How do I know?

Well, because he told me one night— ummm… over a nice warm dish of stewed mutton. It’s his favorite.

Honest.

His story went something like this…

Officer Puppy let himself out the front door. It was a door with so many other safeguards, enchantments, and wards that it didn’t need a latch, let alone a lock—not that they would have kept him in either. It knew him and opened for him when he pushed at it with his large head.

Ambling out of the alleyway and into the street, he sat down, turned his big, square snout into the wind, and sniffed the breeze. It carried no news beyond what he already knew. The only smells of note were that Peri (that’s me, in case you forgot) was at the apothecary’s, which is where she was supposed to be, and Mrs. Wise was making her famous chicken soup. At least it was famous to all the dogs in town. Most humans had a different opinion on the matter, and generally thought Mrs. Wise ought to have her kitchen privileges revoked for life, but that was their problem. It was a smell worth filling your nose with. Officer Puppy breathed deep and had to make a conscious effort to keep his tail from thumping happily on the ground.

Nose satisfied, he set off for the mercantile district across the canal. It was where most rat conspiracies set down roots, and he’d heard the rats were planning something big tonight, something really big, something so big that the annoying, chattery vermin were finding it impossible to keep quiet about it. Their gossip was spreading like wildfire and the mercantile district was getting special mention throughout.

His normal channels couldn’t tell him much, just that it was big. So big that he was getting annoyed hearing about how big it was. But what was big to a rat? Maybe they were planning on sneaking in through the plumbing and robbing a bank. Or maybe they found an accountant who tended to forgot to lock his strong box at the end of the day. Whatever it was, they were excited and cheerfully bragging about how grand it was going to be. He didn’t like it when they seemed so sure of themselves, or when they managed to keep their secrets. His ongoing job was to make sure their plans came to nothing.

His pearly white coat, swatched with brown, and carefully brushed out to a silky sheen by the people he lived with, rippled majestically in the evening breeze as he trotted down the street.

That’s what he said! I’m not trying to brag about my dog brushing skills or anything. Who’d want to brag about something like that? Though, I suppose I am pretty handy with a brush. And the Sisters only know how much work it takes to keep that coat clean, may they steer his path away from any and all mud puddles.

For a dog that could stare down a small pony without having to look up, Officer Puppy moved as silently as a shadow. Okay, that bit really was me bragging. Officer Puppy is a dog worth bragging about. He is simply the most awesome dog ever. But it’s true, for a big dog, he could be really sneaky. Especially if you left some meat on the counter.

The soft pads of his paws hit the road softly, unnoticed, falling without sound on cobblestone, dirt, or wood. Like a breeze wandering down the street, people entirely failed to notice him as he trotted past guard posts, drunken revelers, sober revelers, sophisticated types sitting in cafes and nibbling on nuts, fruits, cookies and drinking tea, or harder stuff, people gossiping about the news of the day, kids causing trouble, market stalls trying to sell the last of their wares before the sun went down, people closing up shop and counting their earnings for the day, hoping to be gone before thugs showed up looking for protection money, madams planning the night with their girls, and little old ladies having a quick smoke before calling it a night, whether that meant sleep or opening for business.

He had that look of always knowing where he was going and why, so no one ever questioned him, not that most of them spoke dog anyway. People who knew him would sometimes call out to him with a cheerful wave. Then he would be obliged to stop and say hello with a wag of his tail and a head bowed for a scratch behind the ears, showing happiness and excitement, either real or feigned depending on who it was and his mood at the time.

This evening required that he be serious and focused. He made a point of avoiding places where people who knew him would be. He even avoided the butcher, though he could smell the fresh smoked sausages that had been cooking through the day. Some things were more important than sausage. Yeah, I know, what kind of self-respecting dog would say that? But he insisted it was true.

The setting sun was casting its last rays of the day on the rooftop solar collectors and the warmth of it was radiating from the recently lit gray, yellow, and brown walls of stone, plaster and brick as he wound through town. Officer Puppy’s district was not known for straight streets, it was old and had grown unplanned, the sort of place many people wouldn’t think to go without an invitation and a map, but he liked to avoid direct routes anyway. The less direct the route, the fewer who could figure out where he was going before he got there. He took a route toward the center of town that would have given the most talented of map makers a nervous tic if called upon to map it out.

The center of town was taken up by a canal that ran for nearly five kilomi between the north docks and the south docks. On either side of the canal was a wide road called Market Square, even though it wasn’t square at all. If you took a really long, narrow rectangle and beat at it with a hammer for a good, long while, you might come close to its shape. Either side of Market Square was lined with an endless procession of merchants. Our side of Market Square was lined with the noise of small vendors with tents or small, run-down shops selling their wares, the other side with wealthier merchants and wholesalers in large buildings and tents brightly painted in vermilion and green where they quietly did business in much larger volumes and brokered deals over much more expensive merchandise. Between them there was a canal and an endless cacophony of booths and rugs set out in ragged rows by merchants and hucksters too poor, or shady, to afford a building, tent or even a permanent spot on the ground.

