The Rat and the Serpent (6 page)

I heard these softly spoken words and I believed them, but the image of Raknia in her silken dress remained before my mind’s eye. “I’ll remember what you say,” I promised. I half meant it.

“Good. Now return in all quietude to Blackguards’ Passage, and rest before the exertions of tomorrow night.”

I returned to Astarta’s cellar, swapping the night’s clothes for my old rags and offering a summary of my fortunes, before returning to my doorway, and sleep. Confusion plagued me. Now that I was lying on hard stone in a bundle of rags my most vivid memories were of humiliation at the hands of Atavalens, making me yearn for the citidenizenry; but then, unbidden, thoughts of Raknia would return and I would contemplate life in the Gulhane Gardens.

As evening fell I ate my last crust of bread—black rye that tasted sour—and prepared to leave for the Tower of the Dessicators. Citidenizens were jostling one another as they hurried down to the Hippodrome from Divan Yolu Street, their parasols raised against a heavy fall of soot, their shoes and boots lost in black haze. I coughed. The sootstorm had brought a lot of material to the ground, some of it compacted material like crumbling coal from the local roofs. I was filthy, my face streaked, my hands black.

I slipped through wrought iron railings to piss against a concealed wall. I wondered how much liquid I was adding to the Mavrosopolis, and, despite myself, I grinned, seeing myself working both for and against the dessicators.

“You!”

I turned. In the tiny yard behind me I saw a wraith.

Like everybody who lived in the Mavrosopolis, I knew it was haunted; I knew there were certain streets into which nogoths should never venture. But so few ever
saw
ghosts. Only tales, exaggerated stories of hauntings had ever reached my ears. Now here was a wraith, worse than a shade, not as terrifying as a spectre, but bad enough.

I stared at the apparition.

“You—Ügliy,” came the wraith’s voice.

I nodded. The wraith approached, its translucent legs moving beneath a robe of ghostly sable, its jewelled fingers raised to point at me. But the thing that transfixed me was a single eye, shining like the Evening Star; the other was covered with a patch. A mask covered the lower face.

“What are you, Ügliy?”

I fastened my breeches and shrank back against the wall.

The moaning voice would not cease. “What are you? Tell me.”

“I am a nogoth.”

Now the wraith was just feet away. “Yes, you are a nogoth. You are a street nogoth, born to a street nogoth, fathered by a street nogoth. You do not belong in the citidenizenry. You are street through and through.”

“Yes.” I wanted to run, but terror kept me motionless, my back against the wall, my hands clutching the rough stone.

“Do not take the test. Do not continue dessicating. You are not for the Mavrosopolis. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

The wraith floated forward, close enough to touch me if it wanted to... if it could. “And if you do continue, I will return to haunt you until your heart bursts and you find your graveyard.”

“Yes.”

The wraith turned, its robe billowing high, before it faded to invisibility. I was left alone, breathing in short gasps. Then I ran, until I found myself back on Blackguards’ Passage. Grabbing my parasol I hurried down to Divan Yolu Street, then made for to the Tower of the Dessicators.

I managed a quick conversation with Raknia before our group set out. “Have you ever been haunted?” I asked her.

She frowned, uncomfortable with the question. “No, of course not.” The tone of her voice implied that she considered my manners wanting.

I was not distracted. “I just saw a wraith, Raknia, a wraith that came to find me and told me not to take the test.”

“What?”

“It’s true. I saw it just now.”

Raknia looked away. “Don’t lie to me, you don’t need to.”

“But I did!”

She glanced at me. “Really?”

“It came specially for me and it told me not to take the test.”

“Well, don’t think it has anything to do with what happened last night,” Raknia said. She shuddered. “I’ve never been haunted and I hope I never will be.”

I nodded. “I don’t know what to do.”

Raknia picked her equipment bag from the floor and slung it over her shoulder. “Follow its advice,” she said.

I looked in puzzlement at her. “Will you follow your own advice?”

She grinned. “Maybe.”

Then Musseler waved at us. “You two. Hurry!”

We departed the Tower of the Dessicators and walked up Vezirhani Street. Atavalens was not amongst us. “Will he survive his injury?” I whispered to Raknia.

She shrugged. “It depends how strong he is.”

We said nothing more, but Yabghu and Uchagru glared at us both.

Chaos still reigned in the streets of the Mavrosopolis. The work was tough and monotonous, an endless walk from street to Propontis and back again, loaded with heavy dessicating rods, dodging falling debris, clearing soot into the gutters, patching holes and drains so there was no chance of any water flow. By midnight we were exhausted, as were the many other groups that we encountered, a sight reminding us that the preservation of the Mavrosopolis depended on everybody working as a team. I worked as hard as my half-starved state allowed. I noticed that the two women were suffering as I did, but Atavalens’ henchmen were stronger and bulkier, as if they were well fed. That only made me more determined to be noticed as an apprentice.

