The Rat and the Serpent

by Stephen Palmer

  The strangest thing in my life is that I no longer have time for the creation of art. My days are filled either with work, with that endless mapping and recording of tiny passages that I am required by the Mavrosopolis to perform, or with abstract thinking—trying to decide how best to change the citidenizenry so that it works on a humane level. I have become a consumer of the arts, however, most often going to plays, folk shows and soliloquies at the Hippodrome, occasionally taking in a lesser work at some back street theatre. The Hippodrome masters do not permit plays to be performed that are not written by counsellords. This is most odd. It is a kind of thought control. Today, as I considered this point, it struck me that there may be many other forms of thought control that I am as yet unaware of.

  Last month I purchased a saz lute from a local shop. My intention was to find some kind of artistic expression—even of the base folk kind offered by this instrument. It was a gorgeous thing, with an elegant, curved belly and a long neck around which were tied the moveable strings that made up its frets. There were three courses of metal strings, two, two and three, which were light and airy in tone. I have some minor appreciation of music—especially if attached to lyric poetry—and I thought that playing the instrument would soothe me. The reverse happened. My poor skills were no match for the saz, and so in frustration I took it by the neck and brought it down upon the hard stone tiles of my floor. It smashed: a dischordant thrum that grated against my nerves.

  I have not felt so strong a rage as that for over seven years. I think it was a kind of proof of my concealed turmoil. I want freedom, yet freedom is distant from me. I think more and more of change. My frustration turns to anger. The attempt to pluck music from the delicate strings of the saz resulted in a momentary outburst.

  Many months of citidenizen life await me before I can try to get elected. I am well respected in Bazaar—although I have heard a rumour that I am deemed a loner, an eccentric, though, thankfully, not a danger. I have few friends. Most of them are people who work alongside me in the mapping department, but one or two of them do other work. I wonder if they think similar thoughts to me?

  Chapter 11

  It took me several days to read the dense and difficult tomes that I bought in Seraglio, but by the time I completed the final volume I felt I knew a little more about what I was supposed to do. It was, in essence, a matter of recording every physical detail of the Mavrosopolis. The lack of personal help worried me, but the fact that I was supposed to learn from Stamboul consoled me. As a former nogoth, I felt no fear of the streets, except in that they were a possible venue for Atavalens and his henchmen. But I had beaten them for the time being. In less than a month I could be a counsellord, and safe. Knowing that, I felt a little happier.

  So I began the work of amanuensis. I was pleased to discover that I would be reporting to Vasimkantoy, the clerk of work, who would in turn pass my records to those mysterious individuals responsible for storing the material I produced. I had already gained an impression of the bureaucratic immensity that was the Mavrosopolis at citidenizen level, but when I was shown just one chamber full of scrolls and parchments, all boxed, all annotated, I was shocked. I was informed that ten thousand scrolls each containing a hundred or more individual reports lay inside the chamber. I stared at the rows and rows of shelves. I already knew that there were thousands of such chambers in Stamboul. Thousands of millions of individual records...

  And so the forbidden question entered my mind: what was so bad about erosion and forgetting that made such excesses necessary?

  I knew I could never ask this question since it meant immediate return to the streets. Yet I knew it must be answered. And I realised that many others must have pondered the question. Most would have ignored or abandoned it, with all the others returning forever to their nogoth kin.

  I was beginning to sense that the Mavrosopolis contained many secrets, and it occurred to me that the origin of the nogoths could be part of this code of silence. Like others, I was naturally curious. As a nogoth I had been a powerless outsider; only within the citidenizenry did I acquire power. Yet only as a citidenizen was I constrained. I understood that my earlier guess—that the higher I rose the less freedom I would enjoy—was probably correct. Just seeing the quantities of records in the chamber told me that.

  Nonetheless, I had escaped the street and I was an amanuensis. It was time for work.

  From dusk to dawn I strode the major thoroughfares of Zolthanahmet, taking mental impressions of the district, finding the boundaries with Bazaar and Seraglio to the north and north-east, and with Psamathia to the west, until I had acquired a mental image of every street and every major landmark. Then, at home, I slept. Next day I followed the same route, this time pausing to observe the upper parts of the various buildings that I saw. On the following three days I took my time to gain impressions of the various architectural styles.

  On the sixth day I made a discovery.

  I had climbed the buttress of an immense building to observe the faces of some upper storey gargoyles. In the roll of cloth that held my tools there lay a blade of obsidian; it was common knowledge amongst nogoths that this volcanic glass was sharper than steel. I took the blade and used it to slice off the encrusted soot that wrapped the entire building, but as soon as I removed the first section I noticed something. Luck meant that I was perched between the building and a street lamp; illumination was direct. I moved so that my face was inches away from the exposed soot, and I saw that it was layered.

  At first, I was intrigued only. Then I considered what I could see. No mention had been made of soot-layering in the three tomes, meaning that here I could be onto some feature previously undescribed.

  I felt torn. On the one hand, as a decent man, I was beginning to scorn the traditional fear of erosion; on the other, as an amanuensis, I was attracted by the personality of Stamboul. Neither position—rebel, reactionary—endeared itself to me. Should I ignore this novel feature or should I embrace it?

