King Rat

by China Miéville

  “You see, Saul?” whispered the Piper across the slick, stained stage. “That’s the joy of Jungle. All those layers… I can play my flute as many times as I want, all at once…”

  The dancers kept dancing, and the spiders still waited to die.

  Anansi sat up, his eyes glazed with delight at the spider music in Wind City. An idiot’s grin spread across his face. His left arm was missing at the shoulder, his side awash with blood, his shoulder a mass of ruined flesh and bone.

  The Piper watched Saul’s face.

  “Yes, cruel, I know, to pull the legs off spiders, but this one had caused me no end of trouble.”

  He pushed Anansi’s head back to the stage.

  Saul’s shout was drowned in the Drum and Bass and flute. He struggled violently, but was held fast by the dancers. He could feel them move slightly with the beat as they leant on him.

  The Piper leapt up, pulled his legs up hard and stamped down with all his strength.

  Bones crunched and split in Anansi’s head.

  Saul collapsed with a howl.

  The wood of the stage heaved and buckled. Something burst through the boards in front of the Piper. Saul caught a momentary glimpse of a back, of wiry arms snapping out like whipcord and grasping the Piper’s ankles, then tugging sharply and disappearing back under the stage.

  The Piper was gone. The music still blared, Saul was still pinioned, the rats still fought and bit and scratched, the dancers still fought back and massacred rats and danced, but the Piper was gone.

  Saul could feel the vibrations of some huge battle being waged under him. He tugged at the arms holding him. They were obscenely strong but quite still. They held him tight but did not punish him for his pointless struggles.

  The wood under his stomach lurched as something was thrust against it. A little to one side of him he heard a systematic pounding, something slammed again and again into the wood. Splinters of wood that fringed the hole in the stage spilled gently into the darkness below.

  Spiders poured into the hole, and Saul saw the back of a nearby dancer lowering himself into the dark.

  Saul pounded suddenly at the wood under his body, thrust his fingers into the tiny gap between two planks, ignoring the skin he left behind. He had no leverage, this was the wrong angle, but adrenaline gave him strength, and he tugged and ripped at the boards beneath him. His fingers shoved into the small cavity and scrabbled for purchase. He was straining, shoving upwards, feeling the board resist, then relax as old nails sprang from their moorings and the board went flying away.

  He stuck his head into the darkness.

  There, rolling in the dirt, his eyes frenzied and livid, his veins bulging with fury, was the Piper. And clinging to him like a limpet, the heel of his right hand shoved hard into the Piper’s mouth, his teeth bared and snapping at any of the Piper’s limbs in reach, his claws scratching, his old coat wrapping around the two bodies like a living thing, was King Rat.

  His hand streamed with blood from where the Piper gnawed at him, but he would not release the Piper’s mouth. He swarmed with spiders. Behind him the dim shape of a dancer, bent double under the stage, flailed at him with his arms. King Rat rolled from side to side to avoid him, desperate to stay out of reach.

  King Rat stared up at Saul. His eyes begged for help.

  Saul saw the dancer’s arms wind around King Rat’s neck, begin to bend inexorably backwards.

  He tugged desperately at the hands holding him, straining against them with all his strength, arching his back. They pushed him down so he suddenly acquiesced, rolling slightly and squeezing himself through the thin slit in the wood, being shoved through to freedom by those trying to constrain him, until he dropped suddenly and landed across the Piper’s feet.

  He yelled with triumph, and turned.

  “Help me,” hissed King Rat between clenched teeth. His head was pulled back at a grotesque angle, his arms were losing their grip on the Piper, his hand having to strain harder and harder to block the Piper’s mouth. The man behind him was slowly defeating him, made preternaturally strong by the music which surrounded them.

  Saul stormed through swathes of dancing spiders and punched hard at the face of the man holding King Rat.

  He saw that it was Fabian just as his fist connected.

  Saul had hit him hard, with all his rat-strength, and Fabian’s head rolled on his shoulders dangerously fast, teeth splintered in his mouth, but he retained his grip on King Rat, and continued to pull.