Every day, Market Square would fill with merchants, vendors, and shoppers haggling, all crowded in with barges and floaters and wagons being pushed by motors or towed by oxen hauling things between the two ports. It was a mad press of difficult animals and their drivers yelling at them, motorized lorries buzzing and clanking by, street urchins causing trouble, entertainers and pickpockets working the crowd, and smells. Each sunrise already found the street vendors hawking their wares in every available corner, competing with the more successful merchants in their wholesale and retail shops. Fights broke out every day when smaller vendors would set up their stalls and merchants would come out of their shops, faces redder than a freshly painted shrine, yelling about the vendor blocking their display window or something. The side streets were lined with tea houses to haggle in, more discrete sorts of shops, and fancy little cafes for people to quietly conduct business over more tea and finger foods. The only order to be found was things got more expensive the further west you went.

What made the center of town such a busy place was an imperial decree that foreign and domestic ships could not mingle in the same port. It was supposed to cut down on smuggling or something. Other cities may have two ports, but few were as well placed for foreign trade, and this was the only one with the ports on opposite sides of the city. Everything had to pass right through the middle of it, instead of going around it or alongside it. People made lots of money hauling things from the south port to the north port and back again, and some made even more by accidentally misplacing their deliveries on the way.

Even this late in the evening it was still busy, and Officer Puppy wove in and out of traffic on his way through town.

On the other side of the canal sat the wealthier and more official parts of the provincial capitol. They formed a shape like a lock around a keyhole of grand avenue that ran from the bridge over the middle of the canal up to a large circular forum called Friends’ Square right in front of the palace. I know, a circle is not a square either, but that’s what they called it. They never really told anyone whose friends they were either. It’s all a big mystery. The avenue and the officially square circle were both lined with parks and filled with greenery. Around the parks that ringed Friends’ Square were the richest mercantile companies in the city, if not in the empire. There were lots of beautiful buildings, where each window probably cost more than most people would earn in their lifetimes.

People sometimes said the city, made rich as the largest port in the empire, was second in grandeur only to the imperial city itself, but never having been to the imperial city, Officer Puppy had no opinion either way. He was pretty sure there were many provincial port cities willing to make that boast. He wasn’t really even interested in why it was named Farport, being, as it was, the very center of a shipping wheel made of spokes radiating out to the mainland of the empire, Kogorya, and the Eastern Kingdoms. That was from a history far too ancient to concern him, dog or not.

The humans who ruled the city often had bitter arguments about the need to come up with a better name than Farport—something important sounding, something that reflected what a grand city it was. But it always ended with no one being able to agree on anything except that their idea was better than anyone else’s. And as far as the Imperial household was concerned, Farport was a backwater right on the edge of the empire, and it had no interest in their petty squabbles, being too busy with its own. So Farport it stayed.

This evening, in spite of Officer Puppy avoiding familiar faces, there were others noticing him. He could feel their beady little eyes on him, watching him furtively from nooks and shadows. It was the rats, watching, keeping tabs on him—one behind that barrel, another by that gutter spout, tiny footsteps scurrying on drainpipes and across the roofing tiles above, the occasional chitter. They were always about, but there seemed to be more than normal. He wandered out closer to the canal, so they would have to work at tracking him through all the traffic.

The ones skittering between pack animal legs and lorry wheels might have an easy time keeping up, but the traffic blocked the view from the rooftops. He knew at least few were actively following him from up there. It was important to not let on that he knew, or to play his hand too early. The rats were convinced he was a lumbering beast who always stumbled into the wrong place at the wrong time, ruining all their carefully laid plans.

Not that they didn’t think he was actively working against them. They knew he was. But they put his success down to dumb luck and brute force, not cunning. He wanted them to keep believing that, even if it meant him sometimes making mistakes and letting them get away with things.

Most crimes he prevented were small things, like the rats having found a loose brick in a bank vault, allowing them to steal mostly-worthless shiny things, or terrorizing small children as revenge for their parents setting out poison rat traps. He still wasn’t sure what was “big” to a rat, but deep down inside something rankled him tonight. Something was telling him it would not be a good night for mistakes, intentional or real.

The main bridge was not very busy and trotting across it made him feel uncomfortably exposed to prying eyes, but it also stopped the rats on the one side of the river from following. There was no place to hide on the bridge and no easy way to scurry across on the supports underneath. They were secure in the knowledge they were moving unseen and didn’t want to ruin it by sitting there in even plainer sight. He knew there would be more on the other side, waiting, but the less any one of them saw of his movements, the better. He stopped in the middle of the bridge to watch the canal for a while and take in the smells. He watched some barges roll under the bridge and let the rats be annoyed at having to watch him do nothing. It inspired him to do more nothing.

