Read The Skies Discrowned for Free Online

bit of rectangular debris hesitated, rocked in the swirl, and then drifted through the Leethee arch and slid down into the darkness beyond.
    Beardo Jackson tamped his clay pipe and sucked at it with relish, blowing clouds of smoke up at the stones of the ceiling. Below him in the darkness the waters of one of the many branches of the Leethee could be heard gargling and slapping against the brickwork, washing in a dark tide below the cellars of the city.
    He struck another match and held it to the wick of a rusty lantern beside him. A bright yellow flame sprang up, illuminating the cavern-like chamber in which Beardo sat perched on a swaying bridge. The light flickered over the walls whose tight-fitted stones were reinforced with timber in many places; the arched tunnel-openings that gaped at either end of the bridge remained in deep shadow.
    “Morgan!” Beardo called. “Come along, the tide’s high!” His voice echoed weirdly, receding up the watercourse until it reverberated like a distant chorus of operatic frogs.
    A woman appeared at the opening on Beardo’s right. She carried a coil of fifty-pound fishing line; before stepping out onto the bridge, she looped one end of it around an iron hook imbedded in the wall.
    “Don’t yell like that,” she said. “You never know who might be around.”
    “Oh, to hell with that,” he sneered. “Everybody within a cubic mile of here is scared stiff of me.” He slapped the sheathed knife at his belt and laughed in what he believed was a sinister fashion. The woman spat over the rope rail and stepped out onto the bridge. She was sloppily fat, and the bridge creaked and quivered as it took her weight.
    “Easy, woman,” Beardo said. “The bridge was built for frailer girls.” He grinned up at her. The whites of his eyes were almost brown, and his face, loosely draped over the bones of his skull, was as wrinkled and creased as a long-unchanged bedsheet. His beard was ragged and patchy, as were his clothes.
    “And what would frailer girls be doing on it?” she asked scornfully. Beardo rolled his eyes and made lascivious motions with his hands, implying that there were any number of things frail girls might do on it.
    “You rotten toad,” Morgan snarled, slapping the old man affectionately in the side of the head.
    “We’ve no time for fooling around,” Beardo declared. “Where’s the hooks?”
    Morgan pulled a chain of small grappling hooks from a bag at her belt, and proceeded to tie one of them to the fishing line. She tossed it into the water so that it trailed downstream.
    “Okay now, keep your eyes open on this side, so we’ll know where to swing the line,” Beardo said, facing upstream. “If any thing
scares
you, just call me,” he added sarcastically. A week ago a dead lion had floated by under the bridge—its hide would have made a fine catch, but Morgan, terrified by the glazed feline eyes, had twitched the trailing hook away from it. Beardo had not yet entirely forgiven her for it. “Oh, bite a crawdad,” she said.
    They were silent then, staring intently into the lamp-lit water. Beardo and his woman were, in the understreet slang, “working the shores”: scavenging the debris the Leethee brought in from the upper world. Many of the understreet population of Munson made a profitable living at this trade. Suddenly Beardo stiffened; something was drifting downstream, something that bumped frequently against the brick walls. “Look sharp, girl,” he whispered. “Sounds like a piece of wood coming along.”
    Presently the thing was dimly visible. “It’s a midget raft! With a guy on it!” whispered Morgan. Beardo poked her with his elbow to shut her up. The raft, which was indeed a notably small one, rocked forward into the light. Morgan gasped when she saw the passenger, for its head appeared to be a cluster of rigid green tentacles. “Beelzebub!” she cried.
    The figure sat up on the raft abruptly, making hooting sounds. Morgan screamed.