The Rat and the Serpent (30 page)

In my mind’s eye I saw where my opponent stood: before me. I threw with my left hand, ran left, sidestepped, then fumbled to my right. I stumbled into a hot, hairy body, and a hand grabbed my cloak. There was a deafening roar. I felt for my club; I grasped it and pulled it over the beast’s shoulder—it was a little shorter than me. Then I ducked as best I could, and as the beast turned to face me I sidestepped twice, then pulled.

It was far from perfect. I still stood beside the creature, though the cord was around its neck. Enraged, it bellowed and jumped forward, but this gave me the chance to duck again, then position myself as best I could behind the creature’s back and pull, pull so hard that I felt myself crushed against its body.

The thing was strong. I was being dragged around. But I put one knee against its back and tugged as hard as I could, to be rewarded with the sound of constricted breathing, and then of the beginning of a panicked, thrashing response. Now I had to cling on as best I could. I pulled, groaning and shouting, trying to second guess the creature’s moves, keeping one foot on the floor, hopping this way and that to retain my balance, and all the time tugging the cord as hard as I could.

I dared not hope for weakness. Yet the creature’s strength seemed to be waning. I held on tight. The beast was tiring. But my arm muscles were exhausted and my back was in agony as jolt after jolt buffetted my spine.

The beast fell to its knees. I had to put my right leg to its side in order to keep my knee against its back. It was dying.

“Hurry up!” I shouted. “Hurry up, elitistors, and claim me!”

I hoped that they would hear me. Perhaps mercy was a prerequisite of their cult and I would have to let go of the cord soon. But no. I could not imagine Herpetzag showing an iota of mercy.

“I have performed the rite!” I cried. “I have passed through!”

There came a noise like a hundred cymbals crashing, and a flood of light that made me cry and fall back. The sensation of an opponent below me was gone. The idea that I might be in a hut in a garden was gone. I saw only silver light, heard only crashing cymbals, smelled hot metal. I was frightened, disorientated, but in my mind I kept firm the barrier between my shamanic limbs and my human body.

I sensed that I remained on my feet. My skin was warm. Even with my eyes closed there was white light all around me, as if it was inside my mind. But soon I saw faces, at first out of focus, then sharper. Six people: one of them Herpetzag. They were talking, but I could not hear what they said.

Then the radiance was sucked away and I found myself in a velvet-black room, a library in which I smelled dust and old paper. The six elitistors stood before me. I pushed my gloved right hand into my cloak, as if to hide the truth of my appearance in its folds. I took a step back.

Silvögyur stepped forward. “So you believe that you have completed the rite,” he said.

I heard the ambiguity of those words. I replied, “I do believe that.”

There was no reply. The elitistors watched me.

In turn, I watched Silvögyur’s face. The rite might not yet be complete. I had to remain on guard. The message sent by Scribe Van of Constantine returned to my mind:
you have betrayed the conditions of the citidenizen test by showing insincerity in the face of the Mavrosopolis.
And that, were it not for Zveratu, would have been my downfall.

But Silvögyur declared, “Then welcome to House Sable, Ügliy, elitistor of Zolthanahmet.”

There was a polite ripple of applause.

I nodded once, keeping any hint of an expression off my face. Above all, they must not know what I was thinking.

15.12.609

Today I perused the fourteen grey sheets that during my life I have written—written, I think, to purge deep emotion from my mind. It seems to me that I wrote because of a desire to express things important. Now I have read it all, those comparatively few words, and I am amazed at my naivete. Youth knows nothing of the ageing process. It does not even understand that there is one, until it is too late. What a tragedy. Well, in my case it is not too late. I may be forty seven but I have a very long life yet to live. And I have learned.

What I have learned is this. There is inhumanity afoot in the Mavrosopolis on a scale so intense—I would say vast, but that is not the correct word, since mere size is not the heart of it—that no human being, however perceptive, could guess at its existence before coming face to face with it. I face it now. The counsellords are a feckless fellowship devoted to the arts of eating, drinking and so forth. I am alone as never before. There is not one of them like me. They see the poverty and gloom of the lower orders and they invent ways of exploiting them further. There is not one intellectual amongst them, let alone an artist or a poet. I might as well be dispensing justice alongside a yard of fat black pigs with their snotty noses in the dirt.

The higher my station the more bifurcated my mind becomes. I am aware that my earlier desire for peace is now saturated with sourness. I have found peace—a calm life in clean rooms well away from the gutters—but it is at the expense of having a greater storm roiled up inside me by the injustice I see every day. The balancing act is impossible. I ascend, only to see worse things. Yet I can do nothing to move the bureaucracy of the Mavrosopolis. One man, however determined he might be, cannot move a mountain by pushing it.

