Farmer Fred opened his door and saw all the animals of Furry Bottom waiting for him. "We can't find Mr Bunnsy or Ratty Rupert!" they cried.
- From Mr Bunnsy Has An Adventure
'At last!' said Malicia, shaking the ropes off. 'Somehow I thought rats would gnaw quicker.'
'They used a knife,' said Keith. 'And you could say thank you, couldn't you?'
'Yes, yes, tell them I'm very grateful,' said Malicia, pushing herself upright.
'Tell them yourself!'
'I'm sorry, I find it so embarrassing to… talk to rats.'
'I suppose that's understandable,' said Keith. 'If you've been brought up to hate them because they-'
'Oh, it's not that,' said Malicia, walking over to the door and looking at the keyhole. 'It's just that it's so… childish. So… tinkly-winkly. So… Mr Bunnsy.'
'Mr Bunnsy?' squeaked Peaches, and it really was a squeak, a word that came out as a sort of little shriek.
'What about Mr Bunnsy?' said Keith.
Malicia reached into her pocket and pulled out her packet of bent hair pins. 'Oh, some books some silly woman wrote,' she said, poking at the lock. 'Stupid stuff for ickle kids. There's a rat and a rabbit and a snake and a hen and an owl and they all go around wearing clothes and talking to humans and everyone's so nice and cosy it makes you absolutely sick. D'you know my father kept them all from when he was a kid? Mr Bunnsy Has An Adventure, Mr Bunnsy's Busy Day, Ratty Rupert Sees It Through… he read them all to me when I was small and there's not an interesting murder in any of them.'
'I think you'd better stop,' said Keith. He didn't dare look down at the rats.
'There's no sub-texts, no social commentary…' Malicia went on, still fiddling. 'The most interesting thing that happens at all is when Doris the Duck loses a shoe - a duck losing a shoe, right? - and it turns up under the bed after they've spent the entire story looking for it. Do you call that narrative tension? Because I don't. If people are going to make up stupid stories about animals pretending to be human, at least there could be a bit of interesting violence…'
'Oh, boy,' said Maurice, from behind the grating.
This time Keith did look down. Peaches and Dangerous Beans had gone. 'You know, I never had the heart to tell them,' he said, not to anyone in particular. 'They thought it was all true.'
'In the land of Furry Bottom, possibly,' said Malicia, and stood up as the lock gave a final click. 'But not here. Can you imagine someone actually invented that name and didn't laugh? Let's go.'
'You upset them,' said Keith.
'Look, shall we get out of here before the rat-catchers come back?' said Malicia.
The thing about this girl, Maurice thought, was that she was no good at all at listening to the way people spoke. She wasn't much good at listening, if it came to that.
'No,' said Keith.
'No what?'
'No, I'm not coming with you,' said Keith. 'There's something bad going on here, much worse than stupid men stealing food.'
Maurice watched them argue again. Humans, eh? Think they're lords of creation. Not like us cats. We know we are. Ever see a cat feed a human? Case proven.
How the humans shout, hissed a tiny voice in his head.
Is that my conscience? Maurice thought. His own thoughts said: what, me? No. But I feel a lot better now you told them about Additives. He shifted uneasily from paw to paw. 'Well then,' he whispered, looking at his stomach, 'is that you, Additives?'
He'd been worried about that ever since he'd realized he'd eaten a Changeling. They had voices, right? Supposing you ate one? Suppose their voice stayed inside you? Suppose the… the dream of Additives around inside him? That sort of thing could seriously interfere with a cat's napping time, it really could.
No, said the voice, like the sound of wind in distant trees, it is I. I am… SPIDER.
'Oh, you're a spider?' whispered thought-Maurice. 'I could take on a spider with three paws tied behind my back.'
Not a spider. SPIDER.
The word actually hurt. It hadn't before.
Now I'm in your HEAD, cat. Cats, cats, bad as dogs, worse than rats. I'm in your HEAD, and I will never go AWAY.
Maurice's paw jerked.
I'll be in your DREAMS.
