David Drake - The Gods Return

Between licks he said, "This was my mother's idea, I'm afraid. She thought it was time I took a wife. I wasn't interested in any wife, and as for the woman mother had picked, well, I absolutelywould not have anything to do with her. So mother lost her temper and cursed me." Sharina wondered if she was dreaming. The knife she still held had real weight, and out in the street she heard cartwheels clattering on the stone. The royal palace in Valles constructed of many small buildings within a walled compound; it was well insulated from the great city beyond. The houses of the pirate lords of Pandah, though certainly luxurious, were built around courtyards with their outer walls on the public streets. "Ah," she said. "Your mother is a wizard, then?" "Oh, something like that," said Burne. He eyed his tail critically, straightening it and then curling it closely around him again. "Anyway, being a rat isn't such a bad life. Certainly it's better than being married to the very strong-willed lady mother picked for me. A harridan in training, I called her." He looked up at Sharina and chuckled. His eyes twinkled in the moonlight streaming through the jalousies. "I'm afraid I have something of a temper too, you know," he said. "Maybe if I'd been a little more diplomatic, mother wouldn't have become quite as angry. Still, what's done is done. And as I said, it isn't so bad. I quite like my fur, don't you?" "It's, ah, very smooth," Sharina said. She wondered if she ought to pet him-and recoiled at the thought. Not because he was a rat, but because hewasn't a rat. "I joined that family of mountebanks as a more comfortable environment than living with rats," Burne said. "Not that I couldn't have done so, but quite frankly the norms of rat society aren't much to my liking. And then there's the matter of the females.

I'd have been the leading male, I assure you, but that entails duties which I would have found quite unpleasant. Even more unpleasant than my mother's blond termagant." He wiped his whiskers in front of his muzzle and licked them also, right half and then left. "No," he said,

"I preferred a cage and rather better food than the mountebanks themselves were eating. They valued me, you see. They'll be quite distraught to learn that I've escaped, as they'll view it." "Ah," said Sharina. She seemed to be saying that a lot tonight. "You're leaving them? Leaving the show?" "Now don't you go thinking that I'm treating them unfairly!" Burne squeaked sharply, sitting up straight on the pillow. "They didn't capture me, of course, and the fact they believe they did is an amazing insult. Surely it would be obvious to the meanest intellect that no lock a human could open would be beyondmy -"

He raised a forepaw and spread the toes with their tiny claws.

"-delicacy and intelligence to open also." "I think…," said Sharina, answering the implied question instead of treating it as a rhetorical device. It settled her mind to deal with the business on an intellectual level. "That they weren't able to think of you as other than an animal. Even when you spoke and practiced the tumbling routines with them. They didn't let themselves believe what they really knew." She pursed her lips. "I guess you practiced, I mean."

"Ofcourse we practiced," Burne said waspishly. "No matter how skilled one might be-and I'll admit that the Serulli family was skilled; it wasn't by chance I picked them for my purposes, you know. But despite that, the timing can only come from practice." He settled himself onto his belly, his limbs drawn up under him. "They treated me well-except for the lack of intellectual companionship, of course. But they more than got value from my association with them. I owe them nothing, Princess, so you needn't feel that you've harmed them because I've decided to associate with you instead." "I beg your pardon?" Sharina said sharply. She got up, rocking the bed on its rope suspension.

Burne waited till the bed had stilled before sitting up on his haunches. "Yes, I'm joining you now," he said. "I won't pretend that I don't have my own reasons for doing so, just as I preferred the mountebanks to living with rats. Other rats. There's a difficult time coming for this world, and I suspect that there'll be more safety with you than there will be anywhere else." He groomed his right whiskers again and added, "In the long run, of course. The immediate future is likely to become unpleasantly exciting." On a silver tray by the bedside was an earthenware jar with a tumbler up-ended over its neck.

Though the tumbler was glazed, the jar itself was not; water wept through the sides, cooling the remaining contents. Sharina filled the tumbler and drank. "I'm rather thirsty myself," the rat said pointedly. Sharina paused. If I were home in Barca's Hamlet and found a rat in my bedroom, I'd have – But Barca's Hamlet wasn't home any more, and even when Sharina was an inn-servant she'd probably have hesitated before trying to crush atalking rat. She grinned. I hopeI'd have had that much sense, she thought. She poured a little water into the tray. It wasn't perfectly flat, so a shallow pool formed along one raised edge. "All right," she said. Burne hopped from the pillow to the table. He bent, his tongue lapping quickly but his bright black eyes still focused on Sharina. "You'll find me good company," he said, raising his head again, "as well as being useful. For example-" Burne shot up from the bedside table, rattling the tray with the suddenness of his leap. Sharina jerked back instinctively, but the rat struck the wall more than arm's length from her and dropped to the floor. Gripped in its forepaws was a finger-long scorpion. The chisel teeth made a quick snap, shearing off the sting. His paws shifted their grip; the teeth clicked twice more, nipping the scorpion's pincers. "One this size isn't really dangerous," Burne said conversationally, "but it can send information to places we'd prefer should remain ignorant." He began eating the scorpion, starting at the head; bits of black chitin sprinkled the marble floor around him. He paused, cleaning his muzzle with his long tongue. "Useful, as I told you," he said. Sharina giggled. She supposed it was reaction. She sheathed the big knife for the second time tonight. "All right, Master Burne," she said. "Though Iwill make a payment to your former, well, associates. A considerable payment." She giggled again. The scorpion's tail fell from the rat's jaws. It was still twitching. "I can see," Sharina said, "that you're not going to be expensive to feed."

Chapter 8 "Barak knephi…," said Brincisa, kneeling before a basalt nodule originally the size of a child's skull but now split in half. The hollow interior was lined with amethyst crystals. She used it instead of drawing a figure like most of the wizards that Ilna had watched. "Baricha!" Instead of a flash of wizardlight, a bluish haze spread from the nodule in all directions. It was as faint as the sheen of moonlight on nacre; Ilna saw only the boundary between light and non-light, moving outward at the speed of a man running. It vanished through the walls of the workroom She felt only a faint tingle when the light passed through her body, and even that might have been the expectation that sheought to feel something. Ingens stood facing an alcove so that he wouldn't accidentally catch a glimpse of what Brincisa was doing. He didn't react at all to the haze; he probably didn't see it. The wizard rose to her feet, then paused with her eyes closed and swayed. "No no," she said sharply when Ilna reached out to support her. "I'm all right. Come, the effect should last till dawn, but we don't know how long our business with the tomb will take.

Master Ingens, bring the rope." Ilna nodded curtly. She found Brincisa's manner brusque and unpleasant, which would amuse her former neighbors in Barca's Hamlet. On the other hand, Brincisa was commendably businesslike and obviously skilled in her arts. Perhaps Ilna's distaste was simply a matter of like being repelled by like.