After the sun was securely below the horizon, dusk had turned to dark, and the glow disks began to give their light to the streets and alleys below, Officer Puppy decided that tonight seemed like a night to trot straight up the grand avenue toward the palace. It was faster and wasn’t where he was planning on going anyway.

Across the canal, the wealthier people continued to pay him no mind. Big, with a perfectly groomed coat, trotting calmly up the middle of the grand avenue, he hardly looked like a dog from the wrong side of the canal. Though he did catch the occasional stare of someone trying to identify his pedigree. He’d be damned if he was going to tell them that. People who went around smelling like flowers instead of like people were hardly in a position to have opinions on his pedigree. Besides, they wouldn’t like the answer.

Halfway up to the palace, he made a sudden turn into a wide street surrounded by some of the wealthiest banks and accounting houses in the city, or at least the ones that wanted to look like they were. After all, they weren’t up on Friends’ Square, so how wealthy could they really be? Facades made from glass, polished stone, and rare metals reflecting the overly bright glow disks of the area cast the place in a confusing dazzle of reflections and shadows that pointed the wrong way. Even the street was paved in polished marble. People complained about how slippery it was when it got wet, but they were just paid off if they got injured in a fall and the pavement was kept uselessly beautiful. Appearance was more important than practicality. Though if someone really important was walking down the street, there would be servants and retainers running around laying down lengths of carpet before them so they didn’t slip and fall. Sisters bless their paths and defend the servants who guessed wrong in predicting a change of direction.

Officer Puppy could hear the rats skittering and chittering after him, entirely failing to be sneaky in a place of lights, echoes, and no places to hide. He knew they were being over confident if they were willing to follow him down this street.

When he was sure he had a good number of rats following him again, he slowed down to give them time to bunch up and then made a sudden turn down a narrow alley. Inquisitive rats scurried after to find him not there. They rushed down to the blank wall it ended in, chittering nervously and looking for where he had disappeared to. But the walls were smooth, the alley sitting between two really elegant banks, each faced with the finest marble, or something polished and magicked to look that way, so even a rat couldn’t find a crack or toehold.

There was a low growl behind them and they wheeled about as one confused mess to find a large, angry looking dog behind them blocking the only way out. Then, just to confuse them more, Officer Puppy plopped his butt down on the smooth ground, gave them his best dopey dog look, and asked in a cheerful tone, “Hey little guys, what’s the secret plan for tonight that you can’t shut up about?”

The average person probably just heard, “Woof woof growl woof,” but the rats understood the question just fine.

He was met by a chorus of angry chitters. The problem with talking to lots of rats at once is you have to listen very carefully to figure out what they are saying. It is like listening to a crowd of people saying different things about maybe, possibly the same thing all at once, really fast, and all terribly out of sync.

They weren’t saying much of anything useful anyway. They were mostly just taunting him, insulting him, or panicking. “I don’t think I caught that,” he said. “Can we try again with one fewer voices?” He lunged forward, grabbed one in his jaws so it made a satisfying crunch and then dropped its still twitching corpse on the ground.

The chittering turned to panic as they tried to scurry up the smooth walls away from him. He let them chitter, and waited. After a while their voices became a chirping, hissed chorus. Most of it was, “It’sss a sssecret. Can’t tell you.” He casually chomped another rat in half while letting none get past him, batting any that tried back into the pile.

“A secret? Ooooh, I like secrets. Who says it’s a secret?”

“Can’t tell you. Not allowed to tell you. Won’t tell you. Not telling. Goesss too high up! All the way to the top. Ordersss from on high. Yesss, the top! The King takesss this on himssself. That important. Really important. Very ssspecial. That sssecret. Big sssecret. Can’t tell you.”

Then they went back to taunting, insulting and laughing at him. He tried chomping on a few more, and they started squealing about all kinds of things. It was about robbing a bank. It was about stealing some silk. It was about breaking some glow disks in some alleys. It was about tormenting some cats. It was about biting the toes of a merchant who had been mean to them. It was about chewing a barge loose from its moorings. It was about embarrassing a wealthy madam in front of a particularly fastidious customer. It was about chewing holes in all the sacks of a recent grain shipment stored on the docks. It was about pooping on the rising bread dough that would be used to make the duke’s breakfast at the palace.

Officer Puppy was beginning to think they didn’t know what was being planned tonight beyond having been told to keep an eye on him. It was time to move on.

“Well thanks little guys, at least I know where to start.”

Officer Puppy trotted out of the alley, with no rats left behind to follow him out. It was a secret place of his and he liked to keep it that way. He played the trick twice more with two more secret places he could easily herd rats into, both with the same result. The only consistent thing he heard from them was they weren’t allowed to tell him it went all the way to the top.

Even with that many rats out of the way, he was not happy. All the way to the top was very bad news indeed. He had never heard of the Rat King ever taking an active hand in something that could be blamed on someone else. A rat with no one else to blame was either desperate or disturbingly sure of themselves. Something was very wrong with the entire situation.

He decided it was time to disappear, and he did, leaving many rats on nearby rooftops to scurry about in confusion.

