His forehead felt warm again. Did it shine? He felt nakedly obvious; exposed. His brow burned, and he felt that it was signaling his presence to the hunting thing, as light draws the eyes from the forest. Tailchaser tried to cover his face with his paws, to bury the burning mark... but could not reach his forehead. His head had stretched away—no, it was his legs that were shrinking! He could feel it now, feel them dwindling away—tingling for a moment, then gone—and now he was lying helplessly on his stomach, unable to run, although every nerve screamed at him to flee. The presence was reaching out, now, groping blindly... touching closer and closer. All sense of unreality was submerged in horror. Something had sensed him—and it wanted him.
He shut his eyes tight, like a kitten—hoping something that he could not see would not see him—but in the infinite blackness it was a cruel mockery to exchange one darkness for another. It was almost upon him, probing... and now it seemed that he could smell it: rank, foul, and older than stone. The heat on his forehead pulsed like a heart of fire.
Then something seized him and began to shake, and shake, and shake...
For a brief instant he thought he sensed a terrible gust of disappointment from the darkness; then he was rising. A spot of light appeared above, shining down like the sun. In the middle of this hole in the blackness he saw a strange, tall shape—a form like a tree with no branches, entirely surrounded by water.
As his eyes blinked at the brightness the upright form took on the lineaments of Howlsong, shaking him and shaking him....
Tailchaser fell back into normal sleep, and when he awoke later he found himself in Pouncequick’s bower. Howlsong, Roofshadow and his young friend were all in attendance. ,
“Well, here he is!” said Howlsong. “We were all terribly, terribly concerned for you. I suppose that they just don’t make catmint like that where you come from—I mean the
real thing.
We’re so pleased to see you feeling better.”
Pouncequick leaped forward and licked Fritti’s face. The gray cat stayed in the background, but measured Tailchaser with her eyes.
Trembling, he thanked them for their attentiveness. He did not feel completely normal yet: the light beaming down through the trees had an odd, refracted quality—a shimmering—and all the sounds that came to him echoed slightly. He felt very light and insubstantial.
Howlsong stood. “Well, I know you have been awfully ill, but we
have
been lying in-all morning, and I have ever so many things to do. I hope you will not hate me if I run off and attend to some of them.”
As he was leaving he turned and added: “Oh, of course, I almost forgot! The Prince has made an appointment for you at Court for tonight, at the beginning of Deepest Quiet. If you are not well enough to go, well, I suppose a change could be made—but they do take protocol pretty seriously up by the Queen’s Seat. Not to harry you into going, that is, if you don’t feel up to it....”
“I think I will be able to receive that honor,” Fritti said after a moment’s pause. “I have come a long distance to speak with the Queen, and...” He paused again. “And, well, yes, I will be there.”
“Good. I will come back to fetch you in plenty of time,” said Howlsong. The patchwork singer bounded out of the glen.
Fritti lay back for a while, pondering the odd, lingering sensations as Pouncequick contentedly groomed him. After a short time Roofshadow spoke up.
“Are you sure you feel strong enough to go before the Queen, Tailchaser?” The slim gray cat watched him as she waited for his reply.
“I think the sooner I get on with this, the better.” he said. He found it difficult to articulate what he was feeling. “As I told Howlsong, we’ve come a very great distance. I’ve made a promise, and I’ve sworn an oath to it ... but this Firsthome, I don’t know, it makes everything feel sort of unimportant—I mean, you could just lie here day after day, if you wanted to, and think about nothing but waterbugs. Not chase waterbugs, mind you,” he tried to explain, “just think about them. You could spend your whole day, every day, just wondering and pondering about waterbugs, and talking to others about waterbugs ... and before you realized it, you’d be old. One day you’d realize that you’d never actually seen a waterbug ... but by then you wouldn’t want to, because it would spoil all your lovely ideas.
“I’m afraid I’m not explaining this very well,” he continued, “but I feel that if I’m going to find my friend Hushpad then I’d better get on with it, because... I’m sorry, I just can’t express it properly...”
Roofshadow walked over to Fritti and looked at him carefully. She sniffed him—not in a suspicious way, but in an interested one—then sat down.
