The Rat and the Serpent Read online

  I read the list, finding Raknia’s name against the number four. I began to climb the spiral staircase that led upward. Three doors I passed, every one opening a fraction to reveal a pale face, before slamming shut. At number four I knocked twice.

  Raknia opened the door, and I stared at her. She wore a black dress that shone like silk, a fabric so thin I could see every curve of breast, waist and hip; the cut deep to the waist, exposing her cleavage. Over that she had thrown a white shawl made of loose net and decorated with black flowers. She wore no shoes, nor even socks: black lace gloves to her elbows. Her dark hair was pulled back as if it was wet, held firm by a circlet of dove feathers.

  No make-up, I noticed, but I had never seen a woman like this before. She smiled, looked me up and down, then said, “Come in, jasmine man.”

  It felt as though I was following a dream. I walked into the room and she shut the door behind me. The chamber was large, though bare, furnished with couch, table and one chair, rows of pots and bowls along one wall, piles of cloth along another. The single window was internally shuttered. I looked up to see a ceiling hung with cobwebs.

  I turned. She was bolting the door. Her dress was backless and I glimpsed moles and a birthmark laid across her skin, a sight that somehow made her even more fascinating.

  I swallowed. The noise seemed to fill my ears. But she heard nothing, turning, smiling, then saying, “So you made an effort for me.”

  I knew what she was alluding to. In my most neutral voice I answered, “You did ask me to use the flask of water.” I took the empty vessel from my pocket, sending a shower of crushed petals to the floor, then handed it over. She tossed it away.

  “Whose clothes are those?” she asked me.

  I felt I had to ask questions before something bad happened to me. “Why did you ask me here?” I responded. “Why all this strangeness?”

  “Is it strange to be clean? I suppose it is for you—no, that was no insult. I would never insult you. But you are a street nogoth.”

  “And you?”

  “The nogoths of Gulhane Gardens are not like those of the superterranean Mavrosopolis.” She smiled, her expression at once charming and demonic, and I had to shiver to release the tension building up inside me.

  “You are a nogoth, then,” I said.

  She took off the shawl, threw it to the couch, then walked across to the table, reaching for the two goblets that stood there beside a single black bottle, then glancing over her shoulder. I had been admiring her buttocks; with a sharp intake of breath I looked up. She returned with the bottle and the goblets, pouring a measure of clear liquid into them then setting the bottle on the floor. I smelt aniseed. “You like raki?” she asked.

  “I have never had it,” I replied.

  “Have you had alcohol at all?”

  “Only the street brews of local alchemists.”

  She laughed. “This is better,” she said, handing me a goblet. “Be brave, don’t sip it. It’ll just burn your throat.”

  I tried to smile. I looked down at the drink.

  “Thank you for bringing the jasmine petals,” she said.

  “Are they your favourite? I saw lots in the gardens outside.”

  “Convolvulus is my favourite.” She squirmed and closed her eyes as she added, “They twist and entangle as they grow.”

  I downed the drink in one. It seared my stomach, but I did not cough. “I’m not sure why I’m here,” I said. “Me, just a cripple.”

  “As long as only that one of your three legs is lame, I don’t care.” Her voice was intense, almost angry. “What’s important is that we are alive. Is that the only way you see yourself? Cripple? You will never become a citidenizen if you don’t build respect for yourself.” And she grinned. “That’s what you and I are doing now, helping each other to respect.”

  “I don’t want respect if it’s insincere,” I said.

  “Sincere, insincere, what does it matter so long as it works?”

  I was baffled. “Then why are you making the effort to become a citidenizen? If nogoths can help themselves and live in comfort like you do, why bother?”

  “Perhaps I won’t bother,” Raknia replied, her eyes smouldering. “Perhaps I will stay here. I’m free to. It’s my choice.”

  “Nogoths are not free,” I stated.

  “Untrue.”

  I felt a hint of anger come to my mind. The liquor was setting my tongue free. “Where do you get your food?” I asked. “From the gutters like me?”

  “Berries grow wild here in the summer.”

  “And what do you eat in the winter?”

