Downtown Druid

Dantes looked at the rat, watching as it nibbled on the piece of potato that he’d just thrown at him.

“Did you just talk?” he asked.

The rat stopped eating, and swallowed the mouthful of food it had. “Yes?”

Dantes paused. “And you can understand me?”

The rat cocked its head. “Huh, yeah, I can actually. Strange.”

Dantes squinted. The rat looked the same as it had before. It was large, about the size of his foot, and mostly a reddish brown in color. The same rat that he’d grown used to seeing every day. Same one he’d been feeding for the last few years, around the same time he’d started watering the moss, and cultivating mushrooms.

“Could you always talk?”

“Could you?”

“Apparently not…at least not to rats.”

“Your kind can be slow.” The rat let out a series of squeaks that reminded Dantes of a mean spirited laugh.

Dantes sat back down. He couldn’t really think of anything else to say. His eyes drifted to the little moss tufts growing through the stone nearby. As he looked, he could feel that it needed more water. It was a kind of warm parched feeling that tingled in the back of his throat. He stood up, grabbed his pitcher, and poured a small bit of water onto it. He could sense gratitude radiating from it, like a cool cloth on the forehead on a hot day. He scanned the rest of the cave. Two other plants needed watering, the rest were content. The mushrooms wanted more waste, so he obliged them too. Their gratitude felt different, like a group of people were patting him on the back and thanking him all at once.

“What the fuck.” he muttered to himself. He wasn’t a mage. He knew just enough about magic to use magical items, but he didn’t have the gifts needed to cast spells empty handed. Gods knew he’d wanted to when he was a kid, but that wasn’t the path life had chosen for him. He’d heard of a few races that could talk to certain animals. Dragonkin stood out as able to speak with lizards, but he didn’t have any such mingling in his own blood. At least not that he knew of. Even if he did, what would that mean? That he had an ancestor that got plowed by a giant rat? At least that would explain his preference for dark alleys instead of well lit streets.

“Could I have some more?” asked the rat.

Dantes thought about it, and shook his head. “Not today. I may be stuck at the level of supplies I’m currently at for a while. Need to preserve what I can.”

“You should give me more food, instead.”

“Why?”

“It sounds like you’re likely to die anyway. Your food could last me a long time. You should give it to me.”

Dantes laughed. “I’m too selfish for that.”

The rat moved its head in a way that seemed almost like a shrug. “Then I will eat your corpse. Either way, my stomach will be full.”

“You’re welcome to it, if it comes to that.” Dantes started to walk along the edges of his cave, his fingers tracing the cracks in it as he did so. It was what he usually did when he was feeling anxious, or worried. He hadn’t done it much in the last year, but the day he knew the elves were after him, and he started talking to rats, seemed like a good time to start back up.

He didn’t think he’d gone crazy. He’d seen crazy, both in the back alleys of Rendhold and in the Pit itself. Broken men weeping openly in the middle of streets, dwarves so terrified of the sky that they cover their heads with dirt, elves so far from their home forest that they broke and covered the walls of their cells in excrement they tried to shape into the image of a tree. His mind still felt clear, sharp, reactive. The world was a large place, who was to say he didn’t gain some ability he hadn’t previously known existed? If he had, that ability might be the key to his survival, maybe even more than that.

“You know, rat, there’s a third option for keeping your stomach full.”

The rat looked at Dantes questioningly.

“We could continue the arrangement we’ve always had. I live, and give you a bit of food from my stores every day.”

“Yes, and so I do not nibble the flesh from your feet while you sleep.”

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Dantes paused. He hadn’t considered that the rat had its own understanding of the deal. He’d have to be wary of that, of his assumptions. His feet tingled a bit and he flexed his toes within the thin leather of his cheap boots.

“Well, let’s say I could get you more food. Would you be able to do me a favor?”

“What kind of food?”

“Do you have a preference?”

“Meat.”

Dantes gritted his teeth, feeling the small tusks from his orcish ancestry cut slightly into his cheek. He hadn't expected a rat to drive a hard bargain. Meat was hard to come by. He had a bit preserved with the rest of the food, but it wasn’t a lot. At the same time, his life was more valuable to him than meat with the texture of wet wood.

