King Rat

by China Miéville

“Watching,” came King Rat’s voice. It moved around him. “Wait. You’ll see. You’ve never tried this, laddie, so hold your horses. The darkmans is nothing to you.”

  Saul stood still. His hands were invisible before him.

  Shapes moved in front of him. He thought they were real until the corridors themselves began to emerge from the darkness and he realized that those other fleeting, indistinct forms were born in his mind. They were dispelled as Saul began to see.

  He saw the muck of the drains. He saw the energy it contained spilling out, a gray light that showed no colors but illuminated the damp tunnels. Before him a study in perspective, the shit-and algae-encrusted walls of the shaft meeting in the distance. Behind him and to his right more tunnels, and everywhere the smell, rot and feces, and the pungent smell of piss, rat piss. He wrinkled his nose, his hackles rising.

  “No worries,” said King Rat, a figure saturated in shadows, drenched in them, a mass of darkness. “Some cove’s staked a claim and made a mark, but we’re royalty. His territory doesn’t mean fuck to us.”

  Saul looked about him. A thin rivulet of dirty water seeped by at his feet. His every movement seemed to set off an explosion of echoes. He stood in a twisting brick cylinder seven feet in diameter. From everywhere came the noises of streaming water and falling stones, and organic sounds of squeaks and scratches, peaking, dying out and being replaced, sounds far away being written over by those nearby, a palimpsest of noise.

  “I want to see you leg it, staying mum as you like,” said King Rat. He startled Saul. His voice wandered through the tunnels, exploring every corner. “I want to see you shift your arse, climb sharpish. I want to see you swim. School is in.”

  King Rat turned to face the same direction as Saul. He pointed into the charcoal gray.

  “We’re off that away. And we’re off sharpish. So pull your ringer out and keep up. Ready, my old lad?”

  Saul shivered with excitement, the cold irrelevant now, and crouched in a starter’s position.

  “Come on, then,” he said.

  King Rat turned and bolted.

  Saul did not feel his legs moving as he followed. The rapid, faint beat of footsteps he heard was his own; King Rat was soundless. Saul could feel his nose twitching and he felt like laughing.

  He panted with exhilaration. King Rat was an ill defined blur before him, his coat flapping vaguely in the noisome wind. Tunnels passed by on either side, water spattered him. King Rat disappeared suddenly, cutting sharply left down a smaller tunnel where the water pressure was greater, swirling insistently around Saul’s legs. He pulled his legs up out of the stream.

  King Rat turned his head for a second, a flash of pale flesh. He crouched as he ran and pulled to a sudden halt. He waited briefly while Saul caught him up, then ducked into a claustrophobic shaft barely three feet high. Saul did not hesitate, but dove in after him.

  Saul’s breath and the sound of his flesh on the brick came bouncing back at him, as loud and intimate as if they existed only in his head. He stumbled, mud smearing his legs, careering along the tube in a messy, effective fashion.

  His nose hit wet cloth. King Rat had stopped suddenly.

  Saul peered over King Rat’s shoulder.

  “What is it?” he hissed.

  King Rat jerked his head. He raised his hand, pointing perfunctorily.

  Something moved in the flat, leaden light. Two small creatures edged backwards and forwards uneasily in the brick warren. They crept a few ineffectual inches in one direction, then in another, without once taking their eyes from the figures before them.

  Rats.

  King Rat was quite still. Saul hovered, bewildered.

  One rat stood on either side of the dirty water. They moved in concert, forward together, backwards together, a tentative dance, staring at King Rat.

  “What’s happening?” whispered Saul.

  King Rat did not answer.

  One of the rats scuttled forward and sat up on its hind legs, six feet in front of King Rat. It paddled its front legs aggressively, squeaked, bared its teeth. It returned to all fours and crept a little further forward, baring its teeth, clearly afraid but apparently angry, contemptuous.

  The rat appeared to spit.

  King Rat suddenly barked in outrage and lurched forward, his arm outstretched, but the two rats had bolted.

  King Rat picked himself silently out of the muck and continued along the tunnel.

