Mark of the Cat and Year of the Rat Read online

  Looking upon him so, I knew that there was no danger to be feared from him. Clearly he had forced himself here for what succor the pool offered but he would not try to dispute it with us again, keeping to his own side.

  I watched him feed and then he withdrew, but no farther than a slight distance. He moved with such labor that I thought he was badly hurt. When I had climbed above again with my own gleanings I took up two of the rat bodies and passing along the edge of the rise near to where the animal now sheltered, I tossed them over. They did not fall too far from his chosen shelter. His blood-smeared head came up and he looked at me. But his eyes were empty of any expression I could read.

  Once more I skinned rats and tore meat apart for the drying. The scraps I tossed down a narrow crevice in the rock for which I could see no bottom. The skins I had scraped earlier were hard-dried now and I began clumsily to stitch them across and around my boots.

  As I worked so in the twilight I spoke aloud, for I felt very much the need of hearing speech in this vastness, even if it were my own.

  “Great One, there is much in the world which is beyond understanding. Why has it come to me that I must be a part of something which—” I stopped the punching of holes in hide with my knife point and looked out at what lay about me.

  There was a change. I slewed around, my hand going for the staff which I had laid close to hand. Another form came out of the dusk and I greeted the female.

  “Lady, your lord does well.” She crouched beside her mate and first sniffed the wound I had left uncovered after sponging it off with the algae, then began to lick it.

  She raised her head for an instant to gaze at me and then went back to her licking. The male was purring, the rumble of his sound attune, it seemed to me, with the peace of the night, perhaps perilous and short-lasting as that might be.

  However, we perhaps had proven ourselves to be too much of a danger even to the rats. For it was not us they attacked this night: rather I heard their squeals from across the pond and the roars of the rogue doing battle.

  The female was instantly on her feet and her mate struggled to stand beside her. I ran, staff and slingshot in hand, to that place from which I had tossed the meat earlier. There was still a portion of twilight and more vision of what was happening below than I had thought. I used the sling and saw two of the things fall. Then I turned to the throwing of stones.

  Halfway I feared that they might turn on us at this attack, yet I could not leave that other to he savaged, enemy though he might be. A clean death by hunter’s spear or knife was one thing; to see a helpless beast eaten alive, as the rats handle their prey, was more than I could allow. Now I was hurling rocks with my hands and saw a third one of the attackers fall. There was movement beside me and the female went into battle, taking the descent in one great leap and landing full into the middle of that pack where she used her claws and teeth in a whirlwind of well-delivered death.

  The squealing of her prey rose to a high point and through that sounded that same strange howl I had heard in the battle wherein the great rat had died.

  On the ground the rogue was rolling, his jaws fastened on the scruff of a rat’s neck and surely the creature he was striving to pull down was near match to him in size.

  I lifted a rock with my two hands and, running forward to the very edge which hung nearly above that struggle, I hurled my crude weapon out and down. By some chance of fate it actually struck the rat which had just torn free from the rogue, not fair, but well enough to make the noisome creature stagger. In that instant the rogue reared up and closed his massive jaws on the neck of his enemy and gave a sharp swing of his head. I could not hear above the clamor of the pack the sound of the snapping neck but I saw the thing go limp.

  Again the pack, upon the death of this one, withdrew, scrabbling away, some of them actually plowing through the algae pan. There was a silence as if the night with the complete fall of darkness had swallowed up all their company.

  The rogue was panting heavily, the sounds he made close to whimpering of pain. He strove to crawl out of the algae into which he had rolled, and made such an effort that he did draw himself free of the growth, only to collapse.

  Nor did he pay any attention now to the female, who was licking down her fur. As far as I could see in this dim light she had suffered no deep hurt, a guess which was proven when she came clambering back up the slope to join us.

  I listened for any return of the rats. The suffering of the rogue troubled me. That he would be minded to tear a hand from anyone who strove to touch him I well knew. But I could not leave him there untended. Also I must know more about the last of those things he had killed—whether it was like unto the other we had found.

  Thus I descended to the pool and, with care and wariness, rounded the end of it to the side of the animal. There was a faint snarl: he lifted his head a fraction and showed his one fang now dyed with blood.

  “Great One.” I held out both hands and in the swinging light of the pendant he could certainly see that they were empty of any weapon.

  His eyes picked up the gleam of the cat mask and followed that to and fro for an instant as it swung.

  “Great One, mighty have you been in battle. Now you are hurt, suffer it that your wounds be tended.”

  His untorn ear flattened to his skull and his body writhed in a futile attempt to get to his feet. Then he fell flat once again and I could see that there was a great gash across his back and he could not move his hind legs.

  There came a sigh from him and his head dropped forward to rest upon one paw as if, worn by the roaming of a day, he would sleep. His eyes closed and I felt at that moment that his essence was at last freed, and, for all his lonely wandering and his many wounds, he was now one with the land and all that is about us even as we all wish when the final end comes.

