Catfantastic II Page 8

  “I don’t think Airic has learned much from his adventuring,” Isolf greeted Skrymir upon his return to the hall. “Not only has he taken affront and slaughtered quite a few innocent creatures who were just doing what nature intended them to do, he has made a captive of that poor yellow moth. It’s going to die unless he lets it go. Should I let the kettlingur have him? They’re just perishing for a chance to play with him.”

  Skrymir set down in his chair to watch a moment as Airic chipped away manfully at the gold handle of a knife. Inadvertently he kicked the table leg, creating a considerable earthquake in Airic’s world as a cup toppled and the jugs and crockery clattered.

  “It’s time for him to return for his reward,” said Skrymir. “This is the last gift I shall give to the New People. The time has come for me to go away and allow you to find your own way now.”

  “Alone? But Skrymir, we are helpless little fools, bungling around like Airic on the table top, blind to what’s directly in front of us. Simple things are like mountains to us. Tremendous things we climb over without seeing. Without you and the wisdom of the jotuns, all manner of dreadful things will befall us!”

  “You won’t be completely alone,” said Skrymir. “You shall have the likes of Airic to help you and defend you and impart to you what knowledge they see fit.”

  “Airic!”

  As soon as she said it, Airic himself stood before her.

  His clothing was nothing but shreds, well-greased and torn and blackened. His handsome fox-colored beard and mane of hair were now streaked with gray, and his face had aged into a map of wrinkles and anxious creases.

  “What an adventure I’ve had!” he exclaimed. “I traveled to strange and wonderful lands! I’ve returned burdened with the wealth I’ve discovered! I’ve rescued a king’s daughter from a dread enchantment and I’ve killed a thousand hideous enemies! You should have seen the flying dragons, the hairy monsters that would have eaten me, the great beasts with enormous teeth! My journey has made me rich and powerful.” He slapped about among his belt pouches. “Look at this! I truly discovered the diamonds of Borkdukur! Thousands of them!”

  “Yes, indeed you have,” said Skrymir. “And I have prepared for you your reward. Isolf, fetch the milk jug. Pour out a draught for our champion.”

  Isolf obligingly found a clean cup and poured out some milk. Deep in sleep, the kettir recognized one of their favorite sounds and came twining and purring around her legs, rearing up to butt her knees encouragingly.

  “That’s nothing but milk,” said Airic after a quick sniff, disdainfully tossing the milk onto the floor. “Food for those miserable kettir and nothing more. Do you think I can be fooled so easily? I earned the honey mead, and that’s what I must have!”

  “You refuse to be rewarded? Well, Isolf, bring him the last cask from the cellar. The smallest and oldest one, marked with three crosses.”

  Isolf brought the cask from the cellar under the kitchen floor. She had no way of guessing how long it had been since it had seen the light of day. Airic’s eyes gleamed as he tossed down a cup of the ancient stuff, which filled the room with its acrid perfume.

  “Now ends the rule of the jotuns,” he said. “Mortal man is now the wisest of all earth’s creatures.”

  “Perhaps now that you’ve claimed your reward, we’d be wise to examine your trophies,” said Skrymir.

  Airic upended one pouch, his eyes glittering in expectation, but all that came out was a sifting of salt. His countenance changed from the heady flush of arrogance to a deathly pallor.

  “Where are my diamonds?” he gasped. “I had them! They were here right in my hands!”

  Skrymir gently tapped the salt cellar with a spoon and shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing in this world is more difficult to hold onto than wealth,” he said.

  “Wait! I have the chieftain’s daughter! She’s in a different form, winged, like a bird-” He pulled out another pouch as he talked, opened it, and the little yellow moth fluttered out, tumbling in mid-air like a fragment of sunlight. With sudden unerring accuracy, the moth took a dive at the table, where a stump of a candle still sputtered and oozed in a pool of wax. Only a wisp of flame remained, but it was enough. The moth expired in a small, silent explosion of flame, like a minuscule funeral ship cast upon the waters, and its charred remains fell into the wax;

  “Oh, no! My princess!” Airic gasped. “I could have married her and inherited a tremendous kingdom!”

