Huck
also known as The Rat, Huck
A talking white rat from a distant island where his entire family can talk — a familiar of a kind, in the loose sense Ulaam uses the word, though descended from familiars rather than serving as one and never having met the Sorceress himself. He nibbles when he is anxious, refuses to lead anyone to her realm, and survives by being the only person on the Crow's Song who tells Tress the truth about her situation. STD:Tress:Ch 28
The talking black rat from the Oot's Dream's hold. *Huck* is the name he gives Tress when she breaks his cage open during the attack — not, he admits, his real name, but one a human can pronounce. He climbs onto her shoulder and steps with her out onto the stranded spore sea. STD:Tress:Ch 10 superseded at STD:Tress:Ch 28
A talking black rat caged in the hold of the Oot's Dream across from Tress. Caught chewing on the smugglers' rations, he saved himself from being thrown overboard by talking — and is now kept as a curiosity. He will not say how he came to speak, nor why he was bound for Diggen's Point before he was found out. STD:Tress:Ch 8 superseded at STD:Tress:Ch 10
A seventeen-year-old boy on Diggen's Point who pretends to be the groundskeeper at the duke's mansion but is, in fact, the duke's son. He is bright, talkative, a poor fencer, an unconvincing liar, and devoted to Tress — who has known he is the duke's son since the first time he forgot to leave his signet ring on. STD:Tress:Ch 2 superseded at STD:Tress:Ch 8
Known facts
- duke-son-hidingPretends, badly, to be the groundskeeper at the ducal mansion when he meets Tress. He is in fact the duke's son and heir — soft-handed, well-fed, and forgetful of the signet ring he wears at all other times.STD:Tress:Ch 2
- promised-cups-from-each-portPromises Tress from the dock at Diggen's Point that he will bore off every princess his father presents him to, and send her a cup from each kingdom as proof he has done it.STD:Tress:Ch 4
- sent-to-sorceressAfter driving off every princess he was presented to, Charlie is sent by his father and the king to the Midnight Sea in what the courts can call a diplomatic overture to the Sorceress — and what Tress correctly works out is an errand designed to kill him. The king declares him officially dead after the ship vanishes.STD:Tress:Ch 5
- trusts-tress-because-she-didnt-try-to-kill-himThe narrator pauses to note why Huck has so readily attached himself to Tress: in his short life every other human he had ever met had tried to kill him, capture him, or sell him. Tress was the first who did not. He would rather she not die, and so — spying it is.STD:Tress:Ch 18
- from-a-place-of-talking-ratsMentions, while Tress is half-listening to him from her bunk, that he comes from a place a lot like the Rock — somewhere his kind have lived for generations and where rats can talk to one another the way he talks to her. He has kin there, but they do not much care for him; he is not, in fact, supposed to be talking to humans at all.STD:Tress:Ch 23
- dragged-out-by-kinWas dragged off his home island by his own people, who decided it was time for him to see the world for his own good. It did not, in his words, go well — and he has been making his way alone since, attaching himself to whichever sympathetic human he finds with a good feeling about them.STD:Tress:Ch 23
- identified-as-a-familiarWorking from the half-coherent clues Hoid forces past his geas — a person who isn't a person, who can talk when they shouldn't — Tress and Ulaam together arrive at the answer: a talking animal. Ulaam names it familiar — a small creature, usually a bird or a cat or, in this case, a rat, Invested by someone like the Sorceress to enhance its cognition and used for spying.STD:Tress:Ch 27
- family-of-talking-rats-on-distant-islandPressed on what he is, Huck gives Tress more than he ever has before: he is a familiar of a sort, but not the kind she means. His whole family can talk. He grew up on a lonely island a long way from the Sorceress's realm, never sat at her shoulder, cannot lead anyone to her — about that part, he insists, he is not lying. He is a descendant of familiars, at best.STD:Tress:Ch 28
- saved-tress-from-dehydrationWhen the bond snaps and Tress collapses on the bed with her hands withered and her mouth full of sand, Huck — silver knife awkward in his paws — drags the second waterskin to her mouth in his teeth so she can drink. She thanks him afterwards; he replies that they are now even, after she let him out of the cage on her first day aboard.STD:Tress:Ch 30
- cannot-return-homeAsked by Tress in her cabin why he does not simply leave the Song at the next port and return to his island, Huck says quietly that he cannot — his home is no longer there. He does not elaborate, and Tress reads the silence as bad enough that she does not press. It is the first time he speaks of his island as something lost.STD:Tress:Ch 35