  She drained her goblet then took a pace forward, leaning against me with one hand on my shoulder, an expression of lust, of hunger upon her face. “Men like you,” she said.

  I found that I could not pull myself away. I said, “If you scavenge for food like I think you do, you aren’t free, you’re just fooling yourself into thinking you are.”

  She tilted her head up and kissed me, then flung her arms around my neck and pulled herself into me, so that I found myself leaning over her, my lips upon hers, my hands on her buttocks. My crutch clattered to the floor. I squeezed with my hands, and she squealed, pulling away. “That’s right,” she gasped. “That’s right,” as she licked her lips.

  Without thinking I relaxed my right side, only to realise that my crutch was not there. I turned, then span and fell to the floor. I looked up to see Raknia and the whole room spinning around me. That raki...

  She crouched at my side, her dress riding up so that I could see darkness between her legs. “Isn’t this better than being a dessicator and taking the test?” she asked. “Isn’t this wilder, better, truer to the nogoth way?”

  “I’m... I’m not sure,” I replied. I could think of nothing to say. Fascinated, I knew I lacked the strength to resist her; yet I retained my principles—they were at the forefront of my mind, telling me that I was courting danger.

  “We could play here,” she continued. “I’ve been watching you, Ügliy.”

  “Have you?”

  “You’re not right for the citidenizenry. Don’t do it. It’s not worth it. You don’t know how we live here in the Gulhane Gardens, you’ve never tried it. It’s living! Forget rules and responsibilities. Just live.”

  “How do you know I’m not right for the citidenizenry?”

  She knelt over me, her aniseed breath warming my face, her breasts touching my chest. “Because you’re right for Gulhane. You’re a nogoth through and through. Aspiration to the citidenizenry is a lie, it’s a way for the Mavrosopolis to preserve itself by exploiting innocents like you and me.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  There was sadness in her face. “Innocents like I used to be,” she said. “But no more. I’ve learned things.”

  I felt a sudden need for action, as if this change in her mood marked a moment between fates that I might be sucked into. I rolled, grabbed my crutch and managed to haul myself upright. Raknia remained on the floor. “I’ll consider it,” I said.

  She gazed at me; and she seemed to possess innocence. “I believe you will,” she said. But then she grinned.

  The moment dissipated.

  “You’ll be back,” she added.

  I stared at the floor, knowing that this gesture and my silence spoke to us both: she knew I would return, and I knew I would return. What had happened here could never be forgotten.

  I glanced at the window. “Dawn’s near,” I said. “I’ve got to get back to Blackguards’ Passage. There’ll be dessicating to do tomorrow night, once the emergency teams are off the streets.”

  Raknia rose, unsteady and heedless of her dishevelled state. “I hate the dawn,” she said. “Dawn is just the failure of night.”

  I glanced at the door. “One day I might be in such an emergency team.”

  Raknia shook her head, approaching me, caressing my cheek and my chin with the raki-scented fingers of one hand. “I don’t think so,” she said.
She pulled back my tunic and undershirt, and kissed me on the nipple. I pulled away and unbolted the door; then without looking around or bidding her goodnight I departed. Outside the tower I hurried to the end of the lane, but then I paused. On impulse I changed direction, making east to the edge of the Gulhane Gardens.

  On an ebony bench I sat silent. A fine mist of soot hung over the Mavrosopolis. Before me, like obsidian under velvet, the expanse of the River Phosphorus lay heavy and slow, filled with clunking boats; an occasional splash as eels leaped for prey. I heard the echoes of distant voices as citidenizen sailors took down sails and tied rigging; thumps, and the chimes of ship bells. All around, the scent of nocturnal flowers seemed to cradle me.

  Then a familiar voice wound its way into my mind. “Do you think you will take the test?”

  I span around to see Zveratu standing behind the bench. Without further word the old man walked around, to sit, joints creaking, beside me.

  “I don’t know,” I replied.

  “I do. You will take the test. You must.”

  I gestured at the expanse of garden behind me. “I didn’t know anything about this,” I said.

