Chapter 2: The Ratwalk
Fifteen continuous minutes of the dull clangs of the Kunlun’s bells weren’t enough to wake Xin, but a bar of sunlight falling over his closed eyes usually did the trick. The light snuck into the tower through the round window of his loft and banished the blissful shadows.
Xin raised his head from his burlap pillow, wiping blearily at his eyes. Beyond the window, the city was winding up into motion.
Shopkeepers threw open their shutters, palanquin constructs with spidery legs rumbled along the mud-soaked street outside the Orphanarium, and in a turn unusual for such an unremarkable region of the city, the Hellhounds were out and about. They were sixth-strata constructs with systems so intricate and dense they made most of the Base District’s regular constructs look practically primitive in comparison.
When a construct approached the sixth-strata, they could mimic, or more aptly put, emulate human intelligence. Xin saw the blazing eyes of harvested fire spirits within the dark sockets of triangular, wolf-shaped skulls, their lean steel frames alert and snarling at the feet of the Brocade Guardsmen robed in red, the current colors of the Red Court, which had wrenched control from the Yellow Court a decade ago in a bloody struggle.
Xin frowned. At least the streets would be safer with the Hellhounds about. He wouldn’t have to worry about the usual pickpockets or thugs.
Not that two orphans running errands for the Orphanarium attracted much intrigue in the first place. Their burdens were usually sacks of stale vegetables or the worthless parts of nearly-bad meat. Hardly bounties worth running afoul of the Civil Force for.
Still, it was odd to see such a distinguished unit of the Red Emperor so far from the Crown District of Kunlun City, the region housing the Palace of Four Directions. It was the seat of his power, and the center of the Restored Dynasty.
Xin climbed down the ladder, ruminating over the scant political theory he’d been taught before his life took a turn for the worse. It was difficult to pull details, specifically political know-how, from such early years of his life, most of it existing in a fugue state.
Regardless, he had groceries to buy. Rui met him at the main entrance of the Orphanarium’s walled courtyard. She frowned, turning her nose up at Xin’s crumpled robes and perpetually messy bed-head.
Rui was dressed in a new set of pink robes that were slightly faded with age, causing Xin to ponder just how many she owned. He personally only owned a single pair of trousers and a patchwork shirt, with a few different jackets to cycle depending on the weather throughout the week.
They left the Orphanarium and headed up the street toward the more busier sections of Kunlun City. Xin made sure to give the patrolling Hellhounds and their sneering handlers a wide berth. Evidently, the Brocade Guardsmen didn’t think highly of their new patrol routes. They patrolled in pairs with rifles slung over their shoulders and sabres hung from their hips, stifling yawns into their gloved hands. The fronts of their tunics, true to their namesake, were embossed with all manner of stately beasts such as dragons and lions. Xin figured each of the tunics were individualized to the wearer because not one was alike to the other.
Rui stared at the Brocade Guardsmen with suspicion. Apparently, she wasn’t as trusting of the Red Emperor’s private force either.
Eventually, the street merged with the Governing Channel, the main thoroughfare that wound its way up through the city to the Crown District. Kunlun was divided into several strata, with wealth and influence accumulating the higher one climbed. Their destination wasn’t the Crown District, however. They were headed to Commerce Row, located near the middle-strata of the city. It would’ve taken a full day to walk up there, navigating between different promenades and platforms, but luckily, there was a mono-rail station at the Lower Passes, the district beneath Commerce Row.
The mono-rail, which the citizens had affectionately named the Turtleshell, spanned the length and width of the city, from the Lower Passes to the Crown District.
The ovoid cars, shaped like the shell of a turtle, hung from elevated tracks. Their bodies were intricately crafted latticework panels, shielding the clicking gears and golden script that powered them. Each car was steered by a unique humanoid construct, giving each one its distinct character. Xin and Rui had boarded the Hawk.
Though each specific car had their unique artistic variations, all shared an open-air floor plan with two decks, save the enclosed central compartments that housed the construct’s helm room and more ratcheting gears.
