Lords of Trillium

by Hilary Wagner

  His eyes adjusting to the dark, he spotted Victor’s dark frame sitting on the ground, leaning back against the wall. He seemed to be looking at nothing. “Victor,” he whispered, crouching down. “Why are you here, by yourself? This is no place for you. It’s no place for anyone.”

  Listlessly, Victor turned his attention to his brother. “I should have done more.”

  Vincent forced himself to look at the many shrouded bodies, all alive and happy just hours ago, attending his wedding. There were thirty, maybe more. “Victor, there was nothing you or anyone could do. We were ambushed.” Glancing over at Billycan, who waited near the door, he lowered his voice. “It seems there will always be tragedy wherever we go. From now on, we must trust no one. We must concentrate on staying alive, just like we did in the Catacombs.”

  “You make it all sound so grim,” said Victor.

  Vincent exhaled and glanced around the chamber. “It is.”

  “I need to do something,” said Victor. “I need to make a difference.”

  “There’s nothing any of us can do right now but mourn our dead and carry on as best we can.” Vincent shook his head glumly. “As we always have.”

  “No!” said Victor, springing to his feet. “No!” He pushed Vincent in the chest. “You, of all rats, to sound so defeated. What’s happened to you? When did you become such a broken rat, always expecting the worst?”

  Vincent growled. “Mind your words, brother.”

  “I’m sick to death of minding my words. I’m sick to death of it!” He shoved past Vincent.

  “Where are you going?” Vincent demanded.

  “To do something!”

  “To do what?”

  “Something important!”

  “Victor, stop!”

  “Out of my way,” commanded Victor, glaring at Billycan.

  “Wait,” said Billycan, blocking Victor’s path. “Leaving in this state can lead to nothing but trouble.”

  “You, of all rats, have no right to stop me from doing anything!” said Victor, growling contemptuously. “Now move!”

  Suddenly Billycan snarled. His yellow teeth bared, he shouted, “I have more right than anyone!” Vincent came forward, his sword ready to strike. “I know the terror my temper brought upon many a rat!” said Billycan. “I live with it every day! I dream of it every night!” He pushed Victor back farther into the darkened chamber, his eyes aglow with red fury. “I must live with the horrors of my past. The blood that lies squarely on my claws—your family’s blood, the blood of your father, my son’s namesake! Never tell me I have no right! I know personally how destructive rage and wrath can be!” Billycan’s chest heaved, white froth bubbling from his mouth.

  Victor reached for his brother, clutching his shoulder as hard as he could. Panting, he asked, “If you really care . . . tell me what you’d do to bring back our father? What would you do to bring back Julius Nightshade?”

  Taking a long breath, Billycan stepped back. “Your father . . . had he not been killed—by me—there would have never been a High Ministry. He wouldn’t have allowed it, that I am sure of. If I could bring him back, I would condemn myself to the most ghastly torture you could dream of—a torture so profound I would beg for death, but never receive it.”

  “Why . . . why did you despise him so much?” asked Victor.

  “I suppose because he was everything I was not. He was generous, principled, honorable. He was good.” Billycan’s smile vanished. “He was beloved.”

  Vincent stood speechless at the thought that Billycan might actually be telling . . . the truth. If the former High Collector had wanted any Nightshade rat dead, they’d have died last year back in the Catacombs, when Killdeer’s crazed sisters tried to reclaim control. Billycan wouldn’t have journeyed to Tosca, and he surely wouldn’t have stopped Hecate and the former high majors from regaining control. Naturally it could be some twisted ruse; Billycan was as smart as he was deadly. But to what end? He had had two recent opportunities to see all of Nightshade’s leaders dead—Loyalist filth, as he used to call them—but here they all were, alive and well.

  Vincent turned to his brother, who still clutched his shoulder. He could feel Victor’s paw shaking, his claws digging into his skin. He didn’t know if it was from anger, fear, or a combination of the two, but his brother’s whole body trembled. “It’s all right, Victor,” he said softly. “You’ve nothing to be afraid of.”

