Rats and Gargoyles

by Mary Gentle

  "Master Candia?"

  A man stood up in the shadow of a pillar. White hair caught a dapple of green-gold light. He dropped a scrubbing-brush back into a galvanized-iron bucket; the noise echoed through all the cathedral’s arches.

  Candia straightened up off the altar. "My lord Bishop," he acknowledged.

  The Bishop of the Trees came forward, wringing water from one sleeve of his robe. The robe was full-length, dark green, embroidered with a golden tree whose roots circled the hem and whose branches reached out along each arm. The embroidery showed threadbare; the cloth much worn and darned.

  "The most recent intake–is there anyone?" He paused to touch the wooden altar with thin strong fingers, mutter a word.

  "No. No one. Four from Nineteenth District, nine from docklands and the factories; the rest from Third, Eighth and Thirty-First Districts. Three princes from the eastern continent incognito–two of whom have the nerve to assume I won’t know that."

  "None disguised? Scholar-Soldiers travel disguised; one might be waiting to test you."

  Now Candia laughed. "One of the acolytes came and took a girl. Just an acolyte terrified all of them. No, there’s no Scholar-Soldier amongst them."

  "And this was our last hope of it. We can’t wait for the Invisible College’s help indefinitely."

  White hair curled down over the Bishop’s collar. Seven decades left his face not so much lined as creased, folds of skin running from his beaked nose to the corners of his mouth. His eyes were clear as a younger man’s, gray and mobile, catching the cathedral’s dim light.

  "Are you willing to risk waiting now, young Candia, with no assurance our messages have even reached them?"

  Candia glanced at the washed flagstones (where the traces of scrawled graffiti were visible despite the Bishop’s work) and then back at the man. "So events force us."

  "To go to The Spagyrus."

  "Yes. I think we must." Candia put the knife back into its sheath at his belt, fumbling it. He drew a breath, looked at his shaking hands, half-smiled. "Go before me and I’ll join you–if the faculty see me with a Tree-priest, that’s my lectureship lost."

  He followed the Bishop back down the central aisle, through green light and stone. Dust drifted. The man picked up a broad-brimmed hat from a pew. Then he opened the great arched doors to the noon sun, which had been triple-locked before Candia chose to pass through.

  "You and your students," he said, "make a deal too free with us—"

  "I send them here, Theo. It’s good practice."

  "I was a fool ever to advise you to apprentice yourself to that place!"

  "So my family say to this day."

  The Bishop snorted. He wiped a lock of white hair back with the sleeve of his robe, and clapped the hat onto his head. "I had word from the Night Council."

  "And there was a waste of words and breath!"

  "Oh, truly; but what would you?" The Bishop shrugged.

  Candia smelt the dank cellar-smell of the cathedral’s incense, all the fine hairs on his neck hackling. He shook himself, scratched, and moved to stand where he would not be visible when the door opened.

  "You take underground ways. I’ll follow above. We’re late, if we’re to get there by noon."

  * * *

  Lucas put the address-slip in his pocket and strode across the yard, the side of his cuffed face burning.

  A last student waited, leaning up against the flaking iron gate, hands thrust deep into the pockets of a brown greatcoat two sizes too large, and too heavy for the heat.

  Either a young man or a young woman: the student had straight black hair falling to the coat’s upturned collar and flopping into dark eyes. A Katayan, the student’s thin wiry tail curved under the flap of the brown coat, tufted tip sketching circles in the dust.

  "I can take you to Carver Street." The voice was light and sharp.

  "And take my purse on the way?" Lucas came up to the gate.

  The student shifted herself upright with a push of one shoulder, and the coat fell open to show a bony young woman’s body in a black dress. Patches of sweat darkened the underarms. Her thin fine-furred tail was mostly black, but dappled with white. Her feet were bare.

  "I lodge there, too. By Clock-mill. The woman in charge–um." The young woman kissed the tip of a dirty finger and sketched on the air. "Beautiful! Forty if she’s a day. Those little wrinkles at the corners of her eyes?"

  The smell of boiled cabbage and newly laundered cloth permeated the narrow street; voices through open windows sounded from midday meals. Lucas fell into step beside the young woman. She had an erratic loping stride. He judged her seventeen or eighteen; a year or so younger than his calendar age.