'Look, I'm just passing through,' Maurice whispered desperately. 'I'm not looking for trouble. I'm unreliable! I'm a cat! I wouldn't trust me, and I am me! Just let me get into the nice fresh air and I'll be right out of your… hair or legs or furry bits or whatever!'
You don't want to run AWAY.
That's right, thought Maurice, I don't want to run-Hold on, I do want to run away!
'I'm a cat!' he muttered. 'No rat is going to control me. You've tried!'
Yes, came the voice of Spider, but then you were STRONG. Now your little mind runs in circles and wants someone else to do the thinking for it. I can think for you.
I can think for EVERYONE.
I will always be with you.
The voice faded away.
Right, thought Maurice. Time to say farewell, then, Bad Blintz. The party is over. The rats have got lots of other rats and even these two humans have got one another, but I've just got me and I'd like to get me somewhere where strange voices don't talk to me.
''scuse me,' he said, raising his voice. 'Are we going or what?'
The two humans turned to look at the grating.
'What?' said Keith.
'I'd prefer going,' said Maurice. 'Pull this grating out, will you? It's rusted right through, it shouldn't be a problem. Good lad. And then we can make a run for it-'
'They've called in a rat piper, Maurice,' said Keith. 'And the Clan is all over the place. He'll be here in the morning. A real rat piper, Maurice. Not a fake one like me. They have magical pipes, you know. Do you want to see that happen to our rats?'
His new conscience gave Maurice a good kicking. 'Well, not exactly see,' he said reluctantly. 'Not as such, no.'
'Right. So we're not going to run away,' said Keith.
'Oh? And what are we going to do, then?' said Malicia.
'We're going to talk to the rat-catchers when they come back,' said Keith. He had a thoughtful look.
'And what makes you think they'll want to talk to us?'
'Because if they don't talk to us,' said Keith,'they're going to die.'
It was twenty minutes later that the rat-catchers arrived. The door of their hut was unlocked, thrown back, then slammed shut. Rat-catcher 2 bolted it, as well. 'You know where you said it was going to be such a good evening?' he said, leaning against it and panting. 'Tell me about it again, 'cos I think I missed that part.'
'Shut up,' said Rat-catcher 1.
'Someone punched me in the eye.'
'Shut up.'
'And I think I lost my wallet. That's twenty dollars I won't see again in a hurry.'
'Shut up.'
'And I wasn't able to pick up any of the surviving rats from the last fight!'
'Shut up.'
'And we left the dogs behind, too! We could've stopped to untie 'em! Someone'll pinch 'em.'
'Shut up.'
'Do rats often whizz through the air like that? Or is that the kind of thing you only get to hear about when you are a hexperienced rat-catcher?'
'Did I say shut up?'
'Yes.'
'Shut up. All right, we'll leave right now. We'll take the money and nick a boat down at the jetty, OK? We'll leave the stuff we haven't sold and just go.'
'Just like that? Johnny No Hands and his lads are coming upriver tomorrow night to pick up the next load and-'
'We'll go, Bill. I can smell things going bad.'
'Just like that? He owes us two hundred doll-'
'Yes! Just like that! Time to move on! The jig is up, the bird has flown, and the cat is out of the bag! The-Did you say that?'
'Say what?'
'Did you just say "I wish I was"?'
'Me? No.'
The rat-catcher looked around the shed. There was no-one else there. 'All right, then,' he said. 'It's been a long night. Look, when things start to go bad, then it's time to go away. Nothing fancy. We just go, right? I don't want to be here when people come looking for us. And I don't want to meet any of them rat pipers. They are sharp men. They pry around. And they cost a lot of money. People are going to ask questions, and the only question I want them to ask is "Where did the rat-catchers go?" Understand? It's a good man who knows when to quit. What's in the kitty-? What did you say?'
'What, me? Nothing. Cup of tea? You always feel better after a cup of tea.'
'Didn't you say "kitty yourself"?' Rat-catcher 1 demanded.
'I just asked if you wanted a cup of tea! Honest! Are you all right?'
Rat-catcher 1 stared at his friend, as if trying to see a lie in his face. Then he said, 'Yeah, yeah. I'm fine. Three sugars, then.'