“I can do that.”

The rat skittered toward him. “Meat first.”

Dantes smiled and shook his head. “Not how I deal. You do the job first, then I’ll give you a fourth of the meat I have.”

“Half.”

“A third.”

“Maybe a third. What do you want me to do?”

“Do you know where the Elfland Kings live?”

“What’s an Elf?”

“Tall, usually fair, pointed ears, grating voices, probably don’t look down long enough to see you.”

“I know the place where they gather.”

“Some of them, the important ones, carry shards of a mirror, roughly the size of my hand.”

The rat nodded. “Yes. Where the food and good smells come from.”

“Would you be able to retrieve one of those shards for me?”

“Half. The ones with the pointed ears are hard to avoid, and crush us beneath their boots when they are able.”

Dantes clenched and unclenched his fist. “Deal. Half. To be paid once I receive the shard.”

The rat twitched its whiskers thoughtfully. “It will be done, but I will wait until they sleep to go to them. I will need some of my siblings to help me. I will tell them that you paid me only a quarter of what I am actually to be paid. I will share that among them.”

Dantes nodded. He’d met some savvy people over the years, but he found himself impressed by the rat he’d been sharing his food with.

“Do you have a name?”

The rat had returned to its small meal of potato. “No. Rats are known by connections, not names. My sister calls me Brother, my mother Son, my cousin Cousin, and on and on.”

“Well, we are not kin, and I’d rather not refer to you as just ‘rat’, after all if you’re not the only one I can talk to then it may get confusing as I meet more.”

“True. I would not want you to pay Brothers instead of me. They are tricky.”

“Hmmm, how about Jacopo?”

“What is this name? What is its meaning?”

“I don’t know. It was the name of my father’s ship. Always liked how it sounded.”

“A ship? My great great great grandmother came from a ship. This is a good name.”

“Alright then Jacopo.” Dantes held out his pinky finger to him. “I look forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship.”

“I have seen this.” Jacopo moved closer and gripped Dantes pinky finger in his claw. Dantes dipped his pinky and nodded at him, Jacopo returned the gesture.

…

It had taken some time, but Dantes’ anxiety had eventually turned to exhaustion as he waited for Jacopo to leave on his mission. He forced himself to eat a bit of the food he’d acquired, focusing on what would expire first, and sat on the pile of cloth that served as his bed.

Unlike him, Jacopo seemed completely at ease in spite of the heist he’d so recently agreed to. Alternating between naps, stretching, and more naps until he said his goodbyes and began to make his way to the Elfland Kings' territory.

The day's events had been tiring. Dantes wasn’t out of shape, exactly, but he certainly wasn’t the same rooftop hopping man he’d been before he was thrown into the pit. Years of malnourishment and a lack of exercise had eaten away at him, and as such he felt deep aches and pains through his body as he laid down and closed his eyes.

His dreams typically took one of two forms. The shape of his friend’s hands in front of him, pushing his ladder away from the rooftop, the sensation of falling endlessly, the pain of landing on his back. Or running through the overgrown parts of the city, his hands running along the edges of branches and vines as he ducked into alleys and climbed crumbling walls.

This night was different however. He felt as if he was floating, drifting through blackness. Below him, a scene played out, seemingly on repeat. There sat two people. A man, and a woman. The man wore a cloak of midnight blue, with silver and gold buckles securing it in place, the hint of a dagger at his waist, and his face concealed beneath a hood, only a smirk showing.

Across from him was a woman. She had skin the color of pale wood, and hair of deep green. She was smiling as well, but hers was predatory, hungry, and she had one slitted eye like that of a cat, and one eye with a bar of black in the center, like that of a goat. Between them was a scale, and each of them would take turns placing something onto it, or removing something from it. The scale was overall tilted in the cloaked man’s favor, but with each addition, it seemed to be sliding slowly toward the green woman. The moment the scale became even, the dream changed.

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