The Twyning

by Terence Blacker

  As he stands on the first step, a few of the folk begin to clap.

  Dr. Ross-Gibbon raises both hands.

  “Gentlemen,” he says, “this borough is a safer place tonight after what you and your brave dogs have done.”

  “Good sport and all,” says Charlie Buckingham. I notice that he is standing near to Jem Dashwood. Suddenly, it seems, they are friends.

  “When’s the next hunt, then?” a voice calls from the back.

  “There will be other”— the doctor smiles — “extermination exercises. The brown rat is a cunning creature. It moves from one area to another. The next part of our campaign is to find more rats, and repeat the very efficient culling process you managed so well tonight.”

  “What about the tails, Doctor?” Charlie Buckingham looks around for support.

  “Tails?”

  “The reward.” Jem Dashwood speaks up.

  “Ah, yes, almost forgot.” The doctor reaches into his pocket and takes out the biggest roll of money I have ever seen. “It’s too dark for cutting tails tonight. I suggest that we ask Mr. Grubstaff and young Mr. Smith to look over the field and give us a rough sense of how many beasts have been eliminated today.” He holds up the money. “We shall divide the reward between you all at the agreed rate of one pound per fifty tails.”

  Even in this light, Bill and I can see the dogs have done a good job. I hear Bill counting, but I know it is for the benefit of the men who are watching us. Even if he can get beyond ten, which I doubt, a careful count of those bodies would take hours, even in the daylight.

  I catch a glimpse of his face. He will be earning good money tonight, but you would not know it from the way he looks.

  “A lot of beasts,” he says to no one in particular. “A lot of beasts.”

  By the time we return, we have decided on a figure.

  Three thousand.

  . . . by the time I descended from my hiding place. The enemy and the dogs had gone. All that remained of the terrible events of that day was the heavy smell of death in the air.

  I walked around on the outside of the fence. In some places, the bodies were in tangled heaps where they had been trapped.

  There was nothing I could do, but I needed to bear witness to what had happened.

  The netting was easy to gnaw. After a few moments I squeezed through and was on the battlefield.

  The smell of death never lies, nor does the silence within a hearer. Many citizens had died, and those who had escaped would be scattered and disorganized.

  I walked around the bodies. Most had been torn apart, but I could see that even in death, the courts had largely remained together. In one part of the field were strewn the translators; in another, the spies. There was a sad little heap of historians not far from where they had emerged from the world below.

  I looked for my court, and deep into the night, I found them in one corner of the field.

  In this pile of corpses, I knew their names. Phillus. Gjarg. Bravar. Spyke. I pulled them from the mass of bodies and laid them side by side.

  Alpa was the last I found. She was beneath the bodies of the tasters who had fought to defend her.

  With the taste of blood in my mouth, I moved away from the river. There was no returning to the world below tonight. As far as I knew, there was no world below.

  I would return to the mountain, to Malaika and her human, and plan my next move.

  I made my way down the fencing. It was at the point where the warrior rats had used the gift of flyting to leap to freedom that the last of so many terrible sights awaited me.

  There, hunched in death against a large stone, was a shape I thought I knew. Its head was crushed beyond recognition, but when I pulled the body into the open, all doubts disappeared.

  Three legs. A warrior with three legs could never leap to escape.

  Even a warrior who had once saved the life of a friend.

  Even a warrior called Fang.

  . . . and, if Caz were waiting for me, I would be returning to the tip with pies in my hand and stories to tell her. But there is no Caz, and without her, there is no life. The tip can be burned to the ground, with me in it, for all I care.

  Her rat, Malaika, is waiting. She is hungry. I give her a slice of bread and fill her water bowl.

  I am deadly tired, but when I close my eyes to sleep, I can still see the dogs — their lolling tongues, their sharp white teeth, their red eyes.

  Now they are hunting through the streets of the city, sniffing the gutters and scrabbling at doors.

  I am there, and so is the doctor, and Bill, and the dog men and setters.

  Somehow I realize in my heart that the baying hounds and the eager men who are following them are not searching for rats at all.

  I know these streets. I have been there. As I follow the hunt, a feeling of dread is heavy within me.

  We turn a corner. The barking of the dogs echoes around the dark street. There is a door in the wall. I know that door. The pack of dogs hurl themselves at it. They have found their prey.

  No, not there. I try to scream a warning, but the words are trapped in my throat.

  It is Rose’s house, the place I visited. I know what they are going to find there.

  The rats are not there! Please, they are not there! I scream, but all I can hear is a silent roar where my voice should be.

  The doctor looks at me, and laughs.

  “Thank you, Dogboy,” he says. “I don’t know what we would do without you.”

  I am sick with a feeling of guilt.

  He pushes through the dogs and opens the door for them.

  There is a terrible snarling from the darkness within.

  I fight my way through the crowd into the darkness of that room.

  Rose is there and the lady with the pale face and black lips. They are looking down as the dogs attack their prey, tearing its flesh.

  Seeing me, Rose looks up and gives a sort of sorrowful shrug, as if to say, “What could I have done? What could any of us have done to save her?”