“I think I sense your meaning, Tailchaser—but, of course, I am a stranger here also. I don’t think Howlsong and the others would understand you.”
“They probably wouldn‘t,” admitted Fritti. He looked down at Pouncequick, who had finished grooming him and was nestling happily against his body listening to their talk. “What do you say, Pounce?” he asked.
Pouncequick looked up solemnly. “Well,” he said, “I am not sure that I understand everything you just said, but I do think that
some
of the thinking that Folk do here is important—at least it makes me want to ask what seem like important questions... although I don’t really know what makes them important.
There,
do you see?” chortled the kitten. “I am an even worse explainer than my wise old friend Tailchaser. I think we should answer these dull matters with some food. It’s far past breakfast time!”
, “I agree, cu‘nre.” Fritti smiled, although he himself did not really feel up to eating yet. “Would you like to come hunt with us, Roofshadow?” he asked the quiet fela.
“Honored.”
All that day they explored the forest maze of Firsthome, discovering brush-choked passages and long-neglected pathways.
The Folk of Firsthome and Rootwood seemed very quiet on this day after Celebration. Most were napping, or lying on their sides chatting lazily with friends. Many had left after the festivities, and the byways of Rootwood were nearly empty.
Roofshadow paid much attention to Pouncequick, leading him into games and coming over to look when he found something that interested him.
She was friendly with Tailchaser, but somewhat reserved. This was fine with Fritti, who was still feeling the effects of his experience the previous night. Most of his waking symptoms had dwindled, but he could not shake loose from the odd feeling of detachment. His companions’ conversation seemed distant; he felt himself full of brooding stillness as he passed beneath the old trees like a spirit.
Later, in the early evening, Roofshadow left, with promises to return. Pouncequick, who had bounded like a bumblebee all afternoon, and Fritti, who was still a bit shaky, returned to the healing-spot to have a rest before their appointment at the Court.
Howlsong came for them, full of suppressed excitement at the solemnity and grandeur of his role. They followed him like sleepwalkers down the twisting corridors of Firsthome.
They slipped through a tight-knit fence of silvery birch trees and down into a small canyon. There, in the reflected light of the single wide beam of Eye-shine that fell down through the tangled forest roof, they saw the forms of many cats crouched around the bottom rim of the tiny canyon, round eyes throwing back the light. A large shape came hurrying up from out of the shadows.
“Here now, is this the pair, then? They’ll have their time soon enough.” It was Rumblepurr, the massive Chamberlain, his head nodding like a willow in the breeze as he spoke. “Never do to have them just go charging up—there is a procedure, y‘know. You, Howlsong, leave them with me—there’s a good fellow. You can wait for them at the back.”
Howlsong seemed a little disappointed, but shrugged and bade them good luck. They followed the bobbing, mumbling Court Chamberlain, who led them to the base of one of the walls of the canyon—near the front, and the light.
“Just you stay here until I call you. Don’t make a squeak till then. There’s others here who’re before you, and Her Softness’ time is very important. Just be still, little ones.” Rumblepurr hurried off, his wide body rocking from side to side.
Fritti’s gaze followed Rumblepurr across the tiny box canyon. The Chamberlain moved into the center of a cluster of shiny, exquisitely groomed cats who were probably—Fritti guessed—the important Folk of the Court. Before them sat several others of diverse appearance. One—a large, proudly-striped fellow—had an easy and confident grace, even at rest, that reminded Fritti of Quiverclaw.
On a raised plateau of grass at the head of the canyon, roofed over by the limbs and leaves of an enormous oak tree, Fencewalker and Dewtreader sat side by side, the former wearing such a look of barely contained boredom and restlessness that Fritti smiled to himself in the dark. How this sort of thing must grate at the Prince’s roving soul!
Beside Fencewalker lay the Prince Consort; his serene countenance full of quiet humor, but his eyes troubling and distant as an approaching storm.
In the center of the plateau, in the middle of the shaft of light, sat Queen Mirmirsor Sunback, illuminated like some dream-creature.