  In his time he had been a warrior and—I stood to look about me. At the last he had been searching for a home. It was not in me to leave his body to be devoured by those filthy monsters upon their return—and that return I did not doubt.

  In the wall of the cliff to the north was one of those gash openings, not quite a cave, for at the top it was open to the sky. This could be a place of burial for one who deserved honor.

  I found it hard to move the body. Worn by privation as he was, he was still a load more fit for a yaksen, and I had to take the task by degrees. However, at length I had the body well within the opening. Then it was a matter of gathering stones to wall it in and that I did also, though my shoulders ached and I was gulping great gasps of air by the time I had done with it all, unable at first to summon even enough energy to reclimb the wall.

  When I looked up I could see the glint of four eyes watching me and I knew that the other cats had witnessed all I had done, though that they might understand why, I doubted. If I should die by rat fangs or starvation here, there would be none to raise any monument to me. As I sat there in the night I thought of that and what I could do to make sure my body did not lie as scattered bones.

  Once more I searched the stars overhead for some sign I could recognize. There was little use in my staying on here. The Sand Cat was healing well, and, with his mate, could hold his own against the rats, once more ruler in his own place.

  What place remained for me?

  I got wearily to my feet, believing now that I had the power to reclimb the cliff. The night was surely far spent and tomorrow, tomorrow I must make my preparations for moving on. I had been caught in such a venture here as few men would believe—one that I could not voice lest I be declared a braggart and a liar.

  Taking a step forward I nearly stumbled over a contorted body—that of the giant rat. I made myself do grisly work upon it—to find once more the same evidence that this was no common desert menace.

  Having exposed to the destroying air that ball of stuff I had picked out of the skull of the rat, I was remembering in detail two hands which had plucked forth from the head of a doll a similar implant, save that had been a br
illiant diamond rainbow-endowed piece and this was dully evil, so I was careful not to touch it with my flesh.

  What further mystery might hide here I did not know and at the moment I was too tired to care.

  8

  There was the thud of a heavy body landing chose by. I lifted my head and saw that the female cat was watching me with curiously narrowed eyes. There was something about that gaze which I found measuring, making me uneasy—wary—As if the truce between us had worn thin.

  Before I could move or defend myself she was on me and her great jaws closed about my left wrist bringing such a thrust of pain as made me cry out. My throat next, I thought dazedly—but why—now?

  Blood spurted out of my torn flesh. The cat drew away from me and I crawled to the algae pool. I must staunch that bleeding if I could. Through the haze of torment I hunched my shoulders, waiting now for the full weight of the beast to flatten me, claws to find my throat and shake the life out of me as if I were the giant rat.

  I rose to my knees and pitched forward, my mangled hand plunging into the smarting water thick with the plants. I thought I had known pain many times before in my life but this blow dealt me out of no reason seemed to sap my strength almost in moments. I met the cushion of algae with the forepart of my body and then there was nothing.

  How long I lay so I did not know but there came back to me a kind of hazy consciousness which sent me crawling once more. How I made the way back to the cliff foot I will never know, but once there I knew that I could not manage any more. Still the cat had not put an end to me. However, to even turn my head now to look and see what she might threaten was beyond my strength.

  There was the heat of the red-streaked stone about me and that heat sank into my body, became a part of a fire which seemed to seek to destroy me. The nothingness which had held me earlier was gone and I had not even that escape.

  My head had fallen sidewise so that a stone bruised my cheek and that small torment seemed to make all the rest worse. When I opened my eyes I saw no pool, no green and orange of algae—only the long stretch of red which could be some plain as great as that of Desolation.

  Then across that something moved, coming in bounds. The cat! I tried to move my arm in some feeble defense which would be nothing against her attack.

  Yet what came to me was another. Mieu leaped towards me and from her mouth swung the mask pendant. I felt her paws heavy on my wounded arm, and again cried out as she dropped the mask on my breast. Her tongue came forth and I could feel the rough rasp of it against my cheek: she might be washing a kit in reassurance.

  I talked with her and she answered me, but what we two said to one another I could never afterward remember. However there came a quiet into me for a space and it made the pain recede to a bearable distance.

  There was more movement on that plain of red sand. Fine as dust the grains spurted up to clog the air behind a rider. There my brother pulled up his oryxen and sat at ease in the saddle though the beast bucked and fought his control as always, until he aimed a heavy blow behind one of its tender ears.

  He struck his mount almost absently. His full attention was for me, and I saw his lips curve in a smile which became sneering amusement.

  “Weakling!” He leaned forward a trifle, as if to view me the better and gloat over what was left of me. “No man—child always—accept what you are and leave true life to your betters.” And his laughter was as loud a roar as that of the cats offering battle.

  I could not rise to any challenge now. He was right—I was a weakling and even my body refused to obey me.

  Once more he laughed and then urged his oryxen closer, now coming to me spear in hand until I thought that he would do what was unknown even among the most brutish of barbarians, put kin to death.

