Mr Higgins?" Tim looked up into the usually-kindly teacher's face, his expression cherubic with innocence.
"I've got my eye on you, young Tim Hunter. No funny business, or you'll be having a word with the Head when we get back, are we clear?"
'Must be the stress of taking this lot on an excursion to the British Museum,' Tim decided. He nodded. "Yes, sir."
"Then stop your dawdling and get into line, quick smart. We've got a lot to cover."
"Um, sir? Are we going to be seeing the Angel exhibit?" There was sniggering from his classmates as his question fell into one of those unfortunate momentary lulls. Tim's ears reddened.
"Never picked you for the religious type, Hunter," Mr Higgins said with a small chuckle. "No, I think the Wonders of Ancient Egypt will be keeping us well and truly occupied this afternoon. If you lot ever quieten down enough for us to go in. Watson! Let go of Heather Carson's hair this instant or the Museum will have a new cadaver on exhibit - Snotty English School Boy!" The beleaguered History teacher made his way back up the unruly line of school children, and once they were arranged to his satisfaction, they started moving off. Tim cast one more glance at the poster - "Angels Over England", it proclaimed, "An Exhibition at the British Museum. Sponsored by Stocktons PLC". The brightly enamelled eyes of the angel on the poster seemed to hold his gaze, almost seemed to be saying something…
"Hunter!" called Mr Higgins again, and Tim hurried to catch up with his classmates.
***
It was cold. And dark. And there were skittering, scratching sounds she didn't think were rats, because they wouldn't speak to her when she called out. At one stage there had been regular intervals when footsteps along the corridor had filled her with hate and terror - emotions previously unknown - and the door would open and the flood of light would blind her as she huddled in the furthest corner. And that voice, always so gentle at first, would ask her to do what she couldn't do, until she felt like screaming at it, what was the point, if she couldn't even open the door to the cell? Then it would lose its temper, and its wrath was terrible to see.
But no-one came at all now. Not the traitor, who had been her father's friend and then turned on him. Not the two men in black, their eyes devoid of humanity - if they ever had _been_ human - and their hands stained with her family's blood. Not even the silent warder, whose job it had been to keep her alive; she guessed it had been maybe four or five days since he had last been. And certainly not help. No food, no water, no exit.
Ingress huddled into a tighter ball, and waited for the darkness to claim her.
***
"All right, I get it - mummies, big triangular piles of mud bricks, grave robbing… Can we leave now?" Tim sighed to himself as he lagged further and further behind the group. Every so often Mr Higgins would remember his existence and make sure he was there, but the rest of the class was rapidly taking up more and more of his attention as they became more restive. Tim left himself drift a little closer to the door, pretending to be fascinated by some gold jewellery sitting in a glass case. Seeing Mr Higgins occupied with getting 'Snotty' Thompson's hand out of an embalming fluid jar, he decided to make his escape. Anything was better than dusty pottery and frayed-looking piles of bandages. And there was something about that poster…
It wasn't hard to find the Angels Over England exhibit - there were signs pointing to the room everywhere, with "Last Days!" tacked onto them. The room itself was almost empty, save for a couple of middle-aged women cooing over some cutesy porcelain angel-cherubs on one of the shelves. Tim paused in the doorway, taken aback by the sheer… angel-ness of the exhibition.
The room was _full_ of angels. Angels of every description, from small and delicate china and glass angels, to large and massive stone and wood angels. Old angels, new angels, angels that looked like they'd come from the bargain store, angels that cost the budget of a small African nation. And across the room, on a slightly raised podium, drawing him towards it, was a massive door, big enough for a small car to go through. And on the door was an Angel.
"Wow," Tim said quietly, not wanting to disturb the hush around him, drinking in the marvel of wood and paint and gold leaf. The blank enamelled eyes - a deep cerulean blue - caught his, and for a moment he caught a flash - 'fire and fleet and candlelight', he found himself thinking - of candles and darkness and a face beautiful beyond description. "What's your secret, then?" he whispered, stepping up onto the podium, ignoring the red velvet ropes that were meant to keep him out. He raised his hand to stroke the smooth painted face, and something clicked. The door swung open… and the two women stared, their mouths agape, as the thin, bespectacled boy was enveloped in light, a light so clear and pure, one of them said to the other later, it must have come straight from Heaven. Then boy and light were gone, as if they had never been.
