His earnestness brought her back to the room. She laughed, a small frightened sound, then bent and kissed the rat on the forehead. 'Do you know something, Felthrup? I think we were meant for each other. Will you help me face this thing that's coming, whatever it is? Will you read to me from the Polylex?'
21
Queen Mirkitj's Revenge
19 Freala 941
The day Simjans would come to regard as the Day of Terror began with a gentle autumn rain, not strong enough to bother the street dogs, nor to wake the island's citizens from the last peaceful sleep they would know for a very long time.
By dawn, however, the rain had strengthened; and by midmorning it was clear that the Nelu Gila had sent a tempest. The four-month drought was ended, and King Oshiram sent invitations to all the clerics in the city (except the Sisters of the Snake, his favourite courtesan being a severe herpetophobe) to the castle for an interfaith prayer of thanksgiving.
In the poorest district of the capital, which even after five centuries had not quite dispelled the infamy stamped on it by Queen Mirkitj of the Statues, the rain found its way indoors by a million paths. Broken roof-tiles gave it entry to rotting beams; crumbled mortar let it seep into bloated plasterwork. Gutters (those still clinging to the row houses) spat torrents onto the streetcorners, and the streets themselves became rushing culverts. The old sewers were soon clogged and overflowing with filth.
Thunder rolled in from the sea and reverberated on the abandoned heap of stone that was the mad queen's palace of execution. At its height the thunder even penetrated to the undiscovered levels of her prison-kiln, where the Secret Fist of Arqual went about its daily intelligence work; and where, at a still deeper level, Admiral Eberzam Isiq stood in the blackness, holding a metal plate against his chest, counting drops of water as they struck some unseen pool.
Thunder, rain. How cruel, the reminder that such things existed. That above the crimes and atrocities of men there arched a heavens, where the Milk Tree shaded the gods, and angels gathered souls like fallen acorns. What do they do with them? he had asked his mother once. Some they send off on Heaven's wind, to realms we cannot know, she had answered, stroking his hair. Some become the food of the gods, and dwell within them for ever. And a few they rock in their arms, and shelter beneath their wings at night, until they grow into angels themselves. That was all young Isiq had known of death, until his father departed for the Tsordon Campaign, and fell there in the snow — bludgeoned flat by a Sizzy mace, as he learned twelve years later in the Officers' Club. The death certificate had merely read, 'Fallen in defence of his comrades.' The commandant had thought it best to spare his mother the details.
He reached behind him and felt the chamber door. He had fallen in love with it. The door was on his side, while all else conspired in his annihilation.
The statues, for example: they were not the friends he'd hoped for. The farmer, the schoolboy, the blacksmith, the monk: perhaps they had never forgiven him for toppling his woman, shattering her against the stone. And how could he blame them, when he had never forgiven himself? She had been waving to him, before the banister split and she dropped four stories onto marble, her theatre gown rippling like a flare. He had idly considered keeping her home that night, of leaving their infant girl with Nama and pulling her into bed.
The statues would not obey him; their silence made that perfectly clear. Indeed they only spoke now when they didn't think he was listening. But was that malice? Couldn't one reasonably presume that they were as frightened as he was by the sounds from the pit?
For they were back, and getting nearer. High, half-strangled voices, snarls and snapping teeth, and always the digging, scrabbling, scraping of claws. From the moment Isiq had shouted they had been trying to reach him. First they had climbed the shaft beneath the pillar-shaped kiln. He had listened at the tiny window in the kiln's iron door. The beasts had climbed almost to his level, and stopped, thwarted. Some brick iron grillework sealed the shaft. The creatures tore at it, screeching like harpies, and then leaped back into the darkness to seek another way.
That other way was the pit, of course. Just a matter of time. Even now he could hear them, digging wildly at the fallen earth and stone. They would have reached him that first day, Isiq knew, had their eagerness not caused a second cave-in, larger than whatever calamity had first sealed the tunnel at the base of the pit. Not a shriek had followed that thunder of falling rock: only blessed silence. Had the beasts all been crushed? After a time Isiq let himself believe it. They were gone, entombed in the hell-holes that spawned them. Even the statues had breathed a little easier.
