The Rat and the Serpent (32 page)

I lunged forward. The water was escaping. I kicked Herpetzag’s left knee and pulled his left arm, so that he fell to the stairs. I jumped over him, then pulled the arm again so that he was on his back, head down, feet up. I sat on the kicking legs, then reached out with my rat arm to ensure the bowl did not fall off. Herpetzag was trapped, drowning, one arm underneath his body, the other held by me.

Herpetzag was strong, but shock and lack of air were already weakening him. But I too was tiring, and I could feel the bowl moving as my right arm lost grip. Herpetzag realised this. He shook his body, trying to release his left arm, and this increased motion threatened to dislodge the fishbowl.

Then movement ceased. I remained tense. Black fish flapped over the steps, their mouths opening and closing as they died.

Herpetzag began smacking his head against the stairs, trying to smash the bowl. I was now reaching the end of my endurance and I felt my grip failing on the bowl’s rim. But much of the water remained inside.

“No!” I cried out. “Not yet!”

I tried to convince myself that I could hold on, crushing the writhing legs, gripping the left arm, pulling with fading strength on the bowl. But I was failing, and Herpetzag was still smashing his head against the steps. The bowl was coming off; the shaman still had strength remaining, even if it was his last.

“No!” I cried again. “Help me!”

There came a flash of light from the hall. The whiskers, snout, then body of the rat of light emerged, rising from the black floor. A tremor passed through the house, a shock in the ground itself.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I gasped, knowing what that tremor meant.

“Is it time for your third wish?” the rat of light replied.

I was gripping the bowl with just my thumb and forefinger now. I could not feel the rest of my rat hand.

“What will you give me?” I asked. “Another new arm?”

The answer was immediate. “You have had leg and arm. I will give you the strength of mind to defeat your opponent. Quickly!”

I had the briefest mental vision of myself:
mind
could only mean
head.
I would lose my human face, become a rat forever.

That could not happen.

“Begone!” I cried.

For Herpetzag was almost drowned. I sensed that his struggles were weakening. The rat of light vanished.

I held on with my thumb and forefinger. There came an awful sound, half rattle, half bubble, and then the struggles ceased; but knowing the cunning of this man I held on anyway, until there was no doubt that my enemy had drowned. With a grunt I rolled off the stairs and lay on the floor, breathing in hoarse gasps, feeling the return of sensation to my body, then standing and staggering towards a couch, where I collapsed.

Time unheeded passed me by. The shadows of House Sable enfolded me. All was dark and cold. Then, much later, I heard footsteps on the floor, and whispering voices, and when I opened my eyes I saw Silvögyur looking down at me. “What happened here?” he asked.

I sat up. I felt better. I looked across the hall to where Herpetzag lay, the fishbowl still on his head, surrounded by stained wood and dead fish. “I killed him,” I replied.

Silvögyur said, “Such a thing has never happened before. We are not used to mur—”

“It wasn’t murder because I was defending myself.”

Silvögyur nodded. “As you say.”

Ince approached. “We felt a small earthquake,” he said.

I drew breath to reply, but Silvögyur interrupted me, saying, “Before your fight with Herpetzag he told me that he knew what you were. We elitistors have grasped something—though not everything—of what the Goth has planned. We suspected that somebody like you might come here.” From a pocket inside his cloak he took a caduceus, which he examined, then offered to me. “That earthquake need not happen again. Though the Goth is our leader, all his life he has been considered an eccentric, and so not everybody supports him.”

House Sable itself seemed to relax, with a creaking of floorboards and an almost audible sigh. I looked at the caduceus, then recalled the tremor that had occurred with the appearance of the rat of light. This was my final decision. From here on it was all or nothing, the culmination of Zveratu’s work, and perhaps the end of my own.

I shook my head, and there came another earth tremor. “No,” I said. “I reject the caduceus. I reject it utterly.”

The ground shook as a full earthquake struck; furniture crashing, goblets and porcelain smashing, dust falling from walls and ceiling. We all crouched on the floor. Then I heard for the second time a great roar, a bellow like thunder from all around the Mavrosopolis, enfolding it, threatening it. When it faded, I recalled what Zveratu had told me:
that was the sound of your final opponent whimpering in a dream-laden slumber.

