The Rat and the Serpent

by Stephen Palmer

  I felt bewildered. I did not know what to do. I returned to the library, where, alone and in silence, I sat down. For a few minutes I felt the return of despair, but then the scrolls and tomes lying around me attracted my attention and, with a sigh, I stood up to examine them. One in particular was of interest, since I had read a fragment of it before.

  ‘And they occupied Ur in Zumeria, did this cult, worshipping the obfuscating one. Forced to flee the Perzians they eventually arrived, so many centuries ago, where the Phosphorus meets the Sea of Marmara—the peninsula known to all and sundry as Byzann. Here they continued the worship and support of the obfuscating one, and in return the obfuscating one gave them order and thaumaturgy and calm, and a special place to live where no other would want to come. So it was. And many did lie about the obfuscating one, because the cult were rulers of their lands without issue. The liars said the obfuscating one was evil, preying on the essences of people so they were forced into deeds they did not wish to do, forced to live lives they did not wish to have. They said Danial in a fit of envy went to the temple and, claiming that the obfuscating one was not real and powerful, took pitch and fat and hair and seethed these things together, making lumps of the resulting substance, which he put into the mouth of the obfuscating one so the obfuscating one burst asunder—or so it is said. More pertinently, there was a plague in the Eternal City—which is a far off place—and the spirit of the obfuscating one was taken there in order to bring order and exactitude, as it had in Byzann. The plague was reduced, and this was indeed the work of the obfuscating one. And thereafter in the Eternal City the obfuscating one became known as the Azculpian Serpent, after the local deity of healing Azculpiuz, and was attached to the messenger wands of all healers who followed. And so it was. For the appearance of the obfuscating one was as follows—black from head to tip of tail, hornéd, with a long neck and a body the spine of which ran as a series of humps. It is said that every seven years it took a deep breath, that its thaumaturgy be replenished. And it was so immense it was like the mountains.’

  I read this scroll three times before replacing it and lying on a couch. I called out, “Zveratu?” but there was no response.

  Dawn was near. I walked upstairs to my rooms, locked myself in, then cast myself on a couch, still clothed and booted, as if, deep down, I was expecting trouble. “I am expecting trouble,” I told myself, “but I don’t know where from. Herpetzag or the Mavrosopolis? It has got to be one or the other.”

  “It should be from both,” said a voice.

  I jumped up to see Zveratu standing nearby. “I didn’t hear you come in,” I said.

  “Perhaps you were not listening.”

  I made no reply.

  Zveratu sat in a chair, folded his hands together on his lap, then looked across the room at me. “So you became the elitistor of Zolthanahmet,” he murmured.

  “Just as you once became the elitistor of Bazaar.”

  Zveratu closed his eyes for a moment, then reopened them.

  “What lies through the locked door?” I said.

  “Nothing that can be described.”

  “Do you know?”

  “All you need to know is that the rat can oppose the serpent,” Zveratu declared. “You see now where all this is headed.”

  “And I don’t like it.”

  “You always had the choice to stop. But I think you acquired a momentum after you became a citidenizen, that, I am glad to say, has not yet stopped.”

  “Not yet? But what could there be above the elitistors?”

  Zveratu offered no answer.

  “Except this obfuscating one,” I added.

  Still nothing.

  I shrugged. “I don’t like being used,” I told Zveratu.

  “Then blame the Mavrosopolis, for even as we sit here it is exploiting thousands of innocent people—”

  “How? How?”

  Zveratu shook his head. “You know. You have been through it.”

  “But you are part of the problem—you are not a nogoth.”

  “I do not think I am a problem.”

  I retorted, “Am I your implement of reform? Is that it?”

  “If you are anybody’s implement of reform, you are your own. Think. If I had merely used you as a goatherd uses a crook, I would be guilty of the same crimes committed by all those who exploit so-called lessers for the sake of their own aggrandizement—fat counsellords at their trenchers, for instance.”

  I scowled. This was true... yet it rang false.