Then the digging had resumed, and the maniacal chatter. Snaa! Eat! Egg! None of it comprehensible in the least, except for the perpetual whimper of the beast that called itself a widow and begged for alms. Long hours Isiq sat by the chamber door, a hand on his axe-shaped stone, hardly daring to breathe. His slightest sound raised the beasts to a frenzy.
Sweet isporelli, so yellow and fair
Buy one, ye sailor, for your love's hair,
My love she died, ma'am, died in the spring,
Bless the new angel, bright on the wing.
Isiq's eyes snapped open. The statues were tormenting him again. Cowards, they waited until he slept to hurl their accusations. But there was another sound, no dream but the sound he had prayed for: swift boots in the hall outside. It was Ott's man, come to deliver his meal.
Isiq put down his empty plate and stood. He faced the door, dragging fingers through his matted hair, trying to compose himself (the statues found it hysterical) after months of darkness and grime.
This would be only his second meal since the noises resumed. The first time he had been irrational, kneeling and begging to be released, abject in his fear of the things behind him. No wonder the man had laughed. This time Isiq resolved to stay calm.
He heard the clank of iron keys. 'There are creatures in here,' he said loudly, not waiting for the door to open, for it was never open longer than it took the guard to shove a plate into the chamber and snatch the empty one away. 'Talking creatures, monsters. They're digging a tunnel from the floor below. You can't want that. Aren't your orders to keep me alive?'
When the door opened the light was searing, although it was no more than a dim walrus-oil flame. Isiq recoiled, a cave-creature himself. Holding the light was the same quick, wiry Arquali youth who had clubbed him down with the flask months ago; Isiq recognised the small wart at the corner of his mouth, only visible when he parted his lips to speak. For once the man looked him in the eye.
'Talking monsters!' he laughed. 'That would be you this past week, Admiral. You're chatting with the statues, aren't you?'
Isiq was unsettled. 'Never mind them,' he said.
The guard shook his head. 'That deathsmoke powder's turned your brains to dairy curd.'
'If you'll but listen-'
'Go to the Pits.'
He slid Isiq's dinner into the room with his toe. But before he could slam the door Isiq lunged forwards and caught his wrist.
'Please,' he said, 'they'll kill me.'
The man cursed and wrenched his hand away, then wiped it on his pants as if he had touched something noxious. 'It's rats, you filthy sod, just rats! Calm down and eat if you want to live. And if you ever touch me again I'll see you get nothing but weevils on your plate from here to springtime.'
The door slammed, and for an instant the statues guffawed. Isiq whirled, furious, daring them to continue. Of course they didn't: he had shown them what he was capable of. He bent and found his dinner, wolfed the old bread, drank the sour and mysterious soup, glaring at his unseen foes. He was not sure whether or not they could see him. But he was certain they wanted his food.
He was sucking his fingers when he heard a new and desperate wriggling sound from the pit. At the same time a thought struck him, like a blow from a club. The rats. What had Ott's bit of parchment said? The Nilstone killed all who touched it, save the littlest vermin, who first
suffer grotesqueries of change.
Little vermin, he thought. Like fleas, maybe? And hadn't he been chewed alive by fleas, even on the wedding day? They were strangely large, and vicious: he had dug one out of his hair, and the thing had bloodied his thumb. Could the fleas he bore from the Chathrand have bred in the hay-strewn compartment where the Shaggat resided, holding the Stone?
From the pit, the wriggling sound grew louder.
And where had they gone from him, those unlucky fleas? Where else could they go, if they tired of his old thin blood, but to the rats? Hadn't he scrabbled among the rats, right here, day after day, fighting over the littlest crumbs?
What if those creatures were not what had devoured the rats, but rather what the rats had become?
It was then that the wriggling stopped, and he heard a creature scrabbling in the pit.
His hand groped first for the axe-shaped stone. But where had he left it? By the kiln, Rin spare him, he'd dropped his stone by the kiln!
