Mark of the Cat and Year of the Rat Page 24

  The first thing I noted was a tangle of growth which had near buried the few buildings I could see. Loops of vines reached as high as the upper curve of the dome in places. There was a strong smell, not of the algae to which I was accustomed, but rather like that I had met when I crossed the fields of Vapala.

  In that other Twahihican village had been a wealth of scents, perfumes, spices, all those which proclaimed enticement for visitors. Here was only one. After a moment or so I found it rank and unpleasant.

  There was no sign of any of the malons here. But there were marks, almost effaced by growth as if that which rooted here had been very swift to veil the damage done, a path forward which had been slashed and cut through this net. At least those I followed on this quest had accomplished that much for me.

  Murri swiped at a tangle of growth with one paw, his talons cutting branches and leaves. That opened up even more the entrance to the passage which had been recently cleared and I began to use my staff, its blades extended to their foremost, to beat and slice my way.

  Murri paused, his head turned to the left, and I saw the swell of his large nostrils as he tested the air. Then he swung out with a paw and slashed at the growth, jerking a wide swath of it out of whatever rootage it had found. I saw what it had hidden—a tumble of bones, among them a skull which leered up at me hollow-eyed. Undoubtedly the remains of one of my own kind.

  Though there were no signs of clothing nor any weapon, I had the feeling that death had not come too long ago, clean-stripped as those bones appeared. One of my fellow candidates who had fallen to such evil as was hidden here?

  Murri was still sniffing. He might have been seeking a trail. Only what he said was:

  “Bad—danger—”

  “What kind?” I demanded. That alertness I had learned as a herdsman was what I called upon now, searching for any clue as to the nature of the peril encompassed here, from which direction it might spring without warning.

  There was no sign of any malon among these vines matted to encircle us, save for the path we had torn. It would seem that we must venture farther in.

  Murri had not answered my question and I gathered that he was also at a loss as to what danger might lie in wait. Yet it would seem he had no intention of turning back; rather he attacked the tangle before him vigorously.

  We had passed the first of the buildings, so embowered now that one could see only small patches of wall, but no windows nor doorways. Suddenly Murri gave a cry, not only of startlement but also fear. The paw he had just put forth to claw his way forward had been noosed by a thick greyish rope of sorts and a second one had snaked out across his body as he strove to use his teeth on that first binding.

  I moved in with my knife-staff swinging. The blades rebounded at first from the ties which were fast netting Murri but a second slashing at the cut left by the first severed that which was tightening around his body. It uncoiled, fell to earth, and straight-way twitched and writhed, a thick yellowish stuff pouring from the cut to release a foul odor.

  This was no creature as I knew, rather a tendril of the growth about us. Across Murri’s back, where it had tightened, the fur was wet and slimy and patches of hair were missing.

  He spat out that which he held in his mouth, and pawed at his jaws from which the spittle ran yellow. I feared that there had been poison in that thing he had chewed apart, for he behaved as a kotti who had swallowed a fur ball, vomiting a watery substance.

  This I saw only with half an eye, as it were, for I was alert for another of the vine nooses. They appeared to spring out of the piece of ground we had cleared and were certainly vines, for the ends, still rooted, were putting out small leaves, of the same sickly yellow, veined in red.

  I chopped, swung, chopped again and again. Then the ends which came wriggling up to the surface from the dank soil vanished. We at last had a space in which to breathe. I nursed skin across which one of those flesh-stripping horrors had passed, leaving welling blood behind it. The sting of that contact was worse than all the torment I had suffered from the insects in the salt land.

  There was still no sign of any malons. Yet to venture deeper into this mass was an invitation to the lurking horror beneath the surface of the ground. I wondered if it was the vibration of our footfalls which had alerted it or if it had some other method of sensing prey. Perhaps even some of the leaves which walled us in acted as eyes, ears, or similar organs for what lay beneath the surface.

  Still someone had managed to get farther on, as the signs, fast being swallowed up by fresh growth, showed. And I knew that Shank-ji, at least, had won his prize from this haunted place.

  Our exertions had carried us past the first of the now netted buildings and now we were offered safety for a bit, for we came out of the massed stuff unto a circle of the clean sand such as covered the land beyond the bubble.

  I examined Murri’s back but the suckers of the vine had not injured him beyond loosening the fur in patches. And he had stopped his heaving. My own wound was small enough and I could not see that it was poisoned in any way—or so I hoped.

  “Brother—” I laid my hand on Murri’s head.

  “I live—but bad here—”

  With that I could heartily agree. Now I set out making the round of that place of sand where apparently none of the growth could find rootage. To the right of the place we had entered, there were again signs of another’s passage. To make certain this was the way, there was a nauseating odor on the air. I had been told that spoiled or rotted malon produced such. Thus the “garden” which we sought must lie in that direction.

  But for this moment we were content to sit in our pool of safety and only look towards what might be the second stage of a battle, and perhaps an even more difficult one.