- taken-as-ransom-for-the-kingHuck tells Tress outright what he believes about why Charlie is on the Sorceress's island: he was kidnapped deliberately, on the hope that he could be ransomed back to the king. The fact that Hoid also somehow saw her is, he suggests, more likely some related case than a precedent that ordinary visitors can reach her.STD:Tress:Ch 45
- found-rat-informant-on-sorceress-islandAt the Song's last port Huck went looking for the local talking-rat population and found one who had ridden a ship that had visited the Sorceress's island. The informant did not know the route, but did know what the ship had faced when it arrived — and Huck had kept that conversation to himself, hoping not to encourage Tress further. He gives in only when she presses him about what the Midnight Sea actually contains.STD:Tress:Ch 45
- appoints-himself-tress-valetOnce installed in Tress's former cabin as his own quarters, Huck appoints himself Tress's valet — counting her pairs of shoes (a short list), beginning a list of the kinds of shoes she will need to buy, announcing visitors at the door on her behalf, and pulling out her chair.STD:Tress:Ch 53
- volunteers-to-infiltrate-sorceress-tower-through-raven-windowPressed by Fort and Tress's officers, Huck agrees that he is small enough to slip through the Sorceress's tower's raven-window — the opening through which she releases her messenger ravens — and claims to know a rat-secret method for opening the tower door from the inside.STD:Tress:Ch 53
- instructs-hoid-to-sabotage-food-storesUnwilling to let Tress face the Sorceress, Huck tells Hoid — in his current diminished, easily-instructed state — that throwing the Crow's Song's food stores overboard is a vital and secret mission. The narrator dumps food (and three jugs of water, on the grounds that the food was lonely on the bottom of the sea) for days through the rear porthole of the middle deck, leaving the ship with barely enough remaining to reach the Verdant Sea if they turn back at once. The sabotage is exposed by chalk marks on the jugs that Hoid could not have made on his own, identified by Ulaam.STD:Tress:Ch 55
- has-free-passage-from-sorceressOut on the Midnight Sea in the launch, with a midnight creature rearing to feed, Huck speaks up and orders it to take them to its mistress, claiming free passage. The creature's commands converge on his voice — it had been instructed not to eat him, and to bring him to its master when commanded. Huck is returning, as instructed, to the place where the Sorceress made him.STD:Tress:Ch 57
- admits-he-belongs-to-the-sorceressAboard the launch as the midnight creatures propel them toward the island, Huck admits to Tress that the talk of growing up in a community of rats was a lie; he has been here before, and he belongs to the Sorceress — a familiar of hers, or something like it. He has always belonged to her.STD:Tress:Ch 58
- cursed-into-rat-form-by-sorceressCharlie was captured by the Sorceress and cursed into the body of a small black rat — the curse barring him from saying anything that would identify him as Charlie (when he tried *Chuck*, only *Huck* came out). She told him the only way to break the curse was to deliver the person he loved back to her in trade, for her to curse in his place. He has been Tress's rat companion the entire voyage.STD:Tress:Ch 60
- refuses-to-trade-tressConfronted in the tower with the Sorceress's explanation that she has not actually cursed Tress yet — and so his own curse stands — Charlie tells her she has misread him. He realised on the way in that he did not bring Tress in trade. He brought her to defeat the Sorceress. He will remain a rat.STD:Tress:Ch 60
- gardener-not-ratTells Tress, before leaving to evade the Sorceress's cat and open the tower door, that Huck the rat may be too frightened for the quest but Charlie the gardener is not — a recovery of self he had lost over months of being treated as a rat.STD:Tress:Ch 61
- opened-tower-doorRode a pewter tankard down the tower stairs to escape the cat and asked the door to open for him; that opening let the Crow's Song's officers reach Tress in time, and so was the act that allowed the curse to be broken.STD:Tress:Ch 63
- restored-to-human-formRestored to human form by the narrator's tweak to the Sorceress's curse — the trade-condition reworded from being *cursed* by her to being *versed* by her, satisfied by a poem he wrote for Tress. Reappears on the deck of the Two Cups five months after the tower, holding the poem and wearing only the tiny pirate hat.STD:Tress:Epilogue
Events
- STD:Tress:Ch 2 Stops fencing practice on the back patio of the mansion to share a pigeon pie with Tress, identifies the writing on her new cup as old Iriali, and quietly tells her he is a coward who would still come for her in armor if it ever mattered.