'That's right,' said Rat-catcher 2, spooning it in. 'Keep up the blood sugar. You have to look after yourself.'
Rat-catcher 1 took the mug, sipped the tea, and stared at the swirling surface. 'How did we get into this?' he said. 'I mean, all this! Y'know? Sometimes I wake up in the night and think, it's stupid, this, and then I come to work and it all seems, well, sensible. I mean, stealin' stuff and blaming it on the rats, yes, and breeding big tough rats for the rat pits and bringing back the ones that survive so we can breed even bigger rats, yes, but… I dunno… I didn't used to be the kind of bloke that ties up kids…'
'We've made a big wad of cash, though.'
'Yeah.' Rat-catcher 1 swirled the tea in his mug and took another drink. 'There's that, I suppose. Is this a new tea?'
'No, it's just Lord Green, like normal.'
'Tastes a bit different.' Rat-catcher 1 drained the mug and put it on the bench. 'OK, let's get the-'
'That's about enough,' said a voice overhead. 'Now, stand still and listen to me. If you run away, you'll die. If you talk too much, you'll die. If you wait too long, you'll die. If you think you're smart, you'll die. Any questions?'
A few wisps of dust drifted down from the rafters. The rat-catchers looked up, and saw a cat face peering down.
'It's that kid's damn mog!' said Rat-catcher 1. 'I told you it was looking at me in a funny way!'
'If I was you, I wouldn't look at me,' said Maurice, conversationally. 'I'd look at the rat poison.'
Rat-catcher 2 turned to look at the table. 'Here, who stole some of the poison?' he said.
'Oh,' said Rat-catcher 1, who was a much faster thinker.
'Steal it?' said the cat on high. 'We don't steal. That's thieving. We just put it somewhere else.'
'Oh,' said Rat-catcher 1, sitting down suddenly.
'That's dangerous stuff!' said Rat-catcher 2, looking for something to throw. 'You had no business touching it! You tell me where it is right now!'
There was a thump as the trapdoor in the floor slammed back. Keith stuck his head up, and then came up the ladder while the rat-catchers watched in amazement.
He was holding a crumpled paper bag.
'Oh dear,' said Rat-catcher 1.
'What have you done with the poison?' Rat-catcher 2 demanded.
'Well,' said Keith, 'now that you mention it, I think I put most of it in the sugar…'
Darktan woke up. His back was on fire and he couldn't breathe. He could feel the weight of the trap's jaw pressing down on him, and the dreadful bite of the steel teeth on his belly.
I shouldn't be alive, he thought. I wish I wasn't…
He tried to push himself upwards, which made it worse. The pain came back a little stronger as he sagged down again.
Caught like a rat in a trap, he thought.
I wonder what type it is?
'Darktan?'
The voice was a little way off. Darktan tried to speak, but every tiny movement pushed him further into the teeth below him.
'Darktan?'
Darktan managed a faint squeak. Words hurt too much.
Feet scrabbled forward in the dry darkness.
'Darktan!'
It smelled like Nourishing.
'Gnh,' Darktan managed, trying to turn his head.
'You're caught in a trap!'
That was too much for Darktan, even if every word was agony. 'Oh… really?' he said.
'I'll go and fetch S-sardines, shall I?' stammered Nourishing.
Darktan could smell the rat's panic begin. And there wasn't time for panic. 'No! Tell… me…' he panted, '… what… kind… of… trap?'
'Er… er… er…' said Nourishing.
Darktan took a deep, fiery breath. 'Think, you… miserable widdler!'
'Er, er… it's all rusty… er… Rust everywhere! Looks like… er… could be a… Breakback…' There was a scratching noise behind Darktan. 'Yes! I gnawed the rust off! It says Nugent Brothers Breakback Mk. 1, sir!'
Darktan tried to think as the constant, dreadful pressure squeezed him further. Mk. 1? Ancient! Something out of the dawn of time! The oldest he'd ever seen was an Improved Breakback Mk. 7! And all he had to help him was Nourishing, a complete drrtlt with four left feet.
