"That"s right," said a new voice, low and husky. He whirled about, came face to face with a pug-faced orange and white animal. One eye was a ruined ma.s.s of scar, and his ears were notched and cut. "That"s right," said One-Eye, "and that king is me."
He didn"t hesitate, but hissed and leaped. Flinch"s voice came from somewhere far away, "No, no!" One-Eye didn"t leap, merely stood up on his rear legs and met his charge with a solid chest. He felt as if he"d hit a wall and fell back, rear legs scrabbling to claw, but One-Eye bore him down to the ground, the strongest thing he"d ever gripped. Shameful panic overwhelmed him, and he mewled for escape. This was worse than the shrieking bird: He was beaten by his own kind, with tooth and claw.
"Only one," One-Eye said, and bit his ear. His mewl changed to a yowl of outrage, but there was nothing he could do as One-Eye tore his flesh. The pain was lightning. He had no more strength in him to fight. The shrieking bird"s attack, the great fall had left him with nothing but limp panting breaths.
"Only one, right?" One-Eye said again, and he measured his words carefully in reply.
"So you say," he said, sick inside with defeat. One-Eye got up and walked away, tail erect and swaying.
"I told you," Flinch said just as a growling, clanking sound entered the alley. "Quick, to the side, the apes have come for their things."
And so it went for him as he healed. The black slick bags were slung on the pile one by one. The bags contained things that were good to eat, but the hunters had to contend with the rats, rats that carried a dank, lip-curling stench. What the rats left they hurried to eat, and he ate with distaste the food from the bags, some bland, some sharp on his tongue, but enough to quiet his flat belly, and more.
One good thing was the shrieking stinking bird never appeared here; one bad thing was the prey birds, the stinking birds he"d eaten most of his life, never came near enough to catch, but perched instead on metal stairs above the alley. He was sure there was a way to catch them, but One-Eye forbade hunting them, saying "Enough to eat in the bags. Don"t leave the alley, the apes will get you."
They called him Bit-Ear, but each morning he reminded himself: "I am king."
The light-furred other named Hurry grew fatter and fatter until one day he asked Flinch why; she laughed and said, "She will have kittens soon." As quickly as she"d laughed, she grew somber, tail low. "And then she will lament."
"Lament? Why?" As he asked he remembered the echoes, but she would say no more.
It happened one day when the air grew crisp in the early morning. Hurry had disappeared beneath a metal box that grew from one alley wall, and just as he reminded himself that he was king, he heard tiny mews that quickly grew silent. He crept forward and peered at Hurry, who hissed at him in a friendly way.
"Away with you, Bit-Ear. Let me enjoy them while I can."
"While you can?" he asked, backing away. The kittens were tiny and squirmed. It seemed impossible he had once been so small. A dim memory of huddling in the palm of an ape"s hand came to him, along with the sweet taste of milk. Hurry did not answer, but a rustle behind him did. His lip curled with disgust as the smell of rats wafted over him. In the dim morning light he watched them come, quiet and purposeful.
They scurried forward, edged their noses beneath the metal box. Hurry hissed and spat, and he shouted "No!" in unison with her, but they were already snarling and biting. He leaped for the nearest without knowing why; they stank and did not seem like good prey. The rat shuddered as he struck its back, then squealed as his teeth bit home in the nape of its neck. He turned his head a fraction to the side and bit again; the rat squealed anew, and the others pulled their heads out from under the box, dead and dying kittens in their mouths.
His long teeth slid on bone at the base of the rat"s skull, he felt a final crunch, and the thing went limp.
The biggest of the rats dropped the kitten so it could speak. "What do you do?"
He was keenly aware that there were five rats facing him. More of them dropped what they held and bared teeth that disturbed him-they were sharp and narrow and looked formidable. Though he was larger than each of the rats arrayed before him, they were five and he was one. He thought about the question. What was he doing?
"Kittens... not prey," he finally said.
"New here?" asked the big rat, his brown fur becoming clearer as the dawn progressed. The big one didn"t let him answer. "You are. If you weren"t new, you"d know. These are ours. Live in the alley? Our alley. Our babies, very tasty. Best warm. Going now." He picked up the kitten he"d dropped, as did the others.
He hissed and urrred with displeasure, but there was nothing to do. The rats returned down their hole. It led into shadow. One after another, the five rats began to disappear into the black until only one remained. Then a kitten mewed from under the metal box, and the last rat froze, turned to face him. "One more for us," it said.
"No," he hissed, and arched his back.
The rat paused. "What do you do?"
"This one stays," he said, and charged.
This rat turned and fled. He chased it down the hole. The path plunged down at first, turned right, left. It was nearly pitch black, but his eyes adjusted and he found he could see. "I am king!" he yowled into the tunnel, scrambled on. He heard the scratching of rat claws ahead of him.