As Fritti first glimpsed her he thought of a fountain, a forest spring. She was clear; shining white, and her long, soft fur started out from her body in all directions like the puff of a dandelion. Beside her was a small earthenware bowl, brought somehow from the dwellings of M‘an. Before Tailchaser’s gaze the scioness of the line of Harar sat with her back curled and her head forward, one leg pointed outward—the paw thrust in the air like the graceful branches of the birch trees surrounding her Court.
She was nipping delicately at her hind end.
14
CHAPTER
To that high capitol ... his pale court in beauty and decay ...
—P. B. Shelley
Through the long Hour of Deepest Quiet audience was held in the Court of Harar. Queen Sunback, crouched in the hollow of the great oak—the Vaka’ az‘me—listened calmly to all who came before her. Tailchaser watched with flagging interest as a procession of claimants presented themselves before the Seat. Matters of territory took up the larger part of the audience, but there were also Naming confirmations, and blessings for expectant felas. Through it all the Queen presided, as remote and unblinkingly bright as a star.
At last all the petitioners had disappeared, pleased or disappointed, into the night. The Queen stretched a long, graceful yawn, and signaled with her tail. Rumblepurr bustled and tumbled up onto the small plateau and leaned over her. The Queen whispered languorously into his piebald ear, and he bobbed his head assiduously.
“Yes, m‘lady, that’s right, right enough,” wheezed the old Chamberlain.
“Well, then, shall we not hear from him?” asked Queen Sunback in a voice like cold, clear stream water.
“Of course, Your Furriness,” grunted Rumblepurr, and hurried to the front of the plateau. He squinted his old eyes out into the darkness of the canyon and trumpeted: “Thane Squeakerbane of the First-walkers, you may approach the Vaka‘az’me!”
The proud-looking, many-striped hunter whom Fritti had noticed earlier rose, stretched, and calmly approached the leveled mound. He paused for a moment at the edge of the rise, then vaulted effortlessly up into the circle of light.
“A First-walker! Like Quiverclaw and Scuffledig!” piped Pouncequick excitedly. Fritti nodded absently as he examined Squeakerbane. In the Eye-light that surrounded the Oak-seat the Thane’s wiry body showed traces of many old, whitened scars beneath his short fur. Stripes and scars gave Squeakerbane the look of weathered wood.
“At your service, as ever, O Queen,” said the First-walker, touching his chin respectfully to the ground. Sunback looked down with cool amusement.
“We do not often see the First-walkers here at Court,” she said, “even those of you who haunt the Rootwood near Firsthome. This is an unexpected honor.”
“With all due respect, Your Exaltedness, the First-walkers do not ‘haunt’ the Rootwood.” Squeakerbane spoke with rough, but quiet, pride. “As you know, however, we do prefer the solitude of the wild. The Court is too... crowded for our tastes.” He sang the word “crowded” with a subtly disdainful inflection that brought a look of wintery humor to the face of Dewtreader.
“So we are told, Thane,” fluted the Prince Consort, “but I have heard it whispered that a vast meeting of the First-walkers is assembling east of Gentlerun Downs. Will your comrades not find so much society fully as depressing as our Court?”
Squeakerbane glowered and Sunback sneezed delicately and curried her tail. The Thane spoke with obvious restraint.
“The Thane-meet is occasioned by the same matters that bring me here. The Prince Consort, undoubtedly with good reasons known only to His Highness, seeks to open old wounds. I will not be tail-tweaked. There are graver issues at stake here.”
Rumblepurr, who had remained standing, now huffed uncomfortably and went to sit near Prince Fencewalker, who was showing an interest in the proceedings for the first time all night.
“I wish you all would stop squabbling for a while,” grumped the Prince. “It would be nice to speak of something important for a change.”
Queen Sunback regarded her son for a moment, then flicked her ears twice and turned to Squeakerbane. “Brash and bumptious though he may be, Fencewalker has spoken well. You must forgive our rudeness, Thane. I realize your concerns must weigh heavily on you, and you do not have our taste for badinage.” She sent a cold stare in Dewtreader’s direction, which the Prince Consort returned imperiously. “Speak on, Squeakerbane, please,” the Queen said.
The battle-scarred First-walker stared at her for a moment, then bowed his head low again and held it there for the space of several heartbeats. Then, lifting his gaze, he spoke.