'Can you… see how…?' he began, but there were purple lights in front of his eyes now, a great tunnel of purple lights. He tried again, as he felt himself drift towards the lights. 'Can… you… see… how… the… spring… ?'
'It's all rusted, sir!' came the panicking voice. 'It looks like it's a non-return action like on the Jenkins and Jenkins Big Snapper, sir, but it hasn't got the hook on the end! What does this bit do, sir? Sir? Sir?'
Darktan felt the pain go away. So this is how it happens, he thought dreamily. Too late now. She'll panic, and she'll run. That's what we do. When we're in trouble, we bolt for the first hole. But it doesn't matter. It is just like a dream, after all. Nothing to worry about. Quite nice, really. Perhaps there really is a Big Rat Deep Under The Ground. That'd be nice.
He drifted happily, in the warm silence. There were bad things happening, but they were a long way off and they didn't matter any more…
He thought he heard a sound behind him, like rats' claws moving across a stone floor. Perhaps it's Nourishing running away, part of him thought. But another part thought: perhaps it is the Bone Rat.
The idea didn't frighten him. Nothing could frighten him here. Anything bad that could happen already had. He felt that if he turned his head, he'd see something. But it was easier just to float in this big warm space.
The purple light was darkening now, to a deep blue and, in the centre of the blue, a circle of black.
It looked like a rat tunnel.
And that's where he lives, thought Darktan. That's the tunnel of the Big Rat. How simple it all is…
A shining white dot appeared in the centre of the tunnel and got bigger quickly.
And here he comes, thought Darktan. He must know a lot, the Big Rat. I wonder what he's going to tell me?
The light grew bigger, and did indeed begin to look like a rat.
How strange, thought Darktan, as the blue light faded into the black, to find it's all true. Off we go, then, into the tunn-
There was noise. It filled the world. And the terrible, terrible pain was back. And the Big Rat shouted, in the voice of Nourishing:
'I gnawed through the spring, sir! I gnawed through the spring! It was old and weak, sir! Prob'ly why you weren't cut in half, sir! Can you hear me, sir? Darktan? Sir? I gnawed right through the spring, sir! Are you still dead, sir? Sir?'
Rat-catcher 1 leapt out of his chair, his hands bunching into fists.
At least, it started out as a leap. About halfway, it turned into a stagger. He sat down heavily, clutching at his stomach.
'Oh, no. Oh, no. I knew that tea tasted funny…'he muttered.
Rat-catcher 2 had gone a pale green. 'You nasty little-' he began.
'And don't even think of attacking us,' said Malicia. 'Otherwise you'll never walk out of here. And we might get hurt and forget where we left the antidote. You haven't got time to attack us.'
Rat-catcher 1 tried standing up again, but his legs didn't want to play. 'What poison was it?' he muttered.
'By the smell of it, it's the one the rats call Number Three,' said Keith. 'It was in the bag labelled Killalot!!!'
'The rats call it Number Three?' said Rat-catcher 2.
'They know a lot about poison,' said Keith.
'And they told you about this antidote, yeah?' said Rat-catcher 2.
Rat-catcher 1 glared at him. 'We heard them talk, Bill.
In the pit, remember?' He looked back at Keith, and shook his head. 'Nah,' he said. 'You don't look like the kind of kid that'd poison a man to his face…'
'How about me?' said Malicia, leaning forward.
'She would! She would!' said Rat-catcher 2, clutching at his colleague's arm. 'She's weird, that one. Everyone says so!' He clutched his stomach again, and leaned forward, groaning.
'You said something about an antidote,' said Ratcatcher 1. 'But there's no antidote to Killalot!!!'
'And I told you there is,' said Keith. 'The rats found one.'
Rat-catcher 2 fell on his knees. 'Please, young sir! Have mercy! If not for me, please think of my dear wife and my four lovely children who'll be without their daddy!'
'You're not married,' said Malicia. 'You don't have any children!'
'I might want some one day!'
'What happened to that rat you took away?' said Keith.