***
"You've heard the talk, the rumours. That fool girl means to unite London Below!" The speaker was an emissary from White City, his stylish cut suit the colour of bleached bone, matching his hair and skin. He looked around the table with impossibly dark blue eyes, intent and passionate. "She wants to continue the work her father started!"
"And what of it? Portico was a fool - and he's a dead fool now. It seems his daughter is doubly so," drawled Olympia, one of the Seven Sisters, the only one of their family to attend this meeting. She shrugged, the remains of what was once a crimson ball gown fluttering about her. "There is nothing to say she will do this thing."
"She got away from Croup an' Vandemar, ain't no-one who's done that before," pointed out the third member of the conspiracy. He was one of the Underside tribes, Tunnellers they called themselves, living in the hidden depths of London Below and seldom bothering to come up to the higher levels. And never into the sunshine. This one - Reve, he called himself - tapped dirt-encrusted nails on the table. "She's got friends, powerful friends - de Carabas, for one."
"I wouldn't exactly call de Carabas a 'friend' of anyone's," snorted Olympia. "You're panicking over nothing."
"What of this updweller, this Hero she has taken as consort?" asked the first speaker. He gave his name as Ivory. "Never has an updweller been given such high office as this one! And he slew the Beast - he may appear a witless mooncalf, but there is more to him than meets the eye. Between them, they could do this thing."
"So what if they do this impossible thing? Unity of the baronies might not be such a bad thing." Olympia smiled a little at the irony of herself being the voice of reason in this collection of misfits.
Reve spat at the thought, his glare all the more effective for coming out of a grimy face. "Say she does. What next? Trade with London Above?" He gestured, his fingers making a forking gesture against the Evil Eye. "We Undersiders ask for no favours, take what we need from them as is too foolish t' leave us be. Unity would upset the balance, turn the world on 't head. Chaos is what we need, what we exist for - if we unite, we might as well be upsiders ourselves."
"Besides, should we unite, who do we unite under? This girl and her interloping consort? The doddering Earl? Or perhaps one of your sisters?" Ivory said this last with calculated slyness, knowing full well the Seven Sisters had been estranged these thirty years and more. "Serpentine was said to have aided Door and her companions against Islington's mad scheme."
Olympia sat back, considering this last. She meditatively scratched at her shock of white hair - she resembled a dandelion clock, somewhat - capturing a flea and crushing it between her fingers. "You have a point," she told Ivory, who allowed himself a chilly, smug smile. "But say we were intending to stop this… how? As Reve said, Croup and Vandemar were unable to do what they were hired to do, and we all know _their_ reputation. And she has powerful allies, including the Earl. We can't go after her directly."
"Sometimes, the best way t' collapse a wall ain't t' go at it with a hammer an' chisel. You find a weak spot, go at it indirect like," said Reve, his teeth flashing white in his blackened face.
"And you have knowledge of such a weak spot?" asked Ivory, shuddering with distaste as Reve lay his hand on the pristine surface of Ivory's sleeve.
"That I do, laddie, that I do. You'd be surprised, what we Undersiders hear of the doings upstairs." Reve took his hand away, tapped his nose conspiratorially. "What's a person's weak point? They family."
Ivory snorted derisively. "'Family'? All of that line were killed by Croup and Vandemar - Door is the last of the Openers. How do you propose we get at her through them? Raise their spirits? Desecrate their graves?"
"We Tunnellers ain't stupid, white boy. Secrets go deep, an' so do we," Reve said, leaning forward and eying the other two. "The family… the girl ain't the last. Islington took the other one, the little 'un. Thought t' use her, except she proved too young, didn't she?" His grin turned cruel. "Thought he could bury her an' she'd be forgotten, but he forgot, Tunnellers dug the deep places, an' we know all the hidey holes. Girl's still there."
"Still alive? After all this time? I doubt it," Olympia shook her head.
"Not if Islington put a pocket of old time on top of her," mused Ivory. He gave Reve an assessing look. "You say you know where Door's sister is?" Reve nodded. Ivory smiled, a slow, cunning smile. "Then I believe we have the leverage we need."