  The Piper was pulling free, his teeth ripping at King Rat’s hand, a growl of triumph bubbling bloodily out from behind it.

  “Help me,” repeated King Rat. Desperately Saul grabbed at Fabian, shoved him this way and that, with all his strength, but the flute had entered Fabian’s soul and nothing would move him. If that punch did not do the job, Saul knew he would have to kill Fabian to get him off.

  “Help me,” said King Rat once more.

  But Saul had hesitated too long and Fabian pulled King Rat free of the Piper.

  “Yes!” The Piper was standing before Saul, filthy, scratched and quivering, spilling spiders in all directions. He grabbed Saul’s collar, heaved him with those insanely strong arms, sent him flying through the hole in the stage back out into the heat and noise and blood of the club.

  Saul landed awkwardly, skidded across the splintered wood.

  The Piper rose behind him, dragging King Rat by the hair.

  Wind City was looping, again and again. Saul was sure it covered the whole DAT, perhaps an hour long.

  “You lose!” the Piper shouted to Saul. “You and your daddy and uncle spider and the birdman, you lose, because I can play my flute as often as I want now. Your friend showed me how, Saul…” He waved his hands at the walls where the spiders were dancing in little circles. He gesticulated at the dancefloor where the dancers jumped up and down to Wind City, drenched in blood, stamping on dying rats.

  He released King Rat into the arms of the dancers on the stage. King Rat sagged with weakness and defeat.

  Saul was exhausted. He felt more hands grab him. The Piper sauntered towards him and crouched in front of him, just out of reach.

  “See, Saul,” he whispered, “I’m not just going to kill you. Before you die, Saul, I’m going to make you dance for me. You think you’re so special, don’t you? Well, I’m the Lord of the Dance, Saul, and before you die you’re going to dance for me. Why do you think I let your pathetic little army fight to the last gasp?” He indicated the dancefloor, where lacklustre little battles were still continuing, where the routed rats were being systematically destroyed as the dance continued.

  “You see, I wanted to explain to you, Saul. You see how I can make the people dance and the spiders? See how I did that? Well, I can make the rats dance, too, Saul. And you’re the famous half and half, aren’t you? Eh? The rat-boy? Eh? Well, I’m already playing for the people, Saul, so half of you is dancing, even if you can’t feel it. So when I start playing for the rats, Saul, then I’m playing for both your sides. See? See, you little fucker? I didn’t know what I’d found when I checked your address book, tried to find you. Just turned up at the one with stuff scrawled next to it…and see what I found. Your friend Natasha, who showed me how to make my flute multiply…”

  The Piper grinned and patted Saul’s face gently, then backed away towards the decks. Behind him stood Natasha, her clothes ruined, her face coated in blood as thick as oil.

  The dancefloor still surged, but an odd calm had settled on the stage.

  “I’m going to play for both your halves, Saul,” he said. “I’m going to make you dance.”

  He looked up, raised his finger like a conductor and the music changed again.

  The beat was sustained, the bassline unchanged, the static and the hesitant piano continued…but the flute soared.

  Across the top of the mellifluous and pointillist flute lines that seduced the dancers and the spiders, a third level of sound sprang into being. An unsettling, cr
awling democracy of semitones and minor chords, pauses punctuated by surreal bursts of noise, music to make the skin crawl. Rat-music.

  All across the dancefloor, the rats that had not fled or died were suddenly still.

  Out of the corner of his eye Saul saw King Rat stiffen, his eyes glaze and focus on something just out of sight. And as he saw that, Saul felt himself jerk upright, listened to the music, heard it with a wave of amazement, stared wide-eyed at the bursts of light around him, saw through the speakers and the walls, felt his mind open up.

  A long long way away he heard a high-pitched laugh, saw the Piper lying back, being borne around the room on the raised arms of the dancers, but that didn’t bother him now. The hands that held him were gone. Saul stood and paced to the centre of the stage. All he could concentrate on was the music.