Xin went up to the second deck, taking a seat on one of the paired long, narrow benches, their wooden backrests aligned away from each other. A single bead of sweat traced down the side of his face. Summers in Kunlun City were known for their sweltering days and frigid nights.
Rui stood by the railings of the deck, watching the expansive city below with an awe-struck expression. When she kept her mouth shut, she was almost pretty, her light brown hair gathered in two neat buns at the side of her head.
Xin stared at her, bemused.
Before long, their car hung precariously over the Falls, the official border between the Lower Passes and Commerce Row. The working class toiled in Commerce Row by day, then descended back down the Falls at night, returning to their modest dwellings in the Lower Passes.
The Falls was given its name because of the Yellow Axis River, specifically how it splintered into a sprawling delta around Commerce Row, the waters then lazily winding through a dozen smaller districts. Eventually, the rivers fell—some small trickles down rusted support arches, others waterfalls vast enough to dominate the entirety of a man’s gaze—all tumbling to the Lower Passes of Kunlun City.
It was difficult to tell where the Falls ended and the Lower Passes began. To many, they were synonymous. One thing was for certain, however. While the waters of the river may have left the Crown District clear and pristine, by the time they reached the lower stratas of the city, they were dark and murky with the pollution of industry.
The lower stratas of Kunlun City were used to it. They adapted however they could, finding solace in the unlikeliest of places. People built homes and businesses into the rock faces behind the waterfalls, entire communities forming around the Falls that catered to the seedy interests of both the working class and the Crownfolk.
But those reaches of the city were no place for children, much less two orphans on a grocery run. The mono-rail car let them out on Union Station in the Commerce District. Rui marveled at the scope of the crowds gathered around Union Square outside of the mono-rail station.
Hawkers from canopied stalls called over distinguished gentlemen in silken robes and dark, wide-brimmed hats, boasting of the finest Scripter-work implements from the Illuminatory Hall of the Crown District and one-of-a-kind imported goods from distant lands.
For someone on her first grocery run, it wasn’t the architecture that awed her, the tall arches of promenades and walkways or gilded town halls and guilds, but the sheer variety of the people that went about their lives atop the sprawling platform that was Union Square.
Families gathered around the various, criss-crossing promenades overlooking the square from high up in the air, round and well-groomed children walking hand in hand with their smiling, and occasionally, fussy parents. Rui looked longingly at them, and Xin had the sense to not poke fun at her. She was hardly the first orphan to miss their old life.
Jugglers and exotic street performers in beast masks performed on pavilions and the sides of the streets, earning silver here and there from the Crownfolk, the wealthy, silken-garbed gentlemen with dolled-up ladies in cakey white make-up clinging to their arms.
Xin and Rui even saw sailors and merchants from distant lands of all different shades and complexions. The sailors wore tattoos freely on their bodies like the Priest, and talked loudly in their native tongues to each other. Many carried shortswords and pistols with them.
Noticeably, none brought constructs of any strata or carried Scripter-work armaments with them into the city. Some sailors even sported empty sockets where their arms or legs should’ve been.
Even still, the foreigners were eyed with suspicion by patrolling members of the Civil Force—low-ranked guardsmen who served the lesser Azure Court rather than the current ruling court, the Reds. Clad in uniform trench coats and tall dark hats, they were modelled after the modern armies of the west and wore no costly brocade, their outward appearance somewhat ordinary but bolstered by the presence of spiked trudgeons and weighty iron staves. Their ranks were sourced from the middle-strata of Kunlun City, unlike the Brocade, who only admitted Crownfolk and the lesser sons of nobles.
A man’s tenor-pitched song drew an audience to a display in front of a mobile flesh-weaving salon. The flesh-weaver, who might’ve taken great pride in the pointed and groomed moustache above his lips, was working on a girl strapped to an operating chair. He wiped the scalpel on his apron in between short bursts of activity, namely slicing into her face.
His operating arm was a handsome, burnished Scripter-armament, Mechaniks and Scripting working hand in hand to replicate everything an organic arm could do but even better. Xin whistled appreciatively. The craftsmanship looked expensive.
While the Crownfolk maintained strict standards in their own district, such as necessitating the usage of anesthetics and proper hygiene, the authorities managing the seedy salons of Commerce Row's only concern was how much silver their surgeons kicked up.
