Free The Rat and the Serpent by Stephen Palmer Page B

Atavalens. We would have to convince him it was his own idea.”
    I cursed again. I felt panic approaching—my future departing. “I’ll ask Karanlik,” I said.
    Raknia frowned. “Oh, yes,” she drawled, “ask an outsider.”
    I ignored this remark, replying, “You ask your cimmerian,” then returning to my chair, where I whispered in Karanlik’s ear. “Have you thought of anything?”
    She shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s beyond me.”
    Fretting, I sat back. Atavalens sprang into the room and hurried to his chair, sitting down just in time to see the return of Musseler.
    From the dais Musseler said, “Well?”
    Atavalens stood, his manner unctuous, his expression a haughty smirk. “We have a plan,” he said. “We are ready. May we depart?”
    Musseler gestured at the exit. “The sorcerer’s tower awaits.”
    So we departed the Tower of the Dessicators, Atavalens and his henchmen first, cimmerian women in tow, followed by Yish, Kaganashina and their men, then me, Raknia and our cimmerians. I found myself stupefied, too frightened of failure to think of a plan, aware that this night might be my last before a return to the streets. I was shaking. Karanlik noticed, slipping her hand into mine as we walked along Sehzadebazi Street towards the ruined tower.
    At the tower we milled around while Atavalens took his henchmen to inspect the walls. I surveyed the area. I noticed that the sorcerer had built his tower adjacent to the channel left by the River Lycus, long since diverted into the Propontis to reduce erosion. This channel, though many feet lower than street level, was used as a road south to the harbour—and so I was struck by an idea. In the space of a few seconds, I imagined water rushing down the channel to the sea, rejected this idea because of the erosion it would cause to the channel base and walls, then wished the water could somehow be made solid. I thought of water boiling, then of ice, but I rejected those ideas as unworkable. But then I imagined ice spheres rolling down to the sea, and I remembered the dessicating rods.
    With a wave of my rags I gestured Raknia over, pulling her a few steps away, out of earshot. “I have it,” I said, gripping her shoulders.
    “What?” she asked.
    “The dessicating spheres at the end of our rods. Their sorcery limits them by weight, not by volume—”
    “No, it would take months to carry all that water down to the sea—”
    “Listen,” I insisted, “we fill all seven spheres with the water—”
    “They will weigh a ton —”
    “Then we just let them roll down the channel left by the River Lycus. It’s their weight that we exploit.”
    Raknia glanced at the tower, then at me. “It might work, and it’s all we have,” she said.
    I turned to examine the channel. “There’s only one problem,” I said. “It’s been centuries since that river ran and I don’t know if the channel retains a slope down to the Propontis.” I turned, grabbing Raknia again in the intensity of my thought. “You go and persuade Atavalens,” I said. “I’ve got to check the channel.”
    “You?”
    “As a rat!” I hissed. “Now go, before it’s too late.”
    I thrust her in the direction of the tower, then hurried down to the channel. I gazed south through the mist of soot, catching at the extremity of my vision a glimpse of the Forum of Bovis upon Ordu Street, where the channel bent west then made for the sea; white lamps amidst shadows where windows pierced the Forum walls. I crouched down, pushing the Mavrosopolis from my mind and concentrating on the channel, setting my mind along the road to trance with a rhythmic beating of my hands and feet upon the ground: legs back, arms forward, nose twitching.
    My senses leaped free, vision enhanced, hearing perfect, my tiny body aware of every nuance of the channel. Fast as water itself I scurried down the channel, detecting the slightest variation in slope below the caked soot and debris, aware