Ratastrophe Catastrophe (3 page)

“I see. Thank you, young man. That will be all.”

He dismissed the boy and summoned his servant. After a few moments, a man came hurrying into the room. He was short and stocky, with long hair (though none on the top of his head), a well-groomed beard, and a fixed, sort of bemused smirk. “What is it, milord?” asked the servant.

“Pegrand! We have something of a crisis on our hands.”

“Oh gods, no. What is it, the chef?”

Modeset sighed, plucking a copper coin from the tabletop and employing it to scratch the bridge of his aquiline nose. “No, Pegrand, not the chef. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t like him and he has to go, but this time it’s something a little more serious.”

“Okay, milord. I’m all ears.”

“Good. Do you remember those fellows from the watchtower patrol who fell in here last week mumbling something about a rat horde beneath the Poor Quarter?”

“Vaguely, milord,” Pegrand said, dismissively.

“Have them arrested immediately!”

“Er…right, milord. Any particular charge?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Causing a disturbance of the peace? Malicious lies? I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

“Of course, milord. Is there a problem?”

“Yes, perhaps. There does, in fact, appear to be a rat horde beneath the Poor Quarter, and I don’t want any I-told-you-so’s stirring up the conspiracy theorists.”

Pegrand Marshall scribbled a note on the pad permanently suspended on a chain attached to his belt.

“Er, won’t the act of arresting two watchtower guards stir up the conspiracy theorists, milord?”

“Mmm? What? Well, oh, yes, I suppose it will. What do you suggest?”

Well, we could rub them out, dump the corpses up past Gate Field, and then have two boys from the plough crew carve out a crop circle round ’em. That way we might have the conspiracy theorists up in arms, but at least they’ll have something baseless to talk about.”

“Excellent. Meanwhile, however, we do have a serious problem. This morning’s little visit follows three from the merchants, two from the sewer attendants, and several from the Yowler Brotherhood, all with news of rat sightings. An outbreak is imminent.”

“I’ll put the palace on high alert, milord. Anything else I should be doing?”

Modeset nodded gravely. “Go down to the riverbank and round up the council. Tell them we have an infestation of giant rats that, despite its humble beginnings, could have designs on the Merchants’ Quarter. That should get them suitably anxious. Oh, and let them know time is short; we need a publicly acceptable announcement by Friday evening.”

Modeset took a deep breath, waited for the servant to flitter away, then caressed his eyelids with the rough tips of his fingers. It was obviously going to be one of those days.

Morning arrived to find a grim scene at City Hall.

The Dullitch Council members stared gloomily at one another over the long debating table. They had been called to the Gray Room at an unspeakable hour and were waiting to shout at anyone who looked even partly responsible.

Eventually the acting chairman, Tambor Forestall, appeared in the doorway. Tambor had been dreading this moment ever since his predecessor had vacated the premises over a month before. It was just so typical of his luck. For three years Gambol had chaired Dullitch Council and, in all that time, there had not been a single catastrophe or even a mild uprising.
He
gets the job and, whizz, a plague of giant rats.

He wasn’t being helped by Duke Modeset’s latest initiative demanding “A Council Structure Reflecting the Ethnic Makeup of a Modern Society” either. He cast a worried glance around the room, noting with horror that only four members of the council were human. He recognized a local alchemist, but the barbarian was a total mystery, and the cross-species squabbling in the corner, he’d already decided to file under “Politely Ignore.” There were definitely a few goblins in there somewhere, and possibly even a wood gnome.

A vein throbbed in Tambor’s temple and his arms were aching, but it was too late to back out now. He banged his gavel hard on the tabletop. “Gentlefolk!” he began.

“
Gadjfjr
—” said a squeaky voice nearby.

“We have been called here today—”

“
Gktgngn gkkrg jfjf kfg fjy—
”

“On a matter of the utmost urgency.”

“
Ghfhfh fkfkf frjfjfj.
”

Tambor hesitated, driven to distraction by the echo that seemed to accompany his every utterance. Sitting beside him at the table was a warty, green-skinned midget with long, pointed ears and teeth in various stages of decay. His nose looked like a melted candle, and a strange green mucus dripped from the end to the tabletop. It occurred to Tambor that he’d never seen this creature before. “Excuse me,” he ventured. “Who
are
you?”