Everything beyond the palace, the western-most building in the city, was Imperial land and the private estate of the local duke and of the imperial household, at least officially. But that just means it wasn’t all farmland. It was also full of parks and temples and forest preserves that provided masts for ships. There were even the ruins of an entire abandoned city on the south coast. It was a large place. It took people nearly two weeks to walk the pilgrimage route that wound around it to the temples, shrines and ancient ruins. There was a much smaller wall protecting the city from the parks and shrines on the peninsula. It might have been big enough to protect the city from a herd of sacred goats who’d been riled up about something, if they weren’t too determined.

There were places on the peninsula people were not allowed to go, mostly to keep out poachers. The guards would shoot first, ask questions later, if they caught you in the forest preserves or some noble’s private estate. Though they would politely apologize to your family if they didn’t find any axes, saws or animal traps on you afterward. If you were someone important they would even give your family some money, or a small pension.

One of those places people weren’t supposed to go was the ruins of the old palace, directly behind the new palace. The old palace was destroyed in the last Pirate War. Since it was a ruin, and we weren’t allowed to go there, as kids we went there a lot on those days when we had nothing to do and our parents told us to make ourselves invisible. It was well guarded, but there were many places too small or inconvenient for adults where kids could sneak in. And really, it was a ruin. The guards protecting it didn’t really see kids in the ruins as much of a threat to city or empire, unless they got bored and needed target practice or something.

The only real reason for keeping people out of the ruins was that it was a ruins, and dangerous. Things could fall on you, big things, like stones the size of an ox, and there were hidden holes and pits conveniently placed to eat you up if the stones missed. It was also supposed to be haunted.

For most kids it was scary enough during the day. I mean, a giant stone might get pushed right on top of you by some ghost who would hide your body in a pit to cover the evidence. What’s not to be scared of?

Some older kids, who tried prove they were adults by sneaking in at night, would come back going on about huge monsters that would appear out of nowhere screeching at them and chase them around, only to disappear just as suddenly. Some would say it sounded like the monsters were laughing at them and taunting them. Some just came back looking scared for weeks and wouldn’t talk about it. Some just never came back.

When that happened, the city guard would make a big thing about investigating the missing kids, then say it was wild animals or bandits and close the case. They weren’t really interested in stories about ghosts. Reports of monsters were written off as kids experimenting with things they probably shouldn’t be—things bought from shady vendors in unpleasant locations, potions stolen from an apothecary, or spells they didn’t really understand but looked neat. Besides, if there were ghosts—and as it was the ruins of the former palace, destroyed during the last war with plenty of people inside when it blew up, burned down and fell over, there were bound to be ghosts—best to leave them alone.

On this night, Officer Puppy made a stop there. He knew who at least some the ghosts were and wanted to meet with one of them in particular before having an audience with the Rat King. He didn’t doubt there were real ghosts in the ruins, but not having met one he didn’t much care whether there were or not.

The ruins were usually a haunt for rats at night. Not the normal rats that scurry about on the city streets, but bigger, smarter rats. Ones the size of small children that could take down a person who had accidentally come upon them in the ruins before they had time to scream.

They didn’t usually kill. There wasn’t much fun in that. On the whole, they weren’t really big on the brutal efficiency involved. What they really enjoyed was frightening people to death instead, diving in and out of hidden places screaming insults at them until they ran terrified from the ruins, usually to discover their purse or other valuables missing when they got their wits back. The rats of the ruins only ever killed if someone had come upon something very secret that needed to be kept secret, or if they were preparing for a banquet and thought some human might be a tender and tasty morsel to add to the course list.

They knew full well that too many deaths meant people would investigate. There were probably more deaths from bandits and wild animals in the ruins than from the rats.

The rats never came out in the day, preferring abandoned sewers, underground waterways, and forgotten catacombs. They were white-furred, with pink eyes not used to dealing with the light of day. They thought themselves far too well groomed and bred to want to have anything to do with normal rats when they could avoid it. If they had any around, it was as pets or minions.

They also avoided the city, except on business. If the city guard or, even worse, the Imperial Guard knew they were there, every one of them would have been hunted down and exterminated, no matter how many friends they had in high places. Most people lived happily believing the last of the Tubengu rats had died off many wars ago, having been on the wrong side of so many of them. The Tubengu rats were not in a hurry to prove them otherwise.

They could walk upright, though they had to waddle a little on their short back legs, and some could even manage talking fluently in human tongues. They liked to dress themselves in stolen fabrics and jewelry, parodying the noble houses of the humans they loved to taunt so much. They were not only smart and devious, but also very smug about it.

Officer Puppy did not like dealing with them. But he also knew that over the last few weeks the rats had been complaining about something dangerous in the ruins that threatened even them, not that they couldn’t be threatened by an unexpected bush. Their giant-sized egos refused to accept that a lone creature could be so dangerous, and they told stories that grew into reports of armies of horrible monsters. Officer Puppy knew there was one only monster and he knew she might have some information.

