He had sharp, pointed ears; a stubby nose; and a white stripe of fur running down the center of his broad head. Jacko's fur was mostly mouse brown, with darker brown spots along his back. His tail had a white tip and he wore a spiked collar. Worst of all, he wore an eye patch over one eye. What in the world was a dog doing with an eye patch?
Jacko's owner wore a black topcoat, top hat, waistcoat, and breeches topped by a huge leather belt inset with an unusual buckle. The buckle was made of cast iron, and designed to look like two rats biting each other's tails. He had a protruding nose and beady little eyes. He reminded me a little of Spindle—only with more meat and intelligence on him.
Jacko barked at the crowd on his owner’s command. "Yeah, yeah, whatever, let's just get this over with," said Jacko.
Again, nobody reacted. It seemed like only I understood what Jacko was saying.
Someone tossed white powder on the floor. I wasn't sure what that was all about, but I didn’t like it.
A box of squealing rats was dumped into the ring. This was not good. Not good at all.
Wagers went back and forth about how many rats Billy could kill in one minute. I covered my eyes as Billy’s owner let him loose and Billy set to his grim work.
Billy, who must have been born angry, set to his task with vigor. The powder on the floor helped him track down the rats as they scurried about the ring, leaving pathetic little white tracks. After about four minutes most of the rats were dead. I covered my ears with my paws. The sounds were horrible.
Billy took a break as his owner washed him down and gave him a drink. Then he was back in the pit again, and more rats died, sometimes in twos and threes. Some struggled valiantly, attacking Billy's head. It occurred to me that this might be how Jacko had lost his eye. But their effort was all for naught.
Two judges called an end to the slaughter. No rats were left alive inside the ring.
"The time to beat is: seven minutes and seventeen seconds!" shouted the ringmaster. He paused for dramatic effect. "To make things even more interesting, we are tagging one of the rats!"
The crowd hesitated in drunken confusion, then roared its approval.
"This is unprecedented! These two gentlemen," the ringmaster indicated Spindle and Corwin, who beamed back at him, "will be entering their rat, into the ring. They believe he can survive a match with Jacko." This declaration was met with laughter and jeers from the crowd.
The ringmaster grabbed a brush from the side of the ring and dipped it into a bucket of something.
Uh oh. What was it Corwin said about tagging?
The bristles of the brush pierced the cage and basted me. It smelled horrible.
Suddenly, I missed my boring old brown, anonymous attire. I'd gone from plain brown rat to a bright red rat. Like a target.
"Good luck," whispered Spindle. He sprinkled something over me and whispered an incantation.
Then he dumped me into a box of wriggling rats.
* * *
I should have felt comforted being in the presence of my brethren, but I didn't feel much of anything besides panic.
It was like slamming into a big wall of fear. For a moment, it overwhelmed me and I just sat there. Every one of the rats was very, very afraid, and if it weren’t for my distinctive coloring I would have blended right in with them.
"Gah!" shouted one.
"Run for your lives!" shouted another.
"Get off me!" shouted a third.
Jacko padded into the arena. Confident, he moved with the calm of a professional.
My heart raced. My head felt like it was going to explode.
Then everything slowed down as the Modav spell kicked in, sharpening my senses and speeding up my reaction time. I was faster, stronger, better than any of the other rats there. I WOULD survive!
The ringmaster dumped us unceremoniously into the ring.
Focusing on the only spot of red in a confused sea of brown rats and white powder, Jacko went straight for me.
I wriggled to the side and the big vice-like jaws snapped on two other poor saps instead. In my euphoria brought on by the spell I'd forgotten that I was marked. Jacko clearly hadn't, because he continued to pursue me.
I ran around the pit, zigzagging as I went. And wherever I ran, a trail of death followed.
Jacko finished rat after rat behind me. At the rate I was going, I'd be responsible for the death of an entire colony of rodents.
"Stop moving!" barked Jacko. "I'll never beat Billy's time at the rate you're going!"