***
Tim stumbled through the sudden darkness, hands outstretched and groping in front of him. His vision was full of the ghostly after-images of the light - green and yellow and indigo swirls in front of his eyes. His ears caught the trickle of water over rock, echoed through what must be a large room, and the chill in the air told him he was surrounded by stone. Then his foot struck something small and hard that rolled away from him, and he knelt, groping for it. A candle.
He had some matches in his pocket - ever since he'd first been caught up in this whirlwind world of magic, he'd developed a tendency to suddenly find himself in need of things like matches and chalk and protective amulets… Fumbling in the darkness, he struck a light, the small flame near blinding him after the total darkness. Touching the match to the candle wick, he held his breath as it wavered, dimmed, and then caught, throwing a small circle of light around him. Enough to see there were other candles, scattered on the floor around him. Collecting them, he soon had enough lit to be able to take in some of the details of the hall he found himself in.
Great iron pillars, stretching away into the uncountable darkness above him. A door, black flint and tarnished silver, with the remains of a heavy wooden table against it. The trickle of water, coming from somewhere in the shadows. Light reflected back at him from the pillars, and he walked closer, examining the chains and empty manacles. "Happy bondage fun," he muttered to himself, wondering why he was here, what had drawn him to this obviously deserted place.
Water trickled. Shadows wavered away from the candle flames. Wax dripped down the one he was holding and burned his hand.
"Shit!" he exclaimed, dropping it. The candle fell to the floor, but instead of the expect dull thud of something hitting stone, there was a hollow 'bong'-ing sound that echoed throughout the chamber. Seizing one of the lit candles, Tim knelt, rapping on flagstones with his knuckles until he was rewarded by a brisk "rat-tat-tat" rather than a skin grazing 'thunk'. Picking at the 'stone' with his fingernails revealed wood polished smooth and painted to resemble slate.
"Nice," Tim mused. "Someone had a hidey hole." From out of his other pocket came his pocket knife and he unfolded the largest blade, slipping it under the edge of the trapdoor. Grimacing, he leaned on it, praying it was a genuine Swiss Army knife as his aunt had promised and not a cheap knockoff. The wood groaned and protested, but gradually came up, stuck in place by the damp. He got a splinter under his nail grabbing at it, but at last he managed to pull it open. A gust of cold dank air wafted up into his face as he peered down the hole, which seemed hardly big enough to be useful - he'd fit through without trouble, but only because he was, as the dinner ladies called him, 'a starved stick of a thing'.
That he would go through was obvious - why else had he been called to the Angel but to discover this secret? The question was, how deep did the hole go? It wasn't as if he had a handy stepladder on him. He dropped the candle down, but the wind of its passage blew the flame out on the way and he couldn't hear the sound of its landing. A penny fared little better - as much as he strained his ears for the 'plink', there was nothing.
"Nothing ventured," he thought aloud, remembering something John had told him once. "Nothing gained." It was possible that all he'd get from this was a pair of broken legs and a lingering death from shock and cold, but it seemed a pretty piss-poor end to the story. Something would turn up. Stuffing a few more candles into his shirt, he sat at the lip of the hole, legs dangling into oblivion. "If I die, it'll be your fault," he told the room at large, and then slid himself down through the hole until he was dangling by his fingertips. A moment later, the strain already pulling at the tendons, he took a deep breath and let go.
[Neverwhere/Books of Magic] Through The Angel Door. (1/?)
Rating: PG for language
Disclaimer: Not mine, they're Neil Gaiman's and Vertigo's. No profit, only homage.
***
There is another London. A London few know of, and even fewer see. A London of myths and monstrosities, of the dispossessed and the daring, where Night guards a Bridge, where Ravens hold Court, and where there once was an Angel called Islington.
London Below.
It was here a young man called Richard Mayhew found himself after helping a mysterious street-pixie called Door. Their story, which is also the story of the Angel Islington and its mad quest for Heaven, has been told elsewhere. That book is closed, that tale is ended.
Except…
"Close the door! I'll tell you where your sister is… She's still alive…"
Door flinched.
