His coming here had been simplicity itself, and inevitability too. Upon reaching the Fifth Level after parting with Hreest and his pike-rats, rat-pages had fallen in beside him at the foot of the white marble stairs, and a rat-chamberlain had gone solemnly before him, ringing an engraved silver bell which probably once had tinkled from the ankle of a temple dancer in the Street of the Gods in the world above. Thus, footing it grandly himself with the aid of his sapphire-topped ivory staff, though still hobbling a little, he had been wordlessly conducted into the Council Chamber and to the very chair which he now occupied.
The chamber was low but vast, pillared by golden and silver candlesticks doubtless pilfered from palaces and churches overhead. Among them were a few of what looked like jeweled scepters of office and maces of command. In the background, toward the distant walls and half hid by the pillars, were grouped rat-pikemen, waiters, and other servants, litter-bearers with their vehicles, and the like.
The chamber was lit by golden and silver cages of fire-beetles and night-bees and glow-wasps large as eagles, and so many of them that the pulsing of their light was barely apparent. The Mouser had decided that if it became necessary to create a diversion, he would loose some of the glow-wasps.
Within a central circle of particularly costly pillars was set a great round table, about which sat evenly spaced the Thirteen, all masked and clad in white hoods and robes, from which white-gloved rat-hands emerged.
Opposite the Mouser and on a slightly higher chair sat Skwee, well remembered from the time he had crouched on the Mouser’s shoulder threatening to sever the artery under his ear. On Skwee’s right sat Siss, while on his left was a taciturn rat whom the rest addressed as Lord Null. Alone of the Thirteen, this lumpy Lord Null was clad in robe, hood, mask, and gloves of black. There was something hauntingly familiar about him, perhaps because the hue of his garb recalled to the Mouser Svivomilo and also Hreest.
The remaining nine rats were clearly apprentice members, promoted to fill the gaps in the Circle of Thirteen left by the white rats slain aboard Squid, for they never spoke and when questions were voted, only bobbingly agreed with the majority opinion among Skwee, Siss, Lord Null, and Grig—that is, the Mouser—or if that opinion were split two to two, abstained.
The entire tabletop was hidden by a circular map of what appeared to be well-tanned and buffed human skin, the most delicate and finely pored. The map itself was nothing but innumerable dots: golden, silver, red and black, and thick as fly-specks in the stall of a slum fruit-merchant. At first the Mouser had been able to think of nothing but some eerie, dense starfield. Then it had been revealed to him, by the references the others made to it, that it was nothing more or less than a map of all the rat-holes in Lankhmar!
At first this knowledge hadn’t made the map come to life for the Mouser. But then gradually he had begun to see in the apparently randomly clustered and twisty-trailed dots the outlines of at least the principal buildings and streets of Lankhmar. Of course, the whole plot of the city was reversed, because viewed from below instead of above.
The golden dots, it had turned out, stood for rat-holes unknown to humans and used by rats; the red, for holes known to humans yet still used by rats; the silver, for holes unknown to humans, but not currently employed by the dwellers undeneath; while the black dots designated the holes known to humans and avoided by the rodents of Lankhmar Below.
During the entire council session, three slim female rat-pages silently went about, changing the color of rat-holes and even dotting in new ones, according to information whispered them by rat-pages, who ceaselessly came and went on equally silent paws. For this purpose, the three females used rat-tail brushes each made of a single, stiffined horsehair frayed at the tip, which they employed most dexterously, and each had slung in a rack at the waist four ink-pots of the appropriate colors.
What the Mouser had learned during the council session had been, simply yet horribly, the all-over plan for the grand assault on Lankhmar Above, which was to take place a half-hour before this very midnight: detailed information about the disposition of pike companies, crossbow detachments, dagger groups, poison-weapon brigades, incendiaries, lone assassins, child-killers, panic-rats, stink-rats, genital-snappers and breast-biters and other berserkers, setters of man-traps such as trip-cords and needle-sharp caltrops and strangling nooses, artillery brigades which would carry up piecemeal larger weapons to be assembled above ground, until his brain could no longer hold all the data.