The flesh-weaver, unfortunately for his muse, seemed more concerned with hitting the notes of his personal jingle than the actual operation. In between verses, he announced to his captive audience the very next procedure he was to perform on his muse, holding up his bloody scalpel to a series of cheers as if it were a sacred ruyi scepter passed down from Adamantine Budhha himself.
Xin winced—he’d imagined the “muse” was conned by promises of cheap and light cosmetic work, only to be turned into a spectacle to drum up business. If she was lucky, she’d come out looking better for it. If not—there was always the second go-around with a different flesh-weaver.
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They passed by the crowd gathered around the wagon without a second glance.
But when Xin noticed a growing crowd around a raised stage that was used to declare general proclamations relevant to the people of Kunlun City, his interest was piqued. The ever-hungry merchant within him consumed information like it was candied fruits on skewers.
He pushed his way through the crowd to the front.
“Wait for me,” Rui whined, stopping beside him. “We shouldn’t—”
Her words got caught in her throat. A woman was bound to a bloodstained pillar at the center of the stage, the back of her dress torn open to face the audience. Standing beside her was a Court Shaman, identifiable by her four-eyed wolf mask and bear-fur cloak, holding a strange whip with multiple silvery strands, each tipped with barbed ends.
The Shaman was flanked by a pair of Brocade Guardsmen, their faces like stone despite the circumstances of their situation.
“For violating Scripture I, Article IV of Dynastic Decree,” the Shaman announced to the crowd, “which outlaws the usage of unregulated Sorcery in interests that do not align with the Restored Dynasty…” she paused for a moment, letting the words sink into the crowd, “Jixin Ming is to suffer five strokes of the Righteous Flail.”
“This is madness,” the bound woman screamed, struggling against the delicate silver chains that restrained her. Despite their apparent fragility, they barely budged, likely owing it to the paper talismans pasted upon the pillar. “My Sorcery harms none! I talk to bees, soothe bruises and burns, this is madness!” She craned her neck to look out at the crowd. “I healed your boy, Chen! He would’ve never walked again! I was one of you!” She spat at the crowd. “When the Earthen General awakens, you court-lickers will see the truth!”
A bearded man as broad and tall as a bear at the forefront of the crowd looked away, his gaze averted to the ground. Xin assumed him to be Chen.
Xin frowned, thinking over the Sorceress’ words. The Earthen General was an old bedtime story, detailing the exploits of the city’s savior said to stand vigil buried deep beneath the layers of Kunlun City. A fairy tale for children.
Rui pulled at Xin’s sleeve. “Let’s go,” she said softly. “I don’t want to see this.”
Xin nodded absent-mindedly, letting Rui pull him back out of the crowd. They were well away when the first of the woman’s screams sounded out, very quickly followed by scores of cheering.
I hate this city, Xin thought, looking up toward the sky at an airship descending from the clouds. Some day, he’d be on the first ship out of Kunlun City. And after that, who knew what his future held?
They retrieved their groceries from a back-alley grocer that had yet to fail to uphold his contract with Madam Sparrow. It was always the same ingredients time after time.
So far beneath the more prosperous sections of Commerce Row, the streets around Xin and Rui grew narrower and more cluttered with trash. He carried the bulk of the groceries, balancing two burlap sacks of dried jerky and flour in his arms, while Rui carried what she could—a measly sack of onions and potatoes.
He couldn’t possibly imagine her bearing the entire burden all the way back to the Orphanarium alone.
“Well, what do we have here?” a nasally voice crooned. “Some orphans brought us a morning snack.”
Leaning against the brick wall of the alley, blocking Xin and Rui’s path forward, were a pair of urchin boys. They were dressed in nothing more than rags that clung to their malnourished bodies like tattered drapes off a curtain rod. Xin was almost tempted to let them run off with the food, but that would leave Madam Sparrow with another excuse to punish him.
“How’s life in that cage of yours?” the taller of the pair asked, cracking his knuckles. “Bet you can’t even comprehend the freedom we got out here, boy.”