  “Do not be swayed by temptation, Ügliy. You know little as yet of the advantages citidenizens enjoy. As an apprentice you have but tasted the possibilities. You know nothing of the peace that you crave, of the security of life as a citidenizen. I promise you that peace and security exist—they are part of citidenizen life. You can hear it now, in the confident voices of those sailors on the Phosphorus.”

  I heard these softly spoken words and I believed them, but the image of Raknia in her silken dress remained before my mind’s eye. “I’ll remember what you say,” I promised. I half meant it.

  “Good. Now return in all quietude to Blackguards’ Passage, and rest before the exertions of tomorrow night.”

  I returned to Astarta’s cellar, swapping the night’s clothes for my old rags and offering a summary of my fortunes, before returning to my doorway, and sleep. Confusion plagued me. Now that I was lying on hard stone in a bundle of rags my most vivid memories were of humiliation at the hands of Atavalens, making me yearn for the citidenizenry; but then, unbidden, thoughts of Raknia would return and I would contemplate life in the Gulhane Gardens.

  As evening fell I ate my last crust of bread—black rye that tasted sour—and prepared to leave for the Tower of the Dessicators. Citidenizens were jostling one another as they hurried down to the Hippodrome from Divan Yolu Street, their parasols raised against a heavy fall of soot, their shoes and boots lost in black haze. I coughed. The sootstorm had brought a lot of material to the ground, some of it compacted material like crumbling coal from the local roofs. I was filthy, my face streaked, my hands black.

  I slipped through wrought iron railings to piss against a concealed wall. I wondered how much liquid I was adding to the Mavrosopolis, and, despite myself, I grinned, seeing myself working both for and against the dessicators.

  “You!”

  I turned. In the tiny yard behind me I saw a wraith.

  Like everybody who lived in the Mavrosopolis, I knew it was haunted; I knew there were certain streets into which nogoths should never venture. But so few ever saw ghosts. Only tales, exaggerated stories of hauntings had ever reached my ears. Now here was a wraith, worse than a shade, not as terrifying as a spectre, but bad enough.

  I stared at the apparition.

  “You—Ügliy,” came the wraith’s voice.

  I nodded. The wraith approached, its translucent legs moving beneath a robe of ghostly sable, its jewelled fingers raised to point at me. But the thing that transfixed me was a single eye, shining like the Evening Star; the other was covered with a patch. A mask covered the lower face.

  “What are you, Ügliy?”

  I fastened my breeches and shrank back against the wall.

  The moaning voice would not cease. “What are you? Tell me.”

  “I am a nogoth.”

  Now the wraith was just feet away. “Yes, you are a nogoth. You are a street nogoth, born to a street nogoth, fathered by a street nogoth. You do not belong in the citidenizenry. You are street through and through.”

  “Yes.” I wanted to run, but terror kept me motionless, my back against the wall, my hands clutching the rough stone.

  “Do not take the test. Do not continue dessicating. You are not for the Mavrosopolis. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  The wraith floated forward, close enough to touch me if it wanted to... if it could. “And if you do continue, I will return to haunt you until your heart bursts and you find your graveyard.”

  “Yes.”

  The wraith turned, its robe billowing high, before it faded to invisibility. I was left alone, breathing in short gasps. Then I ran, until I found myself back on Blackguards’ Passage. Grabbing my parasol I hurried down to Divan Yolu Street, then made for to the Tower of the Dessicators.

  I managed a quick conversation with Raknia before our group set out. “Have you ever been haunted?” I asked her.

  She frowned, uncomfortable with the question. “No, of course not.” The tone of her voice implied that she considered my manners wanting.

  I was not distracted. “I just saw a wraith, Raknia, a wraith that came to find me and told me not to take the test.”

  “What?”

  “It’s true. I saw it just now.”

  Raknia looked away. “Don’t lie to me, you don’t need to.”

  “But I did!”

  She glanced at me. “Really?”

  “It came specially for me and it told me not to take the test.”

  “Well, don’t think it has anything to do with what happened last night,” Raknia said. She shuddered. “I’ve never been haunted and I hope I never will be.”

  I nodded. “I don’t know what to do.”

