Rats and Gargoyles

by Mary Gentle

  She raised her face, and he lost track of his thoughts. He grinned: a rictus.

  "I believe that I even missed your friend the Lord- Architect, gods alone know why; but I find myself hoping that he’s well, as you are."

  The White Crow blinked as if thrusting away some disturbing image. "I hope so, too."

  The heat and the white light that came in at the window dazzled Lucas. He rubbed his eyes.

  "How could I forget what you said? In this city, the soul can die, too. I don’t have to be a Kings’ Memory to remember that. Lady, I’ve spent the days studying, learning, at the university; and all the time wondering: has it happened again? Has someone else been taken by The Spagyrus into the Fane and died–died, with no rebirth? And, if it had happened, had it happened to you?"

  Lucas, having rehearsed the conversation for a dozen nights, lost the distinction between fact and fantasy, let the tips of his fingers touch her fine hair that the sun made hot.

  "No, and no, is the answer. Believe me, you’d know! None of us would be here . . ." She slid off the windowsill to pace across the room, remove her leather backpack from its chest, and begin to throw into it gem-talismans, amulets, herbs, parchment and tiny bottles of strangely composed inks.

  "And I suppose I’d better take Cornelius . . ." She slid a book into the satchel, paused, and added another. "And the Ghâya."

  "What did the Decan tell you?" Lucas touched her shoulder as she passed him; the cloth of her shirt rough under his hand. "You don’t seem changed, and you’ve spoken with god."

  "You haven’t been in the heart of the world long enough, Prince. You get used to living on god’s doorstep, and you get used to some very practical divine intervention, when you live here. Hasn’t anyone told you this is Hell?"

  "I didn’t know what they meant."

  "They might equally well have said this is Heaven. The gods are here, on earth. Live here, and you live cheek-by-jowl with what moves the living stars in their courses, and the sun, and the earth. When you die, Prince, you’ll travel through the Night, and that’s the same Night that exists within the Fane, is the Fane, grows with the Fane as it’s built. Yes, I’ve spoken with god. Around here, that isn’t too unusual."

  Lucas swallowed, wet his lips, touched by something that still clung to her, a scent as of sun-hot courtyards and the silence that stone breathes off under great heat.

  "What will you do?"

  The cinnamon-haired woman bent to pick up another piece of chalk and tuck it into the side-pocket of her leather backpack.

  "I don’t know what to do, except that it must be something a Scholar-Soldier might do–so I take this." She touched her pack, her sword. "And I don’t know where, or when; but since it’s The Spagyrus who caused this I suspect it’s at the Fane, at noon or midnight. And, if I start now, I might just be able to walk to the Fane-in-the-Twelfth-District by noon."

  She tilted the mirror-table, catching sun from the skylight. Reflections danced on her neck and the underside of her chin. Her mouth twisted in a sideways smile.

  "So much magia in the air! If I tried to use this, I’d be as deafened and blinded as when the acolytes attacked that hall. And it’s the one time I would have risked magia to go from here to there without going between . . ."

  Lucas frowned, thoughts racing. "What did the Decan say you should do?"

  "Heal. What else would a Master-Physician do? Of course, it would help if I knew who I was meant to be healing. And why the Decan wants them healed, instead of dying on their Fated day and passing through to rebirth."

  "You have a whole sick city to choose from."

  "Oh, Prince." She straightened up from unfastening her sword-harness and slung the rapier and scabbard across the mirror-table, careless of further damage. "That was gruesome enough to come from the Lord- Architect himself. You’re learning."

  "Growing up," Lucas said acidly.

  "I have never doubted you were grown." She twinkled. Shifting her attention before Lucas could say any of what crowded on his tongue, she added: "I am to heal, and Casaubon, I think, is to handle the builders. The strike, I wonder, or the House of Salomon? She revealed nothing to him, nothing to me. Only assured us that we’re in the right moment to act. And She should know, being a Decan."

  Lucas scowled. "But if the Decans know what will happen in the future, then why—?"

  The White Crow grinned. "They make the future. They turn the Great Cycle of the Heavens: in the thirty- six divisions of Ten Degrees. But . . . many of the Decans are in opposition to one another."

