The Rat and the Serpent Read online

  I see that it is a paradox to both want contentment and realise that such a state may be dangerous, but in one sense it is no paradox. I am alive with suspicions and desires about the citidenizenry. The chaos of gutter life is not for me. Thus I seek peace and all its associated pleasures. But in peace stagnation may be found. Thus I have decided to be aware of this danger, and always to seek a peace that is dynamic. Dynamic peace can be found in such places as the leaves of a book of poems, in the carnal embrace of a lover, in the satisfaction of a task completed with style, with grace. Where is stagnant peace? In the drunken, odious, repetitive chants of the innkeeper and his flock, in the casual coupling of a harlot unloved, in the clumsy handling of a task that may have been completed, but which exudes bad feeling like inns exude noxious air.

  When I am a citidenizen I will do my best to tell people of the dangers of alcohol. Raki is a mind befuddler and it should be banned. Perhaps I will devise a method of banning it. I would also ban graceless copulation, smudged or otherwise imperfect lettering on public signs, prose that refers to ugly things, lists of all sorts (since the list, lacking grace and style, even proper meaning, is inherently static), and I would also try to get rid of whatever it is that allows nogoths to remain in the gutter.

  I wonder if this is in any way at odds with the need to halt erasure? If I ban something, do I erase it? I suppose I do. These desires of mine must remain secret, until I am in a position to do something. In a nutshell, what I need is power.

  I can see even now, before I have begun the test, that my rise to citidenizenship will bring difficulties. There is wrong in the Mavrosopolis. But I know that I am right, since I have lived the horrors of the street. I will therefore come into conflict with the Mavrosopolis. I both welcome that and fear it. In truth, I fear it more.

  Chapter 5

  I decided that although the streets offered little by way of security, I would not sleep in the Tower of the Dessicators because I knew so little about it; I was afraid of what might lurk in the upper storeys. However, like all the others about to take the citidenizen test, I needed to be in contact with those running the test, so I took to visiting the entrance hall twice a day, once at dusk and once at dawn, to listen for news and rumour. So it was that I heard of my secondment to the Bafflers.

  Three sources of erosion trouble the Mavrosopolis: water, wind and frost. All have their own opposition force, respectively the Dessicators, the Bafflers and the Thawers, each with their own headquarters deep in the eastern heart of the conurbation. With Karanlik at my side, I walked up Vezirhani Street before crossing the district of enshadowed alleys that lie between that street and the Tower of the Bafflers. I arrived both nervous and excited at its door. It was a cylindrical stack taller even than the Tower of the Dessicators, though thinner, with fabric sheets and other loose objects flung out of windows and over balconies, so that from a distance its walls seemed like a patchwork. Its stone, however, was pure white marble, and like a single ghostly soldier it stood luminous and defiant against the soot-shrouded Mavrosopolis.

  For a moment we stood staring at the tower, before Karanlik gave my arm a squeeze and encouraged me to enter. I found myself in an entrance hall, a single table at its further end, where a cloaked clerk sat. We walked towards it, the echoes of our footsteps bouncing back off cool and unforgiving walls. The clerk was wizened, his velvet cloak more of a blanket in which he could huddle, and he wore the ashen make-up of a citidenizen. Ruffled lace cuffs emerged from beneath the cloak.

  He looked up and said, “Yes?”

  “I am Ügliy. I have been seconded to a Baffler group for the first part of my citidenizen test.”

  The clerk looked down at my crutch.

  “Yes,” I said, “I am a cripple. I’m still taking the test.”

  The clerk took a goose feather and a scroll that lay beside his elbow, itching his chin with the feather while reading. He grunted, dipped the feather in ink, then crossed off a name. Then he said, “You do realise you cannot pass the test?”

  I grimaced. “How often do I have to hear that?” I complained.

  Karanlik added, “You’ve got nothing against this man except that he’s a nogoth.”

  “Like you,” the clerk replied, sneering at her. “As a cimmerian whelp with no chance of becoming a citidenizen I suppose you think this is your only chance of raising yourself—”

  “No,” Karanlik interrupted. “We’re just tired of hearing how Ügliy can’t pass the test.”

