Therefore Loge and Pan are finally on their own. Pan remains suspicious that the little Bergelmir might still somehow linger around, and so Pan keeps shifting his gaze around in hopes of catching a single glimpse. Loge follows his behaviour with some amusement, before she finally asks; 'How do you feel? How do you really feel?'
Pan releases a long sigh and scratches his head. 'Better for now, I think.'
'Would you like to eat something more, there is actually some food in the cellar.'
'But how?'
Loge snickers and giggles. 'I had to grow up, figure out how to do things on our own.'
'You did not answer my question.'
'I, some of it was brought by the other kids. Little bits no one would notice gone. Like few potatoes, or slices of cheese. Then it was Hip's idea to enchant some things for durability, maybe even for bit of sharpness. We then travelled as far as we could pretend to let someone scam those from us in exchange of few coins. The stuff you've told me about. But we never got enough to actually buy more pixie dust. Sorry about that.'
'Bergelmir mentioned you chased off the Monk and the Merchant. That you turned into a blaze, and almost burnt down a block.'
Loge's face turns pale, like a deer caught staring into the eyes of a hungry bear. 'Well... they did come looking for you and the rat. So... I wore a ragged cloak to lure them out and then drove them away.'
Pan rubs his hands against his face, he is pulling and pushing his skin to all directions. 'That is going to cause a mess.'
'You were gone. I could not have them find this house or keep snooping around. People were starting to talk on the streets about the pair.'
'It is going to be a pain to deal with them...'
Loge steps forwards and grabs Pan's hand: 'You do not have to, you do not have to skulk in the sewers any more.'
Pan looks into her eyes before he finally pulls away. 'No, I will have to make amends to the Rat-Kings. I have to, or I will be forever bound inside these walls.'
'But.' She tries to protest, but Pan simply turns away and heads towards the stairs to climb up. The boy takes slow steps as he tries to figure out what he could do to appease the Rat-Kings. What they would demand and even the dangers to ahead in hopes of gaining access to their domains. How every moment he spends away from throwing himself to their mercy could further provoke the wrath from the combined consciousness of rats. A hive mind that lives only for self interest and greed.
The old rat sneaks out from a crack on the wall. He speeds onwards to climb on top of the table in front of the fireplace. Loge's eyes focus down towards the old rat, while the hairy thing notices a speck of cheese on the table. The rat gobbles it up with greedy delight. 'What?' The old rat protests.
'What is wrong with Pan?'
The old rat appears more than unwilling to answer her question, but the old rat stays still before her. He does not run away, he takes a long and deep breath before offering his reply; 'Many things. Surtur most likely lives anew. The guardsmen who failed to capture him were turned into were-rats, some even survived to chase us for weeks in those dark tunnels below. He saw eye to eye what kind of undead monstrosity he is slowly turning into. And once he got back here to his home, he realised that he had become an outsider, someone unnecessary. He thinks he is a monster and that there is something lurking in the corner of his eye.'
'But?'
'No buts, Loge. Words only very rarely have the power change the world. Even the magisters themselves just make utterances etched onto the ancient bones of this world. And now it seems that you have broken his oath, regardless of your intent. He knows there will be penance to fulfil.'
Loge's face twists in anger, and a glimmer of fire flashes up in her eyes. 'Tell him not to see the Rat-Kings.'
Yet the old rat just shakes his head. 'The more human you become, the less human he becomes. The more tied your spirit becomes to the passage of time, the more detached he becomes. That is the nature of how you are bound together.'
'Cannot you see that the Rat-Kings will kill him!'
The old rat just calmly shakes his head. 'Surtur lives at the cost of his family, he yearns for vengeance above all. This I know. This you know. We need protection in addition to remaining hidden for as long as possible. The only might strong enough to aid us lies with the Rat-Kings and their direct favour.'
'But he...'
