The Rat and the Serpent (26 page)

Chapter 14

The home of the counsellords was a street in the north of the Mavrosopolis, close to the Galata Bridge, running parallel to Ragip Gumuspala Street, and when I was led there I knew I had walked it before, for this was the street in which Raknia and I had been haunted. I nodded to myself, remembering that day.

The counsellord at my side was called Katurguter, a tall, reticent man who spoke in grave tones, as if some disaster was about to happen. “This is Siyah Street,” he explained, “and here all the counsellords of Constantinopolis have their homes.”

“Of where?”

“It is what we call the Mavrosopolis. Stamboul is rather too vulgar a name for the conurbation in which we live.”

I nodded. “I’ve been in this street before,” I said. “At the time I thought it had no name.”

“It is nameless only to those who do not belong here—citidenizens and nogoths. Only we know the truth.”

“But I was haunted here.”

Katurguter nodded once. “Of course you were.”

“And will I have a home here?”

“You must move out of whatever cheap and unpleasant lodgings you used to reside in. You are a counsellord now. Leave in that place all belongings except those personal to you, for you will have no need of them. Also leave all money. Counsellords take what they want.”

I was shocked. “But money was the platform on which I arrived here.”

“Platform?”

“Yes. The citidenizens want me to reform the coins and the different currencies. Having paper money, for instance.”

“Reform?” Katurguter queried.

“And I must do it, because I promised everybody in Zolthanahmet.”

Katurguter was not given to smiling. With a twitch of his lips he said, “Counsellords have no opportunity to make laws. We are executors. But it is in our gift to take the laws of Constantinopolis to those standing below us, and for that we accept both strict responsibility and many rewards.”

“We cannot make laws?”

“Law making is for elitistors.”

“Who?”

We were half way along Siyah Street. Katurguter pointed to its further end and said, “Do you see anything?”

“A very dark shadow, tall and square.”

“That is House Sable. There live the six elitistors of the Mavrosopolis, and it is they who make the laws. We are but functionaries compared to them, a poor lot, yet not without our pride.”

“But I promised,” I said.

“Your promises were in vain. Do not look unkindly upon yourself, for you were not to know.”

I felt despair that for the second time my wishes would have to defer to a higher level of Mavrosopolitan life. I felt I was doomed to ascend, forever accepting tighter restriction, yet never able to do what I wanted—what I
needed
—to do. I let out a great sigh and let my chin fall forward so that it rested on my chest.

“Alas that you used citidenizens as your support,” Katurguter said. “Had you followed the way of others, ascending on strength of character, you might not now feel so bad.”

“I am not like those others,” I bitterly replied. I sighed once again. “I will have to become an elitistor then.”

Katurguter shook his head. “You cannot.”

“I was told that before.”

“This time there is no alternative. To become an elitistor is to become part of a cult, a body devoted to the dark heart of Constantinopolis. I believe I am correct in thinking you a shaman?”

“Yes,” I replied. Anxiety perturbed me.

“As a shaman, you already carry throughout your body the power of your totemic animal. It is impossible to turn back time. You could never pass the initiation rite because you could never renounce your shamanic heritage to become free and empty, like ordinary counsellords, that the particular sorcery of the cult then seep into you. Apostasy of that profundity is impossible. This is as far as you go.”

I could only repeat, “I have been told that before.”

“This time,” Katurguter replied, “believe
me.
”

I felt numb. We were standing in the middle of the street and all was chill shadow around us. I felt heavy, cold, weak. I felt that despite snatching success I had in fact failed.

“There must be a way,” I muttered.

“Turn back time, become free of decades of your totemic animal infusing itself into you like rain into earth, and then, perhaps, the initiation rite could be attempted—if you were brave enough. But no. I am sorry.” He took me by the arm and said, “You will remain a counsellord. I hope you will become a good and noble one. Now, shall we examine your new home?”

I made no reply. I felt empty.

Without resistance I followed Katurguter, before I was led to a house set some paces off the street. The yard before it was filled with sculptures of serpents, all small, all sooty, set on plinths of marble. The house was imposing, three storeys high, its front door constructed from black oak and steel studs. Diamond-pane windows showed no light inside.

