The Rat and the Serpent

by Stephen Palmer

  I felt a nameless disgust rise within me. I shuddered, then looked at the macabre masked face of the man in my yard. Something, some deep emotion that now manifested as repulsion, told me there was a link between snake and man. I uttered a wail then leaped into the yard and began stamping on the sculptures, until, in just moments, every one was destroyed.

  Herpetzag said nothing. His single eye was beady. His mask fluttered, as if under the influence of heavy breathing.

  I heard footsteps coming down the street. I looked up to see the counsellords approaching, with Katurguter at their head. Herpetzag strode from the yard and went to stand beside the two moustached counsellords who had served him during the hauntings and the humiliation of the play at the Hippodrome. The trio stood aloof, yet malignant, as if ready for an exciting spectacle: the demise of a man.

  I glanced at the destruction lying at my feet. This must be the end. I had been pushed too far, too fast.

  Katurguter said, “Is there an explanation for all this, Ügliy?” His voice was reasonable, quiet, as if nothing of importance had happened. His face betrayed no emotion. I knew that in contrast I must look like a boy with a grudge.

  And yet this simple question might have been spoken to help me. There might be a way out. Despite the shame I felt at being shown up, I shut my eyes, screwed up my face, and muttered, “I think I’m in shock, Katurguter. I feel disorientated.” I choked—on my own principles—then added, “I’m truly sorry for what I did. Please, please forgive me.”

  There was muttering, but I did not catch any words. Then I heard footsteps again and a few comments. “Better forgive him I suppose,” “Might be shock after all,” and, “We don’t want another campaign so soon after this one.”

  So, their pride was offering me a last chance. I raised my head then, and opened my eyes. Herpetzag glared at me, his eye bright like a star, his foppish assistants at his side, but the other counsellords were shuffling away, each to their own homes, their faces dark at the thought of an evening’s entertainment ruined. But I did not know if I had yet saved myself, for Herpetzag was still staring at me.

  Then one of the two counsellords set his floppy hat at a jaunty angle and strode forward, until he stood a few paces from me. In a clear voice he said, “I am Yuruk. I say to you that there is no place in this street for men like yourself. You have insulted us, while tonight,” and here he indicated the debris in the yard, “without any provocation you have destroyed the accoutrements of Siyah Street. I challenge you to a duel. Name your weapon.”

  I studied the face of this man. Neither he nor I glanced away, and neither of us blinked. Then I felt desperation rising up inside me, and my thoughts flicked back to battles I had fought as a nogoth, armed only with my crutch. I laughed. I was tempted to name that implement. But then inspiration came to me. I groaned and raised my hands to my face, hiding myself; I needed extra moments in which to think. Could my idea work? I did not know. But intuition was demanding that I speak.

  I took a deep breath and faced Yuruk. “I choose the caduceus,” I said.

  Yuruk gasped and took a step back, his face expressing his astonishment. I glanced at the street to see Herpetzag striding towards House Sable.

  Yuruk was furious. “You fool!” he cried. “You cannot use the caduceus because you are a shaman.”

  “I choose the caduceus,” I repeated.

  Yuruk ran away, the other counsellord at his side, to catch up with Herpetzag. Was that fear on their faces or was it shock? I was left to ponder what I had said. If I was honest with myself, I did not know, for the choice had risen from my unconscious like a bubble in a well. However, I knew that the caduceus symbolised sorcery in some way that as yet I did not understand. I needed to master sorcery, to comprehend it. But I sank once again into a despair of isolation as a question struck me: where was I going to find a caduceus?

  I raised my gaze to the ceiling and said, “What have I done?”

  The duel took place at dusk next day. Katurguter was my second, a noble act, for he could easily have ignored the novice counsellord that he had been lumbered with. There was a brief, embarrassing scene when I thanked him for his support and Katurguter, surprised, did not know where to look.