'Dunno, sir. A rat in a hat come down out of the roof and grabbed it and flew away!' Rat-catcher 2 burbled. 'And then another big rat come down into the pit, shouted at everyone, bit Jacko on the on the unutterables and jumped right out of the pit and did a runner!'
'Sounds like your rats are all right,' said Malicia.
'I haven't finished,' said Keith. 'You stole from everyone and blamed it on the rats, didn't you?'
'Yes! That's it! Yes! We did, we did!'
'You killed the rats,' said Maurice, quietly.
Rat-catcher 1's head turned sharply. There was an edge to that voice that he recognized. He'd heard it at the pit. You got them there sometimes, high-rolling types with fancy waistcoats, who travelled through the mountains making a living by betting and sometimes making a killing by knives. They had a look to their eye and a tone to their voice. They were known as 'killing gentlemen'. You didn't cross a killing gentleman.
'Yes, yes, that's right, we did!' babbled Rat-catcher 2.
'Just go carefully there, Bill,' said Rat-catcher 1, still eyeing Maurice.
'Why did you do it?' said Keith.
Rat-catcher 2 looked from his boss to Malicia and then to Keith, as if trying to decide who frightened him the most.
'Well, Ron said the rats ate stuff anyway,' he said. 'So… he said if we got rid of all the rats and pinched the stuff ourselves, well, it wouldn't exactly be like stealing, would it? More like… re-arranging stuff. There's a bloke Ron knows who comes up with a sailing barge in the middle of the night and pays us-'
'That is a diabolical lie!' snapped Rat-catcher 1, and then looked as if he was going to be sick.
'But you caught rats alive and crammed them into cages without food,' Keith went on. 'They live on rat, those rats. Why did you do that?'
Rat-catcher 1 clutched at his stomach. 'I can feel things happening!' he said.
'That's just your imagination!' snapped Keith.
'It is?'
'Yes. Don't you know anything about the poisons you use? Your stomach won't start to melt for at least twenty minutes.'
'Wow!' said Malicia.
'And after that,' said Keith, 'if you blow your nose, your brain will well, let's just say you'll need a really big handkerchief.'
'This is great!' said Malicia, rummaging in her bag. 'I'm going to take notes!'
'And then, if you… just don't go to the lavatory, that's all. Don't ask why. Just don't. It'll all be over in an hour, except for the oozing.'
Malicia was scribbling fast. 'Will they go runny?' she said.
'Very,' said Keith, not taking his eyes off the men.
'This is inhuman!' shrieked Rat-catcher 2.
'No, it's very human,' said Keith. 'It's extremely human. There isn't a beast in the world that'd do it to another living thing, but your poisons do it to rats every day. Now tell me about the rats in the cages.'
Sweat was pouring down the assistant rat-catcher's face. He looked as if he, too, were caught in a trap. 'See, rat-catchers have always caught rats alive for the rat pits,' he moaned. 'It's a perk. Nothing wrong with it! Always done it! So we had to keep up a supply, so we bred 'em. Had to! No harm in feeding 'em dead rats from the rat pits. Everyone knows rats eat rats, if you leave out the green wobbly bit! And then-'
'Oh? There's a then?' said Keith, calmly.
'Ron said if we bred rats from the rats that survived in pit, you know, the ones that dodged the dogs, well, we'd end up with bigger, better rats, see?'
'That's scientific, that is,' said Rat-catcher 1.
'What would be the point of that?' said Malicia.
'Well, miss, we-Ron said… we thought… I thought… we thought that… well, it's not exactly cheating to put really tough rats in amongst the others, see, especially if the dog that's going in is a bit borderline. Where's the harm in that? Gives us an edge, see, when it come to betting. I thought… he thought…'
'You seem a bit confused about whose idea it was,' said Keith.
'His,' said the rat-catchers together.
Mine, said a voice in Maurice's head. He almost fell off his perch. What does not kill us makes us strong, said the voice of Spider. The strongest breed.
'You mean,' said Malicia, 'if they didn't have ratcatchers here they'd have fewer rats?' She paused, head on one side. 'No, that's not right. It doesn't feel right. There's something else. Something you haven't told us. Those rats in those cages are… mad, insane…'
I'd be too, Maurice thought, with this horrible voice in my head every hour of the day.