“I must walk through the door before it is too late,” I said. “My last opponent is waking. It knows I am here. I have to go.”

“Now?” Silvögyur said. “Already?”

I nodded. “If I don’t try to become the Goth, I will be killed. You know it is true.”

I got to my feet and ran towards the kitchen table. I drank a goblet of raki—it invigorated me more than I realised it would—then stuffed olives and white cheese into my mouth; then more raki, and a tot of black coffee so strong it burned my throat.

“I am ready,” I said.

The roar sounded again and the ground shook.

I stood silent and motionless before the forbidden door, glancing at the key hanging to one side. Then I closed my eyes and reached into myself, feeling my body in its entirety once again, and in particular the boundaries between my arm and leg and the rest of my body. I felt barriers breaking. Suddenly there was a rush of warmth and vitality running into my chest, interacting with the raki and the coffee, bringing new strength.

The roar came louder than ever, with a growling undercurrent that tore through the thunder: the sound of the obfuscating one. The ground shook again and we were all flung to the floor. Glass shattered and sootfalls billowed out from where they had fallen in other rooms. From the top of the stairs came another cloud of soot and dust, moving down like dark fog.

I ignored it all. I concentrated on my body, on its rat powers, its rat nature, on the two limbs that now I cherished; limbs that might yet save me. I knew that I was becoming intact again. In response there came another roar, with more shaking and damage.

But I felt whole.

“Go through!” Silvögyur cried.

I nodded. I realised that Silvögyur was only part convinced of the validity of his elitistor status, and so in a final gesture of hope I ran back to face him, hugging him once, then returning to the door, where I took the key, placed it in the lock and turned it.

The door opened of its own accord, revealing a tunnel entirely dark. I walked in. The door shut itself behind me.

17.4.624

So this is power. This is truth. This is what is hidden.

I have learned certain facts that I read in a document: ‘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... 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... 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. And it was so immense it was like the mountains.’

Only one fact separates elitistor from Goth. This fact can be discovered by passing through a small door in House Sable. I have vacated my place in House Sable to become the Goth, and in doing so I have seen the obfuscating one. It is, indeed, immense. It is effectively invisible, because of the sorcery that it weaves around and through the Mavrosopolis; and yet it is all. Without the obfuscating one, the Mavrosopolis is nothing.

So at last I am faced with the naked truth of my position. To bring about the change I want I must destroy the obfuscating one. But how? I might as well try to destroy a mountain, or the ocean. Sorcery would be impossible to use since the obfuscating one is effectively the wellspring of sorcery. A simple human warrior would be like a gnat before a sparrow.

I can think of only one option.

There is group of nogoths with uncanny powers. They are outcasts and solitaries even in nogoth society, and yet they seem to represent something wild and untameable, something perhaps of the natural world. They are the shamen. If a shaman of suitable vitality, moral courage, vision, wit and strength could be guided from the gutter to House Sable, there would, I believe, be a chance—a single, unrepeatable chance—to destroy the obfuscating one and so liberate thousands of people from a centuries-old spell. Only I can choose this person. If I choose wrong, my chance is over and I will have failed. I will, in fact, return to the gutter, for, just as we are born from nothing and die to become nothing in a great circle, so a nogoth is the same as the Goth. They are two aspects of the same entity.

I could pretend that all my strange, twisted, dejected, confused and fractured life was somehow the prelude to the great decision that faces me now. But it was not. I did not know in which direction to move; I knew only that I had to move. It was only recently that the reality of the Mavrosopolis came to me, and so only recently have I realised what I could do. Ten years ago (I see, as I read my last sheet of grey paper) I was just as perplexed as I was when I first became a citidenizen.

I am sixty one. I could last one year as Goth, or thirty one. My health is good. But I must begin a study of the population of the Mavrosopolis, looking for that one spark in the gloom, a shaman like no other. Perhaps this person has not been born yet. Perhaps it is for the next Goth to read these seventeen pages of my life and make the crucial decision. I do not know. There is no such thing as fate, only courage, insight, determination. Of these, I suspect the last will be the deciding factor.

We all give up on things too easily. Life is not interesting when it is easy. I am not one of those who can drift through life by pretending there is an afterlife. I believe in the potential for change in the real world. Now. Not later.