  “I’m not afraid,” said Victor.

  “Then . . . what is it?”

  “You’ve always told me that Father said our lives need to mean something,” said Victor. “And the only way to change our fate is to change our lives.”

  “Yes,” replied Vincent. “Father never gave up, not even in the darkest of hours. He was a firm believer in fate.”

  “Well then, there’s no more to be said.” With that, Victor pushed past Billycan and bolted from the room.

  Billycan woke with a start, drenched in sweat. He grabbed his head. “No,” he muttered, “please. Make it stop!”

  He had been dreaming, an endless nightmare of blood and death he couldn’t pull himself out of. Visions of needles and cages filled with dead rats. Rats screaming in agony. Rats screaming his name, begging for mercy.

  He pulled himself off the long cot he’d been given to sleep on, hidden away in a vacant quarters where the still fearful citizens wouldn’t come across him. He dragged himself to a shard of mirror, leaning against the wall, all the while pulling at his ears, hoping it might send the horrible thoughts out of his head. Slowly he raised his head and looked at himself. He dropped to his knees. His eyes were a brilliant, torrid orange—a hue he’d not seen in a very long time.

  Turning away from the mirror, he noticed his door was ajar. Cautiously he stepped into the dim corridor. Deep claw marks traveled from his door all the way down the corridor. The word “KILL” was scrawled above them in crooked capital letters. He followed the claw marks to a set of stairs that led up to Nightshade Passage. Bits of paper covered the stairwell, as though someone had furiously shredded it.

  Billycan picked up a scrap of paper and studied it. It was a page from one of the scientists’ diaries. He picked up another piece, trying to read the words. All he could make out were the words “rats,” “intellect,” and “human-like.”

  He froze. He smelled a rat at the top of the stairs. He could hear its shaky breaths. “Who’s there?” he called out.

  No one answered. He heard only footsteps running away.

  He looked down at his claws. They were covered in earth, and several were bleeding. He stretched out his digits and fitted them into the claw marks on the dirt wall—a perfect match.

  Vincent, Virden, and Juniper sat in the Council Chamber, listening to Billycan’s news of Silvius’s findings.

  “Silvius believes the volcano holds the secret of who we are,” continued Billycan. “And that’s what the Topsiders have been after all this time.”

  Virden did the math in his head, and then yanked the quill pen from behind his ear, furiously scribbling numbers in his notebook. He dropped the pen onto the notebook. “Why, humans could live over a thousand years!”

  “Bless the Saints,” said Juniper. “Do you know how precious a commodity that would be? They’d pay anything—risk anything—to get it.”

  Billycan nodded. “All those years I spent in the lab, there was more going on than just the testing of the drug I was given. Silvius was never given any injections. Instead, he and many more were all but butchered—the Topsiders took their blood, their flesh, to find out what makes Trillium rats tick.”

  “In the diaries we found from the scientists, they state how our traits are in many ways more like humans than rats,” said Juniper.

  The door to the Council Chamber suddenly rattled.

  “Who’s there?” asked Juniper, rising from his chair.

  “It’s Petra,” said a meek voice from the other side of the door.

  “Petra?” said Vincent. He scr
atched his head, wondering why Victor’s sweetheart would be knocking on the door.

  Juniper, just as curious, opened the door, and the little blond rat stepped inside, her face creased with worry. “My dear, what are you doing here? Is Victor all right?”

  Petra talked so rapidly no one could make out any more than the words “Victor” and “good-bye.”

  “You must slow down,” said Vincent soothingly. He got up from his chair and crouched in front of her. “Catch your breath, then talk. Tell us what happened to Victor.”

  Trembling, Petra gulped in a breath of air and blew it out, doing this two more times before she could talk. “I’m—I’m not sure what happened,” she finally got out. “He came to our quarters to say good-bye! He said he had to do something brave—to change fate—like his father did. He said he would find the missing Hunters, pledged to bring them back alive!”

  “The missing . . .” repeated Juniper. “The missing Hunters—he’s gone to find them. He’s gone Topside!”