  There was something just out of his reach…

  Just out of his reach…there was beautiful food…

  He could smell it…he could taste it on the air, and sex, he felt his cock stiffen, his mouth was watering, his feet propelled him, he did not need to think of where to walk, the responsibility had been taken from him, he obeyed the music, two tunes at once, the rat and the man, the mellow and the frenzied, spilling around each other, filling his mind.

  Beside him, he was dimly aware of King Rat, pacing from side to side, his feet ponderous but enthusiastic.

  “Dance!” The command came from across the floor, where the Piper rode the arms of the crowd like a sportsman, a hero, a dictator.

  Obedience came easily to Saul. He danced.

  Hardstepping.

  With the fighting stopped, everyone in the hall could dance, the people and the spiders and rats that were still alive, all moving in time, getting down as one, as the Piper laughed delightedly. Saul was vaguely aware of being pleased, moving in a tight circle, eager for the food and the sex and the music, proud to be part of this hall, this great gestalt.

  The Piper had ridden the tops of the dancers all around the hall in his triumph, a lap of honor, and through a blissful haze Saul saw the tall figure step smoothly back onto the stage.

  Saul danced for joy, opened his arms wide. This was his epiphany, he was filled with music, two strains of music, his mind relaxed and floating, his feet revelling in the dance, gazing up and around at the bobbing bodies on all sides of him, the faces of the worshippers… Saul was ecstatic.

  The Piper smiled, and Saul smiled back.

  He was vaguely aware of words being spoken, felt his feet propel him forward, across the big stage, towards the Piper, who waited for him, something long and glinting in his hand.

  “…to me…” Saul heard between beats. “…dance for me…come…”

  He stepped forward, shifting in time to the two tunes he could hear, eager to dance.

  But something was wrong.

  There was a disturbed moment. Saul hesitated.

  The two flutelines were dissonant.

  Saul put his foot on the stage and tried to dance, but a shadow had crossed his mind.

  The flutes jarred with each other.

  He was suddenly aware of their raucous discord. His hunger and desire burned as strong as ever, but he could not see, he was blind, pulled in different directions, shaken by the aesthetic antiphase of the two flutes.

  And as he listened, standing suddenly outside the music, looking in, desperate to get back, he sensed the great cavity between the flutes.

  And pushing its way through the gap, vibrating in his gut, ever-present, the foundation of the music, the beginning and the end-point of Jungle, there came the bass.

  Saul stood poised, immobile, centre stage.

  The flute and the bass surged inside him.

  The flutelines swirled around him, inveigling their way past his defenses, seducing him, urging him to dance, teasing his rat-mind and his humanity in turn.

  But something inside him had hardened. Saul was straining for something else. He was listening for the bass.

  The words of a hundred slogans raced through his mind, the endlessly sampled Hip Hop and Jungle paeans to the low end.

  DJ! Where’s the bass?

  Bass! How low can you go?

  R-r-r-roll the bass…

  Da bass too dark…

  Here’s the bass.

  Here’s how low the bass can go.

  I… I’ll roll with the bass.

  Because the bass too dark…

  Because the bass is too dark for this, thought Saul suddenly, with shocking clarity, the bass is too dark to suffer this, the insubordinate treble, fuck the treble, fuck the ephemera, fuck the high end, fuck the flute, and as he thought this the flutelines faded in his mind, became nothing more than thin, clashing cacophonies, fuck the treble, he thought, because when you dance to Jungle what you follow is the bass…

  Saul rediscovered himself. He knew who he was. He danced again.

  This was different. He was fierce, swinging his arms and legs like weapons. He danced with the bassline, rolled over the beats…ignored the flutes.

  It was the bass that set the agenda. It was the bass that made the song. It was the bass that united the Junglists, that cemented their community, that built a room full of dancers, something far stronger than this hive mind.

  The Piper was still waiting for him. Saul saw a renewed smile spread across his face. He had seen Saul falter. You wanted me to dance, didn’t you? thought Saul. Had to have me dance my way over to you, waltz to my death…and now I’m dancing, you think your treble won, don’t you?