And Islington was sucked through the door, a tiny, plummeting figure, shrinking as it tumbled into the blinding gulf beyond.
No story is ever truly ended. There's always a loose end, somewhere, that someone stumbles over.
***
"All right, you lot, stop your shoving or we'll be right back on the bus before you can say, 'Aw, sir!' Jenkins, I've already told you, get rid of the chewing gum! Watson, put that down! You don't know where it's been. And Hunter? Hunter! Someone give him a prod, will you?"
It wasn't difficult to find someone to oblige. Tim was startled out of his rapt study of the baroque angel on the advertising poster as Michael Tibbins jabbed him sharply in the ribs.
"Ow! You bloody…"
"Hunter!"
"Mr Higgins?" Tim looked up into the usually-kindly teacher's face, his expression cherubic with innocence.
"I've got my eye on you, young Tim Hunter. No funny business, or you'll be having a word with the Head when we get back, are we clear?"
'Must be the stress of taking this lot on an excursion to the British Museum,' Tim decided. He nodded. "Yes, sir."
"Then stop your dawdling and get into line, quick smart. We've got a lot to cover."
"Um, sir? Are we going to be seeing the Angel exhibit?" There was sniggering from his classmates as his question fell into one of those unfortunate momentary lulls. Tim's ears reddened.
"Never picked you for the religious type, Hunter," Mr Higgins said with a small chuckle. "No, I think the Wonders of Ancient Egypt will be keeping us well and truly occupied this afternoon. If you lot ever quieten down enough for us to go in. Watson! Let go of Heather Carson's hair this instant or the Museum will have a new cadaver on exhibit - Snotty English School Boy!" The beleaguered History teacher made his way back up the unruly line of school children, and once they were arranged to his satisfaction, they started moving off. Tim cast one more glance at the poster - "Angels Over England", it proclaimed, "An Exhibition at the British Museum. Sponsored by Stocktons PLC". The brightly enamelled eyes of the angel on the poster seemed to hold his gaze, almost seemed to be saying something…
"Hunter!" called Mr Higgins again, and Tim hurried to catch up with his classmates.
***
It was cold. And dark. And there were skittering, scratching sounds she didn't think were rats, because they wouldn't speak to her when she called out. At one stage there had been regular intervals when footsteps along the corridor had filled her with hate and terror - emotions previously unknown - and the door would open and the flood of light would blind her as she huddled in the furthest corner. And that voice, always so gentle at first, would ask her to do what she couldn't do, until she felt like screaming at it, what was the point, if she couldn't even open the door to the cell? Then it would lose its temper, and its wrath was terrible to see.
But no-one came at all now. Not the traitor, who had been her father's friend and then turned on him. Not the two men in black, their eyes devoid of humanity - if they ever had _been_ human - and their hands stained with her family's blood. Not even the silent warder, whose job it had been to keep her alive; she guessed it had been maybe four or five days since he had last been. And certainly not help. No food, no water, no exit.
Ingress huddled into a tighter ball, and waited for the darkness to claim her.
***
"All right, I get it - mummies, big triangular piles of mud bricks, grave robbing… Can we leave now?" Tim sighed to himself as he lagged further and further behind the group. Every so often Mr Higgins would remember his existence and make sure he was there, but the rest of the class was rapidly taking up more and more of his attention as they became more restive. Tim left himself drift a little closer to the door, pretending to be fascinated by some gold jewellery sitting in a glass case. Seeing Mr Higgins occupied with getting 'Snotty' Thompson's hand out of an embalming fluid jar, he decided to make his escape. Anything was better than dusty pottery and frayed-looking piles of bandages. And there was something about that poster…
It wasn't hard to find the Angels Over England exhibit - there were signs pointing to the room everywhere, with "Last Days!" tacked onto them. The room itself was almost empty, save for a couple of middle-aged women cooing over some cutesy porcelain angel-cherubs on one of the shelves. Tim paused in the doorway, taken aback by the sheer… angel-ness of the exhibition.