  “Petra, was anyone with him?” asked Vincent. “Do you know where he was headed Topside?”

  She shook her head. “He was alone. He left so quickly. I’m sorry.”

  “Did he say anything else?” asked Juniper. “Anything at all?”

  “Well . . . yes,” said Petra, “but I didn’t really understand it.” Her brow knitted as she tried to remember the exact wording. “He said something about Duncan, what he’d told him, about a museum. I’m not sure I can remember exactly. It all happened so fast.”

  “Try!” barked Billycan, bolting up in his chair, jolted by the mention of the museum.

  Jumping, Petra gave a small yelp, and grabbed Vincent’s arm.

  Billycan lowered his voice. “Please, try to remember what he said. It’s most important.”

  “It’s all right,” whispered Vincent, patting her paw. “He might be able to help.” He glanced at Juniper. “Juniper says Billycan has a talent for this sort of thing—tracking down rats. He can help us find Victor.”

  “Of course,” said Petra stiffly. “He . . . he kept bringing up The Lords of Trillium. Duncan said it was some display in the museum—about the great leaders of Trillium and how they worked to build the city.”

  Billycan’s flesh rose in goose bumps as his mind flashed back to the lab—to his only friend, Dorf. The little spotted rat had tried to explain to him that Trillium’s great leaders were not great at all; they were criminals, stealing the land from the weak, leaving them to suffer and die. “Why would Victor be so interested in this particular display?”

  “He said Duncan had lived in the museum once,” said Petra, “that he’d heard other rats there, smelled them, too, in the museum, and their scents led him to The Lords of Trillium. Duncan said he was drawn to that spot in the museum, even before he sensed the other rats.”

  “But what would make him think the Hunters could be there?”

  “He said he read something in one of the diaries,” said Petra. “The ones the bats just brought us.”

  “He must have discovered the same thing Silvius did,” said Vincent, “that the museum and the lab were connected. He always suspected the humans were to blame for the Hunters’ disappearance. What better place to start looking for them?”

  “Juniper, how do your Hunters journey to the surface?” asked Billycan.

  “The south tunnel. They always start there, and fan out in teams once they reach Topside.” Juniper eyed his brother. Both of them were thinking the same thing. “Petra, did you see which way Victor went?”

  “Yes, I tried to go after him, but he was too fast. He took a left down our corridor. He never goes that way.”

  “Petra’s corridor heads directly to the south tunnel,” said Vincent.

  “Where does it lead?” asked Billycan.

  “Right to the heart of Trillium City.”

  “Well then, that’s where we start,” said Juniper. He looked at Vincent. “Gather the Council—Duncan, too.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Trillium

  FOG, SLITHERING CLAWS OF CINDER, weaved its way through the streets and alleys of Trillium City, encasing everything in a tombstone gray.

  Vincent and the other young rats, along with the original Council members except for Virden and the twins, who stayed back to attend to the wounded, trekked the long distance up the south tunnel into Trillium. They were armed with weapons recovered from Hecate’s majors.

  Despite anyone’s doubts about his motives, Juniper knew the fastest way to track Victor was to follow the best huntsman he knew, a rat who could sniff out a wayward Kill Army recruit well before all others. He watched his brother intently as he sniffed the air.

  “The heart,” whispered Billycan, staring up at the Brimstone Building. Once he had stood in this very alley with his mother, Lenore, after she’d rescued him from the lab. She’d said the Topsiders called the Brimstone Building the heart of Trillium City. He remembered how angry it had made him at the time—how he hated the Topsiders for controlling the rats and how he hated his own kind for allowing it to happen. He didn’t feel angry now. He felt only a deep and hollow sadness. He sniffed the air, somehow thinking he might just catch a trace of his mother. Instead, he smelled something else entirely. He walked toward the Dumpster. “Blood . . . and Victor. He was here.”

  “Blood!” said Vincent nervously.

  “It’s not his,” said Billycan. “It’s not even rat—this blood is raccoon. I’m sure of it.” Raccoons were despicable creatures, but their flesh was tender. He salivated as he touched the side of the Dumpster, rubbing the powdery dried blood between his digits.

