Rats and Gargoyles (7 page)

The black Rat’s eyes darted to Desaguliers and back
to Falke. "Would
you
speak of what it is you need, and why?"

Zar-bettu-zekigal held out her hand to Falke.
Prompting.

"If I must. If it will make you speak, after."
Falke reached up with grazed and cut fingers. A few strands of black still ran
from his temples into his curling white hair. He pulled the cloth bandage free
of his eyes again.

"You and I," he said, "are ruled by the Thirty-Six."

His long
fine lashes blinked over eyes without irises. Midnight-black pupils, vastly
expanded, unnaturally dilated, swallowed all the color that might have been.

He rubbed water from his left eye, blinking again,
and shot a glance at Desaguliers.

"I don’t want to make a display of this, but I
will. I hide my eyes, because all light’s too strong for me now, and because I
don’t want to think about them, being like this, what they are."

"How . . . ?" Zari clapped her hand over her mouth.

Falke wound the cloth around his knuckles; his hand
lifted to shade his eyes.

"You come to me, a Master Mason. I, and my hall
brethren, all of us are builders for our strange masters. We build still, as we
have built for generations uncounted. What we build–the Fane–is a cold stone
shell. Nothing human has been into the heart of the Fane since building finished
there."

Sun and silence filled the hall.

"Except, once, myself. I
saw . . .

"I was fool enough to find my way in. In to the
center. There’s a cold cancer eating away, spreading out, stone by stone, year
by year. We build it for them, and then they make it theirs. We build for God
and They transform it. We only see shadows of what They seem. Inside, in the
heart of the Fane, you see what They really are." His strong fingers began to
smooth out the bandage; shifted to knuckle the sepia lids of his eyes.

"Only, having once seen that, you never truly cease
to see it."

The lean Rat, Desaguliers, grunted. "All of which is
no doubt true, and was true in our fathers’ fathers’ time, so why should we
concern ourselves with it?"

Falke, very quietly, said: "Because we are still
building. We are compelled. Not even their servants–their slaves."

"I can’t see the importance of that. It’s always
been so. You . . ." The Captain-General’s gesture took in the men and women who
sat around the trestle table. Skepticism was plain on his wolfish face. "You
think you’ll do what, exactly, against the Decans our masters?"

The fair-haired woman next to Zari sighed. "Tell
them, Falke."

Falke stared at his hands.

"This hall is searching for the lost Word. The Word
that the Builder died to conceal when this city was invaded, and the Temple of
Salomon abandoned. The Word of Seshat–that has been lost for millennia. And for
that long our own Temple has remained unfinished, while we’re forced to build in
slavery for strange masters."

Tannakin Spatchet slowly sat down, pale blue eyes
dazed.

"Yes, I’m speaking of Craft mysteries." Falke’s
wide- set eyes met Zari’s gaze, dark lashes blinking rapidly over pupils clear
as polished black glass. "We search for the lost Degree, and the lost Mark. And
the lost Mystery: we know who built the South side of our Temple, and what their
wages were; but until we know the secrets of the Aust side, and what the
black-and-white pillars support, we remain as we are–slaves. When we know, when our New Temple can be begun—"

"We’ll build it and make the heart of the world the
New Jerusalem," the fair-haired woman completed.

Falke lifted his shoulders in a weary shrug. "We
must have our own power, you see. Build for ourselves again, and not for our
masters."

The Captain-General stood, scaly tail lashing. "And
this is what you’ve got yourself mixed up in? Plessiez, you fool! Will you
listen to him talk against the Thirty- Six and not protest? They’ll eat him
alive, man!"

Plessiez smiled. "If I were afraid of the Decans our masters, I
would not have begun this."

Tannakin Spatchet stared at the
ankh
on the
black Rat’s breast. "You’re a priest, my lord! How can you talk against Them?
They’re the very breath and soul of your Church—"

Plessiez reached down and ran a thumb along the
ankh’s
heavy emeralds. Whimsical, he said: "It is a little oppressive for
any church, you must admit, to have God incarnate on earth; and not only on
earth, but also, as it were, down the next street, and the next . . ."

Scandalized, the plump Mayor protested. "Messire!"