'He was found abandoned in an alleyway, on top of a frying pan. His role in this world had already been set in stone before either of us had even laid our eyes on him. Some would say that he was born to live on already stolen time.'
'That is not fair.'
'No, it is not. But your fate is not predetermined, and although your little gang of friends might have already drawn too much attention to itself, perhaps it is just what we need.'
'What do you mean.' Loge pulls a chair back and sits down.
'To save Pan, we need to open the Book of End. An impossible feat for any one individual to achieve. Even together the three of us were just a boy of illusions, a fire spirit, and an old scheming rat. But we are not so alone any more.' The old rat chuckles, before his tone turns almost cold enough to halt a wight. 'We are going to refine the talents of those eleven kids you have gathered.'
Loge is horrified, her eyes are wide open, her skin pales, but she utters out the words. 'I will not help you create a new Surtur, not even if it is our only way to save Pan.'
The rat takes a long moment to stare at Loge. 'You are indeed turning more and more human. But worry not, I do not wish to create another monster like Surtur. Your friends will just wittingly or unwittingly aid us when need be.'
'I want you to promise me that.'
'I am a rat. What good is my promise?'
Loge slams her palm on the table, and the old rat jolts into air. 'Make your promise.'
'A promise under duress is hardly...'
Loge's body flares up in flames, she is standing on the chair with her hands against the table. Smears of wild flames roll and dance along the wooden surface, scorching and marking it with blazing heat. The old rat would sweat visibly if he could. And when Loge opens her mouth to talk, it is almost like staring into a heart of an inferno. A pit of eternal flame. 'MAKE YOUR PROMISE!' She roars.
The old rat's claws scratch on the wooden planks of the table as the sheer force of her will pushes him back, but the old rat only taunts back; 'So you have gotten little better, what...' He does not get the chance to finish his words as Pan is standing right next to them.
'I promise not to become a monster like Surtur.' Says the boy without a hint of any emotion. He does not blame or accuse either, and so the two relax. The flames die out. The fur on the rat's back settles back down.
'You know how to become invisible?' Loge asks clearly dumbfounded.
Pan smiles faintly. 'It is not invisibility, it is just me staying out of sight, sneaking about, listening. It is what thieves do.'
'But, but...'
The old rat chuckles. 'You have nudged Bergelmir to the right direction. He is a tricky boy to follow even with my nose. I do not propose creating a new Surtur. Only little nudges. Little nudges in the right place and we will acquire the Book of End. Little nudges for a while more, and you will both live long enough to have kids of your own.'
The two kids stare at each other, and then towards the rat. 'Kids?!? Ew.' They say in almost unison as the old rat just chuckles some more.
They stare at each other for a moment longer, but soon enough Pan cannot help but too feel hopelessly tired and so he returns back to the stairs. It is a long climb to go up all five floors, and after he just wobbles onwards towards to his the bed. The moment his face this the cushions, the boy is asleep.
As for Loge, she follows Pan for a while, but remains in the third floor where she has gathered things for her own room. A bed of blankets on a sofa inside a room covered with creaky bookshelves and dusty tomes, and even few bottles glowing with pearly illumination and orbs of various hues. The books are f
illed with arcane runes that vibrate with magic and power, and Loge can feel it all tingling on her skin. It almost causes her to have goosebumps, and shivers. She has tried to describe the feeling to the other kids, how it is almost like the information is slowly flowing into her, how she knows what a book contains without ever having even looked inside. She too quickly falls asleep. In her awkward position she snores with little flares of flame puffing from her mouth. Nothing too big, nothing too hot, just a friendly glow blinking in the dark.
The old rat skulks after their shadows, and stops to look at each of them from the cracks of their doors. As the old rat looks at the sleeping kids, deep inside he feels the long forgotten and buried desire to tug his own kids to the bed. In that dark hour the old rat would just want to go over, and tug both Loge and Pan under their blankets, but he remains on the other side of their doors. After all, a rat's tiny body is just a rat's tiny body.