'I'm going to throw up,' said Rat-catcher 1. 'I am, I'm going to-'
'Don't,' said Keith, watching Rat-catcher 2. 'You won't like it. Well, Mr Assistant Rat-catcher?'
'Ask them what's in the other cellar,' said Maurice. He said it fast; he could feel the voice of Spider try to stop his mouth moving even as the sentence came out.
'What is in the other cellar then?' said Keith.
'Oh, just more stuff, old cages, stuff like that…' said Rat-catcher 2.
'What else?' said Maurice.
'Only the… only the… that's where…' The ratcatcher's mouth opened and shut. His eyes bulged. 'Can't say,' he said. 'Er. There's nothing. Yes, that's it. There's nothing in there, just the old cages. Oh, and plague. Don't go in there 'cos there's plague. That's why you shouldn't go in there, see? 'Cos of the plague.'
'He's lying,' said Malicia. 'No antidote for him.'
'I had to do it!' Rat-catcher 2 moaned. 'You've gotta do one to join the Guild!'
'That's a Guild secret!' Rat-catcher 1 snapped at him. 'We don't give away Guild secrets' He stopped, and clutched at his rumbling stomach.
'What was it you had to do?' said Keith.
'Make a rat king!' Rat-catcher 2 burst out.
'A rat king?' said Keith sharply. 'What's a rat king?'
'I - I - I' the man stuttered. 'Stop it, I - I - I don't want to-' Tears ran down his face. 'We-I made a rat king Stop it, stop it… stop it…'
'And it's still alive?' said Malicia.
Keith turned to her in amazement. 'You know about these things?' he said.
'Of course. There's a lot of stories about them. Rat kings are deadly evil. They-'
'Antidote, antidote, please,' moaned Rat-catcher 2. 'My stomach feels like there's rats running round in it!'
'You made a rat king,' said Malicia. 'Oh, dear. Well, we left the antidote in that little cellar you locked us up in. I should hurry if I was you.'
Both of the men staggered to their feet. Rat-catcher 1 fell through the trapdoor. The other man landed on him. Swearing, moaning and, it had to be said, farting enormously, they made their way to the cellar.
Dangerous Beans' candle was still alight. Beside it was a fat twist of paper.
The door was slammed behind the men. There was the sound of a piece of wood being wedged under it.
'There's enough antidote for one person,' said Keith's voice, muffled through the wood. 'But I'm sure you can sort it out-in a humane sort of way.'
Darktan tried to get his breath back, but he thought he'd never get it all, even if he breathed in for a year. There was a ring of pain all around his back and chest.
'It's amazing!' said Nourishing. 'You were dead in the trap and now you're alive!'
'Nourishing?' said Darktan, carefully.
'Yes, sir?'
'I'm very… grateful,' said Darktan, still wheezing, 'but don't get silly. The spring was stretched and weak and… the teeth were rusted and blunt. That's all.'
'But there's teeth marks all round you! No-one's ever come out of a trap before, except the Mr Squeakies, and they were made of rubber!'
Darktan licked his stomach. Nourishing had been right. He looked perforated. 'I was just lucky,' he said.
'No rat has ever come alive out of a trap,' Nourishing repeated. 'Did you see the Big Rat?'
'The what?'
'The Big Rat!'
'Oh, that,' said Darktan. He was going to add 'no, I don't go in for that nonsense', but stopped. He could remember the light, and then the darkness ahead of him. It hadn't seemed bad. He'd almost felt sorry that Nourishing had got him out. In the trap, all the pain had been a long way off. And there had been no more hard decisions. He settled for saying, 'Is Hamnpork all right?'
'Sort of. I mean, we can't see any wounds that won't heal. He's had worse. But, well, he was pretty old. Nearly three years.'
'Was?' said Darktan.
'Is pretty old, I mean, sir. Sardines sent me to find you because we'll need you to help us get him back, but-' Nourishing gave Darktan a doubtful look.