  “I am not like those fools,” Zveratu insisted. “I am different, because of what I carry deep in my thoughts. That is why I am opposed by...”

  A flash of realisation struck me. “By Herpetzag?”

  “And his ilk.”

  “You have been my guide, not my leader.”

  Zveratu shrugged. “I might have cleared away some obstructive undergrowth to allow you to pass—nothing more.”

  “Who are you, then?”

  “Zveratu. That is all you need to remember. Now answer me this. What is it in the Mavrosopolis that you most despise?”

  “Now I have risen so high, almost all of it,” I replied. “I don’t belong in this awful house.”

  “Nobody does. That is my point. But perhaps there is a type of creature that belongs in a place like this.”

  “The obfuscating one? You know what that is, don’t you?”

  “Think,” Zveratu urged me. “What mores have we seen that we loathe above all? Imagine a place where nothing is allowed to be forgotten. That is no human tenet, it is serpentine. Serpents remember everything, their brains are hard, almost crystalline. Then imagine a place where a large population is controlled by a very small one—by a cult.”

  “Wait,” I interrupted. “You can’t say it’s not human for a cult to rule its own people.”

  “That depends. You imply that a cult may be humane... but with what does our cult balance their tyranny? What gift do they offer their people in return?”

  I considered this question. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing indeed. Hardly a fair bargain. And then there is sorcery.”

  “What is sorcery?”

  “You know the answer to that. Sorcery is serpent thought. To be seduced by sorcery is to accept the inhuman mores of the Mavrosopolis, to be won over by it, and so to ignore or even deny human kin.”

  “Is this what we are here to overthrow?”

  Zveratu grinned, a gesture I could not recall ever seeing before. “You use the word we. Interesting.”

  “Surely it is not all down to me?”

  “Remember, I am but your guide.”

  I frowned. “That is not fair.”

  “Nothing is fair, Ügliy. People like you and me exist to redress the balance as best we can. But nothing, oh, nothing is fair.”

  “That is a gloomy premise.”

  “We live in gloom here.”

  I nodded. “We do.”

  Silence fell. I was aware now, with a certainty that I had not felt before, that I had been helped into House Sable in order to perform some great task. The fact that as yet I did not know what that task might be was something of a relief, for all the clues I had so far gleaned suggested it was beyond human abilities. But that might be why a shaman was required, a shaman who, even if only for a short time, could bypass the serpentine rules of the Mavrosopolis in order to penetrate its dark heart. My ascent had accellerated of late; that must mean little time remained before I was captured by the Mavrosopolis.

  “I understand,” I told Zveratu. “I have got to go through that door.”

  “Not yet. First we have to overcome our opponent.”

  “Herpetzag.”

  “Yes,” Zveratu confirmed.

  “That will be us two, won’t it?”

  “Just you, I think.”

  I sighed.

  “You still retain the option of assistance,” Zveratu said, “for although you must keep your shamanic potential locked away—”

&nbs
p; “And that is beginning to exhaust me!”

  “—there exist independent vectors of your power. Never forget the paradox of your situation inside House Sable. You are no ordinary man.”

  I nodded, thinking of my subterranean kin. The fragment of a conversation held long ago returned to my mind: These rats are a force. They respond to what happens above. Excess food discarded by the Forum of Tauri descends to these levels and causes a brief population explosion.

  “Of course!” I cried out.

  Zveratu said nothing.

  “Of course I have got help,” I said. “Of course I am not alone.”

  “You never were,” Zveratu said. And while I was thinking of sewers and cisterns, he departed.

  I knew what I had to do if I was to survive more than a few days inside House Sable.

  Later that night I attended my first elitistor meeting devoted to the making of laws. I felt as though I was on trial. I decided to appear as hard and precise as possible, for I knew that all laws passed on to the counsellords must epitomise the will of the Mavrosopolis, with any hint of compassion for lesser people reduced to the barest hints of mercy. These people would not forgive me if I committed a heresy against serpentine thought.

  We sat around a rectangular table of grey marble, upon it a selection of food, alongside beakers of raki, coffee and ayran. From some invisible source came the strains of saz and ney playing local folk music. Herpetzag fixed me with the baleful gleam of his single eye, glancing now and again at my covered hands—for I had no option but to wear gloves as if they were the fashion, in order to conceal my transformed arm.

  I was first asked if I had any thoughts on the state of Byzann. Taking the opportunity to prepare my ground I said, “I have two streams of thought, one relating to currency, one relating to the shocking lack of attention given to how we eat and drink.” I then outlined the campaign I had run when ascending to the position of counsellord, explaining how it would benefit Byzann if paper currency was used in place of small coins. I said nothing about a Byzann-wide currency, knowing that such a suggestion would militate against the sevenfold split in the conurbation.

  To my delight and relief—emotions I was careful not to express—the elitistors took this idea seriously. There was no time to lose; I could ride a wave of acceptance here. I launched into my second idea. “Elitistors,” I began, “we treat food and drink as though they were neutral essentials of life, like air, or water—or dry land. But in fact they are not. Food and drink are cultural items in a way air, water and land are not. We are ignoring a method of reducing the amount of erasure that still exists in Byzann.”

  “What is your proposal?” asked Silvögyur. The other elitistors murmured their interest, though Herpetzag offered no encouragement.

  I continued, “It is not unusual for food and wine offerings—they are called libations according to some of the tomes in the library—to be made by those who would worship something greater than they are. We should pass down a new law to the counsellords to the effect that one tenth of all food consumed by counsellords and citidenizens—though not by us of course—is to be offered to Byzann.” I shrugged, as if improvising. “Such offerings could be dropped into the gutters, the sewers, the cisterns, or to whatever place seems fit to those making the gesture. They could be strewn to the skies for crows and ravens to devour. The cultural attributes of our sustenance would then be passed on to Byzann in a way that does not presently happen.”

  The elitistors glanced at one another. Two, Ince of Petrion and Afyonkara of Phanar, seemed enthralled by the idea, but Herpetzag and Vordis of Psamathia were less keen, while Silvögyur kept a neutral expression and Lithuther of Studion examined his fingernails.

  I shrugged. “Do we vote?” I asked them, “or is one of us deemed leader?”

  “Our leader is not amongst us,” Silvögyur remarked.

  I looked across the table at him. “Is he a man, or what is he?”

  “He is a man.”

  After a pause I asked, “Will I meet him?”

  Silvögyur gave a reply that made me shiver. “Many in Byzann have met the Goth, but none recognise him.”

  Silence fell.

  “Let us debate my idea,” I said, keen that my preparations not be ruined.

  The awkwardness passed. Silvögyur took a sip from his goblet of raki. Afyonkara, an elderly woman with skin like a half-cimmerian said, “I think it is a good idea. We need to consider ideas from elitistors new to House Sable, because they might have seen things we’ve missed.”

  Ince agreed. “Erasure must be minimised,” he said.

  Then Silvögyur said, “I also think it is a fair idea, though I think one tithe is too much—let us instead consider a half tithe from each meal.”

  There was general agreement, before Herpetzag pointed at me and said, “I’m suspicious. This is the plan of a fool.”

  They all looked at Herpetzag, but he made no further comment, and I knew the point of his statement had been to declare the enmity between us. Doubtless there were other frictions in this extraordinary cabal.

  “Lithuther?” Silvögyur said.

  “I think nothing of the idea. Byzann will decide whether we need to repeal it.”

  “And Vordis?”

  Vordis replied, “We should try it. For myself, I think it has merits, but too few. Also, it is not a noble scheme, rather it is a vulgar one.”

  “Citidenizens and counsellords are vulgar by their very nature,” Silvögyur noted, to which there was laughter.

  I relaxed. It seemed they had reached agreement. For the next hour we debated the minutiae of the law, until, as dawn approached, Afyonkara wrote down the final version on a fresh scroll. Silvögyur took me aside and said, “That was well done. To offer so notable an idea so early in your tenure is excellent. It will serve you well in the years and decades to come.”

  “But Herpetzag and Lithuther?”

  “Two against five.” Silvögyur shrugged, then added, “We can always go to repeal if that becomes necessary. It has happened before. We, after all, interpret the actuality of Byzann. We are elitistors, not oracles. We have ideas and visions of our own, but as long as these ideas agree with Byzann all is well.”

  I nodded, seeing the logic. “Then you are not averse to change?” I said.

  “Providing Byzann is respected.”

  I departed for my rooms, considering my question and Silvögyur’s reply. The change I envisaged would be an affront to the Mavrosopolis the like of which had never been seen before...

  But I was already tired. The effort of holding back both my passions and my shamanic potential was beginning to affect me. The right side of my body, where the joy and vitality of my rat powers were held tight, was becoming sore, as if it was infected. I would not be able to last for long. Weeks—no more. Yet I could not afford even a single outburst like the one in the house of Katurguter, for that would be a heresy with immediate consequences. Herpetzag was indeed watching me. Probably they all were; Silvögyur, who seemed decent, most intently. I laughed. This was madness!

  There was one last thing that I had to do. I crept out of the house and walked through the shadows of Siyah Street to the eastern junction, where it met Hamidiye Street. I looked out, but I saw nobody. I walked out, then ran all the way down to Ancara Street and the border with Seraglio. It was as if my eyes were becoming accustomed to an alternative light, for I saw translucent faces and hands, blurred hints of bodies dressed in cloaks, breeches and boots. They could sense me, those few citidenizens who were abroad, and they knew what I was. But as for nogoths, there were none. I realised that the elitistors took no heed of nogoths; they did not rank even as vermin in their thoughts, not even as dust. They were absent from the streets—unless an elitistor made a great effort, as once Herpetzag had in Blackguards’ Passage.

  This moment of realisation was the final argument in favour of following the path that I was on. I would never turn back now. A cult that perceived thousands of fellow human
beings as though they were mere wisps of air could not be allowed to continue.

  29.3.614

  There is no point in being dishonest on this page of grey paper. I do not know how or why I was inducted into the cult that is the dark, dark, dark heart of this cursed conurbation. Is light an illusion, I ask myself? Is darkness all the reality there is, with light the fancy of witless human beings?

  Anybody who has been inside House Sable would be forgiven for thinking so.

  But one thing I do know. Sorcery is that heart. Sorcery underlies the fear of forgetting. Sorcery hates change. Sorcery will not abide change. And yet, and yet... there can be no change without sorcery. Mere human beings, unaugmented by spells, cannot hope to change anything.

  I am no sorcerer. What I am is a caged animal.

  I cannot escape the knowledge that the Mavrosopolis itself has accepted me. I am a reasonable actor—all orators are actors—but not so good as to fool something so old, wise and cunning as the Mavrosopolis. There must be something in me that it likes... yet I know in my heart that I am the revolutionary so feared by elitistor and counsellord alike. This can only mean one thing. It is possible to keep thoughts hidden in the mind, where even the suspicious Mavrosopolis will not find them. I have spent my whole life storing up thoughts and plans. Now I want to release them. I am in the right place, but very far from seeing a method. The dilemma is unanswerable: only a sorcerer has great power, yet it is precisely that category of man who is most susceptible to the will of the Mavrosopolis. (No sorcerer could hide even the idlest of his thoughts.)

  What then to do? A naked human being is powerless in this gloom. A sorcerer has less hope than a mouse set before a cat.

  What is needed is a class of benign elitistors, and a larger set of benign counsellords, with lightness in their minds and freshness in their thoughts. I know pleasant people—why are they not counsellords? Why is it that only those people (apart from me) who like to talk about themselves and place themselves in superior positions become counsellords? Why is it that only gloomy characters with hate and fear in their hearts pace the silent ebon-framed chambers of House Sable?