The creature sighed. “I’m the translator.”

Tambor leaned forward conspiratorially.

“For who?” he said.

“The orc down at the far end,” said the midget. “He doesn’t speak Plain Tongue.”

“What language
does
he speak?”

“Brave. Not that you can call it a language, as such.”

“No Brave translation for ‘terrible infestation,’ then?”

“No,” said the midget, shrugging noncommittally. “Not unless you can squeeze it into words of one syllable.”

Tambor appeared to consider this. “Fair enough,” he said. “How about ‘rats’?”

He leaned back and smiled contentedly.

The rest of the council began to sit up and exchange a few concerned glances.

“Right. Everyone listening?” said Tambor forcefully.

“Rats, you say?” shouted a seer, from the far end of the table.

Tambor glared at him. He had a personal dislike of seers for a number of reasons, not least because their largely invented profession had outlived sorcery in Dullitch. Also, they regularly insisted on fanciful names like “Izmeer of the Swarm” and never seemed to achieve anything that didn’t require a lot of skulking about in caverns with a piece of chalk and a far-off look in their eyes.

The seer glared back at him, correctly reading his expression. “Sounds jolly intriguing,” he said, and turned away to finish his game of cards with the goblins.

Tambor watched him quietly, then returned his attention to the remainder of the City Council. He wished, quite fervently, that he had taken the job at Jimmy Stover’s pie shop. Only Quaris Sands, the elderly Home Secretary, seemed to be paying any attention, though he was mumbling incessantly under his breath, clearly put out by the early call. Tambor groaned. “All right, everybody,” he said wearily. “We have a plague of giant rats in Dullitch. It started beneath the Gandleford Boys’ School, and it’s growing by leaps and bounds. The Poor District is already in dire straits and the Merchants’ Quarter could be next. All the ratcatchers have fled in terror, and even the assassins have declined the contract. We’re looking to devise some potential solutions to offer to his lordship, Duke Modeset.”

The translator raised his hand. “How about sending in a big cat?” he said.

“I don’t think you’re actually on the council,” said Tambor. “Anybody else?”

The translator offered him a scowl, and leaned across to inform the orc representative that Tambor had just insulted its mother.

“It could be an omen from the gods,” said Taciturn Cadrick, the trade minister. “A sign that we should seek spiritual and intellectual fulfillment.”

“So, what do we do about it, O wise one?” asked Tambor, mockingly.

“Don’t ask me. Perhaps we should try hiring a mercenary to destroy them. How about that barbarian fellow from the Virgin Sacrifice Scandal?”

“No chance,” said the Home Secretary quickly, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t have that lunatic back inside the gates for all the gold in Spittle. It took us months to mop the blood off the clock tower. This city has suffered enough humiliation at the hands of mercen—”

The rest of his sentence was drowned out by the screams erupting from the almshouse across the street. The council hurried to the windows and looked down at the scene unfolding below. People were pouring out of the small doorway, trampling over one another and crying out for help.

One woman’s screech was clearly audible amid the uproar. She was yelling at the top of her voice, “Rats! Rats! Raaatsss!”

As the council looked on, the writhing sea of humanity swarmed toward the marketplace, turned a corner and disappeared.

“All right,” said Tambor, massaging an injury from the council’s mad dash to the window. “Let’s have a vote of hands, shall we? One, two, four, eight—yes, I think we’re pretty much decided. I’ll get a message to the duke.”

D
IEK WUSTAPHA WAS WATCHING
three of the village girls watching him. Their names were Trist, Tadrai, and Dreena, and they had been following him across hill and dale for the best part of the morning. This was odd, Diek noted, because only weeks before, they had thrown a bucket of sheep excrement over him and called him names. Now they were trailing mere feet behind him, stopping when he stopped, eyes turning downward with a curious respect each time he cast a glance over his shoulder. Strange.

Still, the attention felt good: he liked the taste of it, the air of power it gave him. He wanted more….

Of course, he had been carrying the flute. Although he hadn’t actually been playing it, he supposed the slightest hint of a note had kept them with him.

He didn’t know where this knowledge came from; he simply knew it to be true.