The path opened, and he was a.s.sailed with the smell of rat. Around him he could see rats standing up and sniffing the air in a rough burrow with a low ceiling. Other exits led from the horror he"d stumbled into, a lair of rats, more than he could easily count.
"Fat one, I have a gift for you," squealed a rat triumphantly, surely the rat he"d chased. At one end of the burrow a knot of rats raised their snouts and sniffed. "We have the babies," a huge ma.s.s of a rat said. "What else?"
"Smell him," the one he"d chased said, and he realized the rats could not see well in the dark burrow, but relied more on their noses.
The huge rat sniffed. "What do you do?" it said.
"Kittens... are not prey," he said, unsure what to say.
"You are prey," the huge one said, and as one the rats in the burrow surged toward him, a dark shadowy wave. He turned and raced through the first open tunnel behind him.
He ran around a tight corner and flailed the open air before him, sensing something just above his head. This was not the path to the alley. Once again he fell, feet first. In the dim light there was not much to see. By the time he hit the water, it was dark, dense darkness he had never seen above ground. It took all his strength to struggle to the air. Even in rain he"d never been so wet. Ground, he needed ground, but in the racing water and the darkness there was no ground. As his strength ebbed, his head slipped beneath the water once, twice. He thrashed, dreading the end, wishing for sky, for air. In the distance, he heard a splash through the sound of the water. Then it was over.
He coughed and spat water, felt his fur heavy and flat over his entire body. He was filled with the urge to twitch violently, scatter this water off his limbs and body, but caution made him freeze. Something large was nearby. He heard it breathe, slowly hissing in, out, in again. A sharp smell came to his nose, and it itched him in a way he didn"t recognize.
"You are awake," said a voice, a rumbling giant voice, bigger than the shrieking voice of the clawed bird, bigger than the yawps of apes.
He could not help it any longer. He stood and twitched, spraying water everywhere. Though he was cold, he was a bit dryer and would soon be warmed through by the moist, hot air around him.
"I pulled you from the water, tiny panther," said the voice. "Speak to me, tell me of yourself, of your journey here."
"Rats. I ran from rats and fell," he said, afraid to remain so near to the giant beast but unsure where to go. The darkness was absolute, not even a pinpoint of light to be seen. He sat down.
"Rats do not hunt panthers. I eat rats, I know their tastes, their suppers and lunches and snacks. Panthers hunt rats, or they can if they wish."
"What is a panther?"
"A panther is you, little panther. Four legs, sharp ears, good eyes in night and day, climber of trees, hunter with tooth and claw."
"What is a tree?"
With this the giant voice huffed and hurred. He fell to the side and scrambled away, hit a wall with his head and sat back down. After a moment he decided the creature was laughing, and he gave the fur on his right foreleg an experimental lick. He would be forever grooming this mess.
"I understand, you are as much out of your proper home as I am, little panther. But I am not like you, furred one. My bones know the sun, sun that warms through and through, sun that warms the water. My bones know the log that shades, the bank that prey step upon, the crunch of bone, the salt of blood!" Instead of speech came a clomp! noise that made him flinch. "I remember, though I have never seen. I know the names of all that swim and fly and walk, and you are panther, though very small. When I caught you, I tasted you, knew your name, brought you to sh.o.r.e."
"Thank you," he said, shivering. From the cold, he told himself, though the air was warm. "But you said rats do not hunt panthers. They hunted me. I entered their den to stop them from eating kittens. The rats are many."
There was a pause when all he could hear was the long, slow breathing of the giant.
"Furry things must learn, they don"t know in the bone like my kind know. If you are not panther, what? Did not your kind teach you?"
"I..." he could not answer. Instead he found himself telling the giant about his kingdom, about the stinking birds he"d learned to eat, about the clawed bird that had knocked him into the air, about the alley and the others that lived there, about the lament, about the stronger king. The giant was patient and waited for silence before answering.
"The clawed bird was a hawk, perhaps even an eagle. And if you are king, you must be king."
He quailed inside and said in a small voice, "But One-Eye is king. He is big and strong and... tore my ear."
Again the giant whuffed with laughter. "You told me each day you claimed to be king. If One-Eye is large, you must not fight him as large. You tell me of catching birds with a leap and a bite. You tell me of rats who smell their way through their burrow. You tell me the ways you can be king. If you are panther, or tiny-cousin-of-panther, you know how to be king! Now go, go back to the light and find your way to your kingdom!"
Something moved to his side, and he scrambled away from it. It sc.r.a.ped against the ground in a wide swath around him. He ducked left, ran right, but could not escape and was knocked back into the water, water that felt cold after the warm air.
"And if you think of me, little panther, send rats to the water you fell into, send me many rats to eat!"