'It's all right, I'm sure it looks worse than it is,' said Darktan, wincing. 'Let's get up there, shall we?'
An old building is full of pawholds for a rat. No-one noticed them as they climbed up from manger to saddle, harness to hayrack. Besides, no-one was looking for them. Some of the other rats had taken the Jacko route to freedom, and the dogs were going mad searching for them and fighting with one another. So were the men.
Darktan knew a little bit about beer, since he had gone about his business under pubs and breweries, and the rats had often wondered why humans sometimes liked to switch their brains off. To the rats, living in the centre of a web of sound and light and smells, it made no sense at all.
To Darktan, now, it didn't sound quite so bad. The idea that, for a while, you could forget things and not have a head buzzing with troublesome thoughts… well, that seemed quite attractive.
He couldn't remember a lot about life before he'd been Changed, but he was certain that it hadn't been so complicated. Oh, bad things had happened, because life on the tip had been pretty hard. But when they were over, they were over, and tomorrow was a new day.
Rats didn't think about tomorrow. There was just a faint sensation that more things would happen. It wasn't thinking. And there was no 'good' and 'bad' and 'right' and 'wrong'. They were new ideas.
Ideas! That was their world now! Big questions and big answers, about life, and how you had to live it, and what you were for. New ideas spilled into Darktan's weary head.
And among the ideas, in the middle of his head, he saw the little figure of Dangerous Beans.
Darktan had never talked much to the little white rat or the little female who scurried around after him and drew pictures of the things he'd been thinking about. Darktan liked people who were practical.
But now he thought: he's a trap-hunter! Just like me! He goes ahead of us and finds the dangerous ideas and thinks about them and traps them in words and makes them safe and shows us the way through.
We need him… we need him now. Otherwise, we're all running around like rats in a barrel…
Much later on, when Nourishing was old and grey around the muzzle, and smelled a bit strange, she dictated the story of the climb and how she'd heard Darktan muttering to himself. The Darktan that she'd pulled out of the trap, she said, was a different rat. It was as though his thoughts had slowed down but got bigger.
The strangest bit, she said, was when they reached the beam. Darktan made sure that Hamnpork was all right, and then picked up the match he'd shown to Nourishing.
'He struck it on an old bit of iron,' said Nourishing, 'and then he walked out along the beam with it flaring, and down below I could see all the crowd, the hay racks and the straw all over the place, and the people milling around, just like, hah, just like rats… and I thought, if you drop that, mister, the place will fill with smoke in a few seconds and they've locked the doors and by the time they realize it they'll be caught like, hah, yeah, like rats in a barrel and we'll be away along the gutters.
'But he just stood there, looking down, until the match went out. Then he put it down and helped us with Hamnpork and never said a word about it. I asked him about it later on, after all the stuff with the piper and everything, and he said, "Yes. Rats in a barrel." And that's all he said about it.'
'What was it you really put in the sugar?' said Keith, as he led the way back to the secret trapdoor.
'Cascara,' said Malicia.
'That's not a poison, is it?'
'No, it's a laxative.'
'What's that?'
'It makes you… go.'
'Go where?'
'Not where, stupid. You just… go. I don't particularly want to draw you a picture.'
'Oh. You mean… go.'
'That's right.'
'And you just happened to have it on you?'
'Yes. Of course. It was in the big medicine bag.'
'You mean you take something like that out just for something like this?'
'Of course. It could easily be necessary.'
'How?' said Keith, climbing the ladder.
'Well, supposing we were kidnapped? Suppose we ended up at sea? Supposing we were captured by pirates? Pirates have a very monotonous diet, which might be why they're angry all the time. Or supposing we escaped and swam ashore and ended up on an island where there's nothing but coconuts? They have a very binding effect.'
'Yes, but… but… anything can happen! If you think like that, you'd end up taking just about everything in case of anything!'
'That's why it's such a big bag,' said Malicia calmly, pulling herself through the trapdoor and dusting herself off.
Keith sighed. 'How much did you give them?'
'Lots. But they should be all right if they don't take too much of the antidote.'
'What did you give them for the antidote?'
'Cascara.'