A few hours before dawn we came upon a house collapsed into its own garden, charred wood and stone lying everywhere, suggesting a lightning strike. Musseler gave it a cursory look, but then he stopped, shining the beam of his lantern to the earth. “Aha,” he said.

“Is it the owner?” Yabghu asked.

“It’s food,” Musseler replied. “Pass me your hook.”

Yabghu obliged, and Musseler used the implement to remove a pale sphere from the ragged earth.

“A giant puffball,” he said. He looked up to the sky, then added, “Very well, time for a break. We have earned this.”

We gathered around a pile of stones, settling as best we could into the hard crevices, Raknia and I together, the other pairs nearby. The light was poor, but I could see Musseler examining a cube that he had taken from his pocket.

“Do you know what this is?” he asked. Nobody did. His voice became mellow as he continued, “This is something you’ve never seen, a sorcerer’s block, spell-heavy and used to heat objects.” He grabbed a plate of steel from the wreckage and placed it on the block, then took the puffball, hefting it in both hands and grinning. “We’ll enjoy this,” he continued, taking more objects from his backpack. “Watch. I pour oil upon the steel and it crackles. Yabghu, your knife. Now I slice the puffball and fry each piece in the oil.”

A delicious smell began to permeate the air, causing me to salivate, and my stomach to rumble. The next half hour was like a dream of heaven. The puffball was so large it provided dozens of slices, handed around in rotation by Musseler to his dessicators. It was crisp, with a taste like earth salted and peppered; a texture that melted in the mouth. We washed the meal down with watered milk.

I sat back, an inexplicable sensation of serenity upon me. I looked at the chaos that we sat in, then looked at the smiling faces of the people around me, and I realised that we had created peace from chaos. Here was a clue to the meaning of citidenizenship. We had worked hard for the sake of the Mavrosopolis, and now we were sharing the fruits of our labour. But the meal was only a small part of the relationship. I felt now the security of companionship, a feeling impossible in nogoth society, where groups were glued together by circumstance, force, or through desperate emotion. This was no collective of arthritic mothers in a cellar, no harbour gang ruled by fierce men who would murder without thought, no scavenging pack tearing through the alleys impelled by their own hunger. This was a natural feeling: friends in harmony. Having given, we now received, and because we were sharing it was all the better.

I was startled by this revelation, and delighted. I understood that it would be impossible for me now to refuse the test. I had to become a citidenizen. I needed more time in heaven.

We spent a further two hours dessicating the streets, before we returned exhausted to our alleys and chambers. I felt as though I was being warmed by the glimpse I had been afforded of life to come, the poverty and hardship of the street now something that could be left behind.

But I knew there was one more task ahead of me before I threw my whole weight behind apprenticeship. I had to reject the wraith. Why I had been haunted I did not know—Raknia as conspirator had faded from my mind—but I knew it was vital to deny the wraith, that there be no doubt in my own mind and in the minds of others of my determination to become a citidenizen.

I needed help, however. Daring the forbidden streets of the Mavrosopolis alone was not recommended. I thought of Raknia.

So I returned to Raknia. She listened to me, and while she was not convinced by my idea, neither did she reject it. There was hope. She could be persuaded. With no other bargaining point I was forced to dangle the possibility of further intimate encounters before her, and though I suspected she grasped this plan, she nonetheless took the bait. We would explore together. Our arrangement seemed to me to be another indication of the possibilities to be found in friendship.

Neither of us knew the locations of haunted streets, not least because nogoths never went there; or perhaps they did, and were unwilling to tell the tale. Raknia thought most streets would lie at the tranquil eastern and northern shores; not on the southern shores, where life was brutish. So we made up Vezirhani Street towards the Galata Bridge, though we were uncertain of what to do when we arrived.

“We could seek areas where nogoths don’t congregate,” Raknia suggested.

With no better plan, I agreed, knowing that I would be able to spot the signs of nogoth occupation without difficulty. An absence of such spoor would be suspicious. The night was sootless and cool, perfect conditions, though hardly comfortable. I thrust my hands into the pockets of my rags and strode on.

The night seemed endless. We trudged through shambles after shambles, along a continuous path of debris and soot pawed over by hunchbacked nogoths like so many ink blots, with never a clean street in sight.

And then something odd—a lane cleared of stone and masonry, yet lacking those winding trails in the soot produced by scavenging nogoths; just a single furrow in the middle, as if made by citidenizens going about their business. I stopped short, aware that something here was different, but unable to pinpoint what it might be. I looked around, but I saw nothing unusual in the buildings and towers—lanterns lit, doors closed, bleached signs hanging from poles carved in bone. Yet I felt something, almost a presence, as if the silence itself was a tangible entity.

“Here?” Raknia whispered.

I scanned the lane ahead. It was long, and, I noticed, did not carry a name. Suspicions struck me. All streets were named; why not this one? But perhaps it was marked, in writing only ghosts could see. And there was not a single nogoth in sight. I glanced at Raknia, and nodded.