- STD:Tress:Ch 3 Sits with Tress on the patio wall of the mansion, puts his hand over hers, and smiles a new smile — moments before his father sees them through the window above.
- STD:Tress:Ch 4 Says goodbye to Tress on the docks, calling her *fare maiden*, promising he will bore off every princess his father presents him to and send her a cup from each port as proof — and that he is leaving as her gloves, just as she is his.
- STD:Tress:Ch 60 Found behind the desk in rat-form, shivering and crying, eyes red — a stark contrast to the doppelganger she has just been offered. Confirms to Tress he is Charlie cursed, that he had tried *Chuck* but the curse only let *Huck* through, and apologises for being unable to keep her safe from the Sorceress's prophecy.
- STD:Tress:Ch 60 Cradled in Tress's palm, tells the Sorceress she has misread him: he realised on the way in that he was not bringing Tress in trade. He brought her to defeat her, and will remain a rat to do it.
- STD:Tress:Ch 61 In rat-form on the desk beside Tress, helping work out how to operate the Sorceress's viewing board; pieces together with her that Hoid's cure requires the same return to the tower as his own.
- STD:Tress:Ch 61 Climbs Tress's clothing to nuzzle her cheek, declares that *Charlie the gardener* is made of stronger stuff than *Huck the rat*, and leaps down to begin the run past the cat to the outer door.
- STD:Tress:Ch 63 Climbs Tress's leg puffing from the cat-chase, tries to comfort her about crying, then spots a pewter tankard on the floor and asks her to distract the Sorceress while he tries something with it.
- STD:Tress:Ch 63 On the narrator's shoulder, returned with the Crow's Song's officers after opening the tower's outer door.
- STD:Tress:Ch 63 Growls — unimpressively but earnestly — from the narrator's shoulder when the Sorceress is at gunpoint; still a rat on the deck afterwards.
- STD:Tress:Epilogue Emerges on deck fully human again, holding the poem he wrote for Tress that satisfied the *versed* condition of the reworded curse — wearing only the tiny pirate hat, then excusing himself for clothes.
- STD:Tress:Epilogue Newly clothed; declines to greet his father; notes the letter from his mother is in the stack and trusts the duke will find it if he reads that far.
- STD:Tress:Epilogue Sails out with Tress on the Two Cups — the narrator notes the *rat* aboard is not actually a rat in more ways than one.
- STD:Tress:Ch 8 Speaks to Tress from the small cage lashed to a stack of crates across the hold of the Oot's Dream, walking her through what the smugglers think she is and what the Sorceress's raids are doing to the merchant trade.
- STD:Tress:Ch 9 Cringes into the far corner of his cage during the bombardment, peers out of his light hole to report a single enemy ship of unknown flag, and offers running commentary on civilized naval warfare.
- STD:Tress:Ch 10 Watches the fight from his cage, shouts a warning when the sprouter drops on Tress, gives her the name *Huck* when she frees him, and climbs to her shoulder for the walk out across the dead spores.
- STD:Tress:Ch 11 Rides on Tress's shoulder across the stranded spores, comments on the gulls, and keeps quiet on the Crow's Song's deck after she warns him a talking rat is a sellable rat.
- STD:Tress:Ch 12 Scampers off to scout the Crow's Song while Tress tries not to be underfoot, comes back with crumbs and the rumour that the crew really are sewing a pirate flag, and helps her piece together that the attack on the Oot's Dream was a declaration of piracy.
- STD:Tress:Ch 13 Tours the Crow's Song on Tress's shoulder, lays out the felony-murder rule for her after they overhear Fort and Ann, reminisces about a deaf dancer he once knew, and very nearly gives himself away by talking inside Fort's quartermaster's room before Tress hushes him.
- STD:Tress:Ch 14 Off-stage on Tress's shoulder for most of the scene; the narrator pulls no attention to him while Tress and Fort talk and trade.
- STD:Tress:Ch 15 Rides Tress's shoulder through the day's scrubbing, admires the contrast between the cleaned and uncleaned planks, and stays quiet as the Doug talks her into pouring a keg of spores for the cannon.
- STD:Tress:Ch 16 Tress sends him away with a whisper before she opens the keg, not wanting a rat anywhere near a barrel of zephyr spores.
- STD:Tress:Ch 17 Returns from a foraging trip in the hold to report that he watched Laggart sneak a couple of cannonballs into his pack from the ship's stores.