'Malicia, you are not a nice person.'
'Really? You wanted to poison them with the real poison, and you were getting very imaginative with all that stuff about their stomachs melting.'
'Yes, but rats are my friends. Some of the poisons really do that. And… sort of… making the antidote more of the poison-'
'It's not a poison. It's a medicine. They'll feel lovely and clean afterwards.'
'All right, all right. But… giving it to them as the antidote as well, that's a bit… a bit…'
'Clever? Narratively satisfying?' said Malicia.
'I suppose so,' Keith admitted reluctantly.
Malicia looked around. 'Where's your cat? I thought he was following us.'
'Sometimes he just wanders off. And he's not my cat.'
'Yes, you're his boy. But a young man with a smart cat can go a long way, you know.'
'How?'
'There was Puss in Boots, obviously,' said Malicia, 'and of course everyone knows about Dick Livingstone and his wonderful cat, don't they?'
'I don't,' said Keith.
'It's a very famous story!'
'Sorry. I haven't been able to read for very long.'
'Really? Well, Dick Livingstone was a penniless boy who became Lord Mayor of Ubergurgl because his cat was so good at catching… er… pigeons. The town was overrun with… pigeons, yes, and in fact later on he even married a sultan's daughter because his cat cleared all the… pigeons out of her father's royal palace-'
'It was rats really, wasn't it?' said Keith, glumly.
'I'm sorry, yes.'
'And it was just a story,' said Keith. 'Look, are there really stories about rat kings? Rats have kings? I've never heard of it. How does it work?'
'Not the way you think. They've been known about for years. They really do exist, you know. Just like on the sign outside.'
'What, the rats with their tails all knotted together? How do-?'
There was a loud and persistent knocking on the door. Some of it sounded as though it was being done with someone's boot.
Malicia went over to it and pulled back the bolts. 'Yes?' she said, coldly, as the night air poured in.
There was a group of angry men outside. The leader, who looked as though he was only the leader because he happened to be the one in front, took a step back when he saw Malicia.
'Oh… it's you, miss…'
'Yes. My father's the mayor, you know,' said Malicia.
'Er… yes. We all know.'
'Why're you all holding sticks?' said Malicia.
'Er… we want to talk to the rat-catchers,' said the spokesman. He tried to look past her, and she stood aside.
'There's no-one in here but us,' she said. 'Unless you think there's a trapdoor to a maze of underground cellars where desperate animals are caged up and vast supplies of stolen food are hoarded?'
The man gave her another nervous look. 'You and your stories, miss,' he said.
'Has there been some trouble?' said Malicia.
'We think they were a… a bit naughty…' said the man. He blanched under the look she gave him.
'Yes?' she said.
'They cheated us in the rat pit!' said a man behind him, made bold because there was someone else between him and Malicia. 'They must've trained those rats! One of them flew around on a string!'
'And one of them bit my Jacko on the… on the… on the unmentionables!' said someone further back. 'You can't tell me it wasn't trained to do that!'
'I saw one with a hat on this morning,' said Malicia.
'There's been a good deal too many strange rats today,' said another man. 'My mum said she saw one dancing on the kitchen shelves! And when my granddad got up and reached for his false teeth he said a rat bit him with them. Bit him with his own teeth!'
'What, wearing them?' said Malicia.
'No, it just snapped them around in the air! And a lady down our street opened her pantry door and there were rats swimming in the cream bowl. Not just swimming, either! They'd been trained. They were making kind of patterns, and diving and waving their legs in the air and stuff!'
'You mean synchronized swimming?' said Malicia. 'Who's telling stories now, eh?'
'Are you sure you don't know where those men are?' said the leader suspiciously. 'People said they headed this way.'
Malicia rolled her eyes. 'All right, yes,' she said. 'They got here and a talking cat helped us to feed them poison and now they're locked in a cellar.'
The men looked at her. 'Yeah, right,' said the leader, turning away. 'Well, if you do see them, tell them we're looking for them, OK?'
Malicia shut the door. 'It's terrible, not being believed,' she said.
'Now tell me about rat kings,' said Keith.