  “Hey, hey, hold on,” said Saul in amazement. King Rat kept moving. “What the fuck was that all about?”

  King Rat kept moving.

  “What’s going on?” shouted Saul.

  “Stow it!” screamed King Rat without turning. He crept on. “Not now,” he said more quietly. “That’s the seat of my sorrow. Not now. Just you wait till I get you home.”

  He disappeared round a corner.

  Saul became lulled by the sewers. He kept King Rat in his sights, losing himself in the damp brick convolutions. More rats passed them, but no more taunted them as the first two had seemed to do. They stopped when they saw King Rat, and then quickly ran.

  King Rat ignored them, winding through the complex at a constant quick trudge.

  Saul felt like a tourist. He investigated the walls in passing, reading the mildew on the bricks. He was hypnotized by his own footsteps. Time passed as a succession of brick tributaries. He was ignorant of the cold and intoxicated by the smell. Occasional growls of traffic filtered through the earth and tar above, to yawn through the cavernous sewers.

  Presently King Rat stopped in a tunnel through which the two explorers had to crawl. He turned to face Saul, a trick which looked impossible in the tiny space. The air was thick with the smell of piss, a particular piss, a strong, familiar smell, the smell which permeated King Rat’s clothes.

  “Righto,” murmured King Rat. “So have you clocked your whereabouts?” Saul shook his head. “We’re at the crossroads of Rome-vill, the centre, my very own conjunction, under King’s Cross. Hold your tongue and prick up your ears: hear the trains growling? Got the map in your bonce? Learn the way. This is where you’ve to get to. Just follow your I Suppose. I’ve marked out my manor nice and strong, you can sniff it out from anywhere underground.” And Saul felt suddenly sure that he could find his way there, as easy as breathing.

  But he looked around him, and could see only the same bricks, the same dirty water as everywhere else.

  “What,” he ventured slowly, “is here?”

  King Rat pushed his finger against his nose and winked.

  “I set myself down anywhere I bloody fancy, but a king wants a palace.” As he spoke, King Rat was busying himself with the bricks below him, running a long fingernail between them, creating a rising worm of dirt. He traced a jagged square of brick whose uneven sides were a little less than two feet long. He dug his fingernails under the corners and pulled what looked like a tray of bricks out of the floor.

  Saul whistled with amazement at the hole he had uncovered. The wind played over the newly opened hole like a flute. He looked at the bricks King Rat held. They were an artifice, a single concrete plug with angled edges under the thin veneer on brick, so that it sat snug and invisible in the tunnel floor.

  Saul peered into the opening. A chute curved away steeply out of sight. He looked up, King Rat was hugging the lid, waiting for Saul.

  Saul swung his legs over the lip of the chute, and breathed its stale air. He pushed himself forward with his bum and slid under the tight curve, greased with living slime.

  A breakneck careering ride and Saul was deposited breathless into a pool of freezing water. He spluttered and gobbed, emptying his mouth of the taste of dirt and squeezing his eyes clear. When he opened them, he stopped quite still, water dripping from his open mouth.

  The walls stretched out away from each other so suddenly and violently it was as though they were afraid of one another. Saul sat in the cold pool at one end of the chamber. It swept out, a three-dimensional ellipse, like a raindrop
on its side, ninety feet long, with him dumbstruck at the thin end. Reinforced brick ribs striped the walls of the chamber and arched overhead: cathedral architecture, thirty feet high, like the fossilized belly of a whale long entombed under the city.

  Saul stumbled from the pool, took a few short steps forward. To either side the room dipped a little, creating a thin moat drawing its water from the pool into which the chute had deposited Saul. Every few feet, just above the moat, were the circular ends of pipes disappearing, Saul supposed, into the main sewer above.

  Before him there was a raised walkway, which climbed an incline until at the opposite end of the chamber it was eight feet from the floor, and there was the throne.

  It faced Saul. It was rough, a utilitarian design sculpted with bricks, like everything under the ground. The throne-room was quite empty.

  Behind Saul something hit the water. The report leisurely explored the room. King Rat came to stand behind Saul.

  “Ta very much, Mr. Bazalgette.”

