by Mary Gentle
"If I spoke sharply, Master Mason, you must pardon me. There is much at stake here."
"You apologize to this scum?" Desaguliers guffawed loudly; broke off as Zari glared at him. He glanced around at black Rat cadets positioned on guard about the hall. She resumed the concentration of listening, head cocked bird-like to one side.
"We need your help, Falke," the black Rat Plessiez said, in a tone of plain-dealing, "and you, you say, need ours. Both of us for the same reason: that one can go where the other cannot."
Falke inclined his head.
"If, therefore, we agree an exchange of mutual help—"
Tannakin Spatchet rose to his feet. He mopped his face, reddened by the airless heat. "We don’t enter into blank contracts. As local Mayor, I must know what you intend, messire priest."
"You ‘must’ nothing." Plessiez’s rapier-hilt knocked against the chair as he shifted position. "However, I am prepared to discuss a little of the situation."
The black Rat glanced towards Zari. She grinned and tapped her freckled ear-lobe with one finger.
Plessiez said: "There are a number of locations within the city, at which, for purposes of our own, we intend to place certain . . . ‘articles.’ Packages. Three of them are within quarters humans may enter and we may not. Therefore—"
Desaguliers snorted. "Purposes of your own, yes, messire, surely!"
"I see no need to discuss it with you."
"It may endanger the King."
"It will not. But if his Majesty is ever to be King in more than name only, then some of us must act; and you and your cadets will oblige me by keeping silent while we do!"
"Is this treason, messire!"
Zar-bettu-zekigal reached, sprawling halfway across the wooden table, and slapped her hand down over the hilt of Charnay’s discarded sword as the Captain-General grabbed for it. Plessiez slowly relaxed his hands that gripped the arms of his chair.
Still sprawled across the sun-warmed wood, the Katayan said: "You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t want to know what was going on, Messire Desaguliers, so why don’t you shut up and listen?"
Plessiez threw his head back and laughed.
Zar-bettu-zekigal slid back into her chair. "I don’t have all day. If I miss this afternoon’s lectures, I’m dead. So could we get on, please?"
The white-haired Mason, Falke, watched the armed Rat-Lords. "Our part of the bargain is this. There are ancient buildings of this city that we may not enter, because of where they are situated. There are records and inscriptions in those buildings that we need. If Messire Plessiez and his people can gain us that, we’ll run his errands."
"No!" Tannakin Spatchet’s fist hit the table. "Who knows what retribution we’d bring into our quarter if we did? As Mayor—"
"Tan, be quiet," Falke ordered.
Desaguliers leaned forward. "The peasant’s right. I want to know what and why, messire priest. Some scheme to open up every district to us, is it? That would be foolhardy, but of use. But, if you say to me certain ‘articles’ needing to be put in certain places, that sounds like magia. Which one might expect from the damned Order of Guiry priests!"
Falke, head sunk to his chest, seemed by the turning of his chin to direct quick glances at both armed Rat- Lords. The corners of his mouth moved. "Will you tell him, Messire Plessiez?"
The black Rat’s eyes darted to Desaguliers and back to Falke. "Would you speak of what it is you need, and why?"
Zar-bettu-zekigal held out her hand to Falke. Prompting.
"If I must. If it will make you speak, after." Falke reached up with grazed and cut fingers. A few strands of black still ran from his temples into his curling white hair. He pulled the cloth bandage free of his eyes again.
"You and I," he said, "are ruled by the Thirty-Six."
His long fine lashes blinked over eyes without irises. Midnight-black pupils, vastly expanded, unnaturally dilated, swallowed all the color that might have been.
He rubbed water from his left eye, blinking again, and shot a glance at Desaguliers.
"I don’t want to make a display of this, but I will. I hide my eyes, because all light’s too strong for me now, and because I don’t want to think about them, being like this, what they are."
"How . . . ?" Zari clapped her hand over her mouth.
Falke wound the cloth around his knuckles; his hand lifted to shade his eyes.
"You come to me, a Master Mason. I, and my hall brethren, all of us are builders for our strange masters. We build still, as we have built for generations uncounted. What we build–the Fane–is a cold stone shell. Nothing human has been into the heart of the Fane since building finished there."
