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James Dorr’s latest book is a novel-in-stories published in June 2017 by Elder Signs Press, Tombs: A Chronicle of  Latter-Day Times of Earth. Born in Florida, raised in the New York City area, in college in Boston, and currently living in the Midwest, Dorr is a short story writer and poet specializing in dark fantasy and horror, with forays into mystery and science fiction. His The Tears of Isis was a 2013 Bram Stoker® Award finalist for Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection, while other books include Strange Mistresses: Tales of Wonder and Romance, Darker Loves: Tales of Mystery and Regret, and his all poetry Vamps (A Retrospective). He has also been a technical writer, an editor on a regional magazine, freelancer, and a semi-professional musician, and currently harbors a cat named Triana.

Find James at his blog, on Facebook, and at his Amazon page.

“Crow and Rat” was originally published in the British anthology HUMANAGERIE (Eibonvale Press, 2018).

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Crow and Rat

by James Dorr

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His name was Crow, and she was called Rat. Both of them were beggars in the New City, not the creative kind, jongleurs or tale-tellers, gossip-mongers or criers or news-spreaders, but rather the shabbier, desperate grubbers of others’ detritus—ghouls as it were of the wealthier precincts’ trashheaps and middens. Petty thieves, sometimes, when courage and opportunity blessed them. In other words, common enough to be unnoticed.

Rat, in particular, lived in the sewers, a place forbidden and dangerous to boot.  Many a time she battled huge lizards, kin to the crocodiles known by the ancients, or vied with great underground spiders the rights to a passageway opening, perhaps, on the river. Or possibly inland, beneath some park where the wealthier congregated at nightfall, perhaps to attend to an entertainment and thus unmindful of slender hands and arms reaching upward through some loose grating, to clutch at purses or low-hanging jeweled pendants.  

Things that could be sold on subsequent evenings—the days between spent still under the ground that way, safe from the burning rays of a sun grown ever hotter over the years until even the rich could not go out by daylight unless protected by hats and thick, all- encompassing chadors—in parts of New City unknown to polite folk, where stores existed that bought such items. Questions as to their provenance unasked.

It was in such a shop that she met Crow. Or, rather, she saw him, as if from afar, for even among beggars there were some degrees of rank. Crow, in his feather-suit, among the higher, he a thief who would swoop down from ledges often mere moments before a new dawn, when even the wealthiest must scurry homeward, unwatchful and flustered, mindful only of reaching shelter before the sun’s rising.   

And thus for Crow easy prey, black-masked and black-suited, loose folds outstretched as if wings to help guide him down. Razors attached to his boots like talons—a stoop and a grab, a pool of blood left behind. But rarely killing, especially if such a victim’s companions could rally about him, helping him to his feet, acting as guides if need be the final few blocks to his home. The commotion thus caused, of course, helping Crow to escape, mask reversed possibly, razors retracted, feathers turned inward, covered with mufti. Indeed it was said sometimes even Crow helped, if a man had no friends with him, gaining that way often entrance to victims’ homes. Helping them to their beds. Using the day then to loot at leisure, making his getaway first thing the next night.

Rat sighed. She had heard of Crow—rumors abounded. Some said that he could actually fly!

Others said, no, that he was a charlatan, just like everyone else of their station. A gentleman, yes, perhaps, higher than most of the class of beggars but he could afford it. As often they could not.

And yet, still others said, he had no woman. No fair companion to help him and love him.

His eyes fell on Rat, slender and dark-haired, almost a river princess in her slenderness but, in her case, more adapted for slithering through pipes and joints, through tunnels and dark places. She, too, occasionally entered homes in the wealthier districts, emerging from drains that, perhaps, had been opened for needed repairs. Their inward-curving spikes no longer guarding the riches that lay above, waiting to be plucked like flowers from a tree. Pulled down, that way, after her.

Thus, slender and dark-haired, her skin a dead pasty white, her eyes met his too. Hers red, almost, like a rat’s.

His dark and beaded.  

“Excuse me,” he said as he shoved his way past her.  “Milady,” he added.

She curtsied. “My pleasure,” she said — she had been taught that much by her mother, now long since deceased.  She still remembered with horror the ghouls’ work three days after when her mother’s corpse had been brought to them, dumped over the borderline into Old City, because no one had had the means to see it buried. She, for her part, vowed the ghouls would not have her, when her time came too. Better to stay in the sewers where she lived, to let real rats devour her.

“My pleasure,” she said again. “You are the one called Crow?”

But he had gone. He had already disappeared, his feathers turned inward, to blend in blackness into the nighttime crowd. 