  “Even if it’s not Victor’s blood, he could still be hurt,” said Vincent, thinking of the strong, lethal claws of a famished raccoon.

  “This blood is old. Your brother and this fellow weren’t here at the same time,” said Billycan.

  “I’m afraid we’re responsible for that,” said Juniper, looking at Vincent. “We came here searching for the Hunters, but met with an agitated raccoon instead.”

  Vincent sighed with relief, only now remembering the incident, which seemed so long ago. “Yes, with his rotten apples.”

  Billycan was impressed. A raccoon, in particular an irritated one, could be quite a challenge. “And what became of him?”

  “You’ll be disappointed to know that he escaped with his life,” said Juniper. “If that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Just checking,” Billycan replied with the barest hint of a smile. He sniffed the air and pointed down the alley. “Victor’s scent leads this way.”

  Wrinkling his nose, Vincent sniffed the air. He could smell his brother, but the scent seemed to lead nowhere, evaporating within seconds.

  “It’s different with those closest to us,” said Juniper, sensing his frustration. “Our fears tend to cloud our ability to track a scent clearly. When Julius went missing last year, I seemed to smell him everywhere and nowhere.”

  “Well, it’s maddening,” said Vincent, kicking an aluminum can. “Why would Victor do something so brash? Even for him, this was a foolish move.”

  “Your father was much like Victor, you know,” said Juniper. “In his youth, he wasn’t always one to think things through.”

  “The legendary Julius Nightshade was like Victor?” asked Suttor, astonished.

  “Yes,” added Cole, smirking, “there was many a time when Barcus had to hold Julius back from doing something reckless, from reacting before thinking.”

  “Indeed, my older brother had his hands full being best friends with Julius,” Juniper added. “He outgrew it, of course, but knowing Julius in his younger days, Victor’s behavior doesn’t surprise me . . . not at all.”

  As the moon rose and the shadows climbed up the skyscrapers, the rats made their way unseen to the busiest street in the Battery District, the oldest and dirtiest part of Trillium. Watching as the massive cars and trucks blew past them, horns blaring, splashing dirty water, blinding them with flashing lights,
Carn wondered if they were simply wandering. He was frustrated—not happy to be led by Billycan, of all rats, but more importantly, annoyed that no one but Billycan knew how to navigate the city. It made him feel helpless and beholden to the rat he’d grown up serving in the Catacombs. “We’ll never find it,” he said, batting a lump of broken asphalt with his sword. “Where do we even start?”

  Running a paw over his face, Billycan let out a defeated sigh. “I thought we could make it there on foot, but it’s taking far too much time.”

  “Well, I don’t suppose you have an alternative?” asked Carn peevishly.

  “Indeed I do,” said Billycan, “though it may not be your preferred mode of transportation.”

  “Transportation,” repeated Cole, not liking where this was going.

  Billycan scratched his chin, pondering. “If anyone would still be alive,” he muttered to himself, “it would have to be . . . the old geezer. He’s got to be a fossil by now. . . .”

  “What are you going on about?” asked Oleander, who was not at all at home in the city, wishing desperately they were searching for Victor back in the swamp, a place she knew.

  Billycan’s eyes glinted, taking in all the confused faces. “Words of advice: follow instructions to the letter, mind your tails, and above all, hold on to your stomachs.”

  Vincent’s nose twitched, the smell of gasoline, exhaust, and grease invading his sinuses. It was a noisy city garage, with humans dashing about, working on cars, gassing up their grubby yellow cabs, cursing and shouting at each other.

  “Stay to the wall,” whispered Billycan as they made their way single file behind a rusted wall of shelving, stacked to the ceiling with tires, all crusted with dirt and salt. Billycan stopped as they reached another part of the garage, where taxicabs were pouring out into the street or careening back into the garage at breakneck speed.

  Oleander shuddered. “No wonder you stay underground,” she whispered to Clover. “You’d be lucky to live past childhood in such a hazardous place.”