The ruins were large, and mostly overgrown. He had an easy time avoiding the few rats who were about. They were all scurrying about loudly in tight little groups. Many were armed with small weapons stolen from somewhere or another. Clearly they were afraid of something. He sent a pebble scurrying past one small group just to watch them panic and scurry about.

It was a little harder to find someone who did not want to be found. He knew if he hung around long enough, she would find him. He didn’t feel like time was on his side, but he tried to make a show of wandering randomly until he heard a soft voice dangerously close to his left flank.

“You know, dogs are supposed to have a much better sense of direction than that,” the voice purred.

“May the light of winter guide your way, Circe.”

“Oooh, so formal. So you guessed right,” she said in mock disappointment. “If you puttered around in the ruins long enough, you knew curiosity would get the better of me. So what brings you to my humble, if temporary, abode?”

Officer Puppy turned to face a large black shadow behind him, a panther almost large enough to stare him in the eye. She was carefully checking her claws for dirt, acting as if she had been sitting there bored for hours. Bits of her kept disappearing into the night. She was nothing but shifting fragments of her shiny black coat reflecting the moonlight as it filtered through the trees. The only thing he could see most of the time were her two perfectly white front paws. He was annoyed that she was so good at escaping his nose until close enough to swat him.

“I was thinking maybe you had digested some information on what the rats are up to tonight.”

She looked at him wide-eyed, as if genuinely offended, but didn’t smell of a threat. “Digested? Are you implying that I would stoop to dirtying my claws on these disgusting little morsels that like so much to play at being human when there are some nice tasty real humans so near by?”

When he said nothing, her eyes went back to their normal mischievous glimmer. “I smell a puppy who’s in a hurry.” She stretched to her full length, letting her coat play in the dappled moonlight. The she slid over to slowly brush herself along him with a deep purr until she had pretty much shoved her muzzle in his ear. “What’s the information worth to you?”

“Well, I could entirely fail to tell anyone about your current whereabouts.”

He felt her tense up by his side. “You’re no fun.”

Circe spun away and then turned to stare at him for a bit. With a small sigh, she plopped her herself unceremoniously into a comfortable position on the ground. She gathered her thoughts before she spoke again.

“The rats are normally true masters of not keeping a secret, but something tonight has them as silent as temple mice. Those that are talking all tell conflicting stories. And there is not a squeak to be heard in any of the normal channels. I’m beginning to think it’s a plot to drive us all nuts trying to figure out what the plot is. If it helps, it’s all so clever that it even has me interested in what they are up to. I’ve been having fun torturing them before dinner for days, but not having much luck beyond the pleasure involved. Happy now?”

“Not really.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to help you take your mind off things? I promise not to try to rip your face off.” Circe tilted her head with a gesture that deliberately made fun of the word coy. “No, I suppose not. You have to run off and be the hero, don’t you? Aren’t you even going to ask why I am here?”

“Okay, why are you here, Circe?”

“Can’t tell you. Need to know only, and you don’t need to know. Just a little research into the machinations of others. Oh, the sheer number of fascinating things I’m not allowed to tell you.”

Circe settled into preening and grooming herself for a bit. Officer Puppy waited. Circe was in a mood, and he knew better than to interrupt her. After a while she made a very frustrated feline whine and stared him straight in the eye.

“Look, all I really know is that self-appointed Rat King really is orchestrating this one all himself. Or at least he puffs himself up to act like he is. If he is doing that, everyone else is on a need to know basis. Even the few members of his comic-little court I have been able to … talk to, have said they are being sent on tiny errands with no pattern, insisting over and over again it’s a secret and they don’t know anything. That much denial leaves me with a sour stomach.

“The only consistent word I’m getting out of anyone is he’s plotting a revenge, and that this is the final phase of a plan that has been in the works for a while, unfolding it piece by piece for some time now. I’m willing to assume that he’s working almost entirely with his connections on the human side of the city for this one. But something doesn’t smell right. And if my nose is right, I am not happy with the things it is tying back to. This is all too complicated for him. I really do think someone else is using him as a tool and just letting that fat rodent think it was his idea. I could go hunting in town for more information, but I really don’t want anyone on that side of the wall to know I am here.

“It’s rather embarrassing to be facing down a blank wall like this, especially against…them. You do understand.”

Officer Puppy stood there. He stared down at the ground a bit, lost in dog thoughts. Then his head snapped up with a dopey dog expression that only Circe could possibly see in this light. “Sure thing, lady,” he said brightly.

Circe laughed. No matter what else happened this night, at least Circe had laughed.

Those were his exact words. Officer Puppy never told me why he thought it was so important for her to laugh. Maybe there is some dog saying about making cats laugh? I even tried taunting him about having a cat for a girlfriend to get him to confess, but he just mumbled something about, “At least it’s a way to avoid puppies,” and then turned away from me, curled up, and went to sleep.