  The clerk spluttered. “Of course he can’t.” He gestured at my withered leg. “Look at him. No citidenizen is going to turn a blind eye to a deformity as gross as that.”

  Karanlik slapped her hand on the table. “Ügliy is taking the test. He’s been recommended by Musseler of the Dessicators. He’s on your list—you just crossed him off.”

  The clerk uttered a single laugh, then lowered his gaze to check the scroll again. “Yes, that name is here,” he muttered.

  Karanlik stood up straight, as if she had won the battle. “Now, what do we do? To which group are we assigned?”

  The clerk pointed to the door behind him. “Down that corridor,” he said, “then the second door on the right.”

  I walked off without a word, hoping to indicate my disgust at the treatment I was receiving, but Karanlik stayed, as if searching for a final insult. I returned to take her arm and lead her away. “You have more spirit than me,” I said. “Thank you for standing up for me.”

  “I only did what you do,” she replied. “To have got as far as you have is an inspiration to me.” She took my hand and smiled. “I admire that.”

  I smiled back. “But he said something vile to you, that no cimmerian could become a citidenizen. Is that true?”

  Karanlik shrugged. “I’ve never heard of any cimmerian passing the test. We all live on the outskirts of the Mavrosopolis.”

  I nodded. “Perpetual outsiders,” I murmured.

  At the door we hesitated, before passing through to find ourselves in a small room in which eight people already sat.

  I decided to bypass the usual comments. “Good evening,” I said. “I’m Ügliy and I’m taking the citidenizen test.” I moved my crutch forward a step. “Despite what you’re thinking. This cimmerian is my helper Karanlik.”

  Nobody replied. Silence fell heavy. I studied the eight people, four nogoths and four cimmerians, the nogoths staring at me with disapproval, the cimmerians’ dark skins merging with the shadows of the room to emphasize the whites of their eyes. Two chairs stood empty. Karanlik and I sat in them, then waited.

  One of the nogoths, a short man, turned to say, “Mazrebiler will be here soon.”

  “Who?”

  “The leader of the baffler groups.”

  I nodded. Silence returned.

  We waited for an hour before there was a noise at the door, voices, then the sound of heavy boots. Mazrebiler entered, and we all turned to see him. Like Musseler he was tough and heavy, though not so tall as the dessicator. He wore black leather armour studded with steel. His beard and hair both flowed long, the beard plaited into two tails, the hair emerging from underneath a helmet of steel and jet.

  With a grin and a slap of one hand against the other he said, “More nogoths taking the test. Good.” He extracted a slip of parchment from his breeches, read it, then looked us over. “Who is Ügliy?” he asked.

  I raised my hand. Dread of expulsion made me cringe.

  Mazrebiler strode over, examined my crutch, then said, “I’ll do you last.” Speaking to the other four nogoths he continued, “You’ve all been allocated a space in one of the baffler groups as part of your test.” One by one he assigned them to a group, told them where to go, then gave them leave to depart. That left me.

  Mazrebiler stood before me, hands on hips. “I’m taking you into my group because I think you might be a trouble-maker,” he said in a gruff voice. “You realise you’re wasting your time?”

  Despite the frustration seething within
me, I forced my face into an expression of nonchalance. “As a nogoth I have the right to take the citidenizen test,” I declared.

  “Once only,” Mazrebiler replied. “Then you’ll learn where you belong.”

  I stood up, resting on my crutch but looking directly into Mazrebiler’s eyes. “You will find me a willing and resourceful man,” I said. “My impression is that the Mavrosopolis needs such men.”

  “Oh, yes? Musseler told me you were in a special dessicator group. So you’re a shaman?”

  I nodded once.

  “Of?”

  “The blackrat.”

  Mazrebiler chuckled. “I see. Noble animal, the rat.”

  “All animals are part of a great chain,” I said, “from the small to the large, who prey on the small. Nothing is unimportant.”

