By Gregg Glory [Gregg G. Brown]
Chapter Twenty-Nine "The Rats Help Out"
Sarah hit the bottom of the well harder than she had ever hit anything. In fact, if she hadn't already been unconscious from the Casket of Augersaal, she might well have died. But her body was deeply relaxed when she slammed into the muddy bank at the bottom of the well. Because of this, she only broke two ribs and had a concussion that kept her head bandaged until Christmas Day. Also, she would have drowned, because the well was normally fuller than it was at the moment. And the only reason the water level was so low was because Aerfen had reversed the Crossamum Falls to send Gwllil flying four and one half miles into the roiling, stormy sea.
Anyone who just looked at her would have thought that Sarah was dead for sure. She was as white as the flash of a camera bulb, but as cold as an ice cube. Her breath was so cold, and so shallow, no mirror would have registered its pulse. Her hands were just as clammy as a slab of liver fresh from the butcher's. She lay at the side of the river, the Mickleswift's underground channel, which whispered and sighed as slowly as if it had stopped.
Sarah was a beautiful young woman. Even when lying soaked and almost out of life, her brow had a lofty pride, and her tender eyelids seemed to be the merest coverings for a vision that could see far indeed. Her lips, longer and thinner than she would have liked, still held their natural cast of determination. Even in this state, Sarah wouldn't change her mind for anyone other than herself. Her cheeks, drained of their usual ruddy flush, had gained some aspect of how they would look when she was older, and they were as fresh as lilies along either side of her nose. The tip of Sarah's nose was crimped in the middle like her brother Gilman's had been, a single indented line running from the tip of her nose to the top of her lips. Her ears, however, unlike Gilman's, took after her mother and were lobeless and small as a pair of seashells.
A rat stirred in her hair. Her hair, dark now as wetted flax, was bunched to one side of her head. There, slowly, a pool of black blood was gathering. The rat put its nose up against Sarah's skull and squeaked. It was a sleek black rat, with one missing front tooth. Another rat, crossing over Sarah's unconscious ankle with its nimble feet, answered.
"Hssst. Hizzlesnit, is this her?" the rat by Sarah's foot asked.
"Yes. This is the very one." The first rat replied.
"I'll fetch the others."
The rat perched on Sarah's foot leaped off into the slow water and began to paddle toward the middle of the river. You see, these were ship rats, and a special kind of ship rat at that. These rats had jumped from a sinking ship and lived to squeak the tale. The rat in the river soon came upon a flotilla of its mates. It squeaked out some directions, and the rats, aboard all manner of flotsam, began to paddle in toward the shore.
The dark under the well was broken only my the unearthly glow sinking down the well-hole. It was as cadaverous, dank, and unpleasant as being in a morgue at midnight. And, as was mentioned above, this very nearly was the morgue of Sarah Tone.
The rats paddled haphazardly, for although they were all ship rats, none of them had actually piloted any ships. Their thin, long claws and fleshless paws scratched at the water more than they paddled it. Some came on an old inner tube, like teenagers at a waterhole, some struggled through on iffy driftwood, some on abandoned bits of home furnishings. A plump quadrangle of flammable sofa stuffing made for a particularly comfortable ride. But however they were coming, they came.
The rats scrambled to shore like an invasion force composed of refugees. For, all else being equal, rats have a disreputable favor. Experts think its something about the eyes that is to blame. But, in this case, it may have been the bedraggled coats of the ship rats. Black and lank, and occasionally burnt off by some boating mishap, or torn naked in a fight for a rotten apple in the pit of the galley, their patchy, itchy fur was a sight to make stomachs uneasy. A few waddled over to Sarah and gave her a cursory sniff. But the bulk of the pack marched straight past Sarah to an old hollow opening in the limestone.
This opening wasn't just a ragged rip in the side of the underground river's cavern. This opening was scrolled around with runes, like those at the edge of the well. Only these runes seemed more modern, if one could say such a thing about runes, more regular and orderly, as if they had been carved my a professional artisan, and not just chipped in the rock by whoever was at hand. The rats heaped into this hole, full of chatter as if attending a grisly feast. There was a clink and disturbance within the hole, as if they were choosing cutlery.
"I say, Farnum, that's sharp, have a look-out."
"Watch yourself, Snagfang. It wouldn't be bloody much use if it weren't sharp."
