The Twyning (8 page)

It was close, just beyond a thin wall of timber. The disgusting smell of humans, of the smoke they sometimes breathe, was almost overpowering.

I paused for a few seconds. Another scream reached me, weaker this time. Every instinct in my body told me to flee, but I knew that I had no choice.

Closing my ears to the sound of the enemy, I began to gnaw at the wood. Soon I was able to squeeze through it into the dazzling, dangerous light.

The enemy was all around. It loomed above me as I crouched in the corner of the room.

Then I saw him.

King Tzuriel was swinging, barely alive now, from the hand of the enemy.

I attempted to reveal to him, but King Tzuriel was too weak to see or to hear anything.

The human laid him on a surface, then reached for a long, gleaming line of metal that was on the table nearby.

I knew, for all my terror, that I had no choice.

. . . that the rat is only just alive, as he lays it on a table that is at the front of the stage. He looks at that moment like a magician in a circus. He wants to scare his audience a little.

He is holding a long syringe.

“This rat weighs fully three pounds — rats are growing larger with every generation. But it is not merely his size I wish to show to you this evening. I will show how
Rattus norvegicus
is a perfect disease-carrying organism.”

He smooths the fur of the rat around its heart. It is hardly breathing now.

“Alive, a rat is dangerous, a perfect walking mechanism for spreading disease. Even when it is dead, its war against humanity continues.”

He glances up at his audience and smiles. He is enjoying this moment.

He aims the syringe at the heart of the rat, then plunges it into the flesh.

. . . of King Tzuriel, I lost all sense of safety. His pulse was within me, summoning me. He needed the help of citizens, and only one citizen was nearby.

A loud scream bubbled up from within me, shaking and racking my body as it emerged from my throat.

The sound of the enemy was all around me. I ignored it. With all my strength, I ran toward my king.

. . . pointing at the floor. Others around him, on one side of the hall and near the front, move quickly from their seats.

Soon that part of the hall is in tumult.

Then I see it. A rat, quite small, is scurrying down one side of the lecture room toward the stage.

The scientists near the beast stand up. Some of them try to stamp on it as it runs by. Yet still it continues toward us.

“Get it, someone! Get it!” A voice, squeaky with panic, can be heard above the confusion. It is the doctor. Eyes wide, hands clutched together in front of him, he is backing away as if, at any moment, he might run out of the room.

The rat reaches the base of the stage and seems to look up. Unable to get any farther, it scurries along the baseboard before vanishing into another hole.

“Oh. Oh. Oh.”

Slowly all eyes return to the doctor. When he realizes that the beast has gone, he gives a nervous little laugh. “Oh . . . what a surprise that was,” he says.

“You’ll be all right now, Ross-Gibbon,” a stout, bewhiskered man in the front row calls out. “Return to your talk. You were just telling us how important it was not to show any fear.”

And the moment of alarm is suddenly broken. The room rocks with laughter.

The doctor’s face has turned an angry red. He walks slowly back to the table and the big rat, which is now motionless.

“I shall dissect our friend,” he says, his voice still shaky. He runs a scalpel along the rat’s stomach. Dark blood oozes onto the table, a smell of putrid flesh fills the air.

The man with whiskers, sitting in the front row, takes a handkerchief from his pocket and covers his nose and mouth.

“Yes, gentlemen, the smell is not good,” says the doctor irritably. “That is the very argument I am making.” He points with his scalpel to the purple and red innards of the rat. “There are in my opinion no fewer than fifty-five infectious diseases, many of them fatal, that can be carried and passed on, in one way or another, by the rat. Typhus, plague, leptospirosis, infectious jaundice, trench fever, influenza,
Trichinella spiralis
. . .” He starts to list beast-related sicknesses, but it is clear now that the so-called scientists have heard, seen, and smelled enough of rats for the evening.

One or two leave their seats, and others sidle out of the room with obvious relief. By the time the doctor has finished his list of diseases, the lecture hall is half empty.

He finishes hurriedly. When he asks for questions, there is an embarrassed silence. The man in the front row makes a show of looking at his timepiece.

It is done. The moment that the doctor has been talking about for so long is over.

“Where did that blinking rat come from?” His question is directed to me as I lift the corpse of our specimen back into the cage. “Did someone release it as a joke?”

Saying nothing, I lay a cloth over the table. It is soon dark with blood.