  Again Mazrebiler smirked. “Enjoy scuffling about in rubbish, do you? Like the crunch of a cockroach?” He bent down. “I run a tight group.” He indicated the crutch. “This is going to hold you back. Why bother? Cripples can’t pass. Best go back to the streets, eh?”

  I shook my head. “I will take the test. If I fail, I fail, but it will be through my own mistakes... not the mistakes of others.”

  Mazrebiler stood upright as if shocked by my suggestion. “We’ll see how you do,” he grunted. “Don’t expect laxity from me.”

  “I expect neither laxity nor deliberate injustice.”

  Mazrebiler glowered at me, as if bamboozled by my unexpected eloquence. “So it shall be,” he said, softly.

  He led Karanlik and I out of the room, up a flight of winding stairs, then into a small chamber in which four people stood talking. Pointing to me, he said, “This is a nogoth called Ügliy who is beginning the citidenizen test. Treat him as you would an ordinary nogoth.”

  The men and women of the baffler group stared at me.

  Mazrebiler rapped the wall with his knuckles to command their attention. “We have a new task,” he said. “The recent sootstorm stripped the sorcery from some of our westernmost baffles. We have to go out there and return them to order. Though I know nothing definite, there may be a cimmerian tribe underneath—but don’t worry about them.”

  Without further explanation Mazrebiler led the group to an equipment room. Karanlik had been listening to the whisperings of the others, and she in turn whispered to me. “That’s Kasri,” she said, indicating the smaller of two women, “and that’s Kucukser.” I nodded. Kucukser was a fat man, with an air of indolence. “The aloof woman is Sarayi,” Karanlik continued, “and the tall man is Ihlamurer.”

  “All of them citidenizens,” I said, observing their make-up.

  “Yes.”

  I studied them, trying to detect some difference in posture or attitude that might separate them from me, but I discerned no differences, except, perhaps, an ease founded in knowing where their next meal was coming from. I cast my mind back to Musseler, to the clerks in the towers, but still nothing stood out, and so I began to wonder how they had passed their tests—or had they perhaps been born into the citidenizenry?

  The group departed the Tower of the Bafflers and made west, meeting Sehzadebazi Street from the north, continuing past the sorcerer’s tower and across the Lycus channel, then entering Feuzi Pasa Street and the quarters of the west. It was long march. Soot fell heavy from dense clouds, forcing us to light lanterns of silver to counter the gloom. Bright windows illuminated streets blotted black on grey, but above us it was unrelieved darkness without even a hint of moon or stars. After an hour the buildings began to give way to fields of earth, and the intensity of these undisturbed vistas was unlike anything I had seen before. I was used to trails in the soot, to bootprints, to the signs of walkers, of carts and sleds, but here, where the ground was left alone, the blackness was like the finest velvet.

  A further hour followed. We seemed to be following an invisible trail, black upon black, only shadows surrounding us. There were hints of lamps in the distance, where nogoths might be living. Ahead, the luminous undersides of five parasols looked like bouncing moons.

  Eventually I saw distant lamps, and I realised that they indicated a large settlement, because I could see the silhouettes of roofs, and of something else as yet unidentified above them. I asked Karanlik, “Do you know this place?”

  She shook her head. “I’m from a cimmerian tribe to the north, across the River Phosphorus.”

  I nodded. “Any clues?”

  Karanlik squeezed my hand. “What are those things above the settlement houses?”

  I pondered this question long and hard, before the answer arrived. “They must be baffles stopping the wind from reaching the Mavrosopolis.”

  We entered the settlement a few minutes later. It was large, no less than five hundred houses, its streets, alleys and yards lit by lanterns on poles, with every house showing the lamps of occupation. The locals were cimmerians, black skinned and black haired, dressed in rags of a cloth so thin it rippled at the slightest movement. But here, so close to the baffles, the air was warm and dead.

  I looked up into the night sky. Above and around me stood immense feathers, their ends plunged into the ground, their tips hundreds of yards above me, set side by side in a pattern that blocked the wind. Many of them I could not see: by day, they must be an awesome sight. And now I had seen these feathers I noticed that many of the local cimmerians wore head-dresses, ear-rings and even slippers made from feathers, this time of normal size—presumably from rooks or some other black bird.