“This seems a glum place,” I said.

Katurguter grunted. “Well, it has been uninhabited for some time. You will bring light and warmth.”

“I think I have left that behind,” I murmured.

“Pardon?”

“Nothing.”

The door creaked when Katurguter pushed it open. But then came a shout from behind us.

“Halt!”

We both turned around. Standing at the gate I saw a figure that before I had only seen as an ethereal being, a ghost, a terror, yet which on this street was a man, albeit a strange one. It was the masked figure with the eye patch, the one who had insisted I return to nogoth life. It was the wraith, it was the shade, but now he was a man.

Katurguter jerked himself straight, as if standing upright would banish any hint of slovenliness. “Why, good evening,” he said.

I felt no anxiety. “Who’s this?” I asked, as artlessly as possible.

The man himself answered. “I am Herpetzag. I am an elitistor.”

“Ügliy meant no offence,” Katurguter said.

“None was taken. Ügliy is but a novice with much to learn.”

I found that my numbness had turned to fire. “You haunted me,” I said, “and you demanded that I stay a nogoth. Well look at me now, just one level below you.”

“There to remain,” Katurguter added, with a ghastly leer in Herpetzag’s direction.

“I’m not here to speak with you,” Herpetzag told Katurguter, turning to stare at me. “I’m interested in the shaman.”

“Why are you frightened of me?” I demanded.

“I’m not.”

“But you were frightened when you haunted me in my tower, because there I realised the difference between sorcery and shamanism. You are frightened of me because I am a shaman and you don’t want my sort in your house.”

Katurguter could not restrain himself. “Ügliy, I thought I had told you! Shamen cannot become elitistors. Herpetzag, I told him, honestly I did.”

I turned to Katurguter, to say, “This is something beyond you.”

Katurguter replied, “How can it be?”

I returned my gaze to Herpetzag. “I don’t know. Yet.”

“You will never know,” Herpetzag stated.

Silence fell.

“Well that is a relief to me,” said Katurguter. He looked across the yard at Herpetzag. “Would it be acceptable to show Ügliy his new house?”

Herpetzag turned and departed without replying.

When we were inside the house, Katurguter shut the door and told me, “You have just done a very foolish thing. Elitistors are the epitome of the Mavrosopolis and are not to be mocked. They are our superiors in every way.”

In the most serious tones I could muster I replied, “I have met Herpetzag three times before, and on the last occasion I had the best of the encounter. I am no ordinary counsellord.” I beat my chest above my heart. “There are things in here that nobody knows about.”

Now Katurguter was riled. “Such things will get you ejected from our ranks and returned to the streets,” he hissed. “There is no place for rebellion amongst the counsellords. We are functionaries of the Mavrosopolis, whose purpose is to make life here run as smoothly as possible according to the laws of the elitistors. You will be watched, Ügliy. We know how quickly you have risen.” He nodded, regaining his composure. “Yes, you will be watched, and by many people.”

“Let them,” I replied. Suddenly a remark occurred to me that could help me make sense of the Mavrosopolis. “I have a friend no other does.”

“Your rat?”

“I refered to Zveratu.”

“Who?”

I made no reply, for this was the answer I had expected. Zveratu was not known to the counsellords. I vowed then in the silence of my thoughts that when I next saw Zveratu I would probe the mystery of my ascension until all was laid bare before me. “Let us investigate this house,” I said.

Katurguter, troubled by my mysterious silence, showed me the house as quickly as possible, before leaving. The place was large, cold and unwelcoming. Each room had high ceilings, white walls, and floors laid with sheepskin rugs. There was food in the pantry and silver jewellery in the drawers. I took a few rings and pushed them onto my fingers, for I had been told that I had no option but to wear as much jewellery as possible. A ring for every finger.

I sat down. I was alone again. The ephemeral acquaintances that I had enjoyed as a citidenizen were now gone. Was solitude the fate of every counsellord?