  26

  The side of the building around which we had come to find this island of safety was bare of vine, just as the other was so tightly coated with it. There had been a pattern incised there as I had seen in the city we had visited, though this had no bright color, rather stains as if vines had once clutched there but had been broken away.

  I slung my staff across my shoulder and went to run my hands over that pattern. What I had suspected at first sighting was true, there were finger- and toeholds here for the climber. Slipping off my boots I began that ascent hoping so to view what might lie ahead. The top of the house had been rounded and over part of it crawled the vines. I edged around these so that I was still in the clear.

  Ahead there was a bank of the tough growth, but beyond that again another stretch of sand. Through a hole in the growth I could see a line of malon vines, each trained over a trellis. On them the rounded globes of fruit hung, some already the deep purple of fully ripe.

  I shared what I had learned with Murri. He was washing his face over and over, trying to rid himself of the last signs of that vine attack. With a growl which fully expressed his opinion of the whole business, he got ready to plunge into the struggle toward the garden I had sighted.

  Though we went with care, we did not see any sign of those root tops wriggling out of the dank soil. And when we came to the clearing of the malons, the sand stretch there was divided into squares, every other one being earth in which one of the vines was planted.

  There was a strong stench of rotted fruit. The ground around each looped-up vine was a mush of fallen malons. Of those still on the vines the ones which had turned the full color of ripeness were useless to me, for the picking must be done at almost the very moment the purple streaked the bronze fruit, entirely encircling the globes.

  On the nearest of the vines I noted three such which looked promising. How long I must wait until they were ready I did not know. Even as I stood there two others fell from their stems to squash on the piles already there.

  We moved out on the sand, but kept away from the mess of stinking fruit. Murri lay down, his nose covered by his paws. I wished I could do likewise, for the odor of this place, even as the haze on the fire mountains, was dense enough to sic
ken one.

  I had my eye on a fruit well at the end of one vine which I thought I could pull down within reach with my staff and moved near as I could get to that without venturing into the mess on the ground.

  It was then that I saw a shaking and quiver of the spoiled fruit. Three of the last fallen tumbled away, shaken from below, and there showed for an instant the pointed end of one of the threatening suckers. This then must be their usual food. But I was warned by the sight of them feeding.

  It was the nature of the malon that the last stage of ripening came so quickly that one could actually see the spread of the darker color. I was ready, my staff out, and I angled one of its edges as a hook about the branch, pulling it down. Freed by this movement the malon took to the air and I caught it, having dropped my staff into the mush on the ground.

  With my prize safe to hand I cleaned my staff in the sand and tried again with the same success. Together we turned to find our way out of this place of hidden menace.

  We made it to the circle of sand by the building. The path down which we had cut our way was already being closed by a lacing of smaller vines. However, we had learned our lesson and we cut our way past those sorry remains of the one who failed, gaining the outer door and the safety of the sand dunes beyond, the malons in the fore of my jacket.

  If I had expected congratulations for my feat I would have been disappointed. The commander of my escort turned the malons I delivered around and around in his hands as if seeking some flaw in the offering. However, the major stroke against me was that I came accompanied by Murri and this time I demanded what little rights a contestant had that from here on he would be my traveling companion.

  There was a great deal of muttering and side-looking at me over this. Only tradition held fast. The person of the candidate between his trials was sacred and he could not be opposed unless he had failed.

  Perhaps if I had been Shank-ji I would have been afforded a banquet in Twahihic’s major city, presentation to the Queen, and a general flood of good wishes for my last trial to come. But I was as well pleased to take the trail back to Vapala as soon as possible.

  When days later the guard which had been waiting for me at the border took over escort, I again spoke for Murri. This time the Sand Cat entered the Diamond Queendom openly and not by stealth.

  I learned that I was the first to return and that news had arrived that two of the contestants had already been lost. That Shank-ji was not one of them was cheering to those around me and they openly spoke of his gaining the crown.

  From the comments I heard as we traveled on towards the city, the younger members of the guard all favored the Emperor’s son. Only those of some of the old and most conservative of Houses were opposed to such a break with tradition. I also gathered that he was a man of ambition and with a certain power of person which afforded that ambition a firm base. That he was one of their own countrymen made him doubly welcome, whereas the coming of an outer “barbarian” would be quickly resented.

  We reached Vapala City itself shortly after mid-day, Murri trotting beside my oryxen. Oddly enough that beast accepted the Sand Cat, though otherwise they were natural hunter and prey. And he was still with me as we threaded our way through crowded streets, where the reaction of the crowd was such one might have thought I was an enemy of the state instead of the possible ruler.

  The chiming of the unlatched wind chimes was near overpowering to one who had come from the quiet of the desert lands. When we entered the wide space before the palace, the resounding clamor of the great chimes overhead was almost deafening. I looked up and saw the whirl of the gem-set crown in the midst of those large plaques which the rope-tugging of a number of servants set striking one against the other.