Xin studied their gaunt cheeks and pitifully thin arms. The urchins were practically boys themselves, but witnesses to far too much evil to hide within the trappings of adolescence. And it seemed they had all the freedom in the world to starve on the streets.
“I can spare a few potatoes,” Xin said in a low voice, sizing up his chances against the pair. They were starving worse than street dogs, but it was always a toss-up when scrapping with more than a single opponent. “Anything more is out of the question.”
“We want it all,” the shorter urchin hissed. “Everything in the bags.” He frowned, his eyes set on something behind Xin. He pointed with a gnarled finger. “What’s wrong with her? Where’s she going off to? We ain’t pissing about—this is a proper robbery.”
Xin turned, watching Rui walk away from them in a haze, her back turned to the urchin robbers. Contrary to his expectations, she wasn’t screaming her head off or sobbing in fear. The sack in her arms slipped out, tumbling onto the muddy ground of the alley.
The shrill wail of a funeral pipe bounced off the walls of the alley, the haunting sound originating from the shadowed end whence they came from, now stretching on forever into nothingness.
“Shit,” one of the urchins stammered. “It’s the Piper!”
He left the alley, screaming, eyes wide with fear—soon followed by his companion, who stopped only for a second to look down the shadowed alley. A shiver ran down Xin’s spine. It wasn’t nearly as dark in the alley just moments ago.
“Rui,” Xin hissed, tossing aside his bags and grabbing her by the shoulder. “What in the Bronze Emperor are you doing?”
She turned back to stare at him, face empty of any thought. Her pupils were dark, black ink seeping down her cheeks from the folds of her eyelids. The funeral pipes grew louder, the source of the wailing growing closer.
Xin took a sharp breath. With a dramatic winding-up of his hand, he slapped Rui across the cheek. She reeled from the blow, spinning to the ground. Her eyes were alert and full of fury, staring at Xin with wide-eyed rage.
“What was that for?” she demanded furiously. A faint red palm-print bloomed on the side of her pale face. “You—”
“Get moving!” Xin roared, dragging Rui up by her arms. She stood shakily, aghast at his behavior. “Go! Now!”
When she saw the shadows that fell across the alley and heard the funeral song, realization dawned on Rui. She nodded, starting toward the mouth of the alley. Xin growled in frustration, dragging her toward the alley’s exit.
But before they could reach the end, rats—hundreds upon hundreds—scurried out from the darkness. They crawled through the mud, up the walls, down from the roofs of the two buildings that formed the alley. Merely half a dozen paces away from the main street, the shrill screams of two lost little orphans never rose above the industrious ambience of Kunlun City.
Xin awoke for the second time in a single day, his body aching from head to toe. He remembered the surge of rats swarming over him and Rui, and then, the blissful, unthinking embrace of unconsciousness that soon followed.
He appraised his new surroundings, processing one thought at a time. It seemed the most sensible plan given the frantic state of his mind. Xin took deep, measured breaths, squinting through the dimly lit space.
The room was built of brick stones all around, from the top of the ceiling to the walls and down to the ground. Black, murky water sloshed around at Xin’s feet. He’d been unconscious against the wall, and unfortunately, his trousers were soaked in filth he didn’t even dare to think too long about.
Xin rose to his feet, but felt the unmistakable grip of cold steel around his ankle. He was shackled to the wall by a thick, iron-wrought chain. Half of the room was partitioned by bars covered in layers of rust, and beyond it on the far end of the room was a stairway leading up to a door. A bar of light shone through a metal slot in the door.
“Is anyone there?” Xin tentatively called to the door. He tugged at his shackle, confirming its strength. An eye was scratched around the keyhole. The rusted bolt that held the chain to the brick wall didn’t budge either. “Can anyone hear me?”
Silence, save the dull, muffled ratchet of churning gears behind the stone walls of Xin’s prison cell, greeted him. Xin’s breathing quickened, panic encroaching upon his mind like a swarm of snarling rats.
Xin imagined the distant future. Without food, he wouldn’t last long, and the water that sloshed at his feet barely looked fit for even stepping in much less drinking. His body would rot in the prison cell, bloating from the humidity and dissolving in its own fluids. He bit his lip hard enough to draw blood. Spiraling would pretty much ensure he’d never see daylight again.
He focused on the sound of the gears behind the walls, pushing his ear up against the brick, straining to listen above the noise. The faint sound of rushing water was discernible, but very distant. Some sort of river nearby?
“Another one of his experiments, are you?”
Xin jumped back from the brick wall. Had it just spoken to him?
“Not there, silly,” the voice said, soft and mischievous. “I’m up here. You haven’t been here long, have you? Squirreled away fresh from the surface by that odious man.”
Xin glanced toward the ceiling. His eyes narrowed in puzzlement. The triangular head of a snake stared at him, her slender body hanging down from a shadowed crack in the ceiling. She was one of the largest he’d ever seen, each bone-white scale the size of a man’s thumb.
“Do I scare you?” the snake asked, her forked tongue flickering out. She didn’t move her jaw to speak—it was as if the words were formed elsewhere. “You look as if you’ve never seen a talking snake before.”
“I- I don’t think I have,” Xin replied. He slapped himself across the face. “I’m not going crazy, am I? This isn’t some form of toxic gas messing with my brain?”
The snake hissed, though not in an angry way. Somehow, Xin could tell she was more amused than anything. At least, he thought she was a she. At least, he thought she was a she—her impish voice, more like a young girl’s than a woman’s, suggested as much
“Who are you?” Xin asked. “Where is this? What was it that took me?”
“My name is Suilin,” the snake replied, her triangular head inching closer toward Xin. More of her slender body revealed itself from the shadows. “I’m as real as you, boy. But you aren’t asking the right questions. The name of this place does not matter. We are far below ground, deeper than most humans care to tread. Those who are still sane, that is.”
“How do I get out of here?” he asked, staring at the lone shackle on his ankle.
Suilin’s dark gazed down at him, unblinking. “You could smash every bone in that foot of yours?” she suggested. “The shackle would come right off. It’s certainly one way to go about it.” The snake paused as if expecting something from him. “Or you could agree to become my servant.”
Xin frowned. “Why would a human enslave himself to a snake?” he asked. “There’s clearly a reason you’re down here in this dank and dark place.”
“I’m not the one shackled to the wall,” Suilin retorted. “But I suppose I’m stuck down here just as much as you are.” The snake’s forked tongue flickered once more—appearing to be a deliberative sort of action. “The servitude would not be permanent. Merely a temporary arrangement until our eventual freedom.”
“Very well,” Xin said, puffing out his chest. He knew it was a facade that’d fool none, not even talking snakes, but the mercantile spirit within him refused to approach a deal naked without even the semblance of a defense. “I shall do as you say until we are both free of this place. But you’re not breaking my foot.”
Suilin’s wide mouth opened in a smile eerily reminiscent of a human grin, two silver fangs glinting in the shadows. “A wise choice,” she said, drawing even nearer to Xin’s face. “Give me your hand.”
Xin offered his hand hesitantly. Suilin nestled her head on his palm, and before his very eyes, shrunk as she slithered up his arm like a branch. She felt smooth and glossy against his flesh, nothing like he’d originally imagined. Within moments, she was small enough to wrap the entire length of her body comfortably around his neck.
“The chains,” Suilin whispered, tongue brushing against the lobes of his ear. “Bring me to them. We’ll see about getting those off you… with your foot still intact, my soft-hearted servant.”
Xin did as his temporary serpentine master commanded, crouching over the shackle while suppressing a scowl. Suilin loosened her jaw, letting beads of molten-gold venom drip from her fangs down onto one of the iron links in the chain.
The venom corroded through the iron a little too easily, a tiny haze of steam hissing off the disintegrating links. Xin could imagine what it would do to his bare flesh.
As the last of the link melted into the filthy water, Suilin turned her head to regard Xin, then glanced toward the thick iron bars that divided the room—more importantly, the ones that kept Xin separated from the door to freedom.
“It might be a long night,” she said softly, hissing. “I suppose it’s a good thing you’ve run into me, boy. Now, be a dear and bring me to those bars, won’t you, servant?”