Years of scuttling around the holds of ships, dodging daggers and scurrying as fast as may be away from approaching peg legs, had left the rats with a piratey way of talking.
The first rat in was also the first rat out, and he trailed behind him a small knife, with an agate set in its hilt. Next there came a little squad of rats, holding between them a plain steel helmet--the kind that might have been worn in the Crusades. After that, some lady rats lifted, entirely out of the muck, a fine belt of excellent workmanship. These objects were all headed toward Sarah's unconscious form. Last, but by no means least, the rest of the rats were somehow managing to drag something quite glittery from the depths behind the ornate entrance. The sound it made was that of a coin purse absolutely bursting with doubloons. Slowly, as they came into the glow from the well-hole, it could be seen that what they had, dragging it with their teeth through various links, was a long coat of chain mail.
Now Hizzlesnit, the largest, strongest, and--if one may be perfectly frank--the fattest rat of the lot, began to direct the work.
"Over here with the helmet," he said. He was standing atop Sarah's head and had lifted up one paw to gesture to the others.
"All right, all you lot, heave!"
Hizzlesnit was having the rats dress Sarah in the armor that had come out of the side cave. They heaved and hoed for some time pulling the chain mail on. But, finally, it was on and cinched tight by the elaborate belt. The helmet had been tapped onto Sarah's head the way a pencil eraser is slipped over the end of a pencil. A little bit crooked for all the effort, but serviceable.
"Hssst. Hizzlesnit," said the first rat who had joined him by Sarah's foot. "Ain't there somethin' missing?"
Hizzlesnit surveyed their work. "Ah, yes, of course. Just a moment." And with that, Hizzlesnit leaped off of Sarah's helmet and scampered as fast as any much younger rat into the entryway of the delicately carved side-cave. All the assembled rats heard some hemming and humming coming from inside that cave. Then, after a longish pause where nothing much seemed to happen at all, they heard a faint, but distinct, "Ah ha!" And a moment later, saw Hizzlesnit's backside begin to emerge from the cave. He must have been dragging something quite heavy to be moving with such effort.
"C'mon now," Hizzlesnit shouted, with his one front tooth still firmly gripping the object. "Lend us a bite."
A few stout rats jumped to obey, feeling a bit thoughtless that they hadn't figured out that Hizzlesnit needed help on their own. A shining sword followed behind the rats quickly now, its case covered over in the modern runes. It was a fine long sword, perhaps a bit too much for a girl, but Sarah was tall for her age. It seemed to have been forged, like the chain mail, and even the helmet, for a princeling. The sword's only blemish was at its carven hilt: it had a place for a stone like the dagger had. But the sword's stone had been lost.
Hizzlesnit laid the hilt into Sarah's cold palm personally. She looked fine enough to be on a tomb. The mist of the waterway made the armor glisten, even in the dim glow. Something still puzzled him. He scratched his head with a black, evilly long claw, and then tapped his one front tooth as if thinking very hard about something--something besides supper. "Ah ha!" Hizzlesnit said, for the second time that evening. Maybe he was getting a little long in the tooth--for a rat.
"Myrtlewithl," Hizzlesnit called out to the assembled rat populace. He whistled a single sharp note with his one tooth. "Mrytlewithl!"
"Yes, Hizzy!" came a soft, sibilant response from the edge of the crowd. Myrtlewithl began moving toward the unconscious Sarah.
"Do you have the sorceress' booty?" asked Hizzlesnit.
Around Myrtlewithl's sleek white neck, for Myrtlewithl was an escaped lab rat with a very good vocabulary, was Sarah's pendant. It had been scooped from its nook in Mr. Plimsoul's basement along with several other prize items the night before. For a nimble rat with a sailor's skill, no part of Traeshurestaene was inaccessible via underground river.
"Indubitably, Hizzy," she answered, and bent low before him so that he might snatch it from her. This Hizzlesnit did without hesitation. He held the pendant up, and watched it turn green in the glow for a moment.
"Doesn't seem such a much," he said. And then he bit into the chain attached to the pendant, severing right through the link that held the pendant and the chain together. With a steady paw, Hizzlesnit turned the runestone the right way around, and placed it with easy assurance onto the hilt. It was a perfect fit.
Then, with the abruptness of a drowned man coming back to life, Sarah gasped.
END OF CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE