Rats and Gargoyles Read Free Page B

eyes widened.
    Lucas, turning, saw a cloaked figure at one of the
wall- niches, and a beast’s hand halted midway in reaching to pick up a femur.
    Zar-bettu-zekigal’s last words echoed, breaking the
stranger’s concentration. A hood was pushed back from a sharp black-furred
muzzle. Gleaming black eyes summed up the young man and woman, and one of the
delicate ears twitched.
    The Rat was lean-bodied and sleek, standing taller
than Lucas by several inches. He wore a plain sword- belt and rapier, and his
free hand (bony, clawed; longer- fingered than a human’s) rested on the hilt. In
the other hand he carried a small sack.
    "What are you doing here?" he demanded.
     

    Steam and bitter coal-dust fouled the air. The
slatted wooden floor of the carriage let in the chill as well as the stink, city
air cold at this depth; and the Bishop of the Trees gathered the taste on his
tongue and spat.
    Spittle shot between his booted feet, hit the
tunnel- floor that dazzled under the carriage’s passing brilliance.
    The wooden seat was hard, polished by years of use,
and he slipped from side to side as the carriage jolted, rocking uphill after
the engine, straining at the incline. The Bishop of the Trees stared out through
the window. Up ahead, light from another carriage danced in the vaulted tunnel.
Coal-sparks spat.
    The window-glass shone black with the darkness of
the tunnel beyond it; and silver-paint graffiti curlicued across the surface.
Theodoret’s gaze was sardonic, unsacramental.
    A handful of young men banged their feet on the
benches at the far end of the carriage. The Bishop of the Trees caught one
youth’s gaze. He heard another of them yell.
    First two, then all of them clattered down the
length of the empty carriage.
    "Ahhh . . ." A long exhale of disgust. A short-haired
boy in expensive linen overalls, the carpenters’ Rule embroidered in gold thread
on the front. He grinned. Over his shoulder, to a boy enough like him to be his
brother, he said: "It’s only a Tree-priest. Ei, priest, cleaned up the shit in
your place yet?"
    "No, fuck, won’t do him no good," the other boy put
in. "The other guilds’ll come calling, do more of the same."
    Theodoret loosened the buckle of his thick leather
belt, prepared to slide it free and whip the metal across the boy’s hands; but
neither youth drew their belt- knives–they just leaned heavily over the back of
his seat to either side of him.
    "Ei, you learned yet?"
    "Tear your fuckin’ place down round you!"
    "Tear it down!" Spittle flew from the lips of
the shorthaired boy, spotting his silk overalls. "You didn’t build it. Fuck,
when did any of you parasite Tree-priests build ? You too good to work for
our masters!"
    "You make our quarter look sick," a
brown-skinned boy said. The last of the four, a gangling youth in overalls and
silk shirt, grinned aimlessly, and hacked his heel against the wooden slats. The
rocking car sent him flying against the dark boy; both sparred and collapsed in
raucous laughter.
    "Fuck, don’t bother him. Ei! He’s praying !"
    The Bishop of the Trees looked steadily past each
of the youths, focusing on a spot some indeterminate space away. Anger flicked
him. Theodoret stretched hand and fingers in an automatic sign of the Branches.
    "If you knew," he said, "what I pray for—"
    He tensed, having broken the cardinal rule, having
admitted his existence; but the gangling youth laughed, with a hollow hooting
that made the other three stagger.
    "Aw, say you, he’s not worth bothering–fuck, we’re here, aren’t we?"
    The four of them scrambled for the carriage-door,
shoving, deliberately blocking each other; the youngest and the gangling one
leaping between the slowing car and the platform. The door slammed closed in
Theo- doret’s face. He opened it and stepped down after them on to the cobbled
platform.
    He grunted, head down, bullish. Briefly, he
centered the anger in himself: let it coalesce,