Deltora Quest #3: City of the Rats (10 page)
Read Deltora Quest #3: City of the Rats Online
Authors: Emily Rodda
T
his book has been compiled in secret. If the work had been discovered by any authority, I, its author, would have paid with my life. Or so I believe.
T
he risk was worth taking. Forces are working in Deltora to suppress the facts of our past as well as those of our present. Lies are everywhere. King Alton believes that the kingdom is thriving. He thinks that if monstrous perils once existed in far-flung corners, they exist no longer.
I
know this is false. Because I, who once wore the silken gloves and velvet tunic of a palace librarian, now scavenge for food in the gutters of Del. I now know what the common people know, and more. I could never have imagined such a future for myself. But I regret nothing.
P
erhaps I would never have fled from the palace if the king’s chief advisor, Prandine, had not ordered me to burn
The Deltora Annals
. The threatened destruction of the
Annals
, that great, vivid picture of Deltora over the ages, was more than I could bear. And so it was that while pretending to obey Prandine’s order, I saved the
Annals
and myself.
T
his book contains material drawn from
The Deltora Annals
as well as new information I have gained in the past few years. It describes many of the dreadful, mysterious beings that haunt this land. Some of these creatures are as evil and unnatural as their master in the Shadowlands. Others are native to Deltora. All grow stronger every day. Yet the king does nothing to offer his people protection. They hate him for it. But why should he help, since he does not know the monsters exist?
None of them are spoken of in the palace except as beasts of legend, dangers of the past.
B
ooks such as this are needed to correct the lies that have become official truth. The people are too busy scraping a living to write down what they know. Writing, in fact, seems almost to have disappeared among them. I fear that lies may one day become the only “facts” available to students, unless people like me act to prevent it.
W
hat the future holds for us, and for Deltora, I cannot say. But when my hopes dim, I take heart in remembering another thing I did before I left the palace. It concerns yet another book —
The Belt of Deltora
. It is simply written, but full of wisdom. From the day I first found it in the library, I believed that it was of vital importance, and that it contained the keys to Deltora’s future, as well as its past. I kept it hidden, for I knew that if Prandine saw it, it would quietly disappear. I had planned to take it with me, but at the last moment something moved me to change my mind. I hid it, instead, in a dim corner where it would only be discovered by an eager searcher.
I
cling to the hope that one day Prince Endon might find it. Even Endon’s friend, young Jarred, might do so, for though Jarred has no great love of books, his wits are keen. He may remember the library if one day he is in urgent need of knowledge. I know in my heart that if Deltora has a future, it lies with these young ones. It would be my joy to know that in some small way I have helped their cause. In faith —
Josef
Writing in the city of Del in the 35th year of the reign of King Alton.
T
he names of Thaegan’s evil brood are: Hot, Tot, Pik, Snik, Jin, Jod, Fie, Fly, Zan, Zod, Lun, Lod, and Ichabod.
I gained knowledge of their names and appearance from an unfortunate man I found cringing by the city gates. He was ragged and starving. His mind had been clouded by horror. He was the only one of five travellers to have escaped the clutches of Thaegan’s children. His companions were roasted alive and eaten. He was to be the last in the fire, but before his time came the monsters, bloated, fell asleep. He managed to escape to stumble back to Del.
He could not even remember his own name, but the picture of Thaegan’s children as he had seen them was burned into his brain. From his hideous descriptions this picture was painted.
Jin is green-white, and grossly fat. She has yellow tusks, and three stubby horns sprout from the back of her skull. Jod has metal spikes for teeth, and there are just two flaring nostrils where his nose should be. Fie and Fly are green with large heads and dripping brown fangs. Hot and Tot are small and yellow. Zan has six stumpy legs. Pik and Snik are covered in brown hair. Lan and Lod are pale and bald. Zod is covered in lumps. Ichabod is huge, and slimy red. I have not labelled the monsters. But you, dear reader, can I am sure pick out which one is which. Unless you wish simply to turn your gaze away, and flick over the page. I would not blame you.
P
erhaps some will consider that I am wrong to include Muddlets in this book. Muddlets are not “monsters” in the sense of being savage or wicked. They do not have teeth, claws, spines, or poison. They eat only grass, moss, apples, and certain leaves. And they are by all reports very good-natured. Nevertheless, they are such strange, self-willed creatures that I decided they deserved a place in this collection. They have carried many unknowing riders into danger.
Wild herds of Muddlets once roamed the Plains country, especially in the area now known as the Plain of the Rats. According to
The Deltora Annals
they
numbered many, many thousands, and to be caught in a Muddlet stampede was a terrifying and life-threatening experience. Over the years, as towns and villages grew and the Plain of the Rats was eaten bare by the multiplying rats, herd numbers grew less. Wild Muddlets are now rarely seen, though they still exist.
Muddlets have extraordinary speed and strength. For thousands of years they have been captured by Plains people for use as beasts of burden. But they do not make reliable domestic animals. However tame they may seem, they cannot be relied upon to do anything other than what they wish. No matter what their training may have been, for example, they will bolt at the sight of any small, furred animal. They will also ignore all instructions if they smell their home field or over-ripe apples (their favorite food), even plunging into deep water, over cliffs, and into quicksand to reach their goal.