  "With us as game-pieces."

  "Oh, Prince, it’s real life; it isn’t a game."

  She was a little fey, he thought; and still with that air of the god-daemon about her, as if she could taste the power in her mouth, feel it crackle through her like static. He noticed how she favored her left hand, the fingers pierced and slightly swollen, pin-pricked with black marks.

  "White Crow, I can tell you something. You, or it might be more useful to the Lord-Architect."

  The savor of the knowledge had gone now, gone with the fantasy of her gratitude when she should receive it. He concentrated only on being as plain as possible.

  "It started with my wanting to talk to Zari. Knowing she’s alive. I haven’t seen her yet, but I have seen that priest she went off with–the one that was supposed to have been killed, and now he’s a Cardinal?"

  "And?" She bowed her head, adjusting the sword- harness so that she could buckle it about her waist, out of the way of the backpack.

  "Plessiez and my uncle are old friends. I’ve met the Cardinal now. Between that and the Embassy files, I’m certain that he’s got some very close connection with the House of Salomon, and with the woman that wrote the pamphlet, the one who claims to be leader of the imperial human dynasty."

  She nodded slowly. "Yes. Lucas, I want you to do something for me. Find your friend, the Kings’ Memory, Zar-bettu-zekigal. If your uncle knows her present employer, you should be able to manage it somehow. And if you can’t bring her to me, try to find the Lord- Architect and take her to him. He’ll need to know everything he can about the House of Salomon."

  "I’ll do it," the Prince of Candover said, "after I’ve gone with you to the Fane. There are the acolytes. It’s too dangerous for you to go on your own."

  She opened her mouth, and he cut off the sharp reply he saw in her eyes: "Scholar, yes; soldier, yes; but have you been trained at the University of Crime?"

  The White Crow’s eyebrows went up. "Well. You might have a point there, prince."

  He watched her for a few more minutes, packing with the ease of practiced preparation. The half-grown fox- cubs whined from their box.

  "And if it happens again?" Lucas asked.

  "It will. Once more. I have it on—" The White Crow paused. "On very good authority. I can tell you the prophecy. The Lord of Noon and Midnight will once more break the circle of the living and the dying: in that one hour the Wheel of Three Hundred and Sixty Degrees will fly apart. What I want to know is, if the Decan of Noon and Midnight knows what that will do, which he must know, then why do it?"

  The White Crow broke off. Then: "She cares nothing for plague. That was apparent. So if She doesn’t want me to heal the sick, who am I to heal?"

  "If The Spagyrus’s alchemy—"

  "I know what you’re going to say. That that wouldn’t be the healing of a body from sickness, but of a soul from The Spagyrus’s black miracle: true death. I’m good," Master-Physician White Crow said, with a smile that never reached her eyes. "I probably know more about magia than anyone now in the heart of the world, the Lord-Architect included. And I’ve done necromancy in my time. But I wouldn’t even know how to go about raising the truly dead."

  Lucas at last identified the energy that moved her: excitement, and a wild fear.

  "She said there would be a moment to act. She did not," the White Crow said, "tell us what we should do. I wish Casaubon were here . . . but I can’t wait for him."r />
  "I’m coming with you."

  The woman made no objection, which at first pleased and then badly frightened him. She hefted her pack onto her shoulders, thumbing the straps into place, and walked past him towards the window as she did up the buckles.

  "There’s more," she said. "Something new."

  The White Crow turned her head slightly, so that she looked down into the courtyard and not at Lucas. Her fingers reached for the warm wooden frieze interrupted by the window-frame: the carved skulls and spades.

  "Walking here this morning . . . I feel it every time my foot touches the ground. There are focuses of ill and sickness, under the city. Seven of them. Plague-magia, I think–corpse-relic necromancy. Either cast while I was gone, or grown stronger in the meanwhile. And becoming more violent with every minute that passes."

  "Necromancy." Lucas swallowed, saliva suddenly thick in his mouth. "Lady, I think I can tell you something about necromancy and Cardinal-General Plessiez."