"Stop moving?" I shouted back involuntarily. "You're trying to EAT me!"
Jacko skidded to a halt. The crowd booed.
"What?" One eye blinked at me. "You can understand me?"
"YOU can understand ME?" I said, panting from my exertions.
"Finally, a challenge!" Jacko began to growl.
I realized he wasn't really speaking, per se. With his mouth, that is. We were hearing each other's thoughts. I just directed my thoughts at Jacko, and he heard me. Likewise, I felt like I was picking up Jacko's thoughts out of the air.
I skittered to a section of the ring I had visited five times already. I was running out of places to run, and there was no forked branch to save me this time.
Jaws snapped at me again and I dodged reflexively.
I leaped into the air, grabbed hold of Jacko’s tail, and bit down hard.
"Is that the best you can do?" I mentally shouted. This was kind of neat, given that my mouth was busy.
"Yeah," said one gap-toothed moron in the crowd. "Is that the best you can do?"
I couldn't just understand everyone else…they could all understand me, even the humans!
Jacko flicked his tail, sending me flying into the wall of the pit. I fell to the ground, stunned.
I caught sight of Spindle and Corwin. They were cheering me on, pointing and laughing. That's when I noticed there were no other rats left.
"Just me and you, little one," said Jacko. In my head his voice sounded almost kind. "I'll make this quick."
Jacko advanced, growling again. I leaned back and, mentally broadcasting at the top of my…er, mind…I say: "Spindle and Corwin are cheating! They cast a Modav spell on the rat!"
The crowd gasped.
Jacko lunged through the air, slobber trailing from one yellow tooth. All I could see was his long, wet tongue coming towards me. I closed my eyes…
A hand grabbed me and pulled me out of the ring. The ringmaster looked at me, turning me to and fro. If I had the presence of mind to react, I would have bit him, but being manhandled was better than becoming dog food.
The ringmaster muttered a detection spell underneath his breath. "Magic!" he shouted, confirming.
Spindle whirled on Corwin. "You ratted me out!"
"I ratted YOU out?" shouted Corwin. "You're the one who tattled."
Spindle drew his knife. "I'll gut you from crotch to craw!" He lunged, but the men in the crowd seized them both. I lost track of them after that.
The ringmaster plopped me back into the cage.
"Jacko loses by default!" shouted one of the umpires. The crowd that wasn't preoccupied with the ruckus between Spindle and Corwin booed and hissed.
To my horror, my cage was handed over to Jacko's owner.
"He's yours to do with as you wish, Black," gruffed the ringmaster.
Black took my cage, glaring at Jacko as he did so. The previously fearsome dog's ears went flat as he ducked the gaze of the stubby man.
And suddenly, I wasn't sure whom I felt sorrier for: Jacko or myself.
Chapter 2: Scrap and the Bloodthirsty Thief
Sleep overtook me at some point, mostly from exhaustion and the effects of the Modav spell wearing off.
I woke up to see a monstrous gaze directed at me. I scrambled backwards to the other side of the cage.
"Ah, now you're awake," muttered Black. "A fine thing too, considering you should be dead."
I wasn't sure where I was. Black smelled strongly of b
urnt wood.
He moved away from the cage, warming himself by a fire that barely lit the room. He sipped from a chipped teacup. From what I could tell, we were in a broken-down dwelling.
"Those two were wizards. Wizards betting on a pet rat. So what are you, really?"
I almost answered before I realized that Black was talking to himself out loud. I was just a stupid rat, and if I knew what was good for me, I'd stay that way.
"Word on the street is that you escaped Big Bertha, that snake the Venefigrex students torture. Is that true?"
I tried to be very, very still.
"Must be. Well, you needn't worry about them anymore, my pet."
He slurped again from the cup. I caught a glimpse of myself. Black’s tea reflected my distorted image back at me. "Corwin's dead."
I could have guessed that. Spindle would have made sure of it.
"Spindle's been thrown out of Venefigrex. He's not happy about it. In fact, I imagine if you're as special as I think you are, he'll come looking for you."
