The Twyning

by Terence Blacker

  Floke and Fang made short work of the door, stepping back moments later. A hole, small but good enough, was in the ancient timber.

  When I revealed, it was in a tone that I hardly recognized as my own. I sounded like a leader.

  — Wait here. I can do this alone. If I am not back by sundown, find your way back to the kingdom and report what has happened.

  — Can we . . . ?

  — Why shouldn’t we . . . ?

  I heard them, but already I was through the hole, into the house, and on my way.

  . . . just out of sight of most of the audience in the large lecture hall on the third floor of the institute.

  Through a crack in the screen in front of me I can see the audience — men in frock coats, some of them smoking cigarettes.

  The scientists. The doctor has spoken much of them in the past. “The so-called men of science,” he calls them.

  They seem more amused than interested as, from the other side of the stage, the doctor appears and takes his place behind a lectern.

  There is something unusual about him as he stands there. He has a smile stuck on his face like some sort of mask. It doesn’t seem to be convincing the so-called men of science.

  “They call me the Rat Man, I am told.” The doctor speaks up, and the buzz of conversation in the hall slowly dies down. “It is for you to judge.”

  He looks around the lecture theater and I notice now that his hands, resting on the lectern in front of him, are trembling.

  “It is true that I have studied our friend Rattus norvegicus — the brown rat, of course — more than any other scientist in the world. From this knowledge, I have reached the conclusion that when it comes to the future of our species — mankind — it is the rat that holds the key.”

  One of the gentlemen at the back of the hall says something at this point that causes those around him to laugh, but the doctor seems not to notice.

  “In many ways, the rat is, of all the mammals in the world, that which is most similar to us,” he says. “Like us, it is omnivorous and can eat a huge variety of food. Like us, it has been known to eat its own kind. Like us, it is able to reproduce throughout the year. Like us, it has had its own wars. The black rat, or ship rat — Rattus rattus — was present in Europe from, we believe, a time after the Crusades, playing its part in the plagues and epidemics. Then, in the early eighteenth century, the great brown rat invasion from Asia occurred — caused, we think, by a powerful earthquake. They swam in their millions across the River Volga and advanced toward Europe. There followed a bitter war between the brown and the black rat. It was Rattus norvegicus who proved the stronger and more ruthless.”

  The scientists listen, half interested. I have heard every part of this story many times before in the form of mutters at the laboratory as the doctor does his work, or at night as we are out searching for beasts.

  “Like us, the brown rat covers the globe — it has the widest range of any mammal in the world.” The doctor raises a finger. “Like us, it never has quite enough. Gentlemen, we should beware of its savagery and ambition.”

  The hall is quiet now. One or two of the men have produced notebooks into which they scribble occasionally.

  “Rats are a magnificent example of God’s work,” the doctor is saying. “They can mate five hundred times a day. They can fall sixty feet and survive. They can swim proficiently. They can tell which food is poison. There are stories of rats foretelling the future — moving before an earthquake, leaving a market days before it is moved to another place. This, gentlemen, is a superb species.”

  He looks around the hall, now all solemnity, making the most of his dramatic pause.

  “So superb, in fact, that it is our mortal enemy. It could destroy us.”

  As if someone in the audience has protested against what he is saying, the doctor raises a hand.

  “The rat is ruthless. It has become the undisputed ruler of the animal kingdom. Already it eats our crops. It destroys the fabric of our lives — books, clothes, houses, pipes. It has caused floods by gnawing through dams. But it wants more. There is only one species that stands in its way.”

  “Us.” A member of the audience says it out loud.

  “Yes.” The doctor allows a chilly smile to flicker briefly across his face. “Us. I believe that we are already under attack. From Sweden to Spain, there are stories of packs of rats behaving in an entirely new way. Infants have been killed in their cribs. A beggar on the streets of Amsterdam was found with his throat torn out. In France, couples have been attacked in their beds.”

  He has the audience now. There is silence as he delivers his warning.

  “We are entering the Rat Age. They are beginning to attack us, their greatest enemy. They are multiplying in number. For centuries, they have eaten our food. Now they are killing our children.”

  He glances toward me. My moment is approaching.

  “I believe that it is no longer enough for us, as scientists, to study the rat. To survive, we need to defend ourselves. We have a brilliant and dangerous enemy who is even more ruthless and deadly than mankind. We must destroy him before he destroys us. Above all, we must show no fear before the rat. Gentlemen, I believe it can actually smell the terror of other creatures.”

  The doctor reaches under the lectern for a pair of heavy leather gloves, which he puts on his hands, watched in silence by his audience. He nods in my direction.

  I walk, carrying the cage before me onto the brightly lit stage. There is a stirring and a muttering around the lecture hall.

  I lay the cage before the doctor. I release the latch.

  The doctor pauses, glances with a little smile. “No fear, please, gentlemen.”

  He half opens the top of the cage. When he withdraws his hand, he holds the giant rat, dangling by its tail. Over its screams, the doctor cries, “Behold the enemy!”

  . . . through the timbers, along the pipes, behind the panels of the old building, when a terrible sound caused me to stop.