I am lucky that I live in a society that venerates the wisdom of age. I look old—tufty white hair and a lot of wrinkles—and I act old. I only hope that I have acted and can still act wisely. My wisdom may yet change this gloomy conurbation.

Chapter 18

The tunnel was long and unlit. But I had the vision of a rat, and, moreover, I had the ears and the nose of the rat, two senses that I knew would stand me in good stead as I walked along the tunnel.

It ran on without end. There was no change in the monotony of the darkness, in the feel and sound of stone around me: subterranea. Dark, indeed, yet a kind of home where I need not be afraid.

My only regret was that I was alone.

I walked on. After what seemed hours there were hints of light from a nocturnal sky, the feel of a breeze on my face, and then I glimpsed hills to either side of me and felt my boots sinking into sooty soil. I was outside. I looked around, to find, when I glanced over my shoulder, that I had somehow been transported to land on the western edge of Phanar and Studion. I had been in this area once before, when, as a nogoth, I had undertaken the first part of the citidenizen test. This was the border between the Mavrosopolis and cimmerian country.

Yet it seemed distorted. I felt the presence of subterranea, I felt the full force of the conurbation behind me, yet there were hills here, and a soot the like of which I had never seen: matt and impenetrable, so fresh it disorientated my vision. I had to glance over my shoulder to the lamps of Phanar in order to return myself to a semblance of reality.

Then the roar sounded again, and this time it was upon me. I stared at the sky, then at the land around me. The hills seemed different. Then I saw motion amidst the shadows, and what I had thought hills were revealed.

It was an immense dragon, black except for the baleful whites of its eyes and the mottled grey of its webbed horns, with the softer grey of its underbelly luminous and shedding light upon the ground. I saw it in part as it was, in part as a silhouette against the starry sky. It was longer than Siyah Street and far taller than any of the houses there. This was the obfuscating one, holding a people in thrall, giving, yet taking at the same time, that it be preserved.

I saw now the source of the soot that so plagued the Mavrosopolis. It was exhaled by the dragon as it breathed, pluming into the sky from its nostrils, to move east on the wind, a pall to cover every roof and every parasol, and, in the streets, every nogoth.

But here I stood, one tiny man without a weapon, knowing that the dragon was aware of my existence, of my position, and of the fact that I had violated the sorcerous sanctum of House Sable in order to get to this absurd point, where, surely, I would die.

Then I told myself, “I am the Goth. It is in my gift to act here. I will do what I feel is right.”

The voice that responded was born both of thunder and of a dragon throat. It seeped into my mind as if by telepathy, yet it had the stink and violence of a sootstorm, and all its booming noise. “Will you do what is right?”

“I will,” I replied.

“You are human. You do not belong here. Why have you come?”

“To bring your demise,” I said.

“Such a deed is impossible. I am the Mavrosopolis, greater than any force.”

“Not so,” I replied.

“You are a fool to believe that. Look hard at me if you would know the truth.”

I knew that this monster could mesmerise me almost without trying. Time to act!

I replied, “Men brought you here from Ur. Now a man will destroy your stranglehold over this place.” Then I knelt upon the ground, head in hands, and began to call my kin.

They were running over me at once, at first scores, then hundreds, then thousands, a horde with screeching voices like ancient gates being opened, and innumerable pattering feet that caused the ground to thrum; and I was almost suffocated by them. I struggled to my feet, and they recognised me and ran around me, streaming towards the dragon without hesitation. This was the populace of subterranea that I had brought into existence by the simple act of having food discarded. There would be tens of thousands of them. They would have sharp teeth. They were stronger than one man, they were stronger than an army of men: but were they strong enough?

The dragon moved its front legs and the earth shook. I saw by the light of the stars that its head alone was far larger than House Sable, larger perhaps than the Tower of the Dessicators. It was as large as the Forum of Constantine. My rat horde was dwarfed by this immense monster, and I felt the first rush of panic at such unbalanced odds.

Then inspiration poured from me. “Make for the head!” I yelled. “Attack the head! Crawl up and go for the head!”