  The heat of mid-morning stifled the small audience chamber. Lengths of fine linen, dyed blue, shaded the great windows; and brown Rat servants cranked the blades of a ceiling-fan. The Cardinal-General of Guiry waved other servants aside as he strode down the azure carpet.

  "Your Majesty." Plessiez knelt, with a flourish, on the dais step of the circular bed. "I have news, best discussed confidentially."

  The Rat-King sprawled on silk covers. One dictated a letter to a secretary; another held out an arm for a young brown Rat page to groom it; two more played with tarot dice, spilling the bright enameled cubes on the cushions they lay against. One plump black Rats-King sat himself grooming the knot of their eight tails.

  "News?" The bony black Rats-King opened an eye. "So we would hope. It grows—"

  "–late, Messire Cardinal," finished a fat brown Rats-King, this morning next to the black. He snapped his fingers, dismissing the servants to the five corners of the chamber. "Well?"

  Tension, like static in fur, crackled in the heat-heavy air.

  "I have spoken with the architect, your Majesty, and corrected the fault in the drive mechanisms of the remaining siege-engines. They can be set to move whenever you command."

  The formal phrasing came easily. Plessiez kept his eyes fixed on a point just over the black Rats-King’s shoulder. Before the King answered, he spoke again:

  "Your Majesty, this was done by your will. I have always acted so; I trust that I always shall. You have had your necromancy performed, and by the end of this day there will be no one who does not perceive the result of it."

  One of the silver Rats-King put down the scroll he was reading. "Then, all is well, messire."

  "Your engines are ready to be put in place, to ward off the acolytes if they attack." Memory touched Plessiez’s spine with a cold claw. "But I beseech your Majesty, again, to approve the plan the Order of Guiry has suggested, and spare several such engines for the defense of Human districts."

  Heat soaked in through the linen curtains, and in the silence Plessiez heard the servants whispering in the corners of the audience chamber. The long-bladed fan turned slowly, as if through clear honey.

  "St. Cyr came to me today." The bony black Rats-King spoke without acknowledging the Cardinal’s last words. He smiled. "The conspiracy of Messire Desaguliers–or perhaps coup is better, since he plans Our removal and replacement–is ripe now. St. Cyr believes he and his disaffected friends will act in the next two days."

  "Remove the fool now, your Majesty."

  "I may yet have a use for Messire Desaguliers. But we did not—"

  "–ask for your opinion in this, Messire Plessiez." The fatter of the brown Rats-King spoke again. "What else?" Plessiez mentally shrugged, shifted one furred knee on the steps where it began to ache, and reported: "It’s five days, now, since anything at all was observed leaving or entering any part of the Fane. Your Majesty, I believe that means the magia begins to work upon them. We should protect ourselves."

  Three of the Rat-King spoke together.

  "The humans–"

  "–this High Summer fever is our pestilence in disguise. It begins—"

  "–to thin down their numbers."

  "They will prove more tractable to our rule if there are fewer of them." The bony middle-aged black Rats- King shifted, easing over on to his other haunch. "Yes, Messire Plessiez, we are aware that you find that unpalatable. Government is a hard art, harder than your magia. Very well, order the engines to move out–between the hours of eleven and one, when the heat will empty the streets."

  Plessiez, rising to leave, adjusted the hang of his scabbard, and the cardinal’s green sash; and at the last couldn’t keep from his warning: "Your Majesty, I know, may hope by this to weaken our masters’ power, or even, it may be, to drive them to abandon their incarnation here amongst us. But consider that then we lose not only their oppression of us, but also their protection."

  "We have considered it," the bony black Rats-King said. "You may go and do as we order, messire."

  Plessiez bowed deeply, backing across the carpet to the doors. The brown Rat servants opened them soundlessly as he turned and passed through. The airless chamber slicked down his fur with heat. He paused for a moment in the palace corridor to groom.

  "Lord Cardinal, a message for you."

  He took the folded paper from the brown Rat, expecting it to be Reverend Captains Fleury or Fenelon, or perhaps something from the military architect. He unfolded it and read:

  I have urgent news but can’t meet you now, messire. Be on the Mauressy Docks by noon. The laboriously printed signature spelled out Lieutenant Charnay, King’s Guard.