"That They are god is true,
that They are with us on this earth is true; and some say, also," Plessiez
added, "that we would be better off were They to abandon Their incarnations here
and resume their Celestial habitations."

Desaguliers’ tone of incredulity cut the hot white
hall like acid: "And
you
hope to affect the Thirty-Six?"

The black Rat smoothed down his scarlet jacket, a
slightly dazed expression on his face. "Ah, perhaps my ambitions are not so
high. Perhaps I only seek to move Them by affecting Their creations. I will say no
more on this, messire; it is not part of our bargain."

Desaguliers swore, and Zari motioned him to
silence. She swung round in her chair, drawing one leg up under her, staring at
Plessiez.

"Then, I’ll speak for you." Falke stood, both empty
hands resting palm-down on the table. "Knowledge was the price of my consent to
the bargain. If our plans are betrayed to the King, then so will yours be!"

He faced Desaguliers. "As to
magia
–yes. What
Messire Plessiez will do might be called necromancy, being that sort of poor
magia
that can be done using the castoff shells of souls, that is, mortal
bodies.

"I know that Messire Plessiez plans the invoking of
a plague-magia. A great plague indeed, but not a contamination that will kill my
kind, or yours, Messire Desaguliers; instead a plague of such dimensions that it
will touch the Decans Themselves."

Desaguliers stroked the grizzled fur at his
jaw-line. His slender fingers moved unsteadily. "Plessiez, man, you are mad. The
Fane knows all the pox-rotted arts of
magia.
This is lunacy."

Plessiez rose from his chair. "I will see his
Majesty made a true King, Desaguliers, and that can’t be done while there are
masters ruling over us!"

Desaguliers snapped his fingers. Metal scraped as
three more of the lithe black Rat cadets drew their swords.

"Lunacy–and treason. I’m having you arrested—"

Zari felt the wood of the table shake under her
spread palms.

The fat Mayor sprang back, swatting an armed cadet
aside like a child; seized the arm of one of his companions and pulled her
towards the door. "What did I tell you? I told them so!"

A copper taste invaded her tongue, familiar from
that morning in the university courtyard.

"Run!"

She got one foot on the chair, launched herself off
it as dust and splintered wood thundered down across the table, blinded by
sudden hot brilliance; missed her footing and sprawled into the warm brown fur
of Charnay. She sat up, head ringing.

Falke stared up and flung an arm across his lined
worn face.

The Katayan grabbed, missed, then got her hands to
Plessiez’s ankle where he gazed up, transfixed, and brought him crashing down on
top of her; coiled her tail around Falke’s leg and pulled. The man fell to his
knees.

A searing chill passed overhead.

Zari gazed up at the open sky: brown now, and
blackening, like paper in a fire.

Dust skirled up from the hall’s collapsed roof. The
far wall teetered, groaned, and with a wrench and scream of tearing wood fell
into the yard.

Feet trampled her, human and Rat, running in all
directions. She saw some men, fleeing, almost at the yard- gate, duck as they
ran; and something chill and shadowed passed above her.

"Look
—
"

She caught Falke’s arm, but the man was too busy
scrabbling at the planks they sprawled on for his eye- bandage. Charnay grabbed
her discarded rapier and pushed Plessiez down, half-crouching over him, snarling
up at the sky.

A woman in red satin overalls threw up her arms and
screamed. Coils of black bristle-tail lapped her body, biting deep into her
stomach, blood dulling the satin. Ribbed wings beat, closing about her as tooth
and beak dipped for her face.

Fire burst from the wooden hall walls in hollow
concussive plops, burning blue and green in the noon-twilight. Rapidly
spreading, consuming even the earth and the yard’s timber outside, it formed a
circling wall of flames. One of Desaguliers’ cadets thrust at it with his sword.
A thin scream pierced the air: the Rat fell back on to the hall floor, fur
blazing.

The sun burned with a searing storm-light.

Out of that sky, stinking of wildfire and blood,
wings beating the stench of carrion earthwards, by dozens and hundreds, the
Fane’s acolytes fell down to feed.

Evelian bent over the wash- tub in the courtyard.
The young man locked his apartment door and began walking towards the
exit-passage. She looked up, red-faced, wiped her forehead with a soapy wrist,
and called to him.

"Lucas, wait. Is Zaribeth there?"