*

So life went on among those called the dregs of the beggars of New City. Rat had gained a small measure of notice, because, so the gossip said, Crow spoke to no one. And yet he had talked to Rat, even excusing himself in his hurry. Even addressing her as his lady.  

It was still a small thing, Rat tried to convince herself. He’d murmured something, even the taciturn sometimes did that when manners required it. Even among beggars. And he’d said “Milady,” not knowing her name.

And yet it was more. Her heart told her that much, pounding and fluttering whenever she thought of that moment, now weeks past. Whenever she heard a rumor come back to her, exaggerated of course with retelling as rumors are wont to be. That he had said not “Milady,” but “My love.” That he had not just brushed against her, but kissed her. And possibly more too, until only she knew the truth of the matter. And she knew one thing more, that even in that encounter of moments, their eyes had met, sparking and dangerous. And that she loved him.

*

As the months went by after, she followed his exploits, through rumors and broadsides. She never saw him again, except in crude pictures, but she attempted to see in her mind what his life must be like. And while she stuck to her own home and habits, she tried in her way to imitate what she saw. Increasing her boldness. No longer, for instance, shrinking from spiders except when she must fight, but now on occasion seeking them out herself. Killing and eating them.

This too was noised about in New City among the least well placed of its beggars. This too was grist for the mills of rumorers, no doubt exaggerated, too, in its way. Nevertheless at base with some truth to it.

Her skin did take a healthier sheen, her hair more luster. Some saw in her beauty—perhaps she was worthy of one such as Crow.  This the rumors said also.

Yet Rat was realistic. She dared not even hope, not when awake at least.  

But in her dreams, ah!  Perhaps that was different. Perhaps in her dreams—perhaps even in his too—black feathers enfolded the white skin of thighs and breasts. His beaked mask removed, perhaps red lips met those redder.

Rat would awake shivering, yet overly warm as well. Sometimes she even feared that she might be ill, yet, as she plied her work, she felt her senses to be, if anything, more acute. Not less. Her body to be stronger. Not showing weakness.

Her life was improving, if only because she had something to reach for. A thing she would not get—she was still a realist. And yet, she could still aspire. All the time still seeking gossip of Crow’s exploits, hearing almost every few weeks of some new adventure, bolder and more outrageous than those before. Sometimes hearing as well rumors of herself, some deed she had done but as others saw it.

These growing more noticed too.  

It was a strange feeling, happy yet sad also. Exhilarating, yet fearful as well. As she would wake, trembling yet anticipating.  A new night’s escapade set out before her, for success or failure. It may not have mattered.  

It was the deed for her—the love was enough. Never mind hope for its consummation.

Yet could hope be banished? 

*

So it was for Rat the night Crow was killed.  He who the rumors said even could fly. Yet, when she came to see him, hearing the gossip, she found his body broken and alone, struck down by some disease of the sort that were rife in the New City’s seedier neighborhoods.  

“Who has come for him?” she asked the city guardians who found him.      

“None, milady,” the first one said. The second one added, “Are you the one they call Rat?”  

She nodded.  “Yes.”

“Then you must take him. From what we have heard, he had no other friends.  No one else who loved him.”

She nodded again. And now she had his corpse, the things that were with it. His feather-suit and mask. His purse, empty, which did not surprise her as others had found him first.  

And yet, to the point, she had no money either.  

She thought of her mother, the ghouls, her vow, as she dragged him into the nearest sewer.  This was a cross-pipe that led to the better residential precincts—she knew these pipes like the back of her hand.  If she took another outlet to her right, she would come to the New City Government District. Its tallest buildings.

She lifted his body, surprised by its lightness, a legacy of the illness that killed him. A plan was beginning to form in her mind.

She would not let it be eaten by ghouls, nor by sewer rats either. She carried it in her arms, taking the right fork, until she was under a building she knew. La Tour du Maire—the Mayor’s Tower. There she put it down and rested.

She was attacked once—a marauding centipede which she killed quickly, twisting its head from its thrashing body. Avoiding its venomous fangs. Now she was angry—this was what it came to, that she might have Crow only when he was dead? Then she would do well by him, taking his corpse to the Tombs itself, the vast necropolis across the river where those more fortunate than her kind were interred. Yet she was an expert at breaking into places where she was not wanted, as had been Crow also.

And why not the Tombs then? But not by the causeway where dead were delivered on the groaning corpse-carts that plied their way every night, flush with donations to pay for their passage. Nor skulking by day, as some poor people did, to leave their deceased by the charity gate in the hope they might thus gain a pauper’s shallow hole.