  However, it seemed that what he strove to do was hook the point of that spear into the chain of the mask, to make that finally and undisputedly his own. Mieu was on her feet. Hissing, her small body swollen to nearly twice size, she struck at the metal point with a paw, only to have him make a sudden sweep with the spear, send her tumbling away with a cry of pain and defiance. Then I struggled to rise, and still laughing, my brother rode away. Yet the mask of the cat was not yet his.

  Though that metal still rested on me, yet I also saw it rise through the air until it crowned a staff as might the Honors of a House. Still, no House would bear such a device.

  It was past the hour of nooning. Even here in Vapala, where nature dealt the easiest with humankind, these few hours were a time when merchants put down their shop curtains and fortified themselves in the shadows those barriers gave to the full heat of the day.

  Mancol nodded and dozed on his cushion behind the counter, now and again waking himself with a snort of snore to look bewilderedly around for a moment before sinking back into the languor none of us could avoid.

  We had an inner court where green things grew—such as were found nowhere else in the five lands. That was Ravinga’s storehouse wherein were rooted many plants which were not ever to be seen, except perhaps in the gardens of the Emperor where gifts from the eastern lands, more than half legend to most of us, grew, though not easily.

  Small winged things swung from one bright patch of flower to another, and there were others which crawled upon the ground, or hopped. These, too, were only known in the mesa land. Under the sun spicy odors were drawn from the growth. Seated now on her padded mat, my mistress looked out over her small domain. Yet there was no satisfaction in her expression. She could instead have been reckoning up omissions and mistakes for which a strict accounting might be well demanded later.

  Before her was a small lap table hardly larger than a tray for mid-day food. On this were several rolled scrolls and one which had been spread open, its curled edges holding so because planted on either side were two of her delicate tools. By her knee a carbon box, yellowed by great age, showed beneath the flung-back lid rolls of sewing thread, as rainbows in their many shades.

  I had my own task and I kept to it, though when I had come to Ravinga I had not been too handy with a needle, for in those days I had ridden and hunted, and knew freedom beyond what was given most of my caste. Yet I had set myself to the learning of what would be a part of my craft from now on—and I had mastered with dogged effort most of the intricate stitches which Ravinga taught—briskly and sometimes impatiently—for she had to school her belief that all could be as accomplished as was she, if they would only try.

  What I dwelt upon this day, being very careful to match colors and set the slant of each stitch just right, was a patch which might have served for the shoulder bag of some highly placed servant in one of the Six Houses. Yet it had no connection with any that I had ever seen or heard tell of, for it was the head of a Sand Cat so perfectly designed as to seem that the mask of an actual cat had been stripped from its skull and reduced to miniature size.

  While such heraldic beasts, for the purpose of badges, are usually shown expressing defiance, each after its own way, this was calm, as if the cat were all-knowing and observing that which lay about it, not yet ready to take part in affairs.

  The eyes were gemstones, very well cut—those we call citrines for their clear yellow. These were not faceted as such usually were, but smooth, and when I studied them closely I was almost sure I could see, deep within them, a hair-thin line of black set as a pupil.

  I had finished most of my work upon the head of the animal and was now dealing with a frame of sunstones and bits of filigree, so fine and pure the gold that one might inadvertently bend them during the task of making them fast. These made a frame for the mask and, as elaborate as it was, still it did not subtract from the forcefulness of the less ornate head.

  When I set aside one threaded needle and reached for a second I saw that my mistress’s eyes were closed. Her breathing had slowed until there were unnatural pauses between each lungful. The signs were unmistakable. Though Ravinga had made no preparations for an outseeking, she was indeed caught in the forestages
of one such.

  Slower and slower came her breaths. Her hands had fallen to the surface of the small work table and there were clasped lightly together. Ravinga now walked shadow ways which I had taken once or twice, knowing full well the terrible fatigue of body and mind one must expend thus.

  She drew a last sighing breath and then it was as if she had done with all outer life. I moved uneasily. To anyone who watched another in this state and knew exactly what dangers it entailed, this was always an uneasy business. I, too, allowed my work to slide out of a tight grasp.

  It was my part to play guardian. Ravinga usually retired into her bedchamber, behind a safe locked door when she went far questing—that she had not today was a matter for concern. I reached slowly into my belt pouch, made sure that no gesture or sound I might make inadvertently would break the spell she was weaving tighter and tighter. My fingers touched a slick smoothness which was the result of time’s long use and I brought out a herdsman’s flute.

  Back and forth I followed the road of soft notes, watching Ravinga. We had played these roles before and I knew what had to be done: still there could always be a first time of failure. To those who gather power, that brings awe and fear and if it does not—then that dabbler in forbidden things is a lackwitted fool.

  Ravinga’s skin was darker than that of the usual Vapalan, which I thought came from her many travels across the five nations. She was no fine lady to go veiled against the sun. Now I saw a flush creeping up under that brown skin. Her lips parted a fraction and her breath came pantingly as if she struggled for air. I watched her very closely. No, it was not yet time for me to take my part in any awakening. Did I so too soon, I would rightfully earn her wrath.