The rat horde had now reached the dragon. The monster shifted again and lowered its head to blast twin jets of soot at the horde from its nostrils. The rats within range were blown back, but because they were so small and determined they were hardly damaged; they turned their snouts toward the dragon and continued running. And the others, the majority of the horde, were unaffected.

In seconds there were hundreds of rats climbing the forelegs of the dragon. It battered its clawed feet against the ground, crushing scores, but ten times as many clambered over the bodies to begin their own ascent of the scaly hide. I urged them on. A great cloud of soot began to rise, churned up by a myriad of rat feet, concealing the horde, but rising only to the first joint of the dragon’s legs.

Now there were thousands of rats on the dragon’s head, biting, scratching, making for the eyes, nostrils and mouth. In reply the dragon raised itself as if to stretch, then folded back its webbed horns and shook its head. A halo of rats were shaken off, to fall like so many drops of muddy water. But within the space of a few heartbeats every one was replaced by two more.

The dragon’s forelegs were now revealed again, as every rat that I had summoned made for the head. I could see its eyes still, but they were flickering, as if hyperactive lids were acting to protect the orbs underneath.

And then the first hint of damage. A fountain of liquid like cream jetted from underneath one of the horns: vital fluid. I leaped into the air and screamed my encouragement. The dragon’s head was almost invisible beneath the swarming mass of bodies, just hints of pale eyes and glossy scales, and many jets of soot. It shook its head again, a mighty movement that dislodged thousands of rats. Those surviving returned to the forelegs, to climb again.

More jets began spurting from beneath the shining scales. The rats and the dragon’s head itself acquired a pale, luminous sheen. I watched as the dragon leant down over its own forelegs, then roared once and shook its head. Thousands of rats were thrown off, but I could sense victory, and I continued to jump and shout.

And then the dragon fell, with a noise like thunder. The earthquake that followed was so violent and sudden it threw me to the ground. Rents appeared in the rock around me, and there was an answering roar from the Mavrosopolis, as buildings and towers tottered, then fell. An immense cloud of soot was raised.

But this was the end. I knew it. I got to my feet and cheered, my voice hoarse, perhaps inaudible; but I had to cheer anyway. When the soot settled I saw the death throes of the dragon, savage and spasmodic—and so the monster was vanquished. But the rats did not leave. Only when it stopped moving did they begin to depart, returning as a swarm to me, slower, covered with soot and pale fluid, but triumphant.

I felt righteousness fill my mind. I turned to face the Mavrosopolis, the rat horde behind me—tens of thousands of them despite the carnage wrought by the dragon, all fat and vicious on discarded food.

“Onward!” I cried, raising my hand, which I clenched into a fist. I felt indestructible. “Onward to undo what was done before!”

A figure at my side...

I turned, peering through the gloom. It was Zveratu.

“Onward?” the old man said.

I gave a fierce grin. “Yes,” I confirmed. “This is only half of what I have to do.”

“Are you sure?”

“Get away, old man. I am the Goth. You are no Goth.”

I walked away.

“Ügliy,” Zveratu called out. “Do not go too far. You are drunk! Come back!”

Without turning my head I shouted, “Silence, or my rats will kill you too.”

There was no reply to that.

I marched into the outer regions of Phanar, until I recognised a tower that marked the end of Feuzi Pasa Street. I glanced over my shoulder to see the rat horde behind me. The street itself was littered with rubble and sooty dust, but I saw no people, unless those faintest of smudges were citidenizens.

But then I saw nogoths. I knew they were nogoths at once; their posture, their rag-strewn doorways, their begrimed faces, and, of course, that expression of dull hopelessness I knew so well.

How was it that I saw nogoths again?

Fear clutched my heart. I ran, then, down Feuzi Pasa Street, past the sorcerer’s tower that once I had climbed, until I was in Sehzadebazi Street, sprinting with all my might, as the now elongated horde of rats followed in their thousands, strongest first, weakest falling aside at the rear. But I did not care. I needed to be at House Sable before Zveratu got there.

It was Kirazli Street that took me into Bazaar district, then an alley filled with nogoths to get me to Vasif Cinar Street, another into Cicek Pazar Street, and then, at last, a short passage leading to the eastern stretch of Siyah Street. I stopped and took a few gasping breaths as the soot I had accumulated billowed off me. The sound of squeaking rats filled my ears.

