V: Rat

There wasn’t much light in Lorohein’s dungeons. For a while, Rat could hardly see anything at all, just the slightest outline of the cell around him. Rusted iron bars surrounded him on three sides, with the fourth wall made of hard stone. It was a tiny, cramped thing, barely the length of his legs, and it left comfort a mere memory. The floor was the same stone as the wall and after sleeping on it—curled up like some baby so that he would fit—Rat’s bones ached. *So this is it? This is how I spend my last days? Why don’t they just get this over with and execute us or something?*

In the cell on his right, however, Jett had suffered more than he had. When they had first thrown the two of them in, nobody had come to take a look at the cuts on his chest. Jett himself barely cared about them at first, though Rat could see the subtle twitches of pain on his face when he thought he wasn’t looking. Then, the infection kicked in. On the second day, he was shivering and sweating and no matter how much he yelled at the guards as they passed, nobody would come and see to him. By what he thought was the morning of the next day, Rat was sure it was too late.

“Hey, R,” he had managed, his eyes barely open. “What you did the other night…that *was* you, wasn’t it?” Rat had thought about it as well. The way the broken-nosed man had gone flying back…but he hadn’t even touched him…

“I don’t know…” he said, avoiding his gaze. *Was it me?* He asked himself, but some part of him knew. The moment the club hit his arm, he had felt the energy leave his body, concentrating itself onto Broken-Nose. *Fucking hell, I’m starting to sound like them Voices.*

“Sorcery,” Jett pushed himself up with what looked like an enormous amount of effort. “That’s what it was, R. Sorcery. Why didn’t you tell me you could do that shit?” Rat couldn’t help but scoff. Even if the man was dying, he was still a damned fool.

“It wasn’t sorcery, Jett,” he told him, trying to put on a dismissive tone. “Something else musta hit him or…or…shit, I don’t know.” He pulled himself to his feet, his back aching and his legs on the verge of cramps. “There ain’t no such thing as sorcery.” The darkness was getting to him. Not knowing what time of day it was, no sun to warm him—it felt like he was being drained of all energy. *Sorcery. It’s bullshit. Ain’t such thing.*

“How can you be so sure?” an unfamiliar voice asked. Rat whirled around, almost reaching for the daggers that weren’t there, taken by the guards when they imprisoned them. Outside their cell stood a man, thin and spindly with a bald head and a face that seemed both old and young at the same time. His lips were narrow and looked almost purple in the darkness of the dungeons, they were stretched out into a smile. He wore grey robes that were wrapped tightly around his slim frame, with a leather pouch about his waist.  Something about him made Rat feel uneasy, as if just by being in his presence meant that he had claimed victory—though over what, he had no idea.

“Who the fuck’re you?” was all he said. The man shook his head slowly, remaining almost perfectly still and barely disturbing his robes.

“Right now, my name matters not, Rat of Triniol,” the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Triniol. He hadn’t heard that name in years—hadn’t even thought about it. The only people who had even known where he came from, where they had branded him, forced him to work, and whipped his back until the blood ran down his breeches, were either dead or still there. His hand itched. *I’m Rat. Nothing more. Nothing less. Just Rat.* “What *does* matter is—”

Rat cut him off by thrusting his arm through the bars of his cell, trying to grab at the man’s robes. *How can he know? How can he know?* His hand stopped inches away and Rat pressed against the bars, baring his teeth like an animal. Whoever this man was, he needed to know *how* he knew about Triniol.

The man seemed unimpressed. “Are you finished?” There it was again. The uneasiness. His aura of something powerful that Rat couldn’t quite understand.

“How do you know my name?” he asked viciously. “How the *fuck* do you know about Triniol?”

“I learn everything I can about a man before I speak to him,” he said, his voice calm and steady. “I know that not so long ago, you and your friend here”—he looked at Jett, who was still slumped against the bars, barely conscious but watching the conversation quietly—“were thrown in here for ‘disturbing the peace’ so to speak. I also know of your little…incident moments before your fight was interrupted.” The man moved closer then. If Rat wanted to grab him now, he would probably be able to. “Without proper training, sorcery is an insignificant aspect of one’s life. The mere pulling of a fork to their hand or the pushing of a leaf as if it were the wind. But you…something awoke in you on that night, did it not? And you haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since.” The man’s eyes narrowed a little and Rat suddenly became very conscious of how he was reacting. He didn’t dare look away.

“Sorcery,” he said. The word seemed foul in his mouth as if saying it meant he was admitting to everything the man had said. “You tellin’ me the stories are true?”

He smiled again before nodding slowly. “Every last one.”

“So why the fuck are you here?” Rat asked. “I mean, I’m assumin’ you ain’t here to tell me no legends about Dell the Dragon or the Faeries.” At that moment, the man looked down at Jett and tilted his head slightly before returning his attention to Rat.

“I don’t have the time to explain everything—not yet, anyway,” he told him. He then revealed a thin, pale hand from his robes and pointed it at Rat’s companion. “But your friend here doesn’t have much time. I come here with an offer, my friend. The price for your freedom is five hundred Hans each. I will pay this price, set you free, heal your man.” He gestured towards Jett with an open palm, his thin fingers splayed about. *This man just has a thousand Han lying around?*

“But?” Rat prompted, knowing that something was to come. He smiled once more.

“But,” the word hung in the air for a moment. “You must come with me. I am a part of a larger group from a temple four hundred marches west from here. If I free you, you must join me. Those are my terms.”