The creature was at the rim of the pit, snuffling. 'Penny for a colonel 's widow? ' it said.
Isiq dropped to his hands and knees, sweeping the floor with his fingers. After a moment he found the shallow groove he had scratched with the edge of the plate, and began a slow, creeping shuffle towards the kiln.
The creature loped into the room, yowling its eternal question. From the sound of its breath Isiq pictured an animal roughly the size of a sheepdog. Every few yards it would stop talking and take a sharp, deliberate sniff. Isiq raised the metal plate and held his breath.
From the pit came a sudden crescendo of digging, and a muted sound, as of many voices shouting behind an earthen wall. Then Isiq heard the creature paw at the door of the chamber.
'Penny for-'
The creature broke off, snuffling again. Then it gave an ear-splitting caterwaul and lunged straight at him across the chamber. Isiq flung the plate against the far wall. At the clattering noise the beast wheeled around, confused, and in that moment Isiq plunged towards the kiln. As soon as he did so the thing heard him and pounced. But Isiq's hand had found the stone, and he swung into the monster's leap with all the force of the blow he had intended, months ago, for Sandor Ott.
The stone connected with a fur-covered skull. A heavy, short-legged animal smashed into his chest; a drooling mouthful of flat incisors rasped against his head, tore through his right ear and fell sideways. Isiq raised the stone and struck a second time, only grazing the creature, and then it was on him again with tooth and claw, and he was fighting to keep it from his throat. It snarled its question between snaps of its jaws. Finally he threw it down, but this time Isiq kept his left hand locked in the fur, somewhere near the thing's mangy shoulder. Now he had a target. He brought the stone down, a crushing blow on the other side of the animal's head.
' There's your penny! And there's another!'
It fought on. He struck it again and again. Only when the voice at last fell silent did he realise that someone was talking to him.
'Look out, Isiq! They're coming! They're here!'
The statue spoke the truth: the creatures were erupting from the pit, howling and braying as though maddened by pain. There was no hope whatsoever in fighting. He could not survive an attack by two of them together, let alone more.
Like a spreading stain the creatures fanned out from the pit. He backed against the wall of the kiln. He heard their claws on the legs of statues, their teeth grinding fragments of the fallen woman. A great boil of misery burst inside him — time to go, time to join her — and then his hand fell upon the iron bar, propped against the kiln and forgotten for days.
Something like an electric shock passed from the bar to his mind. He thought at once of the door of the kiln, the iron fire-door with the bolt he had wrenched free. Isiq groped for it, dragging the bar. Instantly the creatures heard him and rushed towards the sound.
Here was the door. Isiq clawed at it, wrenched. It was hinged so as to swing up and inward. What lay within he could not begin to guess. Beside him a creature leaped, a statue fell with a crash, a schoolboy's voice wailed once and vanished like a candleflame, and then Isiq had the door open and was rolling into the kiln.
There was a cast-iron grate for a floor. Isiq was dragging the pole in after him when the creatures pounced. Flat on his back, he held the door down with one foot while the other stomped at the teeth and claws thrusting in at him. The pole at last slid into the kiln, and he pushed the door shut with both feet. But an untold number of the creatures were pushing back, and more were joining them by the second, and Isiq knew that if the pole was too short he would die.
It was not too short. He had it in place now, one end against the door and the other, higher, propped on the opposite wall of the kiln.
'Now you're in for it, you Pit-spawned scum!'
He stood, gripped the upper end of the pole and brought it down with all his might. The creatures shrieked in agony. Those who could wrenched free; others felt their bones crushed. The iron door was closed, and His Supremacy's ambassador to Simja fell back beside it and wept for Clorisuela, his shattered bride; and for Thasha, his darkened star; two angels who might have redeemed the world if he had loved them better, if he had not felled them with his addiction to Arqual, torn the wings from their bodies, if he had forgotten the Empire and lived in their light.
