But here he was, inching forward through the green-pocked darkness of the Undercity with some demented notion of going Outside, trying not to think of what might have gotten here before him. In the surrounding night he heard that faint susurrant noise, like water percolating through the ground or an animal moving among the glowing piles of rubbish. Beneath his hand the wall’s surface changed from something slick and steel-smooth to rough brick or stone, all of it thick with algae or moss that came away in heavy foul-smelling wads when he pulled his hand back. He breathed through his mouth now, wishing he’d brought something to cover his face; wishing he’d waited for Nasrani to show up again. But then he would recall his silent grinning father, and the face of Nefertity, the dull flickering of her glass and metal atomies; and that would make him move more quickly through the muck.
Beneath his hand the wall abruptly gave way. Hobi stopped, gasping for breath, then reached until he touched something metal. A heavy beard of mold and fungi hung from the corners of the door, just as he remembered it. He traced its outline until he found the small metal plate where Nasrani had inserted his key. He breathed deeply, leaned forward until his forehead touched the cold dank door, then pushed with all his might.
Nothing. It wouldn’t budge. He tried shoving against it with his shoulder, kicking it, pushing it again and again, until his clothes were soaked with mold and slime and he began to shiver from the chill. Finally he stopped, his head pounding with frustration. It had been madness for him to come here alone, no key, no lumiere, nothing. His eyes strained to make out anything of the door or what lay beyond it, but there was only darkness.
He stepped back and took one more deep breath. He stretched his hands out before him, lowered his head, and started to make one final lunge, when—
“ Mmmph! ” Hobi cried out. Something struck his back and he toppled, flailing helplessly at the rubble-strewn ground. A moment later and someone straddled him, someone large and heavy and reeking of decay. The smell made Hobi gag and he wept uncontrollably, his eyes streaming as its hands played across his face until they covered his mouth.
“Greet your Mother,” it said. Its voice was utterly toneless. A cold tongue snaked inside his ear, and icy hands pushed his face into the ground. “Greet your Mother, once-born.”
“Aaagh!” Hobi shut his mouth and struggled as the thing atop him pushed his face into the ground. The horrible thought seized him that it was his real mother the thing meant; that what he had watched burn at the Reisling Gallery a year before was not her corpse but “another’s, and this was all part of some awful plot against his family by the Orsinate.
“Your Mother,” it hissed again. It grabbed him by the hair and pulled him up, then jammed its fingers into his mouth to pry it open. Hobi retched at the touch of rot and slime on his tongue. “Show some respect for your Mother —”
This time when it slammed his face to the ground his mouth was open. He choked, tasting dirt. The thing relaxed its hold a little, and gasping and sputtering Hobi finally pushed it from him. It seemed to be satisfied; he heard it step back, its feet splashing fetid water on him.
“Wha—” Hobi began, sobbing with fear and disgust as he tried to see what it was that had struck him. The unseen creature made a gurgling noise and cut him off, its glottal voice slow and measured.
“No questions. How did you get here?”
Hobi pointed vaguely, wiping his mouth and spitting. Filth dripped into his eyes as he strained to see what was there. Something as tall as he was, but wraith-thin. He dimly made out long lank hair, glowing with the same greenish phosphorescence he’d seen on the little pyramids, and a fish-white face. Something about it, the hair perhaps, or its voice, made him think of it as female. Abruptly one hand struck out at him like a snake, grabbing his chin. Its fingers were long and had very sharp nails. They felt pulpy, and seemed reluctant to touch him.
“How did you get here?” it whispered, its nails digging into his skin. Hobi cried out as he felt blood trickling down his neck.
“The gravator—ow, I swear! the gravator —”
The thing gave a bubbling sigh. Its arm flopped to its side. “No respect for your Mother,” it murmured thickly, “no respect at all. What were you doing there?”
“I was—I was trying to get in,” Hobi coughed. “To see what’s inside.”
“How do you know what’s inside?”
It was just a few inches from his face. Its eyes were pale sacs flecked with green, sagging within hollows as though someone had scooped the flesh from its face. Hobi felt his insides bunch together.
A rasa. The stories were true: corpses walked in the Undercity.
When it spoke again he felt its breath against his cheek, cold and smelling of decay. “Are you one of the fallen?”
“ Fallen? ” Hobi’s voice quavered so that he marveled the thing could understand him. “No! I just—I just came to visit, that’s all.”
The rasa thought about this, then shook its head. Its skull bobbed precariously on its narrow neck.
“You came to see Mother?” it asked suspiciously. Hobi flinched as it stretched its hands to touch his face. He realized that it could not see well—not that anything could see well in that infernal void.
“ Mother? ” But they were getting nowhere like this, so he quickly added, “Yes. Of course, yes, that’s right. I came to see Mother.”
The rasa’s fingers flicked across his cheeks. It seemed satisfied by his answer, and drew back from him. “Come then,” it said, and turned away into the darkness.
For a moment Hobi thought of fleeing. But then he thought of what might happen if the rasa called others of its kind after him in pursuit. He groaned softly and followed it.
After a few minutes he could think of nothing but trying to keep from losing his way, as the rasa led him through black alleys and under moldering arches. There was a constant sound of water underfoot, as though just beneath the broken earth an underground stream ran along with them. The rasa moved quickly, in a sort of shambling crouch. It was surprisingly strong, pushing aside a great steel door that blocked entry to what appeared to Hobi to be nothing more than a huge pile of broken concrete and twisted metal beams. When Hobi tried to follow, he got wedged between the rubble. For a horrible moment he thought he was trapped, pinned between a huge girder and a half-fallen brick wall. But then he got through, his trousers ripping and his chest grazed by broken bricks as he slid after the rasa.
They were in a sort of tunnel, a clear space no wider than ten feet across. Perhaps because the tunnel was empty of wreckage, it felt more open than the noisome spaces outside. And it seemed brighter here, too. Hobi blinked, then rubbed his eyes. No: it really w as brighter. The tiled walls bulged outward, as though they were inside a huge culvert. Flowing from the curved ceiling to the floor were curtains of fungi, long beards forming glowing draperies that emitted enough light that Hobi could read broken letters set mosaic style into the wall.
“ ‘Ewage station’?” Hobi pronounced, trying to recall why this was familiar; but ahead of him the rasa waited impatiently. He hurried after it.
The tunnel was straight and seemed endless, though they didn’t go very far into it. After a few yards water started pooling up, growing deeper every few steps until it came to Hobi’s knees. He was shivering so much it was hard to walk. The rasa ’s sickly sweet odor had dissipated into another smell, no less choking to Hobi for all that it was more familiar. It was a scent that dredged up queer memories, the sort of dimly lit memories you have of things that happened when you were drunk or drugged or very young: and that was how he realized the smell had something to do with Æstival Tide. It filled his nose and throat and mouth like bad water. After a few minutes he realized that’s exactly what it was: water. They were in the ancient sewage tunnel Nasrani had told him about, the tunnel that led Outside. What Hobi smelled was the sea, unfiltered by the domes.