*Imprisoned for murder one day, rescued by a sorcerer the next.* Rat fought to stay calm and keep a straight face, but his body fought back. His heart thumped in his chest and he could feel the sweat beginning to gather at his hairline. He was past ignoring the idea of sorcery at this point, but still, something in his voice was holding something back. *I oughta tell him to fuck off and let us die here,* he thought. Then, Jett’s feeble voice rose from the dying man’s lips.

“I’m cold…Hey R, can you hand me…the blanket?” Rat knelt—or tried to, anyway—and felt Jett’s forehead through the bars. He sighed and squeezed his eyes shut. *Damn it all.*

\*

After so long in the wet and dark dungeon, the outside smelt oddly sweet. Rat’s eyes were closed as he let the breeze blow on his face, leaning back with his hands planted on the wet grass. The sun was just beginning to set, making the trees around them cast long shadows on the ground. Once they had left the dungeon, Jett hanging limply as Rat carried him, the man had insisted on leaving Lorohein immediately.

“I cannot help him here. We must do it outside these walls,” he had told them. They had ridden on horseback—the horses returned by the stablemaster after being paid by the sorcerer—for an hour before Rat forced them to stop, insisting that he help Jett. What the man had done, he could not say. As they sat at a small clearing in the middle of some forest, Rat had watched as the man pulled a bag of leaves and plants from the folds of his robes. He ate them one by one, looking down at Jett as he chewed slowly, not a hint of worry on the thin man’s face. After he swallowed, he hovered his hand over Jett’s chest and closed his eyes. His fingers then began twitching violently. With each jerk, his hand became a different shape—a different conformation. Words were spoken, soft and in some language Rat didn’t recognise. When he was finished, Jett looked no different, but the man looked somehow even paler than before.

“That’s it?” Rat had asked after a moment, feeling as if he had been scammed. “You wave your hands and all of a sudden, he’s fixed?”

The man shook his head. “Not quite. It will take some time—all night, at the least—until he’s fit to walk. His wounds won’t be *fully* healed for, say, a week.”

“That’s not possible. The cuts they gave him…the infection…shit like that don’t fix itself in a week,” Rat leaned over Jett, inspecting him closely. The wounds were still there on his chest, covered in bloodsoaked bandages that smelled bad. The sweat still shone on his face, but his breathing *did* look easier already.

They didn’t talk much as the sun set below the trees around them. The temperature soon dropped enough to bring a chill to the air, making Rat build a fire. With the light fading, he managed to get a good enough flame to keep the cold at bay.

“Couldn’t you have magicked up some fire for us, or somethin’?” he asked the man, who was sat at the other end of the fire.

“Sorcery is no plaything, Rat,” he told him, some colour had returned to his cheeks. “It is a powerful thing to wield and a dangerous thing to misuse. But you will learn all that in good time.” Rat’s eyes narrowed a little and his hand itched.

“What do you mean? Who the hell even are you?” he asked. Something in the man’s voice was holding back. He wanted to tell Rat something, but he hadn’t quite gotten to it, yet. Which meant it was something he wasn’t going to like. His knives were once more strapped to his chest. If he could reach them in time, he could kill the man. If he *could* kill the man.

He breathed in deeply. “My name is Jitsu Van Yorling. Ignore the Van in there, I’m not so highborn anymore. I come from the Temple of Gaius.”

“Never heard of it.”

“You wouldn’t have. Very few know of it. The people there are sorcerers like me. It is there that we will be going, and there that you will learn how to use sorcery.”

Rat was silent for a moment. His heart beat hard in his chest, but if he showed any sign of worry, Jitsu didn’t notice. “I don’t need to learn no magic tricks.” He said softly, afraid of how his voice may come out if he spoke any louder. His hand twitched and he almost reached for his knives.

“Yes, you do,” Jitsu told him, leaning forward. His eyes were hard and dark. “There aren’t many who can use sorcery as strong as you did *by accident.* As I said, it can be an insignificant part of one’s life. But you…you showed strength, and that is something that can be deadly if not properly taught. The world is changing, Rat. The King and his son are dead and we fear something terrible is soon to happen. Soon, we shall have a new Queen—one far too young and soft to rule the Empire without help. Tell me, do you want to remain as a Derra-Han for the rest of your life, or do you want to *help* people? There are forces at play that I believe will exploit Queen Orsella; When the time comes, she will need our help.” he leant back after a moment, sighing. “I won’t force you to come with me, but you *should* at least entertain the idea.”

Rat looked over at Jett, his chest tight. In less than a week, everything had changed. The two of them had almost been killed—by blade or by rope or by infection, it didn’t matter. Gods knew how long it would be until they almost died again. Sooner or later, their luck would just run out. Derra-Hans never did have a long lifespan anyway. Rat thought about it long throughout the night, flipping between agreeing, leaving, and killing Van Yorling while he slept. Eventually, the sky began to brighten once more and he realised he hadn’t rested all night. *A new day.*

“Okay,” he said when Jitsu rose finally. The sorcerer had been reaching into one of their packs but froze when he heard the words. He turned to face him. “I’ll come. But only with him.” He nodded towards Jett, his fever had gone and the sweat had dried off him. Now, he looked like he was actually resting. Jitsu’s eyes flicked to Jett briefly.

“He won’t be able to learn sorcery,” he told him. “But…we can give him some work.” Rat nodded slowly. *Just what in the fuck have I got myself into?*