  "It’s taken me an hour and a half to walk here. " Breathless, Zar-bettu-zekigal sat down heavily on the camp- bed. The trestles gave out a sharp creak.

  "What does the Cardinal-General say?"

  "Tell you in a . . . in a minute . . ."

  The Hyena paced the length of the temporary pavilion. Sepia light through the canvas walls sallowed her face. Her scabbard clashed as she moved. Her plate armor hung discarded on a frame in the corner of the tent; the woman wore only her dark red shirt and breeches, sweat- marked in the close heat.

  "Well?" She passed the document-covered desk, ignoring it for the moment, and finished standing beside the trestle bed, looking down at the young Katayan woman. "What did he tell you?"

  Muffled, clocks struck eleven. The harsh strokes barely penetrated the folds of the pavilion tent.

  The young woman leaned back on her elbows on the bed, looking up. Her pale arms and legs glowed golden in the sunlight sifted through the canvas. Black lashes dipped once across dark eyes, before she shifted on to one elbow, reaching with her other hand for the shoulder of her black dress.

  "I can’t believe it: it’s so hot."

  The Hyena folded her arms, with difficulty keeping a smile from her face. "You’re a Katayan."

  "I’m still hot!"

  The younger woman, eyes holding the Hyena’s, undid with accurate fingertips the hooks-and-eyes that ran down the shoulder and side of her black dress.

  "You’re as subtle as a brick."

  "Oh, but, see you, it works."

  Amused, exasperated, the Hyena shook her head. "I don’t have time for this, not now of all times. Tell me about Plessiez."

  The Katayan lifted her legs on to the trestle bed and rolled over onto her front, so that she lay on the discarded flattened dress, head pillowed on her pale arms. The matt-black hair of her head grew in a tiny hackle down her neck and the pale knobs of her spine, to transform into fur where her tail (wide as her wrist at the coccyx, but flattened) coiled down black and white.

  "Don’t you ever give up?"

  "Never!"

  The Hyena seated herself on the unsteady edge of the bed. She reached out and began to rub the younger woman’s shoulders. Zar-bettu-zekigal lowered her head, lay with her nose in the crook of her arm. Something brushed the Hyena’s shoulder; she started; realized it was the tuft-tipped tail.
r />   "I’m ordering camp struck. Well enough for the Salomon men to fortify their halls, but the dynasty’s used to hit-and-run." She paused. "We may need to be invisible before the end of today, to attack with no warning of our coming."

  Zari’s head came up far enough for her to say: "That why you shifted the tents down here? To Fourteenth District?"

  The Hyena pushed her thumbs into flesh that barely cushioned sharp shoulder-blades, hot under her hands; bracing her fingers on the Katayan’s skin. Shadows crossed the tent. No breeze moved the canvas walls. Outside, she heard the shouts of civilian infantry being drilled, spared a moment’s thought for the sewer-taught soldiery and this district’s militia.

  "The Fane." Her fingers dug into smooth skin.

  "Messire the Cardinal says: Memory, hear: To the leader of the Imperial dynasty this message. His Majesty’s own precautions will have taken place by noon. If you wish no retaliation, make no attack on them; they are not designed for use against your people . . ."

  The Hyena nodded impatiently. "I know about the engines in the artillery garden. Zari—"

  Still soothing the younger woman’s muscles in rhythmic strokes, she found her hands moving as Zar-bettu- zekigal rolled over onto her back, until they rested on her small high breasts. The Katayan put her hands under the back of her head and grinned. A dappled tuft of hair marked her Venus-mound, and pale freckles dotted her belly. The Hyena moved her hands down over the sharply defined rib-cage.

  "Your own people’s protection I leave to you. My best experts in magia foretell this noontide to be the moment of the Great Wheel’s turning. Now, whether it be for the favor of my people or yours, I know not, but such a confusion is cast over all readings for our strange masters the Decans that I confidently anticipate—"

  Hardly holding in her impatience, she said: "Yes? Yes?"