- STD:Tress:Ch 18 Sneaks along the gunwale, slips through the captain's window, listens to Crow and Laggart in conference, and then reports the conversation back to Tress in a one-rat dramatic reenactment that she is regrettably press-ganged into.
- STD:Tress:Ch 19 Left to forage while Tress takes her bucket up to the quarterdeck; off-page through the kick and the helm lesson.
- STD:Tress:Ch 20 Bounces up to Tress after Hoid's aside to insist that they are both hungry and must go down to Fort's for food immediately.
- STD:Tress:Ch 20 Rides Tress's shoulder down to the quartermaster's office for the meal.
- STD:Tress:Ch 20 Sits on Tress's shoulder at the top of the gangplank, urging her to walk away with him and then — at her decision to stay — choosing to stay too.
- STD:Tress:Ch 21 Finds Tress napping on her new bunk a short while later — and reports, with grave personal injury, that the ship has acquired an actual cat in answer to a single rat.
- STD:Tress:Ch 23 Trembles in Tress's hands after the cat is thrown out, then perches on the foot-rail of the bunk while she lies back. Quietly opens up about coming from a place much like the Rock where his kind talk to one another, and being dragged away from it by relatives who thought they were doing him a kindness.
- STD:Tress:Ch 24 With Tress when she opens the matchbox of black spores, hisses softly at the sight of them, and urges her to spread them over the silver decking to kill them rather than keep them. She closes the box back into its hiding-place anyway.
- STD:Tress:Ch 26 Mentioned in passing as hiding under the bed in Tress's cabin while she stashes the box of spores and her remaining tool. Not present at the boarding itself.
- STD:Tress:Ch 28 Caught sitting on the bed reading Weev's verdant spore notebook between bites of a stale crust. Confronted, he confirms he is a familiar of sorts — but the descendant kind, from an island of talking rats far from the Sorceress, not her servant. Tells Tress what his family knows about how to talk a curse into giving up its secrets, refuses to lead her to the Sorceress, and grudgingly volunteers to spy on Crow again if she asks.
- STD:Tress:Ch 29 Emerges from under the bed once Salay leaves, ribs Tress for the King's Mask misunderstanding, and explains what one is. Cautions her against attending the meeting at all — he overheard Crow talking earlier about secret meetings and being rid of them — and tries to talk her out of using midnight spores as her solution. Backs into the corner of the bed clutching his crust as she sets the grains out.
- STD:Tress:Ch 30 Backs away across the bed with his crust held up like a shield, watches the spores swell into a glossy black not-rat that pounces at him, and squeaks under the bed when the creation gives chase.
- STD:Tress:Ch 30 Squats by Tress's face holding the silver knife in his paws — a line of darkness had been coming out of her mouth and he had not known what to do — then drags the second waterskin to her mouth in his teeth so she can drink. Tells her, when she thanks him, that they are now even.
- STD:Tress:Ch 35 Scrambles onto the footboard alarmed at finding Tress crying, gallantly proposes biting whoever did this to her on the toes, gently bites her own when she admits she has no one else to blame, and then talks her down by recounting his day ashore — bell tower, drinking fountain, Fort signing with a Deaf community — until she is steady enough to sit up and start planning how to fight back.
- STD:Tress:Ch 40 Insists on joining Tress at her cabin worktable while she cannibalises a flare — but hides beneath an overturned soup bowl, peeking out an inch when he is brave enough — asks rat-sized questions about each component, and when she finally puts the weapon down, comes out and tells her that whatever happens she is good and she is smart and she will find a way. He says nothing about Crow's fate, because he and she both already know what would be obvious.
- STD:Tress:Ch 43 On the worktable in Tress's cabin as she tinkers with her flare variants, distracting her from Pakson's death with rat-anecdotes about what shoes smell like to a rat and about a man he once tracked through a crowd by his boots. Goes down to the hold with her and rides on her shoulder, then under cover in her hair, while she tests each prototype. Scrambles over the trellis of vines to ask if she is all right after her first shot pins her two feet off the floor; fetches the silver knife from her bag so she can cut herself loose.
- STD:Tress:Ch 45 On Tress's desk, balancing on his hind legs to drip water from a small spoon onto her practice vines while she shapes them. Listens to her float and discard plans for sailing the Midnight alone in a small boat. Then admits the thing he had been holding back: at the last port he had found a rat who had ridden a ship to the Sorceress's island and survived, and the rat had told him in detail what waits there. He lays out her three trials — the monsters, the metal men, the tower — and presses her to give up the rescue and look after herself.
