Clive Hucklefish was rather easy to follow. It was something about the way he walked – he apparently had two left feet, and double-backed at every junction – not to counter or measure – but simply for want of a sense of direction. Street names were for tourists, which Clive most certainly wasn’t. Trouble was: he wasn’t much of a local either.
And being followed he was. Clive was relatively sure of it – as sure as one could be when the streets were deserted and smoggled in green. The shadows were a little too long; a little too shy of close inspection. And there were whispers... floating on what passed for a breeze in London nowadays, more miasma than zephyr.
Whispers that were not human.
Milly could feel it too, trotting along beside, nervously glancing about. Clive envied her: she knew nothing of what waited in the fog. Of the creatures from the river.
What did they want now? Did they know he had colluded with the Piper? That he had turned on them? It was nearly dusk. The vermin preferred to stay hidden by day, but, when night fell, Clive had a feeling the waiting would very much be over...
Something had gone wrong! The rats should all have been dead by now. Could Pied have failed? Impossible. Clive had witnessed first hand the puffed up peacock’s power to turn even the most down and out dregs into rhymetime hoofers.247 Say what you would about the ratcatcher, he knew how to raise the roof!248 The revenging rodents didn’t stand a chance against the tortious toast of Hamelin, did they? He’d have them dancing to his tune until they expired from exhaustion or, more likely given the giant ham’s normal modus operandi, until he drowned them in the Thames. Pied was just biding his time; getting all his rats in a row; polishing his fife to a shine! Some such.
Nothing to worry about.
And still the shadows lengthened.
They reached Nonsuch without incident. The gates to the Bridge were unguarded, abandoned, left ajar for any to enter. A quick revolve reversewards later, and they were inside.
And that was when Clive knew something was very wrong indeed. It was dark. It had never been dark before. There had always been a... a loo-Mina-sense?249 A light everywhere and nowhere at once. Not anymore.
Milly’s nerves got the better of her: she raised a hand to her mouth to call out to Isabella and her father: “Hel–”
Clive clamped his hand over her mouth, stopping the first syllable before it took flight. “Shhhhh! I don’t think we’re alone...” he whispered.
Milly had the good sense to whisper back. “’Course we’re not alone! That’s why I was calling out to ’em!”
“I don’t mean Isabella and the Alchemist. There’s something else here! Best stay quiet and follow me!”
“Clive Huckledish! Is ye knowing something what’s you’re not telling me?”
“No. I’m just not telling you something I know. Now com’on. Quietly!”
Milly frowned, but obeyed.
They padded slowly up the spiral. Clive suddenly found himself wishing, more than anything, that Jerry could have been with him: he would never have admitted it before, but the arch-rogue’s picaresque250 presence was strangely comforting: they were all passengers on this lunatic barque that was London, but, with Jerry around, you felt like someone at least had a hand on the tiller (and probably the teller). Where the devil was he? Had the rats gotten to him already? The thought was too horrible to contemplate.251
They found themselves in a long gallery: too long to be possible; closer to the length of the Bridge entire. Glass cases and pictures lined the aisle and walls, some held in beams of fading sun. At least there was light. Daylight.
For now.
Clive recalled the laboratory – and Isabella’s bedchambers – to be at the far end. That would be where he would find them.
Or where they would be found in turn.
“Stay close!” he whispered to Milly. “And stay alert!”
“Like I needs tellin’!” hissed Milly. “Givin’ me the right creeps, you are!”
Clive slipped his trowel out of his arm sleeve. Milly reached into her considerable bodice with both hands. When they emerged they were braced with pistols of an unusual design: a spike and crescent blade ran through the pommel, guarding the hands.
“Bloody hell, Milly!” gasped Clive.
“What? Too noisy?” Milly flipped the pistols over so that she was gripping the barrels. She was now holding a pair of small vicious and heavily weighted axes. “Better?”
“I see now why you and Jerry get along so well!”
Milly sniffed. “’E wishes!”
“Come on!”
They tiptoed down the gallery, ready for anything.
Almost anything. The laboratory had changed considerably since they had last been here. The organ was gone, but what had replaced it looked oddly familiar. The pipes of the organ had been rearranged, ringed and clamped into a wide circle of oscillating pipes – like a vast cauldron, or possibly a very large bathing tub, or even a small recreational swimming cistern (take your pick). Large casks of what smelt like white wine were arrayed beside. But that wasn’t the half of it. Stacks of large orange spherical shapes lined the walls, covered the countertops, and towered menacingly in every corner of the room.
They were cheeses!252
Of Isabella and the Alchemist, there was no sign.
Clive gulped. “Milly! I think it’s time to leave...”
But before Milly could say yay or nay, a slow sonorous cackle boomed out across the lab.
“Ha ha ha ha!”
“I know that laugh...” said Clive.
“Ho ho ho ho!”
“And that one?” asked Milly.
“Hee hee hee hee!”
“That one’s new!”
“Clive!” said the voice. “So good of you to come! Been dying to eat ya!”
And now they appeared. Stepping out from behind the cheeses, or crawling from beneath the counters – hirsuited, behatted, long of tail and sharp of tooth; the homines murines; the rats of the third bank of the Thames; some smaller, some – like Scratchfella – very large indeed; and their tiny brethren, the horde itself, a living carpet underfoot.
“Clive!” squealed Milly, “What in the name of St. Barbara’s windsors are those?”253
“They’re rats, Milly!”
“Rats? Aren’t they a bit big to be rats? And look at them clothes! Fancy!”
“I’m sorry – I should have told you!”
“Well, at least now I knows who keeps stealing mi turnips... I swores it was Jerry!”
Clive and Milly clasped at each other. Where was that damn Piper? Then Clive realised! This had been Pied’s plan all along! He must have been tailing Clive, waiting for the King to make his move! Of course! That had to be it! They just needed to buy a little more time until the ratcatcher was ready! The thought filled Clive with an unlikely bravado. He released Milly and stepped forward, hands ahip in imitation of his rival idol.
“Alright, King!” Clive called, doing his best approximation of the Piper’s pomp. “No more hiding! Show yourself, if you dare!”
The rats snickered at that. Clive caught a glimpse of Pinky in the throng. She was grinning and nodding eagerly.
“But, Clive!” said a voice behind him. “I’m right here!”
Clive swung round to face the small hunched form of the Rat King.
“Well, if it isn’t Clive Hucklewish!” The King hobbled past Clive with an appraising glance at Milly. “And a new dame too, I see? That’s fast work, Clive! Very fast! Never knew you had it in ya!”
Clive pointed an accusing finger. “This was always about the Alchemist, wasn’t it? Swapping the Elixir, the Plague, all to destroy the reputation of your creator? Revenge, petty, plain and simple!”
“The sins of the fathers!” chortled the Rat King.
“You tricked me! Elman Squatcherd wasn’t a visionary, was he?”
“Not that I know, no. No, Elman Squatcherd was the final victim from the last outbreak of the Black Death. You brought me his body, and I distilled his remains into a serum, which the Alchemist then poured into the well. Simple!” Chef buss.
“That’s why his body was in an unmarked grave!”
“Clever guy that Anbury! Where is he now… Sweden?”
“You used me!”
The Rat King sighed at that. “Ah, Clive... ‘Used’ is such a four letter word! Didn’t I tell you you’d be rich?” He shrugged pointedly at Clive’s silence. “I didn’t hear you complaining as you were counting all those mountains of gold you’ve got stashed in that basement of yours! You wanted it all, Clive, and I handed it to you on a platter!”
Clive nodded grimly, eyes downcast. “Yes, it is true. I wanted it all.”
“You’re an undertaker, Clive! You sought death! Did I not deliver?”
“You did.”
“And now, you are become Death, Clive! Destroyer of your very species!”
Flash! Clive was back in the gutter on his first day in London, a black rat scrabbling at his face! He’s not dead!
Flash! Waking up in a buried coffin, to find his trusty trowel at his side. Did you remember your trowel? Over and over: Jerry’s voice.
Phil’s stern warning: NONE under your charge will ever, ever, suffer a similar fate!
Death’s ungloved wrist, a long painted fingernail pointing at him accusingly: You vill right zis wrong, Clive Hucklefish!
Flash!
Step step step-back.
Suddenly, finally, he understood. “But a true undertaker’s calling is not death... Nor is it riches... It is life! For, it is only through marshalling the mortal towards their final destination, that we learn to truly appreciate how precious life is!”
The Rat King sneered and raised his paws in a slow slow clap. “Well, well, well! You learned something after all, huh? A true undertaker! So be it! Do I look like I give a hapless old cuck? What? You wanna medal or somethink?”
Clive jutted his jaw out as far as it would go (which was not as far as he’d have liked). “When you tricked me into betraying my race, you offered me cheese. Allow me to return the favour... as I serve you, your majesty, with your very own slice of PIED!”
Clive crucified himself between a lowered hand and a raised ta-da!
Nothing happened. The rats looked on, glint-eyed and expectant. The King tutted and muttered something about “embarrassing...”
Did the Piper not know a cue when he heard one? In fairness, Clive could relate. He tried again. “Your very own slice of PIE-D!”
Once again, the Piper conspicuously failed to appear.
“I don’t understand,” said Clive, out-loud when it should have been internal, “that was the perfect setup – how could he resist?”
“By ‘he’...” hazarded the King, “I take it you are referring to that mendacious mouser of a musician? Quite a letdown, right? In fairness, he did swing by the lair earlier...”
Cive’s shoulders slumped, crestfallen. “What did you do to him?”
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“Let’s just say his last performance really brought the house down!”
The Piper was dead. Clive tried to be horrified, but failed.
“You know, Clive, I’m disappointed. I thought we had a good thing going on – you and I! Sire and stooge,254 rat and man – what a team!” But then his tone darkened. The King leaned close, toothy and sincere. “But you shouldn’t oughta have turned on me, Clive...” Clive had always thought the King’s eyes black, but now, prisming in the dying light of the setting sun, they were very clearly red. “...Because the ONE thing I CANNOT stand – is a dirty, DIRTY R–”
“Cliff!” that voice was new, and clenched tighter than a puritan’s sphincter. “Is that you? I heard voices?”
As one, Clive, Milly and the King swung about!
The Alchemist was framed in the doorway to Isabella’s bedroom. Even for one who could create bullion255 at will, his expression upon seeing the Rat King was priceless. “Terence??”
The King winced but covered it quickly with a grin. “Hey pops!” His eyes slid towards his brethren.
The Alchemist came forward, more amazed than afeared. “Terence! Is that really you? But my you’ve grown!”
The King forced his grin wider but lowered his voice to a hiss. “I, er, I t’ought we agreed to never use that name?”
“What? Terence? Why? It’s your birthright! Your god-given nom de fume! From the latin... Terentius the Gracious! Terentius the Tender! Terence the–”
“Yeah! Yeah! Lucky number seven! Heard it a thousand times and a thousand times again – and I still hate it more than life itself! So DON’T call me Terence!”
“Well, we can shorten it if you prefer... Terry?”
Pinky snickered. The King swung round and glared. Pinky shrunk deeper into the throng.
“Oh!” said the Alchemist pleasantly. “I see you’ve rebuilt the organ... again! Is it fondu night already? Clearly, you’ve brought the cheese... white wine... excellent... but I don’t see much of anything for the dipping?”
The King grinned. “Don’t worry, pops! I got ya! String ‘em up, boys!”
The Alchemist, Clive and Milly were seized, disarmed and mushed together, bound, back to back, tight as a shamrock.
“Did you have to make him angry?” moaned Clive.
The Alchemist was defensive. “I thought that went quite well, all things considered!”
“Oh you do?” barbed Clive, as the enterprising rats attached a vicious looking meathook to the bellpull in the middle of the ceiling. The fires beneath the erstwhile organ were well and truly lit now, the rats frantically busy of a sudden: the wine had gone in first, but now the piles of cheese were fast diminishing: the orange wheels rolled, hefted, hurled and dropped into the steaming vat: the rodents, large and small, united in a common vision. And the future, for our paired protagonists and one erstwhile antagonist apparent,256 was decidedly orange.
“Will you two stop arguing and think of a way out of this?” hissed Milly. “Of all the ways I intend to go, boiling to death in melted cheese and being consumed by man-sized rodents ain’t one of ’em!”
“One chance!” hissed the Alchemist, sotto voce,257 “While I was stalling for time with little Terence, my nipidits were disabling the gravitational charms that keep Nonsuch anchored to its nadir – even when inverted!”
“Which means...?” Clive hissed back (though he had to admit it did sound incredibly clever).
The Alchemist nodded towards the meathook. “If I’m not mistaken, they plan to hang us above the fondu vat using the bellpull. When they push us over, our weight will depress the bellpull, activating the inversion protocol!”
“Meaning...?” peeved Milly.
“The room – nay, the very building – will turn upside down!”
Clive blinked and glanced at the fondu set. “Flooding the chamber with the cheese! That’s brilliant! But... what about us?”
The Alchemist grinned. “We’ll be safely hanging from the bellpull!”
Milly frowned. Something wasn’t adding up, but her mental spatial dexterity didn’t quite cover inverted laboratories aboard London Bridge. “But what if the bellpull snaps?” she asked finally.
The Alchemist scoffed. “Not a chance! That bellpull was coiled from the unbreakable silk of the clavipipe spider, steeped in the foul humours of the River Styx, seasoned with the salten tears of a thousand–”
The King had returned from supervising the fondu. “Enough muttering yous! Boys?”
Scratchfella and Pinky stepped forward, and manoeuvred the wretchedly trussed threesome – with a combination of pointed kicks and sharp prods – up a short ladder leaning against the side of the main fondu vat. A wooden palette had been laid across the top for a platform. Clive stared down into the gloopy bubbling orange finality of the fondu. It smelt fantastic!
Pinky thrust the bellpull’s meathook through the Alchemist’s cassock. “Nothing porshonal, gramps!”
Scratchfella chuckled. “Bet now you’re wishing for the t’ird bank of the Thames!”
Pinky winced.
The Rat King joined them, rubbing his paws as he surveyed the golden cheese. “Now that’s what I call alchemy! Well, fellas! Behold the fruits of betrayal! We could have been great together... but, as my momma used to tell me, ‘don’t let the cheese blind you to the trap!’ I gotta admit though, I was kinda fond of you both. So fonduing you is kind of fitting, don’t you think? But...” the King spread his paws, genial. He was enjoying this deeply. “...I’m not uncivilised... The condemned prisoner should always be granted a last meal – this is London after all! But since you are the last meal, I’ll understand if you ain’t hungry! I’m willing to take any final requests instead!”
Milly and the Alchemist had lots of ideas:
“Scissors?”
“A catapult?”
“Mustard?”
Clive came up blank.
“Sorry!” cackled the King, dramatically cupping a large ear. “Can’t hear you!” And with a firm push, he tipped them over the edge...
A lot of things happened all at once: the trio swung out over the golden and mouth-wateringly fragrant void, dipped towards oblivion as the bellpull was rung, and held fast; there was no bell – for dinner was NOT served! The whole room lurched, hurling the scampering rats from their feet; the King lost his balance and toppled towards the bubbling surface, but, with a defiant scream, hurled himself towards the Alchemist, fastening his claws into the red of the cloth and clinging on for dear life; the axis of gravity began to grind, the cheese in the vat slanting and then glooping over the edge towards the floor! The rodents who were still on their feet scarpered, but some were not so lucky, and were swallowed by scalding hot fondu!
Clive, Milly, the Alchemist, and the scrabbling Rat King, found themselves swinging out of the vat’s gape as it tilted away – the plan was working!
But then Clive saw the flaw – the reason Milly had been frowning so very hard – and the flaw was indeed the floor! Hanging safely above the cheese they were, but not for long – as the room tilted, the bellpull was swinging too, towards the wall. The wall that was fast becoming the floor, and the ceiling from which they hung the wall, and when the ceiling became the floor in turn, they would be standing on it, still tied to the pull, and their reprieve from golden bubbling death would fast be at an end! The roiling wave of cheese was still ferociously hot (and surprisingly noisy), and was dogging gravity with an eagerness that seemed almost alive! The vat itself, unfastened to the floor, unlike the other laboratory furniture, was squelching and clanging ponderously in its wake, and was a threat all of its own, crushing rats against walls and furniture!
“Terence, stop moving will you?” begged the Alchemist, “Ow! Not there! That’s my–”
“Quit whining, pops!” The King snarled. “Look at the mess you’ve made! That was my fondu! Ruined! Ruined! Do you know how hard it is to source that much cheese during an epidemic?”
Clive turned over his shoulders to the others, “The moment we can stand we need to get off the hook and find high ground!”
“There is no high ground!” wailed Milly. “It’s a ceiling! All the tables are on the floor above us! We can’t even reach the doors – we’ll be trapped!”
“We have to try!” shouted Clive. The ceiling that was now a wall met them and began to push them to a slope. The cheese gurgled and farted its way across the wall that was now a floor beneath them. Clive scrabbled against the gentling slope, trying to gain a footing – and found it! “Now!” he called!
Milly and Clive grabbed the Alchemist and tugged at the meathook stuck through his cassock. The three were still bound tightly together, and until he was free none of them were!
The King was less than helpful, still clinging on for dear life!
“You want to lend a paw or you want to die too?” asked Clive pointedly.
“Fine!” said the King. Together, two humans and the pintsize supersized rodent tugged at the hook, working it free from the coarse material, ignoring the Alchemist’s protestations.
The sloped wall that had been a ceiling was now almost a floor! Clive glanced nervously behind. The room’s revolution was nearing completion: the wall that had just been a floor but was really a wall258 was entirely orange, and it was moving, inching downwards in heavy pregnant waves, smothering what had formerly been windows, portraits and wall fastenings in cloud-like curds!
The hook was working loose now, but too slow!
The first large gloop of cheese abseiled its way down from the wall to the floor on white strings of murderous intent...
“Hurry up!” Clive squeaked!
With a loud grinding clack! the room locked into its new inversion.
“I’m trying!” breathed Milly, who seemed to be doing the lion’s share of the work!
“Don’t just wiggle it, toots, pull!” snarled the King!
Just then a football-sized gob of gruyere landed next to Clive’s foot. He glanced up! The damn stuff was hanging from the ceiling too! Stringy stalactites stretching down towards them from laboratory table-tops and library shelves. A gurgle behind Clive announced a widening pool of steaming fondu forming up on the floor. More and more of the wall cheese was making its final descent! They had but moments until it reached them!
“Almost there!” said Milly.
The cheese inched closer. It was nearly at Clive’s foot! “Milly!”
“There! Got it!” Milly shrieked triumphantly.
“Terence, quick! Up on my shoulders!” said the Alchemist.
“Don’t need to ask me twice!” said the King, climbing.
The three humans and balancing rodent backed up against the far wall.
“There’s nowhere left to run!” wailed the Alchemist.
The cheese, now a great orange wave, was advancing, the cheese on top curdling and tumbling over what lay beneath towards them. They were doomed!
And that was when one of the stalactites of stringy cheese, which had silently let go of the ceiling but moments before, landed on Clive’s head, smothering his face and shoulders!
Clive screamed! “Ahhhh! It’s got me! I’m burning! I’m burning! I’m...” And then he realised that he actually wasn’t. To be sure, the cheese was very warm, but it was hardly searing. Quite comfortable really! Clive stuck out a questing tongue. “Hmm! Delicious!”
“Of course!” said Milly. “It’s cheese innit! It’s cooled down it ’as.” She gave the orange mess on the floor a gentle prod with her toe. “Nuffin’ but common curds now!”
Milly looked at Clive, and Clive looked at the Alchemist, and the Alchemist looked at the King perched on his shoulder. As one, all four began to laugh, a respite of shared delight at their mutual salvation!
That was until the King broke the merriment, hopping down to the floor and stepping away, a flintlock pistol suddenly in paw. “Ok, enough of the parrot act! You survived the fondu – I got to hand it to you, pops! – you still got it! And I’m grateful for the leg-up – but you still gotta pay!”
“You and ’oos army?” said Milly, bravely crossing her arms and staring down the pistol. “There’s three of us, and one of you, and you’re not exactly full-size are you? Not like the t’others!”
“Ah, yes! The others!” grinned the King.
If our heroes had believed the tidal wave of fondu had put pay to every other rodent in the room, they were about to be proven gravely mistaken. True, many had perished, but far, far from all...
The King nodded upwards. “You see, we rats – we’re great survivors, and excellent climbers. Right boys?”
Slowly, Clive, Milly and the Alchemist raised their gaze. A carpet of bodies were streaming down the unsullied wall towards them, and ropes of conjoined rodents were descending in stalactites of their own! Larger specimens released their hold on the ceiling furnishings where they had been hanging, and landed heavily about them, Pinky and Scratchfella amongst them. Pinky waved cheerfully.
“So all that...” smirked the King “...was for nothing! All you’ve done, in fact, is piss me off! I was gonna give you a quick death in the vat, but now it’s gonna be slow. Real slow! We’re gonna be dining out on your flesh for a week, with a side order of cold fondu! You’re gonna be begging me to finish you with the pistol! Clive, pops, and – whatever your name is – so long! It’s been a squeak!”
The King raised his free paw in signal. The rats clacked their teeth and bunched their muscles–
But Clive, unusually, was thinking. Something in that last speech had snagged at him. Begging me to finish you! And then – he had it!
“Wait!”
The King hesitated.
“You said a condemned man deserved a last request!”
“That was earlier. We did that.”
“Milly and the Alchemist did! I didn’t know what to ask for – until now...”
The King chuckled, lowering the pistol. “Still can’t quite admit you’re beat, can you Clive? I admire that in a man who’s about to be supper! Go on then, delay the inevitable for a few moments! Entertain us! What is it? Four course meal? Concubine? Porcupine?”
Clive brightened (the porcupine was tempting). “I don’t s’pose you have – half a crown, do you?”
The King turned to the horde, performative. They snickered appreciatively. “What? Are you feeling lucky Clive? I get it – heads I win, tails you lose! Hahahahah! Sure thing!” He fished about in his trouser pockets. “Looks like it’s your lucky day! Here’s your coin…”
The King flicked his thumb – a Roman Emperor granting life – and the coin flipped through the air towards Clive. He caught it with one, triumphant, upraised hand!
It made no sense that the beggar should have been there, in that room, in Nonsuch, on London Bridge, in the middle of a plague, inverted beneath the Thames, walls and ceiling strung with cooling cheese; but whatever supernatural force it was that bound the Lord of Solicitation to proffered coin, it did not discern, and no wall or window – or fondu – could keep him out.
The Beggar Lord materialised from the shadows, and gambled over to Clive, bowl proffered winsomely. The rats parted out of sheer bewilderment! The Rat King gaped.
“Money for the seamless, sir?” said the Lord of the Beggars. And then came recognition. “Oh, ’allo Clive! What on earth are you doing here?”
“I’m being held at gunpoint by a flintlock-wielding mutant who started the Plague using a pathogen distilled from a blind albino sailor with an unpronounceable name!”
“Oh! That old chestnut!”259
Clive dropped the half crown into the bowl. The Beggar Lord gave it a cursory bite.
The King shook himself. “Wait, I knows you! You were armless earlier!”
The Lord looked from Clive to the King, and back again. Finally, he grinned. “All beggars are ’armless, sir! Until riled...”
The King raised the pistol, but too slow... flipping his bowl upside, the Beggar Lord neatly knocked the pistol from the King’s paw! Turning to the shadows, the Lord called over his shoulder. “Oi, lads! There’s a right ol’ donnybrook260 brewing down ’ere!”
The rats spun round, senses suddenly squeaking that they were not alone! But they saw nothing...
Until suddenly, Scratchfella was caught right between the eyes by a spinning bowl of blackest wood! He went down like a log. Pinky yelped in fear! The other rats peered and squinted into the shadows behind them! Sadly, contrary to popular opinion, rats do not see particularly well in the dark, and all they got for their pains was a veritable thicket of spinning circular projectiles whirling out of the blackness, many launching spiral patterns of heavy coin from their innards, some of the which were diamond-shaped and sharp as arrowheads! Pinky ducked, but many of her brethren were less than lucky, knocked senseless by the bowls, pelted by the coin, or pin-cushioned by the arrow-like half crowns!
And in the wake of their bowls came the beggars themselves, leaping from the dark with petitioning war cries of, “In for a penny, in for a pound!” screaming of abject poverty, unfed bairns, and missing appendages, laying about the stunned rodents with twinned begging bowls in either hand!
The beggars didn’t have it all their own way – many were swarmed by a hundred small biting bodies, and the larger rats waded into the throng, sharp claws slashing, but the beggars seemed nearly as numerous as the vermin, and reinforcements were pouring into the room from entrances unseen! At the centre of it all, the Beggar Lord himself, a whirling dervish of bowls, coin and pitiful pleas for succour! True, they cried mercy, but the beggars gave none – for the Plague had spared them not, and, worse still, the lack of foot traffic recently had put a severe dent into their earnings...
Not one to take in a fight from the sidelines, Milly snatched up her axe-pommelled flintlocks from the body of a rat, and waded into the melee...
The King took a long (but not too long) look at the scene before him, turned tail and ran, clawing up the wall towards the nearest exit!
“Cliff!” yelled the Alchemist, pointing. “Terence! He’s getting away! Hurry! You must stop him! He has the Elixir! It’s the only way to end the Plague!”
Clive cast about – they were still on the ceiling and there was no obvious way to follow the King—
The bellpull! Running to the middle of the floor, he grabbed the rope and heaved it upwards! The room began to right itself, the battle between rat and beggar taking to the revolve!
Something heavy slid down the floor towards him – the Rat King’s flintlock! Snatching up the gun, Clive sprinted up the sloping room and slid down through the door into the corridor beyond...