The tunnels leading into it had proper wooden doors with working locks, so smoothly fitted that even a squit of a baby rat couldn’t squeak through the cracks. No one remembers where they came from. The rats always claimed the doors were there when they arrived. All but one of the doors led to collapsed tunnels that the Rat King used as his store rooms.

The bottom of the interior was a big, open throne room, complete with throne. The throne was from a children’s tea table, but the Rat King didn’t care. He had workrats glue bits of gold and other scraps of precious metal to it, as well as beautiful bits of glass and even some real jewels. Around the throne were threadbare cushions on the ground for the worthiest of his retainers to sit. From there he conducted his court with his retainers spread beside him like the wings of a dead gull. Behind the throne was a mostly working glow disk. He would sit in front of it and force his subjects to squint into the flickering light that surrounded him like a broken halo while he listened and commanded.

Above the throne room was a maze of ladders and platforms that made up the Rat King’s quarters. There were places to eat and places to hold smaller meetings with his most trusted retainers and places to contemplate the sorts of things rats contemplate. At the top was a nest made of the most expensive fabrics rats could steal, mostly shredded into a fine down. There was always at least one attractive young rat, barely out of her childhood, waiting up there to attend on his every whim should he decide it was time to retire to his bed for a while.

All over every level there were the finest stolen artifacts in all the world, or at least in Farport. The walls were decorated with bits of paintings, sometimes arranged into new and interesting arrangements, sometimes just stuck there: moldy curtains, sheets of wallpaper once thrown out because the patterns were too ugly for anyone to ever buy, outdated maps, magazine covers from those sorts of magazines, and ships logs that had seen plenty of water damage. There were small, broken statues seated carefully on chipped pedestals, gold plates, some for show, some for eating, delicate jewelry, some of it real, elegant hand mirrors and other vanity items, and anything a rat would find attractive. It was a palace fit for a rat.

When Office Puppy arrived, the space was abandoned, except for the Rat King’s plaything up in the King’s bed. She squealed at his arrival and hid in the bedding. It ruined his dramatic entrance, but what’s a dog to do? Not feeling like climbing all the way up to talk to a lone terrified consort cowering in the bedding, he politely asked, in a loud voice, “Excuse me, have you seen the your master around? I need to talk to him.” There was no reply. He thought maybe he heard her sobbing in fear, but didn’t feel like investigating. Instead he sat down to wait, deliberately making himself as comfortable as he could with his butt perched on the Rat King’s tiny throne.

He didn’t have to wait long. The King had only gone off to the royal toilet, being a well-bred rat who did not like to soil his own nest. No matter what else you could say about him, he was a well-groomed rat and kept his throne room clean, at least by rat standards. He breezed in the door with two guards in tow and froze at the doorway at the sight of Officer Puppy outlined by the glow of the disk behind him. A wave of annoyance washed across his face. After a moment of hesitation, he waved his guards away, much to their squeaking protests, and then closed and locked the door behind them.

“It took you long enough, you lumbering beast. Now, unless your pea-sized puppy brain incapable of common courtesies, and if you would be so kind as to remove yourself from my throne, perhaps we could discuss this over some wine. I can assure you the cushions are much more comfortable than that torture device, but appearance must be kept and all.”

The Rat King turned his back and walked over to a small cupboard between two of the doors. “I have a small bottle stolen from the wine cellar of the palace’s main kitchen—a few, actually. I do confess, I probably take too much from there. There is a such a convenient drain there leading right into these tunnels. And really, they let so much perfectly good wine go to waste down there. Human’s really have no appreciation of good wine.”

Officer Puppy was caught off guard. The one thing he had not expected was courtesy. He had been all ready to tear apart the two guards and any others that might be around, and then sit on the king until he squealed. But here was the Rat King ruining it by being polite, or at least polite as you could expect a rat who didn’t owe you something to be. Officer Puppy was a dog of action, not diplomacy. He really had no choice but to politely remove himself from the throne and move to a cushion while the Rat King fussed over his collection of wine bottles. He was a king after all.

Officer puppy thought the wine all looked pretty suspect. The bottles all smelled of mold, dust, and vinegar.

The Rat King selected an especially dusty bottle that was half empty, pulled the cork out with his teeth, inhaled deeply over the bottle, and sighed contentedly. Then he found two dented goblets with their gold paint chipping off and poured them each some wine. Officer puppy couldn’t stand the smell even from a distance and declined. Dogs are not really wine drinkers, but he knew enough to know the difference between wine and rancid vinegar.

The Rat King looked at him chidingly, “You’re missing out on a most excellent vintage.” He drank the goblet he was going to offer Officer Puppy down in one gulp, tossed it aside to clatter on the floor, and then waddled back to his throne, bottle in one hand, his goblet in the other.

Even for the Tubengu rats, the Rat King was large, standing half again as tall as most. And he was busy working on being as wide around as he was tall. His waddle was almost a side to side roll, like a giant white pumpkin making its way across the room. He wore a gold bowl roughly hammered into a crown on his head and a crimson and black silk sash over his shoulder.