As for our old rat, he could go to some hidden corner to sleep by himself. Stretch his limbs and tug around his tail. But rats are creatures of the night. The night is when they have the streets of the city all to themselves. It is when the noble red cloaked guards of the city look elsewhere, and leave the task of guarding to those wearing blue.
Thus the old rat races through the floor with its tail waving behind him, and soon that tail disappears into a small hole on a floor panel left by a branch. The rat drops into an open space under the somewhat loose floor panel. A treasure trove left behind long ago. Few old coins, a toy or two, among more than twelve small and almost torn pouches. By nothing but an old habit the old rat tries not to leave any new steps onto the layer of dust. Carefully he places his paws and feet on the trails already left behind. He is almost like a kid walking through a field of snow.
What the rat is looking for is a piece of a mirror resting against the wooden wall. A tiny piece of a much larger whole. Something that was shattered a very long time ago. The rat looks around in front of it, and picks up the rusted nail that lied partly hidden behind the small piece of mirror.
The old rat sighs as it gets up on its hind legs while holding the nail within its paws. The prospect of what he needs to do does not please him much, but he has no choice. The rat stabs, plunges the rusted nail into its own stomach. The rat shivers, as the rusted tip slowly tears a bleeding wound on to the loose skin. The rat drops the nail and gathers as much of its own blood as it can, and finally the bloodied paws draw a circle surrounded by runes onto the mirror's surface. The blood burns gold, and then the mirror image itself bends and twists to show a place far away. As the old rat looks into the mirror from different angles, so does the image in turn change and reveal somewhere else. After all, long ago the hundreds of little pieces were hidden all around the city, both above as well as below the streets of cobble stone.
Once the old rat's eyes lock into the desired destination, the rat simply leaps onwards. A puff of dust floats where the rat used to stand and slowly the mirror's surface simply brittles to way it used to be. The golden blood has burnt away.
On the other side, the old rat stretches to inspect how badly he is bleeding. A rat after all doesn't have that much blood to spare in its tiny body. The saved travel time makes the pain and discomfort endurable, almost tolerable. A least for now.
The rat steps away from the other mirror shard and crawls out of the hole the piece was hidden in. What lies before the old rat's eyes is truly a cavern city. Construction both rises from the floor and hangs from the ceiling in shapes of massive stalagmites mimicking nature's own wonders. Every sound made echoes and blends into a almost inescapable background hum that gently vibrates against the ear drum. The streets revealed before and the network of suspension bridges are all lit by colourful lanterns that have minuscule spirits of fire bound within. And wherever the old rat looks, he can see his own kind. A city of the rats were the far more hulking were-rats can travel around just like any citizens on the surface.
The stalagmites are not like the red and gold palaces and towers of the magisters', no crystal ornaments and statues adorn the corridors and passages, no strange plants have been planted beyond the giant mushrooms that somehow thrive underground. The old rat sighs heavy with longing and memories. There is but one word to describe how our old rat feels; 'Home.'
Unfortunately our rat does not get much of a chance to reminiscence the old as a rock falls to his head. A thump and the rat lies unconscious as the shadowy figures with glowing blue eyes gather all around him.
When the old rat finally wakes to a bucket full of ice cold water, a way too much water to wake up a small rat. He sees how on his both sides there are were-rats in ancient battle armour. As the rat's gaze wanders around, he sees more clearly where exactly he is. He sees the over two thousand pairs of eyes glowing blue. How those tiny eyes stare right at him. Every nook, every crevice, every hole of the round wall around him has a rat sitting higher than him.
'So I am at the very bottom then?' The old rat says dryly. He cannot help but to feel the pain on his head, and stomach.
The mouths of the rats around him speak in perfect unison, the shared voice of the rats is as hollow as it is loud; 'Make your amends.'
'Amends? Under the standard contract, subcontract 6b...'
'AMENDS.'