  Come cold, desolate dusk we stood at the bottom of a garden away from Siyah Street, with Ragip Gumuspala Street just a hop away and the Phosphorus soughing beyond. Tall buildings surrounded us, illumination provided by globes hanging on steel poles, around which black moths fluttered. I wanted to weep, but I could not; I hoped for friends but I saw only enemies. Another intuition from deep inside my mind told me that if I survived this madness I would not last long in the rarified atmosphere of rules and violence. I realised then that the extremity of my situation was forcing me to consider radical options, and to come up with radical ideas.

  I must reform what I saw! I knew it then. Was that why Zveratu hovered like a bat around me? Was he a secret revolutionary?

  “Excuse me?”

  Katurguter broke into my reverie.

  “Are you all right, Ügliy?”

  “Yes... yes, I am.”

  “I spoke, but you seemed not to hear.”

  I nodded once at him. “Let us get this over with.”

  Yuruk stood at the opposite end of the garden, his foppish partner at his side. Katurguter presented me with a closed box, the lid of which opened by sorcery to reveal a bed of black velvet, and upon that an object of black metal. The caduceus.

  “This is a duel to the bitter end,” Katurguter intoned. “Whoever loses is returned to his true status. Soot to soot, ashes to ashes, all to all. So be it. Gentlemen, are you ready?”

  “Ready,” Yuruk said in a sly voice.

  “Yes, ready,” I said.

  Yuruk took his caduceus and hefted it as if it was a sword. I reached out to grasp and lift mine.

  “Aaaaaaaagh!”

  It was so hot I screeched; reflex making my arm pull away.

  Yuruk laughed. “I told you the caduceus was not for you,” he said. “Didn’t you listen? You’re a shaman—you’re not one of us. Now prepare for your demise.”

  I stared at my caduceus. It was as if the steel had been heated beyond the temperature of boiling water, and yet it was quiescent, black, with neither a smell of burning nor smoke from the velvet. I reached out again until my hand was a rat’s whisker away from the thing. Nothing. Yet when I moved my hand down it again repelled me as if it was white hot, and again I cried out in pain.

  Yuruk laughed and walked a few paces forward.

  I knew this must be a sorcerous effect. I had but seconds in which to act. And then all my anger and fear welled up, all my desires, my wishes, my dreams, and all the pain that I had suffered during my rise from the street. With a cry half of fury and half of determination beyond the human I reached out and dared to grasp the caduceus, though it burned my flesh and made my face writhe, until I felt that my every sense was focussed on my hands and the agony they contained.

  “No!” I whispered. “There is room for humanity, there is room!”

  The world around me was for a few moments blanked out by the pain in my hands, by my determination, and by my conviction that I had chosen the right weapon; and slowly, instant by instant, moment by moment, and then as I opened my eyes and let my face relax, the heat departed, and the pain with it, until I held in my pale and bony hands a thing of cold, hard steel.

  A caduceus under my control.

  I realised at once that this triumph was the most important event of my life so far.

  Yuruk stared at me, his mouth slack. Katurguter was similarly amazed. I strode forward until I stood opposite Yuruk. I raised the caduceus and there was a sound of ringing metal, as if the air itself had responded to the motion of the weapon.

  “There is always a way,” I said. “There is always a way, if you can just find it.”

  Yuruk snarled. “And if you happen to be right. But you are not. You are just a charlatan.”

  He leaped forward
and raised his caduceus to strike. I crouched and raised my own to defend myself against the blow.

  The two weapons struck.

  There came a fountain of soot that spouted out of the air where the two objects smote one another. Yuruk and I jumped back. Then Yuruk leaped forward and struck again. A second plume of soot surged from the air, this time striking the faces and shoulders of us both, so we were darkened and confused, spitting the stuff out of our mouths. We stepped back, then circled one another. Katurguter and his opposite number fled to the edge of the garden, where they watched the sorcery unfolding before them.

  The sky, already gloomy, took on an ominous shade as soot clouds began to roll in from the west, concealing a crescent moon and early stars. The sorcerous lamps of the garden shone brighter to compensate.