No. Crow in his prime had been larger than life. And so, in her way, had she become also, at least among the lowest of the low. And thus, for both their sakes, she would at least try—

She lifted his corpse again, this time stripping it, placing its feather-suit on her own body.  She studied the suit’s secrets, finding out how it worked. How its wings stiffened with strong, telescoping wires, letting one glide if not actually fly.  Putting its boots on, trying out not just retractable razors, but strange, suction-cup devices on their soles, tubes to run up her legs, bulbs to control them.  Its similar gloves. Its grapples and climbing hooks.

Trying his mask on.  

The next night she stole a rope, down by the river, coiled on a boat near an overflow outlet.  Braving the stench of the river’s poisons.

She paused for a moment to gaze at the Tombs, its lights glowing green on the river’s far side, engendered by luminescent fungi, and then to turn to the New City behind her with its harsher, brighter, neon yellows and blues and purples, oranges and maroons. Seeing, above all, its highest tower: La Tour du Maire.

The third night she lashed Crow’s corpse to her own body, front to front, to leave her winged back free. She emerged from the sewer into an alley, and started her climb up the great building’s side.

At the tenth or twelfth story she came to a ledge, surmounted by gargoyles and projecting sills, the latter just high enough for her to creep under, Crow still roped to her breast.  There she rested, avoiding the sun’s rays as dawn became full day, until the next night.

This time she climbed with Crow twenty more floors up, getting more used to the suit’s secret features, and on the night following thirty or more—who could count them all?—until, before she knew it, she had reached the summit!  

It was again almost dawn, but this time there was nothing higher in all of New City around her for her to hide under.  She was in Crow’s lair now! She gazed about her, standing at her full height, at the blue ghoul lights to the south and far west, the great river continuing in darkness to north, the first glowing cloud tops to east and south where the sun would soon rise in its deadly splendor, and, at last, again to west, nearer this time, to the river and, past it, across the causeway still dotted with lights from the last of the corpse trains. The wall and its great gate, its portcullis closing. And, beyond, the Tombs with its central, stepped pyramid where it was said an Emperor was buried, the angel statue that marked its top. That looked toward the New City, yet upward as well, as if, as with Crow’s that night so long past, its eyes sought to meet hers.

And yet, also, so far from her.  

But she had Crow now, and his feather-suit too. She tightened the lashings that held his corpse to her, kissing it once on its dead, yet warming lips, then pressed the buttons extending her wings’ wires. Feeling the wind that rustled her feathers, catching the whiff of a rising, dawn fog, she launched herself forward.

For a moment, she actually flew. She had not been able to practice, of course, with the suit in the air before, but she had innately a sense of balance. Had she been prettier she might have been able to live as a dancer. But as it was, she felt the ways of the wind, its gusts and its swirlings. The minute corrections the suit’s wingtips needed. And, gliding to west, she actually flew!

But then it was over.  The suit, after all, had been made for one person—as light as it was from the sickness that struck him down, the added burden of Crow’s body tied to Rat’s strained the suit’s wings too much.  First, with a crack, the right wing folded, the wires that stiffened it shattering in pieces. Rat and Crow spinning. And then the left, too, leaving only the fabric that flapped between Rat’s outstretched arms and her torso to hold them aloft somewhat.  To act as a glider’s wings, yet not sufficient to take them beyond the river’s center.

She fell with a great splash, a shower of feathers loosed by the impact, caught in the wind sprinkling over the Tombs’ wall—that much at least reached their destination. But for Rat and Crow themselves there was just darkness as the river’s waters covered them over, poisoning Rat instantly. Acids and wastes already accelerating Crow’s own body’s deterioration.  

Then there was silence, except in the Tombs where a gate guard had seen Crow and Rat as she’d readied herself to launch.  Fearing some ghouls’ trick, perhaps so to seize the newly delivered dead, taking by surprise what strength might not gain for them, he had summoned the guard captain.  This one in turn called a curator to him, who made notes and sketches as Rat’s and Crow’s flight played out.

Then the next night the curator asked the corpse-train drivers in turn what gossip they might have heard that might explain it.  

And so, in time, he had gathered the story’s wisps and pieces together into the tale of Crow and Rat, as it is written here.  He had a copy etched on metal and buried with the few of the wings’ feathers that actually drifted across the Tombs’ wall, and he had a stone carved with a picture of the two, taken from the best of his sketches combined with descriptions from some of the guards, as they struck the river, and he had it mounted above those few remnants.  

There it stands to this day.

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END

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© 2018 James Dorr. The content of this article, except for quoted or linked source materials, is protected by copyright. Please contact the author for usage.

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