He seated himself with as much ceremony as he could on his throne and looked thoughtfully at Officer Puppy for a while. Officer Puppy waited.

“We all settled in and comfy sullying my chambers?” The Rat King continued on without waiting for an answer, “Then on to business. To what, if I might so delicately inquire, do I owe the exquisite displeasure of your meddlesome presence?”

Officer Puppy worked through that sentence before replying. “I am pretty sure you know why.”

The Rat King laughed. “You couldn’t possibly mean the wild rat chase you have been ever so fruitlessly pursuing this evening, could you? As much as I am not partial to the common vermin, I really do wish you wouldn’t go about killing my subjects like that. On the other hand, it is a very effective method of keeping their numbers down to where I can rule over them without too much of a heavy hand. So then, apology accepted. So glad we could clear that up. Just don’t let it happen again unless I should perchance to personally ask you to do a little culling in the name of the throne and all. What else can I do for you?”

Officer Puppy just looked at him and growled.

The Rat King made a great show of acting surprised. “Why, I do believe you are accusing me of something. What could possibly make you think I had a role in making your tiny little brain any more addled than it is? Is it something I said?”

“You did a very good job of sending a message you wanted me to stop by, so I did.”

“So you did indeed.”

“There was supposed to be something big going down, but no one was telling the same story except that you were pulling the strings on this one.”

“Oh dear, did they tell you that? Ah, no, I see, your thick skull was able to fit a conclusion in what little space it has left after all that thinking. Well, yes, I did have you sent for. Of course I didn’t tell the common rabble that. There would hardly be any fun to be had in just having a rat stop by and ask you to see me, now would there? So, I had all of my most trusted rats go out and given the commoners conflicting capers, knowing full well that even if they compared notes they would each be sure that their version was the correct one and it was the others that had misheard. However, the one direction I made perfectly clear was to not let you interfere this time by order of me.”

Officer Puppy gave the Rat King a long look. “There is nothing big going down tonight then, you just wanted to see me?”

Oh, now, now, you successfully draw one conclusion and assume you can just do it all the time. I am coming to think all you really had was a hunch—not the same thing at all. Of course there is, as you say, ‘something big going down’ tonight, you imbecilic pooch. In fact, there are not one, but two big things going down tonight. You see, that is why I wanted your disagreeable and most annoying self here in my presence, to get you out of the way.

Officer Puppy leapt up growling, teeth bared.

“If you tear my throat out, how ever will I tell you what my great plans for the night are? Now, sit!”

Ordering a dog to sit when you are already making them angry is an insult of the highest order, but Officer Puppy managed to check himself. “You want to tell me what your plans are?”

“Oh but of course, I am quite certain that evil masterminds have to brag about their secret plans so the hero can rush out at the last second and foil them.” The Rat King gave him a smug look and waited.

After enough time had passed to make the gesture one of contempt instead of obedience, Officer Puppy sat.

“Really, you demented canine, I think you should be quite proud of me. At least someone should. Tonight I am doing your work for you, a bit of an embarrassment really. I had a certain party who will go unnamed approach me about helping them to drive a notorious criminal out of the city who has been hiding within the comparative safety of its walls for far too long. A horrid and despicable fellow I am told. From what I could gather, the goal was to bring him out into the open outside of the city where he could be dealt with by those who were hunting him. They are not part of the empire, and are not particularly enamored of causing an incident within one of its cities. I almost regret not having discovered this sooner so I could put him on payroll, but from the information I received I have an uncomfortable feeling he would have refused in ways most fatal and dire.

“I do most readily confess, attacking criminals of any stripe is not my usual line of business, unless they are intruding on my own personal projects, but our mysterious party offered to reward me most handsomely for my assistance, most handsomely indeed. The scheme has been in the planning, and in operation, for weeks. It took a long time to get all the pieces into place. I have had to call in many, many favors, some of which were very dear to me, but tonight is the night when the final blow will be struck.”

To emphasize his words, the Rat King swung his goblet like a blade, spraying what little wine was left in it all over. He looked disappointedly at the goblet, then refilled it. “Do remind me to get someone to clean that up when we are done, will you? There’s a good pooch.”

Once he was settled into his once again full goblet, the Rat King continued. “In any event, if you were around to foil the culmination of all my hard work—and it was hard, there was barely a fraction of it that I could delegate to others—it would not go well for me. To say our mysterious party politely asked for my help might be just a teensy bit of a lie really. I do believe the word blackmail would be more appropriate, even if it was very polite and courteous blackmail.

“It seems some humans, by which I mean some humans other than those working for me or to whom I provide my services, have become wise to my little kingdom, and a whisper in the wrong ear could bring the Imperial Guard down on our heads. The hazards of trying to remain hidden in plain sight I suppose. And yet, even without the threat, the rewards, oh, the rewards, I could never have refused them.” The Rat King’s eyes glowed with greed. “As even whatever it is that you have that passes for a brain can possibly grasp, failure would not be an option in this particular circumstance.”