“I wasn’t afraid of it, you know.” The doctor sniffs and squares his shoulders. “I was just a bit taken aback.”

I nod with careful respect.

“No more rats in public, Mr. Smith.” He glances at me as if I have somehow been responsible for what has happened, then makes briskly for the door. “From now on we change our tactics.”

. . . grew quieter. Now and then the sound of a voice or the bark of a dog would make the heart quicken, but as night closed in, the danger from the enemy faded.

We crouched in silence beneath a pile of logs. Fang’s injured leg had swelled and his eyes were dull with pain. We ached with hunger and tiredness.

We were completely lost.

In the darkness, I sensed the eyes of Floke and Fang upon me. Without a word of revelation, I had become their leader. The thought made me feel stronger.

I nudged Fang.

— We’ve got to go.

Neither Floke nor Fang stirred.

— Find our way back to the kingdom.

Floke stretched his hind legs and stood.

Too weary now even to conceal ourselves, we made our way across the open ground. At the same moment, each of us was aware of a powerful scent in the air. It was Floke who revealed first.

— Food! There is food nearby.

Ahead we saw a human enclosure, surrounded by a wooden fence. It was from beyond that fence that the scent that made us dizzy with hunger was coming.

I explored the length of the fence for some way in.

The only opening was in one corner, a crack between the timbers more suitable for a field mouse than for a rat. Maddened by hunger, Floke hurled himself against it, cutting the skin above his eye in the process.

I approached. I gazed at the opening, thinking myself into smallness.

I pushed my nose forward in a gentle, snuffling movement. I felt my bones soften and bend, my aching muscles grow tighter, squeezed by the wood.

I was through.

There was a small yard behind the cottage, and against a wall only a few lengths from where I stood was a large bowl of cooked scraps. I climbed into the bowl. With some difficulty, I rolled out half a roast potato, then a scrap of bacon. My mouth drooled as I took them to the gap in the fence and allowed Floke to pull them through.

I turned back to fetch some food for myself, and at that moment I became aware of something else. At first, it felt like a pulse. Then I sensed it was something different, a sort of murmur within me. Not one pulse, but many.

Somewhere very near to where I stood there were other rats, and they were in trouble. With all my strength, I sent out the message.

— Who is there?

I waited. The only sound that I could hear was my own heartbeat. I tried again.

— I am a stranger. I need help.

A prickle of fear raised the fur on my back. There were rats nearby and we were on their territory. Even if they belonged to another kingdom, they would normally be quick to reply, if only with threats.

What explained the silence?

Then I saw, beyond the food bowl, a square of wood on the ground.

I moved toward it, sniffing. Definitely, there were rats nearby. But why were they silent?

I heard a sound from beneath the wood. I tore a couple of strips from it with my teeth. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, I squeezed my head into the tiny hole that I had gnawed.

I looked down, then quickly drew back, fearful.

I looked again. Below me were hundreds of rats, pressed together in a pit in the dark. They were strangely silent — asleep, I suppose — but as I watched, the light from the hole I had made caught two dark eyes.

I revealed with all my strength.

— Who are you?

Silence. I could see more clearly now. The walls of the prison were brick and impossible to climb. From the dark mass of bodies, one struggled clear.

It was a fragile, a doe, light in color and smaller than the rest. I tried again.

— Tell me who you are. What is this place?

The eyes looked up at me.

— Go!

Her revelation was weak.

— I am Efren. I come from the world below. I have seen my king . . .

I thought in that moment I could smell the doe’s impatience.

— Leave this place.

She sniffed the air. Her eyes seemed to understand everything that was happening to me, that I was lost, that I needed to return to my kingdom to bring news from the world above, that I felt more alone than ever in my life. Her revelation was stronger now.

— Cross the highway of humans. There is an entrance to the world below, half hidden beside where the water gathers. You will find the touch-path there.

But it felt wrong to leave these rats. My instinct was to help. Even a fragile in the world above deserved help.

— Go.

She seemed to reveal with her last remaining strength.

— What is your name? — I asked.

— Malaika.

— I shall see you again, Malaika.

A scent of sadness reached me as I drew back.

There was silence from the pit. I breathed deep of the early morning air.

Never look back. It is a rule of the kingdom.

I crossed the yard, squeezed my way through the hole I had made in the fence.

— Follow me.