The good guys charged into the keep, their resident wizard fending off Suettay's spells with his own.
Of course, Suettay wasn't really concentrating - by that time, she had other worries: me, and Frisson.
It took us a while to qualify as major headaches, though. First we had to get done playing catch-the-tail with our leader, that being the along through drainpipe, crack, and cranny. It was tough going, but only way we could keep track of him in the total dark, as we ran our rat bodies seemed built for it.
Finally, we came out into dim light. Looking up, I saw rough rocks projecting above us in a sort of ladder. I realized later that it was a tunnel made by a series of cracks inside those walls, and the "rungs" were the back ends of the stone blocks that made up those walls. At the moment, I didn't have enough brain power for that, of course - I just accepted it.
Our guides started hopping nimbly from one projection to another, just as if they made up a rat's staircase.
My ratty heart quailed, but the big rat got behind me and snarled and gnashed his teeth, and I jumped.
My breath came harder and harder. Finally, our guides crawled out. Up we went, rock after rock, as my heart beat faster and faster and onto a sort of shelf and went scurrying away into some more darkness. Trembling with exhaustion, I followed.
Thick black closed around us again. I followed the scrabbling of claws ahead. Then, suddenly, a reek hit me, one that went right through my head. I recoiled, but the big rat behind me snarled, and I forced myself to go forward again, trembling from sheer fear this time, not exhaustion. What kind of unearthly smells were these? It wasn't like the warm, homey effluvium of the sewers, or the musky, delicious garbage-reek of the other rats, but a nose-searing, brain-tearing mixture of smells that cut like saws and stabbed like needles.
It got to our guide rats, too. They cowered away, quivering - but between them, I saw the hole between two stones, with ruddy orange light glowing on the other side.
I cowered away, too - that's where the horrible smells were coming from.
The big rat behind me squeaked with angry menace. No go; I cowered harder.
Then a searing pain shot through my behind, just above the tail, and I shot forward with a squeak of agony. The bastard had nipped me!
I recovered, scrabbling on all claws just short of the hole - but something soft and massive struck me, and I jammed into the hole with an outraged squeal.
And I do mean into - it was as tight as a bottleneck around a cork!
How the heck did the real rats expect me to get through this? But I stretched, and found that my body suddenly became amazingly slimmer; my ribs seemed to compress, and it was hard to breathe for a moment, but with all four sets of claws pushing and pulling, I oozed through that hole as though I'd been greased.
Out! At last! I leapt aside, to let the next one come out ... A tearing yowl filled the world, and something huge and reeking plummeted down at me.
I may not have known that smell, but my body sure did. Cat!
Chapter Thirty-One
I squealed in terror and ran.
The cat yowled with delight and leapt after me. I tried a quick u-turn around a table leg, doubling back; the cat's claws scrabbled on the stone, and I dashed for the next table leg and went up it like a monkey up a tree. The cat spat in fury and leapt up after me, knocking an alembic to the floor; it shattered, but I was already running for the other end of the table, squealing in terror. The cat gave a meow of delight and plunged after me. Beakers and thuribles tipped and smashed; foul-smelling powders went flying. That slowed the cat down a little; he sneezed several times, pausing for each. By the time he got his nose clear, I was back on the floor, dashing for the protection of a huge caldron. I shot between it and the wall, and realized that it was hot-there was a fire under it! But the cat was too angry to care; it shot through right behind me, and yowled in pain and anger as its tail hit a burning ember.
Any distraction helped! I made another U-turn around the caldron, hoping the cat would be a little more circumspect about the circumference. It wasn't; it charged even faster for being all the hotter.
Broom! And a shelf above it! I dashed up the broomstick. The cat barreled into it with a snarl, but I leapt a split second before the broomstick went flying. Up I soared, up and up, front claws stretching for the shelf, it coming closer and closer ...
... then receding farther and farther. I fell. Panic surged through me; I writhed in midair, saw the floor coming up at me, struggled frantically to reach a chair five feet over. And hit. Hard. On stone. I blacked out for a second; my ears rang, then filled with a yowling that seemed to echo through all the world as the cat pounced. My vision cleared just in time to see sharp teeth closing on me. Pain stabbed through the back of my neck; the monster jerked me off the floor, claws coming up to rip out my belly ...
The cat screamed, and I shot down to the floor again. I was no fool; I landed running, glancing back ...
... to see the cat streaking after two other rats, with a spot of blood on his tail.
I felt insanely grateful. I hadn't known a rat could. These weren't your average rats, of course - they were very, very smart. Just before they got to the stone wall, they split apart, dashing for opposite corners. The cat slammed on the brakes, scrabbling to a halt, then paused a second, trying to decide which rat to chase. She opted for the smaller one.
Definitely, those rats were as smart as humans.
Wait a minute - they were humans! And so was I! My minuscule rat brain had lost track of that fact while I was being chased! Suddenly, I remembered that I'd understood the big rat, that it had spoken human words, If it could, I could, too. There wasn't much room for memory in that little brain, but it did serve up the couplet I'd prepared for just this occasion:
I couldn't remember the rest, but it didn't seem to matter - two human beings suddenly shot up from the rubble in the corners, where the two rats had hidden. The cat tried to pause in midpounce, yowling frantically, heading right toward Frisson's navel.
He caught it, grinning, then murmured, "Poor tabby!" and stroked its head.
The cat yowled in total bewilderment and struggled to be free. The Rat Raiser advanced from the other corner, hands outstretched, bloodlust in his eye.
Frisson let go, and the cat leapt down, dashing for cover. The poet stepped in front of the Rat Raiser, holding up a hand. "No! She was only doing her duty!"
The Rat Raiser narrowed his yellow eyes, lips drawing back to bare his oversize, yellowed teeth.
"We have other game to hunt!" Frisson scolded. "You are human again, and cats are the least of your worries!"
The Rat Raiser suddenly looked apprehensive. He looked about him with quick, furtive glances, then stared, pointing. "There!"
Frisson looked, then turned to lance a finger at me, snapping,
The room changed perspective amazingly. The furniture shrank becoming only tables and chairs instead of a forest again. The cat dwindled from a monster to a pet. of course, I just barely noticed this-most of my mind was too busy feeling the pain as I suddenly grew 600 percent. I clenched my teeth against a minute's agony, as my body stretched upward and filled out, mushrooming. Then only the after-aches were left, and I was human again. I heaved a shaky sigh and tried to pull my limp self back together, looking about me, marveling at the fact that I was still dressed. Come to think of it, so were Frisson and the Rat Raiser. Maybe the spell had changed our clothing into fur?