“Caliban?” said Brenner, in a rather different voice than anything Caliban had heard him use before.
“Yes?”
“I think I’m losing my mind.”
“What, only now?”
“Look up around us and tell me if you see what I see.”
Caliban opened his eyes.
Rats—and pieces of rats—were lining the edge of the sunken circle. He craned his neck as far as he could, given his position, and they went all the way around, rank on rank. They were shuffling, one step at a time, in time to the throbbing drums. When they crossed in front of the fire, tiny headless shadows danced across Caliban’s face.
The drum skipped a beat. The whole line of rats stumbled pitifully, and then the beat picked up again, and they fell back into the dance.
“Dancing rats. Some of them with no heads,” said Caliban.
“Oh, thank god. You see it too.”
“It’s very disturbing.”
“I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks so.”
“I wonder if they’re going to eat us.”
“Always an optimist, our paladin.”
“Shutup, Brenner.”
The dance was distressingly hypnotic. Caliban watched it until his eyes burned and he had to look away.
What could call them here? There can’t be this many rats in the village—there have to be hundreds of them—and you can’t tell me that a rat with no head walked here under its own power!
Step…step…step…lurch…step…
It might have been the demon riding his senses, or all the years in the service of another sort of power entirely, but Caliban could feel some kind of force to their dance, something rising off the tiny, wretched bodies.
If it was magic, it was no kind he understood, and yet there was definitely something there.
I’m not imagining things. The demon feels it too.
Every time the drum paused, it clenched like a fist.
Nghaaaaaakalikalaakkalaakngggaaaaah!
Shut up, demon. I don’t think we want to be noticed right now.
Ngha ngha…
Step…lurch…step…step…
The power was driving the dance, but the dance wasfeedingthe power. Caliban didn’t know how much energy it took to make a dead rat dance—it didn’t come up much at the temple—but all those bodies dancing together were doingsomething.
Like water through a mill wheel. Somehow they’re getting more out than they’re putting in.
That shouldn’t be possible.
Caliban, however, took the view that when something impossible was going on, it was best to deal with it as you found it, and not stand around claiming it wasn’t happening.