  Skrymir shook his head slowly and made a comforting clucking sound. “Fame among men is as fleeting as a circling candle-moth,” he said.

  “Never mind,” said Airic. “I still have the orb of Ekkert. Unlimited power is mine to command.”

  He searched about among his pouches, his expression growing strained. Tentatively he peered into one, then upended it with an impatient shake. The lone bead from Isolf s girdle dropped out and bounced into a nearby plate, where it lodged in a spot of congealed fat. Without speaking, Isolf fished it out, wiped it out, and quickly stitched it back into its place in the design on her belt.

  “Power is never what it appears,” said Skrymir.

  Airic slumped into a chair. “Nothing! I’ve gotten nothing, after all I’ve been through! All the years I labored-” Suddenly a cunning smile overspread his features. “But at least I have the honey mead. I have beaten you, jotun. Your knowledge is mine.”

  “Yes, I’ve been fairly bested,” said Skrymir, reaching for an old ragged cloak hanging on a peg. “All I have is now yours, Airic. Mankind will no longer be troubled by jotuns meddling in their affairs.” Taking a walking staff from the corner, he turned toward the door with a farewell wave to Isolf and a gentle smile of weary peace. He truly looked much smaller in stature now, a withered little hobgoblin of a creature.

  “Yes! Go! I already foresee-I foresee-” Airic shut his eyes and stretched out his hand in a compelling gesture.

  “What do you foresee?” asked Isolf.

  His eyes snapped open. “I foresee nothing! He’s given me hindsight in the mead instead of foresight! The true gift was in the milk! Stop him before he’s gone! Come back, jotun! You tricked me!”

  “You tricked yourself, you arrogant fool!” Isolf said, turning to look for Skrymir, but the stooped, ragged figure had vanished, with a chuckle still echoing in the earthen halls.

  Mocking the chuckle, a contented purring sound rose to Isolf s ears. Kettir and kettlingur were beneath the table, avidly lapping up the milk and the jotun’s last gift of knowledge along with it. More kettir came scampering in from the hall and the scullery, guided by the unfailing kettir instinct for knowing when their fellows have fallen upon favorable circumstances involving food.

  “Kettir!” gasped Airic. “Those horrid little beasts will have the last of the jotun knowledge!”

  Their clever little tongues cleaned out every crevice and polished the floor to a glossy sheen. Fantur had his head inside the cup, lapping noisily. With a despairing wail, Airic lunged for the cup. Fantur leaped away as if scalded, slinging the cup over the stones toward Isolf. The kettir scattered before Airic, tangling among his legs. Isolf seized the disdained cup and drained out the last drops of milk, making scarcely a swallow.

  “No! That’s mine! It’s wasted upon you!” roared Airic, snatching the cup from her hands. It popped from his grasp as if it were greased, and shattered on the flagstones. Airic frozen, clenching his fists. For a moment Isolf feared he would kill her, but Airic sank into a chair and buried his face with a groan of defeat. The kettir assembled upon the hearthstone, bathing themselves and each other after their milky feast. Chancing to open his eyes and glimpse them, he groaned afresh, with deeper misery.

  “Don’t despair so,” said Isolf. “Surely you’ve learned something from your travails.”

  “Nothing except the pain of hindsight. Nothing a man can do is worth anything worthwhile at all,” said Airic bitterly. “The moment he thinks he’s got wealth or influence or power, he takes a look at it and realiz
es it’s nothing but trash and illusion. My life is nearly over, wasted and foolishly spent on trivialities. I’m old and I’ve been a fool. There’s nothing left for me but to die. I never dreamed he would put the knowledge into something as common and simple as milk, when he’s so famous for his honey mead.”

  “Skrymir offered you his most priceless secrets, and you refused to take them,” said Isolf. “Now all of them have gone down the throats of the kettir. At least someone will possess some of the gift. And better womankind and kettir than your sort.”

  “But what knowledge has the jotun given you and those wretched beasts?” Airic demanded. “Do you feel different, now you’ve got some of the jotun’s knowledge? Can you see the future? Things far off? Do you hear voices?”