  Yuruk leaped forward, yelling in an attempt to overwhelm me, and I was forced to defend myself, holding my caduceus two-handed, crouching down, knees bent, dodging, then darting from side to side to avoid the onslaught. After a minute of this both of us were as black as coal, and the ground was a trampled mess of soot. Piles of the stuff were beginning to form around the garden. From the clouds a fine fall began, that soon turned heavy.

  I began to fight back. The weapons were not sharp and had to be used as clubs, a method I was familiar with. There came an intense bout of shoving and smashing, and then—

  We all fell over as the ground shook.

  “Earthquake!” Katurguter cried.

  I lay still as the ground trembled, jolted alongside Yuruk as soot was sent into the air in great clouds. Nearby, doors and windows vibrated in their frames. There was a final rumble, and then the earthquake stopped. It had lasted only seconds.

  From somewhere beyond the confines of Zolthanahmet a deep and resonant roar sounded, a bellow like nothing I had ever heard before, the cry of some waking beast too large to imagine, a mythical beast, inconceivable, and yet real. All four of us fell upon our faces and hid ourselves amidst the soot and stones. The echo of the great roar faded to a thunderous thrum, then departed, to leave absolute silence; no caw of rook or rasp of crow, no coo of doves or warble of geese. Nothing.

  It did not take me long to realise that this roar was related to my overpowering of the caduceus. But then I saw something at the border of the garden. Scores of living dracunculi were watching us like a human audience, raised upon their bellies as if ready to strike, yet quiescent.

  I said nothing. I saw Yuruk cowering. It was the work of a few seconds to jump over, drag the trembling man to his feet, set the tip of my caduceus to his temple and shout, “I claim victory.”

  Katurguter glanced at his opposite. The two men shrugged.

  “I win,” I repeated.

  Yuruk said nothing.

  Katurguter approached us. “You have the option of killing Yuruk,” he told me.

  I threw Yuruk to the ground. “I’ve got more important things to do,” I replied.

  “Then this duel is over,” Katurguter said. “You are the victor.”

  I surveyed the garden around me, then looked up at the sootclouds, which were already clearing. I glanced at my caduceus, then dropped it, whereupon the dracunculi disappeared into the crevices from which they had emerged. “A victor in more ways than you can imagine,” I said.

  17.11.604

  I cannot believe how much my life has been turned upside-down by what I have learned in the past two days. What happened to my resolve? Do I really sit here, alone in a mansion, thinking that in all probability I will die a counsellord, having created no tenet, no ethical precedent, because that is all done by these elitistors?

  Curse them! I had not guessed that they existed. Curse their dark house!

  It is at times like this that I look into my hand mirror. I am doing it now. I see a head there, albeit half in shadow: tufts of grey hair going white, a lined face well made-up, dark eyes kohl-ringed. A pale and shiny pate with soot stains. I raise one hand to see inelegant, heavy silver rings on several fingers. This jewellery that I have to wear reduces my grace, my poise. Thankfully I have no problems of wellbeing—I am hale. I will live to be very old.

  There is a philosophical point to this mirror-gazing. It reminds me that I am a real person with cares and worries, but, more importantly, it reminds me that the outer person is almost nothing compared with the inner person. I am very much a man of the inner life—just as well, given the thoughts that over the years I have set to paper, and those just a fraction of the entirety of my pondering. Wrongly, then, the Mavrosopolis elevates the importance of outer appearance to the detriment of inner appearance.

  So now I sit in gloom, having realised that I must wait until the elitistor of Bazaar dies (for there is no other way out of House Sable) before I get the chance to rise for a third time. And what then? The existence of the elitistors suggests a whole chain of ruled and rulers, all the way to a single lone man, who I suppose must be the Lord of the Mavrosopolis. What an absurd idea. If it is true, I shall indeed give up life and throw myself into the harbour.

  Chapter 15

  It was midnight. Zveratu sat with me in the front yard of my house. The air was warm, the street atmosphere stuffy, with only a few lamps showing through a dense fall of soot. A large parasol provided us with both protection and illumination.

  Zveratu said, “You see now why I thought you would be the right man to become elitistor of Zolthanahmet.”

  I nodded. “I think I see.”