The old rat falls quiet. He does not like it. He does not like it when the rats do not follow the exact procedure needed to handle any violation of terms and agreements. It makes all signatures worthless, nulls contracts, voids honour. And without without honour the Rat-Kings are no different from the magisters. There is no reliability or predictability, and that is what ultimately kills business. The words the old rat mutters are practically inaudible; 'Thieves live on trust, you fools.'
Yet the old rat is fully aware of the situation he is in, it is not the time to goad the legion of minds and their puppets. Thus he begins again carefully; 'Oh great lords of the under city, I bow my head before you, seeking amends for my transgressions and violations my failure to perform has inflicted upon you.'
'You say you bow before us when we had you brought here by force, when the tip of your nose does not touch the stone?'
'My good lords; I was on my way here as fast as I could, and should I lower my nose before you, it would force me to raise my own behind to half of you, and my transgressions against you are already dire enough without further insult.'
There is discontent among the rats on the walls. A murmur of sound, and an exchange of glances. After all, any hive mind of rats is rarely truly uniform without a specific cause or need. 'Silence!' Musters the mental majority of the Rat-King, but the old rat has already sown the seeds of discord, he has enabled his own game to begin. 'We demand your death, or the death of those associated with you. The choice is yours.'
'The choice is mine?' It silences him like another rusty nail was pierced to his gut. Just like that the old rat finds himself facing a bad deal of cards. No matter the angle, the punishment is far too severe for something like dereliction of duty and services, even if the the two were-rats were harmed by Loge's fire.
A single word rises upwards in our rat's mind. Above all others the name Surtur rings. Clearly the magister had sought to destroy those who had destroyed him, but to act so indirectly meant burning favours, and so our old rat begins to wonder if there is a way to change the cards that have been dealt. 'My death, or the death of my poor apprentice? My lords, why such a waste? The boy's training is not yet complete and so he cannot survive on his own without my guidance. Should I sacrifice him for myself, then how could any other apprentice ever trust me to complete their training considering my old age? You ask death for both of us, my lords. I beg for kindness, I beg you to reconsider and grant me a true choice in the matter.'
The discord explodes among the two thousand rats. No one voice supersedes another. The rats shift and move like a disturbed bee hive. Chaos rages in the courtroom of the Rat-King, and right there in the middle of it all a lone rat stands still between the two were-rat guar
ds. A relative safety is found within the eye of the storm.
Once the hive mind regains its mental cohesion, the rats on the wall resume their almost dead like stillness. Their whiskers and mouths only move to declare their verdict: 'Your amends are to be paid either through death or service.'
The old rat doesn't take a long time to consider, 'I choose service.'
'We demand that you destroy the Skull of Oghren. You have three months to perform this task, three months until we seek to destroy you ourselves, or something worse.'
The old rat coughs. 'The Skull of Oghren?'
'We believe you are familiar with the artefact.'
'Yes, yes I am. Three months, right.' The old rat scratches his head. 'Ah, one more thing my most generous and merciful lords. Under the standard contract, subcontract 67z, §5½, I am eligible to considerable travel distance compensation.'
'Do not push your luck any further, Albezjer, it has already ran out.'
'Oh but my most noble lords, on the contrary, it has but began. You have tasked me the destruction of the Skull of Oghren, hence under the standard contract, subcontract 5h, §41, I also stand on the grounds to claim reward for the good lords' terminus masked in subterfuge.' The old rat gives no chance for the hive mind of the Rat-King to intercept, and so he speaks on louder; 'No doubt my most noble lords are aware how the magisters have the proven tendency to imprison certain not so affluent members of the society on particular transgressions. Individuals, who would most certainly appreciate avoidance of the affliction, due to the legal hiccup caused by a missing or inoperable affliction delivery method.' The old rat is almost laughing. 'Thus the completion of my service to you my good, merciful, lords results in a rather considerable personal bondage of debt in my favour.'
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