  Saul turned his head, shook it to show that he did not understand. King Rat scampered up the walkway and curled into the chair. He sat facing Saul, one leg thrown over a brickwork arm. His voice came as clear as ever to Saul’s ears, although he did not raise it.

  “He was the man with the plan, built the whole maze in the time of the last queen. People owe him their flush crappers, and me… I can thank him for my underworld.”

  “But all this…” breathed Saul. “This room…why did he build this room?”

  “Mr. Bazalgette was a canny gent.” King Rat snickered unpleasantly. “I had a few whids, burnt his lugholes, told him a few tales, sights I’d seen. We had a conflab about him and his habits, not all of which were unknown to me.” King Rat winked exaggeratedly. “He was of the opinion that these tales should remain undisclosed. We came to an arrangement. You’ll not find this here burrow, my cubby-hole, on any plans.”

  Saul approached King Rat’s throne. He squatted on all fours in front of the seat.

  “What are we doing here? What do we do now?” Saul was suddenly weary of following like a disciple, unable to intervene or shape events. “I want to know what you want.”

  King Rat stared at him without speaking.

  Saul continued. “Is this about those rats?” he said. There was no answer.

  “Is this about the rats? What was that about? You’re the king, right? You’re King Rat. So command them. I didn’t see them showing any tribute or respect. They looked pretty pissed off to me. What’s this about? Call on the rats, make them come to you.”

  There was no sound in the hall. King Rat continued to stare.

  Eventually he spoke. “Not…yet.”

  Saul waited.

  “I won’t…yet. They’re still…narked…with me. They’ll not do what I tell them just yet.”

  “How long have they been…narked?”

  “Seven hundred years.”

  King Rat looked a pathetic figure. He skulked with his characteristic combination of defensiveness and arrogance. He looked lonely.

  “You’re…not the king at all, are you?”

  “I am the king!” King Rat was on his feet, spitting at the figure below him. “Don’t dare talk to me like that I’m the King, I’m the one, the cutpurse, the thief, the deserter chief!”

  “So what’s going on?” yelled Saul.

  “Something…went…wrong… Once upon a time. Rats’ve long memories, see?” King Rat thumped his head. “They don’t forget stuff. They keep it all in the noggin. That’s all. And you’re involved, sunshine. This is all tied up with the one that wants you dead, the cove that bumped off your fucking dad.”

  Fucking dad, said the echoes for a long time afterwards.

  “What…who…is it?” said Saul.

  King Rat looked balefully at him with those shadow-encrusted eyes.

  “The Ratcatcher.”

  P

  A

  R

  T

  T

  H

  R

  E

  E

  LESSONS

  IN RHYTHM

  AND HISTORY

  N

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  Almost as soon as Fabian had left, Pete had appeared. His alacrity was suspicious. In another mood it would have pissed Natasha off, but she felt like forgetting about Saul, just for a short time.

  She and Fabian had sat up late in her small kitchen. Fabian always commented on Natasha’s rather self-consciously minimalist approach to decor, complaining that it made him feel uneasy, but that night they had other things on their mind. The faint strains of Drum and Bass filtered through from the stereo next door.

  The next morning Natasha rose at eight, regretting the cigarettes she had shared with Fabian. He rolled out of the sleeping-bag she had lent him, when he heard her stir. They had no more words to say about Saul. They were numb and tired. Fabian left quickly.

  Natasha wandered out of the kitchen dripping night-clothes, pulling a shapeless sweater over her shoulders. She turned on the stereo, slipped the needle onto the vinyl on the turntable. It was the best of last year’s compilations, now some months old, rendering it an ancient classic in the fast-mutating world of Drum and Bass.

  She ran her hands through her hair, pulling brutally at the tangles.

  Pete rang the bell. She guessed it was him.

  She was tired but she let him in. As he drank her coffee, she leaned against the counter and peered at him. She considered him ugly, his pale skin and thin limbs. He was hardly a style guru, either. The world of Jungle could be elitist. She smiled slightly at the thought of the rudeboys and hard-steppers in the club AWOL being presented with this under-sunned apparition, complete with flute.