Sun and silence filled the hall.
"Except, once, myself. I saw . . .
"I was fool enough to find my way in. In to the center. There’s a cold cancer eating away, spreading out, stone by stone, year by year. We build it for them, and then they make it theirs. We build for God and They transform it. We only see shadows of what They seem. Inside, in the heart of the Fane, you see what They really are." His strong fingers began to smooth out the bandage; shifted to knuckle the sepia lids of his eyes.
"Only, having once seen that, you never truly cease to see it."
The lean Rat, Desaguliers, grunted. "All of which is no doubt true, and was true in our fathers’ fathers’ time, so why should we concern ourselves with it?"
Falke, very quietly, said: "Because we are still building. We are compelled. Not even their servants–their slaves."
"I can’t see the importance of that. It’s always been so. You . . ." The Captain-General’s gesture took in the men and women who sat around the trestle table. Skepticism was plain on his wolfish face. "You think you’ll do what, exactly, against the Decans our masters?"
The fair-haired woman next to Zari sighed. "Tell them, Falke."
Falke stared at his hands.
"This hall is searching for the lost Word. The Word that the Builder died to conceal when this city was invaded, and the Temple of Salomon abandoned. The Word of Seshat–that has been lost for millennia. And for that long our own Temple has remained unfinished, while we’re forced to build in slavery for strange masters."
Tannakin Spatchet slowly sat down, pale blue eyes dazed.
"Yes, I’m speaking of Craft mysteries." Falke’s wide- set eyes met Zari’s gaze, dark lashes blinking rapidly over pupils clear as polished black glass. "We search for the lost Degree, and the lost Mark. And the lost Mystery: we know who built the South side of our Temple, and what their wages were; but until we know the secrets of the Aust side, and what the black-and-white pillars support, we remain as we are–slaves. When we know, when our New Temple can be begun—"
"We’ll build it and make the heart of the world the New Jerusalem," the fair-haired woman completed.
Falke lifted his shoulders in a weary shrug. "We must have our own power, you see. Build for ourselves again, and not for our masters."
The Captain-General stood, scaly tail lashing. "And this is what you’ve got yourself mixed up in? Plessiez, you fool! Will you listen to him talk against the Thirty- Six and not protest? They’ll eat him alive, man!"
Plessiez smiled. "If I were afraid of the Decans our masters, I would not have begun this."
Tannakin Spatchet stared at the ankh on the black Rat’s breast. "You’re a priest, my lord! How can you talk against Them? They’re the very breath and soul of your Church—"
Plessiez reached down and ran a thumb along the ankh’s heavy emeralds. Whimsical, he said: "It is a little oppressive for any church, you must admit, to have God incarnate on earth; and not only on earth, but also, as it were, down the next street, and the next . . ."
Scandalized, the plump Mayor protested. "Messire!"
"That They are god is true, that They are with us on this earth is true; and some say, also," Plessiez added, "that we would be better off were They to abandon Their incarnations here and resume their Celestial habitations."
Desaguliers’ tone of incredulity cut the hot white hall like acid: "And you hope to affect the Thirty-Six?"
The black Rat smoothed down his scarlet jacket, a slightly dazed expression on his face. "Ah, perhaps my ambitions are not so high. Perhaps I only seek to move Them by affecting Their creations. I will say no more on this, messire; it is not part of our bargain."
Desaguliers swore, and Zari motioned him to silence. She swung round in her chair, drawing one leg up under her, staring at Plessiez.
"Then, I’ll speak for you." Falke stood, both empty hands resting palm-down on the table. "Knowledge was the price of my consent to the bargain. If our plans are betrayed to the King, then so will yours be!"
He faced Desaguliers. "As to magia–yes. What Messire Plessiez will do might be called necromancy, being that sort of poor magia that can be done using the castoff shells of souls, that is, mortal bodies.
"I know that Messire Plessiez plans the invoking of a plague-magia. A great plague indeed, but not a contamination that will kill my kind, or yours, Messire Desaguliers; instead a plague of such dimensions that it will touch the Decans Themselves."