  Aide’s questions went unanswered. Isolf packed up her few possessions and a large basket of young kettlingur. The adult kettir followed her down from the mountain to the settlements, where they very promptly ensconced themselves in nearly every home and byre and fishing shack. No woman walked without a kettir at her heels, and no hearth was long vacant of its kettir protectors.

  Travelers from far places carried away many of the attractive and affectionate little beasts without seriously reducing their thriving population. Strangely enough, no matter how far they were carried away, a few kettir with amazing skills of navigation managed to find their way home again, and some of them several times, and even over water to get there. Isolf read the jotun’s gift in their eyes and smiled in her quiet way when people marveled.

  For many years she went about her business of healing the bodies and woes of mankind, as befit her status as village wisewoman. Cats and cradles always sat upon her hearth, and her daughters grew up as wise and clever as Isolf at seeing beyond the things directly before their eyes. Her sons were fey warriors, knowing when to go to battle and when to stay home with their women and kettir.

  Isolf never saw Skrymir again, though she and her favorite kettir often walked the mountain trails looking for a ragged old wanderer with a walking staff. Many times she felt that he was close, giving her warnings and intuitions that saved her and her clan much grief. In times of serious trial she thanked him silently for the small swallow of jotun knowledge he had afforded her. The kettir, with their large alert ears seemed to hear Skrymir’s voice far better, and their gleaming eyes that penetrated the dark seemed to see him lurking and watching. What else those green and golden orbs perceived was denied to human eyes.

  Kettir cleared the barns and cheered the hearts of many lonely people and imparted their secret knowledge to those who had the skill to hear them. Kettir in the future would be both revered as gods and hated as devils, hunted and destroyed as such by ignorant and devilish humankind. Both a blessing and a cursing had been given to mankind, and all because of a lonely mortal maid and a cup of spilled milk.

  Papercut Luck by Patricia B. Cirone

  Ling Mei crouched so close to the brazier that the rising steam caressed her face. She poked at a bamboo shoot, moving it around, then prodded the chopped cabbage. Her heart was not in her task; even the gentle swaying of the boat failed to soothe her.

  The side of the junk scraped against the Guo’s, moored next to it. Grandmother Guo peered over. “Why are you cooking all that food, child?” she called harshly. “No sense in it. Your family is gone. They won’t be eating supper here, not tonight, not tomorrow, not ever again.”

  Ling Mei set her chin stubbornly and continued to cook the dinner. “They will be back, honorable grandmother.”

  “Hunh. What the soldiers take away, they don’t bring back.” The old woman hunched her shoulders and returned to tending her own family.

  Ling Mei looked longingly at the bustle in the other junk: the babies playing, the children helping their grandmother to cook, the parents, aunts, and uncles cleaning the day’s catch and mending a patch on the sail. She compared it with the desolate quiet of her own junk. A tear trickled out of the corner of her eye.

  Ling Mei stopped poking at the now limp vegetables and emptied them over the rice she had already prepared. She ate and ate and ate until she felt sick. It had been stupid to cook so much-enough for a whole family-but she had hoped cooking as though she expected her family would somehow bring them.

  She wished this morning had never happened, that she had never returned from the market to hear all the people calling her and running up to her with the news her family had been arrested by the emperor’s soldiers. She wished they’d never taken on that passenger who had paid so well.

  The wish seemed very far away as the boat bobbed in the darkness, and Ling Mei tried to hush her aching stomach and drift off to sleep. She had never slept alone before. It was too quiet. The next morning she watched, through the slits in the matting, as the Guo’s junk pulled away from the swaying docks to do their day’s fishing.

  Her family didn’t do messy, smelly fishing for a living. They carried goods, and sometimes passengers, up and down the river. Ling Mei’s supple mouth turned down at the corners. That was what had gotten them into this trouble. The soldiers of the Son of Heaven, the boy emperor, had accused her family of carrying one of the barbarous, spying Mongols right into the heart of Canton. How would her family know who they carried? The man had paid his money, and they had brought him down the river to Canton.