  "That’s Mistress Evelian?"

  "I’ve been there a week and I’m in love." She kept her hands in her pockets as she walked, and threw her head back as she laughed, short fine hair flopping about her ears.

  "And you’re a student?"

  At that she stopped, swung round, head cocked a little to one side as she looked him up and down.

  "No, you don’t. I’m not to be collected–not a specimen. You take your superior amusement and shove it up your anus sideways!"

  "Watch who you’re speaking to!" Lucas snarled.

  "Now, that’s a question: who am I speaking to?"

  Lucas shrugged. "You heard the Reverend Master read the roll. Lucas is the name."

  "Yes, and I heard him afterwards."

  "That’s my business—"

  "This is a short-cut," the student said. She dived down a narrow passage, between high stone houses. Lucas put one boot in the kennel’s filth as he followed. He called ahead. Her coat and tail were just visible, whipping round the far comer of the alley.

  The light voice came back: "Down here!"

  As Lucas left the alley she stopped, halfway over a low brick wall, to beckon him, and then slid down the far side. Lucas heard her grunt. He leaned his arms on the wall. The young woman was sitting in the dust, legs sprawled, coat spread around her, wiry tail twitching.

  "Damn coat." She stood up, beating at the dust. "It’s the only thing that makes this filthy climate bearable, but it gets in my way!"

  "You’re cold?"

  "Where I come from, this is midwinter." She offered him her hand to shake, across the wall. "Zar-bettu- zekigal, of South Katay. No one here seems to manage a civilized language. I’ll consent to Zaribet; not Zari. That’s vomitable."

  Lucas grinned evilly. "Honored, Zari."

  Zar-bettu-zekigal gave a huff of exasperation that sent her fine hair flying. She crossed the small yard to a building and pushed open a studded iron door. It was cold inside, and dank. Wide steps wound down, illuminated by brass lamps. The gas-jets hissed in yellow glass casings, giving a warm light.

  The side-walls were packed with bones.

  Niches and galleries had been left in the masonry– and cut into natural stone, Lucas saw as they descended. The gas-jet light shone on walls spidered white with niter, and on black-brown bones packed in close together: thigh and femur and rib-bones woven into a mass, and skulls set solidly into the gaps. Shadows danced in the ragged circles of their eyes.

  When the steps opened out into a vast low-vaulted gallery, Lucas saw that all the walls were stacked with human bones; each partition wall had its own brick-built niche. The gas-lights hissed in the silence.

  "Takes us under Nineteenth District’s Aust quarter. Too far, going round." Zar-bettu-zekigal’s voice rang, no quieter than before. The tuft of her black tail whisked at her bare ankles. She pushed the fine hair out of her eyes. "I like it here."

  Lucas reached out and brushed her black hair. It felt surprisingly coarse under his fingers. His knuckles rubbed her cheek, close to her long fine lashes. Her skin was warmly white. Practiced, he let his hand slide along her jaw-line to cup the back of her neck and tilt her head up; his other hand slid into her coat and cupped one of her small breasts.

  She linked both hands over his wrist, so tha
t she was resting her chin on her hands and looking up at him. One side of her mouth quirked up. "What I like, you haven’t got."

  Lucas stood back, and ruffled the young woman’s hair as if she had been a child. "Really?"

  "Really." Her solemnity danced.

  "This really is a short-cut?"

  "Oh, right." She stepped back, hands in pockets again, swirling the coat round herself, breath misting the cold air. "Oh, right. You’re a king’s son. Used to stable-girls and servants; poor tykes!"

  Lucas opened his mouth to put her in her place, remembered his chosen anonymity, and then jumped as the black-tipped tail curved up to tap his bare arm.

  "I recognize it," Zar-bettu-zekigal said ruefully. "I’m a king’s daughter. The King of South Katay. Last time we were counted, there were nine hundred and seventy- three of us. Mother is Autumn Wife Eighty-One. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen Father close to. They sent me here," she added, "to train as a Kings’ Memory."

  Lucas took her chin between his thumb and finger, tipping her face up to his, and his facetious remark was never spoken, seeing those brown eyes turned sepia with an intensity of concentration. He took his hand away quickly.