Desaguliers stroked the grizzled fur at his jaw-line. His slender fingers moved unsteadily. "Plessiez, man, you are mad. The Fane knows all the pox-rotted arts of magia. This is lunacy."
Plessiez rose from his chair. "I will see his Majesty made a true King, Desaguliers, and that can’t be done while there are masters ruling over us!"
Desaguliers snapped his fingers. Metal scraped as three more of the lithe black Rat cadets drew their swords.
"Lunacy–and treason. I’m having you arrested—"
Zari felt the wood of the table shake under her spread palms.
The fat Mayor sprang back, swatting an armed cadet aside like a child; seized the arm of one of his companions and pulled her towards the door. "What did I tell you? I told them so!"
A copper taste invaded her tongue, familiar from that morning in the university courtyard.
"Run!"
She got one foot on the chair, launched herself off it as dust and splintered wood thundered down across the table, blinded by sudden hot brilliance; missed her footing and sprawled into the warm brown fur of Charnay. She sat up, head ringing.
Falke stared up and flung an arm across his lined worn face.
The Katayan grabbed, missed, then got her hands to Plessiez’s ankle where he gazed up, transfixed, and brought him crashing down on top of her; coiled her tail around Falke’s leg and pulled. The man fell to his knees.
A searing chill passed overhead.
Zari gazed up at the open sky: brown now, and blackening, like paper in a fire.
Dust skirled up from the hall’s collapsed roof. The far wall teetered, groaned, and with a wrench and scream of tearing wood fell into the yard.
Feet trampled her, human and Rat, running in all directions. She saw some men, fleeing, almost at the yard- gate, duck as they ran; and something chill and shadowed passed above her.
"Look—"
She caught Falke’s arm, but the man was too busy scrabbling at the planks they sprawled on for his eye- bandage. Charnay grabbed her discarded rapier and pushed Plessiez down, half-crouching over him, snarling up at the sky.
A woman in red satin overalls threw up her arms and screamed. Coils of black bristle-tail lapped her body, biting deep into her stomach, blood dulling the satin. Ribbed wings beat, closing about her as tooth and beak dipped for her face.
Fire burst from the wooden hall walls in hollow concussive plops, burning blue and green in the noon-twilight. Rapidly spreading, consuming even the earth and the yard’s timber outside, it formed a circling wall of flames. One of Desaguliers’ cadets thrust at it with his sword. A thin scream pierced the air: the Rat fell back on to the hall floor, fur blazing.
The sun burned with a searing storm-light.
Out of that sky, stinking of wildfire and blood, wings beating the stench of carrion earthwards, by dozens and hundreds, the Fane’s acolytes fell down to feed.
Chapter Two
Evelian bent over the wash- tub in the courtyard. The young man locked his apartment door and began walking towards the exit-passage. She looked up, red-faced, wiped her forehead with a soapy wrist, and called to him.
"Lucas, wait. Is Zaribeth there?"
The dark-haired young man shook his head. Despite the misty heat he was buttoned to the throat, in a black doublet with a small neck-ruff, and his breeches and stockings were spotless.
"Her bed hasn’t been slept in."
"Her bed!" Evelian snorted. Lucas paused.
A granular mist fogged the air, blurring the roofs of the two-story timber-framed apartments overlooking the yard. Intermittent watery sun shone down on washing, limp on the cherry trees, and the scent of drying linen filled the air.
Evelian slapped a shirt against the washboard. She wore her yellow hair pinned up in a tangle, and an apron over the blue-and-yellow satin dress. "Brass nerve, that child! Do you know, one night, I found her in my bed? Yesterday. No; night before last."
She put a hand in the small of her back and stretched. "I came up to my room and there she was, under the sheet in my bed, naked as an egg! Looked at me with those big brown eyes, and asked did I really want her to go, and didn’t I need keeping warm of nights?"
Lucas colored. Outside the yard, Clock-mill struck the half-hour.
"I told her we’re in the middle of a heatwave as it is," Evelian added, "and up she got, all pale and freckled, little tits and fanny, with that fool tail of hers whisking up the dust. I turned her round and smacked her one that’ll have left a mark! Told her not to be an idiot; I don’t sleep with my lodgers. Oh, now, see you; I’ve made you blush."