  Yen Su-wing, of four boats out, had said she could hear the wails and protests from Ling Mei’s family all the way up the dock. The soldiers didn’t care; they had taken everyone on the ship, even youngest brother, only ten months old. Grandmother Guo was right. Ling Mei would never see them again. But she didn’t know what else to do, except hope.

  The day was long. Ling Mei put on the sandals her mother had cut down for her when second oldest sister had worn out their edges, and slapped up the slats of the swaying dock to the shore. She went to the market. Perhaps there she would hear news of what had become of her family.

  The market seethed with people and rumors. Some said the Mongols were at the gates of the city. Others scoffed, and said the barbarians would never get that close. The servants of the nobles who had fled here when Hangchow had fallen shoved the common people aside and bought food and cloth as if there would be no tomorrow. Ling Mei looked and listened to all of it, but nowhere did she hear mention of one small family off a junk. The marketplace did not care about one small family. Discouraged, Ling Mei turned and started to trudge back home.

  Yesterday the market had been an exciting place, filled with infinite possibilities to spend a birthday coin. Instead of taking care of family business first, she had darted first to one stall, then another, fingering the coin in her pocket and putting off the moment when she would actually spend it. Sweets? A toy? A pretty bit of cloth? Ling Mei had been so excited by all the possibilities, she had still not made up her mind when the sun told her it was time to finish the family errands and run home.

  Today, sticky sweets or pretty twists of cloth didn’t rouse the slightest bit of interest. The only thing she wanted, her birthday coin couldn’t possibly give her. She didn’t even want to remember her birthday coin and what she had been doing while the soldiers had arrested her entire family.

  If she had been there, at least she would have been taken with them. Ling Mei shivered, thinking even that would be better than being so alone.

  A block from the marketplace, she passed a small table she didn’t remember ever seeing there before. It was covered with papercuts. Papercuts! Ling Mei stopped and turned back.

  Her quick eyes darted over the papercuts, trying to recognize the character for “luck.” It was hard to remember what one written symbol looked like, when you couldn’t really read.

  The wrinkled eyes of the thin, old man who sat behind the table smiled at her.

  “Do… do you have one for luck?” she asked.

  He looked over the cuts carefully, then shook his ancient head. “Many people have wanted luck today. I have sold the last one.”

  Shoulders drooping a little, L
ing Mei started to turn away.

  “Wait.” The wrinkled man opened a small drawer underneath the table and drew out a small papercut. He pressed it into her hand. Ling Mei looked at it, startled. It looked a bit like the outline of a tiger, which meant courage, but the head was too small. She raised her eyebrows politely.

  “Hang it up. Sometimes courage makes luck,” he said, his eyes narrowing and the corners of his mouth turning up ever-so-slightly into a smile.

  “But… this isn’t a tiger, honored sir. It’s too small.”

  “You are small also.” His eyes stared into hers.

  Reluctantly, Ling Mei dug down into her one pocket for her birthday coin and placed it in the old man’s hand. She didn’t want a cut of something that looked a bit like a tiger and a bit like a street cat, but she couldn’t insult someone old enough to be her grandmother’s father. She tucked the papercut into her now empty pocket, bowed, and left, trudging back to her family’s junk.

  The Guo boat was back. Grandmother Guo’s black eyes pricked her with their sharp gaze.

  “Still here, girl? Can’t survive without a family. Nothing for you to do, now, but gather up a bowl and go,” she said in her harsh voice.

  “I’m no beggar!”

  “You think you’re father-head of your family’s junk? Going to sail it all by yourself?” the old woman cackled.

  “I won’t have to manage by myself. My family will be back soon.”

  “Hunh!” was the old woman’s disdainful reply.

  Ling Mei hunched her shoulders and cooked only a small portion of rice for herself. Her tears flavored it. She squeezed past the matting that covered the family’s quarters and perched on the rear of the boat, near the big steering oar. She ate her rice as the colors of sunset filled the sky, but it failed to lift her spirits. She stayed until the moon had risen, full and round and whole. She wished her family’s junk was as full, and whole and bright.