As he was swept along in the water, the last thing he heard was the giant"s whuffing laughter. Around him the air grew close and near; then, as the water began to test his strength, he was sc.r.a.ped along a wall. Soon the air lightened around him, and he paddled fiercely, blinking madly against the splashes that covered his face. There was ground ahead, and he made for it as best he could, claws slipping then finding purchase on smooth round shapes at the edge of the water. He hauled himself up, drenched again, and lay panting with the sound of rushing water in his ears.
He shook himself and groomed himself bit by bit. A narrow path led away, and he twisted and turned along it until the light brightened above him. Now the sound of apes walking came to him, their two-footed pattern distinctive even at a distance. He followed the sound and came to a sc.r.a.ping narrow place, then a climbing place that tested his claws. Soon he was peering out into a sunlit day and filling his chest with cool air.
The giant had said to find his kingdom, but how? He sniffed the air but found nothing familiar other than the smell from the end of the alley, taints and wisps of ape and metal, with an undercurrent now and again of ape-food, the kind of thing he"d found in the bags in the alley. He waited and watched, but no inspiration came to him. The light failed and shadows formed. He slunk from shadow to shadow, careful to avoid the apes. A barking, growling thing chased him for a few steps before it yelped in pain and stopped, caught short by an ape it was tied to. "Fool!" he hissed at it before trotting away to a new hiding place.
On his way he stopped and stared. To one side of the street the tall walls full of apes fell away, and instead of bricks there were-things. He crossed the street at a trot and peered at tall poles that rose from ground that was covered not with pavement or tar but with soft ground and thin stalks. "Trees," he said, "Trees and gra.s.s, just as the giant remembered." Scent told him prey lived here: birds and small scurrying things like rats but less dank and not so oily. And water. There was good water here.
Back on the street he thought again of his wish to return to his old kingdom. He did not know how to get there, and wise as he felt he"d become, he could not think of a way to fight the shrieking bird, be it hawk or eagle, as the giant had said. But the place with trees and gra.s.s was promising.
There was an alley, but it wasn"t his alley. He smelled rats, but he didn"t think they were his rats. Their smell was dryer, somehow, less dank and more oily. Tired, he slept in the smallest hiding place he could find, a dreamless sleep that was troubled only by a memory of the bags the apes brought by hand and took away in the snorting, clanking machine.
He woke with a start and heard the machine snort nearby. Stretching quickly, he ignored his flat stomach and raced toward the sound. Apes climbed on and off the machine, which moved in starts and lurches down the street. There was morning light in the sky, and other apes were entering the street again, forcing him to skittle from hiding place to hiding place behind the machine.
He had almost forgotten what victory felt like, but he felt it wash over him when the machine turned into an alley. It was his alley; the scents of the others washed over him, along with the dank smell of his rats. He waited for the apes to finish taking their bags away and strode into the alley, head and tail high. No one noticed him.
He sat in the middle of the alley and waited. The morning light grew stronger. Finally, he filled his chest with air and yowled "I am king! I am king!" The echo had hardly faded when One-Eye came out from behind a box and glared at him.
"I am king!" One-Eye yowled back.
"Bit-Ear!" cried Twitch.
I am king!" he yowled again, and a plan formed in his mind. One-Eye was not a stinking bird to be leaped upon, chest to chest. One-Eye was big, too big to leap well. One-Eye would fight him the way he"d fought before, up on his hind legs before crashing down upon him, crushing him backwards. He charged forward, feinted a leap. One-Eye rose on his hind legs, paws wide, jaws agape. There would be no mercy this time. One-Eye would kill or maim him if he could.
Instead of leaping at head height, he leaped low, b.u.t.ted One-Eye in the gut. His long teeth found One-Eye in the upper thigh. He bit and savagely tore left, right, left, ripping the muscle. One-Eye fell upon his back, screaming and clawing and biting, but his back made it hard for One-Eye to gain purchase.
He thrust up and to the right with his rear legs. One-Eye fell over onto his side before scrambling up, rear leg lifted off the ground. He could taste One-Eye in his mouth and grinned at him, long teeth showing red. "There can be only one!" he yowled, and charged again. One-Eye tried to stand and meet the rush but could not, lurched to his injured side. This time he leaped high, came down upon One-Eye like a thunderbolt from the sky. His teeth met through One-Eye"s ear. He closed his eyes and shook his head, nearly deafened by One-Eye"s howls of pain and shame.
After a few moments of bliss, he let go, stepped back. One-Eye struggled to his feet but kept his head low.
"Who is king?" he purred.
"You are," panted One-Eye.
"Not for long."
It was a rat. More than he could count had crawled out of their hole and crouched in a half-ring around the cats. In the center of the arc was the bloated, huge rat. Their leader, he decided, and acted without hesitation.