Despite this, Muddlets are still used by some Plains folk. The Ra-Kacharz of Noradz are among those who still keep a Muddlet herd. But any traveller who may be tempted by the Muddlets’ low price should think twice before following their example. Muddlets are not beasts to trust.
I
t was the season for skimmers, and this year more skimmers than ever were coming over the Wall of Weld.
From dusk till dawn, the beasts flapped down through the cloud that shrouded the top of the Wall. They showered on the dark city like giant, pale falling leaves, leathery wings rasping, white eyes gleaming, needle teeth glinting in the dark.
The skimmers came for food. They came to feast on the warm-blooded creatures, animal and human, that lived within the Wall of Weld.
On the orders of the Warden, the usual safety notices had been put up all over the city. Few people bothered to read them, because they were always the same. But this year, in Southwall, where Lisbeth the beekeeper lived with her three sons, they had been covered with disrespectful scrawls.
No one knew who was writing on the notices — or so the people of Southwall claimed when the Keep soldiers questioned them. Like everyone else in Weld, the Southwall citizens were very law-abiding. Most would never have dreamed of damaging one of the Warden’s notices themselves. But many secretly agreed with the person who had done so.
Rye, the youngest of Lisbeth’s sons, had the half-thrilled, half-fearful suspicion that his eldest brother, Dirk, might be responsible.
Dirk worked on the Wall as his father had done, repairing and thickening Weld’s ancient defense against the barbarians on the coast of the island of Dorne. Brave, strong, and usually good-natured, Dirk had become increasingly angry about the Warden’s failure to protect Weld from the skimmer attacks.
Sholto, the middle brother, thin, cautious, and clever, said little, but Rye knew he agreed with Dirk. Sholto worked for Tallus, the Southwall healer, learning how to mend broken bones and mix potions. The soldiers had questioned him when they had come to the healer’s house seeking information. Rye had overheard him telling Dirk about it.
“Do not worry,” Sholto had drawled when Dirk asked him anxiously what he had said in answer to the questions. “If I cannot bamboozle those fancily dressed oafs, I am not the man you think I am.”
And Dirk had clapped him on the shoulder and shouted with laughter.
Rye hoped fervently that the soldiers would not question him, and to his relief, so far they had not. Rye was still at school, and no doubt the soldiers thought he was too young to know anything of importance.
As the clouded sky dimmed above them, and the Wall darkened around their city, the people of Weld closed their shutters and barred their doors.
Those who still followed the old magic ways sprinkled salt on their doorsteps and window ledges
and chanted the protective spells of their ancestors. Those who no longer believed in such things merely stuffed rags and straw into the chinks in their mud-brick walls, and hoped for the best.
Lisbeth’s family did all these things, and more.
Lisbeth sprinkled the salt and murmured the magic words. Dirk, tall and fair, followed her around the house, fastening all the locks. Dark, lean Sholto trailed them like a shadow, pressing rags soaked in the skimmer repellent he had invented into the gaps between the shutters and the crack beneath the door.
And Rye, red-haired and eager, watched them all as he did his own humble duty, clearing the table of Sholto’s books and setting out the cold, plain food that was always eaten at night in skimmer season.
Later, in dimness, the three brothers and their mother huddled around the table, talking in whispers, listening to the hateful, dry rustling of the skimmers’ wings outside.
“Folk at the market were saying that there was a riot in Northwall this morning,” Lisbeth murmured. “They said that the Warden’s signs were set on fire, and the crowd fought with the soldiers who tried to stop the damage. Can this be true? Citizens of
Weld
acting like barbarians?”
“It is true enough,” Sholto said, pressing a hardboiled duck egg against his plate to crack the pale blue shell as noiselessly as he could. “Skimmers killed three families in Northwall last night. It is only the first riot of many, I fear. When people are afraid, they do not think before they act.”
Dirk snorted. “They are sick of the Warden’s excuses. And they are right. Everyone on the Wall was talking of it today.”
“And you most of all, Dirk, I imagine,” said Sholto drily.
Dirk’s eyes flashed. “Why not? It is obvious to everyone that a new leader must have risen among the barbarians — a warlord determined to conquer Weld at last. Every year, more skimmers come. Every year, we lose more food and more lives, and work on the Wall falls further behind. The Enemy is weakening us, little by little.”
“We do not know there
is
an Enemy, Dirk,” Sholto muttered. “For all we know, the skimmers come here of their own accord. For skimmers, Weld may be nothing but a giant feeding bowl, in which tender prey are conveniently trapped.”
Rye’s stomach turned over.
“Sholto!” Lisbeth scolded. “Do not say such things! Especially in front of Rye!”
“Why not in front of me?” Rye demanded stoutly, though the bread in his mouth seemed to have turned to dust. “I am not a baby!”
Sholto shrugged, carefully picking the last scrap of shell from his egg.
