Chapter 20.1 (Lord of the Rats)

Author's Notes: 2,522 words.

He walked through the dusty, stone-rimmed tunnel, taking care to keep his torch away from the wooden railing. Not being proficient in fire magic, nor having the stamina to run along the infinity that stretched silently in both directions, he didn't want to take chances.

His blue robe, extending down to his elbows, tangled itself against the posts at times. Hence, thanks to his tugging the robes free, there were a series of cuts on the dust-covered outfit, opening in the faint breezes that emanated from in front of him. It amazed him that the wind reached here, but the city's old builders had planned for every contingency; a working catacomb that stretched deep into the surrounding countryside worked well to satisfy paranoia. That didn't stop him from hating the dreary, long tunnels to and from the Two Thousand Year Capital.

Not a soul was in sight, nor any lights. Not that they were necessary, since it wasn't as though somebody would fall from the tall railing and land on the ground two feet beneath the raised path. He mostly feared that someone would sneak up on him in the darkness. His heart raced at the prospect that one of the locals was watching him. They were not hostile - Seres had seen to that - but they were grotesque and disturbing little creatures.

A figure covered entirely black appeared at the edge of the man's vision. Screaming, the man flung his torch into the air. The figure in black stepped forward and caught it deftly, pulling back their face mask to reveal the healthy face of a young woman. "Nissyen," she said.

Leaning on the railing, the man took a few deep breaths. He tried to regain his composure. "Oh good, it's only you," he whispered, before his face turned green and he threw up over the edge.

The woman cringed. "I still don't know why in the world Seres made you his adviser."

His nerves and stomach warred, causing his temples to ache and his chest to convulse. Nissyen wiped the corner of his mouth and stepped unsteadily towards the center of the path, holding a hand against each railing. "I don't - don't care. Did you do as I asked?"

A message dropped onto the floor. "On your request, we executed all of the suspects. Each came from the west and south, carrying messages like these."

The gears in Nissyen's brain fired at rapid speed - he hadn't expected they would be messengers, nor that the spies would deliver him the messages. Picking it up, he scanned the page quickly, looking for any words of interest. Something clicked. He stifled a smile as he handed the letter back and said assertively, "The Doves, last we checked, are in Eimhin, keeping an eye on that bastard son of the Mad King's. They planned on staying in Exedor afterwards. Had they truly sent any letters, they would have come in from the north. They would also make less absurd statements. Could a child crush an army?"

She accepted it as though it were a wet towel. "Should I burn these, then?" she said. "They've already been found clear of poison, so it was just to trick us."

"Definitely," Nissyen replied, having regained the stability to move his arms and legs without them wobbling. He pushed the spy aside and walked forward, her following. "Likely to keep the city on guard and force it to waste precious resources. Are all the messages with you?"

Her response took a few unnerving seconds. Nissyen was tempted to look behind him to make sure she was still there, and that he wasn't all alone in the darkness. "One of them is with the rat people, yes."

"Go and intercept them," said Nissyen, sweat forming on his brow. His voice was laced with chattering teeth. "It's not of Seres's concern."

"Attempted sabotage should be," the spy said, jumping up from the edge and in front of Nissyen, who screamed and threw up his arms once again. "Did you ask me and my troops to commit kill without his approval?"

Of course she would be persistent. It was her job. She had to keep prodding and prodding until he told her what she wanted to hear. And every second that he hesitated was another second that she suspected him, so he had to react quickly. "We always have sabotage attempts," he said dismissively. "And the city's almost on edge, so, messages or no messages, the reality will be much the same. I also did not want to stress him any further."

Her eyes narrowed, but she nodded. "Correct on all counts," she murmured, turning and walking away from him. "I know you're overstepping your boundaries, but you’re more stupid than evil. Just like everyone else. Still, if you’re right, there shouldn’t be any harm in Seres accepting the message. Interrupt it yourself, or explain it to him."

And then she was gone. Nissyen waited anxiously, tapping his foot, until he believed that she was far enough away. Then he breathed a sigh of relief and contemplated his options, holding his hands against his head and staring at the floor, which still swayed in his vision. If the rats had the message, it was likely at the king’s palace, or the pit beneath the city's largest chapel. He always hated Nissyen, so he could send the message to Seres out of spite. Seres would doubtlessly ask why Nissyen had ordered the executions, and then posit all the ways that the messengers could have been legitimate, and ask even worse questions. At least the rats could be coaxed.

Nissyen had no respect for the king or his dirty creatures; they were not the dragons that had helped build the city. Still, what other choice did he have?

He dashed down the tunnel in the direction he'd come, the flame on his torch dancing as he threatened to trip over his own clothes. The musky smell dissipated with time, replaced by the dry and dusty air of his surroundings. Nissyen kept a steady pace and scanned the walls swiftly. The creatures were best known by their red eyes, but he could see none peering out from the darkness. He would've been happier about this if he were not running towards their king.

Reaching an intersection, Nissyen blew out his torch and set it on the place where he'd taken it. His eyes adjusted to the dim lights of weak-glowing fires set in braziers on the walls in three directions. He tried to make calculations in his head as he chose the path to the right and hurried away. The spies gave their reports to him and Seres as soon as they came back. Hence, the messengers couldn’t have been killed more than a day ago. If any message had reached the rats, it had to have been within the last couple hours or so, and no doubt they were arguing over its meaning. Seres kept them metaphorically and literally in the dark, as he figured they were more of a nuisance than anything else. They were like the darkness between the braziers. That made them easy to sway, especially with Nissyen’s reputation as Seres’s advisor.