  "Damn," Lucas said, ears burning, "damn, so you are; you are a Memory. We brought one in, once, for the Great Treaty. Damn. Honor and respect to you, lady."

  "Ah, will you look at him! He’s pissing his britches at the very thought. Do you wonder why I don’t shout about it—?"

  Her ringing voice cut off; the silence startled Lucas. Zar-bettu-zekigal’s eyes widened.

  Lucas, turning, saw a cloaked figure at one of the wall- niches, and a beast’s hand halted midway in reaching to pick up a femur.

  Zar-bettu-zekigal’s last words echoed, breaking the stranger’s concentration. A hood was pushed back from a sharp black-furred muzzle. Gleaming black eyes summed up the young man and woman, and one of the delicate ears twitched.

  The Rat was lean-bodied and sleek, standing taller than Lucas by several inches. He wore a plain sword- belt and rapier, and his free hand (bony, clawed; longer- fingered than a human’s) rested on the hilt. In the other hand he carried a small sack.

  "What are you doing here?" he demanded.

  Steam and bitter coal-dust fouled the air. The slatted wooden floor of the carriage let in the chill as well as the stink, city air cold at this depth; and the Bishop of the Trees gathered the taste on his tongue and spat.

  Spittle shot between his booted feet, hit the tunnel- floor that dazzled under the carriage’s passing brilliance.

  The wooden seat was hard, polished by years of use, and he slipped from side to side as the carriage jolted, rocking uphill after the engine, straining at the incline. The Bishop of the Trees stared out through the window. Up ahead, light from another carriage danced in the vaulted tunnel. Coal-sparks spat.

  The window-glass shone black with the darkness of the tunnel beyond it; and silver-paint graffiti curlicued across the surface. Theodoret’s gaze was sardonic, unsacramental.

  A handful of young men banged their feet on the benches at the far end of the carriage. The Bishop of the Trees caught one youth’s gaze. He heard another of them yell.

  First two, then all of them clattered down the length of the empty carriage.

  "Ahhh . . ." A long exhale of disgust. A short-haired boy in expensive linen overalls, the carpenters’ Rule embroidered in gold thread on the front. He grinned. Over his shoulder, to a boy enough like him to be his brother, he said: "It’s only a Tree-priest. Ei, priest, cleaned up the shit in your place yet?"

  "No, fuck, won’t do him no good," the other boy put in. "The other guilds’ll come calling, do more of the same."

  Theodoret loosened the buckle of his thick leather belt, prepared to slide it free and whip the metal across the boy’s hands; but neither youth drew their belt- knives–they just leaned heavily over the back of his seat to either side of him.

  "Ei, you learned yet?"

  "Tear your fuckin’ place down round you!"

  "Tear it down!" Spittle flew from the lips of the shorthaired boy, spotting his silk overalls. "You didn’t build it. Fuck, when did any of you parasite Tree-priests build? You too good to work for our masters!"

  "You make our quarter look sick," a brown-skinned boy said. The last of the four, a gangling youth in overalls and silk shirt, grinned aimlessly, and hacked his heel against the wooden slats. The rocking car sent him flying against the dark boy; both sparred and collapsed in raucous laughter.

  "Fuck, don’t bother him. Ei! He’s praying!"

  The Bishop of the Trees looked steadily past each of the youths, focusing on a spot some indeterminate space away. Anger flicked him. Theodoret stretched hand and fingers in an automatic sign of the Branches.

  "If you knew," he said, "what I pray for—"

  He tensed, having broken the cardinal rule, having admitted his existence; but the gangling youth laughed, with a hollow hooting that made the other three stagger.

  "Aw, say you, he’s not worth bothering–fuck, we’re here, aren’t we?"

  The four of them scrambled for the carriage-door, shoving, deliberately blocking each other; the youngest and the gangling one leaping between the slowing car and the platform. The door slammed closed in Theo- doret’s face. He opened it and stepped down after them on to the cobbled platform.

  He grunted, head down, bullish. Briefly, he centered the anger in himself: let it coalesce, and then flow out through the branching channels of vital energy . . . His breathing slowed and came under control. The colors of his inner vision returned to green and gold.