"Get onto the silver box!" he shouted, and cleared the way himself, hissing and spitting as he lunged forward. The surprised rats parted before him. Halfway there he saw Hurry back out from beneath the box, a dark shape dangling from her jaws. He leaped up, was soon joined by Twitch and the others, all but One-Eye.
One-Eye yowled defiance at the rats who ringed him, but his bad leg gave him no chance to flee. "He"s crippled," hissed the huge rat, and they were upon him, a squirming wave of tail and squeal. One-Eye"s voice went from defiance to anger, then pain.
On the silver box he saw Hurry had a kitten in her mouth, a kitten she placed tenderly up against the wall. "You saved it," she said to him before settling down next to it. The kitten mewed once then was silent. The rats ringed the box, and a few put their forepaws up on the sides. The hunters hissed and spat and darted clawed paws at the rats, who stayed out of range. To the sides a few smaller rats climbed the bricks like flies, but they were too few to dare the top of the box.
"Safe for now," said the huge rat, smeared with blood from snout to throat. "But you"ll go hungry up there. And thirsty. Was that a baby I heard? Give it, give it and we let you go. Stay in the alley all you want, just give us babies. We like them warm."
"No, no," said Hurry in a small voice. "Not this one too. Please."
He thought and thought, then bared his teeth. "No deal, rat. How about I eat your babies? The ones in your burrow?"
With a scream he leaped off the silver box, over the heads of the rats, and dove into the hole. He turned and twisted until he reached the burrow. Despite the mob of rats outside, the hole was still busy with rats, but these were younglings and mothers. Behind he heard the rush of his pursuers, each hissing with anger. He stepped to the right and sniffed. Yes, this was the pa.s.sage he"d taken by mistake before.
Yowling with disdain he charged down it, stopping just before the edge of the fall. He sprayed the wall and leaped upwards, catching his paws on a rounded thing he"d sensed in the near total darkness. He strained and pulled and climbed atop it just as the rats arrived below. He screamed defiance at them, and they charged. Confused by his scent, they fell into s.p.a.ce, squealing with terror. Some rats heard, said "Stop! Stop!" to the ones behind, but the mob pressed on, and more fell.
He heard the huge rat, lumbering along last. He dropped down in front of it, hissed "Your rats have fallen to the giant below, the giant with jaws that clomp and a laugh that whuffs, big as the wind."
The huge rat paused and showed his teeth. "Truth of rats: always more. Truth of cats: never enough."
Before it finished speaking, he charged the bloated thing. The tunnel was too low to leap, so he offered his bared teeth to the rat. It stuck forth its neck to bite him. His paws latched onto the rat"s head, and as he yanked his head away from the rat"s formidable teeth, his rear legs came forward. Three deep, heavy swipes of his rear claws was all it took to open the huge rat"s neck. Blood sprayed.
It was hard work to get past the huge rat"s body, but after a time he made it, sticky with blood and panting. He stopped in the burrow to scream at the rats there. They scurried away. The huge rat had been right, he thought: There will always be more rats.
The sunlight was welcome when he struggled out of the hole. He went to the puddle and drank, ignoring the other"s questions until he was sated.
"The rats are gone," he said finally. "Though there will always be more." He wondered what the giant thought when uncountable rats swam through his domain. He imagined giant jaws clomping over and over, and smiled. "Now rest. Tonight we have a journey."
They rested. Twitch helped him with his fur, and by night he was presentable again. He spent some time looking carefully at Hurry"s kitten. There rose in him a strange urge to kill it, to bite it until it was dead, but he shied away from it; the memory of rats eating kittens was too strong in him. He knew it was not his kitten, but his nose told him there would be a chance to make more kittens soon, and those kittens would be his own.
He waited until the streets quieted and the apes grew few and far between. Then he led them out beyond the alley, from shadow to shadow, taking long rests for Hurry and her kitten. He came to the green place, and they entered, looking in awe at the round posts called trees that rose from the ground, at the leaves and the gra.s.s ripe with a dozen different scents.
"Here," he said when they came to a place far from the miniature streets strong with the scent of apes, a protected hollow. "Here is right for us."
As they settled, he asked Twitch, "What are we? I met a giant who called me a panther. But the huge rat said I was a cat."
"We are cats, of course!" said Twitch. "Why don"t you know this?"
He explained about the gla.s.s box, the soft-handed apes. "You were the first other-cat I"d ever seen," he said, and sniffed around her ears and neck. "So we are four legs, sharp ears, good eyes in night and day, climbers of trees, hunters with tooth and claw?"
"Cats is cats," Rumble said in his low tones. "And you brought us to trees."
"You need a new name, Bit-Ear," Twitch said.
"Ratkiller," suggested Beckett.
"No, Kitten-Saver," said Hurry, already huddled around her little one.
"How about King?" said Twitch.
"I am King!" he yowled to the skies, just showing a taste of dawn. And that was that.
OLD AGE AND SORCERY.