  The soot encrusting was thicker than any I had seen before. Again I considered. The only wind in the Mavrosopolis was that made by the sootstorms. Could I have here a mechanism of analysing those storms?

  I grunted to myself. Carefully, I made three cuts behind, below and then above the layered chunk so that it fell off into my hand. I examined the chunk to find I had smudged the edges with my fingers. Again I cut, this time using the strength of my rat leg to wedge myself into a position that freed both my hands. I held the new chunk by its underside so that both sides were undamaged: success. But it was a difficult climb back down to the street.

  The building lay at the junction of Ukler Sok Street and Kukuksofya Street. That left me a long walk home, but I would have to do it, holding the precious cargo in my outstretched hands. Slowly, deliberately, and using the sides of the streets to avoid other citidenizens, I returned to my tower, until I stood before the door to my chambers. Outside the door I had to balance the soot chunk in one hand while fiddling with the lock and key. Then, at last, I had the chunk safe on a table.

  I relaxed. I shut and locked the door, then spread my toolkit out across the table.

  No lens.

  It was the work of an hour to grab handfuls of coins, drop them into a purse, then return to the streets hunting for a physick, and soon I was home again, lighter of coin but carrying a black velvet bag.

  My new lens was powerful, a fat oval in cross-section. With it I was able to examine the side of the soot chunk. It was obvious that the layers I had first seen were merely large-scale features, perhaps made over decades, even centuries, for within them lay scores of thinner layers, clear, precise, alternating black and grey. I suspected that each pair had been made over the course of one year.

  I sat back, recalling the time I had spent in Blackguards’ Passage. Though I remembered no annual pattern of soot fall, there was a seasonal cycle, spring through summer and autumn to winter, and variations in temperature, perhaps in humidity, might account for the difference
between black and grey layers. Also, now that I had counted a few hundred layers and noticed that they varied in thickness, I could see there were patterns within patterns. The large-scale bleaching and darkening of the soot could be accounted for by variations in the weather over many decades, but within that, on the annual scale, there was a pattern of sevens: a thick layer reducing in width to a thin layer over seven years, followed by a thick layer and the cycle once again. Such regularity implied a source that worked by order, even by logic.

  So it occurred to me that what I should be considering was the nature of the building on which the soot was deposited. But it was unknown to me and, unusually, had no address, name or even description above its main door. In that respct it was like the Tower of the Bafflers, the lighthouse or the Hippodrome, structures known so well they did not need describing. Yet I had never heard this vast building mentioned in conversation, nor seen it written about in tomes.

  I decided to visit Vasimkantoy. On the way I devised a simple question that would obscure my purpose, and I grinned to myself, knowing that I was on to something.

  In Vasimkantoy’s office I greeted the old clerk. “I need some information on the buildings along Kukuksofya Street,” I said, sitting, then with a nonchalant gesture scratching my chin. I reeled off the addresses of a few buildings, then said, “And the large one at the junction with Ukler Sok Street.”

  As I had expected Vasimkantoy glanced at me, as if that place was different. He said, “It’s not generally known amongst the citidenizenry what that building contains.”

  I shrugged. “I need to know as part of my survey. Incompleteness is a form of erosion, you would agree.”

  Vasimkantoy grunted. “True. And you are entitled to know.”

  “I will not tell anybody.”

  Vasimkantoy nodded. “You are under no restrictions, but be careful, because that building is Stamboul’s main store of sorcerous items—everything from heating blocks to the saws our masons use to cut marble.”

  I stood up. “Thank you,” I said.

  I departed the Forum of Constantine. On a street corner I paused to think. It occurred to me that the building itself could be attracting soot because of what it contained, but that implied sootfall itself was somehow sorcerous, relating to the Mavrosopolis. I needed more evidence. I stood now on Vezirhani Street at the northern side of Zolthanahmet. It was still only midnight, so I began a tour of the district, taking samples of encrusted soot, studying them, saving them in pieces of cloth where the chunks were strong enough, until when I returned home at dawn I had a dozen or more.

  It did not take long to see that I had found my evidence. Large-scale patterning was present in the new chunks, and I could even match them to patterns on my original sample. Within the large-scale marking there was less evidence of layering, but where there was I was able to match the layers with those of my master sample.

  This constituted proof. There was a pattern of soot layering that applied to the whole Mavrosopolis, but which, because of sorcery, was far more profound upon the building on Kukuksofya Street. Sootfall, therefore, was sorcerous; and it had a seven year cycle.

  I sat back. I realised that in all probability very few people knew this fact.

  I had to find out if my guess was correct, and the only way was by making investigations. That might alert a few people, but I had to take the risk. On the following night I returned to the store building on Kukuksofya Street. Dawn was close, with few citidenizens on the streets. I explored the passages behind the building, to find what I was looking for, a small yard filled with rubbish where I could lie undisturbed. I sniffed the air. Just soot and dust, no smell of people, nor even animals except the ubiquitous cockroaches.

  I lay down. Time to commune with rats.