I sincerely hoped not.
"So what are you?" Black's gazed shifted his attention from his tea to me. "A trapped demon? A witch's familiar? A cursed prince?" He laughed out loud. "A king's ransom for a rat! It would truly be a fairy tale for the ages!" His laugh was a sinister chuckle. It gave me chills.
"I could paint you white, glue a tiny crown to your head…" he gave me another glance. "Eh. Too much work. You're a fighter, so perhaps you should fight."
My whiskers twitched in agitation. I couldn't help it.
"No, I imagine you wouldn't like that. The life of a warrior is ugly and short." He lifted the tea to me in a toast. "Just ask Jacko."
The dog whom I had fled in terror limped into the room, whimpering. He favored one leg. "He won't hesitate again in a fight. Will you, Jacko?"
The dog whined. But I heard what he was really thinking, and it wasn't very nice.
"What was the name they called you? Scrap? You're smarter than the average rat, that's for sure. I can see it in your eyes. Perhaps we can teach you a few things…"
Black mused to himself for a moment. Jacko painfully circled the floor a few times and lay down by the meager fire with a huff.
"I'll have to speak to my nippers. Perhaps we've some use for you yet."
Black hopped to his feet. The man was much spryer than it seemed he should be.
I watched him go, my curiosity momentarily overriding my fear. A familiar growl came from close by.
A shadow blocked out the view of the fire from my cage.
Black had left me alone in the room with Jacko.
"You're in trouble now," thought Jacko with what could only be described as a murderous sneer on his canine features.
"Trouble?" It occurred to me Jacko could probably destroy the cage if he felt like it.
"Black doesn't like failure."
Jacko sniffed as his left hind leg, and then whined a little bit. Despite my fear, I couldn't help but feel a twinge of sympathy.
"Well," I struggled to come up with something witty, "I'm not sure what good I can be."
Jacko huffed, flattening my ears with his dog breath.
"You're a rat. A rat that talks. Rats never talked to me before."
"It's new for me too."
"You speak man too."
I ducked my head. "Black doesn't know that."
Jacko cocked his head. "He can't hear you?"
"I don't think at him when he's around."
"But I can hear you."
"I don't know how this works either," I said morosely.
"He's going to make you a fagger," said Jacko.
"Excuse me?"
Jacko's huge, ugly head bobbed. "Yep, a fagger. A thief who breaks into homes through a window and unlocks the door."
"How exactly am I supposed to do that?" I looked at my paws. "It's not like I can turn the latch."
"Don't need to. Just find the key."
"Oh."
I glanced at the door that Black had disappeared through, which was shadowed in darkness.
"And what if I don't?"
The hound looked at me with his one good eye.
"You will. You're a survivor, like me."
"So," I squeaked, "you're not going to eat me?"
Jacko's head jerked backwards in disgust.
"You? I'm no rat-eater! I kill rats because I have to. Because I…" he lowered his head. "I don't even remember why I do it anymore."
"Survival," I said.
Jacko padded back over to the fireplace and lay down, his back to me.
Feeling a little bold and having nothing left to lose, I asked, "When did you get tired of your job?"
"When I lost my eye," came Jacko's unhesitating response.
"It must be tough. But you have to consider that the odds are pretty good that if you fight enough rats, one of them was going to get to you eventually…"
Jacko lifted his head, just enough to spare a glance at the gaping doorway that had swallowed Black.
"I didn't lose it to a rat."
* * *
Eventually, the relative warmth of the fire and Jacko's labored breathing lulled me back to sleep. But my survival instincts kept my ears perked for Black's return.
I watched with growing anxiety as he oozed out of the darkness.
"All right my pet," Black grabbed hold of my cage. "It's time to for you to run the Maze."
The wind whistled through the bars of the cage as Black swiftly carried me through darkened corridors speared by the occasional ray of sunlight. The sunlight became more and more infrequent. It was replaced by crackling torches on the walls. The air got colder. We were going underground.
