The Rat King

1

They say he dubbed himself the Rat King when he foresaw his bloodied corpse crawling with them. They weaved in and out of his garments like a sensation, like a disease. He now has an odd twitch in his fingers, a sudden shuddering of joints and tendons, like he can already feel them crawling on him. And so he waits down in the underbelly of Rome, in the ornate sewer home he has fashioned. It is a fickle thing, the premonition of one's own death. It does strange things to the mind. They think him mad.

And perhaps he is. While his is a pale, innocent face that stares out into the world, there is something in his eyes that do not match. Some might call them beady, others cold, flat, lifeless. They theorize he sold his soul to Beelzebub in a vain attempt at immortality, and, having lived twice as long as an ordinary man, he might not deny it. Or perhaps, they whisper, in those fractions of space and time in which he inhabited death before returning to life, he was stripped of his humanity. He ceased to be an upstart beggar boy and became a king.

She is the Rat King's Mute: beautiful and hideous, alluring and repulsive, fascinating, and yet, forgettable. A complimenting conjecture.

Small and delicate, she is but a wisp of presence, a frame with bright eyes and flaxen hair—features not commonly known as she is not commonly seen. But physique is arbitrary as she has and will serve only one purpose: to be a mad king's pet and weave stories for him. They talk about her too, for there is no humanity in the strange serenity of her face, and so nothing humanly felt for her. She exists in tales of lost ages and old lore, long forgotten by the rest of the world. They do not know why he treasures her so—her stories are naught but words, and words only spin what the mind creates. But who knows what ferments in the Rat King's mind, or how seeds of tales fester and feed in those quiet spaces.

Other rumors flourish in the dark; it is whispered that as a youth he had haunted the lonely tunnels of Rome and, when he rose to power, returned to fashion himself a palace beneath the city streets. In those empty chasms he chose the arched halls and hidden rooms as an escape from the changing world around him. It will crumble only when the Pied Piper stops playing—and the rats return.

Stupid. Harren shuffles about his desk, ignoring the papers that flutter off. Of all the days.

A smudge of red flashes and he snatches the envelope.

"Really," he huffs to no one in particular—except, perhaps, the messenger boy hovering by the door. "They just had to— How am I supposed to even find—? They said a fortnight. I haven't even prepared—"

The child casts a glance up at the ceiling, his fingers absentmindedly running over the surface of his badge. This is not abnormal—the Royal Inquisitor likes nothing better than to talk—and after the tenth or twentieth time it has become tedious.

The complaints dwindle into grumbles as the boy's thumb skims over the rat's head, the round bump of its eye causing a shiver to run down his spine. Nasty connotations to that word, and nastier stories. But are they true? He isn't sure, though he is certain that they are treasonous.

No, not all can possibly be true. But Cook swears he made her roast a rat for him to eat, saying: If they are destined to eat me, I might as well return the favor.

And even in the dusty nooks, crumbling crannies, and blunt corners of the Roditore there are no rats left. She says he ate them all in one night, and the thought of it sets a chill in the boy's bones. It's enough to make his mouth taste stale and stomach churn. The vision of white fangs assaults his vision: sinking into a mass of brown fur, dark liquid bubbling up, gurgling, and the squeaking, horrible squeaking, and a sudden spurt of red splashing forth from the writhing figure—

A sharp whack across his head brings the boy back to the present as the man sweeps past him, documents in tow.

Fire provides light for silent eyes to peak around corners. Sitting at the wall's edge, her face is turned to the parallel wall as the wavering shadows of figures shift and flicker past until they grow fainter, and finally leave sight. When it is quiet she moves.

These empty hallways are havens. Here there are no prying eyes to watch, to ponder. There are only the flames, and they see naught but the long shadow, distorting their light as it slips past. Even greater light from the blue rays of an early morning shimmer down from the cracks in the stones, bringing life into an otherwise dark place. True daylight is a sweet remembrance and the sun a distant memory, if not a dream.

In paintings and picture-books there are masses of green and brown floors and walls of swirling blue so high and vast that she cannot even imagine where they end. In some, green fur rugs spread across the whole expanse, and she thinks this must be very expensive. She sometimes wishes that pretty blue would paint itself into the corridors here, replacing the endless gray. After that, perhaps those little creatures with the strange shapes will come, the ones with big eyes and black noses. She can imagine how their skin would feel—she can feel it prickling along her fingertips when she studies the paintings. She waits for those creatures to spring to life, to bring some of that feeling into this world. She waits for creatures...

She waits...

She halts, eyes wide and blank.

What is she waiting for?

Her form dances down the walkway, swirling past murky corners and braced doors toward the hall where a promise to an empty stomach awaits.