The Rat and the Wolf

The Rat and the Wolf

Agapititus - The Cisterns of Seda

The problem with dragging a metal man through a sewer wasn't the weight, though the "gilded lunchbox" weighed as much as a dead horse and smelled faintly of ozone and expensive perfume. It wasn't even the smell of the tunnel itself, which was a robust bouquet of rot, offal, and the distinct, chemical tang of the city’s waste.

The problem was the noise.

In the subterranean echo chamber of the cisterns, silence was survival. But Skooh Otaga was not built for stealth. He was built for throne rooms and sanitized laboratories.

Clang. Scrape. Splash.

Every time Skooh’s articulated, golden heels dragged over a submerged brick, the sound rang out like a dinner bell for every nightmare nesting in the dark. It echoed off the vaulted ceiling, a metallic shriek that made Agapititus wince.

"You are heavier than you look, you know that?" Agapititus wheezed, pausing to wipe a mixture of sweat and sewer-mist from his eyes. "All that 'ethereal lightness' was just a trick of the light, eh? False advertising."

Skooh did not answer. The construct was a dead weight in his arms, his systems fully hibernated. The only sign of life—if you could call it that—was the leak.

It was worse now. The star-colored fluid wasn't just dripping; it was pulsing slowly from the joints of his armor, leaving a glowing, iridescent trail in the muck behind them. It lit up the tunnel walls with a soft, ghostly twilight, casting long, wavering shadows.

"Great," Agapititus muttered, staring at the glowing slime. "We aren't just loud. We're bioluminescent. We might as well be shouting 'Free Buffet' to the rats."

He looked down at the feline mask resting against his chest. The gold was smeared with mud, but the expression remained serene, maddeningly calm amidst the filth.

"I should leave you," Agapititus whispered to the mask. "I really should. Take the ruby, leave the robot. That’s the smart play. That’s the Rat's play."

But he didn't let go. He remembered the way Skooh had looked at him in the alley, the confusion in that synthesized voice. You are the only structural integrity this city has left.

"Damn you and your compliments," Agapititus grunted. He hooked his arms under Skooh’s armpits again, gritted his teeth, and heaved.

They made it another fifty yards, the tunnel widening into a large junction chamber where four pipes met a central, churning pool.

Agapititus froze.

The water in the central pool rippled. Not from the flow, but from a vibration.

Footsteps. Fast. Purposeful. Splashing that wasn't random—it was hunting.

Agapititus dropped Skooh—gently, mostly—and scrambled backward, putting himself between the unconscious construct and the dark mouth of the northern tunnel. He drew his knife. It was a rusted paring blade, barely three inches long, suitable for fighting cheese, not monsters.

"If you're a guard," Agapititus called out, his voice echoing thinly, "I have the pox! The weeping kind! And lice! The lice have the pox too!"

"Silence."

The word wasn't spoken; it was growled. It vibrated in Agapititus’s chest like a low note on a cello.

A figure stepped into the faint halo of light cast by Skooh’s leaking essence.

He was a giant. A wild thing wrapped in furs and worn leather that smelled of pine needles and dried blood. His hair was matted, his face smeared with soot, and in his hand, he held a longsword that looked far too expensive for a man who looked like he lived in a hollow log.

But it was his eyes that froze Agapititus’ blood. They were the eyes of a wolf staring at a rabbit. And they weren't looking at Agapititus.

They were locked on Skooh.

Behind the wild man, three others emerged from the gloom like ghosts. A woman in scholars' robes wielding a massive brass cannon that hummed with menace. A pale, terrified man who looked like he was about to vomit. And a soldier clutching a shattered arm against his chest, his face grey with pain.

"Found it," the wild man—Aga—snarled. The sound was triumphant and terrifying. He raised the heavy sword with both hands, the steel catching the violet light of the leak. "The Beast."

Agapititus realized with a jolt of horror that this wasn't a robbery. It was an execution.

"Wait!" Agapititus shouted, waving his tiny knife. "He's not a beast! He's a... he's a patient!"

"It smells of the Abyss," Aga said, his voice flat, devoid of mercy. He took a slow, deliberate step forward, the water swirling around his boots. "It bleeds the poison that hunts my son. Step aside, rat. Or I cut you down to get to it."

Agapititus looked at the sword. It was four feet of razor-sharp steel. He looked at his paring knife.

Logic dictated he move. Survival dictated he run.

But Agapititus didn't move. He planted his feet in the sludge.

"No!"

The shout surprised even him.

"He's sleeping!" Agapititus yelled, his voice cracking but holding firm. "You don't kill a man while he's sleeping! That’s... that’s bad manners!"

"It is not a man," Aga roared, his patience snapping. "It is a Void!"

Aga lunged.

He didn't swing the sword—he wasn't a butcher. He released the hilt with one hand and backhanded Agapititus with the force of a falling branch.

The blow caught Agapititus in the chest. The air left his lungs in a whoosh, and he was lifted off his feet, splashing hard into the muck a few feet away.

Agapititus gasped, black spots dancing in his vision, clutching his bruised ribs. He watched, helpless, from the water as Aga stood over the fallen Skooh.

The woodsman raised the sword high, the tip poised to drive down through the golden mask, to end the "monster" right there in the dark.

"Stop!"

The command was sharp, clinical, and loud.

It wasn't the drunkard. It was the woman with the cannon.

Elara waded forward, disregarding the sewage soaking her robes. Her eyes were wide, fixed not on Aga, but on the glowing pool of fluid leaking from Skooh.