  There was a brief period of disjunction between human senses and rat senses – then I was sniffing at ground level, my tiny body clawed and tailed, aware of the particularities of the ground beneath me, of the flow of the air, of rat kin in crevices and channels underneath the yard. I was in tune with the state of subterranea.

  I allowed my mind to wander, letting natural rat curiosity lead me towards the store building, forcing nothing, until I found a hole in a window that I was able to creep through.

  The building was a maze of chambers and corridors, hundreds of them, each chamber filled with sorcerous items, each corridor marked with inked symbols describing contents, directions, powers. My mind was half real, half unreal, allowing me the luxury of a float through the place. I saw every kind of object: sorcerer’s blocks, swords and daggers, saws and ropes, cloaks of shadow-blending, boots of speed, tomes of light and darkness. Spoken spells and signed spells, and all the variations between.

  And there was a heart to this sorcery. My state of shamanic dreaming made me aware of a throbbing object in the cellars, to which, inevitably, I was attracted. It sang to me. I clawed my way through doors and along stone slabs, under sills, down pipes, until I was in the lowest depth of the building: dark, cold, the essence of subterranea.

  Here I found a black object. I thought I recognised it: a winged staff of steel painted black, around which two dark serpents were entwined.

  It was identical to the object that I had found in the chamber of transformation, when my crippled leg was made into a rat’s. This object—I knew now through my altered mind that it was a caduceus—represented the origin and use of sorcery in the Mavrosopolis.

  I realised then that shamen were outside both nogoth society and the Mavrosopolis. But I also understood that shamen represented that part of human nature which could not be conquered. Thinking this, I felt a tremendous sense of joy filling me, as if I had validated myself through the process of understanding, making myself, through my own effort, a better person, one more able to take on the Mavrosopolis, and, perhaps, even to change it. For it was change that I wanted more than anything. My feverish sense of justice was a symptom of my desire for change.

  I felt my mind leaving the building, my work done. There was more work to do in the real world. I found myself cold and shivering in the yard, yawning and hungry.

  I went home, to find a note pushed under my door. It read, ‘Bath-time tonight.’

  Anxiety pierced my elation. I did not like the idea that I could be summoned, but I knew that if I ignored the note it would be the worse for me. I slept uneasy. At dusk, I returned to the passage off which the bath lay. I noticed how quiet it was, how well hidden the door, how few nogoth marks lay on the ground. Doubtless Raknia had chosen this location because it was distant from all the main thoroughfares.

  I knocked once. The door opened, and then I was inside. I could smell jasmine perfume.

  We sat by the pool, illuminated by the single lantern. “So,” Raknia began, “how far have you got?”

  I replied, “I have made some real leaps, but I still don’t see the link between the Mavrosopolis and soot—”

  “What are you talking about? How far have you got returning me to the citidenizenry?”

  “Oh... that? I haven’t had time—”

  “You haven’t had time? What have you been doing?”

  There was an intensity in her voice that made me jump. I realised that it would be difficult to communicate the importance of what I had learned. “I will start tomorrow night,” I temporised.

  “You’ll start now,” she retorted. “I told you to find out how I can be returned to the citidenizenry and you’ve done nothing.” With kicks and swipes of her hand she knocked all the plates and goblets into the pool. I watched them sink. I noticed currents and bubbles that could not be explained by the objects she had knocked in, as if beasts were living in the depths of the water. Staring at the dark surface, I shivered. The light seemed dim, the air chilly.

  “I’ll go now,” I said.

  I ran up the steps, leaving Raknia by the pool. I imagined her waiting there, in the centre of her web. I shuddered and gave an involuntary moan before hurrying away. Back home I once again locked an
d bolted the door and every window, but I was unable to rid my mind of the image of a spider crawling through some insignificant crack that I had not noticed.

  I needed to start planning. In only a few days the moon would be new and I would have little or no time for Raknia.

  An idea struck me at dusk. I ran to Garakoy’s chamber in the Forum of Tauri, arriving so out of breath I had to rest for a minute before I could speak.

  “You seem agitated,” Garakoy observed.

  “I am in a hurry,” I replied. “I’ve got... an interview. But listen, I found an old parasol in my rooms last night that must belong to the previous occupant. You are in charge of occupation details—who was he?”

  Garakoy pulled a selection of scrolls from the shelves behind him, choosing one, then unrolling it. “Ah,” he said, “trouble! I was wise to check.”

  This was an unexpected turn. “Trouble?” I said.

  “Yes. A citidenizen who returned to the streets.”

  “Then I’d better...”

  Garakoy nodded. “Keep the parasol for yourself.”

  I had hoped for a citidenizen, but I realised that this turn of events would allow me to make further enquiries. As though saddened, I asked, “And what happened to the poor man?”

  “He was caught speaking with his brothers.”

  “And?”

  “Immediate expulsion. Descent to the gutter.”

  I nodded, averting my gaze to feign embarrassment. “So your records show his departure?”

  Garakoy shook his head. “I deal with occupation in Zolthanahmet. Expulsions are recorded by the status department.”

  At last, the knowledge I needed. I shrugged, stood up and said, “So many departments... well, thank you for allowing me to keep the parasol.”