Mark of the Cat and Year of the Rat Read online

  “From the sand draw the light.

  From the rocks learn the strength.

  In the storm wind walk without shelter.

  There is that in the land which enters in.

  And such holds two lives within it.

  That which is gone, that which is to come.

  Walk swiftly in the chosen way,

  For the time of shadows is upon the kin,

  Only he who shares life can live it.”

  I recognized the song, not in itself but for what it was—a puzzle. The Vapalans, who consider themselves the only truly civilized members of the five nations, have a taste for such, binding into words some hidden meanings to which only few have a clue. Some of the cliques and Houses among them have refined this to the extent that only a handful out of their whole land may understand—no one from outside their mesa country can hope to know the meaning.

  As his last word was echoed faintly back from some distance the bard leaned forward on his staff, that feat of song seemingly having weakened him. He was regarding me intently as if I were enough a countryman of his to see to the heart of his “tangle.”

  “Truly,” I said and I meant it from the heart, “that is bard gift. Never have I heard its like—”

  “Never is perhaps right.” There was a scoffing note in a voice once more hoarse, perhaps even more so from the strain which had just been forced upon it. “There are bards and bards, stranger. Of them all the great ones are of Vapala.” He continued to stare at me under his bushy eyebrows as if striving to detect any protest I might raise.

  “Lord Bard, so will I agree. Also I would swear to you that I mean you and yours no harm. I have no power to claim guest right. However, this isle lies within the borders of my own land and so is bound by the laws of my people—”

  “Guest right.” He mouthed the words as if he chewed upon them. “Yet you travel with one of the killers of the desert. Does he claim guest right also?”

  “Murri—” I raised my own voice, giving it the particular twist which was the closest my human lips and throat could come to the speech of the Great Cats.

  He came, seeming to rise out of the rocks themselves so close in color was his coat to their surfaces. Padding to me, he turned, as my hand rested on his head, to also face the bard. Then to my surprise he opened his jaws and there poured forth a medley of such sounds which I had heard uttered many times during the festival of the cat people.

  “Cloud—evil—not of night—” I fitted together the growls and snarls. The bard leaned still farther forward, an incredulous expression on his wrinkled face.

  “No blade can slay and still protect,

  Two battle as one—as it was—

  So shall it come again.

  Zacan rouses, stretched forth claw to rend.

  Where then is the LAW?”

  The bard had been tapping out a rhythm on the length of his staff as he listened. Before the echoes of Murri’s voice died he spoke:

  “Old am I, cubling, and once I was known to many because I hunted forth the most ancient of songs and introduced them again. It was idle sport—and many held puzzles we could not solve. But it became a badge of proficiency among us to know, to try to understand. What—who was Zacan in truth? Lost.” He shook his head and the long locks of his hair brushed back and forth across his shoulders. “But then they would tell us, these delvers into old stories, that nothing is lost—it may be hidden for a space and then brought once more, perhaps by chance, into the light—even through folly. It is enough that bard speak with bard, whether one wears a furred skin or goes bare-armed.”

  He took a step backward. “Into the land of the House of Kynrr enter freely, you who come from the desert.” He pushed with the much worn butt of his spear, winding with it a floating mass of algae. This he then offered us, the host gift which would make us free for at least ten days on this holding.

  However, in this bargaining he lost very little, for after accepting I made myself busy. Once more I worked at an algae bed, transplanting and encouraging new growth. I tended his yaksen also, grooming them, cutting out odorous mats of hair to free and cleanse them. The clipped hair I soaked and then combed it straight.

  Kynrr’s hut was the better for a cleanout, too, and that was what it got, perhaps the first in years. While its owner withdrew to a seat on a spire of rock and kept staring so intently in the direction from which I had come that I was led several times to turn and search that same direction—only to see nothing but rock and sand. He never gave me any explanation of what he so sought.

  Murri went off by himself hunting. Through some delicacy he did not bring any game with him on return. He did inform me that this isle had its share of menaces, mainly at another algae pool which was attracting rats.

  During my cleaning of the hut I found a Kifongg harp which in its day had certainly been a master’s instrument. Kynrr watched me examine it with reverence and then signed me to bring it to him. He then began abruptly a series of lessons.

  As all children, I had in my time been taught to use the Kifongg but I had never displayed any proficiency which led my father into having those lessons extended. Now I discovered that I had fallen into the company of a master musician and one who wanted not only a captive audience but a student.

  The stiffness wore out of my fingers and I kept at the exercises set me. Mainly because Kynrr’s eyes were ever upon me, I attained a measure of skill I never dreamed could be mine.

  Perhaps because Kynrr had been so long alone, to have company now was like someone opening the gate of a corral to allow an impatient herd beast down to the pool. While what my mentor talked of between bouts of music was the glories of Vapala of the Diamond Court, never did he tell me what had exiled him from all the luxury he had known and I knew better than to ask. However, it was plain that his position there had been a high one and he had been on familiar terms with the inner core of lords who dealt with great affairs.

  He seemed to take pleasure after time in describing in detail court ceremonies, interrupting his accounts of such with scraps of gossip. It seemed more and more to me as I listened that the High Court was indeed a place of masks—that no one therein was, or wanted to be, himself, but behind their faces their thoughts moved in strange directions.

  There were six premier Houses which had kept their position and identity through countless generations of time. There were other, newer ones, upon whom the six looked with emotions ranging from faint contempt to sneering intrigue designed to bring them down.

  It was my belief that Kynrr had been caught in some such clearing of lesser Houses and had to flee Vapala for that reason.

  On the surface the major occupation of the court appeared to be participation in endless and dull-sounding ceremonies which Kynrr related in detail. The dress, the action, even the sex of those in such interaction had a great deal to do with success. To humor him I became a sort of puppet acting out for him some bit of this purposeless play. Yet he took it with all seriousness and was so upset at my numerous errors of speech or action that I attempted to do his will to the best of my ability.

  Murri found this dull. He would watch a bit from some perch among the rock and then disappear silently—rat hunting for the most part.

  So days passed. I thought often of starting off again, but it was growing plainer all the time that the Kynrr’s sight was failing more and more, that it was increasingly difficult for him to care for himself, let alone the dozen yaksen who were growing sleek and tractable under my ministrations.

  It was one night when we sat together on a ridge, looking at the stars—rather I looking, and Kynrr striving to point out guides he could not see any longer, that he spoke with some of the sharpness he used when trying to drive a bit of court etiquette into my thick head.

  “Hynkkel, you are not made for a hermitage. Where will you go?”

  I answered with the truth. “I have something of a gift with animals, Kynrr. It might be well to go to Vapala, as you have been urging on
me, and there see if I can apprentice myself to a trainer of beasts.”

  “Trainer of beasts!” He cackled, then clapped his hands together as might a child delighted with some jest. “Yes, a trainer of beasts, and a rare one you shall be.” He changed subject abruptly.

  “The Emperor ails. Before your coming, there was a trading caravan off its course because of a storm. They had news—much news. With the Emperor dead—then there will be a choosing—”

  It was my turn to laugh. “Ancient One, if you are suggesting that I set myself up for the trials, then indeed you have a poor opinion of my common sense. I was the least of my House, so poor a son to my father that he will show little sorrow at my non-return. I am no fighter, no doer of deeds which will make my name one for bards to remember. No, I am not of the stuff of which heroes are made. And that suits me very well.”

  I went off to check the herd, be sure that the rats were not a-prowl. But as I went I smiled as I thought of my brother’s face if he looked upon the candidates for the Empire trial and saw me among them.

  13

  Still I could not bring myself to desert the old man. Though I tried, even bluntly at times, to discover whether any of his House might be concerned with him, he evaded any answer, sometimes even getting up and walking away or shutting his eyes as if he had fallen into one of the sudden dozes which strike the elderly.

  On all other subjects he was talkative enough and the longer we were together the more he talked. At times his voice took on the tones of one lecturing students and he would spring questions without warning, keeping me alert to all which he said.

  Murri, for the most part, kept out of sight, though when the old man slept heavily he would come to me. The Sand Cat was growing impatient. Having been released by the custom of his kind from the isle of his birth, he was eager to be about his search for territory of his own to claim.

  Though he might not be in sight, he sometimes lay in the shadows and I believed that he understood much of what Kynrr said. But it was the singing of the bard and his playing on the Kifongg which appeared to enchant the cat the most.

  I certainly could never qualify for the place of bard before the high seat of any House, but my playing was better than most I had heard, and that is not a boast. All of us of the Outer Regions have a liking for music—from the roll of the lookout drums which signify the coming of the storm to those small songs one sings to soothe a fretful child, we are surrounded with music from our birth. I had known to the last word some half hundred songs, both the genealogical chants which were the duty of each House child to be able to recall, to fragments of very old verse children used for counting-out games among themselves.

  However, now I found that what I knew was nothing when compared to Kynrr’s store and many of those I was able to keep in mind, though the riddle songs had no meaning and perhaps had not held any for centuries out of time.

  I experimented with the Kifongg when Kynrr passed it to me, striving to fit chord to chord until I could mimic in part the singing of the cats as I had heard them at their great meeting. Kynrr might close his eyes during such efforts on my part but his hand kept time, settling with little trouble on the underlying beat of what I battled to bring into being.

  “Soooooooo,” he said one morning, “that is what lies behind the Lament of Lasre. Here.” He reached for the instrument and began to pluck the strings, tentatively at first, then with more assurance, so that even I could hear the thread of purposeful melody.

  “What is the Lament of Lasre?” I asked when he was done and sat with his hands lightly grasping the harp, staring past me at that coloring of the rocks which faded subtly one into another.

  “It is a tale.” He sat up abruptly and started to wrap the instrument in its silken covering. Kynrr might go in rags himself but his beloved Kifongg fared much better.