  “How much do you know about Drum and Bass?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “Not much, really…”

  “I can tell. When you played yesterday it was impressive, but I’ve got to tell you it’s a weird idea playing flutes or shit like that to Jungle. If it’s going to work, we’re going to have to figure it out carefully.”

  He nodded, his face comical with concentration. Natasha almost wished for a repeat of his extraordinary performance of the previous day, his sudden knowing smile. The alternative was so cringing, so desperate to please, that it all but nauseated her. If this day didn’t go well, she decided, she wasn’t having any more of it.

  She sighed. “I’m not cutting anything with you without you knowing something about the music. Just because General fucking Levy gets a single in the top ten, and some art-school wankers start writing about Jungle, and the next thing you know anything with a backbeat’s ‘Jungle’. Even Everything But The fucking Girl!” She folded her arms. “Everything But The Girl aren’t Jungle, alright?”

  He nodded. It was clear he had never heard of Everything But The Girl.

  She closed her eyes and bit back a grin.

  “Right. There’s a lot going on in Jungle: there’s intelligent Jungle, there’s Hardstep, Techstepping, Jazz Jungle… I like ’em all, but I can’t cut Hardstep tracks. All the darkness edges. You want Hardstep, go to Ed Rush or Skyscraper or something, OK? I cut tunes more like Bukem, DJ Rap, stuff like that.” Natasha was enjoying herself enormously, lecturing him, watching his eyes dart frantically around. He had no idea what she was talking about.

  “DJs have started bringing musicians to gigs; Goldie brings in a drummer, and stuff like that. Some people don’t like it, they reckon Jungle should be digital or nothing. I’m not down with that, but I got no immediate plans to be dragging you on stage either. What I’m interested in is maybe playing with you for a while and sampling some of your flute for the top end. Loop it and cut it and stuff.”

  Pete nodded. He was fumbling with his case, assembling his flute.

  Saul woke in the throne room under the city. He sat curled up in the cold, below the unmoving shape of King Rat, stiff on his throne. As soon as Saul’s eyes opened, King Rat stood up.
He had been waiting for Saul to awake.

  They ate and left the chamber by the brick ladder which crept up behind the throne, emerging by means of another hidden door into the main sewer. Saul followed King Rat through the tunnels, and this time he paid attention to his location, his movements, he created a map in his head, he tracked himself.

  The water rushed around them as drizzle hit the urban sprawl above and poured into their recesses. It slid around the bricks, transporting a sudden deluge of oil. The walls here were coated with fat, thick with translucent white residue.

  “Restaurants,” hissed King Rat as he plunged on, and Saul picked up his feet to avoid the slippery muck. He could smell it as he ran past, the stench of old frying and stale butter. It made him hungry. He ran a finger along the wall as he moved, sucked the glutinous mess he had picked up, and laughed, still amazed and excited by his hunger for old food.

  Saul could hear things frantically escaping their path. The corridors were thick with rats, nibbling at the walls and the abundant edible detritus, fleeing as they approached. King Rat hissed and the path ahead of them cleared.

  The two of them quit the underground, emerging into a Piccadilly backstreet, behind a great stinking pile of food waste, gastronomic effluent spewed out by London’s finest.

  They ate. Saul devoured a crushed concoction of old cold fish in some rich sauce, King Rat wolfing broken tiramisu and polenta cake.

  And then up onto the roofs, King Rat ascending by a stairway of iron piping and broken brick. As soon as he had used it, its purpose became clear. Saul saw through vulgar reality, discerned possibilities. Alternative architecture and topography were asserting themselves. He followed without hesitation, slipping behind slate screens and running unseen over the skyline.

  They barely spoke. Periodically, King Rat would stop and stare at Saul, investigate his motions, nod or indicate to him a more effective way to climb or hide or jump. They picked their way over banks and behind publishing houses, sly and invisible.

  King Rat whispered obscure descriptions under his breath. He waved at the buildings they passed and murmured at Saul, hinted at the dark truth concerning the scratchmarks on the walls, the hollows that broke up lines of chimneys, the destination of the cats that scattered at their approach.