“Forward!” I cried.

I saw nobody until I was at House Sable. Then, with the rats in their thousands like boiling mud at my feet, I noticed faces at the front windows.

“Tear it down!” I cried.

The rats moved as one, a great grey mass that swarmed over the building, as high as the roof and over every wall, until the masonry itself began to crumble, and there came the noise of destruction. And of panicked people—I saw three of the elitistors trying to escape through the front door. In moments they were underneath the horde. I did nothing to stop their demise. Another elitistor emerged from some hiding place at the side of the house: Ince, perhaps. In my insane fury I hardly recognised the face.

“Destroy!” I shrieked.

I heard another voice, turned, saw Silvögyur fleeing along Siyah Street.

“Catch him! Bite him!”

But as I uttered this command House Sable collapsed, throwing dust and soot into the air. The rats fled the collapsing masonry, but many were crushed. Yet in the street about my feet thousands of them remained, their strength multiplying the incoherent rage I felt, amplifying it, manifesting it.

Then I saw Zveratu at the far end of the street.

I approached him. The rats followed me, like a torrent becalmed, yet deadly.

“You have done enough,” Zveratu said. “You have done what I hoped you would. This is the beginning of your legend. You can relax now. You are a saviour. You are done.”

I felt calm come over me, yet I did not feel done. I replied, “I know what you are. You are a nogoth. You are way, way below me, and I do not have to listen to you.”

“Goth, you may feel separate from me, but you are not. I guided you here so listen to me now. Do not destroy what must remain—”

“This place is the blackest of all!” I cried. My voice was hoarse, almost a scream; and I could not believe what Zveratu was saying. “Don’t you understand that it all has to go? It must, otherwise the old ways will remain—a few people ruling a street of counsellords, who rule citidenizens, all of them pretending the nogoths don’t exist, when they do. And you are one of those nogoths.”

“This is not what you were meant to do—”

“But you yourself said I had no destiny. You said I had choices. This is my choice. We tear it down and we begin again.”

“This is not the place for a tabula rasa,” Zveratu warned. “You are bringing chaos, not salvation. We cannot survive if there is no culture, no society, no order. Stop, before it is too late.”

I raised my hands. “I will not stop,” I declared. “I hate order, I hate stupid rules—
serpent
ine rules, have you forgotten already? And if you don’t get out of the way you will die, because now I am going to tear up this entire street and demolish every building in it.”

“No, Ügliy, don’t do it! I beg of you.”

I laughed. “Then beg like a nogoth!”

Shocked by my scorn Zveratu took a step backwards, before he replied, “It took a shaman to bring down the obfuscating one. A shaman who was a hero. No other could have done it.” He gestured at the ruins of House Sable. “But any fool could do that. Are you a visionary hero or a destructive fool?”

I turned and made fists of my hands. “Bring ruination to this place!” I commanded the rats.

And they did.

Zveratu fled Siyah Street, but I did not pursue him. I turned to watch my horde.

They emerged from every crevice and hole in the street, thousands upon thousands—though thousands already had perished—flowing around me as if to absorb my fury, then scattering to swarm over and demolish the buildings. But now there were other people in the street, those counsellords living in houses who had been unable to find escape through their gardens and alleys. They were swiftly brought down. I had no thought of mercy, let alone compassion; all I could sense was the falling of masonry, the collapse of mortar, the ruination of sooty paving slabs.

From the western end of Siyah Street I walked amidst my horde as they tore apart every counsellord home. A great pall of soot and dust began to rise from the street behind me, black-streaked clouds illuminated from the west by a setting moon. Plumes of soot, finer than masonry dust, rose high, swirled, spiralled, then sank down in linear falls, like distant rain from a hammerhead cloud. It was slow work, but the horde did not falter.

At length I found myself at the eastern end of the street. I turned to look back. The sight awaiting me was one of annihilation. Siyah Street had been a dark and narrow thoroughfare, set on occasion with offset yards and squares and with a few bridges. Now it was laid waste. The plumes of dust and soot had merged to create one vast pall lying across the street, so that its further end was invisible, and all the ruined houses were swathed in what appeared to be swirling fog. Twice as wide as before, with nothing left that stood above head height...