Rats and Gargoyles Read Free Page A

coat and tail were just
visible, whipping round the far comer of the alley.
    The light voice came back: "Down here!"
    As Lucas left the alley she stopped, halfway over a
low brick wall, to beckon him, and then slid down the far side. Lucas heard her
grunt. He leaned his arms on the wall. The young woman was sitting in the dust,
legs sprawled, coat spread around her, wiry tail twitching.
    "Damn coat." She stood up, beating at the dust.
"It’s the only thing that makes this filthy climate bearable, but it gets in my way !"
    "You’re cold?"
    "Where I come from, this is midwinter." She offered
him her hand to shake, across the wall. "Zar-bettu- zekigal, of South Katay. No
one here seems to manage a civilized language. I’ll consent to Zaribet; not Zari. That’s vomitable."
    Lucas grinned evilly. "Honored, Zari."
    Zar-bettu-zekigal gave a huff of exasperation that sent her fine hair flying.
She crossed the small yard to a building and pushed open a studded iron door. It
was cold inside, and dank. Wide steps wound down, illuminated by brass lamps.
The gas-jets hissed in yellow glass casings, giving a warm light.
    The side-walls were packed with bones.
    Niches and galleries had been left in the masonry–
and cut into natural stone, Lucas saw as they descended. The gas-jet light shone
on walls spidered white with niter, and on black-brown bones packed in close
together: thigh and femur and rib-bones woven into a mass, and skulls set
solidly into the gaps. Shadows danced in the ragged circles of their eyes.
    When the steps opened out into a vast low-vaulted
gallery, Lucas saw that all the walls were stacked with human bones; each
partition wall had its own brick-built niche. The gas-lights hissed in the
silence.
    "Takes us under Nineteenth District’s Aust quarter.
Too far, going round." Zar-bettu-zekigal’s voice rang, no quieter than before.
The tuft of her black tail whisked at her bare ankles. She pushed the fine hair
out of her eyes. "I like it here."
    Lucas reached out and brushed her black hair. It
felt surprisingly coarse under his fingers. His knuckles rubbed her cheek, close
to her long fine lashes. Her skin was warmly white. Practiced, he let his hand
slide along her jaw-line to cup the back of her neck and tilt her head up; his
other hand slid into her coat and cupped one of her small breasts.
    She linked both hands over his wrist, so that she
was resting her chin on her hands and looking up at him. One side of her mouth
quirked up. "What I like, you haven’t got."
    Lucas stood back, and ruffled the young woman’s
hair as if she had been a child. "Really?"
    "Really." Her solemnity danced.
    "This really is a short-cut?"
    "Oh, right. " She stepped back, hands in
pockets again, swirling the coat round herself, breath misting the cold air.
"Oh, right. You’re a king’s son. Used to stable-girls and servants; poor tykes!"
    Lucas opened his mouth to put her in her place,
remembered his chosen anonymity, and then jumped as the black-tipped tail curved
up to tap his bare arm.
    "I recognize it," Zar-bettu-zekigal said ruefully.
"I’m a king’s daughter. The King of South Katay. Last time we were counted,
there were nine hundred and seventy- three of us. Mother is Autumn Wife
Eighty-One. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen Father close to. They sent me here,"
she added, "to train as a Kings’ Memory."
    Lucas took her chin between his thumb and finger,
tipping her face up to his, and his facetious remark was never spoken, seeing
those brown eyes turned sepia with an intensity of concentration. He took his
hand away quickly.
    "Damn," Lucas said, ears burning, "damn, so you
are; you are a Memory. We brought one in, once, for the
Great Treaty. Damn. Honor and respect to you, lady."
    "Ah, will you look at him! He’s pissing his
britches at the very thought. Do you wonder why I don’t shout about it—?"
    Her ringing voice cut off; the silence startled
Lucas. Zar-bettu-zekigal’s