Children were forbidden to play in the rubble of Queen Mirkitj's palace, but older youths were often seen to skulk there at twilight, throwing dice and swallowing a few vile, illicit gulps of grebel, just enough to feel careless and warm. There were a number of such boys about on the evening of 19 Freala, the rainclouds having blown offshore, and they were the first in the city to hear the screams. Appropriately horrified — the voices seemed to come from under the earth — they spat out the liquor and groped for iron knuckles and pocketknives.
Suddenly the ruins were full of maimed and bleeding men. A few were Simjans; most were foreigners (Arqualis, someone shouted) and all were running for their lives. The youths asked no questions, for nothing about the men's torn bodies was open to doubt. They ran, howling, beside the strangers, and the swiftest of them lived.
The battle raged through the night, as the plague of creatures spread from the hillside slums to the wealthier districts. The forces of King Oshiram were twice overwhelmed. After the second rout, just blocks from the palace, his commanding general emptied the barracks. Siege! went the cry. War inside the walls! Rise now to save the city! And every last spear-bearer, conscript and cavalryman joined the fray, along with a good many farmhands, stevedores, stonemasons and virile monks. The last of the beasts fell at midnight on the Street of the Coppersmiths, almost exactly where the king had stood when he described the fine lamps he'd ordered for the ambassadorial household.
Of the eighteen men who had served the Secret Fist, just three were captured alive. One had taken a wound to the throat and could not speak. The other two were brought before the king that very night. Oshiram, who had joined the fighting himself and lost considerable blood (not to mention hundreds of subjects), lifted the chin of the first man with the tip of his yet-to-be-cleaned sword.
'Talk, you monster.'
But the man was already talking, very softly to himself: 'The rats, the rats, the rats,' he said.
'We know they're rats!' exploded the king, 'in the same way that a godsforsaken whale-eating behemoth shark is a fish! Tell me what you know of them!'
'They can t-t-talk-'
'That's more than I can say for you, you slobbering dog! Who are you? What were you doing on that hillside? What sort of black sorcery turns rats into hog-sized killing machines?'
Suddenly the other man raised his head and looked directly at the king. His face was so white with chalky dust that he might have been a thespian painted for the stage — except for the blood that had dried in streaks.
'It's the queen's revenge,' he said.
'What's that? Who are you? What queen?'
The man moistened his dry lips. A sma
ll wart in the corner of his mouth began to bleed anew.
'Mirkitj,' he said, 'the crab-handed queen. We jailed a living man among her statues. We violated her unholy tomb.'
Oshiram had outlawed torture, very publicly, on the first day of his reign. Whether as a consequence of this decree or because their minds were broken, he learned little more from either captive. But armed with the mention of 'a living man' he sent eighty of his least wounded footsoldiers into the ruins of Mirkitj's palace. Following a trampled and bloody path they found a door — once well hidden, now torn from its hinges — and descended by stages through the remains of the palace, the basements, sub-basements, and at last to the kiln.
Months of shock and revulsion would follow, as the statues were brought one by one into the daylight and their possible lineages debated. But nothing was so strange as the discovery of a pale old man, barricaded in the cylindrical oven and emaciated, but very much alive. He could not tell them his name, or who had imprisoned him, or for what crime. Indeed none of the soldiers recognised him, and it was only the king who saw the Arquali ambassador and father of the first Treaty Bride beneath the blood and matted hair and months of filth.
He almost shouted, Isiq! It's you! But something made Oshiram hold his tongue. He stood a little apart from the delirious man and waved his scribe and chamberlain to silence. He thought of all that had happened in his city that year. A murdered girl. A Mzithrini elder slain in his shrine. A curious silence from Arqual. And no word whatsoever from the west regarding the happiness of Falmurqat and Pacu Lapadolma. He felt the stirrings of fear for his little country, ever between the hammer and the anvil, ever dreaming of the day it would cease to bleed. Then he beckoned to the chamberlain and had him take Isiq to a guest room in the palace, a snug but out-of-the-way place not far from the king's private library.
'Send a doctor — No, send my doctor, and have him report to me the minute he leaves this man's bedside. And see that neither he nor the guards nor you yourself ever mention this fellow to a soul.'
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