The room was _full_ of angels. Angels of every description, from small and delicate china and glass angels, to large and massive stone and wood angels. Old angels, new angels, angels that looked like they'd come from the bargain store, angels that cost the budget of a small African nation. And across the room, on a slightly raised podium, drawing him towards it, was a massive door, big enough for a small car to go through. And on the door was an Angel.
"Wow," Tim said quietly, not wanting to disturb the hush around him, drinking in the marvel of wood and paint and gold leaf. The blank enamelled eyes - a deep cerulean blue - caught his, and for a moment he caught a flash - 'fire and fleet and candlelight', he found himself thinking - of candles and darkness and a face beautiful beyond description. "What's your secret, then?" he whispered, stepping up onto the podium, ignoring the red velvet ropes that were meant to keep him out. He raised his hand to stroke the smooth painted face, and something clicked. The door swung open… and the two women stared, their mouths agape, as the thin, bespectacled boy was enveloped in light, a light so clear and pure, one of them said to the other later, it must have come straight from Heaven. Then boy and light were gone, as if they had never been.
***
"You've heard the talk, the rumours. That fool girl means to unite London Below!" The speaker was an emissary from White City, his stylish cut suit the colour of bleached bone, matching his hair and skin. He looked around the table with impossibly dark blue eyes, intent and passionate. "She wants to continue the work her father started!"
"And what of it? Portico was a fool - and he's a dead fool now. It seems his daughter is doubly so," drawled Olympia, one of the Seven Sisters, the only one of their family to attend this meeting. She shrugged, the remains of what was once a crimson ball gown fluttering about her. "There is nothing to say she will do this thing."
"She got away from Croup an' Vandemar, ain't no-one who's done that before," pointed out the third member of the conspiracy. He was one of the Underside tribes, Tunnellers they called themselves, living in the hidden depths of London Below and seldom bothering to come up to the higher levels. And never into the sunshine. This one - Reve, he called himself - tapped dirt-encrusted nails on the table. "She's got friends, powerful friends - de Carabas, for one."
"I wouldn't exactly call de Carabas a 'friend' of anyone's," snorted Olympia. "You're panicking over nothing."
"What of this updweller, this Hero she has taken as consort?" asked the first speaker. He gave his name as Ivory. "Never has an updweller been given such high office as this one! And he slew the Beast - he may appear a witless mooncalf, but there is more to him than meets the eye. Between them, they could do this thing."
"So what if they do this impossible thing? Unity of the baronies might not be such a bad thing." Olympia smiled a little at the irony of herself being the voice of reason in this collection of misfits.
Reve spat at the thought, his glare all the more effective for coming out of a grimy face. "Say she does. What next? Trade with London Above?" He gestured, his fingers making a forking gesture against the Evil Eye. "We Undersiders ask for no favours, take what we need from them as is too foolish t' leave us be. Unity would upset the balance, turn the world on 't head. Chaos is what we need, what we exist for - if we unite, we might as well be upsiders ourselves."
"Besides, should we unite, who do we unite under? This girl and her interloping consort? The doddering Earl? Or perhaps one of your sisters?" Ivory said this last with calculated slyness, knowing full well the Seven Sisters had been estranged these thirty years and more. "Serpentine was said to have aided Door and her companions against Islington's mad scheme."
Olympia sat back, considering this last. She meditatively scratched at her shock of white hair - she resembled a dandelion clock, somewhat - capturing a flea and crushing it between her fingers. "You have a point," she told Ivory, who allowed himself a chilly, smug smile. "But say we were intending to stop this… how? As Reve said, Croup and Vandemar were unable to do what they were hired to do, and we all know _their_ reputation. And she has powerful allies, including the Earl. We can't go after her directly."
"Sometimes, the best way t' collapse a wall ain't t' go at it with a hammer an' chisel. You find a weak spot, go at it indirect like," said Reve, his teeth flashing white in his blackened face.
"And you have knowledge of such a weak spot?" asked Ivory, shuddering with distaste as Reve lay his hand on the pristine surface of Ivory's sleeve.
"That I do, laddie, that I do. You'd be surprised, what we Undersiders hear of the doings upstairs." Reve took his hand away, tapped his nose conspiratorially. "What's a person's weak point? They family."