- STD:Tress:Ch 47 In Tress's cabin when she slams the door open to fetch the verdant cannonball — startled into scrambling under the bed.
- STD:Tress:Ch 53 Reluctantly allows Tress to introduce him to Salay, Ann, and Fort as a sapient talking rat, then enjoys his new status (and a tiny pirate hat) as a member of the crew. Appoints himself Tress's valet, counting her shoes and announcing visitors. When pressed in the planning meeting, agrees that he is small enough to fit through the tower's raven-window and reveals two awkward facts: that the tower is coated in silver so vines will not climb it, and that he knows a rat-secret way to open the door from inside.
- STD:Tress:Ch 55 Confronted in his quarters making a list of Tress's hats, Huck reads her emotion at once and admits that Hoid's sabotage was his doing — he cannot let her face the Sorceress, *for her own good.* Tress tells him the betrayal hurts more than the distrust, then locks him in one of Crow's messenger-bird cages; he huddles against the bars and refuses to face her.
- STD:Tress:Ch 57 From his cage in the corner of Tress's cabin, asks to be brought along on the launch — even caged, if she insists. The unusual tone of his plea gives her pause.
- STD:Tress:Ch 57 Caged in the bottom of the launch, terrified and quiet until the midnight creature rears to feed — at which point he speaks up and orders it to take them to its mistress, claiming free passage. The creature obeys him.
- STD:Tress:Ch 58 Out of the cage, perched on the front plank seat of the launch. Refuses to explain why the midnight creatures obey him, but admits to Tress that he was lying about a community of rats — he has been here before and belongs to the Sorceress.
- STD:Tress:Ch 58 Hops off the launch, looks back at Tress for the first time since boarding, then visibly steels himself with the thought *not doing what she asked at all*, scurries up to the silver door of the tower, and announces his return with a captive. The door obeys.
- STD:Tress:Ch 59 Cowers on the Sorceress's desk through the audience; raises a small fist toward Tress in encouragement when her resolve falters in front of Charlie; bows his head when the Sorceress makes him say *you were right*, then slips down off the desk and vanishes.
Backreferences
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 2
- factSnagu
- factLead
- factIriali Cup
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 3
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 4
- factHoid
- factThe Duchess
- factGloves Token
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 5
- factTress
- factTress
- factCharlie
- factDirk
- factDirk
- factPrincess of Dormancy
- factFlik
- factBrunswick
- factThe Sorceress
- factThe Sorceress
- factThanasmia
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 6
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 7
- factTress
- factCore Archipelago
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 9
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 10
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 10
- factPewter Cup
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 11
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 12
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 12
- factThe Crow's Song
- factThe Whistlebow
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 13
- factFelony Murder Rule
- factHoid
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 15
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 16
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 16
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 17
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 18
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 18
- factCharlie
- factThe Crow's Song
- factCaptain Crow
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 19
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 20
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 20
- factTress
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 21
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 21
- factTress
- factKnocks
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 22
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 22
- factThe Sorceress
- factThe Sorceress
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 23
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 24
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 26
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 28
- factTress
- factCharlie
- factGeas
- factGeas
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 29
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 29
- factTress
- factTress
- factKing's Masks
- factRegalthon
- factZephyr Sea
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 30
- factTress
- factCharlie
- factCaptain Crow
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 31
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 33
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 34
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 35
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 35
- factTress
- factEmerald Sea
- factCharlie
- factFort
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 39
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 40
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 40
- factTress
- factVerdant Aether
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 41
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 43
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 43
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 44
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 45
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 45
- factCharlie
- factCharlie
- factCharlie
- factThe Sorceress
- factMidnight Monsters
- factMetal Guardians
- factThe Sorceress's tower
- factThe Sorceress's ravens
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 47
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 50
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 51
- factTress
- factXisisrefliel
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 53
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 53
- factTress
- factTress
- factCharlie
- factCharlie
- factThe Sorceress's tower
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 54
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 55
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 55
- factTress
- factCharlie
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 56
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 56
- factTress
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 57
- factCharlie
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 58
- factCharlie
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 59
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 59
- factTress
- factThe false Charlie
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 60
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 60
- factTress
- factCharlie
- factCharlie
- factThe Sorceress
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 61
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 61
- factHoid
- factCharlie
- factCharlie
- factLacy
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 63
- factHoid
- summarySTD:Tress:Epilogue
- factHoid
- factTress
- factThe Duchess
- factTwo Cups