“We might as well face the truth,” he said calmly. “A wall that cannot be climbed, and which has no gates, is all very well when it keeps dangers out. But it works two ways. It also makes prisoners of those who are inside it.”
He bit into the egg and chewed somberly.
“The skimmers are being deliberately bred and sent!” Dirk insisted. “If they were natural to Dorne, they would have been flying over the Wall from the beginning. But the attacks began only five years ago!”
Sholto merely raised one eyebrow and took another bite.
Dirk shook his head in frustration. “Ah, what does it matter anyway?” he said, pushing his plate away as if he had suddenly lost his appetite. “What does it matter
why
the skimmers invade? They
do
invade — that is the important thing! Weld is under attack. And the Warden does nothing!”
“His soldiers fill the skimmer poison traps,” Lisbeth murmured, anxious to restore peace at the table. “He has said that orphaned children can be cared for at the Keep. And he has at last agreed that the end-of-work bell should be rung an hour earlier, so people can arrive home well before —”
“
At last!
” Dirk broke in impatiently. “That is the point, Mother! The Warden has taken
years
to do things that a good leader would have done at once! If the Warden had not delayed cutting the hours of work, Father would not have been on the Wall at sunset in the third skimmer season. He would still be with us now!”
“Don’t, Dirk!” whispered Rye, seeing his mother bowing her head and biting her lip.
“I have to speak of it, Rye,” said Dirk, his voice rising. “Our father was just one of hundreds of Wall workers who fell prey to skimmers because of the Warden’s dithering!”
“Hush!” Sholto warned, raising his eyes to the ceiling to remind his brother of the skimmers flying above. And Dirk fell silent, pressing his lips together and clenching his fists.
Like all the other citizens of Weld in skimmer season, Lisbeth and her sons went to bed early. What else was there to do, when sound was dangerous and the smallest chink of light might lead to a skimmer attack?
Rye lay in the room he shared with his brothers, listening to the rush of wings outside the shutters, the occasional scrabbling of claws on the roof.
He prayed that the wings would pass them by. He prayed that he, his mother, and his brothers would not wake, like those ill-fated families in Northwall, to find skimmers filling the house, and death only moments away.
He crossed his fingers, then crossed his wrists, in the age-old Weld gesture that was supposed to ward off evil. He closed his eyes and tried to relax, but he knew that sleep would not come easily. The closely shuttered room was stuffy and far too warm. Sholto’s words at the dinner table kept echoing in his mind.
Weld may be nothing but a giant feeding bowl, in which tender prey are conveniently trapped….
From Rye’s earliest years, he had been told that inside the Wall of Weld there was safety, as long as the laws laid down by the Warden were obeyed.
Certainly, the laws were many. Sometimes even Rye had complained that they were
too
many.
He had nodded vigorously when Sholto had sneered that the citizens of Weld were treated like children too young to decide for themselves what was dangerous and what was not.
He had laughed when Dirk had made fun of the Warden’s latest notices:
Citizens of Weld! Dress warmly in winter to avoid colds and chills. Children of Weld! Play wisely! Rough games lead to broken bones….
But at least he had felt safe — safe within the Wall.
Lying very still, his wrists crossed rigidly on his chest, Rye thought about that. He thought about Weld, and its Wall. Thought about the history he had learned and taken for granted. Thought, for the first time, about what that history meant.
Weld had existed for almost a thousand years, ever since its founder, the great sorcerer Dann, had fled with his followers from the savage barbarians and monstrous creatures that infested the coast of Dorne.
Turning his back on the sea, Dann had taken his people to a place where the barbarians dared not follow. He had led them through the dangerous, forbidden ring of land called the Fell Zone, to the secret center of the island. And there, within a towering Wall, he had created a place of peace, safety, and magic — the city of Weld.
After Dann’s time, the magic had slowly faded, but his Wall had remained. More than half of the city’s workers labored on it every day, repairing and strengthening it. Every rock and stone in Weld, except
for the stones that formed the Warden’s Keep, had vanished into the Wall’s vast bulk centuries ago. The workers used bricks of mud and straw to mend and thicken it now.
And as the Wall had thickened, little by little, it had crept ever closer to the great trench at its base — the trench from which the clay for bricks was dug.
The trench now circled Weld in the Wall’s shadow like a deep, ugly scar. In the past, houses had been pulled down to make way for it. Soon, everyone knew, more would have to go.
The people did not complain. They knew that the Wall, and the Fell Zone beyond it, kept Weld safe. They had thought it always would.
Then the first skimmers had come. And now, after five years of invasions, it was clear to everyone that the days of safety were over.
The barbarians had at last found a way to attack Weld. Not by tunneling through the base of the Wall, as had always been feared, but by breeding creatures that could do what had once seemed impossible — brave the Wall’s great height and fly over it.
And we are trapped inside
, Rye thought.
Tender prey …
“This room is stifling!” he heard Dirk mutter to Sholto in the darkness. “I cannot breathe! Sholto, this cannot go on! The Warden must act!”
“Perhaps he will,” Sholto whispered back. “The riot in Northwall must have shaken him. Tomorrow may bring some surprises.”