City of the Rats

Four days of hard marching followed — four long days in which Lief, Barda, and Jasmine spoke little and then only of moving on and keeping out of sight of any possible enemy. But when, at last, in the afternoon of the fourth day, they stood on the banks of Broad River, they realized that they should have planned their next step more carefully.

The river was deep, and its name described it well. It was so wide that they could only faintly see the land on the other side. The great sheet of water stretched in front of them like a sea. There was no way across.

Bleached white, and hard as stone, the ancient remains of wooden rafts lay half-buried in the sand. Perhaps, long ago, people had crossed the river here, and abandoned the rafts where they came to rest. But there were no trees on this side to provide wood for rafts — only banks of reeds.

Jasmine’s eyes narrowed as she peered across the dull sheen of the water. “The land on the other side is very flat,” she said slowly. “It is a plain. And I see a dark shape rising from it. If that is the City of the Rats, it is straight ahead of us. All we have to do is —”

“Cross the river,” said Lief heavily. He threw himself down on the fine, white sand and began rummaging in his pack, looking for something to eat.

He pulled out the collection of things they had bought from Tom and tipped them onto the ground in a small heap. He had almost forgotten about them, and now he stared at them with distaste.

They had seemed so exciting in the shop. Now they looked like rubbishy novelties. The beads that made fire. The “No Bakes” bread. The powder labelled “Pure and Clear.” The little pipe that was supposed to blow bubbles of light. And a small, flat tin box with a faded label …

Of course. Tom’s free gift. Something completely useless, no doubt, that he could not dispose of any other way. Lief sneered to himself as he turned the tin over.

“It is too far for us to swim. We will have to follow the river until we find a village where there are boats,” Barda was saying. “It is a pity to have to go out of our way, but we have no choice.”

“Perhaps we do,” Lief said slowly.

Jasmine and Barda looked at him in surprise. He held up the box and read aloud the words on the back.

“Are you saying that whatever is in this little tin box can dry up a river?” jeered Jasmine.

Lief shrugged. “I am saying nothing. I am simply reading the instructions.”

“There are more warnings than instructions,” said Barda. “But we shall see.”

They walked together to the river’s edge and Lief pried the lid off the tin box. Inside were some tiny crystals, each not much larger than a grain of sand. Feeling rather foolish, he pinched out a few of the crystals and tossed them into the water. They sank immediately without changing appearance in any way.

And nothing else happened.

Lief waited for a moment, then, fighting his disappointment, he tried to grin. “I should have known better,” he shrugged. “As if that Tom would give away anything that actually —”

Then he shouted and jumped back. A huge, colorless, wobbling lump was rising from the river. Beside it was another — and another!

“It is the crystals!” shouted Barda in excitement. “They are sucking up the water!”

So they were. As they grew, spreading as Lief watched, they joined together to make a towering, wobbling wall that held back the river. And the water between them simply dried up, leaving a narrow, winding path of puddled, sandy mud.

Kree squawked in amazement as Jasmine, Lief, and Barda stepped carefully onto the riverbed, squeezing between the jellied lumps and walking on until they came to the end of the dry patch. Then Lief threw another pinch of crystals into the water ahead, and, after a moment, more lumps broke the surface of the river and another path began to clear for them.

The crossing of Broad River was a strange, frightening journey. In all their minds was the thought of what would happen if the trembling walls that held back the river should fail. The great press of water would close over them. There would be no escape.

The swollen Water Eaters blocked their view as they crept along, twisting and turning, their feet sinking into the soft mud. Lief was just beginning to worry that the crystals in the tin box would run out before they reached the shore, when suddenly the shore was before him, and he was clambering up onto a harsh, dry plain.

He stood with Barda and Jasmine, staring.

The plain lay in the bend of the river. It was encircled by water on three sides, and should have been lush and fertile. But not a blade of grass softened its hard, baked clay. As far as the eye could see there was no sign of any living, growing thing.

In the center was a city whose towers shone dark red in the last rays of the setting sun. Though it was so far away, a feeling of evil and menace seemed to stream from it like vapor.

They left the river and began to move over the bare plain. The sky arched over them, red and lowering. From above, thought Lief suddenly, we must look like ants — three tiny, crawling ants. One blow would kill us all. Never had he felt so exposed to danger.

Kree felt it, too. He sat motionless on Jasmine’s shoulder. Filli was huddled inside her jacket, only his small nose visible. But even their company could not help Jasmine. Her feet dragged. She began to walk more and more slowly, and at last, as the sun began to sink below the horizon, she shuddered and stopped.

“I am sorry,” she muttered. “The barrenness of this place is death to me. I cannot bear it.”

Her face was white and set. Her hands were shaking. Lief and Barda glanced at each other.

“Only now I was thinking that we should soon stop for the night,” said Barda, though Lief doubted this was true. “We must rest, and eat. And I do not think the city is a place to enter in darkness.”

They sat down together and began unpacking their food, but there were no sticks to make a fire.

“Now is a good time to try Tom’s fire-making beads,” said Lief, following Barda’s lead and trying to be cheerful. In the failing light, he read the instructions on the jar. Then he put one of the beads on the ground and hit it sharply with their digging tool. Immediately, it burst into flames. Lief added another bead and it, too, flared up. Soon there was a merry blaze that apparently needed no other fuel. He pushed the jar into his pocket, well-satisfied.

“Instant comfort. Amazing!” said Barda heartily. “A villain Tom may be, but at least the things he sells are worth their price.”

It was still early, but Barda and Lief spread their supplies around them and made much of deciding what they would eat. They added water to one of the flat white rounds of No Bakes and watched it swell quickly into a loaf of bread. They cut the bread into slices and toasted it, eating it with some of the dried berries, nuts, and honey they had carried from Raladin.

“A feast,” said Barda contentedly, and Lief was relieved to see that Jasmine’s tense face was beginning to relax. As they had hoped, the warmth, light, and food were giving her comfort.

He gazed over her shoulder at the distant city. The red light was fading from its towers now. Hulked on the plain, it stood silent, grim, deserted….

Lief blinked. The last rays of the sun were playing tricks with his eyes. For a moment it had seemed as though the earth around the city were moving like water.

He looked again, and frowned in puzzlement. The plain was moving. Yet there was no grass to bend in the wind. No leaves to blow across the clay. What …?

Then, suddenly, he saw. “Barda!” he said huskily.

He saw Barda look up, surprised by the fear in his voice. He tried to speak, but his breath caught in his throat. Waves of horror flooded through him as he stared wildly at the moving plain.

“What is it?” asked Jasmine, turning to look.

And then she and Barda were crying out together, leaping to their feet.

Spilling from the city, covering the ground, surging towards them like a long, low wave, was a scurrying, seething mass of rats.