So I have to decide what to do. I cannot unlearn what I know. Therefore I must do something to mitigate the vile gloom that permeates our conurbation.

Ah, but they have me by the balls! Were I to complain, my position would be in jeopardy. Were I to make a fuss I would be returned to the citidenizenry, perhaps even reduced to nogoth status. Street life is too harsh to return to if you have a conscience.

And so my life is sour. I cannot enjoy the so-called privileges of counsellord status because I know it is founded on exploiting less fortunate people. I live alone, forced to enjoy fleeting citidenizen companionship or nothing at all. I am impotent, for I cannot act without ruining myself. I cannot see far because there are so many secrets above me, most notably the elitistors, like black spiders in their thick black web. I cannot bring about laws that might help the people of the Mavrosopolis because only elitistors make laws—for I am but a conduit, an explainer, a powerless director.

I am not a selfish man. I do hear that other counsellords consider me eccentric, but I do not mind that, indeed it can be a useful screen to hide what is going on in my mind. No, I am not selfish. I have seen selfishness in a vat of raki, in cod fillets covered with cream, in the sickly grin of an old man at his trencher. You drunkards, you fools, you know nothing of purity.

What I need is a great plan. No—I will design a Great Plan. I am now determined, despite the danger, to accept the initiation rite when the elitistor of Bazaar dies, so that I may step into his place. Then I will know more; and by then I will have created my scheme.

This is absurd! What “Great Plan” could I devise? A collection of revolutionary texts? Who would print them? A series of brilliant lectures? They would sew my lips togther. Start a war of independence? Where would I get warriors from? The truth is, I can do nothing. Nothing at all.

Chapter 16

Silvögyur and Herpetzag showed me around House Sable while the other elitistors returned to their rooms. I was wary of Silvögyur and tried to ignore Herpetzag, who I felt was deliberately tracking me. Apart from the small, wall-mounted lamps of silver that provided illumination, House Sable was built all in black. The floors were black wood, the ceiling black painted, the walls covered with a fabric like dense velvet, that felt warm to the hand, like smooth animal fur. There were drawings done in ink upon pale vellum, books and scrolls, and everywhere clear glass and grey metalwork, but the predominant theme was of darkness, both inside and out. The place was quiet and sinister.

Every elitistor had their own chambers, and so I was shown the rooms in which I was expected to live. They occupied space on the top floor, overlooking the rear garden.

“Here you will reside,” said Silvögyur, “meditating upon the laws that it is our function to pass on from the heart of Byzann to the counsellords and so to the citidenizens.”

“Of where?” I said.

“Byzann,” Herpetzag supplied. “It is the formal name for the place you used to call Constantinopolis.”

I nodded. “Very well.”

Silvögyur continued, “You will not need to depart House Sable, but nonetheless walking along Siyah Street is permitted. As for the rest of Byzann, I would strongly advise you not to enter it. There is nothing there for you. All is here, inside House Sable. Do you follow?”

“I do,” I replied.

“Are you certain?” Herpetzag asked me.

I nodded.

Silvögyur said, “I heard talk of you ascending to become a counsellord upon a wave of public support, following a currency reform scheme. Do you still wish to pursue that notion?”

“I do,” I said.

“Then this is the place to convince us that such a scheme is concordant with the orthodoxy of Byzann. If we are convinced, then all is well and the laws will be passed. This is an illustration of your function here. Is that well with you?”

“It is,” I nodded.

“You are terse today,” Herpetzag remarked.

“I am in shock,” I said.

Neither man made any reply to this, though Silvögyur shot Herpetzag a glance.

I added, “It will pass.”

Silvögyur smiled and nodded. “I well remember my own passage through the initiation rite, thirty five years ago. I too was shocked. But the shock will pass, and your mind will return to you.”

“I hope so,” I said.

“There is one more thing to show you,” Silvögyur said. “Follow us to the ground floor.”

We returned down the creaking central staircase to the hall. I was taken to the rear of the house, where I was shown a door set in a frame of polished jet.

“This is a door that nobody uses,” Silvögyur began.

“At least,” interrupted Herpetzag, “nobody in their right mind.”

Silvögyur gave a ghastly smile. “Herpetzag jests. This is a door to a place no elitistor wishes to confront—”

“Very few,” Herpetzag interjected.

Silvögyur nodded once. “As you say, Herpetzag. My point, Ügliy, is that you may not pass through this door. It is kept locked to prevent accidental opening.”

I glanced at the small caduceus hanging on a hook beside the door. “But there is the key,” I said.

“That is correct,” said Silvögyur. “Any of us can use the key. But we do not.”

“Except occasionally,” Herpetzag concluded. “Never to be seen again.”

I fidgeted with my cloak. “I won’t be going through,” I assured them.

Silvögyur departed. I looked at Herpetzag, who had been staring at me. Then Herpetzag hissed, “You will be watched. You will be watched like no other elitistor before.”

I was not in the mood for pleasantries. “Tell me,” I said, “was the last time an elitistor stepped through that door approximately, but not less than thirty five years ago?”

Herpetzag glowered. “It may have been.”

I nodded. “As I suspected.”

Herpetzag retorted, “You have not won. And I think I know how you passed the initiation rite. If I am correct in my thinking you will soon be expelled and returned to the street, where you belong. I know how you rose, Ügliy, I know what method you used.”

“I passed the rite by using my heart and mind in unison with the spirit of the Mavrosopolis,” I retorted, adding, “Just as you did.” I glanced at the kitchen. “Now... I am very hungry.”

I made to walk away, but Herpetzag grabbed my sleeve. “Do not think it is over,” he said, “do not think that Byzann has accepted you. There is still everything to play for.” Then he let go of my arm and walked to the staircase. I was left alone to consider his words.

I entered the kitchen and looked around. Rich and plentiful food lay in bowls and on trays. There was no sign of flies or decay, and I realised that this was indeed a sorcerous house. I nodded to myself. The rite was not yet over, and perhaps it was never over; perhaps orthodoxy would keep my shamanic powers forever locked away in my replacement limbs, never to be used again. Perhaps that was my fate, the price I had paid for reaching this place, just as I had paid a price, the loss of family, for becoming a citidenizen.

I felt bewildered. I did not know what to do. I returned to the library, where, alone and in silence, I sat down. For a few minutes I felt the return of despair, but then the scrolls and tomes lying around me attracted my attention and, with a sigh, I stood up to examine them. One in particular was of interest, since I had read a fragment of it before.

‘And they occupied Ur in Zumeria, did this cult, worshipping the obfuscating one. Forced to flee the Perzians they eventually arrived, so many centuries ago, where the Phosphorus meets the Sea of Marmara—the peninsula known to all and sundry as Byzann. Here they continued the worship and support of the obfuscating one, and in return the obfuscating one gave them order and thaumaturgy and calm, and a special place to live where no other would want to come. So it was. And many did lie about the obfuscating one, because the cult were rulers of their lands without issue. The liars said the obfuscating one was evil, preying on the essences of people so they were forced into deeds they did not wish to do, forced to live lives they did not wish to have. They said Danial in a fit of envy went to the temple and, claiming that the obfuscating one was not real and powerful, took pitch and fat and hair and seethed these things together, making lumps of the resulting substance, which he put into the mouth of the obfuscating one so the obfuscating one burst asunder—or so it is said. More pertinently, there was a plague in the Eternal City—which is a far off place—and the spirit of the obfuscating one was taken there in order to bring order and exactitude, as it had in Byzann. The plague was reduced, and this was indeed the work of the obfuscating one. And thereafter in the Eternal City the obfuscating one became known as the Azculpian Serpent, after the local deity of healing Azculpiuz, and was attached to the messenger wands of all healers who followed. And so it was. For the appearance of the obfuscating one was as follows—black from head to tip of tail, hornéd, with a long neck and a body the spine of which ran as a series of humps. It is said that every seven years it took a deep breath, that its thaumaturgy be replenished. And it was so immense it was like the mountains.’

I read this scroll three times before replacing it and lying on a couch. I called out, “Zveratu?” but there was no response.

Dawn was near. I walked upstairs to my rooms, locked myself in, then cast myself on a couch, still clothed and booted, as if, deep down, I was expecting trouble. “I
am
expecting trouble,” I told myself, “but I don’t know where from. Herpetzag or the Mavrosopolis? It has got to be one or the other.”

“It should be from both,” said a voice.

I jumped up to see Zveratu standing nearby. “I didn’t hear you come in,” I said.

“Perhaps you were not listening.”

I made no reply.

Zveratu sat in a chair, folded his hands together on his lap, then looked across the room at me. “So you became the elitistor of Zolthanahmet,” he murmured.

“Just as you once became the elitistor of Bazaar.”

Zveratu closed his eyes for a moment, then reopened them.

“What lies through the locked door?” I said.

“Nothing that can be described.”

“Do you know?”

“All you need to know is that the rat can oppose the serpent,” Zveratu declared. “You see now where all this is headed.”

“And I don’t like it.”

“You always had the choice to stop. But I think you acquired a momentum after you became a citidenizen, that, I am glad to say, has not yet stopped.”

“Not yet? But what could there be above the elitistors?”

Zveratu offered no answer.

“Except this obfuscating one,” I added.

Still nothing.

I shrugged. “I don’t like being used,” I told Zveratu.

“Then blame the Mavrosopolis, for even as we sit here it is exploiting thousands of innocent people—”

“How?
How?
”

Zveratu shook his head. “You know. You have been through it.”