Feeling the need for action, I jumped from my chair and departed my new home, walking along Siyah Street toward House Sable. Every tile and stone of the building was black, the mortar grey, while from its chimney a dark mist fell, so that the house was wreathed in shadow; and although the glass windows were unshuttered, there was no light inside. It sat upon the street like a smouldering lump of coal. At its front door stood Herpetzag, leaning against an ebon wall.

“Come to see me?” he asked.

“Is it true that because I am a shaman I can never become an elitistor?”

“It is true.”

I remarked, “Then why are you frightened of me?”

“Do not overplay your hand,” Herpetzag replied. “You have yet to experience true terror. I can show you that.”

I did not believe him, and I said so, but he offered me no reply.

So I departed House Sable. I paced to the eastern end of the street, and there paused. I had been told to remain in Siyah Street as much as possible. Districts outside Zolthanahmet were banned.

I thought I knew why. In moments I was running, along Hamidiye Street to its end, then south to the Tower of the Bafflers, then along Babiali Street and Divan Yolu Street, ending up at Blackguards’ Passage.

And the streets looked different. Where before there had been inky lumps marking the positions of nogoths, now there were smudges, misted shapes, hints of people, of faces. My vision had changed and I was seeing my former kin like ghosts.

I clattered down the steps leading to the cellar of my mother, where I shoved open the door and raced inside. I saw nobody. I looked, startled, before a hint of movement caught my eye, and then I turned. There were shadow ghosts here, five of them, yet I did not feel haunted. I saw glimpses of faces, caught expressions of horror, pale eyes and round screaming mouths, fog and mist marking movement. The smell of fear. There was a sound as of screeching from some distant shore.

I knew then that I had lost my world. These ghosts were mothers, one of them my own, all of them forever beyond me. In horror I ran off, alternately sobbing and shouting at the heavens, adrift in a sea of rules and ties, without friends and now without even kin. I knew I could not survive for long.

I would go mad.

And then I thought of Raknia.

I ran back to Divan Yolu Street and made east towards the Gulhane Gardens. Soon I was outside her tower, moments later standing at her door. I pushed the door and, though it had been shut, it opened, as if the Mavrosopolis itself was responding to my counsellord will.

She was inside. I saw her as a misty figure, face indistinct, hands and feet blurred; and again there was an impression of movement away from me, of a twisted and tortured face, of screams reaching me from some distance. Haunted eyes. Fury took me as I recalled what she had done to me. I strode towards her. Next thing I knew my hands were at her neck and there were spiders crawling over my flesh, yet these were insubstantial spiders, illusions only, for I could not feel them on my skin. I drew power from the fact that she could not touch me. I reached into her neck and tried to throttle the life out of her. In moments the figure I overpowered was like an empty coat in my hands, half shadow, half pale flesh. It was like holding flayed skin. The face was empty, the eyes closed: the spiders gone, fading like ash to a breeze.

I knew I must have frightened her to death. I ran from the tower and stumbled east until I saw the Phosphorus before me, and there, exhausted, I sat on a bench. The night sky was clear, the Phosphorus calm. The air was cool and scented with jasmine.

“So you have become a counsellord,” said a voice behind me.

I did not turn around. It was Zveratu. The old man sat beside me.

“Well done indeed,” Zveratu said.

“You’ve got a lot to explain,” I said, putting all the bitterness I felt into my voice.

“I know.”

“Are you going to?”

“Do you want me to?”

I choked. “Of course.”

“Everything?”

“Why not?”

Zveratu said, “But Herpetzag thinks knowledge is dangerous.”

“Ignorance is worse.”

“Of course you are correct when you say that.”

“Then perhaps you could tell me why you’ve pulled me up so high.”

Zveratu sat back and stretched, raising his arms to the air, extending his legs and wriggling his feet. “Is that really how it happened?”

“It seems so to me.”

“Perceptions can betray. Not so long ago you were Raknia’s lover, body to body. Tonight she saw you as an immaterial shade. Is that reality or perception?”

“The Mavrosopolis is using its sorcery to change me.”

“Ügliy, have you ever wondered what lies beyond the Mavrosopolis?”

“No. Why?”

“Do you think any nogoths ponder that question?”

I considered. “I doubt it. No, probably none. Why?”

“What about citidenizens?”