Ivory snorted derisively. "'Family'? All of that line were killed by Croup and Vandemar - Door is the last of the Openers. How do you propose we get at her through them? Raise their spirits? Desecrate their graves?"
"We Tunnellers ain't stupid, white boy. Secrets go deep, an' so do we," Reve said, leaning forward and eying the other two. "The family… the girl ain't the last. Islington took the other one, the little 'un. Thought t' use her, except she proved too young, didn't she?" His grin turned cruel. "Thought he could bury her an' she'd be forgotten, but he forgot, Tunnellers dug the deep places, an' we know all the hidey holes. Girl's still there."
"Still alive? After all this time? I doubt it," Olympia shook her head.
"Not if Islington put a pocket of old time on top of her," mused Ivory. He gave Reve an assessing look. "You say you know where Door's sister is?" Reve nodded. Ivory smiled, a slow, cunning smile. "Then I believe we have the leverage we need."
***
Tim stumbled through the sudden darkness, hands outstretched and groping in front of him. His vision was full of the ghostly after-images of the light - green and yellow and indigo swirls in front of his eyes. His ears caught the trickle of water over rock, echoed through what must be a large room, and the chill in the air told him he was surrounded by stone. Then his foot struck something small and hard that rolled away from him, and he knelt, groping for it. A candle.
He had some matches in his pocket - ever since he'd first been caught up in this whirlwind world of magic, he'd developed a tendency to suddenly find himself in need of things like matches and chalk and protective amulets… Fumbling in the darkness, he struck a light, the small flame near blinding him after the total darkness. Touching the match to the candle wick, he held his breath as it wavered, dimmed, and then caught, throwing a small circle of light around him. Enough to see there were other candles, scattered on the floor around him. Collecting them, he soon had enough lit to be able to take in some of the details of the hall he found himself in.
Great iron pillars, stretching away into the uncountable darkness above him. A door, black flint and tarnished silver, with the remains of a heavy wooden table against it. The trickle of water, coming from somewhere in the shadows. Light reflected back at him from the pillars, and he walked closer, examining the chains and empty manacles. "Happy bondage fun," he muttered to himself, wondering why he was here, what had drawn him to this obviously deserted place.
Water trickled. Shadows wavered away from the candle flames. Wax dripped down the one he was holding and burned his hand.
"Shit!" he exclaimed, dropping it. The candle fell to the floor, but instead of the expect dull thud of something hitting stone, there was a hollow 'bong'-ing sound that echoed throughout the chamber. Seizing one of the lit candles, Tim knelt, rapping on flagstones with his knuckles until he was rewarded by a brisk "rat-tat-tat" rather than a skin grazing 'thunk'. Picking at the 'stone' with his fingernails revealed wood polished smooth and painted to resemble slate.
"Nice," Tim mused. "Someone had a hidey hole." From out of his other pocket came his pocket knife and he unfolded the largest blade, slipping it under the edge of the trapdoor. Grimacing, he leaned on it, praying it was a genuine Swiss Army knife as his aunt had promised and not a cheap knockoff. The wood groaned and protested, but gradually came up, stuck in place by the damp. He got a splinter under his nail grabbing at it, but at last he managed to pull it open. A gust of cold dank air wafted up into his face as he peered down the hole, which seemed hardly big enough to be useful - he'd fit through without trouble, but only because he was, as the dinner ladies called him, 'a starved stick of a thing'.
That he would go through was obvious - why else had he been called to the Angel but to discover this secret? The question was, how deep did the hole go? It wasn't as if he had a handy stepladder on him. He dropped the candle down, but the wind of its passage blew the flame out on the way and he couldn't hear the sound of its landing. A penny fared little better - as much as he strained his ears for the 'plink', there was nothing.
"Nothing ventured," he thought aloud, remembering something John had told him once. "Nothing gained." It was possible that all he'd get from this was a pair of broken legs and a lingering death from shock and cold, but it seemed a pretty piss-poor end to the story. Something would turn up. Stuffing a few more candles into his shirt, he sat at the lip of the hole, legs dangling into oblivion. "If I die, it'll be your fault," he told the room at large, and then slid himself down through the hole until he was dangling by his fingertips. A moment later, the strain already pulling at the tendons, he took a deep breath and let go.