We waited. I did not know what to expect, if anything; I just knew that I must declare the truth burning inside me, that I must oppose the wraith on its own ground so that it never returned to haunt me.

“Don’t think you can fight any ghost,” Raknia remarked.

I turned to face her. “Can you read my thoughts?”

There was the hint of a smile on her face. “You might say that. You have deep feelings, Ügliy, and I can see the ripples they create.”

I turned away. I did not like the idea that I was so transparent to her. It gave her more power than she had already. Now I felt ill at ease. “I think we’d better go,” I said, “we’ve waited long enough.”

“We’ve stood here less than a minute.”

I fretted. Something here was pressing down on me, a force, a feeling, perhaps the rumour of this haunted lane. Then I saw a shadow move from the corner of my eye and I jumped, cried and clutched Raknia, who in turn squeaked and clutched me.

I pointed at the shadow. “A wraith!”

“No, no, it’s a shade—”

“Run!”

I felt all reason depart, terror enclosing me as if to fill my lungs with soot then dump me down some nameless hole: I just had to get away. The force was animated—after me, and me alone.

Then from a doorway I saw a shape emerge. It was the wraith that had sought me out before. It blocked my way, and I felt two passions tearing me apart: the terror, which seemed like suffocation, and the urge to declare my feelings about my life. After a few moments spluttering I yelled, “Leave me alone! I’ll do what I want to do, so leave me alone!”

I noticed little of the flight that followed: the flash and blur of lamps, clattering boots, voices, the stink of soot and urine, the jabbing of my crutch into my armpit. I stopped once to take my bearings, then felt panic descend once more.

I was running alone.

The return of calm was like a cooling of my body. The flicker of a lantern and the baroque curl of a wrought iron fence returned me to reality. I recognised the street I was in. I stopped, gasping for breath, my throat and chest aching, nose and eyes running. I coughed, then bent over my crutch, trying to calm the pains in my side.

I had been a fool to think that I could reverse a haunting. But I realised one thing. I had shouted at the wraith, words I could not remember, but they were bitter words that would be interpreted as a declaration of intent. Those words were unambiguous.

I
must
become a citidenizen.

30.2.583

What is this strange emotion that is seeping up from my toes, from my legs—this is the only way that I can write what I feel, though it is inaccurate—and entering into the place inside my chestwhere my heartbeats? Some, I have heard, call it joy. Some say it lives in a bottle of raki. Some know it as the daemon spirit of the countless taverns that line the harbour. I have never been drunk in my whole life. Thrice, perhaps, I have sipped alcohol from a glass and felt a few minutes later its inevitable effect on my head, accellerated by an empty stomach. My precious head! But what I feel now is other than drunken pleasure, for it is deeper, finer, more noble, and I
will
call it joy.

I think I feel joy because I tread my wonderful path of bright light.

I cannot be certain of this. I do not deal in certainties—though I do like them. Nogoth life is uncertain life and I have learned this lesson well. But it seems to me that joy is approaching, seeping down from the high strata of the citidenizenry, offering me hope, and, perhaps, though it seems unlikely, sustenance. And yet, why not? Why should the Mavrosopolis not recognise the potential that resides in me? I am sensitive to absurdity, and I find it absurd to think that the Mavrosopolis would ignore anyone so useful, not to mention so driven as myself.

I am an apprentice now. I have to show myself not as the person I am, but as the person I will become. I have to think forward into time and imagine how it will be when I am a citidenizen—so good, so true, so right—that somehow I might clothe myself in correct attributes, and be recognised as the fine fellow I will be.

I am impatient with the people of the Tower of the Thawers. They are stolid, rational, slow, deliberate people, and I do not like their attitude. They see me as a freak because I like poetry. Might a nogoth not find poetry if he was desperate?

May there not be a poetry of gutter despair? I contend that there may be. But these thawers do not like it. They say I speak out of place. I tell them that I will speak in place for the sake of the Mavrosopolis, but inside my head I am formulating verse.

Inside my head is a place they can never reach.

I worry too about the emphasis they place on physical labour. I am tall and I bend like a reed. My back is weak. There is nothing wrong with this. My arms are thin and the lumps of muscle upon them are slight. There is nothing wrong with this, either. If I run fast I am soon out of breath, for I have poor stamina, and if I am asked to lift anything, or to fetch anything, I do the job poorly. But physical labour is not a task meant for one such as I. A thinker, me, one who considers, one, most important of all, who wants to find the location of peace. Is this so much to ask? Certainly, others have asked similar questions, and these others may also have sought the bright path. But where are they?

I have decided on one thing. I am prepared to give that I might receive. I know what I want and I am prepared—though perhaps not happy—to work for the end that I desire. My apprenticeship has shown me that such an equation is possible, indeed that it is one of the backbones of life in the citidenizenry. This strongly suggests that the citidenizenry is a happy place, a station in life where people may find fulfilment. I am looking forward to passing the test.