Rats and Gargoyles Read Online Free PDF Page B

ever were, Lord Spagyrus."
    The tendriled muzzle rose, gaped, fangs shining in
unlight and the furnace’s red darkness, and a great cry echoed down through the
chambers, and galleries and crypts of the Fane.
    Candia raised his head to see the acolytes already
dropping from the ceiling vaults, soaring on black ribbed wings.

     
    In a room that has more books than furniture, the
magus stares out at a blinding blue sky.
    Her mirror is shrouded with a patchwork cloth.
    The day’s air smells sleepy, smells sweet, and she
sniffs for the scent of rain or thunder and there is nothing.
    Suddenly there is a tickle that runs the length of
her forearm. She holds up her hand. The gashed palm, halfhealed by her arts, is
aching now; and, as she watches, another bead of blood trickles down her arms.
She frowns.
    She waits.

     
    Charnay paused on the landing, examining herself in
the full-length mirror there. She took a small brush and sleeked down the fur on
her jaw; tugged her head-band into place, and tweaked the crimson feather to a
more jaunty angle.
    "Messire Plessiez has a superlative mind," she
said. "I conjecture that, by the time you leave us, in a day or two, he’ll have
found some advantage even in you."
    Lucas, aware of tension making him petty, needled
her. " Big words. Been taking lessons from your priest friend?"
    "In!"
    She leaned over and pushed open a heavy
iron-studded door. Lucas walked into the cell. Afternoon sunlight fell through
the bars, striping the walls. Dirt and cobwebs starred the floor, and the
remnants of previous occupations–tin dishes, a bucket, two ragged blankets–lay
on a horsehair mattress in one comer.
    "You have no right to put me here!"
    Charnay laughed. "And who are you going to complain
to?"
    She swung the door to effortlessly. It clanged.
Lucas heard locks click, and then her departing footsteps, padding away down the
corridor. In the distance men and Rats shouted, hoofs clattered: the palace
garrison.
    Lucas remained standing quite still. The sky beyond
the bars shone brilliantly blue; and light reflected off the white walls and the
four stories of windows on the opposite side of the inner courtyard, mirror to
his.
    He slammed the flat of his hand against the door. "Bitch!"
    Four floors below, the brown Rat Charnay had
stopped in the courtyard to talk and to preen herself in the company of other
Rats. Her ears moved, and she glanced up, grinning, as she left.
    The shadows on the wall slid slowly eastwards.
    "Rot you!"
    Lucas moved decisively. He unbuttoned his shirt,
folding it up into a neat pad. Goosepimples starred his chest, feeling the stone
cell’s chill. He rubbed his arms. With one eye on the door, he unbuttoned his
knee-breeches, slid them down, and turned them so that the gray lining was
outermost.
    "If you’re going to study at the university, start
acting like it!"
    His fingers worked at the stitching. A thin metal
strip protruded from the knee-seam, and he tugged it free; and then stood up
rapidly and hopped about on one foot, thrusting the other into his breeches-leg,
listening to check if that had been a noise in the corridor . . . No.
Nothing.
    His dark-brown meeting brows dipped in
concentration. The metal prong plumbed the depths of the lock, and then his
mouth quirked: there was a click, and he tested the handle, and the heavy door
swung open.
    Clearer: the noise of the garrison below.
    Lucas buttoned his breeches. He took a step towards
the open door. One hand made a fist, and there was a faint pink flush to his
cheeks. Caught between reluctance and fear of recognition, he stood still for
several minutes.
    Coming in, they had passed no human above the rank
of servant.
    He bent to remove stockings and shoes, wrapping
them in his shirt. Then he knelt, shivering, to rub his hands in the dirt;
washing arms, face and chest in the cobwebs and dust.
    A black Rat passed him on the second floor. She
didn’t spare a glance for this