  Karanlik nodded when I glanced at her. “I’ve just noticed that too,” she said. “This is a cultish tribe under the sway of an animal totem.”

  “The serpent,” I said, looking again at the baffles. “Those things are huge serpent feathers.”

  “Their totem may be the rook,” Karanlik remarked.

  I shook my head. “The serpent,” I insisted.

  Mazrebiler approached us. “Feathers from a real serpent,” he said, uttering a mocking laugh. “The locals here believe in such tales, but you should not.”

  “And you?” Karanlik asked.

  “Tales of serpents are nonsense.” Mazrebiler gathered his group together, then said, “As you can see, the baffles here have been mutated by local sorcery into huge feathers. But they work just as well as the usual cloth sort. Better, some say. We’ve got to decide how badly they’ve been drained by the sootstorm.”

  “Drained?” Kasri asked.

  Mazrebiler nodded. “Because they’re sorcerous they’re sustained by sorcery, not by steel and rope like normal baffles. These aren’t sails.”

  “What are they, then?”

  “Baffles—but different.”

  I heard the sound of a door opening and shutting. From a nearby house a figure emerged, to stride towards us.

  Mazrebiler whispered, “Probably the local chief.”

  It was an old man dressed from head to foot in a garment of glossy feathers. “Youse from east yonder?” he asked in a guttural accent.

  Mazrebiler nodded. “We probably won’t disturb your people,” he said.

  “What ye want, eh?”

  Mazrebiler indicated the feather baffles. “We have to restore these beauties. Sootstorm drained them.”

  “Ah, it was a dread night,” came the reply, “but ye can’t touch ’em tonight, nor tomorrow ’til gone after midnight.”

  Mazrebiler frowned. “Oh, yes?”

  “We got us our revels, and nobody spoils ’em. You’ll have to stay here’n wait ’til they’re done.”

  Mazrebiler’s face showed indecision. “We are from the Mavrosopolis,” he said after a pause for thought. “We have control here.”

  The man was unimpressed. “Ye don’t control me.” He raised his arms to display the feather cloak that he wore. “I’m the shaman here, and there ain’t no interfering wi’ that. Rook’s a serpent, see? It’s only a day, man, youse can join us—fact, you’ll have to.”

  Mazrebiler turned away. “We’ll let them follow their customs,” he s
aid, adopting a weary tone. “I don’t want these locals damaging the baffles to revenge themselves upon the Mavrosopolis after we’re gone.”

  I saw what a poor excuse that was. No cimmerian would damage an image of their own totem. Mazrebiler dared not oppose the shaman; he was trying to save face. I wondered if any of this was part of my test.

  We were invited into the houses of chosen cimmerians, Mazrebiler and the men into one large house, Sarayi into another, Karanlik, Kasri and me into a third, a house owned by the shaman. I looked through a back window to see a filth-strewn yard of goats and black pigs, beyond that clusters of overnight mushrooms growing in the fields. Inside, the house was clean, the family who lived there polite, if cool, though intrigued by Karanlik. But it was through Karanlik’s presence that I learned of the revels.

  The shaman was called Zindpader and at once he befriended Karanlik; the pair were kin, of a sort, sharing cimmerian roots. “It being a month an’ half before Midsummer, it’s time for the year’s revels,” he chuckled. “Our luscious nature not be contained.”

  “And does the whole settlement take part?” asked Karanlik.

  “Those as can, being come of age. You newcomers’ll have to an’ all.”

  “Is there sorcery involved?”

  Zindpader’s face lit up. “It’s my best time of the year,” he said. “The great feathers provide us with much sorcery, that we consume to make our revels all the better.” He cackled, as if remembering past events. “Nothing like it.”

  I felt disquiet enter my mind. The feather baffles were the group’s focus, but if they were also part of the revels that could create conflict between baffler and cimmerian. And I was becoming obsessed with my test. That it existed undefined was part of its operation; nonetheless, uncertainty consumed me.