  This would be my last testing. I must thread between those swinging plaques, all of which were knife-edged, to claim the crown. Though I had survived so far, I watched the random clashing of the pieces and thought—this is impossible. There could be no possible way one could venture between such and not be slashed—cut literally to bits! Yet it had been done in the past and it was expected that it would be done now.

  Shank-ji would be most familiar with the chimes, the only one who might know the way to approach them and reach the trophy within. Yet I was committed and this lay before me. Without being truly conscious that I sought some reassurance, my hand fell on Murri’s head, and, from that touch, there flooded into me a strength which at least held me outwardly strong.

  The final trial would not be separate as the others. We must wait until the rest who survived returned. They would have ushered me into quarters in the palace itself but once more I stood on my right of choice. I would go to the only place in this city where I might hope to find at least a suggestion of friendship. Since the candidates were allowed to claim shelter from kin or friends, I asked for Ravinga, though I did not know whether the dollmaker would receive me.

  The crowd shrank back, giving Murri and me an open passage which did not have to be enforced by the guard, though those rode with me. At the end of the alley which gave upon the court of the dollmaker, I dismounted, turning my oryxen over to the officer. Then I went to the door which I hoped would open hospitably for me.

  Ravinga had sat for many hours by her work table. But all the materials lying before her had long ago been pushed aside. She had stationed two lamps so that they gave light to a square of the age-polished and scarred board before her and her attention had been on that board. With the coming of dawn she blew out the lamps, but still she watched—what I did not know, even though as her apprentice she had granted me access to some of her secrets.

  I had brought food, only to have it grow cold and left untouched, though she drank twice from the flagon of malon juice I had placed conspicuously close to one of the lamps. However, even during that taking of refreshment her eyes did not leave that stretch of wood. This was new to her, for since my coming into her household I had never seen her do so before.

  It was shortly after dawn that her hand moved again, not reaching this time for the cup, but rather in blind groping among the scattered materials, for still she did not look away from that portion of wood. She dug into a tray and brought forward first a casting of gold. The form was still rough yet there was that which suggested the figure of a Sand Cat.

  This she placed in the middle of that stretch of table top. For the first time she spoke:

  “Bring the jewel casket.” Her order was abrupt and suddenly there was a feeling which seemed to spread from her to me that there was a need of hurry for some task.

  Goaded by that, I went swiftly to the far end of the room and there worked the name lock of the wall cupboard behind which such valuables as we had were stored. The jewel casket was heavy, being made of the stone of the fire mountains, polished and patterned. And that pattern clearly was of Sand Cats.

  As I set it on the table before Ravinga, Wa, Wiu, and Wyna, the kottis of the household, appeared out of nowhere, jumped to the table top which was and always had been forbidden territory to them. I would have warned them off but Ravinga. without speaking, shook her head and I took that as an order to allow them to stay.

  They sat in a line, statue still, the tips of their tails curled over their forepaws, their unblinking gaze upon what Ravinga was doing.

  She had chosen from her tools a slender knife and was working at the soft pure gold of the figure she had selected. Hair-thin shavings of the metal fell away from her tool. At length she had finished a perfect figure. Then she turned to the small cabinet on the table. Once more there was a finger lock to be mastered and this she did for herself, for that particular piece of her equipment had never been opened to me.

  From small shelves within she took a small flask of metal and dipped one of her delicate brushes into the narrow mouth of that vessel. So she painted the golden figure with great care. The liquid she used was colorless but she gave three coatings to the Sand Cat she had created.

  Now she opened the jewel case. On a square of
dark cloth which she brought out first she began to lay out stones. The rich yellow of the finest citrines shone and she matched and rematched these with care until she had two which were perfect twins. These she set into the figure for eyes.

  Having finished this job, she searched again among her materials and produced a plate of dingy metal, so blackened I could not have said what it was. Directly in the middle of this she put her Sand Cat and around it she poured, from another flagon out of the cupboard, a stream of dust-fine crystals, heaping these up until the mound covered the whole of the figure.

  “The taper—” Another order.

  I used the spark snap and lighted the taper on the table. Grasping this firmly she touched the fire to that powder. There was a glow spread from that point of contact. The kottis moved back. For the first time they gave voice—a murmur which was between a mew and a purr—almost as if they sang. There was a flare from the plate and an outward puff of smoke.

  Ravinga leaned back with a sigh, her hands falling limply into her lap. Her face was haggard and I caught at her shoulder.

  “You must rest—”

  She smiled slowly. “We have a guest, two guests on the way, girl. Yes, I must rest for there will be much to be done.”

  The haze on the plate spiraled away into wisps of smoke. All the dust had vanished, only the Sand Cat sat there. The kottis’ song died away. One after another they stretched their necks out, audibly sniffing at the figure head, and uttered a cry such as I had never heard before. Ravinga nodded. “So it is well done, is it? Let it be what is best needed in the days to come.”

  She put her hands to the board and levered herself up from her so-long-held chair as if the strength had been leached out of her.