“But you are part of the problem—you are not a nogoth.”

“I do not think I am a problem.”

I retorted, “Am I your implement of reform? Is that it?”

“If you are anybody’s implement of reform, you are your own. Think. If I had merely used you as a goatherd uses a crook, I would be guilty of the same crimes committed by all those who exploit so-called lessers for the sake of their own aggrandizement—fat counsellords at their trenchers, for instance.”

I scowled. This was true... yet it rang false.

“I am not like those fools,” Zveratu insisted. “I am different, because of what I carry deep in my thoughts. That is why I am opposed by...”

A flash of realisation struck me. “By Herpetzag?”

“And his ilk.”

“You have been my guide, not my leader.”

Zveratu shrugged. “I might have cleared away some obstructive undergrowth to allow you to pass—nothing more.”

“Who are you, then?”

“Zveratu. That is all you need to remember. Now answer me this. What is it in the Mavrosopolis that you most despise?”

“Now I have risen so high, almost all of it,” I replied. “I don’t belong in this awful house.”

“Nobody does. That is my point. But perhaps there is a type of creature that belongs in a place like this.”

“The obfuscating one? You know what that is, don’t you?”

“Think,” Zveratu urged me. “What mores have we seen that we loathe above all? Imagine a place where nothing is allowed to be forgotten. That is no human tenet, it is serpentine. Serpents remember everything, their brains are hard, almost crystalline. Then imagine a place where a large population is controlled by a very small one—by a cult.”

“Wait,” I interrupted. “You can’t say it’s not human for a cult to rule its own people.”

“That depends. You imply that a cult may be humane... but with what does our cult balance their tyranny? What gift do they offer their people in return?”

I considered this question. “Nothing.”

“Nothing indeed. Hardly a fair bargain. And then there is sorcery.”

“What is sorcery?”

“You know the answer to that. Sorcery is serpent thought. To be seduced by sorcery is to accept the inhuman mores of the Mavrosopolis, to be won over by it, and so to ignore or even deny human kin.”

“Is this what we are here to overthrow?”

Zveratu grinned, a gesture I could not recall ever seeing before. “You use the word
we.
Interesting.”

“Surely it is not all down to me?”

“Remember, I am but your guide.”

I frowned. “That is not fair.”

“Nothing is fair, Ügliy. People like you and me exist to redress the balance as best we can. But nothing, oh,
nothing
is fair.”

“That is a gloomy premise.”

“We live in gloom here.”

I nodded. “We do.”

Silence fell. I was aware now, with a certainty that I had not felt before, that I had been helped into House Sable in order to perform some great task. The fact that as yet I did not know what that task might be was something of a relief, for all the clues I had so far gleaned suggested it was beyond human abilities. But that might be why a shaman was required, a shaman who, even if only for a short time, could bypass the serpentine rules of the Mavrosopolis in order to penetrate its dark heart. My ascent had accellerated of late; that must mean little time remained before I was captured by the Mavrosopolis.

“I understand,” I told Zveratu. “I have got to go through that door.”

“Not yet. First we have to overcome our opponent.”

“Herpetzag.”

“Yes,” Zveratu confirmed.

“That will be us two, won’t it?”

“Just you, I think.”

I sighed.

“You still retain the option of assistance,” Zveratu said, “for although you must keep your shamanic potential locked away—”

“And that is beginning to exhaust me!”

“—there exist independent vectors of your power. Never forget the paradox of your situation inside House Sable. You are no ordinary man.”

I nodded, thinking of my subterranean kin. The fragment of a conversation held long ago returned to my mind: These rats are a force. They respond to what happens above. Excess food discarded by the Forum of Tauri descends to these levels and causes a brief population explosion.

“Of course!” I cried out.

Zveratu said nothing.

“Of course I have got help,” I said. “Of course I am not alone.”

“You never were,” Zveratu said. And while I was thinking of sewers and cisterns, he departed.

I knew what I had to do if I was to survive more than a few days inside House Sable.

Later that night I attended my first elitistor meeting devoted to the making of laws. I felt as though I was on trial. I decided to appear as hard and precise as possible, for I knew that all laws passed on to the counsellords must epitomise the will of the Mavrosopolis, with any hint of compassion for lesser people reduced to the barest hints of mercy. These people would not forgive me if I committed a heresy against serpentine thought.

We sat around a rectangular table of grey marble, upon it a selection of food, alongside beakers of raki, coffee and ayran. From some invisible source came the strains of saz and ney playing local folk music. Herpetzag fixed me with the baleful gleam of his single eye, glancing now and again at my covered hands—for I had no option but to wear gloves as if they were the fashion, in order to conceal my transformed arm.