He had also learned that the principal attacks were to be made on the South barracks and especially on the Street of the Gods, hitherto spared.
Finally he learned that the aim of the rats was not to exterminate humans or drive them from Lankhmar, but to force an unconditional surrender from Glipkerio and enslave the overlord’s subjects by that agreement and a continuing terror so that Lankhmar would go on as always about its pleasures and business, buying and selling, birthing and dying, sending out of ships and caravans, gathering of grain—especially grain!—but ruled by the rats.
Fortunately all this briefing had been done by Skwee and Siss. Nothing had been asked of the Mouser—that is, Grig—or of Lord Null, except to supply opinions on knotty problems and lead in the voting. This had also provided the Mouser with time to devise ways and means of throwing a cat into the rats’ plans.
Finally the briefing was done and Skwee asked around the table for ideas to improve the grand assault-not as if he expected to get any.
But at this point the Mouser rose up—somewhat crippled, since Grig’s damnably ill-fitting rat-boots were still giving him the cramp—and taking up his ivory staff laid its tip unerringly on a cluster of silver dots at the west end of the Street of Gods.
“Why ith no aththault made here?” he demanded. “I thuggetht that at the height of the battle, a party of ratth clad in black togath iththue from the temple of the Godth of Lankhmar. Thith will convinthe the humanth ath nothing elthe that their very godth—the godth of their thity—have turned againtht them—been tranthformed, in fact, to ratth!”
He swallowed hard down his raw, wearied throat. Why the devil had Grig had to have a lisp?
His suggestion appeared for a moment to stupefy the other members of the Council. Then Siss said, wonderingly, admiringly, enviously, and as if against his will, “I never thought of that.”
Skwee said, “The temple of the Gods of Lankhmar has long been avoided by man and rat alike, as you well know, Grig. Nevertheless…”
Lord Null said peevishly, “I am against it. Why meddle with the unknown? The humans of Lankhmar fear and avoid the temple of their city’s gods. So should we.”
The Mouser glared at the black-robed rat through his mask slits. “Are we mithe or ratth?” he demanded. “Or are we even cowardly, thuperthtitiouth men? Where ith your ratly courage, Lord Null? Or thovereign, thkeptical, ratly reathon? My thratagem will cow the humanth and prove forever the thuperior bravery of ratth! Thkwee! Thith! Ith it not tho?”
The matter was put to a vote. Lord Null voted nay, Siss and the Mouser and—after a pause—Skwee voted aye, the other nine bobbed, and so Operation Black Toga, as Skwee christened it, was hastily added to the battle plans.
“We have over four hours in which to organize it,” Skwee reminded his nervous colleagues.
The Mouser grinned behind his mask. He had a feeling that the Gods of Lankhmar, if ever roused, would side with the city’s human inhabitants. Or would they?—he wondered belatedly.
In any case, his business and desire now was to get out of the Council Chamber as soon as possible. A stratagem instantly suggested itself to him. He waved to a page.
“Thummon a litter,” he commanded. “Thith deliberathion hath tired me. I feel faint and am troubled by leg cramp. I will go for a thhort while to my home and wife to retht me.”
Skwee looked around at him. “Wife?” the white rat asked incredulously.
Instantly the Mouser answered, “Ith it any buthineth of yourth if it ith my whim to call my mithtreth my wife?”
Skwee still eyed him for a bit, then shrugged.
The litter arrived almost immediately, borne by two very brawny, half-naked rats. The Mouser rolled into it gratefully, laying his ivory staff beside him, commanded “To my home!” and waved a gentle good-bye to Skwee and Lord Null as he was carried joggingly off. He felt himself at the moment to be the most brilliant mind in the whole universe and thoroughly deserving of a rest, even in a rat burrow. He reminded himself he had at least four hours to go before Sheelba’s spell wore off and he became once more human size. He’d done his best for Lankhmar, now he must think of himself. He lazily wondered what the comforts of a rat home would be like. He must sample them before escaping above ground. It really had been a damnably tiring council session after all that had gone before.