  “A tale,” he repeated to himself as if he had a need for reassurance. “There are many tales from the old days, boy. Most of them nonsense. It is said that there once was knowledge open to certain of our people which is now long forgot. That there was a time of darkness which was worse and thicker than any night across our land. And then one Lasre went forth into the very heart of the darkness and there he sang, and the Essence of all the land and everything which dwelt upon it, within it, was gathered to him so that he broke the cover of the dark. And at that time all which lived were kin—even as you, boy, claim kinship with that great beast of yours.

  “And what will you do with him when you go on? For such as he are hunted and slain wherever they may be found.”

  From time to time that same thought had troubled me. If I picked up the caravan trail and made it into Vapala, certainly Murri could not accompany me openly. He would be the target of every frontier guard who sighted him.

  If there was to be an answer to this it was not made plain that day when Kynrr’s yaksen returned from scrambling over the rocks. They divided their grazing between the pool where Kynrr had built his hut and that which lay at the side of a breakneck ridge of rocks. This time answer did come when there was a calf missing and his dam lingered behind, giving long, mourning cries, pausing to look backward.

  I was up on my feet, reaching for my bag of pebbles and sling, my staff already to hand. Though it was still early morning the heat was already arising from the rocks. I whistled to Murri and he appeared around a rock spur ready for action. Though it was difficult to track on the bare rock, there was only a narrow way the herd followed. I had not gone far along that before I found evidence of a rock slide, breaking off of the narrow ledge.

  There was no sound from below. I crawled, belly down, as close to the edge of the depth as I dared. Having anchored my rope to one of the rock spurs, with the other end of that fastened about my middle, I swung cautiously over.

  As I slid down the last portion of the rope, there came a wild squealing. The earth at the bottom of the crevice around the half-buried body of the calf was heaving. There broke through baby rats already jumping to fasten teeth in the long hair of the yaksen and pull it away from the flesh they longed for. I realized that what I had ventured into was a trap—some one of the females had established her nest underground nearby and her offspring, ravenous from the moment of birth, were seeking anything which they could devour.

  From above I heard Murri howl a challenge and swiftly answered with my warning. There was no room in this narrow space, half choked as it was by the fall from above, for the Sand Cat to maneuver. We could only get in each other’s way disastrously if he tried.

  I backed against the nearer wall of the crevice and was using my staff. Luckily the lack of room was also a difficulty for the rats, and these were very young, though among them squirmed the body of the dam trying to head for me.

  A well-placed swing of my staff bowled her over and instantly two of her own offspring were at her throat. It was then that I felt the tug of the rope against my body. But I dared not turn to face the cliff wall and so uncover my back to what was left of the ravening pack.

  There came a shout and a rock sailed down from above, striking between me and the ratlings. A second rock more perilously aimed, for it nearly struck me, landed and I realized that what help from above which could be offered was on the way.

  I made a last sweep with the staff, thrust that through my belt, and whirled about to face the wall. It was rough. There were plenty of finger- and toeholds, but how many of those were strong enough to take my weight? A fall might land me helpless in the midst of that pack of monsters below.

  Another rock thundered by me. I forced myself to test my handholds and not be reckless in my choice. Then the rope about me grew taut and I knew that I was being drawn up.

  There was a blow against one of my boots, the sharp shooting pain of a tooth slash which had cut through the layers of hide as if they were the softest of skin. That was a spur which sent me reaching for a large knob of rock, giving me energy I would not have thought I would have had.

  I was reaching to hook
one hand over the edge of the cliff when I felt the pull of the life-saving rope loosen, but I managed to make it on my own to sprawl forward.

  Kynrr lay crumpled against a rock and beside him Murri was spitting out the rope. It was plain that they had united in getting me out of that trap. I crawled to Kynrr.

  The old man was breathing in gusty gasps and I could see the fast rise and fall of his bare chest. Murri had moved out to meet me and was pulling at my cut boot, bringing the slashed hide away from the blood-spurting flesh beneath.

  I managed to staunch that flow of blood and Murri lay licking at the wound while I saw to Kynrr. At first I believed that each of those difficult breaths was going to be the last for the old man. For a space we huddled together. Murri went back to patrol along the edge of the cliff. The loud squealing from below was silenced. It could be that the ratlings had turned on each other as they were well known to do and that we had no more to fear from them.

  To get Kynrr back to his hut was a task which took far too long under the sunlight. Thin as the old man looked he was not a light weight, but somehow I managed to get his body over Murri’s back. The cub was smaller than his sire but I was able to take a good portion of the weight and the bleeding on my leg had stopped. Perhaps there was indeed some virtue in the licking the beast gave to a wound.

  But we were both winded when we reached our goal. Luckily the algae bed was not too far away and it did not require any climbing for me to reach it. When I had recovered my strength somewhat I crept down and plastered my hurt, bringing back a supply for Kynrr in turn.

  Towards nightfall the old man roused from the restless sleep which had held him throughout the day. I managed to get him to eat some of the algae, feeding him with my own hands as if he were a child. Twice, though he did not open his eyes, he carried on broken conversations with those who were with him from memory.