  Now I scream. Again and again.

  I awake with a start, shivering, my body wet with sweat, although it is cold in the tip.

  I hear my own despairing voice in the nightmare. It echoes in the darkness around me.

  Caz.

  It’s Caz.

  . . . that night. I had seen too many humans, and what they do, to want to be close to one.

  There was a clod-cave under a hedge where I rested.

  It was from there at the darkest hour that I revealed to Malaika, calling her to me.

  At first, there was no answer. I was afraid that, on this night of death, something might have happened to her, too.

  Then, as I crouched low in the hedgerow, I heard her.

  — I am here, Efren. I am safe.

  — Come out to me. I have news.

  There was no reply. After some time, I tried again.

  — Malaika? Are you there?

  Her revelation, when it came, was more powerful than I expected. It was as if it was not a fragile revealing at all, but a rat born to be a citizen of the kingdom.

  — Tonight I stay here. He needs me here.

  — He?

  — Caz’s human. I am staying.

  — Malaika, I need you here. Terrible things have happened.

  But there was no more revelation. I knew Malaika well enough to understand that when she had decided something, there was no moving her.

  Although it was still dark, I slept.

  It was light and a bird was singing in a branch above my head when I opened my eyes.

  But it was not a song that awoke me. It was a revelation.

  — Malaika!

  My body tensed. I was hearing. It was a revelation from far away.

  — Help me, Malaika.

  It took me a moment to understand why this kind of hearing was different and strange.

  Then I understood.

  What I was hearing was the revelation of a human, far from th
is place. I knew the person who was calling out. I replied.

  — Caz?

  — Oh, Efren.

  The revelation was faint, and fading.

  — Help me.

  — Caz, where are you?

  There was no reply for a long time. Then, a distant whisper in my brain, I heard her.

  — Little dancer . . . little dancer . . . little . . . dancer.

  Then she was gone.

  I made my way slowly to the mountain and found Malaika, sleeping near to the human.

  I told her of what I had heard.

  We must have made some kind of noise, because the human stirred and turned in his half sleep. With that movement, everything changed. A stench of anger, fear, blood, and pain seemed to choke me. I was back on the battlefield of yesterday.

  For a moment, I was confused. How could the smell of death be upon the boy, Caz’s human?

  Then I knew the answer.

  He had been there.

  . . . that makes it impossible to eat, or to sleep for very long. It is as if all that was alive in me has left, leaving only a walking, breathing corpse.

  The last thing I need is to be bothering with rats.

  Yet, when I awake that morning, I catch a glimpse of the beast that has been lurking in the undergrowth of the tip with Caz’s pet. After it scuttles away, Malaika moves closer to where I am lying.

  She sits in front of my face. We are at the same level, and strangely, it almost feels as if we are equals.

  I have seen enough of rats over the past day. I close my eyes. Soon afterward, I feel the animal climbing onto my arm. She settles there while I doze.

  When I open my eyes, she is still there. I move my other hand gently and stroke the gray-and-white fur. She turns to face me, staring in that strange, direct way that rats have.

  “Poor Malaika.”

  I say the words out loud because saying them reminds me of Caz. She would spend hours, her face close to the rat’s. Revealing, she said. It was the kind of tender fancy that made her special to me. I murmur again.

  “How can we find her, Malaika?”

  The rat moves up my arm until she is standing in front of my face.

  On any other morning, I would get up and start my day, but the thought of the great hunt by the river is still with me. I remembered Bill’s face as we picked our way through the bodies.

  “A lot of beasts,” he said.

  Yes, there were a lot of beasts. I have no wish to see the doctor on this, the day after his great triumph. I have had enough of killing for the moment.

  I lie in my blankets, staring into the eyes of a rat. It is better than going to work. I think of Caz.

  The rat noses the air in a peculiar fashion. She does it again. Then again. If I didn’t know better, I would think that she is trying to tell me something.

  The doctor will soon be wondering where I have gone. He is not a man to rest on his victories. Already, he will be planning the next hunt.

  A world without rats. His great dream. All the people he speaks to — the politician, the important men in the council — seem to find it a marvelous idea. I wonder about that. They can be brave and clever creatures sometimes. If they fought yesterday, it was because they were being attacked.

  My mind is suddenly filled with the sight of the dogs at work. I groan quietly to myself.

  — Do not be sad.

  What? Those words enter my head, unbidden. It is as if I am still asleep, in a dream.

  — Do not be sad.

  I sit up, slightly scared. I am hearing voices now. Being alone is driving me mad.

  — It is not you. It is me.

  I look down and find myself gazing into the dark eyes of Malaika.

  — Me.

  She is a charming little thing, so delicate. She moves onto my hand. I raise it slowly. She makes no attempt to escape. She rests on my palm in front of my face.

  She stares at me and makes that odd upward movement of her nose once more.

  No. It can’t be. That doesn’t happen.

  — It does.