  It was the scream of death, a sound that has no meaning beyond itself. With it, a last desperate pulse racked my body.

  My king needed me.

  It was close, just beyond a thin wall of timber. The disgusting smell of humans, of the smoke they sometimes breathe, was almost overpowering.

  I paused for a few seconds. Another scream reached me, weaker this time. Every instinct in my body told me to flee, but I knew that I had no choice.

  Closing my ears to the sound of the enemy, I began to gnaw at the wood. Soon I was able to squeeze through it into the dazzling, dangerous light.

  The enemy was all around. It loomed above me as I crouched in the corner of the room.

  Then I saw him.

  King Tzuriel was swinging, barely alive now, from the hand of the enemy.

  I attempted to reveal to him, but King Tzuriel was too weak to see or to hear anything.

  The human laid him on a surface, then reached for a long, gleaming line of metal that was on the table nearby.

  I knew, for all my terror, that I had no choice.

  . . . that the rat is only just alive, as he lays it on a table that is at the front of the stage. He looks at that moment like a magician in a circus. He wants to scare his audience a little.

  He is holding a long syringe.

  “This rat weighs fully three pounds — rats are growing larger with every generation. But it is not merely his size I wish to show to you this evening. I will show how Rattus norvegicus is a perfect disease-carrying organism.”

  He smooths the fur of the rat around its heart. It is hardly breathing now.

  “Alive, a rat is dangerous, a perfect walking mechanism for spreading disease. Even when it is dead, its war against humanity continues.”

  He glances up at his audience and smiles. He is enjoying this moment.

  He aims the syringe at the heart of the rat, then plunges it into the flesh.

  . . . of King Tzuriel, I lost all sense of safety. His pulse was within me,
summoning me. He needed the help of citizens, and only one citizen was nearby.

  A loud scream bubbled up from within me, shaking and racking my body as it emerged from my throat.

  The sound of the enemy was all around me. I ignored it. With all my strength, I ran toward my king.

  . . . pointing at the floor. Others around him, on one side of the hall and near the front, move quickly from their seats.

  Soon that part of the hall is in tumult.

  Then I see it. A rat, quite small, is scurrying down one side of the lecture room toward the stage.

  The scientists near the beast stand up. Some of them try to stamp on it as it runs by. Yet still it continues toward us.

  “Get it, someone! Get it!” A voice, squeaky with panic, can be heard above the confusion. It is the doctor. Eyes wide, hands clutched together in front of him, he is backing away as if, at any moment, he might run out of the room.

  The rat reaches the base of the stage and seems to look up. Unable to get any farther, it scurries along the baseboard before vanishing into another hole.

  “Oh. Oh. Oh.”

  Slowly all eyes return to the doctor. When he realizes that the beast has gone, he gives a nervous little laugh. “Oh . . . what a surprise that was,” he says.

  “You’ll be all right now, Ross-Gibbon,” a stout, bewhiskered man in the front row calls out. “Return to your talk. You were just telling us how important it was not to show any fear.”

  And the moment of alarm is suddenly broken. The room rocks with laughter.

  The doctor’s face has turned an angry red. He walks slowly back to the table and the big rat, which is now motionless.

  “I shall dissect our friend,” he says, his voice still shaky. He runs a scalpel along the rat’s stomach. Dark blood oozes onto the table, a smell of putrid flesh fills the air.

  The man with whiskers, sitting in the front row, takes a handkerchief from his pocket and covers his nose and mouth.

  “Yes, gentlemen, the smell is not good,” says the doctor irritably. “That is the very argument I am making.” He points with his scalpel to the purple and red innards of the rat. “There are in my opinion no fewer than fifty-five infectious diseases, many of them fatal, that can be carried and passed on, in one way or another, by the rat. Typhus, plague, leptospirosis, infectious jaundice, trench fever, influenza, Trichinella spiralis . . .” He starts to list beast-related sicknesses, but it is clear now that the so-called scientists have heard, seen, and smelled enough of rats for the evening.

  One or two leave their seats, and others sidle out of the room with obvious relief. By the time the doctor has finished his list of diseases, the lecture hall is half empty.

  He finishes hurriedly. When he asks for questions, there is an embarrassed silence. The man in the front row makes a show of looking at his timepiece.

  It is done. The moment that the doctor has been talking about for so long is over.

  “Where did that blinking rat come from?” His question is directed to me as I lift the corpse of our specimen back into the cage. “Did someone release it as a joke?”

  Saying nothing, I lay a cloth over the table. It is soon dark with blood.

  “I wasn’t afraid of it, you know.” The doctor sniffs and squares his shoulders. “I was just a bit taken aback.”

  I nod with careful respect.

  “No more rats in public, Mr. Smith.” He glances at me as if I have somehow been responsible for what has happened, then makes briskly for the door. “From now on we change our tactics.”

  . . . grew quieter. Now and then the sound of a voice or the bark of a dog would make the heart quicken, but as night closed in, the danger from the enemy faded.

  We crouched in silence beneath a pile of logs. Fang’s injured leg had swelled and his eyes were dull with pain. We ached with hunger and tiredness.

  We were completely lost.

  In the darkness, I sensed the eyes of Floke and Fang upon me. Without a word of revelation, I had become their leader. The thought made me feel stronger.

  I nudged Fang.

  — We’ve got to go.

  Neither Floke nor Fang stirred.

  — Find our way back to the kingdom.

  Floke stretched his hind legs and stood.

  Too weary now even to conceal ourselves, we made our way across the open ground. At the same moment, each of us was aware of a powerful scent in the air. It was Floke who revealed first.

  — Food! There is food nearby.

  Ahead we saw a human enclosure, surrounded by a wooden fence. It was from beyond that fence that the scent that made us dizzy with hunger was coming.

  I explored the length of the fence for some way in.

  The only opening was in one corner, a crack between the timbers more suitable for a field mouse than for a rat. Maddened by hunger, Floke hurled himself against it, cutting the skin above his eye in the process.

  I approached. I gazed at the opening, thinking myself into smallness.

  I pushed my nose forward in a gentle, snuffling movement. I felt my bones soften and bend, my aching muscles grow tighter, squeezed by the wood.

  I was through.

  There was a small yard behind the cottage, and against a wall only a few lengths from where I stood was a large bowl of cooked scraps. I climbed into the bowl. With some difficulty, I rolled out half a roast potato, then a scrap of bacon. My mouth drooled as I took them to the gap in the fence and allowed Floke to pull them through.

  I turned back to fetch some food for myself, and at that moment I became aware of something else. At first, it felt like a pulse. Then I sensed it was something different, a sort of murmur within me. Not one pulse, but many.

  Somewhere very near to where I stood there were other rats, and they were in trouble. With all my strength, I sent out the message.

  — Who is there?

  I waited. The only sound that I could hear was my own heartbeat. I tried again.

  — I am a stranger. I need help.

  A prickle of fear raised the fur on my back. There were rats nearby and we were on their territory. Even if they belonged to another kingdom, they would normally be quick to reply, if only with threats.

  What explained the silence?

  Then I saw, beyond the food bowl, a square of wood on the ground.

  I moved toward it, sniffing. Definitely, there were rats nearby. But why were they silent?

  I heard a sound from beneath the wood. I tore a couple of strips from it with my teeth. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, I squeezed my head into the tiny hole that I had gnawed.

  I looked down, then quickly drew back, fearful.

  I looked again. Below me were hundreds of rats, pressed together in a pit in the dark. They were strangely silent — asleep, I suppose — but as I watched, the light from the hole I had made caught two dark eyes.

  I revealed with all my strength.

  — Who are you?

  Silence. I could see more clearly now. The walls of the prison were brick and impossible to climb. From the dark mass of bodies, one struggled clear.

  It was a fragile, a doe, light in color and smaller than the rest. I tried again.

  — Tell me who you are. What is this place?

  The eyes looked up at me.

  — Go!

  Her revelation was weak.

  — I am Efren. I come from the world below. I have seen my king . . .

  I thought in that moment I could smell the doe’s impatience.

  — Leave this place.

  She sniffed the air. Her eyes seemed to understand everything that was happening to me, that I was lost, that I needed to return to my kingdom to bring news from the world above, that I felt more alone than ever in my life. Her revelation was stronger now.

  — Cross the highway of humans. There is an entrance to the world below, half hidden beside where the water gathers. You will find the touch-path there.

  But it felt wrong to leave these rats. My instinct was to hel
p. Even a fragile in the world above deserved help.

  — Go.

  She seemed to reveal with her last remaining strength.

  — What is your name? — I asked.

  — Malaika.

  — I shall see you again, Malaika.

  A scent of sadness reached me as I drew back.

  There was silence from the pit. I breathed deep of the early morning air.

  Never look back. It is a rule of the kingdom.

  I crossed the yard, squeezed my way through the hole I had made in the fence.

  — Follow me.

  They did, Floke staying close to me, Fang limping after us.

  We crossed the human highway.

  We searched and soon found the tells of rats from the kingdom, leading to the touch-path that would take us back.

  One name echoed in my mind as I led Floke and Fang downward into the welcome damp and darkness of the earth.

  Malaika.

  . . . about all that has happened to me while I have been on this earth.

  I see children playing on the street, or walking with their mothers or nannies. I pass a school playground.

  The memories return, and just for a few moments, I wonder.

  So it is, the day after the doctor’s speech to the institute.

  I am walking to the rat-catcher, Bill Grubstaff. I need money for food, and today is a pit day.

  I like my work with Bill, especially on days like this. It is not just the noise and warmth at the tavern on pit days, and the money. It is watching Bill, his shyness falling away from him as dogs and rats are about to do battle in the bar of the Cock Inn.

  When I arrive for work, Bill is there in his moleskin waistcoat, a bucket of scraps in his hand. Unlike other rat-catchers, he likes to feed the beasts on the day of their death.

  He nods in the direction of the fence nearby.

  “Visitors last night, Dogboy,” he says.

  I walk over to the fence. There is a spot of blood on the wire where it has been gnawed.

  “Rats,” I say. “One was hurt.”