  Raknia picked her equipment bag from the floor and slung it over her shoulder. “Follow its advice,” she said.

  I looked in puzzlement at her. “Will you follow your own advice?”

  She grinned. “Maybe.”

  Then Musseler waved at us. “You two. Hurry!”

  We departed the Tower of the Dessicators and walked up Vezirhani Street. Atavalens was not amongst us. “Will he survive his injury?” I whispered to Raknia.

  She shrugged. “It depends how strong he is.”

  We said nothing more, but Yabghu and Uchagru glared at us both.

  Chaos still reigned in the streets of the Mavrosopolis. The work was tough and monotonous, an endless walk from street to Propontis and back again, loaded with heavy dessicating rods, dodging falling debris, clearing soot into the gutters, patching holes and drains so there was no chance of any water flow. By midnight we were exhausted, as were the many other groups that we encountered, a sight reminding us that the preservation of the Mavrosopolis depended on everybody working as a team. I worked as hard as my half-starved state allowed. I noticed that the two women were suffering as I did, but Atavalens’ henchmen were stronger and bulkier, as if they were well fed. That only made me more determined to be noticed as an apprentice.

  A few hours before dawn we came upon a house collapsed into its own garden, charred wood and stone lying everywhere, suggesting a lightning strike. Musseler gave it a cursory look, but then he stopped, shining the beam of his lantern to the earth. “Aha,” he said.

  “Is it the owner?” Yabghu asked.

  “It’s food,” Musseler replied. “Pass me your hook.”

  Yabghu obliged, and Musseler used the implement to remove a pale sphere from the ragged earth.

  “A giant puffball,” he said. He looked up to the sky, then added, “Very well, time for a break. We have earned this.”

  We gathered around a pile of stones, settling as best we could into the hard crevices, Raknia and I together, the other pairs nearby. The light was poor, but I could see Musseler examining a cube that he had taken from his pocket.

  “Do you know what this is?” he asked. Nobody
did. His voice became mellow as he continued, “This is something you’ve never seen, a sorcerer’s block, spell-heavy and used to heat objects.” He grabbed a plate of steel from the wreckage and placed it on the block, then took the puffball, hefting it in both hands and grinning. “We’ll enjoy this,” he continued, taking more objects from his backpack. “Watch. I pour oil upon the steel and it crackles. Yabghu, your knife. Now I slice the puffball and fry each piece in the oil.”

  A delicious smell began to permeate the air, causing me to salivate, and my stomach to rumble. The next half hour was like a dream of heaven. The puffball was so large it provided dozens of slices, handed around in rotation by Musseler to his dessicators. It was crisp, with a taste like earth salted and peppered; a texture that melted in the mouth. We washed the meal down with watered milk.

  I sat back, an inexplicable sensation of serenity upon me. I looked at the chaos that we sat in, then looked at the smiling faces of the people around me, and I realised that we had created peace from chaos. Here was a clue to the meaning of citidenizenship. We had worked hard for the sake of the Mavrosopolis, and now we were sharing the fruits of our labour. But the meal was only a small part of the relationship. I felt now the security of companionship, a feeling impossible in nogoth society, where groups were glued together by circumstance, force, or through desperate emotion. This was no collective of arthritic mothers in a cellar, no harbour gang ruled by fierce men who would murder without thought, no scavenging pack tearing through the alleys impelled by their own hunger. This was a natural feeling: friends in harmony. Having given, we now received, and because we were sharing it was all the better.

  I was startled by this revelation, and delighted. I understood that it would be impossible for me now to refuse the test. I had to become a citidenizen. I needed more time in heaven.

  We spent a further two hours dessicating the streets, before we returned exhausted to our alleys and chambers. I felt as though I was being warmed by the glimpse I had been afforded of life to come, the poverty and hardship of the street now something that could be left behind.

  But I knew there was one more task ahead of me before I threw my whole weight behind apprenticeship. I had to reject the wraith. Why I had been haunted I did not know—Raknia as conspirator had faded from my mind—but I knew it was vital to deny the wraith, that there be no doubt in my own mind and in the minds of others of my determination to become a citidenizen.