Rats and Gargoyles Read Online Free PDF

Tree-priest?"
    The unlight blazed, and imprinted like a magnesium
flare on Candia’s eyes the gargoyle-conclave of the Decan’s acolytes:
bristle-spined tails lashed around pillars and arches and fine stone tracery;
claws gripping, great wings beating. Their scaled and furred bodies crowded
together, and their prick-eared and tendriled heads rose to bay in a conclave of
sound, and the unlight died to fireglow.
    "I will see to you in a moment. This is a most
crucial stage . . ."
    On the filthy floor below, servants worked
ceaselessly.
    The platform jutted out fifteen yards, overhanging
a section of the floor (man-deep in filth) where abandoned furnaces and
shattered glass lay. Here, the heat of the ovens built into the wall was
pungent.
    "Take that from the furnace," the low voice
rumbled.
    One of the black-doubleted servants on the balcony
called another, and both between them began to lift, with tongs, a glowing-hot
metal casing from the furnace. Sweat ran down their faces.
    "Set it there."
    Chittering echoed in the vaults. A darkness of
firelight shaded the great head, limning with black the foothill-immensity of
flanks and arching wings. One vast paw flexed.
    "We reach the Head of the Crow, but not the Dragon.
As for the Phoenix"–unlight-filled eyes dipped to stare into the
alembic–"nothing!"
    Candia said: "My lord, this business is
important—"
    "The projection continues," the bass voice rumbled.
"Matter refined into spirit, spirit distilled into base matter, and yet . . .
nothing. Why are you here?"
    Candia planted his fists on his hips and craned his
neck, looking through the vast spaces to The Spagyrus. The bruised darkness of
his eyes was accentuated by the pallor of fear, but determination held him
there, taut, before the god-daemon.
    "It happens," he said, "that we’re traitors. The
Bishop here, and I. We’ve come to betray our own kind to you."
    A shifting of movement, tenuous as the first
tremors of earthquake, folded His wings of darkness. The body of the god-daemon
moved, elbow-joints above shoulders, until He threatened emergence from
unlight-shadows. Lids slid up to narrow His eyes to slits.
    "Master Candia, you always amuse me," He rumbled.
"I welcome that. It’s a relief from my failures here."
    Candia made a gesture of
exasperation. He paced back and forth, a few strides each way, as if movement
could keep him from seeing where he stood. He directed no more looks at The
Spagyrus, his stamina for that exhausted.
    The Bishop of the Trees reached to rest a hand on
Candia’s shoulder, stilling him. "Even the worst shepherd looks to his flock.
Doesn’t the Lord Decan know what’s happening in our part of the city?"
    "Do the stock in the farmyard murmur?" A bifurcated
tongue licked out and stroked a lower fang. The Spagyrus gazed down at Candia
and Theodoret. "What I do here leaves me no time for such petty concerns. The
great work must be finished, and I am no nearer to completion. If it comes to
rioting in the city, I shall put it down with severity–I, my Kin, or your lesser
masters the Rat- Lords. You know this. Why bother me?"
    Theodoret walked forward. His lined creased face,
under the shock of dusty-white hair, showed sternness.
    "Lord Spagyrus!"
    "Harrhummm?"
    "Our lesser masters are what you should look
to." Theodoret’s gray eyes swam with light; mobile, blinking. "The Rat-Lords are
meeting now with the Guildmasters–the human Guildmasters, that is. Meeting in
secrecy, as I thought." Incredulity sharpened his voice. "And I see we’re right,
Lord Spagyrus. You don’t know of it. "
    The Decan roared.
    Candia slid to one knee, head bowed, ragged hair
falling forward; and his white-knuckled fist gripped the Bishop’s robe. A thin
greengold radiance limned him. He smelt the blossom of hawthorn and meadowsweet.
The tiles beneath his knee gave slightly, as if with the texture of moss.
    The Bishop of the Trees said softly: "We were here
before you