The flames appeared less and less often. Nissyen was increasingly aware of flashes in the looming darkness, spots of red that blinked and vanished on seeing him. A faint but disturbing smell, like wet fur and filth, reached his nostrils, causing him to scowl and slow his pace. By now, the tunnel had widened, sloping down farther and farther beneath him. Looking over the railing, he could spot a few pairs of red eyes from the path that now stretched beneath his. He blinked, and they were gone.

It was dark enough that he could barely see. He gripped the railing as he walked forward, feeling the way that it shifted from cold metal to thick slabs of stone. Goosebumps ran up his skin. The fact that he had not kept the torch lingered in Nissyen's mind, taunting him and causing him to tug at his hair. When he spotted a brazier sitting on the edge of the railing, he wondered if he should pick it up and carry it. So, with not even the tunnel walls visible anymore, he did so, gripping the edges and pulling up.

"What is your business?" The words echoed through the impossibly large tunnel. He screamed again and accidentally cast the brazier over the side of the railing. It landed with a clang on the ground beneath after a dozen precarious seconds, snuffing all the remaining light with it.

Nissyen stammered as he spoke, body shaking as he spotted two specks of red close to his face. "I am here to know what your King has done with the message."

His eyes started to adjust to the light, capturing the silhouette of a large, bipedal rat, dressed in a tattered chainmail uniform that looked like it used to belong to a guard. The vaguely raspy voice was feminine. "What message?"

"From the messengers our spies killed," Nissyen said, sucking in air and trying to quell his frantic heart.

The eyes drew closer and narrowed into slits. "We have one, yes. Is there something important about it?"

"It's fake!" Nissyen shouted, recoiling as he felt the touch of whiskers against his cheeks. "The Doves should not be that far south, and there are no signs that the Alliance would've captured the children."

The shaded rat came even closer, enough for Nissyen to smell her rotting breath, then retreated back carefully. "The King has been ill for some time," she said. "He hasn't been in any state to read the message. As his favorite guard, the choice falls upon me to do anything about it, and suffice it to say that I don't trust you."

"Trust me!" he said angrily, stepping forward and grabbing the rat by the chainmail. "I've worked for Seres for seven long years, and still nobody trusts me? Do you know how hard I work? Do you know how long I spend every day trying to keep this city alive? I can assure you that the message is entirely fake, because the Alliance would waste no time in marching straight for Wyandanch with the captive children. They would ransom, and the city would fall into their hands without a single life lost on their hands. And then they would murder, pillage, and burn this city. Let me be the hero for once, instead of Seres’s pet! Do you want to -"

The rat smacked him in the face with the back of her spear. He recoiled, clutching his chin as he fell against the railing. "Enough!" the rat shouted, slamming the spear's wooden end on the ground. "You've made your point, but it doesn't hurt to check." As he tried to pull himself back up, Nissyen felt himself being grabbed by his robe and forced into the air. He swung his legs futility at the dark speck below him, her red eyes narrowing in concentration.

"You do have a coward’s smell," she said at last, throwing him on the ground. "I was expecting you, or one of your ilk. You all look the same, and almost smell the same."

Nissyen could feel warm blood as he reached for the back of his head, which pulsed. He pushed himself up. "Will you destroy the message?" he spat, standing precariously on his feet.

Vision blurry, the most he could see was a pair of red eyes moving up and down, though he was unsure if that was just his dizziness. "I will give you the little respect you deserve," she shot back. "You'd better be right, or else I will personally kill you when this city burns." And then she turned around and walked off, but not before actually spitting at him.

He rose, trying to wipe the spit from off of his robes and swearing under his breath. His hands felt like the garbage that stuck to the bottom of his shoes when he walked through Wyandanch, and Nissyen waited until he was sure that the distinctive pair of red eyes had vanished before he tried to scrape his hands along the railing. One of them touched a soft fabric; a hand clamped over his mouth when he began to scream.

"Still a consistent story," said the spy. "You’re just an coward looking for fame."

She let go as Nissyen attempted to shove the offending arm away, upon which he took a few deep breaths. "What are you?" he then demanded loudly, wheeling around to face the dark silhouette of the woman, her outfit almost perfectly blending into the surroundings.

The spy laughed, throwing her head back. "It's my job to have a few identities," she said, shifting between form so that a pair of red eyes illuminated the surrounding fur. "I wasn't lying when I said I was his personal guard."

"Is tormenting people part of your job description?" Nissyen said, clutching onto the railing as he moved around and slowly walked towards a distant, far away light. The red eyes, always focused on him, shot ahead of him.

"You must trust no one," she said, stopping to let Nissyen go ahead of her. "That's what I've always been taught. I'll even question my wife at times."

Nissyen's steps widened and grew more frequent as the urge to flee the darkness seized him. "And who is this lucky lady? Another rat like yourself?"

The spy kept pace with him, much to his intense frustration - he almost convinced himself she wasn't moving at all. "I've had to deal with worse people," the spy said. "You won't break me by being racist. I still haven't given you my other identities, told you my wife's name, nor given you anything to use against me. I can even tell you that Seres respects me enough that you'll never go after me."

"Can I at least have the honor of a name?" Nissyen felt a drop of water land on his head, and was suddenly fighting off the overwhelming urge to look up.

"Veta," the spy said after a long pause. "With your ego, I doubt you'll remember it. I've only told you it a few times before."

Nissyen scrunched up his face. "I've only seen with your Seres, and he didn’t call you by your name. Besides, I had to use your codename when you sent that letter asking what to do with the messengers. How am I supposed to know this is your true name?"

"Ah, you're not as stupid as I thought," Veta replied. "Since I’m betting you have no more requests, I'll be on my way.  I want to see my wife again, and I'll have to take care of the last message. Never forget that my threat still stands, little coward."

Tense silence. He looked around, his surroundings faintly illuminated by the braziers. As expected, she was gone. But his plan had gone mostly as he'd hoped, so he walked along more happily as he escaped that dreaded tunnel.