The Rat King straightened himself to sit like he was holding court, looking smug and self-satisfied. “All things considered, I really think you should thank me for driving a small piece of what you like so much to think of as evil from this town.”

Officer Puppy thought about this. He didn’t really believe a word of it, but it was hard to argue with it if the Rat King was telling the truth. “This is really about getting rid of a criminal in the city that has annoyed someone else?”

“Isn’t that what I just said?” The Rat King looked annoyed. “Clearly you need something simpler for your insipid dog brain to digest. Cross my benevolent heart? Pinky swear? Ah, right … no pinkies. Well then, I do suppose you will just have to my word for it.”

Officer Puppy felt rather let down, and conflicted. He wasn’t going to prevent a known criminal from being brought to justice. That would be poor form. And that meant he had just wasted half the night chasing after nothing. After thinking through the problem for a while, he found the missing thread and asked, “You said there were two things going down tonight. What is the other one?”

“Ah, I was wondering when your flea-bitten head was going to remember to circle around to that bit. The second plan is even more clever than the first. It is to get you out of the way. And by that I do mean permanently.”

And with that, the doors to the store rooms burst open and guards came rushing in from every direction before Officer Puppy even had time to react.

Officer Puppy, against his better instincts, played it cool and casually eyed the rats surrounding him, each clad in armor with delicate, very sharp looking blades in their tiny paws. He didn’t even move off the cushion he was on. “So I am guessing this is a trap?”

“Of course it is, you bestial nitwit! And one I have spent a great deal of time most meticulously planning. I have grown tired of you meddling in my affairs. And they were all such minuscule criminal affairs too. After all, it wouldn’t pay for humans to realize I was here. Just enough to keep myself and my retainers living comfortably well-off lives and to keep the common rabble thinking we were united in common cause. But tonight it ends. Perhaps you can, through mindless brute force alone, take on a proper or rat or two all by your ungainly and pathetic self, but two dozen fully-armed, hand-picked warriors?” The Rat King’s voice rose in a squeal of triumph.

Officer Puppy looked around him. “I only count one dozen, sorry, one dozen plus one sort of stupid looking rats.”

The Rat King was not flustered. “My body guards have a key to the door and I sent them off to gather the rest. They stand right outside the door, waiting for my command.” With a grand flourish, the Rat King shouted, “You can come in now!”

The lock clicked, and the door swung open to reveal Circe sitting on the other side, alone and covered in blood and gore. The Rat King’s face fell. Circe, as if commenting on nothing more important than the weather, said, “Oh there you are. I entirely forgot to mention while we were chatting earlier that their secret plan was to try to kill you. During my dinner last night, one of them going on at length about how he had been hand picked to help in this,” she coughed politely, “honorable undertaking.”

The Rat King’s entire body shook with rage, skin bright red under the white fur. “Kill them!” he squealed. Officer Puppy and Circe were happy to oblige.

As they stood, taking in the carnage around them, catching their breathe, listening for more threats, Circe asked, “Should we have spared the King?”

“Why?”

“Dunno, no reason I suppose.”

Officer Puppy looked up into the darkness above him. “Hey, according to Tubengu laws and traditions, as his consort at the time of his death, you are now officially queen of this little kingdom. Good luck with that. There are probably plenty of contenders who might disagree with me on this one.”

Circe gave him a funny look. “And where did you learn that one from?”

“Why do you think so many nobles and rulers died at the hands of their consorts? Let’s get out of here.”

“I smell a puppy who’s in a hurry.” She laughed. “Okay, seriously, all I smell is rat, all I smell of is rat. There is a wonderful little watering hole nearby where we could wash up.”

Later, when Officer Puppy got home, he no longer smelled of rat, at least not much anyway, and his fur was mostly dry, if in need of another brush out.

As he rounded the corner into the alley, the sight of the guards scared him. The city guard, late at night, was never a good thing. Outside your own house, even worse. Fearing something terrible had happened, he crept past them and through the front door unchallenged. After all, he lived here.

The smell of blood inside almost set him off, but Mrs. Apothecary was there, and she certainly didn’t seem the least bit upset even though she was covered in blood herself. Officer Puppy relaxed, a little. She turned and reprimanded him in that sweet chiding voice she would use.

After acting appropriately humbled, he stopped to growl at the corpse in my room for good measure. Growling at corpses is a good reminder for them to stay that way. He knew full well that with so many people about his investigating it was out of the question, so, his canine duties done, he came in, curled up next to me in bed, and valiantly kept watch all night. After all, failing to protect me twice in one night would be totally inexcusable.

Or so he claims. When I woke up in the middle of the night he was valiantly holding would be intruders at bay with soft puppy snoring. Still wrapped in Mrs. Apothecary’s magicks, I curled up against his big, furry back and went back to sleep.