  “Will you tell me what you think?”

  “Is there a struggle afoot in the house of the elitistors?” I asked.

  “Of sorts.”

  “Those following the serpent have the upper hand. The mambasnake, perhaps...”

  “That is for you to find out later,” said Zveratu. “For the moment all you need to know is that the rat can oppose the serpent—the duel illustrated that. How lucky that it occurred. I had no part in its inception. But that fight was but a prelude to the real battle that you must undertake. I think you have the heart and mind for it, which is why I follow your progress with interest.”

  “But I cannot take the initiation rite.”

  “You must find a way. Let the rat be your guide, as ever it has been.”

  “And you?”

  Zveratu grimaced. “It is not important for you to know who I am.”

  “But I want to know.”

  “We all want to know who we are, Ügliy. Alas that only some find out.”

  I turned to glance at the shadow that was House Sable. “They will eat me for supper,” I said. “I have risen too fast.”

  “You have ascended fast, but not so fast that you cannot look around you. I have no cause for concern.”

  “I do.”

  “It is good that you are nervous. Your reactions will be the sharper.”

  Then I said, “What was that roaring noise we heard?”

  “That was the sound of your final opponent whimpering in a dream-laden slumber.” Zveratu stood up. “For now, Ügliy, goodbye.”

  When he was gone I departed the yard and crept through the shadows of Siyah Street, using all my rat guile, until I was standing in an alley beside the plot of land containing House Sable. There was a black stone wall, behind which lay a garden... and I could hear voices. With my powerful rat leg it was simple enough to climb the wall and peer over.

  I saw a strange party. Six people—the elitistors—were sitting around a table in the middle of a soot-stained yard, around them posts on which silver globes shone, trees nearby with grey bark and dark leaves, further off the opposite wall, a barrier so black it was like a strip of velvet. Pale moths fluttered from lamp to lamp, leaving glittering trails. Upon the paving slabs I saw beetles, and, as if on guard, a few dracunculi.

  I studied the elitistors. Five of them were normal, but one was not: Herpetzag. He differed both in appearance and in manner. Though all the elitistors were cloaked, bejewelled and tattooed, his macabre appearance—the mask covering the jutting jaw, the eyepatch, the
strange way he held himself—marked him out as a man apart from the others. Watching him, I realised that if I made it through the initiation rite he would be waiting for me, scheming, ready to deal the killer blow.

  I sighed and slid back down the wall to plant my feet on firm ground. Herpetzag had spoken wisely: knowledge will kill you in the end, Ügliy... you cannot survive if you rise, because the Mavrosopolis will get you one way or another.

  And then, as I heard these words in my mind’s ear, I understood. Herpetzag was different because he somehow symbolised the Mavrosopolis, whereas the other elitistors were ordinary mortals. That was why Zveratu wanted a shaman in House Sable. Only a shaman would be strong and yet unorthodox enough to strike at the heart of this dark city, a blow from the inside and from the outside at one and the same moment – a plan of genius, but of immense peril.

  I quailed. The task was too great for me. Then I thought back to the nogoths on the street, and I realised that I was undertaking the task for them. They were my reason for taking this path of madness. I felt emotion welling up inside me. I choked, running back to my house to lock myself in.

  The nights passed by without further incident. On Katurguter’s instruction I took fine furnishings for my new home and stocked its larder with food and raki. I also found tomes about the history of Constantinopolis that I read from cover to cover; and inside one I located a clue.

  ‘And they occupied Ur in Zumeria, did this cult, worshipping the obfuscating one. Forced to flee the Perzians they eventually arrived, so many centuries ago, where the Phosphorus meets the Sea of Marmara—the peninsula known to all and sundry as-’

  Alas the page had been ripped out; the passage was incomplete.

  Then, one night, news arrived that I had been hoping not to hear. One of the counsellords of Psamathia had died, and Atavalens was a possible replacement, for he had immediately put himself forward as a candidate. As the nights passed I watched with growing horror as the odds on his ascension shortened to make him the favourite.

  The vote confirmed my fears. He won.