The dark-haired young man shook his head. Despite
the misty heat he was buttoned to the throat, in a black doublet with a small
neck-ruff, and his breeches and stockings were spotless.

"Her bed hasn’t been slept in."

"
Her
bed!" Evelian snorted. Lucas paused.

A granular mist fogged the air, blurring the roofs
of the two-story timber-framed apartments overlooking the yard. Intermittent
watery sun shone down on washing, limp on the cherry trees, and the scent of
drying linen filled the air.

Evelian slapped a shirt against the washboard. She
wore her yellow hair pinned up in a tangle, and an apron over the
blue-and-yellow satin dress. "Brass nerve, that child! Do you know, one night, I
found her in
my
bed? Yesterday. No; night before last."

She put a hand in the small of her back and
stretched. "I came up to my room and there she was, under the sheet in my bed,
naked as an egg! Looked at me with those big brown eyes, and asked did I really
want her to go, and didn’t I need keeping warm of nights?"

Lucas colored. Outside the yard, Clock-mill struck
the half-hour.

"I told her we’re in the middle of a heatwave as it
is," Evelian added, "and up she got, all pale and freckled, little tits and
fanny, with that fool tail of hers whisking up the dust. I turned her round and
smacked her one that’ll have left a mark! Told her not to be an idiot; I don’t
sleep with my lodgers. Oh, now, see you; I’ve made you blush."

"Not at all." Lucas shifted awkwardly. "It’s just a
warm morning."

"I
wish
"–a vicious slap at wet cloth–"that I
knew where she
was
."

Lucas felt the mist prickle warmly against his
face. Looking at the cloud that clung to the roof-trees put the black timber
frieze in his line of vision; bas-relief spades, crossed femurs, hour-glasses,
money-sacks and skulls.

He snapped: "I don’t know where she is. I don’t
care! If you knew what I had to go through yesterday, to get out of what that
little bitch got me into . . ."

Evelian flipped shirts into the soapy water, and
plunged her arms in, scrubbing hard. The shadowless light eased lines from her
face. She could have been twenty rather than forty.

"I’m not getting mixed up in whatever’s biting you,
boy. I swore last time that I'd have nothing to do with organizing against the
Rat-Lords. The only good thing I ever got out of that was my Sharlevian. But,
there, I live in the city; there isn’t any escape from it." Evelian stepped into
the cherry tree, into cool green leaves and damp linen. "The little Katayan’s
hardly older than Sharlevian. I like the girl. I worry about her."

Another door opened across the yard, and a student
scuttled towards the exit-passage, calling: "Luke, see you there. Don’t be
late!" Evelian saw him bristle at
Luke.

On the point of going, he turned
back.

"Yesterday afternoon. I tasted . . . could taste
blood. Coppery." He went on quickly. "Others, here, they did, too. Like
yesterday morning, when one of the . . . one of them came to the university. As
if something watched . . ."

She wiped her hands on her apron, and her blue eyes
went vague for a long minute.

"Mistress Evelian?"

"Get someone to read the cards or dice for you,"
she said.

"Yes! But is there anyone, here?"

Evelian nodded. A coil of fair hair escaped a clip
and fell down across her full bodice.

"The White Crow. That’s who you want. Do you dice,
cards, palms–anything you can think of. The only practicing Hermetic philosopher
in this quarter, as far as I can make out."

"I can’t be late; it’s my first day—" Lucas shut
his mouth with a snap. "Yes, I can. To quote Reverend
Master Candia, there are no rules at the University of Crime. Where is this
White Crow?"

"Right across the yard here. Those top two
apartments on the left-hand side." Evelian pointed to the rickety wooden steps
leading to the first floor. "Just knock and go in. All my lodgers are . . .
unique
in some way."

He took a few steps, and her voice came back from
behind him: "Ask about Zaribeth!"

The wooden hand-rail felt hot, damp in the swirling
mist. Lucas glanced up at the windows and open skylight as he mounted the steps.
The diamond-panes fractured thin sunlight into splinters. Children yelped in the
street beyond the passage; somewhere there was a smell of boiled cabbage.

He rapped on the door, and it swung open, outwards.
Calling loudly, "Hello in there!" Lucas walked in.