  Now I am beginning to feel truly scared. I move my hand even closer to my face. Most creatures would show at least a flicker of fear, but this rat actually rests on its haunches, its whiskers quivering.

  — Believe it. I can reveal to you and you can reveal to me.

  I laugh softly. Revelation! This is true madness. For the game of it, I let my imagination talk to the rat.

  — Is this how you talk to each other?

  There is a tickling deep within my head, almost like silent laughter.

  — Some can reveal strongly; others, more weakly. Yours is so feeble I have to stand close to you.

  “No.” I say the word out loud. “I mustn’t go mad. Not now.”

  — It is no dream. Reveal to me. You will see.

  Enough. I must awake. It is time to bring myself back to the world. I look at the rat and think these words. — Tell me something that my own brain could not bring me.

  There is a moment when my head is empty of noise. Then she is back.

  — We have heard from Caz.

  I start, closing my fingers around the rat. She makes no effort to escape.

  — It is true. We have heard from Caz.

  The voice in my head is stronger. I have no choice but to answer.

  — How? Where is she?

  — Efren has heard two words.

  — Efren?

  — He can hear revelations from far away.

  — The two words. What were they?

  — Little dancer.

  It is at that moment that I begin to believe it. Perhaps Caz was right. We can talk to rats, but only if we listen to them.

  There is some bread left from the night before. I scoff it down, leaving a corner for Malaika, and make my way out of the tip.

  I walk fast across the city. The world is going to work, but I have no eyes for it.

  Little dancer. What does it mean?

  I reach the center of the city and turn into the narrow street I last saw in my dream. I knock hard on the door.

  Nothing. I bang again.

  Two men, passing at the end of the street, stand to watch me for a moment. At any other time I would return to the shadows that are my natural home, but somewhere in the night, I have lost my fear.

  Let them beat me. Let them kill me. My little life counts for nothing now that Caz has gone.

  One of the men says something to his friend. They both laugh and go on their way.

  I crouch beside the keyhole of the door and put my mouth to it.

  “Rose!” My voice echoes in the empty street. “Rose! It’s me.”

  Silence.

  I turn and rest my back and head against the door. I slide downward until I feel the cold pavement beneath me.

  After a few moments, the door opens behind me.

  I look up. It is the white-faced girl who was there before. Her face, then so sharp and tidy and severe, is now smudged and disordered. Her hair, which was straight and brushed when I last saw her, is like a madwoman’s. Now that she has no makeup, I see that she is barely more than a girl.

  Looking down at me, she groans.

  “Not you again.”

  “I need to see Rose.”

  She swears to herself, steps back into the darkness of the house, and makes to close the door. I am too quick for her and push my leg so that, short of breaking it, she is unable to lock me out.

  Muttering another oath, she goes inside.

  I stand up, push the half-closed door, and walk in.

  The room is in utter darkness, with the same heavy smell of scented smoke in the air that for a moment makes my head swim.

  Something moves at my feet. It is a man, youngish but with so much hair about him that his face is like a moon on a cloudy night. His eyes are wide and dark, but he seems to be seeing nothing.

  With a great effort, he reaches toward the door behind me and slams it shut.

  The weak flame of a smal
l candle lights the middle of the room. I see now that there is a sort of big glass pipe there. Sleeping figures are all around me on the floor. The girl who opened the door is sitting on the sofa, her arms around her knees, shivering.

  “Rose?” I call out, peering through the gloom.

  From a far corner of the room, a figure untangles itself from a heap of bodies. It looks like an older, more wrecked version of Rose.

  “Who’s that?”

  The voice is hers.

  “It’s me. Peter.”

  She utters a long moan. “You? What are you doing here?”

  “I need to ask you something.”

  She lies back against a man who is lying beside her. He is so deep in sleep that he could be dead for all I know.

  “You picked your time.”

  I walk farther into the room. “It’s about Caz — the girl who’s disappeared.”

  “I told you, love. I can’t help you. Lots of girls disappear.”

  “Does . . . ?” I hesitate, suddenly feeling stupid. “Do the words ‘little dancer’ mean anything to you?”

  “Little dancer.” She closes her eyes. “Little . . . dancer.”

  From the floor, an old man sings in a croaky voice. He sounds like a sickly jackdaw.

  “She was just a little dancer,

  A sapling in the green,

  The prettiest this romancer

  Has ever, ever seen.

  She twirled and she . . .”

  The song peters out in wheezy coughs. The man farts noisily, then turns over.

  “What a lovely old song,” another male voice murmurs.

  One of the girls laughs.

  “Little dancer,” I repeat. “Could that mean something?”

  Rose appears to have fallen asleep.

  I look in despair around the room. There must be seven people here, and none of them is in any fit state to help me.

  I turn toward the door, picking my way carefully over the bodies on the floor.

  My hand is on the door handle when someone speaks.

  “Champagne Charlie.”

  It is the white-faced girl. She is in the same crouched pose that she has been in since she let me in. She gazes ahead of her as if she is in a trance.

  “Knightley.” Her voice is hushed. “Champagne Charlie, they call him.”