"Aga, halt! That’s not a beast." She grabbed Aga’s shoulder—a move that Agapititus thought was suicidal. "Look at the readings! Look at the light!"

Aga paused, the sword hovering inches from Skooh’s face. He didn't look at her. "It smells of the stars," he growled. "It smells of the Void."

"It's Ether," Elara corrected, breathless, shoving her brass-and-crystal device toward him. "Raw, concentrated, high-grade Ether. This isn't a monster, Aga. It's a vessel. A Construct."

She knelt beside Skooh, ignoring the mud, and dipped a finger into the glowing slime. She hissed as it stung her skin, but she brought it to her nose, sniffing it.

"Ozone. Starlight. Pure energy," she whispered, looking at Skooh with the reverence of a pilgrim finding a relic. "This is Institute technology. But... I've never seen a design like this. The articulation... the alloy... it's exquisite."

"It's leaking," Gaidan pointed out from the back, his voice dry and strained. "Is it going to explode?"

"Likely," Elara said, pulling a small lens from her pocket and holding it over Skooh's chest. "His core is critical. He's not hunting us, Aga. He's dying."

Aga lowered the sword slowly. The tension in his shoulders didn't leave, but the killing intent dimmed. He looked at the golden mask, the feline features serene in the darkness, realizing the stillness wasn't a predator's wait. It was a machine's death.

"He... he saved me," Agapititus groaned, rolling onto his side and spitting out a mouthful of sewer water.

Aga turned his gaze to the small man in the mud. He looked at the rusty knife lying uselessly nearby, then at the soot-stained rags, and finally at the fierce, trembling defiance in the man's eyes.

"He could have run," Agapititus wheezed, clutching his ribs. "He stayed to help. Does a beast do that?"

Aga frowned. The concept didn't fit. A beast consumed. A beast destroyed. This thing... had protected?

"You defend it," Aga said, confused. "Why?"

"Because he owes me a ruby," Agapititus lied. It was a flimsy shield, but it was all he had. "And because he's the only thing in this city that isn't trying to eat me."

Aga closed his eyes. He took a deep breath, filtering the air through his nose, separating the layers of the stench.

He found the scent of the construct: Cold. Sharp. Metal. Stars.

Then, he pushed past it, deeper down the tunnel.

There.

Underneath the starlight, there was another smell. Sickly-sweet decay. Rotting flowers. The true Abyss.

It wasn't coming from the golden man. It was coming from further ahead.

"I was wrong," Aga admitted. The words tasted like ash, but he said them. He sheathed the sword with a sharp click that echoed through the chamber. "This is not the quarry."

He reached down, his hand massive and calloused, and offered it to Agapititus.

Agapititus stared at the hand. It was the hand that had just knocked the wind out of him. He looked up at Aga’s face—hard, scarred, but honest.

He took the hand. Aga pulled him to his feet with effortless strength.

"My name is Aga," the woodsman said.

"Agapititus," the drunkard replied, wiping his hand on his tunic. "And if you hit me again, I'm charging you extra."

"Can you fix it?" Faren asked, stepping closer to Elara and the fallen construct. He looked at the golden mask with a mix of fear and wonder. "If it explodes..."

"Fix him?" Elara scoffed, though her hands were already moving, opening a panel on her cannon with practiced speed. "This technology is centuries ahead of anything in the Institute. I can't 'fix' him. But..."

She pulled the glowing blue cylinder—her weapon's power source—out of the cannon. It hummed with contained power.

"I might be able to stabilize him. Jump-start his containment field. Stop the leak. Buy him some time."

"Do it," Aga commanded. He turned away from them, facing the dark tunnel ahead. He drew his knife now, the smaller blade favored for close quarters. "We need everyone who can fight. The pack is close."

"Pack?" Agapititus asked, his voice rising an octave. "What pack? You said he wasn't the beast!"

"He isn't," Aga said grimly. "But the thing he's leaking... it's like blood in the water for the things that are."

As if in answer, a sound echoed from the darkness ahead.

It wasn't a footstep. It was a chittering. A wet, slapping sound, like raw meat hitting stone. Dozens of them.

And then, a scream.

It cut through the humid air like a knife. A human scream. Female.

"Help! Someone!"

It wasn't a scream of surrender. It was a scream of fury.

Aga’s head snapped up. His nostrils flared. "Prey."

"No," Faren whispered, stepping forward, his face pale. He recognized the tone—not the victimhood, but the imperious, stubborn defiance. "That sounds like..."

"Rina," a new voice echoed.

They all turned to look at Agapititus, but his mouth was closed.

The voice had come from the floor.

Skooh sat up.

The blue light from Elara’s capacitor was pressed against his chest, and his eyes glowed with a sudden, rebooted intensity.

"Rina Cassius," Skooh synthesized, his voice no longer static, but clear. "Probability of survival... dropping."

"Move!" Aga roared.

He didn't wait for the plan. He didn't wait for introductions. He charged into the darkness, splashing through the water, running toward the scream and the smell of rot.

"Oh, wonderful," Agapititus muttered, looking at the rebooting robot and the sprinting barbarian. "Out of the puddle, into the fire."

He looked at Elara, who was frantically locking the capacitor into place on Skooh's chest.

"Isn't he heavy?" Agapititus asked Elara.

"Extremely," she said.

"Then it is best you grab the feet," Agapititus sighed, drawing his rusty knife again. "Let's go save the damsel."