Deeper and deeper we went. We entered a cavernous room, large enough that I couldn’t see the far ends beyond the light of the feeble flickering lanterns that dotted the perimeter. A tightly woven mesh covered the floor, beneath which was a great maze with two-foot high walls. It was a vast network of twists and turns, all of it structured to create a labyrinth of seemingly endless complexity. Crisscrossing the maze in a wide grid and surrounding it on the perimeter was a catwalk just wide enough for a man to walk on. A spectator’s chair was connected to a crane over it all—a throne for Black to monitor what went on inside.
Black lowered the cage into the entrance of the maze. He undid the latch to the cage and the opening yawned before me.
The corridor walls were splintered and wooden. Strange, dark stains patterned the stone floor. Above it all was the metal mesh.
Black's footsteps shuddered throughout the maze, the sound echoing off every surface despite the damp wood. Judging from the number of echoes, the place had to be huge.
I didn't move.
"I knew you were smart," said Black with a wry laugh. "The wisest decision you could ever make is not get into the Maze in the first place. But life doesn't always give us such choices, so I'm afraid we'll have to give you some encouragement."
There was a high-pitched, rhythmic giggle from behind the cage. "Eh heheheh heh HEH heh!"
The sound burrowed into my stomach and curled into a hard knot.
"That'd be Hack. I'd start running if I were you."
Every muscle fired at once. The instinctive part of my being took over, propelling me through sheer fear into the darkness.
"Let's see if you can do any better than Switch," came Black's distant voice.
I could only hope that I was out of mental earshot when I thought, "Who is Switch?"
Not knowing what else to do, I kept running.
Where was I? Why was Black putting me in the Maze? It didn't add up. Think, think, think!
Jacko had mentioned something about thieving. Maybe this was a test, some sort of training Black was putting me through.
"Goblin Hack and goblin Heave," sang a high-pitched voice. "One day found they moved the cheese. One got thin and one got fat! So thin one eats the tasty rat!"
I couldn't recall having ever met a goblin, let alone two
, but then being only a few days old, it was understandable that there were gaps in my memory.
Judging from Black's reaction, goblins meant bad news for me. And given that Hack seemed intent on sharing his philosophy about eating me out loud, I didn't want to meet this goblin face-to-face any time soon.
My heart was racing. I suspected I was having a full-on rat freak-out, where I wanted to be everywhere and nowhere at once, and my muscles became so overloaded with commands that I stopped running and just cowered in place.
Even though I could think for myself, I was still a rat and I had rat instincts. If I kept this up, I would become a goblin snack for sure.
That was it! I had a rat body, but I wasn’t thinking like a rat. There had to be some advantages to being a rodent. If I'd been a rat my whole life it should come as second nature.
I twitched my nose. I hadn't focused on my rat senses up to that point, because most of the time I was overwhelmed by them. My sense of smell especially. The stink of people—too many hairy, smelly men in one room, all shouting at me, made it difficult to focus.
Every object, every surface, had different information embedded in its scent. Even the cage had a distinctive smell, although Black had since scrubbed most of it off; I could almost taste the metallic tang of the bars. In the maze, the walls smelled different from the floor, the floor smelled different from the air, the air smelled different from whatever the stains on the floor were. I even picked up the faint smell of what must be goblin. (In case you’re wondering, goblins smell like wet leather.)
As I was in a maze, I expected there should be some scent of cheese. Not anywhere.
Cheese was pretty smelly, as well as tasty, so I found it odd that I couldn't detect any.
Black had walked away and taken a seat somewhere high over the Maze. He was observing me.
I tried to ignore the fact that a cutthroat thief was watching my every move, that there was a goblin making up rhymes about eating me, and that somewhere in the world beyond the maze was a one-eyed dog who really didn't like me all that much.
I sniffed again, and upon taking a deeper breath, I used my second scent organ, the vomeronasal. Before this moment, I didn't even realize I had it.
I picked up the scent of something else. Another rat! That must have been Switch.
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