It was the same with sheep: they followed him everywhere. Then again, they were sheep, and sheep will eagerly pursue anyone who looks like they might have a vague idea of where they’re headed. But it didn’t explain the cows, horses, pigs, dogs, birds, lizards, and other, more nondescript creatures whose fixed attentions he had drawn during the waning week.

Diek came to a sudden stop, cast his gaze back to the group of girls and then down at the instrument resting in his palm.

Play. Won’t you play? Won’t you, Diek? Play.

The three faces were sullen, lips turned down, and no voice seemed to have risen among them.

Hesitantly, almost reluctantly, he raised the flute to his lips.

“Look at them cows. Now, there’s a thing,” the barrowbird said, as it flapped and squawked its way on to Pier Wustapha’s shoulder.

Diek’s father stood at the door of the cottage and looked out over his broad acres of farmland. Presently, his wife joined him, her face a patchwork of wrinkled confusion. “What’re they doing, love?” she managed, aghast.

The question produced a shrug from her husband and a thoughtful scowl from the barrowbird.

“Beats me, love,” said Pier. “It looks like they’re making for the field nearest Olvi’s place.”

“Why would they do that, d’you think?”

Pier Wustapha shook his curly head. “I’ve no idea. There’s nothing much over that way, apart from—”

His wife waited for an end to the sentence, but none came. “Apart from what?” she prompted.

Pier scratched at his bottom lip.

“Well,” he said, uncertainly, “I saw young Diek go off that way this very mornin’. They could be followin’ after him like Mibbit’s dog and the cat as hangs around the farm. Seems like every livin’ thing’s taken after the lad. Even old Tyler’s daughters were on the trot when I last spied ’em.”

“Oh no.” Mrs. Wustapha rolled her eyes. “Not them again! What
is it
with the lad?”

Pier lanced a boil with an overgrown fingernail. “He’ll be all right in time,” he said. “It’s…er…it’s probably just a phase he’s going through.”

Mrs. Wustapha frowned. She didn’t look too sure.

“Play some more, Diek, won’t you play some more?”

The words had definitely come from Dreena this time. Her sky-blue eyes were piercing his soul; he felt like a rabbit caught in the trapper’s mechanical jaw, awaiting the inevitable. And all the while, a voice, The Voice, seared through his thoughts like a hot blade
You can have anything, Diek Wustapha, anything you want. All you have to do is
—

“Diek!”

His father’s voice, distant but determined.

All you have to do
—

“Diek, lad!”

All you have
—

“Diek!”

A sharp slap burned his cheek, and Diek awoke from his reverie. The girls had drifted away to make room for his father, who was shaking him as if fearful that he might have descended into a swoon. As Diek came round, Pier Wustapha staggered back, looking at his own hand as if seeing it for the first time. He’d only given the boy a glancing slap, yet his hand felt as though someone had been sticking needles in it.

“That’s it, lad,” he spat, massaging his aching palm. “That’s it, you hear me? It’s time you went away from here, got yourself a place in the world. There’s something badly amiss with you, boy, and I’m damned if your mother an’ I are gonna get thrown out o’ the village because of it.”

D
UKE MODESET, RELUCTANT RULER
of Dullitch and its bubonic environs, reclined in his chair and gazed absentmindedly at the large family crest over the fireplace; a regular pool of rainwater appeared beneath it during every shower. It was a sign of the times. Recently, the payment of city taxes had become so rare that the palace staff had been forced to block up leaks with such finery. Even his marble throne had been an early casualty in the war against bad weather: it was now to be found atop the east tower, where it served as a weight for the antique trapdoor beneath it.

Modeset squinted, coughed, and yelled for the mail. Then, remembering the servants’ favored delay in responding to commands, went to fetch it himself. The contents of the royal mailbox turned out to be three tax demands addressed to an unknown cobbler, an appeal for donations from the Church of Urgumflux the Wormridden, and a letter from Tambor Forestall, the council chairman, notifying him of the city’s official line on the rat situation.

Modeset’s hawkish features fell foul of a frown; it was very unusual for the council to put anything in writing, let alone provide multiple-choice solutions and several small boxes requiring the royal seal. Their new chairman must be quite the ticket. Slowly, however, the duke’s smile returned. It appeared that the council leader had mistakenly dispatched the original draft of his letter which, bereft of secretarial corrections, read: