The self-proclaimed King of all Rat Kind had but one thing on his mind – escape! Tumbling out of Nonsuch’s bizarre revolve, the diminutive rodent staggered to its feet, and scrambled towards the end of the short tunnel, and the Bridge railing beyond... one leap of faith later, and he would be swimming down into the comforting depths of the Thames, and then away to lick his wounds and plot his reve–
A sound behind... the revolve... and the click of a cocked pistol!
“Games up, King! Make it easy on yourself and come quietly!”
The King turned slowly. That voice... it sounded like...
Clive emerged from the shadows of the tunnel, pistol arm outstretched. Clive had again been channelling his inner Pied for all he was worth – only this time even he had been impressed with the results!
The King snarled with frustration, taking one step forward into the mouth of the pistol. “What is it with you straight-guy types! There isn’t an original bone in your bodies! And what is this game?!? I wasn’t aware I was playing a game! I’m a businessman for Pete’s sake! A little unconventional, I’ll admit, but, ultimately, when you get down to it, a businessman!”
“And what business is that?”
“The only business that ever mattered worth a damn! Staying alive!”
“Your only business is death!”
“Look who’s talking! You think I would go to all this trouble just for the Alchemist, Clive? Really? Nah! Revenge on pops was just the rind on the brie! I always had my sights on the real prize! Look around you, Clive! We’re not just surviving while mankind perishes... we’re thriving! No more hiding in the shadows! No more taking in the sights from the sewers! Think a few mangey beggars can stop us? My rats are LEGION, and right now they are fanning out across London! The invasion has begun! And t’anks to you, the people are too weak to resist, and the one man who could have stopped us... well, he’s gone down the drain!”
Clive bristled, but kept the pistol steady. “This Plague has gone far enough! End it now and I’ll spare your life!”
The King smirked. “Spare my life? Ha! There’s only one life you should be thinking about, Clive. Isabella’s!”
“What?”
“That’s right, Clive. Didn’t you hear? Isabella has the Plague!”
“You’re lying!”
“Am I? Where do you think pops has been all this time? Isabella’s dead, Clive! Unless, of course, you have this…”
From a sleeve, the King drew a small glass flask and raised it high before Clive’s eyes: the liquid within lapis blue, iridescent. A muffled yet heavenly sound, like a choir of angels drowning slowly in fudge, seemed to rise through the mists: Eli-xir, Eli-xir, Elixir of Life!
Clive frowned. “What’s that?”
The King’s eyes rolled. “The Elixir of Life, you ninny! Sadly, like the Plague, it only works on humans – but I decided to keep it… as insurance! Now this is what’s going to happen: I’m going to leave, with the Elixir, and you’re going to let me go; and, later, when I’m far away from here – I’ll send you some by... carrier pigeon!”
Clive considered. It sounded like a good bargain. But there was one problem: “No deal! I hate pigeons!”261
The King snarled. “Fine. Have it your way…” and tossed the flask over his shoulder towards the river.
Clive moved faster than he ever had before in his entire life – he dropped the gun and launched himself towards the airborne Elixir... but missed it completely and landed in a heap several feet short. The Elixir disappeared over the rail... his last chance to save Isabella – gone!
Clive rose, fuming, ready to tear the King limb from limb with his bear hands–262
Click.263 Now the King had the gun. Of course. Stupid.
“Ha! You thought you could beat me, Clive? You thought a lowly little undertaker such as yourself would stand any chance against the PROGENITOR of an ENTIRE SPECIES? Say goodbye to your pathetic existence, Clive Huckleswish…”
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Clive roared, defiant to the last: “FISH!”
The King didn’t care: “WHATEVER!” He placed the pistol against Clive’s temple.264
Clive closed his eyes, and, misnomered to the last, prepared to meet his end...265
When, suddenly, there came, as if from a whisper from a thought from a dream, a distant sound. No angelic and helpfully expository choir this time... It echoed through the mist, constant, unwavering, hideously reedy, yet sonorous and ululating all at once. Somewhere in the midst of all the cacophonous chaos, there might just have been something resembling a melody. And it was rapidly growing louder...
Clive opened an eye. He wasn’t dead.
The King was frozen, paralysed, arm still extended, pistol still at Clive’s brow, a look of abject horror upon his conical visage!
The bridge was beginning to shake, the boards bouncing and banging rhythmically as if to the whip of many feet marching in step! And now there came the clear precise percussion of drums! Lots of drums!
The King’s eyes were streaming tears. A gobbet of blood snotted from his prominent nose. “No. It cannot be! I don’t believe it! There was only ever one!”
“One what?” asked Clive, curious despite himself.
The King looked at him askance. “One... Piper!”
Something big was forming up in the mist now. The sound was deafening, and the force of music was shredding the green haze into wispy tatters! The curtain parted suddenly...
What was marching down the Bridge towards them was nothing short of an army! An army... wearing skirts? No, not skirts – kilts! Stockinged, doubleted, capped and feathered, all in plaid of red and green... But these men-at-arms bore no mere musket or pike! Each cradled a strange contraption, organic and lumpen... Clive momentarily thought them to be hugging leather-skinned infants to their chests. Or possibly puddings. But then he saw the strange pipes speared through the lumpen bags, one to hand and one to mouth, and one thrown over shoulder. Pipes!
Pipe-bags!
And at their head, cradling the biggest and blackest pipe-bag of them all, clad all in sable plaid, a huge coal feather in his cap, was the underhandedly undertook Undertaker himself: Phil of the Anbury!
Clive joined the King in a gape.
The King dropped the pistol, paws to ears, unable to stand the awful drone! “No! No! No! Not fair! Not fair! Can’t a rat ever catch a break?” He backed away from Clive, eyes red with fury. “This isn’t over, Clive! Mark my words! You can’t keep a good rat down forever! One day, when the time is ripe, I’ll return to haunt your waking dreams! And when I do, not’ing, but not’ing you love will be sa–” The Rat King hit the rail a little earlier than expected and – eyes streaming, ears ringing, nose aquiver, malediction unfinished – tumbled backwards over the rail, and plunged into the churning waters below!
Clive turned, wonder outweighing relief. “Phil?”
Phil raised a hand, and the taptoo266 behind halted and ceased. “Yes, Clive, it is I! And not a moment too soon by the look of things!”
Clive was almost speechless. Almost. “How? I thought Jerry press-ganged you into the Swedish Navy!”
“Oh, he does that every year! How else am I to get away?”
“But... the Plague... how did you know?”
“One day at sea we got word from a passing ship that the Plague had hit London. I knew immediately who was responsible! I swiftly sought out the few masters that remained from the Order of Pyed and entered their service as an apprentice. I learned quickly, and, in no time at all, the masters granted me my ritual instrument!”267 He petted his bag fondly. “Back to my roots at last! So armed, I made my return with all haste!”
Clive’s gesture encompassed the army to his rear. “And you brought friends!”
“Actually, Clive, that was MY doing!” A new voice, but as familiar as it was welcome! The owner stepped into sight from the ranks of pipers, beaming ear to ear, a large floppy hat upon his brow!
Clive gaped again. “Jerry! I thought you were dead!”
Jerry scoffed. “Dead? Can hardly sell coffins if I’m dead, can I?” He bowed, giving way to the army behind. “Clive Hucklefish! I give you... the MacCrimmon family, ancestral pipers to Clan Macleod!” As one, the Scots farted out a baggish salute. Jerry shrugged. “They owed me a favour!”
“Good job they did!” nodded Clive. But he still had questions for Phil: “You knew what the rats intended to do?”
Phil nodded gravely. “Yes, I did. And I realise now that if only I’d trusted you – if only I’d warned you in advance, then so much pain and death could have been averted. Clive, can you forgive me?”
Clive hardly had any gape left in him. “Forgive you?!? Can you forgive me? I’m the one that made it all possible!”
Phil fixed Clive with his trademark stare. “Clive! It’s not what we do in life, who we love, or how many thousands we kill that makes us who we are. It’s what we learn from those experiences that’s important!”
Clive nodded sagely. “I think I understand now...” And then cold reality returned: iced, spiced and somewhat shaken. “But Phil, we’ve still failed! The Elixir Of Life fell into the river – now we have no way to cure the Plague! Thousands more will still die… including Isabella!”
It hit him then. A heavy tombstone in the pit of his stomach. Isabella was going to die.
Suddenly, Clive never wished to bury another dead body again. No coffin would ever be good enough for her: not even Jerry’s new Porthole Panorama Double Decker.TM Clive’s profession was a sick joke with his heart as the punchline. He wanted to vomit.
The Undertaker patted Clive on the shoulder. “Go to her Clive! I’ll follow as soon as I’ve checked the streets for stragglers!”
Clive didn’t need to be told twice. He looked up at the windows of Nonsuch – the same window where he had first glimpsed Isabella all those months ago. A shadow passed across the window... was it her? Or Her?
Clive started to run... as the drone of the pipe-bags rose once more into a storm of vermin-seering sound.