  Saul danced closer and closer to the Piper. The Piper held his flute close, flush with his body like a Samurai sword. The Piper’s arms were tense.

  Two flutes aren’t enough, thought Saul, giddy with power. He danced on, approaching his enemy. The Piper smiled and raised his right hand, the hand holding the flute, held it high, quivering, ready to strike.

  Saul came close enough to touch.

  “Now dance on the spot, ratling,” said the Piper softly.

  He swung the flute.

  The strike was cocky, cavalier and ill-timed, the Piper waiting for his prey to walk into the path of the wicked silver club.

  Instead, Saul stepped inside the killing blow.

  He moved in a blur of rat-speed, channelling all his frenetic panic and power, burning calories from old food. He turned as he stepped forward and reached up with his right hand, grabbing the flute and twisting, spinning round in a full circle, tugging at the cold metal, ripping it out of the Piper’s too-confident fingers and bringing his left arm up and around, looking over his left shoulder as he spun, and slamming his elbow into the Piper’s throat.

  The Piper staggered backwards. His eyes bulged and stared at Saul in disbelief. He retched, clutched at his throat, sucked at the air. Saul stalked towards him, holding the flute. The Drum and Bass was pounding in his ears. It wasn’t the Piper’s song any more; it was the drums he heard, the drums and the bass.

  “One plus one equals one, motherfucker,” he said, and brought the flute up hard under the Piper’s jaw. The Piper staggered back but did not fall. “I’m not rat plus man, get it? I’m bigger than either one and I’m bigger than the two. I’m a new thing. You can’t make me dance.” He slammed the flute against the Piper’s temple, sending the tall figure spinning across the stage in a spray of blood, towards where King Rat still danced.

  The Piper twirled an ugly pirouette but still did not fall.

  Saul advanced on him, hitting him again and again with the flute, brutal and unforgiving. He punctuated his assault with proclamations.

  “Should’ve just killed me. You’re too strong for me, but you had to get cocky. Well, I’m the new blood, motherfucker. I’m more than the sum of my parts. You can’t play my fucking tune, and your flute means nothing to me.”

  With the last strike, the Piper went down in the shadow of King Rat. His legs folded and he sat down hard on the floor, his back to the brick wall. He stared up at Saul, horrified and broken. His face was cr
ushed and spoilt. Blood slid over the silver of the flute. The Piper’s eyes were glazed with agony and with affront, with outrage at this man who would not dance to his tune.

  His breath rattled grotesquely in his throat. He fought to speak, failed.

  Saul looked up. The dancing figures that filled the room were slowing down. The flute was mutating, folding in on itself. It could not sustain itself without the Piper’s will. People’s faces were confused, their heads lolling as if in uneasy sleep. The rats and spiders were twitching pathologically as the flutelines that held them imploded.

  King Rat fell to the floor and twisted in agony, pulling himself out of the spell.

  Always the strongest, thought Saul.

  He looked back at the Piper, collapsed on the floor. With puffy lips and bloody teeth, the Piper smiled.

  Saul held the flute like a dagger, raised it over his head.

  There was a Stygian rumble deep in the walls. The stage shook. Saul staggered.

  “What the fuck…?” he said.

  The floor lurched, shook violently. Saul fell backwards.

  Above the Piper’s head a split appeared in the wall, thin and unnaturally straight as if scored with a vast razor. The stage shook until all the dancers had fallen. It was only because it was on DAT, safe from the caprice of styluses and shocks, that Wind City did not falter.

  The split widened and spread downwards, opening the bricks behind the Piper’s back. The rent in the wall opened onto a sheer darkness.

  The Piper fixed Saul with his little smile.

  The darkness widened and sucked at the air in the room.

  As if a window on an airplane had burst, papers and clothes and fragments of spider corpses whirled through the air into the black.

  He opened a mountain once before, thought Saul urgently, he can open up a wall. He’s heading for home.

  The Piper was quite still as the split pulled itself open behind him, the eye in a tornado of detritus that filled the room. Saul planted his feet wide and got to his knees, adamant that the Piper would not escape out of the world.