  He walked through the great vaulted cavern. Sound thundered from stationary engines, pistons driving. The hiss of steam shattered the air. Vast walls went up to either side: millions of small bricks stained black with soot, and overgrown here and there with white lichen.

  Water dripped from the walls, and the air was sweatily warm.

  Somewhere at the end of the platform, voices yelped; and he quickened his steps, but saw nothing at the exit. He stomped up the stairs to ground-level. A vaulted roof arched, scaled and glittering, that might once have been steel and glass but now was too soot-darkened to let in light. Torches burned smokily in wall-cressets.

  "Lord Bishop?"

  Candia leaned indolently up against the iron stair-rail.

  "I was delayed. The lower lines are closed off," Theodoret said.

  "Already?"

  "I’ve always said that would be the first signal. Have you asked to see . . . ?"

  Candia flashed him a knowingly insouciant grin. "As we agreed. The Twelfth Decan–The Spagyrus. I’ve had dealings with him."

  Theodoret grunted.

  As the Bishop of the Trees followed Candia out of the station hall, he passed the group of young men. Three crowded round the fourth, the youngest, whose nose streamed blood. The gangling youth swore at the blond man. Candia smiled serenely.

  Outside the brick-and-glass cupola heat streamed down. Theodoret sweated. Pilings stood up out of the tepid sluggish water all along the canal-bank. The tide was far out, and the mud stank. Blue and gray, all hardly touched by the sun’s rise to noon.

  The Bishop knelt, resting his hand on the canal-path. "It remembers the footprints of daemons."

  He reached, caught Candia’s proffered hand, pulled himself upright.

  "They"–Candia’s head jerked towards the city– "they’re like children teasing a jaguar with a stick. When it claws their faces off, then they remember to be afraid."

  "Still, this will be a difficult medicine for them to swallow. For them and for us."

  The Bishop turned away from the canal, treading carefully across a long plank that crossed a ditch. Half-dug foundations pitted the earth, and the teams of diggers crouched in the meagre shadows in the ditches, eating the midday meal.

  Broken obelisks towered on the skyline.

  Candia picked his way fastidiously across the mud. His gaze went to the structures ahead. He thumbed hair
back under his ragged scarlet headband. "The Decans don’t care. What’s another millennium to them?"

  Blocks of half-dressed masonry lay on the earth. Jutting up among them were narrow pyramids of black brick. Theodoret and Candia followed a well-trodden path. Half-built halls rose at either side, festooned with wooden scaffolding. The place was loud with shouts of builders, carpenters, bricklayers, carvers, site-foremen.

  With every step the sunlight weakens, the sky turns ashen.

  Theodoret favored his weak leg as he strode, passing teams of men and women who (ropes taut across chests and shoulders, straining; silk and satin work-clothes filthy) heaved carts loaded with masonry towards the area of new building. All were dwarfed by what rose around them.

  Staining the air, blocking every city horizon to east, west, north, south and aust; heart of the world: the temple-fortress called the Fane.

  Sacrilege tasted bitter in Theodoret’s mouth. The granite buildings, the marble, porphyry and black onyx; it grew as a tree grows, out in rings from the heart of divinity. Accumulating over centuries, this receding mountain of roofs, towers, battlements, domes and pyramids. The nearest and most massive outcrop drew his eyes skyward with perpendicular arches.

  "Candia . . ."

  Black as sepulchres, windowless as monuments. It flung story upon story, spire upon tower, straining towards the heavens. Walkways and balconies hung from slanting walls. Finials and carved pinnacles jutted dark against the noon sky.

  The nearer they drew, the quieter it became. Silence sang in the dust that tanged on the Bishop’s tongue. The paving that he trod on now was old. The flights of steps that went up to the entrances, wide enough to ride a horse up, were hoary with age and lichen.

  Theodoret smoothed down his worn green robe. He and Candia stood out now, among the servants all in tightly buttoned black, lost in the silent crowds at the arched entrances.

  Candia snapped his fingers at the nearest man.

  "Tell The Spagyrus I am here."

  The Bishop glanced back once. The city sprawled out like a multi-colored patchwork to the five quarters of the earth.