"Not at all." Lucas shifted awkwardly. "It’s just a warm morning."
"I wish"–a vicious slap at wet cloth–"that I knew where she was."
Lucas felt the mist prickle warmly against his face. Looking at the cloud that clung to the roof-trees put the black timber frieze in his line of vision; bas-relief spades, crossed femurs, hour-glasses, money-sacks and skulls.
He snapped: "I don’t know where she is. I don’t care! If you knew what I had to go through yesterday, to get out of what that little bitch got me into . . ."
Evelian flipped shirts into the soapy water, and plunged her arms in, scrubbing hard. The shadowless light eased lines from her face. She could have been twenty rather than forty.
"I’m not getting mixed up in whatever’s biting you, boy. I swore last time that I'd have nothing to do with organizing against the Rat-Lords. The only good thing I ever got out of that was my Sharlevian. But, there, I live in the city; there isn’t any escape from it." Evelian stepped into the cherry tree, into cool green leaves and damp linen. "The little Katayan’s hardly older than Sharlevian. I like the girl. I worry about her."
Another door opened across the yard, and a student scuttled towards the exit-passage, calling: "Luke, see you there. Don’t be late!" Evelian saw him bristle at Luke.
On the point of going, he turned back.
"Yesterday afternoon. I tasted . . . could taste blood. Coppery." He went on quickly. "Others, here, they did, too. Like yesterday morning, when one of the . . . one of them came to the university. As if something watched . . ."
She wiped her hands on her apron, and her blue eyes went vague for a long minute.
"Mistress Evelian?"
"Get someone to read the cards or dice for you," she said.
"Yes! But is there anyone, here?"
Evelian nodded. A coil of fair hair escaped a clip and fell down across her full bodice.
"The White Crow. That’s who you want. Do you dice, cards, palms–anything you can think of. The only practicing Hermetic philosopher in this quarter, as far as I can make out."
"I can’t be late; it’s my first day—" Lucas shut his mouth with a snap. "Yes, I can. To quote Reverend Master Candia, there are no rules at the University of Crime. Where is this White Crow?"
"Right across the yard here. Those top two apartments on the left-hand side." Evelian pointed to the rickety wooden steps leading to the first floor. "Just knock and go in. All my lodgers are . . . unique in some way."
He took a few steps, and her voice came back from behind him: "Ask about Zaribeth!"
The wooden hand-rail felt hot, damp in the swirling mist. Lucas glanced up at the windows and open skylight as he mounted the steps. The diamond-panes fractured thin sunlight into splinters. Children yelped in the street beyond the passage; somewhere there was a smell of boiled cabbage.
He rapped on the door, and it swung open, outwards. Calling loudly, "Hello in there!" Lucas walked in.
The first room was light, airy, and piled high with volumes of leather-bound books. Books stood on chairs, shelves, leaned on the window-sill, slid off a couch. Only the round table, with its patchwork cloth, was clear.
"Mistress White Crow?"
"Here." The far door opened. A woman in a white cotton shirt and cut-off brown knee-breeches came in. A white dog followed at her bare heels.
Her hair was a tumbling mass of dark red-brown, almost a cinnamon color; and, where she had pinned the sides back from her face, bright silver streaked her temples. She stood a few inches shorter than Lucas, wiry, with something languid in her movements. He thought her about thirty years old.
She nodded to him, and crossed to the window, leaning on the sill and sniffing at the heat of the morning. Her smile was melancholy. Lucas caught a flash of white; noticed that she wore a fingerless cotton glove on her left hand. The palm was dotted with red.
"Don’t touch Lazarus," she warned. "He isn’t a pet."
Lucas turned his head. The dog was no dog. Large, with a shaggy white coat that faded into a silver ruff; the muzzle sharp and thinly pointed. It turned its head, staring at him with blue eyes. Sweat prickled between his shoulder-blades as the silver-gray timber wolf padded past him and lay down across the doorway.
The door swung back open, on creaking hinges. The White Crow raised red-brown eyebrows, and smiled at Lucas. "Disconcerting, isn’t it? Tell me about yourself."
